The Great Hall was just as beautiful as ever as the students filed in to take their places. A lot more students who he hadn’t managed to meet on the train noticed Darius’ Prefect badge and congratulated him. Finally, the students had all taken their places when the doors burst open and Professor McGonagall trooped in with a gaggle of first-years behind her.

Darius looked around a bit and gave a sigh of relief on seeing Mione sitting at the table. Despite all the advice he had given her last term, he was still worried that she might have taken on too many classes for her own good and be given the time-turner once again. Though that artefact might have eventually gone on to save Sirius from being kissed, it is by no means an object that should be given to any third-year, no matter how intelligent they may be. There are simply too many ways in which things may go wrong.

By this time though the sorting was over and as Professor Flitwick removed the stool and the Sorting Hat, the Headmaster had gotten to his feet.

“Welcome!”, said Dumbledore, the candlelight shimmering on his beard.

“Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! I have a few things to announce and seeing that one of them is quite serious, I thought it would be best to get it over with before our excellent feast leaves you in a befuddled state.

As you will all be aware after their search of the Hogwarts Express, our school is currently playing host to some of the Dementors of Azkaban, who are here on MoM business.

They are stationed at every entrance to the grounds and while they are with us, I must make it clear that nobody is to leave school without permission. Dementors are not fooled by tricks or disguises – or even invisibility cloaks.

It is not in the nature of a dementor to understand pleading or excuses. I must therefore warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the Prefects and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs afoul of the dementors.”

“On a happier note, I am pleased to welcome two new teachers to our ranks this year. First, Professor Lupin, who has consented to fill the post for Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

“As to our second appointment”, Dumbledore continued as the lukewarm applause for Professor Lupin died away.”

“Well, I am sorry to say that Professor Kettleburn. Our CoMC teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs. However, I’m delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to his gamekeeping duties.”

“Well, I think that’s everything of importance”, said Dumbledore. “Let the feast begin.”

As usual, the golden plates and goblets before them filled with food and drink. Hogwarts feast was its usual grand affair despite the heavy announcement that was just made. Pates of sausages, baked potatoes, peas, carrots and chicken, tureens of gravy; it was a veritable feast. After a rather satisfying meal it was on to an equally elaborate dessert selection.

After all that, we headed to our Gryffindor common room and returned to our dorms. It was so comfortable to return to our own rooms. Darius got to practice his Vertentes, or magic channelling after quite a while. What with the hectic summer and all the planning he had to do, he was never in the correct frame of mind to do it and also needed his sleep to relax his mind. Now that he was back in the castle, he could set his mind as ease and practice peacefully.

Late that night, sometime past midnight a nearly invisible figure sneaked out of the tower and headed to the seventh floor. Darius had disillusioned himself and muffled his footsteps as well as he sneaked to the RoR. He did not want to carry the locket any longer than necessary. Why tempt fate? Anything could go wrong with such a dangerous object.

He took a couple of nifty shortcuts and reached the RoR in no time. Having the Marauders map for long periods had given him an excellent grasp of the castle’s layout and its numerous hidden passageways. He walked past the door that appeared and entered into the familiar ritual room. When he was ready to conduct the ritual, he called out to Kreacher. The old elf popped into view and looking at the locket, immediately understood the situation. "Is young master going to complete master Regulus' last order? Will he destroy locket completely?" "Yes, Kreacher! I am going to destroy the locket. But first we need to get it open. The reason you could not was that needed someone to speak in Parseltongue. Luckily, I have a work-around." He drew out the magical recorder and played Harry's recording. ~Open~ The locket popped open and just as the shadowy tendrils began to take form, he started the ritual. He knew exactly how to conduct the process and got down right to it. He placed the locket in the centre of the circle, a blank ream of parchment in the outer circle and took his place in front of the pedestal. Powering up the ritual circle with magic, he felt a strong draw on his magic and read out the first incantation.

“Invocant in animam warda” (invoke the soul ward)

“Libera animam ex objecto” (free the soul from the object)

“Quod anima imprimit” (imprint the soul on the object)

“Relegant animae” (banish the soul)

The circle flashed and a hazy shape in the form of Riddle was drawn out and then shattered into a million wisps of darkness. The ritual was a success once again. One more Horcrux down!!

And he had a third grimoire as well. If his understanding was correct, the order in which Voldemort created his horcruxes was something like this – diary, ring, locket, cup, tiara, Harry and Nagini. Making grimoires out of the last two would not be possible so the tiara Grimoire would be the most informational and that was the one he was currently using. He had extra grimoires from the diary and locket now, their value increasing in that order. He would have to consider who to give them, or if at all he should, very carefully.

He took the opportunity to practice his Cantatio as well. It had been a long while and he had slacked off enough. The magical music rung out through the room and you could feel it down to your bones. He was getting quite decent at it despite his lack of regular practice. As he was waving his wand and immersing himself into the music, letting his thoughts flow freely, an unbidden memory of the dementors came to mind and the music screeched to a halt. He had nearly forgotten about that. There was no way in hell that he was letting those memory-leaches anywhere near students. He had had the idea on the train but it was now time to put it in action.

He quickly whipped out a piece of parchment and began to write in bold writing.

Notice to all houses

An open session of the DA will be held on the coming Saturday. It is for the purpose of informing students in detail about the danger dementors possess and the means to fight them if you are faced with one. Students from all houses are welcome to attend.

Venue: Hall in the Eastern corridor of 1st floor

Time: 10AM-1PM

Darius used geminio to create four identical copies. Geminio charm was a nifty little charm. It could create copies of anything non-magical. Of course, magical objects could not be duplicated, the enchantments would not carry over. But non-magical items were a cinch. Of course, the duplicates would not last forever but they will still last for a respectable amount of time. After that, he also wrote out a letter to McGonagall as she was both his Head of House and the Deputy Headmistress of the school. He felt that she should be informed beforehand so as to not be caught completely off guard. Once he was done, he decided to call Dobby.

“Dobby!”

And Dobby appeared right away with a huge grin.

“Master Darius calls Dobby? He has work for Dobby to do?”

“Yes Dobby. You see these four parchments, I want you to put them up on the house boards in a very prominent location in each of the four houses common rooms. Try to do it silently and get out there before anybody notices you. Alright? And this letter is for Professor McGonagall, give it to her personal elf if she has one or ask one of the Hogwarts elves to deliver it to her in the morning.”

“Yes, master Darius. Dobby can do this.”

And with that he disapparated away with the papers. He was back in less than five minutes, looking very pleased with himself.

“Master Darius, I have done as you had asked. I put them on all the house boards. Is there being anything else you want me to do?”

“No, thank you Dobby. I appreciate the help. And I’m sorry to call you this time of the night. I didn’t realize how late it was till just now. You can go back now.”

“It's not a problem at all, master Darius. Dobby is being happy to help. Master can call Dobby at any time.”

“Oh, one last thing before you leave, Dobby. Can you apparate me to my dorm? It will be much easier than sneaking back all the way.”

“Of course, master Darius!”

He held my hand by my fingers and suddenly Darius had the feeling he was slipping through the cracks of a region and he found himself back on his bed. House-elf apparition must really be different than wizards. He got no sense of that uncomfortable squeezed feeling that one gets with wizards.

“Thank you, Dobby. You may leave now.”

And he puffed out of existence. Darius really wanted to get started with learning apparition but there was still a long wait ahead of him, unfortunately.

He practiced Vertentes for the rest of the night and woke up extremely refreshed the next morning. His long-time training had really paid off. Along with the regular duelling practice which exercised his magic thoroughly, his own magic was growing and developing at a phenomenal pace. Magic was like a muscle, the more it was used, the stronger it would get. His magic was already well beyond the level of a student and reached the levels of Auror candidates. While he still had a long way to go before he even began to approach the likes of the professors, let alone Dumbledore and Voldemort, he was still standing heads and shoulders above the rest of his peers.

The next morning, all the early risers woke up and found the parchments stuck on their house notice board and read it. There was a very positive reaction as a lot of people had felt the effects of the dementors even at a range and had no desire to be at close quarters with one with no means to defend themselves. People had been very impressed with the DA last night and a chance to join the class even for a class or two, especially if it taught them to combat the horrifying dementors all the more appealing. The news spread even further by word of mouth and the entire student population knew about it by the time they came down for their breakfast.

Professor McGonagall was at the head table, deep in discussion with Professor Flitwick and Headmaster Dumbledore. Maybe she was discussing the DA classes. She caught his eye just as he was about to look away and gave him a small, approving nod. She must have been pleased with his initiative. Anyone who knew her at all would know that she was extremely protective of her students and even the idea of dementors floating just outside the school grounds must have been appalling to her. Darius even thought to invite her and Professor Flitwick to monitor the class. There was bound to be trouble when students of four houses turned out in large numbers and it would be extremely helpful to have them around. Especially since he knew that both of them could cast the Patronus charm, they would be great help in teaching the students who were having a lot of problems with the charm.

Anyway, breakfast time sped by quickly and soon enough it was time to join his classes again.