Harry Potter: Another Chance

Chapter 45: Foul Play

Disclaimer: 

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

"Dialogue"

'Thoughts'

$Parseltongue$

Chapter 45: Foul Play

'Ah…this is so annoying…' Harry thought while being violently shaken. 

"Are you listening to me? Harry!" 

The ice queen of Slytherin was nowhere to be seen. Instead of, he had to deal with an obnoxious eleven-year-old old Daphne Greengrass who had kept calling for him and leaving messages during classes until he finally agreed to talk with her alone.

"You know…if you keep calling me so much during class, people are going to start talking… personally I don't care much about my reputation but that won't be good for you, right?" 

Daphne got her hands off him and took a step back. Lately, Tracey had started to point out how distracted she had been lately, thinking about the issue with the boy who lived and the killer professor.

"This is important, Harry!. We can't let that man kill Neville."

She didn't really care that much about the Gryffindor boy, but her family had already signed a contract with the Potters, there was no going back now, their side was chosen. If the boy who lived died and Voldemort won, her family would be doomed.

She had spent the last two months stressing herself nonstop about this, but Harry didn't seem to care at all. Always disappears to go do who knows what and then says he is too tired to talk or that he doesn't have time.

She looked at his calm expression and frowned.

"You are not taking this seriously at all!"

'This is not how I wanted to spend Friday night… I wonder if the elves still have chocolate pudding…'

"Are you even listening?!" Daphne shouted.

"You know…that door is not soundproof." He decided to let her know.

"You are so frustrating!" she shouted even louder than before.

"Fine, hold on…" He reached inside his robes and pulled out a piece of parchment. 

'Maybe she will shut up if I show her.'

"What's that?" She watched with attention as he unfolded the paper and placed it on the coffee table. 

"Is blank…" There was nothing written on it.

"You are very impatient, you know that?". Harry pulled out his ebony wand and pointed at the parchment 

"Reveal your secrets."

"Whoa!" Daphne exclaimed. 

A map of the castle appeared on the previously empty parchment. 

"I have read about this. You protected the contents with a password." Said Daphne.

"Yes, and as you can see-"

"And the best you could think is 'Reveal your secrets'?. That's probably the first thing people would try." She interrupted him.

"No one will get their hands on it. And that's not important, now…as you can see-"

"This is a map of Hogwarts, right?." She interrupted him again.

"Did you draw this yourself?"

"Of course, who else is going to?"

"Well…you are not very good at drawing then…and most of the lines are crooked. "

"I made it in like one hour!, now if you don't have any more critiques, take a look at the two names here and there." he pointed with his wand.

The names Nayar and Neville are written inside circles.

The professor one was inside his office while the one with Neville's name was inside the Gryffindor dorms.

Daphne looked at the map with great attention.

"Ohh, it moved!" Neville's circle moved from his room to the common room.

"I put a tracking charm on those two. This map shows you their actual location inside the castle. If the professor tries anything, I will know thanks to this device and I will intervene or call a teacher. "

"This is impressive…" Admitted Daphne.

"I'm glad you like it. Now as you can see, I have everything under control. There is no need for you to worry about this matter any longer, just leave it to me." 

Harry hoped that this would be enough to appease the girl so she stopped bothering him.

"Wait, you put a tracking charm on the professor of defense against the dark arts? and he didn't notice?" she sounded dubious.

"I put ten tracking charms actually. He removed nine of them but was unable to find the tenth one." He explained.

"Ten tracking charms?. But isn't there a spell to detect them? My dad said he was going to teach me next summer. He said it was important, for my own protection to learn to detect and remove such charms." Daphne said.

"Well of course there are ways to detect them and once you find one, removing it is very easy. But I know a few methods to hide them well and avoid most methods of detection." 

Daphne looked impressed enough.

"How do you know so much about these charms? They are not even part of the school curriculum. Did Lord Potter teach you about them?"

"Is not that complicated actually." He avoided the question.

"All that is needed is…"

Harry stopped talking all a sudden as he realized something.

"Wait…"

"What is it, Harry?" She looked at him, wondering what could be the issue.

'Now that I'm thinking about it, is strange…the method I used was not a bad one but there was no guarantee to work against a wizard who was very knowledgeable in charms. He was able to find nine of my trackers but not the last one. Why didn't that strike me as odd before…'

He knew why. He has been preoccupied with other matters and hasn't been giving this much thought even if he didn't want to admit it.

For someone else, having an assassin waiting to strike at any time would be something nervewracking, but for Harry, it didn't rank very high on his priority list.

However, it wasn't his life the one that was on the line so he should have been paying more attention.

He looked at Daphne for a moment. It seems like he is going to have to involve the adults after all. He can't let this continue now that he suspects foul play.

"We may have a problem, I need you to contact-"

Without any warning, the door opened with a banging noise, and a big figure stood at the entrance of the room.