I Kept Trying to Forget That Night, But...

Chapter 2

Harry spent a happy week with Ron at the Burrow, messing around on their brooms and trying to find out what Fred and George were working on in their room, so that they could avoid it if they needed to: early in the week Harry had been caught out by a seemingly innocent chocolate bar, and he didn't want the same thing to happen again. The 5 of them piled into the Weasleys' car, new, or at least second-hand new, that year, and set off towards London. Fred and George were keen to talk to Harry now that they didn't have anything to distract them, and, after hearing about his dreary summer with the Dursleys, they began quietly plotting ways to feed them all their newest delight - Can't-Stop-Chewing Chocolates. Harry rubbed his jaw at the thought of it and wondered if he'd wish that on anyone: the prototype Fred and George had fed him hadn't stopped, and he had been chewing for over an hour when they finally found the counter-curse.

They arrived at the station and quickly made their way to the platform. They were, as was usually the case with the Weasleys, only just in time, and Harry and Ron hurried down Platform 9 and 3/4, trying to find an empty carriage.

"Hey, you two!" a voice yelled. They spun round to see Hermione hanging out of a window. They hurried back to the carriage she was in and dragged their luggage on. Seconds later the train pulled away from the station, and they were on their way to Hogwarts again.

The journey passed quickly; after so many years of making the long train journey the three friends knew how to handle it, and Exploding Snap and Wizard's Chess were both on hand to relieve any boredom. Ron was just about to deal another round of snap, however, when the train stopped.

"We can't be there yet," Hermione, who had opted to have a carriage with Ron and Harry rather than spend her time with the other prefects, commented. "Why would they stop?" Harry couldn't help but be chillingly reminded of their thirds year, when Dementors had boarded the train.

"I think I'll go up to the front and ask," he said quickly.

"Perhaps I ought to go," Hermione responded, "as I'm a prefect."

"We'll all go," Ron declared. "I could do with stretching my legs." They set off down the train, passing through carriages of confused people, whom they assured they'd explain what was going on as soon as they found out.

They were soon at the front of the train, and entered the Prefect's Carriage to find it a hubbub of noise. Everyone was advancing a different theory about the train's sudden halt.

"So, you finally decided to show yourself here, Granger?" Malfoy's drawl cut through the din and everyone suddenly quietened down. "Didn't want to risk bumping into me without dumb and dumber there?"

"I didn't even know you were a prefect, Malfoy," Hermione spat back. "Speaking of which, why are you a prefect? I mean, you're everything a prefect shouldn't be: dishonest, lazy, never pay any attention in lessons, a bad example to the first years."

"Professor Snape chooses the Slytherin prefect, why don't you ask him?"

"Look," Hermione said, turning her back on Malfoy and speaking to the other prefects, "have any of you been to ask the driver." A general chorus of dissent from all sides led to Hermione pushing her way through the crowd, and into the engine room.

Their travels proved fruitless, however. The driver had no more idea than they did.

"I dunno what's going on," he said as they came in, pre-empting their question. "The boiler's stoked, we should be steamin' along nicely. There's some sorta spell at work, you mark my words, foul play I bet! I've sent an owl to the headmaster, and I'll be having a word with him once we arrive, if we ever do! Now get on with you, there's nothing you can do here!" They left despondently and broke the news to the waiting prefects before setting off back down the train.

As they travelled the train started moving again, and they all breathed a sigh of relief. It didn't last long, however. As Hermione entered their carriage she stumbled and stepped backwards with a gasp. Ron looked in and paled.

"Stay back, Harry," he warned.

"What? What happened?" Harry was filled with a sense of dread as he pulled Hermione aside and peered into the carriage. One image leapt out at him. A large, filthy, smoky Dark Mark hung in the air, almost smirking at him somehow. It was ugly, marring the peaceful air somehow, and Harry suddenly understood why people had hated it so much when Voldemort had been powerful. He felt sick to his stomach. As he looked past the Mark he realised that the whole carriage had been trashed completely. Everything was a mess, clothes strewn all over the place. Hedwig and Pig were flapping madly, and Crookshanks scrabbled frantically past Harry to Hermione. The shutters had been pulled down, and the Dark Mark cast an eerie malevolent glow over it all.

Hermione naturally insisted on finding an adult, and on the train that gave them a choice of the tea lady and the driver. And so they found themselves in the engine room once again.

"What're you doing here?" the driver asked. "We're moving now!"

"Did you say you sent an owl to Professor Dumbledore?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, he just sent one back saying he'd meet me at the station. But what's going on?"

"It's too hard to explain, but we'll need to speak to him too." And before the driver could say anything else she hurried the others out into the Prefect's Carriage.

"I thought you were going to tell him about it?" Harry queried.

"What would he do? We're on a speeding train, miles away from where it happened, and soon we'll be at Hogwarts and Dumbledore'll be able to deal with it. This is big Harry, and extremely dangerous. None of us should go back in that carriage, for one thing. There could be all sorts of booby traps for all we know! You-Know-Who wants to kill you Harry, and he's not shy about trying. So, shall we go and try and find a new carriage?"

***

Harry looked up expectantly as they drew into the station.

"He's there, talking to Hagrid," he said as he glimpsed Dumbledore through the window.

"Who?" Fred, one of the occupants of their adopted carriage, asked. He and George had been curious about their impromptu arrival without any of their bags, and for some reason 'we were bored' hadn't washed as an explanation.

"Oh, er, no-one," Hermione said hurriedly. They had decided that a full-scale panic wouldn't help matters, especially since, as Hermione had pointed out, there was nothing they could do about it. She stood up and grabbed Ron's arm, pulling him out of the carriage. Harry followed, trying to ignore Fred and George's curious stares. He stepped out onto an unusually quiet platform. Everyone else was getting their things together before they got off, and the usually bustling platform was eerily silent. The three friends approached Professor Dumbledore and Hagrid quickly, their footsteps echoing off the hard tiles.

"Are you three alright?" Professor Dumbledore asked as they came over. "I heard about the train stopping, and of course I came straight away. Did anything happen to you?" His piercing eyes seemed to make Harry the main object of his question. However Hermione, who seemed to be taking charge, was the one who answered.

"We're fine," she replied. "But I think you ought to come and see our carriage." Dumbledore began striding down the platform, his expression grim.

"Which one was it?" he asked. "And what exactly happened when the train stopped?"

"It's just a little further down here," Hermione answered. "And, well, the train just slowed down and stopped. We went to see the driver and he didn't know what had happened, he said we should be moving, that he suspected a spell. And then we went back to our carriage, and... well, it's here, you might as well see for yourself." Professor Dumbledore climbed into the train and looked into the carriage as the platform behind them began to fill up. As Harry followed he saw his gaze harden and a slight frown play on his forehead. He muttered a few words and a golden cloud emerged from his wand and danced into the carriage, before returning to him.

"There are no spells in operation here, except for the Dark Mark, so we may as well go in."

Harry edged carefully into the room, trying to avoid the skull which dominated the centre of the carriage. A shiver ran down his spine. It felt colder in there somehow.

"You can start getting your things together," Dumbledore told them. "You need to get up to school, and if I wait for the Ministry to get here you never will! Don't mind me, I'll just look around, so that I can describe it correctly for the Aurors." Harry found and opened his case and began jumbling his things in. He didn't want to stay in there any longer than he had to, and it seemed like the others felt the same: even Hermione wasn't folding her clothes as neatly as usual in her haste. He moved down the carriage picking up bits and pieces, they really had been thrown everywhere. Hedwig gave him a withering look as he pulled a sock off the corner of her cage.

"Look, I'm sorry," he muttered. "We just couldn't risk coming into the carriage to get you, and you seemed to be alright." Hedwig ruffled her feathers and turned her back by way of answer. Harry turned back to his suitcase, hoping that she wouldn't be huffy with him for long; he'd need to send a letter to Sirius about this. Finally he jammed the lid of his case closed, and the others shortly followed suit. They hurried out onto the platform, deserted once again, and leaving Dumbledore behind they got into the last remaining stagecoach. They jolted up and down quickly in silence, each pondering the meaning of the Dark Mark's appearance. They soon reached the castle and got out to see, through the tall arched windows, the first years filing into the Great Hall for Sorting.

As they entered the hall the Sorting Hat was just starting it's song, and they attempted to slide into their seats at the Gryffindor table unnoticed as it began.

Oh I'm rumpled and I'm torn,

I'm battered and I'm bruised,

I've been through quite a lot,

And I'm rather over-used;

But that's because I'm special,

I'm different to the rest,

For choosing your Hogwarts house,

I really am the best.

Do you belong in Gryffindor,

The house of the brave and bold,

Or Hufflepuff, where loyalty

Is prized as highly as gold?

Perhaps in quickwitted Ravenclaw,

Where the studious meet their kind,

Or Slytherin if power matters

And ambition's on your mind.

You might not know,

But I can tell

In which one you belong,

So that's my tale,

I've told it well

In this melodic song!

The Sorting was soon over, fortunately, as Harry didn't think he could bear the awed (or contemptuous, in the case of the Slytherins) gazes of the first years any longer.

"Do they all have to stare like that every year?" he muttered to Ron, as down the table a wizarding first year explained to a Muggleborn exactly who Harry Potter was.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it," Ron said, grinning cheerfully. Thankfully Dumbledore, who had arrived shortly after they had, stood up to make the announcements before Harry could explain to Ron exactly why his grin was so annoying.

"We welcome two new teachers this year," Dumbledore told the hall. "Firstly our replacement for Professor Moody, who is recovering quite well, is Professor Kane." A sullen-faced professor nodded curtly to the hall from where he sat, hunched over his plate, at the end of the head table. Straggly, grimy blonde hair that reached to just below his ears framed an angular face, but his fierce dark eyebrows seemed to indicate that its original colour had been a lot darker. As the pupils applauded somewhat hesitantly his black eyes appeared to be trying to bore a hole into the plate which lay in front of him. And Harry couldn't shake off the feeling that he had seen him somewhere before.

"Now," Dumbledore continued, "last year the Ministry altered the curriculum to make available a new OWL and NEWT course: Flying and Broom Studies. Madam Hooch will carry on refereeing Quidditch matches and teaching first year flying lessons, but, as she is semi-retired, she has no wish to take on the extra work which this course would entail, and so I would like you to welcome our new Flying and Broom Studies professor, Professor Essex." The other new professor, in a complete contrast to Professor Kane, leapt up and grinned broadly as he was applauded.

"I'd just like to say," he beamed, "that it's an honour to be teaching at Hogwarts and I hope to prove myself worthy of it!"

"Wow!" Ron hissed in Harry's ear. "That's Thorsten Essex, the Keeper for the Wimbourne Wasps! At least he was, he retired at the end of last season. I guess now we know why!"

Chapter 3

The first few days of school passed as normally as life ever was at Hogwarts. Hermione, revelling in her new status as a prefect, seemed to have taken it upon herself to organise everything and everyone, including Ron and Harry. She bustled them into class, nagged them to do their homework, and remonstrated with them if they talked in class. Harry hoped she got over it soon; if she didn't, he was sure either he or Ron would commit homicide with whatever they could get their hands on, and when they were sitting doing homework in the evenings Hermione's huge Arithmancy textbook often looked temptingly like the weapon of choice. Harry still couldn't understand why she hadn't dropped the subject, just being able to stop carting the book around surely seemed like incentive enough. Still, he reflected, at least she'd had the sense to give up Divination.

Professor Trelawney's gloomy predictions were getting to him more than ever this year, and every time she told him that she could sense the shadow coming ever closer he felt a shiver run down his spine. Last year he would have dismissed it as her usual nonsense, and she certainly was keeping to her usual line; but after what had happened on the train it felt chillingly like the truth. He didn't dare tell Hermione, partly because of the amount of pressure she was putting on herself with her prefect duties, and partly because of the disapproving expression which came over her face whenever anyone mentioned the only professor (excepting Snape) who had ever disliked her. However Ron was surprisingly comforting.
"She doesn't have a clue, you know that Harry, she's a fraud, and she'd be hard put to sense whatever's going on in front of her nose if it weren't for those ginormous specs! I'm sure Dumbledore's dealing with that thing on the train, and it's not like You-Know-Who's going to be able to get to you here, I mean, he was afraid of Dumbledore at the height of his powers, and now that he's just skulking around in the shadows that's not likely to have changed!"

This year Professor Trelawney wasn't the only teacher causing shivers to run down his spine, however. Every time Harry glimpsed Professor Kane he couldn't suppress the feeling that he had seen him somewhere before. The feeling didn't seem to have any bad connotations, but it was extremely irritating, forever at the back of Harry's mind during Defence Against the Dark Arts. That, however, seemed to be the only interesting thing about the new professor. His classes were interminable, almost rivalling History of Magic as a cure for insomnia. They copied note after note off the board, about dark creatures and curses. The professor rarely spoke, and when he did it was in a low, nearly inaudible voice. He frequently paused as if he had forgotten what he was saying, and his English was stilted.

The other new professor was much more lively, even though there were few people taking his class. Most people hadn't wanted to add another subject so close to their OWLs, so Harry and Seamus were the only Gryffindor 5th years taking the course. There were also 3 Hufflepuffs, 1 Ravenclaw, and 2 Slytherins: Blaise Zabini and, Harry's arch-rival, on or off the Quidditch pitch, Draco Malfoy. As bad as it was having to be in such close confines with his worst enemy, Professor Essex seemed to be determined to make it worse. At the start of their first lesson he had made a long speech about how Quidditch (he seemed to ignore other broom sports for the majority of the time) could further co-operation and understanding between groups of people, citing the way wizards of different nationalities had banded together to stop the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup as an example. He followed on from the speech by putting the group into pairs and his speech into practice: everyone was partnered with someone from another house, and Harry, naturally, ended up with Malfoy. Fortunately Malfoy spent so much time trying (unsuccessfully) to knock Harry off his broom that the professor was forced to separate them, his perpetual grin fading slightly as he did so.

Despite Broom Studies classes which tried his patience, and Defence Against the Dark Arts classes which bored him to tears, the term got off to a lively start, and a couple of weeks in Harry had almost forgotten about the incident on the train. He, Ron and Hermione were sitting in the common room one evening, the boys playing Wizard's Chess and Hermione doing Arithmancy homework while occasionally pausing to watch, when Neville Longbottom wandered over, looking slightly puzzled.
"This was lying outside the portrait hole," he said, holding out a small white envelope with Harry Potter written on it in black ink, a frown on his forehead. Harry stood up and took it, frowning himself.
"Who'd leave a note outside the common room instead of giving it to you or sending it by owl?" Neville asked, still looking bemused.
"I don't know," Harry replied. "But I guess we'll soon find out." He slit open the envelope and pulled out the letter. His face blanched and he sat down on his chair hard.
"What does it say?" Neville asked curiously.
"Oh, er, nothing," Harry said. "Come on Ron, Hermione, there was that thing, you know, that we needed to do in the library."
"But we were only there earl- Ow!" Ron said as Hermione kicked him in the shin. She pulled him up and dragged him out through the portrait hole with Harry.

"What does it say?" Hermione asked, looking concerned. Harry handed it to her wordlessly and she read it out loud.

Dear Harry,
It is useless to run from me, as hopefully you are beginning to realise. You may have slipped out of my grasp last summer, but this time you will not escape so easily.

"Oh my!" Hermione gasped. "Harry, what are you going to do?"
"Go and see Dumbledore, for one thing," Harry replied as they turned into the corridor which led to his office. And, after a brief pause trying to figure out the new password ('fizzing whizzbee'), they were on the moving staircase, on their way up to Dumbledore's office.
"Harry!" Dumbledore exclaimed as they came in. "What brings you here?" Harry held out the letter and Dumbledore scanned it quickly.
"Hmmm," he murmured, sitting down behind his desk. "Well, it may be that this is just a student prank, after all, your uneasy relationship with Lord Voldemort is well-known, and everyone at Hogwarts is aware that you saw him at the end of last term... But I will definitely look into this carefully. Try not to think about this too much, Harry, it could be nothing." Nevertheless, the trio left the office in a sombre mood, and Harry felt sure that this would turn out to be more than just a student prank.

Dumbledore and the other teachers seemed to concur, as after Transfiguration the next day Professor McGonagall drew him aside and told him that once Quidditch started up, Madam Hooch would be attending his practices as she had in his 3rd year. One good thing did come out of it, however, and that was that their Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons suddenly got a lot more interesting (although that wasn't hard).
"Next lesson we will be starting to work on some, uh, basic duelling," Professor Kane announced at the end of one lesson. "Professor Dumbledore has decided to make it a key part of the course this year, partly because it is my own specialist, uh, field, and partly because it is important that you learn how to defend yourselves," he said, staring directly at Harry.

"Now," the professor continued, "although we'll be starting it properly next lesson, we have a few spare minutes now, so I'd like to see how you duel. Just split up into pairs and duel however you like and I'll come round and talk to each of you about where your, uh, weaknesses and strengths lie. It's something that's very useful to know: your opponent's objective is to get to know how you think, to anticipate your next move. He tries to become aware of your slightest weaknesses, the ones you don't even know you have. Then he capitalizes on them. That's how he can defeat you. Now, if you all get into pairs and just start any time you like."

They began duelling as best they could; they hadn't had much experience, not since another Defence Against the Dark Arts professor had tried to set up a Duelling club in their second year. They were tentative at first, partly because of the way Professor Kane was pacing around them, but soon they got into their stride. Eventually Professor Kane began approaching groups and speaking to them quietly, and soon he reached Harry, Ron and Hermione. He watched them briefly and then stopped them duelling.
"Ron," he muttered, "you are, uh, tenacious, that is your strength. You are resilient, and don't let attacks, um, phase you. Keep hold of that. Sometimes it will see you through where more powerful wizards would fall. However... that will not always be the case, and sometimes it is worth taking a risk. Hermione," he said, turning to her, "your strength is your knowledge, you consider every move well and decide which curse is best to attack or defend with. That is all very well, but it can cause you to lose time... sometimes the first idea which comes into your head is perhaps the best one. Ah, and Harry. Your problem is almost the opposite of Hermione's. You could make an excellent duellist, you are powerful and have excellent reflexes, a, uh, vestige of Quidditch I don't doubt. But you are impetuous. You never think before you act, and that is dangerous. If your opponent is a good strategist he will be able to use that against you. Tactics are, uh, vital in duelling." And with that he swept on to another group, leaving them staring after him, stunned.
"Well, there's no saying Defence Against the Dark Arts isn't interesting any more," Ron commented finally. "He might be the strangest teacher yet, and the rest aren't exactly what you'd call normal, are they?"