Bound and Broken

Bound and Broken
Chapter One
~~~~~

The dorm was deathly quiet the next morning when Harry opened his eyes. It was Saturday, so it was expected for the students to sleep in a little longer than normal. Harry sighed when he checked the time to find that it was only a quarter past eight. He knew he would not fall back to sleep, so he sat up, pushing the hangings away, and let bright sunshine stream into his sleeping area. Squinting, Harry threw his legs over the bed as he reached for his glasses and pushed them onto his nose. He observed Ron’s and Neville’s perfectly made up beds, which in itself, was quite unusual as Ron never made his bed, and Neville usually just threw the covers up haphazardly. Seamus’s hangings were still closed and Harry could hear him sleeping from within. The door to their dorm burst open and Hermione came stumbling in, still in her night clothes.

Harry blinked at her. “Hermione?”

The girl stared at him with wild eyes. “Oh, Harry! I thought I was going insane!”

“Are you sure you haven’t?” Harry asked cautiously.

“Oh, hush. I… Harry, have you seen anybody else this morning?”

“No, I just woke up, why?”

Hermione did a quick survey of the dorm, taking in Ron’s and Neville’s empty, neat beds. “Seamus is here then.”

“Yes… Hermione, what are you on about?”

Seamus cautiously stuck his head out of his bed with his hair flying out at all angles, and sleep filled eyes. He did not say anything, but observed. Harry glanced at him, and Hermione followed his gaze. “Oh, good morning, Seamus,” Hermione greeted, “I’m sorry if I woke you… it’s just…” She glanced around the room again. “Oh, but where are they?”

“Where are who? Ron and Neville?” Harry inquired.

“Yes, them… and everybody else,” she replied off-handed.

Harry stood from his bed, remembering belatedly that he did not have a shirt on. He fought off a blush, and went to his trunk to retrieve a Weasley jumper. He could feel two pairs of eyes on him. “Hermione… you’re going to have to explain, otherwise, I’ll never know what you’re talking about,” Harry said after he had pulled on the jumper.

“Do you know where Ron and Neville went?”

“No, I just told you that I just woke up.”

“Right… well, I don’t even know how to explain this.”

“Just start from when you noticed something was wrong.”

“Okay, well, on Saturdays, Lavender is usually awake before I am. I don’t know what she does, but I suppose that’s beside the point. Well, this morning was no different. I woke up and she was already gone, her bed was made and everything, which she rarely does.” Hermione’s eyes flickered to Ron’s bed. “But the thing is, is that last night, Lavender told me that she was going to have a bit of a lie-in and not to bother her.”

”Well, maybe she decided not to,” Harry suggested logically.

”That’s what I thought at first, but when I thought of it, I remembered hearing her get up in the middle of the night. Ever since… since Parvati…” Hermione choked.

”Go on,” Harry urged, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Ever since then, Lavender has had terrible nightmares, and I think you’ve probably seen her with Ginny’s group of friends since then. Sometimes, she goes to their dorm when she has nightmares. I thought that may be the case now, so I went to check on her. When I got there though, their door was open and nobody was in there. All their beds were made and nothing was out of place. Ginny’s roommates have this makeshift makeup table in there, and it’s always a mess with makeup and all sorts of other beauty things. I saw it last night before dinner – messy as usual. This morning, there was nothing on it.”

“That’s not so weird, Hermione. They probably cleaned it up, or something.”

“Maybe, but…” Hermione was shifting uncomfortably under both boys’ stares. Harry hated that Hermione had changed so much this term. It was not her fault, Harry knew this, but he wished that she had never seen anything to make her so fidgety. She fidgeted a lot now, and her hands shook. Harry also noticed that her eyes darted around when she was anxious, like at this moment. “I don’t know if it’s that simple, Harry. On my way down to the Common room to see if they were there, I passed by all the other rooms. There was nobody in any of the dorms, and they were all spotless. I know that the students aren’t that meticulous about cleaning.”

Harry began to feel tense. While Hermione had become more nervous, she was still the smartest person Harry knew. She knew what was what, and when things were not the way they were supposed to be.

“What about when you came up the boys staircase?” he asked.

“The same,” she whispered.

“We’ve probably just missed some announcement,” said Seamus suddenly. “Maybe everybody was supposed to be down at the Great Hall for breakfast.”

“Then why are all the dorms so neat?” Hermione asked.

Seamus shrugged, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “House elves gone wild?”

Harry felt the corners of his mouth twitching up. He bit his lip to keep from laughing, but a small chuckle escaped. Hermione glared at both of them. “Oh, come on, Hermione!” Harry chided, “It can’t really be all that serious. There has to be a logical explanation. Let’s just get dressed and we’ll go down to the Great Hall together.”

Hermione nodded and just as quickly she had entered the room, she left. Harry stared after her, and shook his head. “Harry?” Seamus questioned softly.

Harry turned towards the other boy. “Yeah?”

“Are you going to the shower?”

“Yes, I was just going to get my things. Why?”

“I… I ran out of shampoo yesterday. Would you mind if I used some of yours today?”

Harry smiled. “Not at all.”

Seamus offered a forced smile. “Thanks,” he whispered so softly that Harry was not sure he had spoken at all.

Both boys hurried in the shower, and descended the stairs afterward, heading towards the Common room. Halfway down, however, Harry stopped, pressing an arm into Seamus’s chest, effectively stopping him. “Do you hear that?” Harry inquired.

“Hear what?”

“It’s so quiet. It’s nine o’clock, Seamus. There should be other people up by now.”

“Let’s go see what’s going on.”

Seamus pulled on Harry’s arm and they set off for the Common room again. Hermione was pacing back and forth when they arrived, her hair pulled up into a hasty ponytail. She was wearing a light purple, V-neck jumper with Muggle jeans, and sneakers. “There’s nobody in Gryffindor tower besides us,” she announced without looking up. “I double checked while you two were in the shower.” She looked up and stared at them, utterly perplexed. “There’s nobody in the tower. That rarely ever happens. There’s always at least one year who doesn’t have a class at some point in every day, and there are always those students who skip class. There are always students here. I think Quidditch is the only exception. I’m pretty sure you, Harry, would have at least known of a Quidditch event.”

”Damn right,” he said fervently. “There was nothing today. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw play against each other next Saturday.”

Seamus quietly made for the portrait hole and began climbing out. Harry chased after him. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to look for an explanation,” he replied and left.

Harry looked back at Hermione and shrugged. They both caught up with the Irish boy within a few moments. “Seamus,” Hermione said cautiously, “I’m glad to hear your voice again. Don’t let us go so long without hearing it again, okay?”

Seamus studied Hermione as he had been studying Harry since last night, one eyebrow furrowed down. “My problem is not as simple as you might think it is, Hermione. The pettiness of student life does not seem so important to a person after they’ve been forced to kill their best friend. You saw what I did, Hermione… hell, you tripped over what I did.”

“It wasn’t your fault!” Hermione exclaimed.

“It was my fault. I was the one who was too weak to fight off the Imperius – “

“Most people can’t fight it off –”

“Harry can,” Seamus said simply. “I remember seeing him fight it off in fourth year.”

“Some people are just stronger in some areas. That happens to be one of Harry’s strong points.”

“What it basically tells us, Hermione, is that Harry has a hell of a strong mind, and that mine is weak. That’s all there is to it. I clearly remember trying to fight it off, but then giving up because it was too tough. I couldn’t do it, and Dean is dead because of it. That’s all there is to it, so leave it at that. As to my talking now… it’s only because I’ve taken an interest in this situation. If there is indeed a problem, you shall be graced with my voice. If there is nothing amiss, then my curiosity ends, and so does my socialization with insignificant student life.”

Hermione turned away, looking both hurt and understanding and they continued on their way to the Great Hall to see if any students were there. When they arrived at the top of the marble staircase, they stopped and listened. It was deathly silent. There were no voices coming from the Great Hall. There was nobody coming in and out of breakfast. The three Gryffindors looked at each other in turn, listening to the echoing sound of silence and a staircase far above them changing positions.

”I don’t like this,” Hermione whispered.

“Let’s go,” Seamus said bravely and descended the stairs at a fast pace. Hermione and Harry followed at an equally fast pace, and caught up with Seamus just as he opened the doors to the Great Hall. If they had been expecting a rush of sound, they were sorely disappointed. There was not a single soul in the Hall. Not a plate or a morsel of food graced neither the long House tables, nor the Head table. All benches and chairs were pushed in, and the wood looked freshly polished. The fireplace on the far right of the hall was unlit. A cold draft of wind blew through the room and whipped around the three Gryffindors.

“I’m so bloody confused,” Seamus muttered. “This can’t be right. That fireplace is always going, even in the summer.”

“It’s charmed to blow cool air,” Hermione informed them almost automatically. Her brown eyes were large as she surveyed the empty room. She shivered, and Harry pulled her into his side for warmth. Wrapping her arm around his waist in return, she buried the side of her face into his Weasley jumper. “We should have brought our cloaks,” she commented.

“I didn’t expect this. If I had, I would have brought my cloak, scarf and mittens,” Harry replied.

”I should have suspected it,” Hermione said. “The fire in the Common room wasn’t going when I went down there. I had to start it.”

“But if the fires haven’t been started, then that means the house elves have disappeared as well,” Seamus pointed out.

“We don’t know that anybody has disappeared yet,” Harry said reasonably. “We’ll figure this out.”

“Yes, and first we need to find out if there is anybody else here from a different house,” said Hermione.

“I know where Hufflepuff house is. I can go there,” Seamus offered.

Hermione studied him dubiously, obviously wondering how he knew, but then nodded. “All right, you go to Hufflepuff, and I can go to Ravenclaw. Harry, I’m sorry, but you’re the one here who knows where Slytherin is.”

Harry nodded resigned. “I figured as much. I’ll go.”

”Thanks for not complaining, Harry. At times like these, I’m glad you’re not Ron.”

”Yes, but at others, you wished I was Ron,” Harry teased.

Hermione blushed and pushed away from Harry. “Stop that, you… you, Harry,” she laughed nervously. Harry laughed.

“Yes, well,” Seamus coughed, “we should go.”

“Yes,” Hermione confirmed, suddenly very serious and businesslike. “Keep your wands out just in case you come across anything, okay? I don’t want you two getting hurt. Let’s meet back here in a half an hour. If one of us isn’t back by then, we’ll wait here for five minutes and then go and look.”

“Got it,” Seamus and Harry confirmed at the same time.

Harry stayed behind and watched that both of them left and stood in front of the open doors of the Great Hall. He did not know what to make of this situation. It was completely surreal. He remembered having a dream like this one time when he was about seven years old. In the dream, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and Dudley had disappeared for a week, leaving Harry by himself. In the dream, Harry had had a blast running the house by himself. The fridge had given him an endless supply of whatever kind of food he wanted, and his cupboard spit out any kind of toys that he desired. Harry smiled at the dream, but quickly frowned as he realised that this very real situation would not be as carefree. Who knew what was in store for them.

“Potter,” sneered a voice to Harry’s left. Harry jerked violently from the shock of hearing a voice so suddenly, and turned.

“Malfoy,” Harry said, genuinely surprised. Draco Malfoy was standing at the top of the main staircase to the dungeons, and leaning against the stone wall with his arms crossed over his chest. His hair was slicked back as usual, and his robes were a midnight blue, showing just a hint of a black shirt and trousers underneath. The dark colours contrasted nicely with the light of his blond hair.

“Oh, for Mordred’s sake,” Harry groaned, “this is very foreboding.”

Malfoy smirked and pushed easily off the wall and slowly walked to Harry. “Foreboding, Potter? I didn’t know that your vocabulary extended that far. In fact –”

“Oh, just shut your mouth, will you, Malfoy?” Harry snapped irritably. “Yes, this is impossibly foreboding. If you are the only living person in this school besides for Hermione and Seamus….” Harry broke off and growled low in his throat.

Malfoy smirked again and walked into the Great Hall. He stopped inside the doorway, taking in the bereft surroundings, and then turned back to Harry. “So… there really isn’t anybody here, then?” he asked nonchalantly, but Harry could see something else in his face.

“Oh, don’t pretend like you don’t know,” Harry hissed. He advanced on the blond. “Malfoy, if I find out that you have anything to do with this… I will castrate you.”

Malfoy stepped up so that he was in Harry’s face. “Potter, you daft, insane idiot… why would you think I had anything to do with this? As much I just love the idea of being the last people in this school with three Gryffindors –”

“Wait,” Harry interrupted, “so, there’s nobody here from Slytherin, other than you?”

“None that I could tell - I wasn’t able to go up to the girls’ dormitories, so I couldn’t tell you if anybody is there.”

“Oi, Harry!” called out Seamus, “I found two Hufflepuffs!”

Harry turned and saw Seamus leading Susan Bones and Zacharias Smith up the stairs from the hallway that held the kitchens. “Oh great,” Harry muttered. “Now I have to put up with no less than two little wankers…. Hey, Susan, Zacharias.”

“Did you find anybody?” Susan asked, still not able to see Malfoy, who was behind Harry.

Harry grimaced. “Yes, I found Malfoy.”

As Malfoy sauntered into view, Hermione descended the steps with Luna Lovegood on her tail. “Only one Ravenclaw,” Hermione confirmed as she spotted everybody and took in who was there. Her lip twitched slightly in disgust when she saw Malfoy, but she pointedly ignored him.

“Hello, Harry,” Luna greeted in her far off voice. “This is strange, isn’t it? It reminds me of the article that my dad ran in the Quibbler a few years ago –”

“Luna,” Hermione interrupted, smiling kindly, “there is no possible way that the squid is behind this.”

“If I had known that you lot was what I have to put up with,” Malfoy said scornfully, eyeing his fellow students distastefully, “I would have locked myself in the dungeons.”

“We’re not stopping you,” Hermione said pleasantly. Malfoy’s lip twitched upwards in annoyance, and was about to reply, but Hermione continued. “As it is, you’re going to get hungry, so I’m not so sure that that would be a good idea. I was saying to Luna on the way down here that since it seems as though the house elves are gone as well, we should probably head down to the kitchens and see what kind of food we have there. I know I’m famished, and I didn’t see Harry or Seamus eat at all last night.” The aforementioned boys glared.

“Well, no use glaring at me,” Hermione admonished. “Come along everybody.”

When the group of seven students made it to the kitchens, they found that the house elves had indeed disappeared. Hermione and surprisingly Malfoy were frantic in their search for them. Malfoy was gone the longest, and when he reappeared, he was slightly flushed.

“We are completely doomed,” he announced to nobody in particular. “If we don’t have the house elves, how are we going to eat?”

Harry and Hermione, who were digging in the cupboards for eggs and bread, stopped what they were doing and looked up. Harry approached the blond with a small smile. “You are completely helpless, aren’t you, Malfoy?”

“No, Potter,” Draco sneered. “I’m perfectly capable of doing things for myself.”

“If you were, you wouldn’t be in such a state of despair right now. Did it ever occur to you that we can cook our own food, Malfoy?”

“Cook? Are completely mad, Potter?”

“Not at all. If you want to eat, Malfoy, I suggest pitching in. Everybody is doing it.” Harry gestured around the room to the other students. Luna had tied a rather atrocious apron around her waist and was using her wand to set a table. The apron was a blazing colour of blue with hot pink flowers printed on it. Zacharias and Susan were looking for kippers to go along with their meal. Hermione had just pulled out the eggs and was now looking for bread. Seamus was making pumpkin juice.

Malfoy stared around appalled. “Potter, you have another thing coming if you think I’m going to help make any food.”

“Then you have another thing coming if you expect to eat the food that we make, Malfoy.”

“You can’t do that!” Malfoy called as Harry walked back to Hermione.

“Oh, you’ll find that I can. Either starve or help. It’s your choice.”

“I’d rather starve. I don’t think I should even try to eat anything that a Mudblood cooks.”

“If you ever say that again, Malfoy, you’ll be sorry. It’s going to be hard to prove anything that I do to you with no teachers around. Watch your back.”

Draco lowered his head and looked at Harry through his eyelashes, glaring malevolently. The Slytherin cast a disdainful glance around the room, turned on the heel of his foot and left.

“What a little wanker,” Zacharias piped up from a frying pan where the kippers were cooking. “I’ve never liked him much.”

“Who does?” Hermione asked, putting some bread to toast. “It’s a shame we’ll have to put up with him while we try to figure out what’s going on here. Harry, could you watch after the eggs for me, please?”

Harry obliged her request and soon, the air was filled with the smell of cooking food. When the students were sat around the table that sat beneath the Hufflepuff table, they served themselves with a hefty amount of food each. Harry grinned. “Make sure to eat it all up. We don’t want Malfoy coming back here to see if we’ve left anything for him.”

“Well, that’s not very nice,” Susan admonished.

“When have you ever heard of a Malfoy being nice?” Harry replied, buttering his toast. “I’ve got my wand ready whenever that little piece of slime is around.” As Harry spread marmalade onto his food, he looked around to see everybody staring at him. “What?”

Seamus shifted in his seat. “Don’t you think we should save our petty school rivalries until after we’ve figured out what’s going on? There is obviously something not right around here, Harry.”

“Oh? And what about you, Seamus?” Zacharias said bitingly. “You wouldn’t seem the type to really care what’s going on, with the way you have been behaving this term.”

Seamus’s face turned red and he stood. But before he could do anything, Hermione stood as well, slamming her silverware onto the wooden surface of the table. Harry jumped slightly in his seat, and looked to his glass of pumpkin juice, finding the vibrations in the liquid extremely interesting.

“Now, really,” she grit out. “Zacharias, that was uncalled for. I won’t make you apologise because I am neither your mother nor your professor, but I will give you a detention if you say something like that again.” She turned to Seamus then, her gaze and voice softening. “Sit down, Seamus. He won’t say it again.”

Seamus did not seem grateful for her interference at all, Harry thought, but the sandy haired boy sat anyway, and dug into his eggs. Harry stared across the table at him and Seamus looked up, making eye contact with the darker Gryffindor just as they had the previous night in the Great Hall. Harry sent a small, reassuring smile at him before he returned to watching his pumpkin juice settle.

“Now,” Hermione continued, “I agree, and I have already said that Malfoy is insufferable, and I’m sorry that he’s here with us, but, we’ll have to make do. This means that we will have to be civil with him.” Here, she gave Harry a pointed stare.

Harry held up his hands, leaning back in his chair when he felt her gaze. “He’s the one who instigates everything, Hermione, and you know it. I’ll do my best to be civil with him, but I can’t promise anything.”

Hermione sighed, nodding. “I know that’s the best you can give me, Harry.”

She sat again and the table returned to silence for a few minutes. When Hermione had finished off her food and drink, she sat back and watched her companions. “We need to search the castle,” she decided. “Harry, I know you have a certain map that could help our efforts, so if you could get that, please.”

Harry, who had been gulping down the remains of his juice, nodded as he set his cup down with a sigh. “Yeah, I wish I would have thought of that earlier. I’ll just go get it now, shall I?” He stood from his place, and Hermione suggested for the rest of them to clean up the mess they had made. Harry closed the portrait of the fruit just as the rest of his companions stood to obey.

The Gryffindor knew that he easily could have summoned the aging piece of parchment to him, but he felt he needed some time to himself. So, he slowly made his way to Gryffindor tower to collect the Marauder’s Map.

It was a most unusual situation to find themselves in, indeed. Harry had found himself in curious situations before, but never had he found himself at a complete loss as to what was going on. There had always been somebody to go to, whether it had been Ron, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Remus, or Sirius. Harry stopped himself in his thoughts and started over again.

The situation was completely unnerving, and Harry found himself jumping at shadows. The castle was eerily silent, and he could swear that even as he ascended onto the fifth floor, he could hear the echoes of dishes clanking around in the kitchens. “There has to be a reasonable explanation for this,” he muttered to himself distractedly. “It’s November first today. Yesterday was Halloween, and we were eating happily…” Harry nodded once to himself, “or not so happily, as the case may be, and there was nothing seriously amiss. Voldemort hasn’t shown himself in public since the Ministry over a year ago. What has he been planning?”

Something heavy clattered to the floor somewhere near Harry, and he stopped, looking nervously around him. “Peeves?” he asked, hopefully. The only answer he received was more silence. Taking a deep breath, Harry walked to the nearest window to look out. It was a sunny day out, and there seemed to be no wind at all. The grass had been slowly turning brown for weeks now, and the lake looked completely devoid of life. There were no ripples, and no waves crashing on the rocky shore. Feeling distinctly ruffled at the stillness of everything, Harry tried opening the window, but it appeared to be stuck, and he gave up, panting slightly. He leaned his forehead against the glass, willing his quick heart to slow.

Another crash came from behind him, and he spun around, his wand aloft in the blink of an eye. “Is somebody there?” he asked loudly.

More silence. Harry did not know what he expected.

Scanning the surroundings, Harry slowly put his wand away and hurried to Gryffindor tower. Only when he reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, did Harry slow down. The password died on his lips as he stared at it. The Fat Lady was gone. “Er- Mrs. er- Fat Lady?” he questioned uncertainly. “Are you there?” He knocked on the portrait, but she did not come. “Jelly-legs?” he said even more uncertainly, hoping the password would get her to come. Glancing around, Harry saw that there was nobody in any of the portraits. The backgrounds were still painted as clearly as ever, but there was nobody there. Harry suddenly felt very alone, as he had never done in all his time at Hogwarts. He looked at the chair where the Fat Lady usually sat and cautiously moved forward. “I’ll just er- open this up by myself, shall I?”

The Gryffindor braced himself for a fight, but when he tugged on the portrait, he nearly fell over as it glided open with ease. “Oh. Well, maybe you did hear me then?”

Blinking, Harry climbed through the portrait hole. When he reached his dorm, he quickly rummaged through his trunk and located the map. “I solemnly swear I am up to no good,” he intoned, tapping his wand on the parchment. Lines started to spread over it like vines, and Harry quickly scanned his eyes to the kitchens to make sure that everybody was still there. They seemed to be gathered around the table, having finished their clean-up job. Next, Harry looked for Malfoy, and found his dot pacing the Slytherin Common room.

Biting his lip apprehensively, Harry scanned his eyes over the rest of the castle, finding nothing suspicious, or even any other dot that would indicate another human among them, until he looked at the place where he had stopped on the fifth floor. There was an unused classroom in that area, which had been used by Dumbledore when he taught Transfiguration. Inside this room, there was a dot pacing the perimeter of the room. Heart racing, Harry noticed that there was no name next to this person or thing. He stared at its movements for a minute before moving on to a different part of the castle.

In the very top of the eastern tower of Hogwarts, near the Ravenclaw dorms, there was a room that had been closed up for as long as Harry could figure, hundreds of years. It was deemed unsafe to go, and even he had not had the courage to go up there. Besides that, there had never been a reason to. But now, as Harry’s eyes passed over it, there was another unlabelled dot moving along the perimeter of that abandoned and closed off room.

Heart hammering uncomfortably in his chest, Harry tapped the parchment with his wand. “Mischief managed.” The lines and people of Hogwarts disappeared in an instant. “Pull it together, Potter,” he whispered to himself, “there’s an explanation for this.” But there was the nagging thought in the back of his mind, that the Marauder’s Map had never failed to label somebody before, and now there were no less than two dots that had no names.

Hurrying as fast as possible, Harry left the tower, vaguely noticing that the portrait slammed back open and echoed loudly as he rushed out. As he reached the place he stopped before, he slowed to a fast walk. Another crash sounded, and he put his ear up to the door. There was no sound inside as he had expected. Gathering all of the courage that he could muster, he made an attempt to open the door, but the handle was so cold, it burned. He snatched his hand back with a small yelp. As he looked down at his hand, a movement caught his eye from underneath the door. It seemed as if something was coming from beneath the crack.

Harry kneeled down to study it, and found that it appeared to be a pitch black hand – a shadow, and it was reaching for him. “Oh, Merlin,” his breath hitched, and before he knew it, the hand snatched at his jumper and pulled him down. His forehead connected roughly with the heavy door, and stars danced in front of his eyes. There seemed to be wind in his ears, but as Harry strained to listen, it was somebody whispering, though he could not make out the words. “Get off!” he exclaimed, alarmed. The whispering wind grew louder in his ears, and he snatched the hand, only to be engulfed by that same burning cold. In complete desperation, Harry slipped out of his jumper, and crawled backwards from the grappling shadow-hand. He fixed his crooked glasses, and grabbed at his jumper as he shivered from the cold drafts blowing through the hall. The piece of clothing ripped, and the entire right sleeve went underneath the door with the hand.

Panting, Harry got to his feet, and ran back to the kitchens. He tickled the pear, and hurried inside, face flushed, and goose pimples standing out on his flesh. Every student inside jumped up at his entrance, and they goggled. Hermione came to her senses first and rushed to him. “Oh, Harry, what in the world happened? You didn’t run into Malfoy did you? Put on your shirt! You’ll catch your death, and I’m quite certain I’ve seen you without one on enough times today.”

Harry blushed, and struggled into it. The yarn was frayed and coming undone where it had been ripped. When he had righted himself somewhat, he slumped into a chair next to Zacharias Smith. “No, I didn’t run into Malfoy. He’s in the Slytherin Common room. Well, he was when I checked the map.”

“You do have it still, don’t you?” Hermione asked anxiously.

“What’s this map you’re speaking of?” Susan asked curiously.

“We’ll explain in a moment,” Hermione said quietly, sitting next to Harry, and rubbing his bare arm for warmth. “What happened? Did you run into somebody else?”

Harry shook his head, still feeling a bit shaken up. “I ran into something, that’s for sure.” He hesitantly took the map from his pocket and activated it. He regretted not being able to keep the map a secret from everybody any longer, but he supposed that it could not be helped. He spread it over the table and everybody bent their heads over it. “This is the Marauder’s Map, made by four students many years ago,” Harry explained. “They called themselves, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. Anyway, it’s a map of Hogwarts, as I’m sure you can see. It tells you where everybody is. See? There’s us in the kitchens, and there’s Malfoy in Slytherin.” Malfoy had stopped moving, but was still in the Slytherin Common room. “This map isn’t fooled by Invisibility cloaks, or anything of the sort. By every dot, there should be a name, and there always had been since I came into possession of this map, and there always was before.”

“That’s not what it looks like to me,” Zacharias said, pointing out the dot on the fifth floor. “That dot doesn’t have a name on it. Who is it?”

Hermione gasped and leaned over it. “Harry? Who is that?”

“What is it, is the question you should be asking, Hermione. That,” Harry pointed at the dot, “is what I ran into. That is most certainly not a human. I stopped near there on my way to the tower, and heard a few crashes, but I didn’t know where it was coming from, so I continued on my way. I had been hoping it was Peeves, but even that’s too much to ask, I think.”

”He’s never around when you need him,” Susan said dryly.

“Indeed,” Harry agreed. “Anyway, I had studied the map in my dorm, and saw that dot, and one in the eastern tower, right there.” Harry pointed to the second unlabelled dot he had seen.

“Oh, how curious,” Luna said. “There’s one in the library as well.”

Harry’s eyes snapped to the library, and sure enough, an unlabelled dot was walking the perimeter of the Restricted Section. Hermione clucked her tongue and looked to Harry. “So, what happened to get you in such a state now?”

“Well, I stopped at that room on the fifth floor on my way back down. I was curious, and I attempted to open the door, but couldn’t, because the handle was so cold.” Harry continued to explain what happened. All of his fellow students were engrossed in his tale, and the details of what had happened. “So,” Harry concluded, “we are most certainly not alone in this castle. I don’t know what is here with us though.”

The small gathering fell silent as they contemplated the situation that they were in. Harry stared unseeingly at the map in front of him, though he realised after a few minutes that he was concentrating on Malfoy’s dot. He was back to pacing the Common room, and he would stop every once in a while, but continue moving again. Harry folded up the map without deactivating it, and put it back in his pocket.

“So, Potter,” Zacharias said, breaking the uneasy silence. “I’m not saying I don’t believe what happened to you, but how are we to know that the map hasn’t gone wonky or something? Or maybe there’s always been a problem with it.”

“Look, I know there has never been anything wrong with it, and I know there isn’t now. I know the makers, and I trust them to make a decent product. They were the top of their class. Besides, there is obviously something wonky with whatever is pacing these rooms. They aren’t human.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Susan spoke up, “who are the makers of that map?”

Harry sighed, and Hermione rubbed his bare arm again. He stood and turned away. “One of them was my father, and that’s all you need to know.” He walked to the door, and turned around again. Seamus was looking at him with something close to sympathy, and Luna was staring at him with her large eyes, twirling her wand absentmindedly between her fingers. “Anyway, I need some fresh air. Maybe it would do us all some good, yeah?”

“You need a cloak,” Hermione argued.

”I’ll summon it, and besi-“

”So, actually,” Zacharias interrupted, “you didn’t actually know the makers of that map. I mean, you don’t remember your father, surely. He was killed before you were old enough. How do you know your father was smart enough to-“

“Enough!” Harry grit out. “My father was a smart man, and I’ll kindly ask you not to question his intelligence. No, I don’t remember him. But, I do know the other three, and I trust their abilities.”

“Were they friends of your father’s?” Zacharias pressed.

“It is none of your business.”

“You know, Potter, you have entirely too many secrets.” The Hufflepuff stood up. “With all of those secrets, how do we know we can trust you?”

Seamus stood up from his seat and moved to Harry’s side. “If there is anybody here who is the most trustworthy, Smith, it would be Harry. I’d trust him with my life before I put even a Knut of trust into the likes of you.”

Zacharias scoffed. “This coming from the boy who killed his best friend.”

“Now, really!” Susan admonished. “That was uncalled for. We all know how it happened. Seamus never meant any harm to Dean.”

Hermione began shifting on her feet. “Well… let’s go with Harry’s suggestion and go outside. Some fresh air would do some good, wouldn’t it?”

Zacharias glanced sceptically between Harry, Seamus, and Luna. “I’m not going anywhere with those three.” Susan seemed to look at Luna with a look of contempt as well, but she smiled at Harry and Seamus.

“I’ll go outside,” she confirmed.

Hermione’s motion to go outside was quickly agreed to. Zacharias led the way out, but he stalked in the other direction, mumbling under his breath about bloody Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. Harry shook his head. “It’s enough that we have to put up with Malfoy, but we have Smith as well.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hermione said, latching herself to Harry’s bare arm, and glancing around nervously. Harry squeezed her arm reassuringly and the small party of students made their way to the entrance hall. The dark haired boy noticed with some chagrin that the girls were gathering around him. Though Susan did not touch him, she stayed close to his side, and Luna kept stepping on his feet from behind. He glanced back at Seamus to see him straying morosely behind them. Harry swallowed a lump in his throat and kept leading the way.

As they neared the top of the stairs, they could all hear ragged breathing, and somebody cursing under their breath. Harry motioned for silence and they crept up. The sight that met their eyes, made a soft snigger come from Harry. Malfoy had left his Common room and was facing the open doors. His normally immaculate hair was messed as if he had run his fingers through it numerous times, and his body heaved as he tried to catch his breath.

”It’s right there,” Malfoy muttered to himself, still not aware of their presence. “I should be able to just step right out.” And with a low grunt, he dashed forward, and tried to leap out of the door. However, before he made it out, he hit an invisible wall and he fell hard onto the stone floor behind him. The breath was knocked out of him, and he groaned low in his throat.

”Oh,” Susan and Luna exclaimed in alarm and moved forward to help. Seamus moved toward the door, and Harry watched as he put his hand against an invisible wall. He felt all along the opening in the door, looking for an opening.

”There’s no opening,” Seamus announced. “It’s like a painting, only I can feel what the temperature is like outside. It’s a bit chilly,” he finished unnecessarily.

Malfoy was beginning to push himself gracefully from the floor, pushing away the hands of the girls as he did so. “I’m fine!” he snapped irritably. Susan jumped away as if shocked, but Luna merely backed away serenely, as if she expected it.

“Well, going outside is obviously out of the question,” Harry commented glumly. “I kind of wanted to fly.”

Malfoy whirled on Harry with fire in his grey eyes. “What an astute observation, Potter. Although, I must say that I’m particularly impressed that you were able to put two and two together so quickly.”

Harry glared. “We heard you talking to yourself, Malfoy,” he sneered. “Is the hunger getting to you? I’m sure we didn’t clean up all the crumbs. Perhaps you could go scrounge something up for yourself.”

Malfoy’s lip curled, and Hermione stepped between them. “Stop this, this instant,” she demanded. “Considering what happened to Harry this morning when he went back to Gryffindor by himself, I don’t think we should go too far away from each other at any one time. We need to stay in the same dormitories, I think.”

“Hufflepuff has closed up on us,” Susan said timidly. “So, I think somebody should find Zacharias so he doesn’t do anything stupid. He has nowhere to go.”

“I’m not going,” Harry said stubbornly.

“Harry, the map,” Hermione said crossly, “and we’ll all go.”

“Well, I’m not hosting anybody in the dungeons,” Malfoy said, sneering at Hermione. “I don’t need to dirty them up with the likes of you.”

Hermione’s hand twitched towards her wand, but she steeled herself. “We wouldn’t want to stay there anyhow, Malfoy. I have a feeling the Hufflepuffs won’t want to stay in Ravenclaw… Am I right?” she asked Susan, who nodded, glancing toward the stairs they had just come up.

“Fine. Then it’s Gryffindor,” Hermione decided. “The girls will come with me to my dorm, and the boys will go to Harry and Seamus’s dorm.”

“There is no way I’m staying in Gryffindor,” Malfoy stated vehemently, glaring at Harry with distaste. “Least of all in the Golden Boy’s rooms.”

“Malfoy, for all I care,” Harry grit out, “you can go down to your dungeons and rot there… just like your father in Azkaban. Maybe we’ll lock you down there,” he mused.

Malfoy growled low in his throat and moved almost cat-like towards Harry and pinned him harshly against a stone wall, gripping his neck tightly. Harry choked.

“Fuck. Off. Potter,” he ground out. Malfoy leaned his head towards Harry and whispered so nobody else could hear him. “Just you wait, Potter. After we get out of… whatever this is, you will not have to worry about where I am staying. You can be sure of that.”

“Is that a threat?” Harry choked out.

“You can take it however you want to, Potter.”

Malfoy pushed hard against Harry’s neck and then let him go. The blond looked disdainfully around him. “I’ll be in Slytherin. There’s no way I’m coming to Gryffindor. Wake me up when this nightmare is over.”

With that, the Slytherin stalked away to the dungeons. The five students left stared after him in silence. After a few moments, Seamus shifted, and smiled glumly around. “Well, all things considered, I think that went pretty well.”

Harry smiled thinly. “Yes, and if things keep going that well, it’ll make for a long ordeal…. Well, let’s go get your things so you can move into Gryffindor,” he directed towards Luna and Susan. They both nodded, Susan glancing to where Malfoy had disappeared. “Don’t worry about him,” Harry soothed. “He’s Malfoy. He’ll get by just fine on his own.”

Even as Harry said this, he wondered if they would work through this at all. He forced a smile anyway, and motioned for his companions to follow him.