Harry Potter and the Carnelian Key

A/N: Here it is, at long last, everybody! Chapter 14. I am truly sorry it has taken so long for me to get this written - you would be amazed at how much time it consumes! I appreciate your patience very much.

I must send a huge thank you out to Melissa, Sue, and Tab for beta-reading this chapter and for doing such an amazing job. I appreciate all of your hard work so very much.

A further thank you once again to Melissa and Sue, and also to the lovely Cathy, for so graciously critiquing the first 15 pages of this chapter when I was monumentally displeased with it several weeks ago. Their help was invaluable, and I don´t know that I could have rescued this chapter without their help.

Thank you to Cathy and Sadie for allowing me to make naughty Slytherins out of them. And congratulations to Sadie for earning this cameo appearance by being named co-winner of the final fanfic challenge that was hosted at Seven of Quills!

A quick note: If you are reviewing this chapter at The Sugar Quill and you have a question - please be sure to email me privately or leave your email address in your review so that I can contact you and answer it!

And finally...

Dedication: This chapter is for Sue, just because of everything she´s done. J

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Saturday dawned crisp and bright. Hogwarts awoke to find its grounds covered in a thick blanket of fresh, heavy snow. Most students had risen early, rushing outside to establish teams for snowball fights or to go sledding down by the lake, but in Gryffindor Tower one student was sleeping late into the morning.

Harry hadn´t fallen asleep easily the night before. As tired as he had been after the meeting, he hadn´t been able to stop thinking about his father and what he had done for a living. Removing people from Voldemort´s path before they could be discovered and murdered...this was what his father´s life had been about. Every day, as people like Vernon Dursley had put on their pinstriped suits to go and sit behind a desk doing useless things like designing drills, his father - his father - had put his own life on the line to stand up against the biggest evil their world had ever faced. Harry felt something heavy in his chest at the thought of it - something between fierce pride and deep anguish. His father had been a real hero, a good, decent, brave, and selfless man. And Harry had never been given the opportunity to know him. All the things he could have learned...all the things he wished he could ask him now...

Harry had tossed and turned during the night, half-asleep, all these thoughts intermingling with the wispy beginnings of dreams...dreams of his father trapped in burning houses, with the faces of children pressed against the windows.... Finally, sheer exhaustion had taken over, and Harry had drifted into a deep sleep, not stirring again until nearly 11 a.m. When his eyes finally opened they squinted against the light streaming into the room, unusually bright with the reflection of the snow. Someone had opened all the window hangings and Harry sat up, grumbling, to discover it had probably been Ron. Ron, already fully dressed, was sitting with his legs pulled up on one of the thick window ledges, gazing out at the grounds. Aside from the two of them, the room was empty.

"Morning," Harry muttered, falling back and pulling his covers back up. His head felt fuzzy and his voice sounded thick to his own ears.

"Cor blimey, Harry, It´s about time!" Ron declared, jumping up from the windowsill and planting himself at the foot of Harry´s bed. "How was the meeting? Did you learn anything good? You didn´t run into any trouble did you?"

"No trouble," he mumbled through a large yawn. "I got in and out of the meeting just fine. You won´t believe some of what I heard." Harry rolled over, wishing he could just go back to sleep. He wasn´t sure he was ready to re-tell the previous evening´s events yet, especially when he still hadn´t even come close to processing it all himself, but Ron would hear nothing of it; he yanked Harry´s blankets off, demanding to know everything. Harry knew Ron would not be satisfied until he had heard every detail so, sighing and rubbing his eyes, he reluctantly told his best friend to at least go and find Hermione first so he wouldn´t have to repeat everything twice.

Ron left ("Don´t you dare go back to sleep!" he called behind him), and Harry stumbled out of bed, trying to shake his thoughts into wakefulness. He pulled a jumper and jeans out of his dresser and changed into them, reaching up instinctively to smooth down his hair, which, of course, sprung right back up behind his fingers.

"Dear boy," said his mirror with a sad `tsk tsk´, "I don´t know why you still try."

Harry regarded his messy reflection. "Neither do I," he replied, smiling weakly.

There was a knock on the door, and Ron poked his head in. "Is it safe?" he asked.

"Hang on," Harry instructed him, glancing hastily about the room and aiming his wand at things like Ron´s boxer shorts and Dean´s new "Most Eligible Witches" calendar (Miss January pouted as the pages flapped shut), sending the items zooming into the boys´ trunks. He then muttered a bed-making charm, tidying up the five four posters. Just as the pillows were floating into place, Harry heard Hermione´s anxious voice.

"Ron, why aren´t we going in? Let me in!"

Hermione pushed her way past a pink-eared Ron, who was holding her by the hand, and pulled him with her into the room. Apparently, Harry´s efforts at making the dorm room presentable to her were too little too late.

She stepped to the center of the room, looking around with a look of muted disgust. Her mouth opened as if she was going to speak, but she just shut it again and shook her head. "Honestly," she muttered. "Boys." Ron shot a pained look at Harry, who just shrugged as if to say, "what did you expect?"

Hermione looked around for a place to sit, but discovering all the chairs buried under balled-up robes or disregarded text books, she finally settled for perching herself on the end of Ron´s bed, blushing slightly as she did so. Ron came around next to her and sat somewhat awkwardly beside her. Harry flopped ungracefully onto his own bed.

"You´re still exhausted," Hermione evaluated, her forehead wrinkling with concern. "Are you all right?"

"I´m all right," he said, giving her what he hoped looked like a reassuring smile. "Just tired and overwhelmed."

"So you learned a lot then?" Hermione asked, hopefulness clear in her voice.

"You could say that," Harry replied, his mind racing over the previous evening´s revelations. "I´m not really sure where to start."

Hermione suggested he simply start at the beginning, and so he did. He told them everything, starting with how he had found the meeting and finishing up with what he had witnessed between his godfather and the Australian Potions expert, Lissanne Radcliffe. He told them about Arabella Figg, the fight between Mr. Weasley and Mundungus Fletcher, what he had heard about the Night of the Prophecies, and what he had learned about his father. He talked for nearly half an hour, and when he finished he felt like he could crawl right back under his covers and go back to sleep. It was still just so much to process; his brain wanted nothing more than to just switch off for a while.

Ron and Hermione stared at him when he was through, their faces a kaleidoscope of thoughts and emotions and questions, most of which Harry knew he could not answer.

"Blimey, Harry," breathed Ron finally, eyes wide. "Your father was a hero!"

"I´d say so," Hermione agreed, looking very serious. "Did you ever have any idea, Harry?"

"No," Harry said honestly, eyes falling to his lap. "I didn´t. And there´s so much I still don´t know. It seems like the more I learn, the more unanswered questions I´m always left with." He picked at a loose thread in his bedspread and wondered if there would ever be a time when he would know more about his own life and past than strangers did.

"Well, there´s certainly a lot to evaluate here," Hermione began systematically, "but what I´m most concerned with is this Night of the Prophecies. It seems like it´s a source of heated debate within the Council, which can´t be a good thing. Obviously it´s very important."

Ron had to suppress a snicker. "It´s about time Dad tried to put that old Fletcher in his place. Mental, that one. But I do wonder what the prophecies are." He gulped, then said delicately, "I hope they´re nothing like what Trelawney predicts for you every day in class, Harry."

Harry hoped not either - they all knew that the only thing Sybil Trelawney ever had to predict where Harry was concerned was his untimely, and usually brutal, death. But then again...

"That´s not possible," Harry realized. "Otherwise they wouldn´t be arguing over whether it´s already been fulfilled or not."

Ron looked relieved.

"Well, regardless of who´s right or wrong, the prophecies are clearly a critical matter," Hermione stated. "And they obviously involve Harry´s well-being somehow. I wish we knew what they are," she lamented, biting her lip.

"Mrs. Figg said prophecies have to be handled carefully," Harry told her. "She said that my parents died because of a prophecy that was misinterpreted. If it´s that easy to screw up, I´m not sure I want to know." But even as he said it, he knew it wasn´t so. If it had to do with his own past and his current safety, Harry wanted nothing more than to learn everything there was to know, even if it might backfire on him somehow. It was his life, after all. Didn´t he deserve to know the truth about it? "What I do really want to know, though," Harry moved on, "is how it ended up killing my mum and dad."

There was an uncomfortable silence and then Hermione said quietly, "Well, I´m not sure he´ll tell you, but you could try asking Dumbledore."

Was she nutters? "Hermione, I can´t do that," Harry replied. "Then he would know I snuck into the meeting."

She regarded him with annoyance, as if he´d said something incredibly stupid. "Well you´re going to tell him you snuck into the meeting."

A sudden, thick silence fell. "No, I´m not," Harry said blankly. "Why would I go and do a thing like that?"

Hermione´s mouth fell open in disbelief. "Harry, I can´t believe you´re even considering not telling him! I thought you´d gathered more sense than this by now. You have to tell him. If you don´t, he´ll find out anyway, and then you´ll be in even worse trouble, and -"

"I never said I was going to tell him!" Harry argued. "That would be immensely stupid - he´ll take the map away from me and I´ll never be able to get into one of those meetings ever again." The idea of being cut off from the Council was unthinkable. It was his only chance to be included in the fight against Voldemort, however roundabout his inclusion may be. At the very least, he needed to know if any progress was being made. She knew better than anyone the way he was kept in the dark all the time and how crucial it was for his own sanity at this point for him not to feel completely helpless and left out.

"Honestly, Harry, you´re impossible." Hermione scolded. "I know how much it means to you to remain informed, but you cannot go around taking risks like this! It´s a very suspicious thing, someone leaving you the map like that, and you should not keep it to yourself. It could be dangerous."

Harry felt an uncomfortable stirring in his head, knowing that Hermione had a reasonable argument and a valid concern. It could be dangerous keeping the map and using it without knowing if it had been tampered with. Not to mention the fact that someone had gotten into Gryffindor Tower the night of the meteor shower. The map hadn´t simply appeared out of thin air; someone had snuck into the dormitory and left it, and that knowledge gave Harry a funny shiver. But he wasn´t sure he was ready to give the map up, nor was he ready to admit to Dumbledore that he had committed his worst rule-breaking yet. He was a prefect, after all. He could probably be expelled for what he had done.

"I don´t know, Hermione," he said with a sigh. "I´ll give it some more thought."

She pursed her lips and folded her arms, but said, "All right."

"So do you know what´s happening next?" Ron asked carefully, obviously trying to steer the discussion away from argument. "Now that they´ve held the first meeting? Are they going to hunt Voldemort down, or what?"

The tone of Ron´s voice suggested that he was counting on some sort of master plan that would save the world. While Harry registered the knowledge that he wasn´t going to be able to give Ron the answer he wanted to hear, he vaguely wondered when Ron had started calling Voldemort by his name, ruing the realization that he must have been too preoccupied to notice before.

"Dumbledore told everyone to keep doing what they´re doing and await further instruction. He said he´s counting on all of them to help gather information so they can figure out what can be done and where they should start."

"So they don´t even have a plan yet?" Hermione asked, her face falling in a way that made Harry´s heart hurt.

"No," he said quietly. "They don´t."

They all stared at their laps for a minute, and then Hermione said forlornly, "He´s not going to stay to himself forever."

Her words resonated, hanging heavily in the air with a weight that made them more than just a simple statement. It was as though she was finally making peace with the reality that the magical world really was in store for quite a battle, one that was sure to alter the world as they knew it forever, regardless of the outcome. The power of her words drew Harry´s eyes up and they met with hers, which were shining with a fearful mixture of dread and acceptance. Harry´s throat suddenly felt very raspy, and he swallowed several times before he spoke.

"I know."

They fell silent again, looking at each other solemnly, and just when Harry thought he could take no more, Ron blessedly broke the mood by saying flatly, "We brought you some toast. It´s at our table in the common room."

They made their way downstairs, and Harry accepted the toast from Ron while Hermione settled quietly into her chair. She pulled open a huge book and started flipping pages. The three of them sat in silence for quite a while, each lost in thought, except for Hermione, who was, as usual, alarmingly quick in her ability to shift gears.

"What´s that?" Harry asked at last, pointing towards her book.

"I´ve been looking for this book for weeks," she said dully, tracing her finger down a page as though she was looking for something very specific. "I finally located it this morning." She turned the page, then looked up. "I remembered it the night of the meteor shower, after something Ron said about the Hawaiian wizarding culture´s beliefs in the power of astronomy and the three qualities of chaos, harmony, and logic."

Harry guessed this was the book she had run away from Ron to try to find, and he knew he was right by the slight flush that rose in Hermione´s cheeks as she spoke. Harry didn´t look at Ron, but he was sure his ears were probably turning red.

"It was like something suddenly clicked and everything started making sense." She spoke quietly and looked around nervously, making sure they weren´t being overheard. The only other students in the common room were a group of second-years, noisily playing Exploding Snap in front of the fireplace. Hermione leaned in closer; Harry and Ron did the same so they could hear her.

"I think the locations of the corners of the earth are probably determined by some sort of astronomical alignment. It makes perfect sense; it would bring their two strongest beliefs together. I knew I had seen this book in the library while I was doing my initial research on the culture, after we had read the legend of Pukana and Iakopa. It lists all the stars, with their Hawaiian names and meanings and their positions in the sky on every day of the year. If we can find three stars that somehow equate in name and meaning to the three qualities of chaos, harmony, and logic, I´m betting that some sort of astronomical alignment between those stars and specific points on the earth will tell us where the corners are."

Harry let her words sink in, and considered them. It could be, he supposed. It seemed like a long series of stretches that had gotten her to this conclusion, but it wasn´t impossible. Of course, he knew he would still require quite a bit of convincing. He still wasn´t sure that the legend of the Carnelian Key was anything other than just that - a legend.

"Of course, there´s a problem." Hermione´s words interrupted Harry´s thoughts. He almost chuckled. Wasn´t there always a problem?

"What´s that?" he asked.

"Astronomical alignments are a very tricky matter. A star´s alignment with a point on the earth on any given day is not fixed. Due to the earth´s annual movement around the sun, these points of alignment move every day. And even within days, the lineup is only momentary. The earth is moving every second, on it´s twenty-four hour rotation, but stars are fixed."

Ron´s eyes were starting to glaze over. Couldn´t she ever make sense, Harry wondered?

"Of course, due to the great disparity in the size of the universe and the size of the earth, the shift in the lineup is relatively slow and minimal. It only moves at about 1.54 miles per hour. I figured it all out," she said, pulling out a sheet of scrap parchment on which she had worked out all the Arithmancy. It was all done very neatly, of course, but there were so many symbols and exercises Harry didn´t understand, he couldn´t follow the logic of it at all. He chose not to try.

"So what does this mean?" he asked instead. "That the lineup is never fixed, I mean. What does that mean for the locations of the corners?"

"I´m not sure. Either it means that the corners are always moving, or it means that they are only accessible on certain days of the year at certain locations."

"Well, that makes it so much easier to find them," Ron put in, rolling his eyes. She shot him a look.

"I never said it would be easy."

Their discussion was cut short by a burst of noise at the portrait hole. Fred and George Weasley had just burst through with a group of their friends, looking wet and freezing. The twins approached their table, and Hermione quickly hid her book under several of her school texts.

"I´ll keep working on it and will let you know what I find," Hermione whispered to Harry and Ron.

"What are you lot doing inside on a day like today?" Fred demanded, shaking melted snow out of his hair. Some splattered onto Hermione´s books and she gave a curt `tsk´, wiping it away.

"Yes, we must be idiots, staying inside all dry and warm," Ron replied, glancing sarcastically at Harry. He then regarded his brothers with repugnance. "What happened to you two?"

"Oh, we had a rich snowball fight with the Ravenclaws! " Fred told them. "It was great. We pummeled them, of course, but they have some pretty...ingenious...strategies...themselves." He was digging around in his pants, and came up with a large chunk of ice. Harry and George snickered. Hermione scowled and looked away.

"Sounds like barrels of fun," she said.

"Oh, it was!" George responded, not catching her tone. "Lee put a charm on his snowballs so they wouldn´t break apart on impact, but keep coming back to hit their target again and again. It was like throwing bludgers at those Ravenclaws! It was brilliant! Terry Boot got hit in the head so many times, he´ll have a headache `til Valentine´s Day!"

Fred and George looked very proud of this as they sprawled themselves into two overstuffed armchairs next to the Trio´s table.

"Speaking of Valentine´s Day," Fred said, "McGonagall just put up a sign outside the Great Hall; you three won´t have seen it yet. Next Hogsmeade visit is the weekend of Valentine´s Day - the 17^th."

"Ooooooh!" Hermione squealed, grabbing Ron´s arm and sounding suddenly more girly than Harry could ever remember. "Ron, we can have our first real date that weekend! It´s perfect!"

"Um, sure, okay," Ron said, looking a little afraid of Hermione´s sudden enthusiasm. "That sounds...that sounds great!" he stuttered, clearly unsure and a little leery of what a `first real date´ would entail.

"We can go to the Hogsmeade Inn!" she continued obliviously. "I hear they serve excellent roasted Augurey with pumpkin sauce and -"

"What?" asked Fred incredulously, cutting her off.

"Roasted Augurey with pumpkin sauce and -"

"No, no, no," Fred said, waving his hand. "Before that."

Hermione looked confused, but Ron was turning a very deep shade of crimson and trying to sink as low as possible into his seat.

"You," Fred said, pointing at Hermione, "and you," he said, shifting his mischievous eyes to Ron, "are going on a date?"

"Well, yes," Hermione said in a slightly smaller voice. "That´s what boyfriends and girlfriends do, right?"

Fred and George´s mouths dropped open.

"Unless you don´t want to, Ron," she finished, sounding vulnerable.

Fred and George burst into peals of laughter, and Ron groaned, covering his face with his hands. If he sank any lower in his chair he would have been sitting on the floor.

A hurt look flickered across Hermione´s face. "Ron?" she asked uncertainly.

"Ickle Ronniekins has a girlfriend!" George howled, doubling over with laughter.

Harry met Hermione´s eyes, and she seemed to be questioning him for an explanation as well. He just shrugged and offered her a small smile.

"Ron?" she asked again, more insistently.

Ron mumbled something but it was drowned out by his brothers´ guffaws. The second year students near the fireplace were staring at them.

Hermione was beginning to blush furiously as well. "Ron?" she asked a third time, somehow managing to sound angry and demanding even though there were painful tears in her voice. "You didn´t tell your brothers about us? Why not?"

He uncovered his face, which was as red as the Gryffindor crest, and looked at her meekly. "I was afraid of...of this," he said, indicating his amused brothers. "I didn´t think they would understand."

Hermione bit her lip, looking from Ron to the twins, chin beginning to tremble.

"Hermione," Harry started to say, feeling that he should somehow step in to help his best friends. But Hermione stood suddenly, watching the scene before her with growing humiliation.

"I don´t see why you would think it´s so funny!" she exclaimed hurtfully, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Hermione," Harry tried again, reaching out to touch her arm. Ron watched Hermione guiltily, and the twins´ laughter began to die away as they came to realize that they´d upset her.

"No, Harry," she said, shaking him off. "It´s all right. I´m just a little taken by surprise." Her voice trembled. "I never realized that Ron was ashamed to admit he has me for a girlfriend."

Ron´s head snapped up at that. "I´m not ashamed!"

But it was too late. A tear had finally escaped down Hermione´s cheek and, choking on an angry and embarrassed sob, she fled the common room, heading for the stairs.

There was a short shocked silence in her wake while the twins looked guilty and Ron looked at Harry with a horrified expression. Then he pursed his lips and rose, advancing on his brothers.

"You prats!" he said, smacking them each upside the head.

"Ow!"

"What did you have to go and do that for? Now you´ve upset her and you´ve gotten me into trouble!"

Fred snickered. "Ickle Ronniekins is in trouble!"

"Shut it!" Ron exclaimed. Fred quieted, having grace enough to look slightly remorseful as Ron shot death looks between him and George. "Yes, Hermione is my girlfriend now," he said bravely. "And I´ll thank you both to keep your ruddy thoughts to yourself about it." Ron was so angry now that every individual freckle on his face stood out in stark contrast to his flaming skin. "I care about Hermione and I will not have you making fun of her."

"We weren´t making fun of Hermione, Ron," George said. "We were making fun of you."

Fred sniggered, looking hopefully at Ron as if waiting for forgiveness. But Ron was steadfast in his glare.

Finally Fred sighed and said, "We´re sorry if we hurt Hermione´s feelings. We didn´t mean to upset her. Hermione is our friend too." He smiled a little bit, then sighed loudly. "We´re happy for you," he mumbled half-heartedly.

Ron regarded him shrewdly. "Really?"

"Really," Fred admitted.

"Well you have a funny way of showing it," Ron muttered, dropping back into his chair and thrusting his chin onto his hands. "What am I supposed to do now?" He scowled. "She´s mad at me." He kicked at the floor underneath his chair.

"She won´t stay mad, Ron," Harry tried to assure him, though he wasn´t really sure she wouldn´t. Ron looked at him as if to say, "Are you kidding?"

"She thinks I´m ashamed of her," he said painfully. "I´m not ashamed of her. I would never be ashamed -" his voice cracked a bit and he sighed. "But I can´t blame her for thinking so. I´m a git."

"You´re not a git, Ron," Fred said. "It´s our fault. We can talk to her if you want."

Harry thought he saw something moving to his right and instinctively looked over. Hermione was crouched on the stairs, out of sight of the other three boys, but Harry met her eyes, which were wide and guilty and forgiving. She´d obviously just overheard Ron defending her. She put a finger to her lips and Harry nodded almost imperceptibly.

"I think you´ve done enough, thanks," Ron scowled.

"Well, we´re sorry, little brother," George said, standing to leave. Fred rose next to him. "I´m sure she´ll forgive you."

With that, Fred and George took their leave towards the stairs. Hermione scurried up them quickly, so as not to be discovered. Harry and Ron were left alone.

"Don´t worry, Ron. George is right. Hermione will forgive you."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

Ron sat scowling for a while longer, and soon Harry just shrugged and pulled Hermione´s star book towards him, flipping through it absently. After a short time, Harry spotted Hermione descending the stairs shyly. She exchanged a small smile with Harry as she approached.

"What?" Ron said irritably, seeing Harry´s expression.

Harry pointed, and Ron turned. He sprang to his feet when he saw his girlfriend, rushing to her.

"I´m sorry," he stammered. "Really, really sorry. I should have told my family about us right away. I admit it - I haven´t told anyone at home yet either, but I´ll owl them, right now, I´ll do it," he gestured behind him as if to indicate the Owlery. Then he dropped his hand to his side, desperately searching Hermione´s face for any sign of forgiveness. "And we´ll go to Hogsmeade together!" he added. "I´ll take you to the Hogsmeade Inn and we´ll have roasted Augurey with pumpkin sauce and everything." He finished, watching her expectantly, but she was expressionless. And then she simply stepped forward, lifted shakily up on her tiptoes, took his face in her hands, and kissed him gently on the lips. He held onto her shoulders, and when she ended the kiss, he pulled her tightly into his arms.

"I´m sorry," he said again.

"No, I am," she replied, pulling back to look up at him. "I overreacted. I was being silly."

"It´s stupid Fred and George´s fault," Ron said bitterly. "Those prats."

"Oh, stop," she said, smacking him lightly on the chest and smiling. "They just like to give you a hard time."

"Well, that´s the last time they´ll give me a hard time at your expense," he said firmly.

Harry was watching them with a smile, and when they remembered he was there, they both blushed and sat down.

Hermione told them she planned to spend the rest of the day studying for the OWLs and that if they had any brains about them they would realize that they needed to do the same. They reluctantly agreed, more because they didn´t really have anything else pressing to do than the fact that really knew they needed to study. Harry had a hard time concentrating, though, as he couldn´t stop thinking about all he had heard the previous night at the Council meeting. He wondered what Dumbledore and Sirius and Lupin and Snape and Arthur Weasley were all doing today, and whether all of the other guests had Apparated back to the places they had come from yet. Then he thought of Voldemort, and what he might be doing right at that moment. Harry pushed those thoughts decidedly out of his mind, hoping against all hope that the Council would find a way to stop him.

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With so much to think about, the next several weeks passed in a blur for Harry. He was antsy all the time, always hoping to somehow hear something more - anything more - about the progress of the Council, but this did not happen. In fact, so little seemed changed in the castle, he almost wondered whether he had dreamed the whole meeting up. He knew he hadn´t, of course, but it was just so frustrating to not be aware of any progress.

Harry and Ron were very busy with Quidditch well into February. At the very beginning of the month, they had defeated Hufflepuff in an easy match and were now gearing up for their annual match against Slytherin. As usual, each team was undefeated, and the current standings meant that whichever team won the match would also win the Quidditch Cup. Angelina was like a woman possessed, lecturing the team daily about what was at stake. Harry personally thought she needn´t bother; it seemed that everyone on the Gryffindor team would rather fall off their brooms than lose the Cup to Slytherin, and the feeling was reflected in the intensity of their training.

While Harry and Ron were spending long and exhausting hours at practice, Hermione busied herself by studying furiously for the OWLs and continuing to conduct research on the locations of the corners of the earth. She didn´t talk much about her research. Harry supposed she was probably too caught up in all of it to waste time explaining everything to him and Ron. He knew she would let them know everything when she was done. Once again, Harry had started to wonder how Hermione managed to find the time to do everything she did. She had an enormous class load, in addition to all her studying and research. She was overdoing it, Harry knew, but there was no point in talking to Hermione about things like this. She would only continue to insist that she had everything under control.

As winter dragged mercilessly on, the day of the Hogsmeade visit grew nearer. One evening, about two weeks before the visit, Ron was looking particularly forlorn over dinner in the Great Hall. Harry assumed it was because of the corned beef they´d been served and thought nothing of it until Hermione excused herself to go to the library. Ron watched her go, and Harry watched him watch her.

"You okay?" Harry asked once Hermione was gone.

"Yeah," Ron muttered, stirring his food around on his plate.

"I don´t believe you. What´s the matter?"

Ron looked away, wearing an expression that Harry instantly recognized as typical Ron embarrassment. What exactly Ron was embarrassed about, however, Harry had no idea.

"Ah kinn tek hermatoo hogsmeshen," Ron mumbled.

Harry stared. "What?"

Ron sighed exasperatedly, and looked around to be sure no one was listening to them. "I can´t take Hermione to the Hogsmeade Inn," he said more clearly, blushing furiously.

"Oh," Harry replied. "Why not?"

Ron looked as though Harry´s questions were causing him extreme pain. His face twisted as he said, "I haven´t got enough money."

Harry felt like a giant prat. Of course Ron didn´t have enough money, and of course he would be embarrassed to not be able to take his girlfriend on a real date. He thought guiltily of his own overflowing bank vault, and said, "Well, I could -"

"No," Ron said firmly, fixing his eyes on Harry´s sharply.

Harry swallowed his words. He tried a different approach. "A loan?"

"No!" Ron repeated. Then he looked away again. "I wouldn´t be able to pay you back."

Harry squirmed. It had always felt so wrong for him to not share any of his fortune with the Weasleys, and particularly Ron, but it felt even more wrong for him to insist on it when it obviously upset Ron so much. This was why he rarely offered, although he often wished Ron would just take the money, or that he could find a way to share with Ron in some roundabout way. This never seemed to happen, though. He wanted to help, but didn´t know how.

"Well, um -"

"No!" Ron said again.

"You don´t even know what I was going to say!" Harry countered.

"What?" Ron asked warily.

"I was going to tell you that maybe you could earn it somehow."

"What, from you? What would you have me do, Harry, polish your Firebolt and clean your glasses daily?"

Ron´s words stung Harry a bit. He knew Ron didn´t mean anything by what he said; he was just upset. But Harry never would have suggested such a thing and he really hoped that Ron´s words were meant as sarcasm and not to be serious in any way. Harry would never show that sort of disrespect to his best friend, and he hoped Ron didn´t think he would. Before he could worry too much about it, however, Ron seemed to realize that his words had been unfair.

"Sorry," he mumbled, dropping his head into his hands. "I know you´re only trying to help."

Harry wasn´t sure what to say at this point. "Well, if you can´t go, I´m sure Hermione will understand."

"But she wants to go so badly! You´ve heard her talking about it. She wants us to go on a real date, and she deserves a boyfriend who can take her."

"Don´t say that, Ron. Hermione doesn´t care if you haven´t got any money. She would be just as happy with a picnic down by the lake as she would be with a dinner at the Hogsmeade Inn. Just as long as you´re together."

Harry really thought he´d said something smart there, but Ron didn´t seem to buy it. "I´ll bet Seamus Finnigan could afford to take her to the Hogsmeade Inn," Ron muttered bitterly. "I´ll bet a lot of blokes could."

"What does Seamus Finnigan have to do with any of this?" Harry asked. Honestly, sometimes Ron could be so unreasonable when he was upset. "So he likes Hermione too. So what? She doesn´t like him. She likes you," Harry reminded him. "She more than likes you. I´m telling you, she won´t care if you can´t go to the ruddy Hogsmeade Inn."

"Well, I´ll care," Ron said, jabbing his thumb into his chest. "I will care. Hermione never asks much of me. I want to give her what she wants. That´s what she deserves."

"Well, like I said. Maybe you can earn it," Harry tried again. " And not from me!" he hastily added. "From someone else."

"Like who?"

"Maybe you could offer to help Filch with the care taking or something."

Ron scowled.

And then Harry was struck by a sudden brilliant thought. "Speak to Hagrid! Hagrid has lots of work to do around here. I´ll bet he would hire you! Maybe he would give you a couple of Galleons to clean out those Clabbert stalls or something, or the Mackled Malaclaw cages!"

Harry and Ron both made faces at the mention of the Malaclaws. Hagrid had showed them the lobster-like animals the last time they had visited him at his hut. Hagrid´s sixth year Care of Magical Creatures students were studying them, and all Harry and Ron remembered about seeing them was how badly their cages had smelled. Of course, Hagrid hadn´t appeared to notice, as he was too busy telling a particularly spotty Malaclaw just how pretty he was.

"Yuck," Ron said. "It is a pretty good idea, though. Those cages definitely need to be cleaned. Maybe I´ll go down there tomorrow and ask him. It´s a good idea, Harry, thanks."

Harry smiled. "You´re welcome. Just don´t let yourself get bitten by one of those things! Or you´ll have nothing but bad luck for at least a week."

Honestly, Harry thought. The things I find myself saying in the wizarding world.

********************

Harry´s idea was one of his best ever, Ron insisted. Hagrid had jovially accepted Ron´s offer to help him out with his work and had paid Ron handsomely for the hours he put in. It had been somewhat tricky trying to think up a way to keep Hermione from finding out what Ron was up to, but they had finally come up with the perfect lie. They had decided to tell her that Ron was getting extra Divination tutoring some nights from Professor Trelawney. Although Hermione huffed at the very idea of Divination, she was still Hermione, of course; she could not fault Ron for wanting to do better in a class. By choosing Divination as their lie, they killed two birds with one stone. They managed to avoid any possibility of Hermione offering to help instead and they simultaneously managed to paint Ron in a positive light in his girlfriend´s eyes. Harry had to admit - he and Ron could be pretty clever sometimes.

On the morning of the Hogsmeade visit, Ron was in good spirits. He jingled the coins in his pocket as he and Harry waited for Hermione to join them in the common room.

"Nine Galleons, Harry!" Ron reminded his best friend proudly. "I earned nine Galleons! I´ve never had this much money to my name at once in my entire life!"

Harry grinned at his best friend, proud of Ron´s achievement. "I´ll bet you won´t spend more than six at the Hogsmeade Inn," Harry said thoughtfully. "What will you buy with the rest?"

Harry expected Ron to launch into a debate over whether he should spend it all at Honeydukes or blow it on Quidditch accessories, so Ron´s answer both surprised Harry, and yet didn´t.

"I´m going to buy Hermione a Valentine´s Day present," Ron said simply, as if there wasn´t any other possible use for three Galleons.

Hermione joined them then, bouncing down the stairs looking a touch lovelier than usual. Her wide smile and shining eyes had much to do with it, but Harry could see that she had made an effort to look especially nice for her first real date with Ron. Obviously, she´d enlisted the help of Sleekeazy´s Hair Potion once again, as her hair fell smoothly down her back, and she even looked as though she might have been wearing a touch of makeup. She and Ron had decided to wear their best Muggle clothes for their date, and she looked perfect in a long black skirt and green jumper. Ron was wearing his best pants, which he and Harry had stayed up the night before haphazardly charming the wrinkles out of, and had borrowed a shirt and jacket from Harry. Ron cleaned up nicely, Harry thought, but Hermione did so even better. She smiled at Ron when she made it to the bottom of the stairs where the boys were waiting, and told him he looked nice. Ron just stared at her in awe with his mouth hanging open a bit until Harry nudged him in the ribs.

"Oh, right," he said dumbly. "You do too. "

Hermione seemed unaffected by his less than verbose assessment of her appearance. Of course, Hermione had never been one to care much about appearances, but today it was clear that she wanted Ron to think she looked nice. Harry supposed Ron´s expression told Hermione everything she wanted to know.

She and Ron slipped their cloaks on over their outfits, and Harry made sure his own cloak was done up as well. It was dreadfully cold outside, and Angelina had warned the team at breakfast that she´d better not see any of them walking around unbundled today. If they were to catch pneumonia, she said, and be forced to sit out of the match against Slytherin, she would hold them personally responsible should Gryffindor lose. She had never seemed quite so cut-throat before she had been named captain, Harry noted. Oliver Wood had been even worse. He wondered if there was some sort of competitiveness charm associated with being Quidditch captain.

As they prepared to go, Hermione prattled on about how excited she was that the Hogsmeade visit had been scheduled for this particular day. Flourish and Blotts, the Diagon Alley bookstore, was becoming a chain; Flourish and Blotts North was opening in Hogsmeade, and today was their grand opening. Hermione was on cloud nine. A date with Ron and a visit to a bookstore. What more could she possibly want?

Fred and George joined up with the trio on their way to the portrait hole. Fred leaned in close and whispered to Harry, "Have you got it?"

Harry patted his chest, where he had his invisibility cloak concealed in a pocket of his robe. "Right here," he replied, grinning at Fred.

"Did the charm work?" Fred asked, eyes shining.

"Yep. Ron and I enlarged the cloak last night. It should be plenty big enough to conceal the three of us without having to worry if we´re showing at all."

Hermione shot Harry and the twins a very disapproving look. She knew exactly what the three of them were on about, and she had made it perfectly clear that she didn´t approve of their plans at all. The previous evening, Harry had been sitting around wondering what he was going to do all day while Ron and Hermione were enjoying their date. The twins had graciously offered...no, informed Harry that he was to spend the day with them. They were scheming to sneak into the Hog´s Head, and wanted Harry to join them...or help them, as the case may be. The Hog´s Head was a pub in Hogsmeade, at the opposite end of High Street from the safer and more comfortable Three Broomsticks. Harry had never been in the Hog´s Head before; it was off-limits to students. Harry had the impression that only less than savory folks frequented the place. Hagrid had even fallen prey to one of Voldemort´s tricks there several years ago. Hermione had wasted no time in reminding Harry of this and adamantly warned him that it was not smart to sneak into a place like that. If they got caught, they could be expelled.

Harry knew how important it was to be cautious but honestly didn´t see the harm in paying a little visit to the pub. It wasn´t illegal after all - anyone over the age of 15 was allowed in the pub, legally speaking - it was just against school rules, and generally, most people knew that the Hog´s Head was not a place for the naïve or weak at heart. But Harry honestly wasn´t worried - they would be safe using the invisibility cloak, and, well, it would be exciting. He was sick of always being careful. He just wanted to get his mind off of things for a while and have a little fun.

"I don´t know why you want to sneak into a place like that anyway," Hermione said in a hushed voice as they navigated the hallways and staircases towards the Entrance Hall. "It´s not like they´ll serve you a drink if you´re invisible."

"Who said we´re going there for the drinks?" George inquired. "We just want to see if we can do it. And besides," he added, with a mischievous look in Harry and Fred´s direction, "I hear some pretty hot witches hang out there."

"George!" Hermione exclaimed. George just shrugged.

"Let me know if you see anything good," Ron said ruefully.

"Ronald!"

"Um," Ron gulped. "Be very careful! That´s what I meant to say! You could get expelled!"

They had reached the Entrance Hall and pushed their way outside with the rest of the crowd, the bitter cold quickly silencing their conversation. Fierce wind ripped around them, making their eyes water and taking their breath away, causing them to breathe into the warmth of their Gryffindor scarves rather than speak. The walk to Hogsmeade seemed to take much longer than usual, and by the time they reached High Street, Harry´s fingers and toes were numb, and his feet felt wet from the slush that had seeped through his shoes. Everyone wanted to stop in the Three Broomsticks first for a warm drink in front of the fire, and Harry thought this was a fabulous idea. Hermione, of course, was opposed, not wanting to waste a single minute getting warm when she could be drooling over shelves of books at Flourish and Blotts North.

"Come on, Hermione," Harry begged. "It´s freezing."

"But it´s starting to get crowded already!" she insisted. She was right. There was already a crowd of people leaking out the door of Flourish and Blotts North, and it looked like it was causing Hermione great pain to not be in it.

"Well, maybe you two should just start your alone time right now, then," George chattered, waving at Hermione and Ron and reaching for the door. "Cheerio! See you later, have a lovely day." He pulled on the door handle, but Hermione´s wand was out in a flash, and George´s fingers slipped from the handle as the door flew firmly closed again.

"Honestly!" Hermione huffed. "Are you lot wizards or aren´t you? Uti Flagrare!"

Instantly, Harry felt his insides warm as though he´d been dipped in hot water. He wiggled his toes and, surprisingly, found that he could feel them.

"Whoa!" Ron breathed in wonder, looking down at himself in shock. "You really are brilliant!" He beamed at Hermione. Fred and George rolled their eyes and made gagging sounds that only Harry could hear.

"Well now that we´re all warm then, can we please hurry up and get in the queue? We´ll have to wait hours to get inside!"

Having been both outsmarted and beholden, the four boys soon found themselves standing crammed with Hermione in the queue amidst lots of shivering patrons, feeling toasty. Hermione stepped out of the line at one point, walking up and down it muttering "Uti Flagrare," and smiling charitably at all the "Wows!" and "thank yous!" tossed in her direction.

One dark-haired young woman stood arm-in-arm with a dense-looking bloke, and she smacked him on the head with her free hand. "Why didn´t you think of that?" she asked him irritably. The man shrugged helplessly, and exchanged a glance with Harry, who shrugged sympathetically back. Hermione rejoined her friends in line, and just as she did so, an oily voice spoke up nearby.

"You all are so touching."

"Shove it, Malfoy," Ron threw over his shoulder, not even turning around.

"Not content to reserve your know-it-all filth to the halls of Hogwarts, are you, Granger? Need to go spreading it around the village too?" The Slytherin had stepped close to the Gryffindors, speaking in a quiet hiss so that only a few bystanders could overhear. Ron whirled around now and Harry instinctively reached to hold onto his arm.

"Shut up, Malfoy," Ron warned. "I mean it."

Malfoy folded his arms and smirked, his usual challenge stance. Crabbe and Goyle, Malfoy´s ever-present shadows, mimicked him. "Why? Concerned for your girlfriend´s honor, are you, Weasley?" His eyes flickered over to Hermione, whom he regarded with disgust. "As if she had any to begin with."

Ron started to move forward, his hand going immediately for his wand, but Harry held onto him, and it was Fred who actually stepped in.

"You´re warm now too, aren´t you, Malfoy?" Fred asked intensely, moving closer and speaking in a low, steady voice. "Why don´t you just say thank you and back off?"

"I should have known that defending Mudbloods is practically a genetic trait for a Weasley." Malfoy spat the name like it was something foul-tasting. All five Gryffindors twitched at his words. "It´s all in the upbringing, they say, and we all know your father-"

But he didn´t get to say anything about what he knew about Mr. Weasley. Fred had taken two sudden strides at Malfoy, until they´d bumped chests, and Malfoy lost his footing, stepping back and stumbling slightly. When he regained his balance, he straightened his robes haughtily; all the while Fred was standing over him, arms crossed and glaring.

"I wouldn´t go around talking about other people´s fathers, Malfoy," Fred said. "What goes around comes around, they say, and I´m sure your father wouldn´t want people going about sharing half of what they know about him."

"Shut up about my father," Draco ordered through gritted teeth.

"Then back off," Fred finished. He gave Malfoy one last glare, then turned his back on him and started to step back into the queue with his friends. But before he had even taken one step, Malfoy´s foot shot out and connected with the back of Fred´s knee, sending him sprawling towards the ground. A collective gasp rose and George leapt forward to half-catch his twin; in the same instant, Ron stumbled over his brothers, grabbing Malfoy by the front of his robes and pulling back his fist. Hermione and Harry both reached out in a flash, catching onto Ron´s arm before he could swing it at Malfoy´s face. Beside them, George had lost his balance under his brother´s weight, and both twins ended up on the cement, sending villagers jumping back into the crowd.

"Ron, stop," Hermione said steadily. "Leave him be." Harry had Ron around the chest with one arm and around the upper arm with the other; Ron wasn´t going anywhere, but he didn´t drop his fist. Only when Hermione closed both of her hands over it and said, "Please", did he finally look at her, sharing an intense stare, and relax his hand until it dropped to his side, still wrapped with both of hers.

Everyone was silent for a moment. Harry released Ron and looked toward the twins; Fred´s nose - which Harry had already accidentally broken earlier that year - was dripping with a thin trickle of blood. A woman nearby offered him a handkerchief, which he accepted with a thank you as George, apparently uninjured in the fray, helped him to his feet. Ron and Malfoy still stood face to face, sharing a sharp glare. Malfoy lifted his chin sharply in the air, as if daring Ron to try to go ahead and hit him. Ron looked as though he still might go for it. Hermione moved one hand from Ron´s and rubbed it soothingly over his shoulder and upper arm, never taking her eyes from his face. It was as if she didn´t want to give Malfoy the satisfaction of even looking at him.

"Finish it on the Quidditch pitch, all right?" she said lightly to Ron.

He nodded tersely and took a step back. "Get out of here," he growled at Malfoy. Malfoy smirked and glanced over his shoulders at Crabbe and Goyle in turn, who had stood like dumb stone statues throughout the entire exchange.

"Let´s go," he told them superiorly. "I´ve got new Quidditch gloves to buy. Catch you later," he told the Gryffindors, and just like that, they were gone.

Harry sighed deeply and looked around him at the turmoil Malfoy had left in his wake. His fellow Gryffindors were all still trembling with anger and bystanders were looking at them as if they all had multiple heads. Slowly, people started looking away and returning to their conversations. The five students regained their composure, though all the Weasleys were still visibly seething. Fred kept swiping at his nose, which was red but no longer bleeding. Harry was relieved to see it wasn´t broken again.

"Maybe we´d better all go somewhere and cool down, eh?" Harry suggested. "So to speak." He cracked a smile at his own quip, but he was the only one who did.

"No," Hermione said calmly. "No, we´re not letting Malfoy ruin our plans. We´re going in the bookstore."

So, go in the bookstore they did. When they entered at last, Harry didn´t feel very much like shopping. Why did Malfoy have to be such a lousy git? He always managed to get under their skin somehow, and he didn´t see the point of it at all. They had done nothing to provoke him that day, aside from existing, and yet he always seemed dead-set on making their lives hell for no reason. And he always managed to get away with it. Of course there had been no professors around to see Malfoy´s behavior and give him a detention. The teachers only ever seemed to be around when Harry didn´t want them there.

Harry heaved another sigh as they squeezed into the store, but he perked up a bit over the Quidditch shelves. Hermione lost herself in rows of books about things Harry didn´t care at all about, and Ron tagged along after her. The twins headed off to the humor section (to cheer themselves back up, George said), leaving Harry alone to read about Quidditch to his heart´s content. Sizeable as the bookstore was, though, there were only books enough to entertain a person for so long, and after a very long while, Harry and the twins had gathered at the door, ready to move on. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, Ron finally emerged from the crowd, lumbering over and looking bored.

"Sorry," he told them, "but Hermione´s still shopping. Maybe you three had better go on ahead. I think it´ll be time for our reservation at the Hogsmeade Inn anyway, by the time she´s finished."

"All right," Harry agreed, wasting no time. "Have a nice time." He and the twins quickly shrugged into their cloaks. "Tell me all about it later, okay?"

Ron nodded. "You too," he said jealously.

"Got the cloak, Harry?" George inquired into Harry´s ear as they made their way into the street.

"Yes. Where should we go to get into it?"

"Here," Fred said, ushering Harry and George down a side alleyway between Flourish and Blotts and Honeydukes. They ducked behind a dumpster and after a quick look around to be sure they hadn´t been seen, Harry shook open the newly enlarged cloak and tossed it over himself and the twins.

"Wicked," Fred breathed.

"Can you see me?" George asked, turning in circles underneath the cloak. "Am I showing?"

"Well, yes, we can see you, you bloody idiot," Fred whispered. "We´re under the cloak with you."

"Oh. Right."

"You´re both fine," Harry told them. "Just watch your feet. That´s always the hardest part. Don´t let your toes poke out while you´re walking."

Slowly, they emerged from the alleyway. Harry led the way, navigating the crowd until the Hog´s Head was in sight. Harry had never been this close to the pub before, and as they approached, it was like stepping into another world. The pub was set far back from the road, with a windy drive leading up to it. It was a ramshackle two-story structure with peeling paint and busted window frames, one with boards nailed over it where glass should have been. The whole aura of the place reeked with filth and danger and...excitement. Harry felt a sort of thrilling shiver as he contemplated what they were about to do. Admittedly, he couldn´t really see the point in it, and yes, he knew he was a prefect and he could get expelled, and blah, blah, blah, but he tried very hard to forget all that. What was the harm in doing something a little daring sometimes? Besides, he was with Fred and George, and as the old saying went, when in Rome, do as the Romans, right?

"Now all we have to do is wait for someone to open the door," Fred whispered. "Let´s stand close to it so we can be ready."

The three boys moved closer to the door, standing at the side that held the enormous doorknob shaped like a hog´s head. As they waited, Harry felt an involuntary shiver and realized that Hermione´s charm must have been starting to wear off. He was about to reach for his wand to mimic the spell Hermione had cast earlier when he heard whispers nearby. He froze, listening intently. It sounded like they were coming from...no, it couldn´t be. He listened harder. Yes, there were definitely whispers coming from within the large bushes just behind them. He looked over his shoulder at the twins and pointed to the bushes, but they were already listening.

"Who is that?" George mouthed. Harry shrugged. The bushes shook a little and a very distinctively female giggle followed.

The twins and Harry exchanged an instant look of horror at what they assumed they were overhearing. But then another female voice spoke over the giggle.

"Fuck, it´s freezing out here." The bushes shook some more. "Hand me that eye shadow, Sadie."

"Here," came the reply. "How do I look?"

There was a pause. Then, "Cathy!"

"Well, Sadie, honestly, no one´s going to look twice at you if that´s all you´re willing to show."

"Well, you could have told me to unbutton more buttons instead of charming them all away. My shirt´s completely open now!"

"No, do this."

Harry had no idea what Cathy was showing Sadie how to do, but he wasn´t sure he wanted to know. He felt a bit mortified. The twins, on the other hand, were wearing identical, toothy grins.

"See, that´s better, right?"

"I suppose. I hope I don´t fall out."

Cathy snorted. "You should get so lucky."

The bushes parted then, and two young girls emerged...girls that Harry instantly recognized as two Slytherin seventh-years he often saw around school. They were both pretty girls, usually, Harry thought, and he assumed they thought they looked even better this way. But Harry disagreed. He thought they looked like trash. Both girls had shed their cloaks and school robes (it was no wonder they were freezing!) and had hiked their knee-length skirts three quarters of the way up their thighs. The darker haired girl, Sadie, he assumed, had her open white blouse knotted above her navel, with the sleeves rolled up her arms. Parts of a bright green bra were quite visible. The other girl was no more decent than her friend. The only thing she wore on top was a white cardigan jumper with the Slytherin crest on the lapel. But it was skin-tight and only the top two buttons were closed, stretching the fabric across her ample bosom and leaving her midriff completely exposed.

"Brilliant!" George whispered very quietly.

Harry felt himself blush very deeply.

The two girls headed straight for the door to the pub, and the boys followed closely behind, slipping easily inside when they pulled the door open.

Numerous catcalls and shouts met their arrival, though they definitely weren´t aimed at the Gryffindors. Harry checked to be sure he and the twins were still completely covered by the invisibility cloak, then looked around the Hog´s Head for the first time. What he could see of it, rather, as the place was stuffed full of smoke and tables and waitresses wearing little more than Sadie and Cathy. There was a long carved bar to their left, from behind which a greasy bartender was sending drinks zooming up and down the bar; occasionally he sent one flying onto a waitress´ tray. The waitresses were patrolling an area roughly the size of the Gryffindor common room, jam packed with small tables and mismatched chairs, approximately half of which were occupied. On the other side of the bar was an open staircase, leading upstairs to Merlin only knew what, and along the far edges of the room, booths lined the three walls not occupied by the bar.

"We have to move," Fred whispered, though Harry wondered why he bothered. The place was so loud with voices and laughter and music, he was sure they could shout and no one would even bat an eyelash. "We´re blocking the door."

Harry led the twins carefully through the Hog´s Head; they had to move slowly so as to not bump into anyone scooting a chair back or winding their way up to the bar. He wasn´t really sure where to go, so at last they just stopped somewhat awkwardly next to the staircase. Harry suddenly felt stupid. What were they supposed to do now?

"What do we do now?" he asked out loud.

"We watch," George answered him, shrugging.

And so they stood beside the staircase for a very long time, observing the patrons and feeling like they´d achieved something monumental. Harry chose to settle his focus on a few specific patrons, watching to see how one was expected to behave in a place like this, and slowly feeling more and more committed to them, as if he knew them and was waiting to see how their day would turn out. He alternated his observations between a harried looking old lady, who was sitting drunk and alone at a central table, downing shot after shot of some kind of dark orange liquid, a loud and burly red-headed chap sitting with an even louder group of friends, and a slimy fellow sitting up at the bar, chatting it up with Sadie the Slytherin. He had no idea what had become of Cathy. Not five minutes after they´d arrived, she´d met up with a bloke that could have been her father and let him lead her away past the staircase and down a hall behind the booths.

However, Harry soon found himself distracted by a rather large and noisy game of...something or other, happening at a booth in the corner nearest them. There was an odd assemblage of people playing, and they had cards in their hands and were betting stacks of Sickles, but it wasn´t quite like Muggle poker, as players kept shouting things like, "you can´t play that card, no one´s laid down the wallybamble yet!" or "No, a loaded buzzle does not beat a pair of galloping aces!" One fellow in particular, though, was remaining strangely quiet, just laying cards down when it was his turn, never speaking...never even removing his cloak, nor pushing the large hood back off his head. Harry couldn´t see the man´s face, but something about his manner was a little chilling...and oddly familiar, somehow.

"Okay, this is getting boring," George whispered. "We made it in, we´ve seen what we´re going to see. I´m hungry, let´s go."

"Wait," Harry said sharply. The cloaked man had just played out his hand, a move which was met with a collective groan from the other players. The man reached out his left arm, sweeping it across the table and gathering all the Sickles there into his satchel. He´d missed a few on the far side of the table, and started to stretch for them. But then, as if he´d just been stung in the hand, he drew it quickly back, reaching with his right arm instead. Harry took a small step forward, suspicion rising, and sure enough, after looking quickly around the table to be sure no one had noticed the action (no one had - they were all too busy gathering up cards and sharing foul language with one another at the outcome of the hand), the cloaked man very deftly pulled his left sleeve firmly down, and placed his arm on his lap, under the table.

Harry´s heart nearly stopped beating.

There was a Death Eater in the Hog´s Head.

"What is it, Harry?" Fred asked quietly.

"Oh. Um, nothing," Harry lied, heart pounding. "I just don´t want to go yet. Can´t we wait a few more minutes?"

"Yeah, okay."

Harry watched the Death Eater intently, not really knowing what he expected to happen, but not willing to let him out of his sight. What on earth would one of Voldemort´s followers be doing in Hogsmeade today? But as soon as he thought it, panic gripped him. The students were in Hogsmeade today...he was in Hogsmeade today. On instinct, Harry felt for his wand, finding it secure in his pocket as it always was, and started patting his other pockets, even though he already knew everything was there. The Portkeys, the potions, the knife. Everything was safely where it should be, and he was protected. As well as he could be, anyway. Was it really possible, he wondered? Was it possible that this man was here today because he was after him?

"Maybe we should go," Harry said suddenly, turning towards the door and beckoning the twins after him. "Come on."

"Harry, are you all right?" George whispered, quickly starting to move so that Harry wouldn´t walk away and pull the invisibility cloak right along with him.

Harry didn´t answer. He navigated between the bar and the tables, heading for the door, continually glancing over his shoulder at the mysterious Death Eater. The man had picked up his next hand and was playing the game again, completely oblivious that anyone was onto him. Harry and the twins reached the door, and Harry started for the handle, thinking that he would take the twins, find Ron and Hermione, and return them all safely to the castle before going to find Dumbledore and warn him. But just as Harry´s hand connected with the knob, Fred smacked at him.

"Harry, what are you doing?" he hissed. "Have you forgotten we´re invisible?"

Harry´s heart thudded. He almost had forgotten. He was losing his head here; he needed to keep it together.

"Sorry," Harry muttered.

"What´s wrong with you?" Fred whispered back. Harry just shook his head.

They stood near the door for only a moment before someone pushed it open from the other side. The group started to move forward to slip outside, but as soon as Harry saw who had just entered, he stopped still. He felt a twin bump into him from behind, but no one spoke.

Professor Snape entered the pub, looking immediately around as he removed his cloak and hat and hung them on a coat rack nearby. The door had now swung closed again, and he heard a twin sigh behind him. Snape moved to a relatively secluded booth to the side of the bar, nearly bumping into the invisible Gryffindors as he did so. Harry supposed it wasn´t so unusual, a teacher stopping in the pub for a drink. But something about the Potions Master´s purposeful demeanor caused Harry to take pause and watch. Snape continued looking casually around, as if not wanting to draw any attention to himself, but Harry could clearly see that there was no casualness to his professor´s purpose at the Hog´s Head. Snape drummed his fingers on the table, and ordered a "smoking triple", whatever the heck that was, when the waitress came for his order. His drink arrived quickly, and it actually was smoking as he drank from the stein, over the top of which the professor kept shooting glances toward the back of the pub. Harry followed his gaze and it was only then that he noticed another man dressed exactly as the card-playing Death Eater, sitting alone at the very end of the bar, not at all far from where Harry and the twins had been standing for nearly an hour. Harry gave a funny kind of shiver, wondering if that man was a Death Eater too. Harry hadn´t been that physically near any Death Eater since the night of Voldemort´s resurrection. He watched the man drink innocently from his glass and felt like he might be sick.

Snape was watching this second hooded man meaningfully, as if expecting him to come join him at any moment. But the man did not; instead, it was the first Death Eater, the one playing the magical poker game, who at last began striding through the bar towards Snape, and by extension, them. The man exchanged a brief glance with the other cloaked man as he passed through the place, and the second man nodded slightly. What was going on, Harry desperately wondered? He only vaguely remembered that Fred and George were with him at this point, though he wished they weren´t. He needed to watch this, but he certainly didn´t need other people to be getting involved. Neither of them spoke from behind Harry though, and Harry assumed they were both probably as strangely intrigued by this entire situation now as he was.

The Death Eater brushed closely by Harry and the twins, and Harry stepped back slightly to allow him by, pushing the twins back a step as well. As he passed, Harry looked into the man´s face, trying to see who he was, but his hood kept his face very well shadowed.

The man slid into the booth across from Snape, but said not a word. Snape stared at him.

"All these years, and not even a hello?" Snape asked neutrally after a few moments of silence.

The man remained quiet.

"Am I trusted not even that much?" Snape spoke again.

No words were exchanged for many long moments. It seemed as though Snape was going to hold his ground until the other man spoke.

"That is not a fact which should surprise you," the man said at long last. His voice was low and raspy, as if he was purposely trying not to speak fully. He clearly wanted to keep his identity a secret.

"You do realize you draw more attention to yourself by conducting yourself in this manner, do you not?" Snape spoke in the same slow, silky voice that he always used in class - the one that a person had to strain to hear but didn´t dare miss a word of. "People don´t generally go about wearing cloaks and hoods indoors, hiding their faces."

"Precautions are necessary."

"Precautions against me?" Snape asked icily. "I´ve always known who each of you are, and I assure you, my memory is as sharp as it ever was."

"No one has ever known who we all are."

"I know enough."

Again, there was silence.

"If I am not to be trusted, what sort of hope do we have?" Snape asked at last. "We need to be united, now more than ever. I am here fully and willingly, I assure you."

"That remains to be seen."

Snape smiled a twisted smile. "Careful, Macnair, I´m starting to recognize your voice."

Harry sucked in a breath. Macnair. The executioner who had been sent from the Ministry to execute Buckbeak back at the end of third year. No wonder Harry had vaguely recognized his demeanor. There was no forgetting his prim, yet oily, ways.

"You are being terribly insubordinate, Snape," Macnair scolded, keeping any emotion at being discovered well in check. Harry had to agree. What was Snape playing at? He was never going to gain any trust if he didn´t start showing some respect. Harry sincerely hoped Snape knew what buttons he was pushing, and when he should stop.

Snape regarded Macnair with a cold gaze. "I owe my subordination to the Dark Lord," he said, "and the Dark Lord alone."

Harry heard one of the twins let out a string of shocked curses behind him. Damn it, Harry thought. They should not be hearing this!

"Shhhh," Harry ordered them, very quietly, hoping they trusted him enough to follow his lead by being still and quiet, rather than doing anything stupid.

"You are wasting my time, Snape," Macnair said flatly. "Do you have what I have come for?"

Harry stepped a bit closer, heart racing.

Snape regarded Macnair for a moment longer, then reached into the inner pocket of his robes and withdrew a small sack. He set it down on the table with a clunk and pushed it across to Macnair, who picked it up and slipped it into his cloak. This could be only one thing, Harry knew. Snape was delivering the potion that had been discussed at the Council meeting the previous month.

"I trust it has been properly prepared."

"I trust you know who you´re dealing with," Snape retorted bitterly. Snape was nothing if not a genius when it came to brewing potions.

"It took you quite a long time, for someone who fancies himself such an expert."

"Powered graphorn is difficult to come by."

"Not for you."

"And then the potion had to brew for thirteen days and seven hours," Snape continued, not missing a beat. "And it is not easy for me to leave the castle unnoticed."

Silence fell once more, and the men simply stared at each other. Then Macnair´s left arm jerked, ever so slightly, and he rose abruptly. "We are finished here."

Snape´s eyes flickered to Macnair´s arm as he rose across from him. "It will be delivered today, then?" Snape asked, with a tone closer to anxiousness than Harry had ever heard come from his professor´s mouth.

"It will be delivered in due time. Good day." Macnair turned away and strode quickly for the door, leaving without even glancing back. Snape watched him go, then turned and looked down the bar toward the other cloaked man, but there was no one there.

********************

Harry had never been more grateful to Professor Flitwick in his five years at Hogwarts. They had just studied rudimentary memory charms in his class the previous week, and the minute they had left the Hog´s Head, Harry had drawn his wand and tried his luck at casting one on the twins. It had worked like...well, a charm. When they had met up with Hermione and Ron an hour later in front of Honeydukes, Fred and George had gone on and on about the two Slytherin girls and not much else, aside from how thrilling it had been to sneak into the Hog´s Head.

"I don´t understand what girls like that think is so impressive about behaving that way," Hermione said disgustedly. "Besides, if they had been caught, they could have been expelled!"

Hermione cheered a great bit, though, when Harry changed the subject and asked about her date with Ron. She blushed slightly, smiling and twining her arm through Ron´s, who gazed at her stupidly as she told Harry all about their romantic, candlelit meal at the Inn and their walk down High Street, during which they had ducked back into Flourish and Blotts North so that Ron could surprise her by buying her a book. Hermione didn´t say much, though, before she seemed to realize something was bothering Harry. When she asked, he whispered that he would tell her and Ron later, and he did, as soon as they got back to the common room after dinner. Hermione told him that he needn´t worry about anything - it was unusual to hear her say something other than "you have to tell Dumbledore", but she quickly followed up by saying that Dumbledore would be hearing everything from Snape himself, and so Harry should try not to burden himself further with worry. Ron agreed, and Harry said he would try.

They spent the rest of the evening quietly, Harry and Hermione reading books they had purchased that day (Harry had gotten himself a copy of the new edition of Quidditch Through the Ages, and was scanning it for changes) while Ron challenged his own chess pieces to a match. Harry´s mood lightened significantly when he came across a new Quidditch move titled the "Potter Pick-up" which detailed a move he had "invented" in which the Seeker catches the Snitch in his or her mouth.

Harry went to bed that night feeling much lighter than he had only a few hours earlier. He did have trouble getting the potion out of his mind - it was going to be administered to someone soon, undoubtedly. Someone was about to be violated for their thoughts and then left insane. But he was trying very hard to do the only thing he could - not drive himself mad with worry about things he could not change. This problem was now the Council´s responsibility, not his. Harry drifted off, thinking of the "Potter Pick-up".

********************

Something was making noise...it was rapid and repetitive, like some kind of machine or motor. And then he realized - it was his own breathing. He had jerked into consciousness only a moment ago, and everything was dark around him. He felt dizzy. He reached up to touch his face and felt a heavy cloth over his eyes. He was blindfolded. He reached around to the back of his head, feeling a dull ache there and drew his fingers away. They were warm and sticky. The blindfold was doubling as a bandage. He had been wounded.

Swooosh. His eyelids began to glow a dark orange from the inside, but he still could not see a thing. Someone had conjured up a fire. He could feel it´s heat, though it did little to stop his shivering. It was frigid in this room, and he was terrified. No fire, no matter how large, could still his trembling form now.

He tried to move, testing his circumstances, and found that he was bound to his chair around his chest and upper arms. He could not move. He tried to kick out a leg, but found that his ankles were bound as well.

All residual hope that he´d been clinging to for the past seven weeks left him in a rush when he heard a voice speak one word that sent a chill straight through his heart, a word he hadn´t heard spoken in this particular voice for many, many years.

"Karkaroff."

A completely involuntary whimper escaped his lips, and he reeled it quickly back in, fighting to maintain control of his senses.

"My...My Lord," he tried, shuddering at the sound of his own voice speaking these words...speaking words that he had used to use so freely.

"Do not waste your breath trying, Karkaroff," Voldemort hissed. "It is far too late to attempt repairs."

"Please, please..." he whimpered. "I am sorry, My Lord. I am sorry. If you will be merciful and give me a chance, I-"

"Silence, Karkaroff," Voldemort ordered. His voice was closer now. He was coming nearer. Karkaroff´s heart quickened. "I am not interested in hearing your excuses." He was now breathing directly into his ear. "I am interested in only one thing."

Karkaroff shook as he felt something touch his skin. Voldemort was sliding a finger between the blindfold and Karkaroff´s face, slipping the blindfold down from his eyes and pulling it down around his neck. Karkaroff winced; some of the blood on the back of his head had dried, and the blindfold had adhered to it. As the fabric was pulled away, he felt a fresh drip of warmth in his hair. He looked wildly around, his eyes searching for Voldemort, but seeing only a long row of Death Eaters semi-circled around him. At last, his old master moved around from behind and came to stand in front of his defector.

"Look around you, Karkaroff," Voldemort hissed. "Look at my loyal followers, your brothers, Igor. Your brothers whom you betrayed."

"I am sorry," Karkaroff told the Death Eaters. "I made mistakes! I was stupid and afraid! But I will pay for my mistakes, just please...please..."

"You are correct in saying you will pay, Igor." Voldemort took a step back, snapping his fingers at a Death Eater to his left. "Macnair," he called.

Walden Macnair stepped forward, offering a small parcel to the Dark Lord.

"Macnair," Voldemort addressed him. "Do you not want your own revenge?" He raised his arm and indicated Karkaroff, and Macnair regarded his master nervously, almost eagerly.

"Do you mean...?"

"Yes."

Macnair fell humbly at Voldemort´s feet, kissing the hem of his robes. "Oh, thank you, master. I thank you, very kindly."

Karkaroff´s heart pounded madly, painfully, as Macnair approached. "Walden," Karkaroff said, voice trembling, "old friend...dear friend..." Macnair just glared at him, disgusted.

"You are no friend to me."

"You betrayed this man," Voldemort told Karkaroff. "You gave his name to the Ministry. Do you deny it?"

"I...I...I do not."

"There is to be justice, now."

Macnair opened the small sack he was carrying, withdrawing a small flask of bright red liquid. Blood red. He pulled the stopper from it, and reached out to take Karkaroff´s chin in his hand, trying to force his mouth open.

"No! No!" Karkaroff fought, opening his mouth as little as possible. "Please don´t!" He had no idea what was in the flask, but of all the fear he´d felt since he´d been abducted from his hiding place in the Transylvanian Alps, of all the fear he´d felt while being held in the makeshift prison where he´d laid nearly abandoned for seven weeks...of all the fear he´d ever experienced, he had never felt more afraid in his life than he did at this moment. "Please!" he shouted, trying to twist out of Macnair´s grip. But he was weak, and Macnair was fierce, and before he knew it, there was a hot liquid being poured into his mouth. Macnair tipped the flask up, emptying it, and then he stepped back into the circle.

Karkaroff felt the liquid run down his throat, scorching it. It felt as though he´d drank liquid fire. His insides burned, and he writhed in his seat, hearing the inhuman sound of his own voice escaping his lungs in a cross between a scream and a hiss. Surely his stomach was on fire. Surely the fire would burn right through his skin, and consume him.

Voldemort stepped closer, eyes flashing. "You were at Hogwarts last year. You were with Albus Dumbledore...and Harry Potter."

"Yes," Karkaroff breathed. "Yes, it is true."

"You were with Severus Snape."

"I was."

"Undoubtedly, you discussed my return with Severus Snape."

"We did. We discussed it on more than one occasion." The pain in his gut burned on, so much so that Karkaroff did not know how he was even able to speak. But then he realized that he wasn´t speaking. And yet he was hearing his own voice. What was happening?

"When?"

"The night of the Yule Ball, we discussed it. Other times as well. I was afraid. Severus was angry." Karkaroff realized then that he was, in fact, speaking, but not of his own will. He could not control his own voice at all, nor the words that he heard himself saying.

"Why was Severus angry?"

"He was angry with me for wanting to flee. He said I was being a coward. He said that I had earned my fate."

Voldemort raised an eyebrow, as if surprised and impressed. "He said that you deserved what would be coming to you?"

"No."

Voldemort´s eyes darkened again.

"He said that we both knew when we turned against you that we may someday have to pay the price for our betrayal. He said that it was a chance he had been willing to take to do what he knew to be right. He said that he did not feel sorry for me. He said that he did not even feel sorry for himself, and he had been the one who had left your service bravely, when you were still at the height of your powers. At least he had been brave enough to do that, unlike me. I had been too cowardly to leave your service even though I wanted to, and had only betrayed my fellow Death Eaters to save myself from a life at Azkaban. All of these things, he said to me."

"When did he say these things?" Voldemort asked, his tone chilling.

"The night of the Yule Ball. Outside in the gardens."

"What did you do then?"

"He began to walk away from me, and I followed. We saw some students on the path. We saw Harry Potter."

Voldemort suddenly moved closer, very interested in this mention of Harry Potter. "Did you speak to Potter?"

"Severus did. I did not."

"Did you ever speak to Harry Potter while at Hogwarts?"

"Only in discussions regarding the Triwizard Tournament."

"Only about the Tournament?"

"Yes."

"What more did Severus Snape say to you that evening?"

"He told me that I could flee if I wanted to and that he would make my excuses, but that he was remaining at Hogwarts."

"Why was he remaining at Hogwarts?"

"He told me that I needed to reconsider my loyalties. He told me that he was loyal only to Dumbledore now, and that he would not leave out of cowardice, ever. He told me he had his word to live up to, and he intended to follow through."

Voldemort´s eyes became very dark indeed.

"What more?"

"That was all we spoke of that evening."

"When did you speak next?" The fury in Voldemort´s voice was so palpable now, it shot out of his mouth on blasts of frigid air. Karkaroff shivered violently.

"We spoke just before the third task. I followed him back to his office after dinner in the Great Hall one evening, one week before the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. It was a Friday."

As he unwillingly continued to speak, Karkaroff marveled internally at how stunningly sharp his memories were. All he could think of now was the pain coursing through him and Severus Snape. It was as though he had the ability to think of nothing else.

"I told him that we needed to decide what we were going to do if things continued to progress. He told me that there was no `we´ and that he had already told me of his decision. He was staying at Hogwarts and he would not be changing his mind. He told me that there were only two other options - to either run away or return to your service. He told me that he would do neither. He said that he would have work to do if you were to return. He said that he had responsibilities and he would not walk away from them."

A low murmur began to pass through the circle of Death Eaters. All the time that Voldemort had been questioning him, he had been circling his chair, leaning closely in and hissing the questions into his ears. But now he moved to stand directly across from Karkaroff, looking him squarely in the face. "Severus Snape told you that he would never return to my service?"

"That is correct."

"He told you that he would have work to do?"

"Yes."

"What kind of work?"

"He did not say."

"When was the last time you spoke with Severus Snape?"

"That was the final time."

"Were there other times, besides the times you have spoken of tonight?"

"No. I wanted to speak to him, often. He avoided me."

Voldemort regarded Karkaroff for a long moment, his eyes cutting holes in Karkaroff´s already burning skin. Then he reached into his robes and withdrew his wand, taking three steps forward.

"Is there anything else you know about Severus Snape´s loyalty to Lord Voldemort?" Voldemort fingered his wand, drawing it slowly up to aim directly at Karkaroff´s chest.

"No," Karkaroff said, terror filling his voice. He wanted to scream for help, for mercy. But all he could say was, "I know nothing else."

"Very well. It is time to pay for your crimes, Igor Karkaroff. You betrayed me, is this true?"

"Yes."

"You betrayed your fellow Death Eaters to save yourself. Is this true?"

"Yes."

"You have been a bitter disappointment to me, Igor. I once held high hopes for you. You could have done great things in my service. But now you will face your fate."

"Show him no mercy, Master!" called a voice from the circle.

"No mercy!"

"No mercy!"

Karkaroff stretched against his bindings, but to no avail. He was bound tightly and he was defenseless. His heart thudded so heavily that he looked down and could see his chest pulsing. In his final moments, he raised his eyes slowly, back up to his old master´s face. His pulse was so loud in his ears that he no longer heard any words, just saw Voldemort´s lips moving as he aimed his wand. But he did not say the words "Avada Kedavra". Oh, no. There were other ways to kill a person, and Karkaroff had always known that he would not get off so easily. There was nothing left for him to do once the words were uttered and his insides ripped open than to watch himself pour out onto the floor and to scream and to wait...to wait for death to come.

********************

Even in sleep, Harry´s hands flew to his head as he felt the most tremendous pain he had ever experienced. His scar was on fire, pain cutting through his head and sending aftershocks coursing through his entire body. He writhed in pain as if under the Cruciatus Curse, losing all control. His bones felt like they were turning inside out, and it seemed like everything around him was noise, just noise everywhere, and he couldn´t shut it out. Lights were flipping on all around him, but he did not see them, for his eyes were squeezed tightly shut. If only the noise would stop, and the pain. And then he realized that the noise was from himself; he was emitting bone chilling screams laced with intermittent choking sobs.

"Oh, God!" A panicked, far away voice was shouting. "Somebody get Dumbledore! Hurry up!" Harry felt hands on him, trying to pick him up from wherever he was, and he forced his eyes open, focusing on what was before him, only to find it was the floor. He was curled up on his knees, his face pressed into the rug beside his bed, his hands clutching at his head, feeling like he was going to throw up. He heard himself still screaming, but couldn´t stop.

"Harry! Harry! It´s all right!" Hands were pulling at him desperately. "It´s all right, you´re okay, Harry. Harry, wake up, please." It was Ron speaking to him. It had taken Harry a few minutes to place the voice; it was so full of something Harry wasn´t used to hearing in it - terror. And he could barely hear anything other than his own screams, and the tremendous pounding in his head.

"Ron-" he choked out.

"I´m here, Harry, everything´s going to be all right. Neville´s gone to find Dumbledore. Just hang on, he´ll be here in a minute."

The pain was still unbearable, but it seemed to be letting up slowly, and Harry forced himself to choke back some of the noises he was making. He heard a flurry of activity happening around him as he realized people were rushing in and out of the room.

"Ron?" he heard someone call, and then he was feeling a second pair of hands on him. "Ron, what´s happening? Harry?"

"Hermione-"

"Harry, don´t try to speak, everything´s fine now. Just try to relax."

But he couldn´t relax; his body was fighting him.

"Ron, what in the hell happened?" he heard Hermione ask, panic-stricken.

"I don´t know. He just started screaming. How did you-?"

"The entire tower is awake. I knew it was Harry. Harry?" she was speaking to him now. "Harry, it´s going to be all right. You´re safe." He felt her arms go around him and he clung to her with one arm, searching for Ron with the other. His hand closed over one of Ron´s pajama sleeves, and he held it tightly in his fist. He felt Hermione´s hand on his face, pushing soaked hair off his forehead, and his scar stung even further as her hand passed over it. He had managed to stop screaming now, but couldn´t stop the sobs that escaped. He was out of his own control and his face felt incredibly wet, though whether from sweat or tears he didn´t know.

"Move aside, please," he heard only a moment later, and he looked up over Hermione´s arm and through his own hair to see a fuzzy Dumbledore approaching. There was a quick purposefulness in his stride that Harry had never seen before. Harry vaguely realized that Professors Snape and McGonagall were on his heels, along with Madam Pomfrey. There was a very odd assortment of people in their room indeed, as he noticed several students lingering near the doorway who didn´t belong in this particular dorm room. Had he really woken the entire tower?

"I´m sorry," he managed, just as Dumbledore reached him, gently removing Harry from the grip of his friends and pulling him halfway upright.

"Poppy?" Dumbledore called anxiously. "I need you, please." Then he addressed Harry. "Nonsense, Harry. Just be still."

Everything around him was fuzzy, as he didn´t have his glasses, but he could make out who the people were hovering over him, and as Madam Pomfrey and his professors moved in, he watched Ron rise and help Hermione to her feet. She collapsed against him, giving into sobs of her own, and Ron cupped her head, letting her cry into his shoulder as he continued to watch what was happening.

"Minerva," Dumbledore said quietly. "Please clear this room."

"Oh, yes, yes, of course," she said shakily. "Please return to your rooms," she told everyone, ushering people toward the door. "Everything will be fine here. Go back to bed, please." Harry caught sight of his own roommates being ushered out, and he wondered where they would go. They did not protest, though, as they left the room, shooting worried glances at Harry. He looked away, responding to Madam Pomfrey, who was saying his name.

"Harry, dear, just relax." She passed her wand over him, muttering a few words, and the lingering pain let up considerably. He noticed through blurry, dizzy vision that Ron and Hermione were still in the room. Obviously, they didn´t think the clearing of the room applied to them, and neither did the professors, it seemed.

"Ron," Harry said again, dazedly.

"I´m right here, Harry," Ron assured him.

"Harry," Dumbledore spoke gently. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"I...I don´t know." Harry was sitting up mostly on his own now, but Dumbledore was still holding onto him, keeping him upright.

"Severus, I think some Ennevra Juice-" Dumbledore didn´t even have to finish his sentence; Snape was on his feet, heading for the door.

"No, wait!" Harry implored.

Snape turned back.

"You...you..." Harry panted.

"What is it, Harry?" Dumbledore inquired.

"Snape´s...cover...Karkaroff..." Harry´s words came out as nothing but gibberish and he felt a new wave of dizziness wash over him as he slumped in Dumbledore´s grasp.

Dumbledore addressed Snape once more. "Yes, Severus, I think we need the potion." Snape nodded tersely and disappeared from the room.

Harry´s head snapped up, and he shook it. "No, I..."

"He will come right back, Harry. We will sort everything out."

"Take some deep breaths, Harry, dear," Madam Pomfrey was telling him, and he made himself do it. His head was clearing of pain and confusion, and very slowly, he felt his heart beginning to resume its normal pace. He still felt a bit light-headed, like the voices around him were reaching him from varying distances, even though they were right beside him. Someone handed him his glasses, which he slipped shakily on, and everything came into better focus. He glanced toward his friends again, and saw that Hermione had pulled back from Ron´s embrace and they were speaking quietly to one another.

"He´ll be all right," Ron was saying.

"When, Ron? It never ends for him."

"Harry, can you stand?" Dumbledore was asking him.

"I can help," Ron said, moving closer. "I can help him walk."

"Just into the chair, I think," Dumbledore said, and Harry felt four strong hands lift him to his feet and move him toward the armchair near his bed. Hermione rushed over, clearing the seat for him, and Harry was almost amused, remembering how disgusted she had been only a few weeks ago when she´d been in this room, grimacing at all the mess lying around. It seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind now.

"Dumbledore, what on earth can be the meaning of this?" McGonagall was fussing, studying Harry with an almost...motherly expression. She was holding onto one of his arms with both of her hands, and Harry could feel her trembling.

"That is what I am hoping we are about to find out."

"Well, where is Severus with that potion, honestly?" she demanded.

And suddenly nothing else was important except warning Dumbledore about what he had seen. Harry came alive, trying to say everything at once. "That´s what I was trying to tell you! He could be in danger! His cover is blown! They used the potion on Karkaroff and he´s dead, and they know Snape is lying. They´ll be coming for him. You have to warn him!"

Dumbledore´s eyes instantly sharpened, and his grip on Harry´s shoulder tightened. "What? What did you see, Harry?"

"Karkaroff. Karkaroff is dead. The potion that Snape made, they used it on Karkaroff. Macnair made him drink it. Voldemort asked him all kinds of questions about when he was here last year for the Triwizard Tournament. He asked all about Professor Snape, and Karkaroff told him that Snape said he would never return to Voldemort´s service. Karkaroff said that Snape told him he was only loyal to you now, and that he would never leave Hogwarts out of cowardice, because he would have work to do when Voldemort returned. He said he intended to live up to his word."

Professor McGonagall let out something like a strangled gasp, and Dumbledore just kept his eyes on Harry´s, looking incredibly grave, but waiting for him to continue. He didn´t have a chance to say more, though, as the door to the room flung open with a bang right at that moment, and Snape came charging in. He had a goblet in his right hand, but was taking little care with it, as drops spilled to the floor. He seemed concerned with something else entirely - his other arm.

"Headmaster," Snape called breathlessly, sweeping over to where they all were. Madam Pomfrey rescued the goblet and brought it over to Harry, holding it to his lips and telling him to drink as Snape thrust his arm out at Dumbledore, pulling up his sleeve.

Dumbledore took Snape´s arm, and Harry heard McGonagall gasp again.

The Dark Mark on Snape´s arm was burning black.

"I must go at once," Snape said quietly to Dumbledore. "I will leave from the fireplace in my office, and I will come to you the moment I return. I am sure that-"

"No!" Harry interrupted desperately, "You can´t go!"

Snape´s head snapped toward Harry and he looked at him very curiously, as if he had forgotten he was even there.

"Severus," Dumbledore said very calmly. "I am afraid Mr. Potter is right. You mustn´t go."

"What?" Snape hissed. "I have to go! Especially now, especially after today-"

"The potion that you made," Harry blurted out unthinkingly. "The potion that you talked about at the Council meeting, the one you gave to Macnair today. They used it on Karkaroff to ask about you, and then Voldemort killed him. They´ve been holding him hostage ever since he turned up missing in the mountains, waiting for your potion."

Snape swept in closer, eyes fierce. "And how do you know about all of that?"

"I...I..." Harry stammered, eyes flickering to Dumbledore´s face. The Headmaster was watching him intently, but not accusatorily the way Snape was. "I was in the meeting," he admitted. There was no point in keeping it secret now. "I snuck in. I know everything."

Snape´s eyes glittered menacingly, but only for a moment, as the Headmaster was soon addressing him.

"You must leave here, Severus. You know what to do."

"No!" Snape insisted. "Maybe he didn´t tell him everything, maybe there´s still a chance-"

"There´s not," Harry told him. "He knows. That´s why he´s calling you, I´m sure of it."

"And what do you know?" Snape demanded of him. "You have no idea the kinds of things you´re meddling in, Potter."

"Severus, that will do," Dumbledore said, and Snape grew silent. "You know that you must go. You are no longer safe here."

"No one is safe, anywhere," Snape retorted, "and I am not leaving Hogwarts. I will not run away."

"Severus, we have discussed this. Arrangements are in place. Do not be stubborn, you will be of no use to me if you are found and killed."

"I am of no use to you now! Not if-"

"Severus." Dumbledore had risen to his feet and spoke Snape´s name warmly, calmly. He reached out and held the Potions Master by the shoulders, and said, "You have done all you can."

Something in Snape´s face broke at that, and Harry saw a man there that he had never seen before. A man with vulnerability and regret and desperation.

"I have failed you," Snape whispered the words hoarsely.

A slight smile curled the corners of Dumbledore´s mouth. "You have not. There will be more for you to do. But you must trust me. You must go into hiding, and I will contact you soon."

Snape stared into Dumbledore´s face for a long moment, and then tore his eyes away. "I will go gather my things."

"Be in my office in thirty minutes time. We will...do what needs to be done."

"Yes, Headmaster." He began to turn toward the door, and Professor McGonagall drew herself to her feet, reaching to keep Snape from leaving just yet.

"We will meet again soon, Professor," she told him, as if offering some kind of reassurance she knew he was seeking. He simply looked at her and nodded, and then left at last.

The room´s remaining occupants watched the door close behind him, and a heavy silence lingered in his wake. Finally, Dumbledore drew a deep breath and looked to Harry once more.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

"Yes," he replied, and it was true. The pain had receded to only his head now and was getting duller with each passing moment. He looked into his Headmaster´s face and said honestly, "I´m sorry."

"Do not be sorry, Harry. You have done us a great service here tonight."

"Drink up," Madam Pomfrey was whispering to Harry, and she tipped the goblet up so that he could drink the last of the drops. He felt his mind clearing and the room begin to stop spinning as the pain in his head continued to lessen.

"Minerva," Dumbledore said, "we will need to set things into motion at once. May I pray upon you to go to my office and use my fireplace to contact..."

McGonagall sprang to life with understanding. "Yes, yes, of course. It must happen as soon as possible. I am sure...everything is ready. We will wait for you in your office?"

"Yes. Please apologize for calling in my stead. I will join you soon." Dumbledore then turned to Madam Pomfrey. "Poppy, I think Harry will be fine to sleep the rest of the night in here, don´t you? I will contact you if we need anything further."

"Very well." Madam Pomfrey gave Harry a final once-over, and then left the room alongside Professor McGonagall. The only people now remaining were Dumbledore, Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Harry´s two best friends were still clinging to one another, watching everything with wide, worried eyes, and Harry did his best to give them a small smile.

"I´m okay."

Hermione sniffed, breaking away from Ron and dropping to Harry´s side, throwing her arms around him.

"Oh, Harry," she choked.

His heart stung, and he held onto her weakly, assuring her once again that he really was fine.

Ron moved closer as well, jaw set firmly and face full of intensity as Dumbledore turned to address him.

"Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said gently, "perhaps you could make yourself useful and go bring us your brothers, please."

"My...my brothers?" Ron stammered, confusion etching lines in his face.

"Yes, that´s right," Dumbledore replied, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to bring the Weasley twins into the room at a time like this, after having kicked everyone else out. "Misters Fred and George. I have a feeling we will be needing them. Professor McGonagall ordered everyone to return to bed," he continued lightly, "so I´m sure they are lingering about someplace with everyone else. Try the common room perhaps, hmm?"

"Um, yeah, okay. I´ll be right back, I guess." He shrugged at Harry, who shrugged back, and Hermione drew back, reaching for Ron´s hand.

"I´ll join you," she said, clearly getting the message that Dumbledore was trying to empty the room. The two of them left, and at last, Harry and Dumbledore were alone.

"Why do we need the Weasley twins?" Harry asked, not being able to think of any reason whatsoever that the two of them would need to get involved in this...unless...did Dumbledore somehow know the three of them had snuck into the Hog´s Head? Were they going to be punished? He could hardly imagine Dumbledore being concerned with such a thing at a moment like this.

"All will make sense momentarily, Mr. Potter, I promise you."

Harry´s mind ran back over the events of the past fifteen minutes, still reeling. He reached up a hand and carefully touched his scar, wincing as he felt a raw pain beneath his fingers. The rest of the pain had subsided almost completely, though, thankfully.

"What will happen to Professor Snape?" Harry asked gravely. He thought he must be crazy, but he actually found himself wishing Snape didn´t have to go. Things shouldn´t be this way. He may not like Snape as a teacher, but there was something steadfast about his presence at the school. Something that made it, well, Hogwarts. And now Voldemort was chasing people away and Snape could end up getting killed and never stepping foot in the castle again. It was all too real now, and far too unjust.

"He will go into hiding where he will be safe," Dumbledore said simply.

"But there is no place safer than Hogwarts," Harry replied, remembering the day Hagrid had told him that very thing, back when he was eleven and they had been in Diagon Alley.

"Not as such, no," Dumbledore conceded. "But Voldemort knows Professor Snape is here. We cannot allow his whereabouts to be known at this time. He will be much safer elsewhere now."

Where? Harry wondered to himself. Where can anyone be safe from Voldemort? "How? Voldemort can find anyone. They found Karkaroff in the mountains," he pointed out.

"Yes, but Karkaroff was unprotected. There are ways...can you think of nothing, Harry, that can keep Professor Snape´s whereabouts a guarded secret?" He looked at Harry knowingly, waiting patiently for the answer to come to his pupil.

And then it dawned on him. "Do you mean...a Secret Keeper?"

"Yes."

"But who? You?"

"Not I, Harry, but I must beg of you not to ask more. Very few people will know this person´s identity, and that is the way it needs to be."

Harry understood, of course, and he swallowed, considering what this meant for Snape, and for everyone involved. "But...it doesn´t always work," he said quietly, and he felt a pain return to his chest, in the form of a large lump. "It didn´t work for my parents. How do you know it will keep Professor Snape safe?"

The Headmaster looked Harry firmly in the eye and said evenly, "I don´t know, Harry. But I hope. We always must continue to hope."

Harry felt deeply sorry, though he couldn´t figure out exactly why. This was one thing that actually wasn´t his fault. It hadn´t been his own blunder or stupidity or mere existence that had caused this turmoil, and yet he felt a deep sense of regret, like he had something to set right. Maybe this was just how he was used to feeling when things like this happened, he mused wryly. Most things tended to be his fault, so maybe he just wasn´t sure how to feel when that wasn´t the case.

"So what do you think of my Council?" Dumbledore asked, smiling very slightly as a bit of the usual gleam returned to his eyes.

Harry gulped. "I´m sorry I snuck into the meeting."

"Oh, I knew you had," Dumbledore said.

"So you did leave the map!" Harry said incredulously, thinking how he couldn´t wait to tell Hermione, `I told you so.´

"No, it was not I who returned your map to you."

Harry backpedaled, baffled. "Then who?"

There was a light knocking on the door, and Dumbledore turned around. "Come in," he called.

Fred and George Weasley entered the room, looking extremely on edge.

"All right there, Harry?" George asked as they came nearer, hands shoved into their pockets.

"Yes," Harry told them.

"Misters Weasley," Dumbledore addressed them. "Perhaps you care to tell our Mr. Potter how it is that he recently came by a delightful little item called the Marauders´ Map?"

Fred and George´s mouths fell open in perfect unison as Harry felt his own do the same.

"Um," Fred stammered, "Well, you see..."

"The truth, please, gentlemen."

"Well, um," Fred continued, "we, um...we..."

"We stole it," George said mournfully, besting Ron with a deeper shade of red in the face than Harry had ever seen.

"You did what?" Harry breathed.

"We stole it," George repeated, chancing a look at the Headmaster´s face. "We´re sorry."

"Really, really sorry," Fred put in for good measure.

"Thank you," Dumbledore said simply.

"How did you steal it?" Harry wanted to know. "Where from?"

"From Dumbledore´s office," Fred mumbled. "We stole it from Dumbledore´s office."

Harry could not believe the words he was hearing. And Dumbledore had known this? And he hadn´t punished them?

"How on earth did you get into Dumbledore´s office?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"The day that we turned all the teachers into birds," Fred began, casting a sickened glance at his brother. Obviously he realized how badly they were coming off here, "part of our detention was to find Longbottom´s toad, and we chased that bloody critter-"

George elbowed him. Dumbledore´s eyes twinkled.

"Sorry, we chased the toad halfway around the castle and we couldn´t catch him. Finally we saw him squeeze under the wall that stands in front of the staircase to your office, Dumbledore, um, sir. We knew there was no way he´d come out of there, so we started trying to get in. We should have just come to you, sir, we know that now, but at the time we just wanted to rescue that frog and return it to its loving owner, you see, and-"

Dumbledore rolled his eyes in Harry´s direction, but they were crinkled at the corners, half-smiling. "Just get on with it, please," he said.

"And so we started trying to guess the password, and it was really very easy, Professor, you know, you really ought to be more creative with those passwords-"

George elbowed his brother again.

"And um, so we said `Fizzing Whizbee´ and the wall opened right up, you see, so we, um, we went up."

Fred looked like he had reached the end of his tether. His face was turning a sickly shade of green, which was just as unsettling as George´s red.

"We went up," George took over, "and we saw that toad jump right into an open drawer in the desk. So I went over and reached in and pulled him out, and that´s when I saw it."

"The Marauders´ Map," Harry provided.

"Yes. We weren´t sure why it was in your drawer, Professor, we only knew that Harry had lost it at the end of last year, and we knew how important it had been to him, and how much it might help him...you know, with times being what they are. We honestly were only concerned for Harry´s safety, and that´s why we decided to take the map and give it back to him."

Harry could tell George wasn´t trying to suck up with those words. He meant them. Dumbledore was watching George explain with an expression far more like something bordering on understanding than Harry would have expected, given the circumstances.

"So, like I said, we took it, and then about a week later, that night that everyone went up to the Astronomy Tower really late, we snuck into Harry´s room and left it in his trunk. We´re very sorry, Professor, really. We know we shouldn´t have done it, but we honestly thought we were doing the right thing for Harry."

Dumbledore regarded the twins for a long moment. George was twisting his foot around, shifting his weight nervously, and Fred was biting his lip so hard Harry was worried it might start bleeding. At last Dumbledore spoke.

"Harry is very lucky to have friends that care so deeply for his safety."

Harry couldn´t believe his ears, and neither could the twins, it seemed. Were they really about to get away with this?

"Of course, you will both lose thirty house points."

The twins exchanged a glance, but seemed to actually be quite relieved that they were losing only house points and not any vital organs or anything more serious.

"But allow me to remind you, gentlemen...it is not prudent to attempt to pull the wool over your Headmaster´s eyes, no matter how old and decrepit he might seem." Harry was shocked to see that Dumbledore was smiling. "That replacement that you left in my drawer to try to fool me was a very, very weak attempt indeed. I really would have expected better from the two of you."

"Um..." Fred had clearly run out of words at this point, not knowing at all how to respond to that.

"You may go," Dumbledore told them, but they lingered a minute longer, looking uncertain.

"Go on." Dumbledore shooed at them, and at last their feet sprung into motion, carrying them quickly, and gratefully, from the room.

"You...you knew?" Harry asked once the twins had left the room. "You knew I was in the meeting, that whole time, and you let me get away with it?"

"Oh, I didn´t know at the time, Harry," Dumbledore said, sighing. "You did a very good job of sneaking in, a very good job indeed. It was not until the next day that I figured it out, when I spotted that pathetic blank parchment in my desk drawer."

"You´ve known all this time, and...you didn´t say anything?"

"That´s right, Harry," Dumbledore confirmed lightly. "I knew there would come a proper time for us to discuss it. And now here it is."

Harry just stared, dumbfounded.

"You must have many questions," Dumbledore said, turning very serious again.

"Well, yes."

"I regret that most of them, I will not likely be able to answer."

This did not surprise Harry at all.

"Well, there were certainly a lot of surprises," Harry admitted. "Mrs. Figg, for one."

"Ah yes, Arabella Figg. Splendid woman, she is. Cares a great deal for you, Harry, a great deal indeed."

"I noticed."

"You are wondering how you had five guardians your entire life and never knew?"

"Well, yes! I mean...wait. Five?" Harry counted quickly in his head. There was Arabella Figg, and then the three people she´d brought with her to the meeting. That was only four.

"Yes, Harry, five. There used to be one more, Jeremiah Snow. He was very elderly, and passed away not too long ago."

Jeremiah Snow..."Snowy?" Harry asked, smirking at the memory of Mrs. Figg´s fluffy, if bedraggled, old white cat.

"That´s right," Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling behind his half-moon spectacles. "All four of Mrs. Figg´s colleagues were, are, animagi. All cats."

Harry had figured that out already, and began running down the cats´ names in his head, trying to match them up with the humans he had seen. Tufty had to be Antonio Mezzana, Harry thought, what with that huge mustache he had.

"They have been very diligent in protecting your safety, Harry, very diligent. You owe them a great deal of gratitude."

"Mrs. Figg," Harry said after a moment, "she was...she was best friends with my mother, is that right?" Harry´s stomach did something funny at the knowledge that all his life, his mother´s closest friend had lived just down the street from him, watching him and keeping him safe.

Dumbledore´s eyes took on a deeper warmth, and he smiled, looking wistful. "Yes, that´s right."

"And she..." Harry´s senses darkened. "She thinks it´s her fault, for some reason. She thinks it´s her fault that Voldemort is after me. It has something to do with that Night of the Prophecies, doesn´t it?" Harry asked recklessly. "What is that about? What are the prophecies? Mr. Weasley was fighting with Mundungus Fletcher over it. It has something to do with me, doesn´t it?"

"I regret to say that I simply cannot tell you, Harry. It is for your own good, I assure you. You heard what Mrs. Figg said, about prophecies being a very tricky thing?"

"Yes."

"Sometimes, it is better to know nothing at all than to know too much."

Harry thought he knew what Dumbledore was getting at. "Like when that prophecy was misinterpreted? The one that killed my parents?"

Dumbledore didn´t reply at first, just looked at Harry appraisingly, as if considering how much to tell him.

"That´s right," he finally settled on.

"But how...?" Harry had to ask. "How did it wind up killing my parents?"

"They were overconfident, Harry," Dumbledore said heavily. "We all were. They thought they knew what the words meant, and when they came to me, asking me for guidance...well, I agreed with their interpretation. It seemed to make perfectly good sense. But when we acted on what we thought it meant...well, it brought about the very events that were prophesied."

Harry´s heart, which only a fraction of an hour earlier had been pounding ferociously, now felt numb.

"With prophecies, it is often difficult to know which way to turn. And sometimes, I think, all roads lead to one another, and the harder you fight to make them not come true...well, the more easily they happen."

"Which is why you can´t tell me what the other prophecy is. The one that has to do with me."

Dumbledore just looked at Harry with very grave eyes. "I am afraid I cannot tell you any more, Harry."

But Harry´s mind was working overtime, and he was starting to make connections. "But if Mrs. Figg knows so much about all these prophecies...and if she feels guilty for getting me...getting me, well, into harm´s way...was she...was she the one who made these prophecies?"

Once again, Dumbledore just regarded Harry judicially, and then, resigned, he said, "Among others."

"Was that what my mother did, then?" Harry blurted out. "Was that her job in the Council? She and Arabella were best friends, they must have done everything together, right? Were they seers? Like, real life seers, not like Professor Trelawney, who-"

Dumbledore´s eyes flashed something intense, and Harry ground his words to a halt, knowing he had finally said too much.

"I, um, I don´t mean that Professor Trelawney isn´t a good teacher or anything, I just-"

"It´s all right, Harry," Dumbledore said neutrally, his face returning quickly to it´s usual tranquil state. "I know what you meant."

"I´m sorry," Harry apologized, feeling incredibly chastised but not knowing exactly what in his words had struck a wrong chord. There was something sickening and disheartening about knowing he had pushed the Headmaster too far, when all Dumbledore was trying to do was give him some of the information he so desperately sought. "Thank you for answering some of my questions," he attempted, trying to feel out how far wrong he´d gone.

"You are welcome, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said, sounding sincere. "I truly do regret that I cannot tell you all that you deserve to hear. But in its own time, Harry, everything will take shape."

Harry just nodded, not sure what more to say.

"If you are sure you are quite all right, I should be going. Professor Snape needs my attention."

"Of course," Harry said, watching his Headmaster rise.

"I will tell your friend Ron that he can come back in now. He is waiting just outside the door, you know."

Harry smiled weakly.

"And, Harry," Dumbledore added more seriously, "if anything at all happens again this evening, or if your scar begins to hurt again, I want you to inform me immediately."

"I will," Harry promised.

"Mrs. Figg and her comrades are not the only ones who take your well-being seriously," Dumbledore said genuinely. "I hope you know that."

Harry nodded, and smiled. "I know," he said, feeling a rush of warmth in his chest.

"Then I will bid you good-night," Dumbledore finished, moving toward the door. But just as he reached it, he paused, turning back around. "Sometimes," he told Harry, and it was a long moment before he finished his sentence, "it is uncanny how much you resemble your father."

A breath caught in Harry´s chest, preventing him from answering, and the Headmaster winked at him, then pulled the door open and left the room.