Harry Potter and the Crystal Fire

Chapter 10: Changes In The Wind

Hovering high in the air over the pitch, Harry ducked an errant Bludger and resigned himself to getting very familiar with the heavy metallic whir as it passed within inches of his head--at least for the time being. The Martin brothers were great flyers, but still needed some work on their Bludger strategy, which seemed to consist, at the moment, of hitting the Bludgers any which way with triumphant whoops.

Philosophically, Harry thought that he'd rather deal with the odd Bludger unintentionally aimed in his direction than watch Katie and Ginny whizzing out of the way of the new players, who seemed strangely intent upon sending someone to the Hospital Wing today.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione and Neville cringe as another Bludger came close enough to Ron to trim his hair. Half-afraid to look, Harry turned his head and saw Ron rolling back upright from a quick evasive swerve. He gave Ron a thumbs-up, which Ron returned, then watched Ron set himself and neatly stop the Quaffle Katie had aimed at the center goal hoop.

Harry watched his team practicing for a few more minutes. Christopher Lewis, the Reserve Keeper, was throwing golf balls for Dennis Creevey to catch. At the moment, it seemed that Dennis' ability to catch the balls was approximately equal to Christopher's ability to throw them very far. Sending Dennis and Christopher to the far end of the pitch had been the first exercise of his authority as captain that Harry felt entirely comfortable with; that far away from everyone else, and with their current inability to go beyond a short distance, Dennis and Christopher were unlikely to hurt either themselves or anyone else.

Sighing as he watched Caitlin drop a pass from Katie, Harry gazed around the pitch in search of the Snitch's telltale golden glint. He spotted it hovering around the far goalpost, took a moment to judge the likelihood of his being sent to the Hospital Wing by either Dennis or Christopher, and decided he didn't care if he was hurt. It had been too long since he'd really had a chance to fly, too long since he could leave the threatening, indifferent world behind and simply be Harry.

He dove after the Snitch, dodging first one Bludger then the other. He cut through the chilly air cleanly, his hair whipping back behind him, his eyes focused on the Snitch, his mind clear of everything but the thrill of the chase and the knowledge that, at least for a moment, nothing mattered but the Snitch. Automatically, he swerved tightly to avoid the Bludger that had circled around toward him, never hearing Dennis' high scream of alarm as Harry rocketed past the smaller boy in pursuit of the Snitch. Later, he thought he might have heard Christopher's loud curse, and he definitely felt the bruise from the golf ball on his shoulder. Just then, though, he only knew that he was free, and then his fingers were closing on the Snitch.

"Gee, Harry, I'm awfully sorry," Christopher was apologising as Harry pulled out of his dive in time to skim lightly across the grass and past the two younger boys.

Harry's exhilaration was waning, and he'd begun to feel the sharp ache in his shoulder that told him Christopher's last throw had hit home. Still, Harry thought, he had all but asked to be hit, deciding to go after the Snitch as it hovered past Dennis and Christopher near the goal hoops. He shrugged it off, grinning at Christopher, who grinned back uncertainly.

"It's all right. I've had worse," he said, and hoped he wasn't tempting fate by saying so. He didn't want to make it sound as though it were all right to aim at people or anything. Thinking about that, Harry sighed silently and flew back to a safer height. He secretly suspected that if he told Christopher to try and hit the others, the rest of the team might be safer given Christopher's aim. He turned back to watch the others, just in time to see a Bludger narrowly miss Ginny just before she managed to send the Quaffle speeding past Ron.

Caitlyn and Elinor Eames, one of the Reserve Chasers, cheered. Elinor learned the hard way that the Reserve Beaters weren't anywhere near as good as the Martins at deflecting the Bludgers as one of the speeding iron balls smashed into her broom and sent her spiraling awkwardly down 10 feet to the grass below. Harry had already started over to check on her when she shook her fist at the shamefaced Patrick Corey and yelled, "Watch what you're doing, won't you? Those things aren't exactly made of feathers, you know!"

Harry had to stifle a grin. Ron, Katie, and Ginny weren't quite able to disguise their amusement. Elinor, her eyes shooting sparks Harry could nearly see even from halfway across the pitch, kicked off from the ground, irritated, and proceeded to get a Quaffle past Ron on her next attempt, the last one before Harry called an end to the team's first practice.

As Ron had said later, it had been a good shot, but he'd nearly been afraid to try and stop it. The little brown-haired girl had been so angry, Ron joked to Harry and Hermione on their way down to lunch in the Great Hall, that Ron had feared for his life if she hadn't gotten her goal. Harry had laughed, but had secretly agreed. Hermione's disapproving look had kept him from saying so out loud, but the look he and Ron shared over her head made it clear that they were both of the same mind.

"So. Now we've seen them all outside of tryouts," Ron said as they sat beside Katie at the Gryffindor table, "we need to come up with a plan."

Hermione and Neville began debating whether they would ever have another Hogsmeade weekend while Katie, Ron, and Harry got down to a serious discussion over the team's strategy for the upcoming season. Their first match, against Hufflepuff, was a month away, and they fully intended to repeat Gryffindor's Quidditch Cup victory of the past year.

*

Malcolm arrived at the front door to his father's house near Inverness at almost exactly the same time as his sister. He gave her a critical once-over. She was pale and, to his eyes, too thin. Nothing else seemed to be wrong with her. Malcolm had only just begun to relax when their eyes met.

She had never, Malcolm thought as he held her gaze, been able to hide anything from him if he could see her eyes. Morrigan might have repaired the external damage--he was suddenly certain that there had been damage, and a great deal of it--but he could see traces of pain and despair deep in her eyes. Knowing his sister as well as he did, Malcolm could not imagine what

it must have taken to put that expression in her eyes.

"Mor?" he asked, reconsidering the wisdom of answering his father's summons.

"Later," she answered softly, and looked down at her feet. "Putting it off will only make it worse," she added with a nod toward the door.

Malcolm sighed, knowing she was telling him the truth. "You're right," he said softly. "Come on, then," he said, and pulled her into a one-armed hug for a brief moment before opening the door. She laid her head against his shoulder for an instant before pulling away and walking through the doorway ahead of him.

Malcolm caught her up in the entranceway, and they walked together down the corridor toward the stairs and their father's study on the first floor.

Though they weren't walking close enough for him to brush against her, Malcolm felt his sister growing more and more tense as they made their way toward the landing. She seemed to be shrinking in front of his eyes. He touched her shoulder, and saw her smile bleakly, though she didn't look at him. He hadn't expected her to. Morrigan could be fierce when she felt the need, at least when it came to fighting for other people. When it came to fighting for herself, she had a much harder time.

Malcolm knocked on the door, rolling his eyes in Morrigan's direction as he did so. She gave him a little smile, as amused as her brother was at the idea of two adults having to knock for permission to enter their father's study. It lightened her eyes, and for a moment he thought that they would get through this meeting without too much fuss.

It only took his father's brusque command--"Come,"--to dispel that illusion. There was a world of impatience in that one word, and a hint of something far more ominous. Something that Malcolm recognised from the years just after his mother had been killed, something dark and slimy that hid in corners waiting for a weakness to exploit.

Malcolm looked at Morrigan as he reached out for the door handle. She looked back at him. He was surprised to see that she was calm, almost resolute, and that she wasn't merely putting up a front. He raised an eyebrow at her, wondering what had caused the sudden change.

"When you think about it, Mal, he's low on the list of things to worry about these days," she said softly, and saw her brother's eyes clear. She smiled. He nodded, then turned the doorknob and let them both into their father's study.

Seamus Carrick sat behind a massive, ornately carved desk, a quill in his hand, and watched his children walk into the room. He noted the difference in them immediately. Not since the day his wife had been killed had Seamus ordered the twins into his study without seeing clear signals of nerves at the very least. Sometimes there had even been fear. Never had his children walked into his study shoulder to shoulder, looking very nearly defiant. Not until today.

Morrigan decided not to wait for her father to invite them to sit down; she could remember too many occasions when the invitation had never come. She chose the leather armchair directly across the desk from her father, and sat down in it, crossing her jeans-clad legs and raising an eyebrow at him as she waited. Malcolm sat down beside his sister, his expression mirroring hers.

Silence filled the room, heavy and dark. If she'd set out to irritate Seamus, Morrigan couldn't have picked a better way, Malcolm decided. His father was clearly feeling as though the rug had been pulled out from under him. For a moment, Malcolm was fiercely glad. He felt as though every single instance when he or Morrigan had been called onto the carpet in this room, or in its identical twin in the house in Wales, was being redeemed here and now.

He should have known better.

"Well?" Seamus asked, the utter calm of his voice ominous. Morrigan's expression did not change. Malcolm waited, suddenly feeling that it had been a mistake to antagonise their father.

Morrigan's eyebrow rose, if possible, even higher before dropping down to its normal position. "You wanted to see us," she said mildly, and continued to watch Seamus. Malcolm got the feeling that something was going on here that he wasn't included in. Looking at Morrigan out of the corner of his eye, he recognised her outwardly mild expression as one of intense concentration.

Malcolm thought quickly. Their father didn't know her well enough anymore to know what he was seeing when he looked at her. Seamus knew only that his daughter was not reacting as he'd planned, and it was infuriating him. Anger had a way of taking over Seamus, of making him lose control, Malcolm reflected. That quickly, he knew what Morrigan was doing. She was hoping to goad him into losing control so that she could get a sense of his thoughts the way she'd done with Harry.

What Malcolm couldn't figure out was why Morrigan was interested in trying to read Seamus. As far as their lives were concerned, Seamus was largely an afterthought, much as they were to him. To Malcolm, there was little to be gained by goading Seamus other than the satisfaction of idle curiosity. He didn't see the point, but he wasn't going to interfere. As far as he was concerned, seeing Seamus get a little of his own back was worth the inevitable temper tantrum.

"You're damned right I did," Seamus ground out through gritted teeth. His face was set with the effort of keeping his temper in check. "You've had quite the month, haven't you, young lady? Getting sacked, moving out of your flat, spending time with people you shouldn't be giving the time of day to," he spat out, his fury coming to the fore.

"I didn't move out of my flat," Morrigan corrected calmly, in the same tone she might have used to comment on the fine autumn weather.

"You didn't--" Seamus nearly exploded, then closed his eyes and reined in his temper. "You got sacked," he said.

"I did," Morrigan agreed mildly.

"And in doing so probably got your brother sacked as well," Seamus nearly spat at her.

"I may have," Morrigan said, without so much as a note of apology in her voice. Malcolm wasn't fooled; they'd talked this out many times, and he knew that she felt horribly guilty about the whole thing. He was, absurdly, proud of Morrigan for refusing to show her feelings to Seamus. Seamus was an outsider; he'd never been concerned about Malcolm or Morrigan's feelings before now. It was none of his business how Malcolm and his sister felt about anything.

"And you're keeping company with known Death Eaters," Seamus said forcefully, his tone accusing. He was nearly purple with the effort of keeping his voice from rising to a yell.

"I can't help what my friends think," Morrigan replied blandly. "But they're my friends. I won't turn my back on them simply because we disagree on certain things."

That, as Morrigan had suspected and Malcolm had known, was the last straw for Seamus. "You haven't learned a thing since your run-in with Keith Stringfellow!" he roared, standing up so suddenly that his desk chair toppled over. "It's a mystery to me how you could ignore everything staring you in the face and associate with people like that." He came around the corner of the desk, and for a moment Malcolm thought his father was going to attack his sister. Malcolm's hand was already on his wand when he saw his father halt, breathing heavily.

Morrigan simply sat in her armchair, looking up at Seamus patiently as though her father were a child in the throes of a tantrum.

"Well?" Seamus bellowed. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Morrigan actually appeared to be considering her answer, as outwardly unaffected by her father's anger as she would have been by news of rain halfway around the world. "Quite a lot, actually, but I have no doubt you wouldn't be even remotely interested in most of it," she said, contempt creeping into her voice. As though she'd slapped him, Seamus went still and silent.

"What do you mean by that?" Seamus asked quietly. Too quietly, Malcolm thought.

"I'd have thought it was fairly obvious," Morrigan said. If Seamus noticed the ever-so-slightly exaggerated patience in her voice, he gave no sign. "Long story short, you haven't given a damn about me or anything I do since I was seven. There hasn't been a thing I've done or said since Mum was murdered that has affected you in the slightest, unless you think it reflects badly on you. And then you swing the hammer, don't you?" she asked. It was clearly a rhetorical question, and Seamus didn't answer. He seemed too stunned to respond at all.

"You've never cared about either of us, not since you lost Mum. I spent years trying to get your attention any way I could, just to see if you even realised Mal and I were here at all. You never did." Morrigan's voice was still even, but her eyes suddenly flashed at her father. Malcolm was stunned to see Seamus make an effort to stop himself backing up from the force of her glare.

"Where were you when Mal broke his arm and his leg playing Quidditch? You were busy tilting at windmills in London, fighting enemies who had disappeared or never existed at all. Where were you when we watched all of our friends go home over Christmas holidays and we had to stay behind at school alone? Busy fighting for the good side, busy living a life that didn't include us.

"Where were you when we spent entire summers at Keith's house, or Nicholas' house, or Gwynne's house because our house was empty and there was no one there to take care of us? Where were you when we needed guidance and there was no one to help? Where the hell have you ever been?" Morrigan asked, no longer troubling to keep the contempt out of her voice. "You've never been there. You don't care. So don't pretend it's suddenly different, or that you suddenly give a damn about us. You're only concerned about what effect this all might have on your little quest against evil. You're on your own there. Frankly, Da, I don't care in the slightest." She stood up, clearly intending to leave.

"Don't you walk away from me!" Seamus roared, once he'd found his voice again. "Don't you talk to me like that. Blaming me for all your mistakes won't work, young lady. I--"

She whirled to face her father, and the look on her face was truly horrible--a mixture of fury and grief that shook Malcolm to his core. "My name," she hissed, "is Morrigan. See if you can remember that, won't you?"

Seamus' hand flew as if of its own accord, the force of the slap rocking her back on her heels. Morrigan nearly fell, but caught her balance just before it was too late. Seamus stared at his hand as though it was an alien thing, a part of him he had never noticed before. He looked, Malcolm thought, completely stunned. The anger had left him completely. In its place was a kind of dawning horror that was as difficult to look at as the deathly white handprint on Morrigan's left cheek.

Morrigan stood straight and tall before her father, and lifted her chin proudly. "Don't ask me to answer to you," she said softly, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Don't ever ask me to do that, Da. You're not the perfect person you'd like us to believe. How much of your fight is atonement, and how much is principle?" she asked him sadly, and Seamus' face hardened.

"Don't ever cross my doorstep again, Morrigan Carrick," he managed, his voice as deadly soft as hers had been. "You're no daughter of mine. From this moment on, you are dead to me," he finished, his blue eyes as cold as ice.

She laughed. The sound was chilling and bitter. "Do you know what, Da?" she asked, her eyes meeting Seamus' squarely. "I have been since I was seven. This only makes it official."

Without a sound, she Disapparated. Malcolm saw a distinct expression of pride at her talent pass swiftly across his father's face before it disappeared. Seamus made his way back to his chair, waved his wand at it to right it, and sat down.

"I suppose you'll be wanting to blame me for all your problems next," he shot at Malcolm.

"No, actually neither of us have ever done that, whether we should have or not. And as for what I wanted to say to you, Morrigan handled that bit quite nicely," Malcolm said evenly. "But, to save you the trouble of repeating yourself, yes, I was sacked, and yes, I've changed some of my friends."

Seamus snorted. "And hardly to the right kind. A werewolf, two red-headed troublemakers, and those musicians," he said, and his lip curled. "Wonderful for your career--no, wait, they can't possibly hurt it more than your sister did."

Malcolm stood up. "She did nothing to hurt my career," he replied, fighting to keep his tone mild. "You don't even know us anymore. Do you think that keeping tabs on us from a distance gives you any idea who we are?"

"A pair of idiots, from what I can see. Sacked, keeping company with the wrong sort, and all but joining the other side," Seamus said with a disgusted look at his oldest child.

Malcolm found that he suddenly understood how Morrigan could be so calm in the face of such paternal contempt. Quite simply, it didn't matter any longer what his father thought of him. Anyone who knew him so little couldn't possibly have an opinion that meant anything to Malcolm. "You don't know anything about it," Malcolm said without heat. "I'll see myself

out," he added, turning to leave.

"You wouldn't turn to his side," Seamus shot after him, but the statement had the quality of a plea.

"What do you think?" Malcolm threw back over his shoulder, walked through the door, and Disapparated for home.

He couldn't remember ever feeling so free.

*

Walking back to the Gryffindor portrait-hole after a short tutoring session with Alhena, Harry and Ron kept talking Quidditch and Hermione and Neville kept rolling their eyes. As Neville gave the password to the Fat Lady, Harry remembered that he'd left his quill and ink bottle in the tutoring classroom, and turned back to retrieve it. He hurried through the corridors, not wanting a confrontation with Filch over being out of Gryffindor Tower after hours, and arrived at the dimly lit classroom a few minutes after he'd left it.

As he approached the door, Harry frowned. He'd expected the classroom to be dark, as all of the students had gone ahead of the Gryffindors, and he'd seen Alhena preparing to leave as well. Apparently someone had stayed behind, Harry thought, watching the square of dim light on the opposite wall of the corridor, cast by candlelight through the high window of the classroom door. Harry crept silently along the last few feet of corridor and listened intently, trying to discover who was inside the room.

The square of light in the dim hallway first disappeared, then reappeared as someone passed between the candle and the door. Harry stopped moving, his back against the cold dark stone wall, his ears straining to recognise a voice in the hollow silence of the corridor. He wished the doors at Hogwarts weren't quite so thick. Then he remembered the Extendable Ears Ron had been playing with at dinner, and his hands fell to his pockets. Finding one set of Extendable Ears after a short search through his robe pockets, he slipped it out and put one end to his ear.

Immediately, the flesh-colored string began to stretch, creeping down to the floor, sliding along the stones until it reached the classroom door. Without so much as a hesitation, the string slipped under the door, and Harry jumped involuntarily as a voice spoke suddenly and loudly in his ear.

"Something about a fire, you said?" Bill Weasley's voice asked, in a tone far more serious than Harry had heard from Ron's oldest brother since the Quidditch World Cup two years ago. "He was thinking about a fire?"

"Something about a fire," Alhena agreed. "A fire, and Harry, and Voldemort."

Bill's hiss of breath was loud in the room. "I really hate it when you do that," Bill said, sounding both entirely serious and somewhat amused. "Say that name without the slightest warning," he added.

"Sorry." Alhena's voice was distracted. If she truly felt apologetic, Harry thought, anyone would have been hard put to tell by her tone. "Listen, we really need to find out more about this. I'd gladly go and try to find out more from him, but I don't think it would do any good."

"No. Don't do that. You wouldn't want to take the chance of stirring up a hornet's nest," Bill pointed out. "It wouldn't look normal, would it, your showing up there now?"

Alhena's laugh was weary and not very amused. "No. Truly, it wouldn't have been normal even before this."

"Right. Well, we have at least one other way to try that, if it becomes necessary. So don't worry about that for the moment. "You've got the library there to check in, and Tris and Nick and Gwynne, so you can work on this from there. And we've got the other members, and Professor Dumbledore, to work on things from this end. You're sure it was about Harry?"

"I'm sure," Alhena replied, sounding absolutely exhausted. "And possibly about Ron, though I can't be sure. It was all very quick."

Bill was silent for a long moment, then asked, "Could it have been about what we discussed this past summer?"

Alhena's sigh was full of frustration and uncertainty. "I simply don't know, Bill. It might be. And then again, it might be something else altogether. Still, now you mention it, that would fit quite nicely, wouldn't it?"

"Almost too nicely," Bill replied drily, but it was clear that the idea was weighing heavily on his mind. "Well, I might as well get to work on this. Same time tomorrow?" he asked.

"Same time tomorrow," she answered, and silence fell over the classroom again. Harry, his quill and ink forgotten headed off down the corridor at as silent a run as he could manage, before Alhena left the classroom and caught him eavesdropping. His mind was racing as he pounded up the staircases toward the Gryffindor portrait-hole, and when he finally reached it, panting, he had to think hard to remember the password--"venomous tentacula"--to give to the Fat Lady. She sighed tiredly and swung open to let Harry into the Common Room.

Of course, he had to go up to his dormitory to retrieve a spare quill and ink bottle, and this caused a great deal of curiosity on the part of Ron and Hermione, at least. Harry imagined that they'd seen the look on his face and come to their own conclusions as to why he had come back from the tutoring classroom without his quill and ink. As soon as they could get him alone--or, rather, as alone as it was possible to be in the chaos of the Common Room not long after dinner--they asked Harry about his trip back downstairs.

"Well, I never got into the classroom," Harry explained in low tones, although the last thing anyone in the Common Room appeared to be interested in was listening to their conversation. "The door was closed and a candle was lit. Alhena was still in there. She was talking to Bill," he said.

"My brother Bill?" Ron asked, as though the strangest thing he'd ever heard of was the idea of his oldest brother talking to Alhena Farrell.

"Oh, REALLY, Ron," Hermione said, with an impatient huff. "It's not as though they've never met, or have no reason to speak at all." In Hermione's opinion, Bill Weasley had a very good reason indeed--several, in fact--to want to speak to Alhena Farrell, but she wasn't about to get into that with either Harry or Ron.

"I mean, there's the Junior Order, isn't there?" Harry said, rolling his eyes in Ron's direction. He completely missed the long-suffering look that passed between Ginny and Hermione.

"Oh, yeah, right," Ron said, with dawning comprehension. Harry snorted with laughter, and both he and Ron missed the look Ginny gave Hermione, which was identical to the look Hermione had given Ginny moments before.

"So, they were talking about a fire, and about you and Ron, and...Voldemort?" Hermione asked in a voice little more than a whisper. Ron, Neville, and Ginny flinched almost imperceptibly. Harry thought that they were getting much better about hearing Voldemort's name spoken out loud than they had been even a few months ago. He had high hopes that, by Christmas, they wouldn't flinch at all, only turn pale as milk.

Harry nodded. Neville frowned along with the others; it made no sense to any of them. There didn't seem to be any connection--Harry, Ron, Voldemort, and a fire? Were they all going to burn up? Where would they all be together that could catch on fire--Hogwarts? Hogsmeade?

Hermione sighed, frustrated, and brushed her hair out of her face impatiently. "It's just not enough information to go off of," she said. "We need to know more. It could be anything--a real fire, a magical fire, a spell...anything."

"No, not really," Neville said after a long moment of silence. "I mean, would anyone really be interested in a fire unless it was something Voldemort was looking for?"

They all stared at him as though seeing him for the first time ever. He looked back at them without flinching, and shrugged. "Makes sense, that's all," he said, turning a bit pink.

"That's great thinking, Neville," Ron said admiringly. "Really great. I mean it."

"Honestly, Neville, it would have taken us weeks to think of it," Hermione said. Her statement might not have been strictly true, Harry thought, but it probably wasn't far off. In any event, Neville's flush heightened, and his pleased little smile widened.

"So if it's something..." Ron began, saw Hermione getting ready to roll her eyes, and all but spit out, "Voldemort...wants, then it's probably a magical thing, right? I mean, he could just get some matches otherwise, couldn't he?"

Harry nodded, but felt his lips twitch and had to fight back laughter. "Right. Or he could just point his wand," he managed solemnly. Ginny looked away, but as she did, Harry saw signs of imminent giggles dancing in her eyes, and he nearly ruined the whole thing by bursting into laughter.

"So it's some kind of important magical fire," Hermione said softly, and Harry and Ginny, avoiding each others' eyes, made an effort to be serious. "Important enough to have...Alhena and Bill worried about it." Ron, Neville, and Harry didn't notice Hermione's hesitation before Alhena's name, but Harry looked up in time to catch the warning glance that sped between Ginny and Hermione. Then Ron started wondering out loud what kind of magical fire it could be, and Harry forgot all about the expression on Ginny's face.

Katie Bell wandered over as Harry was about to add a few questions to Ron's speculations, and Ron interrupted Harry by turning the subject to Quidditch. Katie sat down in the empty spot beside Neville, and they discussed tomorrow's practice for a few minutes before Katie went off to finish some homework. Suddenly realising that they shouldn't have been discussing Voldemort and the fire in the Common Room--they had promised to be more responsible than that, and after last year they understood that lives could depend on their ability to come through as promised--Harry and the others turned their attention to their homework and left the matter of the fire for later.

*

"Right, so, I guess that's it for today," Harry said, and the others turned toward him. He caught sight of a weak wisp of smoke trailing up from the back of the room. With a barely-restrained sigh, he pointed his wand at the hem of Dean's robes and spoke the Extinguishing Spell he'd practiced for just such an occasion. It was only to be expected, he thought, his mood improving. This was, after all, only the first D.A. meeting of term, and it was just possible that the Flameriver Curse had been a bit too ambitious for a first meeting.

Now that D.A. was an official club rather than a secret organisation, its ranks had swarmed to nearly fifty students. Rather than the disappointment Harry had expected with the absence of any need for sneaking around or mystery, he had found over the course of the hour-long meeting that D.A. was somehow even more fun than it had been before. He told himself sternly that it had nothing to do with the fact that all of the new members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team had arrived early, and had enthusiastically set to work, apparently eager to once again risk their lives among their teammates. He had a hard time keeping his face straight remembering the way Caitlin had jinxed Zach Martin for nearly setting her hair on fire.

"Harry! Hey, Harry!" Colin called, and Harry, still trying to stifle a huge grin, turned toward Colin. He raised a questioning eyebrow, and Colin beamed, then rushed on. "Same time next week, right, Harry?" he asked, so excited his words were nearly tripping over themselves in their hurry to leave his mouth. Harry couldn't blame him. It was perhaps the first D.A. meeting at which neither Colin nor his younger brother had been in any danger of a trip to the Hospital Wing.

"Same time next week," Harry confirmed, and the group began to disperse in twos and threes, heading back toward their respective Common Rooms. As Luna left the emptying classroom with Cho, they both grinned at Harry and waved. Harry grinned and waved back, and his reaction had nothing to do with the new elastic band, decorated with something suspiciously like carrot shavings, holding Luna's braid in place. He was simply relieved that he and Cho could be friends. The summer had done them both good, with its freedom from deep talks about Cedric, arguments about Marietta--whose boils had disappeared at last when she'd found Hermione on the second day of term and apologised profusely--and worries about dating each other.

Cho and Roger Davies were still dating, and Harry could say, with absolute truthfulness, that he was glad about that fact. He still thought Cho was beautiful, and he supposed he always would. But he wasn't ready to date her. Cedric still hung between them, unspoken and unthreatening but definitely there. Still, her wave had been decidedly friendlier than his last conversation with her, on the Hogwarts Express leaving school at the end of last term, and that was enough for Harry, for now. He had enough on his mind without another school year filled with worries about Cho.

Harry shouldered his bag and followed his friends out of the room. As they walked down the corridor, Harry found himself thinking about the fire, and Ron, and Voldemort. The question of the magical fire had bothered him since he'd overheard Alhena talking about it on Sunday. Since then, it had been running through his mind continuously. Now, four days later, he felt like he might go mad if he didn't find out anything more soon. When they reached the marble staircase, Ginny and Katie headed upstairs, and Harry, raising his eyebrows at Ron and Hermione, headed down the hallway toward the tutoring classroom. They went on up toward the Common Room, but it was clear from their expressions that they would have preferred to go with Harry.

*

The classroom was empty, as Harry had expected it to be, but he checked out the room anyway. He felt like an idiot, looking under the unused desks and in all the dark corners, but he wasn't taking any chances. He just hoped no one came in and found him bending over to check under the desks. He had no idea in the world how he would have explained it.

Satisfied that the room was empty, he took his Chocolate Frog card out of his pocket, and felt it grow warm in his hands. He waited through the glow that indicated that the charms on the card were working to recognise him--the card glowed red, then gold, then the light subsided--then spoke his password: Quidditch World Cup. The card glowed again, briefly this time, and he saw Tristan's face appear in the frame where the card's photograph of Dumbledore belonged.

"What's up, Harry?" Tristan asked, his dark eyebrows raised questioningly. His eyes, dark and intense despite his casual tone, met Harry's squarely.

"I was wondering if Alhena is there," Harry said, then sighed and thought that he should have considered this a bit more carefully. He had no idea how to bring up the subject of the fire. He had no idea if he should even mention it at all, now that he was talking to Tristan.

"She's not, at the moment. She probably won't be bad for an hour or so--she's in London. Anything I can help you with?" Tristan asked, and something in his tone--some unexpected sympathy--had Harry spilling everything.

"Well, I'm not sure if anyone can help me, really," Harry confessed, and sat down on what would have been the Professor's desk in any other classroom. "I forgot something in the classroom on Sunday, and when I came back down to get it, I overheard Alhena talking to Ron's brother Bill about something. And it's been bothering me ever since. And I know that I shouldn't have overheard it, and I know that I should have told her right away, and I know that I should have asked her, but--"

"Slow down, Harry," Tristan said, clearly amused. "Alhena puts Charms on the door. If it hadn't been you, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, or Luna that had been near the door, you wouldn't have been able to overhear it at all. And if it hadn't been something you were allowed to overhear, you wouldn't have overheard it. So relax." Harry did, with a sigh, then heard Tristan speak again. "Though you're right, you should have asked her right away. Good to know you've grown up enough to know it."

Tristan, to Harry's eyes, looked as though he was trying hard not to laugh. Harry stifled a wave of irritation. He'd asked for it, after all.

"Right," Harry said, and sighed again. "So, do you know anything about it? We figured that it's some kind of magical fire, and an important one, or Voldemort wouldn't be trying to get hold of it. And we figured it does something that would help him out, and that's as far as we got. Except that someone thinks that Ron and I are going to be involved somehow."

If this information surprised Tristan, he gave no sign. "Well, at the moment that's about what we know, too. We've got people looking into it, of course," he said, and ran long, pale fingers through his dark hair. Harry thought that Tristan's hair looked as though he did this habitually. "We can't put a lot of obvious effort into it at the moment. We don't want to raise any eyebrows. But we're working on it."

Harry nodded. "We're going to scour the library on Saturday," he admitted, "when we're working on our essays. We've got a ton of stuff to get done," he added unenthusiastically.

Tristan grinned. "Well, we'll keep you posted if we find out anything. Make sure you have plenty of time for all those essays," he said, and laughed softly when Harry winced.

"Gee, thanks," Harry said darkly.

Tristan just grinned. "Oh, and Harry?" he asked, just before Harry was about to say goodbye. Harry looked back at the card. Tristan was still grinning. "If you should see any unfamiliar magical fires hovering in the corridors, give us a ring, won't you?"

Harry laughed; he couldn't help himself. The sound of Tristan's chuckles kept him company.

On his way up to the Common Room, he took the stairs two at a time, all but running. His relief, enormous and overpowering, made him feel like he had wings.

*

Bill sat on Morrigan's sofa, between Charlie and Remus Lupin. Malcolm, sprawled in an armchair near the fireplace, and Tonks, nearly swallowed up by armchair on the other side of the hearth, watched Nicholas pacing the floor beside the windows. Morrigan slipped a silver half-moon pendant out from beneath her shirt and held it for a moment. There was a brief silver flash, then Morrigan spoke a password, too softly for Bill to hear. Whatever it had been, the phrase made Tonks laugh softly. Morrigan grinned at Tonks, then let the pendant fall, and they all heard Tristan's voice as clearly as though he were in the room with them. In a sense, Bill supposed, Tristan was.

"So I just heard from your cousin," Tristan said in a lazy drawl, and immediately, all eyes in the room went to Morrigan. She shrugged.

"Did you, then?" she asked, sounding no more than interested. "What did he have to say about overhearing other people's conversations?"

Tristan laughed. The others relaxed. Few people could make Tristan laugh--really laugh. The Carrick twins were two of those, and even they could not make him laugh often. And they could never make him laugh when anything urgent was afoot. The sound of Tristan's laughter was as good as a guarantee that whatever Harry had contacted him about, it hadn't been an emergency.

"Well, first he said that he knew that he shouldn't have been eavesdropping and he hadn't meant to and he knew he should have told someone right away and he knew that he should have asked Alhena about it immediately." Tristan's voice indicated that he was grinning, and in that, at least, he was no different than anyone in Morrigan's flat. "Then he said that he had heard Alhena and Bill talking about a fire and Voldemort and himself and Ron, and he wanted to know whether I knew anything about that."

"Did you?" Morrigan asked, as if inquiring whether Tristan had had a nice day.

Tristan laughed again. "I did," he replied. "But before I told him that, Harry said that he and the others had discussed it, carefully and secretly, and they had decided that it must be an important kind of magical fire that was somehow valuable to Voldemort."

"Did they, now?" Morrigan said softly, and for the first time sounded truly interested. "And did they come to any other conclusions, then?"

"Only that they should ask someone whether we knew more than they did, and that they were going to spend part of their Saturday writing essays in the Library and maybe examine a few books while they were there," Tristan replied.

Morrigan's grin was thoughtful. It was half appreciation for the strategy, and half consideration of the idea. "We'll have to get back with him, Tris. I don't know that it's a great idea to have all six of them studying up on magical fires in the Library, not all together anyway, and not all at the same time. I mean, for Hermione or Ginny or Luna that would be normal, wouldn't it, but for Harry and Ron and Neville, maybe not so normal."

"Well, from what I've heard," Nicholas said, stopping near the window, "the boys have put on a bit of a studying rush, haven't they?" he added. Morrigan waited, knowing from years of experience that Nicholas wasn't finished. "It might not last long, but I'd imagine they'll stick with it for a little while yet. Seems like it's some kind of competition for the highest marks. So it might actually be in character for them to study more than usual, at least for the moment."

Morrigan considered that, and looked around at the others.

Lupin laughed. "I've had them as students. Really, all three of the boys could use an incentive to hit the library every now and again. Not too much," he said, shaking his head. "Wouldn't want them forgetting everything they've learned about rule-breaking. But yes, I think they could stand a little more library work."

Malcolm snorted. "A little more, and only a little more. They've got enough on their plates right now without worrying about too much extra."

"Any word about Hogsmeade? There was originally supposed to be a visit next month," Tonks observed. "I haven't been to any meetings lately," she said unnecessarily. "We've been working 'round the clock trying to find the Death Eaters responsible for the attack on Sunday." She sighed tiredly. "We haven't had much luck. It's as though they disappeared into thin air." She looked worn out, and uncharacteristically frustrated. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her paler-than-usual skin contrasted jarringly with her deep violet hair.

"Doesn't look like there will be a visit, at least not unless things calm down a good deal before then," Morrigan said, laying a sympathetic hand on Tonks' shoulder. Tonks sighed again, but her face had relaxed a bit, and she looked less horribly tired. "It has nothing to do with whether they're caught," she added. "It's all whether the attacks slow down or stop, from what I understand. It's simply not worth the risk, no matter how much the kids love it and no matter how much the town could use the extra business."

"Right," Tonks said, nodding, and closed her eyes. Charlie, watching from the sofa, thought that it was entirely possible that Tonks hadn't realised until that moment that finding the Death Eaters responsible might have no bearing on the Hogsmeade situation. She'd been working around the clock for four days, and she was functioning on so little sleep it wasn't worth mentioning. Charlie figured that she'd probably completely lost perspective on the situation.

Somehow, realising that arresting someone for the attack wouldn't change whether Harry and the others could get to Hogsmeade, had taken some of the pressure off of Tonks. Out of the corner of his eyes, Charlie caught sight of Bill leaning forward. Seeing Bill's eyes narrow on Morrigan, Charlie reconsidered his original thoughts on Tonks' mental state. He thought that the hand Morrigan had laid on Tonks' shoulder had perhaps had more to do with relieving Tonks' tension. Charlie looked at Morrigan. Morrigan looked back at him, and gave him a solemn little wink. It was there and gone so fast that Charlie wasn't even sure he'd seen it, but the tiny smile on Morrigan's face reassured him: someone else was looking out for Tonks when Charlie could not.

"So will you have Alhena get back with Harry tomorrow about the whole thing," Tristan asked, "or will I call him back?"

"There's Potions tutoring tomorrow, I think," Morrigan said, considering. "So Alhena should be able to take care of it?"

"Where is she, anyway?" Bill asked, raising an eyebrow at Morrigan. "I thought she was coming."

Charlie nodded, looking interested. Nicholas' expression became unreadable as he looked at Morrigan. Malcolm watched, his expression inquiring. Lupin's face remained serious, though his eyes were distinctly amused, as he waited for Morrigan's answer. Tonks let out a soft snore.

"Something came up, I'd imagine," Morrigan said with a shrug. "She's staying at Tristan's most often, and he's not worried, so I wouldn't think it's anything particularly serious."

Lupin smiled. "Well, if Tristan's not worried, I don't see why we should be." He settled back into the overstuffed cushions of the sofa and sighed.

"Well, if you've nothing else, Mor, I've got plenty to do on this end, so I'll let you go." Tristan, Bill noticed, sounded enormously amused. "I'll let you know if I hear more before I see Alhena tonight."

"Right. Thanks, Tris. Have a good one," Morrigan said. It was clear that, however glad she had been to hear from Tristan, her mind was preoccupied with other things.

"Mor. MacInnes and Whiting," Malcolm said, and Morrigan sighed. She walked over to the window and opened it a bit, then lit a cigarette.

"Right. MacInnes and Whiting. They're becoming something of a two-man sideshow of darkness," Morrigan said after a moment. "Suffice it to say that they've probably been heavily involved in all of the attacks that have happened since August. From what I can tell, they do a bit of scouting around to see what the most likely targets are. That's why they want me around, for the moment. They're looking for information, and since word has it that I'm close to Dumbledore, they think they can get it from me."

"How exactly have you managed to work it so that they don't get any information and you don't get killed?" Bill asked bluntly, and everyone who was awake in the room stared first at Bill, then at Morrigan. It was an angle of Morrigan's work that all of them, with the exception of Malcolm, tended to ignore, because it was uncomfortable, and because they didn't want to think of her being hurt. Now that it was out in the open, however, they wanted to know.

"Well, let's just say that I won't be working for them much longer. Their patience is running short, and I've no intention of dying to keep them thinking I'm on their side while passing them all sorts of stuff that isn't useful to them. It won't be long before it's time for me to disappear," Morrigan said reflectively, blowing smoke out the window. The trick, she added silently, is making sure that I make myself disappear rather than MacInnes and Whiting doing it for me. The expression on Bill's face said that her answer was a bit too glib, but she wasn't in the mood to have a long, drawn-out discussion of the risks of what she was doing.

She'd known the risks, after all, when she'd agreed to work for the Order. She'd known the risks, and had accepted them, so there was no point crying over spilt milk now. While she'd expected to have a bit more time before the danger became so great, she'd known that, eventually, it would happen. It was no use complaining about the timing.

She looked up and saw Bill staring at her, those blue eyes narrowing dangerously. "I know," she said with a shrug. "I thought I'd have more time to keep them distracted and off-track. But I can't do anything about it. They've raised the stakes more quickly than any of us expected. So we have to change our plans accordingly."

"Seems to me that the only person who has to change any plans is you," Lupin said with deceptive mildness; his eyes held deep concern, "and it's to save your life."

Nicholas looked at her, as though he'd suddenly realised that she wasn't merely playing a game. Charlie sat there, stunned, staring at Morrigan without a word. And Tristan, who had just Apparated into the living room, scowled at her.

"Gwynne just got to the house to take over," Tristan said darkly. "So we're all finally on the same page on this. Frankly, Mor, it's high time the game with those two ended. They're too damned dangerous, and you're stretched too thin as it is."

Morrigan acknowledged that with a nod. "Right. I know," she said, and shrugged. "But there wasn't anything else I could do if we wanted to find out what they were up to."

"That's arguable," Tristan said, and conjured a chair beside Malcolm's. "But it's over and done with, so there's no point arguing it all over again. You've been in more danger than we've been willing to acknowledge up till now. It's done a lot of good, frankly--we would have been caught by surprise with the students in Hogsmeade if not for the information you got us. Merlin only knows what it cost you," he added, glaring at her. She waved that away.

"At any rate," Lupin took over, standing and pacing between the door and Tonks' armchair, "it's getting far too dangerous. You're no use to us dead, Morrigan." Their eyes met, and Morrigan looked away.

"You're one of the best pieces of protection we have for Harry," Tristan said.

"She's not even at Hogwarts," Charlie said, frowning. Bill was fairly certain that his brother wasn't even aware that he'd spoken out loud.

The silence grew for a moment, then Tristan laughed. "Let's cut through the crap, shall we? Mor, it's really about time this little masquerade ended. At least here."

Charlie gaped at them. He was, Tristan noticed with real amusement, the only person who seemed even remotely surprised about the fact that there was any masquerade going on at all. And that was probably because Charlie spent most of his time in Wales these days.

For the briefest of moments, Morrigan seemed to be about to argue, then realised that Charlie was the only one who didn't know, and sighed. Charlie was about to ask her what was going on when, between one blink and the next, she became Alhena, then changed back.

Charlie paused for a moment, then grinned at Morrigan. "You're good," he said, then grinned at her. He grabbed his pack of cigarettes and lit one with his wand. He was about to ask her how she planned to disappear when a silvery flash flew through the open window and into the room. It streaked past the others to hover in front of Remus Lupin, who looked at it calmly.

"Looks like someone's trying to get hold of you, Remus," Morrigan observed drily, and grinned at him. Their eyes met.

Lupin grinned back at her, his eyes twinkling, then pointed his wand at the vaguely bird-shaped dart of light. "Abrimi orden," he intoned with such excessive gravity that Morrigan snorted with laughter. Bill and Charlie grinned. Malcolm bit his lip and Nicholas turned back toward the window for a moment. One corner of Tristan's mouth quirked upward despite his obvious efforts to prevent it. Tonks snored gently.

A silvery, opaque piece of parchment unrolled in the air in front of Lupin, and he scanned the silvery words written on it for a moment before heaving a sigh and picking up his wand again.

"Demi escriba," Lupin said, and pointed his wand. They waited in respectful silence as Lupin's wand moved in front of the floating silvery parchment. More writing appeared toward the bottom of the page, in Lupin's unhurried, rather neat writing. In only a few moments, Lupin sent the message back to its sender, and grinned at all of them.

"Well, it seems that someone at Hogwarts has come to the same conclusion as you have," Lupin said to Morrigan, raising his eyebrows. "Advice is to start pulling your cards off the table as soon as you can reasonably manage it."

Morrigan considered that for a moment. Remus wasn't the only one who admired her for failing to show the relief that had to be running through her just then. "Strange," she finally said. "That someone at Hogwarts knows that it's the right time," she added. She was about to continue when a knock on the door had her frowning and moving over to the door.

She paused in front of the door, considering, and everyone in the room--including Tonks; the knock had woken her up with a start--pulled out their wand and pointed it toward the door.

Morrigan shook her head at them and explained, "Fred and George." Wands were lowered, but not put away. Morrigan unlocked the door and stepped aside so that Fred and George could make their way into her flat.

"You've got that tricky little Anti-Apparition Jinx going," Fred said amiably, giving Morrigan a hug.

"Yeah, you'd think that no one wanted us here," George added with a grin, hugging her as soon as Fred let her go.

Morrigan laughed at them. "Sorry about that. I completely forgot you said you were coming over when you were done at the shop," she told them. "My fault. Have a seat," she said, and Tristan was nice enough to conjure a pair of chairs for them. They grinned at him; conjuring was something they still hadn't quite gotten the hang of. They were still practicing, and routinely had Lee throwing fits when the chair he'd sat on disappeared from beneath him. They considered that the height of rudeness. After all, in deference to his safety they had stopped conjuring ladders.

"Right. So how's business, lads?" Malcolm asked.

"It's bloody well exploding, isn't it?" George asked contentedly, grinning like a fool.

"Can't keep up with it in both the shops. We had to hire someone else for the Diagon Alley shop, didn't we?" Fred asked. "Couldn't take the chance, hiring someone new for the Hogsmeade place, so we're both going to be there full-time," he added.

Tristan nodded approval, which had both twins beaming at him again. The corner of his mouth twitched again. He didn't trouble to fight it this time. He rarely showed it, but the Weasley twins were the cause of endless secret amusement for him.

"So when are you getting out of this ridiculous bad Auror business," Fred asked, leaning forward to address Morrigan.

She grinned at him. "Soon," she said, with a shrug. "There isn't much future in it, really."

George grinned at her, delighted. "Right. So you'll be needing a job. We have a position open for--"

"Stop," she told him, laughing. "Selling isn't really my strong point."

"Can't blame a fellow for trying," George said with a shrug. "Still, it's probably a good time to change careers. What are you looking into?"

She hesitated, then shrugged. Bill saw Fred and George look quickly at Morrigan, then away. It had been the briefest of looks; Bill never would have seen it had he not been watching Morrigan so closely. Nevertheless, those green eyes had sparked with warning, a warning both of the twins seemed to understand. "I'm not really sure. I'll have to get back to you."

"Be sure to," Fred told her, his expression uncharacteristically solemn. He ruined the effect by giving her a wink so exaggerated it was nearly grotesque. She bit her lip to hold back laughter. "Oh. Here. Almost forgot--here's that stuff you said Harry forgot last time they were in Hogsmeade." He pulled a small package out of his robes, and tossed it to her. She caught it handily and slid it into an inside pocket of her robes, then appeared to forget all about it. Bill, watching her closely, saw her meet George's eyes and nod almost imperceptibly.

"Tonks. How's the good Auror business going?" George said. He caught Morrigan's eye again, Bill noticed, as he asked the question. This time, if any signal passed between them, Bill couldn't see them. Tonks started talking with Fred and George about the search for the Death Eaters who had attacked Hogsmeade the past Sunday, and despite her exhaustion the twins had her laughing in no time.

Morrigan was grinning at the sound of her friend's laughter from the window, where she'd moved to join Nicholas in another cigarette. Malcolm took over the teasing of Tonks, and Bill saw Fred and George look quickly at Morrigan again, then away. Fred began telling everyone about some of the stranger customers that had come through the shop, alternating tales with Fred until Charlie and Tonks left in order to get enough sleep to manage to get through the next workday without serious injuries. Although the others had no particular reason to leave early, they seemed to take Charlie and Tonks' leaving as a cue, and everyone stood. The Weasleys left together, then Morrigan, Nicholas and Tristan Disapparated to Tristan's house in Hogsmeade.

Malcolm went downstairs to his own flat, and buried himself in books, looking for references to magical fires. In Hogsmeade, at Tristan's house, Morrigan did the same. In his own flat in London, Bill got started on his own research. Remus Lupin had begun reading immediately on arriving home. Charlie spent an hour looking through books. Fred and George spent far longer than that--nearly as long as Nicholas and Gwynne. Tristan, never one to waste the night hours sleeping, pored through book after book until dawn.

By noon, news of the search of the fire was wending its way through a secret network. It reached the end of the line, and caused no end of dark amusement. The matter of the fire's discovery, and who would manage it first, was irrelevant. Much work had already been done to insure the end result.

The Dark Lord would indeed be pleased.

The mice were scurrying through the maze. It only remained to be seen how many could escape before the lights went out.

*

Harry sat on the bench in the changing room before Quidditch practice. Ron was telling him all about Transfiguration class--Professor McGonagall had offered a non-N.E.W.T. Transfiguration class this year, and Ron had been happy enough to sign up for it in hopes of increasing his chances at surviving the Transfiguration N.E.W.T. when it finally arrived. Apparently, Ron's class was little different than Harry's N.E.W.T. class, at least so far. There had been dozens of small but highly amusing accidents already, and both classes were beginning to believe that Professor McGonagall's lips had become permanently white and thin.

In the middle of laughing over the image of Terence Higgs transfiguring his rat into a three-legged purple jartoad instead of a four-legged jackrabbit, Harry winced. His scar was hurting. The pain was nothing like the searing ache of last year; the Occlumency lessons with Alhena had done that much for him. Still, he recognised the flare of pain as the same kind, and waited for a moment to see if it would intensify.

The pain did not grow worse, but in the moments he waited, his control slipped, and he heard four words, spoken with such hatred that they banished the warm pain and sent ice into his heart.

Alhena Farrell.

Morrigan Carrick.

He felt Ron's eyes on him, concerned, but could not bring himself to meet his friends' gaze--not yet. Harry almost preferred last year's stabbing, fiery headaches to this icy, murderous knowledge.

Alhena and Morrigan were in immediate danger.

Mortal danger.

The ache subsided, and with it the soft echo of the voice in his head. Harry wished it would come back, because it left him empty of everything but chills and a sense of dark, frozen panic. It was all the worse because he had no idea where either Alhena or Morrigan was.

He frowned. He thought that he could run to the empty classroom and try to contact someone with his Chocolate Frog card. Almost as soon as the thought had come, he discarded it as too risky. It would attract too much attention, and attention of a dangerous sort. He considered sending Ron, or Ginny, but discarded that idea for the same reason. There were no teachers nearby to ask for help. There was no one he could send from practice without arousing suspicion. He couldn't reach Hermione or Luna or Neville, because his Chocolate Frog card couldn't communicate with theirs. He was stuck with the information he had, at least until their Potions tutoring session that night.

Potions tutoring.

Snape.

Harry thought he understood, for the first time, why Snape considered Occlumency so vital in his work for the Order.

He also thought, with extreme reluctance, that perhaps Dumbledore was right in respecting Snape's abilities. Even as he forced a grin for Ron's benefit and pulled on his Quidditch robes, he fought the idea that Dumbledore had, once again, been right in his assessment of Snape's contribution to the Order.

This terrifying, crucial knowledge, which Harry knew that he had to hold in through an hours' Quidditch practice and an hour of dinner, and probably the entire hour of tutoring before he could get Alhena alone, was pounding at his brain, needing to get out.

Harry thought that if he had to deal with this kind of thing often, he would go mad.