Characters, settings, and story relating to the Harry Potter series of novels are copyright J. K. Rowling, along with Bloomsbury Publishing, et al. “Spirit of Fear” is not an officially published work, nor is it in any cooperation with J. K. Rowling or Bloomsbury Publishing. “Spirit of Fear” is entirely (with the exclusion of the aforementioned characters, settings, and story) a work by Thomas Holman.

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Chapter Thirty-Four

A Quiet Friend

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Chey thought it was very odd that during the entire lesson, Moody had not mentioned once they had met before. Thinking about it some more, he rationalized it may have been Moody’s way of treating all the students equally. He came to that conclusion only when Minerva had suggested it later that afternoon.

“You had Defense Against the Dark Arts today, didn’t you?” Ron asked him at lunch immediately after Chey’s lesson. Hermoine had not stayed long enough to chat, only grabbed a sandwich and departed, announcing she’d be in the library.

“Don’t you people run out of breath saying the class’s full name all the time?” Chey asked right back rhetorically. “Yes, I had Moody’s class.”

“What was it like?” Harry inquired.

“A lot of introduction,” he answered. “Regaled in how dark wizards are smart and you have to be smarter, kept repeating ‘constant vigilance!’ and demonstrated some pretty nasty curses.” His mind wandered to the time when Andrey had cast a torture curse on him. “As if I haven’t been on the receiving end of my fair share of them.”

“You’ve been cursed?”

“Couple times. I think one of them might have been ‘You shall never spend more than one year at a school.’” The three of them laughed at that, then Chey asked, “So where’s Whiskers keep going?”

“The library,” Ron answered. “Didn’t you hear her?”

“First time I met her, she was in the library.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Harry replied. “What was she reading?”

“If I recall, there was this one book on top of the pile: ‘Moste Potente Potions,’ I think it was.”

The boys exchanged guilty glances, and Chey gave them a stare that beckoned they tell the story.

“When was this?” Harry tried to evade.

“‘Round Christmas. You guys’d be in your second year.”

“All right,” Ron relented. “This was back when the Chamber of Secrets was opened.”

“That’s right,” Chey remembered. “Aunt ‘Em told me about that.”

“Well,” Harry continued, “we wanted to find out who Slytherin’s heir was. We had an idea, just needed proof.”

“Proof you couldn’t get otherwise, right?” Chey asked them.

“Y-yeah,” Harry said, realizing Chey had justified their actions. “Ron and I used Polyjuice potion and snuck into the Slytherin common room.”

“Hold up. Who did you think it was?”

“Malfoy, the sniveling git,” Ron announced with a passion.

“Ah, yes. The old vendetta. Go on. Did the potion work?”

“Yeah.” Harry told him.

“Really? ‘Cause Whiskers grew black fur and a tail.”

“She had the wrong hair.”

“Ah. She did say something about that. And did you get your proof?”

“No, it wasn’t him.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“Well, I don’t want to lie to you,” Ron said.

The bell signaling classes rang through the hall, and the students cleared the tables, headed for the door.

“Let’s go, Ron. Hermoine will meet us in class.”

“Later guys,” Chey said to them, getting up to leave as well. “I’m off to work on my car.”

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Apparently, Peeves took a lot of pride in his work. Anything that wasn’t welded down had been removed, save for the car’s interior. For one reason or another, the poltergeist had decided to leave the seats alone. It puzzled Chey, but he wasn’t complaining. Reconditioning the leather would have been just one more thing on the list, and he had enough on his plate already.

Fearing that rust might become a concern thanks in part to the Scotland climate, he set about reassembling the engine block first.

After hours of work, he was hardly even a quarter of the way done. The biggest contributing factor was the chaos. Peeves had not taken the time to place the parts in order. As such, Chey spent much of his time searching through the pile for the right parts.

“Little monster,” he said to himself in frustration several times. Just short of nightfall, he felt something nudge his shoulder.

Looking over, he saw a black, elongated reptilian face. Pale white eyes gazed at him as he took in the creature’s appearance.

Getting up and stepping back, he saw the creature was very skeletal in it’s general appearance. Overall, it had the image of a severely underfed horse, though it was all black and large, bat-like wings lazily shifted in the wind.

“Hey, you’re a thestral, aren’t you?” he asked it, and it stepped closer, it’s face level with his. “Yes indeed you are.”

Yet there was something familiar about it’s presence, as though this creature knew him, but he’d never seen or been near one his whole life. It did seem odd that it would just approach him like that.

“Good to have some company,” he said, sitting down and getting back to work. He conjured a few floating lights so he may see better, and carried on the reassembly, while the thestral kneeled down beside him. For a few hours, they sat in silence well into the darkest hours of night.

It wasn’t until he saw the lights go out in Hagrid’s hut that Chey started feeling drowsy, so he put away his project with a wave of his hand and started to head back to the castle. He felt a tug on his robes as he started his march, and found the thestral had for some reason hindered his progress.

“Now what do you want?” he asked the creature as he patted it on the head. “Haven’t got a care in the world, do you? Lucky stiff. You’ll never believe this: my aunt wants me to transfigure three rooms into one in a single stroke of magic without a wand. I don’t know how I’m going to figure that out. I got to the end of the month, but I doubt it’ll be long enough.” He then remembered the terms of their bargain. “Hey, I’m still under curfew. And it’s late. And you knew that, didn’t you?” He could only marvel at the thestral’s intelligence.

“Thank you very much for reminding me,” he said, scratching the creature behind the ears. “Now it’s just a matter of sneaking in.”

He looked at the outer walls of the castle. There was no way he could scale them, and even if he could, he had no idea which of the dozens of windows were to his dormitory.

“Gonna have to infiltrate,” he said, the hint of a smile crossing his face. “See you around, my silent friend.

He entered the great oak doors and ducked into the corner. Right away, he changed into the silver fox with black tinged fur and took off, keeping close to the shadows. The color of his fur lent itself very well to blending in with both dark areas as well as moonlit locales. By moving quickly in the light, and holding quite still in the dark, he could become nearly invisible.

Leaping up the many staircases went quite smoothly, but upon reaching the seventh floor he had to stop. A mangey old cat was prowling the hallway, and they nearly bumped into each other.

Thinking he could scare it away, he tensed up and growled. His plan failed, however, for the cat arched and growled right back at him quite loudly, hissing menacingly. Apparently, the cat’s growl was meant as a signal, for immediately Chey heard limping footsteps coming from around the corner.

“What is it, Mrs. Norris?” came an old and spiteful voice, and lantern light began to illuminate the hall.

Chey panicked. To be spotted like this would not be beneficial to his situation. Certainly, this cat worked closely with whoever was coming down the hall, and no doubt they would investigate the scene so he couldn’t hide. But if he ran away, the cat would follow!

An insidious laugh pierced the darkness from the opposite direction, followed by the clattering of steel. Taking a gamble, Chey dove for the shadows and remained still as the footsteps came ever closer.

“PEEVES!!” cried the owner of the footsteps, who continued past Chey in the direction of the noise. “NOT THE ARMOR AGAIN!! I SWEAR, I’LL HAVE YOU OUT FOR THIS ONE!!”

Could it be the poltergeist actually had a use? Only hours before Chey had been cursing Peeves in words he would never use in polite company. He almost wished he could take back what he’d said earlier about the troublemaker.

The rest of the way back to the common room was uneventful, and he managed to say the password just as the woman in the portrait was dozing off.

He found the common room to be empty, as expected. He was about to head upstairs when a tapping at the window caught his attention.

“Damn you’re one fast bird,” he said, letting Raithe in the window. “Here to France and back in thirty-six hours.”

Taking the letter from the bird, he opened it to find Fleur’s handwriting.

“Chey,

Your answer came so quickly. I hope you allowed Raithe some time to rest.

Thank you for your confidence. Jacqueline says I’m odds on one of the favorites to be picked for champion. My only real competition is one of my old boyfriends, Louie (who’s still furious with you) and Ashley. You remember her, the brunette who kept mouthing off to you during Transfiguration.

I hope your research goes well. Professor Dufendere, who’s deciptively quite knowledgeable in the nature of magic, told me wandless magic is the hardest there is. Of course, that’s just like you to take the hard road. I know you’ll get through it, though.

I hope you’ll be able to come watch the challenges if I’m chosen. Even if I’m not, I’d still love to see you.

Still missing you every day, and Beauxbatons seems empty without you. Best of luck in your research.

Fleur.”

“I’ll need luck to figure out Aunt ‘Em’s task,” he said to himself. Then to Raithe he said, “Go ahead and rest up. I’ll send her something later.”

Raithe cawed in understanding, and flew out the open window. He turned away from the window and started towards the dormitories, but stopped.

Barely visible in the light of the glowing embers in the fireplace was a young girl about third year with intense red hair asleep on the couch. Strewn around her were several sheets of parchment and a potions book. She looked as though she had fallen asleep during the course of her work.

Chey picked up a pillow from the couch and threw it at her. She woke with a start.

“Twelve-thirty,” he said.

“Oh, right.” She slowly scrambled to collect her belongings. Feeling kind of bad about the rude awakening he had given her, he helped her pick up the pages.

“Third year potions,” he said, quickly scanning the pages. “Fond memories. Tried to develop a quick-brew Veritaserum, ended up dissolving the table and everything on it.”

“Snape is a bloody monster,” she said quite passionately.

“Ouch. Not a fan, eh?”

“Nobody is, unless you’re in Slytherin,” she said, now shoving pages into her bag. “The man absolutely hates Gryffindors.”

“Could be worse.”

“No, it can’t.”

“Heh, heh. You’re the last Weasley child I haven’t met, aren’t you?”

“How can you tell?”

“Red hair, underlying calm demeanor, your whole ‘it can’t be anything other than what I say it is’ attitude.”

“Perceptive,” she noted. “Ginny Weasley. And you’re Professor McGonagall’s nephew.”

“I sure hope so,” he said, “because I’m holding onto all his stuff.”

“My brothers Fred and George told me about you.”

It took Chey a moment to remember who they were. “Oh yeah, Tweedles Dee and Dum.”

“W-what?” she asked in total disbelief.

“Nicknames seemed to fit,” he explained. “They accepted them as such.”

“Which one is which?”

“I’m letting them figure that out.”

“And what would you call me?” she asked with amused interest.

“Well, seeing as you’re the youngest Weasley,” he thought for a moment, “I’d have to say ‘Kiddo.’”

“Whatever,” she laughed, and without really waiting for anything, headed up the stairs to the girls’ dormitory.

It was only now that Chey realized how vastly different the Weasleys were compared to each other.

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Author's note.

Yes, there have been delays. I've suffered some severe writer's block (and still am), but I've decided to wait it out by going over the books yet again. This has helped me immensely. Before, I had only a vague idea of what would happen. Now that I've got a better understanding of the line of events, I can better plan what Chey will do (and why he does it). Still, nothing's concrete, only putty in my hands (and about six pages of notes so far).

Here's a teaser of what I have brewing in the incredible cranium that is my head. Expect friction. That's all I'm saying. Total cop out, I know.

In the meantime, check out the fun I've been having with Flash. Stop by the Spirit of Fear page on my website (link on my profile).

Again, thank you all for reading and sending me your feedback. I also welcome speculation. Why? Because speculation tells the author the audience is involved. I like knowing I've activated some neurons now and then.

Until next chapter (or whenever I manage to get this block off my keyboard)! Thanks for bearing with me, everyone!

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