71 Year Three - Chapter Twenty-Two

Remus Lupin had been preparing a practical test that would involve running through a field while facing some minor problems, like angry fairies, petulant Bowtruckles, and stuff that could easily be dealt with by using the third year's curriculum. Alastor Moody approved of it, but in a different, and quite more dangerous way.

I had gotten my hands on a pair of goggles, put them on together with a hard hat, and charmed them to be Impervius to splatters and mud. It was the only normal thing I could do. It was that, and come to enjoy the taste of mud.

"Run, you pansies!" Alastor would snap every now and then. "You can't block an Unforgivable! You can only suffer it less you dodge it! Constant vigilance!" Stinging jinxes would soar through the air, and some of us would cradle our swelling arms while hidden behind makeshift barricades of risen mud and dirt.

I half expected someone to start having flashbacks to the Vietnam war, but it wasn't the case. Thankfully, the most that Alastor got around to were the stinging spells, and some jelly-legs, and a couple even got hit with a practiced Incendio in their asses when they were too slow. Nothing that would leave permanent scars, unless one felt that trauma was a part of it.

We crawled beneath obstacles, and avoided swings of venomous plants. We climbed on wooden walls with ropes. We clutched arms with one another to pull up our fellow students. This wasn't a Defense Against the Dark Arts class. This was an Army Boot Camp, where the boot came down on our asses, and our only hope was that he'd be nicer to those of the lower years.

I didn't want to think about what the higher years had to deal with, though considering how there was a training course set up in the Forbidden Forest, I dimly wondered if anyone would die this year due to Moody's hands-on training regime.

The fourteen of February saw something change. Namely put, my owl, which had pretty much stopped existing in my mind if not as a convenient way of communicating with the wizarding world's post-delivery system, delivered to me a few pink and rosy scented chocolate boxes that came from Honeydukes that very morning while at the dining hall for my routine breakfast.

I looked at them. It was Valentine's day, and someone had sent me chocolate.

I sighed, and then popped the boxes open. It was obligatory chocolate, I reckoned, though I would have expected such a practice to not be done past Japan's schooling system. I hoped no one would look at me and go 'Shade-Sempai, aishiteru' with stars sparkling in their eyes, wearing a sailor uniform and then giggling like a lunatic. I wouldn't survive that.

"Now how do I send the gift back? When do I even have to?" I grumbled. My memory was utterly faulty about these kind of things. What was the day one had to return the favor of chocolate? One month later? Three months later? In March? May? August?

"Look at the lucky guy," Terry Boots remarked from the table. "Getting chocolate on valentine, uh? Guess the Order of Merlin's a surefire way to get into a ladies' heart."

I shrugged. "Jealousy doesn't really suit you, Terry," I replied. "Be witty and charming, not jelly. It's bound to work."

I closed the lid on the chocolate boxes, and shrank them in order to more easily carry them away in my pockets. Since there hadn't been any message, it was pretty clear that those who sent them were just admirers.

"You're not going to eat them?" Amanda asked, looking at the chocolate boxes.

"Moody made me paranoid enough that I'm going to check them for Love Potions, Poisons, Curses and finally I'll taste them later," I answered with a small shrug. "I'm not that much of a chocolate fan myself. I prefer coffee-flavored stuff."

"There are some chocolates with coffee fillings," Amanda said, before hastily adding, "That's what the box says anyway."

"I see," I gave her a small nod. "So you think that maybe they might have cursed the coffee within? I suppose I'll have to test the single ingredients of the chocolate-" I rubbed my chin in thought, utterly trying to hold back the laughter at the sight of Amanda's ever growing chagrined face. I reckoned she had wanted to gift me something as thanks for suffering through her Quidditch practices and her general 'Try to die' attitude. "I'm kidding," I said with a chuckle. "Thanks for the chocolate, Amanda. I guess it was you, Wayne and Megan," I continued, since I had received three boxes. "I didn't think about giving any of you chocolate though."

"It's all right," Amanda said quickly, "Gifts given because you want something in return aren't really gifts, they're bribes," she continued.

I chuckled at that. "Thanks then."

The chocolate was actually quite tasty, all things considered. I doubted any of the three would actually dip the stuff in Love Potions after all. As I mulled over the thought and chewed on a toffee, glancing at the statue of Salazar Slytherin in my Hall of Shadows, I raised my wand. "Draconifors," I chanted, pointing my wand at the statue, which began to ominously creak and bend as a fiery red light left the tip of my wand and began to swirl angrily at the statue, encasing it in a fiery flame.

The stones that composed the statue shattered as the heat of the flame increased, countless bones of rats and small critters spewing out from its innards, probably where the Basilisk digested its prey. The bones would need to be cleaned, but for the time being the statue had yet to finish its transformation. It twisted its stony neck, eyes ablaze.

"Draconifors," I growled once more, the crimson flames leaving my wand once more, and forcing the statue to bend even further on its hands, now transformed into claws. The neck elongated. The robes of stone shifted into scales. "Draconifors!" I bellowed, a stream of ruby-red flames once more departing my wand, and the stone statue snapped finally into its final form. Large, green and silver mottled wings and a sharp, snake-like snout told me that as much as I could transform the statue into a dragon, something would still remain of its previous form.

Its tail twitched, and its eyes blazed as it bent its neck, awaiting my command.

This would be temporary, unless rendered permanent.

"You serve me, Shadowdrake," the tongue-in-cheek reference to Shadowmere wasn't lost to my mind. Though there was little need to name the statue, since it wouldn't be doing much until it actually got a bit modified. Gargoyles weren't really all that difficult to deal with. A finite incantatem would stop them; a well placed Bombarda would shatter them. As cool as they looked and were, nine times out of ten, a wizard would easily be able to deal with a single gargoyle in a one on one fight. The larger the creature, the easier to hit it with spells too.

That was, of course, if one considered the Gargoyles as full chunks of rock. If one scooped out the insides of the Gargoyles, it made them considerably lighter, and frailer. If one then transfigured the stone into metal, for example, it made them stronger and tougher. If one put stone, molten stone, over them...then one had a simple enough looking Gargoyle that hid beneath it quite the dangerous surprise.

This was all theoretical, and the most I had managed was with the Draconifors spell, since it easily turned anything into a Gargoyle of sorts, but it didn't yet yield the results I had hoped for.

A piece of stone shaped like a Dragon would remain a moving Dragon-Gargoyle for longer than a non-Dragon shaped one, but at the same time, the Permanency Charm wouldn't stick for long. I reckoned if the Draconifors made permanent Dragon Gargoyles, then there would be countless dozens of those around.

Yet, this served my purpose for another reason. I couldn't render the Draconifors permanent, but I could definitely shape the stone in order for it to remain Dragon-like once the spell ended.

Then, I'd need to get the Dragon-shaped stone to become a Gargoyle, hence waste months to drill into every piece and limb how to properly work and function through extensive Charmwork.

And all of it would be ruined with a single, well-placed, Bombarda Maxima.

"They need shields," I hummed to myself, mostly, as the Dragon growled and bent its neck further to let me pat its snout. "Who's a wubbly-cutely-gentle dragon thingie? You are!"

The stone dragon purred, and then showed its fangs.

Truly, I had a purpose in my life now.

I had to protect its smile!