HARRY POTTER AND THE RISING OF THE DARK
by Meta4. Chapter 07.
The Eleven (Elven?) Commandments
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Thou shalt bow to J.K. Rowling, creator of the Potterverse!
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Thou shalt acknowledge all characters created by Her.
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Thou shalt acknowledge the trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
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Thou shalt not read the story herein if Slash offendeth you.
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Thou shalt not read this story if thou art not old enough so to do.
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Thou shalt not pass the work herein as thine own.
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Thou shalt not gain profit from distributing the work herein.
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Respect thy mother and thy father - only read this work when they are out.
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Thou shalt acknowledge My copyright
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Thou shalt contact Me if thou likest or thou detesteth this work.
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Thou shalt never piss off an Elf...
HARRY POTTER AND THE RISING OF THE DARK
by Meta4 meta4@meta4.org
CHAPTER SEVEN:: Of poles and prisoners.
After Harry eventually managed to overcome his amusement (bastard) at seeing me thrash around on the floor, he spent five rather pleasurable minutes rubbing and kneading the knots out of my muscle. By the end of it, both of us had 'misplaced' a hand here or there with the consequence that we were both highly aroused again.
However, time was against us and we decided that we had better get down to breakfast before we were missed. Or worse, if Bob decided that we'd had enough time and came back to turf us out of his quarters. While I didn't care if he knew every sordid little detail of what we got up to, I certainly didn't want him to see Harry and myself with boners feeling each other up.
This time it was Harry that fitted us both out with clean kit. Much to my amusement, he saw fit to produce a set of Hogwarts robes for me, complete with the appropriate uniform trousers, shirt and jumper with the Gryffindor-coloured neck. Harry gave me the once-over and, after a slight adjustment to the crotch of the trousers ("there - that's a little more flattering!") we set off for breakfast, both of us with a bounce in our steps.
We turned the corner onto the fourth floor corridor only to have a water bomb full of ink land just in front of us, soaking our trouser legs with bright blue ink.
"Bugger! Missed!" swore Peeves, circling around over the stairwell, arms loaded with water bombs.
"Peeves!" yelled Harry. "These were fresh on this morning."
"Better make them fresh off then, hadn't you?" he cackled, reloading and throwing another volley at us.
"Right, I've had enough of this," I muttered, and took a running leap over the bannister. Both Peeves and Harry yelled in shock, Harry as he thought I was going to plunge four floors and meet the cold, hard stone of the entrance hall at a rather nasty speed, and Peeves as he simply wasn't used to pupils going for him, especially when he was hovering more than forty feet from the ground.
As I leapt, I knew two things. One, if I missed I would simply fly around over the stairwell, and two, that if Peeves was stupid enough to assume I'd fall straight through him, he'd have another thing coming.
He was stupid, and as such stayed exactly where he was.
With a bizarre screeching squeak from Peeves, I grabbed a hold of what should've been his legs. He felt slightly clammy to the touch (hardly surprising considering his lack of life) but real enough.
"Arrgh!" screamed Peeves. "It's got me! Gerrof!" and with that, he swooped down the centre of the stairs with Harry legging it after us on foot. If ghosts made comedy sound effects, Peeves would surely have been making that of a world war two bomber that had just been shot down. He almost cart-wheeled towards the floor, zooming madly from left to right in a futile attempt to shake me free.
At the last instant, he decided to take a detour via the first floor corridor. I managed to get my feet back onto the ground, and ended up being pulled along the smooth stone floor at high speed rather like a water skier. We rounded a corner at a terrific velocity and sent Filch, the caretaker, flying as we zoomed past.
All the time Peeves was screeching profanities at the top of his voice, attracting as much attention as he could possibly manage. After completing a loop of the first floor, we ended up shooting back over the bannister again and down into the main entrance hall sending pupils left right and centre as they tried to flee from our erratic path.
Peeves then, for the first time during this escapade, had an idea. He decided to head straight for the wall. Luckily, I spotted what he was planning and a quick thought ensured that the wall would be as solid to him as it was to me. Moments before impact, I let go of his 'feet' and slid to a halt in the middle of the entrance hall. The sudden lack of load on his hind quarters caused him to fly head over heels and slam face-first rather hard into the now-impervious stone.
I casually sauntered up to him, took one of the few remaining ink-bombs and rammed it into his mouth.
"Don't mess with me," I smiled, and slammed his jaw closed, causing his face to pucker up with the bitter taste of the ink.
Harry raced up to me, out of breath from legging it down the stairs, and promptly burst into laughter when he saw the state Peeves was in.
"Now that," he panted, "was cool!"
"Mr Blackdon," came the nasal, greasy voice from behind me. "It is not a custom here to create such a fracas on one's second day. As you are new here and hence are no doubt still learning the school rules, I shall be lenient and only deduct ten points from Gryffindor."
Snape's attention turned to Harry and his ink-stained lower half. "Mr Potter, ten points from Gryffindor for wearing dirty trousers. We have a laundry service here for a reason - may I suggest you make yourself acquainted with it..."
I was just about to retort to that when Harry elbowed me in the ribs. "Yes sir," he answered meekly.
Just then, Bob came strolling out of the Great Hall, still munching on a croissant.
"Oh crap! What happened to Peeves?" he asked, snorting flakes of the pastry everywhere as he tried to contain his laughter.
"It would appear that two of your students have been a little more than reckless in the use of their talents," oozed Snape. "Now if you will excuse me, I must inform Mr. Filch that there is a rather extensive cleaning job to be undertaken." And with that, he stormed off, robes billowing behind him.
"Well done, guys," smiled Bob after snape was out of earshot. "Twenty points for giving that bloody poltergeist a comeuppance he'll never forget." And with that, he popped the remnants of the croissant into his mouth and continued on his way to the stairs. "Nine AM sharp - out on the lawn by the lake. Be so good as to let Ron and Hermione know as well, would you?" He mumbled over his mouth full of croissant before jogging up the stairs.
"Outside? I wonder what he's got lined up for us now?"
"Well, he did say something about sparring this morning, didn't he?" I replied as Peeves began to pick himself up.
"Oh, yeah... Never heard dueling called that before, though."
"Perhaps it's not dueling..."
We both kinda shrugged at each other and meandered into the great hall where Hermione, Ron, Seamus and the twins were chatting away happily. I happened to glance over at the Slytherin table to see Malfoy scowling at me. I smiled back at him cordially, which only served to annoy him further.
"Morning all," I smiled as Harry and I sat down next to each other opposite Ron and Hermione.
"Are you two OK?" asked Ron. "I wasn't sure what happened to you after last night."
"No, we're fine, honestly," replied Harry. "One of Liam's gifts just made an appearance and took him by surprise, that's all."
"That must've been one powerful gift," said Hermione. "What happened?"
"Well, we were in bed and I managed to touch Harry's scar by accident and..."
"You were in the SAME bed?"
"Well, yeah, we were... uh..."
"Just talking." interjected Ron before burying his head in his goblet of pumpkin juice.
"Yeah, uh - and when I touched it, I saw Harry's parents... You know..."
"Oh," said Hermione, calming down quite a bit. "Yes, I can see how that would take you by surprise."
There was a moment's uneasy silence before Ron kick-started the conversation again: "So what was all that noise just now?"
"Liam got one over on Peeves," smiled Harry.
"You did what?" asked both of the twins.
"Peeves was throwing ink bombs at us. Harry expressed his displeasure very politely I thought, but he just chucked another load of them at us, so I decided to do something about it," I explained.
"But he's a ghost? What could you do to him?"
"He leapt over the railing and grabbed on to him," grinned Harry.
"You grabbed hold of Peeves?" asked George, not quite believing what was going on.
"Uh huh."
"No way!"
"Go and have a look if you want. He looked pretty groggy after he hit the wall."
The twins looked at each other and scrambled out from their place at the table.
"Did Bob tell you what we were going to be doing today?" asked Ron as his brothers ran down the Great Hall to the entrance hall.
"Oh, well, he said to meet him out on the lawns by the lake after breakfast."
"Any ideas what for?"
"Well, he did mention sparring,"
"Sparring? As in fighting?" asked Hermione looking slightly worried.
"Cool," smiled Ron. Hermione shot him a disapproving look.
"I guess so," I replied. "He wasn't exactly being specific."
"In 'Magical Muggles and Evasive Elves' it does mention Elves and hand-to-hand combat, but I didn't think that it meant they still did it."
"As I say, I dunno, but it does sound rather like it."
The Weasley twins were now walking back up the hall, smiles plastered to their faces. As they approached our end of the table, Fred extended his hand.
"Liam, I want to congratulate you on doing something that we have never been able to do. Not through lack of trying, I hasten to add..."
I shook his hand, smiling.
"Why do you have something against Peeves?"
"Well superficially, if you ask any member of the school they all have something against him. No matter who you are at one time or another he'll have dropped a dung bomb on you, made you slip over, made so much noise at night you can't get any sleep... But no, for us it's a little more personal,"
Where Fred left off, George continued. "You see, Peeves presently has the top spot in the trouble-making league tables. We want that accolade. We're a close second, I'll admit, but we're still not Filch's enemy number one. We want to start up a joke shop,"
"Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes," interjected Fred
"Yeah, and we need to be able to put Zonko's out of business. Now, how good can we be if we're being out-pranked by a bloody poltergeist?"
"I see... I think," I smiled.
"Anything further you've got planned against Peeves, we want in," Fred grinned.
"Deal."
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"So where is he then?"
"He did say nine, right?"
"Yeah, I'm sure he did..."
We were standing by the great lake next to a pile of what looked like a mixture of fencing gear and body armour.
"Sorry I'm late," called Bob as he walked round the side of the lake, carrying a load of mops under his arms. "I had to try and borrow these off Mr. Filch."
"Try and borrow?"
"Well, he said no, so I had to steal them."
"Bob!" said Hermione, looking affronted.
"Don't worry, Herm, I'll give 'em back," he grinned as he dumped six mops in front of us. "And besides, they're not mops now, they're sparring aids."
"Right..." said Ron, not looking a hundred percent convinced.
"OK, I suppose I'd better explain what's going on here. All of this mad spell casting and wand waving is all well and good until it comes to an opponent that's just as quick-witted as you - or perhaps even quicker than you - when it comes to magic. Now I know there aren't a vast number of pupils that that can outclass you, but it can occur and that's when the use of physical... umm... persuasion can give you the upper hand. Even if the most powerful wizard casts a spell at you, if you're not where he..." he caught a look from Hermione. "or SHE - expected you to be, then you've already won.
"Liam, I believe you demonstrated this when you were placed against Mr. Malfoy in Professor Snape's Dueling class..."
Ron sniggered as he remembered the look on Malfoy's face as his spells failed to stop me.
"Now, we just need our final participant to arrive... Professor Snape feels that he needs to be put on a level playing field with you, Liam... Ahh - here he is."
To my surprise and, I must say, dismay, we all saw Malfoy striding over the lawns towards us.
"Oh crap," said Ron, kicking his rather tatty shoe into the ground in frustration.
"Mr. Malfoy, so good of you to join us," smiled Bob.
"Sir," nodded Malfoy in grudging respect.
"Right then - everyone take a mop and get rid of the head - we hopefully won't be needing those today... Oh, and you might want to shorten it a bit - about four feet long would be good."
Harry, Hermione, Bob, Ron and myself just looked at the heads of the mops and watched them drop on to the floor leaving a smooth, rounded end.
Malfoy, on the other hand, had the head of his mop wedged in the ground and, holding the other end, stamped on it and snapped the pole to length.
"Good. Now, if you were Japanese and into all of that Samurai stuff, we'd call what we're about to start a Kata. However, we're not, so I'm going to call it 'a stupid looking exercise in waving a piece of tree around and making yourself look like an idiot'."
"You shouldn't have too much trouble with that one then, should you Weasley?" smirked Malfoy. Ron scowled back at him, but didn't rise to the taunt.
"Mr. Malfoy - less wise cracks and more attention, please - you may actually learn a way of preventing any further broken noses..."
Ron spluttered a badly restrained laugh, but Bob purposely ignored him. "The idea is to get a feel for the weight, length and dynamic of the pole you're holding" - Bob shot Harry and myself a mischievous grin - "so you know how it's going to behave when you throw it around. Now I must underline that I'm not poking fun at the Japanese way of doing things - it works very well for muggles and helps you to stay concentrated, but for Elves it's a little unnecessary.
"Right - I want you to spread out enough so that you can't possibly hit your classmates or their pole when you swing yours around, and feel free to take your cloaks off if you start getting a bit warm. OK - we'll start by just holding the pole in the middle and throwing it into the air and catching it again. OK - now with one hand... Good - and with the other...
"Excellent. Now hold on to one end with your left hand and swing it anti-clockwise around your body. When it gets behind you, grab it with your other hand and continue the swing round to the front. Good... Now gradually increase the speed. Centripetal force will try and pull the pole from your hands, so make sure the faster you get the tighter you hold on.
Bob continued this for about half an hour, gradually varying the exercises and offering tips and encouragement as he went. We all, including Malfoy, gradually got faster and faster, learning where the pole was most likely to go when released and how a flick of the wrist or a roll over the shoulders would modify the pole's motion.
"OK," said Bob, panting slightly like the rest of us. "Good - now we'll start to put some of that together. We're not doing anything particularly vicious yet, but you might want to get some of this crap on," he said, indicating the padding.
A few minutes later, we were togged up and laughing at the hefty but surprisingly light padding. Bob then went through a few more manoeuvres before pairing us off. Mercifully, he took Malfoy as his partner, removing any potential abrasion between him and us.
Bob then took us through a load of defensive stances, about how to present the slightest aspect to your opponent and how to always keep your balance. Harry and I started off fairly sheepishly, but we soon found that we were keeping pace with each other. Harry had just executed a rather impressive defense that caused my mop handle to slide up his and over his head. I continued with the direction and came round a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, only to find he'd turned his side against me and had his mop handle running parallel with his spine, already blocking the blow destined for his back.
He then managed to flick my pole out of my hand, sending it spinning into the air. With no thought other than to get my 'weapon' back, I found myself somersaulting over Harry's head, grabbing the pole and bringing it back down on his now outstretched staff, snapping it in two with a resounding 'crack'.
Everyone stopped and stared at me.
"What?"
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Dumbledore woke with a splitting headache. His first thought as to the cause of it was an exploding dustbin, but he very quickly put that aside.
He found himself sat in a rather tatty armchair next to a feeble-looking open fire, barely established enough to sustain itself, never mind heat the room. It really was bitterly cold: The old man shivered.
As he began to fully regain consciousness, Dumbledore became increasingly aware of a great many wards placed around the room in which he was sat - spells designed to incarcerate and subdue the occupant. Whoever had set this up had certainly been diligent in scope and intensity of their work to the extent Dumbledore found it quite oppressive.
He found that both his briefcase and his wand were not in the immediate vicinity of him, but as the only source of light in the room was from that pathetic fire, he had to strain his eyes to see his own hands, never mind his surroundings.
He lay still and listened for a moment. The only sounds he could hear were his own shallow breathing and the gentle crackling hiss of the fire's damp wood, punctuated by the odd snap as a spark flew from the grate, causing a little flurry of red embers to race up the chimney.
Deciding that any attempted use of magic may well cause unpredictable results considering the quantity and power of the containment spells encircling him, Dumbledore resolved that the best course of action, for the moment at least, would be inaction and began to mentally prepare himself for whatever he would have to encounter.
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Professor McGonagall re-read the letter that she had just received from the Ministry of Magic for the fifth time with a stern - albeit slightly shocked - expression on her face.
'Dear Professor McGonagall,
'I'm writing to enquire about the whereabouts of Professor Dumbledore as he has missed his 9AM meeting and enquiries made with the Leaky Cauldron show that he did not make use of the room the Ministry so graciously provided.
'If you are indeed in communication with him, please impress upon him the importance of his attendance at future council meetings.
Yours Faithfully,
Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic.
Before he had left Dumbledore had, as he always did, spoken to the Deputy Headmistress about exactly what he was up to, where he would be and when in order that she may send him an owl should the need - whatever it may be - arise.
It had been known for Dumbledore to vanish from the face of the planet for quite extended periods of time, but he would always let someone know that that was what he was intending to do. Despite his apparent care-free attitude, reality couldn't be more different: He never deviated from his stated schedule without letting at least one person know what he was up to.
That person was almost always Professor McGonagall, but she hadn't spoken to Albus Dumbledore since he'd regaled her with his dissatisfaction regarding the Ministry in general and the Minister specifically over afternoon tea yesterday. He'd then gone to the Hogwarts Express with Colin Creevy and, apparently, had not been since.
Professor McGonagall sighed and decided that it was her duty to try and piece together exactly what had happened to Dumbledore. As far as she was aware, the last people to talk to Dumbledore at Hogwarts with the exception of herself were Bob, Harry, and myself, so we were duly collared as we all walked up from the lakeside to the Castle, totally knackered and ready for lunch.
McGonagall introduced herself to me and explained that she was head of house for Gryffindor, and congratulated me on becoming a member of her house. "However", she continued through her wonderfully thick Scottish accent. "I wish I could spend a little more time getting to know you, but unfortunately I have a more pressing matter to attend to:
"I need to know if Professor Dumbledore happened to mention where he was going when he met with you yesterday."
"Well, he said he was off to speak to the Ministry of Magic about exploding dustbins... He didn't seem too impressed by the fact."
McGonagall smiled slightly. "No, Liam, I don't suppose he was. He didn't mention anything else?"
"No ma'am."
She sighed. "Well, thank you boys, Bob," she nodded cordially. Bob returned the gesture.
"Is everything all right Professor?" asked Harry.
"For the moment, yes," she replied in a voice that conveyed no conviction whatsoever. "Now go and get some lunch - those acrobatics you were performing must have got you working up quite an appetite," she peered over the top of her half-moon glasses.
We turned and left her study and, as soon as we were out of earshot, I asked Harry "D'you think she meant the training with the mops or this morning?"
Harry blushed bright red.
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"So what was all that was about?" asked Ron as we sat down to join them at Lunch.
"Professor McGonagall wanted to know if Dumbledore had told us what he was up to. We just said that all we knew was that he was going to the Ministry of Magic to discuss exploding dustbins."
"Has he gone missing then or something?" asked Hermione looking rather concerned.
"She didn't say, but she didn't sound too convinced when she said there was nothing to worry about."
"I bet he's off on one of his mad ones again," smiled Ron. "Dad says he once spent more than three months on the top of a mountain."
"Why?"
"Nobody's really too sure, but he did say that he really enjoyed it."
"Ah,"
"Do you think he really is mad?" I asked.
"Dumbledore? Nah - he just likes to make people think he is." smiled Ron. "Anyway, Herm and I are going to take a walk round the lake - see you in potions?"
"Are we back to normal lessons then this afternoon?" asked Harry, looking a little let down.
"Yeah, I think so. See you in a bit," smiled Ron, and off they sauntered, walking just a little closer together than 'just friends' would. Harry smiled at me.
"Well, I don't know them all that well, but they certainly appear to be a damn good match."
As Ron and Hermione walked past the twins, a very loud stereo wolf-whistle went up. Ron did nothing but give his brothers the finger and carry on walking.
"So what's potions like then?"
"Well, potions I suppose is fine - it's just that Snape teaches it."
"Greaseball?"
"Yeah."
"Bugger."
"Exactly. Doesn't really help that I'm crap at it too."
"You're crap at it? I've never even done it before!"
"Yeah, well, you're an Elf."
"So? I can barely make a half-decent cup of tea never mind a potion or whatever."
"Guess we'll make good partners then."
I smiled. "Yeah, I guess so - at least we won't show each other up."
"Nope - don't think there's any danger of that happening."
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Well, that's all for the moment. Let us know what you think (good or bad) at meta4@meta4.org, or visit our web site at http://www.meta4.org.