Harry Potter and the Dreamer of Fears

Chapter 18 - Reputation

The morning breakfast brought on a dull buzz of yesterday's events and everyone was talking about it, everyone except for the teachers, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Cho.  Harry had sneaked a look at Cho, at the Ravenclaw table, silent and talking with Lina about what seemed to be an assignment in Potions.  He guessed that most of the other Ravenclaw girls that looked up and admired Cho had vowed not to press the subject of the attacks, as they seemed to know that she had slipped out of the Common Room during the attacks and went to see what was going on.

"Professor Marion isn't here," Ron nudged his shoulder and pointed with his fork to the spot where Marion used to sit next to her brother.  In fact, he noticed that quite a few of the teachers' seats were empty and realized that either most of them were injured quite severely or just didn't go to breakfast.  Even Dumbledore and McGonagall, usually at breakfast weren't present.

"You think she's in the hospital wing?" Harry asked just as owls began flying into the Great Hall, carrying packages of different sizes to different students.  He spotted Hedwig among the post owls, but she wasn't carrying anything.  She landed just short of his plate and fluttered slightly, steadying her balance against the polished wood of the table.

"Hey Hedwig," he greeted her, stroking her head and then offered her a strip of bacon to which she accepted gratefully and hooted her assessment while looking at Hermione who was reading the parchment of The Daily Prophet, a frown growing on her face.

"Either that Professor Marion might be brewing something in Snape's potions storage to get revenge on this article here and its writer," Fred spoke up handing Harry his copy of The Daily Prophet to which he scanned the headline and other articles.

A Crazed Teacher?

By Tyrus Fluvium

Of course, with the advent of the Triwizard Tournament ending in disaster, Headmaster Dumbledore of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has even had the nerve to announce that You-Know-Who has returned.  Taken in with the confession of the psychotic and unstable Harry Potter, the winner of the Tournament last school year under suspicious circumstances, he has even told a few Aurors who have shady pasts to come join him on his crusade to defeat You-Know-Who.

As we all well know, You-Know-Who hasn't returned.  Instead, all these attacks were done by some of You-Know-Who's followers who have apparently surfaced to cause havoc in this time of misfits.  As I type this article up for you, I can assure you that Fudge's Aurors are putting a stop to all these nonsense attacks on the Muggle community and some wizarding families.  However that doesn't exempt the fact of a number of Aurors who have defected to Dumbledore's crusade are ones with pasts that are not to be mentioned.

One such Auror is Marion Sadow.  She and her brother are the school's new Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers and though her brother Marius has no such shady past and wisely left the service of becoming an Auror, Ms. Sadow is another question.

You all remember the incident of the Veela Attacks of 1983 right?  Well we at the Daily Prophet have uncovered startling evidence that Ms. Sadow and her fellow Aurors, all in the employment of the late Mr. Bartholomew Crouch, were behind those vicious attacks against the helpless poor Veelas of France.  It has also been discovered that only yesterday with a freak attack on Hogsmeade, Ms. Sadow had used the Unforgivable Curses.

Of course, Ms Sadow must realize that this isn't the dark ages of You-Know-Who's reign, but it is of a peaceful time and the Unforgivable Curses are not to be taken so lightly.  Being hand picked by Mr. Crouch after graduating Hogwarts in 1979 to become an Auror under his service must have messed with her mind so much that she is delusional and believes that You-Know-Who has returned.

I just only hope that parents of the students currently attending Hogwarts would lodge a complaint about Ms. Sadow and her irrational actions.  Who would want a teacher teaching them about the Unforgivable Curses, much less be held accountable for the murder of hundreds of innocent Veelas?  Perhaps maybe Cho Chang, her current pupil in training to become an Auror must be warned, as she could be in danger from this unstable person.

Perhaps Ms. Sadow should take a leaf out of Alastor Moody's book and retire while she still holds on to the last bit of sanity she has.

Harry could feel a burning anger rise within him.  How dare they criticize Professor Marion and Dumbledore.  He felt like choking the life out of the reporter, but suddenly frowned as he realized that the writer of the article wasn't Rita Skeeter, instead was someone new.  And this new person was totally criticizing whatever Skeeter had told early.  It was as if first there was the announcement that Voldemort was back, but then with this article denying it...it was very confusing.

"Hey Chang!  Training to become an Auror so you can kick the Dark Lord's ass in revenge against Diggory?" Pansy Parkinson suddenly shouted from the Slytherin table, bringing a small wave of laughter and jeers from some of the Slytherin table, and Harry was surprised to see that Draco wasn't joining in them, instead just wore a look of neutrality.

The Ravenclaw table and Hufflepuff table responded with shouts of anger of their own and he also noticed that some of the Gryffindors were staring at the Slytherins, Pansy and her group of girls with hate.

"You shut up about Cho!  What the hell do you know about anything?" Morgan shouted, her eyes narrowed at Pansy who smiled slightly.

"Oh, and you do?  You, the one who can't even read things?  The dyslexic one?" Pansy taunted and Harry felt like jumping to Morgan's aid.  Out of the corner of his eye, he also noticed the rest of the Gryffindor table, whether they heard or not about Morgan's condition, were just about ready to jump down the Slytherins' throats.

"So what if I've got a problem.  You sure as hell do too.  You bitch," Morgan spat and was about to say more when Marius Sadow, one of the few teachers sitting at the table abruptly stood up.

"Twenty points from Slytherin and Gryffindor for both of your mouths.  Now, please be quiet and finish your meals.  Anyone else who speaks up in a derogatory manner will have detention with me for two months," he said in an amplified but cold voice that stopped all conversation.  He suddenly sat down and continued eating while flipping through the mail he had received.

Slowly the conversation began again around the tables and Harry caught both Ron and Hermione's looks before they looked down at the far end of the table where Morgan was picking at her food, ignoring everyone else's questions.  He saw Lina walk over to her and place a comforting hand on her shoulder then whispered something in her ear that made her stand up and leave the Great Hall with Lina following behind her.

Looking around for Cho he saw that she had left and assumed that Morgan was going to be talking with her.

"Come on Harry, let's find Hagrid.  I know you want to ask Professor Marion about some things, but I don't think this is a good time," Hermione said, wiping her mouth free of a milk mustache and getting up.

Harry and Ron followed her out.  He was worried about the article and knew that with this new counter-article to Skeeter's, something was definitely wrong with the Ministry of Magic.

If anything at all, Harry felt that Sunday was the day that everyone was holding their breaths, waiting for something to happen only to release the breath in relief as the day came to an end.  Hagrid had talked to them about the giants and what their situation was and he had found out that the giants were just hesitant to join up with any side.  They had wanted to stay out of this upcoming `war' as they had called it, and didn't want to lose anymore of their numbers as their birth rate had been steadily decreasing since the defeat of Lord Voldemort fourteen years ago.

Professor Marion had not been seen during the whole day and Harry suspected that she was busy doing some of her own things.  He even suspected that she was brewing a potion within Snape's dungeons to get back at the person who wrote the inflammatory article.

Both Sirius and Professor Lupin were in good health after the attacks, with Professor Lupin in the hospital wing for a broken wrist and some burns to his legs and arms.  Sirius had gone to Diagon Alley to check with his contacts about something that he couldn't tell Harry.

But the person that worried him the most was Professor Dumbledore who had not a pleasant expression on his face as he usually did, but one of grimness.  Only once did he see the Headmaster come out of his office, and that was to the dungeons.

As their Tuesday's Potions class was approaching, Harry wondered if Professor Marion was going to be teaching them.  Fred and George, who had Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts on Monday, said that only Professor Sadow was present and Potions class had been cancelled.  Had Marion been recalled by the Ministry to answer to all the accusations against her?  He hoped not, as he liked her style of teaching, it was similar to Moody's.

Dumbledore had appeared during breakfast and announced that Potions class was not canceled so he hoped that Marion was back teaching.

"Come on, we're going to be late!" Hermione tugged at the hem of his robes and he quickly snapped out of his musings and rushed after her, Ron on his heels as they dashed to the dungeons.

The only arrived just as the bell signaled for class to start and took their seats near the side of the classroom.  There wasn't a teacher in the room and everything was quiet save for the soft murmur of cauldrons starting to bubble.

"Looks like we're not going to have class," Malfoy suddenly spoke up into the silence, startling everyone.  Harry turned to see Draco gather up his materials and rise out of his seat when something near his proximity shifted and disappeared.

"Leave and you will lose one hundred points for you house and two months worth of detention after classes," Marion's voice spoke up next to where Draco was standing and he grinned slightly to see that the blonde-haired boy had froze, his eyes darting around to search for the source of the voice.

Suddenly Marion materialized next to Malfoy, staring down at him and he looked up then gulped slightly and sat back down slowly and began to unpack his materials once more.  Harry couldn't understand why Draco was so afraid until Marion glanced at them with her eyes.  They were empty, haunted, and filled with cold fury.  There wasn't even the spark of the teacher they had known before and it seemed a new person suddenly appeared before them.

"I had drunk an Invisible Potion which you will be brewing today," she swept her robes up close to her and walked briskly to the front then stopped at Snape's table and leaned against it.  "You will all turn to page 256 and begin reading about the Invisibility potion.  During the second half of your double class, you will brew it and at the last ten minutes before your next class you will be testing it on yourselves."

Silence answered her and she glared at them.  "Now."

Harry hurriedly complied and flipped to the assigned page and began scanning the book.   Out of the corner of his eye he saw her conjure up a book and was flipping through it.  Something was wrong, he could tell, but he was afraid of asking her for the fear that her wrath was to be unleashed.

"I'm beginning to believe that she was actually brewing a potion to use against Tyrus Fluvium," Ron commented, as he scratched down a few notes onto a parchment.

"Me too," Harry agreed then scanned the page and copied a few important ingredients.  He had a feeling that the Invisibility Potion was going to be one of the questions on their end of the year O.W.L. tests.

It was just silence save for the bubbling of cauldrons and scratchings of quills against parchments for the next forty-five minutes.  When the bell for the second of the double class rung they had put away their parchments and were paired up.  Hermione was working with Neville who looked relieved while Harry worked with Ron.

"You all have read your ingredients, so please begin," Marion instructed in a clipped voice.  "Those who are lacking in the hairs of a demiguise please see me at my desk."

Harry got up from his place at the desks and joined the other ten students in line to get a few hairs.  When he approached Professor Marion, she placed the hairs in his hand along with a rumpled piece of parchment.  Catching her eye she made a very subtle gesture for him to read it at his table and then nodded to Dean whom was behind him to step up.

He went back to his desk and gave Ron the hairs while unfolding the parchment and hid it slightly underneath his cauldron.

We've received reports that Voldemort might come after you during the Quidditch match this weekend.  Trust no one except those you have trusted all your life.  Protect your broomstick as he might try something as simple as jinxing the broom like Quirrell did.  Be on full alert.

"What's that?" Ron asked as he began chopping up a few ingredients and placing them carefully in the cauldron, which started to bubble a light blue color.

Harry reread the parchment again and then gave it to Ron to have a look.  He didn't understand why Marion could have pulled him over after class and told him that, unless she was suspicious of anyone planting a listening device in the room.  But that couldn't be as Hermione had told them countless times last year that bugging Hogwarts was impossible.  Then why the parchment?

Unless of course Marion suspected someone within the potions class to be a spy for Voldemort.  He trusted most of the people within the room, except for some of the Slytherins, but he knew that it would be too easy for them to be Voldemort's spies.  It was something else.  Something he couldn't put his finger on.

"Blimey, Hermione should know about this," Ron commented as he handed the parchment back then proceeded to place the demiguise's hairs into the cauldron, turning it into a dark blue.

"We'll tell her later.  Not now.  I don't think Professor Marion wants me to pass this parchment around," Harry replied, stirring the contents as he shot a look to where Marion was once again flipping through the same book she had been looking at earlier.

"Should we tell Angelina?" Ron asked wrinkling the nose against the slightly acidic smell of the potion, "is this thing going to kill us with acid when we swallow it?" he muttered, pinching his nostrils together.

"I don't think so," Harry answered both his questions, "don't need to worry the team about this.  Besides, I can handle myself if things get slightly hairy and the instructions say that the acid should boil away when we add in the roots of a clover-weed."

"Got them minced up while you were up there," Ron replied then dumped a few centimeters worth of clover-weed into their potion which started to smell less acidic and completely blocked out the smell of the potion.

"Uh...Professor Marion?" Lavender suddenly spoke up, staring at her cauldron that she was sharing with Dean.

"Yes?" Marion replied shortly, not looking up from her book.

"How much clover-weed should we add to the mixture?  It doesn't really specify in the book.  It only says a few centimeters," Lavender replied.

"Use your discretion Miss Brown.  Who can tell me why clover-weed is such an important ingredient besides the hairs of a demiguise?" Marion finally pulled her self from the book and stood up, walking to the middle of the classroom.

Harry wasn't surprised when Hermione's hand shot up in the air...and a few seconds later along with Neville's.

"Mr. Longbottom?" Marion called on Neville whom Harry was surprised to see him volunteering an answer to probably his worst class of all of Hogwarts classes.

"Clover-weed is depended on how long your invisibility will last.  The less you put in, the more acidic the potion is and the less longer you will become invisible.  One centimeter of clover-weed is equal to roughly two-minutes worth of invisibility," Neville replied softly.

"Very good Mr. Longbottom.  Take ten points to Gryffindor.  Does that answer your question Miss Brown?" Marion's icy voice seemed to have died away during this short question and answer and Harry could see the warmth of their original teacher returning back to her face and posture.

"Yes ma'am," Lavender replied then grinned at Neville who blushed slightly.

"Now, since all of you should be at least done with your potions, I suggest that you take a sip of it, not all at once, just one partner per cauldron.  I want you to observe the effects the potion has on you and when you reappear, record your feelings and observations down on your parchments.  For the partners that do not become invisible, record what you see when your partner becomes invisible," Marion stared at all of them with strict, but warm eyes, "however...if anyone dares to do any funny business while they are under the invisibility potion, they will have to answer to me with ten points from their house and detention for a full day at my choosing.  And I do not care if you're on the house team, you will miss a game if you do so."

Harry knew that, that last statement was aimed at him, Ron, and Draco...Draco especially.  He hoped that Draco would be able to miss the Slytherin game, giving Gryffindor an advantage, but also hoped that Ron wouldn't do anything stupid to get himself a detention during game day.

"Well?  You want to go first, Harry?" Ron offered him the cauldron in which Harry saw that the liquid was a mild blue color.

"Why me?" he asked, grinning at Ron who smiled back.

"Because you're what the Muggles call a `guinea pig' while I'm the scien...scie..."

"Scientist?" Harry offered.

"Yeah, whatever they are," Ron replied.

"I say you try it first."

"Me?"

"Yeah, that away when you and Malfoy bump into each other while invisible, you will be able to hit thin air and you won't get into trouble," Harry replied grinning then suddenly laughed lightly as Ron got a shrewish look on his face.  It was these moments that Harry enjoyed the most and he realized that this was the first Potions class that he didn't get yelled at or received dirty looks...in fact, this was the first Potions class that he had laughed in.  And it felt good.

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