The Kindly Ones

The Kindly Ones

Chapter Thirteen

And the Penguins Shall Attack . . . . .

Disclaimer: If the universe is indeed infinite and any thing can happen, then maybe and possibly I still don’t own Harry Potter.


Thankyou very much for beta’ this story, Licelli and Ashley you both deserve a round of applause.

\"Today Is A Good Day For Someone Else To Die!\" -- (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)


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The hospital wing of Hogwarts was almost deserted, except for Poppy Pomphrey and Draco Malfoy. Poppy peered down at the sleeping figure of the Slytherine and sighed. Damn that was seven sickles and Hooch was never going to shut up about wining their bet. She had been so sure Harry Potter would be the first to be placed in the Hospital wing this year. Which didn’t mean that Harry didn’t have something to do with the blonde’s appearance.

She had found the unconscious boy, sprawled over one of the hospital bed’s. With his clothes covered in dried in blood she had feared the worse but a quick charm cleaned him up and she discovered nothing wrong with the boy except some recent scars around his neck.

Pulling the curtains around his bed Poppy smiled she was going to enjoy his explanations in the morning about how he got here; covered in blood and unconscious.

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The female prefect’s bathroom was very quiet; most of the school were in bed fast asleep, ‘Lucky Bastards.’ Hermione thought to herself. She was tired as she had been up late looking for information about Harry’s new problem. ‘When did he not have a problem, and when was it not left up to her to solve it for him.’ There were times when she wondered if the boys would forget their heads if she wasn’t there to tell them where they were; and sometimes they were firmly entrenched where the sun didn’t shine.

It had taken her most of the week to find any information about Harry’s new family history, and eventually she had fallen back to the few books in Hogwarts library that dealt with muggle mythology. The wizards had carefully eliminated all information about the Erinyes in their own books but the myths that she had been able to find were very interesting and she was going to enjoy the look on Harry’s face when he heard them. ‘The small pleasures of life.’ She didn’t mind doing this for him but she wished that sometimes the lazy bugger would do his own work.

Erinyes could be found in ancient Greek and Roman muggle mythology. She knew she had recognised some of the names in Harry’s papers. Goddesses identified with Roman furies. They were a type of mythic police force for the gods.

Created when the drops of blood from Uranus castration hit the ground. Harry’s face was going to be priceless; she needed to borrow a camera! Though it made her wonder how you explain that to your kids when they ask where babies come from.

They were also known as the ‘Eumenides’ meaning ‘The Kindly Ones’ or ‘The Gracious Goddesses’ a name meant to flatter them, to avoid their wrath. They had a terrible temper and were considered the protectors of the social order. Their essential function was to avenge crime and especially offences against the family. The big punishment was to send their victims mad and send them to Hades.

The Eriniyes were grouped with the Moirae or Parcae ‘The Fates.’ and as such they had no laws other than their own, which even Zeus had to obey. In the pictures that she had been able to find, they had been depicted as winged spirits with their hair entwined with snakes and the furies held whips or torches in their hands. Which explains the whip in Harry’s little box.

The Erinyes were only known to be three in number and she had found their names Tisiphone, Alecto and Megaera. Tisiphone was the name of the Erinyes who had written Harry’s letter.

All this information was well and good but next time the boys wanted some research done they could move their lazy arses and do it themselves; just as long as Ron was not allowed near any potential explosives.

Pulling her clothes off for the bath. Hermione sighed and pushed all thoughts of other people’s problems from her mind and eased herself into the large marble pool that was the centre piece of the female prefect’s bathroom, with its impressive statue of a phoenix perched in the centre of the swimming pool sized bath.

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Draco rubbed his face; all he wanted was some dreamless Harry Potter free Sleep. When he got to sleep for the past week all his subconscious had been able to sprout were worrying repeats of Tuesday night. Where after being knocked out by boy wonder, ‘he had not fainted!’ Draco Malfoy does not faint. He had woken up in the infirmary with a headache, and a sore shoulder. With the thought ‘Harry Potter’s turned into a vampire. Just what the world bloody needs.’ running through his foggy mind.

Poppy had been standing at the end of his bed when he had woken up and for a moment he thought he was back in one of Blaise’s his room mate’s, sexual fantasy’s. It had taken him an hour to convince her he had not taken up sleep walking and didn’t need to miss the second day back at school. When he checked himself over later to prove to Dumbledore that Potter was dangerous, he was surprised to find no trace of Potter’s attack on him except for a few scars in a strange pattern on his shoulder.

He had then taken care to avoid Potter and his self righteous little groupies for the rest of the week at least during the day but had had a problem at night; for some reason every time he had drifted into snoozy land his control over his power to dream walk had slipped and he had found himself in Potter’s dreams.

It was driving him mad and he was ready to just go up to the boy wonder and scream in his face. “Why won’t you go away!!!!” in sheer frustration.

What ever had happened that night he was trying to skilfully avoid thinking about and hopefully nothing more was going to happen. Maybe if he never mentioned it, nothing would happen. Yeah, and he was Harry Potter’s greatest fan.

Luckily it was Saturday with no classes and no Potter. He could sleep: not in his own comfortable warm bed, true but he was going to get some snooze; behind the Slytherin quidditch stands where no one would bother him.

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Harry hoped Hermione was going to come up with a good explanation for the past week. She deserved mega-sized thanks for her help. He had tried to catch Malfoy by himself and talk to him about what happened. He had been waiting for a furious Snape to appear and drag him off because of him attacking the Slytherine, but nothing happened.

After Tuesday night he had been finding himself shifting into that blue space he had been in when the whip had appeared in his hand and Draco had attacked him.

It was freaking him out because each time he heard those sounds and they were getting louder and his fangs were popping out. All he needed was some hysterical first year to spot them and he was going to have a another Chamber of Secrets on his hands.

It had been happening during class and when he was at his meals. When he had sneaked back to his room the whip had shrunk down into his hand. He had found it comforting for some reason, and had found himself carrying it around in his pockets under his school robe. Each time he slid into the blue space, he found it in his hand.

Luckily though his dreams had been more normal, he had not gone back to the mist world. It had all been perfectly normal; if he told himself that often enough he would begin to believe it.

It was Saturday and for the first time in months he was going to get the chance to fly. Ron and a whole lot of others had organised a quidditch game. It was just what he needed to relax.

The sky was cold and clear when they started gathering on the pitch to begin the game. It was a crisp morning and everyone was wearing an extra jumper but they would warm up as soon as the game began.

Off in the distance Hagrid was feeding one of his new pets in the school’s animal pens. The rest of the school was still sleeping in and only a few students were wandering the school grounds. Harry watched his fellow Gryffindors and others wander out onto the pitch. It was just what he needed to relax after another screwed up week where ‘Potter’s luck’ was aptly demonstrated.

He stroked the leather handle in his pocket while Ron split the teams and everyone got into place to start. Ginny was going to act as referee for the match and released the snitch and bludgers to start.

Harry felt the wind blow under his glasses and into his face cutting into his eyes making them water as he made a fast circuit of the playing field. The fresh smell of cut grass and the lake swept into his nose and he smiled. It was great to get away from everyone and only have one thing to worry about, now where was that blasted snitch. Scanning the ground and air around him Harry slid into a rise and twisted in the air to survey the arena. Seeing Hagrid out of the corner of his eye and Colin who was acting as the other team’s seeker at the other end of the pitch and completely missing the dark cloud approaching from over the forbidden forest.

Harry perched on his broom high above the pitch and cleaned his glasses on his shirt. The sun was above the horizon and the game was in full swing. “Thump . . .Thump . . .Thump” It was the same noise he had been hearing, lately in his head starting again in the middle of a game. Well he should have known; he was surprised he even got up into the air to play, without something to screw it up.

Sliding on his glasses he swung around the playing field and ignored the sounds in his mind. In the distance a noise like seagulls at the seaside but a hundred time louder, faintly drifted into the school grounds. Below the forests edge Hagrid stopped feeding his new pets. He threw a startled look at the approaching cloud and begun running to the students playing on the school pitch.

Firmly ignoring any noise, Harry followed the golden glint of the snitch he had spotted a minute ago. This is what he lived for, the thrill of the chase and the satisfaction of the capture. Focused on the golden prize he missed his team mates’ fast paced game slow down and stop, as they heard the riotous noise of the approaching cloud. And Hagrid’s distant shouts of warning.

Harry almost completely missed Ron’s yells for his attention. Almost, when a bludger missed his head by a meter he slammed to a stop and turned to snarl at his friend who was only meters away. And saw the look on Ron’s face, reminding him of how he had looked at eleven when he had first seen Fluffy. The beating noise inside of his head thundered through his mind. “Oh no.” he muttered under his breath.

“Harry behind you!”

Closing his eyes Harry grimaced and rotated his broom. He opened them again, to see a vast black cloud emerge from out of the forbidden forest and head straight for the quidditch pitch, the cloud’s high pitched screeches, ear piercing. As he sat in mid air the boy-that-wondered-why-he-bothered-to-get-up-in-the-morning saw, as they got nearer that the cloud was made up of hundreds upon hundreds of birds.

Their bodies were a gun metal grey, comparable in size to Fawkes. The feathers on their wings glistened under the morning sunlight and their calls made the skin on the back of his neck crawl.

“Hey Ron, How much of a chance do you think we have that they’re nice and just want to be our friends?” Ron shook his head,

“Not bloody likely.” Below them Hagrid had reached the field and they could here him telling them to land.

Yelling at the top of his voice Ron called the other Quidditch players.

“Right time to go inside every one get their arses into gear and get out of the air.” While they had been talking, the birds had flown closer and were within fifty meters of the pitch. Harry saw Colin staring at the birds with his camera out, lost in his own world.

“Ron you get everyone inside I’ll drag Colin in.” Saying this Harry speed across the pitch to the oblivious seeker.

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Down below, Draco had been quietly sleeping. He had quickly drifted off and was happily dead to the world. So when he was woken by the ear piercing shrieks of the Stymphalian’s, for that is what hey were; he was not happy, to say the least. Grumbling under his breath he cursed Potter.

“I just know it’s his fault; first sleep I get in a week, of course it’s going to be his fault.”

Scrambling to his feet he walked out onto the Quidditch pitch and ground to a halt as he saw the cloud of birds enter the field as Harry ‘bloody hero’ Potter flew towards them.

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“Colin, Colin!” Harry screamed at the boy who was still taking pictures. “Colin, listen to me you little bastard!” This got the Gryffindor’s attention.

“Oh Harry isn’t this great, those birds look so cool! I just had to get a picture.” Snatching the camera out of his hands Harry pointed towards the last of the teams landing and running towards the changing rooms.

“Forget about your bloody camera for once, head towards the changing rooms I’m right behind you.” Colin speed off and as such missed the first hail of silver feather showered towards the-boy-that-lived.

Spinning in the air towards the changing rooms. Harry felt a breath of cold slid along his check. The birds were only twenty meters away he needed to get undercover. Something wet touched his lips; he didn’t think it had started raining his tongue touched his lips to find blood, and finally his check started to sting. ‘What the hell?’

He saw silver flashes fly around him and felt a stinging breeze cut through the material of his trousers just below his left knee and quickly felt his leg flare into pain. Grasping his broom tightly Harry ignored the pain, and headed straight for cover. In his mind he could feel the noise in his head thrum through his body echoing every heartbeat, louder than the screams of the birds.

Something hit his broomstick just above his right hand, and remained stuck in the wood glancing down he saw a feather made of metal caught half way into the wood of the broom stick. He felt another blow to his left leg this time below his knee. Gritting his teeth he swore and urged the broomstick on to faster speeds.

Blood dripped freely down his face and onto the collar of his baggy sweatshirt. He couldn’t see it but he bet that the wounds on his legs were bleeding profusely as well. Blue lights began to tinge the edges of his vision. Looking below him he saw Malfoy standing, staring up at his mad flight gaping.

The birds behind him also saw the blonde Slytherin and some broke of from their chase of Harry to fly towards the other teen. As Harry felt blood drip of his chin his head felt faint and the noises in his mind flooded his thoughts, blue lights flashed under his eyes and the last thing Harry saw was Malfoy’s face as he lost his grip on his broomstick and began to fall.

AUTHORS NOTE

Hopefully this explains some things about what is happening. Next chapter things should heat up and we can see Harry use his whip.

Thankyou heaps for reviewing. I wish I could reply to all of them, but all I can say is you have my complete and utter thanks it keeps me going. Thankyou heaps.

I don’t know when I’ll have internet next so enjoy and I will try my hardest to get back
on.

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