Chapter 7

In the recesses of the second highest tower in the castle, a woman sat plotting. Hogwarts was a surprisingly private place for an evil scheme to be designed and acted out if one were to go about it the right way. As it were, this woman, who liked to think of herself as dark and evil, was going about it the right way as no one seemed to suspect anything. If anyone had been in hearing range of this woman's lair, they would have heard maniacal laughter from the highest room of the second highest tower.

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The first snowfall was very early this year, and by the second week of October, there was a foot of snow covering the grounds and there was an inch of ice over most of the lake. Albus and Professor Parker had many more tea meetings over the weeks and had many discussions about the uses of Transfiguration in defense and dueling.

Unfortunately, Marissa was still ignoring Albus and he had no idea why. He never realized how much time he spent with her until she started ignoring him and he found himself quite bored.

One night, after finishing one of the books Professor Parker had lent him, he had nothing better to do so he decided to return it. He had a little over an hour until curfew so he took his time and made his way easily to the defense classroom where he was about to knock when the door opened for him.

Albus was about to step in when he was nearly trampled by the defense professor.

"Sorry, Albus, I didn't see you there."

"No, entirely my fault sir, I was just returning your book."

"Already! I certainly hope that this isn't interfering with your school work."

"No sir."

"Good, good. I was just going to get a snack from the kitchen, would you care to join me?"

"Sure."

As they walked they discussed Albus' classes and then the book Albus had just finished reading. When they reached the kitchens, Albus reached up and tickled the pear as Professor Parker's eyes danced with mirth.

As soon as they walked trough the door, they were immediately swarmed by the house elves offering them food. While Albus was polite with the elves, he didn't pay them much notice; that is until he noticed his Professor in a conversation with a few of them.

"How are you tonight Twixy?" The professor asked a particularly big-eyed house elf.

"I is being fine Master Harry Parker Sir." The elf squeaked out almost falling over.

"How many times do I have to tell you Twixy, just call me Harry or the most sir. It makes me feel creepy when people call me master."

"Yes sir, Harry, sir."

"Ah, well, close enough I suppose. Thank you Twixy."

"Pardon me sir," Albus tentatively began, "but why are you so insistent that the elves treat you as something of an equal?"

"Albus my boy," Dumbledore felt an odd feeling of warmth at being addressed this way, "every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him. For instance, do you know of the come and go room on the seventh floor?"

"No, I've never heard of it."

"I wouldn't have either if it hadn't been for my friendliness with the elves. You wouldn't believe the extent of their knowledge." A few of the elves fell over at being complemented so.

"I see. What does the come and go room do and where exactly is it?"

"It wouldn't do for me to tell you everything; the journey's half the fun!"

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In the third year's next Defense class, Professor Parker informed them that they would be going outside. An outcry over came the whole class until he conjured them cloaks and hit them all with a particularly strong warming charm. On the way there, Professor Parker started the lesson:

"Does anyone remember what we discussed last class?" He called on a young witch in the back.

"We started with the theory behind some basic defensive charms but our discussion went on a tangent about courage where the majority of the class argued your view on the issue."

"Spectacular summary Ms. Thatcher. Five points. Yes, it is true that we had a bit of a disagreement on the true nature and meaning of courage but I have found something so fantastically rare that I felt a small excursion to the grounds was necessary to illustrate my point. Come now, let us pick up the pace, I can hardly wait to show you this."

The group had to collectively move faster to keep up with the almost childishly excited professor and by the time they reached the doors he was practically skipping.

"I do apologize but until last night I hadn't seen this ever before but I had read about it…" He trailed off and judging by his level of excitement the students following him began to get excited. They knew just by looking that he had a lot of experience with DADA and their lessons only served to prove that fact. Judging by how excited the professor was and the fact that he had never seen it before had the class guessing wildly at what it could be.

Albus heard one of his dorm mates suggest that it was a troll-giant crossbreed that their professor would be fighting. A witch on his other side suggested to Marissa that it was a rabid house-elf. Needless to say, Albus was relieved for his kind of friend when she rolled her eyes, seemingly annoyed at the hair-brained comments being made around her.

They had walked most of the way across the ground and were about a hundred feet away from the Forbidden Forest when Professor Parker stopped suddenly, causing one boy who wasn't paying attention to crash into him. The boy fell flat on his back and the only reaction the professor showed was to turn around quickly and apologized to the young wizard before helping him up.

"Okay, everyone gather around and look down." Albus, along with the rest of the class looked down and the only thing that made the area anything more than a completely blank patch of snow was a relatively small flower that had bloomed slightly above the snow.

"What are we supposed to be seeing?" Someone asked from the crowd.

"The flower." The professor answered in a voice that still sounded awed.

"You made us all come out here for a flower?!?"

"Not just any flower," The Professor began but was cut off as a sudden cold burst through the warming charm around the class and the flower wilted a bit before it was iced over. "Children! Run back to the castle! Go!" He shouted at them before taking a few steps closer to the forest as five Dementors floated out and started moving towards him.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" He shouted as loud as he could while thinking about happy times long past and a brilliant white stag shot out of the tip of his wand and chased four of the Dementors back to the forest. The fifth, he soon realized was not a dementor but a witch or wizard, he couldn't tell through the cloak.

"Who are you?" He questioned pointing his wand at the stranger.

"I will be the next dark master of all!" The stranger said in an obviously disguised voice.

"Wouldn't Dark Lord be easier to say?" The professor questioned mockingly.

"I suppose. Diffindo!" The stranger shouted suddenly. Harry was able to step out of the way and he cast a binding charm at the stranger but his/her shield blocked it. They dueled like this for a few minutes and the only damage that Harry had sustained was a rather deep cut on his left bicep while he had managed to get a few hits on the stranger. Suddenly, the dark witch (or wizard) shot the killing curse at the professor that he dove away from, but when he hit the ground, the stranger was fleeing back into the forest.

As he stood back up he felt rather dizzy and was surprised to see so much blood on the snow. He hadn't realized that he had been injured so badly. He began to make his way back to the castle to check on the students to make sure there were no other intruders and to ensure the students in his class got some chocolate.

He was stumbling by the time he made it to the door of the castle and almost lost his balance completely when the door burst open in front of him and the headmaster and a few teachers walked out.

"What happened?" The headmaster asked without noticing Harry's condition.

"There were four Dementors and someone claiming to be the next dark lord. They came out of the forest while I was teaching near there. They all retreated back to the forest. Did all of the students make it back?"

"Yes, I do believe so. Come let us move this to my office. You can tell me what happened."

As Harry followed the headmaster to the stone gargoyle he began to feel really dizzy and just as the headmaster turned to comment to him about something, he collapsed.

A/N: I'm sorry this isn't as long as I would like it to be but I wanted to get it up so no one thought I was abandoning this story. If anyone is interested, there is a link on my profile to what I think the cover might look like if this had a cover.