Harry Potter and the Prophecy of Light and Dark

Harry Potter and the Prophecy of Light and Dark

Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter and never will. I'll try and get as many chapters out as possible in the next two weeks while I'm on holidays. I will also fix up any mistakes I've made in the past by weaving them into this chapter. So, on to the story!

Chapter Twelve- Captains, Balls and Camouflaging.

Herbology was first the next day. Clouds loomed over the castle, dark gray and carrying rain, thunder and lightning. Harry, Ron and Hermione trudged down the grounds, hoping the clouds would hold out. They had finished their work with Mimicking Bobs after handing in their essays. They now were studying, much to the dislike of Harry, The Whomping Willow. They had to study its flailing branches from a safe distance, making notes on its leaves and boughs. They got to stay out side for the next lesson, which happened to be Care of Magical Creatures, but the looming thunderclouds made it less welcoming than ever. Hagrid had advised them all to bring their eggs with them, hoping to witness one or more of them hatch.

They placed the eggs in a large trough filled with glowing embers, perched atop a crackling fire. Hagrid hoped that this would speed up the hatching time, and give the baby dragons a feel of their parents. By the end of the lesson none had hatched, leaving the half-giant in a very sullen mood. Up in the Great Hall for lunch Ron was launching into the Shepard's Pie, only stopping to gulp down his pumpkin juice. Harry just sat staring at his food, idly playing with it with his fork. Something had been bugging him since the night before about the Death eater attack in the forest. Hermione caught him not eating and began pestering him about having to keep up his nutrients.

`I know, Mione, I know. Its just……I got to see Dumbledore, now.' Harry got up from the table, glancing up at the teachers table for the headmaster, but seeing he wasn't there, began to walk up to his office. Hermione caught up beside him, panting.

`What's wrong Harry?' she asked as they halted out side the stone Gargoyle. Ron caught up with them a minute or two later, his mouth full of pie. Harry began going through different kinds of sweets, finally ending on Skiving Snackboxes when the Gargoyle sprang to life and moved aside. They mounted the spiraling staircase and made their way up, knocking on the door. A moment passed before the head master welcomed them inside. He was sitting behind his desk, leaning over a piece of parchment, reading intently. `Hello Harry, Ron, Hermione. What can I do for you?' Professor Dumbledore looked up at them, smiling thoughtfully.

Harry moved forward and stood in front of the head master. `Sir, on the night when the death eaters attacked, Hermione said they disapparated. But you can't in the forest.' He heard Hermione gasp behind him and Ron nervously choke on his pie. Dumbledore's smile weakened. `Yes Harry, I am aware of that. Voldemort had found a way past my barrier, but I have strengthened it, as have many aurors. I am sorry for that night, I didn't know that he had broken through my spell, but we have made sure it will not happen again. But alas, nobody knows what the future holds.' He gave a brief smile before turning back to his work. `Thanks, sir. Bye.' They walked out, once the gargoyle moved back to its place, Hermione groaned.

`I can't believe I forgot about the apparation barrier, and I've read Hogwarts: A History hundreds of times. I'm so stupid!''

`No you're not Hermione, I even forgot until last night. But it doesn't matter, it wont happen again.' she smiled gratefully up at him, but still had a look of defeat in her eyes. The following classes dragged on, it seemed like an eternity for Harry. When it was finally the end of Defense Against the Dark Arts, in which they did stretches and jogging around the room, Harry was totally depressed for no particular reason. Something the Seraphic said struck a nerve in his stomach; it's not Voldemort you should be worried about. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Not Voldemort he should worry about. Then who could be worse than him? A stabbing pain on his knee brought him back to reality.

`Harry? Harry!' he looked around. They were in the Great Hall and he had walked into the corner of the table. Hermione and Ron were gazing at him worriedly, he shook them away. He tried to look fine as they walked up the marble stair-case to the Gryffindor common room, but the thought of something worse than Voldemort kept nagging in the back of his mind. He and Ron walked up stairs and pulled on their Quidditch robes and Ron grabbed his broomstick, since Harry's was with Umbridge somewhere. He was going to borrow a school broom like he did when his Nimbus got smashed. But as he was about to walk out, he spotted a glint of gold poking out from under his pillow. He rushed over and uncovered his Firebolt, looking a little grubby but perfectly fine. He bolted down the stairs after Ron a little happier than previous.

Down at the Quidditch pitch there was a large crowd gathered around something, when they came in view they spotted Professor McGonagall holding up a sheet of parchment. The rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team parted to let them in, McGonagall smiled vaguely. `Alright, since Angelina graduated last year, we need to find a new Gryffindor captain and new team players. The last remaining players are Harry Potter, and Ronald Weasley,' Harry interrupted, `what about Katie Bell, she hasn't graduated?' Professor McGonagall looked down at him, any trace of smile vanished. `Miss Bell and her family were attacked over the holidays. They are fine but in hiding, Katie does not come to Hogwarts any more,' Harry's stomach dropped, `We will commence with the voting process first, if the remaining team members would please move away while we get a standard vote.' Harry and Ron walked away and seated them selves on the grass near the goals. Harry hadn't known about the Bell family, he thought they were all pure-bloods, not muggle born.

`Katie's mum was a muggle, her dad worked at the ministry as an unmentionable. You-know-who got wind of him and his family and tried to track them down, we're not sure why. So her parents pulled her from school and now they're in hiding somewhere. Sorry we didn't tell you, it's just it happened really quickly. And nobody knew where they went.' Harry looked out across at the students wanting to be on the team then at the fact if he got captain Ron would probably get jealous once again. Someone patted him on the back; he looked up at Ron's smirking face. `You're definitely got captain, Harry; you've been on the team for like five years already. Plus even if I did get it I would turn it down,'

`What, why?' stammered Harry. Ron just grinned again. `I can't lead people, never have been able to. You can, like last year with the DA, you said you couldn't talk in front of people but you did. I'd surely faint if I got in front of that many people to talk. Any way, I couldn't take the pressure if our team lost and I was the captain, no way.' They both laughed and continued talking about Quidditch. McGonagall called them back over a few minutes later, saying the captain had been chosen.

`Well everyone has voted and they were fairly close, but the new Gryffindor Captain is………Harry Potter!' the crowd all cheered as Harry found him self feeling very happy and embarrassed. He felt him self blush as even Professor McGonagall smiled broadly. She wished them good training and left, saying the next match was against Ravenclaw in two weeks on a Saturday morning. Everyone was now looking at Harry, all grinning and all eager to begin. Harry felt sick.

`Well……ummm……we only have five vacant positions available and around twenty people here. So could everyone wanting to try out for beater go over to the far goal posts and everyone wanting to be chaser go to the closest posts.' Everyone split up into the responding areas. Ron stayed with him, grinning madly. `I told you so, anyways I would have closed my eyes and blindly picked five people.' They laughed as they devised a plan. Ron would fly up and guard the goal hoops while each candidate would try and shoot a goal. They would have five shots each and the ones with the most goals would be entered into the finals. On the other side Harry would fly up into the air and let loose a bludger and one of the candidates for beater had to hit it and get it through the middle hoop. The people who got it through or hit it would go on to the next round, the others he let go. By the end of it Harry had four possible beaters, while Ron had seven people for chaser, one of which was his sister Ginny.

Ron did the same thing, guarding the hoops while they shot, this time it was out of three. Harry, how ever, was having trouble deciding what to do. In the end he sent four of the five left-overs who didn't make it into the air, making two teams of four. He then put the four beaters into two teams of two and sent them into the air, into a mini game of Quidditch. One team was the red team the other blue, the beaters had to protect their players while beating the bludgers at the opposing players. Harry had set up shields around the players so they didn't actually get hit, but if a bludger hit the shield it would shimmer gold.

By the end of the training Ron had chosen three chasers, Ginny Weasley, Dean Thomas and a small second year named Jonathon Tyler, nick named Tye. They were the best of the chasers; Ron sent the others back to the castle, all looking angry and miserable. Harry had chosen his two beaters. One was Seamus Finnegan, who wasn't excellent but fairly good at aiming, the other was a third year who Harry hadn't noticed before, she had long blond hair and deep brown eyes, and she was named Gabrielle Perry. Although she had a thin frame and delicate features, when she swung at the bludger with the bat it would fly of in the exact place it was meant to go at an astonishing speed. They all gathered on the ground, looking cheerful and wind swept.

`Ok, you have been chosen to play in the Gryffindor Quidditch Team; training will be on Friday afternoons. Our game is on in two weeks, well actually two weeks from tomorrow. See you all next Friday.' They all said good bye and moved up the grounds into the castle. The sky had darkened, now an eerie purple-blue. Harry and Ron grabbed their brooms and strolled up to the castle, chatting animatedly about the nights turnouts. Once up in the common room and changed they sat down near the fire working on their assignments. Hermione was sitting on the couch next to Harry, leaning over a book, with Mellow sitting next to her. Harry was scribbling down an essay he had to do for potions about the properties and poisons of the ingredients in the Wolfbane Potion. Shadow was sitting o his lap, gazing humorously at Mellow. All of a sudden he sprang on his lap and landed with a thud on the small brown kitten. They tumbled around playfully on the couch, being watched by Harry and Hermione. Ron was lying on the ground, sound asleep. But he jerked awake as Mellow bounded of the couch and landed on his back, followed closely by Shadow who tackled her to the ground soon afterwards. Harry laughed and Hermione giggled. Ron just grumbled and closed his eyes again, his head lulling onto his Charms essay. Harry finally finished essay, he passed it to Hermione for inspection. She gave it back a moment later with a smile on her face and a nod. Ron snored loudly from the floor startling the snoozing kittens. Mellow jumped up to Hermione's lap, while Shadow gazed after her than spread his wings and fluttered the short distance into Harry's arms. He mewed a goodnight before snuggling into his arms.

`I was talking to Professor McGonagall the other day and she said that there will be a Christmas Ball on Christmas Eve.' Said Hermione as Harry groaned. `Not again. I had enough trouble asking girls to the Yule Ball. Now this.' Harry heard a distinguishable giggle come from Hermione. He turned to her and tried to put on a stern face, but failed miserably when Hermione tried to mimic him with a very false angry look. They both broke out laughing, when an idea hit Harry. `Hey, Hermione. You know how Ron asked you to go to the Yule Ball and that you were a girl. But you said other people had noticed that you were a girl before us. Well we knew you were a girl, just we always figured you wouldn't go with us since we were all best friends.' Hermione stopped laughing and smiled knowingly. `I know. I just wanted to point it out. But if one of you had asked me before Victor did I would have said yes.' Harry smiled at her. `Well………' Harry's stomach jolted as he thought of what he was about to do, `Could you……I mean, would you go to the Christmas Ball, with me?' asked Harry nervously. Hermione's face broke out into a smile. `Your not just asking me because you don't have the courage to ask someone else, are you?' Harry smiled this time, his nerves slowly trickling away. `Of course not, Mione. I' asking you because I have noticed that you're a girl and also my best friend and really want to share your company on the eve of Christmas!' they both laughed at Harry's try at formality.

`Well, you're in luck, Mr. Potter, because I gladly accept your invitation to spend the eve of Christmas in your presence.' They both laughed again. Harry felt remarkably better now that he got one thing out of the way. They began talking of anything that came to mind. Firstly of Sirius how they hadn't spoken or seen him for ages. When they merged into the topic of the Order a loud crashing noise from upstairs disrupted them. Ron awoke in a jolt. They all ran up the boy's staircase into the sixth year boys dormitories were the noise came from. Seamus, Dean and Neville were all awake and staring at the trunk at the foot of Harry's bed. He moved forward as the trunk gave off another huge crash and smoke began seeping through the top. Harry quickly jumped forward and unlatched the lid. Smoke came billowing out, followed by a flash of black. Harry tumbled backwards into Neville who began trembling, staring up at the ceiling. Harry looked up to see nothing, only curtains of smoke. But everyone present looked up, staring around for the black flash, when Harry found it. There was something curled around the candle bracket on the roof, something small and scaly. It had blended into the color scheme, becoming white and red, barely visible. Harry moved over to his bed, he pointed out the baby dragon to his friends who moved back to the wall, all looking up too stunned to move.

But when Harry took another step there was a flash of black and suddenly the dragon was in Harry's arms, gazing up at him with wide amber eyes. Harry gasped as it yawned and closed its eyes, falling into a deep sleep. It was about the size of Harry's kitten maybe a little bit bigger. It was now the color of Harry's school robe, black. Shiny scales covered its tiny body; small spikes began on its snout finishing at the tip of its tail. It truly was beautiful. Hermione came up beside him and stared longingly at the little beast, she reached out to touch it but its mouth shot open and snatched at her hand. It stopped its bite when its teeth were just touching her soft skin. It opened one of its eyes and gave her a look of daring. It released her hand and went back to sleep. She withdrew her hand quickly but still looked at it admiringly.

`Ok, that was weird.' stammered Harry, staring down at the sleeping beauty. Finally his friends removed them selves from the wall and walked slowly over to the baby dragon. `What should I do with it now? It's too late to take to Hagrid and I have no where to put it. Hang on,' Harry moved carefully over to Hedwig's cage. She was up in the owlery, so he slowly placed a towel from his trunk into the cage and unlatched the baby dragon from his robes. He put the creature onto the towel and latched it shut. There it snuggled into the Gryffindor towel and took on its red and gold coloring. Harry sighed and sat down on the bed next to Hermione.

`Well, I might go check on my egg and go to bed. Goodnight.' Hermione left, giving one last look at the dragon before disappearing. Harry yawned as well. The others had got back into bed, Ron was getting changed. Harry pulled on his pyjamas and climbed into bed. Shadow flew onto the covers and began digging his claws into the sheets. Harry blew out the candles, and took of his glasses. He snuggled down into his sheets; his last look was at the sleeping dragon. After his dreamless sleep Harry awoke to find both the dragon and Shadow staring avidly at him. He sighed and looked at the time; it was just after five in the morning so he decided to head out to Hagrids. He quickly showered and changed into some robes for the day. He unlatched the cage and let the dragon out. It flew around the room silently before landing on his shoulder and wrapping around the back of his neck. He set out of the dormitory to find Shadow following him. He sighed and held out his arm for the cat, he jumped and fluttered to his arm, purring loudly. The day was a change from the day before, where dark clouds loomed from ahead. Now it was a clear blue sky, with the sun glaring down from above. Hagrid was standing out side his cabin when Harry walked up to him.

`Morning, `Arry. What are yeh doin down ere at this time in the morning?' Hagrid didn't notice the camouflaged dragon wrapped around his neck, only the small kitten perched on his arm. `Well, don't you see anything around my neck?' Hagrid lent in to shoot his head back up, his beard slightly singed. `Oh, he atched! When did that happen?' He asked looking directly at the dragons head, his eyes full of happiness. `Last night. He spent the night in Hedwig's cage. I thought it was too late to bring him down.' Harry reached up and took the dragon from his neck and held him in his arms. Shadow flew up to Hagrid and perched on his shoulder, shooting daggers at the dragon. `Hagrid looked curiously at the winged feline but then gazed back at the reptile. `Yeh, I wouldn't ave been ere. But yeh will ave to feed him. Is it a boy or a gurl?' he asked moving into his cabin and walking back out a moment later carrying a bucket. `Umm…I'm not sure, how do you know?' Hagrid peered over at the dragon for a second before coming to a conclusion. `I don't know either, that's a new species, you'll have to find an updated book on it. Ere,' He passed Harry the bucket which he found to be full of minced meet and blood. The dragon let out a kind of purr before leaping onto the side of the bucket and leaning in. Slurping noises could be heard from inside the bucket, as the baby dragon ate its first meal. When it was finished, Harry held out the dragon for Hagrid to take, but the half giant moved back, shaking his head.

`I can't take that one Arry. I only know one thing bout that breed, and that is that they are very protective of one particular human. And they won't let any other human touch em. That's why I was curious to know why you got that egg.' Harry looked down at the small dragon with blood around its mouth, it burped. `But, but I can't keep a dragon, Professor Du………'

`Professor Dumbledore knows bout the situation, and has agreed to let you keep em, as there's nothing left to do with em. Plus he said he will attack any thing that tries to hurt you, and that's a good thing!' Harry sighed down at the little creature who was now the same black as his robes. `Thanks, Hagrid. Bye.' Harry moved back up to the castle, with Shadow bounding lightly behind him, chasing a butterfly. When he entered the common room to put his pets back, he noticed a small blue thing huddled in the book shelves. He moved towards it, but it huddled back into the dark. Harry crouched down to be level with it, to find a light blue dragon. It was shivering slightly and looked very scared. Harry reached out and scooped it into his arms. His own dragon was perched on his shoulder, looking down at the beast. It also had the large amber eyes of his dragon, but this one had light blue scales covering its body and small dark blue specs on its snout. It gazed up at Harry, slightly calmed down but still terrified. There was a shuffling from behind Harry as someone ran down the stairs, saying “Oh no” over and over.

`Oh, Harry, Harry, have you seen………' She cut short as she spotted the small wrinkly blue dragon I his arms, he moved over to her and gave her the dragon. She seemed scared at first but then took it in her arms and began stroking its scaled belly. They sat down on the couch both cradling their dragons. Harry was in the process of telling Hermione what Hagrid had said when there was a few terrified yells from up stairs as three people scrambled down from the boys dormitories. Ron was looking pale, as was Neville; Dean was looking shocked and couldn't speak. There were a few foot steps as Seamus appeared, his hair singed. But in his arms was a baby dragon, it was yellow-green, with two small black horns protruding from its head. He grinned at the others and sat down. He began stroking its head, he then turned to Ron and Neville, `I'd go up there if I was you, they'll tear everything to pieces.' Ron took a deep breath and grabbed Neville's pyjama shirt. He directed him up the stairs, a few minutes later, after a few yells and thumps, they reappeared Neville walked down first. His dragon was clamped to the back of his shirt, a small dark purple one. Ron came down a second later, carrying a bright red one in front of him at arms length. There was a shrill scream as Lavender bolted out of the girl's staircase being chased by a small pink dragon. Parvarti came running down after, her hair in rollers, but when she spotted the boys sitting down she let out a small embarrassed squeak and hurried back up. They all burst out laughing as Lavender ducked and the dragon flew straight into the reappearing Parvarti.