It May Be Raining

Chapter Eleven

Gathering Clouds

"The sky won´t snow and the sun won´t shine,

It´s hard to tell the nighttime from the day..."

Harry pushed his books away from him. He´d been distracted a lot in the past month or so, after the scene he and Ginny had witnessed in the infirmary.

He´d been noticing the altered mood of the Potions Master, altered to most of his students--not to Harry. No, to Harry he was still scathingly antagonistic. The altered bit was that he was no different to any of the other students. He treated all with the same glaring menace. He´d even managed to reduce the solid, wrestler-like Millicent Bullustrode to a heap of nerves and tears last week. She was causing such a distraction with her sobbing that she was escorted out of the room by Pansy Parkinson and hadn´t been back since.

Malfoy had just come out of the infirmary two weeks ago and already Snape was giving him a little of what the others got in his absence. He was singled out less, Harry noticed, but not much. And he was one of the best students in the class Harry would allow himself to admit. The whole situation made less sense the more he thought about it. So, he would try not to.

"I´ve got it," Hermione said excitedly across the table, startling Harry back into reality. "I´ll write the history of the most impenetrable wizard fortress in all of Great Britain."

Harry, Ron and Hermione were sifting through volumes of dusty old history books for topics to write on for a massive end of term report for Professor Binns´ History of Magic final.

"And that would be..." Ron answered, deflating Hermione somewhat.

"Azkaban," she quipped impatiently flipping through a large, leather bound book as if this was entirely too obvious.

Ron shrugged, uninterested.

Harry offered a, "Happy writing. Should be great fun."

Hermione entered into a soliloquy on the importance of getting a head start on research assignments so that their deadlines don´t creep up. Harry and Ron were trying hard to appear interested. Neither of them were, really.

"Oh it should be loads of fun. For instance, did you know that it was once a military outpost for the troops of the Wizarding War Council back in the twelfth century? It was built by Benjamin Gryffindor, son of Godric Gryffindor." She looked up from the text she´d just read out of, smiling. "Interesting, huh?"

"Oh, very," Ron offered sarcastically.

***

Harry reluctantly entered the dark and dripping dungeon chamber, scanning for the scowling and beetle-eyed Professor. Not in at the moment he quickly noted. Taking his usual seat at the back of the class, Ron and Hemrione sat beside him. Safety in numbers, Harry thought with a silent smile.

Snape chose that very moment to charge into the room, letting the large oak door crash into the flagstone wall behind him with a bang. He made a deft movement to the front of the room and wrote the ingredients to an advanced potion on the board. The look on Hermione´s face suggested that this would be a challenging one. Harry chanced a glance at Neville who was squirming a couple of desks ahead of him. Harry knew that with the unforgiving mood Snape was in, things would not turn out well for him.

"I´m going to ask to be paired with Neville," Hermione decided, raising her hand to the protests of Ron.

"Yes!" the professor shouted irritably, glaring at Hermione.

"Sir, may I move to be paired with Neville?" she asked timidly.

To Harry´s shock and amazement Snape conceded.

"Yes, Granger. See to it that Longbottom doesn´t screw this one up. Truth Serums are rather temperamental in their beginning stages." He turned back to his list.

"Sir," Hermione continued picking up her open book and scanning it as she simultaneously moved her belongings to where Neville was sitting, "I think you´ve gotten the ingredients a little mixed up, it´s not-," Hermione stopped in her tracks as the Potions Master rounded on her drawing his wand and pointing it between her eyes.

Ron made to stand as Harry and Seamus each grabbed an arm to restrain him.

"You would be surprised to know just how many horribly disfiguring charms I am in command of, Miss Granger. Care to test my knowledge on them?" He hesitated, waiting for her answer. He got a paralyzed stare. "Then I think you should hold your tongue, sit down and keep your eager, know-it-all mouth shut!" he bellowed as Hermione sat (more like collapsed into the chair next to Neville).

The class went on with as little movement or talking on the part of the students as possible. As it turned out, Hermione was right; in a synchronized effort, all caldrons in the room spontaneously combusted causing Snape to dismiss class early driving all students from his dungeon with much shouting and wand waving.

***

Harry scanned the room frantically. The prone forms of students, ministry officials, Death Eaters and teachers littered the gray stone floor. Scores of carbon copied, hooded figures sparred with adversaries, great and small, skirting the dead that began to multiply around them. Voldemort was in the throng of it all.

Harry could see Wormtail through a firefight of curses and hexes. He was there--a man kneeling, neck in his silver grasp. He seemed to smile maniacally. He was enjoying this. Harry felt sick but suppressed the feeling, as he was sure that he was the only chance that this unknown man had at survival. He had to get to him, without his intervention he would surely die.

He became distracted when he saw her. Imogen, among other adults and some students as well, wand at hand and a determined look on her face. Try as he might, Harry could not tell if she was fighting alongside of the hooded figures that seemed to surround her or against them. Her silver and green tie, the insignia on her school robes designating Slytherin House and the set and determined glint in her eyes oddly conjuring images to Harry´s mind of Malfoy on the train after fourth year, maliciously stomping on the memory of Cedric Diggory. Harry willed himself not to give in to the stereotyped stigma but remain objective.

He saw her take a hit and fall.

He could not get to her. He could not get to the man. People were falling all around him and he was helpless to do a thing.

He woke up with the customary pain in his scar, threw on glasses and a robe and went down stairs. This was becoming an unpleasant tradition.

Harry was almost expecting to see Ginny´s brilliant red head upon entering the common room. There she was, constant, comforting like a beacon in a dreadfully tossing cold sea.

She looked up from her book to note his entrance with a smile and suddenly Harry felt better, warmer, safe, home. Ginny moved her feet from their position on the couch she was sitting on, giving Harry room to sit beside her.

"Trouble sleeping?" she asked with a sympathetic glance at him. He nodded.

A sudden thought occurred to him as he sat back and she took up her book again, he´d never asked her about the amazing charm she´d given him for Christmas. The mystery jewel had been ever present in his mind since it had been placed around his neck and he wanted to know more.

"Ginny, this amulet you gave me-," he was cut off when Ginny began shushing him promptly.

"Harry! Not so loud." She looked around the room frantically and then calmed when she found no lurkers. "Sorry, I´m a bit paranoid, Harry. It´s just that I´ve been worried about you since I met you and I´ve been working on that gift for nearly as long. I just want it to work properly and it won´t if,"

"If I announce to everyone that I have it," he finished for her in a monotone indicating that he was tired of this excuse.

Ginny took the hint and finally explained, "After you saved me in my first year from, from," she hesitated, not meeting Harry´s eyes, "the Chamber, I wanted to pay you back. This was the way I thought would be most acceptable to you." She indicated the charm as she spoke. "I knew you wouldn´t accept my outright help, I mean what could I do? But I do realize that you are constantly in danger and it would ease the minds of those who love you to know that you aren´t entirely an open target." She sighed and continued, steeling herself up to say something that she´d wanted to say for sometime, but not knowing how exactly. "And it´s sort of an apology."

"Apology? Apology for what, Ginny?" Harry said wholly not expecting this.

"For getting you into that mess with Tom Riddle to begin with. It was my fault and you could have easily been killed." She looked every bit as guilty as she sounded. Harry was eager to reassure her that she never posed a threat to him.

"No, Ginny that wasn´t your fault. You don´t know how worried we were for you, how worried I was when I saw you. I thought you were dead."

Ginny smiled at his attempt to misplace the blame, but she could not be dissuaded. Whatever trouble she got, she´d asked for it.

Changing the conversation for fear that he would never concede, Ginny replied, "Anyway, that was why I stormed into Flitwick´s class. I guess I was a little overexcited about it. I´d really made excellent progress on it that day. He, of course, thought that it was just and experiment, not a real Praemedicatus Crepundia," she finished with alacrity.

It all came together for Harry. He understood why her mood had been altered last term. With the pending medical internship, infirmary duty and a pra- whatever the thing was--to make, he was amazed that she´d found the time to do it all. He was flattered that she would go to such lengths for him and gratified more than he could express by the gesture. She really was a rare creature. He was lucky to be able to call her friend.

***

"Good luck, Harry!" Hermione called as Ron waved. Harry joined the rest of the team for the final match of the season.

Angelina was already charging through her pep talk as Harry came through the doors of the locker room.

George was asleep and Fred was causing a disturbance as usual. Harry took his seat undetected by Angelina. His nerves were fading, sort of, as he was still more distracted by the behavior of Professor Snape lately and the fact that Imogen had showed up in his dreams.

Actually, come to think about it, it wouldn´t seem all that strange for a girl, a pretty girl with a cute smile and a contagious personality to end up in the dream of a fifteen year old boy. But this was Harry, mind you, and he often didn´t dream like normal boys his age. There was always some looming and ominous portent to his dreams. A girl showing up in them, brandishing a wand nonetheless, wasn´t to be taken as a good sign.

Quidditch seemed to have found itself on the backburner, even seconds before the match that would make or break their brief Quidditch Cup record.

As the players took their positions on the field, Lee Jordan began to run through the names on the Slytherin roster, followed by Gryffindor. Harry took a moment to scope out his opposing Seeker. Malfoy looked undaunted, as if the whole Bludger incident had never taken place. But it had. Harry tried to restrain the thought that crept up in the back of his mind. "Play that to your advantage, Potter!" Odd, his inner demon voice even sounded a bit like Malfoy. All the more reason to ignore it, Harry told himself.

The whistle blew.

The rain came down in buckets at the very same moment.

Slytherin´s Beaters didn´t even hesitate. Harry had to duck both Bludgers as they came whooshing past him. Malfoy smirked slightly before taking off in the opposite direction.

The Gryffindor Chasers had given them a comfortable lead early on in the game by scoring four goals in rapid succession. Lee announced the score to be forty to zero, Gryffindor in the lead.

Still, Harry was hoping that Malfoy would play it safe this time around and make it all the more easy for him to catch the Snitch early on before the other team had had a chance to score. A shut out game would be a nice way to end the season, he thought with a smile.

To Harry´s great surprise he´d seen the Snitch whisk past him. As he made a dive in pursuit of the walnut-sized ball streaking toward the ground, Malfoy also dived, but not in pursuit of the Snitch.

He merely touched down and walked off the field, dragging his latest model racing broom in the mud behind him.

Harry touched down, Snitch in hand and an irate Slytherin captain shouting at Malfoy as he walked up to the castle without turning around. Harry watched through dripping glasses as Imogen emerged from the stands and trailed off after the blond boy.

Harry had won his team the House Cup and it felt like the cheapest victory ever. He suddenly grew angry. Malfoy. He´d planned this, Harry was sure of it. He´d lost his nerve and new he couldn´t win out there and so the only thing left to do was to see to it the victory of the match was enjoyed by no one.

Harry threw down his broom as Ron came over to him with an angry expression on his wet features. "What the hell was that all about?" he asked Harry, practically yelling to be heard over the thunder and arguing of the Slyhterin Team and Madam Hooch.

***

"But it´s not like you to give up," Harry heard Imogen´s voice as he made to round a corner on his way up to the hospital wing.

"But I don´t give a damn about that sodding Qudditch Cup. I don´t even know why I agreed to start in the game. I´m not sorry I walked off at all," Draco cut in decisively. Harry could tell there was more than a bit of tension in his voice.

He peered around the corner to note that the two were conversing near a small alcove at the bottom of the stairs. Harry felt slightly guilty that he´d stopped to listen, guilty only because he wanted to respect Imogen´s privacy. Still he wanted to know what Malfoy´s problem was. This charade he´d put on out there on the Quidditch pitch was right on par with his more than erratic behavior lately.

Imogen hesitated then ventured further, "It´s to do with your mother, isn´t it?"

This set Draco off. Harry almost rounded the corner to intervene when he´d seen Draco´s livid expression and his angry intake of breath. But before Harry had picked his moment, Draco turned on his heel and with a voice of practiced patience he remarked, "You have no idea what you´re talking about, Spencer, and you´d do well to keep out of it." With that he stalked angrily away.

Harry watched as Imogen massaged her back and exhaled tiredly. She shook her head as the form of her only friend retreated down the corridor and then turned to walk off in another direction herself.

Harry wanted to say something but felt that it was none of his business. After all, he´d be the last person to offer objective advice about problems with Malfoy.

He continued up to the infirmary. Ginny was not skiving off dinner tonight. Harry would make her come down and join them. He missed having her around, she was always way too busy just to sit down and be unproductive for two minutes all together.

***

"Do you know anything about Malfoy´s mother?" Harry asked Ginny as he held the infirmary door for her. It had taken a lot more convincing than he would have thought to coax her out of her natural environment.

She stopped abruptly to stare at him.

"Is that why you are so interested in my company this evening? Pumping me for information on Malfoy." She looked at him incredulously.

Way to go, Harry thought to himself, that´s exactly what it seemed like. He´d never even stopped to consider what people actually meant by `you have to pick your moments.´

"No, that´s not it-," Harry began as Ginny smirked and shook her head, continuing down the hall.

"Harry, just leave him alone, please. He´s had a rough year," she stopped as Harry laughed slightly at the phrase. "He´s done nothing to you all year long, why must you antagonize him all the time. Just drop it Harry," Ginny continued, growing tired of his lack of seriousness on the issue.

"Okay, I´ll leave him alone. Since when did you become such a crusader for unfortunate Slytherins?" Harry realized that she´d become a little more harangued about his mocking Malfoy than he would have guessed of her, being a Weasley and all.

Ginny shrugged and shook her head, offering no more on the topic since they were in the Great Hall and someone was always bound to overhear something innocent and totally distort it for their twisted purposes. She´d had experience with this.

Harry noted the flashing and dark, churning sky that the ceiling mimicked of the outside. It had been a tempest like he´d never seen before. And it was incredible.

Hermione showed how pleased she was to see that Ginny had made time for them and come down to dinner by monopolizing all conversation. Harry and Ron carried on their prolonged discussion on the recent Quidditch win for Gryffindor, by no means a pleasant memory. It was the most anticlimactic and devastating win in the schools history. Angelina was still fuming.

It was then that the doors slammed open admitting a torrent of black hooded figures and towering ones in gray.

The room went cold and dark.

It was eerily silent. Not a movement was made until some light was found.

Death Eaters and Dementors alike flooded into the room. Dark figured guards at each of the entrances held lanterns, the only light in the room other than the lightening-streaked ceiling.

The hall erupted into delayed panic as students, teachers and intruders meshed together in a chaotic free for all.

In a sea of mayhem, Harry looked up to the table at the front. Dumbledore would customarily stand and restore order, like he had when the troll had invaded the school in his first year.

Only the Headmaster--their only security--was not there.

A handful of other teachers, including the stern Deputy Headmistress and head of the school´s tiny security force, Diggory, stood with wands brandished against their attackers and were fighting furiously.

Harry felt the penetrating cold.

Dementors.

He scanned the room and caught sight of a few second years huddled in a corner, trapped by a dominating gray hood and cloak. He could not get to them. They were at least a hundred feet away. In any case scenes like this occurred all over the enormous hall at the very same moment. Students were hurling curses and taking them as well. Some of the upper year students were putting up a pretty heroic fight.

Even fewer than that, but still worth noting, were those students clad in ties and robes that designated Slytherin House and had joined the side of the attackers. Granted all in this category were not necessarily Slytherins, Harry could see two Ravenclaws and a Gryffindor round on Professor Vector, unarming her expertly.

A timid and shaking hand grabbed hold of Harry´s. He moved to step in front of Ginny whose hand he clung to tightly, shielding her from the assault. He looked to Ron and Hermione who stood on the opposite side of the table wands out and ready. Two Death Eaters had seen them and turned to engage them.

Harry would have jumped the table and come to the aid of his friends if he hadn´t felt the telltale chill of an approaching Dementor. Even the way Ginny´s hand shook uncontrollably in his own indicated that one was close. He spotted it, moving through the crowd and firefight straight toward them.

"Expecto Patronum," Harry spoke the incantation with authority dispatching a silver Patronus to combat the menacing gray form. The screaming in his head was earsplitting and caused his vision to blur slightly.

Ducking a rogue curse, or possibly an expertly aimed one, Harry pulled Ginny under the massive Gryffindor Table with him.

"Stay here," he commanded sternly, "don´t move for anything."

She met his eyes, wide with fear and surprise. "How did they get in here? Impossible," she managed to say, breathing as if she´d just run a marathon.

"I don´t know," Harry answered quickly. "I have to go and help Ron and Hermione." He crawled back out into the hail of fallen bodies, some dead, others unconscious or wounded.

He found Ron nearby, ducking, taking fire and giving it in turn.

"Where´s Hermione?" Harry said, quickly dodging a hex that had gone astray.

"She went to help Parvati. Harry, I think they took her," he said chancing a look at his friend, a furious sort of panic in his eyes. Harry felt his breath catch in his chest. Hermione was gone. "They´re Apparating in and out of here as fast as they´d come," Ron continued, disarming a Death Eater and bringing her to the ground with a crash.

"Have you seen Ginny?" Ron hesitated a moment and then looked at Harry, his face a mask of worry.

"She´s fine, hidden," Harry reassured him as more members of both camps fell around them.

Then Harry saw something that made both himself and Ron start with shock. Neville cowered against a wall under the shadow of a hungry gray figure. His wand lay on the ground a few feet out of his reach. It was futile. He was white as a ghost and nearing the point of unconsciousness.

With a sick feeling, Harry realized that neither he nor Ron could make it across the room and to Neville in time. Still he would have to try.

Ron sprang into action next to him, headed in the same direction.

A Death Eater in front of them Apparated away with a student in his clutches, a hand wrapped tightly around the neck of a tiny Hufflepuff girl.

"Oh no!" Ron breathed hopelessly as they neared the scene.

Ginny had come to Neville´s aid before either of them had reached him. She was also unconscious and vulnerable to the approaching Dementor, lying across Neville´s motionless form.

Harry and Ron both stopped, the shock of the scene working to freeze their limbs.

A tall, black, hooded form stepped between the two prone forms and the creature. Dropping his hood, Harry and Ron could see the face of Professor Snape as he faced the Dementor. Only he wasn´t intending to protect the two students. He spoke to the gray figure with a sneer. "Not this one, you foul and stupid beast. The Dark Lord requested her personally."

Ron let out an indignant curse as the black form of Snape bent to pick up the small girl who put up no resistance as she was out cold. All Harry could see of her was black buckled shoes gray knee-high socks and pleated skirt of the same color. Her fiery red hair cascaded over the black robed arm of the professor. It was without a doubt Ginny and she was very much in danger.

Harry sprang after her as Ron was brought to the ground with a Stunning Charm. He had not time enough to look back for Ron. His one thought was to get to Ginny.

Snape Apparated from the Great Hall with his small load before Harry had taken three steps closer and Ginny was gone.

Harry stood in the midst of the waning battle unprotected staring at the spot he´d last seen Ginny. He hardly even felt the blow of some heavy piece of furniture as it made contact with the back of his head.

All of the swirling movement and sound of the disrupted hall faded into black nothingness.