Harry Potter and the Crystal Fire

Chapter 07: Strange Beginnings

Harry, Ron, and Hermione faced Ginny and Neville across the Gryffindor table. Ravenous--for even Ron's stomach had forgotten itself during their conversation on the train--they waited impatiently for the Sorting to be done. Neville drummed his fingers on the table as unobtrusively as possible. Ginny amused herself by turning her fingernails different colours with only the barest flick of her wand and a few inaudibly whispered words. It was a feat that never failed to impress any of them; even Hermione had only managed to change a single thumbnail green when Alhena had been teaching them the Charm. Hermione and Ron started up a hushed argument over whether to tell off a few second years who were getting a little overexcited at returning to school. Harry simply looked around the room, caught Hagrid's eye, and waved at him. Hagrid beamed and waved back, and Harry grinned. He decided that it was very good to be back at school.

The argument having concluded in her favour, Hermione made to stand up and take the second years in hand when the doors to the Great Hall swung open. The sudden silence made further action on her part unnecessary. Harry thought, as he watched Professor McGonagall glide into the hall looking her usual stern self in her green velvet robes, that the distraction had been a good thing for Ron. It was clear from Hermione's glare that Harry hadn't been the only person to notice Ron's decided lack of movement toward the second year students. He and Hermione turned with the rest of the students in the Great Hall and watched as the first years followed Professor McGonagall into the hall. Their faces showing emotions ranging from anxiety to sheer terror, the first years made their trembling way up the center aisle and stopped, some flinching, when Professor McGonagall whirled to face them. Professor Flitwick brought out the three-legged stool on which rested the decidedly disreputable-looking Sorting Hat.

Once the first-years were all lined up along the front of the Hall and shifting nervously from foot to foot, a rip that looked decidedly like a mouth opened up near the brim of the Sorting Hat, and Harry and his friends heard the first-years gasp. They grinned, and leaned forward to make sure they caught the Sorting Hat's latest song.

When Hogwarts School was newly built

And there were fewer here,

In olden days when I was new

My songs you would not hear.

Each of the Founders chose their own

Students who would be taught;

Each Founder had their own ideas

Of what traits should be sought.

Slytherin found the pure of blood

Far better than the rest;

By Gryffindor the brave of heart

Were held to be the best.

For Ravenclaw the cleverest

Were held in high regard;

Hufflepuff would take everyone

Willing to labour hard.

Time passed and while it did the Four

Each argued for their side

But none of them came out ahead;

They started to divide.

At first things went on peacefully;

Four houses did appear

To fit the needs of each of them

And save what they held dear.

Slytherin accepted only

Those who had ambition,

Whose cunning and blood-purity

Fit well within his mission.

For Godric Gryffindor the best

Were daring, brave, and strong;

He gathered them together and

To him they did belong.

To Ravenclaw went the smartest,

The most intelligent;

She taught them to appreciate

Wisdom as was her bent.

Hufflepuff, loyal and true,

Took everyone who came

To her they all were worthy and

Were welcome all the same.

The differences of these four friends

As time went on were aired;

The Founders' friendship broke apart

And could not be repaired.

Each of the Four went on choosing

The students they would teach

And in the process grew apart;

They could not heal the breach.

Initially the Houses were

Created to unite

But time went on and they began

Among themselves, to fight.

There was a time when unity

Seemed unlikely to be,

But suddenly the four Founders

Were whittled down to three.

Slytherin left Hogwarts due to

All of the infighting;

The blow of that loss shocked the others

Into reuniting.

The Founders all have long been gone

And I am left to choose

Which students fit into which House;

This job I can't refuse

Though there are times I wish I could

Stop sorting everyone

Because I see divisions 'twixt

The students when I'm done.

Darkness is rising daily and

The need for unity

Has never been greater than now

In our community.

Forces from outside the school

Are trying to destroy

The world in which we live our lives,

The peace that we enjoy.

Remember that if we must fight

The fighting should not be

Between ourselves; we should remain

As one, in unity.

Hogwarts can only survive if

We remain united;

If we cannot stand strong today

We will become benighted.

Whichever House you belong to

Can't change one crucial fact:

We're all in this together and

We must remain intact

If we want to survive this war

Where Darkness threatens Light

We must stay strong and work as one

To win the coming fight.

I've had my say, and now it's time--

For I am done exhorting--

So remember what I've said and

Let's begin the Sorting!

As they applauded with the rest of the students in the Great Hall, Harry and Ron exchanged a look. Neither was about to admit that a singing hat had made them distinctly uneasy. It was just a hat, Harry thought, even though he knew better. He could see the same thoughts reflected on Ron's face.

"Not too cheerful this year, is it?" Ron muttered across the table as Aylesford, Bridget was Sorted into Hufflepuff to applause from that table.

Harry snorted softly, amused. Hermione looked at them and frowned. Clearly, she had taken the Sorting Hat's depressing attitude personally. "Well, if it wants to bring people together, it oughtn't be so dark about it," she said, in a tone that suggested that she thought the Sorting Hat should be held to account for its lack of cheerfulness on the first day of term.

Harry had to bite back laughter. Ron didn't bother, but managed to keep his laughter near a whisper. Ginny had a harder time, and Neville was red with the attempt to keep from letting out a sound. They passed the Sorting in an agony of near-laughter, while four first years were sorted into Hufflepuff, three into Ravenclaw, three into Slytherin, and two into Gryffindor. They were close to bursting out with it and completely disrupting the Sorting when they heard Professor McGonagall call out, "Mark Evans." Any temptation they'd had to laugh disappeared as abruptly as if it had been Vanished, and they turned their heads toward the front of the room.

Harry's eyes flew to the front of the room and he saw the boy Dudley had beat up the previous summer climbing nervously onto the four-legged stool. Before he placed the Sorting Hat on his head and it covered half his face, Harry recognised the pale blond hair and dark brown eyes, now surrounded by pale skin unbruised by Dudley's fists. It was, definitely, the same Mark Evans who lived in Richfield Downs, the town bordering Little Whinging. He felt Ron's and Hermione's eyes on him, and gave a tense nod. They both sighed. Things would have been much easier had they been able to discount what Morrigan had said about Mark Evans. It would have been far simpler to write her off as a liar, or as someone whose information was merely incorrect. But Harry knew she had told him the truth about Sirius, and about his father. Now she had been right about his cousin as well.

His cousin. He couldn't credit it, not really. The only real experience he'd had with cousins, outside of the Carricks, was with Dudley, and on the whole, Dudley had fairly well convinced Harry that he was lucky not to have more cousins. Yet here was another one. Harry wondered fleetingly if he could simply ignore Mark Evans for the next two years. It would be possible, if Mark Evans was Sorted into another house. Even as Harry heard the Sorting Hat call out, "Gryffindor!" he knew that ignoring Mark Evans for the next few years had been far too simple a plan.

Obviously thrilled to have been Sorted into Gryffindor, Mark slid off the stool and ran over to the table to mixed applause and laughter; he was nearly jumping up and down with excitement, but making an obvious effort to pretend he was calm. He couldn't have weighed fifty pounds soaking wet, Harry thought, and he was vibrating like a guitar string. Though he would have preferred to be able to ignore Mark, Harry found himself liking him already, if for no other reason than his enthusiasm for being Sorted into Gryffindor. He remembered feeling the same way after his own Sorting, though he hoped he'd managed to hide it a bit better.

Mark Evans slid into a chair beside Dennis Creevey, who immediately clapped him on the back and started chattering nonstop. Harry resisted the urge to groan, but only barely. When Dennis pointed down the table at him and Mark followed Dennis's eyes over to meet Harry's, Harry gave an embarrassed grin and waved. Grinning cheerfully, Mark Evans waved back, then returned his attention to Dennis, who was talking a mile a minute. It was too much to hope that Dennis' older brother Colin wouldn't get in on the act. Harry knew it, and wasn't too surprised when Colin moved down the table to sit on Mark's other side.

"There you go, Harry," Ron said with a snort, "another member of the Harry Potter fan club."

"Just what I need," Harry said philosophically, and sighed.

"Don't feel so bad, Harry," Ginny said with a smirk. "They're really just replacing me with Mark."

Harry stared at her, feeling his ears burning, then he and Ginny burst into laughter, having to hide their faces in their arms on the table to muffle the noise and avoid Professor McGonagall's glare. Ron and Hermione busied themselves looking elsewhere, trying to look as though they, as sixth-year Prefects, were completely unaware that one of the Gryffindor fifth-year Prefects was disrupting the Sorting with their best friend.

It seemed to take forever, but Zachary, William was finally Sorted into Gryffindor, and the Sorting was over. The stool and Hat were taken away to a final round of applause, and Professor Dumbledore gestured for silence. Quiet fell over the Great Hall like a blanket. It was clear that, after the Sorting Hat's rather ominous song, everyone expected a solemn speech.

They should have known better. After introducing the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Carey, Dumbledore simply welcomed them all and waved his hands for the Feast to begin, ending with, "Tuck in." The gasps of appreciation when the tables magically filled up with food made Dumbledore smile, and he turned his attention to his own food as the students began to eat.

"Carey. Why does that sound familiar?" Hermione asked, frowning slightly as she helped herself to some beef.

"Morrigan and Malcolm and Professor Carey were talking down in the living room earlier this summer," Ginny said matter-of-factly. They all stared at her. "Well, they were," she said forcefully. "And I don't see the point in not mentioning her name like she doesn't exist. Maybe we thought she was something she isn't," she said, and Harry didn't miss the emphasis Ginny placed on the word 'maybe.' "But whatever she is or isn't, there's no point pretending we imagined her, or Malcolm. If we want to play a part in all of this, and have it mean anything at all, we can't be forever acting like children when things don't go the way we'd hoped."

That statement, to Harry, smacked of the philosophy of Morrigan Carrick, but he let that pass. Ginny was right, much as it hurt to admit it; it wasn't helping anyone to make everyone fear even mentioning the Carricks around him. They'd all end up walking on eggshells, and they had enough to worry about without that.

"And she wasn't always wrong," Harry said, so it was clear. Hermione and Ron stared at him, shocked. Neville grinned encouragingly, in that Neville-like way that made it seem like the greatest compliment in the world. And Ginny just smiled. Harry felt his ears burning again, and turned his attention to his roast beef.

"What do we know about Professor Carey?" Hermione asked, but it was clear that she was addressing Ginny. Ron, Neville, and Harry exchanged a glance, deciding whether to be insulted by that. Remembering their near-constant discussions about Quidditch and the new DA Club over the summer, they decided not to protest.

"Well, he's an old friend of Dad's," Ginny said after a moment. "He used to work for the Ministry somehow or another, but he changed jobs years ago, when Fudge was made Minister of Magic. Doesn't like Fudge much," Ginny said thoughtfully. "And Dad was glad to see him this summer," she added meaningfully.

"Well, he can't be too bad, then," Hermione said with a sigh. "You'd think, though, that given everything, we might manage to get a good Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher one of these days."

"Right. Maybe next year," Ron said cheerfully, feeling that things were back on track if Hermione was worrying about school already. He laughed. "Maybe they'll hire Bill. Or the twins. Couldn't be worse than the last Defense teacher," he finished cheerfully.

Hermione and Harry grinned, though Hermione looked slightly miffed at Ron's characteristically light treatment of such a serious subject. Neville's attention stayed on his baked potato. Ginny looked thoughtful, then shook her head as if to clear it and changed the subject.

"So what about the DA Club?" she asked, and had everyone's attention. "Harry will be president, of course," she said. The others nodded, as though this were a foregone conclusion. Harry went to protest, but Ginny talked right over his attempt. "Do we think one or two nights a week would be good?" she asked.

"I think one, at least until we get a feel for how good a teacher Carey is," Hermione said decisively. Apparently, she'd given this issue a great deal of thought. "After all, we have tutoring, and you'll all have Quidditch, and Harry will have his Occlumency, won't he?" she asked, and Harry nodded reluctantly, feeling a bit like a backward child.

"Oh, right, Harry, that'll be better than last year, anyway, won't it?" Neville asked, and Harry brightened. He'd almost forgotten that Snape wouldn't be teaching him Occlumency this year. In fact, since Morrigan had been going to teach him, he wasn't entirely sure who was going to take over. Things had been a bit up in the air since the Carricks had disappeared from Number 12 Grimmauld Place last month. Quashing the impulse to wonder if they were all right, he went on eating his roast beef. Somehow, it didn't taste as good as it had moments before.

*

Harry, Ron, and Neville made their way down to the Great Hall and sat down across from Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan. Breakfast was already well underway, and they all ate quickly as Professor McGonagall handed out timetables. Harry glanced at his and groaned. What kind of world was it, he wondered, his food sawdust in his mouth, when he had Potions first thing on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday?

Ron, reading over Harry's shoulder, commiserated. "That's awful," he said sincerely, chewing on a piece of toast. "I've got non-N.E.W.T. Transfiguration first thing. While you're blowing up the Potions classroom, I can be changing my desk into a three-legged dog or something. It'll be fine," he said cheerfully.

Harry laughed, and even Neville looked less spooked at the thought of Snape so early in the morning. "So we'll meet in the infirmary?" Harry asked, and Ron laughed so hard he nearly choked on his toast. Hermione, passing by, thumped him on the back, the toast went down the right pipe, and Ron, red-faced, drank some tea to make sure it stayed there.

Too soon, it was time to leave for class, and after heading back up to their dormitory to get their books, they parted ways, Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Dean descending to the Potions dungeon, and Ron and Seamus walking toward the Transfigurations classroom. Harry wasn't surprised, on arriving, to see Malfoy already there, sharing a table with Pansy Parkinson. He and Hermione grabbed a table beside Neville and Dean, and got settled.

It was strange, Harry thought, as they waited for Snape to make his appearance. Unlike every other Potions class he'd ever been to, there was no nervous chatter before this particular class. No one looked anxious, not even Neville. For the first time in six years, Harry didn't feel like he was about to foul things up simply because he was in this room. For the first time, he felt like he had earned the right to be here. And he didn't need to rely on Hermione's abilities to pull him through the class. He'd passed the test on his own, and the brushing up they'd all done over the summer had him confident that he could indeed handle Potions this year. If they'd done nothing else for him, the Carricks had made him see that he had a knack for Potions, if he only focused on the potion-making and forgot the inevitable baiting by Snape.

Snape walked into the room, the door banging behind him, and the class snapped to attention. Harry caught Neville's eye and gave him an encouraging grin, and Neville grinned back. They were in this together, and they'd get through it together.

"You have all managed," Snape said, his dark eyes gleaming malevolently as he stared at them all, thirty sixth year students who were suddenly fighting not to squirm in their seats, "to obtain an Outstanding in your Potions O.W.L. How some of you managed to attain such high marks," Snape continued, his robes rustling and his lip curling as he stared first at Harry, then at Neville, "is a mystery which, thankfully, I do not have to solve. Needless to say, I expect the same kind of performance throughout this class." He paused, his eyes meeting Harry's. Harry stared back impassively. Snape's eyes seemed to burn for a moment, then he looked away and moved on.

"Today you will begin to master the more difficult Potions. Nothing you have learned in this classroom prior to today will in any way compare to the complex and subtle potions you will be preparing from this moment on. Your first attempt at gaining mastery over Advanced Potions will be the Evanescence Draught. When correctly prepared, it will make whatever it is applied to seem to vanish into a mist. When used on living things, it has some very unfortunate side effects. Does anyone know what those are?"

True to form, Snape ignored Hermione's wildly waving hand and called on several students, none of whom had the correct answer, before going on. "This potion, if applied to an animate object, will cause that object or person to lose its sight, possibly permanently. Can anyone explain why this is?" Snape asked. Hermione's hand went up again, but she obviously didn't expect to be called upon. That was good, Harry thought, because Snape simply curled his lip and answered his own question. "The loss of sight is a common effect of the caecitus root, which is a main ingredient in this potion."

Snape sighed heavily. "I expect you to uphold the standards of all of my former N.E.W.T. Potions students and be far more prepared for class than you seem to be today," he said. His black eyes gleamed in the dimly lit dungeon. Harry and Hermione exchanged a look, and Harry saw her smile ever so slightly. "The method and ingredients for preparing the potion is on the blackboard. You have an hour and a half. Begin." Shooting the entire class an exasperated look, he sat down at his desk and thirty students began the laborious process of preparing the most difficult potion they'd ever heard of, let alone attempted.

Harry didn't notice the time passing. He slipped on his dragonhide gloves and began chopping his caecitus root precisely. He didn't consciously perform the task the way Morrigan had showed him, didn't realise that he was measuring each piece with the tip of his knife to see that they were all uniform. He didn't realise that he had chopped all his ingredients on his table in the order they were supposed to be added before even beginning to put the potion together. He didn't realise that he was measuring hornwater and dragonsblood before he added anything to his cauldron. All he knew was that his ingredients were ready before he began to prepare his potion, and that was how it was supposed to be.

He looked at the blackboard, checked the fire under his cauldron, and added the hornwater and the dragonsblood at the same time. He let that simmer for five minutes, stirring with his wand, and added the caecitus root. As the instructions noted, this made his potion turn bright red, then, as it simmered down, light blue. He took his time, following the instructions exactly, re-measuring his ingredients as he added them. He stirred when the instructions said to stir, and left it alone when the instructions said to leave it alone. When his potion had been simmering on its own for nearly a half-hour, his concentration was broken by the sound of Snape's voice.

"Your potions should now be a bright blue, with a slight silvery vapour," Snape said, starting to walk through the rows of tables.

"Malfoy, you didn't add enough caecitus root. Your potion is too weak," Snape said, as Malfoy's watery blue potion gave off a weak puff of dark-grey smoke, then subsided as if exhausted. Snape walked around the tables, delivering unpleasant summaries of failure more often than not as he paused by each table to examine the potions.

He arrived at Harry and Hermione's table. They said nothing. Hermione's potion was bright blue, with a light silver mist floating above it. Harry's, though not quite as bright a blue, had a respectable silvery vapour hanging over it. Snape's lip curled, and his eyes swept across their table coldly before he moved on. He made no comment on Neville's potion, nor on Dean's, before he swept back toward the front of the room.

Harry and Hermione shared a grin. Looking over at Dean and Neville, they grinned again. At the end of class, they carefully prepared flasks of their potions and labeled them just as carefully, then set them on Snape's desk. They cleared up after themselves only after Snape had taken their flasks away--they had learned that much from Potions class the year before--and they headed out the door. One Potions class down, too many to count left to go.

*

After lunch, Harry, Ron, and Hermione headed out to Hagrid's hut. They hadn't had a chance to see him the day before except from a distance, and they'd missed him over the summer. He must have been waiting for them; when Hermione knocked on his door, it swung open with a whoosh of air that nearly sucked them into the wooden hut.

"'Bout time!" Hagrid said, beaming down at them from behind bushy whiskers. "I was hopin' you lot would happen by soon!" He motioned them in and shut the door behind them, looking them over anxiously as though he'd expected to see some kind of visible damage before nodding gruffly and sitting down with them at the table. "Would yeh like some tea?"

"Oh, thanks, Hagrid, but we've just come from lunch," Hermione said. Ron and Harry nodded, knowing from experience that it paid to avoid eating anything Hagrid had made. His cooking was well-intentioned but best avoided. "Where's Fang?" she asked.

"'E's in the Forest, with Grawpy," Hagrid said, smiling. "Keeps 'im comp'ny, since I can't get there too often these days. Getting' ready for classes and all that," he added.

"How is...err...Grawpy?" Hermione asked, her expression as bright as she could make it. She didn't particularly like remembering her encounters with Grawp, Hagrid's half-brother, a sixteen-foot tall giant whose command of English didn't extend much past the name he'd given her--Hermy.

"Oh, he's settlin' in, sure enough," Hagrid said cheerfully. "An' I wanted ter thank yer for takin' care of him last year," he added, his expression suddenly serious.

"Anything we could do," Harry said quickly, seeing that Hermione was about to protest that they hadn't done anything at all. She would have been accurate to say it, but Harry thought it might lead to a conversation about what had happened last June at the Ministry, and he didn't want to ruin a good day by getting into all that. Still, on the subject of Grawp, he was glad to see that Hagrid didn't seem to have any visible bruises. Last year the Centaurs had hurt Hagrid badly, every time he'd gone into the Forest to visit his half-brother. Either Hagrid had gotten better at avoiding the Centaurs, or the Centaurs had chosen to ignore Hagrid's trips into the Forest. Harry wondered if Dumbledore had made more work for Hagrid in order to keep him out of danger for a time.

They talked some more about Grawp's adjustment to the Forest, about his increasing command of the English language--though it didn't seem to Harry as though Grawp's command was increasing all that rapidly. They tried to pump Hagrid for information about Professor Carey, but he didn't seem to know much about the man, just that he "seemed a nice feller." On that disappointing news, Harry turned the subject to the plans Hagrid had for the N.E.W.T. Care of Magical Creatures Class.

Hermione was a bit uneasy with the change in subject. "Hagrid, I'm so very sorry I can't take your class," she said, looking uncomfortable. "It's just that with Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes, and--"

Hagrid chuckled. "Tha's all right, Hermione," he said, patting her shoulder in what was meant to be a comforting way. She nearly fell out of her chair, but grinned back at him, afraid that his feelings had been hurt all the same. "Better yeh don't overwork yerself," Hagrid told her earnestly. "There's only so many hours in a day, yeh know. And yer prone to takin' on too much. What with bein' a Prefect an' all," he said, beaming at her, "ye've got enough to do. Too much, knowin' yeh." He shook his head, teasing, and she smiled.

All too soon, it was time for Hagrid's first N.E.W.T. Care of Magical Creatures class of the year, and Hermione had to leave in order to read up for her Arithmancy class later that afternoon. Harry and Ron headed outside to meet up with Neville, Dean, and Seamus for class. They hadn't been outside long when Hagrid came out from around the back of his hut, beaming from ear to ear, trailing a large, sharp-horned creature on a leash.

"Here we go again," Seamus said with a long-suffering sigh, and Dean nodded. Neville looked as though he agreed but wasn't going to say so out loud to Harry or Ron. Harry, with a sinking feeling, watched Hagrid's eyes sparkling happily, and hoped that the fifty or so students would all survive the class period. He was just grateful Hagrid hadn't turned up with a Chimaera. Still, as Ron pointed out fatalistically while they were walking back to the castle after a tense two hours with the Graphorn, it was only the first class. There was no telling what Hagrid was working up to.

*

"Oh, Ron! Harry! It's the first Hogsmeade weekend! And far earlier this year, too!" Hermione exclaimed, looking at the bulletin board in the Gryffindor Common. It was their second Monday back at school, and despite the smaller number of classes they were taking, their schedules had proved far busier than they had expected. Three or four classes a day, tutoring, meeting after dinner to work on organising the DA Club, planning for Quidditch, and Ron and Hermione's Prefect duties were taking their toll already. Hermione had taken to saying, "It's just not a routine yet. Once it's routine it will get better," in a half-frantic voice that was grating on peoples' nerves because they agreed with it wholeheartedly. The sixth year Gryffindors hadn't expected this school year to start off in high gear, and now that it had, they were struggling to keep up the pace.

And it wasn't just the Gryffindors. At dinner the night before, six Ravenclaws and three Hufflepuffs who had caught wind of the tutoring sessions, had come up to Harry and Ron, asking if they could be included. Harry had sent Hedwig to Alhena Farrell with a message asking if that was all right, and she had responded almost immediately, saying that anyone who wanted in on the tutoring sessions was welcome to come along. So the sessions had grown from six people to fifteen, before the second week of school had even begun.

Alhena Farrell, Harry thought, just might be their salvation this school year. She was tough when it came to expecting you to figure your way through a problem. But she was fair, and she was good at explaining concepts in ways that made them seem logical rather than difficult. He'd heard Ron complaining to Neville, half-jokingly, that she wasn't as good to look at as Morrigan had been, but she sure knew her stuff. Harry had to admit, that was the truth. His cousin or not, Morrigan had been nice to look at. Alhena was just...Alhena. She wore brown robes and had brown hair and brown eyes and seemed to fade into the woodwork wherever she stood, but she was good-natured and inoffensive and very, very smart.

That was not the case with Professor Carey. The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was good-natured and inoffensive, that much was true. But calling him smart would be a generous assessment of his abilities where teaching was concerned. Harry didn't consider himself a genius where Defense Against the Dark Arts was concerned, but he thought he'd covered more in DA the previous year than Professor Carey would be likely to cover in ten years. Still, at least Carey wasn't actively working against them like Umbridge had.

"Can't wait to see Fred and George's new place," Ron said, brightening at the thought. "If it's even half as good as the one in Diagon Alley, this is going to be a great year in Hogsmeade."

"What do you think it'll be like, Harry?" Hermione said, and Harry thought a minute, then shrugged.

"I'm sure it'll be just as good as the one in Diagon Alley," he said after a moment. "You'll have to tell me."

"You're not going?" Ron asked, eyes wide with surprise.

"Don't see how I can," Harry said gloomily. "No permission form," he said with a heavy sigh. "Sirius...signed the last one, and I don't even know who would sign one this year," he said, and sighed. "I talked to Professor McGonagall, and she said that you have to have a new one every year."

"Harry, there has to be someone to sign a note," Hermione protested. "We'll talk to Professor McGonagall and find out. Or Professor Dumbledore. There's got to be a way to work it out."

"I guess so," Harry said, then shook his mood off. "I'll try and ask her tomorrow, I guess, after Transfiguration."

Hermione and Ron brightened. "Good," Ron said, nodding. "We'll get it worked out. So what's tonight, Charms?" he asked, looking through his bag to see if he had his Charms book with him.

"Charms and Transfigurations," Hermione said, nodding. "And then we're free for an entire night. Except for homework," she said, a little gloomily. Ron and Harry looked at her, surprised. She noticed them looking at her and gave a little laugh. "It's just that everything's so much more tense this year," she said, shrugging.

"You're not kidding. What happened to having a little fun?" Ron asked, frowning.

"Well, we'll make some of our own. In D.A.," Harry decided, and was gratified to see the pleased looks on their faces. Remembering how angry he'd been the year before, he supposed it was quite a change for them, to have him throwing out any positive suggestions. He didn't know why he wasn't just as angry this year. He had more reason to be angry this year than he'd had the year before. For some reason, though, what anger he had seemed to be coming slower, in fits and starts he could deal with, rather than in great rolling waves the way it had last year. His grief was doing the same thing, remaining at a level that he could cope with. He didn't understand why it was different this year. But he was grateful.

"You know, you're turning over a new leaf," Ron said, then groaned. "I sound like my Mum. She says things like that all the time." He peered across the room into a mirror on the far wall, as though to make sure he wasn't turning into Molly Weasley, making Hermione bite her lip against laughter.

Harry grinned and sat down in one of the leather chairs in front of the fireplace. Ron took another. Hermione decided on the sofa, and let her bookbag fall to the floor with a heavy thud. "I don't know why, but it's different this year. I'm still really mad, and I still really miss Sirius. But it's not coming at me all at once anymore." It hadn't been, he realised, since he'd talked to Morrigan in the garden the first day he'd met her. That had been when everything had turned around.

He didn't realise that he'd spoken out loud until Ron asked, "Do you think she worked some kind of spell on you?" he asked.

Harry shrugged uneasily. It sounded a bit silly, when it was said out loud.

"I wonder what kind of spell it would be?" Hermione asked thoughtfully. "And how it could have lasted so long." She trailed off, lost in thought. Harry could almost hear the wheels turning in her head, and wasn't at all surprised to hear her say, after a good five minutes, "We should look it up, and see if there are any spells like that. I don't think it's right that someone is casting spells on Harry without him knowing about it. Not ever, but especially not these days."

"Maybe Alhena would know," Ron said, hoping to cut the prospective research session short.

Hermione looked at Ron, then beamed at him. Ron's ears turned pink. "Great idea, Ron. You can ask her at the end of the session tonight, and we'll compare notes--I'm going to go to the library."

Ron and Harry watched her stand up and walk out of the common room, and exchanged a look. They were both impressed by her willingness to spend hours in the library, but unwilling to join her there, unless there was a concrete reason. Asking Alhena was definitely the easier of the two options. They felt lucky to have landed that part of the assignment.

Waiting in line to talk to Alhena after the tutoring session, however, they realised that Hermione had gotten the easier choice after all. Everyone seemed to have a question, or a problem, or need advice on something. Harry and Ron ended up missing dinner; by the time they realised that dinner was nearly over, they were next in line, and they had spent too much time waiting to rush down to dinner and have to wait all over again later.

The room had cleared by the time they reached the front of the line. Alhena grinned at them and sat down on top of the teacher's desk in the nearly empty unused classroom Dumbledore had assigned for their tutoring sessions. "What's up, guys?" she asked. "Must be something important for you to miss dinner, Ron."

Ron grinned at her and leaned against the nearest table. He shrugged even as he turned pink. Harry barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. It seemed that, these days, if any female other than his mother spoke to Ron, Ron turned red. "Well, it might be important," Harry said, then frowned. "Is there some kind of a spell to, I don't know, sort of make someone not lose their temper, or make someone not freak out ?"

She could have laughed. Harry wouldn't have blamed her one bit; he hadn't explained it very well. Nevertheless, after a brief moment of biting her lip that could have been simply coincidental, Alhena asked the one question that meant she was taking it seriously. "Do you mean not losing your temper just once, or not losing your temper long-term?" she asked, her brown eyes intent on his face.

"Well, long-term," Harry said. Her eyebrows rose in the way Harry knew meant she wanted him to elaborate. "It's kind of complicated. You know Morrigan, right?" he asked. Ron looked up, surprised. It was the first time since the Carricks had left Grimmauld Place that Harry had said Morrigan's name out loud.

"I know Morrigan, yes," Alhena said with a nod. Her eyes seemed to gleam for a moment, but it might have been the torchlight.

"Well, when I met her, we were talking about Sirius," Harry said with a heavy sigh. "About how I was angry about what happened, about how he died and how it all came about." Alhena nodded again, encouraging him to go on. "And after we had talked, it seemed that everything that was making me angry sort of stopped making me angry," he said helplessly, shrugging. "I don't know how that could be, except that it got better. I was still angry, and I was still sad, but it wasn't -" He stopped, unsure of how to explain it.

"It wasn't as overwhelming?" Alhena asked. Harry nodded. "And you're thinking maybe she put a spell on you that you weren't aware of?" Alhena continued. Harry nodded again, joined by Ron.

Alhena smiled. "It's possible, I suppose," she said, and walked over to the window, used her wand to urge it open amid a neat burst of red sparks, and lit a cigarette. "Sorry," she said, gesturing toward the cigarette. "Long day." She grinned at them, tapped ashes out the window, and got back on track. "Right. Well, like I said, it's possible that she put a spell on you, Harry. Though I doubt it. It's not really the kind of thing she'd do to a friend, or a relative. I know we don't see eye to eye on the issue of Morrigan," she continued, seeming somewhat surprised that Harry hadn't protested yet, "but throwing spells at people without their knowledge, especially a serious spell like that, isn't her style. She's made mistakes, sure. Haven't we all? But she wouldn't cast a spell that changed the way you saw the world without your knowledge. Not without your permission," she added thoughtfully.

She wasn't done, it was clear, just pausing. Harry and Ron, empty stomachs forgotten, waited. "I suppose it might have been a touch of Elven magic," she said after a few moments. "More like a bit of healing than a spell, really. Because you haven't forgotten anything. You're feeling the same things you felt before, just in a way that you can manage, right?" she asked. Harry nodded. "I'll see what I can find out," she said, "without creating any waves. All right?"

"That'd be great," Ron said, and Harry nodded again. They headed out of the classroom when she laughingly shooed them out, and found Hermione in the Gryffindor Common Room with food she'd snuck out of the Great Hall during dinner. Between mouthfuls of bread, they updated her on what they'd found out from Alhena. Hermione, who hadn't found anything in her search of the library, nodded, satisfied, and turned the subject to the first D.A. meeting the next day. Willing to be distracted, Ron and Harry joined in the discussion and didn't even complain when Hermione decided it was time for them to tackle their homework for the night.

*

Sighing, Malcolm led the way into his apartment, and dropped heavily onto the sofa. Kingsley and Tonks, who had come over after work, followed him inside. He sprang back up again almost immediately, drawing soft laughter from the armchair near the fireplace. Kingsley and Tonks tensed, then relaxed when they saw who it was. Tonks' face acquired an odd sort of grin; Kingsley's face took on a polite smile.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you." The voice was as soft as the laughter had been, and, recognising it, he relaxed. Sitting back down, Malcolm shook his head, amused at himself. Had it been someone his locks hadn't been charmed to recognise, that someone would be sitting outside his front door in considerable discomfort. She'd only startled him because of her disconcerting habit of blending into her surroundings; she was like a brown chameleon, her robes mixing with the brown leather of the armchair to make her all but undetectable from a quick glance.

"I needed to borrow a book or two from Morrigan's stash," Alhena said in explanation. "And I figured you wouldn't mind overly much if I waited inside."

"Of course not," Malcolm said with a laugh. "You're welcome to any of it. If she needs it back anytime soon, she'll find you."

"The first Hogsmeade weekend is coming up. You'll be there?" she asked, an eyebrow raised in his direction.

"I'll be there," he told her with a nod. "Tea?"

"No, thanks." She sighed and sank deeper into the leather chair, wishing she could simply go to sleep. "It'll keep me up all night if I start drinking it now."

A knock at the door had them both looking up. Malcolm sighed, stood again, and went to answer the door. He opened it after a moment, grinning widely, and Alhena grinned as she saw Bill and Charlie Weasley standing in the hallway.

After everyone was settled, Bill and Charlie on the sofa and Malcolm on the leather armchair that matched Alhena's, Charlie broke the sudden silence. When he spoke, Malcolm realised that both Weasley brothers had decided to act as though Kingsley didn't know the truth about Alhena, and he was grateful for it. As many people as already knew the truth, it simply didn't make sense to keep letting people in on the whole thing. If anyone else found out, it wouldn't be a disguise at all, just a makeover.

"Any news of Morrigan, then?" he asked without much hope.

"None," Malcolm said with a shake of his head. "The latest was a few days ago. Tonks found out that she's working free-lance for MacInnes. Apparently, she's handling what MacInnes called a special case, which will last indefinitely." Malcolm shrugged, and frowned. "I've sent her a few owls. They come back without replies, but they come back. And if Mor was hurt or...anything," he said, "They wouldn't come back so calmly. She's had Finn since she was sixteen, and I've had Conn as long. So she's safe, physically at least, wherever she is."

Bill and Charlie digested that silently. Charlie's face was troubled. Bill wore a thoughtful frown.

"So where the hell could she be?" Charlie asked. "I mean, you've checked the Wands, you've checked with Tristan, you've checked with her other friends. She didn't just disappear into thin air, did she?" he wondered, exasperated.

"I doubt it," Malcolm said, amused despite himself. "Even for Morrigan, that would be a feat."

"The owls come back quickly?" Bill asked, and Malcolm considered, then nodded. "So she's close by. Just not in sight." He frowned again, more deeply this time. "Where else does she go?" he wondered out loud.

"Did you try the Dark of the Moon?" Alhena asked. Bill and Charlie, who seemed to have all but forgotten she was there after their initial hellos, looked at her, startled.

"The Dark of the Moon?" Charlie asked, sounding appalled. "Why would she be there? It makes the Hog's Head look like Buckingham Palace," he added, clearly not liking the idea that Morrigan might be there alone. "It's full of..." his voice trailed off, and his eyes met Alhena's reluctantly.

"It's full of Death Eaters and their friends," Alhena said, nodding. "Which means she might well be there."

"She's not a Death Eater," Charlie protested hotly, half-standing in his anger.

"She's not," Alhena agreed calmly. "Yet." This had the effect of making Charlie's legs collapse beneath him weakly. "But she's spending an awful lot of time with MacInnes and Whiting lately. Who are certainly Death Eaters, and who are certainly trying their damnedest to recruit her." Her logic was inarguable, but no one particularly wanted to hear it. Charlie looked horrified. Bill's eyes flashed once, dangerously. Kingsley looked disturbed. Tonks appeared troubled, but she was clearly thinking hard.

"You think they'll manage to turn her," Tonks asked, her voice soft but humming with tension and anger. And, Malcolm thought, outrage.

"I think she may become a Death Eater," Alhena said softly.

It was, Bill thought, a fine distinction, but a valid one. Given what he'd heard in the Carricks' kitchen last month, Bill thought that it was entirely possible that Morrigan would do what Bill suspected Snape had done--become a Death Eater and spy on Voldemort's followers for the Order. Yet, Bill thought, Snape at least had an audience within the Order. Morrigan had nothing of the sort; most of the members wouldn't even mention her name.

"She can't," Charlie said stubbornly. "It's not necessary, and it's too damned dangerous. She could be killed."

"Any of us could be killed," Alhena said simply. "We don't even need to spy on Voldemort to have it happen. We could just be walking down the street. These days, it doesn't particularly matter, does it?"

That question hung in the air like a leaden cloud, dark and heavy in the dimly lit room. Malcolm sighed and pointed his wand at the fireplace, starting a fire that dispelled some of the gloom.

"You've checked the house in Inverness?" Alhena asked Malcolm, in an attempt to make up for the pall she'd cast over the conversation. Charlie brightened perceptibly.

"She wouldn't go there," Malcolm said with a frown. "Seamus is back in town."

"Oh. Right. She wouldn't be anywhere near Inverness, then, would she?" Alhena asked with a sigh. "Too bad. It would have been a good place for her to stay."

"Your Dad wouldn't let her stay there?" Kingsley asked, looking appalled.

Malcolm snorted. "He wouldn't notice if she paraded through the house leading a brass band. He's never noticed her, unless she was doing something wrong. But she wouldn't go to the house if he was in it. She avoids him like the plague. Frankly, I do it myself whenever I can. It makes me sick to see the way he treats her. Always has." Malcolm shrugged. It was a problem for another day and another conversation. "Anyway, the point is, anywhere she might be likely to be, other than the Dark of the Moon, has been checked. She isn't there."

An owl glided in through the open window and settled on the arm of the leather chair, as close to Malcolm's wrist as it could get. Malcolm grinned at the huge bird, a beautiful eagle owl with amber eyes that gleamed with intelligence, and stroked its head for a short while before it offered its leg to him. The parchment tied there crinkled as Malcolm freed it, and with a soft hoot, the owl took wing back out the window, into the night.

"That was Seamus' owl, or one of them anyway. Phineas," Malcolm explained absently. "He tends to be shy of company." He unrolled the parchment. The change in his face was slight but drew everyone's attention. "It's from Seamus," he said, looking up. His eyes were wide and surprised in the glow of the fire. "He wants to see Morrigan and me this Sunday, at the house." He sighed. "Merlin only knows what he wants now. Or whether she'll show."

"Well, you might as well give her as much chance as possible to arrange it," Alhena said reasonably, and Malcolm nodded, then summoned parchment and a quill, and dashed off a note to his sister. He whistled, and a rustle of wings came from the corner. Charlie and Bill looked over and saw a medium-sized eagle owl blinking at them from a wooden perch set most of the way up the built-in bookcases. "Oh. Before I forget, I'm going to get those books, all right?" Alhena asked.

Malcolm, busy securing his message to Morrigan to the owl's leg, waved her on. She got up from her chair and headed up the staircase leading to Morrigan's flat. When the owl had left, Malcolm asked Charlie and Bill about Hogsmeade that weekend.

In a few minutes, Alhena was back, two large Potions books in her arms. "Brushing up on a few things," she explained, when Charlie looked at her oddly. "It's for the tutoring," she added. "There are a few things I want to get a little more familiar with. Snape's not pulling any punches, although he seems to be enjoying himself now that he can't intimidate Harry and Neville as easily. Sick bastard," she said cheerfully, and had Charlie and Bill laughing.

"So they're holding their own?" Bill asked, interested.

"Oh, more than holding their own," she said cheerfully. "That's not to say that they don't struggle, but they've managed to convince themselves that they can do it, if they focus, and with Potions, that's half the battle. Ron's keeping up as well, in Potions. He's doing the homework without the classwork, and he's showing what he seems to think is a very unexpected talent for Potions, sans Professor Snape." She grinned, clearly thrilled for Ron, and Ron's older brothers grinned back.

"What about Charms and Transfigurations?" Charlie asked, eyebrows raised.

"One step at a time," was all she said, but she said it cheerfully. Ron's brothers, correctly, took this to mean that while Ron still needed work at those two subjects, he wasn't beyond all hope. They looked at each other and silently agreed to make sure their parents got that news as soon as they could manage it.

"So the tutoring is working out, then?" Bill asked, curious.

"Oh, it's going grand, isn't it?" she grinned. "Tonight I had fifteen of them, and tomorrow's looking like there'll be a few more."

"They're flocking, aren't they?" Charlie asked, mystified.

She laughed. "I think they were expecting a bit of a build-up period at the beginning of the school year, and it didn't happen. They just got everything thrown at them at once, and it's thrown them for a bit of a loop. It'll die down once they settle in," she said with a shrug. "But it's fun for now," she told them. "It's great watching them figure out that things aren't quite as much out of their reach as they originally thought."

"If you say so," Charlie said with a sigh. "You're braver than I am. I couldn't take it."

She just smiled. Bill knew that smile. It was strange, he thought, to see Morrigan Carrick's slightly crooked smile on Alhena Farrell's face. Then he realised how ridiculous that thought was, and had a hard time not laughing at himself.

"Has Ron gotten any more owls from Percy?" Malcolm asked, and Bill, his attention distracted, looked away from Alhena. Kingsley and Tonks had been brought in on that development when Mal and Morrigan had lost their jobs. Malcolm had felt, and Charlie and Bill had agreed, that there was a need for someone else who could keep an eye out on the Ministry side of the Percy situation. The two Aurors leaned forward, looking very interested.

"Not as far as we know. And we've already gotten an owl from him at school. Well, he sent it to me, because he didn't know that Charlie's back in the country. We decided to wait and surprise him this weekend."

"Your transfer came through to the Welsh dragon preserve, then?" Malcolm asked Charlie, who nodded.

"I'm in Wales," he said, nodding, "working with the Greens, for now. Not quite as crazy as I'm used to, but that might not be a bad thing these days. I can probably transfer back after this all wraps itself up," he said, sounding unconcerned. "But even if I can't, some things are more important."

Malcolm, who but for the situation would have been playing professional Quidditch, and Bill, who would have been back in Egypt working as a Gringotts Cursebreaker, both nodded. They understood exactly what Charlie was talking about. Malcolm, grinning slightly, looked at Alhena. "What would you be doing if it weren't for all this?" he asked her.

She colored ever so slightly, then shrugged. "Professional Quidditch player?" she suggested, and started to laugh. The others laughed with her, because if ever anyone had looked less likely to be a professional Quidditch player, it was mousy little Alhena Farrell.

After discussing the coming meeting in Hogsmeade and Fred and George's progress on the Hogsmeade shop, they were interrupted by a flutter of wings from the window. Conn glided over to rest on Malcolm's arm, and held out his leg. The silence was charged.

"Sorry it took Conn pecking me hard enough to draw blood to get back to you," he read, and the relieved grin on his face was enough to lighten the tension in the room. "I've been here, there, and everywhere, and it's all I can do to find a minute to sit down let alone write back." He snorted at that, obviously not believing it but accepting it for the moment. "Conn seems to think you're fine, so I'll trust to that until I see you on Sunday. You won't see me on Saturday, I don't want to make things difficult for Harry. By the way, don't forget to send his permission slip for Hogsmeade. It should be on your desk. Morrigan."

Malcolm stood up and walked over to his desk. Lying on top of a pile of books he hadn't found time to put away yet was a heavy parchment envelope, sealed with a dollop of silvery wax imprinted with a sickle moon, addressed in Morrigan's impossibly neat script to Professor McGonagall, Great Hall, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A faint beak impression across the top of the envelope told him Morrigan had sent it by way of Finn, earlier in the day. He knew the envelope hadn't been there this morning when he'd taken his briefcase off of his desk.

"I'll be damned. We almost forgot the most important part of the Hogsmeade plans," Malcolm said softly. "Getting Harry permission to go to Hogsmeade."

Bill's eyes widened. "I completely forgot you have to get permission every year," he said, closing his eyes on a groan. "So Sirius' permission slip wouldn't be any good this year."

Malcolm nodded, whistled a two-note call for Finn. When Morrigan's owl immediately flew over to perch on his shoulder, Malcolm handed Finn the note and told him to take it to Professor McGonagall. Finn ruffled his feathers proudly, took the envelope up in his beak, and flew off through the window into the darkness. Malcolm sat back down, lit up a cigarette, and tossed the pack to Alhena. She took one, lit it with a softly-spoken spell, and passed it along to Bill. From Bill, it went to Charlie, until they were all smoking and thinking.

"We'll have good security in place for Saturday, then?" Alhena asked after a few moments.

Malcolm nodded. "Tonks, Moody, and Kingsley will be around. Some other Order members will be there, and nearly the entire faculty. Carey won't be there. No one's too sure of him yet."

Bill snorted with exasperated amusement. "With the school's track record on Defense teachers, the longer they take making sure of him the better. I know he's in the Order, but that doesn't mean he's entirely on our side."

Alhena nodded. "He's very nice, very eager to please, and not too very bright. He's also developed a strange habit, since arriving at the school, of being unavailable whenever you want to speak with him, hasn't he?" she asked, her expression turning thoughtful.

"I'll see what I can find out from Dad," Bill decided. "If you ask," he told Charlie, "it'll look suspicious. You've been more involved in the recruiting side of things to date."

Charlie nodded. "And I wouldn't have much use for the information at the preserve," he said with his customary good humor. "Any news on the Gryffindor Quidditch team?" he asked Alhena.

She grinned. "Well, at the moment, Harry and Ron are trying to convince Katie Bell to be captain. She's trying to turn it down, and Minerva hasn't stepped in to solve the whole thing. Katie says that after watching Angelina struggle with it last year, she wants to play and not to be captain. Harry's the next most senior, and he's not sure he wants it. Ron wants it but doesn't think he's earned it yet. He's probably right; he's only been on the team for a year. I figure it'll take another few days for Ginny to step in and suggest that Ron and Harry co-captain the team. That should take care of that.

"They haven't had any tryouts yet--they're set for the end of this week. As far as the people who are planning on coming back to the team, it's looking like Harry will be Seeker, Ron will be Keeper, and Katie and Ginny will be Chasers. They're still looking for two Beaters and a Chaser, and they seem to want reserve players as well." Alhena obviously thought that was a good idea. "It doesn't look like they'll be as all-out strong as they were last year. They're really missing Fred and George about now. If they find one more decent Chaser, they'll be all right, but it's the Beaters who are going to be crucial. They've got no one right now. The two guys who filled in for Fred and George last year beat themselves up almost as badly as the other teams beat them up, and they aren't particularly keen on coming back, unless it's as reserves."

"Sounds pretty grim," Charlie observed.

"It is pretty grim," Alhena said with a laugh. "But they'll put something together, they always seem to manage." Though there didn't seem to be any real reason for her optimism, Charlie seemed reassured. Bill, amused at himself, felt the same as his brother. If Alhena thought that things were all right, they were. It was, somehow, that simple.

After a while, Charlie reluctantly stood up. Tomorrow would be an early morning for him, only his third at the preserve in Wales, and he had work to clear up before he could get to bed. Bill, knowing how much he had to take care of at work, got up as well. Alhena gave them all a grin and a wave, and Disapparated back to Tristan's house in Hogsmeade with barely a sound.

"Amazing, how good she is at that," Charlie said, shaking his head. He and Bill laughed with Malcolm, Tonks, and Kingsley. Four of them Disapparated, very obviously making an effort to be as quiet as Alhena had been. Malcolm, a grin on his face, finished up some research he'd been doing with back issues of the Prophet and went to bed early. It was going to be a very busy week.