Phoenix Trilogy: Together Again

Chapter Four-The Mini Ball

Harry, Ron, and Audry raced down the hall towards the DADA hallway, Harry searching his mind for any shortcut in the vicinity. He remembered the Marauder´s Map at that moment, and how he had given it to Barty Crouch Jr. the year before. I don´t think I ever got it back, he thought before having the wind knocked out of him as he rounded a corner. Clutching his stomach and banging into Audry, he watched as Hermione stumbled back into the side-corridor that she had come out of, gasping in pain.

"Where have you been?" Audry asked, savagely pushing a wheezing Harry aside to get to the prefect.

"Wh-where I told you!" she panted wearily, planting her hands on her knees as she breathed. "Library!"

"For an hour?"

"I had homework from Arithmancy this morning!" Hermione retorted. The bell sounded and all four of them groaned and began to run again.

"Well, what do we have here?" an oily voice asked from behind them as they ran into yet another hallway. Harry groaned internally and turned to see Severus Snape walking with a vindictive smile on his face, as usual.

"Nothing, Mr. Snape," Audry said, turning to face him. Harry looked at Ron, who had his eyes closed and seemed to be praying. Snape´s eyes narrowed slightly at the strange American.

"Get to your class before I give you all detention," he said in his most silky voice. Harry, surprised at his good luck for the morning, broke into a run towards the DADA classroom. He entered it, followed quickly by Audry, Ron, and Hermione, and the four of them flooded into a table near the back of the room.

"So, the Gryffindor prefects are late, I see," Sirs said, entering the classroom.

"We were held up by the Potions master, or we would have been here faster," Audry said, holding up her hand politely. Sirs smiled.

"Well, I´m happy to hear that it wasn´t because you forgot the time and had to run up here." Harry glanced at Audry and saw that she was attempting to hide a smile. Confused, Harry looked around at the rest of his classmates and saw the same look of adoration on each girl´s face. He shook his head.

"Ron, look around and tell me what you see." Ron scanned the classroom.

"Er...no one´s asleep for once?"

"No, stupid," Hermione butted in. "Look at everyone!" Ron looked around again.

"Hey...what´s with the looks all the girls are giving Sirs?"

"We have another Lockhart on our hands," Harry said with a meaningful grin at Hermione, who frowned as Ron sniggered.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked haughtily.

"Oh, nothing." Harry grinned at her, causing her to scowl more forcefully than she had all morning.

"Okay, for those of who that have not come across me over the weekend, I am Professor Edward Sirs, your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for, I hope, the next three years. You have gone through--" Sirs looked at a piece of paper on his desk and counted. "Interesting," he mumbled to himself before looking back up at the class. "Four teachers already, one per year as it seems. But, as I´m not a follower of Lord Voldemort, I don´t have a fixation with memory charms, I´m not a werewolf that Professor Snape particularly hates, and I´m not wanted by the Dementors for any reason...well, not one that I can think of at the moment," he said to scattered laughter, "I think I´ll last longer than the rest. Anyway, open your books to page five and read the section on casting Patronuses. I promise you, it´s not very long."

Harry sighed heavily. He had known how to cast a Patronus since his third year. When Dementors had come to the first quidditch match of the season, Harry had fallen fifty feet from his broom to the ground. He had decided that he should learn how to defend himself from one after that. He opened his book anyway and read through what they had to say about them.

The Patronus is a very useful spell, since it can be used against dangerous beasts to save one´s life. Warlock Michael Patroni first designed the spell as a means of protecting himself against the lethifold lair in his backyard, as the lethifolds had attacked his village not once, but fifteen times, killing each time.

No two Patronuses are the same, just as no two witches or wizards are the same. The forms that Patronuses take on range from exotic animals (Thestral winged horses) to actual human form, though it´s quite rare to have one, and only three people have been recorded to have a human Patronus.

Harry yawned and scanned the rest of the page, not really interested in learning the history of the spell. He was sure that if he came across another dementor in his life, he wouldn´t tell it, "Oh, by the way, did you know that this spell that I´m going to use to drive you away from me was invented by a guy who just wanted to protect his village from lethifolds?" He smirked slightly at the thought and began to gaze unseeingly out the window.

"Not interested, Mr. Potter?" Sirs asked from above him.

"Hmm? Er...no, Professor. It´s just...I already know how to cast the spell."

"But the history of the spell isn´t important?" Sirs said with a raised eyebrow. Harry grinned sheepishly.

"Well, Professor," Audry butted in, "it´s not like I´ll walk up to a lethifold and say, `did you know that twenty-seven percent of all qualified witches and wizards can perform this spell properly?´ In that case," she said suddenly, "why are we learning the spell?"

"Ms. Audry--"

"Just Audry," she interrupted.

"Audry, didn´t you say you already know the spell?"

"Well, yes, but I doubt even half of the people here have the ability to produce even an insubstantial Patronus. And I also bet that you, Harry, and I are the only people in here that can conjure one that has a form!" Sirs clapped his hands twice.

"Everyone, pull out your wands. Ms.--sorry, Audry has just bet that none of you can conjure a proper patronus." Several of the Gryffindors gave her a withering look. "And since you challenged us, you get to go first." Audry stood up and pulled her wand out of her sleeve.

"Ready?" she asked Sirs.

"Go ahead."

"Expecto Patronum!" She shouted. Out of the end of her wand erupted a huge shape that took form of a roaring lioness. It landed gracefully in front of Audry, a fierce growl rumbling in its throat. It turned its head and looked straight into Harry´s eyes. For a moment, Harry could have sworn that they glowed green. Seeing no apparent danger in the room, the cat slowly vanished. The way it did so reminded Harry of a movie that he and Dudley had watched when they were young, where the cat all but disappeared, with the exception of its smile, which floated eerily in the air. Aunt Petunia had turned it off at that point, saying that it would give them nightmares.

"Very good," he said to Audry, who walked back to her seat. "Ms. Granger, why don´t you go next?"

"Alright," she said, standing up. She walked up to the front of the room, flicked her wand and cried, "Expecto Patronum!" A slight wisp of smoke came out of the tip of her wand and circled around her. It flared suddenly, hiding her from view.

"That´s enough, Hermione," Sirs said. Hermione came into view once more, the smoke swirling up uncertainly before disappearing completely. The prefect returned to her seat shakily, as though she´d gone through strenuous physical activity.

"You okay?" Audry asked. Hermione glanced at her, not even a trace of a smile on her face.

"I´m fine," she snapped. Audry looked taken aback.

"Jeez, ya don´t need to bite my head off," she murmured.

"Mr. Thomas?" Sirs called from the front, puncturing the look Hermione was flashing Audry. Dean stood up. When he tried to cast the spell, nothing happened, so he tried three more times before Sirs stopped him.

"It doesn´t always work on the first try. Just to let you know, very few qualified wizards have mastered this spell, so even a non-formed patronus, like Ms. Granger´s, is a great accomplishment."

"How come Audry could do it, then?" Lavender Brown asked, tossing her hair behind her shoulder.

"When I was twelve, my school was put to siege by rogue Dementors. The teachers taught it to everyone so that we could protect ourselves, and so that we could fight. Well, so the older students could fight, anyway!"

"You were twelve?" Sirs said in surprise.

Audry shrugged. "I wasn´t the youngest one to learn in any case. I believe a girl named Elizabeth Tucker was, and she was only eight!" Sirs sat down in his chair.

"Well, then. Mr. Potter, show us what you can do." Harry pushed back his chair as he stood up, perfectly aware that every set of eyes in the room was on him.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry half yelled, thinking hard about his exhilaration of winning the quidditch cup in his third year. A strange feeling filled the air surrounding Harry. As the familiar shape of the stag flowed out of his wand, the room seemed to flicker strangely before his eyes. Its hooves clomping almost soundlessly on the floor of the room, the stag looked around. It turned and it seemed, to Harry, to catch Sirs´ eye. Sirs paled as the stag did something Harry couldn´t see, and then it turned and faced the students. Again, Harry swore that the eyes had turned green again, and then it vanished suddenly, most unlike Audry´s lioness. The front most rows of students started.

Sirs went through the rest of the class in a hurry. Several more students produced the light smoke like Hermione, but theirs didn´t mask them as hers had. To everyone´s surprise, the other new Gryffindor who had called himself Tucker Glims cast a flawless giant black spider, which caused Ron to fall off his chair in fright. Audry shot Harry a confused look, so he explained Ron´s immense fear of the eight-legged creatures. She hauled him up from his hair no more than three seconds after Harry had finished telling her that.

"Ron, it can´t hurt you!" She hissed to his bright red face, her small hands still firmly gripping his flaming hair. "It´s just a patronus." Ron muttered a few choice swear words under his breath, which gained a glare from Hermione and a small shove from Audry.

"Your homework for tonight," Sirs said over the noise of books and papers being put back into bags, "is to write, in five or more sentences, why it is so difficult to cast a proper patronus. And for those of you successfully cast one, write an additional four sentences on why you cast that particular one. Due Wednesday." After a thought or two, he added, "Ten points for the best reason." Harry glanced at Hermione, knowing she would most likely be the one to receive the points.

"Harry, why do you think yours was a deer?" Audry asked him.

"Stag, actually," Ron corrected.

"It looked like a deer to me," Audry argued innocently.

"Well," Harry interrupted as Ron opened his mouth to correct Audry again. "My dad´s animagus form was a stag. I think that´s why."

"Oh," Audry said in an almost disappointed tone of voice. Harry shrugged it off and flung his bag over his shoulder. "What do we have next?" she asked as they left the room.

"Er," Ron said, rummaging around in his bag for the schedule. He wrinkled his nose when he saw it.

"What´s wrong?" Audry asked.

"History of Magic," Ron said dully. "The only thing good about this class--"

"History!" Audry nearly shouted. "I love history! It was my favorite course in New York!"

"Well, be prepared to fall asleep," Ron said with a slight grin. "This class is so boring that it puts Hermione to sleep!"

"That was only once, Ron," Hermione pointed out. "It was both of your faults, if I remember correctly."

Audry raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, for goodness sakes!" Hermione said, blushing. "We were up talking until four in the morning!"

Audry looked away, mouthing an exaggerated, "Oo-kaaaay...."

"Hey, speaking of which, how did your little vacation with Viktor Krum go?" Ron asked slyly.

"In any case," Hermione said, ignoring Ron´s last comment, though her cheeks did flush a little, "I wasn´t asleep. Ah! Here we are." And with that, she opened the door to the room and walked in.

"You do realize that she didn´t answer your question, don´t you, Ron?" Audry pointed out as they walked in after her. "And who the heck is Viktor Krum?"

~*~

Audry, as it turned out, was true to her word about her love for history. In fact, she asked Professor Binns multiple questions, something not done since their second year when Hermione asked about the Chamber of Secrets. Audry´s questions kept everyone awake, because students watched in amazement as the American managed to annoy their professor to no end, it seemed.

"We haven´t had a History of Magic class that funny since...well, never!" Ron exclaimed as they left for Gryffindor tower.

"I thought Binns would explode after you asked him why Merlin didn´t warn Arthur about Morgana," Harry said with a slight grin. "What about you, ´Moine?"

Hermione had a sour look on her face. Audry laughed.

"Your face will freeze that way if you´re not careful, Hermione," Audry told her. Hermione snorted.

"Sure, and the sun will rise in the west tomorrow."

The rest of the evening was an enjoyable affair, especially supper. The four teens enjoyed themselves immensely, especially when Malfoy decided to pick on a few of the Hufflepuff first years and Harry seized his privileges as a Prefect to give his nemesis point deduction.

Back in the common room, Fred caught Harry as he was heading up the stairs to his dormitory that night and dragged him over to commune with the rest of the team.

"I went and asked McGonagall about who gets to be captain. All five of us are qualified, since it has to go to a member who has both been on the team for four years and a fifth year or above."

"Well," Alicia said, "that makes sense."

"Couldn´t we do this tomorrow?" Harry asked with a yawn.

"Fine, then," George said crisply. "Quidditch practice at 5:30--sharp!" A collective groan was issued from everyone but the twins.

"That´s when we´re eating!" Katie argued.

"Tough. Harry wanted to discuss this tomorrow. If that cuts into your precious eating time, that´s just too bad." Half disgusted, half amused by the responsible actions both twins were showing, Harry walked up the stairs and fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.

~*~

"Everything is going according to plan, Master," a sniveling voice said. Harry looked around for the source of the voice but saw only black hooded figures. There were roughly sixty of them; more than there had been at Voldemort´s rebirth in June. "The girl didn´t even have to ask the lion!" Harry could now see the person who was speaking; it was a mirror-like image that floated in midair, portraying Wormtail´s face.

"Excellent," a cold, cruel voice said. Harry shivered, the hair on the back of his neck standing up of its own accord.

"My Lord, if I might ask, what is the purpose of this?" a new voice said from among the throng.

"We must not permit the lion to meet his mate. Another of Cassandra´s prophecies tells of his meeting the lioness at this ball. If we choose one who is most certainly not the lioness, the Death Eaters will survive and prosper. And if we leave everything alone, you will al be very, very sorry indeed."

Harry´s head began to spin strangely as Voldemort began to laugh. And as he had three nights earlier, he sat bolt upright in his bed. He winced in pain as his scar began to throb.

"Who are they talking about?" Harry mumbled to himself.

"Eh?" a groggy voice half called from the opposite side of the room. "What´s that?"

"Sorry, Neville, did I wake you?" Harry asked.

"Eurg..." a new voice groaned. "You´ve woken me up as well." A scream suddenly shattered the sleepy quiet as if it had been made of glass, just as a loud thump announced the vacancy of someone´s bed. Harry fumbled hurriedly with his curtains, ripping one of the hoops from a hook.

"What the hell...?" Ron said through the darkness. Three more groans and sleepy murmurs told Harry that the rest of the room was awake.

"Who d´you--" Harry started to say before four separate screams echoed through the tower. Harry recognized one that he hadn´t heard since his first year.

"Hermione!" He and Ron yelled in unison. They sprinted to the door and yanked it open, Harry fumbling slightly since he didn´t have his glasses on. He tripped on the hem of his sweat pants and half-skidded down the carpet stairs while trying to keep running. The result was landing painfully on his rear, and then falling down the remainder of the stairs, tripping Ron in the process. The fourth year girls´ dormitory had been flung open and Ginny stuck her disheveled head out of it.

"What´s going on?" she asked as the two boys got to their feet.

"Dunno," Harry said. He looked up and saw the redhead blush slightly.

"Rat!" Came a new cry from only a few feet above them.

"You´re kidding me," Ron groaned.

"HaaaAARRY!" Hermione´s voice screamed. "IT´S WORMTAIL!" Ginny looked slightly confused as Ron gasped and Harry´s head snapped towards the fifth year girls´ dormitory. The door cracked open slightly and a fat gray rat flew down the stairs, trailing Audry, who kept throwing random curses at it; Lavender, who was carrying a shoe as if it were a brick; and Parvarti, who had a broomstick raised over her head. Harry peeked into the room and saw Hermione sitting on the floor, a bloody handkerchief wrapped around her thumb. Harry squinted to see her properly and noticed tears streaming down her face. In the common room below, Harry could hear Ron shouting, "Don´t kill him; stun him!"

"He bit me," Hermione told him. Harry came over and knelt down. "Where are your glasses?" she asked before he pulled away the handkerchief.

"It´s three in the morning, ´Moine," he used as an explanation. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw her examining his face. "What?"

"N-nothing," she stammered, quickly looking back down at her bloody hand. Gingerly, she pulled off the handkerchief and showed it to Harry. He drew in a large breath as he saw the large chunk that had been taken out of the tip of her thumb.

"Jeez!" he said as the blood continued to flow from the wound. Hermione plucked at the near sodden handkerchief.

"Parvarti threw this at me when I started to drip on the floor," she explained. "She wasn´t too happy when--"

"Damn!" Audry cursed from the door. Harry and Hermione both looked up to see her push some hair that had fallen from the loose bun from her eyes. "It got away. Ooh," she exclaimed, her eyes widening slightly as they came to rest on Harry´s. She then looked quickly to Hermione´s hand when she realized that she had been staring.

"It´s not nearly as bad as it looks," Hermione said, trying to get up. She swayed dizzily and abruptly sat back down. "I-I don´t feel so good," she mumbled.

"Oh, Hermione," Audry groaned. "It´s just blood. Look, we don´t have to go to the infirmary." She pulled out her wand and tapped Hermione´s thumb. After muttering something under breath that Harry couldn´t hear, Hermione´s thumb glowed golden and glittered for a few moments. The bleeding stopped and ever so slowly, the cut began to heal. Harry looked up at Audry´s face and saw it was contorted with concentration. She stopped and sat back on her heels.

"Well, that´s the best I can do without draining every bit of energy in me!" she said cheerfully. Harry watched as Hermione looked down at her finger.

"There´s a scar," she informed them, rubbing a bit of the dried blood off of her finger.

"Well, I´m not perfect!" Audry chided her good-naturedly. "And even if I am, would you rather have had me pass out from lack of magical energy in me? That´s very dangerous for a witch or wizard."

"Are you questioning me?" Hermione asked, anger causing her voice to raise a few notes.

Audry mumbled something that neither Harry nor Hermione could make out, and then, "Never mind." Audry sighed. "We´d better get back to bed before--"

"Ms. Granger, Ms.--Audry, what is going on in here? Mr. Potter! You know better then to be in a girl´s dormitory after hours, or even at all!" Harry winced and turned around to see a very blurry Professor McGonagall. He squinted to see her properly.

"We were screaming `cause we...we saw a rat. It was on Hermione´s face," Audry told her. Hermione scrunched up her nose and shuddered at the memory.

"You try waking up with the smell of rodent and little furry claws all over your face!" she said when McGonagall raised an eyebrow.

"When she told the rest of us there was a rat on her face, and after she flung it off--"

"Threw it off, Ms.--Audry."

"Yes, that," Audry said, waving an impatient hand around. "We all started screaming, and then Parvarti yelled rat, and then I heard Ron say something about kidding, and then Hermione saw something and said that it was a wormtail, though I don´t quite understand that part--"

"Said it was what?" McGonagall said, her face paling.

"A wormtail. And then it bit Hermione--I haven´t seen a bite nastier then that in years!--and then it escaped through the door. We chased it down to the common room. Ron kept telling me to stun him, but he escaped through a hole in the wall. I think that´s how it got in, too. You might want to tell the custodian guy to patch it up."

Harry turned to Hermione. `Custodian guy´? he mouthed. She shrugged, still favoring her thumb. Harry looked back to McGonagall and saw that she was fighting to suppress a smile, though her face was still quite pale.

"Ms. Granger, you should go to the hospital wing to see to that finger," she told the prefect. She shook her head and held it out.

"Audry did a reasonably good job healing it herself."

"Reasonably? I stopped the bleeding and healed it, didn´t I?"

"Audry, you left a scar," Hermione pointed out, getting to her feet.

"Well, since no one else is harmed, you should all get back in bed. You have classes tomorrow, and Harry, as I understand, you have a quidditch practice--I would like to see Gryffindor win again."

"What?" Harry made a face and smacked his head. "I completely forgot. What has gotten into those two? Professor, maybe you should just make the Weasley twins both captain." Professor McGonagall started and then looked Harry up and down.

"Both of them? That´s never been done before. I´ll think about it, Mr. Potter. For now, all of you should go get some rest." She shooed Harry from the room as the Lavender and Parvarti walked up the stairs, defeated expressions on their faces. When Parvarti looked up as Harry passed, she stopped dead in her tracks and stared at his face. Harry ignored her, thinking sleepily that his scar was sticking out again. He headed up to the dormitory and fell into bed without even closing the curtains once more.

~*~

Harry awoke to two people shaking him so roughly that he thought his brain would pop out of his head.

"Harry, wake up!" one of them said in a voice that was vaguely familiar. Harry groaned and rolled over.

"What do you want?" he asked sleepily, blinking as a bright light was shone into his eyes.

"Quidditch practice!"

"It´s not even five thirty yet!" Harry rolled over to look at his clock. It read five thirty, on the nose. "You meant five thirty in the morning?"

"Well, of course! What did you expect, after classes?" Harry glared at George as he said this.

"You tricked us! You said 5:30, and everyone expected that you meant the afternoon, since everyone knows you two would sleep `till noon on a school day, given the choice."

"Well, this team needs to toughen up if we´re going to win the Quidditch Cup again. We barely scraped through two years ago; what makes you think that we´ll be able to do it again?" Fred growled. Harry sat up and swung his legs over the edge of his bed.

"The only reason we barely made it was because of the Dementors in the first match. If they hadn´t come, we would´ve won by two-hundred points!" He got up and propped his trunk open against the foot of his bed. "Now, would you care to explain why you two are insisting on being so responsible?"

"Well, considering that this is our final year--"

"We wanted to go out with a bang. We were never the students our parents wanted us to be--"

"But we do want to be remembered as the troublemakers who straightened themselves out." Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Trying to follow in my father´s and Sirius Black´s footsteps?" Harry said, immediately regretting saying that. Fred and George looked confused.

"What? Sirius Black?" Fred asked, obviously confused.

"Never mind. I´ll be out in a few minutes," Harry said, stifling a yawn. The twins were just almost to the door when Harry looked up again. "If you two want to be co-captains, you´ve got my vote." They both turned and looked at him like he was mad, but said nothing.

~*~

Harry could barely keep his eyes open during his classes that morning. He felt as though all the energy in him had been sucked out and put into the teachers, who were teaching with more vigor than ever before. During Charms, Harry ended up nodding off while Flitwick was discussing spells used to clean different items (tables, cars, humans, etc.) He awoke to the door opening as Professor McGonagall swept into the room, followed by a confused and worried looking Padma Patil, Parvarti´s twin.

"Professor Flitwick, may I borrow Ms. Patil for a moment?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly. Harry frowned and watched her expression. McGonagall seemed like she was about to cry. Harry squinted as Parvarti stood up, a bewildered expression on her face, and left the room, falling into step with her sister.

"Something´s wrong," Audry said before Harry could open his mouth.

"Did you see the look on McGonagall´s face?" he heard Lavender say to Seamus. Seamus nodded.

"She looked just about to cry, or something," Neville added. Flitwick clapped his hands to quiet down the rest of the room.

"Please fill out this worksheet on cleaning charms, due tomorrow. Ms. Brown, I expect that you´ll be able to give this to Ms. Patil?"

"Yes, Professor," she said as the worksheets flew through the air. After easily filling in the blanks the worksheet provided, the Gryffindors readied their bags and waited patiently for the bell to ring, signaling the end of morning classes. When it finally sounded, Harry got to his feet and walked out the door. Audry frowned suddenly and slowed down.

"What´s up?" Harry asked, turning around.

"Something´s not right about the way McGonagall pulled Parvarti out of class. And her twin...wasn´t her name Pasma?"

"Padma," Ron corrected.

"Whatever," she said, waving a dismissive hand. "Padma looked confused, and...well, almost scared. I´d say something big is going to happen soon." As they walked into the lunch hall, Hermione rubbing her right thumb thoughtfully, a tumult of sound met their ears. Harry winced slightly and saw Audry cover her ears. The whole of Hufflepuff seemed to be in tears, as with the Ravenclaws and a small portion of the Gryffindors. The Slytherins were in a state of shock, and Harry noticed that Malfoy sat alone; Crabbe and Goyle were nowhere to be seen.

"What´s going on?" Harry yelled above the noise.

"No idea," Ron answered, shouting too.

"Why don´t we ask someone?" Audry said, pointing to a few of the Gryffindors. They walked over, Hermione still rubbing her thumb.

"What is going on?" she asked as they began to get close to the table. Professor McGonagall suddenly tapped both her and Harry on the shoulders and beckoned them to follow her. With a shrug, Harry and Hermione did so.

"We´ll talk later," Audry yelled over the clamor. Harry nodded.

They entered the room just off the Great Hall that had been used the previous year for the Triwizard Tournament. Dumbledore stood in the center, a solemn look on his face.

"We have suffered a great loss today in the wizarding world," he said. Harry heard someone sniffing as if they were crying and saw that Cho had tears rolling down her cheeks. He furrowed his brow as he looked at her. She turned her dark brown eyes to the floor and said nothing. "Five students have lost their one or both of their parents to a struggle with Lord Voldemort." Harry saw everyone flinch as he said Voldemort´s name. "Sam and Marie Patil--both very respected Aurors--, Douglas Finch-Fletchly, a Muggle." When Dumbledore finished saying that, Justin Finch-Fletchly, the Hufflepuff Prefect, began to shake in grief, great sobs wracking his body. The Head Girl wrapped her arms around him and let him cry into her shoulder, tears rolling down her own face. "Voldemort´s Death Eaters suffered two losses also--Timothy Crabbe and John Goyle." Dumbledore stopped to clear his throat and look at the Head Boy, who seemed to be fighting back a smirk.

"W-why are you telling this to only us?" Hermione asked, clearly shocked at the events that had unfolded.

"You will be responsible for telling your houses. The Hufflepuff and Slytherin house will have their Head Boy and Girl account for it instead of using the Prefects. You will tell your students that the rest of the classes for the day have been canceled. Any student who has questions should go to their head of house. Professor Snape is not in the school at the moment, however, so I will be available for questions from your house, Mr. Snyder," he said, nodding his head towards the Head Boy. He straightened up and, managing to control his face, nodded back.

"Potter, Granger, come with me for a moment," McGonagall said suddenly. Harry looked confusedly at Hermione, but the two of them followed her once more. She stopped in the furthest back corner of the room and turned to face them.

"Professor--"

"Ms. Granger, would it be alright with you if Padma Patil spent the night in your dormitory?" she asked.

Hermione smiled sadly. "If Padma were my twin, and my parents had just died, I would stun the rest of the girls in the dormitory to get to her. Of course she can stay with us. But why does this concern Harry?" she asked.

"Because, we don´t have any extra beds to spare. One of you will have to stay in Harry´s dormitory."

"Why mine?" Harry asked.

"Because Mr. Thomas´ parents are also Aurors, and they are moving their things. It is too dangerous for the Aurors to be living out in the open, since You-Know-Who is back. They need him to help with the packing." Harry raised an eyebrow.

"And you trust six--five fifteen-year-old boys who are riddled with hormones?"

"Are you saying that you are not responsible enough to make sure one girl won´t let her feelings get away with her? I understood that none of you boys had romantic relationships with any girls, not to mention one of the fifth year girls." Harry felt his face redden and looked down at the ground.

"We´ll discuss it, Professor," Hermione said hurriedly.

"Then you are dismissed to your classmates. Do...do tell them the whole story, and try not to take sides." Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Sides of those who lost parents to Voldemort and the Death Eaters?" he questioned almost forcefully. "How could I not? My own parents were killed by Voldemort, Professor, and I was nearly killed--four times!"

She grimaced and winced. "Return to your common room, Granger, Potter." Harry turned and left the room, Hermione at his side, re-awakened sadness flooding through his body.

~*~

Harry finished telling the story and looked around at the stunned Gryffindors.

"H-he´s really back?" asked one of the first years, a small tawny haired girl.

"Yes. He´s been back since last year," Hermione answered softly. She didn´t need to be any louder, since the only sound aside from Harry, her, and the little girl´s voices was the crackling of the fire. It seemed to be magnified to about twice its normal loudness.

"If you have any questions concerning those affected most by these current events, please see Professor McGonagall. Since we have the rest of the day off, you may do as you wish."

"Would Lavender and Audry come here for a moment?" Hermione said over the scattered whispers that had just started up. The two girls nodded, Lavender´s eyes still filled with tears for her best friend´s parents, and came over.

"What´s up?" Audry asked shakily.

"Padma--Parvarti´s twin--is going to spend the night in our dormitory. There´s an empty bed in the fifth year guys dormitory, so one of us," Hermione waved a hand to the three of them, "has the pleasure of spending the night there. Actually," she said, looking up at Harry, "we might stay there longer than that, too."

"Well," Lavender murmured. "I´m Parvarti´s best friend."

"So?" Audry said. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, I should be there for her. In case--"

"In case what? In case she needs a shoulder to cry on? Um, Lav, she has her sister for that!"

"Okay, you two," Harry said before Lavender could retort. "We´ll take Hermione into the dormitory, since you can´t decide." Harry saw a flicker of a grin come over Lavender´s face. "Care to share what you think is so amusing?" he asked.

"Oh," she said, glancing at Audry, who seemed to be fighting some inner turmoil. "Nothing..." She then turned to Audry and the two of them immediately began to whisper something. Harry glanced at Hermione, who was glaring at them both.

"We should get some of the tables set up for food," she said.

"Good idea. Do you want to notify the house elves, or should I?"

"That´s not necessary, Potter," McGonagall´s voice said from the portrait hole. Harry glanced over and saw her entering, followed by about ten house elves, each holding a large platter filled with food. They immediately scooted over to the tables and lifted them into the air, dumping a few books off onto the floor. The tables levitated over to a corner, whereupon the elves placed them down and put the platters on top. A few of the still hungry students meandered over and picked up a morsel or two, still talking gravely about the events of the day. Harry watched as if from a large distance, not really paying attention to what was going on until someone shook his shoulder. Harry turned to face the person and saw Alicia. She dragged him into a corner where the rest of the Gryffindor quidditch team was and sat him down.

"What´s going on?" he asked.

"McGonagall wants us to vote for our team captains." Fred filled them in on the details and what they needed to do. He then handed out small pieces of paper that had each team members name on it, followed by a small box beside it. Harry pulled out his wand and tapped the boxes next to Fred and George´s names and then tapped the box that said, "I am done and I am absolutely sure that I want this person to be my next team captain." It snapped and sparkled briefly in his hand before disappearing completely. Harry heard five similar snaps and looked up at his teammates. Fred and George had slightly satisfied looks on their faces, while Alicia and Katie seemed to be half asleep, yawning every once and a while. Harry yawned too and gazed around the common room. Parvarti and Padma were nowhere to be seen, but that was expected. Ron and Audry were sitting in front of the fire talking animatedly. By the look on Audry´s face and all the hand waving Ron was doing, Harry believed that they were discussing quidditch versus soccer once more. Hermione was sitting at a near empty table chewing on a cracker left over from her bowl of soup and reading a book. Out of nowhere, Harry wondered whether she had gotten a date yet to the ball, which, he realized, was only eleven days away. He smiled to himself as he remembered he was going with Cho Chang, perhaps the prettiest girl in Ravenclaw. He stood up and walked over to Hermione and sat down in front of her. She looked up when she heard the chair creak and smiled at him briefly before returning to her book. Suddenly remembering the essay from DADA that Sirs had assigned them the day before, Harry pulled out some parchment and a quill and began to write.

"Whachya doin´?" Audry asked, pulling out a chair and sitting in it backwards, her legs crisscrossed.

"Sirs´ essay," Harry responded, grabbing his wand as the quill blotted the page.

"Oh, good idea!" Ron said, coming up behind Audry. The four of them sat there, Harry and Ron finishing their essays while Audry and Hermione read quietly, getting along for the first time since they met on the train.

~*~

The next two weeks practically flew by, Harry thought as he looked back. Fred and George were very surprised to find that they had been made co-captains. Harry smirked slightly at the memory as he dressed for the ball.

"Was Audry telling the truth when she said you were going with Cho?" Ron asked him as he pulled out his dress robes. Harry noticed that they were a dark navy blue, and also brand new. Harry supposed that Fred and George went out and bought him the robes with the Triwizard Tournament prize money that he, Harry, had given to them.

"Maybe," he answered, grabbing his own bottle green robe from his trunk. He grimaced as he noticed it was slightly wrinkled. He would have to ask Hermione for an ironing charm later, he noted.

"Oh, come on, Harry!" Ron groaned, looking at him with an annoyed expression. "I promise not to laugh!"

"So? You´ll see whether or not once we get to the Entrance Hall."

"Who´re you going with, Ron?" Seamus asked him, coming out of the bathroom.

"Actually, no one," he answered with a shrug.

"Not even Hermione?" Harry asked, nodding his head towards her vacated bed. Padma and Parvarti had asked for the room to be like that until Dean returned, and Harry and the rest of the fifth year boys agreed. She was quiet and didn´t snore, unlike Dean, and she also didn´t discuss quidditch and soccer until three a.m., like he and Seamus had done one more than one occasion.

"Why would I ask her?" Ron asked curiously.

"Well, you blew up at her last year when she went with Viktor!"

"Did you hear, by the way, she´s going with him again?" Neville said as he opened the door.

"No, I didn´t," Harry said.

"You know, you four are about as bad as Lavender and Parvarti--well, when Parvarti´s in the mood, anyway," Audry said from the door. Ron swore and pulled his robes around him tighter.

"Jeez, Audry!" he said finally when she stopped howling with laughter.

"Oh, man!" she continued. Then she put on a look of horror. "I´m scared for life!" she wailed, still laughing. Ron´s face went so red that Harry began to laugh as well. She glanced him over and stopped laughing long enough to say, "You need an ironing charm for that, Harry. It´s all wrinkled!"

"I noticed," he said with a smirk.

"Now come on!" she said, watching as Ron attempted to make himself decent with revealing anything to her. He finally gave up and conjured up a divider, which hid him from view.

"Coming," Harry said, glancing at the mirror.

"Don´t be vain, dear," the mirror said to him. He tried to flatten down his bangs to no avail and continued out the door after Audry. For the first time, he noticed her robes. They were a purplish-blue color and were very loose in the front and back around the neck, coming down so low in the front that Harry diverted his eyes to the bottom. The hem, he noticed, was artfully frayed and a large slit up the side showed off one very muscular leg. It also hugged her hips and made his mouth go suspiciously dry. Her hair was styled in waves around her head, with her bangs pulled across to the right side of her face, half-hiding the eye from view. Audry had put on a decent amount of pale purple eyeshadow too, he noted.

"What?" she asked, putting one of her hands on a hip and striking a pose.

Harry shook his head and mumbled, "Nothing."

"You know what would look really good on you?" she asked him about halfway down the stairs.

"What?"

"C´mere," she stopped in front of him and pulled off his glasses. He caught the scent of a very sweet fragrance, but not sickeningly sweet, like some of the perfumes a few of the girls wore.

His eyesight immediately blurred, but it was very brief, since Audry pulled out her wand and mumbled something under her breath. Suddenly Harry could see more clearly than he had ever been able to in his life. He took a step back, surprised, and managed to trip over the hem of his dress robes. Audry cried out as he grabbed her arm for support and came down with him, landing on top of him. Blushing furiously and still holding his glasses, she scrambled off of him. He blinked a few more times to get used to his 20/20 eyesight and stood up again.

"Wow," he said, walking over and looking out a window. Normally, he wouldn´t have been able to see anything without his glasses, but now he could see even better than with them! He turned back to Audry, who was standing with his glasses still clasped in her hands. "How did you do that? Is it permanent?"

"No; it´ll wear off in a few hours, but not until way after the ball is over. I´ll give the spell to you later, if you decide that you want to use it all the time. It´s better than laser surgery, let me tell you!"

"You wear glasses too?" he asked, surprised.

"No; I used to, but they´re so ugly! For my fourteenth birthday, and since I `accidentally´ smashed my twentieth pair of glasses, my foster parents got me laser surgery. I had to wear protective eyewear for a week afterwards, though." They finally reached the bottom of the stairs. Still telling Harry about her experience with glasses, she didn´t notice how every girl in there went dead silence, much to the offense of their dates (if they were in there). Hermione found her way to Harry immediately.

"Where are your glasses?" she asked quietly.

"Audry has them," he told her. Audry held them up to verify. "She used some charm on my eyes. I can see better than ever!" Hermione half-glared at the American, who grinned sheepishly. She handed them back.

"What were you doing up there anyway, Audry?" Hermione asked her.

"I went to go get Ron," she said. She smiled evilly and then whispered something into Hermione´s ear. Her eyes went really big and she said, "You didn´t!" Harry shook his head, figuring it had something to do with Ron. He glanced briefly at Hermione and was stunned. She had outdone herself this year, it seemed. She wore a deep red dress robe that covered a lot more than Audry´s robes did. It did, however, go low around the neckline, but unlike Audry´s, it gathered in the front and fell to near her waist. Her prefect badge was almost hidden under the ruffle. The bottom part was layered with a gauzy material that Harry couldn´t place, and it seemed that thousands of sparkles swirled around in it as she moved. Her hair had been straightened as it had the year before, except this time she seemed to have curled it somehow. The curls she had piled on top of her head, held with a large pin with a huge (and false, Harry guessed) ruby that let the curls cascade around her shoulders.

"We should head down now," Harry mentioned, clearing his throat. Hermione nodded, a grin still on her face.

By the time they got down to the Entrance Hall, all the other houses were already there. Harry said goodbye to Hermione and Audry and went off in search of Cho. He found her with two of her friends and pulled her away. They went off to the oak doors that led to the Great Hall and waited for them to be opened. When they finally did, the students went in, Harry leading Cho by the arm.

While waiting for the band to come in, Harry looked around. Sure enough, he saw Hermione talking with Viktor Krum, who, Harry suspected, Had come earlier during the day.

"If I could have your attention," Dumbledore called over the noise. It gradually quieted enough so they could all hear him clearly. "We are very lucky to have this group of five young women agreed to sing for us on such short notice. Now, put your hands together for The Muggles!" With a brilliant flash of white light and fireworks erupting from the end of the stage, Dumbledore disappeared and the backs of five women stood on the stage. A beat started up and in a few seconds they turned and began to sing. Cho pulled Harry out onto the dance floor and the two of them danced for a bit. Harry stepped on Cho´s foot twice during that song. She winced each time. She said nothing about his glasses not being there. When the song ended, they stepped off and Harry felt slightly nervous.

"So..." he began, scratching his head. Hermione and Viktor came over.

"Harry, you didn´t tell me you asked Cho to the ball," she said. Harry smiled.

"Between you and me, I can´t believe I got up the courage to ask her either," he whispered in her ear. She laughed slightly and looked out at the mass of bodies moving to the music.

"Cho," Harry heard Viktor´s gruff voice say. "Vould you like to dance?"

"Oh," she said, slightly surprised. "Sure!" And without asking Harry if it was all right as Parvarti had done the previous year, she took off, arm in arm with him. Hermione stood there flabbergasted, her mouth open.

"Would you know, he hasn´t said one word to me since he got here?" she said softly.

"Why?" Harry asked.

"I think...never mind," she said suddenly, cutting off what she was going to say with a shake of her head.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You think what?"

"Nothing." She looked away, and then, "I think it´s because of what happened over the summer."

Harry was quiet for a bit as he watched Cho dance with Krum. "What happened over the summer?" he asked finally. Hermione sighed and began to walk. She turned and motioned for him to follow, so he did so. When he fell into step, she began to talk as if she was getting something ugly and embarrassing removed from her face, or something.

"I visited him in Bulgaria, like he invited me to. When he pulled me aside last year before we got onto the horseless carriages? He was telling me that he was really looking forward to my visiting him." They got to the table with all the drinks on it and Harry picked up two Butterbeers. He handed one to Hermione, who thanked him and continued talking. "When I got there, it was three days before your birthday--three days before your uncle died. The first day was kind of awkward--we spent the day with his parents, traveling around the market and buying various foods. The next day we spent with each other. But it was weird...like he didn´t really want me there. He had a quidditch practice, so I watched that. But the next day, really early in the morning, I got an owl from Ron saying that a Death Eater had been at your house and killed your uncle and I...I didn´t even say goodbye to him. I thought I´d make it up by bringing him to this, but he ignored me the entire time and now he goes of with her." Hermione was just about crying, Harry realized, so he put down his half-empty Butterbeer bottle and grabbed her arm.

"Let´s go outside," he said, pulling her towards the door. They were nearly there when Malfoy stepped in front of them.

"Oh, great, the ruin of a perfectly good evening!" Malfoy drawled. Pansy Parkinson was clasping his arm loosely and smirked at the sight of them.

"What, did the love potion wear off of your precious Vikki?" she taunted. Harry frowned.

"I know as well as anyone that love potions are illegal," Hermione said.

"That didn´t seem to stop you from double-dosing Potter, since he can´t seem to keep his hands off filthy mudbloods like you!"

"Fifteen points from Slytherin," Harry and Hermione said in unison. Pansy scoffed.

"You can´t do that," she said teasingly.

"Oh, really, now?" said a new voice. Harry turned and saw Audry standing behind Hermione, looking madder then Harry had ever seen her before. "I do believe that they´re both prefects, which means that they have point deducting privileges. Am I right, Harry?"

"Yes. We can also administer detentions as we see fit." Malfoy sneered and walked off.

"I wonder if he knows you took off thirty points?" Audry wondered aloud.

"You can´t count, can you?" Ron said from behind her.

"If I heard right, Harry said, `fifteen points off´, and Hermione also said the same. Fifteen and fifteen is thirty, unless I really can´t do math." They laughed and Harry watched as Ron and Audry walked back off into the crowd of dancers.

Hermione sighed heavily. "You know what?" she asked as they walked out the open doors and into the warm night air. It was the first one for a long time, Harry noted, but he did wonder if the area had been bewitched so that people could go outdoors without freezing to death.

"What?" Harry asked.

"I..." she blushed heavily before pressing on. "I have often thought...about..." she then mumbled something Harry couldn´t hear.

"What?" he asked again.

"About giving you a love potion," she blushed even redder as she said that.

"Wha-at?" Harry said surprised. "I don´t understand."

"Well...oh, how can I put this..." she took a deep breath. "I´ve always looked up to you. You were Harry Potter, the boy who saved the wizarding world! You´ve faced You-Know-Who four times--and lived! I don´t think there´s anyone else who can say that. But...the thing is..." Harry realized he must have given her a strange look, for she rushed on and said, "I kind of..." and then stopped again.

It suddenly dawned on him. "Shh..." he said. "I get it." She looked at him with startled eyes as her face reddened once more.

"But--"

"I get it, okay?" he said, sitting down on a bench and, when she followed suit, putting his arm around her waist. She sighed happily and leaned into his arm.

"I get it too, Harry Potter," she whispered. They looked up at the sky and suddenly a shooting star flew across the sky.

"Make a wish," Harry said to her. She closed her eyes. Harry watched her perfect lips part slightly (where did that come from? he wondered) and had the sudden uncontrollable urge to kiss them. When she opened her eyes, he did so. He felt a shock pass between them, but he found that he liked it. He pulled away and looked at her. Hermione touched her lips and Harry asked, "What did you wish for?"

"It just came true," she answered quietly.