Harry Potter and the Watcher's Council

“So, I'm wondering, do the other cookie animals feel sorta ripped? Like, is the hippo going, 'Hey, man, where are my pants? I have my hippo dignity!' And you know the monkey's just, 'I mock you with my monkey pants!' And there's a big coup in the zoo.” -Oz, What's My Line 2

Harry awoke to darkness and the sound of a door banging not too far off. He blinked owlishly, the room a dark blur in front of him without his glasses, his head groggy and aching, wondering how long he'd been out. And what had Malfoy done to him, anyway? His fingers shook as he reached for his glasses, knowing when he put them on he'd find himself in the hospital wing. Again. He hoped Malfoy had gotten detention for the rest of the year for this, considering his head felt like it was about to fall off and his leg ached dully.

Oh right. That. Harry winced, remembering the horrible crunching sound he'd heard as he landed and the pain in his leg... it'd been broken, he was sure of that. Malfoy had broken his bloody leg and hit him with the worst curse Harry had ever felt in his life outside of Crutiatus. It had surely been dark magic. Maybe Malfoy would be expelled.

Just as Harry's fingers closed on his glasses the doors to the infirmary flew open with a loud bang. Harry snatched his hand back and ducked under the covers, but the people entering the infirmary were too distracted the screaming girl they were carrying to notice him. Harry peeked out from beneath his blankets and what he saw left him gaping in shock. It was Snape and McGonagall with Dumbledore following behind them, and between them, her limbs snapped straight in a Binding Charm, was Ginny.

"I'm FINE!" she screamed, struggling against the Binding Charm holding her, for the most part, in place. Snape and McGonagall tightened their grips on her arms, exchanging dark looks over her head. "Let me go, damn it! There's more out there! I need to kill them before they reach the castle."

"Miss Weasley!" McGonagall gasped, scandalized. "You must get a hold of yourself and calm down this instant!"

Snape managed to get Ginny onto the bed next to Harry despite her struggles. He held her down forcibly by the shoulders while McGonagall conjured long, white strips of fabric that wrapped themselves around Ginny's chest and legs, restraining her.

"You don't understand!" Ginny yelled. "Stop being idiots and let me go, damn it!" Harry's eyes widened in shock, but in the chaos of Ginny's entrance into the hospital wing, neither Snape nor McGonagall seemed to notice he was even there.

"Miss Weasley," Snape hissed, his voice holding a hint of danger. "Calm yourself before you say something you may regret."

Ginny screamed incoherently, her head thrashing back and forth on the pillow as she struggled against her bonds. The bed began to creak ominously. Harry thought that if she didn't manage to break free of the ties themselves, she may just break the bed entirely. McGonagall gasped again, her lined face turning to Snape with a look of sheer panic. Snape remained calm, turning his back on them, seemingly unconcerned, to rummage through Madam Pomfrey's supply cabinet. When he turned back to Ginny, the moonlight spilling through the windows reflected against something in his hand--a long, frightening-looking needle.

"Severus, do you really think--" McGonagall began, but her voice was drowned out by Ginny's hoarse screams as Snape approached her with the needle.

"No!" she yelled, her eyes wide with horror. Her voice lowered to a fearful whisper, her eyes wide and shining with angry tears in the darkness of the room. "Please, please don't! You know...please Professor, they'll come for me and I won't..." her voice trailed off abruptly and she slumped against the pillows, body slack beneath her bonds. Snape stepped back from her, tossing the used needle into the dustbin with a disgusted sneer. He'd injected her with something so quickly and expertly that none of them had even noticed.

"Was that... wise?" McGonagall asked, hand at her throat as she stared wide-eyed at her unconscious student. "Surely there are other methods..."

"There may well be," Snape acknowledged, checking Ginny's pulse dispassionately, as if the state of her health didn't really matter to him one way or another. "But she was a danger to herself, at the very least. Something had to be done and I didn't care to explain things to Pomfrey. Unless you wanted to, of course."

"No, I suppose you're right," McGonagall said with a sigh. "What do you suppose could've caused her to act that way? Ginny's always been such a lively, energetic girl but this..."

"Classic case of Paranoia Poisoning," Snape said, his voice far calmer than Harry thought should be possible. Harry was trembling on his cot, conflicting emotions battling for supremacy within while Snape... Snape acted as if a student being poisoned and acting like she'd gone utterly mad was something he saw everyday.

"Come, Minerva," Snape said, "she'll be all right for now. I've given her a Sleeping Serum that should keep her unconscious for the night, until I can mix the antidote." Harry supposed Snape was trying to sound comforting, but his cold voice couldn't quite succeed.

When the door swing shut behind the teachers, Harry climbed out of bed, gasping at the pain in his stomach from Malfoy's curse. He shuffled over to Ginny's cot and sat gingerly on the edge, staring down at her pale face, smooth and peaceful in her magical sleep. She had a nasty-looking cut on her forehead and a dark bruise was forming on her left cheek. Harry frowned, wondering how she'd been injured and who had poisoned her. Was this the spell Hermione had found in Ginny's blood, then?

Harry sighed, his throat clenching painfully when he tried to swallow. His fingers found hers of their own volition and Harry choked back a sob. This year had been nothing short of horrible—for all of them, Ginny included. He could see the strain in her jaw even now, the dark circles beneath her eyes like bruises on the delicate skin there. She looked as exhausted as Harry felt. More, actually, and he squeezed her fingers, wishing once again that she would confide in him, trust him. He could help her, if only she would tell him what was going on.

Harry wished things had been different. It has seemed at first that he and Ginny... that she wasn't as over him as she had seemed to be last year. But then, after Halloween, everything had changed. She had changed, had become someone he barely recognized.

But for now, while she lay in peaceful oblivion, Harry could almost convince himself she was the same girl he'd known since that first trip onto platform 9 3/4 so long ago. He allowed himself this fantasy, if only for a few moments. He reached up and brushed long strands of her hair back from her cheek, letting his fingers linger there, enjoying the feel of her smooth, pale skin against his fingers. A great, shuddering sigh ripped through him and Harry wrenched his hand away suddenly, sliding off the cot at the same time.

To his surprise, Ginny's eyelids fluttered at his sudden movement. A moment later Ginny's eyes, nearly black with dilated pupil, were opened wide in his direction. Harry could practically feel her struggling to focus them, but her eyes refused to cooperate.

"Harry?" she murmured, voice scratchy from yelling. "Harry, is that...? Is anyone there?"

"I-I'm here," Harry whispered, not quite sure why he was trying to be quiet when there was no one around to hear them.

"I thought I'd never..." she trailed off, swallowing painfully. Harry took a step closer, resisting the urge to grasp her fingers in his again. "I can't believe you're here. I thought that you hated me... that you'd never look at me that way again and I wanted... I wanted..." she trailed off, her eyelids fluttering closed once more. Harry gave into temptation them, grasping her hand tightly in his and willing her to stay awake just a little longer. He desperately wanted to hear the end of her sentence.

"You wanted...?" he prompted, squeezing her fingers gently in his own.

"Harry... I wanted to tell you so badly. I knew you'd understand better than anyone but... I just...couldn't." Her eyes fell shut again. Her fingers went slack against his and Harry knew she was unconscious.

Time seemed to slip away from Harry in the following weeks. All his time was taken up with extra lessons, detention (he and Malfoy both had been assigned detention with Flitwick for the rest of the term, but were thankfully taking them separately), and studying for exams, which were fast approaching.

Harry had never felt more exhausted, not even during those horrible days just before the second task in his fourth year, when he, Ron, and Hermione had spent hours trying to find a solution to breathing underwater. Flitwick let him study during his detentions, for which he was eternally grateful, and even answered his questions or explained some of the trickier aspects of practical Charms work to him. Sometimes he wondered whether Flitwick gave Malfoy the same treatment, but he tried not to think of Malfoy as much as possible. More and more, especially after that night in the infirmary, he was convinced that Malfoy had done something to make Ginny act the way she had been. That night she had seemed almost like herself again, and Harry found himself staring at her across the hall during meals, wishing she would go back to how she was, or talk to him, something.

When he told Ron and Hermione about it, Ron wanted to go after Malfoy, a dangerous gleam in his eye, but Hermione merely looked thoughtful and worried. "I'm not convinced she was poisoned, actually."

"You didn't see her, Hermione," Harry said, staring out across the lake. The sky above was a light, clear blue, completely belying his dark mood. His leg still ached slightly and he rubbed it unconsciously. "She was... wild. Utterly mad. Screaming and cursing at Snape and McGonagall," at this Ron snorted, "and yelling something about how she had to...to..."

"To what?" Ron asked impatiently, still smirking over the idea of Ginny cursing at Snape.

"To... kill them. Whoever 'them' are. It was seriously creepy."

Hermione shook her head, still looking unconvinced. "But that doesn't mean she was poisoned. She could've been telling the truth. There's no way to really be sure."

"We could do that spell again," Ron suggested, looking faintly ill. Harry bit his lip, wishing there was something reassuring he could tell Ron. Ron had already been through so much these past few weeks with Percy being injured so badly. He didn't need to be worrying about Ginny even more than he already had been.

"I don't think that's such a good idea, mate," Harry said. "I, er, had a bit of a disagreement with Ginny and I might've told her about the spell. I don't think I've ever seen her angrier. And it's... it's not right, you know?"

"Snape will have already administered the antidote anyway," Hermione said briskly, "so Vrai Vue is worthless at this point. Anyway," she added with a sigh, "it does us no good to worry about it now. Term is almost over. She'll be spending all her time studying for O.W.L.s. Then you'll go back to the Burrow. I have a feeling once she's away from Draco Malfoy, it'll be easier to talk to her."

Hermione looked away, out over the lake, her eyes dark and shuttered. Harry studied her carefully, remembering that day long ago Hogsmeade visit and Hermione's strange, vague hints at what was wrong with Ginny. He stared at her for a moment longer before turning away. She was right--there was nothing they could do about it now, and besides which, they all had too many other things to think about. They could figure things out with Ginny later.

As exams drew closer, Harry, Hermione, and Ron, along with most of the other fifth, sixth, and seventh years, spent the majority of their time studying in the library or, when that got too crowded, the Gryffindor common room. Their professors had begun dropping ominous hints about the upcoming finals, and many of them had warned that failure to not only pass the exams, but to pass with E's or higher, would result in being dropped from the class the following year.

The week before finals, the fifth and seventh years were taking O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, while the professors began giving long, detailed lectures about what the sixth years were to expect during their exams the following week.

"Your exam will include both a written and a practical portion," Professor McGonagall told them that Tuesday. They'd already been given the lecture several times by other professors, and Harry thought it was beginning to get old. If they didn't know it by now, he thought, they never would. Only Buffy and Willow's explanation the following day varied at all.

"So here's the sitch," Buffy said, sitting on her desk top and swinging her legs back and forth while Willow stood next to her in what appeared to be a furry purple dress... thing... hands folded together in front of her and an excited smile on her face. "We don't really get this whole grading system. A's aren't good here? You have to get an O? Whatever. So it's gonna be a pass or fail kind of deal. Will's going to do another vamp simulation, and you have to survive ten minutes without the vamp, you know, eating you."

"Oh, don't you just love exams?" Willow enthused. "I just love them. I wish I was taking exams! There should be more exams." The class stared at her in silence and Willow's face fell a little at their unenthusiastic response. Harry felt nervous at just the thought of the Defense exam. Stay out of vampire's way for ten minutes? The last time they'd done the simulation seemed like ages ago, and no one had lasted more than a few minutes at most. Hermione looked like she might vomit right there, while Willow was still going on about the joys of exams.

"Will, you're scaring them," Buffy said blandly. "No one loves school as much as you. We know. But let's face it. Exams are horrible and scary. Like monsters, but with less horns and drool. But I remain convinced they are trying to kill you. Anyway, so we'll spend the rest of the time we have left doing simulations to get ready."

By the end of class, it was clear that none of them would pass a one-on-one vampire simulation exam, so Willow and Buffy, after a hasty, whispered conference, decided that they would take the exam in pairs, with part of it being graded on team work. "So pick your partner wisely," Buffy advised, while Willow beamed happily at all of them.

"I'll create a sign up sheet for simulation practice," Willow offered, snatching a muggle pen and notebook from the desk she shared with Buffy.

Hermione immediately partnered up with Ron, and Harry could tell why--as the tallest and strongest in the class, Ron was the best hand-to-hand fighter among them. After a few moments of watching Neville look around hopelessly while the rest of the class paired up, Harry went over to him with a sigh. Neville would never be great shakes at physical combat, but he'd improved immensely over the past year in the DA. Harry would've never guessed that this was the same Neville he'd known just a year ago, even if everyone else still saw him as the mousy, shy Neville he'd been first year.

"Hey Neville," he said with a grin. "So, partners then?"

"Yeah, alright," Neville said, returning his smile. "We should practice, yeah?" They signed up for a timeslot the next day, Harry wondering when he'd ever have time to attend all his classes, study for finals, and go to all his extra lessons. When he voiced his fears to Hermione, Ron and Neville at dinner that night, Hermione shook her head and shrugged.

"It's all about priorities, Harry," she advised, pulling out her arithmancy textbook and propping it up against the pumpkin juice jug. She turned pages as she spoke, somehow managing to read, eat, and lecture Harry on his priorities all at the same time.

"How does she do that?" Ron asked in a loud whisper.

"Sometimes I suspect she may be a robot," Harry whispered back.

"What's a robot?" Neville asked with a frown.

"I think it's one of those animal things that fly around. You know, from Australia?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "That's a wombat, Ron, and I'll thank you never to call me that again. Honestly. Take Muggle Studies next year! You're hopeless."

Practice with Neville the following day went surprisingly well. He and Neville worked well together, and despite the fact that neither of them were very good at hand to hand combat, they worked out a strategy of one distracting their opponent while the other fired incendios at it that kept them away from its teeth for more than enough time to pass the final. Harry and Neville left the classroom feeling rather proud of themselves, discussing the session excitedly as they made their way up to Gryffindor tower.

But studying for the rest of his exams wasn't nearly as satisfying, and Harry spent a nearly sleepless, exhausting week preparing himself. He knew how important these finals would be for his future--if he had one--and despite the imminent threat of the battle to come and the possibility of facing Voldemort again, Harry couldn't find it in himself to give up.

The day before exams were set to start, Harry, Ron and Neville had all shut themselves in the common room with their Transfiguration texts in front of them, practicing turning hats into rabbits, cats, and finally dogs, and then back again. Neville's dog kept coming out without a tail, and just as he was about to start panicking, Hermione came in through the portrait hole with a frown.

Approaching their table, Hermione grabbed Ron's book and closed it firmly with a loud thump. "You've been studying too long," she said, hands on her hips. "Honestly, if you don't know it by now, a few extra hours really isn't going to help. Come on. Dean and Seamus have organized a football game on the Quidditch pitch and they need you lot to fill out their teams."

The boys, too surprised by Hermione's pronouncement to really protest, followed her out of the castle to the Quidditch pitch, where Dean was attempting to explain the rules of football while Seamus conjured nets on either side of the pitch. Most of the non-muggle-borns didn't really understand the rules so the game sort of turned into a free-for-all, but Harry couldn't remember having so much fun playing football. When he'd gone to primary school football had been a bit of torture; he'd always been picked last for teams and the other kids were more likely to kick the ball at him instead of to him.

The next day the sixth year N.E.W.T. students took the Transfiguration exam. Harry wasn't sure how he'd done on the written portion. He could never remember all the small details of the theory and he knew how picky Professor McGonagall could be about that sort of thing. His practical portion went well, though, and despite the fact that his cat hadn't had quite as many whiskers as it should have, McGonagall had looked pleased and he was pretty sure he had passed.

Hermione, who was taking almost twice the number of exams as the rest of the sixth years, was the only Gryffindor in their year to have a final that afternoon--History of Magic. Harry and Ron had asked her repeatedly why she still bothered with that class when it was so useless to begin with, but she'd merely replied primly that history was important and anyway, she'd gotten an Outstanding on her O.W.L. and she wasn't going to drop a class after that.

The next day was Charms, and for once Harry felt like he couldn't have done better. All those detentions with Flitwick paid off; Harry came out of the final feeling more confident about a test than he ever had before, while Hermione spent all of lunch worrying over the last question on the written and whether or not her stuffed crup had danced adequately enough for Flitwick.

"Stop worrying, Hermione," Ron said as he pushed his food around on his plate. The wandless magic portion of their Defense exam was directly after lunch, and Harry knew Ron had stayed up until the small hours of the morning practicing his levitation. "You'll get top marks, you always do," he grumbled.

Harry managed to fudge his way through Willow's exam, but he was already thinking of the following day when he and Neville would have to face the vampire simulation with Buffy. They'd practiced and Harry felt fairly confident, but the thought of facing a vampire, regardless of how fake or safe it was, was always nerve-wracking.

The following day found Harry and Neville waiting in the corridor outside the Defense classroom with the rest of the sixth years as they were called in by pairs to go through the simulation. Harry was thankful when Malfoy and Blaise Zabini finally got called in; he was getting sick of Malfoy sneering at him from down the hall.

Finally, it was Harry and Neville's turn to go in. Buffy smiled at them and pushed her hair out of her face, gesturing that they should come closer. She nudged the bag beside her and it fell open, revealing a whole slew of weapons: stakes, a hand axe, a small crossbow and several bolts, and holy water.

"Stock up, guys," Buffy suggested. "Anything you think you might want. Just ten minutes, okay? And then I'll stop the simulation. Easy as pie. Whatever that means, because you know, I've tried to make pie before and it's not that easy. Especially not if you're doing crust from scratch."

Harry just nodded at this and rifled through the bag, shoving a couple bottles of holy water into his pockets and grabbing a stake. He planned to use his wand as much as possible--neither he nor Neville were strong enough or fast enough to really go one-on-one (or even two-on-one) with a vampire. He and Neville got into position while Buffy moved off to the side, ready to move in if she thought they were in real trouble. And then Buffy clapped her hands twice and the classroom transformed with a sudden, dizzying shift. One moment they were in the classroom they'd spent the past six years taking Defense, the next they were in a dark graveyard with only the moon above lighting the fresh plot at their feet.

The next few minutes went by in a blur. The vampire rose and Harry and Neville moved into action, with Harry distracting the creature by getting its attention with some well-aimed rocks and eventually, his bottles of holy water, while Neville fired incendios. When the vampire turned to face Neville and started chasing him through the trees, Harry pulled out his wand and pointed it toward the running pair.

"Reducto! " Harry yelled, aiming for the patch of grass between Neville and the vampire. The ground between them exploded in a spray of dirt, grass, and roots, leaving a large hole in the middle that Harry only hoped wouldn't be there when the simulation ended. The vampire tripped into the hole and Neville yelled excitedly, whirling around to cast one last Incendio. The vampire burst into flames with a loud screech. Only a moment later it's still-burning body crumbled into a pile of dust, leaving nothing but a scorch mark in the earth and a few old rags of clothing.

"Wow," Buffy said, taking a few steps forward to examine the hole in the ground. "Not a tactic I myself have used before, but if it works, it works. The bad news is, that wasn't actually ten minutes, so..."

"What?" Harry said, turning to face Buffy. "But we killed it! Shouldn't that matter more than a time limit?"

"That's not fair!" Neville added, crossing his arms over his chest, looking extremely disgruntled. "We should get extra points for killing that thing! It seemed quite a bit more vicious that usual, if you ask me."

Buffy's lips twitched and she burst out laughing. "Sorry, sorry. Have you ever noticed how sometimes being mean can also be really fun? You pass. Did you really think I was going to fail you after all the running and the throwing of rocks and the blasting giant holes in the ground?"

After that, the rest of finals seemed to go by in a blur until Friday, when Harry, Ron and Hermione headed down to the dungeons to take their Potions exam. As expected, Snape not only set them a grueling written, but also had them brew the most difficult potion they'd studied that term for the practical. Harry felt sweat dripping down his forehead as he carefully prepared his ingredients in the stiflingly hot potions classroom. Across the room, Malfoy made a face at him and Harry glared back. How was it that despite the heat and the pressure of the exam itself, Malfoy managed to look so perfectly cool and calm, while Harry felt like he might explode with one more sneering glare from Snape. His hands shook as he shredded his daisy roots, and he didn't think he'd ever been this nervous during an exam, not even his Potions O.W.L.

Afterwards, Hermione wanted to discuss the written but Harry waved her off, heading outside to collapse beneath the large tree by the lake. Most of the school was outside, walking barefoot on the shore of the lake, splashing and laughing and enjoying the end of the term. They had a week before exam results came back. A week to relax and enjoy the first throes of summer, but Harry felt even more tense than before, if anything.

"Harry," Hermione began tentatively, putting down the novel she'd been reading. "What's wrong? Exams are over, and I promise I won't try to go back over the Potions written, although I am wondering about that last question. But you look like you're still worrying."

"I am," Harry admitted, giving her a strange look. "Aren't you? You were there when Malfoy... June first is in two days, and we've still got no idea what's going to happen."

"You don't know anything will happen, Harry," Hermione said, her brow furrowed with concern. "Malfoy probably doesn't know anything, and just because he alluded that June first would be the day of the attack doesn't mean Voldemort and his Death Eaters are suddenly going to show up at the school gates."

"But it doesn't mean he won't, either," Ron pointed out, looking suddenly pale.

"We told Dumbledore what Malfoy said ages ago," Hermione said calmly. "There's nothing else we can do."

"That's not true Hermione," Harry said in a low voice. "We can... we can tell the other students. Our friends... they should know what's coming. We can prepare. We have those potions, practically stockpiling them in the boy's dormitory."

"You know those only work if you take them beforehand, Harry," Hermione said. "And we don't know that anything is going to happen, but I guess..." She paused, her eyes scanning Harry's determined face. "I guess it couldn't hurt."

"I wish we knew what the staff are planning. Or whether they are at all," Ron said, sighing. "We're not bloody kids anymore! They can't just keep us in the dark like this."

"They can. And they will." Harry ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. Across the lawn he saw Seamus and Dean heading toward them, waving to get their attention. "Harry, Ron, Hermione," Seamus said with a grin as he and Dean came to a halt in front of them. Seamus glanced around quickly before squatting down and lowering his voice. "We're planning a party tonight in the Room of Requirement. A sort of end of exams celebration."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged glances, Hermione managing to look only slightly disapproving of the idea. "It's probably against school rules," Hermione said. "But I suppose we can have a last meeting of the D.A. with, erm, food and things."

"Whatever you need to tell yourself to have a bit of fun," Dean said with a wink. "Anyway Harry, we were hoping you'd use your D.A. coin thing to call a meeting, so that works out well."

After Dean and Seamus left, Hermione turned to Harry with a smile. "Well there you go," she said. "The party will be the perfect place to let everyone know what's going on, if that's what you really want."

"Put a bit of a damper on things," Ron said with a frown.

"So will being attacked by a load of Death Eaters and giants," Harry said.

Later that day found the three of them in the sixth year boy's dormitory, collecting the phials upon phials of enhancing potions and most importantly, the Chronos Concoction, which had taken Harry and Hermione nearly two months to get right.

"We're sure these things work?" Ron asked nervously as they began to pile the phials into their bags.

"We've tested them, Ron," Hermione said impatiently, hefting her pack carefully onto her shoulder. "All the D.A. knows how to use them. We've been preparing for something like this all year, whether they knew it or not."

"But what about..." Ron lowered his voice, eyes darting nervously around the room despite the fact that they were alone in the dorm. "What about the Slytherins? What do you suppose they'll do when they attack comes?"

Hermione frowned. "Dunno. I'm more worried about the teachers. Last time, with the dementors, they tried to keep us back in the castle."

"They won't do that again," Harry said grimly. "Look what they've been teaching us this term--group flying tactics, charm bombs, warding... they're creating an army, a real one this time, and they'll expect us to fight."

"And the Slytherins?" Ron asked.

Harry shrugged. "Slytherins aren't fighters, not really. If anything, they'll hide. If they join the other side, though, well..." He looked at his friends, his lips pressed into a thin line. "They're not our classmates anymore. They're Voldemort's supporters, and that's their choice, but it's not something we can accept."

The room of requirement was filled by the time they got there. The entire D.A. had shown up, along with most of the upper classes, with the exception of Slytherin, none of whom had shown up at all. For some reason that lack made Harry extremely nervous. Even though Slytherin was notorious for not mixing with the other houses, Harry expected that some of them at least would show up for a party this size.

They had decided to make an announcement early on, before the celebration really got under way. Hermione kept elbowing Harry in the ribs until he cleared his throat and climbed up on a spindly table, trying to get everyone's attention. In the din of the party, no one seemed to notice.

"Oy!" yelled Ron. "We've got an announcement to make!"

Harry winced. He hadn't realized Ron could be quite so loud and now everyone was staring at him with confused looks on their faces. He hated this. He didn't want to spoil the party. He wished they didn't have to worry about this at all, and they shouldn't have to. They were still in school—war, battles, protecting their school... these weren't things that normal kids should have to go through. But looking around at the people gathered in this room, he could tell by the hard look in their eyes that some of them, at least, already knew. And they were ready, determined. They had to be, if they wanted to survive.

"So you might've noticed what the changes in lessons are gearing up for. Dumbledore and the rest don't want you to know, but, well... there's no easy way to say this. Voldemort and his Death Eaters are planning an attack on the castle, and it's coming soon. We don't know much about it," he added at the looks of horror on their faces, "but we know it's going to happen in the next few days. It'll be a daytime attack, a-and Voldemort will bring the giants." He swallowed hard. "And probably the dementors."

The room erupted in a flurry of sound—questions, confusion, and protests. Harry heard Dennis Creevey's voice shouting above the rest. "How do you know? How can we be sure?"

The room quieted slightly to hear Harry's answer. He didn't know what to say—I found a secret door in the forest and had a vision, sounded incredibly stupid in his head.

"Does it matter?" he said finally, feeling incredibly tired. "It's going to happen, we can't stop it. But we can be prepared to fight. We have the potions we've been testing in D.A. meetings for anyone who wants them. And I... I'm sorry. But I thought you should know."

Harry climbed down from the table, feeling horrible. He knew he had to tell them, but the room was completely silent now, and no one looked like they wanted to celebrate anymore. He really couldn't blame them. Exams had been difficult, particularly for the fifth and seventh years, and everyone had been looking forward to a week off before results came out. A week to relax and have fun and just not worry about anything at all. But Harry had ruined that for them. No, Voldemort had. He had taken away their childhood, and it made Harry hate him even more.

It wasn't just about him anymore, about the prophecy and what was to come. It was these people, his friends, and everything Voldemort had taken from them.

Slowly the noise in the room began to increase again as Hermione and Ron handed out phials of potion and everyone began discussing Harry's news. Feeling miserable, Harry knew he couldn't stay there any longer and pretend that everything would be okay when he just didn't know anything of the sort. While his friends were busy with the potions, Harry ducked out of the room of requirement and headed back for the dorm, shaking with fear and anger.

The corridors were dark and Harry made his way through them carefully, not wanting to be caught out after curfew alone by Snape or Filch. Even though most professors turned a blind eye to things like breaking curfew in the week after exams, Harry knew Snape would take any reason he could to get Harry in trouble, and Filch just liked giving students a hard time. He didn't see anyone on his way back to Gryffindor, although Mrs. Norris did catch a glimpse of him as he turned the final corner to the Fat Lady's portrait, but she barely had time to let out one wavering yowl before Harry was through the entrance.

The common was deserted and Harry frowned, glancing at his watch. It was still early, barely ten o'clock, and Harry was surprised to find it so empty. He knew that most of the younger students had not been invited to the party in the room of requirement and he hadn't seen many of them there, but then where were they? They couldn't possibly have all gone to bed...

And then the smell hit him. Coughing and holding his hands over his nose and mouth, Harry sprinted toward the spiraling stairs that led to the boy's dormitory, silently cursing the invention of dung bombs. What git would set off a load of dung bombs on the last day of exams, when everyone would want to stay up late in the common room celebrating?

Up in the dormitory, Harry wanted nothing more than to collapse on his bed. He opened the door and nearly yelled in shock--his bed, his trunk, the table by his bed were all completely trashed and for a moment Harry was thrown back to second year, when the same thing had happened. Then it had been Ginny, searching for Tom Riddle's diary, but Harry couldn't imagine any Gryffindor doing something like this.

Rushing forward, he went through his trunk quickly. His Invisibility Cloak was still there, but the Marauder's Map...

"It's gone," Harry whispered, shock and confusion running through him. Who could've done this? And who would even know what the map was to take it in the first place? Ginny. Harry didn't want to believe it, but she was only one Harry could think of that had access to Gryffindor tower and might know about the map. He couldn't remember ever mentioning it around her, but the twins were her brothers and it wouldn't surprise him if they had told her about the map themselves. Or Ron or Hermione—before Halloween none of them would've considered that Ginny might turn against them.

His eyes flitted around the room desperately, lighting upon his bed. The spread had been rucked back and the pillows thrown to the floor, but there, pinned to the headboard, was a folded piece of parchment with his name scrawled across in an unfamiliar hand.

Harry snatched the note off the headboard and opened it quickly, his hands shaking and his heart pounding wildly in his chest as he struggled to stay calm.

We've taken Ginny Weasley. If you wish to recover her, you will tell no one about this letter. You will follow the map below. You have until midnight tonight to come, or she will be killed.

The parchment fell from Harry's trembling fingers. For a moment he just stood there, his mind an utter blank and his body frozen with shock. Ginny had been taken. The note hadn't been signed, but Harry had a good guess who. He should've tried harder to keep her away from Malfoy, to convince her that Malfoy could never be what she thought he was. But he hadn't, and now she was gone.

Harry snatched up the note and studied the map carefully. The spot they were keeping Ginny seemed to be just on the other side of the forest, and there was a careful diagram drawn below of the entrance to what appeared to be a tunnel leading out of the forest. The map ended there—Harry supposed he was going wherever the tunnel lead. Clenching the note in his fist, Harry grabbed his Invisibility Cloak, wand, and broomstick from his trunk. He only had two hours to find Ginny before it was too late. It was a trap--he knew it was. In all likelihood neither he or Ginny would get out of this, not if Malfoy was working for Voldemort in the Death Eaters and had tricked Ginny so effectively.

But they didn't know about the Invisibility Cloak. Harry's only hope was to surprise them and get Ginny out before they knew what was happening. Pausing for a moment, Harry stuffed a few phials of potion into his pockets and looked around the room, hoping it wasn't the last time he ever saw it.

Then, spreading the note out and laying it carefully on Ron's bed after memorizing the map, Harry pushed open the dormitory window and climbed out onto the ledge. Holding his breath, Harry leaped out the window and onto his broom, flying out over the castle and down toward the forest below.