12

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So following our introduction of Star Wars into the Gryffindor lexicon…within the following week, these things happened.

First off, the Gryffindor house split into four sub-factions of Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader. Everybody is quoting lines from at least one of the characters.

To be honest it's actually a little annoying, but eh.

Fred and George then created a "lightsaber" spell. It's just a glowing 'pipe' extending from the wand, but it creates all the requisite lightsaber noises, so now whenever two groups of Gryffindors meet in the hallways it devolves into a saber duel for a few minutes. Fun times.

We reverse-engineered the lightsaber effect and hooked it up to our car batteries so we can actually use it as a combat spell if necessary.

The students then lamented the lack of the Force for them to use.

To which Hermione remarked "there's a summoning charm, isn't there?"

She then became the most beloved Gryffindor for the next month, to her own eternal shame.

The result? Every Gryffindor third year (main characters included) and up are now able to cast an accio charm wandless. Like holy shit.

By Christmas, that ability extended to the entirety of the Hogwarts student body 3rd year and up…plus some select second years.

Technically the first movie showed none of the Force Picking Up Stuff, but we kind of spoiled it for them, so…

…

In other news, the investigation into "who tore up the Fat Lady Portrait" has yielded no leads. I really wish I didn't twist the timeline up as badly as I did, because otherwise I would have a pretty good idea of what's going on right now…and a pretty good idea of how to counter it.

Ugh.

Oh well, spoiled milk and all that.

So, going through the timeline.

Keep in mind that these events occur before Christmas.

...

[Lupin's First Full Moon]

…

We got to hear Snape go "Turn to page three hundred and ninety four."

And then we lost five points for grinning like a fucking idiot afterwards. Three times.

We also lost ten points for making him repeat the page number (twice).

…

"Why did you think Snape gave us a less on bloody werewolves?" Ron said bitterly as he struggled through his paper.

We're sitting in the Gryffindor Common room. As I've finished with a large amount of my construction work, I can now afford to leave the base unattended (and besides, fuck the snow)

Also, thinking back on this: I know I did not pick on Remus being a werewolf when I first read through the book (I was 13 at the time, too). I know now, and even if I didn't know it's kind of hard to not pick up something foreshadowing on a dude named with two lupine terms.

Did Lupin's parents rename him after he was bitten or was that just how they wanted to name their kid?

Who knows?

"It's a full moon; it's very thematic." I reply. I've already finished my paper.

We know Lupin won't care what we wrote so we just jotted down werewolf weaknesses in very large letters.

"Thematic?" Hermione doesn't quite believe me. "Professor Snape isn't one on theme, Ash."

I've seen him walk around the Chamber of Secrets in a white labcoat because I told him it was standard laboratory equipment. "He runs a potions class where we boil liquids in the dungeon."

"So?"

"So vapors go upwards." I stretch. "It's a bit of a health hazard to have all the fumes swim around down there." It also muddles results, if you think about it.

"So he gave us this class for a laugh?" Ron tosses his quill at the fireplace. It flies halfway before he changes his mind and draws it back with a silent accio.

"You guys have gotten frighteningly good with that." I comment as Ron goes back to his paper.

"It's odd how useful it is." Harry comments. "I wish I learned it sooner."

You did learn it sooner though.

Harry emphasizes his statement by throwing his wand across the room and returning it to his hand without doing anything other than opening his hand in the direction of his wand.

"It's a really neat trick." Harry grins. "When do we see episode five?"

Ha. "When I get the time to find it." I shrug.

We've told him that the first three episodes don't exist yet.

"I'm amazed McGonagall let you keep your stuff after she found out." Hermione said daintily.

"Makes the two of us." I had let McGonagall know that I was going to do something to cheer up the Gryffindors but I had neglected to say 'how'. In the end, she let me keep the equipment so long as I can find a place to store it, which I very obviously could…though wheeling it up and down the grand staircase is a little tough.

Also. "I'm amazed she sat down and watched it with us."

We had to play the movie four times. McGonagall got really mad at Jabba and muttered a lot of colorful things about what she could turn him into. She can also do a terrifyingly accurate Darth Vader impression.

If we get movie five we're going to show it to Flitwick. See if he can be Yoda for us.

Ron groans loudly. "This is getting nowhere. What did you write?" He sneaks a peek at my paper. "Snape will kill you for that." He laughs.

I brandish my paper that said KILL WEREWOLF WITH GUN and grins. "It's true though. You just have to use silver bullets."

"Knowing you, you probably have a way to fight werewolves already." Harry remarks.

He's entirely wrong. I have not prepared for anti-werewolf combat. "I have a few things lined up."

"Forget this." Ron tosses his paper aside. "Hogsmeade?" He asks simply with a wide grin.

"Hogsmeade." Harry agrees with a nod. "Are you going too, Ash?"

Eh. "Undecided."

The two of them look at me in shock.

Hermione just sighs. "He sneaks out of the school every other evening. I don't think it matters to him."

Um. "And you know this why?"

She turns red and doesn't answer…though I guess this confirms that she's been keeping tabs on us. This might be a little problematic. This might be really problematic since she knows that Harry is afraid of us…and her loyalties lie closer to him than with us.

She might also assume that we were responsible for destroying the portrait.

…that is a possibility. A far-fetched one, but a possibility all the same. I still can't conclusively prove that I have not been affected by the diary, and I've never been good at keeping tabs on my memories, so it's possible that there's some unforeseen effect…or else I've already been attacked and had my memories modified.

"Besides, Hogsmeade is still a ways off." I point out. "You in particular, Harry, should be more worried about tomorrow."

Harry doesn't seem concerned. "I get to put Malfoy in his place. I'm not worried."

"He should be more worried about Black." Hermione reminds us.

…And now we come to the second reason for why we're sitting in the common room with the trio. Due to my exemplary combat prowess, I've been tasked (unofficially) to guard Harry after McGonagall saw how I pacified the Gryffindor's panic through the power of Hollywood. This means, among other things, that I now have teacher endorsement to randomly attack Harry whenever he's feeling complacent…but never when he's feeling safe. It's important for any human to have places where they feel safe.

Either way, Harry's getting good at throwing up shield charms at the drop of a hat. He was already pretty fast to begin with, but now it's just ludicrous.

…

[Next day]

…

It's rainy, it's wet, I'm annoyed, and I'm very glad I'm not on a broom right now.

In book, Malfoy got to sit this one out because of the injury he took from Buckbeak. Here, not so much.

To top it off, I'm not even focused on the game because I'm worried about the Dementors showing up.

We could've just warned Dumbledore that this was a possibility.

He probably knows that this is a possibility. It's hard to enforce a rule when precedence doesn't exist though.

…I don't see how Harry can fly in this kind of rain. I also don't SEE Harry at all. Sheesh.

…

Gryffindors are up 80 – 30! I still have no idea what the fuck's going on.

…

"Can you see Harry anywhere?" I yell to the general audience.

No response.

…

Hermione, bless her heart, is clapping in a highly disengaged way after…whoever's doing the announcing, does his announcing.

Her hair's also a royal mess on account of the weather, and it…well, Hermy looks like she crawled out of a horror movie.

It's a little endearing, actually.

…

I feel cold. Cold that drives deep into my bones. I'm wearing a thick coat, so I'm sure this isn't the rain talking.

We look around wildly and see nothing but rain.

Correction: We see what could be a blotch of darker darkness in the darkness.

I think this is part of the story where I become the hero forever by making a Patronus so huge it obliterates the sun.

Unfortunately, I seem to have lost the ability to perform any action requiring physical movement. Which is a surprising plus, since all of my senses are telling me to curl up into a ball and cry my eyes out.

Screaming in the distance.

…I think I see someone falling. That's probably Harry.

Wooosh, something massive and silver pops into the sky.

…I think I'm now blind. That's probably Dumbledore. Jesus that was a bright patronus…and I guess that's one of the differences between a true patronus and the fake ones I can use. Another one of the differences: a corporeal patronus seems to have a calming aura, since I can feel my body relaxing.

"Harry!" Ron and Hermione yell in unison and jump into the pitch as Harry (half) gently crash-lands onto the ground.

I wonder who did the floating charm and who did the Eye Burning Patronus?

In this case, Professor Snape was responsible for slowing Harry's descent while Dumbledore tore the Dementors a proverbial asshole. Ash is not aware of this as he did not see it happen, though he has his guesses.

Either way, Ron and Hermy reach Harry…who is still conscious.

"Harry! Harry!" Ron can be heard even in the pounding rain.

We have reached Harry as well.

" 'maright." Harry mutters into the ground and Ron helps him to his feet. "I can walk."

…and it becomes very clear he is in no condition to be walking.

Madam Hooch basically carts him off the field, and the Gryffindors lose the first Quidditch match by a margin of 20 points.

Which isn't bad…though I wonder if Quidditch teams ever considered training substitute teammates?

…I guess it's good to know that if I meet a group of Dementors I'm just going to stand and be entirely useless. This was a useful lesson to learn before actually meeting a number of Dementors greater than one in actual battle, I suppose.

We sound very unexcited about the fact that Harry fell from the sky and was ok.

I should have some other kind of emotion right now, but the combination of the Dementor aftereffects and the rain and the general somber mood means the only thing I feel is irritation and bottomless despair.

Good times.

…

So after Harry got squared away in the Hospital Wing, the following events occurred.

First off, Lupin agreed to teach him how to cast the Patronus Charm. Harry has been trying to learn it on his own, but it's not going well. Apparently there is more to the spell than just "use a happy memory" that can't be put into books.

I still chalk it up to shitty wizard documentation.

Second, Harry saved himself (for a very loose definition of the term) through fast chanting a levitation charm he managed to pull off wandless. Strictly speaking he didn't levitate, but the reduction of impact force meant he was momentarily conscious and could feel his bones snapping instead of passing out entirely.

In retrospect I'm not sure how that's a good thing.

Third, when Harry came around he admitted to seeing a large black dog before falling off his broom. I contacted Sirius afterwards and he claimed proudly to be the culprit. I spent the rest of that day being ashamed at the man.

Fourth, Harry's Nimbus 2000 had a meeting with the Whomping Willow. It ended in tears and the two will not be having future meetings regardless of location. Very sad.

Also I should look into broomstick insurance as a viable source of revenue.

We've informed Sirius about Harry's broom being destroyed while guilt-tripping Sirius slightly. Sirius promises to purchase the Firebolt for his godson and mail it before the year is over.

Can he just send it under our name?

I…it would be odd if I did it, since my reputation as a weirdo and a psychopath far outstrips my reputation as a magnanimous friend with a lot of spending money. Plus I don't actually have that kind of wizarding money (by choice).

So we're just going to have Sirius buy it and send it anonymously and have that subplot trigger. If only to help right the ship a little bit and make my life easier.

…

Fast Forward to the first Hogsmeade visit!

Harry, per his weakness to Dementors, had his visitation status suspended. Suffice to say he wasn't happy about that.

We might have been responsible for this by convincing McGonagall to bring down the banhammer a little.

This is also a part of the un-skewing timeline action. The worse the divergence gets the less effective I get, so, yeah.

Anyways, this means that Harry got the Marauder's map from the twins and snuck out like he should have.

We, on the other hand, occupied an empty classroom and set up four rings with metal plates attached to them.

Why not do this in the Chamber?

Myrtle's distracting. Plus I needed some place that I could blow up without worrying about the bills. So to speak.

"What are you doing?"

Upon hearing someone inquire so innocently, the only thing we could do was jump and suffer an almost-heart attack.

It's…it's just Luna. Ok. Whew. Jesus.

"I'm training." I say with surprising evenness in my voice.

"What for?" Luna invites herself into the room and takes a seat by the wall.

"I'm bored and need something to do." I reply. "If you're going to watch, then please stay put." I don't trust my control enough to have a little kid wandering around the training area willy-nilly.

Luna nods, but we've already diverted our attention.

Ok…

Go.

The four rings of metal pads start spinning around.

I create two small birds and they hover around my head. Note that they blow up.

We count slowly to five and feel one of the metal plates change in heat.

Deploy bird to metal plate!

The explosive bird zooms towards the metal plate and explodes against it.

This is just targeting practice. I'm using a spell that reports subtle heat changes to give targeting vectors to the birds. Having Luna in the room complicates it a little bit as I need to make sure I don't accidentally shoot her in the face every time I deploy a bird, but it's good experience nevertheless.

This is training our bird creation time and path creation time.

Avis, the bird making spell, has two forms (technically). A low mana type that creates autonomous puppets and a high mana type that creates self-aware golems. If nothing happens to the birds (like, say, we jihad them into a building) they return back to their base materials.

If they explode they also return to their initial materials, but obviously since the bird isn't intact anymore the materials are scattered all over the place and thus makes it difficult to verify the returned-status of the ex-bird materials.

I use the low mana type subconsciously and thus the birds do not behave like real birds. This type uses the caster's knowledge on birds to give them some limited autonomy, so, with practice, I'm trying to override it with something that's less natural but is more beneficial to their designed purpose.

It's slow going, to be honest. When I first came up with the spell I was just very happy that the birds could fly in the general direction I wanted. Now, they can maneuver around simple obstacles and hit targets before having to explode.

So we've hit our version 1 release.

Pretty much.

…

We practice for another hour before exhaustion sets in and we have to pack up.

"Do you do this every day?" Luna asks inquisitively.

Wave wand, remove rings..."More or less. I switch up what spells to practice to make it less dull though." With exception to the Electrified Prismatic Beam, as I can't gauge how much power it has and I'm thoroughly unwilling to try it while being surrounded by guard Dementors.

"Why do you work so hard?"

Easy. "Because it's fun. Sometimes a little tedious, but fun." I scan the room one more time to make sure everything's back where it should be. "You know I'm muggle-born, right?"

She nods.

"So being able to play with magic like this is a lot of fun for me." I grin. "Plus I get to learn a lot, and that's never a bad thing."

Luna…is twelve. She's not stupid, but the idea that someone can take such enjoyment in the things she finds mundane is a little out of her reach.

So she just stares at us.

…

[That Evening]

…

Harry enters the scene while the other two members of his trio were already cuddling by the fire.

And what are we doing?

We have annexed Crookshanks and is petting her without any reservation.

Have I ever mentioned that I love cats?

Multiple times.

…it was rhetorical.

…also, is it just me or is Harry a bit angrier than usual?

"You alright there, Harry?" I ask him.

…and I get a glare in return. Huh.

"Can we talk?" He mutters/seethes.

Ron and Hermione share a concerned glance before following the two of us into the Gryffindor dorm tower.

Oookay. "What's this about?"

"Did you know about Black?" Harry demands, probably after having overhead a plot advancing conversation in an inn somewhere.

That description is not because we forgot the name of the place. Definitely not. Nope.

Time to put on my pants of subjective truth. "Know what about him?"

Apparently that was not the right tone to take. "Did you know that Black was friends with my dad?" Harry says through gritted teeth.

Also, very glad I don't react to news in any overt way, so I can just go "Yikes."

"You knew, didn't you?" Hermione asks me dubiously.

Huh. "What would it have meant if I did?" I frown. "Or are you suddenly out for revenge?"

"That's not it." Harry snaps. "That man you were with."

…Ah.

"What?" Hermione looks positively shocked that I would spend my time with men.

Har har har.

"That man was Sirius Black, wasn't he."

That wasn't a question though. "Correct." I nod.

Hermione jumps to her feet.

"Now, Harry." I hold up a hand before he could unleash all of his adolescent fury. "What did you hear about Sirius?"

"How can you—" Hermione starts, probably to question the logic of my involvement with a crazy psychotic murderer…but we stop her with the same held up hand.

Harry suddenly gets a little defensive. "What do you mean?"

What do I…oh right we shouldn't know about him sneaking out. Oops. "I mean…something set you off, right? So what happened?"

…

He describes the whole Pettigrew versus Sirius thing to us.

…

Ron picks up the discrepancy first. "Wait, wait…we met that Pettigrew bloke down in the Chamber." He shudders. "He was with that Tom Riddle…You-Know-Who."

Harry nods slowly. "Yeah, and Sirius helped us against the basilisk."

The three of them have a moment as they process that information.

"But Sirius killed Pettigrew already." Harry repeats himself. "But both of them were there…"

It took them five minutes to get to this point. "So somebody lied about something." I summarize.

"Or maybe Sirius Black wasn't that great of a wizard." Hermione mutters.

We resist the urge to grin.

Again, Ron's on point today. "But if he wasn't that great of a wizard, then how did he break out of Azkaban?" He asks.

Hermione doesn't really have an answer for that, so she settles on looking pensive and confused.

Also, I should probably stop whatever she's planning. "Hermy, don't bring this information to the teachers just yet."

She glares at me (with some confusion). "Why?"

"Because currently all we have is conjecture…best guesses." I hold up my hand to start ticking down fingers. "First off, we know that Sirius and Pettigrew had a duel."

"And we also know that Pettigrew getting killed was a lie." Harry adds…a bit more angrily than I had anticipated.

"We know that Pettigrew is alive." I nod. "So obviously him being killed was a lie…now that being said, it's a fact that people believe he was killed." I tick down another finger. "We know that Sirius escaped from Azkaban."

"He also helped us." Harry adds.

"That's true. However, he is still considered an enemy of the wizarding community." I stare at Hermy to see if she gets it. She does, because she's bright as all hell. "Until we can concretely determine what's going on, we shouldn't report our guesses as fact. Worst case scenario, that gets people killed."

She rolls her eyes, but at least seems to concede the point.

…

Harry visited Hagrid the next day, and since Buckbeak was not in danger of being executed Hagrid was in the mood to entertain guests.

Hagrid was…less than forward about the relationship between Sirius and Potter Senior.

Not gonna call him James?

It feels slightly disrespectful.

And Sirius is Sirius because…

…no comment.

Anyways.

Hagrid was obviously uncomfortable about sharing any information concerning Sirius, and Harry couldn't dig too deep or the big man would clam up and refuse to say anything. Eventually we had to step in.

Now, Hagrid doesn't trust us. He thinks we're insane and that we are a bad influence on Harry.

He's right.

But Hagrid does care deeply for Harry, and by capitalizing on that—by pointing out how much danger Harry would be subjected to if Sirius confused Harry with the information he wanted—we were able to get Hagrid to spill the beans.

Turns out, Hagrid didn't have a lot of beans to spill in the first place.

Harry learned a fair amount about Sirius and James being buddy buddy (more precisely just how they went about being buddy buddy) but for the most part he didn't learn anything of importance.

Without the Buckbeak storyline, Hagrid really diminishes in plot significance.

Yeah.

Although, if Ron is to be believed, his classes are still exercises in how many safety violations he can rack up in one day.

…

Nothing else major happens until Christmas.

Harry gets his Firebolt from Sirius (who told me ahead of time that he'd send it). Hermione is worried that the Firebolt is from Sirius. Ron thinks she's nutters. Hermione wants to send it to McGonagall to check for curses. Harry thinks she's nutters.

We sleep in on Christmas morning and then get rudely interrupted by the three asking for a second opinion.

"Yeah, do it."

Both Harry and Ron think we're nutters. Ron in particular thinks we're insanely nutters and demands to know what our reasoning would be.

Obviously I can't tell them that it was safe, even though Sirius cleared it. "I don't think Sirius Black would send Harry such an obvious trap."

"What do you mean?" Hermy asks.

"I would think that a cunning wizard like Black, if he were actually after Harry, would send him something innocuous and difficult to detect with a curse on it. Like that quill you're holding, for example."

Hermione drops the high quality writing quill I got her as if it burned her hand. I was really tempted to just buy her a box of pencils, but I'm pretty sure that would be a bit insulting.

Harry was then nipped by a copy of the Monster Book of Monsters.

"Or he could just let Hagrid's class take care of things instead. You ok there, Harry?"

Hermy looks a bit confused. "But you still want the broom checked?"

To be honest it's still just 'rerailing the story', but I can't say that, so…

"Yeah. I don't think Sirius sent it, but I do think someone sending a high quality item like this is cause for suspicion. Better check it now and make sure everything's good to go than fly into the Whomping Willow again."

"But who would want to jinx Harry?" Ron insists.

Gee I wonder

"Who would send Harry a Firebolt?" I yawn. "Now shoo, I need to get dressed."

They're not entirely convinced (though Hermy's happy that I agreed with her) and leave.

…

Christmas comes and goes (we get the third book in anger management from McGonagall, different author this time, but the same series).

Like I kind of wish something happened just so I can have something to talk about and plan around but so far nothing has happened.

…

After Christmas Break is when Harry gets his first actual Patronus lesson, so let's hope something interesting happens…I mean, hell, even the Dementors have been more subdued than normal.

So we want someone to get hurt for our entertainment.

Yes.

.

.

.