"Care to explain what is going on here?" Helena expressed with a cold fury.
"I… Uh…" Allen stuttered for a bit, feeling the temperature in the room drop, even the Room of Requirements complained to him, but he was too busy trying to come up with something.
"Not you, Allen.
I mean them." She pointed her index finger at the three ghosts who were pushed against the wall.
"Y- You!" The leader floated in a flash from where he was towards Helena, but before he could do anything, Allen reacted faster, calling forth his magic, pushing his physical prowess for a bit and grabbed the ghost by the tail. Tossing him back towards his companions.
Helena's eye softened a bit. "Thank you Allen, but I can take care of it."
"Oh, y- yeah, sorry. Then… should I go out?" He asked, scratching his head.
She thought it over for a second before agreeing with the recommendation. "Yes, please, and if you can, look for Sir Nicholas. We have a lot to talk about."
Allen gulped out of nervousness, he really wasn't sure why, since Helena couldn't touch him. But still, it scared him to see this new side of her, or probably new to him only.
When he was about to go out, the Room of Requirements called to him, asked him to save it from the situation Allen put them in.
He let out a sigh before looking back to Helena. "Um… Do you think that maybe, we can change locations? The Room is a bit scared of what might happen."
Helena looked back at him raising an eyebrow before answering. "Yes, we can do that." She grabbed the three ghosts and went through the wall, not before telling him to come to the dungeons with Sir Nicholas.
Allen quickly agreed with his head, and even the Room of Requirements seemed to agree with Helena.
After she left, Allen did the same, not before giving the Room a dose of the Wand Raising Charm, calming it down as he went out as well.
'Better find Sir Nicholas, and fast…' Were his last thoughts before he exited the room and scanned the whole castle with his eyes.
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After half an hour of looking all over the castle, he finally found traces of Sir Nicholas' magic, thought it felt like he was trying to evade him, seeing how every time Allen looked at him, he would run away in a panicked frenzy. 'Uh, so they can even feel my eyes, even if I'm far away.'
Allen had to use his physical enhancement magic to catch up to him, and deactivate his magic the moment he got closer to him.
When he caught him, Sir Nicholas looked out of it.
"Sir Nicholas, I've been looking for you! Why did you keep running away from me?"
Before he answered, a relieved look showed on his face. "Ah, so it was you my dear friend." He let out a sigh before continuing. "I've been out of my wits lately, no, ever since my death day, apparently some ghost in the party don't understand what 'discretion' means, and went around saying what happened.
Some unknown ghosts haven't stopped stalking me ever since."
Allen stayed quiet. Even thought they were sharing the same amount of trouble, it bothered him how Sir Nicholas talked about it, as if it wasn't him who they were looking for in the first place. 'No, we can do this later, I decided to help him, so it is my fault that the ghosts are following us, though I would've preferred if he could've kept his promise at keeping the rest of the ghosts quiet.'
He sighed before answering him. "Right, about that, some ghost have been following me as well, but since I got tired of it, I… might have gone a bit overboard with the way I dealt with them, so they came back for revenge or something?"
The more he explained the more Sir Nicholas' expression changed on his face. Apparently, he did went a bit overboard with the way he dealt with them, he just hoped that Helena wouldn't think the same, otherwise, he might get in trouble with her.
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On the way to the dungeons, Allen kept using his eyes to look for Helena, to know exactly where to take Sir Nicholas, though now he did it in a few instances, instead of keeping it active all the time, since, apparently, they can feel his eyes even if multiple walls are in between, albeit not as bad as if he were to look at them directly.
After reaching the dungeon where Helena kept the three uninvited ghosts, he made way for Sir Nicholas to pass first and he went in after him, but she stopped him, telling him to go back to his common room. "I'll deal with this, I'll see you later, alright?"
Allen nodded and went back, still wondering if she would get mad at him.
When he got back to the common room, Armand and William were both there, waiting for him. They went back to their dormitory where they talked about their homework, what class are they having trouble with, then, Armand brought up the topic again of the animagus transfiguration.
"I've read about it, the first ingredient is not hard to get, and the rest… maybe between Sophia and I we can cover the cost of the rest, they are just hard to procure, which makes it a pain to get everything ready.
Oh, and also, the fact that we need help from the weather, things just pile up to become more bothersome." Armand yawned after he finished explaining.
Allen couldn't really contribute much to the conversation, he was interested in seeing what kind of animal he would become if he managed to become an animagus, but for some reason, he thought that it would be a lion, just so the world can mock him.
"So, does that mean we have to do it in rainy season?" William asked.
"That's right, but… we are already in the rainy season, and nothing, no lighting, no rain, no nothing.
And besides, even if we started now, we need to wait for a full moon, so that means that if we doing it now, we most likely would have to continue with the process of the incantation for a whole year."
"Damn." William snapped his fingers, resigned by the situation.
Allen yawned. "Can't we just move the phials were there is lighting? Or more like, hide the phials in a place where we know there is going to be lighting, and stay there for a while until we get it."
Both of his friends looked at him strangely, as if he just resolved all of their problems. Scaring the sleep out of him, both of them jumped, excited by the way to solve their predicament.
"You are a genius mate!" William grabbed Allen from his arms and made him jump out of happiness with him.
"W- Whoa, wait! Stop!" Allen exclaimed.
"No, he's right! How did you come up with it?" Asked Armand.
"We- Well, I just thought of it, I mean. How can so many students from Uagadou be animagus at fourteen? It's not like they wait for a year for lighting to strike, do they? I'm sure they all have better things to do, so, at most, their process would likely take only two months, wouldn't it?"
When Allen explained his reasoning, his friend's faces went through a lot of different facets until they ended in a surprised one.
Armand suddenly started talking in a really fast tone, looking for the list of ingredients, then, when he found it, he shouted Dobby's name and with a snap, the elf appeared.
"Did Master Armand called for-" He didn't let him finish before Armand shoved in the list of ingredients for the whole process for five people. Asking Dobby to get it for him and kept them all in a dark space.
He put on Dobby's hands a giant sack of galleons, telling him to get the best ingredients, even if they were a bit costly, but to make sure, and double sure that they were the correct ones.
Armand of course, would later confirm them with Professor Snape, he might realize what they are concocting, but it's not like its an illegal thing to do.
With another snap, Dobby went back, most likely to find the ingredients.
"Are we… starting the process now?" Allen asked doubtfully.
"What? No, I'm just gathering everything we need.
I think it would be better if we start around the end of November, that way, in our winter holidays we can try to get lighting and finish the process to become animagus. It would be even better for us since we'll have time to practice. Don't you think?" Armand gave his friends a big smile. They haven't seen him like this before, and it surprised them.
"You really want to do it, uh?" William asked, a bit surprised by the sudden burst of energy coming from his friend.
"Yes, to be honest, I always wanted to become an animagus."
"Always? But, didn't we find out about it just a few weeks ago?" Allen wondered.
"Ah, th- that… What I mean is… I already knew about it." Armand cleared his throat, calming down his excitement.
Allen chuckled before putting on his pajamas and going to bed. Wondering if he really would become an animagus so early in his life.
William followed suit, changing to his pajamas and Armand did the same, wishing goodnight to his two friends.
He couldn't wait to get started on the process.
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When Allen woke up he remembered about yesterday's event, he pulled the covers of his bed to his face. It reddened at the thought of Helena scolding him about the way he handled the situation with the other foreign ghosts.
He quickly stood up and took a shower, then woke up his two friends, there was a long day ahead.
Allen felt most of his class pass by, not really understanding what they professors were saying. He still wrote down everything, that the professors said, even if it entered one ear and came out of the other.
After classes were over, he darted towards the Room of Requirements, wishing to see Helena and to see what she had to say.
Once in the seventh floor corridor, he looked around for her to no avail. He sighed and resigned by the situation, went inside to practice his usual Occlumency shields.
He broke it up and build it back up, but after a while he got bored of it. That's when he thought back on the conversation from yesterday's night, they would need to find which day falls in a full moon to start with the process of keeping the mandrake leaf.
Allen took out his astronomy book to check the correct way to read the phases of the moon, but before he could check the chapters relating to the moon, a spectral figure passed through the walls.
It surprised him, more so because he resigned himself to don't see her today.
"Hello Allen." Helena spoke.
"Hi Helena." He answered back, a bit nervous.
She stayed silent for a while as she looked at him before speaking up. "I'm sorry about what you had to go through, I should've made sure that the other ghosts didn't speak up about what happened.
And Sir Nicholas as well, should've made sure that they didn't say anything." She said the last part with a harsher tone.
"Um, no, it's okay, I've been… Didn't they tell you?" He asked her.
At that, she nodded her head. "Yes, I've heard about the things you've done to ghosts who didn't belong to Hogwarts. They came and asked about you and to do the same thing that you did with Sir Nicholas.
If I'm being honest, I think it might've been a bit over the top." He froze a bit at that. "But it's understandable, since they wouldn't leave you alone, and you did make sure they were safe even after all that."
When he heard that, his face lit up. 'So she isn't mad at me, but rather, at the others.' He let out his breath, not realizing that he was holding it.
"Thank you Helena. You Know, I was worried this might become a repeat of what happened the other time, so I was really scared." he shared with her.
Helena's face softened. "It's okay, don't worry, I understand why you did it." She floated down and put a hand against Allen's face, he activated his magic to let her hand touch him.
"Thank you for understanding." He finished.
"Hmm, don't worry.
Now, about the ghosts who couldn't keep quiet about what happened…"
She looked towards Sir Nicholas and the other ghosts in the room They wondered if they should've left the two alone, thinking that they might have forgotten about them, but they weren't so lucky.