News of the successful class had spread throughout the castle by the end of the day. There were clamours all over the castle for a repeat lesson and students accosted Darius and other known members of the DA everywhere for more information on the next class and whether it was possible to join the DA after the open lessons were completed. It was a good situation and Darius let the news of a repeat lesson the next weekend spread throughout the castle.

But that was not Darius’ main concern right now. He was busy plotting his next prank and his targets were the marauders. Harry had told him that Sirius was coming to Hogsmeade for the weekend and Darius suspected he knew why. Remus had met Sirius in the hospital and told him about getting the teaching post for DADA. Sirius must be coming here to join Remus during the full moon. And Harry’s first quidditch match of the season was soon after, so he could come for that as well. Darius planned to shock them by joining them on their nightly jaunts. It would be a good prank to prank the pranksters.

Darius had also managed to avert the Buckbeak incident. He knew it would happen in the first class of CoMC for the third years and hung around on the grounds that day. It was a free period anyway and he could easily hang around and appear at the right moment to prevent the accident.

He did so and saw the class walking down to the grounds for the CoMC lesson. H had disillusioned himself, he didn’t want to meet anyone and get tangled up in conversations. He had gotten a lot better at the spell after regular use and had managed to get the spell model from the Grimoire. It was an ingenious spell really and with his understanding of how light actually worked, he was able to use it quite efficiently.

He needed to be alert and have the right timing. He followed right behind the class and saw the lesson start. The hippogriffs were just as magnificent as Hagrid described and Darius was impressed. They also seemed to have caught his scent as he noticed a couple of the glancing towards him occasionally, though thankfully they didn’t create a disturbance. Harry took Buckbeak and flew around the grounds before returning and it seemed things were going to go just as they had in the books, as Malfoy stepped forward towards Buckbeak.

Darius had had enough and he stepped forward after removing the disillusionment from himself. The other people had not noticed yet and their eyes had been drawn to the rearing hippogriff and the frightened Malfoy in front of it. He quickly snapped of a wandless summoning, accio, and Malfoy was dragged backwards by about 10 ft and came to rest in a huddled heap. Buckbeak stamped down but Malfoy was out of the area by the time and no harm was done. It was still a close call though.

Hagrid had run forward by this time and brought Buckbeak to heel by pulling on his tether. Hopefully this incident doesn’t blow up like in the original timeline, Malfoy wasn’t injured this time anyway. And Hagrid had lost his confidence after this incident, Darius vowed not to let that happen this time. Hagrid may not be the best teacher but he was far more knowledgeable than most and the genuine pleasure he took in teaching the topic was amazing.

Malfoy had sort of gathered himself by now and got off the ground, though he still looked like roadkill from being dragged across the ground 10 ft. The rest of the class as well as Hagrid had also noticed Darius’ presence by this time and realized he was the one who had gotten Malfoy to safety. Hagrid gave him a sort of thankful look and turned to tether Buckbeak to a tree properly.

Darius used the time to turn the tables on Malfoy quickly before he could screw Hagrid and force the gentle giant to take the blame for his foolishness.

“Here I was, just walking on the grounds when I noticed your CoMC class. I was interested to see what you will be learning about so I decided to have a look. We had an absolutely fascinating lesson about Thestrals a while back. But here I see and idiot instead. What did you not understand in the sentence that Hippogriffs are proud creatures, Malfoy? Insulting a proud creature that can take your head off your shoulders was an idiotic move, wouldn’t you say? You’re lucky I was here, or who knows what might have happened. Anyway, I deduct 30 points from Slytherin for your monumental stupidity and I leave the decision of detentions in the hands of the professor.”

“You can’t do that. That great bloody beast tried to attack me. How dare you take points from me. Wait till my father-”

“Yes, Malfoy. We all know that your father will hear of this. But in the meantime, you shall face the punishment for the stupidity you have just shown. And I can take points of you because I am a prefect, who have the right to dock points if an action warrants as such.”

Hagrid was visibly buoyed up as Darius had finished his speech. His first reaction had been terror. By no means did he want a student injured in his very first class with them. But Darius’ words had rung true. There was nothing the professor could do if the students themselves weren’t capable of learning and chose to take foolish risks. He quickly followed up on Darius’ comment.

“And he shall have detentions as well. You endangered y’self and yeh classmates wit’ yer actions. Yeh will have detentions with Filch for the rest o’ the week. I hear he is lookout fer a student ta help him clean the astronomy tower. And 10 points to Gryffindor fer savin’ a student from possible bodily harm. Darius, thanks fer the help, I got it from here.”

Hagrid got the rest of the students on the hippogriffs and it was frankly a great lesson. Malfoy was not permitted to ride one though. By the looks he was giving Hagrid and Buckbeak, this was far from owner. He gave Darius a couple of dirty looks as well but Darius wasn’t worried about that. There was nothing the Malfoy prat could do to him. He was a bit worried about the other two though. Hagrid probably will get off, especially since Malfoy wasn’t even injured but Buckbeak might not be as lucky. Malfoy Sr. Had a lot of pull at the Ministry and he would be liberally throwing around the required gold to get the poor Hippogriff executed. Maybe, he could enlist Sirius’ help later to sneak Buckbeak off the grounds at another time? Something to ponder over later.

The incident didn’t gather much gossip in the castle as Malfoy’s behaviour was well-known throughout the school. But it did alter the timeline by a tiny bit. Originally, Malfoy was to fake the seriousness of his injuries to get the quidditch match rescheduled. That not being an option now, the first match of the season was Gryffindor versus Slytherin instead of versus Hufflepuff.

Malfoy was seen cleaning the entire astronomy tower over the next week. It wouldn’t have been so bad for him if he had detentions with someone like Snape but Filch didn’t give a flying rats arse whether the ponce was rich or not, he just got Malfoy to work. It was hilarious really. According to canon, Malfoy did reform in his later years. Hopefully, he can take a lesson from this incident.

The next DA lesson was also huge success. It went much the same way as the first but the turnout was even higher. The people who had come for the first lesson had spread ample word of the lesson and many more people had turned up. This time it was much easier to handle as Darius had already been through it once and he just repeated it. At least half the DA had corporeal Patronuses by now and the rest could cast strong non-corporeal ones. Darius never understood why this was not done in the original series. It was a dead useful spell against the dementors and Lupin could have easily taught it to the class. Of course, it was an exhausting spell and would leave most of the younger students drained after using it but who cares about that when your soul is son the line.

The full moon was also approaching. Darius knew that Sirius had arrived at Hogsmeade but still wasn’t sure if he would be there in the shrieking shack with Lupin. Anyway, even if his speculations were wrong, he could himself join Lupin in the shack. After all, the poor guy had become a werewolf because of Fenrir Greyback when he was a kid and never had an easy life because of that.

As expected, Lupin did not have the DADA class on the eve of the full moon. Must not be feeling well! According to what Darius knew, werewolves would often get violent shivers and spasms at this time as the full moon grew nearer, leaving them incapable of performing normal day-to-day tasks easily. Of course, with Snape here providing the Wolfsbane potion, Lupin should have a much easier time of it. Being an aspiring Potions Master himself, Darius knew about the potion and the difficulty involved in concocting it. It was a tremendously tricky potion and immensely difficult to brew correctly. Snape becoming the youngest Potions Master in the century was not just for show.

The night of the full moon, Darius sneaked out of the dorms and headed to the Whomping Willow. He levitated a small stone to the knot at the base of the trunk and watched as the huge tree suddenly froze in place. He quickly transformed into his ocelot form and squeezed into the hole at the base of the tree.

Werewolves were only a danger to humans. They attacked them on instinct and thus Lupin had to seclude himself on these days. With the Wolfsbane potion, he could at least keep his mind intact during the transformations. He only had to hide because a huge ruckus would be created if a werewolf was seen on Hogwarts grounds. And even the potion could not guarantee complete safety. There was still a chance, however small, that a werewolf may go feral and no one wanted a student to be at risk.

Animals on the other hand, were at no risk from werewolves. That is why James, Sirius and Peter were able to hang around Remus safely. Werewolves would not hunt animals unless they were beyond hungry. So, Darius would be safe as long as he stayed near Remus in his ocelot form.

As he traversed the tunnel, his superior senses picked out the unique hybrid smell of a werewolf and also the smell of a dog. It seems Sirius was here after all. Sirius also seemed to have picked up his smell and Darius could see him coming his way.

Sirius smelled a strange smell coming their way and rushed towards it. It would not do if a student was coming to the shrieking shack at this time. As he got closer, he could tell it was not a student but some sort of feline. There was something strange about the smell. It was sort of familiar but at the same time not. He felt like he should recognise this smell but he could not be sure what it was.

It was when the large cat came into his view that he realised what the familiar smell was. It was the unique mix of animal and human smell that humans carried in their Animagus forms. It was familiar to him from their monthly jaunts during their school years. And this cat was obviously an Animagus. First thing, he knew that this breed of cat could not be found anywhere in the close range. As well as the fact, that its gestures and movements gave an oddly human feel. Humans may be able to transform into animals but for those with sharp enough eyes, there were always tells that could reveal an Animagus.

Now the only question was, did this mysterious Animagus know what was further down the tunnel and if so, what were his intentions?

Darius was ecstatic. He had found Sirius as he had hoped. And now he could see a transformed werewolf up close. This was going to be awesome!