The Three-Headed Dog

The first week at Hogwarts was rapidly coming to a close; Harry and Ron were now up to there elbows in homework, Transfiguration, Charms, History of Magic, and Herbology. Friday presented three new classes, Double Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and flying lessons. Harry was looking forward to all three, apparently Professor Snape’s Potions classes had become a bit more tolerable this year according to Fred and George thought they couldn’t imagine why. Harry felt it was probably indirectly his fault. Breakfast brought however a much gloomier Andrew to the Great Hall, even though it was his free day the American looked pale and irritable. “Occulemency is a lot harder than I thought,” he muttered rubbing his forehead. He held up his ivory wand with a zigzag motion his wand transformed into a wooden samurai sword. “Suppose to change completely into metal if done right, looks like I got a lot to do.”

“Still it’s bloody brilliant, can you teach us that?” Ron asked brightly.

Andrew looked slightly taken aback by Ron’s comment. “Not sure I’ll ask Professor Dumbledore, but he’ll probably tell me to wait a year.”

“Oh darn,” Ron stated Cho and Hermione surprisingly enough showed up together. “What are you doing with her?” he asked Cho in irritation.

“Met in the library,” Cho stated happily not picking up Ron’s irritation.

Cho and Hermione began talking earnestly about the amount of books they read. Harry was busy eating some toast waiting for the morning mail to arrive, which happened only on Friday’s. Just as he finished completing that thought several hoots and one screech sounded above them. Everyone looked up to see several owls and one eagle fly over the Great Hall delivering parcels. Andrew caught the parcel Blazer dropped before the huge eagle headed back out. Hedwig swooped in low dropping Harry a letter from his mom, a copy of the Daily Prophet, and some sweets. “Thanks Hedwig,” watching the snowy owl fly out of the Great hall. He opened the letter and smiled then folded up the letter and put it in his bag turning to the Daily Prophet. Opening it he scanned the front page for anything interesting as he heard Neville gasp in both shock and delight. Looking up he saw Neville clutching a small item about the size of a large marble.

“A Rememberall, very cool Neville,” Ron stated in awe.

Neville blushed slightly looking at it, “My Gran sent she knows I forget a lot. If it glows red it means,” he paused as the item in question quickly began to glow red. “It means I forgotten something. Thing is I don’t know what I forgot?”

Andrew was watching a moment, “Well your grandmother would of sent what you forgot from home, been sending it all week. So you probably forgot a homework assignment or a book.”

Neville’s eyes widen a bit and the Rememberall’s red glow vanished. “I forgot my potions book.” He was about to get up when Draco Malfoy appeared snatching the rememberall from Neville’s grasp.

“What’s this?” he asked in his drawling voice. Neville made to snatch it back only to have one of Malfoy’s flunkies Crabbe holds him. Draco took a step toward the Slytherin table only to fall to the ground looking up he saw Andrew slowly standing his wand out and taking his foot away from.

“Wow, Malfoy I would think with the money your family has you wouldn’t resort to theft,” the American stated.

Malfoy glared coldly standing up thrusting the rememberall back into Neville’s hand. “You’ll be joining Potter one of these days, Walker.”

“Hope so because when that day arrives I’ll make sure every Death Eater gets one ticket straight to hell,” Andrew stated grimly looking directly into Draco’s eyes.

“Crabbe, Goyle,” Malfoy snarled before the three left the area.

“What are Death Eater’s?” Harry asked.

“Followers of Voldemort,” Andrew stated sitting back down taking a quick glance. “You okay Neville?”

Neville sniffled but nodded heading toward the main entrance no doubt heading off to get his Potions book. Harry returned to eating while looking at his newspaper and nearly spit his milk all over Cho it took a great of amount of gulping to get down the milk and it hurt a lot. “Hey listen to this:

“Believe to the work of dark witches or wizard’s unknown Gringotts vault 713 was broken into. The Goblins however insisted that the vault in question had been emptied earlier that same day. So nothing was stolen.”

“That’s the vault Hagrid and I went to,” Harry stated.

“Well what was in the vault?” Cho asked.

Harry frowned slightly, “A little package not much to it really. Hagrid said it was Hogwarts business really secret.”

“Sounds to me like Professor Dumbledore had a feeling whatever that package was would be nicked,” Ron stated.

They all shared a quiet moment thinking everything over, when the first bell began to ring. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all grabbed their Potions book, while Cho snatched her Transfiguration book. Friday being Andrew’s free day and feeling bored decided to take Harry’s Potions class; snatching up his notebook he followed them into the Dungeons.

The Dungeons where the Potions class took place were dark and dingy, with wreaking smells of the like Harry had never smelled before. They had Potions with Slytherin, so Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy along with several other Slytherin first years were filing in. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Andrew quietly filed in as we taking seats. Hermione sat with Neville, while Harry and Ron together; Andrew however took a seat in the back of the room that wasn’t in front of a cauldron.

No sooner had the last student taken his or her seat, and then a loud bang rang from the back of the classroom. “There will be no foolish wand waving or silly incantations in this class,” Snape stated coolly. “So many of you will not believe this is magic,” he explained in a subtle voice glancing at each student. “However I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses, I show you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stop to death,” he stated with a rather delicate flourish. “So we will begin with a simple potion with only three ingredients, it’s called the Wiggenweld Potions,” he paused looking at the students gathered. “Can anyone explain the properties?”

He saw only three hands shoot up, Hermione, Andrew, and surprisingly to him Harry. “Very well Mr. Potter, explain the properties.”

“Wiggenweld potion is a minor healing potion that heals minor cuts and injuries,” Harry explained eyes closed trying to remember his mother’s tutoring.

“Very good Potter, yes that is the property of this particular potion. If brewed correctly I will give you marks for them and allow you take your bottles with you,” Snape stated and with a swish of his wand the instructions for the potions were on the board glittering bit.

Harry gathered the ingredients then he and Ron began working on their potion. According to Potion book the Wiggenweld potion was to turn purple if done right with purple steam rising. About mid way through the lesson Harry and Ron’s potion turned the proper color. Snape during this time asked Andrew why he was in the classroom and when the American replied with his honest answer the potions master couldn’t say anything more.

After Potion’s class, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Andrew started to leave after everyone else, but once they stepped out of the door they were stopped by none other than, Draco Malfoy and his Goons, Crabbe and Goyle.

“Well, well, well, we meet again Potter. This time you won’t be so lucky!” he pulled out his wand, and pointed it at the young Gryffindor, Andrew had pulled out his wand too, but Crabbe and Goyle, had snuck up behind him (surprisingly, because of how thick they were) and Goyle held him in a head lock, while Crabbe grabbed his wand, and started to twirl it in his fat sausages, of fingers. “Don’t think so. Not this time! Dumb American!” Draco started to walk around the boy; laughing Draco was distracted so Harry pulled out his own wand, as slowly as he could. Then finally stunned Draco, Crabbe and Goyle, leaving them on the ground, with stupid looking expressions on they’re faces.

“Nice one Harry!” Andrew high-fived is friend. Hermione and Ron looked amazed, then too gave Harry a high-five, and started to walk off, hoping they wouldn’t be caught. It wasn’t ten seconds when they heard Filch’s voice behind them, “Who stunned these students? It’s enough that I have to clean up mud but students now too? That is enough! If I find out who did this, they will be in serious trouble!” The four who had been laughing at the caretakers outrage, stopped dead when they were met face to face with his cat, which ran off, behind them, to her master. They all listened carefully to see what Filch would say to this, when…

“What’s that my sweet? Students?” then they heard heavy footsteps, running toward them, so they all started in a dead sprint, when they finally found a door that wasn’t a classroom. They went inside of it. Listening closely from behind it, to see if Filch was coming, they heard nothing, so they turned around to be faced with a black-furred, yellow teethed, gigantic, three-headed dog. The four of them screamed bloody murder, and ran out the door, and locking it behind them, running down the hallway, until, the got to the Great Hall’s doors. They sat on the floor, against the wall opposite of the doors, breathing heavily.

When finally, Ron spoke, “What…do they…think…they are…doing…keeping a… thing like… that locked… in a school?” he said between breaths.

Andrew answered him,” It was standing on a trap door, which means it’s guarding something,” Hermione nodded in agreement, too out of breath to say something.

“Guarding what?” Harry asked, “Not that thing from the vault at Gringotts? Is it?”

Andrew shook his head, “I don’t know, but I think, it might be.”

“We’ve got to tell Cho,” Hermione said.

They all nodded, when Cho was standing in front of them, “Tell me what?”

Harry sighed then related everything as the whole group moved tower the Gryffindor tower, at the landing to the tower the whole story was relayed. Cho looked at Harry with some concern, “What’s a Cerberus doing in a school?”

“A what?” Ron asked looking confused.

“A Cerberus is a huge three headed dog that once guarded Hades underworld in Greek Mythology,” Hermione stated. Ron still looked clueless but after her explanation she looked irritated as well. “Now before any of you gets any more ideas about getting us killed, detention, or worse expelled.” Hermione turned on her heal muttering the password before walking into the portal. Andrew and Cho waved to Harry and Ron before departing for their common room.

With that Harry and Ron disappeared into their common and started doing homework before bed.

Author’s Note: Chapter 9 is finished thanks in part to my new co-author Cho Raven Black hopefully things will go faster until this is over.