A Darker Future: Bannister Sparke and the Peverell Penultiman

Folks! This is my first attempt at a fanfiction, or any longer fictional story in general.:lol: It’s a HP story, Post-DH, where we follow young Bannister Sparke and his friends of the New Dumbledore's Army (Featuring Rose Weasley and Hagrid and Maxime's son Adrian), who fights the Ministry of Magic, which has been corrupted by evil wizards.
Feedback is welcomed! And tips on how to improve my grammar! :lol: I haven’t quite figured out how the link thing worked but… it should be right in the Book Club ^^

Author's update 2009-08-24:
So, I started this fanfic two years ago. Friends of videogames might've noticed that the concept and storyline is basically ripped from that of Final Fantasy VII. The point is that it's very intentional. The idea was from the beginning to do a cross-over-fic (whatever that is... :whistle:) where I use the initial storyline of FFVII and refits it into the Post-DH Potterverse. So instead of Cloud, Tifa and Shinra, it's Sparke, Rose and the Minstry. So please, don't call me a fantasy-less, merciless madman. :no:

I don't remember why I thought this was a good idea - Today, I see it as a kind of stupid thing to do, instead of just inventing a unique storyline.
But heck - I've decided to continue writing, as I think it's incredibly fun, and a story's a story, right? :lol: An amateur borrows, a genius steals, If I wanted to justify myself. (Which I don't want to, really)
And I've freshened the plotline up a little, I'm trying to make it a lot more diversive and more off from the FFVII rippage as it was originally intended to, and I think it's going to be pretty great after all! And there's a BIG twist waiting at the end... ^^

Full Table of Contents:

Pt. 1
1. The Army Strikes
2. Old Friend
3. The Mugwump Soldiers
4. The Area With No Roofs
5. Panic Fight
6. They Should Rest in Peace
7. Enter the Ministry
8. Stone Cold
9. The Events of Godric’s Hollow, Five Years Ago
10. The Planning
11. The W.A.S Tracker
12. The Express (And it's horrors)
13. Adrian’s Mistake
14. Returning to Hogwarts
16. The Inferi Cave
17. Unburned
18. The House of Green and Silver
21. Azkaban

Pt. 2
22. Laid to Rest
23. Elephant and Castle
24. Lost in the Arctic
25. The Tom Riddle Reunion
26. The First Earthdragon
27. St. Mungo's
28. The Race for Felix Felicis pt. 1
29. The Past Life of Bannister Sparke
30. The Race for Felix Felicis pt. 2
31. The Race for Felix Felicis pt. 3
32. A Key
33. The Final Earthdragon
34. The Raid
35. Professor Wasp and His Crimes
36. The Wizengamot Widescape
37. Do You Remember That Dream?
38. The Lord's Head
39. The White Meteor
40. In My Mind
41. The Grand Climax
42. That Obligatorical Final Chapter Where A Wise Guy Appears From Nowhere And You Get To Know Everything, King's Cross Style :cool:



Chapter One..


The Hogwarts Express arrived at Platform 9 and three-quarters in a big clab of grayish smoke. Three people was awaiting the train's arrival: two grumpy-looking Aurors, who was guarding the entrance, and a conductor, who was making his way towards the nearest door. The train had departed from Hogsmeade six hours earlier, debunking students who was about to do another term at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and now it would remain empty at the Platform for another three months.
The engineer stretched his arms: it had been a long journey and he was eager to go home. Only thing left was to await the conductor to search the train for people. The engineer snorted at the thought: It was in all means unnecessary to search the train: Who on earth would want to stay HERE instead of Hogwarts? he thought. Surely there was no one left, no, not a single elf.

But this year, the engineer was dead wrong. Eight people was at the moment standing inside the first car, staring with tension in their eyes on the door that was soon to be opened by the conductor.

And as the conductor opened the door, he was immediately punched across the nose by the largest and eldest of the eight people: A man who was twice as large as a normal man, with hair and beard as black as his skin was white. He was actually twenty-eight but looked much older, and his well-tarnished robes witnessed about a tough life.
The Aurors reacted surprisingly slow: They had barely drawn their wands when a short man from the middle of the crew ran towards them.
‘STUPEFY!’ he shouted, and one of them collapsed in a hurl of black robes. The other one shot a Firing Jinx at the big man, but he repelled it. The second Auror tried to charge a more powerful enchantment, but it leaved him unguarded: a woman (who was the crowd’s only woman, her seven companions were all men) put a Body-Bind Spell that hit the Auror straight in the face. He collapsed immediately, landing on the platform floor with a large CLANK.
‘Nice one, El!’ said the short man ho had stupefied the first Auror.
The large man with the black beard hushed the short man with the raise of a hand: he seemed to sniff in the air for more Aurors to defeat. The woman called El looked from one side of the platform to the other, but it was deserted.
‘Let’s go, Hagrid’ she said to the large man, but he, once again, put up a hand for hushing. It was something of authority in the way the big man behaved: One could clearly see that he was the leader of the crew.
‘Homenum Revelio! Hmm… I think this will do’ he said, when his wand revealed the lack of human presence by emitting a fair, greenish, glow. ‘Partons!’
The crew all panted towards the exit in a line of two by two, everyone moving as if they’ve rehearsed it for hours. First the large man Hagrid, followed by a wizard with a face reminiscent of a fox: Then the short man and the woman El, who had a mane of stunningly beautiful, blonde-black alternating hair, a very sunburned skin and dark eyes who shone with excitement: Then came a thin man with a jokish expression on his face, accompanied by another man, probably the eldest apart form Hagrid, who had a feint moustache and red robes. Las were two men who looked as if they, too, were around twenty-eight. One who had curly, black hair and vivid blue eyes, dressed in the oddest set of muggle clothing you could imagine. His companion staggered behind a little: it was a man who had brown hair upheld by a metal headband of brightest gold and deepest purple. He had sand-colored robes that would’ve looked horrible on anyone else, but fitted perfectly with his green eyes. This man’s name was Bannister Sparke.

Bannister Sparke was for the moment very shy and quiet. He was the newest member in this crew; actually he signed up yesterday and was immediately set to bed to rest for this day’s big mission. He had barely had time to know anyone, but his flawless memory had already memorized everyone’s name: Adrian Hagrid was their leader, the son of the rumored half-giant Rubeus: Mario Thicknesse who was skilled: the short man Arnold McDillon: Hwakan Coote, the jokish man who was skinny but aimed well: Lumpus Woggles, who was at least thirty: Joaquin Norton, muggle-born with a weird taste of clothing, and finally Ellinora Polly, probably the most wonderful woman Sparke had ever seen.
In spite o spending such short time with these people, he could already sense that they were really nice lads, and he could barely wait to know them all.
They were all members of The New Dumbledore’s Army and this was their first attempt to destroy a Sucker.

As they exited King’s Cross station, still without further confrontations of Aurors, or worse, Skrewts, the chilly midnight air of London hit their faces, embroiling everyone with a feeling of freshness: There was not a soul in sight, apart from themselves.
Adrian Hagrid directed them all to the right and Sparke followed him, thinking. He looked up at the sickening, greenish glow that emitted from the sky: How could the Ministry allow themselves to do this?

It all began with the early resignation of Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister who had led an iconic leadership during the Years of Peace, stirring up a broken past and leading the wizarding world into a bliss of harmony. Then he resigned – No one knew why - and was replaced by old Basil Eisenhower, who immediately wrote an unbreakable law that the post of Minister would pass down to his sons. Strange, but Eisenhower quickly proved his qualities as a minister by rounding up the New Death Eater Regime AND the Dragon crisis in Romania in a time limit of three months. With troubles lost, the wizarding world was blooming and so Eisenhower decided to build seven Suckers across England. These machines could suck up magic from the very Earth itself, enabling a widely strengthened magical community and further expandations of the limits of magic: (For example, the Ministry had built The W.A.S Momentum, a top-modern wizarding village who had a harbor from which you could boat travel directly to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons). Many considered this a wonderful solution, but there was a few who thought this was a waste of energy, and that the Earth would die if this continued. Rebel groups formed, and tried to overrun the Ministry, but each attempt was less successful than the other. And as the wizarding world flourished in light of its new found power, Basil Eisenhower aged, until he fell down dead and was replaced with his brilliant son Gamon, the most outstanding Slytherin student in years.

Gamon Eisenhower decided that corruption had to be eliminated. Person after person in the Ministry was sacked and their successors were a bright mixture of evil people, the most vicious Slytherins, snatchers, tramps, morons, you name it. Just the fact that Gamon had made Gregory Goyle Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was enough to make more and more people doubt on the new Ministry. But each and every member of the new Ministry had been infused with the Earth’s magical power, making them exceedingly strong, spite their somewhat flawed intelligence.
About a year ago, there was a disastrous event. A number of earthquakes struck fear in the hearts of inhabitants of London, as a huge part of the town’s suburbs was destroyed. and the midnight sky shone with a sickening greenish glow. The wicked experiments of Suckers was too much for the Earth, and Professor Sinistra of Hogwarts predicted that if nothing was done to the Suckers, the world would perish in a matter of years.
But Gamon shook his head and continued to use the Earth’s magic for his own good. Despite his rather grumpy manners, this was a man who wasn’t particularly evil. He was just stupid, choosing the easiest way to a better society without a thought of the consequences.

As for today, there were still a majority who thought of Basil and Gamon Eisenhower’s idea as a great solution. Who cared about the planet when one could make a Firebolt out of a withering oak tree? But the unbelievers, the rebels, were gaining in numbers. The Ministry was a tough foe to tackle, and Sparke had always wondered: When would there be a rebel group who would actually succeed in bringing the Ministry down, destroying all the Suckers and restore health to the planet once and for all?
Three days ago, he had received a letter from one Adrian Hagrid with a request: He was looking for skilled wizards to join The New Dumbledore’s Army, (Named after the original Dumbledore’s Army, who had fought bravely against corruption in past years) a rebel group who was to overthrow the Ministry once and for all.

They were not far away now. Adrian walked with determination etched in his pale, big face towards a grass field just between two buildings. In a distance, Sparke could see the Triumph Fortress. Invisible to Muggles, the Triumph Fortress was built as a momentum and reminder of Basil Eisenhower’s many accomplishments. The Fortress was built entirely by the Earth’s magic, but it hosted no other purpose than of a memento. The thought of the Fortress always made Sparke throb with anger: It was a really good example how the new Ministry was wasting the Earth’s magic.

Those in the front rows was talking and laughing as if they were on a joyous vacation. Sparke felt his stomach ache with emotion - he hadn’t had a real friend since Hogwarts - but on the contrary, it seemed impolite just to walk to them and bust yourself into the conversation. Sparke stared at Ellinora Polly’s beautiful hair that swung backwards and forwards as she spoke lively to Hwakan Coote. Sparke felt a sting of jealousy – were those two the same age?
A pair of drunk Muggle boys waltzed on the other side of the road, their beer glasses gleaming in the moonlight.
‘Y’reckon they think we’re weird, walking with strange clothes at midnight?’ The muggle boy, Joaquin Norton had walked up to Sparke’s side. Sparke felt a rush of affection: Joaquin was talking to him, actually TALKING to him!
‘Maybe… But I guess they’re too drunk to notice.’ Sparke replied. Joaquin let out a laugh, a friendly, warming laugh. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’
Then they felt silent. Sparke thought desperately of something else to say, but Joaquin succeeded him.
‘So… how old are you?’
‘Twenty-eight’ said Sparke.
‘You and the rest of us’ said Joaquin. I’m the youngest one: Only Twenty six. Lumpus over there, he’s thirty-one. The rest of ‘em are all your age.’
‘Even Adrian?’
‘Yes’ Laughed Joaquin. You could think that the man’s about a hundred years old, but he’s actually twenty-eight. One could wonder how he will look like when he’s a hundred. Probably like a fossil.’

Sparke felt as if they had been friends for years. But as they begun to spoke about the Ministry, Sparke felt a familiar chill down his spine. Images flashed in his head, images of fire and a huge mansion. He thought unwillingly of those unhappy events ad Godric’s Hollow five years ago, of the man he had killed. No one of them needs to know, he thought. I will keep my secret until I die.

‘.. And it’s just unfair how Eisenhower can be so selfish.’ Joaquin said. ‘How he just can… oh!’
They had arrived at the grass patch. Adrian held up a hand.
‘Now we’re here’ he said, but the people in the front row kept on babbling. ‘This is the time when ye gonna bring down the bloody Ministry who’s punishing the… Oui! Écoutez!” Everyone fell silent at once. ‘Arnie, will ye come over ’ere an help me with this…”. A sudden warmth swooped over them: Sparke took of his headband.
‘Hey… I’ve seen you before!’ Joaquin was now looking at Sparke with excitement.
‘You were in Gryffindor?’
‘No, Hufflepuff’ said Sparke.
‘Oh.. but do you know Leonard Brown then?’ said Joaquin.
Sparke laughed. ‘Yeah, I had DADA classes with him in my sixth year. Total dork. Didn’t even know what a Grindylow was.’
Joaquin laughed. But before anyone of them could continue, the grass patch had disappeared. Instead there was a large tower, who looked as if it’s been made out of blackthorn. Dark, cold and unwelcoming, the tower seemed to vibrate slightly.
‘It’s a sucker!’ someone in the front rows yelled.
‘Well, that’ll do it fer everyone of us!’ said Adrian. ‘They were never good at Protective Charms, damn Ministry. Well, no time to spill. Partons!’
And one by one, the New Dumbledore’s Army entered the Sucker with the victorious feeling that, there would be only six of them left before dawn.

Chapter two: Old Friend

The sucker was no longer pitch black. The moment when they all stepped inside, the door closed, and several lamps ignited. The lamps revealed a staircase that was sickeningly familiar of the one who led to the Gringotts, and there was no way of seeing where it led to.
So the started to go down.

‘Wow… this is so dark.’ said the man with a fox-like face, whose name was Mario Thicknesse: he was looking at the walls. ‘D’you reckons the walls‘re made of blackthorn or something?’
‘More like dark marble’ said Joaquin, who had a hand on the wall as he walked. ‘It feels so cold.’
‘Hey!’ Ellinora was pointing at the floor as she walked. ‘What are all these small white things inside the stairs?’
Sparke looked down. Inside every other step or so, there were small white things who looked like no other thing that Sparke had ever seen. (And he had seen quite a lot of things in his life) The closest thing he could think of was shell animals. He thought about what it could be, but also what Ellinoras voice had sounded like: sweet, innocent and…. Knock it off, he told himself.
‘Maybe the Ministry’s been using dead animals as build material for their Suckers.’ said a raspy voice that belonged to the man with the moustache, Lumpus. He reminded Sparke of a movie admiral, the way he walked and talked.
‘Wouldn’ surprise me’ said Adrian from the front, his loud voice shaking with contempt. ‘Treacherous, bleedin’ old gits..’
‘No, wait a minute.’ Joaquin spoke from behind. (The still walked in lines of two by two, and Joaquin and Sparke were last) ‘These are fossils. They reside inside any kind of marble: Muggle museums are usually built with this kind of marble, and I’ve seen these white things before. It’s very common, really. And nothing dangerous.”
Sparke got the feeling that Joaquin had earned some kind of respect being the only muggle-born in the Army.
‘Look... We’re here!’

They had reached the bottom of the staircase, which led them to a great hall, still made of the same dark marble. There were no lamps: instead a weird, blue light danced on the walls. Sparke looked around. There was no floor: they were all standing on a rather broad bridge who led to the other side of the hall, were there seemed to be some kind of altar. Underneath the bridge there was a big hole, so deep that Sparke wouldn’t be surprised if it led down to the center of the Earth.
But the hole was not pitch black, like big holes used to be. Instead it was blue, like the blue shimmer from the walls, and Sparke suddenly realized that the blue light was emitting from the hole, and the marble reflected it.
‘Oh, gross.’
‘Sickening.’
‘Curse the Ministry!’
Sparke looked around: Apparently, the other ones had seen the bottomless blue hole too. Ellinora looked as if she might vomit any second.

‘Ysee…’ Adrian’s voice was shaking with contempt again. ‘These’re the bloody life sucking pillars’ He pointed at a number of great pillars who erupted from the walls and drilled deep down the blue hole. An’ the blue hole, that’s a wound in the Earth. The Ministry tore it when they built this damn thing! And now they use these pillars to suck the magic and life force out of the Earth!!! AND FOR WHAT?! BLOODY ‘TEN GALLEONS CHEAPER’ UNICORN HORNS??!!’

“Horns”, “Horns”, “Horns”, echoed Adrian’s voice from the walls.

‘You’ve got a point.’ whispered Mario from Adrian’s side. ‘This planet sucking thing is so unnecessary!’
After not saying anything for a while, Sparke’s mouth took some time to start working again, and he said: ‘This feels like a video game! Like we’re the good guys and the Ministry is all bad!’
Everyone giggled a bit, and Arnold McDillon, even said: “Good one, Newbie!’ This made Sparke feel a bit closer to everyone: Did they consider him a ‘friend’ now?

Not too soon, they arrived at the altar.
‘Step back! Cried Adrian. ‘Now lissenup! I’m gonna make my Super-advanced Sucker-blowing spell. Now, this thing could blow apart any minute after I’m done. So when I’m done, I want ye all to RUN! That’s right, RUN!’
Sparke was suddenly taken aback by Adrian’s bossish manner. But his emphasis on the word RUN clearly stated that this was a man that truly cared about his comrades.
And so as Adrian examined the altar everyone’s talking was reduced to whispers.
‘This is the first time we’ve ever attempted to destroy a Sucker, but Ad’s been boasting about his Super Duper Skills or whatever for what feels like a century now.’ Joaquin whispered in Sparke’s ear. ‘Claims that he’s been studying it while he was abroad in Norway to investigate the Gernumblies. According to him, it’s a matter of concentrating on your happiest memory. But THAT, my friend, is a PATRONUS’. Joaquin laughed, but this time, it sounded kind of strained.

For what seemed like five minutes, Adrian continued to kneel over the altar, muttering under his breath.
‘Come ON!’ Hwakan Coote seemed to dangle slightly as he moved towards Adrian. “Let me handle...’

‘NOW!! RUN!!’

Adrian flung himself towards the exit as the altar vibrated violently and sent out red and green sparks.

With screams of panic and excitement, the New Dumbledore’s Army made a run towards the stair. As Sparke flung himself forward, an ear-splitting WHAMMMM erupted from behind – it sounded like the bridge had exploded.

After a while, they had all lunged themselves out of the Sucker, and in a matter of seconds, it exploded with the most fierce sound, and when Sparke looked back he saw the grass patch, blackened and burned with a huge hole in it’s centre.

Sparke lay down at a sidewalk: The sudden, quick run had drained him of nearly all his energy. But as he rose to his feet, he saw that everyone was far ahead of him, laughing and celebrating. The sight made him feel slightly abandoned: He had been the very last to join the Army, and the thought of being left outside was haunting him, even at the moments when he talked to Joaquin and felt like one of them.

‘Oui!’ someone shouted at him from behind.
Sparke looked round.
Adrian Hagrid looked at him and smiled. ‘One down, mate! Guess this’ll keep ye Earth alive… at least for a while longer.’
They got up, and Sparke felt a sting of pain in his forehead as he remembered blue light of the Earths magic…

It was like fie years ago, just like five years ago… in the Sucker mounted near Godric’s Hollow... I can still feel the sickening anger when Hugo’s empty eyes stared at me… still feel the burning pain where Godric’s sword stabbed me….

‘So… Bannister...’
‘Call me Sparke. Please.’
He and Adrian walked rapidly down the sidewalk. About thirty feet away from them, their comrades were still laughing and celebrating.
‘Ye ye ye… SPARKE then… y’re excited? Strucking down another one of’em bloody life-drainingwhatever goddamnit Suckers?’
‘Yeah.’ Sparke replied.
‘Good. Me too’
Sparke decided that this was the time to ask a question he’s been pondering on for awhile.
‘So… Adrian… all these lads… Joaquin told me that all of us are around twenty-eight… that’s my age… and I don’t remember… I mean, I’ve never seen anyone of you at Hogwarts before!’

‘What year were you?’
‘I finished with the class of ’15.’
‘Well...’ Adrian murmured. ‘Joaquin finished with the class of 16’ at Hogwarts.
‘Yeah, I’ve talked to him, but he was a Gryffindor, and we hardly ever spoke to one another.’ said Sparke. ‘But what about the others?’
‘Well… me myself went to Beauxbatons.. me mum’s French y’see… as were El, I mean Ellinora, I had Transfiguration with her in my sixth year, very great woman ‘ysee. Always believes in the good of people. But she moved to London to grow her own stacks of pumpkins.’
Sparke felt slightly light-headed… she was not only looks, after all…
Adrian continued.

‘Well, Lumpus went at Hogwarts too, Ravenclaw I think, buy you wouldn’ recognize him, ‘cause he had no moustache then. Mario Thicknesse, y’see, the foxlike man… his family fled to Italy when his uncle turned to the Death Eater’s side… or as Mario’s uncle claimed ‘I was Imperiused.’ Liar… anyway, Hwakan Coote, you see the skinny man… his father was in the original Dumbledore’s Army, but Hwakan himself is a Squib, so you’ll have to cover him if he’s in danger. And as for Albert… hmm... blimey, I forgot… I’ll ask him someday…’

After awhile they arrived at their HQ, which resided in the suburbs destroyed by earthquakes. This was an advantage, since Muggles hardly trespassed here, and neither did the Ministry.

There was a familiar face waiting for Sparke and Adrian as they approached the deranged houses. The previous day, Sparke became dumbstruck with shock, (‘what are YOU doing here?’): but that didn’t prevent him from experiencing another leap of excitement as Rose Weasley ran towards him and gave him a hug.
‘They told me everything! You all did it! Sparkie, I’m so proud of you!’
‘Don’t call me ‘Sparkie’ he said, his arms clutched around his old friend.

I figured the link thingy out! :lol:

Feedback (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=111966)

Make sure you post your opinions, the good ones and the bad ones, to help me get a better fic!

Long time no see, Flourishers! In my 2-year absence from the Potterverse I have gathered inspiration enough to continue my fanfic where I left it. Now with improved English - I really must edit the 2 previous chapters :lol:


Chapter 3

Rose Weasley had not been Sparke's only friend at Hogwarts, but by far his closest and best friend, and the only one to maintain contact with him after school. They shared a lot of happy times - countless Herbology classes, going to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes (Which gave them a great discount) and buying snappingquills that they later used on Potty Wichland, several nighttime escapades when the tireness of the OWL's were at it's worst. And one time they snuck into the Forbidden Forest only to barely escape the clutches of a stray troll.
After school, Rose bounced in between an amount of different jobs while her brother, Hugo, decided to work with his uncle George in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. And now she were working as hostess for The New Dumbledore's Army, which literally meant that she got a bed in the house and some of Adrian's pocket money in exchange of home-brewed honey beer and loads of exquisite treacle pie.

'The mission...' Sparke tried to not look too proud when he informed Rose about their sucess. '... went amazingly well! The world is harmed by one less Sucker now!'
'Oh, I'm SO proud of you' she said, beaming. She had flaming red hair in slight curls, rather large front teeth an chocolate-brown eyes glinting at the world from a pair of small glasses. She was quite short for her age and had (Sparke was careful not to notice this too often) rather large breasts, clearly visible even though they were hidden behind her rather worn-out grey t-shirt. (A mugged bug bugged the ugly smuggled muggle in bugglesworth)

'Celebration time!' Adrian yelled at no one spectacular. Everyone ventured inside the HQ, and Lumpus closed the door behind them.
The HQ was best described some kind of bar. Behind a bar desk to the right were a door that led to a kitchen. All the tables and stools in the bar had been stacked together to form a rather clumsy dinner table, dined for twelve people.
There were posters all over the roof and walls: Most of them were anti-ministry propaganda and demonstration banners, but here and there were a Foe-Glass or a portrait of Maria Banderschwidth. (the famous wizard cooktress and Rose's big idol( Covering almost every inch of the opposite wall were a poster that Hwakan had brought: It showed the original Dumbledore's Army practising duels. There was a father's thing going on in the middle: Hwakan's father Ritchie shooting beams of red light towards Ron Weasley, Rose's father. In the corner stood a muggle's Flipper game, whatever that was. Sneacoscopes covered most of the floor, and two large windows was barely visible behind a set of plants that sneezed occasionally.

As the door closed, everyone broke into a cheerful chitchat with eachother. Rose went to speak to Adrian and Sparke found himself with Joaquin once again.
'Ever seen a sucker before, Sparke?'
Sparke flinched at the thought of what he could answer, but he ignored it.
'Yes' he said. 'I was on duty to patrol one, five years ago.' It was true in one way, he thought.
'Duty?' Joaquin asked.
'Yeah...' said Sparke. 'Auror duites. Din't I tell you that I was one?' Being an Auror was something that people fussed a lot about, so Sparke found it hard to distinguish the knowers from the non-knowers.
'Auror? You?' Joaquin looked as if lightning had struck him. Twice. 'B... but... I thought... I...'
'It's okay.' Sparke said. 'I know I don't look like one. :lol: Many people say that. But it's a very interesting job. You get to see a lot of places, and get to travel a lot. Once I went to Durmstrang to banish some ghouls from the third floor. The job itself was not fun, but what a country!'

Joaquin nodded, looking impressed.
'You.' Lumpus Woggles had made his way to them. 'I heard you were an Auror? Then you might know my friend Magus? Magus Johansen?'
Sparke smiled insecurely. Even if he was slightly proud, he did not want people to ask too much about his past. 'No.' he said. 'I only went missioning with a few people. And there was no Magus.'
'I see' said Lumpus. 'Well - it's usually Adrian who fights if it's neccesarry. I made litte effort today, so did you, and I sincerely hope there'll be more fighting tomorrow. I can hardly wait to see an ex-Auror fight. Lumpus Woggles is my name. Great to see you, Mr Sparke!'
They shook hands.
'And this is Carolina and our new-born Banter.'
He shook hands with Lumpus wife, a shy-looking blonde girl dressed in pink. She and the baby were caretakers along with Rose.
'Dinner!' bellowed Adrian, and they all got seated.

The kitchen door opened and food rolled out, as if there was an invisible rolling band beneath it. Rose had made steaks, treacle pies and tarts, baked potatoes, selleri salads and loads of honeybeer out of "Miss Banderschwidths Cooking Calamities". Soon they were all eating and laughing, still enjoying the mission's sucess.
The fuss of Sparke being an ex-Auror spread quickly, and soon enough did Lumpus draw him, Mario and Arnold into a discussion about the Auror's office and how the Ministry's unmeasurable greed had affected it.

'I tell you, the good ones jumped offa the train before it was too late.' said Lumpus, swaggering his honeybeer glass left and right. 'Johansen, Mercury, Hawthorne, all the great heroes of the Gamon-age. And you of course, Mr Sparke.'
'That's our newbie, alright!' said Mario, patting Sparke on the shoulder. Sparke cheered at him. As the discussion faded into small talk, Sparke could not help looking at Ellinora every now and then. She talked lively to Rose a few seats away, and Sparke thought that her black/blonde hair, now in a ponytail, resembled something that was not of this earth.

The empty honeybeer cans gained numbers as the evening turned into night. A warm, kind of romantic shimmer had filled the room, whose inhabitants were laughing and talking like there was no tomorrow.
Sparke's comrades had finally dropped their endless Auror questioning and Quidditch talk had now erupted among the troupe. Sparke, who wasn't overly fond of the sport, engaged in Muggle talk with Mario.
'... and then he recieved the letter about a second later - from the other side of the earth! I don't know, I've heard about this Inter Net before, end it does indeed seem a bot too unreal for the muggleworld." sluddered Mario with his classy british.
'Yeah.' Sparke replied. 'The Inter Net. But maybe there is another kind of magic that wizards don't posess, but muggles do?'
'Maybe'
'the Inter Net... Hmm. Or rather, the Muggle Net!' Sparke began to laugh uncontrollably. The idea of a Muggle Net seemed amusing beyond belief.
'Muggle Net! Now THAT, my friend, is a place i would like to pay a visitation!' Mario laughed. With his accent, his foxlike face and his magical monocle, he was strongly reminiscent of some English mansionlord.

Mario went to knock Arnold over the head (For some reason...) and Sparke was left alone. He decided to stretch for some more honeybeer. Suddenly, Ellinora asked him to send some Bertie Botts from the other side of the table. She recieved the beans, and their eyes met for a split second before she said:
'Let's see what flavour i get.' she said happily, before eating a bean. 'Ursch. Dust-taste. Not my favourite. So, how are you Aouror-boy? Nah, I reckon you've had enough questioning for a lifetime, right?'
She laughed. Sparke's heart was beating a bit faster. She spoke with such energy and glow. He spoke: 'Yeah... Nothing gets more tiring than talking about your ex-job. Besides, I have much more fun doing wah i really like - bringing down the Ministry with you guys!' He felt that the last words came form the heart.
'Awww, that's really sweet of you! Its amazing though, how a common enemy can unite people like this.' She waved her hand around the room. 'So, what did you think about the raid today?'
'It was fun... Even if I didn't do anything. It's amazing how easy you can destroy a Sucker, though.' Sparke said.
'You bet. The ministry's security is laughable.' Ellinora said, and she raised from her chair. 'If you excuse me, I'm gonna visit the ladie's'. And she left Sparke alone, whose spirits grew as he took another honeybeer and felt that life wasn't that bad.

It was well over mindnight, and the troupe were growing louder and more joyful over the floods of honeybeer and now firewhiskey. But Sparke noticed that a group of people were sitting by the bar, holding what semmed to be a more serious discusssion. He got up, went past Adrian, who entertained Mario and Arnold with some rather grotesque jokes, and got seated next to Arnold, Rose, Hwakan and Joaquin. The topic seemed to be the recent Gryffindor hero, Max Flame, who had rescued 19 muggles from a fire in Wales.
'... it seems to me. Who said that Gryffindor was some kind of "hero house", anyway?" Rose said, in a rather upset manner.
"You're just jealous because your ex-boyfriend were a Gryf.' Joaquin taunted him. 'But if you look at it this way - everyone considers Slytherin a "bad guy"-house. Just look at the Gamons and the rest of them. So why shouldn't there be a "goood guy"-house?'
'The problem, Joe' said Hwakan 'is that there are three "good guy"-houses. Yes, Salazar himself said that he wanted the most sly and cunning students at his house. Case closed. But what makes the Gryfs more "good" than the Raves or the Huffs?'

Sparke decided to flick in: 'Hwakan's got a point. You can easily tell the Ravenclaws off because of their brainish manners, but during my time at Hogwarts, I could not tell the Gryffindors and the Hufflepuffs apart if they didn't wear robes!'
'Besides, everyone just thinks of Gryf as the "hero house" just because Kingsley went there.' said Hwakan. Sparke felt a litte bit annoyed that his topic was being ignored. But he lightened up when Ellinora and Arnold joined them.

Joaquin drank from a goblet of firewhiskey before he spoke. 'Yeah Kingsley and that chosen dude.'
'Harry Potter?' Arnold asked. 'Yeah, he sure was a "good guy" after all. It's a shame he disappeared though. And under such circumstances! Boy, hope he's all right.'
Over the course of Arnold's sentence, the group went from light-hearted partyers to tense, anxious listeners. Only Adrian and Mario, who had started to play with a box of filibuster's, made any noise. Sparke's stomach felt like it was filled with ice. This was the subject, the very subject that he did not want to discuss at all. His past was struggling to get to his concious mind, but he supressed it.

'Any one knew what happened?' said Ellinora. 'The Potter boy was good - if someone deserves a good ending, it's him.'
Arnold shuddered. 'Harry Potter had it all. Top Auror of the entire ministry - this was during the years of peace, of course. Family. Kids. They had just begun mounting the first Sucker, in the Godric's Hollow, that's where his parents lived. And Harry and his crew was sent there to investigate it, the Sucker was malfunctioning in some way. Several days without any words from him went by, and when they sent investigators to Gordric's Hollow, the entire village had burned down. And Harry Potter was nowhere to be found.'

Several people gasped, and Sparke was sweating bullets. He tried to make himself invisible for questioning by drinking more honeybeer. Dark memories were flooding his brain like unwelcomed insects: "Nature... everyone says to love it and care it... is that the feverish handsomeness of mind? I dont care... don't care much about nature... do you, Bannister Sparke... do you"?

Arnold continued: 'No one knows how the fire started. Maybe it was a natural cause. But some say that it was Harry himself who had started it. The Ministry found a bracelet with a triangle-eye sort of thing on it that was said to belong to Harry Potter. Rubbish I say. Why would he?'
Sparke was sweating worse than ever now. He glanced at Rose. Rose didn't remember - He had put a memory charm on her to make her forget. And sure enough...
'Rose, weren't your parents killed in their fire?' Hwakan asked in a careful manner.
'No... I dont think... they died earlier that year. I rather not talk about it.'
And Hwakan suddnely turned to Sparke. 'Sparke, you were an Auror. Surely, you've must seen him around?'
'Well... yea, a few times.' Sparke replied.
The nervousness was killing him. Sparke knew that he did not want to tell the whole truth, but he tried to answe as honest as possible.
'I... never really liked him. Never understood all the fuss. Rude. Self-centered. Think he's more than everyone else.'

Rose looked at Sparke with a weird look. 'But nearly everything I heard about Harry from my parents before they died was positive things.' she said. 'He seemed really heroic - selfless, kind, really the ultimate good guy.'
Sparke didn't light how everyone suddenly looked suspicious at him, but the fact that Rose had completely forgot about what really happened five years ago was filling him with relief.
He replied Rose: 'Maybe he was such a person, on the very inside. But to me he showed nothing but a rude. stone-like face.'
Rose looked puzzled, but was interrupted with a huge bang from the dinner table: Adrian and Mario's filibuster had reduced the dinner table to ashes.
A sudden tireness veiled Sparke's eyes. He decided to go to bed, and stumped on several sneacoscopes on his way to the flippergame. He tapped the coinbox with his wand, and the flippergame revealed a secret passage to a dark room full of beds. And he stumbled onto the nearest bed, asleep before his head hit the pillows.

Chapter four - The Area With No Roofs

It felt like he had just fallen asleep when Adrian's bellowings of "MORNIN" echoed the HQ. He look up and felt a rush of relaxation and ease. These people were his friends now, true friends, and together they would fight evil. His comrade's were all yawny and Arnold slammed his nighttable four times, missing his hat each time.
There was not much conversation during breakfast, although a great roar of laughter followed when Mario mistook one of the sneezing plants for a water-tap: It had sneezed him right in the face, covering it in a liquid that smelled faintly of banana. Everyone was eager to go away. Sparke was just putting on his headband when he saw something that made his heart flip: Ellinora had put on a warm jumper and she looked extremely cozy. Sparke just wanted to hug her, but resisted, as it would lead to an awkwardness beyond limits.

They said goodbye to Rose and Lumpus, who satyed behind to take care of Banter, since Carolina had to go to work. (She sold custom-made wizard hats at the Diagon Alley) Once the troupe got outdoors in the chilly morning air, the mood shifted instantly from tireness to happy chitchat, as if everyone suddenly picked up the threads from the previous night. Sparke did not spoke to anyone particular, but kept to himself. He wondered where they would go: When he tought back of it, their previous mission was extremely easy and straightforward. They came, they blew up and they went. He wondered whether the next Sucker was more far away and if it held some kind of protection.
They continued to walk, zig-zagging across the depressing, half-demolished suburban houses. Sparke was the last man in the troupe. He listened to Marios and Arnolds discussion on how Arnold once made a potion that could turn a computer keyboard into a living crocodile.
''... And you sorta rip the armadillo open, and put the insides of him in the potion. Stir three times counterclockwise and it will turn a mild shade of perfection...'
Not too soon did they reach a road where Adrian put up a halt. The troupe did not react immidiately - Joaquin and Hwakan bumped into Adrian, Ellinora, Arnold and Mario bumped into Joaquin and Hwakan, and Sparke walked inot Mario so hard that his metal headband was twisted askew.
'Oui! Watchit there, ye almost knocked me over, hwakkiboy!' he said.
They had readched a road, who cut across the wild countryside like a sharpened knife. There was nothing there, except a bus stop and poles with small black things called "electronic wires". Sparke knew that they made sure that muggles got the elextricity for their computers and their X-boxes. And suddenly, it dawned upon him.
'Adrian, will we go to the Sucker by Wire?'
'Yea' he replied.
Wire was the latest transporting treat in the widarding world, mostly used by Anti-ministry wizards. The ministry did not too long ago use the Earth's magic to make a Tracking Reactor, a device that kept track of wizarding transportation anywhere, anytime. The Floo Network, apparition and brooms were all tracked, and Adrian was smart enough to know that the ministry would not be keen to spot seven wizards all heading for a Sucker. Hence the Wire. Wire was invented by Harry Robinson, an outspoken Ministry fiend and Adrian's good mate. It was very highly advanced magic which would normally require Earth magic: but since Robinson did not approve of such destructiveness, he combined regular magic and the electricity in Muggle wires to fuel his invention.
Adrian pulled out seven small hooks from his moleskin coat, which could fit anything in it's pockets.

Each member of the Army took a hook and threw it up on the wire. With a poofing sound, there was suddenly a large two-man cabin hanging from each hook, much like the Muggles when they went skiing and needed help up the mountain.
They were perfectly safe; There was not a muggle in sight.
'Two and two, please' said Adrian, and Sparke felt a jolt in his heart: He looked over at Ellinora, and she bit the sleeve of her jumper,perhaps wondering who she'd go with?
Sparke took a breath and prepared to walk over to her and ask for her company... but what would he say? He hesitated.
Suddenly, Hwakan knocked him on his shoulder. 'Wanna go?' he said. 'I want to make some knowing with you!'
Even if the question made him feel special, Sparke noticed the perverse way Hwakan was saying it with dislike, and he saw Ellinora and Joaquin stepping into one of the cabins. Sparke was suddenly indulged in a strange sadness.
'Okay then' he said in a half-sigh, heaving himself into the cabin after Hwakan.
They traveled very fast: The cabin was gliding along the wire, passing through the poles upholding it as if they were made of smoke. Hwakan and Sparke exchanged life stories. They had quite a nice time, even if Sparke could not help glancing at the cabin in fromt of them every now and then. Hwakan had made a living as a builder in the Muggle world. He had refused his Hogwarts letter. Sparke found this very strange, but Hwakan said that because he was a squib, he was not able to do magic. He did not think that he could stand the shame. So he lived with his wizarding parents in West London, but made painting and building to Muggles in the neighbourhood, which he earned Muggle money for. The muggle money was then changed into galleons at Gringotts, and Hwakan used it to buy Quidditch tickets: He was a die hard HH-fan, and thought of Quidditch as the best thing in the world.
Sparke did not tell half as much about his life: He avoided the Auror questions, but gave Hwakan a full revision of his and Rose's many Hogwarts adventures.
Not too soon did they arrive in a dully grey and smoky industrial area in the countryside. They got out of their carts and Adrian stuffed the Wire-hooks back in his moleskin coat.
Everyone thought that they were going for a three-hour walk at least. But Adrian just led them between two large buildings and round an oil platform.

They came out on a large platform and were then faced with the most astonishing view: From here you could see the entire area with the destroyed suburban houses, and even a large bit of London city. It seemed that this industrial area was mounted om some kind of mountain, at least one kilometer above the regular city. Sparke got close to the edge of the platform and looked down. There, far far down, were countless destroyed houses, and a very large wall was bridging the distance between the Army and the houses. But that was not everything.

A giant tower, made out of blackthorn and vibrating rather heavily, stuck out of the wall. It was like if the wall was made of paper, and someone had stuck a giant pen through it from the other side.
'Now what?' asked Joaquin.
Bud Adrian, like always, knew what to do. He pulled out his wand and tapped it at himself, and each and every one of the troupe. When he tapped Sparke, Sparke felt like his feet had lost feel totally.
'Let's walk!' he said, walking of the edge. Ellinora gasped - but Adrian just walked on the wall as if it were a second floor.
'The spell's only temporary. So ye must be ready to find differen' ground when I yell at ye!' Adrian said to everyone.
The rest followed. The shift from the floor to the wall was a most curious feeling, and excitement rose within the group as they walked inside the Sucker.
It was indentical to the Sucker they had destroyed on their previous mission - the dark stair with shell animals inside, the blue candles who cast a spookish light on the troupe. They walked down silently, apart from Mario and Arnold whispering, and was soon faced with the exact same sight as the day before: A large, vast hole whose endless bottom shimmered in an eerie blue light that was reflected on the walls. And a similiar broad bridge with low fences that spanned over to the other side, where it linked to some kind of altar.
Sparke's heart sank - He had not expected it to be this easy. Instead of feeling delighted by the fact that if this continued, they would have saved the Earth by the end of the month, he felt very uneasy. Appearently, he was not the only one. Joaquin looked extremely tense, and Ellinora shivered a little.

'Hah' Adrian said, triumphatory. 'The're really good for NOTHIN', the Ministry! Hahaha. Seems like Gamon and his crew knews as much 'bout security as he knows 'bout looks! Man, wonder wha' his wife things 'bout that baldin' hair, maybe she's so ugly that...'
'I dare to see you repeat that'
'Who...'
'Expelliarmus!'
Adrian was thrown several feet backward, his heavy body emitting a loud "THUD" as he hit the bridge. Sparke saw a man standing in fighting-stance at the altar, and he flinched when he saw that it was Gamon Eisenhower himself.

'Soo...' Gamon said threatfully with his high-pitched, growly voice. 'Attempting another sabotagic mission are we, Hagrid? Yes I know... I know everything.'
The troupe stood frozen to the ground, Sparke could see that everyone was as surprised as he was that the Minister of Magic personally took care of a small rebel-group.
'You will all get arrested tonight.' Eisenhower continued. 'I've gambled with Lord Sykes about you lot, and if there's a man more dangerous that a murderer, it's a gambler.'
He let out a hollow laugh and stepped towards them. The room illuminated slightly, as if to serve it's master, the Minister.
Eisenhower was large, fat, rather old and had no neck at all. His head was bald, except a tiny, white patch at the very top of it. His tiny eyes was shooting angry sparks at the Army, and between them Sparke saw a tatooed snake. He wore a very expensive-looking kinglike robe of green and silver, and the hand that did not brandish a wand clutched very tighly on a diamond-made walking stick.
'You...' Adrian seemed to regain conciousness. 'You FILTHY, PLANETDESTROYING FREAK OF FREAKS, YOU FATHER WAS A POOR SCUM AND YOUR MOTHER...'
'Silencio' said Eisenhower, and Adrian let out a tiny schreech. 'As I said, you will get arrested soon enough. There will be no need to fight: You will need all your strength to survive long enough in Azkaban to remoid you of the immense crime you have done.'

Eisenhower put fright in Sparke, not because he was a Minister of Magic pointing wands at them, but becaused he speaked very calmly, spite the fact that he was outnumbered seven to one.
'I hope that this will teach you a lesson. The Ministry put incredible efforts in building these Suckers, mind you, and I will have many complaints in my inbox if this... outrageous... raids against a fair world continue! Goodbye Army!'
He had a most vicious smile on his lips as he disapparated with a PLOPP, and luckily so, because Adrian had attempted to punch the Minister in the face.
Sparke had at that moment a million curses he wanted to put on that evil man and according to their faces, his fellow Army members had too.
But there was no time to think, act or wonder why he disappeared without arresting them: Something most curious had happened to the tower. The light was slowly fading, until the place was pitch black, and Sparke felt a horrible chill eating away inside him, a horrible chill which could only mean...
'Lumos' said Joaquin from behind him, and Sparke looked around at the now enlightened stair. Dementors were heading down from it, towards them. It was a horrible sight, it looked like the dementors were at an amusement park queuing for the funniest rollercoaster.
Sparke felt the chill eating away at him. He tried to raise his wand to produce a Patronus, but a strange white mist clouded his sight.

"Now what... It's been like this all along?! HUH?! CAN YOU HEAR ME, PROFESSOR?! YOU INJUSTIFIED LYING SCOUNDREL...'
'Harry, please!'
'DON'T... PUSH... YOUR... LUCK!!'
*KA-CHING*

He was sinking deeper and deeper into his own misery... The white mist swallowed him, forced him to once again feel the sharp pain of being pierced with a sword... Expecto Patronum!... But there was no happiness left...
Then he awoke: Someone had put some anti-dementor spell on him; His head was clearing.
He could see the scene in it's full chaosness: People, patronuses and dementors all over the place, yelling voices mixing with horrible, rossling breaths.
'SPARKE!!' Adrian bellowed 'WOULDN'T MIND SOM HELP HERE, YEH?'
'Oh..' said Sparke, his head still throbbing and his eyes still unadjusted from the white fog.
But he had barely drawn out his wand before Adrian yelled again.
'SPELL WEAROFF! Get in here ye all...'
Spell wearoff? What was that supposed to mean?
The next thing happened too fast: There was a sudden cringe of gravity, Sparke fell over the bridge fence, but instead of down into the blue light, he fell sideways, towards the wall, he felt his hand touch a Dementor, it felt like grabbing a piece of cloth that had been out in a wintry chill, and as he reached the wall, he fell through it, and his eyes printed the image of a large tower horizontally piercing a vertical, grey wall, before a hard hit in his back made him pass out.

-----

Panic awoke Sparke from his unconciousness: How and why had he fallen out of the tower? Were the others all right? Is the Sucker destroyed? What happened to Gamon?
He took a breath: Something that he inhaled made him much calmer. Where was he?
He sat up. He was in a large and rather ill-cared church. But something was not quite right - He seemed to lie on a bed of flowers, sprouting directly from the floor of the church. Above him, he saw a Sparke-shaped hole in the ceiling. And when Sparke sharpened his eyes he saw, in a distant, the horizontal Sucker from which he had fallen.
Chills emitted from his neck as Sparke got up to his feet: He felt like someone was watching him. Except of the faint sunshine coming through the roof-hole and the entrance gate, the church was in darkness. He looked around, and his heart skipped a beat whan he saw that a woman was watching him.

She stepped out in the light. Sparke quickly stuffed his wand into his pocket, not because he was afraid, but because this woman was the least person in the world to draw a wand upon.
She had a white-blonde hair mane that was shining as if was made by strings of the sun itself. The hair was fixed in a very odd haircut: It hung like curtains framing her face, yet there was a fleeche here and there. But if the hair was odd, it was nothing to the woman's eyes: They gleamed with an angry shade of yellow, even brighter than the hair, and was accompanied with sharp, black eyebrows.
In a strange contrast to this, her skin was soft and her mouth stretched in a kind smile. She wore a white kimono with a pattern that looked like five-leafed clovers. On top of that, she brandished a hand-woven basket filled with some kind of fussballs.
She looked so innocent that Sparke could hardly imagine that she was living in the same world as a corrupt, blood-sucking Ministry and fifteen acres of destroyed suburban houses.
'H... hi' he staggered.
'Hi!' she said a little too cherfully. She walked to the edge of the flowerbed and sat down on ther knees. Grabbed by a sudden aura of comfort, Sparke sat down too: He felt that the flowers was very soft to sit on.
She spoke.
'I'm Alexandra. Who are you?'
'I... I'm Sparke. Bannister Sparke.' He held out a hand, but she did not take it. Instead, she met his eyes with the weirdest look anyone had given him: She looked at him like he was a slightly uninteresting TV-show. But Sparke looked into her tantalising yellow eyes and was glad that she was giving him that look - If she made an angry face with those eyes, he would be scared out of his wits.
'What are these flower things anyway?' he asked.
Alexandra's eyes suddenly widened in a look of excitemend that didn't suit her innocent appearence.
'Oooh, they're Squargcuffs, see? They're very rare and hard to grow, especially in a harsh enviroment like this world. They're fully grown now, and their seeds is supposed to heal nostril pain, but i did not know that they could rescue a sand-coloured dude like you from The Falling Death, I wonder how Mom will react...'
Sparke stared at her. He was not sure whether to react on the word "Squargcuffs" or the fact that she had called him a "sand-coloured dude".
She suddenly spoke. 'Where did you get that headband, anyway?'
'Oh.' Sparke took off his headband, and his hair fell into his eyes. "This? I don't remember really.' It was completely true. 'It's beautiful, though. Now...' He searched her body for something that he could ask about,and found a ring on her finger: The ring had a huge, white stone on it, and Sparke could distinguish a strange mark on it: It looked rather like a triangular eye.
'This?' She had discovered what Sparke was looking at. 'I don't know where i got it, just like you! Does that make us connected, somehow?'
She blushed: The effect made her look quite adorable.
'How did you land here, then?' she asked.
'Here?' The realization that dawned on Sparke made him wonder why he wasted time speaking to some church girl when he had lost contact with the Army. But somehow - maybe it was the calming effect the flowers had on him - he decided to stay here.
'I fell from up there' he continued, pointing at the Sucker high above him, visible from the hole in the ceiling. 'We were doing some stuff, me and my friends, and, er... I fell' he added stupidly.
Alexandra said nothing. She was suddenly very interested in a bird that flew close to the ceiling.
'So...' he continued. She transfixed him with her intense, yellow stare, and he got nervous.
'Who are you? I mean... er, what do you do?'
'I sell these.' She said, handing over the basket of fussballs. 'They're called Orkarinte. Really helpful if you stutter while speaking japanese - Mom's trying to develop a new kind that works with every language, but she haven't come around lately - It's her back, you see, it's...'
But Sparke never found out what was wrong with Alexandra's moms back.

A gunshot echoed in the church - Sparke flinched, but Alexandra did not move a muscle, as if she was used to this.
'Come on now, Alex... You know that resistance is futile.'
Sparke shivered - The voice had a very sinister tone, but it had also used such a corny catchphrase as "resistance is futile".
Three men stood in the doorway: One man in the middle, who wore blue robes and had an evil smile, cold grey eyes and skin almost as brown as his hair, who was ponytailed. He was flankered by two ministry wizards whose faces were shadowed. The man in the middle spoke again.
'Alex Alex Alex... What's the point in this? You live a solitary life with your mother, making a living off selling... whatever they are. You will be so much more worth at the ministry. Take my hand now, and your life will change forever...'
He stretched out his hand. Alexandra backed, but she did not look frightened. Instead, she looked as if the school's most boring boy was asking her for a date.
'No.' She said. 'I like my life. I have no academic ambitions, you know that...'
'SEIZE HER!' yelled the man. His minions started a run. Sparke's Auror reflexes reacted before his brain did. He pulled out his wand.
'STUPEFY DIVIDIA!' His Stunning spell divided and hit the two ministry wizards squarely in the face.
'Hah' said the man. 'So, you've got yourself a bodyguard, Alex. Well, that's more fun for us.' 'Enervate!'
His minions arose. Again, Sparke's Auror reflexes reacted before his brain did. He seized Alexandra - noticing how soft her hand was - and ran through a back door. The door led to a narrow wooden corridor that swung to the right, to the left and... into a dead end.
'Hold it' he said to her. 'There is something beyond this. Reducto!'
The explosion tore the wall apart and they stepped into fresh air. Sparke looked around - the had arrived in the destroyed suburban area, but, and Sparke's heart sank at the thought of this, miles away from the Army's hideout.
They heard footsteps from behind. Sparke looked up at the church's enormous tower, on which top he could see a large, rusty bell. He grabbed Alexandra by the arm and Apparated up there.
From the tower, Sparke saw with pleasure how the three Ministry men looked around and found nothing. After awhile did one of them disappear - and appeared right behind Sparke. Before Sparke could react, he clutched his neck and spun him around.
'Soo..' said the Ministry man, his cold grey eyes glinting in the mid-day sun, barely visible behind a patch of grey clouds. 'Alex's pretty bodyguard... but NO ONE stands in the way of the Ministry and it's desires, NO ONE.'
And he raised his wand.
'Avada Kedavra!'
Sparke could not do anything, he did not react at all; He saw the jet of green light emit from the wand, felt the warmth when it hit his chest... But he did not hear the swooping sound of death, he did not feel his body drop onto the floor... Something had happened...
Alexandra jumped up from his left, and with a sweeping kick, she knocked the man off the tower, and he hit ground with a very unpleasant thud.
'It's okay.' she said lightly. 'I cast a levitation charm on him before he landed so that he won't break anything. You always have to take care of the leader, the other's can't do a wickety pickety thing without him. Come on, headband boy!'
And she jumped off the other side of the tower and landed nimbly on the church's roof.

Utterly confused and eager for answers, Sparke followed her. He landed on the roof with only a slight pain in his foot. He could see the hole that he had fallen through. He looked up: The Sucker was clearly visible a hundred yards up, sticking out from the giant wall to the right. He wondered whether the Army had managed to destroy it.
'Alexandra... who... what... who, I mean, who are these people? And why are they chasing you?' Sparke's head was so full with questions that he did not know where to start. They were now jumping from roof to roof of the half-smashed, mostly abandoned, suburban houses.
'They come to fetch me every once in a while. Or try to fetch me. I don't follow. I don't want to come with them.'
'But why...'
'I am someone special, they say. Someone 'Hitherus'.'
Sparke did not know what 'Hitherus' meant. But he just remembered something: He just remembered the emblem throning the ministrymen's uniforms.
'I know who they are...' he said. 'They are Auror Scouts! They scout for people capable of becoming Aurors.'
'So do you think that they think that I'm cut out for being an... Auror?' asked Alexandra, still jumping.
'Er..' said Sparke, slightly confunded over the question. 'Maybe'.
'You used to be an Auror, right'
Alexandra had stopped on a severly severed roof belonging to a small two-store house. She turned around and fixed sparke with her sharp, yellow gaze. The look she gave him was not threatful, but curious. Really curious.
'Well... yeah.' She looked for a moment as she might hit him for having worked for the Ministry once, but instead she smiled and said 'Good. I know I can be safe around you, since Aurors are great wizards.'
'How did you know that I was an Auror?' he asked.
'It's your eyes.' she said. 'They are very colourful. They all are, Auror eyes.'
Youre one to talk, thought Sparke as she transfixed him in a yellow stare. She continued to another roof and he followed.
'And how... what on earth happened at the church? Why didn't I die when the curse hit me?'
He was very eager to discuss this, and thought that this mysterious woman would hold a long and complicated speech about how it was done. Instead, she said rather vaguely: 'I healed you.'
'Heal... but what... YOU CAN'T... I mean you can't stopper death! No one can!'
She sighed and stopped again, but did not turn to meet his eyes. 'I've been told that many, many times before, both from my mother and other great wizards. It seems that... I can do some magic... that others can't... mom won't explain.' She seemed too embarrased to look at him. Instead she jumped down on the ground, her kimono flattering in the bright wind; The houses now in front of them was so devastated that they did not have any roofs, which meant that they still were very far away from the Army's HQ.

"I must go back." Sparke thought. On the contrary, the Army was made out of skilled wizards (and one squib) and they were fine on their own. But he thougt that as a belonger to the group, he ought not linger too long away from them. But he was very interested in this woman, and his company was the least he could pay her for saving his life. He wondered where she was taking him - Surely there was nothing worth visiting in this depressing place?
They continued to walk.
'This is the Area of No Roofs.' She said with the same blaring enthusisam as she had back at the church, while explaining the flowers. 'It doesn't have a name, but mom and I think that everything is just better off with names, is that not so? We call the sun Meskapin and we name the clouds when we're in boredom. We usually name them after keys, such as E minor or F sharp major, what ever suits their shape and form. Do your headband wear a name?'
'Er... no.' said Sparke.
'Let's call it Jerry.' she said matter-of-factly. 'But I don't trust these Ministry people. I've been told that they try to ruin our planet. I don't want them around me.'
She did not at all notice this sudden flip in the conversation. They turned a corner and walked down a narrow path between two roofless houses.
Sparke thought hard. This was, by far, the most mysterious and intriguing woman he's ever met. The thought that he had just survived a Killing curse seemed distant, even surreal.
'How many times has they tried to catch you?' Sparke said.
'Thirteen times.' she said, still with the enthusiasm. Sparke blinked. 'thirteen?'
'Yes' she replied, shifting from enthusiasm to a kind of so-what attitude.
Sparke thought even harder. She spoke about the ministry in a more ignorant way than anyone he knew, and that said a lot since his friends were all anti-Ministry. Did she not know how big a threat they were? Did she not know that they could capture her and throw her into Azkaban if she was not careful? But then again... the thought of her strange saving of his, Sparke's, life made him think that she had powers beyond the Ministry. He decided to encolse the subject once again.
'Soo... do the Ministry think that you have some kind of special powers?' he asked.
She took some time before she said: 'Hm. I don't know... I've always thought of myself as kind of normal - But then, mom and my teachy's say I can do extaraordinairy magic! Sometimes I've said to mom that she might have caught some of the W's, but she thinks not... Well, we're here!'

They had stopped by a wall with a great hole in it, a great hole that led to a shabby and smashed living room - but as Alexandra waved with her wand, the hole suddenly led into something else - something that looked like a small valley, where a tiny wooden house resided under a blue sky.




Wow... this turned out to be a really long chapter! Hope you do not think of my detail fetischism as tiring. ;)

Chapter 5: Panic Fight

'Mom! I'm home! And I brought someone with me!'
The wooden house was two floors high. On top of the blue roof resided a weather rooster, a TV antenna, a secrecy sensor, a living boar and some kind of unidentifiable object. Behind the house were a small field with some kind of golden plants, amongst which a woman walked around. Alexandra ran towards her and hugged her.
'Mom, I'd like you to meet Bannister Sparke!'
She really looked a mother, Sparke thought. In her early fourties, she was wearing a red dress with white dots, a waitress apron, and held a baking cavle in her right hand. But Sparke noticed two things that he did not associate with mothership: A pair of radish-like earrings and a necklace made of butterbeer corks. She had shoulder-length hair, as blonde as her daughter's, and eyes that seemed to be fixed in a constantly surprised look.

'Hi' she said. 'I'm Luna Scamander. Nice to meet you.'
And then there was silence.
'So... you're Alexandra's mother then?' he asked, trying to make a good impression.
'Murt?' She asked.
'What...?'
'Murt!' Mrs Scamander looked at him very seriously, though smiling. 'It's a sibling to the W, and it specializes in making people feel tense in this formal greeting ritual, so they say awkward questions. The best way to fight it is to relax and get rid of the nervousy.' Her eyes bulged after saying this. Sparke did not know how to react: He was amused by the fact that she seemed almost dottier than her daughter, but he could not help being annoyed. He was not feeling tense, and he did not think of his question as awkward.
Mrs Scamander turned to her daughter. 'How's the Squargie's flourishing, dearie?'
'Oh yes!' said Alexandra. 'They're ready to mature in about a month. But I... I didn't... I was attacked mom.' She blushed.
Mrs Scamander dropped the cavel: All the dottiness vanished from her in about two seconds. 'Have I not told you that you should move them to somewhere safer?! You could be captured, or eaten by a Snigel!'
'But mom, they can not grow anywhere else, the Ministry...'
'I think of your safety as a bit more important that the Squargie's. As you see, we have enough...'
'But I escaped, right? I...'

Sparke stopped listening to the family bickering and observed the flowers they stood among. He saw that it was the same sort as in the church, only that these were more grown. They looked like large sunflowers, but with a more lengthy and animal-like, kind of slimy, head.
... was in safe hands, because of my bodyguard there.'
'Boudyguard?' Mrs Scamander looked at Sparke with her calm and rather weird appearence renewed. 'Do you have battling skills? Dad knew how to make those into spaghetti, I wish that he could've taught me. Now...' Mrs Scamander clapped her hands. 'Who wants dinner?'
Sparke hosted a battle between his worry for the Army and his hunger. The hunger won a landslide victory.
The three of them crossed the flowerfield towards the house. Mrs Scamander looked around the enviroment, as if dreaming. Alexandra, however, looked straight at Sparke with that curious look she had given him before.
'Where are you going now?' She asked. 'By the way, what were you doing? Not everyone falls into a church just like that.'
'I need to find my friends.' Sparke said. They are in the "Area with roofs" as you would call it.' Alexandra giggled, which felt almost as out of character as her blushing.
Sparke continued. 'I... I mean we... were doing an attempt to destroy a Sucker. And I fell out of it, as we got attacked by Dementors. I think they are alright, but I'd like to find them.'
Sparke felt like this was the moment were he opened his soul for Alexandra and told her who he really was - a cool, brave dude, fighting for justice. But Alexandra seemed rather uninterested and said 'Okay, That's cool.'

They stepped inside the house. The ground floor was a single large room. The right side held a large wooden table and kitchen supplies, and the left side showed a cosy sofa placed in front of a wireless, and (Sparke gasped) a real Muggle's TV who was, by the look of it, from 2007. Several odd coloured boxes stood in front of it.
The more Sparke looked around, the more did he realize that this was the oddest house that he had been in. The colour of the wood dominated the room, but everything like the paintings and the furniture were light blue.
There was more weird objects than he could count: Something that looked like a grey, stuffed mouse, something that looked like a silver football, something that looked like a plant that spat out soap bubbles, something that looked like something else, and something that looked like the kind of five-leafed clover that Alexandra wore on her kimono.
'Seats, please' said Mrs Scamander, rather dimly, as she pulled out three tin cans. Sparke took one: It was ice cold, bright red and had the words "Coca-Cola" written with a snirkly writing.
'What's this?' he asked.
'Oh' said both Scamanders as one. Alexandra giggled, but the mother looked down.
'It's my grandpa's invention' said Alexandra. 'It's really refreshing!'
Sparke thought that he ought not to tell them that he had once spotted one of these cans in a muggle shop. He took a sip - It tasted rather weird and bubbled in his mouth. Mrs Scamander placed a large plate with some kind of yellow creampie on the table. Sparke took a bite: It tasted good and a bit of candy-ish.
'You put up a good fight today!' said Alexandra happily across the table. 'Thanks for all of that.'
'You were good, too.' Sparke replied. 'I especially liked the bit where you saved me from the killing curse.'
He expected a huge recation, but were - once again - disappointed as both mother and daughter acted as if he talked about the rain.
'It's raining...' said Mrs Scamander vaguely. She turned to Sparke. 'So, I don't have to worry. You are a good bodyguard, right?'
'Er... yes.' said Sparke.
'You would have made an excellent spaghetti bowl then.' She looked at him, eyes bulging again. 'But after a bit of thinking, I've decided that guarding Alex is much more important than food experimenting. Even if I'd like a sacred taste of Italy. You do not have a express carpet in your sleeve, Bannister?' She gave his sleeve an appraising look. Sparke tried to surpress a laugh. He looked at Alexandra, but she looked away, mouthing something that could have been "ketchup".
'I must go to the bathroom.' she said suddenly, leaving Mrs Scamander and Sparke alone.

None of them spoke for a while: Mrs Scamander hummed a song ("Weezli is our Kin" or something like that) while examining her fork. Sparke looked around. The right wall seemed to be home of the house's photographs. Sparke could distinguish Alexandra, who looked strange in black Hogwarts robes that fitted ill with her yellow eyes. He could also see two older boys and a brown-haired man who looked at Sparke with the very same yellow stare as his daughter.
'Where's the father?' Sparke asked.
'Beyond the veil' said Mrs Scamander happily, not taking her eyes off her fork.
'Er... excuse me?'
'Oh' she said. 'It means that he's dead. Hard-working man, there. He's passed into another reich, he's living his life there now.'
'I'm so very sorry.' Sparke said with as much pity as he could muster. 'How... may I ask how it happened?'
'He died for me.' she said. 'He went to Borås, that's in Sweden, because that's where the Crumple-horned Snorkack was last sighted. He never returned.' A faint trace of sadness embroided her last words. 'It must mean that he had died happily.'
'And the boys... are they dead too?' Sparke asked, again with as much pity as he could muster.
'Lysander is' she said, pointing at one of the boys in the photographs. He was quite short and had handsome features, shoulder-length brown hair and the look of constant surprise he had (assumably) inherited from his moter. 'And Lorcan is abroad studying'. She pointed at an older boy who was clutching Lysander's shoulder in the very same photograph. He looked a lot like his brother, but bore no resemblance to neither of the family's females.

Silence fell in about ten seconds before Mrs Scamander spoke again.
'I sometimes wonder what Lysander and Rolf is up to these days.' she said. 'Lysander was a really nice boy. Perhaps he hooked up with Dad to finally unravel the secret of spaghetti! I don't think they have ketchup beyond the Veil though...'
There was a sudden sound of flushing from upstairs. Mrs Scamander took this as a sign of leaving the youths alone.
'I'm going to play some Wii.' she said with her serenest tone yet. Sparke did not linger to ask what the heck a Wii was, but went upstairs.
The upper floor contained a very small attic who was, compared to the gound floor, very thin of weird objects, although Sparke could spot a number of colour-changing books in a corner. Two blue doors led to two separate bedrooms. In front of one of the doors - which bore a strange, triangular symbol - stood Alexandra. She was wearing a pure-white pyjama, which increased her air of innocence.
'You'll sleep there' she said, pointing at the left bedroom. 'Watch out for Syckty the Sprungling Spearhead, but I think he's asleep now. And be sure to keep the Gurdyroot close at hand if you wake up with nostril pain.'
Trying to keep all the instructions in his head, Sparke fell onto a large blue bed ornated with Ravenclaw shields in the left room. There were even more strange things in this room (How is that possible?) but his brain did not care to register them.

The he realized that Alexandra was sitting on the edge of the bed.
'What're you doing?'
'Haning out' she said happily. 'When I have friends, we sit on one's bed and talk aboute one thing or another.'
Sparke blinked. Alexandra had just called him a 'friend', which meant that she put him as high as the Army did. The thought was strange, but, somehow, affectionate.
'I'm coming with you tomorrow.' she said.
Sparke could not help smiling. His hatred towards the Ministry suddenly resurfaced, but that made him even happier to think that som many, and so different, people was united in this hatred.
'I want to fight. I don't like the Ministry, and I think that it is very cool of you and your friends to try and destroy the Suckers.' she continued.
'Good.' said Sparke.
She smiled serenely for a couple of seconds, and then she said:
'What rank were you?'
'Huh?'
'In the Aurors.'
'Oh.' Sparke thought for half a second. 'Head Rank.'
'The same as him, then.' said Alexandra, her feet dingling over the edge of the bed.
'Him?' Sparke asked.
'My first boyfriend' said Alexandra.
Sparke was surprised: Her absurd appearance, with a mixture of serenity, dottiness, innocence, insanity, tremendous cunning (The killing curse, Sparke thought) and dreamliness, made it very hard to think that she could have something as normal as a boyfriend. Or to think that her mother could have a husband and three kids, by the way.
'Sometimes I still think of him. We broke up a year ago. He said that we could not be together, not when I had another year...'
'Wait a minute...' Sparke's confusion raised to new heights. 'You're still in Hogwarts?'
'Yes. I'm due to my seventh year after summer.'
'Y... You're seventeen?' Sparke asked.
'No, sixteen. My bithday's in September.' she replied.
'WHA-'
'Come off it.' she said, but Sparke would not come off it. She seemed to shrink before his very eyes: from a strong, young woman to a litte, helpless girl who had much to learn about life. Sixteen... And yet here he was, speaking to her like if they were equals, when she could have been his... his...
'It was very sad, breaking up with Scorpious...' she continued.
'NO WAY!'
There was a deafening clang, as Sparke's left arm hit a book at the nighttable in sheer suprise: The book turned bright pink and swore at him in Norewigan before jumping out of sight.
But Sparke didn't care: His mind was racing fast, too fast. Scorpius Malfoy was a name he knew well...
Scorpius had been in his year at Hogwarts. The only one to pursue the same career as him - Auror. Sparke had little memory about his training years - He admitted unwillingly to himself that the dreaful events of Godric's Hollow five years ago had wiped his memory clean. But he remembered Scorpius name with a tingling sense of fear - why, he did not know.
'What was that all about?' Alexandra asked. 'Do you know Scorpius?'
'Y... Yeah' said Sparke, who did not dare to lie. 'I met him a couple of times in the Auror headquarter's. Nice guy, i think.'
'Yeah...' she replied.
And silence fell. Even if Alexandra spoke about Scorpius with an underlining of passion, she seemed not at all interested in the fact that she had brought home a stranger who knew him. Sparke waited for an answer. But she jumped oof the bed and said goodnight as her yellow eyes wrinkled into a smile. She left Sparke lying on the bed and closed the door after her. He thought she was very nice talking to, but was glad that she left him, so that he could lay awake and [I]think.

If it was like this being in the New Dumbledore's Army, he thougt in could be quite fun. He had experienced insecurity, triumph, surprise, fear, horror, mysteriousness, action and mysteriousness again under the last 24 or so hours. He had raided a Sucker, and the another one, and somehow landed at a sleepover party with a woman who featured so many strange things that Sparke did not have the urge to count them.

And so his thought drifted to Alexandra. He did not know what to think of her. Did he consider her a friend, a saving angel, both or simply an odd girl? The inescapable thought that she had repelled a Killing curse like it were some kind of bothersome flobberworm. Had he hallucinated? Or did she posess powers, powers beyond any normal wizard, powers to match those of Gamon Eisenhower or even Harry Potter? If so, she would be increasingly valuable to the Army... The thought raised Sparke's spirits... But the again, would you think that a fusssball-selling girl who lived with her death-loving mother and grew strange yelllow plants in a destroyed church would care about such petty things as saving the wizarding world? She and her mother resembled some kind of odd subg-genre of the wizarding world that Sparke had never know of. But he thought that her mother was even stranger; Perhaps the father was incredibly sharp and Alexandra ended up as a mixture of both? Sparke would like to meet her elder brothers some day.

He thought of his own family. Sociolous Sparke, his father, was a cursebreaker for Gringotts, and his mother, Lavender Brown, worked at Madam Malkin's. They had met shortly after they had both finished school, and married some years after. Bannister Sparke was an only child. Even if he played a lot with other wizard children in his youth, he often felt very lonely.

He looked at the coming day with much anticipation: It felt like anything could happen. He thought of Ellinora and her cosy jumper. How was it that he felt such special things for her? She was something special, something beyond the usual Ministry-hating girl. But Sparke apperciated it all the same: She made him feel encouraged and happy. He had not felt that kind of... love... since before Godric's Hollow. And as he lay there, darkness now engulfing him as the sun set, he thought of that as something very good. He needed to leave that five-year-old nightmare behind. Forget everything bad about Harry Potter, the experiments of the ministry, the dark library and Scorpius... Scorpius whom Alexandra had dated... did they sleep among the Squargcuffs, holding hands... ?

---------

He drifted in to a light sleep and was awakened by the sun ne next day. It took him a while to remember why he slept in a room full of large onions, pink and fluffy shotgun ammunition and something that could have been a moss-covered quaffle. Suddenly, he did not feel comfortable at all. A sudden awkwardness filled him, as if he had awakened from a very bad date. He got up, discovered that he had slept with his clothes on, and walked out into the attic. He looked at another blue door, with some kind of weird, triangular shape on it. Alexandra was probably sleeping. He wanted to sneak out without her knowing; He was suddenly afraid of taking her along, thinking that her vague speeches of various oddities would not fit in att all with the serious-faced Adrian or the unknowable Hwakan Coote.

He tiptoed down the stairs, and looked into the lit ground floor. It was deserted, apart from...
'Let's go, Sparke!'
Alexandra looked completely different from before. Instead of kimono, she wore a Muggle's jeans jacket, a yellow, rather short skirt and black socks that was clearly visible, even though they were half-hidden behind a pair of shiningly white Nike shoes. The air of innocence was gone, or at least very well hidden: She now looked like a Muggle teenage girl who was about to kick *** at a wild party in the town.
'Y... Youre going with me, then?' Sparke said, his surprisal badly hidden.
'Of course. I want to! I want to do adventure! Mom's asleep, but I think she don't mind me joining. I'll write her by Gernumbliletter tomorrow.'
Sparke thought of the bickering she had with her mother the day before. She seemed so used to dangers, and yet she seemed so fragile. He thought of her Killing curse revival, and a sudden ego kick rushed through him - suddenly he was fifteen years old again, the Army was his mum and dad, and Alexandra was the six "Outstanding" he was about to bring them. Slightly ashamed of himself by this thought, he winked her outside.


Continuation of this chapter is up and coming in a matter of days...

Continuation on chapter 5.


The air was warm, spite the fact that the sun had just begun to shine atop the small, green valley that was not really part of the present world. Sparke felt relaxed, excited. He was eager to see the Army and was hoping that they could blow up another Sucker soon. Sparke thought for some reasons that Dementors would be no match to Alexandra.
They got out to the Area with No Roofs, and Sparke's peacefulness dropped several degrees. The air here was much colder, and there was no sun. The started to walk all the same. Silence fell between them, only broken by the sound of stray beggars asking for money.

'What's that symbol?' Sparke asked. He had once again caught sight of the triangular eye on the white ring Alexandra still wore, in spite of her radical change of style.
'Oh, this? It's the sign of the Deathly Hallows!' she said happily.
'Death... what?'
'Yeah, the Deathly Hallows. The cloak, the wand and the stone. Collect all to make yourself master of Death!'
'Master of Death... what?'. Confusion raged within Sparke. Was this some sort of children's game, where you collect items to defeat some fictional guy called "Death"? Or did she mean real death?
She turned a corner after him and begun to explain. 'Out there, there are three objects of high magical value. The wand, which makes you invincible; the Cloak, which makes you invisible; and the Stone which pulls people back from beyond the Veil. If you gain posession of every one of them, you become master of Death.'
'And what do "being master of Death" mean?'
'No one really knows. Mom thinks that it means that one can control who dies, and who doesn't. But I don't know. My granddad was a huge fan of the Hallows, he searched for them very much in his youth. Mom was never an eager searcher, but she still wanted me to wear this ring to search for other enthusiasts of the Quest.'
Sparke shook his head as Alexandra looked away. She really believed in many strange things, but this...? He thought of the Killing curse. Could she be... He shook his head again. "Master of Death"... rubbish...

They turned another corner, and was now in the area with roofs, close to the Army's HQ.
Sparke could hear some distant bangs.
The two of them exchanged ill words about the Ministry for a while. Alexandra and her mother loved nature, and thought of the Ministry's actions as outright criminality. She said to Sparke that she would love to help. This made Sparke feel very happy... But his happiness drowned as they turned another corner, and he was engulfed with fear.

He, Sparke, had looked forward to this day. But not to this... this was dreadful, terrible!

The HQ was partially on fire. Members of the Army ran around the area fighting various Ministry wizards. Fifty feet above them hung some sort of metal fortress freely in the air. Jets of light and fire flew from it in every direction. Several of the neighbouring houses had been smashed to pieces, and as Sparke stood there in his horror and shock, he heard the distinct cluttering of a muggle helicopter. Screams of horror pierced the air along with Adrian's audible roars of fury.
'SPARKE!!' Joaquin came running towards him. Sparke felt a huge wave of repulsion when he saw that Joaquin's face was splattered with blood.
'Help us! The Ministry is wiping every resistance clean! We need someone to fetch Banter, he's trapped in the house and Lumpus is knocked out!!'
'I can do it' said Alexandra and without a single word, she darted into the firelit house.
'Sparke, you...' but Joaquin was interupted by three Chasefire Jinxes that was coming his way. Sparke looked around and saw three hooded Ministry wizards heading his way.
'STUPEFY TRIPVIDIA!'. His Stunning Spell split in three, but they were all deflected towards him, along with another Chasefire Jinx. Sparke cried 'Protego' and they bounced away.
And suddenly he was knocked by something heavy and woodish. He gripped whatever it was, and fell his feet lift into the air. It took a while before he realised that he was clinging to a rope hanging from the muggle helicopter that soared the battlefield like a vulture. He climbed the rope as he looked down. There was undistinguishable figures battling eachother on the ground below. He felt a surge of worry as he saw the firelit HQ. He hoped that everyone was okay. He thought of Ellinora, and he slapped himself: The others are just as important, Sparke!

Coming inside the helicopter, Sparke saw that Hwakan and Mario was driving it.
'Sparke!' cried Hwakan, his face ablaze with sweat. 'Glad you could join!'
'We have bewitched the bullets, they won't be able to deflect them, har har'. said Mario.
'Take THIS!'. He pulled a switch on the control panel and a jet of bullets shot out from the helicopter. Mario had aimed for two ministry wizards on the ground - One managed to jump away, but the other one took a load into his shoulder. 'And that's for making the whole wizarding community a living hell'. murmured Hwakan.
They soared up, towards the metal fortress, or whatever it was. Two jinxes hit the rear of the helicopter, Sparke could feel it wince.
'MINISTRY TO LEFT!' cried Mario. Surely enough, two hooded wizards on brooms caught up with them on the left. Sparke knew what to do: He opened the door and shouted 'INCENDIO!'
The wizards evaded the purple flames erupting from Sparke's wand. One of them shot a hex that hit Sparke in the eye: He staggered backwards in pain, and the wizards entered the helicpoter. Mario jumped up, and began duelling with them both. Skilful as he was, he managed to keep them at bay for a while. Sparke got a grip of sudden inspiration, and took one of the wizard's brooms. With a prayer that Mario and Hwakan would be alright, Sparke flung himself out of the helicopter and into the sky.

He was very high above the ground. He could barely distinguish the battleground below; only the firelit HQ gleamed in the distant.
He swung forwards and towards the metal fortress, who hang freely in the air, probably by the help of magic from the Earth. It was pretty large, like the Gringotts bank plucked from the ground, and bore a look of unwelcoming malice with it's grey, sharp pins sticking out here and there. On the underside of it were a big cannon. Sparke shivered slightly when he saw that the cannon pointed directly at the HQ below.

Screams and distant duelling sounds came from inside of it. Sparke managed to fly into some kind of opening. As he landed, he noticed that he was in a narrow metallic corridor, dimly lit by some kind of artificial light. Two bodies lay on the floor. He looked at one of them, and recognized the "A mugged bug bugged the ugly smuggled muggle in bugglesworth"-shirt. Rose Weasley lay on the floor before him, but Sparke found out that she was "only" unconsious by holding a hand towards her heart. Relief, sweet relief. But as the battle spirit in him had taught him since ages past: Relief and joy could wait. Now, he must fight.

'TAKE THIS!! AN' THAT!'
Sparke had reached the roof of the fortress, which seemed to be the heart of the battle. At the foot of a giant antenna stationed in the centre of the roof, a bunch of Ministry wizards was fighting against Adrian and Arnold McDillon. Arnold dodged the Ministry's curses with stunning presicion, but Adrian fired beams of light everywhere around him in blind fury.
'I DON'T CARE WHAY YEH SAY, AS LONG AS YOU DROP DOWN DEAD AT MY WAND! STUPID AND FILTHY NATURE-HATERS ARE YEH! AU REVOIR, MINISTRY!'
Adrian shot a thunder jinx at the giant antenna: It fell down under a thunering noise. Even if Sparke knew since long ago that noise and fury were less sucessfull than silent accuracy, he had to admire the effectiveness of Adrian's fight - None of the three wizards battling him could get anywhere near.
Sparke threw himself into battle: He joined Arnold in firing Stunning spells at a ministry man who deflected them, so that they burnt holes in the roof on which they stood. Sparke took protection under a nearby ventilation shaft to avoid a jet of greenish light. He shouted 'OROBORUS!', but the Ministry wizard deflected it. It was heading towards Arnold, but Arnold said 'Protego' and it fell down to the roof, useless. The Ministry wizard was now running away... Arnold chased him, and a huge body hit Sparke and he fell backwards. The body was a ministry wizard. Sparke looked at Adrian, contorted with rage as he fired spells towards his two opponents with insane speed.

But something was wrong... Adrian's opponents started a run, too, and joined with the wizard Arnold battled. They picked up another body of a fellow Ministrian and jumped off the roof.
Silence fell among Adrian, Arnold and Sparke, broken by a strong, flapping sound. But as the helicopter emerged from the corner of the roof, it did not show a firendly sight. Mario and Hwakan was nowhere to be found. Framed in the left opening of the helicopter, however, was an evil-looking blonde woman, the same grey-eyed Ministry wizard who had chased Sparke and Alexandra the day before, and Alexandra herself, tied up and mouth-wrapped beside the woman.

Sparke felt dread joining his already flaming panic and fear. He was the one who had suggested Alexandra to go and fetch Banter... He wondered whether the litte baby was alive...
'JOVANNI!' screamed Adrian, and started to fire rapid jinxes at the grey-eyed man. But they were deflected - appearently, a Protego charm protected the helicopter.
'Now, now, Hagrid, don't lose temper.' said Jovanni, his voice magically magnified to overvoice the flapping sound of the helicopter. Sparke did not like his voice: It was slow, sly and taunting.
'And please leave your curses out of this. You might injure our special guest.' Jovanni shook Alexandra slightly.
'You and your 'Army' are worthless, you know that? No one stands in the way of the Ministry and the Auror Scouts.'
Alexandra looked at Sparke with a hopeless, helpless look. Her eyes, her yellow eyes... Rage filled Sparke, and before he knew it, he shouted:
'LEAVE HER ALONE! JUST LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU!!'
'Alone?' Jovanni sneered. 'We can't leave her alone, now that the Ministry has got hold of the one last living Hitherus. Gamon will award me, all right. Ha Ha Ha!'
And he gave her a full slap in the face. Sparke went furious. You don't treat a lady that way! You just don't!
'So. Our mission is accomplished.' said Jovanni. 'I'd like you to try to disarm the time curse I'm about to place on this fortress.'
'Thelius Reducta.' he said, and the roof started to vibrate with a mysterious ticking noise. With a laugh, the helicopter soared away into the sky.

The one present on the roof now were Adrian, Arnold, Sparke and two motionless bodies.
Silence fell.
And when Adrian started to walk towards the antenna, where the ticking noise seemed to come from, panic gripped the three of them and grew steadily within them, like a raging snowball.
Adrian tried jinx after jinx, curse after curse on the antenna, but with no result.
Arnold pushed him roughly aside to try for himself.
And as Sparke noticed that Arnold had failed his 'curseverse' charm, Sparke pushed him aside and said 'Curseverse', but with no effect. And the tickning noise was ticking faster.
'Of course, the Curseverse won't work' said Arnold. 'But if...'
'Leave yer stupid curses for one moment, let brute force do the talkin'.'
'No, Adrian, I did a specialis revelio on this one, and clearly, you can-'
'Geroffme'
'But Adrian-'
'GEROFFME!'
The ticking grew faster and faster. Sheer panic, Sparke thought, made Adrian chuck Arnold backwards.
'ADRIAN! For MERLIN's sake!'
'There's no need te bicker with small things now, our families 'n friends are at risk...'
'Of course, but-'
'SO WHY' Adrian banged the antenna.- 'CAN'T' - He banged it again. 'THIS' - He banged it again. 'THING'...

Sparke reacted instinctively. On 'THING', the ticking noise reached a climax, and Sparke ran towards the edge of the roof. He knew what was gonna happen, and he prayed, once again, for everyones safety as he launched himself over the edge. And as his body fell freely in the 12 o' clock sun, he realized how very far it was from here to the ground. He was not sure of what came first after that - was it the ticking noise ticking so fast that it became one single note, was it the sound and heat of the monstrous explosion that tore the fortress apart or was it the highly unpleasant feeling of his body hitting a hard patch of ground after falling nearly two hundred feet in free fall? Unconsiousness came to Sparke's rescue, shielding the searing pain that was now threatening to eat him alive.

-----

'Sparkie...? Wake up, please! Sparkie? SPARKIE!!'
The outlining of Rose's anxious and frightened face came into Sparke's view. The fact that he could see worked as an alarm clock on him. He sat up so fast that Rose winced, and looked around.
There was no HQ. There was not even a ground that the HQ could reside upon. All that was visible was loads and loads of chunks. Chunks from the Ministry's deranged metal fortress. The giant cannon pierced the ground where the HQ, Sparke's home for the last few days, had been. There were splotches of blood everywhere, thick clouds of dust and small fires.
Panic, like if it was infinite, pierced Sparke's already panic-tired body. And now his hearing had caught up with his sight. He heard Rose's small, stifled cries as if from the other end of a long tunnel. But he also heard something else.
'... LES CES FICHU MINISTÉRE DEVRAIT BRÛLER DANS L'ENFER POUR TOUT L'ETHERNITY!!! LE MINISTÉRE EST GROSSE SALETÉ MENTUSE!!!'
Adrian Hagrid's voice was frightening beyond frightening. Sparke saw him running backwards and forwards, picking up and throwing things at random. Loud clunks mixed with his french/english curse reins, who was so long and so complex that it was like hearing a song.
'YOU'RE THE SCUM OF SCUMS OF F-ING SCUMS, GAMON AND EISENHOWER, AND YOUR NAMES ARE SO F-ING ANNOYINGLY STUPID, YOU WILL MAKE ENDLESS PAYMENTS IN YOUR OWN BLOOD, YOU RAT-LIKE, FAT, UGLY, TREACHEROUS SCUMBAGS...'

Sparke, his body still aching heavily from the fall, walked towards Adrian, like in trance, and he saw Rose fall down to her knees in the corner of his eyes. He used all of his strength, not to curse, but to restrain the urge to throw up.
Here and there were small clumps of... but he did not want to know what it was, even though they presented themselves to his sight - Joaquin Norton's body slashed in half by a sharp piece of metal, Lumpus Woggle's face so blood-stained that it was completely red, Hwakan Coote's legs sticking up from the ground and Ellinora Polly's head speared to the ground by another sharp piece of metal, her black/blonde hair completely empty of it's usual, shining graze.

Chapter 6 - They Should Rest In Peace

It was the Ministry's fault. It was all down to the Ministry, with Gamon Eisenhower bending his power like a bewitched twig. All the Ministry. If the Ministry would cease, this would cease.
These thoughts struggled within Bannister Sparke, struggled and fought a losing battle against the panic and the shock. Blaming the rightful perpetrator, chasing a source for justification... These were Sparke's personal ways of fighting grief and sorrow.

It was unbelievable. Sparke had thought that The New Dumbledore's Army might suffer one loss, maybe two, before bringing down the Ministry once and for all. It was so sorrowful that it almost reversed into some kind of wicked joke, the thought that they would have lost Ellinora, Arnold, Lumpus, his wife and probably his son, Mario, Hwakan and Joaquin after their second misson...
Adrian had finally given up the shouting for an even louder howl of misery. He seemed to be crying. It was pitiful to see, yet Sparke could not muster any pity.
He felt like if a sad song with silent acoustic guitars played in the background, and everything seemed to move in slow motion. Sparke fell down to his knees without feeling it. His body was numb with pain, decreasing panic, shock and a number of other highly negative feelings.

Rose's crying reached his left ear. She put her arm around him, and a tiny glimpse of friendish love burst through Sparke like a sunray. He felt dull thumps in the ground, and when he looked up, he saw that Adrian was in front of him, punching in the ground while crying even louder.
'They should rest in peace' said Sparke quietly. It was all that he could think of saying.
'They should rest in peace'.

Dreadful thoughts pondered through Sparke as he sat there on the dusty ground, watching Adrian putting out fires while partly switching the crying to swearing. Rose clutched Sparke even more tightly, sobbing on his shoulder. This was more than enough for his whole life. The Army was down, but they would not take Rose, not his best friend Rose.
Sparke paid almost no attention to Adrian as he walked backwards and forwards, removing the chunks of metal and cleaning the place up. He was too tired, too full of pain still. He did not even pay attention to Rose as she walked forwards to what was now a mini-cementery with seven marble-white graves.
'So... what's next?' she asked no one particular.
Sparke got to his feet by the sound of these words. He knew where to go, he knew the only person in this vicinity that they could trust upon, in spite of her oddity and sometimes strange behaviour...

The other ones followed him silently. The silence remained throughout their walk across the Area with No Roofs, only broken by stray beggars asking for money and Adrians distinct murmuring:
'They.... destroy'd an entire area of tha suburbs... only to get ridoff a small rebel's group... Madness... madness... madness... madness... madness... madness...'
Sparke thought of Hitherus. What was that? The word seemed to wake his most feared memory to life yet again. The sword... the library... and Harry Potter.... 'Hitherus'... what was that?
They halted at a wall with a great hole in it, a great hole that led to a shabby and smashed living room - but as Sparke waved with his wand, the hole suddenly led into something else - something that looked like a small valley, where a tiny wooden house resided under a blue sky.

'Alexandra? Is that you?'
Mrs. Scamander's voice came from inside the house.
Sparke, Adrian and Rose entered.
'Oh. It's you. How nice!' Mrs. Scamander looked as if she had just awoken.
'The Ministry! They took her!!' The panic took, once again, control of Sparke's body before he could master it.
'I know.' said Mrs. Scamander, rather calmly. 'They took her from here. Your baby's safe'. she added to Adrian.
'MY baby? You mean Banter?'. A gleam of suprise shone through all the misery on Adrian's face. 'Is... Is he, safe?'
'Yeah' said Mr.s Scamander. ' She brought him here just before they arrived. He's upstairs.'
Rose gave Sparke's shoulder a slight hug. sparke, too, felt relieved. The idea that Lumpus son was alive was too good to be true; a tiny slice of remorse from the skies.
Adrian hurried up the stairway to check on the little baby. Rose followed. Sparke however, remained on the ground floor. His feet felt glued to the ground, and as he looked at Mrs. Scamander, questions rose within him.
'Why does the Ministry want to take Alexandra?' he said. 'When we got attacked, she said that they try to catch her every now and then. Why? Does she have some kind of special powers?'
'Alexandra is the last living Hitherus. Oh yes.' said Mrs. Scamander with her usual casual tone, like if this was just as normal as Squargcuffs or Syckty the Sprungling Spearhead.

'A Hitherus is like a very special kind of witch or wizard' she continued. 'A Hitherus can talk to the planet Earth, and experience the magic that Earth do not share with wizards or magical creatures. A Hitherus hear and see many things that others can't. The Hitherus was a very large community
once in a while, but they died out. I think that Alexandra is the last living descendant.'
So. She was special after all, Sparke thought. One could guess so. Her perplexing eyes of brightest yellow... the Killing curse incident... Her explanation seemed to raise even more questions.
'But...' said Sparke. 'Aren't you her mother? And Lorcan... Lysander...?'
'I'm not her real mother.' Mrs. Scamander shook her head. That strange sadness that was so out of character seemed to emerge in her again. 'Some years ago, when I was selling Gurdyroots at the market, a man approached me. It was very dark, and no one was there. His eyes was like big fires in the darkness, you know, and he was very dirty. The amount of Wrackspurts was incredible! He said he had not eaten or slept for weeks. He was very weak, and refused to let me help him. He gave me... gave me his little baby. "Take care of her. Her name is Alexandra" he said. And then... he died.'

Mrs. Scamander looked through the window. 'Rolf and I only had two kids. He changed his eyes permanently to match our daughter, so no one would ask questions. But he did not change his eyebrows. I always told him to do that. The mismatch is terrible.'
She got lost in her thought until Sparke poked her. 'Oh! I was storytelling. Where was I... Oh yes. Alexandra was a very special child. My dad always told me that the Veil in the Department of Mysteries was a place where the Ministry kept all the dead people, so that they would not truly leave us. But Alexandra could really speak with their spirits, she did not only believe in them like I do! I got to speak to lots of people, my mum, that twin who died, lots! She was very special in many ways... Loved to talk, and she was a huge support to all four of us.'

A ray of midday sunlight peered through the window. Sparke could hear Adrian and Rose walking around upstairs. Sorrow was still racing through Sparke's heart, but listening to Mrs. Scamander, in fact doing anything at all, seemed to hold it at bay.
'The Ministry wants her. In fact, they shoved their faces up on this doorstep seven years ago. They said something that the last living Hitherus would know a one and only way to "The Wizengamot Worldscape", a place that holds endless amounts of Magic. "We feel like Alexandra wants to cooperate with the Ministry, for the benefit of mankind", they said.'
'For the "Benefit of mankind"? They just want to stuff their pockets with even more power, money and control!' said Sparke, who felt very strange; Anger was trying to break through the vivid patches of sorrow inside of him.
'I know.' said Mrs. Scamander. 'So I did not give in to them. But they kept chasing her... and now... they've got her'. Mrs. Scamander's voice seemed to break.
'We shall get her back' said Sparke. 'We shall fight and get her back to you.'
'Thanks' said Mrs. Scamander. 'That's a very nice thing to say.'

Mrs Scamander decided to play some more Wii, and Sparke headed upstairs. Every step seemed to cost him great effort. The image of Ellinora Polly's speared head drove in and out of his mind like a raging rhino. Hopelessness: What should they do now? What could possibly be done now, after the decimation of all their friends and everything they loved and stood for?

The answer came to Sparke in one swift, fluid motion. Yes, that would make sense. That was the only thing that was the right thing to do in their current state. And if done right, they could avenge their friends once and for all.

He walked through one of the blue doors on the upper floor and found Rose clutching the baby Banter in a motherly grip. Adrian was lying on the bed, which crouched under his weight, and muttered something that could have been curses.
'We shall break into the Ministry tomorrow, at Nick's Hour.' said Sparke with as much authority he could muster. 'We shall free Alexandra and take as many Ministry wizards down as we can on the way. All in the name of The New Dumbledore's Army!'

Sorry for the random post :)

Chapter 7: Enter The Ministry

Sparke got up early the next morning. He had slept very badly – His dreams were constantly haunted by blooddrenced bodies, distant screams and the decapitated head of Ellinora Polly dancing to a triton tune.
But he did not feel sleepy at all. That was strange, he thought. He yawned, put on his dress, said ‘Laundrus’ to his wand so that it washed his hair, and went downstairs. In the Scamander family’s kitchen sat Mrs. Scamander, Adrian Hagrid, Rose Weasley and Banter Woggles, all eating on some kind of breakfast pie. Adrian and Rose had suffered severe traumas the day before, but instead of bearing grief on their faces, both of them looked shamelessly excited.

Sparke’s plan had had a very positive effect on his comrades. The fact that they would all break into the Ministry to save Alexandra, and maybe wreck some havoc along the way, had turned their grief and sorrow into anger, fury and bloodlust. To take action, to do something and to bring justice upon the wrongdoers was probably the best way to tackle the immense sadness that came with losing six friends in battle.

They had stayed up late that night discussing and planning their break-in. Sparke had filled Adrian and Rose on Mrs. Scamanders story about Alexandra being a Hitherus and able to lead the Ministry to the land of eternal wealth, the Wizengamot Widescape. Adrian was, like Sparke, furious over the fact that the Ministry had kidnapped a highly innocent girl just to fill their own, worthless wallets just a litte bit more.

They would enter the Ministry at 6:42 PM. The 18 minutes between 6:42 and 7:00 was known among Ministry haters as “Nick’s Hour”, named after the fabulous Gryffindor ghost. It was the time between the last day workers leaving and the first night workers arriving: 18 minutes when the Ministry would stay empty of people. Adrian had packed several of his homemade Gamonotovs for a quick escape, and Rose had brought her uncle’s Decoy Detonators.

They waved goodbye to Mrs. Scamander, who was to keep an eye on Banter just a little while longer. Sparke remembered walking out of that house a little more than 24 hours earlier. He had then felt peaceful, excited, and even cheery. It seemed like a lifetime away. Now he was feeling excited, yes, but also anxious, fearful and depressed. His hatred towards the Ministry had somehow increased to match the hatred Adrian held towards them. They had destroyed the home and people who had been warm and welcoming to him, and they now threatened to destroy (Or whatever they were planning to do to Alexandra once she had showed them the Widescape) a woman that he was very fond of, in spite of their short time together. He could not let it happen. He could not. If he did, he would never ever forgive himself.

They ventured through the Area with No Roofs. A pillar of smoke was somehow still visible from the place where the Ministry’s metal fortress had crashed the day before. Sparke was careful not to look at it. They soon reached a pole with an electrical cable attached to it; they were traveling to London by Wire. Adrian took a cabin for himself, and Sparke shared one with Rose. They drove along the cable in silence. Sparke looked at her; Rose Weasley, his friend. Yet he had spend much more time with Alexandra since he joined the Army. Rose looked excited, but anxiety and fear was visible behind her glasses. Sparke had not seen her in combat, that would be interesting to see.

‘Sparkie’ she said suddenly, ‘Do you remember what you said? Back in Godric’s Hollow?’
Sparke felt the usual thud in his stomach, as always when someone mentioned his past. But it seemed less prominent now, after everything that has happened. He and Rose had grown up together in Godric’s Hollow. They were members of the same gang of wizarding kids in the village, and their friendship bloomed when they entered Hogwarts.

‘Yeah.’ he said. ‘I said that I will rescue you when you are in danger’.
‘Do you still stand for that?’
‘Yes’
‘Good’ she said. ‘I just… I mean, I’m so worried, Sparke. Worried that I might die… So it feels good to have someone to protect you.’
She hugged his arm when she said that. It was a sign of how deep their friendship went; for true friends, small signs or touches is more significant that big words of grandeur. But Sparke was left with a tingling unease. Rose had been at the scene of the horrid events that had haunted Sparke’s mind for the past five years. But Sparke had put a Memory Charm upon her – It felt very strange sitting next to a person who could spill his secrets to someone good enough at Legilimency.

‘Are we going to be all right?’ she asked when they were not far away from London.
‘Yes we are.’ He replied. ‘We are going to enter the Ministry, take Alexandra, punch the Minister in the face, and go home.
Both of them laughed.

The dirty street and the deranged telephone booth was empty and abandoned when the crew arrived. The visitor’s entrance was preferable, as the employee’s entrance was heavily surveyed.
‘Now… We’ll see.’ said Adrian. He spoke the words very slowly and the bloodlust was heavily radiated through his eyes. He took up a bottle and drained it in one gulp. The content of it made him shrink to the size of a goblin; this allowed him to fit in the phone booth along with Sparke and Rose.

‘Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and profession and reason for visiting’ said the female voice inside the booth.
‘Adrian… Emerson..’ said Sparke, inventing wildly. He did not feel to speak their real names ‘Er… Joanne Rowling, and, um… Steve Kloves. We are here to… um… fetch a, wait, I mean fetch… the… Head of Magical Catastrophes, I mean catastrophes. Yeah!’
Three golden badges appeared out of the thin air and placed themselves onto their respective clothes. Adrian’s read “Adrian Emerson, Unemployed, Errand concerning Lucifer Wilson”, but Rose’s read “Joanne K Rowling, Author, Errand concerning Lucifer Wilson”, and Sparke’s read “Steven Kloves, Screen Director, Errand concerning Lucifer Wilson”.

The Ministry of Magic was different. Sparke had been here contless times in his Auror days. He remembered it as a beautiful place, with purple walls and a large golden statue in the centre. Nowadays, the walls were a dark grey, and only Ministry wizards could walk through it and appear at any other place in the Ministry. Even with the Apparition Ban on. This was an example on how magic from the Earth could expand normal wizard’s skills and abilities.

The ceiling was now very high, and one could distinguish the roof as pitch black – It was bewitched to resemble the state of health of the Earth. And Gamon told his minions that Black was a very healthy color, to ensure them that nothing the Ministry did was criminal. And the poor mislead souls believed him. In the center of the Atrium stood a large black stone, where it used to be a golden statue. The words “MAGIC IS MIGHT” was written across it.

The three of them walked slowly across the Atrium. The place was completely empty. Sparke knew that they would consider themselves lucky, but still…
The cold, grey walls made Sparke feel ill. He thought of the Ministry as a sick place, a cursed place.

‘So, you want to get rid of us, headband boy?’
The three of them jumped in surprise; Sparke grabbed his wand. Robes of green and silver… A diamond-clad walking stick… Gamon Eisenhower had, once again, caught them by surprise.
Adrian did not lunge forward to beat the man up this time. He knew better than to assault Eisenhower in his own Ministry.

‘Tut tut tut.’ said Eisenhower viciously. ‘Did I not teach you anything, Hagrid, when I squashed your little friends and your headquarters into oblivion? No resistance, my friend, no resistance’. He walked towards them in the same slow, evil way he had done in the Sucker.
‘Now’ he continued. ‘Exactly how dumb are you people? Walking into the Ministry of Magic all by yourself…’
Sparke closed his fists in blind fury, but did not dare to attack.
‘… and that blatantly stupid “Nick’s Hour” Mr. Robinson was talking about. Yes, we caught him just the day before. He’s enjoying himself with the Dementors right now...’
Adrian gasped. ‘YOU GOT GAVIN?!’
‘Yes’ said Eisenhower. ‘We got the man, now if you would excuse me, but “man”? What’s up with that skirt he has, and it’s not Scottish either…’
It happened during the fraction of a second. When Eisenhower said “Scottish”, he looked away, and Sparke’s Auror reflexes took the opportunity instinctively. He pointed his wand at Eisenhower and shouted ‘KNITERI!’
Eisenhower exploded into shreds. But when the smoke had cleared, they saw that he was made of paper; they’ve been had.

‘It’s him! IT’S HIM!’
‘Oi!’
‘Is that Hagrid?!’
Several people were emerging from the fireplaces on the end of the Atrium that was
behind them. They were all Ministry Wizards, advancing at the three of them with raised wands and murder in the eye.
‘Avada Kedavra!’ cried one of them. The jet of green light missed Sparke, who decided at that moment to throw all caution aside.
‘STUPEFY QUINTIVIDIA!’ he shouted, and five beams of light flew from his wand into the crowd of people. It was a bad maneuver; two people got hit and fell to the ground, but three of them managed to deflect the beams.

‘There’s no time to waste! SPARKE!’ cried Adrian. And Sparke did not know what happened next. Several of the Ministry Wizards let curses rain on them, there was a BANG! below Sparke’s feet, Adrian lunged himself towards the wizards, and the next thing Sparke knew, he was lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. The Ministry wizards all walked on him, but even if he felt their feet hit his body, he did not feel anything at all. It took him a while to realize that he had been transfigured into a piece of the floor.

Even if he sometimes seemed as a clumsy big guy, Adrian could have his genius streaks sometimes. He had transfigured Sparke so that he would not get noticed by the Ministerians. He heard them chasing Adrian and Rose to the elevators. (He prayed to the heavens that they would be all right) The elevators clattered, and then there was silence; the coast was clear. Sparke muttered ‘Finite Tranum’ and the piece of the floor transformed into a man with a headband and sand- colored wizarding robes. The Atrium was once again empty – But Sparke knew that it was because two dozen Ministerians was downstairs fighting Adrian and Rose.

Sparke took an elevator. He pointed his wand at the panel displaying the various floors and said ‘Harrier Revelio’. Number five started to glow - Ergo, there was a fight down at the floor of International Magical Co-Operation.

‘Floor five, The Department of International, Magical Co-Operation with the International Comitté for Magic Business, International Magical Jurist Office and the British section of the International Federations of Wizards’ said the elevator. Sparke put a disillusionment charm on himself, causing his body to become completely transparent. He started walking along the dark-grey, narrow corridor.

At first, there was nothing, but after a while, Sparke could hear distant bangs and Adrian’s unmistakable battle roar. The corridor ended up in a high-ceilinged room with a wooden staircase in the middle who led up to a large balcony. The floor was tiled black/white, like a chessboard. Two Ministerians was crouching at the foot of the staircase. They could not see Sparke.

‘Petrificus Totalus!’ he shouted at one of them, who fell down to the ground, rigid as steel.
‘Katatonia!’ he shouted at the other one, whose face sprouted large tentacles who began to strangle him.

But as he started a run towards the staircase, he felt his foot sink into the ground. The black tiles of the floor did apparently work just like the false stair steps at Hogwarts. (You had to avoid them, or else you would sink into them) The petrified Ministerian heard Sparke’s gasp of surprise and looked at the place where Sparke stood. And out of nowhere, and completely off topic, came a golden egg and a piece of parchment hurling down the stairs. The golden egg knocked the petrified Ministerian on the head and engulfed Sparke’s whole body.

Sparke did not know where the egg came from, or why it swallowed him. All he knew was that his body was now pummeling around in a swirl of colours and shapes. And he was suddenly thrown into a large, rectangular room with purple walls and another chessboard-tiled floor…
‘SPARKE! Good gracious…’
Adrian was in the middle of the room, battling two Ministerians who was in a corridor ahead, regularly taking cover behind a stack of crates, just like Muggle soldiers.
‘HERE! AN’ THERE!’ Adrian hurled curse after curse at them, but the curses just hit the crates. One of them jumped up and shot a Stupefy hex at Adrian.
‘Protego!’ cried Sparke, and the hex was deflected. He started to run towards the crates, to lure them out of their covers, but…

‘THERE THEY ARE!’ Six or seven Ministerians burst out from a corridor to Sparke and Adrians left. The tallest one of them cried ‘Incarcerous!’ and Adrian was engulfed in strong ropes.
‘No! Diffindo! Diffindo!’ said Sparke, trying to release Adrian. One of the Ministerians seized the opportunity and threw a hex into Sparke’s face. Sparke staggered backwards in pain – There were now nine Ministerians against the two of them and Sparke saw no other way to win the fight.
‘PARIDIA!’ Everyone in the room turned blind – Sparke had used a Blindfold Curse on the whole room. When the Ministerians was momentarily cut in surprise, he darted forwards, knocking two of them backwards. When he hit a wall, he turned and said: ‘Accio Adrian!’ Soemthing large and cosy hit Sparke across his body. He put a levitation charm on Adrian, grabbed him and ran for the sake of his life along the corridor, still blindfolded. When he reached the end of the corridor, he said ‘Finite’ to lift the blindfold curse.
The plan had worked – The Ministerians on the other end of the corridor had just realized what had happened. From here, they had a better chance to win the fight. The Ministerians noticed them and started to fire curse after curse.

‘Take some cover, Sparke!’ said Adrian, who darted forwards and Protego-ed every curse they cast. Sparke conjured a crate to take cover behind, and sent two hexes across the corridor, but none of them hit anything. Someone then made a chandelier dart towards Adrian, who ducked and got hit in the head by a Stupefy hex and fell to the ground. The Ministerians cheered and started a run towards Sparke, who took action immediately. He turned his crate to steel and sent it towards them. The Ministerian up front reacted too late; he got hit by the crate, and brought down four of his fellow warriors by Domino Effect.

There was no time to stay and think, to work out some strategy. Sparke sent two or three curses at the Ministerians. One got hit, and bewitched paintings was now flying at Sparke, who said ‘Converto’ to freeze them in mid-air so that they became shields for him. Sparke turned just in time to see that a Ministerian was just trying to ambush him. Caught in some kind of hole in his consciousness, Sparke gave the man a straight punch in the face. He fell to the ground, bleeding, and Sparke kicked his head so that he fell over.

There was a bang – The paintings exploded in a whirl of colours, and the Ministerians started yet another run towards Sparke, along with another shower of curses. Sparke cast Protego on himself to deflect a couple of Jellyleg Jinxes, (?) and Adrian sprung to life, abandoning everything he knew about magic and simply waved his fists at the oncoming horde of Ministerians. It was a well-working tactic - Several of them were knocked out cold.

Sparke felt that it was meaningless to try to bring down a troupe of nine evil guys. They were simply too many. He decided to flee and take care of them later. But first, a goodbye present to Adrian; Sparke threw a well-aimed Reductor curse on the ceiling, causing it to implode on two or three Ministerians.
A door stood ajar to the left. Sparke went inside, and said ‘Protego Totalum Alias: The New Dumbledore’s Army’. Now only he, Rose and Adrian could get through that door.
He was in yet another corridor, vast and exquisite. The chessboard-tiling was replaced by dark marble, and the walls were of polished oak.

Two Ministerians was visible at one end of the corridor. They caught sight of Sparke and sent two Avada Kedavra’s on him, but Sparke ducked to avoid them. Did they ever learn that it was unwise to kill from distance? Sparke shouted “STUPEFY DIVIDIA’, but they, too, avoided his Stunning hexes. Then something happened; the right Ministerian cast a spell that made the floor tilt. Sparke hurled helplessly towards the other end of the corridor, and too soon did he smash his head very hard in the wall. Struggling to maintain focus, Sparke found that his body was engulfed in ropes. The Ministerians closed in on him with triumph in their eyes. Sparke’s heart sank – Had they caught him at last?
But… ‘Petrificus Totalus!’ and one of the Ministerians suddenly fell to the floor, stale as a statue. The other one looked around for the attacker, a moment that Sparke had been waiting for.
‘Stupefy!’
Sparke struggled himself free from the ropes and found himself face to face with Rose. Her face was much bruised and her glasses askew, but her eyes shone as bright as ever.
‘Sparkie! I saved you!’
‘DON’T! Call me Sparkie!’ he said, but he was smiling.

The silence was complete now, but Sparke felt equal amounts of anxiety and unease. Every moment they were not fighting was a moment where his mind got flooded by disasters. Where was Adrian and was he safe? Where were THEY, on the other hand?
Sparke and Rose walked through another corridor, and then another one, without any encounters and with an even more prominent silence. And suddenly, they arrived at a very long corridor where they stood face to face with a giant golden statue that resembled a haughty wizard with a great hat. The statue was moving, and it walked slowly towards Sparke and Rose.
‘iIiInTrUdErSsS… MuSt K!LL!’ it said.
Rose screamed in fear. Sparke could understand that; the giant Wizard did not look friendly at all. And the gold on his body seemed impenetrable… Unless…
Grabbed by a sudden inspiration, Sparke pointed at the floor and said ‘Glisseo!’ He grabbed Rose’s hand and slided along the floor. This did not damage the golden wizard at all, but enabled them to slide along the floor and beneath his legs.

They winded up in another corridor, which cut the other one like an X. Sparke and Rose hurried to the right and saw another two Ministerians who peeked through a door, apparently battling someone on the other side.

‘Stupid giant’ said one of them viciously. ‘Can he just stand still so I can… SELWYN! TO YOUR RIGHT!’ They looked to their right and caught sight of Sparke and Rose, who immediately sent some kind of hex at Selwyn, who fell to the floor, screaming in agony.
‘Nice one, Rose!’ said Sparke who shot a firing jinx the other Ministerian, who deflected it back at Sparke, who deflected it back at the Ministerian, who deflected it back at Sparke, like some kind of bizarre tennis game, until it finally hit the wall. Sparke decided to play offensively this time. As Rose fired another hex, Sparke levitated a loose tile on the floor and shot it at the Ministerian, and when the Ministerian destroyed it, Sparke shot two Stunning hexes at him. The Ministerian fled into a room and Sparke and Rose followed him.

They had gone inside a large room full of desks, desks that were filled with some kind of small, square papers. The Ministerian wasted no time, but made the papers fly around the room to cause confusion and cloud their sight. Sparke flicked his want in a very inventive bow to cause the papers to burn. With enormous effort, he made them fly into the Ministerian. The Ministerian squealed like a pig and ran around the room. Sparke laughed, but he laughed two seconds too much, for the Ministerian made the desks fly around instead of the papers. One of them headed towards Sparke. Instead of jumping aside, Sparke heaved himself onto the desk, and soared into the air with it. He pretended to scream in agony, to keep the Ministerian focus on him…

But that plan did not work out. Sparke had intended to let Rose attack him while his focus was away – The Ministerian understood this and stupefied her. Sparke’s grip on the desk was loosening, so he jumped from it to a chandelier that hung from the ceiling. With one hand clutching the chandelier, Sparke shot Reductor curses at the desks that now tried to knock him down. He saw in the last second that the Ministerian had fired a Whip from the top of his wand at him. Sparke got cold feet; he muttered a Gluing Incantation that glued the whip to his wand, so that their wands were tied together by it. Sparke let go of the chandelier and landed on his feet on the ground rather smoothly. He then pulled his wand backwards to trip the Ministerian to the ground, detached their wands and shot a Stunning hex at the man.

Silence fell once more. The floor was splattered by burnt paper and pieces of desks. Sparke looked at the Ministerian – He had spent so much time fighting these guys that he did not know who they were or what they were fighting for. Maybe this was brainwashed good guys you could feel remorse for? He approached the grey-clad, unconscious man on the floor and lifted his hood a little. The hood revealed a 30-something year old man that was very hairy and had pale skin. He wore a vicious and bloodthirsty smile on his face, even when stupefied. Maybe this was brainwashed good guys you could feel remorse for? The answer was no.

Sparke enervated Rose. She looked more beaten up than ever, but when Sparke explained that they were safe, she smiled.
Suddenly, the peace was disturbed. Footsteps were heading towards their room – fast.
Sparke looked around the room for some kind of escape and found one – A golden egg was lying near a smashed table, the same kind of egg that had taken Sparke to Adrian’s battle.

‘Sparke, how…?’ asked Rose, but there was no time to explain. The sound of the footsteps grew louder, and Sparke threw himself and Rose into the egg. They pummeled around in a swirl of colours and shapes, but this time, they ended up in total darkness.
Sparke got afraid, perhaps more afraid that he had ever been this day. What was worse, he found that he could barely move his body. He and Rose were apparently stuck in some kind of pitch black air duct. How on earth did they get here?
It took a while before Sparke realized that he could crawl. And as he tried that one out, he crawled right into Rose.
‘Ouch!’ she said angrily. ‘Sparke, what is this? I can barely see my hand, what is… OUCH!’
Light suddenly flooded them. Someone below them had flicked some kind of switch that opened up small holes just below Rose’s head, for purpose unknown. The hole was big enough to show them what was happening in the room below. And Sparke could not believe what happened in the room below.

Of all the places that the egg could have taken them to, what was the likeliness that they would end up in an air duct that was placed directly above Gamon Eisenhower’s office and perfect for eavesdropping?

Ten people were sitting around a black table. A large silver door was ajar in the back of the room. The table was blank, except for numerous papers and drawings that were spread out in front of one man.

Gamon Eisenhower sat at a throne-like chair on the northern end of table, a chair that was decorated to fit the colours of his robe. Sparke now knew that the Eisenhower they had met before was a fake, because the fake had lacked the snake tattoo that Eisenhower now stroked absent-mindedly. To his left sat a rather large samurai-like man with a grim expression on his face. He wore a giant hat made of fur.
To Eisenhower’s right sat a wizard that easily could have made it into Sparke’s top 5 Weirdest Appearences of All Time. The wizard was very old and had a mane of untidy and unwashed grey hair. His eyes were brown as chestnuts, but that was barely noticeable since he wore small spectacles and a very evil look. His skin was slightly green and very tattered; it looked like a mask. He was reading one of the many papers that were spreading in front of him with a grin. His teeth was yellow, and he lacked very many of them.

On the other side of the table sat two men and a woman that wore sunglasses. The men were balding, and the woman had black hair. Sparke recognized the grey-eyed man who sat to their left. Jovanni, the Auror Scout. Opposing Jovanni were a fat and large man with an emerald coat and an extremely dumb expression on his face. He smoked a cigar, but no smoke emitted from it. To the right of him was a woman who wore a black party dress. She had blonde hair that had nothing of Alexandra’s beauty; instead it looked dark and dirty. Her look was eagle-sharp and currently fixed on the man across the table: A tall wizard in his fifties. He had black hair and beard and something that looked like a miniature trumpet in his hand. He, the three wizards with sunglasses and Jovanni was dressed in dark blue suits with ‘M’ for Ministry embrodied on the chest. The old wizard with yellow teeth wore a white and very tattered scientist uniform.

Silence reigned among the men and the women. As Sparke and Rose listened, several seconds went before someone spoke – It was the man with the beard and the golden trumpet who stood up to talk. ‘I have Lars Sheenworth, the current editor of The Daily Prophet on the other line, Gamon. What should I tell them?’
Eisenhower took some time before he replied.
‘Tell them that we are SO very sorry about the destruction of London’s northern suburbs. That was the work of a terrorist organization called “The New Dumbledore’s Army”.
Sparke felt a hot surge of anger in his stomach. So, they were planning to present him and the others to the wizarding world as vile terrorists?!
‘Tell them that the Ministry will hunt the terrorists down with all that they are worth’ continued Eisenhower. ‘And that we will not permit further criminals in our perfect world whatsoever.’
Sparke gritted his teeth. Eisenhower stood up and said:
‘I’m in a particularly good mood, my friends, perhaps in a better mood than I’ve been for weeks. The reason? I believe that I, Gamonius Brett Richard Eisenhower III, am closer to find the land of eternal fertility, the Wizengamot Widescape, than any now living wizard. Professor Wasp, how’s our… guest doing?’
The dirty old wizard with the scientist coat, whose name was Professor Wasp, spoke.
‘She’s fine, fine indeed.’ He had a voice that was low, raspy and undoubtedly eerie. Up in the air duct, Sparke got the chills. ‘Not complaining so much anymore, eh? Boy, was she screaming and kicking when we first caught her. But it’s not that I don’t know how to silence a pretty girl.’ He let out a wheezing laugh.
‘Excellent, just excellent’ said Eisenhower. He started another sentence, but was hindered by the man with the cigar.
‘But what ‘bout our plans for space?’ said the man. ‘I’d like to, um, request an answer from you soon, Mr. Gamon.’
Eisenhower laughed. ‘Mr Goyle, Mr Goyle… When the Wizengamot Widescape is mine, you can shoot your little rocket into as many spaces as you want.’
‘But you said…’
‘Not that attitude!’ said Eisenhower curtly. ‘Professor Wasp, when and how will the girl lead us to the Wizengamot Widescape?’
Professor Wasp skimmed through his papers before answering.
‘Now,if you want. If she knows the way, Veritaserum and the Imperius Curse should do the trick. If she’s still alive…’ he let out his wheezing laugh once again. ‘I don’t know what happens to a human when it’s left in the Department of Mysteries for too long.’
‘What are we waiting for then?!’ Eisenhower was talking very fast. ‘Meeting’s dismissed! Go to your posts everyone!’

Goyle, the man with the cigar, looked like he wanted to say something, but he got up and disappeared with the others.

Sparke breathed very heavily in the air duct. Panic was coming to him in great waves, they hit him like huge waves on an abandoned shoreline. He saw Rose’s face just in front of his; she looked just as panicked as he felt.
‘Rose…’ he croaked. ‘Alexandra… She’s in the Department of Mysteries. And they’re going to get her and… and…’
‘We must get there before them’ said Rose. ‘But where’s the Department of Mysteries? I’ve never heard of the place.’
‘No idea’ said Sparke. ‘We need to get to the Department of Mysteries now! But I have no idea, and they will be there any…’
And suddenly, Sparke and Rose got once again thrown into a swirl of colours and shapes. The twirled around a little longer, and were thrown into a large room. Sparke massaged his head, because he had hit the floor, and the floor was made out of stone.

He looked up. This was perhaps the most curious place that they had landed in yet. It was a pitch black, circular room, lit only by a dozen blue lights that were coming from candles etched on the wall. There was no danger or Ministerians in sight. Sparke thought of this as quite weird. Was this the Department of Mysteries? He threw a silent thanks to the golden egg, or whatever had brought them here.

‘Which door should we try?’ whispered Rose. ‘We must hurry, Sparke!’ Sparke wondered what she was talking about, but the he saw it, too: There were doors stuck in between the blue lights.
‘Let’s take a random one then, said Sparke. He grabbed a door and pulled – It was locked.
‘Alohomora’ he said. But the door remained locked. He cleared his throat. ‘Alohomora maxima!’ But the door remained locked.

‘Forget it, Sparke’ said Rose. But Sparke was intent on getting the door open. He roared ‘Alohomora maxima commetum!’ – The spell was so powerful that it made him physically exhausted. But it was worth it. The door swung open, and Sparke and Rose stepped in.
They had stepped inside a small chapel. However, the rows of benches and the lit candles were hardly distinguishable because of a thick, red fog that filled the room.
The moment he stepped in, Sparke felt completely different. He felt his spirit rise, his feet felt like they had left ground; a swooping sensation of endless success seemed to eat its way from his fingertips into his chest. He looked around the room and felt that life was a true miracle, what wonder that he, Sparke, had been allowed to live, to smell the freshness of flowers and feel the warm rays of the sun. His heart swelled, almost painfully large, and got filled with warm and sugar-sweet thoughts about…

The room suddenly screamed, threw them out into the circular room and closed the door.
Sparke was freezing; he had leapt from that warm, curious sensation into this room way too fast. He felt like a junkie who had been robbed of its last fix. Just what was in that room, anyway?

He looked at Rose, who looked at him in a sort of weird way. The stood there in a moment, confused about what they had just experienced, until they remembered Alexandra.
The next door they tried was not locked. They stepped inside, and entered a large, square room that was brightly lit. There were several doors leading to other places on the other walls, (Just how big was this place, anyway?) and several desks. A large tank, filled with green water, was standing in the center of the room.

Rose approached the tank, and then she screamed wildly and threw herself into Sparke’s arms. Sparke looked inside the tank – and he almost started to scream himself.
A thing was floating inside the tank, a human body that had the most horrible face that Sparke had ever seen, and he counted Professor Wasp into that. The face was so white that it looked like it had been dead for decades. But the true horror lay within the eyes, which were red and had slits for pupils, just like a cat. There was no nose, but nostrils that was very narrow slits, just like the pupils.
‘Just what IS that?’ whispered Rose, her eyes as big as chicken’s eggs.
Sparke shook his head in disbelief. What exactly was the ministry playing at? Is this their idea of a weird and wicked experiment? He had a feeling that the dirty old scientist, Professor Wasp, was behind this.

As they watched, the body of whatever it was bumped up and down in the container, and the eyelids slipped down a little, so that only a small strip of red was visible. Was it alive? Sparke thought that if he was a locked-up specimen, he’d do much more than sidle up and down if he was alive.

‘This will not do’ said Sparke. ‘Rose, we must find Alexandra’
Rose, who was staring at the body, did not react immediately. Why, thought Sparke, did they have to hide Alexandra in a place with so many weird things?
They ventured through another door and found themselves face to face with the fact that this place was just growing weirder. The next room was not even a room; it was a vast open area with many young trees, green grass and a perfect, blue sky. But the true remarkable thing about this room was the thirty Ministerians that stood in it, and the thirty wands that was pointed directly at Sparke and Rose.

‘Well well’ said one of them. ‘Enjoying our little stroll among the Ministry of Magic’s darkest secrets, are we?’

Sparke looked down on the ground.

Stone Cold

Two of the Ministerians took Sparke and Rose's wands, grabbed them roughly by their arms and escorted them through a door that hung freely in the air, unsupported by any wall at all. But the usual grey walls and the chessboard tiling of the Ministry of Magic presented itself to them when they entered the door.
Sparke's mind was racing as the Ministerians walked them trhough a maze of corridors. Things had never looked darker. The Ministry would put the Imperius Curse on Alexandra, claim the Wizengamot Widescape and dominate the world. He felt that all hope was truly and genuinely gone; he even resisted the urge to scream in agony.
Through another door, another corridor, another door, a stairway, another door and they were in a dark, stonemade corridor who was lit by torches. Sparke recoginzed this as the place where the Ministry brought suspected criminals in for questioning.

They threw Sparke and Rose roughly into one of the questioning rooms, closed the door and locked it. The room was very dark, only lit by a single candle. They had not gotten their wands.
Rose let out a small wail and started to cry. She fell into Sparke's arms, and Sparke could feel her tears running along his arm. They sat there a long time. Sparke observed the seats, who rose higher and higher like an amphitheater. Dark shadows danced on them, much like dark shadows rose higher and higher into Sparke's mind. He tried to hold them at bay, but...
He thought of the Ministry, and hot anger replaced his feelings of hopelesness and sorrow. The Ministry was bad, evil, vile and vicious, and greedy. Gamon Eisenhower had turned the very establishment in the wizarding world into some kind of power jeopardy. His greediness had spread it's way, like a virus, to the rest of the Ministry. And now, instead of normal, happy workers, there was faceless and countless Ministerians with grey robes and killer instincts...

Rose's crying had dried up a little, but she still sat there in Sparke's arms like a hurt baby. Sparke's emotional center swithced between hopelesness and anger for what seemed like ages. They lost track of time; Had it been two hours since they had been caught? Or five?

Loose images rushed through Sparke's head. The black and white owl that had brought him a letter from Adrian suggesting that he should join The New Dumbledore's Army; Ellinora Polly talking to him about Bertie Bott's beans; Alexandra smiling at him; Adrian furiously hammering his fists on a large antenna; a golden wizard advancing upon him; the snake-like face of the creature in the Department of Mysteries... Sparke realized with a jolt that he had seen that creature somewhere before...
'Sparke...' Sparke wondered who had spoken, then he realized that Rose was no longer in his arms. She had got up, and stared at the corner of the room with a look of deep fear in her face.

Sparke wondered what she was looking at, but then he saw it, too.

But he laughed; he knew that the thing in the corner was not dangerous at all, but he could understand that Rose was frightened; Alexandra Scamander's yellow eyes was a lot more frightening in darkness.

But wait a second...

'Oh, hi! It's the headband boy, right?'
Before he could say or feel anything, Sparke reacted on his Auror instinct.
'The things we said to each other in your bed?' (Rose looked suspiciously at Alexandra)
'My bed?' se said. 'Lots of stuff, like your Auror grade and Scorpius, and...'
Relief paralyzed Sparke like a sweeping river. It was not over yet, there was still hope. We shall win this, he thought triumphantly.
And Alexandra was not alone. Beside her lay the giant shape of Adrian, who was heavily asleep, and a white cat.

They swapped stories about how they had been captured. Alexandra said that a scientist of the Ministry (Professor Wasp, Sparke thought) thought that she could use a day's rest before showing them the Wizengamot Widescape.
'But of course' she said. 'I almost for got that you don't know anything about the Widescape...'
'We do' said Rose. 'Your mother told us.'
'Okay! I see' she said.
'But is it true?' asked Rose, sudddenly excited. 'That you are a Hiterus and can speak to the planet and all that?'
Alexandra's yellow eyes seemed to tingle a bit. Then she said 'Yes.'
'Wow.' Even Sparke was impressed. 'So can you speak to the dead and all that?'
'Yes..' she said. All the attention seemed to embarass her. 'I... I hear them all the time. I speak to my mother sometimes. My real mother.' she added.
'But... can you speak to the planet too?' asked Rose.
'Yeah...' she said. 'But It's full of people and noisy. I could only hear it when I was in the church.'
'What did it say then?'
'It felt hurt, of course.' she said. 'By the Ministry and their Suckers. It's losing energy.'
Sparke felt infuriated. Here was also definitive proof that thet Ministry was indeed hurting the planet with their wicked experiments.

Sparke and Rose told Alexandra about their little journey through the Department of Mysteries.
'You don't recognise such face?' asked Sparke, when Rose had described the dead, snakelike man they had encountered. Sparke still had a tingling sensation that he had seen it once before.
'No...'. she said. ' did you see any Heliopaths?' she added curiously.
'What's that?' said Sparke.
'My mother told me that the Ministry are breeding them in the Department of Mysteries, for war you know'.
There was an awkward silence. Finally, Rose said a thing that Sparke had thought about for a while.
'We should try to get some sleep. We can't think of a plan to escape right now, so let's get some sleep.'
Sparke and Alexandra and even the white cat agreed to this. Alexandra laid herself beside Adrian; the room got much darker when her yellow stare was not present. Sparke and Rose lay beside her, so that the four of them made a row, adn the cat made itself comfortable on Rose's back. Sparke closed his eyes and fell asleep almost at once.

-------

When Sparke awoke, the room was pitch black; the single candle had finally burned down. He felt very warm and sleepy; it must still be nighttime. Why was he awake?
Suddenly, a very bad feeling that something was not right emerged within him. The room was silent as the night, until Adrian let out a very big snore.
A moment later, Sparke realized excactly why he felt something was wrong. When his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he saw that the door was open.

He got up and walked through the door. In the corridor that led to the other questioning rooms lay a single body. The single body of a Ministerian that had been guarding Sparke and his firends. And there was no mistaking the splatters of some dark substance on the Ministerian and the floor surrounding him.

Sparke let out a silent gasp and stared into the piercing darkness.
'Adrian!' Sparke whispered through the room. 'Wake up! Alexandra! Rose! Wake up!'
'Whatissit?'
'U.... Spa-a-arke...'
'Huh?'
His three friends yawned ans stretched themselves, happily unaware of what Sparke had just seen. He realised that Adrian did not know nor see that Sparke and Rose had joined the party.
'Lumos' said suddenly a voice.
Sparke wondered who had said the incantation, when none of them had wands. It was the cat, but instead of a cat there was a man, who had white robes, black, shoulder-length hair and scrubby beard. He was not very tall, and the most remarkable thing about him was that he had three ears.
'Gavin Robinson' he said, but no one listened. Adrian had spotted Rose and Sparke and hugged Rose with a loud roar of delight that made Sparke sweat; Sparke had a feeling that whatever killed the Ministerian might've heard it.
Adrian tried to rush to Sparke too, but Sparke held up a hand to hush him.
'Look' he whispered.
Gavin's wandlight fell on top of the Ministerians body so that they all could see.
The Ministerian was lying spread-eagled on the floor, with a look of deepest horror on his thickly bearded, evil face. He had been stabbed in the chest three times, and there were huge amounts of blood on the floor.
And there was bloody footprints leading from the body, along the corridor, out in the darkness.
'Gross' whispered Rose, adn the others murmured something as well. And then silence fell among them, thick and unwelcoming as the darkness around them. Sparke could almost feel fear gripping his throat like a cold, invisible glove.
Alexandra let out a barely audible whisper. 'We should follow it'.

There was a zipping sound that made them all jump; Gavin had given Rose his wand and transformed back into the white cat.
And they started walking, tiptoeing across the floor. Sparke tried not to think about what had killed the Ministerian. He had been stabbed, stabbed. Was this a wizard's work?
The footprints led up a staircase to the left, which they walked up. They ended up in a corridor just as dark as everything else. Sparke felt very ill when the wandlight fell upon the corridor; it was very long, and the footsteps led to a single, black door. Did he want to find out what was beind it?
'Sparke, please go.' said Rose from behind him.
Sparke started to walk, and the others followed. When he reached the black door, he did not need to touch it, instead it opened by it's own accord.

Sparke wanted to scream loudly when they went inside. They had ended up inside the Department of Mysteries, inside the circular room with the blue torches. He was nailed to the floor with fear, it was too much, the darkness, the blood, the silence...
'Sparke, please GO.' said Rose from behind him, a little more loudly.
The blood led to a dooor slightly to the left. Sparke's unease grew as they followed the trail into a large, square room. The wandlight fell upon the large container in the middle that had contained the corpse with the snakelike face. The container was empty.
Rose and Alexandra gasped, and even Adrian let out a little noise. Gavin let out a small 'mjau', but Sparke, even though he did not say a thing, was more frightened than any of them.
Ha had started to remember where he had seen the snake-man before, and whi... but he did not permit those threads to intertwine in his brain, he used all his will not to think, as if this was a very bad time to make discoveries.
He felt, paralyzed, dazed. Once again, fear made him rooted to the spot. What if... could that really be possible... No....... No way......

He fell into some sort of trance. He followed the trail of blood - that was now accomplaied with drops of the water that the body of the snake-man had been floating around in - through the door that led into the green area (It was night here, too) and through the door that led to the same maze of corridors that the Ministrians had guided Sparke and Rose through.

Sparke felt perplexed and very, very anxious. He felt that his life would end, or begin again, when they reached the end of the trail. And the darkness and silence remained intact. No one of his friends said anything, and Rose held Gavin's illuminated wand steady as a rock.
They followed the trail of blood and water into the Atrium, where it passed another stabbed Ministerian and was renewed with fresh blood.
But they hit a dead end at one of the elevators. Apparently, whatever had killed the Ministrians and taken the body of the snake-man had rode the elevator.

There was no other thing to do. It felt very unpleasant to enter the elevators and riding it up and down, checking every floor for blood trails. The elevator was clattering very loudly, and Sparke was scared to death that it might wake someone up, or that it would warn whatever they followed that someone was coming. He looked at the other's; Adrian and Rose were both very pale and rather sweaty. Alexandra was not really pale, but she looked anxious too, her yellow eyes darting left and right.
Finally, they arrived at a floor where blood and greenish water was clearly visible on on the marble tiling. They followed it, with Sparke in the lead, almost running, into another room. In the new room, they saw that the trail lead through a large silver door, a large silver door that stood ajar. Sparke's heart sank; why would the thing walk into Gamon Eisenhower's room?

Sparke took a deep breath and they went inside inside.
But as they went inside, Sparke's deep breath escaped him at once, in a long, drawn-out and piercing scream.
'NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!'

This was it. The panic and fear he felt that very moment was the strongest emotion he had ever felt for several months. He felt condemned, doomed, as if he could just die now on the spot, insead of doing it later. His worst fears had all ambushed him, and he fell down to the floor, unable to witness the scene that Rose illuminated for him with Gavin's wand.

The blood and the water had reached a climax upon the broad oak desk in the middle of the room. On the desk lay Gamon Eisenhower in a small pool of his own blood, dead.

Pierced through his body were a large sword, a large sword of silver with a rubied hilt and the name 'Godric Gryffindor' engraved near the hilt.

Sparke did not care about the Minister of Magic that had led the world into corruption. All he had eyes for was the sword, the sword that had haunted his dreams for the past five years, the sword that now laid the truth bare for him, a truth that he would sacrifice both his arms for to become a lie;

Harry Potter was alive. He had stolen the body of Lord Voldemort, and Sparke was as good as dead.



That's Chapter 8 for you. Please Feedback! :) There's a lot of people reading, but the feedback thread is kind of empty. Anything will do - I'm after honest opinions, not praising :lol:

Stone Cold

Two of the Ministerians took Sparke and Rose's wands, grabbed them roughly by their arms and escorted them through a door that hung freely in the air, unsupported by any wall at all. But the usual grey walls and the chessboard tiling of the Ministry of Magic presented itself to them when they entered the door.
Sparke's mind was racing as the Ministerians walked them trhough a maze of corridors. Things had never looked darker. The Ministry would put the Imperius Curse on Alexandra, claim the Wizengamot Widescape and dominate the world. He felt that all hope was truly and genuinely gone; he even resisted the urge to scream in agony.
Through another door, another corridor, another door, a stairway, another door and they were in a dark, stonemade corridor who was lit by torches. Sparke recoginzed this as the place where the Ministry brought suspected criminals in for questioning.

They threw Sparke and Rose roughly into one of the questioning rooms, closed the door and locked it. The room was very dark, only lit by a single candle. They had not gotten their wands.
Rose let out a small wail and started to cry. She fell into Sparke's arms, and Sparke could feel her tears running along his arm. They sat there a long time. Sparke observed the seats, who rose higher and higher like an amphitheater. Dark shadows danced on them, much like dark shadows rose higher and higher into Sparke's mind. He tried to hold them at bay, but...
He thought of the Ministry, and hot anger replaced his feelings of hopelesness and sorrow. The Ministry was bad, evil, vile and vicious, and greedy. Gamon Eisenhower had turned the very establishment in the wizarding world into some kind of power jeopardy. His greediness had spread it's way, like a virus, to the rest of the Ministry. And now, instead of normal, happy workers, there was faceless and countless Ministerians with grey robes and killer instincts...

Rose's crying had dried up a little, but she still sat there in Sparke's arms like a hurt baby. Sparke's emotional center swithced between hopelesness and anger for what seemed like ages. They lost track of time; Had it been two hours since they had been caught? Or five?

Loose images rushed through Sparke's head. The black and white owl that had brought him a letter from Adrian suggesting that he should join The New Dumbledore's Army; Ellinora Polly talking to him about Bertie Bott's beans; Alexandra smiling at him; Adrian furiously hammering his fists on a large antenna; a golden wizard advancing upon him; the snake-like face of the creature in the Department of Mysteries... Sparke realized with a jolt that he had seen that creature somewhere before...
'Sparke...' Sparke wondered who had spoken, then he realized that Rose was no longer in his arms. She had got up, and stared at the corner of the room with a look of deep fear in her face.

Sparke wondered what she was looking at, but then he saw it, too.

But he laughed; he knew that the thing in the corner was not dangerous at all, but he could understand that Rose was frightened; Alexandra Scamander's yellow eyes was a lot more frightening in darkness.

But wait a second...

'Oh, hi! It's the headband boy, right?'
Before he could say or feel anything, Sparke reacted on his Auror instinct.
'The things we said to each other in your bed?' (Rose looked suspiciously at Alexandra)
'My bed?' se said. 'Lots of stuff, like your Auror grade and Scorpius, and...'
Relief paralyzed Sparke like a sweeping river. It was not over yet, there was still hope. We shall win this, he thought triumphantly.
And Alexandra was not alone. Beside her lay the giant shape of Adrian, who was heavily asleep, and a white cat.

They swapped stories about how they had been captured. Alexandra said that a scientist of the Ministry (Professor Wasp, Sparke thought) thought that she could use a day's rest before showing them the Wizengamot Widescape.
'But of course' she said. 'I almost for got that you don't know anything about the Widescape...'
'We do' said Rose. 'Your mother told us.'
'Okay! I see' she said.
'But is it true?' asked Rose, sudddenly excited. 'That you are a Hiterus and can speak to the planet and all that?'
Alexandra's yellow eyes seemed to tingle a bit. Then she said 'Yes.'
'Wow.' Even Sparke was impressed. 'So can you speak to the dead and all that?'
'Yes..' she said. All the attention seemed to embarass her. 'I... I hear them all the time. I speak to my mother sometimes. My real mother.' she added.
'But... can you speak to the planet too?' asked Rose.
'Yeah...' she said. 'But It's full of people and noisy. I could only hear it when I was in the church.'
'What did it say then?'
'It felt hurt, of course.' she said. 'By the Ministry and their Suckers. It's losing energy.'
Sparke felt infuriated. Here was also definitive proof that thet Ministry was indeed hurting the planet with their wicked experiments.

Sparke and Rose told Alexandra about their little journey through the Department of Mysteries.
'You don't recognise such face?' asked Sparke, when Rose had described the dead, snakelike man they had encountered. Sparke still had a tingling sensation that he had seen it once before.
'No...'. she said. ' did you see any Heliopaths?' she added curiously.
'What's that?' said Sparke.
'My mother told me that the Ministry are breeding them in the Department of Mysteries, for war you know'.
There was an awkward silence. Finally, Rose said a thing that Sparke had thought about for a while.
'We should try to get some sleep. We can't think of a plan to escape right now, so let's get some sleep.'
Sparke and Alexandra and even the white cat agreed to this. Alexandra laid herself beside Adrian; the room got much darker when her yellow stare was not present. Sparke and Rose lay beside her, so that the four of them made a row, adn the cat made itself comfortable on Rose's back. Sparke closed his eyes and fell asleep almost at once.

-------

When Sparke awoke, the room was pitch black; the single candle had finally burned down. He felt very warm and sleepy; it must still be nighttime. Why was he awake?
Suddenly, a very bad feeling that something was not right emerged within him. The room was silent as the night, until Adrian let out a very big snore.
A moment later, Sparke realized excactly why he felt something was wrong. When his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he saw that the door was open.

He got up and walked through the door. In the corridor that led to the other questioning rooms lay a single body. The single body of a Ministerian that had been guarding Sparke and his firends. And there was no mistaking the splatters of some dark substance on the Ministerian and the floor surrounding him.

Sparke let out a silent gasp and stared into the piercing darkness.
'Adrian!' Sparke whispered through the room. 'Wake up! Alexandra! Rose! Wake up!'
'Whatissit?'
'U.... Spa-a-arke...'
'Huh?'
His three friends yawned ans stretched themselves, happily unaware of what Sparke had just seen. He realised that Adrian did not know nor see that Sparke and Rose had joined the party.
'Lumos' said suddenly a voice.
Sparke wondered who had said the incantation, when none of them had wands. It was the cat, but instead of a cat there was a man, who had white robes, black, shoulder-length hair and scrubby beard. He was not very tall, and the most remarkable thing about him was that he had three ears.
'Gavin Robinson' he said, but no one listened. Adrian had spotted Rose and Sparke and hugged Rose with a loud roar of delight that made Sparke sweat; Sparke had a feeling that whatever killed the Ministerian might've heard it.
Adrian tried to rush to Sparke too, but Sparke held up a hand to hush him.
'Look' he whispered.
Gavin's wandlight fell on top of the Ministerians body so that they all could see.
The Ministerian was lying spread-eagled on the floor, with a look of deepest horror on his thickly bearded, evil face. He had been stabbed in the chest three times, and there were huge amounts of blood on the floor.
And there was bloody footprints leading from the body, along the corridor, out in the darkness.
'Gross' whispered Rose, adn the others murmured something as well. And then silence fell among them, thick and unwelcoming as the darkness around them. Sparke could almost feel fear gripping his throat like a cold, invisible glove.
Alexandra let out a barely audible whisper. 'We should follow it'.

There was a zipping sound that made them all jump; Gavin had given Rose his wand and transformed back into the white cat.
And they started walking, tiptoeing across the floor. Sparke tried not to think about what had killed the Ministerian. He had been stabbed, stabbed. Was this a wizard's work?
The footprints led up a staircase to the left, which they walked up. They ended up in a corridor just as dark as everything else. Sparke felt very ill when the wandlight fell upon the corridor; it was very long, and the footsteps led to a single, black door. Did he want to find out what was beind it?
'Sparke, please go.' said Rose from behind him.
Sparke started to walk, and the others followed. When he reached the black door, he did not need to touch it, instead it opened by it's own accord.

Sparke wanted to scream loudly when they went inside. They had ended up inside the Department of Mysteries, inside the circular room with the blue torches. He was nailed to the floor with fear, it was too much, the darkness, the blood, the silence...
'Sparke, please GO.' said Rose from behind him, a little more loudly.
The blood led to a dooor slightly to the left. Sparke's unease grew as they followed the trail into a large, square room. The wandlight fell upon the large container in the middle that had contained the corpse with the snakelike face. The container was empty.
Rose and Alexandra gasped, and even Adrian let out a little noise. Gavin let out a small 'mjau', but Sparke, even though he did not say a thing, was more frightened than any of them.
Ha had started to remember where he had seen the snake-man before, and whi... but he did not permit those threads to intertwine in his brain, he used all his will not to think, as if this was a very bad time to make discoveries.
He felt, paralyzed, dazed. Once again, fear made him rooted to the spot. What if... could that really be possible... No....... No way......

He fell into some sort of trance. He followed the trail of blood - that was now accomplaied with drops of the water that the body of the snake-man had been floating around in - through the door that led into the green area (It was night here, too) and through the door that led to the same maze of corridors that the Ministrians had guided Sparke and Rose through.

Sparke felt perplexed and very, very anxious. He felt that his life would end, or begin again, when they reached the end of the trail. And the darkness and silence remained intact. No one of his friends said anything, and Rose held Gavin's illuminated wand steady as a rock.
They followed the trail of blood and water into the Atrium, where it passed another stabbed Ministerian and was renewed with fresh blood.
But they hit a dead end at one of the elevators. Apparently, whatever had killed the Ministrians and taken the body of the snake-man had rode the elevator.

There was no other thing to do. It felt very unpleasant to enter the elevators and riding it up and down, checking every floor for blood trails. The elevator was clattering very loudly, and Sparke was scared to death that it might wake someone up, or that it would warn whatever they followed that someone was coming. He looked at the other's; Adrian and Rose were both very pale and rather sweaty. Alexandra was not really pale, but she looked anxious too, her yellow eyes darting left and right.
Finally, they arrived at a floor where blood and greenish water was clearly visible on on the marble tiling. They followed it, with Sparke in the lead, almost running, into another room. In the new room, they saw that the trail lead through a large silver door, a large silver door that stood ajar. Sparke's heart sank; why would the thing walk into Gamon Eisenhower's room?

Sparke took a deep breath and they went inside inside.
But as they went inside, Sparke's deep breath escaped him at once, in a long, drawn-out and piercing scream.
'NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!'

This was it. The panic and fear he felt that very moment was the strongest emotion he had ever felt for several months. He felt condemned, doomed, as if he could just die now on the spot, insead of doing it later. His worst fears had all ambushed him, and he fell down to the floor, unable to witness the scene that Rose illuminated for him with Gavin's wand.

The blood and the water had reached a climax upon the broad oak desk in the middle of the room. On the desk lay Gamon Eisenhower in a small pool of his own blood, dead.

Pierced through his body were a large sword, a large sword of silver with a rubied hilt and the name 'Godric Gryffindor' engraved near the hilt.

Sparke did not care about the Minister of Magic that had led the world into corruption. All he had eyes for was the sword, the sword that had haunted his dreams for the past five years, the sword that now laid the truth bare for him, a truth that he would sacrifice both his arms for to become a lie;

Harry Potter was alive. He had stolen the body of Lord Voldemort, and Sparke was as good as dead.

Chapter 9 - The Events of Godric's Hollow, Five years ago


Sparke kneeled before the blood-splattered office desk. He was so filled with fear that he shook, and he did not even dare too look around his shoulder, fearing that Harry, or a flash of green light, might be there.
'He's gone! The Ministry of ruddy Magic is gone!', said Adrian, who sounded reileved, even cheery. 'WELL? What're yeh waiting for? Let's celebrate!'
Sparke thought that Adrian's cheery tone collided very harsly with his own feelings.
But they were all distracted by a noise that cam from the corner of the room; Sparke though immediately of Harry Potter and jumped up to his shaking feet and drew his wand, but it was something else.

The man with the cigar and the emerald coat, Goyle, was curled up on the floor, startled.
'Wh - wh - wh - who're you', he said with his thick voice. He had no wand, and was staring at Sparke's with a fearful and pale face.
'What has happened here?' asked Sparke very quickly. 'ANSWER!'
'´H - H - H - Harry P - Potter was here...'
Sparke's heart sank even deeper into his stomach.
'H - Harry Potter yeah.... A - and he... Killed...'
Goyle seemed to be at loss for words. Sparke, Gavin, Rose and Adrian had all gathered around him. Golye had a slow, dumb face, tiny eyes, almost no hair on his head and was sweating with fear.
'Tell me what happened.' said Gavin curtly. 'Did Potter kill the Minister of Magic?'
'Y - yes' staggered Goyle, who was now sweating bullets. 'And he... he said... H - h - he said tha - that the M - Ministry would ne - never claim the... the W - W - Wizengamot W - Widesc... ape...'
Alexandra threw Golye a rather curious look. And through his intense fear, Spake could feel a teensy bit of curiosity. Was Harry Potter after the Widescape, too? Did he perhaps find the Ministry as some sort of rivals?
Goyle was sobbing now. 'He... He killed Vince an - an now is killing me! He... he is...'
There was a silence.
'Well, that's blastin' good innit?' Adrian's cheerful tone was seriously annoying Sparke now. 'The Ministry of Magic is down, I could sing! This Harry Potter must be good then, If he killed...'

'HE IS NOT A GOOD MAN! HE IS MOST DEFINATELY NOT A GOOD MAN!'
Everybody jumped. Sparke was still pointing his wand at Goyle; the two of them had their chests rising and falling very fast. Sparke did not mean to shout; his fear exploded with his voice.
Footsteps was now distinguishable on the lower floors.
'SPARKE! Now yeh've woken 'em all up' said Adrian panickly, and even if Sparke was aware of their current danger, he was most satisfied with the change in Adrian's tone.
There was the unmistakeable clattering of the elevators; they had to make a run for it. Gavin pointed his wand at something above Eisenhower's body: a window.

There was no time to think. Sparke let out a loud 'RUN!' and as his fear and panic reached new heights, he abandoned all caution and threw himself out of the window. He thought of nothing else than the fact that he should get as far away from one of Harry Potter's murder scenes as possible.
This was proven to be a very unwise desicion. As he jumped, Sparke realized too late that Eisenhower's office had been magically (by Earth magic) linked to an abandoned office on the 37:th floor of a Muggle house in central London. He felt his body fall freely in the midnight air, and he though with a sling of deja vu about the metal fortress that had crushed his firends like cockroaches...
And before he had time to think "I'm about to die", Adrian had grabbed him by his neck, and hoisted him roughly onto a flying carpet. In the clear light of the moon and some stars, Sparke could see the faces of Rose , Alexandra and their new friend Gavin for the first time since they had been captured. Rose was very pale, and her glasses were broken. She gave Sparke a very anxious look. Gavin however, was staring fixedly at the sky, his face stale, like a warrior perparing for battle.

Sparke then suddenly felt a swooping sensation, not in his stomach, but in his brain; The past events was beginning to catch up with him. They had found the body of Eisenhower, who had been killed by Harry Potter using the sword of Godric Gryffinor; a sword that Sparke knew only Harry could use. Sparke had jumped out of a window, and was - miraculosly - saved by Adrian, who had them all on a stolen flying carpet. And now they were heading - Where?
But they were still in danger. Harry Potter would surely want to kill Sparke for what happened five years ago. And slaughter everyone who stood in his way.
Sparke felt fear coming at him again, fear that he might be left alone in the end, for everyone of Gavin, Rose, Adrian, everyone that followed him, was in real peril from now on. Would they abandon him, and follow their own life from now on? He felt his fear increase... He did not want to be left alone.

Sparke had just begun wondering where they were heading at, when they landed on a wide grass patch somewhere in central London. It was well past midnight, but the moon and some stars was lightening up the night pretty good. It was silent as the grave: There was no one in sight, not even some lost muggle tramps. Adrian got to his feet, brushing away some grass from his coat. Gavin was panting slightly and Rose was repairing her glasses.
'Why did we land here?' said Gavin. 'Why? Adrian?'
'To discuss.' said Adrian, and he suddenly turned rather angrily to Sparke. 'The Ministry's bloody defeated, but SPARKE here, he's still actin' like we're wanted or somethin'. I want ANSWERS ye little...'
'Stop!' Sparke held up a hand.
He let out a light sigh. 'All right', he said, 'I'm going to tell you everything. You don't know me, or what I have done - But now you will. Please have a seat.
Alexandra, Rose, Gavin and Adrian sat down at the grass patch, all facing Sparke, who conjured a stump that he could seat on, as he did not like sitting on grass.
And now, he thought, it's storytelling time!


'Five years ago' he said, 'I had been an Auror for half a year. The training had been difficult, yes, but I managed it. Kingsley Shacklebolt had resigned, and Basil Eisenhower had just begun his installment of the first Sucker - This was when everyone thought of it as a good idea, of course.
Harry Potter was very famous, even back then. He was top Auror, and got to do all the difficult and dangerous missions. He had very many admirers - Girls, of course, who wore deep jealousy against his wife Ginevra, but also boys who admired his supreme magical skills and accomplishments. I was one of them.
So after many ifs and buts, I got to go on a mission with Harry Potter. I was flattered, of course, but also curious to find out what he was like.'
Sparke shrugged.
'Turned out he was nothing like I expected. Not rude - in fact he was very gentle to me - but very quiet, and sometimes a bit arrogant. Hardly ever talked about himself. He had a very nasty run-in with several leftover Death Eaters the day before, so maybe it was because of that.
We rode a Ministry caravan to Godric's Hollow, because we had to carry loads of equipment that could not be Apparated with. Our mission? The first Sucker was half-finished at a hilltop north of Godric's Hollow, and it was up to two Ministerians, Harry and me to check on the proceedings, since the Sucker was designed to build itself.
We hardly talked. He seemed mostly engulfed in his own thoughts. But now and then he would break the ice with a random, polite quiestion about my life. I answered very enthusiastic, but my enthusiasm just seemed to put him down.
Just berfore we reached Godric's Hollow, a full-scale dragon attacked us. But Harry just stepped out of the caravan, conjured a sword out of an old hat, and sliced the dragon's neck in one cut.'

Sparke made a pause and shook his head in disbelief. 'Harry Potter's strength is unreal. His true and actual skills are way beyond any story you might have heard about him.'
'That sword...' asked Gavin. 'Was it perhaps the same sword that we saw at the Ministry?'
'Yes' said Sparke, 'I asked him about it, and he said that the sword was testamented to him by a Hogwarts headmaster. Only he can use it.
From what I know, Harry managed to bewitch the sword so that it can pierce dragon skin, which is highly magical. And pulling it out from the hat... I tell you once again, he is simply incomparable.
Since we both had families in the village, we separated. Our nameless Ministry companions took in at a hotel. "We leave early tomorrow" he said. "So get some rest". I arrived at my parents house. But since I had been there the week before, we had not much to say to each other. We briefed a bit, and then I went to sleep.

I woke up the next day as the sun had just arisen. Harry and our two Ministerians stood waiting for me at the marketplace. Harry had hired a guide to show us to the Sucker. A guide that was named... Rose Weasley.'
'Me?' said Rose, utterly surprised.
'Yeah', said Sparke. 'You and your brother Hugo were in the village then, and since we knew each other, you decided to follow, as a guide.'
His heart switched, from decreasing panic and fear to merciless, infailable guilt. There was a time, he thought, when he would tell Rose that she remembered nothing of this because the Memory Charm Sparke had put on her the day after was still fully functionate. But that time was not now. He dreaded it, he dreaded the thought that he had done such a foul thing to his best friend.
'May I continue?' said Sparke. The others nodded.
'Well, Hugo took a picture of me, Rose, Harry and the two Ministerians. The picture got lost, of course. Pity. Anyway, Rose led us up to the mountain where the Sucker was being built. On the way, we met another dragon that Harry slayed just as easily. We others got very impressed by him, but he simply shrugged at us.
The we reached the Sucker. It was on the top of that fairly large mountain, built by hawthorn just like the ones we've', he nodded at Adrian and Rose, 'confronted. It looked whole, so I don't know why they said it was half-finished...

Only I and Harry got to go inside - Harry said that the Sucker was a device to suck up magic from the Earth, but it also served as a safekeeping for the Ministry's secrets. The two Ministerians stayed outside, and took care of Rose.'
'So I did not even get to go inside?' said Rose, surprised.
'No' said Sparke. He felt his stomach squirm with guilt when he saw that she was pale and surprised by the fact that she was part of these adventures.
'When we got inside... This Sucker did not look like they usually do... There was the bridge, the altar and the strange blue light that came from a vast hole. But also a door that led to something else... A door that led to a room where the Ministry was keeping some kind of containers, and a stairway that led up to a heavy valve. The Sucker was doing well, but Harry soon discovered a malfunction. He asked me to fix it. I used a triplefold Reparo charm to fix it.
But Harry was getting really worked up by something. He looked inside these large containers that were everywhere, and he walked up the staircase and began stroking the valve door while muttering excitedly to himself.'

There was silence for a moment.
'Well... What did he say?' muttered Adrian.
'Something... something about Professor Wasp.'
Alexandra gasped slightly.
'Something about... I didn't get it. He said that Professor Wasp was trying to do something with these containers, but he said that it was very feeble attempts, and Professor Wasp was never going to remain in the history books as Dumbledore had done.'
'Dumbledore?' asked Gavin bewilderedly. 'Who's Dumbledore?'
'You don't know?' said Adrian even more bewilderedly. Best headmaster Hogwarts ever had! Brilliant! They say that he's one of the best wizards of all time.'
'Oh I don't know Adrian' said Rose, and even though she was very pale, Sparke could distinguish some humour in her voice. 'I think Severus Snape could put up a match to him.'
Adrian and Rose laughed hard, leaving Gavin even more bewildered. Alexandra however, looked away as if she was still listening to Sparke's story.
'Anyway...' Sparke said, and they fell silent. He found it easier to talk now that the atmosphere had lighetened up a little.

'I've met Professor Wasp. We', he pointed at himself and Alexandra, 'met him during our Ministry heist. He seemed like a wicked nutter. Don't know how that makes him connected to a great Hogwarts headmaster. Maybe he wanted to be just as glorious as Dumbledore.
But it could not have been clearer that it was Professor Wasp that was behind these Ministry secrets that Harry and I were witnessing. I wondered what the valve door and the containers was hiding. Harry was busy examining and stroking the door, so I peeked inside one of the containers'
Sparke made a pause. Images were racing in his head, images of distorted human faces, grey and snake-like with no eyes and cold, mericless smiles.
'Even today, I don't know what was inside. Some kind of monster... really. They did not look human. If anything, they looked like merpeople... but merpeople don't have long claws... do they?'
There was a sudden uprorar, as Adrian stood up and began rabbling his usual english/french curse marathon against the Ministry, how bad they were, how dirty they were, how they all deserved to be punished...

It took almost five minutes for Gavin to calm down the half-giant so that they could hear the rest of Sparke's story. When Adrian finally agreed, he looked very angry, but was eager for Sparke to continue.

'I think we all can guess that Professor Wasp had created those monsters', said Sparke quietly, 'but if he had done it with or without the Minister's knowledge, I don't know. And for what purpose? Professor Wasp is a wicked man, but monsters? I asked Harry what the monsters were. Obiously, it was very wrong of me to do so.'
Sparke's heart sank as he remembered what happened next.
'As I asked that, Harry sort of fell into a trance... I don't know what happened, really. He sort of stood and thinked for a while, and the his face went blank. He began to...' Sparke swallowed. 'He got totally freaked out and he took his sword and started... he smashed the the sword into the containers and screamed.'

Sparke took a pause. The horrible sound of steel against steel and Harry's otherworldly horrible yells reverbrated in his head. The others did not say anything - They all looked at him very tensely.
'Harry lost control totally', Sparke continued, 'He... he seemed to think that HE was made by Professor Wasp, made just like the monsters in the containers. He shouted things like 'No, was I created this way?!' and... and he screamed 'Professor! You injustified lying scoun...'.

There was a loud noise; Rose's yelling voice cut through the silent night like a sharp knife.
'No he was NOT! Sparke, I NEVER thought you would tell such LIES, Harry Potter was born i Godric's Hollow by James and Lily Potter, NOTHING ELSE! and my parents befriended him at school, he was NOT CREATED, I don't see what the heck you are thinking...'
'ROSE!' yelles Sparke at the top of his voice, so that she finally got quiet. 'Do you think that I myself believe this? I still don't know what in Merlin's wandtip is going on with the guy, I just... WOULD YOU JUST LET ME FINISH MY TALE?' he added angrily as she opened her mouth again, and she fell silent.
'I take your name is Rose?' said Gavin calmly. 'Would you please let Sparke continue?'
Sparke swallowed. Rose sat down, and she looked even more worked up than Adrian, and that was sayig pretty much.

Sparke swallowed again.
'We returned to Godric's Hollow. Harry did not even try to talk to anyone of us. He was just thinking and muttering under his breath. He looked pretty sad, to tell the truth. I got home and went to bed. We all got home, really.
But as I brushed my teeth, I saw him by the light of a street candle. It was very late at night, and he was heading for the Dumbledore Mansion.
'Dumbledore mansion?' asked Gavin.

'Yeah, It's called so. I never knew Dumbledore the headmaster, but the house where he used to live is very famed. It's been empty for years now, and filled with dust. Anyway I... I followed him..
It was very creepy. The mansion was pitch black - no one has been in it since Dumbledore died 1997. I followed Harry's steps in the dust. He had gone downstairs, to the great library.'
Sparke made a slight pause, he remembered how very eeire it was in the big library. Dusty and cobwebbed, only lit by one single candle and Harry standing there, skimming through the hundreds of books with an almost frantic look on his face.
'He was alone in the library, mumbeling for himself. He repeadetly cursed Dumbledore for lying to him about his origin. And he said something about Voldemort... About Voldemort being a hitherus. And about Harry being made form genetics that was taken out of Voldemorts body.'
'Voldemort...' said Gavin thoughtfully. 'The Dark Wizard Voldemort? A Hitherus?'
'Yes. Or that's what Harry said' said Sparke.
'Unbelievable...' said Gavin. Adrian and Rose looked dumbstruck, but Alexandra showed no sign of surprise that Voldemort had been a Hitherus.
'And when he saw me. He said very loudly that "my race" were traitors, and that the Hitherus was sacrificed to satisfy the Planet's health long ago. And all that was left of them was notes in this library. He said that Voldemort was the last known surviving Hitherus., And to prevent the race from dying out, a couple of talented wizards, with Dumbledore at their lead, made a clone out of Voldemort's genetic code. That clone was Harry Potter.'

'You're KIDDING!' said Gavin and Adrian in chorus, and even Alexandra was starting to look utterly surprised.
Sparke sighed. 'And then he threw a Disarm spell at me. He said that he was going to see his father. And he left the mansion.'

Sparke threw a worried look at Rose, who were cooling down from her outburst, and listened to Sparke so tensely that she might drop dead if he stopped talking.
'I got out of the mansion after Harry, and he...'
Sparke was now speaking very fast as if it would hurt Rose a litte less.
'It was horrible. Godric's Hollow - my parents - my home - Rose's home - all engulfed in flames! I...'
Alexandra threw Sparke a pitiful look. Rose seemed to be at loss for words.
'I still don't understand how he could have the heart to do this.. But... E - every house in the village was burning. Children running around and screaming, adults trying to Aguamenti on the flames. It... It was a scene of true terror.' Sparke could feel tears burning in his eyes.
I lost all hope when I saw that my house had burned halfway down to the ground. My parent's, they were asleep, and I... I...'

There was no reason to pretend. Huge tears slipped down Sparke's nose and into the lap of his knees.

'I... I had lost it all... I c - checked. *sniff* I checked for the Weasley's house, but it, too, were... E- Engulfed by flames. *sniff* And I was ready to kill my - mys - self, to join my... parents *sniff* but then I saw Rose and Hugo, they were alive and w.. was running up the mountains...'
'Hope.' he croaked. 'They li - lived. *sniff*' I followed them, they were following Harry to the Sucker, I... *hick* felt such anger towards him that I w... was ready to *sniff*... kill'.
With a great effort, Sparke swallowed the last of his tears. The atmosphere in the group was very tense - It was so silent that Sparke distinguished the thud of a leaf falling to the ground.
'The three of us got into the S - Sucker' he said very silently, 'And when we... got to the first room, he was standing in the middle of the bridge and... when he saw us, he made me and Rose fly across the room, and he... he pulled out the Gryffindor sword and, AND HE STABBED HUGO TO HIS DEATH!'

The final words made Sparke explode with grief; he fell down to the ground and screamed, as five year's worth of sadness and miserable memories flooded him like some kind of mad river. The tears were coming again, white and pearly, they displayed his feelings openly for Adrian, Gavin Alexandra, and Rose, all of whom were very, very quiet.

Sparke got up; he made a drying charm on his eyes to stop the tears; the charm made his eyes tingle a little.
'Anyway... Where was I... Yes. After he s - stabbed Hugo, I sort of.. Looked. Into Hugo's eyes. And I got mad. Really really mad. Harry Potter was going to pay. He walked into the room with the containers. And he left the sword behind. Andy you...', he nodded in Rose's direction, 'You picked up the sword and ran after him.
In the next room, Harry was sort of kneeling in front of the valve door. He said "Father, I'm here to see you", and you screamed at him that he was the worst human possible, and how he had the heart to burn his hometown and all the people in it.
And he... He took the sword from you and made a single stroke across your chest. It was h - horrible. Blood everywhere.'
Rose made a sudden gasp and she took of her shirt - Sure enough, there was a large scar there.
Sparke looked down. 'I healed your wound, and carried you to a safe place. Harry opened the valve door and went inside. I followed him. I wanted to fight him. I wanted to kill him.' Sparke's voice shook a little as he said the last words.
'Inside the room beind the valve door was nothing but a single, black coffin. A black coffin containing the decayed body of Lord Voldemort. Harry took the body over his sholders. You know, like if it was someone who had drowned. He said that... He said "father, let's go to the Wizengamot Widescape".'

Sparke swallowed. 'And when he saw that I was in the room, he drew his wand. We stared at each other for a long time. And... And that's the end of my story.'
As Sparke finished his tale, there was complete silence.

Chapter 10 - The Planning

The sun was now almost visible at the eastern skyline. It made the city of London shimmer with an almost perfect blendage of light and dark. It was very beautiful, indeed.
But Sparke saw nothing of this, because he held his head down in deep concentration.

He wanted, with every fibre in his body, to fullfill the tale he had not told anyone in five years. But he simply could not remember. He simply could not remember a thing after confronting Harry in the Sucker. He tried to focus his memories, but everything just seemed a big blur. The only thing he could muster was a vague memory of being stabbed by the Gryffindor Sword.
Why, WHY had he survived? He had duelled with the most powerful wizard of that time. Of course he had been stabbed - Sparke wondered what else Harry had done to him. Remembering the crazed look of Harry's face, Sparke wouldn't be surprised if he had been victim to the Cruciatus Curse. But here he was, alive and well...

Sparke woke up from his ponderings by Adrians thundering voice.
'So that's it?!? That's the end of yer bleedin' story?!'
Sparke sighed.
'I don't remember. I really don't remember what happened next.'
'But you survived', said Alexandra calmly.l
'Yes', said Sparke. 'But how? He's probably the most powerful wizard of this age. What chance did I have? I don't remembery anything... But here I am, alive and well.'
Adrian, Alexandra and Gavin all looked bewildered and caught up by Sparke's tale. But Rose was very pale and stared at Sparke as if she could not see him clearly.

'They declared him dead after that incident, didn't they?', asked Gavin. 'Harry Potter, I mean'.
'Yes', said Sparke, 'I thought so, too. Did it mean that I defeated him?'
'I don't know', said Gavin. 'You fought him, and by magical means you could not have defeated him... But you survived, and Harry Potter was nowhere to be seen after that incident.'
'Mysteriuos..' said Sparke.
'Very', said Gavin.
There was silence for a moment.
'And I survived, too'. Rose spoke very lowly, as if she meant only for Sparke to hear her. 'How did I?'
Sparke swallowed. 'I... must have carried you out somehow. I'm sorry Rose, but I really can't remember.'
Sparke tried to put as much empahsis in the "sorry" he just said. He felt very uneasy, like an artist that had just played his worst gig ever. Adrian looked very unhappy with the way that Sparke had just abruptly ended his story. Rose was so pale that she looked almost like a drowned person, Gavin was lost in thought. Alexandra, however, was asleep.
'I think we should just rest', said Gavin, 'rest and decide where we're going tomorrow'.
'Good idea', said Sparke.
Adrian muttered sleepily, and drosed off without another word. Rose looked sideways at Sparke, and then she fell down on the soft grass.
Before sleep embraced Sparke, he could hear Gavin say something very odd:
'What a fascinating tale'.

Sparke had a very strange dream. He was walking in Hogwarts with Alexandra, then Rose showed up and threw dead bodies at him. He kept telling her that he'll fix up his dishing duties, but she screamed at him that a wand, a cloak and a stone were missing from the dishing stands. And Harry Potter had kidnapped their dog...

---------

'Who are thay? Mommi! Who are thay?'
'Never mind the tramps, Colin, just go to daddy!'

Sparke opened his eyes. The sun stood high into the cloud-free sky, who was still a bit greenish, thanks to the Suckers and the Earth's decreasing health. He looked around; The park they had slept in was now swarmed with loud, stressed Muggles walking back and forth. Those who passed them cast a suspicous eye on the giant, beardy man, his cloaked companions and the yellow-eyed girl that war yawning and stretching.
Gavin was the only one of them who was wide awake, and he stared out into nothingness, as if in deep thinking. (Sparke had yet to adjust to him being part of their crew now)
Sparke got to his feet, yawning and stretching to get his brain into focus. What time was it?
Adrian caught his eye; They would not be able to plot anything in this giant, smelly Muggle mess. They needed a plan, and for a plan they needed a quiet place.

Not too soon did Rose finally wake up, and after she had done her bit of yawning and stretching, Adrian pointed at an obscure café on a sideroad. They moved towards it, and no one said a word until they had closed the door behind them.
The place was empty apart from an old lady with a sour-looking face, who was cleaning the bar desk.
'Where are we?' asked Rose.
Gavin stretched his neck to read a sign. 'Tottenham Court Road', he said.
They got seated on one of the greasy tables. Adrian took the seat that showed his back to the caretaking lady. He took up a piece of parchment from his moleskin coat and showed it to them. The parchment read 'CODES'
Sparke understood, because Adrian had told him about the Army's own code language. He thought with a sting about the early loss of his friends, and the Adrian spoke.

'The plan! Yeh, what's the plan? The Munchables' - the word "CODES" faded into the parchment and got replaced by "MINISTRY" - 'Should be pretty damn happy that they've got a scapegoat up there bleedin' sleeve. Yeh, The Gertiekeddle' - The word "MINISTRY faded into the parchment and got replaced by "THE NEW DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY" - 'killed Rotsiepots, ("HARRY POTTER") that'll be the headline for tomorrow's Dagens Nyheter.' ("THE DAILY PROPHET")
'So', said Gavin, 'we pretty much have a death sentence in the whole... er... Lizarding Hurl (The parchment now read "THE WIZARDING WORLD") now?'
'Only the part of the Lizarding Hurl that the Munchables control' said Rose. Sparke was relieved to hear that her voice was once again strong and steady.
'So', said Gavin, 'We hide.'
The lady of the café gave Gavin an irritating look.

'I say', said Adrian unneccesarily loudly, 'Sure the Gertiekeddle got like wiped out by 'em Munchables, but I, Pesto Piscus Permittri, ("Adrian Wulfric Pierre Hagrid") my heart still burnin' to venge those who gradually kills off the Earth. Were small crew now, but damn, I hope we'll fight 'em hard til we die!'
Sparke wondered if Adrian talked this way to strengthen the code, or if he really had a poetic vein somewhere.
'So who's with me!?'
'Adrian', said Rose, 'You are forgetting something'.
'Huh?'
'The Munchables has already fallen! Ha... I mean Rotsiepots killed the Chief Muncher. It's over.... Is it not?'
'I dunno', said Gavin, 'The Munchables might still go strong. And you're forgetting that there's a lot of Cereals ("SUCKERS") left. And you're forgetting about Gulpman, too. ("GLITTRA EISENHOWER")
Adrian's features began to shrink. He looked more gaunt, more fierce that Sparke had ever seen him. 'Damn it', he whisperet threatfully.
'Who's that?' said Sparke.
'The Chief Muncher's son', said Gavin, 'He's likely to be pointed out as Merciless Maniac ("MINISTER FOR MAGIC") anytime soon. Perhaps this very moment.'
Adrian swore loudly. The lady of the café cleared her throat.

There was another moment of silence, until Alexandra spoke.
'We're wanted' she said, blushing slightly. 'I've never been wanted before. Does it hurt?'
Rose burst out laughing. Sparke hit her lightly on the wrist.
'I mean', she continued, 'Why do we sit here? We should go into Parkensparkensfarkenklark ("HIDING") or somthing.
'Alexandra', said Sparke slowly, 'we're allowed to say "hiding"'.
Rose laughed once again.
'We sit here', said Sparke, 'because we're about to decide what we're gonna do now. Right guys?'
He nodded at Gavin and Adrian.
'Yeah', said Rose, 'But what ARE we gonna do?'
Gavin scratched his head a little. Adrian made an effort to speak, but Sparke suceeded him.
'I know exactly what we're going to do.'
'Yeah, what?' said Adrian.
Sparke stood up. He flet blood rushing to his head; He had not felt this excited and filled with authority since the planning of the Ministry Heist nearly 40 hours earlier.

'I don't know about you guys, but... I'm going to follow Rotsiepots and find out what he's up to. Why he is alive, and why he stole that body from the Deputy Hedgerow ("DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES")'.
Rose let out a small wail. Gavin looked utterly surprised.
'But Bannister... Mr. Sparke... That man, he nearly killed you! And he killed the Chief Muncher. He's dangerous and you're going to end up dead!'
'What if I am then?' said Sparke fiercely. 'Don't you understand ? What would you've done if you fought someone, and then i-don't-know-what-happened, and you end up disappearing for five years? Won't you do your very best to have your revenge on that person? Don't you guys realise that I'm as good as dead already?'
Sparke's comrades looked slightly shocked by his words. He continued.
'This Rotsiepots, he's probably still the most accomplished wizard of this age...'
'No, he's not', said Rose, her voice shivering slightly.
'What?' said Sparke irritably.
'That's Severus Snape' said Rose, and Adrian started to laugh. 'Or at least they say so, but I don't think you could proclaim that title for someone who's been unable to wash his hair for...'
Adrian was laughing more loudly now. Irritation cut Sparke like a swift gunshot.
'ENOUGH!' Adrian fell silent at once. Yeah Rotsiepots is this age's most accomplished wizard. And no matter what I did five years ago, I'm no match to him. None at all. So I might as well search for him, find out what he's up to, instead of hiding away and let him find me. Rotsiepots is dangerous. I thought my tale proved that.'

'I thought so too', said Gavin, who was now standing up like Sparke. 'Sure, the Munchables is eating away the Planet, but I think that Rotsiepots might be a tad more dangerous. A man that walks into the Deputy Hedgerow, takes the body of Herr Riddle ("LORD VOLDEMORT") and kills off the Chief Muncher. Pretty dangerous don't you think? Sure I'd love to bring down the Munchables, but it would take too loong to rally a resistance force, since your Army' he nodded at Sparke, Adrian and Rose, all of whom shared sadful looks, 'has been destroyed. So I'll follow Mr. Sparke here. Since yesterday, I've developed curiosity and fear around Rotsiepots.'
Gavin placed himself behind Sparke, as if they were picking sides for a muggle P.E lesson.
There was sinlence for a longer moment. The cafélady had vanished into the dishing room.
'So?' said Sparke, 'I'm going after Rotsiepots. Who's with me?'
Rose jimped upo, and hurried to Gavin's right side. Alexandra looked vacantly into the sky and said: 'Answers, answers, who are the Hitherus, really? Who am I? Who are Jibberijibb? ("YOU") Yes, I think I'm going too!'.
She placed herself on Rose's right. Now everyone looked at Adrian.
'What?', he said. 'Man I'd like to join, I really like you guys but damn... the Munchables, I mean I swore...'
'You will do whatever your heart tells you', said Gavin calmly.

Adrian looked as if he sperforemed a painful, internal struggle.
'All right', he finally said, 'I'll come with yeh!'