The Mark of Death

After McGonagall left them, there was an uncomfortable silence between the four of them. Harry got the feeling that Luna didn't even want to look at him, and there were many rather cold looks exchanged between Hermione and Ron as well.

They walked Luna to the Ravenclaw door, waiting for her to go in before they turned to head towards their own Common Room, but as they rounded the corner they came face to face with a very angry Cho Chang.

"YOU!" Cho shouted at Hermione, pointing in her face and glaring menacingly. "You did this, didn't you? A plot to get my boyfriend, wasn't it?"

"Wait, you think I had something to do with it?" Hermione stammered, staring open mouthed at Cho, who looked even more murderous when Ron stepped in between them.

"Cho, she would never..."

"STOP DEFENDING HER ALL THE TIME!" Cho was now shrieking hysterically, her shiny black hair flailing around madly as she hollered. "You always stick up for her, just like he did! We are finished" Cho glared at Hermione again, but lowered her voice when some of the portraits on the walls began to stir and make comments about finding McGonagall. "There you go, Granger, you won. You have your way. You nearly poisoned half the school doing it, but you managed."

"You're mad, you know that?" Hermione said, looking disgusted at Cho. "Any halfwit would have noticed that none of the Slytherins were affected. Don't you find that a little odd?"

"Oh, not only do you take my boyfriend right out from under my nose, you're calling me a halfwit now?" Cho suddenly had her wand out and was pointing it at Hermione.

"Expelliarmus!" Ron yelled, taking Cho's wand from her and looking at her with revulsion. "I can't believe I liked you! You are truly self destructive Cho! And for the record, Hermione didn't make a move on me. I made the first move... Now if you'll excuse us, we need to get Harry to our Common room. You can't seem to see past yourself far enough to realize he's nearly frozen to death. Come on Harry, Hermione." Ron tossed Cho's wand across the corridor. Harry heard the faint "ouch!" from one of the portraits as they made their way to the winding stairs of the Gryffindor tower.

Soon Harry, Hermione, and Ron were sitting by the fire in their favorite chairs in the empty Common Room. Ron had run up to get a blanket for Harry to wrap around himself and Hermione had somehow managed to snag a warming solution that Harry was slowly sipping at. He was starting to feel somewhat better, but very confused and tired.

"So, err… what exactly happened?"

Hermione looked solemnly at the fire, Ron suddenly took a great interest in a piece of lint on the arm of his chair.

"Erm, well..." Ron started, looking intently at the rug, "I didn't notice when you left. I was dancing with Cho, Hermione with Zacharias when Professor McGonagall came running over to get Cho... something about an emergency in the Ravenclaw bathrooms and a first year... which was apparently Zacharias's sister, so he went along too, leaving Hermione and I. So we started dancing..."

"No! I mean, what the hell happened? To everyone? Why are students in the Hospital wing? What did Malfoy do?"

"OH!" Hermione sat up quickly, leaning forward in her seat. "You know the ice sculpture? I think that's how they did it. In fact it HAS to be. They must have somehow made a love potion of some kind - there are different levels... I'm sure this would have been a strong one... anyways, they must have coated the ice with it so it would melt in there. The thing is, they used way too much, and some people were poisoned."

"They'll live though," Ron muttered, looking somberly at the rug. "It's the humiliation of it all, I mean, some people were with people you wouldn't ordinarily expect, like Neville and the Patil twins..."

Hermione burst into a fit of the giggles, but overcame it to look apologetically at Harry. "While we're on the topic, we need to tell you something you won't like."

"Ok..." Harry said, feeling a little tired but wanting to hear the whole story so that he wouldn't have any big surprises at breakfast.

"Well, Ron and I left the Great Hall for a bit, and by then McGonnagal had found out what had happened so she was going around trying to give as many students as she could find the antidote. She found us when she heard Cho yelling."

"Yeah," Ron interrupted, amused. "What you saw was nothing compared to how she..."

"Anyways," Hermione said quickly, but she was smiling as though amused herself with Cho's behavior, "McGonagall gave us the antidote and wanted us to find you as soon as possible. In case this was an attempt to get you off the grounds, she wasn't too sure, but in order to find you, we thought it would be a lot simpler if we borrowed your map. So Ron came in here and took it."

"I'm so sorry!" Ron said, looking at Harry nervously, "I would never have taken it without asking, but we thought you might be in danger, you were no where to be seen, and…"

"It's ok Ron. I'm not mad. Go on."

"Well," Hermione said carefully, looking at both Ron and Harry. "Moments before we found you we were looking at the map. We saw you were outside near the greenhouses with Luna, and Snape and Malfoy were on the other side of the hedge."

"Draco and Snape?" Harry looked disgusted at both Ron and Hermione. "They were watching me and Luna?"

"No..." Ron said carefully, as though explaining it to a child. "Professor Malfoy and Snape. We don't know what was going on there, they were gone by the time we found you, but we were worried. You know, Snape being a former Death Eater and her being, well, whatever the hell she is..."

"She's not like that Ron," Hermione warned, her voice bordering with anger. "But we were deciding how to go about it without Snape seeing us, and, well, Filch came around the corner with Mrs. Norris. His feet soaked were from the Ravenclaw toilets, so you can imagine his rage."

"And he recognized the map. We managed to delete it before he took it but it has been confiscated again."

Harry groaned. He loved that map. It was one of the few things he had of his father's and of Sirius's. It also had been very helpful to him at times, but looking at his friends' worried faces he couldn't feel angry.

"It's alright," he said, forcing a smile and yawning. "But I'm tired, I'm sure we'll hear a lot more tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Harry. Err, and you, Ron," Hermione stammered, jumping out of her chair and running off up the stairs to her dorm. Ron slowly got up, his face red as a lobster's.

"So, are you and Hermione...?" Harry grinned, pulling his blanket around himself and following Ron up to their dormitory. Harry could see that Dean still hadn't returned. His bed was empty, making Harry wonder if Dean and Ginny were some of the unfortunate ones that ended up in the Hospital Wing.

"What? No! It just kind of happened, you know." Ron grunted, changing out of his dress robes and into his maroon pajamas. "Hermione isn't interested in me that way, you know? We're friends."

Harry was sure Ron was saying this to convince himself more than anyone.

"What about Cho then?" Harry smirked as he climbed into his four-poster bed, knowing that even in the dark, Ron's ears were burning red.

"Nothing to Cho, I don't want to be bothered with her anymore. G'night."

"Night," Harry murmured, sinking into his pillow. Ron would be in for a surprise, though. The Head Boy and Girl were in charge of the Prefects, and Harry had a strong feeling that both Ron and Hermione were going to be made very miserable.

*********

The next morning Ron woke Harry up very early, the sun seemed to just be coming up and Harry felt rather ill. His head was pounding and he wondered if when he stood up he might throw up and he felt that the weak light coming through the curtains would soon blind him. Judging by the way Ron was squinting at him, he was feeling just as bad.

"Argh, this must be similar to a hangover," Harry muttered, reaching for his glasses on his bedside table. "Why the hell are you waking me up this early Ron?"

"I think food will help us, but I don't want to go to the Great Hall for breakfast. I was going to ask to borrow your cloak so that I could sneak to the kitchens without being seen by Cho or Hermione."

Harry suddenly realized he didn't know what he would say to Luna if he were to see her at breakfast either. Did she only kiss him because of the potion? She had pulled away from him before and acted all cold. Maybe she didn't like him. He certainly didn't want to face that when he felt as though his head had gained twenty pounds.

"Err, actually, we'll both go," Harry muttered, getting up and dressing quickly. "I'm starving, and it might do us a bit of good to go around and see if we can hear Malfoy or his friends boasting about it. Wouldn't it be great if we could get him expelled?"

The two slipped under the Invisibility Cloak, which seemed to be getting smaller and smaller every time they tried to get in it, and headed for the kitchens. The castle seemed to have an eerie silence. They would see the odd student walking to breakfast alone, heads down to avoid eye contact with anyone making Harry wonder how many people had made fools of themselves.

"Professor Malfoy! What is wrong with him?" they heard Professor McGonagall's voice angrily echoing through a nearby corridor just as Harry was about to tickle the pear to get into the kitchens. Ron reached over and grabbed Harry's wrist to stop him.

"Let's go see!" Ron muttered. He didn't have to tell Harry twice. The two scrambled towards the voice down a nearby corridor, taking extra care not to let the cloak slip off and show their feet.

"He'll live," Professor Malfoy said, sounding slightly disappointed. They rounded the corner to see Professor McGonagall and Professor Malfoy glaring at each other. Malfoy was levitating a very pale and unconscious Snape on a stretcher and holding what looked like an ice pack on his head. Both women looked as though they hadn't had any sleep. They each had dark circles under their eyes, and Malfoy's hair was tossed carelessly into a ponytail. "I was taking him to the hospital wing just now."

"What the hell did you do to him?" McGonagall snapped, walking over to take a look. "I was looking everywhere for both of you last night."

"I didn't do this Minerva." Malfoy sighed and narrowed her eyes at McGonagall. "There is no way I would deliberately put myself through that."

"No, I don't suppose you would," McGonagall muttered. Harry could have sworn he saw a flicker of amusement on her face, but it was quickly replaced by its usual stern expression. "I have my suspicions as to who did, but I have no proof. I don't even know what kind of potion it was. I'm just amazed that Severus wouldn't have realized it."

"It was Caritaserum," Professor Malfoy said, shaking her head with disgust and glaring at Snape. "Colorless, odorless, and such a mild taste that would easily be drowned out by the Cranberry flavor. No one would have detected it by taste in there, I only realized what it was myself after the effects wore off and he began to show symptoms of an overdose."

"Why the hell didn't you come looking for me? Or take him to the hospital wing then?" McGonnagal snapped furiously, giving Malfoy a cold glare. Harry had to elbow Ron who had began to snigger quietly into his sleeve.

"It was half three in the bloody morning! There was enough powdered Bezoar in his office and it was better not to try and move him!" Malfoy exclaimed, her eyes widening with exasperation. "Listen, regardless of what you think about me, Dumbledore trusts me."

"Yes, but conveniently enough he isn't here, is he?" McGonagall fumed. "I'm sure if he had been things would have been very different last night."

"That's right," Malfoy seethed, glaring directly back at McGonagall. "Things would have been very different. I personally believe Dumbledore was the intended target. He usually samples the punch first, does he not?"

McGonagall looked both bewildered and horrified, stepping back from Professor Malfoy slowly and covering her mouth with her hand. "No! You- you really think that? I mean we knew he wouldn't be there..."

"Yes, but how many students knew? I don't think any did until you announced it at dinner, and that would be after the sculpture had been made."

"Narcissa," McGonagall said, her stern expression replaced with concern, "Are you aware of who carved the Pegasus? I mean, we have no proof, but..."

"Yes. My son. Along with the other Slytherin Prefects. That's why I figured they didn't intend to hit Snape so hard with it," she nodded her head at the unconscious Snape, "They didn't put much thought into it though, did they? I mean, of course someone who has spent the last seventeen years living in a dungeon is going to drink a lot more of a cold beverage if the fires are blazing to overheat the room."

"Why would they hit Dumbledore with a love potion though?" McGonagall wondered almost to herself more than to Professor Malfoy, looking completely mortified.

"It's not like other love potions. Caritaserum is a highly complex potion with properties that match very closely to Veritiserum. Both are made exactly the same way, only Veritiserum uses a higher quantity of frozen Ashwinder eggs, which are safe in small doses, but cause a poison otherwise unless they are blended with the exact amount of powered Bezoar. Overdosing on Caritaserum will achieve the same results as Veritiserum but it will kill the victim quickly before they could tell you too much. Either they were ready to give Dumbledore powdered Bezoar and question him about something... or they wanted to harm him."

"That is what you gave to Severus, then? Bezoar?" McGonnagal looked skeptically at Malfoy.

"That's right," Malfoy said, Harry could see a very satisfied look on her face that reminded him of a cat that had accidentally caught a mouse. "But he will need to recover for a few days I think. It took me a while to come off the effects myself, and I probably drank less than half of what he had consumed."

"I'll have Remus Lupin fill in for your class, but you will have to take Professor Snape's until he's better. Potions wasn't a very strong subject for Lupin."

"That is not a problem. Is Dumbledore aware of what occurred yet?"

"No, and frankly I wish to keep it that way. He has enough to worry about. I do not want him thinking that I am unable to manage on my own. He might try and abandon what he is doing to come back here. I don't want to risk that. Not a word to him about this Narcissa. Is that clear?"

Professor Malfoy glanced down at the stretcher with disgust and looked up at McGonagall. "I wouldn't dream of letting any of this get out Madam. I'll get him to Poppy."

Ron and Harry had to jump out of her way as she levitated Snape on the stretcher swiftly past them, McGonnagal walking hurriedly off in the opposite direction. Ron finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"God, makes you almost feel sorry for her," he muttered, glancing at Harry, who was very deep in thought.

"Makes me almost feel sorry for Snape," Harry retorted. "We really should tell Hermione about this."

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

Harry finally convinced Ron to go along with him back to the common room to see Hermione, who they found right away sitting in her favorite chair by the fire, lightly petting Crookshanks perched on her lap. They quickly told her everything they had overheard, minus the fact that they had been under the cloak to avoid her and the other two girls.

"Really," Hermione muttered, looking highly interested. "I thought it was strange that Draco had wanted to do that carving so badly. I mean, traditionally it's girls that want the job, but that's not what I find the most interesting."

"Well? What is it then?" Harry asked impatiently. Ron was doing everything he possibly could to avoid looking at Hermione, taking an extra long interest in the frost forming on the windows, picking some of the felt off the bottom of a chess piece... Harry was wondering if Ron was even listening.

"You said that Professor Malfoy looked really happy about something for a few minutes. Her and Snape hate each other. We all saw that. I think she might have been up all that time questioning Snape while he was in the poisoned state. I bet she found out something she hadn't known."

"I wonder if she found out about her son's Dark Mark," Ron muttered. Harry tossed a rook at his head for opening his yap, making Ron jump. "Sorry mate!"

"Draco has the Dark Mark?" Hermione's eyes widened, and Harry went into a quick detail on how he had seen it on his own arm when he and Draco had exchanged appearances with the Polyjuice potion.

"Well, Professor Malfoy certainly wouldn't be happy about that, so we can rule that out," Hermione said quietly, watching as a couple of second years came through the portrait giggling.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Ron exclaimed, his mouth gaping open in surprise. "The Malfoys are Death Eaters Hermione, including her, I know it!"

"How do you know that, Ron?" Hermione asked calmly, shrugging. "I've spent plenty of time alone with her in her office, she has never harmed me, yet I'm a 'Mudblood', right?"

"She's up to something," Harry muttered, and Ron nodded in agreement.

"Or she's changed, Dumbledore trusted her enough to hire her." Hermione replied, shrugging and stroking Crookshanks under the chin.

"Yeah, and where the hell is Dumbledore?" Ron asked a little louder than he intended, making a few first years look over and Crookshanks hiss at him. "Seems he's acting a little out of sorts. I thought he'd never leave the castle."

"He has his reasons, McGonnagal practically said so." Hermione stated, looking at them as if to say this-topic-is-over-so-don't-even-try-and-argue.

"Well, either way, I think Potions class should be very interesting tomorrow."

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

Harry was very excited to have Lupin back, even though he knew it would only be a short while. He quietly took a seat between Ron and Hermione after greeting Lupin with a cheery "Hello", telling himself that he would make a point of visiting with him after dinner.

"Why are you here?" Draco asked in a loud, annoyed voice as he came into the class late as usual, tossing his hair back behind his shoulders and glaring defiantly at Lupin. Lupin gave him a calculating look before pointing to where Draco usually sits.

"Take a seat Draco." He looked around at the room that was now full, some students still looked like they had been ill. Many wouldn't meet each other's eyes. "I'll be subbing in for Professor Malfoy for the next few days until Professor Snape is better. I've never been much use with a caldron so her and I have switched until then. What were you working on?"

Hermione's hand went up.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" Lupin's eyebrows rose, bemused.

"Professor Malfoy was going to give us a quiz today."

Everyone groaned, a few Ravenclaw students glared at her and muttered a few nasty names under their breaths.

"Well, I don't want to do that. I'll leave it for her to give you when things are back to normal. Instead, we can talk about practical defense and using the necessary amount of force, and some of the best ways to deflect curses."

After the bell rang, Harry and Hermione gathered their things and headed towards the dungeons talking animatedly about Lupin's class. Harry wished that Lupin could remain as a permanent teacher, as his classes were always far more fun and enjoyable even with the Slytherins sharing it.

When they arrived at the Potions room, Professor Malfoy was sitting at Snape's desk, staring at the angry Slytherins with a challenging look on her face. Harry wondered how furious Snape would be that anyone was taking his class for him. It didn't seem something he would approve of. Once everyone was accounted for, Professor Malfoy stood up and closed the door before walking around the class.

"Professor Snape had down for you to be learning a Hallucinogenic Potion today, but given the embarrassing display one or more of you had displayed at the Festive Ball..." Her eyes darted angrily at the Slytherins again. "I'll be giving you some written assignments."

Harry noticed her movements were very much like Bellatrix Lestrange's. She moved almost catlike, and though her hair was blonde their features were very similar. Harry figured she may be younger, but as Azkaban had prematurely aged Lestrange's face it was difficult to tell.

"First of all, though" she said, walking over to the front of the class and sitting on the top of the desk, "how many of you know what Caritaserum is? Draco? You seem to spend an awful lot of time down here, perhaps you would know?"

Her eyes narrowed at Draco, who was glaring at her through a curtain of his blonde hair.

"No, mother, I haven't a clue," he replied angrily. "What exactly are you trying to imply?"

"Oh, I wasn't implying anything," she said nonchalantly, smirking, "Although, I might point out that nobody at the Slytherin table seemed to be affected by the potion the other night, and that it was you had made the lovely sculpture, wasn't it?"

"Well, you can't prove anything." Draco shrugged, looking her straight in the eyes and sneering, making him look very similar to his father.

Hermione leaned over and whispered very quietly to Harry, "That was practically a confession if you ask me!" Harry nodded, silently agreeing with her. Evidently, Professor Malfoy saw it that way too.

"You are so very right Draco! No one could prove anything. I am sure that most of the staff thinks it was just a childish prank. Someone got their hands on a few ingredients and thought, 'Hey! We could make a love potion and spike the punch and have a few laughs.' I however, know better. So, I want everyone to turn in an essay to me, on the dangers of Ashwinder eggs. I think two feet will do except, seeing as the Slytherins didn't feel the effects of the potion, they can hand in four feet, as they'll have to do all the more research. Anyone in Slytherin that disagrees with this can thank whoever put Caritaserum in the punch."

"That is not fair!" Draco yelled, slamming his hand down on the desk as all the Slytherins groaned angrily, not being used to being picked on in Potions. "You have no proof we did it!"

"Plenty of things aren't fair, Draco. A person getting paired up against their will is one of them. Hand it in by Friday to me, or you will serve a week of detentions. Take your pick. Potter? Stay here after the bell, I need a word."

Everyone took out their quills and began writing. After class, Harry waited by Professor Snape's desk waiting for all the other students to mill out. Draco slowed by his mother to give her a murderous glare before walking out and slamming the door behind him. Professor Malfoy turned to look at Harry.

"I suppose you have spoken with Dumbledore?" she asked quietly, glancing nervously up at the door as if worried that Draco might still be standing there listening.

"Yes."

"Alright. I want you to read carefully through chapter thirteen of Defense at all Costs, I'm sure you've glanced at it already?"

Harry knew that was the chapter she had told the class they would not be learning from. The chapter on the Forbidden Curses. Harry hadn't given it a second look. He had been too preoccupied with his work.

"No, I haven't."

"Really?" her eyebrows rose as if she didn't believe him, and she had a bemused smile. "I think most of the students have, either out of morbid curiosity or they have bad intentions. Unfortunately it was the only book that covered everything else."

"Is there a point here?" Harry snapped impatiently. He couldn't help it, He didn't trust her knowing what Kreacher had told Dumbledore.

"Yes, I want you to read that chapter and report to me for our first lesson Thursday," she said quietly, looking around the classroom at the caldrons. "Not here of course, we'll use my classroom. And not a word to anyone."

"No worries there," Harry muttered rudely, walking out and storming off to lunch, not looking forward to Thursday.

*******

After his classes that day Harry went to the Great Hall to wait for Ron and Hermione who were at the Ravenclaw table with the other Prefects getting orders from Cho before dinner. Judging by the way Cho was glaring at Hermione and Ron, he had a feeling they would be far too busy to come with him to see Lupin after they ate. Soon enough Ron and Hermione took their seats. Ron swore loudly as he grabbed a couple of Yorkshire puddings on his fork.

"Don't know what I saw in that cow," Ron grumbled, flooding his plate with gravy and sopping it up with one of the puddings. "She's making us help in the Hospital Wing tonight to clean. That's the sort of thing people get for detention!"

"Didn't you have to do that in detention before?" Hermione asked, holding back a giggle.

"Yeah. Snape had me in there cleaning bedpans..." Ron paled. His face was contorted with disgust, "Snape's in there! I don't want to change his bedpans!"

"We won't be cleaning bedpans Ron, really. Stop whining." Hermione shook her head, annoyed, passing Ron a napkin to mop up the gravy he had pushed off his plate and onto the table. "We're just going to help Madam Pomfrey sort out all her medicines and put things away. I don't think it's ever been that crowded in there. Besides, we might learn something."

"Is Snape the only one in there?" Harry asked, noticing that the High Table seemed to still have a few vacant chairs. Even though Lupin was filling one where Snape would be.

"A few students are there too," Hermione said quietly, "Eloise Midgeon. She thought the fires looked really pretty and tried to hold them in her hands. Collin Creevey tried to kiss a Slytherin girl. He has boils all over his body. Michael Corner... well, no one's really sure of what happened to him but I hear they brought him in and he was croaking like a frog. I think he tried something with the same Slytherin girl."

Ron burst out laughing, and Harry grinned. "Doesn't sound like a boring place to have been that night."

"You see? We might actually enjoy ourselves, or we might overhear something," Hermione said pointedly, watching as Draco and Theodore Nott walked in through the double doors, talking to each other quietly. Both looked very angry about something as they sat at the Slytherin table, sitting on the end of the table away from the others, deep in conversation.

"Well, I'm going to go and see Professor Lupin," Harry said, pushing his plate forward and standing up. He had just noticed Luna getting up from her chair and was hoping to talk with her privately before heading over to the Defense Against the Dark Arts corridor. "Let me know if you hear anything good."

Harry rushed out behind Luna who seemed to have quicken her pace as she left he Great Hall and walked towards the stairs that Harry knew led up to the Ravenclaw Dormitories.

"Luna!" Harry called out to her, wanting her to stop. "Wait for me!"

She paused on the third step, looking awkwardly at Harry as a few other Ravenclaw girls came down the stairs, slowing down to snigger rudely at the two of them before moving on towards the Great Hall.

"Yes?"

"I was, err, wondering if you would talk to me, about the other night," Harry stammered, wondering why she seemed so indifferent to him.

"There really isn't anything to talk about, is there?" Luna replied, trying to sound breezy, but Harry could see she was forcing it. That she was very bothered. "Besides, I have to study. I have my Ordinary Wizard Levels coming up, don't I?"

"I thought you said you usually don't study?" Harry asked, dejected.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot. Well, I think it's time I took things a little more seriously." Luna glanced at the girls that walked into the Great Hall before looking at Harry. "I need to go."

She ran off up the stairs, leaving Harry standing and watching the stairs not knowing what to think, before he turned and walked quickly to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom to find Lupin, who was reading a copy of the Quibbler.

"Hello Harry!" Lupin smiled, tucking the magazine into a drawer. "How are things? I was kind of hoping you would come to see me, where's Hermione and Ron?"

"Prefect duties," Harry mumbled, pulling up a chair. "They're helping to clean up the hospital wing after everything that happened there on Saturday."

"Ah yes, the potion in the punch. I heard a little of it, I know Severus is in the hospital wing, so it must have been pretty bad. Someone tries to ruin the dance every year with these kind of pranks, but Dumbledore has usually been able to stop it before it happens." Lupin smiled fondly, "Although, I believe your father and Sirius charmed the Slytherin's plates to walk to the edge of their table and dump their contents on whoever was eating from them in our fifth year. Filch had them doing a lot of cleaning that month."

Harry laughed. It sounded so much like something Fred and George would have pulled. Lupin's face suddenly turned very serious, and he looked at Harry with concern.

"Harry, you really need to be careful. I realize that potion was likely a harmless prank, but there are Hit Wizards hidden all throughout the grounds for a reason, and I'm really concerned about Professor..." Lupin paused and looked at the door. Harry whipped around to see Professor Malfoy standing and watching, looking curiously at the two of them.

"Hello Remus, just dropping by to thank you for covering my classes before, you know," she said, looking awkwardly at the two of them again. "It was a bit of a shock for me, I'm still having a very hard time believing it."

"Are you all right, Narcissa?" Lupin asked, getting up and looking at her with concern. "You look a bit pale."

"I'm fine, err, I think I have a cold or something," she muttered, looking at Harry again. Harry looked between the two of them and could see they wanted to talk about something which they didn't want Harry to hear.

"I just remembered, I need to study something," Harry mumbled, wanting to hear what Lupin was about to warn him and worried that he was about to warn Harry about her.

"I'll talk to you later Harry. I should be here for a few more days at least," he heard Lupin say as he walked out of the class and marched up to his dorm, pulling out the book Defense at all Costs and opening it to Chapter Thirteen. The Forbidden Curses. He didn't know what Lupin was about to warn him, but seeing that Draco was getting bold enough to try and attack Dumbledore and was now serving Voldemort, he suddenly felt it may actually good to learn how to defend himself a bit better.