The Mark of Death

Harry could hear a slow and sickly creeeeeek sort of sound as he slowly made his way into Kreacher's cupboard behind Mr and Mrs Weasley. He held the flap of his cloak over his nose to try and repel the pungent stench of rot and filth that continued to get worse with every step he took. The creaking noise was getting more pronounced, along with the sound of Hermione crying. Harry suddenly saw why; it looked as though Kreacher had taken the patchwork quilt Hermione had given him last Christmas and tied it to a beam to hang himself. There was a small stool toppled over beneath his hovering feet which he must have kicked out from under him.

"Don't feel sorry for him!" Harry thought to himself, looking around the dingy room, seeing Kreacher's eyes had sunken into their sockets slightly Harry assumed he must have been like this for a few days, but since Mrs Weasley hadn't been there cooking and business the Order may have had likely had been taken upstairs.

Harry was beginning to feel ill, he took a step back feeling his insides coming up quickly, he turned to run to the bathroom but ran headlong into a set of dark black robes.

"Watch it, Potter," Snape hissed in a waspish voice, making Harry forget about his nausea, realizing that Dumbledore was there with Snape.

"Sorry, Sir," Harry muttered tersely, glancing back into the now very cramped room. Mr Weasley was reaching up and untying the quilt as Mrs Weasley found a large ragged old blanket to put over Kreacher's body. Ron was still comforting Hermione; who was now close to hysterics and burying her face in Ron's shoulder. Harry was almost feeling a strong urge to walk over and slap her.

"We had wondered where he had gone to," Dumbledore murmured softly, walking over to the corpse and pulling the blanket down off of Kreacher's face to touch what little of a neck he had. "He has been hanging there for forty-nine hours, Molly, please make a note of it."

"How does he know that?" Harry murmured quietly to Mr Weasley, who gave Harry a weak smile and put his hand on his shoulder reassuringly as Mrs Weasley scribbled something on a parchment.

"He knows Healing," Mr Weasley answered back quietly, watching Dumbledore check a few other things around the room.

"There is no chance that someone made it look like suicide, is there Headmaster? Perhaps an unwelcome visitor?" Snape asked, and Harry thought he had seen a flicker of amusement on Snape's face as his gaze touched the House Elf, but it was instantly gone, and his eyes were now narrowing with suspicion.

"No chance at all, Severus, it was certainly self inflicted - Kreacher has been going mad and getting worse by the day. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Try and have a little more faith in me as a Secret Keeper." Dumbledore said, his gaze momentarily rested on Harry before he waved his hands to gesture for everyone to clear out of the room. "Come now, perhaps all of you could go upstairs to the parlor? I need a word with Harry."

"Are we through, then?" Snape said, impatiently standing and looking at Dumbledore as everyone else went upstairs quickly, likely to get away from the stench.

"Yes Severus, though I do want you at the school tonight to keep an eye on things at the Ball please."

Snape had a very sour look on his face at these words, like he would rather stay with the rotting House Elf than attend the Ball, then he spun and moved swiftly up the steps, his black robes billowing out behind him. Dumbledore turned to Harry.

"Er, let's do something about this smell before anything, shall we?" Dumbledore waved his wand absently at the cupboard door and Harry saw a flash of pale green emit from it, which bounced around the kitchen and giving off a fresh, minty aroma before it zipped into the cupboard door and sealed it.

"I realize you were to come here to lay down a few rules for Kreacher, which obviously you do not need to do now - but I am glad to have this chance to speak with you."

"When are you coming back to the school?"

Dumbledore glanced at the stairs before looking at Harry calculatingly. "There is a lot of trouble going on at the Ministry. I can't tell you exactly what right now because I need to tell a few others about it first. I want more than anything to be at Hogwarts but I trust that Minerva is doing well enough without me, and if I am really needed she knows how to reach me, but what is going on with the Ministry is far bigger than just the school. It is a shame, I have never missed the Festive Ball once since I began as Headmaster, and now I've missed it for three years in a row." He forced a weak smile.

"But that's not the point Harry," he smiled again, his ancient blue eyes looked tired and troubled, Harry didn't want to bother to tell him that McGonnagal seemed to be having a very difficult time dealing with the extra duties. "I needed to speak with you about something far more important. Last year I spoke to you of the Prophesy, and what it meant."

Harry nodded, feeling a horrible chill through his spine as he watched Dumbledore look around awkwardly.

"You realize then, that in order for you to live..."

"I have to kill Voldemort." Harry finished for him. Dumbledore's eyes were fixated on Harry's, looking intently into them as if he were measuring him up.

"That is correct. I was prepared to teach you this myself, but with Cornelius's..." he paused, his gaze resting on the table - Harry could feel that Dumbledore was about to deliver some shattering news and he had a horrible feeling he knew what was coming.

"You need to learn to use the three Forbidden Curses." Dumbledore said, confirming Harry's fear, but then Harry felt it again, worse...

"Please not Snape!"

" Professor Snape, Harry," he gently corrected him, shaking his head. "And no, I wasn't going to ask that. Severus has a little more on his plate now and you have the Occlumency with him. Professor Malfoy will be teaching you..."

"NO!"

"Yes Harry, and it will be only the two of you that are to know about this. I don't want anyone, including Professor Snape to know."

This statement shocked Harry, as Dumbledore always proclaimed to trust Snape.

"I trust Professor Snape. But I also realize that there is a very strong resentment between the two of them because of him taking Draco and I don't want him knowing that she is teaching an illegal subject. She is not a member of the Order, he is under no obligation to protect any of her secrets." Dumbledore raised his eyebrows, observing Harry closely, "I trust her also, but if I manage to straighten out everything at the Ministry I will take over the lessons with you myself."

"I suppose I don't have a choice," Harry muttered angrily.

"No Harry, you don't."

Harry felt bitter and angry, the Ball was now the thing furthest from his mind. How could Dumbledore make him learn from the woman who helped to kill Sirius? Her sister was the one to actually do it - didn't Dumbledore realize this? If Professor Malfoy knows how to use the Forbidden Curses, where had she used them before? Who were her victims?

"I will make the necessary arrangements for Kreacher's body, it usually falls in the hands of their masters but I don't want to trouble you with anything else." Dumbledore said grimly, glancing at the pantry door with apprehension.

"Thank you sir," Harry muttered, feeling ill and wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. "Er- there's no way you'll be at the school tonight then?"

"No, it's a disappointment, too. I always look forward to the lemon-cranberry punch the Elves put out. It's very refreshing, perhaps Minerva will put some aside for me." Dumbledore winked and stood up from the table, resting his hand gently on Harry's shoulder. "Try and have some fun tonight, Harry. I will return to Hogwarts the minute I can."

Harry felt strangely disconnected again as he, Ron, Hermione and Ginny boarded the Knight Bus later after saying their goodbyes to Mr and Mrs Weasley. Lupin and Tonks had come to escort them again, sitting in a seat a ways back from the four. Since Fred and George weren't there they were all able to sit together this time, which was a lucky thing - Madam Marsh was sitting near the back vomiting into a large metal bucket and the sounds from her were making Harry feel even more queasy than he already had; seeing Kreacher's body decomposing, knowing that he was not only going to have to learn to kill - but to have to learn it from Professor Malfoy... and then there was the pending dance - with a date who he was starting to really feel a connection to, but the feelings didn't seem mutual.

"Harry, are you all right?" Ginny said quietly as Ron quietly comforted Hermione; who was still crying softly on his shoulder. She was taking it harder than she had taken Sirius's death, which was making Harry feel even more bitter.

"I'm fine, why?"

"Just wondering, you've been really quiet since we left there, what did Dumbledore want?"

"Er," Harry thought for a minute, knowing he wasn't to tell anyone what he was going to be learning, and not really wanting to admit who it would be from. "He um, just wanted to talk about what to do with Kreacher, you know."

"Oh," she said, looking awkwardly as Madam Marsh's retches echoed through the bus. "You're not going to have his head mounted on the wall there, are you?"

"What?! NO!" Harry laughed hollowly, but he wondered to himself if Dumbledore would do that, knowing that Dumbledore was honorable and may decide to honor Kreacher's wishes.

"So, er, are you looking forward to the dance?" Ginny asked, making Harry wonder if she was trying to change the subject as she fiddled with the collar of her robes nervously. "I know that Luna is."

"Yeah, I'm sure she is," Harry muttered, unable to mask the bitterness in his voice.

"She is!" Ginny exclaimed, staring at him incredulously. "You can't blame her for being slightly offhand, I mean, she had to ask you out... and she's certain that if Ron and Cho hadn't joined us all at the Hog's Head there is no way you would have tried to kiss- ..."

"SHE TOLD YOU THAT?!" Harry hollered so loudly that Tonks and Lupin both had jumped out of their seats to point their wands around, and Crookshanks had fallen off of Hermione's lap to the floor; spitting and hissing angrily at being woken.

"Don't get mad! Her and I are friends and she felt embarrassed - how long was it before you told Ron and Hermione after you had kissed Cho last year?" Ginny smiled mischievously seeing that she had Harry - he had told them immediately after, but that had been different...

"Yeah, but I actually DID kiss Cho, Luna completely shot me down!"

"I already told you, she thought you were doing it out of spite - if she didn't want to go to the ball with you she would have cancelled by now."

*

After saying their goodbyes to Tonks and Lupin, Hermione and Ron set off for the Great Hall to help with the decorations while Ginny fled to start getting ready. Harry found it rather silly, after all - the dance wasn't until dinner which was hours away. The commotion around the Common Room was too great that Harry left to wander around the corridors to kill off a bit of time, relieved for the time alone.

As Harry came around the corner from the Owlery he felt a cold, wet splat at the back of his head and spun around to see Peeves, who seemed to have found a pile of towels from the laundry and had soaked them in Filch's mop-bucket of water to toss at unsuspecting students.

"Potty Wee Potter!" Peeves sang, hovering upside-down over Harry as he tried to walk away from the scene.

"Bugger off Peeves," Harry said angrily, ducking as Peeves threw a portrait from the wall and narrowly missed his head.

"Oh, poor ickle Potty, lost his god-faddy," Peeves laughed horribly, floating along behind Harry and creating a horrible taunt about Sirius.

"SHUT UP!" Harry screamed, pointing his wand at Peeves wondering how people exorcize poltergeists.

"Is Potty Wee Potter going to cry?" Peeves taunted, floating through a few suits of armor as he followed Harry, stopping to recite a very morbid poem to him, "Young Sirius Black, he will never come back, he's dead as a- ..."

"Potter!"

Snape appeared in the hall behind where Peeves was levitating, carefully stepping over the bucket and towels. Harry couldn't tell as Snape's face was somewhat distorted through Peeves translucent form, but Harry could have sworn he saw a look of satisfaction on his face.

"Exactly why is your wand out in the corridors?" Snape glided past Peeves, who smiled triumphantly at Harry before blowing a raspberry and disappearing. "You know that students are forbidden from using their wands in the corridors."

"I er, he was- ..."

"I do not care to hear your petty excuses!" Snape said in his dangerous whisper, standing in front of him and glaring menacingly. Harry noticed that Snape was no longer that much taller than himself, but was still horribly intimating. "Ten points from Gryffindor."

Harry knew better than to argue, or Snape would completely drain Gryffindor's hourglass of the rubies it had accumulated over the term in less than sixty seconds. He placed his wand into his pocket and was ready to walk off when Snape hissed out angrily; "And Potter - report to my office after dinner on Wednesday. We need to resume your lessons."

He watched Snape storm off down the corridor before heading back up to the Gryffindor Common Room, where the few students below fifth year that had remained at the school for the holidays were sitting either playing Exploding Snap or Chess, muttering quietly about the injustices of them not being allowed to attend the Ball themselves. Harry felt a little surprised that this was an annual event seeing as he had never heard of it before. He looked at the black Onyx faced watch Ron and Hermione had given him for Christmas and realized he had only forty five minutes left before he had to go and meet Luna outside the Ravenclaw entrance. Panicking, he went upstairs to start getting ready, changing quickly into his bottlegreen dress robes before fretting in front of the mirror about his messy hair, wishing that it didn't stick up at the back so much.

"That's the worst of your worries!" The mirror told him shrilly as Neville approached from behind him, nervously fiddling with his earring and wearing dress robes of a deep royal blue. "Look at your knobbly wrists sticking out your sleeves! Those robes are so yesterday! And you, boy, you look like a Toy Poodle wearing a spiked collar with that ridiculous thing in your ear!"

Harry turned to look apologetically at Neville, not knowing whether to laugh or be offended. Neville, on the other hand, was taking it well.

"Shut up!" He chimed, grinning sheepishly at Harry. "Sorry about this, I kind of broke the one that's usually here before I left for holidays, so my Gran gave me this one to put up. I think it's her revenge for the earing. You're going with Luna Lovegood, right?"

"Yeah," Harry muttered, absently tugging at the sleeves of his robes suddenly wishing they were two inches longer. "You have a date?"

"Padma Patil, looks like we're both going with Ravenclaws. I think she only asked me because she knew that Parvati was going with Seamus and they wanted to sit at the same table though."

"Oh come on, don't be so hard on yourself Neville!"

"No, I don't mind. It should be an interesting night anyways." Neville combed and uncombed his hair, trying to come up with a decent looking style but settling on his usual one.

"You got that right," Ron yawned from behind them, tousling his hair with his fingers. "You should see all the decorating we did! All the Slytherin Prefects insisted on doing the punch bowl - Cho yelled at them but they finally got there way. It's the most fun part, you get to do an ice sculpture that will hold the punch. I hate to admit they did a good job though. It all looks fantastic... you meeting Luna at their Common Room?"

"Yeah, only I don't know where it is - Neville's going with Padma, too."

"Your funeral, Neville," Ron laughed, walking to his trunk and taking out the dress robes that Fred and George had bought him and quickly changing into them. "Well, I guess we can all go there together to meet our dates..." He stopped in front of the mirror again to run his fingers through his hair, making it look messier than it had. "Let's go!"

Cho was standing at the entrance with her group of giggling friends, though this time they seemed to be laughing cruelly at Luna; who was standing away from them. Luna's hair wasn't it's usual tangled mess - she had it in a long, elegant french plait, and her dress robes seemed to change color with every movement she made, from light violet to turquoise, then to a jade green. Her earlobes had little silver stars dangling from delicate little chains. She would have looked even more beautiful if she didn't look so intimidated by Cho and her friends.

"Ignore them," Harry whispered quietly, offering her his arm and leading her ahead of them towards the Great Hall. "They're only jealous, you look really..." he suddenly realized how difficult it was to find a word to use without feeling like a desperate prat, "... erm, nice."

Luna gave him a look that seemed to say that she didn't believe him, but took his arm rather tightly and walked along with him. She seemed to be in a hurry as Harry found that he had to quicken his pace to keep up with her.

"It looks so pretty!" Padma squealed excitedly, looking around as they went to sit at the Gryffindor table and placing her black velvet evening bag on the table in front of her. Somehow the room seemed to have accommodated for the mix of seating arrangements; since the first four years wouldn't be there all the tables seemed to have decreased in size - including the High Table; where McGonnagal was sitting in the Headmaster's chair trying desperately to talk to Hagrid over Trelawney and Firenze - who seemed to be in such a deep conversation that they were oblivious to their surroundings. Snape was sitting near the far end, looking grimly around with his arms crossed in front of him as though he didn't want to be there, occasionally scowling over at Professor Malfoy, who was looking disinterested at the edge of the table.

Huge silver stars had been charmed to float over the room; some seemed to be streaking across like comets; occasionally bursting and sending off pretty, multicolored lights. The walls seemed to be alive with climbing vines that flowered little flames of lights; which Harry soon realized were dew-fairies... but the thing everyone was noticing was the giant punch bowl in the center of the room which seemed to be the dance floor.

Harry heard Dean joking to Ginny asking where the Titanic had hit it; it was a magnificently carved ice sculpture of a Pegasus, only it's wings were arched back gracefully together to hold the drink in them. Every so often it seemed to move it's giant crystal head as though it were alive. He had a hard time believing that Draco had anything to do with something so beautiful.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Ron muttered as Harry help Luna's chair out for her to sit. "I can't believe they managed to charm that thing so well, it's not melting at all, yet they over-blazed the fires so that it's scorching in here!"

Harry noticed it was rather uncomfortably warm as he took the seat next to Luna and looked around. Hermione was sitting next to Zacharias Smith at the Ravenclaw table; her hair was pinned up in little gold combs that matched her gold dress robes perfectly. She smiled and waved over to them as the dinner appeared in front of everyone; but Ron only grunted and deliberately started in on his food.

After the meal Professor McGonnagal rose to address the students, looking exhausted. "I apologize, but Professor Dumbledore will not be here for the Ball, he was called away to London on important business again," she began, and a few people groaned - Harry couldn't help but notice that Draco Malfoy was one of the many visibly disappointed. "But it will all go on as normal, please enjoy yourselves."

She waved her wand about and the plates disappeared from the table and the lights dimmed down dramatically. The loud music of the Weird Witches magically sounded through the Hall, but Harry couldn't see the source.

"Shame Dumbledore isn't here to try the punch first, I hear it's almost like a tradition" Cho said loudly, trying to compete with the music and holding her glass up. "It is rather good."

Harry looked at the table to see that there were pitchers filled with the punch from the unicorn, and reached to pour one for himself and for Luna, who gave him a small, nervous smile as she took the glass and drank rather quickly from it.

"Thank you," she muttered gratefully as Cho dragged Ron onto the dance floor. "It's so hot in here!"

"It is," Harry agreed, slowly sipping his own glass. The punch really was delicious, and though it was refreshingly cold, it seemed to be warming his insides comfortably.

"We er, don't have to dance right now or anything, do we?" Luna asked awkwardly as she poured herself another glass of punch. Harry recalled her saying that she didn't much like dancing.

"No, only if you want to," he replied, taking a rather large swig of his own glass and looking around again o watch everyone else.

Filch had suddenly burst angrily through the door and gone straight to the High Table, looking animated and talking to McGonnagal; who in turn leaped to her feet and said something to the other Professors at the High Table. Hagrid looked concerned and jumped up to follow Filch and McGonnagal out of the Great Hall, knocking over his glass of wine to spill down the front of Trelawney's robes; though she was so busy talking to Firenze that she didn't seem to notice. Snape was looking bitter and drinking down large gulps of a glass of punch before refilling it, and Professor Malfoy was slowly sipping her own while staring sullenly at the Slytherin table.

Harry reached for his glass again, involuntarily smiling as the cold touch of the glass seemed to tickle his fingers. He blinked and looked around again, the room was darker, but could clearly see other people were smiling and dancing - Hermione and Zacharias were dancing slowly to the fast beat of the music near where Ron and Cho were. Harry grinned and blinked again, the sensation of blinking felt oddly good - he felt strangely happier and better than he had in ages.

Something softly nudged his arm and he turned to look at Luna, who was smiling serenely and sipping from her own glass, and both Parvati and Padma, who were sitting on each side of Neville seemed to be giggling and running their fingers in his hair, messing it up. Seamus was holding Padma's velvet evening bag and running his hands over it as though it were his favorite pet, and Collin Creevey was just giggling loudly. Luna was now tracing Harry's hand with her fingertips, making his eyes roll back into his head with enjoyment.

He saw that everyone else seemed to be either playing with their hair, or blinking, playing with someone else's hair - only the Slytherins seemed not to be; they were only looking around laughing at a few people dancing, and Draco was watching angrily as he watched Snape and Professor Malfoy leaving the Great Hall. It looked as though he was going to try and follow them; but Pansy had pulled him down to sit and shook her head angrily at him.

"Come on," Luna whispered, giggling, her cool breath on his ear making him shiver uncontrollably. He took another giant sip of the punch before Luna grabbed his hand and walked him towards the doors. They seemed to be slowly making their way outside, occasionally stopping to laugh at a few moving portraits; for some reason they seemed amusing... everything seemed amusing.

The cold air outside gave Harry an exciting chill down his spine as they walked around the high hedges near the greenhouses. Harry had no idea where they were going, nor did he care; Luna's fingers had entwined in his own and he would have probably followed her anywhere.

"Harry!" She giggled, stopping and leaning back against a hedge and nearly falling through. "It's better out here!"

"I know!" Harry exclaimed, barely even noticing Ginny and Dean streak by, he was paying to much attention to Luna's long braid, reaching around behind her head to touch it. It felt like the most luxurious silk ever, he untied the thin ribbon and began to unwind it, loving the sensation on his fingertips. Luna reached up slowly to trace his lips with her fingers, her eyes widening with surprise as he leaned in to kiss her.

The sounds of other couples snogging behind the hedge where Luna and Harry were didn't seem to be bothering them at all, he heard one of them whispering about going inside to a room but ignored it. Harry felt as though Luna was in fact the only person in the world besides him, and would have given her anything she had asked for, or told her anything she wanted to know. He squeezed her tightly into another hug as Hermione and Ron came bursting around the corner, both looking very worried and holding a couple goblets each.

"Ronald! Hermione!" Luna grinned, breaking away from Harry to look at the goblets. "You brought us more punch! I love you two!"

She put her arms out to hug Ron, who looked at Hermione and Harry with a look of terror on his face and jumped backwards, which Harry couldn't understand, as he wanted to hug them both too.

"Quick... drink it!" Ron thrust the beaker into Luna's hand as Hermione handed one to Harry, which he immediately took a large sip of.

Everything suddenly seemed to change drastically. He and Luna were instantly shivering, and Harry realized how odd and eerie everything really had been.

"How long have we b-b-be-been out here?" Luna stammered through chattering teeth, clutching her arms around herself tightly. Harry felt as though the temperature had suddenly plunged into sub-zero temperatures.

"Professor McGonnagal! We found Harry and Luna!" Hermione yelled, looking sympathetically at both Harry and Luna. "It's half-twelve, you left the Great Hall over three hours ago if that tells you anything."

McGonnagal came running around the corner panting, she too was carrying a couple of goblets. "Good Miss Granger, Mr Weasley," she huffed, looking at Harry and Luna with relief. "I had found Mr Longbottom and the Patil twins together behind Hagrid's hut. I can't find Professor Snape anywhere though. He would be able to figure out who had done this and could get us more antidote than what Poppy has in her stores."

"Who had done what?" Harry asked, looking as confused as Luna.

"The person or persons responsible for tampering with the Festive punch," McGonnagal replied angrily. Her lips were pursed tightly together and she was trembling, but not from the cold as Luna and Harry were - she was furious. "I will expel whoever did this if I can prove it!"

"It was Malfoy, though!" Hermione cried just as angrily, in fact she looked close to tears again. Harry could see that the gold combs that had been holding her hair up so tidily had come loose and her hair was disheveled, a small twig was sticking out of the back, "he and Parkinson insisted on making that bloody sculpture!"

"Yes Miss Granger, I agree that you are very likely right," McGonnagal said quietly as Harry watched Ron brushing a bit of dirt off of his robes. "But until I speak with Professor Snape I won't know how to narrow it down. The ingredients for this sort of potion are supposed to be prohibited on Hogwarts grounds, but I wouldn't know the first thing about where to get them. That is something he would know. Professor Malfoy may have been helpful, she knows her way around Potions relatively well herself, but she seems to have disappeared as well. The only staff that I have accounted for is Hagrid, Pomfrey, and Filch, actually, all the others not still on holiday seem to have disappeared. Alright, Ron - Hermione - get these two to their dorms please, before they need a hypothermia solution. I need to round up another few students and check on those in the Hospital Wing. Oh I do wish that Dumbledore would hurry up and get himself back to the school!"