---

Harry Potter paced the length of his small bedroom at number four, Privet Drive. In his hand he carried a pair of letters, and he was waiting impatiently for his owl, Hedwig, to return from her nightly hunt so that she could deliver them for him. He checked his watch: it was 1:45 in the morning, only five minutes later than the last time he had checked. It felt like it had been hours. Finally, just as he was beginning to despair of being able to send his letters in secret, the large snowy owl swooped in through the open window. She landed on top of her cage and looked questioningly at Harry as she swallowed the fat mouse she had been carrying in her beak.

“I’ve got some work for you, Hedwig,” Harry told the owl. “I need you to deliver these two letters, but you can’t let anybody see this one.” He held up the smaller of the two letters, which simply said Tyler on the outside. “I’m not sure where he is now that the summer holidays have started, but I hope you can find him.”

Hedwig looked slightly offended at the insinuation that she might not be able to find Tyler, and hooted indignantly.

“Okay,” Harry said with a laugh, “sorry. The other letter is for Ginny. If you could, I don’t know, hide Tyler’s letter when you deliver Ginny’s, and then go get it and take it to him, that would probably be best. Sound okay?”

Hedwig fluffed up her feathers importantly and held out her leg. Harry tied Ginny’s letter to it, and then gently placed Tyler’s letter in the owl’s beak.

“Good luck, Hedwig,” he said, stepping aside to give her a clear path to the window.

She shot him a look that clearly said, “As if I need luck,” and launched herself out into the night.

Finally succumbing to the exhaustion brought on by his first day back at Privet Drive, Harry collapsed onto his bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

* * * * *
A woman’s terrified scream jerked Harry out of his peaceful slumber. He sat up with a start, looking around wildly. It was light outside, and a quick glance at his clock told him that it was nearly eight o’clock in the morning. Another scream echoed through the house, and this time Harry recognized the voice as belonging to his Aunt Petunia. He grabbed his wand and raced for the stairs, wondering if the house might be under attack by dark wizards.

When Harry arrived in the living room, he had to struggle to keep from laughing outright at the sight before him. Aunt Petunia was pressed into the corner of the room as far as she could go, while three teacups with spindly arms and legs tap-danced on the floor in front of her. George Weasley - Harry could tell it was George because he wore a large nametag that said GEORGE - was lounging on the sofa and wearing an expression of utmost unconcern as he hummed softly and directed the dancing teacups with his wand.

“You!” shrieked Aunt Petunia, spotting Harry in the doorway. “Undo this, this instant! I will not be treated this way in my own house.”

“Sorry, Aunt Petunia,” Harry began while stifling a laugh. “I don’t remember any Transfiguration. I could blow them up if you like, but I have no idea how to get rid of the arms and legs.”

Aunt Petunia gritted her teeth and glared menacingly at Harry.

“Temper, temper Mrs. Dursley,” George said in a singsong voice. “We’ll play nice if you do.” He began directing the teacups to dance closer and closer to her feet.

“Stop it!” she shrieked. “What do you want?”

The tap-dancing stopped, but the teacups retained their arms and legs. George grinned at her and answered, “Breakfast.”

Aunt Petunia nodded curtly and made to step toward the door, but George was too quick for her and the teacups were instantly dancing again. Her apparent fear of them prevented her from escaping.

“It’s only polite to ask us what we’d like,” said George, sounding like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. He glanced toward the door and winked at Harry.

“What would you like?” Aunt Petunia asked desperately. Once again, the teacups stopped dancing.

George stroked his chin as though this was a question that required careful deliberation. “Whatever you’ve been feeding that son of yours that made him so gigantic. And not the rubbish you’ve been giving him to help him slim down, either. Anything else, Harry?”

Harry grinned at him. “That sounds great to me.”

“Well, that’s settled then,” said George. With a quick flick of his wand, the teacups’ arms and legs vanished. Aunt Petunia scooped them up and hurried toward the kitchen, scowling all the while.

As soon as she had left, Harry sank into a soft armchair. “Are you sure that was the best approach?” he asked, trying unsuccessfully to suppress his laughter.

“What’re you talking about?” George asked. “Dumbledore said, and I quote, ‘You have my permission to frighten them just enough to keep them civil.’ Between you and me, Harry, no amount of magic is ever going to make this lot civil, so that pretty much leaves everything wide open.”

Harry couldn’t help but laugh. “Why do I get the feeling that this is going to be the most fun I’ve ever had on Privet Drive?”

George mimed doing a bow without actually getting up from his reclining position. “The Weasley Twins, at your service. Guaranteed to be the life of any party, and to make a party out of any life.”

Harry laughed again and shook his head. It felt good to laugh, and Fred and George Weasley seemed to be experts at getting him to do it. “When’s Fred coming?” he asked after a moment.

“He should be along any time now. I just hope your aunt hurries up with breakfast so I can grab a bite before I have to leave.”

“Where do you have to be, anyway?”

“Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes - that’s our joke shop. Blimey, Harry, I almost forgot you didn’t remember all that. You were our original financial backer - gave us loads of gold to get started.”

Harry’s eyes widened in shock. “Where’d I get a load of gold?” It didn’t make sense that he could have given away loads of gold when he’d never had any money of his own in his entire life.

“Well, this particular gold was the prize money from a tournament you won, but-” he paused for a moment, as though trying to decide if he ought to be telling this to Harry or not, but finally continued, “Let’s just say it was a drop in the cauldron for you.”

Harry scrunched up his eyebrows in confusion. “What do you mean, ‘a drop in the cauldron’?”

George laughed before lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I mean you’re one of the richest wizards alive, Harry. You’ve got a vault at Gringotts - that’s the Wizarding bank - that’s full of gold and silver that your mum and dad left you. Plus, when Sirius died, he left you a pretty serious chunk of his family fortune too.”

Harry gaped at him. This couldn’t be true. Mrs. Weasley and Ron had both told him that the twins had a reputation for being pranksters, but surely George wouldn’t joke about something like this.

“Between you and me, though, don’t mention it to Ron,” George added. “Mum and Dad don’t exactly have a lot of money, and it bothers Ron more than the rest of us. He can be right jealous sometimes, but I think he’s finally starting to grow out of it.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Harry choked, still unsure whether George was stringing him along. He didn’t have time to wonder any more about it, however, because at that moment, a scowling Aunt Petunia entered the room and informed them that breakfast was ready.

Just as Harry and George were finishing their delicious breakfast of half a dozen eggs and a pound of sausage each, there was a knock at the door.

“That’ll be Fred,” said George, standing up to leave. Harry heard him open the front door and greet his twin before heading off to the joke shop. A few seconds later, Fred entered the kitchen, greeted Harry, and began polishing off the leftovers.

Excusing himself from the table, Harry headed upstairs to his room. It was nice to have the twins here to torture the Dursleys with their antics, but he wanted to see if either of his letters had been answered. His question was answered immediately upon entering his bedroom, as his head was attacked by a fluffy little owl about the size of a tennis ball.

“Hey there, Pig,” Harry said with a grin. His hand shot out and easily caught the twittering little owl, and he carefully untied the folded bit of parchment from his tiny leg. After releasing Pig, Harry sat on his bed, unfolded the letter, and began to read.

Dear Harry,

I was soooo glad to get your letter. The fact that you sent it so soon after getting there proves that you’ve gotten smarter during the past year. Two summers ago, you probably would have just scowled and refused to write anyone. I’m glad you’ve decided to lighten up.

Things at the Burrow are pretty normal - Right now, Ron’s getting yelled at for trying to sneak off and practice Quidditch instead of doing his chores. It still feels weird that we’re the only two kids left at home, but that’s the way it goes, I guess. And anyway, it’s not like things are dull around here or anything. Case in point: I just got a Howler from Hermione.

I made the mistake of writing and telling her that you had almost asked me out, but we both agreed that it would be better to hold off until your memory comes back, and she sent me a bloody Howler calling me an idiot for not jumping at the chance. I had no idea that that girl could yell so loud! It was really funny, actually, although now everybody knows all about our little talk out in the garden. I wish they’d just leave everything to you and me, but you know how meddling people can be sometimes - especially when they want to “help.” Gag.

Anyway, let me know how things are going with Fred and George. If they test out any of their inventions on you, I swear I’ll hex them so badly that it will take St. Mungo’s a month to sort them out.

I’ve got to go - Mum’s calling me, and it’s never a good idea to ignore her.

Ginny

P.S. This is stupid. I don’t even know how I should close a letter to you. Bye.

Harry laughed as he finished reading the letter. The postscript at the end did quite a lot to lift his spirits. Ginny hadn’t signed her letter Love, Ginny or anything, but the fact that she didn’t know what to write seemed to suggest that she was at least thinking about it.

A light knock on the bedroom door caused Harry to look up sharply and shove the letter into his pocket. Fred Weasley stood in the doorway.

“And what is so extremely secret that it must be hidden the moment I enter the room?” Fred asked in an amused voice.

“Er- nothing,” Harry said quickly. “I wanted to ask you about something,” he added, hoping to discourage Fred from pressing him about the letter.

“Ask away,” said Fred as he conjured himself a small armchair and settled comfortably into it.

Harry pulled open the lid of his school trunk and took out Peter Pettigrew’s damaged broomstick. It was still caked with dried mud, and the tail twigs were singed and uneven - the unfortunate result of the Severing Charm he had used to remove a portion of the tail that had caught fire.

“Could you teach me a spell to clean this up?” Harry asked.

“Ah, but you’re underage,” said Fred.

“Who’s going to report me? You?” Harry asked in amusement as he leveled his gaze at Fred.

“Point taken,” Fred replied with a grin. “I’m not much for cleaning spells, but I think Scourgify ought to work.”

Harry picked up his wand, waved it at the broomstick, and said, “Scourgify.” The dried mud vanished, revealing a polished handle with the name NIMBUS 2001 embossed on the side.

Fred let out a low whistle. “That’s a nice broom, Harry. Nothing compared to your Firebolt, of course, but I bet it’s about the next best thing. That was Pettigrew’s?”

Harry nodded.

“Must have gotten it from Lucius Malfoy.”

“Malfoy?” Harry asked. “I recognize that name. Ron said he was about the foulest git at Hogwarts.”

“That’ll be Draco Malfoy Ron’s talking about,” said Fred. “I’m talking about Lucius Malfoy, Draco’s father. He’s a Death Eater - a dark wizard, I mean - but back in your second year, he bought Nimbus 2001s for the entire Slytherin Quidditch team. That’s how dear old Draco made it onto the team in the first place. Anyway, I doubt Pettigrew could’ve afforded one, so his broom probably came from Malfoy, too.”

Harry began closely examining the broom’s tail twigs. “Is there any way to repair it?”

Fred leaned forward in his chair to examine the twigs as well. “What happened?” he asked after a moment’s inspection.

“I, er, sort of cut it off,” Harry said, embarrassed. “It was on fire, and I didn’t know any spells for putting out fires, so....”

Fred laughed, and Harry felt himself beginning to smile as well. “Well, I guess that was quick thinking on your part. Still, it can’t be too terribly damaged if you managed to fly it halfway across the country, right? Tell you what; I’ll have a look around Diagon Alley when I switch back with George, and I’ll let you know what I find.”

While Fred was still speaking, Hedwig swooped in through the window, a torn scrap of paper clutched in her beak. She dropped it into Harry’s lap, and immediately began hooting urgently. Frowning, Harry picked up the scrap of paper and began to read, while Fred moved around behind him so as to be able to read over his shoulder.

Harry-

It’s Tyler. I’m so glad you wrote - I didn’t know how to contact you. Some strange blokes have been following me for a while now. I’ve given them the slip a bunch of times, but they just keep coming back. I don’t seem to be able to lose them. Anyway, from what I’ve seen I’m pretty sure they’re dark wizards like the ones you escaped from that night you left school. I saw one of them using magic to torture a shop owner into telling him where I was sleeping at night. I don’t know where to go. If you can get me out of here in any way, please help. I’m in London

The letter ended abruptly.

“Who’s-” Fred began.

“I’ve got to go,” Harry choked out. He dropped the letter and threw open his trunk, pulling out his Firebolt and heading for the window.

Fred grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. “You’re not going anywhere,” he insisted. “Besides, you don’t even know where to go, other than London. It’s not as if London’s a little place.”

“Well I can’t just sit here!” Harry shouted. “Tyler’s my friend; I can’t abandon him like that.”

“Let me go contact Dumbledore; if anybody can handle it, he can,” said Fred. Harry suddenly realized that this was the first time he had ever seen Fred being completely serious. It was unnerving. “First, though, I need you to tell me about this Tyler. Everything you remember.”

“Well, er-” Harry faltered, remembering his efforts to keep Tyler’s knowledge of magic a secret. On the other hand, if he didn’t tell Fred something, Tyler was as good as dead - there was no way he’d be able to avoid the dark wizards forever. He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “His name is Tyler Stevens. He’s short and thin with light brown hair and beady black eyes. He looks nervous most of the time - his eyes are constantly darting about - and he’s, er, a pretty good pickpocket.”

“Where’d you meet him?” Fred asked. “Is he a wizard?”

Harry hesitated a moment before saying, “No. I met him at school last year.”

“Well, he certainly seems to know about magic; must be a Squib, then,” Fred mused.

“A what?” Harry asked.

“A Squib. Squibs are basically Muggles with at least one magical parent.”

“Oh, er, yeah,” Harry agreed, deciding that this was as good a reason as any for Tyler to know about magic.

“I’ll be back in a trice, Harry; don’t go running off.” Fred bounded down the stairs and out the front door. When he heard a distant crack, Harry knew he was gone.

Once again, Harry headed for the window with his Firebolt in hand. He was about to mount the broom when he suddenly remembered that he still had no idea where Tyler was. Cursing under his breath, he returned the Firebolt to his trunk and threw himself onto his bed. All he could do was wait for word to arrive.

Fred returned half an hour later, but he didn’t have any new information. All he could tell Harry was that Dumbledore was working on it, and they should know by the next day if he succeeded in finding Tyler.

Harry couldn’t remember ever having felt so powerless. Of course, he couldn’t remember anything at all from five years of his life, so he supposed that perhaps he had felt this way before. Since he couldn’t remember it, though, he figured it didn’t count. He ran his fingers through his hair and growled in frustration.

“Is there anything we can do so I’m not just sitting here waiting for something to happen?” Harry asked.

Fred shrugged. “We could always try feeding magical sweets to your cousin. If he doesn’t want any, we can force-feed him. I think I’ve got some Fainting Fancies with me.” He began searching his pockets.

Harry shook his head. “I want to do something... useful.”

Fred shot him a disgusted look. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve been spending too much time with Granger,” he said. “What happened to the Harry who told George and me that we all need to take time out to have a few laughs?”

“Why don’t you ask Umbridge?” Harry asked sourly. “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to have a good time, but I can’t just pretend there’s nothing wrong while my friend’s out there being hunted.”

Fred pulled a sweet from his pocket and threw it at Harry, narrowly missing his head. “You’re being stupid, you know that? It’s a good thing the rest of us don’t think the same way you do, or none of us would have smiled for the past year because you were missing. Is that what you want?” Harry was shocked to see Fred arguing with him so vehemently. Then again, one of the first things he had learned about the twins was their passion for laughter, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Fred was trying so hard to get him to lighten up.

“No,” Harry said quietly, deflating. “You know that. I just wish I could help.”

“You can help by cheering up,” said Fred. “And I’ve got just the thing. Here, watch this.” He pulled an ordinary-looking custard cream from his pocket, and popped it into his mouth. No sooner did he swallow it than he transformed into a giant yellow canary. A few moments later, he molted, leaving enormous yellow feathers all over Harry’s bedroom floor. “Tada!” he exclaimed.

Harry couldn’t help it; the scene before him was so ridiculous that he had to laugh.

“That’s better,” said Fred. “Now it’s your turn.” He held out another custard cream.

“What are these, exactly?” Harry asked as he took it.

“Canary Creams,” Fred said proudly. “One of the first Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes products.”

“I heard Dumbledore talking about these,” Harry said suddenly, as he remembered visiting the dingy pub with his Headmaster.

“Really? What did he say?”

Harry hesitated. “Just the name. He wasn’t exactly talking about them; it was more like he was using the name ‘Canary Cream’ as a password or a signal.”

Fred responded with an insane grin. “Wait ‘til I tell George. He’ll go nuts! But first, you eat.”

Harry nervously popped the cream into his mouth and promptly turned into a giant-sized canary just as his cousin, Dudley, walked past the open door. Dudley stopped short, staring wide-eyed at the giant bird. And then the spell wore off, and Harry was once again standing in his bedroom, although now there were twice as many yellow feathers covering the floor. Dudley let out a terrified gurgling noise at the sight of a giant bird suddenly molting and transforming into his cousin, and ran to his own bedroom.

“Excellent timing, Harry,” Fred laughed. Harry couldn’t help smiling back at him.

Around dinnertime that evening, Errol, the Weasley family’s ancient owl, arrived with a letter for Harry. In it, Mrs. Weasley explained that Professor Dumbledore, along with several of his “associates,” as she put it, had found Tyler in London and brought him to the Burrow. Apparently, the Weasleys felt that any friend of Harry’s was a friend of theirs and they had opened their home to him without question, despite the fact that they knew Harry had met him at a school for delinquents. Harry felt an odd warmth well up inside of him as he realized just how deeply his friends trusted his judgment.

After he finished eating, Harry bade Fred goodnight and retired to his bedroom, the exhaustion of spending all day alternating between worrying about Tyler and pranking the Dursleys with Fred finally catching up with him. As he lay down on his bed and closed his eyes, he couldn’t help feeling that, if one day at Privet Drive had taken this long, the two weeks he would be spending there would go by much slower than he cared to think about.

---

Harry was awakened the next morning by George Weasley bouncing on his bed.

“Wake uuuuup!” he sang in a poor imitation of an opera singer.

Harry groaned and covered his head with his pillow. George whispered something, and the pillow suddenly sprouted legs and began to move. Harry opened his eyes to find that, instead of a pillow, he was clutching an enormous spider.

“Aaaargh!” He threw the spider across his bedroom with all the force he could muster. It bounced off the wall, but quickly regained its footing and launched itself at him. Harry slashed at it with both hands while hissing, “Diffindo!” The spider’s legs were severed, and it fell to the floor.

Harry rounded on George. “What was that all about?” he demanded.

George just stared at him with a shocked expression on his face.

“Well?”

“Do you have your wand hidden up the sleeve of your pajamas or something?” George finally asked.

Harry swore under his breath as he felt the blood drain from his face. He had been caught doing wandless magic in front of someone again. After a moment, he managed to choke out, “Maybe.”

George grinned at him, looking relieved. “That was really convincing, Harry. For a minute there, I actually believed you’d done that without a wand.”

Harry laughed shakily and made a show of opening his trunk and pretending to put his wand away while George transfigured the legless spider back into a pillow.

“I brought our breakfast up here because I thought you might want to talk about repairing that broomstick while we eat,” George said after a moment, indicating the tray full of food on Harry’s desk.

“Did you find anything?” Harry asked eagerly as he took a bite of sausage.

“Course I did,” George replied. “Take a look at this!” He produced a book entitled Sport Broomstick Repair, along with a small bag of perfectly straight tail twigs. “It may take a little time, but we haven’t got much else to do, have we?”

“You got that right,” Harry muttered as he began flipping through the pages of the book. He frowned. “This looks really complicated. It’s too bad there’s no instruction video to go along with it.”

“Video?” George asked. “Is that what this thing is?” He pulled a videocassette from the small bag he had brought with him.

“Yeah,” Harry replied, taking it from him and examining the box. It had a Muggle-style (non-moving) photo of a broomstick similar to the one Harry wanted to repair, and bore the title Sport Broomstick Repair for the Muggle-born Witch or Wizard.

“The bloke at the Quidditch shop said he didn’t really know what it was, only that it’s pretty popular with Muggle-borns,” George said as Harry turned the video over in his hands. “Since you grew up with Muggles, I thought it might be helpful.”

“Thanks,” Harry breathed. An idea suddenly crossed his mind, and he looked up excitedly. “Dudley’s probably watching the telly right now,” he said. “What do you say we go take it over?”

“Couldn’t have had a better idea myself,” said George. He picked up the breakfast tray and followed Harry downstairs. Upon entering the living room to discover that Dudley was indeed watching television, he snapped, “Beat it, Dudders.”

Harry fought a snicker as his cousin glared indignantly at George. “This is my house,” he argued.

“Suit yourself,” said George as he sank into an armchair.

Ignoring Dudley’s protests, Harry strode forward and fed the cassette into the video recorder. Dudley stood up to stop him, but George waved his wand at a nearby mop, causing it to jump to life and chase Dudley behind the sofa.

“Mum!” Dudley shouted. “Mum, they’re using their- their things again!”

“As if she can do anything about it,” George muttered.

Aunt Petunia arrived in the living room just as the video was starting. She and Dudley stood gaping at the television screen as they watched real-live witches and wizards on broomsticks zooming around a large stadium as rock music blared in the background. Although Harry had never seen one before, he almost instantly realized that they were watching the highlights of a Quidditch match. A moment later, the rock music faded and an attractive blonde witch appeared in front of the camera.

“If you’re like me,” she began, “you probably didn’t have magical parents to teach you how to properly ride and care for your first broomstick.” She gave a false laugh and continued, “Why, I still remember the time my mother accidentally used my old Cleansweep 6 to sweep the kitchen floor. We had no idea how to repair the broken tail twigs, and my father actually tried to glue them back together.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” shrieked Aunt Petunia, finally finding her voice and drowning out the video.

“Learning how to repair a sport broomstick,” Harry replied with a straight face. “Care to join us?”

Aunt Petunia looked scandalized. “You take that unnaturalness somewhere else.”

“Shhh,” hissed George. “I can’t hear the video. Harry, I think we’re going to have to start over from the beginning.” Before Aunt Petunia could object again, George directed the mop to chase both her and Dudley from the room and stand guard in the doorway.

Amid fits of laughter, Harry rewound the repair video and they watched the entire thing while eating their breakfast. Unfortunately, it wasn’t any more help than the moving illustrations in the book, but the torment it had inflicted on Aunt Petunia and Dudley made it more than worthwhile.

Over the course of the next several days, Harry barely saw Uncle Vernon, who had apparently decided that he was needed at the office until very late every night. He chuckled at the thought of the Weasley twins running his blustering uncle out of his own house without even really trying. His absence ruined a bit of their fun, of course, but they more than made up for it by tormenting Aunt Petunia and Dudley that much more.

While the twins were busy driving his relatives insane, Harry spent most of his time painstakingly repairing the Nimbus 2001 that had previously belonged to Peter Pettigrew. He took time out to write letters to Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Tyler, of course, and to help Fred and George with the occasional prank, but for the most part he remained focused on his project. In fact, he became so occupied with repairing the broomstick that before he knew it, his two weeks of imprisonment were almost over.

“And... done,” Harry announced as he charmed the final tail twig into place on the newly-repaired broom.

“Want to take it for a test drive?” Fred asked.

“I suppose I’d better,” Harry replied. “I mean, I can’t go giving away a broom I repaired myself without testing it out first, can I?”

Fred raised his eyebrows. “Giving it away? And who, pray tell, is the lucky recipient?”

“A friend of mine,” Harry hedged.

Fred drew his wand and smirked. “I guess I could always use magic to get the answer out of you.”

Harry responded by flipping open his school trunk and picking up two wands - his own in his right hand and Peter Pettigrew’s in his left. He leveled both wands at Fred and said, with a smirk of his own, “Care to try?”

Fred looked thoughtful for a moment before sighing dramatically and stowing his wand. “I’ve seen you duel with only one wand, Harry, and I don’t want to be on the receiving end of any of your curses no matter how much magic you’ve forgotten.”

Harry dropped the wands back into his trunk and closed the lid. “Can we really test it out?” he asked eagerly. After two weeks of being cooped up indoors, a nice little flight sounded absolutely brilliant.

“There’s nobody here to stop us, is there? Plus, there’s no moon tonight, so there’s no way you’ll get spotted by Muggles.”

Grinning madly, Harry picked up the Nimbus and ran downstairs. As soon as he arrived in the back yard, he threw himself astride the handle and rocketed into the blackened sky. It was the most exhilarating feeling of freedom he had ever dreamed possible. He darted back and forth, twisting, rolling, and looping to his heart’s content. To his great satisfaction, the broom performed even better than it had before he had severed its tail twigs in the first place. It was perfect.

After about twenty minutes, Harry went into a steep dive, which he barely managed to pull out of before hitting the ground. He hopped off of the broom and dashed back upstairs, ecstatic that tonight would be his last night on Privet Drive.

---

Early the next morning Harry was awakened by Fred jerking his blankets away and dumping him onto the ground. He cursed under his breath as he stood up, rubbing his sore backside.

“Did you really have to do that?” Harry asked, thoroughly annoyed.

Fred looked thoughtful for a moment before grinning and replying, “Yes. Yes, I believe I did.”

Harry rolled his eyes as he put on his glasses and got dressed.

“Let’s go, mate,” Fred urged. “Mum’s got a big welcome back breakfast waiting for you, and I want a chance to eat some of it before I have to go in to the shop.” Harry shoved his scattered belongings into his trunk and carried it downstairs behind Fred, who was carrying Hedwig’s cage.

“Toodles, Petunia,” Fred called in a flirtatious voice as he gave her a small wave. Aunt Petunia just scowled at him from where she stood in the kitchen doorway. Before opening the front door, he waved his wand dramatically at Harry’s trunk and Hedwig’s cage, and they both vanished. Harry had a nasty feeling of déjà vu as he remembered that Umbridge had done that exact same thing one year ago.

“This way, Harry,” Fred instructed as he pulled open the front door. They walked about half a block, until they reached a house with a large hedge. Slipping out of sight behind it, Fred offered Harry his arm. Harry held on tightly, and they disappeared with a loud crack.

A moment later, they were standing in the garden of the Burrow.

“Mum, look who I found!” Fred shouted as he led Harry into the kitchen, where Mrs. Weasley had an enormous breakfast waiting for them. “He followed me home,” he added, gesturing toward Harry. “Can we keep him?”

Mrs. Weasley rolled her eyes at her son and pulled Harry into a very tight hug. “How are you, dear?” she asked kindly.

“I’m fine,” Harry answered. “Fred and George really helped me out a lot. I don’t know how they did it, but they actually made life with the Dursleys bearable.”

“Harry!” Harry turned toward the doorway to the living room to see Ron and Tyler grinning at him.

“Morning,” Harry greeted his friends. They all sat around the large wooden table and began filling their plates with the delicious food that Mrs. Weasley had prepared.

“Sure beats the food at school, doesn’t it?” Harry asked Tyler. Tyler’s mouth was so full that all he could do was nod enthusiastically in response.

“What was wrong with the food at your school?” Ron asked curiously.

Tyler swallowed and said with a shrug, “It was usually spoiled, and most of the time you couldn’t even tell what it was.”

Ron’s eyes widened in horror. “Did I ever tell you how much I love you, Mum?” he called.

“Not nearly often enough,” she scolded, but everyone could hear the laughter behind her stern words.

“Why’s everybody up so early?” Ginny asked as she walked into the kitchen, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She stopped when she saw who was sitting at the table. “Harry!”

“Hey, Ginny,” Harry said in what he hoped was a casual-sounding voice.

“So, they finally got you away from the Muggles,” Ginny observed as she sat down next to Ron. “Did Fred and George do any lasting damage?”

“Nah, they just scared them with dancing teacups and mops and stuff.”

“I’ll have you know that we most certainly DID do lasting damage,” Fred said in an affronted tone. “Personally, I don’t think Dudley will ever be able to sleep again, what with the way random things in his bedroom kept turning into giant spiders whenever the lights were out.”

Ron shuddered. “Why does it always have to be spiders?” he asked.

“Because little Nancy-boys like you are terrified of them,” Fred answered matter-of-factly.

The playful banter went on for the rest of breakfast, and only ended when everyone had eaten their fill and Hermione Granger arrived. She hugged Harry and kissed Ron on the cheek, and then announced that she had an assignment from Professor Dumbledore and that Harry, Ron, and Ginny needed to join her in the living room.

“Tyler, you can come too if you want,” Harry said as he got to his feet.

Having nothing better to do, Tyler shrugged and followed the others into the living room, where they all made themselves comfortable.

“So what’s this all about, Hermione?” Harry asked as soon as everyone was seated.

“Professor Dumbledore asked me to come and see you,” she answered. “He said that Umbridge’s trial won’t be held until sometime after school starts, and that you need to be brought up to speed before you get thrown back into the Wizarding world.”

“Brought up to speed on what?” Harry wanted to know.

“On everything,” Hermione exclaimed. “You’ll need to know about all the things you’ve done since finding out you were a wizard - and you might be surprised at how long that list is. Plus you’ll need to re-learn enough magic to allow you to pass your sixth year at Hogwarts.”

“So I finally get to find out about my past?” Harry asked, suddenly very interested in the conversation. “What are we waiting for?”

Hermione cleared her throat and began to speak. “This all began on Halloween night almost sixteen years ago....”

Hermione told Harry about his parents and about how he had first learned he was a wizard, and then she, Ron, and Ginny took turns telling him about his first two years at Hogwarts. Harry and Tyler listened, wide-eyed, to the incredible stories that poured from the others’ lips.

As they neared the end of Harry’s second year, Ginny took over the story. “Everybody was really worried after all the attacks,” she said quietly, “but I ended up out in the corridor by myself anyway.” Her eyes were focused on the floor, and Harry could tell that she really wasn’t very comfortable telling this part of the story. “I was walking along, and then... there was nothing. It was like I blacked out, or got Stunned or something.”

“Were you Petrified?” Harry asked.

Ginny shook her head. “No. I was... I think I was just unconscious. Anyway, I ended up being taken into the Chamber of Secrets as a way of taunting the staff. The Heir of Slytherin wanted to show the teachers that no one was safe.”

Harry felt his body temperature drop at this revelation. His reaction didn’t make any sense, given the fact that Ginny was sitting right in front of him recounting the story, but he couldn’t help the feeling of dread that was building inside of him.

“Not long after that, you and me found the teachers saying that Ginny had been taken into the Chamber,” Ron cut in. “They told Lockhart to take care of it, so we followed him, since we were the only ones who knew where the entrance to the Chamber was. The git tried to run away - it turned out he hadn’t really done any of the stuff he wrote about in his books - but we disarmed him and made him go into the Chamber with us.

“Once we got inside, he pretended to faint and I was dumb enough to fall for it. To make a long story short, he got my wand and tried to Obliviate both of us, but the spell backfired on him and caused a cave-in. You were the only one on the inside, so you had to keep going by yourself while I was stuck trying to dig through the cave-in with a memory-less Lockhart. And his memory was completely gone, mate. I mean, he could talk and stuff, but he had no idea who he was or anything. Makes your memory-loss look like nothing.”

“From here on, we only know what you told us, Harry,” Hermione said. “Ginny, do you want to finish?”

Ginny still looked very uncomfortable, but she nodded and began speaking in a quiet, hesitant voice. “When you found me, I was in the middle of the Chamber, and I was still unconscious,” she explained, still not looking Harry in the eye. “Before you could get me out, though, you heard the Basilisk coming, and you had to shut your eyes. Luckily, Fawkes - he’s Dumbledore’s phoenix - he showed up and brought you a sword, and then proceeded to peck out its eyes so it couldn’t kill you by looking at you. You ended up killing the Basilisk with the sword, and then you woke me up and helped me out of there.”

“Wow,” Tyler breathed, looking at Harry in awe.

“But what about the Heir of Slytherin?” Harry asked. Surely the person responsible couldn’t have gotten away. “Who was it?”

Ginny shrugged. “All I know is that Dumbledore took care of him, whatever that means.”

As soon as Ginny finished speaking, Mrs. Weasley called them in for lunch. Harry suddenly realized that it was almost one o’clock, and he was very hungry. Nevertheless, he ate as quickly as possible because he was so eager to hear more about his life at Hogwarts.

After lunch, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny told him about his final three years at Hogwarts. They told him about Professor Lupin, whom Harry had met briefly just before returning to the Dursleys’ at the beginning of the summer holidays. They also explained that Lupin, Harry’s godfather (Sirius Black), and Peter Pettigrew had all been friends of Harry’s father when they were in school, but that Pettigrew had betrayed the Potters to Lord Voldemort. Harry felt a fresh surge of thanks for his friend, Hassseth, who had sacrificed her own life to finally remove Pettigrew from the realm of the living.

Harry and Tyler heard all about the Triwizard Tournament and the rebirth of Lord Voldemort in his fourth year, and about Umbridge’s reign of terror and how Harry had been tricked into sneaking into the Ministry of Magic late at night with Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and two other friends named Neville and Luna. This story ended with the death of Sirius Black as he fell through the veil, and a duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort.

When they had finished, Hermione said, “Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. Minister Fudge publicly acknowledged Lord Voldemort’s return after he saw him dueling with Dumbledore, but he retracted his statements right after you disappeared.”

“What?” Harry demanded angrily. “But you just said that he saw Voldemort personally.”

Hermione nodded gravely. “It’s all political maneuvering, really,” she said with a sigh. “The public started turning against Fudge when they found out that Voldemort had returned on his watch, so he just went back to denying it. He started claiming that he had never said he was back, and that this was only a copycat, and not nearly as dangerous as the real Voldemort would be.”

“But now there are more people on our side,” Ron cut in. “Fudge’s plan worked for a bit, but now loads of people are starting to believe you, and... well, they’re even starting to idolize you a bit. Somebody reported that that prophecy you had at the Ministry - the one that broke - said that you were destined to defeat You-Know-Who. The papers have taken to calling you The Chosen One.”

“The Chosen One?” Tyler asked with a snort. “Sounds like something out of a bad movie. How do you like that, Harry?”

“It’s perfect,” Harry said while rolling his eyes dramatically. “Well, at least we know that part’s rubbish. From what you’ve told me, I’m guessing that Umbridge decided to erase my memory to get me out of the way so that Fudge could go back to pretending Voldemort hadn’t really returned, am I right?”

“That’s what it looks like, yes,” said Hermione.

“Wait, you know how you lost your memory?” Tyler asked suddenly.

“Yeah,” Harry answered sourly. “Dumbledore got the Dursleys to fess up to working with Umbridge. She used magic to erase my memory and sent me off to... you know, and the only way to get my memory back is to use her wand to reverse the charm.”

“Don’t overwhelm each other,” Mrs. Weasley said from the kitchen doorway. “That’s an awful lot to take in in one day. Come and have some dinner.”

Harry was shocked to learn that it was already dinnertime, but it was true. They filed into the kitchen, and the serious conversation was replaced with light chatter throughout the meal. After dinner, though, Harry’s mind was forced back into serious-mode when Tyler pulled him out into the garden for a private conversation.

“What’s a Squib?” was the first thing out of Tyler’s mouth as soon as they were alone.

“It’s a Muggle with at least one magical parent,” Harry said, remembering Fred’s explanation.

“Then how come they keep referring to me as a Squib? My mum and dad couldn’t do magic.”

“Er- sorry,” said Harry. “That’s actually sort of my fault. Fred just assumed you were a Squib because Muggles aren’t allowed to know anything about magic. It sounded like a good enough story, so I went with it.”

“Oh. I was wondering why they didn’t erase my memory like the others,” Tyler mused.

“What? Who erased whose memory?” Harry demanded a little more harshly than he would have liked. Erasing people’s memories was a bit of a sore subject for him at the moment.

“It was your dad’s mate, Lupin, and some pink-haired bird - I can’t remember her name. They used magic to chase off the bloke that had been following me, and then they erased everybody’s memory so they wouldn’t remember seeing it. I thought they were going to erase my memory too, but they didn’t.” He laughed. “I did give them a bit of trouble, though. I didn’t trust them any more than that other bloke at first, so I tried to run for it. They ended up having to use that petrifying spell on me to get me to hold still.” Tyler grinned madly at the memory, and Harry shook his head in disbelief at his friend’s enthusiasm.

“So how do you like the Burrow?” Harry asked after a moment.

“It’s positively wicked,” Tyler answered with another laugh. “I mean, there are little garden gnomes, real live chess pieces, self-shuffling cards... everywhere you look there’s magic. And that’s not even mentioning the food and the people! I gotta hand it to you, mate, you really know how to pick your friends.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Harry agreed. “Listen, there’s something I need to ask you to do.”

“Name it.”

“Could you not mention that you’ve seen me do magic without a wand? It’s sort of unheard of, and Dumbledore reckons I should keep it a secret for a while.”

“Sure thing, Harry,” Tyler replied easily. “By the way, did you ever figure out who your dream girl is?”

Harry froze.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Tyler chuckled. “Were you right? Was it Hermione?”

“What?” Harry asked in surprise. Over the course of the past two weeks, he had completely forgotten how sure he had once been that Hermione was the girl he kept dreaming about. “No, of course not,” he added quickly.

“Oh. That’s good, because I’m pretty sure I noticed something going on between her and Ron. But if it isn’t her, then who?”

Harry didn’t answer.

“Come on, mate. You know I won’t say anything to her.”

“I know,” Harry said quietly. “It’s just that I feel like an idiot every time I think about her. She fancied me for years, and it took losing my memory to get me to notice her.” He looked up and met Tyler’s gaze. “It’s Ginny.”

Tyler let out a low whistle. “Does she know?”

Harry nodded and ran his fingers through his hair as he answered, “It doesn’t matter, though; she thinks I’ll forget all about her when my memory comes back, so she’s keeping her distance.”

“Shame,” Tyler said sympathetically. “You’re not giving up, though, are you?”

“What do I look like?” Harry asked. “Of course I’m not giving up. I just don’t know enough about girls to know what I should do. Let me know if you have any ideas.”

“Buy her presents,” Tyler responded automatically.

“I’ve already got an idea for her birthday present, but I really don’t think she’s the kind of girl who wants to be showered with gifts.”

“If presents doesn’t work, then I can’t help you,” said Tyler. “Anyway, it’s not as if I’ve ever actually had a girlfriend myself, so I’m probably not the best person to be asking.”

“Right,” Harry laughed. He nodded toward the Burrow. “We’d better get back inside before somebody comes looking for us.” Tyler nodded reluctantly, and they returned to the house.

---

“Out of bed, Harry.”

Harry rolled over and groaned at the bushy-haired girl who was standing at his bedside. “‘S too early,” he mumbled.

“Well you’d better get used to getting up early, because you’ve got five years’ worth of magic to learn before term starts in September.”

Still grumbling, Harry rolled out of bed and got dressed before heading downstairs to meet Hermione in the kitchen. “What’s for breakfast?” he asked.

“Toast,” she replied. “No time for anything else; come on.” She handed him two slices of buttered toast and led him into the living room where an assortment of books was spread out on the floor. “We’ll start with theory, since you’re not allowed to do magic outside of school yet. Do you remember any Transfiguration?”

Harry shook his head.

“Okay, then let’s start with some of the basic topics from first year....”

Harry didn’t even see anyone other than Hermione until lunch. He sank heavily into his chair at the large kitchen table and sighed, causing Ron to snicker.

“You may want to ease up a bit, Hermione,” he advised. “Otherwise you’re going to kill him within a week.”

“He has to get caught up,” Hermione argued. “And it isn’t exactly easy to learn five years’ worth of material in a matter of weeks.”

Ron and Hermione continued arguing, but Harry wasn’t paying attention. He slowly ate his sandwich, enjoying the much-needed break from Hermione’s tutoring and glancing up at Ginny whenever he thought no one was looking. She looked as beautiful as ever with her long red hair resting gently on her shoulders and tumbling down her back. Even though they saw each other quite often since they were living in the same house, Harry’s stomach still did a somersault whenever she smiled at him. She looked up from her lunch and did just that, sending a slight shiver down his spine before he looked away.

Harry glanced down the table at Tyler and stopped short. “Where’s Tyler?” he asked suddenly, not even realizing that he was interrupting Ron and Hermione’s argument.

Ron stopped mid-sentence and looked around. “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s odd; he never misses a meal.”

“You’re right,” Ginny agreed. “Ever since he came here, I’ve never not seen him at a meal.”

Harry suddenly didn’t feel very hungry anymore. “I’m going to go look for him upstairs.” He set down what remained of his sandwich and jogged up the stairs, calling for Tyler. Unable to locate him, he hurried back down to the kitchen. “He’s not here,” he said.

“He’s probably just out in the garden or the orchard,” Ron said dismissively.

“Outside,” said Harry. “Right.” He ran out the back door and began calling Tyler’s name. After a moment, he was joined by Ginny, but the two of them were still unable to find any sign of him.

“What do you think?” Ginny asked once it was apparent that he was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m not sure, but we definitely need to tell your mum that he’s missing,” Harry answered. He and Ginny jogged back into the Burrow.

“Ron, where’s Mum?” Ginny asked.

Ron shrugged. “How should I know?”

Ginny made a frustrated noise and hurried into the living room, calling for her mother. She returned a few moments later looking worried. “Mum was upstairs, but she said she hasn’t seen Tyler either.”

Harry swore under his breath and sank into his chair. “Where could he have gone?” Nobody answered. “Did he do or say anything strange last night or this morning?”

“He asked me about Umbridge and the Ministry earlier,” Ron said. “I guess he didn’t quite catch everything last night.”

“Yeah, he asked me how to get to the Ministry,” Ginny said slowly. She suddenly squeezed her eyes shut and swore under her breath.

“Ginny?” Harry asked, a little surprised by her language.

Ginny’s eyes snapped open. “How could we be so stupid?” she asked the room in general. “He went after Umbridge!”

Ron choked on his sandwich. “He what?”

“He went after Umbridge,” Ginny repeated frantically. “He heard that we need her wand to fix Harry’s memory, and then he started asking questions about where to find her.”

“Well, he is a pickpocket,” Harry said slowly. “Maybe he’ll pull it off.”

“Not likely,” Ron disagreed. “She’s sure to have an Anti-Theft Jinx on her wand just in case, now that she knows we want it.”

Harry growled in frustration. “We’ve got to find him, then. Now!”

“We don’t have to do anything other than tell Mrs. Weasley what’s happened,” Hermione said calmly. “She and the Order can take care of this.”

“Alright, Hermione, why don’t you run upstairs and fill Mum in?” Ron suggested. Hermione shot him a grateful look and hurried upstairs to explain the situation to Mrs. Weasley. As soon as she was out of earshot, Ron turned to Harry and asked in a low voice, “What do you suggest, mate?”

“Why don’t we go to the Ministry?” Harry asked.

Ginny shook her head. “That’s no good. We’re all too easily recognized, and everybody knows we’re against Umbridge. We need somebody a bit more neutral... like Luna!”

Ron quirked an eyebrow at his sister. “Loony Lovegood?”

“Don’t call her that, Ron,” Ginny scolded. “I’m sure she’ll help; let me Floo her.” She hurried over to the fireplace and threw in a pinch of powder that she had taken from a small pot on the mantle. She thrust her head into the green flames and called out, “The Lovegoods!”

Harry and Ron waited for about a minute and, despite his worry for Tyler, Harry had to work very hard to resist the temptation to stare at Ginny’s backside, which was sticking out of the fireplace. When she finally pulled her head out of the flames and turned around, she announced that Luna would go to the Ministry for them and then meet up with them at a pub called The Leaky Cauldron.

Ron scribbled a quick note letting Hermione know where they had gone, and then he, Harry, and Ginny used the Floo to travel to The Leaky Cauldron. They found a table in the corner and sat in tense silence, occasionally sipping on their mugs of Butterbeer in order to keep up appearances. After five minutes of waiting, the fireplace burst into green flames, and Hermione stepped out. She looked around and quickly spotted her friends.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded in an accusatory whisper.

“We’re waiting for Luna,” Ginny answered in a perfectly casual voice. “Care to join us?”

Scowling, Hermione dropped into a chair. “Harry, I can’t believe you’re out in public. What if one of Voldemort’s spies sees you.”

“Then he’ll be with his mate, Scabbers, shortly,” Harry answered tersely. “Look, Hermione, you don’t have to be here, but I’m not leaving until I know Tyler’s okay. He has no idea what he’s walking into, and he’s got no hope of escaping on his own, since he can’t even do magic.”

Hermione let out a frustrated sigh and muttered something about a “saving people thing.”

“Would you rather he didn’t care about his friends?” Ron asked. “In case you forgot, Hermione, abandoning your friends to save your own neck is a Slytherin trait.”

Hermione’s face flushed. “I didn’t mean he should abandon him,” she insisted. “I just meant that we ought to let the Order handle this.”

“You’re such a hypocrite, Hermione,” Ginny snapped. “How many times did you and Ron sneak off to look for Harry last summer? We’re doing this, and that’s it; either help us or go wait back at the Burrow, but don’t sit here lecturing us.”

The table fell into a tense silence as they waited for Luna to arrive. About fifteen minutes after Harry, Ron, and Ginny had left the Burrow, a confused-looking blonde witch with radishes for earrings walked through the front door, glanced around, and made her way to their table.

“Hello,” she said in a dreamy voice as she sat down. “How was your holiday, Harry?”

“Sorry?” Harry asked.

“Well, you have been on holiday in the Caribbean with Stubby Boardman, haven’t you?” she asked very seriously.

Harry opened his mouth to correct her, but Ginny spoke first. “There’s no time for that right now, Luna. Did you see Tyler?”

“No, but I heard he came here,” Luna answered as she began following a fly with her eyes. “The security wizard at the Ministry said your friend had been there looking for Umbridge, and he told him she was on her way to Diagon Alley.”

“But he wouldn’t know where Diagon Alley is,” Ron observed. “And even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to get in. He’s a Squib!”

“That’s not exactly true, Ron,” Hermione argued. “My parents are Muggles, and they can get into Diagon Alley just fine. If someone at the Ministry explained to Tyler how to get into The Leaky Cauldron, he just would have had to ask anyone here to open the back wall for him.”

“So what are we waiting for?” Ginny asked, getting to her feet. The others followed suit, and together they hurried out the back of the pub and into to Diagon Alley, looking around frantically for Tyler. Harry didn’t even notice the stares and whispers that followed him as he and his friends walked quickly down the street. Just as they passed in front of one of the various cafés, a small explosion and a crash from inside caught his attention and he raced through the door, closely followed by his friends.

The scene inside the café, already chaotic, spiraled quickly out of control when Harry appeared in the doorway. Dolores Umbridge - Harry recognized her immediately - stood near the counter with her wand trained on a cowering boy with light brown hair. The boy’s face and clothes were covered in what looked like purple ink, but Harry recognized him immediately as Tyler. The small, round table nearest him had been flipped onto its side, and there was no question that he had been caught by Umbridge’s Anti-Theft Jinx.

Before Harry had a chance to think of a way to help Tyler escape, somebody shouted, “It’s Harry Potter!” and the café’s patrons immediately began swarming around him. Strange voices shouted incomprehensible questions and requests at him as he tried to push his way through the crowd.

“Have you really been training with-”

“-defeat You-Know-Who?”

“Where have you-”

“Can you sign my-”

“-really The Chosen One?”

In the confusion, Harry saw Ginny and Luna make their way over to Tyler and pull him outside through the crowd. Seeing that his friend was safe, Harry turned his attention to extricating himself from the large crowd that now surrounded him. Thankfully, Ron and Hermione remained at his sides, and they helped push the gawkers aside, making a path out into the street. As soon as they were clear of the café’s entrance, Harry, Ron, and Hermione began running, closely followed by a large group of autograph-seeking witches and wizards. Ron led the way to a large shop with colorful advertisements posted all over the windows. Upon entering, Harry immediately spotted Fred (or was it George?) by the door to the back room.

“You lot too?” he asked. Harry didn’t have time to wonder what he meant as they were all ushered into a back room and pushed toward a fireplace. Less than thirty seconds later, he was stumbling out of the fireplace at the Burrow.

“What just happened?” Harry asked as soon as he got his bearings.

“Fred just helped us escape,” Ron explained.

“Yeah, but-” Harry looked around the room. “Hey, where’s Tyler? And Ginny and Luna?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione replied, looking around for their missing friends. “Where could they have gone?”

“Probably to the Lovegoods’ house,” Ron noted.

“Can we check?” Harry asked apprehensively.

“Sure. Fireplace is right there, mate.” Ron answered.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Ron, you’d think it was you who’d lost your memory. Come here, Harry; I’ll help you.” She began explaining how to use the fireplace to talk to someone in another house, but before she had a chance to finish, green flames shot from the grate and Ginny stumbled out. She ran right into Harry, knocking him to the ground and landing on top of him. Harry held his breath (not that he had much choice, as she had knocked the wind out of him). Ginny smiled slightly at him before standing up and helping him to his feet. They had barely managed to get out of the way when Tyler, still covered in purple ink from his run-in with Umbridge’s Anti-Theft Jinx, fell out onto the floor.

“Is Luna coming too?” Ron asked as Harry helped Tyler to his feet.

Ginny shook her head. “She was worried that her dad might come home and find her missing. He’s been really paranoid about letting her go out ever since the battle at the Ministry.”

“Are you all right?” Harry asked Tyler.

“Other than the fact that I’m purple, yeah,” Tyler replied. “What happened, anyway? I mean, everything was going perfectly. I told that security guard at the Ministry that she was my aunt, and I was supposed to meet her for lunch, and he told me how to use the Floo Network to get to Diagon Alley. Then I tailed Umbridge all the way to that little café and got right behind her while she was distracted, talking to somebody. I’m sure she couldn’t have realized I was going for her wand, but as soon as I touched it I went flying backwards into a table, and when I looked down I was covered in this... stuff.”

“Umbridge had an Anti-Theft Jinx on her wand,” Harry explained.

“Blimey, I never even thought about that,” Tyler breathed.

Harry snorted. “Well, it’s not like you’ve lived most of your life without magic or anything,” he said in a sarcastic voice.

“Is there any way to get this off of me?” asked Tyler. “I feel ridiculous.”

“If it makes you feel any better, you look ridiculous too,” Ron said with a laugh. “Hermione, can you sort him out while I try and find Mum to let her know Tyler’s back?”

Hermione nodded. “This way, Tyler,” she ordered, and led him from the room.

---

“It’s not as if I’m not studying, Hermione,” Harry said in an exasperated voice. She had already been tutoring him for two hours, and the rest of the household was just beginning to stir.

“I realize that, Harry, but you’ve got so much to catch up on,” she replied.

“I know,” he said quietly, “and I’m really grateful that you’re helping me. But I need a break every once in a while, and I need to spend some time with my other friends, too. I think you might be forgetting that school isn’t the only thing I don’t remember - I still don’t really know Ron or Ginny very well, either. I mean, I know Tyler, obviously, and I got to know Mr. and Mrs. Weasley pretty well before you all came back from school. Fred and George were with me for the entire time I was at the Dursleys’, and I’ve spent pretty much all my time with you for the past week, but I’ve barely seen Ron and Ginny. I know we’re friends, and I care about them and all that, but don’t you think I ought to get to know them a bit better before we all head back to school in September?”

Hermione cocked her head to the side and stared at him for a long moment. “When did you get to be so insightful?” she asked at last.

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said with a slight chuckle. “I can’t remember.” He was surprised to find himself joking about his amnesia, but quickly discovered that he rather liked the idea. It was, after all, a lot more pleasant than brooding over it. Besides, it wasn’t as if his condition was permanent or anything.

Hermione offered him a small, sad smile in return. “Why don’t we start ending our lessons at dinnertime, so you can spend the evenings getting re-acquainted with everyone?”

Harry smiled back at her. “I’d like that,” he said.

“Good. Now that that’s settled, tell me what Mandrakes look like, what they’re used for, and how to safely handle them.”

Harry sighed to himself and set back to work.

That night at dinner, when he and Hermione announced that they would no longer be studying into the late evening, a collective murmur of approval rippled around the table.

“How’d you convince her, mate?” Ron asked in awe. “I mean, if you’ve got some secret to get her to let up during school, I want to hear about it.” This comment earned him a sharp glare from Hermione, and caused Harry to snort into his food.

“I told her I was already working a ridiculous number of hours, and that I really wanted a chance to get to know you and Ginny before we head back to school,” he explained. “If you think that argument will help you during term, you’re welcome to it.”

Ron looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking his head. “There’s no way she’d ever fall for it,” he said, winking at Hermione. “She’s way too clever for that. So, what’s the plan for tonight?”

Harry shrugged. “What do you want to do?”

“Well, I could always whip you at Wizard chess,” Ron suggested.

Harry laughed. “I’m sure you could. Wizard chess it is, then.”

The first chess game after dinner only lasted for about five minutes before Ron called out, “Checkmate!” The next game lasted half an hour because Hermione, Tyler, and Ginny all decided to try and help Harry. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, because Ron still came off victorious.

“You see, Hermione,” he taunted, “just because you’re helping him doesn’t mean he’s going to win.”

“Oh really? And how would things end up if you played against me one-on-one?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

“Please, Hermione,” Ron scoffed. “We both know you’ve never beaten me at chess. You may be better in class, sure, but you’ll never top me on a chessboard.”

“Care to back up that claim?” Hermione asked, nudging Harry out of his seat. Harry bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Everyone said that Ron and Hermione used to have terrible arguments on a regular basis, but it was obvious that they had outgrown that phase for the most part. Now their arguments were more like friendly barbs being thrown back and forth, and they could really be quite entertaining to watch.

As Ron began setting up the chess pieces on the board, Hermione elbowed Harry lightly in the ribs before sitting down in his newly-vacated chair. When Harry glanced over at her, she nodded toward Ginny, and then toward the back door of the Burrow. Harry raised his eyebrows questioningly, and Tyler, catching on, responded by giving him a light push in the back. Deciding that his friends had a point, and that this would be the ideal time to get to know Ginny a little better while everyone else was distracted, he positioned himself next to her and softly cleared his throat.

“Fancy a walk?” he asked quietly.

Ginny looked up at him curiously, but only took a moment to nod in response. “Okay,” she whispered, and followed him out the back door and into the garden. As soon as they were outside, she asked, “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Harry said quickly. “Everything’s fine. I just wanted to, you know... talk to you for a while. I mean, I haven’t exactly had much chance to get to know you any better during the last week.”

Ginny laughed easily as they strolled toward the apple orchard. “Hermione can be a slave driver sometimes, can’t she?”

Harry nodded emphatically. “She’s an enormous help, though,” he added. “There’s no way I’d be ready when classes start if I didn’t have her help.”

“I’m glad you’re taking this so well,” Ginny replied. “Usually, you’d have an attitude a lot closer to Ron’s.”

“Really?” Harry asked, furrowing his brow. “Hmm... maybe last year made me realize that schoolwork isn’t all that bad. Believe me, the assignments were probably one of the best things about that place.”

Ginny shook her head in disgust. “I still can’t believe anybody actually has schools like that,” she said as she sat on the ground and leaned back against the trunk of an apple tree. Harry followed suit, sitting down next to her.

“So...” Harry said after a moment. “I’m not really sure how to do this. I mean, I’ve never really set out to just get to know somebody before, you know?”

Ginny chuckled lightly. “I never have, either. When I first met you, I would’ve loved to get to know you, but I was always too embarrassed to actually give it a try. Whenever I make a new friend, it just seems to happen on its own after spending time with the person, you know?”

Harry nodded. In reality, he didn’t have much experience making friends - not that he could remember, anyway. He had become friends with Tyler just by talking to the boy on his first day at St. Brutus’s, but they had really gotten to know each other by spending practically all their time together doing homework and visiting Hedwig. If he wanted to get to know Ginny better, maybe he should figure out a way to spend time doing something with her, rather than just talking.

“Well, if I’m going to get anywhere with this, I guess I’ll have to look for something we have in common, won’t I?” Harry said half to himself.

Ginny smiled and nudged him. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yeah, I am,” Harry returned. “I realize I don’t know you very well yet, but I like what I’ve seen so far. Plus, I figure there has to be a reason I kept dreaming about you even when I had no idea who you were, and I don’t think it was only because of your good looks.” He tried unsuccessfully to fight the blush creeping up his cheeks as he said it, but he meant every word. Thankfully, he had stopped short of admitting that he continued to look forward to going to sleep each night because he still usually dreamed about her.

“Harry Potter!” Ginny exclaimed with a laugh. “I never knew you were a flatterer.”

Harry shrugged. “Just telling the truth. After all, I’ve already learned that I must not tell lies.”

What’s going on? Harry asked himself, startled to realize that he was joking about the scars on the back of his hand. This was the second time in one day that he found himself making light of his own traumatic experiences (although now he thought about it, the scars might not really count, since he couldn’t exactly remember getting them). Just as he had that morning, however, he quickly pushed his surprise aside. It didn’t really matter what he was making light of, as long as it didn’t hurt anybody and it kept him in a good mood.

“Well, if you’re looking for something we have in common, there’s always Quidditch,” Ginny said suddenly.

“How much do you like flying?” Harry asked, grateful that she had decided not to comment about his scars.

Ginny sighed contentedly. “It’s the only time I really feel like I’m free.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Harry murmured. “I’ve only flown for fun once that I can remember, but it was....” He paused, searching for the right word.

“Liberating?” Ginny supplied.

“Exactly,” Harry replied with an emphatic nod. “So, fancy a bit of flying?”

“I wish,” Ginny said with a harsh laugh. “Mum doesn’t let us fly after dark. Claims it’s too dangerous.”

Harry waved away her concern. “I flew halfway across the country on a broken broomstick, and it was all at night. It’s not a big deal. Come on... I won’t tell your mother.”

Ginny gave him a sideways look, and a playful glint appeared in her eyes. “Alright then,” she said, nodding. “But how do we get brooms without getting caught?”

“Leave that to me,” Harry said mysteriously. “I am, after all, a juvenile delinquent.” He winked at her as he got to his feet and offered her a hand up. She took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet before following him along the edge of the apple orchard. They crept along silently, keeping to the shadows, until they arrived in front of the Burrow.

“What now?” Ginny whispered. “The broom shed’s in plain view of the front windows. There’s no way we’ll be able to break into it without being seen.”

“Who said anything about breaking in?” Harry asked, shooting her a mischievous smirk. “Wait here, and watch the master in action.”

Ginny laughed out loud. “Master of what? I grew up with Fred and George, Harry; there’s no way you can beat them at mischief-making.”

“I’ve seen the sorts of things the twins do,” Harry fired back playfully. “And I’ve heard about even more. They draw too much attention to themselves. The way they do their pranks, I think they want to be caught - that way, everyone knows they were the ones who pulled it off. I, on the other hand, don’t care about taking credit.” He raised his chin haughtily before adding, “I’m subtle.”

“Oh really?” Ginny asked, trying not to giggle. “And where did this subtlety come from? Did they teach classes on subtlety at your old school?”

“That’d be the day,” Harry snorted. “No, I learned to be subtle because I didn’t like the idea of getting caught and being forced to clean up somebody else’s bodily fluids with a toothbrush again.”

“What?” Ginny spluttered.

“Didn’t I tell you about that?” Harry asked, surprised that he had neglected to tell his friends the story of his detention with Madam Davies.

“About cleaning up.... No, you didn’t tell us about that!” Ginny shrieked.

“Shhhh!” Harry hissed. “Do you want to go flying or not?”

“Not until you tell me about this bodily fluids thing,” she answered.

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his mop of unruly hair. “There’s not much to tell, really. It started in Literature class when the teacher, Madam Davies, asked me who the central figure in the Camelot legends was.”

“Well that’s easy enough,” said Ginny. “It’s Merlin. Everybody knows that.”

“Not Muggles,” Harry countered, shaking his head. “In their version, Merlin’s just a minor player. Anyway, some stuff about Merlin just popped into my head, so I said it, thinking I had gotten the right answer. Davies thought I was being sarcastic and decided to make an example of me, so I ended up in detention. I had to scrub the floor of the infirmary with a toothbrush.”

“So what was the part about bodily fluids?” Ginny asked warily.

“Er... somebody had thrown up on the floor. And there was a... puddle of blood.”

Ginny stared at him for a long moment before shaking her head and saying in a disgusted voice, “That’s sick.”

“Tell me about it,” Harry muttered. “It’s too bad I couldn’t do a Vanishing Charm at the time, eh?”

Ginny chuckled a little. “Yeah, that would’ve been nice.”

They stood in silence for a moment before Harry finally asked, “So, still up for a little flying?”

Ginny chuckled again. “If you can get us some brooms. I’ll leave you to it, oh Master of Mischief.”

Harry gave a little bow before darting forward out of the shadows, keeping the small broom shed in between himself and the windows of the Burrow. When he reached it, he pressed his back up against the stone wall, preparing to dart around the corner. The position of the door made it impossible to get into the shed without exposing himself to the windows, but he was confident that he could do it quickly enough that he wouldn’t be noticed.

After mentally counting down from three, Harry shot around the corner of the broom shed, whispering, “Alohomora,” as he reached for the door handle. The door pulled open easily, and he was inside pulling it shut within seconds.

The interior of the broom shed was cramped and full of spider webs, but that wasn’t a problem for Harry. After living in the cupboard under the stairs at his aunt and uncle’s house for so many years, he was used to sharing tight quarters with spiders. He quickly selected two older brooms, as he was wary of nicking Ron’s good Quidditch broomstick, and darted back outside, pushing the door closed before racing back across the yard to where Ginny was still hiding in the shadows.

“Impressive,” she said as she took the broom he was offering. “How’d you get the door open so easily?”

Harry shrugged. “Trade secret,” he said. “Come on.” He leapt astride his broom and rocketed into the air with Ginny close behind. When they had climbed to about two hundred feet above the Burrow, Harry stopped and looked around. The moon provided enough light to bathe the Burrow in an almost ghostly glow. The apple orchard looked more like a rumpled, silvery blanket from this height, and the lights from the village of Ottery St. Catchpole were clearly visible in the distance.

“Enjoying the view?” Ginny asked from where she sat hovering beside him.

Harry looked over at her to see her face bathed in the same silvery moonlight. It made her skin look slightly paler than it actually was, and her red hair shimmered wherever the light touched it. “Yeah,” he breathed.

A bit of extra color rose in Ginny’s cheeks, and he knew that she knew he wasn’t referring to the landscape.

“Betcha can’t catch me!” she called out suddenly, before falling into a steep dive. Laughing, Harry took off after her.

They spent the next half hour flying circles around one another, laughing, taunting, and just talking as they soared high in the air above the Burrow. As they reluctantly landed at the end of their flight, Harry asked, “So, did you enjoy yourself?”

“Very much,” Ginny replied with a wide smile. “We’ll have to do that again, oh Master of Mischief.” She pretended to grovel on the ground in front of him.

“Knock it off,” Harry laughed, giving her a playful nudge with his foot. “Now comes the really fun part: putting the brooms back without getting caught.” Without giving Ginny time to make another sarcastic comment, he darted back toward the broom shed, brooms in hand. As soon as he reached it, he ducked around the corner and through the door. After returning the brooms to their places in the corner, he stepped outside and whispered, “Obfirmo,” locking the door and ensuring that no one would know about their little nighttime flight.

“Ready to head inside?” Ginny called out, coming out of the shadows to meet him.

“I guess,” Harry said with a shrug. “They’ll probably start wondering where we are if we wait much longer.”

When she finally reached the broom shed, Ginny pulled experimentally on the door handle, only to discover that it was locked. She looked inquiringly at Harry. “How-”

“Trade secret,” he said, cutting her off and grinning. Ginny made a small huffing sound, but followed him to the front door. Just as he was about to open it, she grabbed his arm, gently turning him to face her.

“Thanks for taking me flying, Harry,” she said softly.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” he answered before pulling the door open and following her into the living room.

“Checkmate!” Ron shouted only a moment after they passed through the doorway.

Hermione sighed loudly. “I guess you really are better at chess.”

“Yeah, but it took him at least forty-five minutes to beat you, and you almost won,” Tyler pointed out.

“Hermione almost beat you, Ron?” Harry asked with a grin. “Maybe I should get her to give me chess lessons along with everything else she’s teaching me.”

“Hey!” Ron protested. “Did you miss the almost there? I still won.”

Harry laughed, shaking his head, as he and Ginny rejoined their friends for the rest of the evening.

---

The rest of July was a blur for Harry. After Tyler’s run-in with Umbridge, none of the “children,” as Mrs. Weasley still insisted on calling them, had been allowed to leave the Weasleys’ property. This was partly to avoid potential problems with the Ministry of Magic, but it was also meant to help Harry focus on his lessons with Hermione. She was working him so hard that, by the time his birthday came around, he was caught up on all of the theory from his first three years at Hogwarts. Harry suspected that his success had more than a little to do with the weakness of Umbridge’s Memory Charm - after all, he had remembered a decent amount of information about Merlin on his first day at St. Brutus’s, and he hadn’t even really been trying.

He began each day by rolling out of bed hours earlier than he would have liked, and having a quick breakfast with Hermione while everyone else still slept. Then they would sit in the living room, where she would explain magical concepts and spells to him, and he would recite them back to her. By the time lunch rolled around, Harry was only too happy for the break, and made sure to eat as slowly as possible in order to have more time to chat with Ron, Tyler, and Ginny.

Harry’s favorite part of the day by far was after dinner, when he was able to just relax and spend time with his friends. He often played Wizard chess with Ron, and the entire group enjoyed playing Exploding Snap together on occasion. A few times, Mr. Weasley even joined them for some Muggle card games that Tyler was teaching him. Harry guessed that Poker would probably be more exciting if they had actually been betting, but it was fun to spend the time joking around with everyone, regardless.

Harry was especially fond of the few times he and Ginny were able to sneak away for nighttime broom rides above the Burrow. Surprisingly, they spent most of their time in the air just hovering and talking, secure in the knowledge that no one could overhear them. He found himself falling harder for her each day, but he forced himself to remain quiet about it. She knew how he felt, and it was up to her to make the next move. For now, he would be content to be her friend.

Harry’s birthday began just like any other day, or so he thought when he was awakened very early by someone knocking on his bedroom door. Groaning, he stumbled across the room and wrenched the door open, prepared to give Hermione a good telling off for waking him up so early on his birthday, when she had promised to let him have the day off. To his surprise, Hermione was not the one standing outside on the landing; it was Ginny.

“Hi,” Harry croaked, wincing at the sound of his own sleepy voice.

Ginny giggled at him. “Good morning,” she said with a smile that made a shiver run down his spine. “I wanted to be the first to tell you Happy Birthday.”

Harry cleared his throat. “Thanks,” he said, and he was relieved to hear that his voice had returned to normal.

They stood there watching each other for what felt like several minutes before Ginny said, “I actually wanted to give you your present now, with nobody else around. Would you mind coming down to the garden with me?”

“No problem.” He pulled the bedroom door closed behind him and followed Ginny down the stairs and out the back door, wondering all the while what she could have gotten him that she would want to keep secret from her family.

As soon as they were alone in the garden, Harry asked in what he hoped was a casual voice (even though he knew it wasn’t), “So... what’s this all about?”

“Eager to get your present, are you?” she asked playfully.

“I could be,” he answered. “Of course, I could also just be trying to get things over with as quickly as possible because I’m really annoyed at being dragged outside before five o’clock in the morning on my birthday.” He grinned at her and winked to make sure she knew he was kidding.

Ginny shrugged. “In that case, never mind,” she said airily, as though it didn’t matter to her at all. “Go on back to bed; I’m sure I can find somebody else who wants this.” She pulled a small, neatly wrapped package from her pocket.

Harry eyed the present curiously. “Well, seeing as I’m already up....” He broke into a grin, but Ginny’s expression didn’t change. “Alright, what do I have to do to get the present?” he finally asked with a small laugh.

Ginny looked thoughtful for a moment before dramatically answering, “You could always declare your undying love and devotion to me.”

Harry took a step closer and locked his eyes with hers. “I think I might have already done that,” he said quietly. “I know I’ve never said it in exactly that way, but-”

“Stop, Harry!” Ginny interrupted abruptly. Tears began shining in the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them back.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a low, apologetic voice. “I shouldn’t have asked for that, especially not as a joke.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

“It’s okay,” Harry said in a defeated tone. For one shining moment, he had allowed himself to think that Ginny had gotten over her fear of starting a relationship with him, but now he could see that she had just been making a flippant comment. She hadn’t meant to get his hopes up, but he still couldn’t help the feeling of rejection that was beginning to settle over him.

“No it’s not,” Ginny said firmly. “Look, Harry, I really do like you, but....”

“Seriously, Ginny, I know what you’re trying to say. It’s okay - I told you that you can have all the time you need, remember? I still mean that.” Attempting to lighten the conversation, he smirked at her and asked, “So, can I have that present now?”

Ginny shook her head vehemently. “Not now,” she said, her voice still serious. “Not after what I just did.”

“What did you just do?” Harry asked, confused. “You were almost ready to hand it over a minute ago.”

“I got your hopes up about you and me,” she answered miserably. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do that to you, but what happened? I did it anyway. And now I can see that this present was a stupid idea and will only make things worse.”

His curiosity now piqued, Harry decided to try bargaining. “What if I promise not to interpret it as anything other than a gesture of friendship?”

Ginny scrutinized him for a moment. “Promise?”

“I promise, no matter what that present is, I will not let myself think that it means you fancy me.”

Ginny sighed and reluctantly handed over the small package. Harry tore off the paper and quickly opened the small box. Glimpsing its contents, he looked up at Ginny in surprise. She was nervously biting her lower lip, and she looked so vulnerable that he felt an almost irresistible urge to pull her into his arms.

“It’s too girly, isn’t it?” Ginny asked quietly, looking down at her shoes.

“Well, er... it’s just that I don’t normally wear jewelry,” Harry said awkwardly.

“I knew it was stupid,” Ginny mumbled. “You don’t have to take it.”

“No, it’s not that,” he said quickly. “It’s just... why did you get me a necklace?” Harry hoped she understood that his question was purely out of curiosity, and was not meant to hurt her feelings.

“It’s not just a necklace,” Ginny said, looking up at him and sounding slightly affronted. “It’s a locket. There’s a picture inside - see?” She lifted the thin gold chain out of the box and opened the small, circular pendant for Harry to see. A moving photograph of Ginny smiled and winked at him, and then began laughing. Harry could almost hear her laughter as he watched the picture, completely mesmerized by her face.

Ginny cleared her throat, snapping him out of his reverie. “That’s exactly why I was worried about giving it to you,” she sighed. “You kept hinting that you wanted a picture of me, and I thought this would be a little less awkward than having one sitting on your nightstand, but....”

Harry snapped the locket closed and fastened the tiny chain around his neck. “I think it’s perfect,” he said as he dropped the small pendant down the front of his pajamas. “This way, I can keep you close to my heart, where you belong.” It sounded incredibly cheesy, and he would have mercilessly teased Ron or Tyler if he ever heard them say anything similar, but somehow he didn’t care at the moment.

Ginny made an exasperated noise. “Harry, that’s exactly-”

“I know this doesn’t mean you want to be anything other than my friend,” he said, holding up a hand to cut her off. Then he smirked at her and added, “But I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t mean you like the fact that I fancy you.” To his satisfaction, a slow blush began creeping up Ginny’s cheeks. “I’m going to wear this because of how I feel about you, not because I have any delusions about you wanting to be my girlfriend.”

Ginny bit her lip, obviously fighting the urge to tell him that she actually did want to be his girlfriend. The only thing holding her back was fear, and Harry could see it in her eyes.

He took off his glasses and tiredly rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Why won’t you trust me?” he asked suddenly. “You know how much I care about you. Trust me, Ginny; I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

Ginny’s eyes widened, all emotions other than fear suddenly taking flight. She stumbled backward a step, and Harry hurriedly pushed his glasses back onto his face, wondering what he had done wrong. As his vision sharpened, he could see that something about the fear in Ginny’s eyes had changed. It was no longer the fear of a girl who didn’t want her heart to be broken; it was total, abject terror.

“Ginny,” Harry began, but she didn’t give him a chance to say anything else, as she suddenly turned and sprinted for the kitchen door. She threw it open and disappeared inside before he even had a chance to react. “What did I do?” Harry asked himself aloud. With a frustrated growl, he angrily kicked at a clump of dirt, dragged his feet to the kitchen door, and stomped inside, pulling the door closed behind him.

Maybe I should go wake Hermione and ask her what she thinks, Harry thought as he began climbing the stairs. He didn’t get a chance to talk to her, however. As soon as he arrived outside Ginny’s bedroom door he could hear quiet sobs coming from inside, and he realized that Ginny must have run directly to her room. With a resigned sigh, Harry turned around and was about to head back downstairs when he heard Hermione’s voice.

“Ginny, I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong,” Hermione said. Harry froze in place. He knew he really shouldn’t eavesdrop on this conversation, but he was completely at a loss as to what he had done wrong. Perhaps Ginny would tell Hermione what was the matter, and then he could fix it. After looking around surreptitiously, he quietly stepped closer to the bedroom door.

“What if I don’t want your help?” Ginny sobbed.

“Then you wouldn’t have come in here and started crying on my shoulder,” Hermione answered simply. “Does this have something to do with Harry? Did he do something?”

There was silence for a moment, and Harry knew that Ginny must be either nodding or shaking her head. What he wouldn’t give for the chance to see what was going on, rather than just hearing it.

“Well, if it wasn’t Harry then what was it?” Hermione asked. Harry’s eyebrows rose in surprise. Either what had happened downstairs had been completely coincidental, or Ginny was lying. He fervently hoped it was the former.

“Tom,” Ginny said so quietly that Harry had to strain to hear. His blood ran cold as his thoughts immediately turned to the only Tom he knew: Big Tom, the hulking bully who had tried to kill him no less than three times during his first term at St. Brutus’s. But that didn’t make any sense. He had told Ginny and the others about Big Tom, of course, but there was nothing he could do to any of them now - he was locked up. Besides, nothing that had happened out in the garden could have reminder her of him. Unless.... An equally disturbing thought arose in Harry’s mind, causing him to shudder slightly. What if Tom was another boy that Ginny fancied more than him? Perhaps that was the real reason she wanted to keep her distance. He pressed his ear up to the door to hear Hermione’s reply.

“Tom? Tom who?”

“Who do you think?” Ginny growled. “Tom Riddle!”

Hermione gasped. Apparently she knew who Tom Riddle was, and judging by her reaction, he hadn’t made a very good impression. “But how...?” Her question trailed away into nothing.

“I know it’s stupid, Hermione, but-” Ginny stopped abruptly, and Harry could picture her angrily wiping the tears from her eyes. “I was talking to Harry out in the garden, and he took off his glasses and said, ‘Trust me, Ginny; I’d never do anything to hurt you.’”

“Call me crazy, Ginny, but I think that was a nice thing for him to say,” Hermione replied evenly, as though she knew there had to be more to the story. Harry was glad to know that Hermione at least agreed with him on that point.

“I told you it was stupid,” Ginny said in a disgruntled voice. “It’s just that- Harry’s the same age Tom was then, you know, and without his glasses he looks sort of like Tom did. He was just standing there, looking eerily like Tom Riddle, and then he said exactly the same words Tom did right before he-” She stopped abruptly, unable to finish her sentence. Harry’s fists clenched unconsciously. It all made sense now. This Tom Riddle had taken advantage of Ginny at some point, and Harry had unknowingly reminded her of him. The thought made his blood boil, and he swore to himself that Riddle would pay.

The interior of the bedroom was silent now, except for Ginny’s quiet sobbing and Hermione’s unintelligible whispering. Harry knew that the conversation was over. Still seething over what he had just learned, he descended to the twins’ old bedroom, where he was staying while at the Burrow, and flopped down on his bed. He tossed and turned for what seemed like hours as he replayed the scene in the garden and the conversation between Ginny and Hermione over and over in his mind. All desire for sleep had long since fled, and he now thought of only one thing: revenge. Tom Riddle, whoever he was, had hurt Ginny. Harry Potter would make sure he paid dearly for it.

Harry glanced at the clock on the desk and was dismayed to find that he had only been lying there for about twenty minutes. Unable to stay in bed any longer, he stood up and climbed the stairs to Ron’s room, where he began shaking Ron awake.

“Geroff,” Ron muttered sleepily as he turned over.

“Ron, wake up. I need to talk to you,” Harry said urgently as he shook his friend again.

Ron slowly turned toward him and propped himself up on his elbow. “What’s so bloody important?” he asked grumpily as he glanced at the clock. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Yeah, and I’ve already been up for quite a while,” Harry answered. “I need you to tell me about Tom Riddle.”

Ron tried unsuccessfully to hide his shock at the mention of that name. “Where’d you hear that name?” he asked warily.

“I sort of overheard Ginny talking to Hermione about him,” Harry answered, looking down at the floor.

Ron sighed. “Look, Harry, I’m tired alright? If you want me to tell you about Riddle, that’s fine, but you’ve got to tell me what happened first. Otherwise, I’m going back to sleep.”

Harry took a deep breath and sank into the chair that sat at Ron’s desk. “Ginny thought it would be funny to wake me up really early on my birthday,” he began, deciding that telling Ron about the locket was neither necessary nor wise at the moment. “We were out in the garden, talking, and I took off my glasses to rub my eyes. While I still had my glasses off, I said something about wanting her to trust me, and she got this terrified look on her face and ran back into the house. I sort of listened through her bedroom door when I got back, and she was crying and telling Hermione that I had somehow reminded her of Tom Riddle. I got the impression that he had-” he paused, searching for the right words, “-taken advantage of her,” he finished through clenched teeth.

Ron nodded slowly. “You could say that,” he said quietly, averting his eyes and looking extremely uncomfortable. “It was back in her first year. Riddle was sixteen.”

Harry was back on his feet in a flash. “Where is he now?” he demanded. “I’ll kill him!”

Ron shook his head, still not looking up at him. “You can’t,” he said simply.

“Watch me,” Harry seethed.

“Harry, I mean it. You really can’t kill him, so just drop it.” Ron continued staring at the floor as though trying desperately to avoid having this conversation.

“And why’s that?” Harry demanded.

Ron finally looked up at his friend and swallowed hard. “Because you already did.”

Harry felt the air leave his lungs as he collapsed back into the chair. He struggled to take a breath as Ron looked on concernedly. “What happened?” he asked weakly.

Ron squeezed his eyes shut. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything,” he muttered to himself. “Ginny made us promise not to mention Riddle to you at all. Fat lot of good that promise did.”

“What happened, Ron?” Harry asked a bit louder this time.

Opening his eyes, Ron sighed in defeat. “Well, since I’ve mucked this up even worse than I ever thought possible, why not? It’s actually not what you think, Harry. Riddle never- well, he never did what you’re thinking about to Ginny. What he did was probably worse, though, really. He took over her mind.”

Harry didn’t know how to react to this revelation, so he simply stared dumbly at his friend.

“Riddle wasn’t even a real person anymore. He was just a memory that had been stored in a magical diary, but somehow he found a way to possess her. He made her... do things... attack people.... He spent that entire year draining the life out of her, and he almost ended up being able to come out of the diary for good. He was the one who made Ginny go into the Chamber of Secrets, Harry. He was the Heir of Slytherin.” Ron’s voice was shaking now, although Harry wasn’t sure if it was from anger or remembered fear. “After you killed the Basilisk, Riddle tried to kill you, but you stabbed his diary with the Basilisk’s fang, and he vanished.”

The room was silent for a long moment. “That’s why Ginny looked like she was holding something back when she told me about the Chamber of Secrets and the Basilisk,” Harry said quietly. “She didn’t want to have to talk about it.”

Ron nodded solemnly and looked back at the floor, giving Harry the impression that there was more to the story than even Ron was willing to share. “She’s always had a hard time with it. Hermione says it makes her feel weak because she wasn’t able to stop Riddle from possessing her.” There was a long pause before he looked back up at Harry.

“She’s fancied you for a long time, you know that?” he asked suddenly.

Harry looked up sharply. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Your mum mentioned that when you lot were still at school.”

“Don’t tell anybody I said this, but Ginny’s always thought that part of the reason you didn’t fancy her back was because you needed a strong girl, and you saw her as weak.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Harry asked.

Ron looked slightly offended. “Why can’t I have come up with it on my own?” he asked. “Okay, fine; Hermione told me a long time ago, but that’s not the point. Ginny’s just- she’s afraid you might not fancy her anymore if you know about her weaknesses.”

“I know she’s strong, Ron,” Harry said quietly. It was true. He did know she was strong, although he had no idea how he knew. He just did.

“Good. Now can I please get back to sleep? I’m exhausted.”

Harry nodded and headed downstairs to get dressed as Ron settled back into his pillow. He wished he could talk to Hassseth about the situation; she always seemed to know what to do. Sadly, that would never be an option again. Harry dressed quickly, and then descended the rest of the stairs to sit alone in the living room, lost in his thoughts, until Mrs. Weasley came downstairs to make breakfast.

“Harry? What are you doing up so early?” she asked in surprise when she found him on the sofa.

Harry shrugged. “Just thinking,” he mumbled evasively.

“Thinking about what?” Mrs. Weasley asked in a concerned voice.

“Nothing in particular,” Harry lied. The truth was that he couldn’t stop thinking about the terror in Ginny’s eyes when she had run away from him, and Ron’s description of Tom Riddle and the enchanted diary.

“Harry,” Mrs. Weasley said gently, “I’ve been a mother for a long time now, and I can tell when something’s bothering one of my children.” Harry looked up sharply at her and she continued, “I’ve thought of you as one of my own for some time now, Harry. It would mean a lot to me if you’d share what’s on your mind.”

Harry felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and he blinked rapidly to push them back. Nobody had ever said anything like that to him before - not that he could remember, anyway. “It’s sort of personal,” he croaked.

“That means it’s got something to do with Ginny, am I right?” She gave him a soft smile as she sat down next to him on the sofa.

Harry gaped at her. “How’d you know that?” he asked after a moment.

Mrs. Weasley smiled. “Well, for one thing, there was that Howler that Hermione sent her right after you went back to your relatives’ house. But even without that, it isn’t hard to notice the way you look at her.”

Harry felt his face grow hot.

“No,” Mrs. Weasley laughed, “I didn’t mean like that. I try hard NOT to notice those sorts of looks. I just mean that it’s obvious how much you care for her now, and she seems to be having trouble coming to grips with that.”

“You can say that again,” Harry muttered dejectedly.

Mrs. Weasley laid a comforting hand on his arm. “What did my daughter do this time?” she sighed.

Harry snorted. “Shouldn’t you be siding with her on this? I mean, you are her mother.”

“What’s that got to do with anything? I know when my children are being too stubborn for their own good, just like I know you’re stalling right now. So out with it.”

Looking down at his clasped hands, Harry said in a very quiet voice, “She ran away from me. She woke me up really early and we went out in the garden to talk, and everything was fine until I said something that reminded her of-” He stopped abruptly.

“Reminded her of what, dear?” Mrs. Weasley asked patiently.

“Tom Riddle,” Harry whispered.

Mrs. Weasley let out a small gasp of surprise and gripped his arm a little tighter. “She told you that?”

Harry shook his head. “She ran away in tears, and I sort of... overheard her talking to Hermione when I was on my way upstairs. I actually woke Ron up and forced him to tell me about Riddle, and then I ended up down here, thinking. I don’t know what to do.”

Mrs. Weasley gave him a weak smile and said, “All you have to do is sit back and enjoy your birthday. Don’t worry about Ginny; she’ll come ‘round eventually.” She gave his arm a small squeeze, and then stood and walked to the kitchen, where Harry could hear her begin preparing breakfast. He sank back into the soft cushions of the sofa, lightly fingering the small locket through his shirt, and hoped for all he was worth that Ginny would be back to normal when she emerged from her room.

---

A/N: If a locket isn’t too girly for Salazar Slytherin, it’s not too girly for Harry Potter. That’s all I’m saying.

---

Harry’s birthday party was held in the garden of the Burrow that afternoon, and it was fabulous. He had, of course, already met most of the people who were present, but there were a few new faces as well. Bill and Percy Weasley (both of whom Harry had only seen before in pictures) were there, as well as a round-faced boy named Neville Longbottom, but for the most part, the guests were people he was well acquainted with. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were there, along with Ron, Hermione, Tyler, Fred, George, and Ginny. Even Luna Lovegood, Remus Lupin, and Hagrid showed up to join in the festivities.

Harry enjoyed himself, of course, even though he didn’t know most of his guests half as well as they knew him. The only thing putting a damper on his mood was the way Ginny seemed to be avoiding him. He tried to shake it off, telling himself that he would have the entire rest of the summer to try and figure things out with her, but he was never entirely successful.

“So Harry, how does it feel to finally be of age?” Fred called out shortly after the party officially began.

Harry scrunched up his eyebrows. “What are you talking about? I won’t be of age for another year.” The guests’ chatter died away almost instantly as every eye turned toward him. “What?” he demanded, his tone a little more defensive than he would have liked.

“Aren’t you the same age as Ron?” Fred asked in a confused voice.

“Yeah,” Harry answered. “Seventeen.”

The confused atmosphere was suddenly broken by Hermione’s laughter. “I’m sorry, Harry; I completely forgot to tell you. Wizards come of age at seventeen.”

Harry gaped at her uncomprehendingly as she tried unsuccessfully to stifle her giggles. “You mean I’m an adult now?” he asked, astonished.

“That’s ri-” began Lupin.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Mrs. Weasley said loudly, cutting him off. “But you are allowed to use magic outside of school now.”

Harry grinned. “I can live with that.”

Lupin stepped closer to Harry and whispered, “You are an adult now, Harry, and don’t let Molly convince you otherwise,” before shooting him a conspiratorial wink and returning to where he had been standing before.

“Well, now that’s out of the way, how ‘bout you open your presents?” Ron called out. He practically dragged Harry over to a table full of brightly-colored packages that had been set up near the kitchen door. Feeling a little bit awkward, since he had never even had a birthday party before, let alone a pile of presents, Harry began tearing into the paper. The only things he recognized were the sweets, which he had seen at various times around the Burrow, but he didn’t think it polite to ask what everything was right now. He decided he would ask Ron later.

“So, what’s your favorite present, Harry?” George asked after everything had been opened. Harry didn’t even have to think about it. He glanced quickly at Ginny while brushing the front of his shirt right over where the small locket was hidden.

“Sorry; not telling,” he told George.

George, however, wasn’t about to give up. “Come on, Harry; it’s tradition. You have to have a favorite.”

“Oh, I have a favorite,” Harry answered. “I just don’t want to hurt your feelings by telling you it’s not the one I got from you.” He threw his hands over his mouth in mock-embarrassment. “Oh, no! Now I’ve crushed your already-low self-esteem.”

To Harry’s satisfaction, George laughed along with everyone else and forgot to keep pressing for an answer. He chanced another glance at Ginny, and was pleased to find her blushing slightly and trying to bite back a smile. His spirits lifted, and he somehow knew that she would eventually come around.

A week later, however, he wasn’t nearly so sure. Ginny had barely spoken to him since running away from him on the morning of his birthday, and it was becoming increasingly annoying. He sat at the kitchen table, pushing his eggs around his plate, while Ron and Hermione argued about whether or not he should take the morning off from studying to practice Quidditch. Tyler simply ate in silence, not wanting to interrupt Harry’s musings or Ron and Hermione’s argument.

Deciding that enough was enough, Harry looked up from his uneaten breakfast and stared openly at the redheaded girl across from him. As they gradually took notice, Ron and Hermione’s argument seemed to melt away, and they both began watching him intently. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Ginny looked up and met his gaze.

“What?” she demanded through clenched teeth.

“Why are you avoiding me?” Harry asked, trying very hard to keep the frustration out of his voice.

“Why won’t you leave me alone?” Ginny snapped back at him.

“Ginny, this is stupid! Why did you run away?” He didn’t need to clarify; they both knew exactly what he was talking about.

“That’s none of your business,” she ground out. “I realized something that day, and I decided not to set myself up for heartache again.”

Harry slammed his hands down hard on the tabletop, making the dishes and silverware jump, and shouted, “I’m not him, Ginny!”

If possible, Ginny’s expression hardened even more. “Not who?” she growled menacingly.

Harry swallowed hard. This was it; there would be no turning back. “I’m not Tom Riddle,” he said quietly.

Ginny rounded on Hermione. “You told him!” she shouted accusingly.

“No she didn’t,” Harry said before Hermione had a chance to defend herself. “If you want to be angry with somebody, be angry with me. I wanted so badly to know what was wrong that I listened at your door when you told Hermione what had happened. I’m sorry for invading your privacy like that, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“What do you know about Tom, then?” Ginny asked, her voice still cold and harsh.

“I know that he hurt you, and I know that I killed him for it,” Harry answered evenly. Next to him, Tyler nearly choked on the bite of food he was chewing.

“How could you know that? I didn’t mention anything about you killing him to Hermione.”

Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat, but forced himself to keep looking her in the eye. “I sort of forced Ron to tell me the whole story,” he said quietly as he felt his hatred for Tom Riddle boiling in his very skin. “And just so you know, it doesn’t change the way I feel about you in the slightest.” Ginny opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off. “I told Ron I wanted to kill Riddle for what he did to you, and he told me I already had. But you know what? Right now, I wish I could bring the sorry sod back to life just so I could kill him again!”

Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all flinched slightly, and looked away. “He didn’t mean that,” Hermione said after a moment of awkward silence.

“Yes I-” Harry began.

“No you didn’t!” Hermione shouted, springing to her feet and slamming her hands down on the table for emphasis. “Ron, you didn’t tell him the whole story, did you?”

Ron didn’t answer; he just glared at the floor.

Hermione took a slow, calming breath, and looked back across the table at Harry. “I’m sorry, Harry; we shouldn’t have reacted like that. It’s just- well, you sort of did help bring Tom Riddle back... from the dead.”

Harry’s head started to spin as his anger dissolved into confusion. “What?” he managed to choke out.

“Harry,” Hermione said gently, “Tom Riddle is Lord Voldemort’s real name. So you see, in a way, you did help bring him back to life when your blood was used in his Rebirthing Potion.”

“Blimey,” Tyler whispered.

Harry was suffocating. He needed air, fast. Ginny’s mind and soul hadn’t been violated by just anybody; it had been his own archenemy. It had been entirely his fault - Voldemort had gone after her in order to get to him. He stood up shakily and staggered out into the garden, stumbling blindly along the path toward the apple orchard. He was almost there when he tripped over a small fence and fell forward onto his face. After lying there for a long moment, he looked up and saw, to his surprise, a flat stone with a picture of a grinning serpent engraved into its surface.

“What am I going to do, Hassseth?” he moaned. “I was already putting her in danger before I even started to notice her.”

He lay there motionless for several minutes before he suddenly heard Hassseth’s hissing voice in his mind. “So she’s in no more danger now than she was before.” Looking back on the experience later, he would have to admit that this should have startled him, but at the moment it seemed the most natural thing in the world.

“But what if something else happens to her?” he asked the stone after a moment.

There was another long pause, and Harry was about to give up hope of receiving an answer when he heard the snake’s voice in his mind again. “You can’t keep her safe if you’re not around.”

Harry thought about this. Could he have prevented Ginny’s whole ordeal with the Chamber of Secrets if he had been closer to her then? He wasn’t certain, especially since all he knew about it was the distorted story his friends had told him, but there was definitely a possibility. Besides, even if he did think she would be safer without him around, would he really be able to just walk away from her now? The answer was an emphatic No. Giving up on Ginny simply wasn’t an option.

“Thank you, Hassseth,” Harry whispered. He wasn’t sure whether her words had come from his own mind or if they had somehow actually come from his dead friend, but as he thought about it, he realized that it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that Hassseth’s voice had once again set him straight. He shook his head and smiled sadly. “Even when you’re not really here, you still give me good advice.”

“Harry?” Ginny’s tentative voice pulled him from his thoughts. He stood up quickly and looked around.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

“Talking to your friend?” she asked, gesturing toward the headstone.

Harry nodded. “How could you tell?” It was a stupid question, and he knew she probably wouldn’t answer, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Hmmm...” Ginny began, pretending to think very hard. “I guess it’s because I heard you.”

Harry suddenly realized that he had no idea how much of the one-sided conversation she had overheard. He wasn’t even sure how much of it he had said out loud. “How much did you hear?” he asked tentatively.

Ginny shrugged. “I think I heard all of it; not that it matters.”

“Why wouldn’t it matter?” Harry asked, genuinely curious.

Ginny rolled her eyes, and Harry’s heart leapt at the sight of her doing something other than glaring. “Because I don’t speak Parseltongue.”

“Oh,” Harry said. “Right.” In reality, he’d had no idea that he was speaking in Parseltongue, but he didn’t really want to admit it. It made sense, though, given who he had been talking to. “So, why the sudden change of heart? I mean, you’ve been avoiding me like the plague since my birthday, and now you suddenly seek me out?”

Ginny scowled. “Actually, this is Hermione’s doing. She said, and I quote, ‘You made this mess, you clean it up.’ Then she forced me out the door and threatened to make me look like Marietta Edgecombe if I came back without talking things over with you.”

Harry quirked an eyebrow at her. “And that scared you enough to get you to come talk to me? What exactly does this Marietta look like?”

Ginny stifled a giggle. “She’s the one who ratted out the D.A. to Umbridge.”

“Ah,” Harry said, understanding dawning. “So she’s the one with SNEAK written across her face?”

Ginny nodded. “It’s been over a year, and still no Healer has been able to get rid of it.”

“No wonder you took the threat seriously,” Harry replied, marveling at Hermione’s jinxing ability.

“That’s right,” said Ginny. “So come on; let’s go sit under one of the apple trees.” Harry followed her, and they were soon seated under a large tree at the edge of the orchard.

“So...” said Harry. He had been wishing for this opportunity all week, and now that it was here, he had no idea what to say.

“So...” Ginny repeated. “I’m sorry for running off the way I did.” She wasn’t looking at him, but Harry could tell by her tone of voice that the apology was sincere. The fact that she was staring intently at the ground had more to do with her embarrassment than anything else.

“I’m sorry for eavesdropping on you,” Harry said quietly.

Ginny snorted. “I ought to be used to it after living with Fred and George and their Extendable Ears.”

“Ron told me that Hermione said you wanted to keep Riddle a secret because you thought I’d see you as weak if I knew,” Harry said hesitantly. Is that true?”

Ginny sighed and buried her fingers in her hair. “I don’t know. I guess maybe, but it’s not like I sat there and said, ‘I don’t want Harry to think I’m weak, so I’m not telling him.’ It’s just embarrassing, you know?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, I know a thing or two about being embarrassed. I really did mean what I said that day, though. When I said I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

“I know,” Ginny whispered. She finally looked up at him. “Can you do me a favor, Harry?”

“Sure,” Harry answered, hoping that she wasn’t going to ask him to stay away from her.

“Take off your glasses.”

“Are you sure?” he asked nervously.

Ginny nodded. “I’ve been hiding from Tom Riddle for years,” she explained. “I’ll never get over my fear of him if I don’t face it at some point.”

Harry nodded slowly and, fervently hoping that Ginny knew what she was doing, removed his glasses.

She stared at him for a long time before finally whispering, “Your eyes are green.”

“I know,” Harry said, somewhat taken aback by her statement.

Ginny gave a small laugh, but there was no amusement behind it. “Tom’s eyes were dark, almost black. Yours are bright green. You don’t look that much like him after all.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself of something she didn’t really believe.

Harry made to put his glasses back on, but she laid a hand on his arm to stop him. “Can you do one more thing for me?” she asked. Her voice was strained, and Harry knew that she was dreading whatever it was she was about to ask him to do. He nodded warily, and Ginny took a deep breath. “Can you say something in Parseltongue?”

“Why?” Harry asked.

Ginny closed her eyes. “Tom was a Parselmouth, too. That’s how he controlled the Basilisk. If I’m ever going to get past this, I have to see you as you, even when you’re looking as much like Tom as you possibly can.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Does that make sense?”

“Not really,” Harry answered truthfully. “But I’ll do it anyway, if I can. I’ve never really spoken in Parseltongue except when I was talking to a snake.”

“Please try,” said Ginny. Her voice was quiet, and just listening to it soothed Harry’s nerves.

He concentrated on speaking Parseltongue, and asked, “Am I doing it?”

Ginny just stared at him and whispered, “More. Say something longer.”

Harry shrugged, deciding that her answer meant he had indeed been speaking in Parseltongue. He took a deep breath, looked directly into her eyes, and said, “Ginny Weasley, I want you to know that I would never do anything to hurt you. You mean the world to me, and I hope someday you can learn to trust me. You’re an amazing person, Ginny, and I- I think I’m falling hard for you.” If only he could say those sorts of things to her in English.

Ginny just nodded without saying anything. After putting his glasses back on, Harry could see tears running down her cheeks.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

“I’m fine,” she said as she brushed the tears away. Her voice softened when she added, “Thank you. What did you say, anyway?”

“Why?” Harry asked, attempting to get out of answering.

“Just curious,” Ginny answered. “I’ve never heard Parseltongue sound like that before.”

“Like what?”

“Like.... I don’t know, like something really meaningful was being said. It usually just sounds like a bunch of evil hissing and spitting, but-” She stopped abruptly.

“But...” Harry prompted.

Ginny took a deep breath and spoke very quietly. “This time it made me shiver, but in a good way. Especially the very end.” Harry’s heart soared. Even though she hadn’t understood the words, their meaning had somehow managed to get across anyway. “So, are you going to tell me?” she asked.

“Of course,” Harry answered, smirking at her. “I said-” he switched to Parseltongue, “-I’m falling for you.” This time he was actually able to see the shiver run down Ginny’s spine.

“Prat,” she laughed, playfully swatting his arm. In a more serious voice, she added, “In case you want to know, though, you can say whatever that was to me any time.”

“I’ll remember that,” Harry said, still smirking. He finally adopted a more serious expression as he asked, “Are we okay?”

Ginny nodded. “I think so,” she said quietly. “Anyway, now you know what happened the last time I really trusted somebody. I don’t know if I can ever trust anyone that way again.”

Harry gently laid his hand over the top of hers. “Can I try to help you?” he asked.

“You already are,” she whispered as she laid her head on his shoulder. They sat in comfortable silence for several minutes before standing up and walking back to the house.

* * * * *
After his birthday, Harry’s lessons with Hermione became considerably easier to handle, since he was now allowed to practice magic instead of just reading about it. By the time Ginny’s birthday came around on the eleventh of August, he was over halfway through the theory for fourth-years, and his spellwork and potion making had already progressed to third-year level.

As the family and guests prepared for Ginny’s birthday party, Harry quietly brought his present for her downstairs and placed it with the growing pile of gifts on the table out in the garden.

“Ah, the mysterious birthday present,” Tyler said from behind him as he eyed the gold-wrapped box. “What is it?”

Harry laughed as he turned around. “Like I’d tell you.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Tyler asked indignantly.

Harry shrugged. “No real reason. But I’m still not telling. You’ve just got to wait until Ginny opens it.”

“Fine,” Tyler huffed dramatically, rolling his eyes as he followed Harry back inside to help with the final party preparations.

When the birthday party actually began, Harry had to admit that it was at least as good as his own party had been. Of course, that was at least partially because Ginny was speaking to him again, but even laying that aside, the party was amazing. There was loud music, plenty of food, and several entertaining party games - in short, everything a birthday party ought to have.

Harry’s favorite game turned out to be a variation of Quidditch that the Weasleys had played when they were younger, and which consisted of half of the participants being the Quidditch players and the other half being their brooms. The Chasers and Keepers (there were no Beaters or Seekers in this version of the game) sat on their ‘brooms’’ shoulders and shouted instructions about where to ‘fly’ as they played.

Ginny, as the birthday girl, was the captain of her team, and she immediately chose Hermione to be the opposing captain. Apparently, once the captains had been selected, the first order of business was for the captains to choose their opponents’ ‘brooms.’

“I choose Ron,” Ginny called out. “That way he can’t play Keeper, but he can’t complain either, since he’ll have Hermione on his shoulders.” This earned a laugh from everyone involved, except for Ron who just ducked his head and tried not to blush as he moved to stand next to Hermione.

“That’s fine,” Hermione said sweetly. “I choose Harry, since we all know you only made me the other captain because you knew your brothers wouldn’t choose him for you.” This comment was met with plenty of teasing from Ginny’s brothers, and now it was her turn to blush as Harry moved to stand next to her.

“Okay, I want Fred,” said Ginny, her face still burning.

“Is that really why you made Hermione the other captain?” Harry asked out of the corner of his mouth. Ginny didn’t answer.

“George,” called Hermione.

“Okay, Percy, you’re George’s broom.” Percy looked slightly disgruntled at his little sister’s decision, but made his way over to George without comment while Hermione chose Neville Longbottom to be Fred’s ‘broom.’

Ginny’s final selection was Tyler, while Hermione picked Bill. That left Luna Lovegood and Bill’s girlfriend, Fleur Delacour. Taking pity on Luna, Ginny chose Fleur to be Bill’s ‘broom,’ as he was much heavier than Tyler.

Luna moved to stand next to Tyler as Ginny shouted, “Mount your brooms!”

Harry had to struggle not to laugh as he watched Bill trying to climb onto his beautiful girlfriend’s shoulders without hurting her. Surprisingly, though, she didn’t seem to have any trouble holding him up, despite the fact that he was probably twice as heavy as she was.

“She’s part Veela,” Ginny said, following Harry’s gaze. “They’re annoying, but much stronger than they look. Are you going to help me up?”

“What? Oh, right. Sorry.” Harry crouched down, and Ginny leaped onto his back and climbed up onto his shoulders. He grasped her ankles to help her balance as he tried unsuccessfully to ignore the fact that his face was nestled snugly between her thighs.

“Ready, set, GO!” Ginny shouted, and tossed the Quaffle to Tyler. Luckily for Luna, he was rather light, and she didn’t have much difficulty carrying him as they sprinted toward the goal, which was being guarded by Hermione. Just before they reached her, Tyler faked to his left and flipped the Quaffle over his shoulder to Ginny, who scored easily.

“Look at that, Hermione,” Ginny taunted. “The boy’s never been on a broomstick in his life, and already he’s better at Quidditch than you.”

George immediately took the Quaffle, and Percy took off at a sprint, carrying him toward the goal.

“George, look out!” shouted Bill. George looked up just in time to see Harry and Ginny barreling toward him. Just before they crashed into each other, he was able to pass the Quaffle off to Bill, who scored easily after tricking Neville into carrying Fred the wrong way.

“All tied up now, little sis,” George said with a smirk as he and Ginny climbed back onto their ‘brooms.’ “Maybe you should try playing a little defense instead of just making Harry tackle people.”

The good-natured ribbing continued to fly back and forth almost as often as the Quaffle, and by the time the game was over, nobody could even remember the score. It didn’t really matter, though; the important thing was that they were all grinning and exhausted.

When they arrived back at the Burrow, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were waiting in the garden with a large birthday cake and a stack of presents.

“I think I know what time it is,” Ron said in a singsong voice as he elbowed Ginny in the ribs. She gave him a playful shove as she walked directly to the cake and blew out all the candles in one breath.

“Mum!” Fred complained at once. “I can’t believe you. Regular, non-exploding candles?”

George nodded in agreement. “What is the world coming to?”

“Why do you think I didn’t let you two help with the cake?” Mrs. Weasley asked with a smile as she began cutting the cake and handing out slices to everyone.

“Go on, Ginny; open your presents,” Ron called out as soon as he had a plate of cake in his hands. Taking this as her cue, Ginny picked up the first package.

“Chocolate frogs, right Ron?” she asked. Ron gaped at her, and she laughed as she tore off the paper to reveal a large pack of chocolate frogs.

“How’d you know?” Ron asked indignantly.

“Because that’s what you always get everybody for their birthdays,” George called out. “Did you really think no one noticed?”

Ron shrugged as his ears turned a light shade of pink, and everyone enjoyed a laugh at his expense.

Ginny continued opening her presents, but she seemed to be avoiding the one from Harry. He wasn’t sure if that was really the case or not, but every time she came to it, she just pushed it further down the table and opened something else. She received a large spellbook from Hermione, a very handsome set of eagle feather quills from Percy, and an assortment of something called ‘Skiving Snackboxes’ from the twins, a gift which earned them disapproving looks from Mrs. Weasley, Hermione, and Percy. Harry didn’t recognize most of the other presents Ginny received, but he didn’t really care; he just wanted her to hurry up and open the present he had gotten her.

Finally, after everything else had been opened, Ginny picked up the flat box containing Harry’s present. “Are you sure about this, Harry?” she teased. “This looks like the sort of box new robes come in. You didn’t go and buy me clothes, did you?”

Harry laughed; she couldn’t be further from the truth. “You’ll just have to open it and see.”

She tore off the paper, but stopped short just before opening the box because Ron cried out, “Wait! Harry, this is something she can open in front of her family, right? Because if it’s not, you know we won’t hesitate to pound you.”

This only made Harry laugh harder. “I promise, Ron, the only reason you’ll want to pound me after seeing what’s in that box will be because you’re jealous that I didn’t get you one, too.”

Her curiosity piqued, Ginny lifted the lid to the box and gasped before slamming the lid back down. “Harry, a word?” she called out in a strained voice.

“Watch for flying bogies,” George snickered as Harry followed her toward the apple orchard.

“What’s the matter?” he asked as he hurried to catch up with her. “I thought you’d like it.”

Ginny reached the trees and wheeled around abruptly, almost causing him to run into her. “This is too much, Harry,” she whispered fiercely. “I can’t accept something this expensive.”

“It wasn’t expensive,” Harry protested. “In fact, it was practically free.”

Ginny narrowed her eyes. “Explain,” she said in the same fierce tone.

“I sort of... inherited it, you might say. And it wasn’t in the best condition, but I managed to fix it up for you.”

Ginny’s eyes widened in surprise. “You mean this is.... You really fixed it up just for me?” Harry nodded and she threw her arms around his neck while still clutching the box in one hand. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“No problem,” Harry whispered back before adding in Parseltongue, “I’m still falling for you.” He felt Ginny shiver against him before pulling back.

“One of these days you’re going to tell me what that means,” she said as she began leading him back to her family.

“One of these days,” Harry repeated with a smirk. “But not today.” He took off for the Burrow at a run, with Ginny hot on his heels.

When they arrived, laughing good-naturedly, a moment later, Ron asked, “What was that all about?”

Harry looked at Ginny, who smiled and said, “We just had to clear something up.”

“So, are you going to show us what he got you?” asked George. “Personally, I think it’s one of those lacy nightgowns - you know, the kind you can almost see through-”

“Silencio!” Much to Harry’s relief, Mrs. Weasley hit her son with a Silencing Charm. “That’s quite enough out of you,” she scolded. Her eyes narrowed as she added, “And besides, how do you even know about those sorts of things, anyway?”

George’s mouth began moving very rapidly as he tried to defend himself, but still no sound escaped his lips.

Ginny laughed at her brother and said, “Okay, fine. Here it is.” She took the lid off of the box and reached inside. It was immediately apparent that the inside of the box had been magically expanded, as it was only about two inches deep on the outside, but she had reached in past her elbow. With a flourish, she dropped the box and pulled her arm upward to reveal a highly polished broomstick with NIMBUS 2001 embossed on the side of the handle.

Ron’s jaw dropped.

Fred turned to Harry and shouted, “Hey! You said that was for a friend!”

“Ginny’s my friend,” Harry replied. Turning to her, he asked, “Care to take it for a test drive?”

“Mum, can I?” she pleaded, suddenly looking very much like a little girl.

“Just for a little while, dear,” Mrs. Weasley said indulgently.

Laughing with delight, Ginny threw herself astride her new broomstick and circled the house once before starting to dive-bomb her brothers. This, of course, prompted them to retrieve their own broomsticks in order to chase her, and soon there was an all-out air war going on.

A few hours later, as they helped clean up after the party, Harry noticed that Ginny kept giving him strange looks. As soon as everyone else was either inside the Burrow or distracted by whatever they were doing, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her around to the side of the house.

“Harry, what’s going on?” she asked as he released her arm.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” he replied. “You’ve been giving me funny looks all evening.”

Ginny laughed. “Oh, that. I was just thinking how backwards things are right now. I mean, I gave you jewelry and you gave me a Quidditch broomstick. That isn’t exactly normal, is it?”

Harry began chuckling along with her. “Yeah, I see what you mean. I wouldn’t trade my present for anything, though,” he added, fingering the locket through his shirt. “And I remembered what you said about not having a decent broom, so I figured I’d do something about that.”

“I really do appreciate it, Harry,” she said sincerely. “Especially since I know it’s something you put a lot of time and effort into, not just something you went out and bought.”

“I’m really glad you like it,” Harry said as he began leading her back toward her family. The setting sun played upon her hair, making it look even redder than usual, and Harry was once again mesmerized by the sight of her. “You’re so beautiful,” he said in Parseltongue.

“When are you going to tell me what that means?” Ginny laughed.

Harry shrugged. “When you’re ready to know.”

---

As Harry Potter descended the stairs of the Burrow very early on the morning of September first, he was surprised to hear Mrs. Weasley’s angry voice coming from the other side of the closed kitchen door.

“I’m not sending him back there, Albus; I don’t care how it will look to the Muggles. He’s practically part of the family now!”

“I am not suggesting that we modify the boy’s memory, Molly,” Dumbledore replied mildly. “All I am saying is that Mr. Stevens might choose to return to his school. Of course, he would probably prefer to attend Hogwarts with his friends, but we both know that is completely out of the question.”

“Then let me keep him here,” Mrs. Weasley pleaded. “Surely you could find us some proper Squib curriculum so he won’t have to go back to that awful place.”

Harry pushed the door open. “Why don’t you ask Tyler what he wants?” he asked.

“Ask me what?” Tyler called from the bottom of the stairs. Harry made room for him to enter the kitchen.

“Tyler, dear,” Mrs. Weasley began, “Professor Dumbledore here was wondering if you would like to return to your old school.”

Tyler snorted. “Go back to St. Brutus’s? Are you kidding?”

“Tyler, you said it!” Harry exclaimed.

Tyler’s eyes opened wide. “I did! Last year, Harry and I were at St. Brutus’s Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. How come I can say that now?”

All eyes turned to Dumbledore as he answered, “It appears that Madam Umbridge has removed her Fidelius Charm from the school. I had guessed she might do so at some point; you see, now there will be no hard evidence that she ever placed the charm on the school in the first place. She is beginning to realize that Minister Fudge cannot postpone her trial forever, and is doing her very best to cover her tracks.” He placed a comforting hand on Harry’s shoulder as he added, “Not to worry though, Harry; you’ll get your memory back yet. Now, I believe Mr. Stevens was going to tell us something.”

“Yeah, I was going to say I’d rather live on the streets and eat out of rubbish bins than go back to St. Brutus’s,” Tyler said unapologetically.

“You see, Albus?” Mrs. Weasley exclaimed triumphantly. She turned to Tyler and added, “I wanted to give you the option of staying with us, Tyler. I’m afraid there’s no real school for Squibs, but Professor Dumbledore has a very good curriculum that could help you learn to get by without magic in the Wizarding world.”

“Hmmm...” said Tyler, touching a finger to his chin as though this was an extremely difficult decision. “Go back to St. Brutus’s where I can eat spoiled porridge and get treated like rubbish, or stay here where the food’s excellent and the people are actually nice, and learn about magic. Do I really even need to answer that?”

“Very well, Mr. Stevens,” Dumbledore said with a wink, “your lessons should arrive by owl-post shortly. Ah, here comes the first one now.” A large barn owl swooped through the window and landed lightly on the table, holding its leg out toward Dumbledore. He quickly untied the roll of parchment and handed it to Mrs. Weasley.

“You- you- manipulator!” she scolded, as she took the parchment, but the effect was ruined by her laughter. “You only suggested sending him back because you knew I’d offer to keep him.”

“Naturally,” Dumbledore replied with a slight bow. “And now, I must be off. I shall see you this evening at the feast, Harry.”

“Goodbye, Professor,” Harry called as the old man stepped out the back door and disappeared with a crack.

The rest of the morning was complete chaos, which Ron assured Harry was completely normal for the Weasleys on September first. Everyone rushed through breakfast, and then scrambled around throwing last-minute items into their trunks. Just when Harry was beginning to worry about having enough time to make it to King’s Cross Station before the train was supposed to depart, Percy Weasley knocked on the front door of the Burrow.

“Everyone ready?” he asked. “Good. Then if you’ll all follow me....” He led them to the front of the house, where a nondescript black sedan was waiting.

“Are we all supposed to fit in there?” Harry whispered to Ron.

“Yeah,” Ron answered. “Don’t worry, though - the inside’s been magically expanded.” The interior had been expanded so much, in fact, that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were all able to fit their trunks and their pets’ cages into the luggage compartment with ease, and the four of them sat comfortably across the back seat while Percy drove and Mrs. Weasley and Tyler rode up front.

“Do you think we’ll make it in time?” Harry asked, checking his watch.

“No problem,” Ron answered, sounding supremely unconcerned. “Percy may be a git, but he knows how to drive, right Perce?”

“Ron, how many times have I told you not to call your brother names?” Mrs. Weasley scolded. “He’s apologized and come back to us, and that really ought to be enough for you.”

Harry slouched down in his seat so he could whisper in Ginny’s ear. “What does she mean, he came back to you?”

“Percy didn’t believe you when you said Voldemort was back,” she answered in a whisper that was so quiet he had to strain to hear it. “He even sided with the Ministry when they put you on trial and tried to expel you and break your wand. But when he saw Voldemort dueling with Dumbledore at the Ministry, and then Fudge denied it all, he decided he’d had enough and came home. He still keeps up a pretense of being loyal to Fudge, though, so he can spy on him for the rest of us.”

Harry nodded, digesting this new information. He looked out the window and quickly realized that Ron had not been exaggerating when he said Percy would have them to the station in plenty of time. Their car was blowing past speeding Muggles as if they weren’t even moving, but nobody seemed to even see them. Harry guessed that this had to be part of the car’s magic. In far less time than it ought to have taken, they arrived at King’s Cross Station and clambered out of the car.

“See, Harry? I told you there wasn’t a problem,” Ron remarked as they pushed their luggage trolleys toward the platform. “We’re an hour early. Hey, maybe we can actually get a decent compartment this time.”

“Harry and Ginny will have to save it for us, then,” Hermione reminded him, “because we have to go to the Prefects’ meeting.”

“Why?” Ron asked. “We’re not Prefects anymore.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Head Boy and Head Girl have more responsibilities than Prefects, Ron, not less.”

Ron swore under his breath so that his mother wouldn’t hear. “Maybe Fred and George were right,” he grumbled. “Maybe it’s not so great being Head Boy.”

“Nonsense,” said Percy. “It will give you wonderful leadership experience that will be an invaluable asset in the real world.” Ron just rolled his eyes.

“We’re here,” Mrs. Weasley announced at last as they came to a stop in front of the barrier between platforms nine and ten. “Tyler, you won’t be able to go through by yourself, so why don’t you go with Ron?”

Tyler nodded and began helping Ron push his trolley toward the barrier. “Best to close your eyes,” Ron advised. A moment later, they were gone.

“Harry, you next,” said Mrs. Weasley, and Harry imitated what Ron had just done. When he opened his eyes, he was stunned to see a scarlet steam engine at the front of a long line of passenger carriages. A few witches and wizards were running to and fro, but for the most part everything was empty.

As he pushed his trolley over to where Ron and Tyler were waiting, he heard Ron say, “I think it’s always empty like this until about ten thirty. After that, it’s a madhouse. Come on, Harry; let’s get our trunks loaded up.” Ron selected a compartment, and they lifted their trunks and Hedwig and Pigwidgeon’s cages into the luggage rack. By the time they were finished, Hermione and Ginny had arrived and they helped the girls with their trunks and Crookshanks’ basket as well. After one final set of goodbye hugs from Mrs. Weasley, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny boarded the train, and Mrs. Weasley, Percy, and Tyler left the station.

“Why’d we come so early?” Harry asked when they were all seated.

“Are you kidding?” Ron asked. “Do you remember what happened when you showed up in Diagon Alley? It turned into a madhouse! Today would’ve been worse if we’d gotten here any later.”

Hermione nodded in agreement. “That’s part of the reason Mrs. Weasley picked up our books and robes for us this year, instead of taking us shopping in Diagon Alley. Which reminds me-” she closed the shade on the compartment window, “-you’ll need to keep this closed if you don’t want a bunch of first and second-years pressing their faces up against the glass to get a good look at you.”

“Perfect,” Harry grumbled. “And what am I supposed to do once we get to school?”

Hermione shrugged. “Deal with it, I suppose. It’s not like you haven’t before; you just don’t remember it.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” Harry muttered. A few minutes later, Ron and Hermione left to begin greeting the other students, and Harry and Ginny settled into a comfortable conversation about the upcoming year.

“It’s going to be strange having you in my classes instead of Ron’s,” Ginny observed after the train had been moving for a while.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I honestly hadn’t really thought too much about it. I guess it doesn’t really make much of a difference to me, since I won’t know anyone but you, Ron, and Hermione, anyway.”

“True,” said Ginny with a small laugh. “You know what’s funny?”

“What?” Harry asked.

“Every time I pass a compartment with the shade drawn over the window, I can’t help thinking there’s a couple inside snogging.”

Harry laughed softly. “Definitely none of that going on in here,” he said, and had to bite his tongue in order to avoid offering to change that fact. The friendly banter continued after Ron and Hermione returned from their Prefects’ meeting, and before long Hermione announced that it was time to put on their robes. No sooner had they finished doing so than the door to their compartment slid open, revealing a boy with a pale, pointed face and sleek blonde hair. The blonde boy was flanked by two other boys, each of whom was about the size of Harry’s cousin, Dudley.

“So, it is true,” sneered the blonde. “Potty’s decided to come out of hiding. Personally, I’d hoped the rumors about you being dead were true, but I suppose there’s still time for that to happen.”

Ron made to lunge at the newcomer, but Hermione stood in front of him and held him back. In an instant, the blonde had his wand in hand, and Harry was surprised to see Ginny step protectively in front of him. “Temper, temper, Weasley,” the blonde boy continued in the same condescending voice.

“Shut it, Malfoy,” Ron snapped. “In case you forgot, I’m Head Boy this year, which means I have higher standing than you.”

Malfoy’s eyes flicked momentarily to the red and gold badge on Ron’s chest as his sneer faltered for a split second. “Enjoy it while it lasts, Weasley,” he drawled. “It’s the only time in your pathetic life it’ll ever happen.” His two goons guffawed stupidly in the background.

“Oh, and Potter,” he added as an afterthought. “I wonder how you’d like your new little girlfriend without all that garish red hair.” He leveled his wand at Ginny, but she didn’t flinch.

“Don’t try it, Malfoy,” Harry said in a low and menacing voice. He placed a hand on Ginny’s shoulder and discretely aimed his fingers at the other boy.

“Or what?” Malfoy laughed. “I notice you haven’t got your wand. What are you going to do? I think I will try it, and see what happens. Calvus!”

“Protego!” Harry whispered as quietly as he could while still making sure the spell would work. Malfoy’s curse was deflected back into his face, and he suddenly found himself surrounded by a shower of white-blonde hair. His eyes flew open wide in horror as Ron burst out laughing, and he gingerly touched his newly-bald head.

“I’ll get you for that, Potter,” Malfoy shrieked, his voice an octave higher than usual.

“You’re welcome to try,” Harry laughed as Malfoy stormed back toward his own compartment with his two goons in tow.

“Hey Malfoy!” Ron shouted at the retreating threesome. “Ten points from Slytherin for trying to curse my sister!” He pushed the compartment door shut with a laugh. “I think I might like being Head Boy after all.”

“Ginny, what just happened?” Hermione asked quietly. She was watching the younger girl intently, as if she was trying to solve a puzzle.

“No idea,” Ginny answered. “Harry, what do you think happened?”

Harry shrugged and tried to look innocent. “Ron took points away from Malfoy?”

“That’s right!” Ron shouted gleefully.

“You know that’s not what we’re talking about,” Hermione said, ignoring Ron. “How did you block that curse?”

“I thought Ginny did it,” Harry said in what he knew was a very unconvincing voice. He had never been very good at outright lying; omitting certain details of a story was something he could do, but he’d never really learned to tell blatant, convincing lies. By this point, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were all staring at him, expecting some sort of explanation. Suddenly, the train lurched to a halt.

“Oh look, we’re here!” Harry exclaimed, turning around to retrieve his trunk and Hedwig’s cage.

“Harry, we leave our things here,” Ginny said quietly.

“Oh. Okay then. Let’s get going.” He threw open the compartment door and pushed through the throng of students before sprinting to the waiting carriages. Reaching the open door of the first carriage, he propelled himself inside and squeezed into the far corner where he hid in the shadows.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he muttered, banging the back of his head against the inside of the carriage.

“What was stupid?” Harry opened his eyes to find Ginny standing in front of him. “You saved me from going bald, and made it happen to Malfoy instead. What’s wrong with that?” She pulled the door closed, and sat down across from him, and the carriage began moving. “How’d you do it?”

Harry sighed and ran his fingers nervously through his already untidy hair. He was trapped, and he knew there was no way Ginny was going to let him get away without telling her the truth about what had happened. Still, he had to try one last argument. “I promised Dumbledore I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Ginny just folded her arms and stared at him.

“Alright!” Harry exclaimed in defeat after a long moment. “But you have to promise not to tell anyone. And you have to help me get out of telling Ron and Hermione.”

Ginny seemed to weigh her options for a moment before finally nodding and saying, “I think I can do that. I promise not to tell anyone, and to help you get out of having to tell Ron and Hermione.

“You’re so wonderful,” Harry hissed in Parseltongue.

Ginny shivered slightly and laughed, “Harry, you have to tell me in English.”

“Right,” he said with a grin. He took a deep breath and his grin faded. “I’m not really sure how to say this,” he whispered.

“How to say what?” Ginny asked. “That you don’t need your wand to do magic?”

Harry stared at her, dumbfounded. “How did you...?”

“Well, it’s really the only explanation, isn’t it?” Ginny said with a shrug. “I mean, the only time I’ve heard of a spell backfiring like that was with Ron’s broken wand back in first year. You must have done something to Malfoy’s wand, just like you must have done something to the lock on the broom shed this summer.”

“You knew?” Harry asked in disbelief.

“I suspected,” Ginny replied. “But I still don’t see what the big deal is. We’ve always known you were a powerful wizard, and wandless magic isn’t completely unheard of. Dumbledore does it pretty often.”

Harry shook his head. “I can do way more than even Dumbledore. I didn’t do anything to Malfoy’s wand; I blocked his curse with a Shield Charm. That’s why I put my hand on your shoulder the way I did; I had to be able to put the shield in front of you.”

Ginny suddenly looked very pale and very excited at the same time. “Could you show me?”

Harry shrugged. “I guess. What should I do?”

Ginny thought for a moment before answering, “Levitate me.”

Harry laughed. “Okay,” he said, waving his finger at her. “Wingardium Leviosa.” Ginny slowly rose into the air, squealing with laughter. Instead of placing her back on the opposite side of the carriage, Harry guided her onto his lap.

“How’d you get there?” he asked in mock-surprise.

“Harry! It doesn’t count if I don’t come willingly,” she laughed, swatting him on the arm.

“What if you don’t run away?” Harry asked cheekily.

Ginny sighed. “I guess I have to get up, then.” She stood and moved back to her own seat. Harry felt a pang of disappointment, and he thought he could see the same emotion on Ginny’s face as well.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

Ginny shook her head. “No, I just shouldn’t string you along. It’s hard though, you know? I mean, I’ve fancied you for so long-”

“So you admit that you fancy me,” Harry interrupted.

“Harry, you know I’ve never denied it. Well, not since you told me how you feel, anyway. But I can’t put myself in a position to be dumped as soon as your memory comes back.”

“I’ve told you that’s not going to happen,” Harry said vehemently.

“You don’t know that,” Ginny whispered. There were tears in her eyes. “It would be so easy to just give in and be your girlfriend for a while, but.... Harry, you know what Tom did to me. You know why I can’t bring myself to trust that way again.”

“No I don’t,” Harry insisted. “I’m not Tom Riddle, Ginny! When are you going to get that through your head? Merlin, does bloody Voldemort have to ruin every part of my life? He’s already taken my parents, which also succeeded in making my childhood a living hell. Now he has to keep you away from me too?”

“Please don’t do this, Harry,” Ginny pleaded, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I’m not ready. You know I’m not.”

Harry sighed in frustration, running a hand through his hair. “You’re right,” he said dejectedly. “You’re not ready. But when you are, I’ll be waiting.” They sat in silence for the rest of the trip, and neither one said a word as they entered the empty Great Hall and sat down at the Gryffindor table.

After only a few moments, the Hall began filling with students. Unsurprisingly, Harry was immediately the subject of whispers and stares, and he had to fight very hard to keep from getting up and running from the room to avoid all the unwanted attention.

“Harry! Good to see you back,” called an Irish boy with sandy brown hair. Harry nodded at him.

“That’s Seamus,” Ginny whispered. “He’s in your dorm - or was, anyway.”

A tall black boy sat down next to Seamus, but pointedly avoided looking at Harry and Ginny.

“Who’s that?” Harry whispered.

“Dean Thomas,” Ginny answered. Harry nodded in comprehension as he remembered Ron recounting how Ginny had broken up with Dean when he had accused her of still fancying Harry.

A moment later, Ron and Hermione arrived and sat on Harry’s other side, and then a tall, stern-looking witch, who Ginny whispered was named Professor McGonagall, led a group of tiny first-year students into the Great Hall. She placed an old, patched, and extremely dirty wizard’s hat on a stool, and stepped back, watching it intently. Very slowly, it began raise its crumpled form until it was standing upright, and a tear along the brim opened like a mouth. Then, in a scratchy voice, it began to sing a song about Hogwarts and its four houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.

The instant the song was finished, the students broke into thunderous applause, but when McGonagall stepped forward and prepared to read from her scroll, the Hall fell silent.

“Adams, Julie,” she called out. A small girl with pale skin and strawberry blond hair shuffled nervously forward and sat on the stool. McGonagall placed the hat on her head and after a moment it called out, “Hufflepuff!” The Hufflepuff table erupted in cheers, and Harry leaned down to whisper in Ginny’s ear.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Ginny looked up at him in surprise. “I’m sorry, Harry, I completely forgot you didn’t know about the Sorting. This is how they decide which house all the incoming first-years belong in.”

“You mean they let a hat decide that?” Harry asked incredulously.

“It’s not just any hat,” Ginny insisted. “It’s the Sorting Hat. That’s what it’s for.”

She continued explaining the Sorting ceremony to Harry, amid the intermittent cheers from the different house tables, until the Hall suddenly fell silent. Looking around, Harry realized that the Sorting was over and Dumbledore was about to speak.

“I have noticed,” Dumbledore began, his voice echoing through the Great Hall, “that students never seem to remember anything that is said when their stomachs are empty. With that in mind, I have only two words to say at this time. Tuck in!” He clapped his hands, and suddenly the tables were filled with more good things to eat than Harry had ever seen in his life, even at the Burrow. As he began filling his plate, he couldn’t help feeling that fate was finally smiling down on him.

---

A/N: Sorry for not giving the Sorting Hat a song to sing. I tried writing one, but it was horrid so I got rid of it.

---

Harry awoke with a start on the first day of classes when Dean Thomas kicked the side of his bed. Hard. Shaking his head to clear it, he put on his glasses and looked up at his dorm-mate with an annoyed expression.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“Ron said to get you up,” Dean grunted. “Although I don’t see why you’re even in this dorm anymore, seeing as you’re a sixth-year.”

Harry blinked. “I’m here because this is where McGonagall sent me, Dean. And what’s with the attitude? I don’t remember anybody telling me you were such a git.”

“Ask your girlfriend; she’ll tell you.” Dean began stomping toward the door, but Harry wasn’t going to let him off that easily. Standing up, he used a whispered Banishing Charm to slam the door shut before Dean could reach it.

“What the-?” Dean whirled around, but stopped short when he saw that Harry wasn’t holding his wand. “What just happened?”

Harry shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I’m glad it did. We need to get something straight right now, Dean. Ginny’s not my girlfriend, and she didn’t dump you for me.”

Dean snorted derisively. “Right. That’s nice to know, seeing as you weren’t even here when it happened.”

“I’m serious,” Harry insisted. “Look, Ginny and I aren’t going out, but it isn’t for lack of trying on my part, okay? She’s already turned me down a couple of times. Feel better now?”

“Yeah, a little,” Dean admitted after a moment, although his tone was still belligerent. “But she did break up with me over you.”

“The way I heard it from Hermione, Ginny broke up with you because you never left her alone about me. That’s nobody’s fault but your own, and I don’t want to have to suffer for it all term. So can we just forget about all this rubbish and be civil to one another?”

Dean thought for a moment before answering, “I think I can do that. But if I catch you snogging her, I don’t promise I won’t pound you.”

“You don’t own her, Dean,” Harry said quietly. “And if I have my way, I will be snogging her sooner or later. I suggest you get used to that idea in the meantime.”

Dean suddenly let out a laugh, startling Harry. “You never were one to be intimidated, were you Potter?”

Harry grinned at him. “Never was, never will be.” He watched as Dean left the dormitory, and then hurried to get ready for class.

When he arrived at breakfast, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were already waiting for him at the Gryffindor table.

“Where have you been, mate?” Ron asked as Harry sat down between him and Ginny. “Didn’t Dean wake you up?”

“You asked Dean to get him up?” Ginny asked in disbelief. “Ron, you know what happened with Dean.”

“No, it’s okay,” Harry interrupted before Ron could respond. “I ended up talking to him and I think things are okay now.”

“Really?” Ginny asked, clearly shocked. “How’d you manage that?”

“I told him I’d asked you out and you turned me down,” Harry replied with a shrug. “Now he knows, and he can’t say you dumped him for me.”

“See? It was a good think I asked Dean,” said Ron.

“Shut up, Ron,” Ginny snapped. In an undertone that only Harry could hear, she added, “You do know that I really did dump him for you, right?”

Harry nodded. “It’s not like that matters now, though, does it? I mean, you did turn me down - multiple times, I might add - so what’s the difference?”

“Harry, please don’t start this right now,” Ginny whispered. “You know why I had to do that.”

“I know,” Harry muttered. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“There you are, Potter,” Professor McGonagall called out in her crisp voice, effectively ending their whispered conversation. “Here is your class schedule; I trust you have all of your books and supplies?”

Harry nodded as he took the parchment from her. Ginny read it over his shoulder and said, “Well, at least I know I won’t be the only Gryffindor in Potions.”

“You got into Snape’s Potions class?” Ron asked Harry in disbelief. “I didn’t know you got an O on your O.W.L.”

“I didn’t either,” Harry said truthfully. “Umbridge was still nicking all my letters when the results came out, so I never saw them. Come to think of it, they’re probably in my trunk somewhere - I still haven’t bothered to go through it properly. How do you know I got an O in Potions, though?”

“Snape doesn’t take anybody for his N.E.W.T. class unless they got an O,” Ron explained. “I only got an A, and I had to change my whole career path.”

“How come?” asked Harry.

“You need Potions to be an Auror,” Ron answered with just a hint of bitterness in his voice.

“So what’s your new career ambition, then?”

“I’m not really sure,” Ron admitted. “I’m thinking professional Quidditch player sounds pretty good, though,” he added with a grin. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Hermione rolling her eyes.

“We’d better get going,” Ginny said, checking her watch. “If we’re late for Snape’s class, he won’t hesitate to let Filch hang us up by our toenails.”

Harry got up and followed her, thankful that he had been able to avoid being questioned about the wandless Shield Charm he had performed on the train. “Is Snape really as bad as you and Ron make him sound?” he asked.

“Worse,” Ginny answered grimly. “And from what Ron says, he always saves his bitterest moods for you.”

“Perfect,” Harry grumbled as they began descending the steps to the dungeons.

Upon entering the Potions classroom, it was immediately apparent from the sneering faces that Harry and Ginny were the only non-Slytherins in the class. They sat down at an empty table just before the door to Snape’s office banged open and the Potions Master swept into the room, his black robes billowing behind him. His eyes swept over the class, and seemed to linger a bit longer on Harry’s face than anyone else’s.

“If you are in this class, it means that you managed, in one way or another, to achieve an O on your Potions O.W.L.” Snape began. “Most of you-” his eyes swept over the Slytherins in the class, “-achieved this honor on your own merit. Others-” he stared directly at Harry, who resolutely forced himself not to look away, “-seem to have discovered some way to cheat the system. That, however, is no concern of ours, as any and all cheating will be brought to light during the course of this term, isn’t that right, Mr. Potter?”

Harry kept his face impassive and politely answered, “Yes sir.”

Snape blinked, and Harry had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Obviously, the professor had expected some sort of snide comeback, but Harry wasn’t going to bite. One of the first lessons he had learned during his year at St. Brutus’s was that his being a model student rankled Madam Davies much more than smarting off ever could, and it had the added bonus of not giving her an excuse to put him in detention. Tyler had assured him that Snape wouldn’t be any different, and Harry was starting to agree.

“Very well,” Snape continued, turning his attention back to the rest of the class. “We will begin the term with this potion.” He waved his wand, and a cauldron full of what looked like sluggishly bubbling dark mud appeared in front of him. “Who can tall me the name of this potion? Potter?”

Harry looked closely at the bubbling concoction, trying to remember Hermione’s tutoring from the summer. His first reaction was just to say it was boiling mud, but that would give Snape exactly what he wanted. He closed his eyes, trying to visualize the moving diagrams in his textbooks.

“The Polyjuice Potion, sir?” he asked tentatively.

“And how, exactly, did you know that?” Snape asked, swooping down on Harry like an overgrown bat and leaning threateningly across the table.

I can’t let him get to me, Harry told himself. I can’t let him get to me. He’s no different from Davies. He looked Snape directly in the eye and said, “I remembered it from the summer reading, Professor.”

Snape exhaled angrily through his nostrils, reminding Harry of an angry bull. “Or perhaps you remember it from when you stole ingredients from my private store to brew it with your little friends,” he whispered icily. Straightening, he strolled back to the front of the classroom and said, “Ten points from Gryffindor for lying to me, Potter.”

Harry forced himself not to react. He might not be a very good liar, but the past year had definitely taught him how to keep his head and remain impassive during class. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Snape tapped the blackboard with his wand, causing a list of instructions to appear.

“The instructions are on the board,” he said. “You may begin.”

“You okay, Harry?” Ginny whispered as she began unpacking ingredients.

Harry nodded slightly and whispered, “Don’t talk about anything but the lesson.”

“What was that, Potter?” Snape asked, swooping down on them once again.

“I, er, was asking my partner if her bicorn horn was whole or powdered,” Harry answered after a quick glance at the blackboard. It was a terrible lie, and Snape obviously didn’t believe him, but he simply sneered and moved on to the next table.

By the end of the period, Harry and Ginny’s potion was coming along famously, and Snape still hadn’t found a good reason to punish either one of them. Noting this with satisfaction, Harry packed up his ingredients, put his cauldron away, and walked purposefully from the room. As soon as they were a safe distance from the Potions classroom, he dissolved into a fit of laughter.

“Did you see his face?” he gasped.

“Yeah,” Ginny replied slowly as she watched him with a look of growing concern. “Harry, are you okay? I know you tend to bottle things up and everything, but that was ridiculous in there. It was like you were... I don’t know, completely emotionless or something.”

“I know,” Harry laughed, “and it drove Snape up the wall.” He took a few deep breaths to calm himself and then continued, “I learned back at St. Brutus’s that when a teacher hates you, the best thing to do is become the perfect student. It just makes them angrier, but they can’t put you in detention and they have to give you decent marks.”

Ginny raised her eyebrows. “Wait, so this is all just a ploy to get under Snape’s skin?”

Harry nodded. “I don’t think even Hermione could’ve come up with a better way to go about it.”

Ginny’s face broke into a grin. “Me neither. This should be a fun year in Potions. I wonder if you can make him pop a blood vessel. Does that sound like a reasonable goal?”

“Sounds good to me,” Harry laughed as they entered the Charms corridor.

Charms class couldn’t have been more different from Potions. Where Professor Snape was silent at best and hateful at worst, tiny Professor Flitwick was extremely helpful. He began the class by welcoming Harry back, and then congratulating everyone on their O.W.L. scores. After a brief introduction, they began working on the Aguamenti charm, which Harry soon discovered was much more difficult than any other spell he’d ever attempted. The charm was supposed to produce a jet of cold water, but at the end of the lesson the classroom was still perfectly dry; nobody had managed to produce so much as a drop of water.

Professor Flitwick didn’t seem the least bit bothered by his class’s apparent failure. He simply assigned an essay on the charm, told the students that they would continue working on it they next time they met, and sent them off to lunch.

Classes didn’t change much during the first week. Snape was a git, of course, and tried his best to trip Harry up during Potions, but Harry again managed to keep his cool and laughed all the way to his next class. Thankfully, all of his other professors were very helpful - even the paranoid Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, who spent most of his first lesson assuring the students that he was really himself, and not an imposter.

After an exhausting week of classes, Harry was nearly beside himself with anticipation when Saturday arrived. Quidditch tryouts were Saturday, and he wanted to be sure to get back onto the team. Of course, Ron and Ginny had both tried to argue that Harry should automatically take up his old position as Seeker, while Ginny would replace Katie Bell at Chaser, but Harry didn’t really think that was fair - after all, he hadn’t played Quidditch in over a year, and he couldn’t remember ever playing at all. Consequently, he had insisted on trying out against Ginny with the condition that they use identical brooms.

The tryout was held immediately after breakfast, and Harry followed Ron and Ginny down to the pitch. Ron found a pair of old Shooting Stars among the school broomsticks, and handed one to Harry and the other to Ginny.

“You know this is stupid, right?” he asked. “I mean, you’ll never go more than about fifteen miles an hour on these old things.”

“Then we’ll just have to rely on skill, rather than speed,” Harry replied.

Shaking his head wearily, Ron released a Golden Snitch, which he assured them was fast enough that their ancient brooms would never be able to keep up with it. Harry and Ginny kicked off the ground, circling the Quidditch pitch so slowly that Harry felt the urge to get off his broomstick and push.

“Having fun?” Ginny shouted to him.

“Loads!” he shouted back. “See the Snitch anywhere?”

Ginny laughed. “Like I’d tell you!” She swerved sharply to her right - as sharply as her decrepit broom would allow, anyway - but Harry knew she was only feinting and didn’t deviate from his course. He circled higher and higher, scanning the pitch below for a glint of gold.

“Nice fake there, Ginny; you really had me fooled,” he laughed as she pulled her broom around and headed back toward him.

“I’m in a flying mood, not a hovering mood,” she responded as she did a loop around him.

“Well then see if you can fly like this,” Harry challenged, yanking back on his broom handle and climbing straight up.

“Ooh, impressive, Potter,” Ginny taunted from right behind him. Harry suddenly threw his weight forward, quickly reversing directions and diving straight toward Ginny. Her eyes opened wide for a split second before narrowing again in determination. Harry continued diving straight for her until, at the last possible second, he made a small adjustment to the left and passed by close enough to brush her arm on the way.

“You like that one?” Harry called out as he and Ginny began doing loops around one another.

“It wasn’t bad, but it would’ve been a lot more intimidating if you were riding your Firebolt,” she replied truthfully.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Harry caught sight of a glint of gold far below on the pitch. Ginny spotted it at the same time, and they instantly fell into identical dives. The dive seemed to take forever on the painfully slow brooms, and Ginny slammed into his right side as she tried to improve her position.

“Hey! I thought you wanted me to win!” Harry shouted at her.

“I do; but I want you to earn it!” she shot back.

The Snitch was still hovering about twenty feet off the ground, and both Seekers were still neck-and-neck. With a flash of inspiration, Harry suddenly realized that his dive was actually slower than a freefall, and he made an extremely rash split-second decision. Gritting his teeth, he threw himself forward, diving off of the broom and freefalling toward the hovering Snitch. He didn’t hear the gasps and shouts of his teammates as he drew his wand, grabbed the Snitch with his left hand, twisted around in the air, and Summoned his falling broom. He caught it and barely managed to level out his fall as his toes skimmed the grass.

Grinning madly, he hopped off of the broom and shouted up at Ginny, who was still ten feet up in the air, “What do you think? Did I earn it?”

“You earned it,” she laughed as she landed next to him. Nobody dared disagree.

“So, do I get to take Katie’s Chaser spot, Ron? Or are we having an open tryout?” Ginny asked as the team gathered around her and Harry.

“Well, er- I think we should let the team decide,” Ron answered, clearly trying to avoid making the decision himself.

“I think she should be Chaser,” Harry said quickly.

Ron rolled his eyes. “We all know what you think, Harry. What does everybody else think?”

“She’s already part of the team,” said Demelza Robins, one of the other Chasers.

“And she is good,” Dean admitted, smirking at Harry, “even if she does like Potter.” Ginny grinned with relief as she saw that the rift with Dean was finally beginning to heal.

“If it’s fine with the Chasers, it’s all right with us,” Jimmy Peakes added. His fellow Beater, Ritchie Coote, nodded his agreement.

“I guess that’s settled, then,” Ron said, his relief at not having to hold an open tryout evident on his face. “Congratulations, Ginny.”

---

A/N: If you're curious about how this story ends, I put a (vague) hint in my response to the first review to this chapter. For your convenience, I'll repeat it here:

My good friend "Moony 62442" should really like the end of this story. Now run along and search through her MNFF profile for hints, and then speculate to your hearts' content. :)

---

It didn’t take Harry long to realize that he wouldn’t be able to scrape by in his classes the way he had done at St. Brutus’s. At Hogwarts, the teachers simply did not accept substandard work, and after Professor McGonagall forced him to rewrite a particularly abysmal essay three times, he had no choice but to resign himself to the fact that this would be a year full of hard work.

As he sat in the common room one evening in the second week of term, his latest Herbology essay was suddenly interrupted when Hermione slid into the seat next to him.

“Harry?” she said tentatively. Harry looked up from his essay, and she leaned in closer to him. “What happened with Malfoy on the train?”

Harry cringed inwardly. He had lost count of the number of times Hermione had asked him about the wandless Shield Charm he had cast on the Hogwarts Express. “I’d have thought you would’ve forgotten about that by now,” he muttered.

“Well, I do have several classes with Malfoy, and it’s hard to forget about what happened when his hair is still so short that it sticks up like fuzz all over his head.” Hermione paused to suppress an involuntary giggle at the thought. “So, are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Sure,” said Harry. “I’ve told you about a hundred times already, though. Malfoy’s wand backfired and he ended up losing his hair. I know he blames me, but why do you keep acting like I had something to do with it?”

“Because I know you, Harry, and I can tell you’re hiding something. You know you can trust Ron and me; why not tell us?”

Harry shook his head wearily. This argument was getting very old.

“Hermione, will you please just drop it?” Ginny asked in an exasperated voice as she walked over to join them.

Hermione gave her a curious look. “You don’t even know what we were talking about.”

Ginny rolled her eyes as she sat down across from Harry. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? You’re asking Harry about Malfoy losing his hair on the train, and he’s saying he doesn’t know what happened. Am I right?”

“Right in one,” Harry confirmed. “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but I really do need to finish this essay, Hermione, so....”

“Say no more,” she said, getting to her feet. “But I still think you ought to tell us what you know, Harry.”

“If I think of anything, I’ll come straight to you and Ron,” he replied with a straight face.

As soon as Hermione was out of earshot, Ginny leaned across the table and whispered, “You’re getting to be quite the accomplished liar, you know that?”

Harry shook his head as he picked up his quill and prepared to continue his essay. “I can hold back information when I need to, but I’m still no good at telling bold-faced lies. To tell the truth, I’m not sure I’d want to be.”

“You’ll leave that to me, will you?” she asked in an amused voice as she took out her own essay.

Harry laughed quietly. “Something like that,” he answered. They worked in silence for the next two hours, until Ron meandered over to their table and asked Harry if he was in the mood for a game of chess. More than ready to take a break, Harry readily agreed, and moved to an armchair near the fire, where Ron had the chessboard waiting.

“So, how’s sixth year going?” Ron asked after making his first move.

“Okay, I guess. A lot of work, obviously, but I suppose that’s pretty normal around here.” Harry moved his pawn forward a space.

“Yeah, it is. I’d never have made it to seventh year without Hermione constantly making me study and do my homework,” Ron laughed as he studied the chessboard. “Hey, did you know Hermione has Potions right after you?”

Harry nodded. “She mentioned it last week.”

Ron moved his knight and then said, “She told me Snape’s been in an even fouler mood than usual this term. I thought it might have something to do with you, but you haven’t been in detention yet, so I wasn’t sure.”

Harry laughed out loud at the thought of the murderous expression that crossed Snape’s face at the end of every lesson, when his and Ginny’s concoction was obviously the best in the class. “I haven’t told you my new philosophy for dealing with Snape, have I?” he asked.

Ron shook his head. “You going to move?”

“Oh, right.” Harry moved another pawn after barely glancing at the board. There was no point trying to win; Ron would trounce him regardless. “Anyway, I decided to be the perfect student in Snape’s class so he wouldn’t have any excuse to punish me.”

Ron gaped openly at him. “So why’s that put him in a foul mood?”

“Come on, Ron; you know even better than I do how much Snape hates me. He wants me to mess up so he can punish me, and it drives him mad to see me being a model student.”

Ron grinned. “So you’re getting good marks, staying out of detention, and making Snape miserable? Why didn’t we think of this years ago?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say good marks,” Harry corrected. “This is Snape, after all. Still, when Ginny and I obviously do better than everybody else in the class, he can’t very well mark us too terribly low, can he? Did you know he’s got a pretty big vein on the left side of his forehead?”

“No,” Ron answered, looking strangely at his friend. “Why would I notice something like that?”

“No reason, I guess. But when he’s angry, it sort of swells up just like the vein on my Uncle Vernon’s temple. On Monday, I swear it I saw it pulsating.”

Ron laughed gleefully. “Are you trying to make Snape pop a blood vessel in his head, Harry?” he asked with mock-severity.

“That was Ginny’s idea,” Harry admitted, breaking into a grin. “Rather brilliant, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, she is a Weasley,” Ron responded. “Are you even paying attention to the game anymore, Harry?”

Harry shook his head sheepishly. He had barely even looked at the chessboard for several moves now.

“I didn’t think so,” said Ron. “You know, you might actually get better if you paid attention every once in a while. Tyler got loads better at chess over the summer just by watching.”

“Tyler!” Harry suddenly exclaimed. “I can’t believe I forgot; we’ve been here well over a week, and I haven’t even written to him yet.”

Ron moved his bishop and grinned triumphantly. “Checkmate,” he said. “Now go write your letter before you forget again.”

Shaking his head in amazement at Ron’s ability to play chess and carry on a conversation at the same time, Harry returned to the table where he had been working. Pulling out a spare piece of parchment, he began to write.

Dear Tyler,

Sorry I didn’t write sooner. Things have been so busy that I completely forgot. Sorry about that. Anyway, life at Hogwarts is good. The classes are a lot more work than at St. Brutus’s, but they’re a lot more fun, too. How are your classes with Mrs. Weasley going? What sorts of things are you learning about?

Harry paused, sucking on the end on his quill as he tried to decide what else to write.

Your guess about Snape turned out to be right. I’ve been treating him like Davies, and it’s kept me out of detention so far. He hates me way more than Davies ever did, though, which means he gets even angrier when he can’t find anything to punish me for. Ginny and I are partners in his class, and we have a goal of making him pop a blood vessel in his head before the end of the year. I think we might actually be able to do it.

Oh, I wanted to tell you about the weirdest thing out of all the weird things I’ve seen here. It’s the Sorting, where they assign the first-years to their houses. Want to know who makes that decision? It’s not the Headmaster or any of the teachers. It’s a really old hat. The Sorting Hat sings a song about the four Hogwarts houses, and then yells out which house each new student belongs in. Doesn’t that seem a little strange, even for wizards? Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s cool, but... a hat?

Anyway, I’d better get back to my homework. Let me know how things are at the Burrow.

Harry

After signing his name, Harry folded up the letter and started putting it in his bag when he was stopped by Ron’s voice.

“Aren’t you going to send it?” he asked.

Harry turned around to face his friend. “Yeah,” he replied, “but I’ll have to wait until tomorrow; it’s after curfew.”

“Since when has that ever stopped you?” Ron asked, giving him a strange look. Apparently, Harry’s habit of sneaking out after hours was not something he picked up at St. Brutus’s.

Harry shrugged. “I used to sneak out late at night all the time at St. Brutus’s, but that was after the guards quit patrolling. I thought Filch and the teachers patrolled the corridors pretty much all night here.”

“So?” said Ron. “Just use your cloak.”

Harry looked at him like he had just sprouted another head. “Er, Ron... I’m not trying to stay warm; I’m trying not to be seen.”

“You mean we never told you about that?” Ron gasped in disbelief. “I can’t believe we missed that when we were telling you about all the trouble we’ve gotten into together.”

“Ron, what’re you talking about?” Harry asked impatiently.

Ron nodded toward the stairs to the boys’ dormitories. “Come on and I’ll show you. Bring your letter.” The two friends hurried up the stairs and into their empty dormitory, where Ron threw open the lid to Harry’s trunk. Upon seeing the jumbled pile of books, robes, and other miscellaneous items, he observed, “You still haven’t bothered to go through all your stuff, have you?”

Harry shook his head. “Hermione had me using all the books over the summer, and Ginny showed me the photo album, but other than that I’ve just pulled stuff out as I needed it.”

“Well, my friend, today is your lucky day,” Ron replied as he pulled a shimmering silvery cloak out of Harry’s trunk. “Put this on,” he instructed with a smirk.

Harry did as he was told, wrapping the cloak around himself.

“How’s it feel?” Ron asked.

Harry shrugged. “It feels fine.”

“Take a look in the mirror,” Ron suggested. His voice was casual - so casual in fact, that it made Harry slightly nervous as he turned around to face the mirror. However, even with that unintentional warning, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw: his disembodied head was floating in midair.

Harry screamed and jumped backward. Looking down at where his body ought to be, he saw that this was not a trick of the mirror; his body was gone. Only it couldn’t be gone, because he was still able to move around.

“What’s going on?” he asked warily.

“It’s an Invisibility Cloak, Harry,” Ron laughed. “You should’ve seen your face when you first looked in the mirror.”

“I did see my face,” Harry muttered, shaking his head as he took off the cloak. “Isn’t that what you usually see when you look in the mirror?”

“Oh. Right,” said Ron. “Anyway, that cloak used to belong to your dad. Dumbledore gave it to you back in first year.”

Harry looked more closely at the silvery cloak in his hands. “This was my dad’s?” he whispered, more to himself than to Ron.

“Yeah,” Ron replied. “And the Marauder’s Map is in here too. Remember me telling you about that?”

“Yeah,” Harry said enthusiastically. “That’s the map that shows where everyone is in the castle, right? I’d forgotten all about it.”

“Well, here it is,” Ron announced, pulling a very old and worn-looking piece of parchment out of Harry’s trunk. He touched his wand to it and said, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” Moments later a map of Hogwarts, complete with labeled dots representing all the people in the castle and on the grounds, appeared on the parchment.

“It looks like your way to the owlery’s all clear,” Ron said after checking the map. “Take this with you just in case, though. And stay under your cloak. I’ll go open the portrait hole for you.”

“All right,” said Harry as he took the Map and pulled the Invisibility Cloak over his head. “After you, Mr. Head Boy.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Just follow me, and don’t bump into anybody,” he instructed as he led Harry back down to the common room. Thankfully, there weren’t very many people milling about, so reaching the portrait hole without attracting attention was an easy task for Harry. Ron casually pushed it open and peered out into the darkened corridor as if he was expecting to find someone lurking in the shadows.

As Harry slipped past him, he whispered, “Thanks, Ron.”

“No problem,” Ron muttered as he closed the portrait hole.

Completely hidden from view, Harry strolled through the corridors toward the owlery. When he arrived several minutes later and pulled off his Invisibility Cloak, Hedwig greeted him with a hoot.

“Hey there, girl,” he called softly. “This is just like old times, isn’t it? Me sneaking out after curfew to talk to you and send off a letter?”

Hedwig hooted and fluttered down from the rafters to a perch that put her level with Harry’s eyes. Harry hurriedly tied his letter to her leg and stroked her feathers affectionately for a moment.

“Thanks for always being there for me, Hedwig,” he said after a moment. “I never would’ve made it back here without you. Take care of yourself, okay?”

She nipped his fingers affectionately before giving one final hoot and soaring out the window.

---

Hedwig returned to Hogwarts with Tyler’s reply late the following evening, leaving Harry extremely impressed with the speed of her flight. He wondered briefly if she might not have some magical ability that helped her to fly such long distances so quickly, but these thoughts were quickly dispelled as he eagerly tore open Tyler’s letter.

“What’s he have to say?” Ron asked as Harry began unfolding the parchment. They were sitting at a table in the Gryffindor common room along with Hermione and Ginny, and both boys welcomed the break from studying that was provided by the letter’s arrival.

“Well, I guess it won’t hurt to read it out loud, will it?” said Harry. “Hermione, you don’t mind, do you?”

“No, of course not, Harry,” she replied, looking up from her Charms essay. “I think we’re all interested in how Tyler’s getting along with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.”

“Good,” said Harry. He cleared his throat and began to read.

“Dear Harry,

“There’s no need to apologize for not writing. After all, I didn’t write to you either. It’s really good to hear from you, though. Things are a lot quieter around the Burrow with just me, Molly, and Arthur. I guess you know that from you were here at the beginning of the summer, don’t you?

“He calls Mr. and Mrs. Weasley by their first names?” Harry wondered aloud. “I don’t even do that.”

“They wouldn’t mind if you did,” Ginny answered. “With Tyler living at the Burrow all the time now, they probably just told him to use their first names to make things a little less formal.”

Harry nodded thoughtfully and returned to the letter. “Squib classes are going fine. Actually, a lot of what we’re covering is stuff I already know - basic stuff that any Muggle would know, like how to catch a taxi and how to cook without magic. I’m really excited about the next unit, though. We’ll be starting Magical Devices, which I REALLY want to learn about, since it’s about all the cool magical stuff that regular old ‘Squibs’ like me can enjoy.

“Surprisingly, the twins seem really interested in my education right now.”

“The twins?” Harry asked aloud in amazement. “I didn’t think they found any sort of education interesting.”

“They don’t,” Ron confirmed. “Not unless it’s got something to do with pulling pranks, anyway.”

“Then why would they be interested in what Squibs learn?” Harry asked.

“Keep reading,” Hermione said without bothering to look up from her essay. “Maybe he’ll tell you.”

“Oh, right,” said Harry. Looking down at the letter, he began reading once again.

“They’re working on some new products to help Squibs manage better in the Wizarding world, but they’re still in the testing phases and they won’t tell me what exactly they’re making. They did say, though, that they’ll have to make sure whatever it is doesn’t work for some bloke named Filch.” Ron and Ginny began laughing heartily as Harry continued, “They never mentioned who he is, exactly, but I got the impression that he was a Squib that they’re not too fond of.”

“You could say that again,” Ron laughed. “The last time they saw Filch, he was trying to whip them for using one of their portable swamps in the corridor!”

Harry chuckled and kept reading. “About Snape: I told you not to worry. It’s just like I said, all hateful teachers are the same on some level. The same things that worked with Davies will work with anybody. Oh, and good luck with the blood vessel thing.”

“Blood vessel thing?” Hermione asked, looking up from her essay as Harry, Ron, and Ginny all suppressed their laughter. “What’s he talking about, Harry?”

“Er- I- well, Ginny and I-” Harry stammered.

“We’re trying to get Snape angry enough to pop a blood vessel in his forehead,” Ginny explained, as though this was a perfectly normal pastime.

Hermione looked back and forth between Harry and Ginny in disbelief. “But you can’t do that,” she insisted. “Professor Snape is a teacher. You can’t just go antagonizing teachers.”

“Relax, Hermione; it’s just a joke,” Ginny said with a laugh. “We’re only antagonizing him by doing well in his class. You know how much Snape hates Harry; it’s killing him that he hasn’t been able to find a reason to put him in detention.”

Hermione turned to stare wide-eyed at Harry. “You mean you’re not cheeking him or anything?”

Harry shook his head.

“You just brew your potions and he gets angry about it?”

Harry nodded.

Hermione let out a long breath as she slowly deflated. “Well, I suppose that’s his own fault if he wants to be angry with you for doing your work.”

“That’s what I said,” Harry agreed before going back to the letter.

“It might surprise you to find out that I already knew about the Sorting Hat, and it wasn’t from the Weasleys. Let’s just say you’re not the only person at Hogwarts who gets letters from me.” Here, Tyler had drawn a picture of a winking smiley face.

“Did one of you...?” Harry asked, looking around at Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. They all shook their heads. “Then I wonder who it could be.”

“Well, we know he met Luna in Diagon Alley, and she and Neville were at both of our birthday parties,” Ginny mused. “Maybe he’s writing to one of them.”

“Or maybe Mum’s introduced him to somebody as a pen friend,” Ron suggested. “If that’s what’s going on, then we’ll never figure out who it is.”

Harry shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter all that much, really. I mean, it’ll be good for him to get to know other witches and wizards, right?”

“That’s right,” Hermione agreed. “After all, he’s not at Hogwarts, so we’re really his only connection to the Wizarding world at the moment. Branching out can only be good for him. What else does he have to say, Harry?”

Harry looked back down at the letter in his hands and finished reading.

“Take care of yourself, and good luck with you know who. Sweet dreams!

“Tyler.”

“What’s he mean about You-Know-Who?” Ron asked.

Harry laughed. “He’s not talking about Voldemort, Ron. He’s talking about-” He stopped abruptly as he realized that the person Tyler was referring to was sitting at the table with them.

“He’s talking about...?” Ron prompted.

Hermione rolled her eyes when Harry refused to answer. “Harry, it’s not as if everybody doesn’t already know.” Turning to Ron, she added, “He’s talking about Ginny. Honestly, can’t you pick up on any subtle hints?”

“Why go through the effort when you’re always there to tell me what they mean?” Ron answered with a smirk. “Speaking of all that, what is going on with you two?” he added, gesturing between Harry and Ginny.

Harry opened his mouth to say that nothing was going on, but Ginny beat him to it. “We’re friends,” she said simply. After a moment, she shot Harry a wink and added, “Good friends.”

* * * * *
For the remainder of September and October, life remained pretty much the same for Harry. Snape continued being an insufferable git, and seemed to get angrier with each day that passed without Harry giving him an excuse to take points from Gryffindor. He still took points, of course, but it always had to be in small amounts, since it was for tiny, imagined offenses. What seemed to rankle him the most, however, was the fact that he still couldn’t find an excuse to put Harry in detention.

During that same period of time, Harry was extremely relieved to notice that Hermione’s frequent inquiries about ‘the train incident,’ as he had begun calling it in his head, all but disappeared. He attributed her waning interest to a combination of Madam Pomfrey’s Hair-Growing Potion finally successfully restoring Malfoy’s sleek blonde hair, Hermione’s almost fanatical study habits, and her and Ron’s nearly constant Head duties (which Harry strongly suspected were often nothing more than excuses for the Head Boy and Head Girl to go snog in a broom cupboard somewhere). Of course, he also liked to think that his and Ginny’s pleas for Hermione to “drop it” every time the subject was broached had helped as well, although he couldn’t be sure.

As Halloween approached, so did excitement for the first Quidditch match of the season: Gryffindor vs. Slytherin. Ron had been working the team extra hard in his determination to beat the Slytherins in his final year, and as a result, Harry eagerly looked forward to Halloween, and his first truly free weekend of the term. He had it all planned out in his mind: the Halloween feast on Friday night, a trip to Hogsmeade on Saturday, and a lot of sleep on Sunday. Yes, this weekend would be perfect. And with a little luck, he might even be able to come one step closer to getting Ginny to overcome her doubts about their relationship.

During the first two months of term, things had remained more or less the same between Harry and Ginny. They worked together in several of their classes, and frequently shared jokes about how close they thought Snape was to bursting a blood vessel, but they hadn’t moved past that point. They actually spent so much time together that most of the school now assumed they were dating, even though that wasn’t the case. The real reason Harry spent nearly all his time with Ginny - besides the painfully obvious fact that he fancied her - was because he still didn’t really know anybody else in his year. He sometimes got the feeling that Ginny only hung around with him out of pity, but something about the way she looked at him, especially lately, let him know that that wasn’t the case.

As he entered the Great Hall for the Halloween feast, Harry discretely touched the locket under his robes for good luck. Hurrying over to the Gryffindor table, he glanced around at the elaborate decorations and smiled to himself. This was how Halloween was supposed to look.

“Hi,” he said as he sat down between Ron and Ginny. “How’s the food?”

“Delicious,” Ron replied in between bites of roast potatoes. Harry began piling food onto his plate, and ended up eating with almost as much gusto as Ron. When Ron and Hermione decided to call it a night and head back to the common room, however, Harry deliberately stayed behind with Ginny, who was still working on a second helping of pudding.

“I don’t know where you put it all,” he commented, smiling and shaking his head as he watched her eat.

Ginny paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth. “What?”

“You eat almost as much as Ron, but you never gain any weight. You ought to figure out how to bottle that - there’s loads of people who’d kill for a metabolism like yours.”

Ginny laughed. “I don’t know how it works, but I’m glad it does.”

Harry continued watching her until she was finished. “Want me to walk you back to the tower?” he asked.

Ginny shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I guess I was sort of expecting it, to tell the truth.”

“Ah, so you like having me follow you around,” Harry said slyly.

She rolled her eyes at him. “That’s no secret, Harry.”

They left the Great Hall in companionable silence, and neither one spoke as they began ascending the staircase. When they reached the second floor landing, however, Harry suddenly pulled Ginny into an alcove behind a nearby suit of armor.

“Harry,” Ginny giggled. “What’re you doing?”

Instead of answering her question, he leaned down close to her ear and whispered in Parseltongue, “You are amazing, Ginny Weasley.” He smiled in satisfaction when he felt a slight tremor run through her and the giggling stopped. Pulling away just far enough to see her face, he held his breath and looked deep into her eyes. Her fear, which had slowly been diminishing over the past two months, was now barely a glimmer. Harry wet his lips nervously as he slowly leaned toward her. Her eyes fluttered closed and she tilted her head back in anticipation. Just as their lips were about to meet, she turned her head and pressed her cheek against his chest as she wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tight.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” she whispered as he let out a disappointed sigh. “Please, I need more time.”

Harry nodded silently, not trusting his voice, and just held her close for a long moment.

“Mr. Potter.” Professor Dumbledore’s voice suddenly cut through the silence, and Harry slowly released Ginny and turned around. “I need you to come with me, please.” It wasn’t a request; it was an order, and he didn’t wait for a response before turning around and hurrying down the staircase.

Harry cast one last glance at Ginny, who was smiling sadly at him with tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. The glimmer of fear still remained. He gave her a rueful smile before finally turning back around and hurrying after Dumbledore, who he didn’t catch until the old wizard had almost reached the front entrance to the caste.

“Professor?” Harry called as he stepped off the bottom of the staircase. “What’s going on?”

“Madam Umbridge’s trial begins in less than half an hour,” Dumbledore answered without slowing down. “I have just received word, and I’m sure that the suddenness of the trial, as well as the fact that it is taking place late on Halloween night, means that Minister Fudge is once again attempting to manipulate the legal system.”

They were running across the grounds now, and Harry was surprised at how quickly the old Headmaster was able to move. “What do I do when we get there?” he panted.

“Hopefully nothing,” Dumbledore answered in between breaths as he ran. He stopped as they reached the large iron gates guarding the entrance to the school. “However, just in case you need to testify, I need you there. But don’t say anything unless I tell you to.”

Harry nodded, and Dumbledore tapped the gates with his wand, causing them to swing open. They stepped out onto the road leading into Hogsmeade, and Dumbledore locked the gates behind them before holding out his arm for Harry to grasp and Disapparating.

---

Dolores Umbridge’s trial was to be held in a large, rectangular courtroom, deep within the bowels of the Ministry of Magic. As Harry sat quietly next to Dumbledore in a sea of adult witches and wizards, his eyes were drawn anxiously to the straight-backed chair in the center of the room, far below the rows of stone benches where he and the others were seated. Chains encircled the chair’s arms, and he shivered at the realization that the people who usually sat in it were dangerous criminals.

As this thought entered his mind, he leaned toward Dumbledore and whispered, “If Fudge wants to get Umbridge off, why did he decide to hold her trial here? I mean, anybody who sits in that chair down there is going to look guilty.”

Dumbledore smiled benignly at him. “You may not remember it, Harry, but you yourself sat in that very chair just over two years ago, and you were still acquitted. But that is not Minister Fudge’s reason for holding the trial in this room. He does want his Senior Undersecretary cleared, that is certain, but he will not risk his own career in order to save hers. He scheduled the trial for this particular courtroom in an attempt to appear impartial.”

Dumbledore fell silent, leaving Harry to process this information. His friends had told him that he had been put on trial for using magic outside of school the summer before his fifth year, but he had never imagined that it had been in this sort of environment. He glanced again at the chains on the arms of that chair, and shivered slightly as he wondered if he had been bound during his trial. Shaking himself out of these thoughts, he decided to try and catch a few snippets of the whispered conversations going on all around him.

No sooner had he made this determination, however, than all conversation came to an abrupt halt as a door in the far corner of the room swung open and a squat, toad-like witch in a garish pink cardigan strode confidently toward the chair. She sat down stiffly, and smiled up at the gathering. The chains remained limp.

In the sudden silence, a woman’s voice rang out from somewhere to Harry’s left. “Dolores Jane Umbridge, you have been charged with kidnapping, illegally performing a Memory Charm, illegally performing a Fidelius Charm, use of a Blood Quill on a minor, unauthorized and improper use of two Azkaban Dementors, and attempted use of an Unforgivable Curse on a fellow human being. How do you plead?”

Umbridge gave a simpering little laugh. “Madam Bones,” she said in the same sickly-sweet voice that Harry remembered from his aunt’s memory, “I’m afraid this is all just a big misunderstanding.”

“Quite so!” interrupted a man’s voice. “This entire proceeding is a preposterous waste of all our time. I move to dismiss these ridiculous charges at once.”

Dumbledore calmly got to his feet as Harry began nervously fiddling with his locket through the front of his robes. He had begun thinking of it as a sort of good luck charm, and if he had ever needed luck in his life, he needed it tonight.

“Cornelius,” Dumbledore began very slowly and clearly, “I feel it my duty to remind you that, although you are Minister of Magic, I am the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and no charges can be dropped without my approval. Proceed, Madam Bones.” He returned to his seat.

Madam Bones cleared her throat and asked again, “How do you plead?”

“Not guilty, of course,” simpered Umbridge.

“Then we will begin with the evidence against you,” Madam Bones replied. “Chief Warlock Dumbledore, the floor is yours.”

“Thank you, Amelia,” Dumbledore said as he got to his feet. “We shall begin with the charges of kidnapping, and illegally performing a Memory Charm and a Fidelius Charm. As most of you know, Harry Potter lives with his Muggle relatives during the summer holidays. This past June, Mr. Potter’s aunt informed me that, one year prior, Madam Umbridge had approached her and her husband, and offered to help them permanently remove their nephew from the Wizarding world.”

At these words, outraged conversations erupted all around the room. Madam Bones allowed them to continue for a few moments before restoring order by rapping sharply on the table in front of her with a gavel.

“That evidence is inadmissible, Dumbledore!” shouted Fudge. He was on his feet and glaring daggers across the courtroom at the old Headmaster. “You know very well that Muggles are not allowed to testify before the Wizengamot.”

“Of course,” Dumbledore agreed, nodding at Fudge. “However, there is no law preventing me from recounting our interview. You will find a description of it before you.” He waved his wand, and a stack of parchment appeared before each person in the gathering. “As you can see, Madam Umbridge did, with the permission of Harry Potter’s aunt and uncle, use a Memory Charm to obscure his knowledge of magic, and use multiple Fidelius Charms to ensure that he would remain hidden.”

A murmur ran through the crowd, and Fudge once again rose to his feet, a slight sneer twisting his face. “If she had the permission of the boy’s relatives, Dumbledore, then you have no case here,” he said in a very condescending tone.

“Does Madam Umbridge admit to performing these charms with the permission of Mr. Potter’s Muggle relatives, then?” asked Madam Bones.

Umbridge looked down at her own stack of parchment and seemed to decide that there was no point denying it. “Of course,” she said, in her breathy, girlish voice. “I was only trying to help. After all, Mr. Potter seems unable to function properly with his fame within the Wizarding world. He would have been much better off going back to his peaceful life as an ordinary Muggle.” Harry had to bite his lip to keep from shouting at her, but Dumbledore seemed surprisingly calm.

“I would like to ask you all to turn to the second page of evidence. There you will find an official Ministry of Magic document certifying that custody of Harry James Potter, in all things relating to magic and the Wizarding world, belongs to his godfather, one Sirius Black.” This pronouncement brought about even louder and more frantic conversation than before, but Madam Bones silenced it quickly.

Before Dumbledore had a chance to resume speaking, Fudge was on his feet again. “A convicted murderer cannot have custody of a child, Dumbledore!” he roared.

Dumbledore nodded politely. “Once again, Minister, you are correct. However, as Mr. Black was never given the benefit of a trial, he was never convicted, and therefore remained Harry Potter’s legal guardian until Mr. Potter came of age this past July.”

“But you’ve been insisting Black was dead for over a year!” Fudge argued.

“Indeed,” Dumbledore replied. “In the eyes of the law, however, he still lives, as the Ministry has stubbornly refused to acknowledge the eyewitness accounts of his death.” He turned away from Fudge as he continued, “I wonder, Madam Umbridge, did you obtain permission from Mr. Black before performing the Obliviate and Fidelius Charms on Harry Potter?”

Umbridge scowled at him, but did not answer.

“Thank you,” said Dumbledore. Apparently, her silence was as good as an admission of guilt, and Harry felt a fresh spark of hope deep inside his chest. Dumbledore turned to his left and said, “I believe the kidnapping charge falls under this same category; am I correct, Madam Bones?”

“That is correct,” she confirmed.

“And now to the Dementors and the offenses committed at Hogwarts over a year ago: use of a Blood Quill on a minor, and attempted use of an Unforgivable Curse on a fellow human being,” Dumbledore continued. Umbridge was now squirming uncomfortably, and Harry felt a surge of hope that he would have his memory back before the night was over.

“The final pages of evidence I have given you detail the testimony of several students about the Blood Quill and the incident in which Mr. Potter narrowly escaped the Cruciatus Curse at Madam Umbridge’s hand, as well as her confession to sending two Dementors after Mr. Potter the previous summer.” He sat down and waited patiently as Harry fidgeted and the members of the Wizengamot sifted through the remaining pages of evidence.

After several minutes, Madam Bones asked, “How do you answer these charges, Madam Umbridge?”

“P-preposterous,” Umbridge whimpered. “These are merely the rantings of a group of people who have been trying to ruin me ever since I began teaching at Hogwarts two years ago.”

“Then you offer no evidence to the contrary?” Madam Bones asked, the tone of her voice clearly indicating her surprise.

“Of course we have evidence to the contrary,” Fudge cut in. He waved his wand, and a few more pages of parchment appeared in front of the Wizengamot members. There was another very long pause while the new evidence was being read. After several tense minutes of waiting, Harry had to force himself to stop rubbing his locket before he risked putting a hole in the front of his robes.

“This is your evidence?” Madam Bones asked after she had finished reading the new pages.

“Y-yes,” Umbridge replied in her girlish voice.

“Then it appears to come down to a question of trustworthiness,” said Madam Bones. “Do we, as a Wizengamot, place more trust in Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Ronald Weasley, Ginevra Weasley, and Albus Dumbledore, or in Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode, and Dolores Umbridge? Now is the time to decide.”

She paused for what seemed an eternity before calling out, “All those in favor of finding the defendant, Dolores Jane Umbridge, guilty of all charges?”

Harry held his breath and tried to see how many hands were up, but he wasn’t in a very good position to do so. After several painfully long minutes, Madam Bones’ voice rang out again. “Those in favor of acquittal?”

Not one hand within Harry’s range of vision went up.

This time, the wait was not nearly as long before Madam Bones stated, “Dolores Jane Umbridge, you have been found guilty of all charges. Your sentence shall be as follows: For the charge of kidnapping, you will serve four years in Azkaban prison. For illegal use of a Memory Charm you will serve an additional two years. For illegally performing multiple Fidelius Charms in order to cover your deeds, you will serve three more years. The use of your Blood Quill while at Hogwarts earns you one year, your ridiculous stunt of sending Dementors after Mr. Potter earns you another five years, and your foiled attempt at using the Cruciatus Curse earns you another two years.”

She paused for a moment to check her calculations before continuing, “This brings your sentence to a total of seventeen years in Azkaban. You will relinquish your wand immediately.”

Umbridge stood, visibly shaking, as a wizard who had been standing guard near the door approached her with his hand outstretched, ready to take her wand. She slowly drew the abnormally short wand and held it out in front of her in both hands. Then, locking eyes with Harry and giving him a look of pure malice, she snapped her wand in half. Harry’s insides froze.

“NO!” he shouted, and launched himself at the woman who had just destroyed his only hope for recovering his memory. Dumbledore caught the back of his robes and pulled him back. Cries of outrage were coming from all around the dungeon courtroom as the guard stared blankly at the broken wand in his hand.

Harry seethed with rage. Umbridge couldn’t get away with this; she had to be punished. Not even bothering to think about the consequences, he thrust both hands forward and fired the most powerful Blasting Curse he could muster directly at Umbridge’s chest. She flew across the room and slammed into the far wall with a sickening crunch. The courtroom fell silent.

“Arrest him!” shouted Fudge. “It was Potter! Arrest him!”

“There will be no need for that, Cornelius,” Dumbledore said firmly. “As you well know, Mr. Potter was searched before being allowed to enter this proceeding, and he does not have his wand.” He gave Harry a stern look as he finished speaking, and Harry felt his stomach drop into his toes as his anger ebbed away and was replaced by a feeling of utter emptiness. He could deal with a lot of things, but that look of disappointment from Albus Dumbledore was not one of them.

“Madam Umbridge!” Madam Bones thundered as soon as one of the guards had helped the convicted woman regain consciousness. “For that despicable display, your sentence is hereby increased to twenty years in Azkaban. Get her out of my sight!”

Dumbledore motioned to the guard holding Umbridge’s wand, and he brought it to the Headmaster. “I think I shall take this back to Hogwarts with me,” he said as he gingerly picked up the broken wand. The guard, having no problem with this, simply nodded and walked away to help escort Umbridge to a holding cell.

“It’s over,” Harry muttered dejectedly. “My memory’s gone for good.” He kicked the stone bench he had been sitting on, but the pain in his toe hardly even registered.

“Come along,” Dumbledore said quietly, leading him by the arm. “There is always hope.” His words sounded empty to Harry. For the first time ever, he was absolutely certain that his memory would never return.

---

It’s gone, Harry thought for the millionth time as he wandered aimlessly around the empty corridors of Hogwarts. Forever. The wand is broken, and my memory is gone. I’ll never remember my first five years at this school, never remember when I first met Ron and Hermione, never even remember my own godfather.

Professor Dumbledore had dropped him off at Gryffindor Tower late the previous night after they had returned from Umbridge’s trial, but Harry had only stayed long enough to sneak up to his dormitory and retrieve his Invisibility Cloak. Then he had slipped back out through the portrait hole and begun wandering about the school. He wasn’t concerned about getting caught not only because he was invisible, but also because nothing seemed to matter anymore anyway.

Gone. My memory is gone forever. His brain seemed incapable of any other thoughts. He could hardly believe the extent of Umbridge’s vindictiveness. She had snapped her own wand in two for no reason other than to prevent him from regaining his memory. Harry didn’t know much of anything about Azkaban prison, but it seemed to him that Umbridge was getting off far too easily if she was just going to be locked up for a few years. He had spent most of his life being locked up, and could think of plenty of things that were worse.

She deserves to be tortured, he thought darkly. She should have to suffer everything she’s made me go through and more. He knew his thoughts were useless; with his luck, Umbridge would probably find a way to weasel her way out of prison within a week. She would never get what she truly deserved.

The corridors began filling with people as early-rising students began making their way toward the Great Hall for breakfast. Harry avoided them, thinking bitterly of how only yesterday he had been nearly bursting with excitement over the prospect of a trip to Hogsmeade. Now there didn’t seem to be any point. He made his way up to an empty classroom in the Astronomy Tower where he slipped out from underneath his Invisibility Cloak, sat down heavily, and stared out over the grounds.

It was a perfect day to be outside. He should be with his friends, laughing and enjoying the outdoors as they made their way down to the village. At the very least, he ought to be flying around the Quidditch pitch, allowing his troubles to evaporate as he lost himself in the thrill of soaring through the air on a broomstick. Somehow, though, he knew that this problem would not evaporate, no matter how fast he flew.

“Harry?”

Harry whipped around to see Hermione standing in the doorway.

“Harry, are you alright?” she asked in a concerned voice.

“He won’t be in a minute,” Ron seethed, pushing her aside and entering the room. His fists were clenched at his sides, the expression on his face murderous. Harry couldn’t even muster the energy to care.

“Ron, give him a chance to explain,” Hermione cried as she rushed forward to stand between them.

“Go on then, Harry,” Ron said aggressively. “Explain.”

“Explain what?” Harry asked in a tired voice. He didn’t want to deal with anyone right now, especially not an irrationally angry Ron.

Ron made to rush at him, but Hermione held him back. “Explain what you and my sister were up to last night!” he shouted.

Harry shook his head in disbelief. His life, as he once knew it, had ended forever last night, and Ron was here to defend Ginny’s honor? “Look, I really don’t feel like talking right now, okay?” he said sourly.

“No, it’s not okay!” Ron shouted. He pulled away from Hermione and grabbed Harry’s collar, pulling him to his feet. Harry’s anger flared and he shoved Ron away.

“What are you on about?” he asked derisively. “I haven’t seen Ginny since the feast.”

“You’re lying!” Ron cocked his arm back and punched Harry in the face, his fist connecting with Harry’s left cheek, just below the rim of his glasses.

Hermione screamed as Harry reeled backward, colliding with a desk as he felt his eye begin to swell. His wand was out in a flash and, before Ron had a chance to react, he flicked it and shouted, “Abigo!” Ron flew backward across the classroom and collapsed in a heap as he hit the opposite wall.

Harry turned to leave, but found Hermione blocking his exit, her wand pointed threateningly at his chest.

“What’s going on here, Harry?” she demanded.

“My supposed friend attacked me, and I retaliated,” he spat back at her. Who was she to question him? She had no idea what had happened to him last night, but here she stood as though he owed her some sort of explanation. He didn’t owe her anything. “Now get out of my way.”

“Or what? You’ll attack me too?”

“Maybe. Why can’t you just leave me be? I need to be alone for a while.” He made to push past her, but she jabbed him in the chest with her wand and he stepped back. Sighing, he asked, “Are you really going to make me duel you before I leave?”

“No, but I’m going to make you duel me,” Ron said from behind him. Harry turned around to see that Ron’s wand was trained on him as well.

“Thanks for the sentiment, Ron, but shut up!” Hermione snapped. “Harry, what happened last night? You were fine at dinner. Did something happen with Ginny?”

“No, nothing happened with Ginny!” Harry snapped back at her. Actually, something had happened with Ginny - or it almost had, anyway. Harry angrily pushed the thought from his mind. Ginny would never accept him now; her excuse for rejecting him had just been made permanent.

“Then how come nobody’s seen either one of you since you left the feast together?” Ron interjected.

“I don’t know. I went to Umbridge’s trial with Dumbledore last night; I don’t know where Ginny got off to.”

Hermione gasped and brought her left hand up to cover her mouth as her wand hand fell limply to her side. “Umbridge’s trial was last night?” She stared at him with wide eyes. “But if you’re this angry.... She didn’t get off, did she?”

“No, she was found guilty,” Harry spat angrily. “But she broke her wand in two before handing it over.”

Ron and Hermione stared at him, their eyes full of shock and pity. He didn’t need this. Taking advantage of their surprise, he ran past Hermione and down the staircase, ignoring their cries behind him as he pulled his Invisibility Cloak over his head. He didn’t stop running until he reached the edge of the lake. It was shimmering in the sunlight, and for some reason the sight of its peaceful stillness undid him and he collapsed, sobbing, on the bank. He lay there, hidden under his cloak, for hours, trying unsuccessfully to find a way past his grief and anger.

There is always hope. Dumbledore’s words from the night before echoed in Harry’s mind, but they didn’t bring him any comfort. He tried thinking of Ginny, his usual source of comfort, but the thought of her beautiful face only added to his anguish. She would never accept him now.

“What do I do, Hassseth?” he whispered miserably as his thoughts drifted to his old friend. There was no answer. There was nothing he could do. He had no choice but to move on with what was left of his memory, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to wallow in self-pity, he wanted to lash out at the world, he wanted... he wanted somebody to just hold him and tell him everything would turn out all right, without judging or pitying him. No, that wasn’t quite true. He wanted Ginny to hold him and tell him everything would turn out all right. His jaw clenched involuntarily. Now, that would never happen.

Sitting up at last, Harry looked around and pulled off his Invisibility Cloak. There was no one else outside. He got shakily to his feet and began walking back toward the castle. Just as he arrived at the bottom of the stone steps leading up to the large oak front doors, Ginny stepped outside. They both froze where they stood as their gazes locked. Harry could see a battle raging in the depths of her brown eyes, but exactly what was being fought over he wasn’t sure. Suddenly, Ginny broke eye contact as she turned and ran from him as fast as she could.

Harry swore loudly as he climbed the steps, and then punched the front door, bruising and scraping his knuckles. Defeated, he trudged back up to Gryffindor Tower, where he collapsed onto his bed and drew the hangings closed around him.

* * * * *
Harry somehow managed to avoid Ron, Hermione, and Ginny until Monday, and even then he only crossed paths with Ginny because they had classes together. As he entered Snape’s dungeon on Monday morning, Harry’s shoulders slumped in defeat as he realized he had no choice but to sit with Ginny - sitting with one of the Slytherins would never be an option. He stomped over to his usual seat and slumped down in his chair only a moment before Snape swept inside. Without uttering a word, the Potions Master tapped the blackboard with his wand and the instructions for the day’s potion appeared.

Harry and Ginny spent the class period ignoring one another, to the serious detriment of the potion they were supposed to be making together. When Snape approached their table halfway through the lesson, he sneered maliciously at their thick brown potion, which was supposed to be watery and blood red.

“Unacceptable, Potter,” he hissed, before Vanishing the cauldron’s contents with a casual wave of his wand. “No marks today. For either of you.”

Harry slammed his fist down on the table as he shot to his feet. He knew he was playing right into Snape’s hands, but he didn’t care anymore. So what if the greasy git put him in detention?

Snape glared at him. “Sit down, Potter,” he demanded.

Ginny stood up and tried to force Harry back into his seat as she frantically whispered, “No, Harry!”

Harry ignored her. “I don’t think I will,” he shot back at the professor. Ginny swore at him.

Snape’s mouth twisted into a triumphant sneer. “Detention,” he hissed. “Both of you. Friday at seven o’clock.” The Slytherins in the class all snickered as the two Gryffindors angrily packed up their ingredients and stormed out of the room.

“What was that back there?” Ginny shouted at Harry the moment they were clear of the dungeons.

“What was what?” he shot back. “You weren’t paying any more attention than I was.”

“I mean why did you stand up to Snape? I thought you said it was better to be the model student so he’d get angry but wouldn’t have an excuse to put you in detention.”

“Well maybe I changed my mind,” Harry growled before storming off, thankful that he wouldn’t have to torture himself by sitting next to her during Charms. Although he hated to admit it to himself, every minute he spent in her presence caused his heart to ache as he remembered the way she had turned away from him on the front steps of the castle.

For the remainder of the week, he did his very best to maintain his stony silence around Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. Ron seemed content to leave him be, although Harry wasn’t sure whether this was because he wanted to be helpful or because he was feeling guilty for jumping to conclusions and attacking him, and Ginny seemed just as keen on avoiding him as he was on avoiding her. Hermione, on the other hand, seemed intent on dragging every last detail of Umbridge’s trial out of him. Every night in the common room, they had the exact same conversation.

“Harry, what happened that night?” Hermione would ask, hoping to catch him off guard.

“What night?” he would ask warily, feigning ignorance.

“At the trial,” she would answer. “Honestly, Harry, you’re never going to come to terms with what happened until you talk to somebody about it.”

“And by somebody, you mean you?” Harry would ask accusingly.

At this point, Hermione would begin backpedaling. “Not necessarily. I mean, I’d be willing to listen, of course, but if you decided to talk about it with somebody else....”

“And how do you know I haven’t talked about it with anybody else?”

“Have you?” she would ask, knowing full well that he hadn’t.

“That’s not the point,” Harry would argue. “You wouldn’t care if I had told someone else, Hermione; you’d still be badgering me about it.”

“That’s because I know that if you were willing to talk to someone else, you’d be more than willing to talk to Ron and me.”

At that point, Harry would shake his head in disbelief and refuse to talk to her at all. In the midst of all this chaos, he received a note from Professor Dumbledore.

Dear Harry,

I hope all is well with you. I believe that the time has come for you to begin practicing to further develop your new talent, which we discussed over the summer (I’m sure you know to what I refer). You may find that it helps relieve your mind of other matters. Regrettably, I find myself unable to assist you in your endeavor at the present time, as I am currently engaged in a rather important project with one of the professors. However, I have complete faith in your ability to find a safe place to practice on your own.

Sincerely,

A. Dumbledore

Harry snorted in disgust as he read the letter, and he promptly wadded it into a ball, shoved it into the bottom of his bag, and forgot about it. This was not what he needed right now, especially from Dumbledore. Dumbledore had let him down yet again. He was the mastermind behind Harry’s yearly trips to the Dursleys’, which had only served to turn the Boy-Who-Lived into a neglected boy with five years missing from his memory. Dumbledore had promised to recover that stolen memory for him, but he had failed once again. Harry was through taking orders from Dumbledore. In fact, had he been on speaking terms with Ron or Hermione, he probably would have told them all about his ability to use magic without a wand just to spite the old man.

As Harry’s frustration increased, it finally got to the point where he was almost looking forward to his Friday detention with Snape just because it would give him an excuse to get away from Hermione’s incessant questions. Almost. After, all, not only would the detention be with Snape, but Harry would be serving it with Ginny. Ginny, the girl he wanted desperately to hold in his arms; Ginny, the girl who had rejected him; Ginny, the girl who had run away from him. Ginny, the girl of his dreams. And lately, the girl of his nightmares as well.

---

A/N: This will probably be the last update to this story before MNFF’s queue closes for Christmas. So Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, etc.

Just as a bit of a teaser, the next chapter will be about Harry and Ginny’s detention.

---

Harry Potter blew out a long breath as he ran his fingers through his messy black hair. It was Friday evening, ten minutes to seven o’clock, and already he was a nervous wreck. He was going to be spending the next few hours alone with Ginny and, for the first time ever, he desperately wished there was some way he could get out of it. Snape must have noticed the tension between them, because under normal circumstances he never would have dreamed of putting them in the same detention. Now that their relationship was strained, however, he seemed only too pleased to force them to work together, in hopes of destroying their friendship once and for all.

Harry arrived in Snape’s dungeon at five minutes to seven, and found Ginny there waiting for him. Or maybe she was just waiting for Snape, because she didn’t even acknowledge Harry’s arrival. At seven o’clock precisely, the door banged open and the Potions Master swept into the room.

“How nice to see that you’ve both decided to arrive on time,” he began with a sneer. “Tonight you will be cleaning these cauldrons. All of them. Without magic.” He waved his wand, and two buckets of soapy water, along with a pile of filthy cauldrons, appeared against the west wall. Harry gaped at them; there must have been at least a hundred cauldrons there, of all types and sizes, and each one was caked in its own unique sort of grime. Several of the cauldrons still bore the charred remnants of old potions, while noxious fumes rose from others.

“Wands,” Snape demanded. Ginny sighed heavily and handed over her wand.

“Why?” Harry asked belligerently without moving to take out his own wand. “You already said we couldn’t use magic.”

“Because I don’t trust you, Potter,” Snape answered, his lip curling nastily. “Ten points from Gryffindor for your cheek. Now, give me your wand before I make it twenty.”

Harry bit back a retort as he handed over his wand. The only thing arguing would accomplish would be to land him in detention during the next day’s Quidditch match, and no matter how angry he was or how much he was trying to avoid his friends at the moment, there was no way he was going to miss that match.

A moment later, Snape was out of the room and slamming the door, and Harry very distinctly heard the lock click.

“Perfect,” Ginny grumbled. “Now not only do we have an impossible job, we can’t even get out until the great git comes back.”

Harry didn’t respond. He trudged over to one of the buckets of soapy water, picked up a rag, and started scrubbing a small ceramic cauldron that was covered in a thick, black, burned-on crust. Ginny just stood there watching him work for a full five minutes before finally stepping forward and laying a tentative hand on his shoulder.

“Harry?” she asked softly.

Harry stiffened slightly, but didn’t stop his scrubbing.

“Harry, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Harry sighed and put down his cauldron and rag. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said in a flat voice. “You don’t want anything to do with me. I get it. Let’s just get to work.” He bent down to pick up his rag, but Ginny grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him around to face her.

“You may not want to talk, but you will listen to me!” she shouted. The torchlight danced upon her hair, and her eyes flashed dangerously as her words reverberated around the classroom; she looked so fiery and beautiful that Harry simply couldn’t bring himself to look away. He just stared dumbly at her as she took a calming breath and began to speak.

“I’m really sorry for running away from you the other day,” she began. “I should never have done that.”

She’s starting out by being polite before she explains that there’s no way things would ever work out between us, Harry thought bitterly.

Ginny began speaking very fast, the words tumbling from her lips so quickly that Harry had to struggle to keep up. “Hermione had just told me about what happened at Umbridge’s trial, and I was so angry and confused and hopeful and ashamed, and- I needed to be alone, to think, and then there you were, and I hadn’t had a chance to think about anything yet and I didn’t know what to do, so I finally just ran off.” She began blushing furiously and looked down at her shoes. “After that, I was so embarrassed because I’d run off that I couldn’t face you.”

“Hang on,” Harry interrupted, bewildered. “You’ve been avoiding me because you were embarrassed?”

“Of course,” Ginny affirmed, beginning to pace back and forth in front of him. “I ran away from you when you needed comfort and reassurance more than ever. And it didn’t help that I was ashamed of some of the things I was feeling. I still am ashamed, actually.” She still wasn’t meeting his eyes.

“Things like what?” Harry spat, his anger beginning to return. “Like the fact that now you have the perfect excuse to keep rejecting me forever?”

Ginny’s head snapped up. “No!” she shouted, the fiery spark in her eyes flaring up anew. “The exact opposite, actually. My first thought when I heard Umbridge had snapped her wand wasn’t, ‘Oh, how terrible,’ or, ‘Poor Harry,’ or even, ‘What a wench!’ My first thought was that, if your memory-loss is permanent... maybe we could finally be together. And then I was so ashamed of myself for being so selfish at a time like this that-”

“Wait a minute,” Harry said, cutting her off. “You want to be with me?” Most of Ginny’s words had flown through his mind without making any impact at all, but that sentiment stopped him short.

“I’ve always wanted to be with you, Harry,” she replied softly as she laid a reassuring hand on his arm. “I thought you knew that.”

“Then why did you run away?” Harry’s voice was so low that it was almost a whisper. His heart began pounding in his chest as he immediately asked himself if he really wanted to know the answer to that question.

“Because I didn’t know what to think or how to feel, and I just needed to be by myself and sort everything out. And then there you were, and I knew you needed to talk to someone, and it was obvious by that point that it wasn’t going to be Ron or Hermione. I was so angry and sad about Umbridge breaking her wand, but at the same time I was being so selfish, wanting to use it as an excuse to finally agree to be your girlfriend.” She sighed heavily. “I couldn’t face you, so I ran. And then I was so ashamed that I had run away that I kept running all week. I was actually sort of glad we had this detention together because it’s forced us to be in the same room without anyone else around.”

Harry laughed softly. It was a mirthless laugh, but a laugh all the same. “You know,” he said, “before Umbridge’s trial, I almost would’ve paid Snape to lock us in detention together. Today, though, all I could think about was ways I might be able to get out of it.” He looked away from Ginny’s face.

“Well, either way, we’re stuck here now,” she said, laying a hand gently on his arm. “So if you want to talk about anything, I’m willing to listen.”

Acting on a sudden impulse, Harry pulled her in for a hug. “Thank you,” he whispered into her hair. “I was so afraid I’d lost you forever.”

“You’ll never lose me, Harry,” she answered. “I may act like a git sometimes, but I always come around.” She chuckled and gave him a playful nudge. “Sort of like you.”

Harry spent the next hour telling her all about the trial, and by the time he finished they were sitting on the floor, resting against the wall and leaning on one another.

“So what’s the plan now?” Ginny asked at last.

Harry shrugged. “There isn’t one, really. It’s not like there’s anything I can do about what happened. I guess I’ll just get back to work on my classes so I can finish school.” He looked thoughtful for a moment before giving her a sideways grin and adding, “Of course, I might try getting myself a girlfriend at some point along the way.”

Ginny sighed and leaned into him even more. “I’d love for it to be me,” she whispered. “But not yet.”

“Why not?” Harry asked, slipping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer.

“Tom,” Ginny said simply.

“You need to learn to trust me first?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she replied quietly.

“Out of curiosity, how come you were able to go out with Michael and Dean without getting over your trust issues?”

Ginny closed her eyes and laid her head on his shoulder. “Because I wasn’t in- I mean, they’re nice enough blokes and everything, but... I don’t know; I always sort of knew that things wouldn’t last with either of them no matter what I did. But I don’t want to mess things up with you.”

“How can I help?” Harry asked quietly.

“Just keep doing what you’re doing right now.”

Harry laughed softly, and this time it sounded happy, rather than forced. “You want me to keep my arm around you at all times?”

“Prat,” Ginny laughed, swatting him lightly on the chest. “I meant you should talk to me and listen to what I have to say.” She slowly got to her feet, dusting herself off as she looked forlornly at the pile of filthy cauldrons. “It’s too bad we won’t be together for our next detention.”

Harry stood up as well. “What makes you think there’ll be a next detention?”

Ginny rolled her eyes at him. “Honestly, Harry, you can be so daft sometimes. We haven’t cleaned any of these cauldrons; Snape’s sure to give us another detention - probably several more, actually.”

“Oh, that,” Harry said with a relieved grin. “Don’t worry about that.”

“What do you mean, don’t-”

“Scourgify.” He waved his hands at the pile of cauldrons, and in seconds they were all sparkling clean.

Ginny gaped at him. “How come you didn’t do that earlier?” she demanded.

Harry shrugged sheepishly. “I thought you hated me. Scrubbing them by hand seemed like a good way to keep my mind off the fact that we were locked in here together.”

Ginny shook her head at him in mock exasperation, but she was grinning all the same. “I see your point. What should we do with the water?” she asked. “Because you know Snape’s going to be suspicious if he gets back and the buckets are still full.”

Harry’s brow furrowed in thought. “I didn’t think of that,” he muttered. “Any ideas?”

Ginny smirked at him. “Maybe,” she said coyly as she sidled up to her bucket of soapy water. She bent down over it and without warning threw a handful of water into Harry’s face.

“What was that for?” Harry spluttered as Ginny dissolved into a fit of giggles.

“What, you mean this?” she asked innocently as she splashed him in the face again.

“You realize this means war, right?” Harry said as he picked up his bucket and began stalking toward her.

“Harry, wait,” Ginny pleaded as she backed away from him. “All I did was splash you a little bit.”

Harry just nodded as he moved closer and closer. Suddenly, he threw the contents of the bucket forward. He must have done something to give away his plan, though, because Ginny ducked and ran past him to get out of the way just in time. The water splashed harmlessly onto the desks and floor. Harry turned around only to be hit squarely in the face and chest with the entire contents of Ginny’s bucket.

“You think that’s really funny, don’t you?” he asked as he looked down at Ginny, who was doubled over in hysterical laughter. “You know, I wasn’t going to do this because it didn’t seem quite fair, but... Aguamenti!” A powerful jet of icy cold water burst from his outstretched hand, knocking Ginny to the floor and drenching her through to the bone. By the time he ended the spell, she was no longer laughing.

“Truce?” she asked weakly as she got to her feet.

“Truce,” said Harry. He looked around at the mess they had created in the Potions classroom and added, “I suppose I ought to clean all this up before Snape gets back.”

“P-probably,” Ginny agreed with a nod. Harry noticed that her teeth were beginning to chatter.

“Erm... do you know a good Drying Charm?” he asked sheepishly. “You look like you’re freezing, but I just realized I don’t know how to dry you off.”

Ginny smiled at him, and he was startled to see that her lips had a very slight bluish tinge to them. “M-Mum uses S-S-Siccus,” she answered through her chattering teeth.

“Right,” Harry muttered. Fervently hoping that this Drying Charm was simple enough that he would be able to do it on his first attempt, he held out both hands toward her and said, “Siccus.” To his surprise and relief, Ginny was instantly dry, although she still looked quite cold. He quickly dried himself off using the same spell, and began looking around for some way to warm her up.

“H-Harry? W-what are you d-doing?” she asked, her teeth still chattering.

Instead of answering, Harry grabbed a small cauldron and conjured up a fire inside of it. “Here,” he told her. “Get yourself warmed up.” Ginny smiled gratefully at him and huddled up close to the cauldron, allowing the heat from the fire to warm her freezing body while Harry walked around the room Vanishing soap suds and puddles of water. By the time he was finished, Ginny was quite warm and comfortable again.

“Done with the fire?” Harry asked as he walked back over to her.

“Yeah,” Ginny answered. Harry noted with satisfaction that her teeth had stopped chattering and her lips had returned to their normal color. He quickly extinguished the fire and placed the cauldron next to the others.

“So, what do we do now?” he asked.

Ginny shrugged. “We wait for Snape to come back. We might as well get comfortable, too, because he probably won’t be back ‘til morning.”

“What?” Harry demanded. “But we’ve got a match in the morning! He can’t keep us out all night on the night before a Quidditch match.”

“Harry, this is Snape we’re talking about,” Ginny said patiently, as though she were explaining something very simple to a very small child. “We’re playing Slytherin tomorrow, and he’s going to do anything he can to give his team the advantage.”

Harry sighed. “You’re probably right. Well, on the bright side, at least the cauldrons are clean. Now we just need to get some rest.”

Ginny looked thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe you could try and conjure up some-” She broke off talking as two voices became audible in the corridor outside the classroom.

“Who’s that?” Harry whispered as they both hurried over to the door to try and catch some of the heated conversation.

Ginny shook her head and shrugged to indicate that she didn’t know.

As the voices came closer, Harry was able to distinguish one of them as Professor McGonagall.

“... lock them in there all night?” she raged.

The other voice responded, but it was too quiet to make out the words.

“Need I remind you, Severus, that you are already on shaky ground with the Headmaster with regards to Mr. Potter?” McGonagall snapped. Harry and Ginny glanced at each other in surprise; neither of them had had any idea that Snape was in trouble with Dumbledore at all.

They were now close enough that Harry could hear Snape reply, “Yes, I know very well that the Headmaster has long been willing to overlook Potter’s blatant disregard for everyone and everything other than himself. You are, of course, welcome to supervise him and Miss Weasley tonight, but I expect their detention to be completed before they are allowed to play in their little Quidditch match tomorrow morning.”

Snape and McGonagall were now right outside the door, and Harry and Ginny retreated to the middle of the room in hopes that it wouldn’t be completely obvious that they had been eavesdropping.

“I doubt that will be of any concern, though,” Snape added with a touch of malignant amusement. “With the way those two have been acting lately, they probably haven’t touched those cauldrons except to try beating each other over the head with them. That is, of course, the reason I confiscated their wands - I didn’t want them cursing each other when they were supposed to be working.”

Making a quick decision, Harry swept Ginny into his arms and pulled her close. “Just play along,” he whispered in response to her surprised expression as he quickly began messing up her hair. A moment later, the lock clicked, the door swung open, and Harry released Ginny and jumped away. Glancing over at her, he had to suppress a grin as he saw a slow blush creeping up her cheeks. As he looked at the two professors in the doorway, he knew immediately that his plan had worked: they thought they had just caught two students snogging in detention.

“Fifty points from Gryffindor for engaging in such... revolting activities instead of doing the task that was set for you,” Snape snapped immediately.

Harry just smiled benignly at him and, gesturing toward the spotless cauldrons, replied, “We finished a bit early, sir. We were merely waiting for you to return so we could head back to our common room.” Over Snape’s shoulder, he caught a glimpse of Professor McGonagall struggling valiantly to suppress a smile.

Snape gaped, wide-eyed, at the pile of cauldrons for a full thirty seconds before narrowing his eyes menacingly and rounding on Harry. “You used magic to clean those, didn’t you Potter? You must have, because there is no way anyone could have cleaned so many cauldrons by hand in so little time.”

“Didn’t you just inform me that you had confiscated both of these students’ wands, Severus?” McGonagall asked harshly. “I hardly think that either of them could have performed any cleaning spells without them. And I’ll be awarding those fifty points back to Gryffindor for such remarkable speed in completing this detention.”

Snape was livid, and for a few seconds, Harry was certain that the pulsating blood vessel in his forehead was going to burst. Finally, after regaining enough composure to speak, he hissed, “You will return with your Head of House to your common room immediately,” as he reluctantly turned over Harry and Ginny’s wands.

Harry casually slipped his arm around Ginny’s shoulders and they began following Professor McGonagall out of the classroom. Just before passing through the doorway, he turned around to face the Potions Master, still with his arm firmly around Ginny’s shoulders.

“Professor Snape?” he called out.

Snape looked up at him with an expression of utmost loathing, but did not respond.

“I just wanted to say thank you, sir,” Harry continued in an extremely polite and deferential voice. “If you hadn’t put us in detention together, we’d probably still hate one another. So thank you, Professor.”

“Yes, thank you, sir,” Ginny added before biting her lip to suppress a giggle at the look of mixed hatred and horror on Snape’s face. Without giving him a chance to respond, they hurriedly scooted out of the classroom and caught up with Professor McGonagall. The walk back to Gryffindor Tower seemed to take forever as both students fought desperately to contain their mirth, and as soon as the fat lady’s portrait swung closed behind them, they collapsed on the floor in a fit of hysterical laughter.

“I can’t believe you tricked them into thinking we’d been snogging,” Ginny gasped.

Harry, who was still laughing too hard to speak, just nodded his head.

“And then, when we thanked Snape for putting us in detention together.... I’m shocked I didn’t lose it sooner.”

As their laughter began to die down, Harry took a deep breath and said, “I know what you mean. Thanks for playing along.”

“Any time, Harry,” Ginny replied with a smile. “I suppose we ought to get to bed, huh?”

Harry nodded. “Quidditch tomorrow. We wouldn’t want to be tired for the match.”

“Goodnight, then,” said Ginny, surprising him with a tight hug.

“Goodnight,” Harry whispered into her hair before they retreated to their dormitories. A few short minutes later, a smile played upon Harry’s lips as he slipped into a dream about a beautiful girl with flaming red hair. For the first time since the trial, Dolores Umbridge’s wand was the furthest thing from his mind.

---

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear - perfect Quidditch weather according to Ron, although Ginny said she preferred an overcast sky because it prevented her from being blinded by the sun. Harry didn’t care what the weather was like, as long as he got to fly. As he walked down the staircase to the Great Hall for breakfast, however, he could feel a hard knot starting to form in his stomach. By the time he arrived, his anxiety had grown to the point that it had begun to overcome his excitement.

“All right there, Harry?” Hermione asked as he dropped into his seat. Her voice was full of concern, and Harry realized that he probably looked as bad as he felt.

“Fine,” he squeaked in reply, and immediately winced at the strain in his voice. He took one look at the food piled high on the table in front of him, and nearly retched.

“Nervous?” Ron asked, grinning openly at his friend’s anxiety.

“W-what makes you say that?” Harry asked in the same strained voice.

“Well, you do look a little green, mate,” Ron responded, elbowing him lightly in the ribs.

“Lay off before he gets sick all over the table, Ron,” Ginny said, rolling her eyes. “Just because I told you he’s decided to quit brooding, that doesn’t mean you have to start teasing him the first chance you get. Besides, it’s not as if you were any less nervous before your own first Quidditch match.”

“This isn’t Harry’s first match,” Ron retorted.

“It might as well be,” Hermione shot back.

“Okay, okay,” Ron laughed, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “No need to gang up on me. Seriously though, Harry; you really ought to at least eat some toast or something.”

“We wouldn’t want you passing out on your broom or anything,” Ginny added with a wink.

The hard knot in Harry’s stomach loosened a little, and he managed to eat a slice of toast and drink a bit of pumpkin juice before heading down to the pitch with the rest of the Gryffindor team. They all quickly changed into their Quidditch robes before gathering to listen to Ron’s pre-game speech.

“Alright,” he began. “This is as strong a team as Gryffindor’s ever had. With Harry back and Ginny at Chaser, there’s no way Slytherin can compete with us. Just stay focused and remember what we practiced. Peakes, Coote, keep those Bludgers away from our team. Everybody, watch out for cheap shots, because you know they’re coming. And Harry-” he paused to grin at his nervous friend, “-catch that bloody Snitch. We all know what we can do, so let’s just get out there and do it.”

With a rousing shout, the Gryffindors grabbed up their brooms and rushed out of the changing rooms and out onto the pitch as their names were announced. Ron shook hands with Urquhart, the Slytherin captain, and then both teams took to the sky. Harry and Malfoy, the two Seekers, hovered high above the other players, their eyes already scanning the pitch for any hint of gold as Madam Hooch prepared to release the Bludgers and the Quaffle.

“Ready to fall off your broom again, Potter?” Malfoy called out.

Harry knew that Malfoy was just trying to get under his skin, so he did his best to ignore the Slytherin’s taunts. Still, the idea that he might fall off his broom again was more than a bit frightening.

When Harry didn’t answer, Malfoy smirked and continued, “Yes, I heard they’ve already got a bed waiting for you in the hospital wing - not that it’ll do you any good if we’re lucky enough to have you break your neck.”

“The Quaffle’s up and in play,” rang out the voice of the commentator. Harry glanced toward the commentator’s podium to see a stringy-looking boy with a green and silver Slytherin House scarf being supervised very closely by a tight-lipped Professor McGonagall. “Vaisey takes it for Slytherin, passes to Harper, across to Urquhart, back to Harp- and it’s intercepted by Robins of Gryffindor.”

Harry let out a little whoop of delight as Demelza Robins streaked toward the Slytherin end of the pitch. He watched in awe for a moment as the Gryffindor Chasers worked together seamlessly, never holding onto the Quaffle for more than a second before passing it on.

“Robins passes to Weasley, passes to Thomas, back to Weasley, rolls to avoid a well-hit Bludger, passes back over to Thomas - he shoots, and-” Loud groans echoed through most of the stadium, and Harry knew that Dean’s shot had been blocked even before the announcer shouted, “Superb fingertip save by Zabini!”

Harry cursed under his breath as he continued circling the stadium in search of the Golden Snitch. His eyes flew over the crowd and the grass far below, hoping against hope that he would find it soon. He had heard enough stories about the Slytherins’ dirty tactics to know that it would be best to end the game as quickly as possible. He distantly heard the cheers and groans of the spectators as the match progressed below him, but he paid them no mind; he had to find that Snitch.

“Having fun, Potter?” Malfoy asked in a condescending voice as he flew up alongside Harry. “You missed seeing the weasel flailing about and nearly falling off his broom when we scored our last goal.”

Harry glanced quickly at the scoreboard, which showed GRYFFINDOR 30, SLYTHERIN 40.

“And Thomas has stolen it for Gryffindor, although I still say that should have been a penalty!” rang out the commentator’s voice.

“Nott!” shouted McGonagall. “Keep your personal opinions to yourself!”

Nott didn’t bother apologizing as he continued, “Thomas to Robins, up to Weasley. She goes for the left hoop, Zabini’s there, and- It’s a fake! Weasley puts the Quaffle through the center hoop and ties it up at forty.”

“Good job, Ginny!” Harry shouted.

“Yes, you would cheer on the blood-traitor,” Malfoy sneered.

“Why don’t you go look for the Snitch, instead of just following me around?” Harry snapped back.

“Because I rather enjoy doing this!” Malfoy jerked his broom sideways so that his outstretched elbow collided violently with Harry’s ribs. Harry shoved him away angrily, but Malfoy came back for more. Instinctively, Harry rolled underneath him this time, allowing Malfoy to sail right over the top of him.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” he taunted before putting on a burst of speed to separate himself from the Slytherin Seeker. As he circled the pitch at high speed, his eyes continued their relentless search for the Snitch. It was ridiculous that such a distinctive little ball could hide inside the field of play for such a long time.

On his fourth circuit around the pitch, he spotted it. The sunlight reflected off of the tiny golden ball as it hovered a few feet above the Slytherin Keeper’s head. Harry flattened himself against the handle of his Firebolt and streaked toward it, heedless of both Nott’s frantic commentary and the screaming of the spectators. He was coming closer... closer... almost there....

Zabini, the Slytherin Keeper, looked up to see a red and gold blur heading straight for him. Raising his gaze even higher, he spotted the Golden Snitch directly above his head and shot upward toward it.

“Zabini’s moving to block Potter!” Nott exclaimed. “That’s a gutsy move by the Slytherin Keeper. Come on, Draco! Where are you?” Malfoy was, in fact, far behind Harry, his Nimbus no match for Harry’s Firebolt.

Harry continued to streak toward Zabini, who was now between him and the Snitch, fervently hoping that the Slytherin would lose his nerve and move out of the way. Seconds before impact, a Bludger streaked into Harry’s field of vision from the right and collided squarely with Zabini’s side, knocking him out of Harry’s path. A fraction of a second later, Ginny scored one final goal before Harry rose into the air with the struggling Snitch clutched triumphantly in his fingers, while Zabini rubbed his sore ribs.

“Weasley, look out!” Nott shouted with his magically amplified voice. Ron and Ginny both wheeled around, but it was too late; Malfoy rammed into Ginny’s side at top speed, knocking her off her broom and sending her plummeting toward the ground with a terrified scream.

Harry flattened himself against his broom, urging it to go faster as he streaked toward Ginny’s falling body. She was too close to the ground and moving too fast; there was no way he could catch up with her, not even on a Firebolt. Without bothering to think about the consequences, he took one hand off of his broomstick, pointed it at her, and shouted, “Accio!”

The Summoning Charm didn’t work properly - probably because he was panicking - but it did manage to slow Ginny’s fall as Harry frantically urged his broom downward. Five feet above the grass, he scooped her up with one arm while pulling up mightily on the handle of his Firebolt with the other. The broomstick leveled out, and the pair dropped to the ground, exhausted. Harry barely noticed the loud cheering coming from the stands or the rest of the team landing around them.

“You okay, Ginny?” Ron asked before his feet were even on the ground.

“Yeah,” Ginny breathed. Her eyes were still closed as she lay motionless on the grass next to Harry. Slowly turning her head toward him, she opened her eyes and smiled shakily. “Thanks, Harry.” she whispered with a little laugh. “My hero, yet again.” Somehow, Harry managed to hear her despite the roar of the crowd.

“I was so scared,” he whispered back, oblivious to everything going on around him.

“Harry!” Ron clapped his hands an inch in front of Harry’s nose, jerking him back to reality. “That’s better. If you’re both all right, then come on; there’s a victory celebration up in the common room.”

Harry nodded mutely, still shaken after Ginny’s fall, and got to his feet. He offered Ginny his hand to help her up, and she gladly accepted it. Neither of them let go until they reached the portrait hole.

* * * * *
“Did anybody hear what happened to Malfoy after the match?” Harry asked his friends on Tuesday morning at breakfast. The match had been on Saturday, but he had yet to hear anything about the Slytherin Seeker’s punishment.

“Actually, I did finally hear something,” Hermione piped up.

“Well?” Harry asked impatiently when she didn’t immediately elaborate.

Hermione leaned forward across the table, prompting Harry, Ron, and Ginny to do the same. “First, McGonagall gave Nott ten points for trying to warn Ginny, even though he was too late. Then, when she caught up with Malfoy, she took fifty points from Slytherin and gave him a week’s worth of detentions,” she whispered excitedly. “With Filch!”

Ron and Ginny both snickered, but Harry just stared blankly at Hermione. “That’s it?” he demanded. “Points and detention? He could’ve killed Ginny. She probably wouldn’t even be here right now if I wasn’t able to-” He stopped, suddenly aware that he had already said too much. The feeling of dread that he had been fighting against ever since the match began welling up inside him as he thought about how close he had come to losing Ginny forever, and he stood up abruptly.

“I’d better get going,” he said stiffly as he strained to keep his voice steady. “Don’t want to be late for Hagrid’s class.” Without waiting for a response, he grabbed his bag and practically ran from the Great Hall. He was about halfway to Hagrid’s hut when Ginny caught up with him.

“Hey,” she panted, laying a hand lightly on his arm. Harry stopped and turned to look at her. Ginny’s cheeks were flushed and she was breathing heavily; she had probably run all the way from the castle. “You okay?” she asked quietly.

Harry nodded, and immediately began blinking rapidly to avoid needing to wipe his eyes. “I just don’t like to think about what might’ve happened,” he replied in a very subdued voice.

Ginny laughed out loud, shaking her head in exasperated amusement. “Is that why you’ve been so tense lately? Sometimes I forget how much you still don’t know.”

“What are you talking about?” Harry snapped sullenly.

Ginny forced herself to stop laughing and looked him in the eye. “Harry, nobody’s making a big deal about my fall because it’s really not that big a deal. Oh, I might’ve broken a couple of bones or even gotten knocked out, but I wasn’t high enough for a fall to be really dangerous. I guess I just assumed you knew that.”

Harry stared at her incredulously. “You mean I didn’t need to...?”

Ginny shook her head. “That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful and everything. I mean, I might not have been in danger of dying, but you did save me from a fair amount of pain and a hospital stay.”

“But you were falling so fast.”

Ginny smiled fondly at him. “Still thinking like a Muggle, aren’t you? Witches and Wizards are harder to injure than Muggles are, remember?”

A memory flashed into Harry’s mind of the matron at St. Brutus’s telling him he was made of ‘tougher stuff’ than other people, and he smiled sheepishly. “Sorry for freaking out on you,” he muttered.

“Just quit worrying about it, okay?” she replied, waving away his apology. “I’m perfectly fine, and there’s absolutely nothing to worry about except for whether or not Hagrid’s lesson will try to eat us alive. Now, you might’ve forgotten, but we actually have a free period right now - Hagrid’s class doesn’t start for another hour and a half.”

Harry shook his head wearily as he replied, “I know; I just felt like I needed to get out of there, and class was the first excuse I came up with.”

“So, what do you actually plan on doing?” Ginny asked.

Harry just shrugged. “I dunno. Any ideas?”

“Well,” Ginny began hesitantly, “it might be a good idea for you to practice-” she stopped talking long enough to look around and make sure no one could overhear her before lowering her voice to a whisper and finishing, “-doing magic without a wand. I mean, it’s already proved really useful, right?”

Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I’d forgotten with everything that’s been going on, but Dumbledore actually sent me a letter saying he wanted me to start practicing.” He gently took Ginny’s elbow and began leading her back toward the castle. “That was before our detention, though, so you know I wasn’t really in the mood to listen to anybody or do anything.”

Ginny gave a little laugh before asking, “Where do you want to go to practice?”

“I’m not sure,” Harry answered, furrowing his brow in thought. “An empty classroom, maybe.”

“What about the Room of Requirement?” Ginny suggested.

“The room of what?” Harry asked.

“The Room of Requirement,” Ginny repeated. “You know, where we had the D.A. meetings in your fifth year. We told you all about it over the summer.”

Now Harry thought about it, he did remember Ron, Hermione, and Ginny telling him about a room that would change to suit the needs of the person using it. “Okay, I think I remember what you’re talking about,” he said. “You do realize that you lot told me about five years of my life during the course of one day, right? I’m bound to forget some of the details.”

“Alright, I’ll give you that,” Ginny said with a sideways grin as they began climbing the stone staircase.

Five minutes later, they were in the Room of Requirement, which was empty except for a padded floor and an enormous pile of pillows.

Ginny gave Harry a confused look. “What were you thinking about when you made the room appear?”

“Having a magical pillow fight,” he replied with a smirk. Ginny’s eyes widened in comprehension, and she barely had time to dive out of the way as Harry Summoned a pillow and immediately Banished it at her. A second later, her wand was out and an all-out pillow war was underway.

“Abigo!” Harry shouted, throwing both hands forward and Banishing two pillows at Ginny simultaneously.

She dove to her right, rolling over once on the soft floor before springing back to her feet as she shouted, “No fair; I can only use one hand!”

“It was your idea for me to practice not using a wand,” Harry laughed before deflecting a pillow with a hastily-cast Shield Charm.

After twenty minutes of trying to dodge each other’s magically hurled pillows, Harry and Ginny were both out of breath from too much running and laughing. Ginny leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.

“Enjoying yourself, Potter?” she asked with a wide grin as she Levitated a pillow high above him.

“Well, this is pretty fun,” Harry chuckled.

Without warning, Ginny pointed her wand at him and shouted, “Aguamenti!” A jet of water hit him, drenching his face and hair, as well as the front of his robes.

“Gi-” Harry’s playfully indignant yell was cut short when he heard Ginny shout her next spell.

“Diffindo!”

Instinctively, Harry cast a Shield Charm to deflect the Severing Charm even as his mind screamed that something was very wrong - Ginny would never try to hit him with that sort of spell.

The Shield Charm turned out to be unnecessary as the light from Ginny’s spell sailed high over his head. For a moment, he thought she had merely been trying to scare him, but then he felt the first feathers begin landing on him and sticking to his wet body.

“You devious little...” Harry laughed as he realized that the Severing Charm had sliced open the pillow Ginny had been Levitating over his head. A moment later, the pillow fight became a water fight.

When it was finally time to leave for Care of Magical Creatures, they were both drenched, covered in feathers, and laughing happily. After drying themselves off and removing the feathers from their clothes and hair, they set off for the front doors of the castle. They walked in relative silence, but every so often one of them would glance at the other and find it impossible to suppress a giggle.

As they came to the back of Hagrid’s hut, they found the half-giant standing next to what looked like a potbellied pig with large horns that curled into spirals on either side of its head. It looked so ridiculous that Harry and Ginny took one look at it, glanced at each other, and burst into a fresh fit of laughter.

“An’ a good mornin’ ter you, too,” boomed Hagrid, trying to sound offended as he looked up from the animal and smiled at them.

“Sorry, Hagrid,” Harry apologized, although he was still grinning at the sight of the strange creature. “Your, er, friend there just looks a little....”

“‘S okay. Say, Harry, I was wonderin’....” Hagrid sounded a bit nervous all of a sudden.

“What is it, Hagrid?” Harry asked, crossing his fingers and silently hoping that he wasn’t about to be invited to help care for one of his large friend’s extremely dangerous pets.

“Were you plannin’ ter go ter the Burrow fer Christmas?” Hagrid asked quickly.

“I- er-” Harry stammered. He actually had been planning on it, but he hadn’t exactly been invited, and he didn’t feel right imposing on the Weasleys if they wanted to spend the holiday with just their family.

“Of course he is,” Ginny answered for him. She gave Harry a sharp glare as if to make sure he understood that he had no say in the matter. “Why do you ask, Hagrid?”

Hagrid looked even more nervous as he averted his eyes and mumbled, “Jus’ wanted ter know where ter take Harry’s present, tha’s all. Bin workin’ on somethin’ extra special this year, an’ I’ve almos’ finished.” He winked at Harry and added, “I think yeh’ll like it.”

Hagrid opened his mouth to say something else, but a gasp from behind Harry and Ginny caused him to stop short.

“Hagrid!” shrieked a surprised voice that Harry didn’t recognize. He spun around to see Luna Lovegood standing next to Colin Creevey, who was watching her curiously as she gaped at Hagrid’s newest creature. It took a moment for Harry to realize that the voice had belonged to Luna, and the reason it had sounded so unfamiliar was the simple fact that people like Luna Lovegood just didn’t shriek.

“Where did you find one?” Luna asked after a moment. Her voice had regained its usual dreamy quality, although it was also laced with a bit of awe.

“Caught ‘im in Sweden over the summer, an’ I been savin’ ‘im fer the righ’ momen’,” Hagrid said proudly. “O’ course, there was loads of ‘em there, but you’d be surprised ‘ow hard it is to get close enough ter even see one, much less actually catch one.”

“How’d you manage it, Hagrid?” Harry asked curiously, as he took a step closer to the ridiculous-looking creature.

“Ah, well... tha’s a secret, that is,” Hagrid said mysteriously.

“What is it, Hagrid?” Colin asked excitedly.

“Well, I guess since the whole class is ‘ere, we can go ahead an’ get started,” Hagrid said brightly. “Luna, could you tell us what sort o’ creature this li’l fella is?”

“He’s a Crumple-Horned Snorkack,” Luna said simply. Hagrid beamed at her and awarded five points to Ravenclaw.

Harry turned toward Ginny, expecting a sarcastic comment, but froze when he saw the look of utter shock on her suddenly pale face.

“They- they’re real?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Well o’ course they’re real,” Hagrid answered. “Quibbler talks about ‘em all the time, dun’ it? Now, the important thing ter remember with Snorkacks is tha’ yeh’ve gotta keep ‘em calm. They’re righ’ destructive when they get riled up, so don’ go upsettin’ ‘im.”

“Destructive,” Harry muttered. “Why am I not surprised?”

Ginny hid a smile as Hagrid began explaining how to properly care for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. The depth of his knowledge was astounding; not even Luna, who spent a great deal of her time reading about Snorkacks in her father’s magazine, knew as much about them as Hagrid did.

After class ended and Hagrid assigned them a foot-long essay on how to care for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, Ginny called out, “Hey, Colin! Do you have your camera with you?”

Colin shook his head. “I haven’t really carried it around since first year. Did you want a picture of something?”

“Yeah,” said Ginny. “Would you mind Summoning it?” While Colin complied with her request, she told the rest of the group, including Hagrid, “Nobody tell Hermione what we studied today, alright? I’ve got a great idea.” The way her eyes twinkled as she spoke reminded Harry irresistibly of the look the twins got whenever they were planning a particularly satisfying prank.

---

The few weeks remaining before the Christmas holiday flew by for Harry. When he wasn’t in class or doing homework, he was almost always either outside practicing Quidditch or in the Room of Requirement working on wandless magic. Ever since he had used it to slow Ginny’s fall during the Quidditch match against Slytherin, fear of his secret being discovered had forced him to avoid doing any sort of wandless magic outside of his training sessions. By an incredible stroke of luck, there had been so much screaming going on when Ginny fell that no one had heard his shouted Summoning Charm, and those who had noticed her fall slowing as she approached the ground had thankfully assumed that Dumbledore had been the one to cast the spell. Harry was realistic enough, however, to understand that he couldn’t risk taking that sort of chance again unless it was absolutely necessary.

Ginny accompanied him to about half of his training sessions and helped him re-learn many of the spells he had taught the D.A. during his fifth year. By the time the Christmas holiday arrived, the only thing limiting the speed of his hexes was the fact that he had to say each incantation out loud. As a result, he and Ginny had resolved to redouble their efforts in Defense Against the Dark Arts class, where Professor Moody had been trying to teach them nonverbal spellcasting.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny shared a compartment in the Hogwarts Express for the trip back to King’s Cross Station, where Mrs. Weasley and Percy were waiting with Hermione’s parents.

“Everyone ready?” Mrs. Weasley asked as soon as Harry, Ron, and Ginny had finished saying goodbye to Hermione. When no one spoke up, she took it to mean that they were, and led the way back through the barrier and into the Muggle portion of the station.

“After you, Ronald,” Percy said in the same formal voice that Harry remembered him using at the start of term. Ron rolled his eyes as he set off after his mother.

“Ginevra,” Percy said, giving Ginny a curt nod. She scowled at him and took off after Ron, with Percy following right behind. Harry quickly fell in behind the Weasleys and followed them to Percy’s car.

He ended up in the backseat with Ron, while Ginny rode up front between her mother and Percy, who was once again driving much faster than would have been possible for Muggles given the heavy traffic. Percy’s car seemed to gracefully glide into the tiniest of spaces as he maneuvered it through the London traffic.

“Ron,” Harry whispered, leaning toward his friend as far as he could without looking suspicious.

“What’s up?” Ron whispered back, copying Harry and leaning slightly toward the middle of the seat.

“I just realized back at the station... Percy’s never said a word to me.”

Ron blew out a slow breath. “That’s because Percy’s a git,” he explained quietly as they zipped along at an alarming rate. “He may have come back to the family and joined the fight against You-Know-Who, but I haven’t heard him say one nice word about you the entire time. Hermione says he’s feeling guilty about all the stuff he said about you but he doesn’t feel like he can apologize when you don’t even remember what he did. But....” Ron paused for a moment and shook his head. “But I think the twins are right: Percy’s just the world’s biggest prat.”

Harry nodded to show that he understood, and then let out a long sigh as he allowed his head to fall back against the seat. Apparently, all was not as well as it seemed in the Weasley family.

The rest of the drive passed rather quickly as Ginny shared a few stories with her mother, and before they knew it they were coming to a stop in front of the Burrow. As soon as Harry got out of the car, he was greeted by Tyler shouting his name from the front porch.

“Hey, Tyler,” Harry called, waving as he began helping Ron get the trunks out of the car’s luggage compartment. Tyler hurried over to help them, and together they began lugging everything into the house.

“So, what’ve you been up to?” Harry asked as they deposited the trunks and owl cages near the stairs.

Tyler’s eyes lit up with excitement. “I’ve been learning to use all sorts of magical stuff. Check this out.” He pulled a shiny, though rather bulky, cigarette lighter from his pocket and held it upside down over a large jar that was sitting on an end table. He clicked the button, but instead of a tiny yellow flame shooting out, a ball of blue flame about the size of his fist dropped into the jar. Harry and Ron stared in shock.

“That’s the Bluebell Flame spell,” Ron muttered.

“That’s right,” Tyler exclaimed. He clicked the button again, causing the flame to be sucked back up into the lighter. “Fred and George gave it to me; they said it wouldn’t do for me to not even be able to light the stove if I needed to.”

“Those two really are brilliant,” Harry breathed. “It’s a shame they don’t dedicate more time to this sort of thing.”

“Actually, they are now,” Tyler informed him. “I thought I’d mentioned that in my letters. They’ve already started selling some defensive products - Shield Cloaks and the like - but they seem really keen to help me be able to use as much magic as possible. Not that I’m complaining, mind,” he finished with a wide grin.

“You’re kidding!” Ginny exclaimed as she joined the conversation. “I always knew the twins could be brilliant if they applied themselves, but... just, wow.”

“But- But if you’re a Squib, how can you even make any of their stuff work?” Ron asked.

“Well, I’m sure they could answer you way better than I ever could, but I think they enjoyed the challenge,” Tyler replied with a shrug. “They seemed to think it was the ultimate prank on Muggle-haters, since they’re using all sorts of spells and potions that were designed for....” He paused, a look of concentration passing over his features. “For.... What’s it called again when wizards set magical traps for Muggles?”

“Muggle-baiting,” Ginny supplied.

“Right, Muggle-baiting,” Tyler agreed.

“Hang on a minute,” Harry laughed. “You mean they’re using magic that was meant to torment Muggles as a way of helping Muggles and Squibs be able to do a bit of magic?”

Tyler nodded, and they all fell into a fit of laughter.

* * * * *
Christmastime at the Burrow was the most wonderful thing Harry had ever experienced. Together with Ron, Tyler, Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley, he helped decorate the house inside and out. They hung garlands of evergreen boughs and holly from the windows, charmed real live fairies to sit still and serve as fairy lights, caused enchanted snow to fall slowly from the ceiling, and decorated the large Christmas tree which stood proudly in the living room with a multitude of homemade ornaments from when the Weasley children were younger.

When he wasn’t busy decorating, Harry spent his time chatting lazily with his friends, watching Tyler demonstrate more of the twins’ inventions, and even taking a few flights around the paddock on his Firebolt with Ron and Ginny. A nearly constant stream of baked goods emerged from the kitchen, causing him to eat more than he had ever thought possible. In short, Christmastime with the Weasleys was everything it always should have been, but never was for Harry. By the time he went to bed on Christmas Eve, he didn’t care whether he woke up to fifty presents or none at all; he was happier than he had ever dreamed possible. As he drifted off to sleep, his last thought was that he hoped to someday find a way to thank the Weasleys for all they had done for him.

Harry couldn’t have been asleep for more than a couple of hours when he was awakened by a quiet voice in his ear.

“Harry.” Someone shook him lightly. “Harry, wake up.” Harry opened his eyes to see that the room was still completely dark. He could just barely make out Mrs. Weasley’s outline where she stood next to his bed.

“What is it?” Harry whispered back as he pushed himself up into a sitting position and pulled on his glasses.

“Dumbledore is here to see you,” she replied.

“Dumbledore?” Harry asked worriedly. “What’s wrong? What’s he need at this time of night?”

“He wouldn’t say,” Mrs. Weasley answered, “but I can tell by that twinkle in his eyes that it’s nothing bad. Come on - downstairs.” Obediently, Harry followed her down to the ground floor and into the living room.

“Ah, just the man I wanted to see,” Dumbledore greeted him. Mrs. Weasley was right - the old Headmaster’s eyes were twinkling more brightly than Harry would have thought possible. Mr. Weasley was also in the room, but he looked just as confused about the late-night visit as Harry was. “I seem to be a bit early, but our other visitor should be here at any moment.”

They sat in silence for several minutes before Harry finally asked impatiently, “Why are we sitting here?”

“Actually, Harry, we are waiting for a friend of yours who is bringing you a very special Christmas gift,” Dumbledore replied mysteriously. To Harry’s bewilderment, the ancient Headmaster didn’t seem sleepy at all, even though it was nearly two o’clock in the morning.

They didn’t have to wait much longer before there was a very light tapping on the front door. Dumbledore immediately strode over and opened it, allowing an enormous man with wild hair and a tangled beard to duck into the room.

“Hagrid?” Harry asked in confusion. Had Dumbledore come all the way to the Burrow just to make sure Hagrid wasn’t giving him anything dangerous?

“‘Lo there, Harry,” Hagrid said brightly. “Molly, Arthur. Professor Dumbledore.” He nodded at each person as he said their name.

“Hagrid, here, has brought with him a gift for you, Harry - one he has been working very hard to complete for nearly two months now,” Dumbledore explained. Harry looked around in confusion, noticing that there were no caged animals in sight.

“Le’s see,” Hagrid muttered as he began patting the pockets of his enormous overcoat. “Ah! Here it is.” He pulled a rumpled package from one of his numerous pockets and held it out to Harry. It was a little over a foot long and rather thin. Harry stared at it for a moment, wondering what on earth it might be.

“Well, go on now,” Hagrid urged him excitedly. “Don’ be shy. Jus’ open ‘er up.”

Shrugging, Harry tore into the paper, only to furrow his brow in confusion when he saw that the present was a miniature pink umbrella. Looking closer, he realized that - except for its size - it was a near-perfect replica of the umbrella Hagrid carried with him almost all the time. Having no idea what was going on, Harry looked to the adults in the room for an explanation. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley looked at least as confused as he was, Dumbledore was just standing there with a knowing smile on his face, and Hagrid was beaming as happily as if he had just presented Harry with the key to Gringotts bank.

“Er- thanks,” Harry managed to say.

Dumbledore chuckled lightly. “I take it you have no idea what you are holding?”

“It’s a little umbrella,” Harry said.

“So it would seem,” said the Headmaster. “Harry, do you happen to know what is so special about the rather large pink umbrella that Hagrid usually carries?”

Harry shook his head.

“It holds the broken pieces of his first wand. Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts in his third year, after he was framed for the opening of the Chamber of Secrets. At that time, his wand was broken in two and he was banned from using magic ever again.” Dumbledore smiled as he continued, “Of course, you helped to clear him at the end of your second year, and he has been able to legally use magic ever since. However, there was still a period of fifty years during which he could not openly practice magic.”

Hagrid’s face flushed slightly as Dumbledore paused long enough to wink at him. “You’ll notice that I said he could not openly practice magic. Hagrid did, in fact, continue using his wand after he discovered that its pieces could be embedded in his favorite umbrella. It took him over twenty years to finally master its use, but he did finally manage it.”

Dumbledore stopped talking, and Harry looked down at the miniature umbrella in his hand before asking, “So, what’s all this have to do with this little umbrella?”

“That umbrella, Harry, contains the broken pieces of Dolores Umbridge’s wand,” Dumbledore answered. It took a moment for the full impact of his words to sink in, but when they did Harry’s eyes widened in disbelief. He looked from Dumbledore’s smiling face to the tiny umbrella, and finally to Hagrid, who was once again beaming proudly.

“You mean....” Harry’s voice gave out; he couldn’t say it out loud for fear that he would be wrong.

“Yes, Harry,” Dumbledore said gently. “As I told you after the trial, there is always hope. I trust you will not doubt that again.”

Harry shook his head dumbly.

“Does this mean you’ll be performing the counter-charm now, Albus?” Mrs. Weasley asked, unable to remain silent any longer.

“No,” Dumbledore answered. “Hagrid will be performing the charm.”

“WHAT?” Mrs. Weasley shrieked. Harry saw the smile slide off of Hagrid’s face. Mrs. Weasley must have noticed as well, because she quickly turned to him and said, in a very kind voice, “It’s nothing personal against you, Hagrid. It’s just that- well, you’re not exactly a fully qualified wizard.”

“‘S okay, Molly,” Hagrid mumbled as he began nervously wringing his hands.

“Molly,” Dumbledore said gently, “Hagrid is the only person capable of casting this charm with the repaired wand.”

Mrs. Weasley gave him a disbelieving look. “But surely you-”

“I cannot, Molly,” Dumbledore interrupted. “I have also been practicing since shortly after Halloween, and I can’t so much as Levitate a feather with that wand. As I have just explained, it took Hagrid over twenty years to learn to reliably use a broken wand. Even taking into account his youth and inexperience at the time, I still could not reasonably expect to learn this skill in less than five years. I will not force Harry to wait that long - not when someone I trust completely is entirely capable of restoring his memory this very night.”

Mrs. Weasley looked like she still had misgivings about the idea, but she gave a hesitant nod.

“Let’s do this, Hagrid,” said Harry, holding the umbrella out toward him.

“If you don’t mind, Molly, Arthur, we’ll excuse ourselves to the kitchen,” Dumbledore said.

“Of course,” said Mr. Weasley as he and his wife both nodded.

Harry followed Dumbledore and Hagrid into the kitchen and took a seat at the table. He was almost shaking with anticipation as he eyed the little umbrella in Hagrid’s hand.

“Before Hagrid begins, Harry,” said Dumbledore, “you should understand that in a moment, five years’ worth of memories are going to begin flooding into your mind, and you may experience some vertigo. This is completely normal, so don’t let it concern you.”

Harry nodded impatiently. He couldn’t believe his luck; he had completely given up hope of his memory ever returning, and suddenly here were Dumbledore and Hagrid with the solution.

Dumbledore nodded, and Hagrid began waving the small umbrella over Harry’s head in an intricate pattern while muttering under his breath. Images began swimming before Harry’s eyes, but they were still too indistinct to be seen clearly. His stomach churned, and he squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to quell the nausea.

In an instant, everything changed. He was no longer sitting in the kitchen of the Burrow; he was at the zoo with the Dursleys for Dudley’s eleventh birthday. He watched in surprise as the glass on a very large snake’s cage magically vanished.

The memories flew by, yet Harry was somehow able to experience each of them all over again. He relived the fiasco that had resulted from Uncle Vernon trying to prevent him receiving his first Hogwarts letter, met Hagrid for the first time, learned how his parents had really died, and met the Weasleys at King’s Cross Station. He played Quidditch for the first time, helped Ron save Hermione from a twelve-foot mountain troll, got his first glimpse of Lord Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, and saved the Philosopher’s Stone from falling into Voldemort’s hands. He remembered watching Ginny’s embarrassment at finding him in her house the following summer, the way he and Ron had nearly been beaten to death by the Whomping Willow, and the stares and whispers he’d had had to endure when much of the school believed him to be the Heir of Slytherin.

When he remembered going into the Chamber of Secrets after Ginny, his blood ran cold. The fear and worry he had felt at the time combined with his feelings for her in the present, causing the vertigo to return as he fought the Basilisk and finally plunged its fang into Tom Riddle’s diary. He smiled as he remembered meeting Sirius Black for the first time and discovering that he had not betrayed or murdered anyone, and his jaw clenched in fury as he saw Peter Pettigrew escape into the darkness.

As Harry’s forgotten memories continued flashing before his eyes, he relived the Triwizard Tournament and the return of Lord Voldemort in his fourth year, and Dolores Umbridge’s reign of terror during his fifth. His heart nearly broke with sorrow as he watched Sirius fall through the veil in the Department of Mysteries, never to return. With a detached sense of embarrassment, he relived his anger as he destroyed Dumbledore’s office and smashed the two-way mirror that Sirius had given him. Then he remembered traveling back to Privet Drive, only to be captured by Umbridge and Obliviated.

As the rush of memories ended, Harry opened his eyes to find that he was slumped in his chair and breathing heavily as tears ran down his cheeks. He sat up slowly and studied his fingernails for several long minutes. So many terrible things had happened to him in his short life that it was overwhelming, yet he was no longer angry over it as he once had been. In spite of all of the bad things - and sometimes even because of them - there were plenty of happy memories, too. He didn’t only remember fighting Lord Voldemort and learning of the Prophecy; he also remembered playing Quidditch, sitting by the lake with Ron and Hermione, and spending Christmas with Sirius. With a sudden shock, he realized that, up until he had lost his memory, he hadn’t looked at his life in that way in a very long time. His memory had returned, but the fact that he had lost it to begin with had irreversibly changed him for the better.

Finally, after nearly half an hour of just sitting and thinking, Harry looked up at Dumbledore with tears still shining in his eyes. “Sorry about your office,” he said with a weak laugh.

“Not a problem, Harry; it was nothing a little magic couldn’t fix, and Merlin knows I deserved it.” Looking shrewdly at Harry’s tear-stained face, he added, “I realize that this is a lot to take in at one time, and that it is extremely unfair to ask so much of one so young-”

Harry shook his head. “No, it’s not that,” he interrupted, wiping his eyes. Dumbledore quirked a bushy eyebrow at him. “I was just thinking.... I have a really great life, don’t I?”

Dumbledore looked extremely surprised at the complete lack of sarcasm in Harry’s voice. After a moment, he responded with a warm smile. “You may stay in here if you wish, Harry, but I’m afraid Hagrid and I have to be going. I do suggest, however, that you get some more sleep.”

Harry nodded and got wearily to his feet. He was exhausted, and the high he had felt as his memory returned was fading fast, leaving him feeling even more drained than he had been when Mrs. Weasley had dragged him out of bed.

“Thank you, Hagrid,” Harry whispered as he got to his feet and enveloped the enormous man in a hug.

“Glad ter help,” Hagrid sniffled, returning the hug and nearly knocking the wind out of Harry by patting him on the back.

After a moment they headed back into the living room, Harry stumbling along in his exhaustion. Upon entering the room, he was immediately caught up in a very tight hug by Mrs. Weasley.

“Did it work?” she whispered anxiously as she released him.

Now too exhausted to speak, Harry only nodded and began the long climb to Ron’s bedroom. As he paused momentarily on the first floor landing, he heard Mrs. Weasley’s worried voice asking, “What’s going on, Albus? Is he all right? Why are you looking at him like that?”

“Something most extraordinary just happened in your kitchen, Molly,” Dumbledore said in a strangely distant voice. “Harry Potter grew up.” Harry continued dragging himself up the stairs, and the conversation in the living room faded into the background.

---

Knock, knock, knock!

Harry awoke to the sound of someone pounding on his bedroom door.

Knock, knock, knock!

He groaned as he sat up and put on his glasses. Christmas morning had come far too quickly - a glance at the luminous hands of the clock next to his bed confirmed that it had only been two short hours since he had made it back upstairs. After hauling himself to his feet and stretching languidly, he crossed the room to open the door.

“I thought it might be you,” he murmured, smiling sleepily at the sight of Ginny, clad in her pajamas and a heavy cloak, waiting just outside the door. Her eyes shone with excitement and anticipation, and he couldn’t help thinking that she looked absolutely beautiful.

“Good morning to you, too,” she laughed. “Listen, can I talk to you out in the garden for a bit before everybody else gets up?” She was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet and wringing her hands, excitement and a bit of nervousness practically bubbling out of her.

Harry shrugged. “Sure; just let me grab my cloak.”

Ginny began tapping her foot impatiently while he pulled his cloak out of the closet. As soon as he had it in hand, she grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him down the stairs.

“Ginny! What’s gotten into you?”

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” she said simply.

“Other than my Christmas present, you mean?” Harry asked.

“Yep.”

As they passed the first floor landing, Harry gathered his courage and said, “I’ve got a surprise for you, too.”

“Well, then I’m doubly glad I got you up before everybody else,” Ginny replied with a wink. They stopped in the kitchen just long enough to pull on their boots before stepping out into the crisp December air.

“So?” Ginny asked as soon as they were outside. “What’s your surprise? Oh, wait; let me go first!”

Harry laughed happily at her enthusiasm. “Go ahead.”

“I-” Ginny paused to take a deep breath and her bright smile faded a bit as she began again. “Harry, I- I fancy you.”

Harry smiled warmly at her. “I know,” he said softly.

Ginny shook her head. “No, what I mean is... I trust you. I’m not afraid anymore.”

“That’s good,” Harry replied as he pulled her into a warm embrace and held her close to him, “because it means I won’t feel like I’m trying to manipulate you when I tell you my surprise.” He stopped talking as he just enjoyed the way it felt to hold her close.

“Well?” Ginny asked expectantly after he was silent for a moment. “What is it?”

Harry sighed dramatically. “I’m not really sure I should tell you,” he replied in the most serious voice he could manage.

“Why not?” she demanded, her brown eyes flashing with sudden anger as she pulled away from him. Those eyes were so alive; just looking at them made his heart pound.

“Because I wanted to get that reaction out of you,” he answered with a grin. “You’re so pretty when you’re angry.”

“Prat,” she laughed, swatting him on the arm. “I’m serious, Harry. Every minute you waste gets us one minute closer to Ron waking up and ruining our chance to be alone.”

Harry nodded and, taking a deep breath, asked, “Do you remember the first time you saw me?”

“Of course,” Ginny answered, surprised at the sudden change in the conversation. “I was ten, you were eleven. You were trying to figure out how to get onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters.”

“I remember too,” he said very quietly.

Ginny stared at him, and he saw her eyes widen as she realized the significance of his words. “Everything?” she whispered.

Harry nodded.

“How?”

“Dumbledore and Hagrid came last night and reversed the Memory Charm. Hagrid embedded the broken pieces of Umbridge’s wand in an umbrella, just like he did with his own wand when he was expelled. Dumbledore taught him the counter-charm, and he used it on me at two-something this morning.”

“Hagrid did it?” Ginny asked in disbelief.

“That was your mum’s reaction, too,” Harry chuckled. “Dumbledore said Hagrid’s the only person who knows how to use a broken wand like that, and it’s a skill that would take years to learn. It was a lot quicker to just teach Hagrid the counter-charm.”

“How- how well do you remember?” she asked weakly.

“It’s weird, really; it all seems sort of... distant, I guess, but I remember everything I’d forgotten as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.” He paused for a moment before adding, “And speaking of what I remember, I also remember exactly how I feel about you.”

Ginny’s face fell, and she took a small step back. “It’s okay, Harry,” she said softly as she shook her head. “I guess I always knew it wouldn’t last past you getting your memory back.” She laughed bitterly. “I’m just Ron’s baby sister, right? The little girl who was so stupid that she let herself be possessed by-”

Mortified by the realization that he had given her completely the wrong impression, Harry cut her sentence short by doing the only thing he could think of at the moment: he grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her. Ginny’s body went rigid.

Relax, he thought desperately. Please relax. Ginny remained rigid in his arms, leaving him no choice but to pull away. She stood frozen in place, her brown eyes wide with shock. Harry swore under his breath. He was such an idiot! He should have talked to her, explained things to her. Instead, he had to go and act like the world’s biggest prat and throw himself at her.

Say something, Harry silently begged. Anything. Slap me or hex me or... something! He looked pleadingly at her, but her eyes held no emotion - only shock.

“Ginny, listen to me,” he said at last, unable to bear the silent tension any longer. “I really do fancy you. I have my memory back; I remember everything I ever knew about you, and it doesn’t change a thing. I still want to be with you.”

Ginny backed away, shaking her head as tears began forming in the corners of her wide eyes, which still stared disbelievingly at Harry. “Stop,” she whispered. “I know what’s happened, Harry. You fell for the girl you saw in your dreams for all those months, the girl that gave you hope while you were away at that awful school.” She sniffled a little. “I’m not that girl, Harry, no matter how much we both might want me to be. It could have just as easily been another girl’s face in those dreams: Hermione’s, or Cho’s, or even Luna’s. It was just pure chance that it was mine - after all, up until you lost your memory, you’d never noticed me as anything but Ron’s baby sister or the idiot girl who needed saving from a diary during your second year.”

“That’s not true,” Harry said in a quiet but forceful voice. Thankfully, this statement was enough to stop Ginny’s rant. He let out a slow, frustrated breath while running both hands through his mop of black hair. “Ginny, just because I remember everything from my first five years at Hogwarts doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about how close we’ve gotten since I came back. But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll tell you a little story. You know how I said that I remember everything Umbridge wiped out as clearly as if it had happened yesterday?”

Ginny gave a hesitant nod.

“Then let me tell you what was going through my mind when I was on my way back to Privet Drive after my fifth year.”

Ginny didn’t move. She just stood there, staring at him with eyes that were unusually bright with the tears she refused to allow to fall.

Taking her silence to mean she was willing to listen, Harry began to speak. “The ride from King’s Cross to Little Whinging always took forever, but that day it seemed to take even longer. I remember I was looking out the window, but I wasn’t really seeing anything. In my mind, all I could see was Sirius falling through that veil in the Department of Mysteries. I just sat there fuming. I kept telling myself that I blamed Snape, since he had ignored me when I told him that Sirius was in danger, but deep down, I knew it was really my fault. My godfather, the closest thing to a parent that I’d ever known, was gone forever because of me.”

Harry’s voice had taken on a wistful quality, and he shook himself before going on. “Obviously, that was really depressing to think about, and I knew Sirius well enough to know that he wouldn’t want me moping around and hating myself - even if that’s exactly the sort of thing he did a lot of the time. So, I decided to think about my friends instead. As usual, Ron and Hermione hadn’t hesitated for a second before following me into danger.” He shook his head and chuckled to himself. “Sometimes I really wonder about their sanity. The problem was, when I thought about them, images flashed through my mind of Ron being attacked by that brain, and Hermione being hit by whatever that purple curse was that Dolohov used on her. It just kept replaying over and over, sometimes in slow motion. Both of them nearly died, and knowing that I was to blame just made me feel worse.

“Next, I tried thinking about Neville and Luna. I thought about how brave Neville had been, but then I saw his broken nose and snapped wand in my mind. I thought about Luna and how, for all her strangeness, she turned out to be a big contributor in the battle. Then I remembered watching her fly through the air and smash her head against a desk.

“Obviously, thinking about those two wasn’t making me feel any better, either, so I finally turned to the last person who went with me to the Ministry: Ginny Weasley, Ron’s baby sister, as you like to put it.” He smiled slightly.

“You’re right to think that I had always looked at you as the blushing little girl I rescued from the Chamber of Secrets, but I want you to know that I never thought you were an idiot. As I thought about you that day in the car, though, I started seeing something else. I thought about how fiercely you had refused to be left behind. I remembered the way your hair looked when it flew out behind you as we ran through the Hall of Prophecies, and the way you had refused to let a broken ankle stop you. It should have depressed me just like thinking about the others had, but it didn’t.” He laughed softly. “Instead, I suddenly found something very attractive about the girl I was thinking about.

Ginny still hadn’t reacted to his narrative, and Harry felt his stomach beginning to churn with nerves as he plunged ahead. “Naturally, I didn’t know how to react to that line of thinking. For a minute I wondered whether it wasn’t disrespectful to Sirius’ memory to be thinking about a girl so soon after his death, but then I realized that, if I was honest with myself, I had to admit that Sirius’ idea of how to honor his memory would probably involve me, several girls, and a large case of Firewhisky.” At this comment, Ginny gave a half-hearted chuckle. Heartened, Harry cleared his throat nervously and pressed forward.

“After that, I couldn’t stop thinking about you for the rest of the ride home. I mean, I felt like a bit of an idiot for not having noticed you before, even though I’d known you for years. I remember thinking that it was just my luck that I would start fancying you right after you had stopped feeling that way about me. Plus, you had just started going out with Dean, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it anyway. Five minutes later, Umbridge Obliviated me, but the point is that I was thinking about you as much more than Ron’s baby sister before I lost my memory. You were the only thought that actually made me feel better that day, and that’s saying a lot. So, now you know. If you still don’t want anything to do with me, I’ll accept your decision,” Harry concluded. “I may not like it, but I’ll accept it.” He held his breath.

Ginny blinked. It seemed to Harry that that was the first time she had blinked since he’d kissed her. She took a slow, shaky breath, but did not break eye contact. “You really mean all that?” she asked in a voice that was so weak, Harry had to read her lips to be sure of what she was saying. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I’m sure,” he whispered.

Ginny stepped forward quickly, closing the gap between them and throwing her arms around his neck. “I trust you, Harry,” she murmured into his chest. “Really, I do.” For several minutes they stood there clinging to one another, as her quiet tears of relief soaked into Harry’s cloak. After her breathing returned to normal, she pulled back just far enough to look up into his face, and laughed.

“What?” Harry asked, relieved to see her smiling. “Is there something on my face?” He lifted a hand and began furiously rubbing at the side of his nose.

This only caused Ginny to laugh harder. She grabbed his wrist and, still giggling, replied, “No, it’s not that. I was just thinking about how long I’ve dreamed of you kissing me, and then when you finally did, I completely ruined it.” She laughed again as the embarrassment set in and she began to blush.

Harry didn’t know how to respond, so he simply stood there, his arms around her waist and his eyes gazing into hers.

Suddenly, Ginny cleared her throat. “Do you think maybe-” she hesitated, “-maybe I could... have another go?” Her blush deepened, but she didn’t look away.

“On one condition,” Harry replied with just a hint of a smirk.

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh? And what might that be?”

“You have to let me do this first.” Raising his hands to her face, he gently wiped the tears from her cheeks.

Ginny grinned at him. “Making sure you don’t confuse me with Cho?” she asked innocently.

“Actually, yeah. That memory’s still just as fresh as the others, and I don’t want to be distracted by awkward memories of some other girl. I want to be able to concentrate on you.”

“Are you concentrating?” she whispered as she slipped her hands behind his neck and began pulling him toward her.

Harry quickly wet his lips, which had suddenly gone very dry, and made a sound in the back of his throat that he hoped she would understand to mean, “Yes.” Then their lips met, and time stood still. The sensation was the polar opposite of what he had felt when Ginny had been resisting. Earlier he had felt nothing but panic, and kissing an unwilling girl had proven about as satisfying as kissing his bedroom door. Now, though, he was amazed at how soft her lips had become, and his arms slipped around her waist of their own accord, pulling her closer. When she slowly pulled away a minute later - or was it only a second later? Or an hour? - she looked up at him and smiled.

“Better?” she asked.

Harry, temporarily unable to speak, just nodded while grinning stupidly and then pulled her in for another kiss. He didn’t know how long they had been outside in the frigid garden, completely wrapped up in each other, when Ginny finally pulled away.

There was hesitance and a bit of worry in her eyes when she looked up at him this time. “I don’t want to ruin the mood or anything, Harry, but... I’d feel ridiculously selfish if I didn’t ask.” She paused to draw a long breath. “Are you okay? I mean, with everything that happened right before you disappeared....”

Harry smiled sadly and nodded. “I really am. I mean, I’ll always miss Sirius, but when my entire memory came back at once the way it did, a lot of things got put into perspective. Sirius was miserable; he was constantly on the run, and then he was cooped up in that gloomy house, which was even worse. If we’re honest with ourselves, his chances of being cleared were almost nonexistent with the way the Ministry’s being run. He was basically going to be miserable for the rest of his life. Now, though, he’s with my mum and dad, and they can spend the rest of eternity pranking Wormtail.”

Ginny responded with a sad smile of her own. “When did you start sounding so mature?” she asked.

Harry shrugged. “I’ve learned a lot about being grateful for what I have over the past year-and-a-half.” He leaned closer to her as he whispered, “Right now I’ve got you out here with me while the rest of your family’s still asleep, and I’m very grateful.” Their lips met again, and several minutes passed before they broke apart, grinning, breathing heavily and resting their foreheads against one another.

“I love you, Ginny,” Harry whispered. The words escaped his mouth before he even realized what he was saying, but as they registered in his brain he realized that he knew without a doubt that they were true.

Ginny shivered against him, and somehow he knew that it wasn’t from the cold. “That was something different this time,” she whispered.

“What?” Harry asked.

“Whatever you just said in Parseltongue. It was different from what you usually say. Deeper, somehow.”

Harry, who had thought he had been speaking English, paused for a long moment to consider his options. “You’re right,” he whispered at last. “It was different.”

“What did you say?” Ginny asked. Her voice was soft, yet full of curiosity.

“Up to now, I’ve said a few different things, like, ‘I’m falling for you,’ and, ‘You’re beautiful.’”

“And this time?”

Alarm bells started going off inside Harry’s head. He couldn’t do it. It was too soon. “I don’t think I’m ready to say,” he muttered. Something in Ginny’s eyes told him he didn’t have to explain; she knew.

“Can you say it to me again?” she asked quietly as she began leaning slowly toward him.

Harry heard the hissing sounds of Parseltongue as he whispered, “I love you, Ginny.” She shivered against him as their lips met in a slow, gentle kiss.

“We’d better get back inside before somebody comes looking for us,” Ginny murmured reluctantly as she slipped out of Harry’s embrace and led him by the hand back into the kitchen. After they had removed their boots, she gestured toward her tear-streaked face and said, “I need to run upstairs and wash up. Do you think you could make some hot chocolate for us in the meantime?”

“No problem,” Harry answered with a wide smile.

---

Harry was fixing hot chocolate when Ron bounded into the kitchen.

“Morning, mate,” Ron greeted him brightly.

Harry shook his head in amusement. “What’s with you this morning? I’m surprised you’re not tearing into your presents already.”

“Nah,” said Ron as he sank into a chair. “When we’re home for Christmas, Mum makes us wait for everybody so we can all open presents together. What’re you doing up so early?”

“Ginny woke me up a while ago,” Harry answered vaguely. “Want some hot chocolate?”

“Sure,” Ron nodded.

About the time Harry was setting the hot chocolate on the table, Ginny arrived back in the kitchen. “Good morning, Ron,” she said brightly as she sat down next to her brother. “Hi, Harry.”

“Morning, Ginny,” Ron replied before taking a sip of the scalding liquid. “Hey, how come you got Harry up so early?”

Ginny glanced quickly at Harry before answering, “I wanted to snog him senseless before the rest of you woke up and spoiled the mood.”

Ron rolled his eyes at her. “Come on, Ginny; you fed me that same story at the beginning of the summer holiday, remember? I’m not falling for it twice.”

Ginny quirked an eyebrow at him and, without saying a word, slid out of her seat and walked purposefully around the table toward Harry. Harry hurriedly swallowed his mouthful of hot chocolate and set down his mug as she proceeded to sit in his lap, grab him firmly by the collar, and plant her lips on his. It was all he could do to keep from spoiling the moment by laughing when he heard Ron’s mug shatter as it hit the floor. After far too short a time, Ginny pulled away and turned back to her brother, smiling sweetly at the shocked look on his face.

“Still think it’s a prank?” she asked innocently.

Ron made a retching noise. “That’s disgusting, that is,” he complained.

“Well, it’s your own fault,” Ginny told him. “If you’d believed us, we wouldn’t have had to... demonstrate.”

“Actually, Ron, it’s probably your fault the two of us are together in the first place,” Harry amended.

“How do you figure?” Ron asked, furrowing his brow in consternation.

“The train ride home after fifth year,” Harry answered. “Ginny said she had dumped Michael Corner, and you gave me this pointed look and said something about hoping she’d pick somebody better next time. She was already going out with Dean at that point, but I think that was what first got me thinking about her. It’s probably the reason I ended up thinking about her for most of the ride from King’s Cross to Little Whinging, and then dreaming about her all the time at St. Brutus’s.” He grinned at Ron’s astonished expression.

“You mean you- Hang on, how do you remember all that about the trip back from Hogwarts after fifth year?”

“Hagrid worked a little bit of magic last night with a very small pink umbrella,” Harry answered with a smile. “It’s all back.” He tapped his temple for emphasis.

Ron eyes widened for a moment before his face broke into an enormous grin. “That’s a relief,” he said, quite obviously trying very hard not to jump up and down with glee. “I was starting to worry that you’d be stuck like that.” He chuckled for a moment before adding, “I wish I could see Umbridge’s face when she finds out a half-giant reversed her Memory Charm.” Harry and Ginny joined in his laughter for a moment before he sobered and said, “It’s good to really have you back, mate.”

“Not that I want to interrupt this happy reunion, but you might want to clean up that mess before Mum wakes up, Ron,” Ginny said as she waved her hand at the spilled hot chocolate and broken mug.

“Oh! Right.” Ron quickly drew his wand from a pocket in his dressing gown and muttered, “Reparo,” causing the shattered mug to instantly become whole again. After Vanishing the spilled hot chocolate, he turned back to his sister and his best friend and said, “I suppose I ought to say something terribly overprotective now, right?” Harry stifled a laugh, but Ron pretended not to notice as he arranged his face into a very serious expression and added, “Ginny, Harry’s my best friend. Don’t you dare hurt him.”

Unable to contain it any longer, Harry dissolved into a fit of laughter, and was quickly joined by both Ron and Ginny.

“You know, I really am happy for you,” Ron said after they had all regained the ability to breathe normally. “But please don’t go snogging in front of me again.”

“I’m not promising that,” Ginny protested. “We won’t do it just to gross you out, but that’s as much as I’m willing to give.”

Ron made a spluttering noise, but before he could respond, Harry cut in, saying, “Take what you can get, mate. Otherwise, you know what’ll happen: she’ll do her very best to snog me senseless any time the three of us are in the same room.” Turning back to Ginny, who was still in his lap, he winked and quietly added, “Not that I’d mind.”

Ginny rolled her eyes at him before sliding off his lap. “We’d probably better go wake Mum and Dad before Ron explodes from having to wait too long to open his presents.” She gave Harry a peck on the tip of his nose before bouncing from the room. As soon as she was gone, Ron turned to Harry with a serious expression on his face.

“You doing okay, Harry?” he asked tentatively. “I mean, you just remembered five years in one go, and... well, some of it’s not exactly pretty.”

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Ginny,” Harry replied. “The last year-and-a-half has made it painfully clear that my life could be a lot worse. A lot of bad memories came back last night, but there were way more good memories than bad ones. I’d just never really thought about it like that. I really am okay with everything. That doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could change some of it, or that I don’t miss Sirius; but I think he’d want me to be happy, so that’s what I’m going to try to do.”

Ron looked at him quizzically before demanding, “Who are you and what have you done with Harry?” After a moment, he broke into a grin. “Seriously, Harry, it’s been really good to see you happy for a change this year. I for one am glad you’re not planning on going back to being moody and depressed all the time.”

The sound of footsteps on the stairs effectively ended their conversation. “We’d better get into the living room,” said Ron, and he and Harry hurried through the doorway. They were greeted by Ginny, Tyler, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley descending the stairs.

“Good morning Harry, Ron,” Mrs. Weasley called as she stepped into the living room. As soon as good mornings and Merry Christmases had been exchanged by all, everyone settled into seats around the roaring fireplace to await the arrival of the rest of the Weasleys. It wasn’t long before the flames flared up green and one by one, Fred, George, Bill, and Percy all tumbled from the hearth, still clad in pajamas and dressing gowns. They quickly moved to join the rest of the family in their semicircle around the fireplace.

“Beat it, Gin-Gin,” Fred ordered, walking over to the armchair where Ginny was sitting.

“No,” she replied coolly. “Find your own seat.”

“Ginny, that’s where I always sit at Christmas,” Fred complained. “Besides, there aren’t any other seats left.”

Ginny’s eyes swept over the room and she quickly realized that her brother was right: all the seats were taken. With a sudden mischievous gleam in her eye, she stood, gestured to the chair she had just vacated, and said, “There you go, Fred; it’s all yours.” Then she quickly crossed the room to where Harry was sitting and settled comfortably into his lap, smiling sweetly at the confused expressions on her brothers’ faces.

“And a Merry Christmas to you, too,” Harry murmured into her ear, eliciting a happy giggle.

“Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” Ginny called out. There was no need; everyone’s attention had been fixed on her from the moment she’d climbed into Harry’s lap. She looked around at her family, her eyes still sparkling with mischief. “Good. Now I want you all to take careful note of the chair Harry is sitting in.”

Harry gave her a confused look, but she only smiled at him. He looked around at the rest of the family, but they all seemed just as confused as he was - all of them except Mrs. Weasley. She was biting her lip as though trying very hard not to giggle as her gaze shifted between Harry and Ginny, and something above their heads.

Ginny rolled her eyes after a moment when it became apparent that her mother was the only one who understood. “Look,” she said simply as she pointed to the ceiling directly above the chair she was sharing with Harry.

As one, the eyes of all the men in the room shot upward to see what Ginny was pointing at. It was a small cluster of green leaves and white berries.

“Mistletoe?” Harry whispered. Ginny nodded as she leaned toward him and pressed her lips to his. His hands snaked around her waist of their own accord and he pulled her closer. Somewhere in the distant recesses of his mind he could hear shouted protests mixed with cheers and applause, but he couldn’t have cared less as he happily continued kissing Ginny, oblivious to the rest of the world.

When she pulled away, grinning and breathing heavily, the first thing Harry heard was Percy’s voice saying, “Accio!” He looked up just in time to see the sprig of mistletoe zoom into Percy’s outstretched hand.

“Now that that nonsense is out of the way, Ginny, why don’t you come sit over here,” he said in his ridiculously pompous voice. It was a command, not a question.

“Party pooper,” Fred muttered.

“I’m fine where I am, thanks,” Ginny said, glaring at Percy.

A second later, George came bounding down the stairs holding a camera. He took one look at Harry and Ginny, and immediately turned to Percy, who was still holding the mistletoe.

“Percy!” he exclaimed. “What’d you do?”

“I should think that was obvious,” Percy replied haughtily.

“Yeah, he stole the mistletoe hoping he might be able to force somebody to kiss him later,” Fred piped up.

“Fat chance of that,” muttered Ron.

“That’s enough,” snapped Mrs. Weasley. An awkward silence settled over the room as her sons glared at one another but didn’t dare speak.

Attempting to lighten the mood, Tyler nervously cleared his throat. “Out of curiosity, George, what’s with the camera?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Fred responded.

“Do you know how much Witch Weekly would’ve paid for a few good shots of those two snogging each other’s heads off?” asked George.

“More importantly, do you know how much Potter would’ve paid to keep us from selling them to Witch Weekly?” Fred added with a wink.

Harry’s fists clenched unconsciously at the thought of the lies that were sure to be printed about Ginny once their relationship became public. He quietly slipped his wand from his pocket, pointed it at George, and said, “Accio.” The camera flew out of George’s grasp and into Harry’s waiting hands.

“Maybe I’d better hang onto this,” Harry said as he wedged the camera between his leg and the arm of the chair and laid his wand beside it.

“So,” Ron interjected, clapping his hands loudly to get everyone’s attention. “Stockings?”

“Right you are, Ron,” Mr. Weasley agreed. He stood and began taking down the stockings, which hung above the large fireplace, and handing them to their owners.

“We always open our stockings first,” Ron explained to Harry and Tyler, neither of whom had ever experienced a real Weasley Christmas before. “Then we open our Weasley jumpers and we all wear them for the rest of the day.”

“The rest of the presents wait until after breakfast,” added Bill, who seemed content to just sit back and watch everyone else for the most part.

By this time, Mr. Weasley had finished handing out the stockings, and everyone began happily emptying them of their contents. Harry’s stocking, like everyone else’s, was filled with sweets: Chocolate Frogs, Fizzing Whizbees, Licorice Wands, and sugar quills, among other things.

Suddenly, there was a loud squawk, which caused Harry (and everyone else) to look up quickly. The room erupted in laughter at the sight of a gigantic yellow canary sitting in Tyler’s chair. The bird squawked again before molting in a shower of yellow feathers.

“Fred! George!” Mrs. Weasley thundered.

“It’s okay, Molly,” Tyler laughed. “I did it on purpose. I love those things.” He grinned at Fred and George. “Thanks for the stash, mates.”

“No problem,” the twins replied in unison.

“Well,” said Mrs. Weasley, calming down at once, “you certainly have interesting tastes, Tyler.” She shook herself slightly. “It’s time for jumpers then, I suppose.” She reached down into a large bag near her feet and began taking out brightly wrapped packages and handing or tossing them to their intended recipients as she called out their names.

“Fred... Ron... Bill... Harry... Arthur... Percy... George... Tyler... Ginny... and this one’s for me. Everyone ready?”

“Attack!” yelled Fred, and the room exploded in a shower of wrapping paper. Shortly afterward, everyone was wearing a different colored jumper with a large initial on the front.

“You sure that one’s yours, Ginny?” Harry asked playfully as she settled back into his lap after having stood up to put on her jumper. “It could be George’s, after all.”

“Hear that, George?” Ginny called as her parents headed into the kitchen to begin making breakfast. “Harry thinks we ought to switch jumpers.”

“Nah,” George replied immediately. “I finally convinced Mum to make me a bright yellow one; I’m not giving it up.”

The moment Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were out of the room, Percy cleared his throat importantly. “There are two empty seats now, Ginny. Come and take one of them.”

Ginny pointedly ignored him.

“Quit being a prat, Percy; she’s comfortable,” said Fred.

“Really comfortable,” George agreed, nudging his twin with his elbow and waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“I don’t see how you can stand for such behavior,” Percy muttered darkly.

“Just because you don’t like girls, doesn’t mean Harry can’t, Percy,” Ron teased.

Percy’s face flushed. “You know perfectly well-”

“Then butt out,” said Bill. “It’s really none of your business.”

“You know, Bilius,” Percy said, getting to his feet, “I would expect such a response from the twins, but not from you.”

“Well, Percival,” Bill retorted mockingly without moving from his reclining position, “perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think.”

“So you really don’t see anything wrong with our sister getting involved with Harry Potter?” Percy snapped.

Bill shrugged. “Not really. Mum and Dad seem fine with it. Ron knows Harry better than any of us, and he’s got no issues. Besides, Ginny’s a big girl; she can handle herself.”

Percy made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded something like a growl, and rounded on Harry. “And I suppose you haven’t bothered thinking how this might affect Ginny, have you?”

“What are you on about, Percy?” Ginny asked, clearly annoyed.

“He’s putting you in jeopardy and he doesn’t even realize it!” Percy shouted.

“Hang on a minute,” Harry interrupted as his anger began to build. “I’d never do anything to put Ginny in danger; I think everyone here knows that.”

Percy sneered at him, and Harry had to fight to suppress a shudder at the thought that his expression looked eerily similar to the one so often worn by Malfoy and Snape. “Perhaps no one’s mentioned the fact that Ginny was taken into the Chamber of Secrets to lure you there after her. If You-Know-Who did that to her just because she was your friend’s sister, how can you possibly think dating her won’t endanger her even more?”

Harry gently nudged Ginny out of his lap and stood facing Percy. The rest of the room seemed to hold its breath, waiting for his response. “None of you know this yet, except for Ron and Ginny, but Dumbledore and Hagrid paid me a visit last night. They brought Umbridge’s wand with them, and reversed her Memory Charm. I remember everything as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. Everything, Percy.”

Percy paled slightly. “But- It was broken,” he stammered. “I was there. I saw her break her wand.”

Harry shot him a derisive look. “This is Albus Dumbledore we’re talking about.” He decided that, for the moment, it would be best to leave out the fact that Hagrid had been the one to actually perform the counter-charm.

“You want to know what I remember, Percy?” he continued, glaring at him with open contempt. “Your memory seems to be a bit fuzzy, so let me clear things up for you. Lucius Malfoy gave Ginny that diary because she’s a Weasley. It had nothing to do with me. It wasn’t until later that Riddle found out about me and decided that I should be his target.

“But you know what else? I seem to remember something very interesting happening at breakfast on the day Ginny was taken into the Chamber. She walked up to me and was about to tell me everything when you showed up and chased her away. Why? Because you were afraid of getting teased about your girlfriend. So tell me, Percy, who was worried about himself, and who was worried about Ginny? Who tried to talk to her and find out what was wrong, and went after her when he found out she’d been taken, and who tried to silence her and then sat back and let others handle the dirty work?”

Percy’s face, which had been slowly reddening during the course of Harry’s little speech, was now approaching a shade of purple that even Uncle Vernon had never managed to achieve. “You dare to accuse me-” he began as he drew his wand.

“You bet I do,” Harry shot back, even as he realized that his own wand was still sitting on his chair.

“Calm down, Percy,” Bill said in a placating tone as he started getting to his feet. “Don’t go doing something you’ll regret.”

“I’ll not stand here and take these sorts of accusations!” Percy shouted. His wand was now leveled at Harry’s chest, but Harry was so angry at the moment that he didn’t care.

“You’ll take whatever you deserve!” he fired back. “How you ended up in Gryffindor, I’ll never understand. You should’ve been a Slyth-”

“Reducto!”

Harry’s hands shot forward reflexively as he shouted, “Protego!” deflecting Percy’s curse harmlessly into the floor. Before Percy had a chance to react, Harry’s voice rang out again as he fired off several spells of his own, alternating hands for maximum speed.

“Abigo, Expelliarmus, Incarcerous, Silencio!” In less than three seconds, Percy was disarmed, bound, silenced, and crumpled in a heap against the far wall of the living room.

After a quick glance at the looks of shock on the faces of Ron, Fred, George, and Bill, and the murderous expression on Percy’s face as he struggled with his bonds, Harry turned shakily to Ginny. “I think we may need your mum and dad to sort this one out,” he said quietly. “They already know my secret.” Ginny nodded and raced into the kitchen, returning a moment later with her parents in tow.

Mrs. Weasley took one look at Percy - bound, silenced, and leaning awkwardly against the wall - and immediately rounded on her twin sons.

“It was me, Mrs. Weasley,” Harry said in a quiet voice before she had a chance to begin shouting.

“You, Harry dear?” she asked in surprise. “But why...?” Her question trailed away into nothing.

“Percy tried to curse him,” Ron spat.

Mrs. Weasley looked shocked. “But Percy would never-”

“He did, Mum,” Bill interrupted. “Reductor Curse. He wasn’t messing around.”

“But why would he do such a thing?” she asked weakly. Percy’s mouth began moving as he tried to explain, but no sound escaped his lips.

“He accused Harry of putting Ginny in danger,” George seethed.

“Then he said it was Harry’s fault she got taken into the Chamber of Secrets,” Fred added.

“When Harry turned things around on him and showed how Percy was really more to blame than he was, Percy lost it,” Ron finished. “They argued a bit, and then....” He didn’t bother finishing the sentence.

Mrs. Weasley turned to her third son, who was still crumpled against the wall. Her eyes flashed dangerously and her voice was low and deadly as she asked, “Is this true, Percy?”

Percy swallowed hard, but made no move to answer.

“Finite,” said Harry, waving a hand at him. “Answer your mother’s question, Percy.”

“I- Yes, it’s true,” Percy replied, hanging his head.

“Why would you do such a thing, son?” Mr. Weasley asked, the disappointment evident in his voice.

“I- I don’t know,” Percy said quietly. “At first, I was just concerned for Ginny’s safety, and then- I don’t know what happened.” He lowered his eyes as he began sobbing softly.

“Harry blocked the curse and did all this to him without a wand, Dad,” Ginny said quietly. Her father looked up sharply at her, and she nodded. “I found out about it on the way to school in September.”

“So it was you that made Malfoy lose his hair,” Ron said, grinning at Harry. “How come you never told Hermione and me?”

“You made Malfoy go bald?” Fred asked in disbelief.

“How come we haven’t heard about this?” asked George.

Harry shook his head and muttered, “Not now.”

“This does make for an interesting predicament,” sighed Mr. Weasley. “But I guess there’s no changing things now.”

“You’ll have to modify his memory, Dad,” Ginny said softly.

“He most certainly will not!” her mother objected.

Percy shook his head. “She’s right, mother,” he admitted, looking thoroughly ashamed. “I can’t be trusted with this sort of secret; I think I’ve proven that today.” He sounded completely disgusted with himself.

Mr. Weasley sighed and waved his wand to release his son from his magical bonds. Percy slowly got to his feet, gingerly fingering a spot on the back of his head where he had hit the wall.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” he said as their eyes locked briefly. “For everything.”

Mr. Weasley instructed Percy to lie down on the ground. Harry looked away, failing to suppress his shudder and tasting bile in the back of his throat as he heard the older man say, “Obliviate.”

Percy immediately sat up, shaking his head groggily. “What happened?” he asked, looking around at the grave faces that surrounded him.

“Apparently, you and Harry got into a bit of a row and you tried to curse him,” said Mr. Weasley. “But your wand backfired for some reason, and you ended up unconscious for a minute. How are you feeling now?”

Percy gingerly felt the back of his head. “I’ll be all right.”

“Percy,” said Ginny. Her voice was firm, and the look in her eyes was determined. “I think you owe somebody an apology.”

Percy’s face flushed and he looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry, Harry,” he said stiffly. He sounded a lot less sincere this time around. “I don’t know what came over me; I never should have behaved in such a manner.”

“Apology accepted,” Harry replied, even though he seriously doubted Percy’s sincerity. Shrugging at Ginny, he muttered, “It’s a start.”

“Why don’t we all head into the kitchen?” Mrs. Weasley suggested. “Breakfast is almost ready.” Nodding their agreement, the rest of the family followed her from the room.

---

The conversation over breakfast was dominated by Fred, George, Bill, and Tyler expressing how pleased they were about Harry’s memory being restored, and then trying unsuccessfully to force him to recount exactly how it had happened. Other than that, everything that was said had a somewhat stilted and forced quality to it as everyone tried their best to ignore the earlier confrontation between Percy and Harry. As soon as the meal was finished, the family returned to the living room and began opening the rest of their presents. Harry participated along with everybody else, but his attention was elsewhere as he pondered exactly what he should tell Ron, Fred, George, and Bill after Percy departed.

All too soon, the presents were all unwrapped, the thank-yous were all exchanged, and Percy announced that he had to be going. He hugged his mother and shook hands with his father before waving to the rest of the family, stepping into the fireplace, and disappearing in a swirl of green flames. Harry braced himself for what he knew was coming.

“How’d you do that to Percy?” Ron exclaimed immediately.

“Did you know you could do that?” Fred asked.

“What’s this about Malfoy losing all his hair?” George added.

“Let him breathe, boys,” Mr. Weasley said firmly. “I think it would be best if you went ahead and explained, Harry.”

Harry nodded reluctantly. “Ron, isn’t Hermione coming by in a little while?” he asked.

“Yeah, that was the plan,” Ron confirmed.

“Would it be all right if we waited for her?” Harry asked the group at large. “I’d rather not do this more than once.”

Bill answered first. “That’s fine, Harry. Right?” He looked pointedly at his brothers, who all either nodded or shrugged.

“Well, now that’s settled, what do you say we start putting some of these new things to use?” Mr. Weasley said brightly. “Now, what exactly are these, Tyler?” Harry looked over to see that he was holding several vinyl records, which Tyler must have found at a second-hand shop in the village.

“They go with that old phonograph you charmed to work without electricity,” Tyler explained. “They’re called records, and they have music on them. Mum and Dad used to have some when I was little. If you want, I can help you bring the phonograph in from the shed and I’ll show you how it works.” Mr. Weasley, his eyes alight with excitement, threw on his shoes and cloak, and followed Tyler outside.

Harry watched with a satisfied smile as everyone began sorting through their gifts. Ron soon challenged Bill to a game of Wizard chess, while Fred and George began building a house of cards out of an Exploding Snap deck and Mrs. Weasley looked on with an indulgent smile.

This is how Christmas ought to be, he thought as Ginny joined him in the large armchair after carrying some of her gifts up to her bedroom. She rested her head on his shoulder, both of them content to just relax and be close to one another for a while.

Soon, Mr. Weasley and Tyler returned, carrying a large antique phonograph. They set it up in the middle of the floor, and Mr. Weasley looked expectantly at Tyler.

“Okay, first you have to put the record in place like so,” Tyler explained, sliding one of the smaller black discs onto the metal post in the center of the turntable. “Then you start the turntable spinning-” he nodded at Mr. Weasley, who tapped the phonograph with his wand, “-and you gently move the needle onto the edge of the record.” He swung the arm into place and carefully dropped it onto the shiny black surface. There was a burst of static as the needle made contact, and then the music began.

“Listen closely, Arthur,” Tyler said with a wide grin. “I picked this one out just for you.”

Intrigued, Harry paid close attention to the words of the song that began streaming from the phonograph.

Raven hair and ruby lips
Sparks fly from her fingertips
Echoed voices in the night
She’s a restless spirit on an endless flight

Wooo hooo witchy woman
See how high she flies
Woo hoo witchy woman
She got the moon in her eye
Harry suppressed a chuckle at the gleeful look on Mr. Weasley’s face as he listened to the lyrics.

“You see, Molly?” said Mr. Weasley, winking at his wife. “Not even Muggles can resist the charm of a beautiful witch.”

About the time the song ended, the fire flared up with bright green flames, and Hermione tumbled out onto the hearthrug. Ron hurried forward and helped her to her feet, and she greeted him with a quick kiss before wishing a Merry Christmas to the room at large.

Very soon, everyone settled back into their comfortable seats, and Harry noticed with some trepidation that they were taking turns stealing glances at him. Now that Hermione was here, he’d have to explain about his wandless magic soon. When he finally couldn’t stand it any longer, he quietly asked Ginny to move out of his lap so that he could stand and address everyone. After he got to his feet and she took over his chair, he cleared his throat nervously.

“I guess everybody’s waiting for me to explain what happened earlier,” he said haltingly. Why was he so nervous? These people were his friends, after all; they wouldn’t think ill of him, would they? He cleared his throat again. “I should probably start with what happened last night - or really early this morning, I guess.” Over the course of the next ten minutes, he described his visit from Hagrid and Dumbledore, and explained how Hagrid had reversed the Memory Charm.

“Harry?” a teary-eyed Hermione asked tentatively when he had finished.

Harry held up a hand to stop her question. “There’s one more thing I want to say, and I only want to have to say it one last time.” He swallowed hard. “I miss Sirius - I’ll probably always miss him. But I know he’d want me to be happy, not mope around feeling sorry for myself. I’ve learned a lot in the time that’s passed since Umbridge ambushed me. Mainly, I’ve learned that my life really isn’t so bad. It’s actually pretty good. I mean, so what if I’ve got a Dark wizard out to get me, right? I’d rather live with the threat of Voldemort in this world than go back to Privet Drive and St. Brutus’s with no knowledge of him. So if you’re wondering how I’m doing, I’m fine.” He smiled slightly. “Really, I am.”

Hermione, unable to restrain herself any longer, rushed forward and hugged him tightly, sobbing quietly into his shoulder as she welcomed him back. After a long moment she stepped away, smiling at him through her tears, and settled back into her seat on the sofa next to Ron. As she rested her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder, Harry sank down onto the floor in front of Ginny and leaned back against her legs as he prepared for what was about to come.

“So, are you going to tell us how you did that to Percy this morning?” George asked after a moment.

Harry took a deep breath and nodded. “Before I do, though, I need you all to promise not to breathe a word of this to anyone.” They all nodded solemnly.

“What did he do to Percy?” Hermione asked, sitting up and looking around at the rest of the gathering.

“The git tried to curse him,” Ron explained with a shrug, “so Harry disarmed him, tied him up, threw him across the room, and hit him with a Silencing Charm.” He looked over at Harry. “That about cover it?”

“Yeah,” Harry answered. “Except for-”

“Oh, yeah,” Ron interrupted, turning to Hermione with a hint of a smirk on his lips. “Harry didn’t have a wand.”

“Be serious, Ron,” she huffed, turning to look expectantly at Harry.

Ron shrugged. “I guess I wouldn’t have believed it either, if I hadn’t seen it.”

Harry nodded, resigning himself to giving a demonstration. “Fred, hold up that pillow you’re leaning on, will you?” Fred complied, and Harry pointed at it and said, “Accio.” The pillow flew toward his outstretched hand, but before it reached him he muttered, “Abigo,” sending it zooming back toward Fred, who caught it easily and tucked it back under his arm.

Harry looked back at Hermione to see her shaking her head in disbelief. “Why are you doing this, Harry?” she asked. “We all know it’s impossible to do proper charms without a wand, so why are you pretending?”

“How could I be pretending?” Harry demanded.

“I don’t know,” Hermione exclaimed. “Maybe you’ve got a wand hidden up your sleeve, or somebody else is really casting the spells while we’re all focused on you.”

“I don’t believe this,” Harry grumbled as he got to his feet and took off his new Weasley jumper. “Look, Hermione,” he said as he rolled up the sleeves of his pajamas. “There’s nothing up my sleeves. Now, what’s it going to take to convince you that I’m really the one casting the spells?”

No one responded, but it only took a moment for the answer to come to him. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let his thoughts drift back to the time he had spent alone with Ginny earlier that morning. He completely immersed himself in the way she had fit perfectly in his arms, the soft feel of her lips on his, the warmth that had flooded him despite the frigid air....

“Expecto Patronum!” Harry bellowed. He opened his eyes to see a magnificent silvery stag cantering around the living room of the Burrow. He waved his hand at it, and it dissolved into a cloud of mist before disappearing entirely. Very cautiously, he turned his gaze back to Hermione. Her face was pale, and her eyes were wide and unblinking.

“Impossible,” she whispered. After a long moment, she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head violently. “How...?”

“I don’t really know,” Harry admitted. “Dumbledore thinks it’s because Umbridge’s Memory Charm was so dodgy that I kept dreaming about magic.” He ran a hand nervously through his hair and let out a long breath. “If I’m going to explain, we’re going to have to go back to the beginning. I haven’t exactly been honest with all of you about what went on when Tyler and I were at St. Brutus’s. You all know I had a lot of dreams about things that went on at Hogwarts, but what you don’t know is that I did a lot of experimenting with the magic I learned from those dreams. One night, Tyler and I almost got caught out of bounds after hours, but we escaped when I accidentally used an Unlocking Charm on one of the teachers’ offices and we hid inside.”

Tyler grinned reminiscently at him. “I remember that night. I kept telling you that you’d done magic, and you didn’t believe me. Remember what you said? ‘There’s no such thing as magic,’ or something like that, wasn’t it?”

“Ha, ha; very funny,” said Harry as everyone had a laugh at his expense. “I seem to remember you spending several months trying to convince me that I was a witch.” This brought about more laughter, but didn’t have quite the effect Harry had hoped.

“Oy, Ginny!” called George. “Are you really sure you want to be snogging Harry?”

“Yeah,” said Fred. “Maybe we’ve been wrong all these years and we should’ve been calling him the Girl Who Lived.” Ron, Fred, and George broke into a fit of laughter as Harry felt heat rising in his face.

“I suppose I could always check just to make sure,” Ginny replied in her most innocent-sounding voice. Her brothers immediately stopped laughing to gape at her, and she broke into a fit of laughter of her own.

“Don’t joke around like that, Ginny,” Fred protested.

“You started it,” Ginny shot back. “I was just finishing it.”

“As fascinating as this discussion is,” Harry called out, “we really ought to get on with this so it doesn’t take all day.” Ginny batted her eyelashes dramatically at her brothers, and Harry rolled his eyes. At this rate, he was going to be standing here until the New Year.

“Over the course of the school year, I picked up a handful of other spells,” he continued, “mostly from when I dreamed about Hermione helping me prepare for the third task in the Triwizard Tournament. Magic kept me alive at St. Brutus’s. It kept both of us alive, really.” He nodded at Tyler. “You remember me talking about Big Tom? He smuggled a gun into school- do all of you know what a gun is?”

The Weasleys all nodded, and Harry continued, “Well, Big Tom tried to shoot us both one night, but I was able to block the bullets with a Shield Charm. I didn’t know much about magic yet, so I still got beaten up pretty badly, but that Shield Charm kept me alive and gave Tyler a chance to go for help. After I got out of the infirmary, I started practicing magic every night. I never even knew about wands until I started writing to Ron and Hermione and they mentioned them.”

Harry went on to explain that the only reason Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had found out about his wandless magic was because he had repaired a glass in front of them without even thinking about it. They hadn’t known what to think, and had contacted Dumbledore.

“But how is this possible, Harry?” Hermione asked, unable to restrain herself any longer.

“Nobody really knows,” Harry answered. “All I know is that Dumbledore thinks the reason I can do it is because I knew how to do magic, but I didn’t know I needed a wand.” He chuckled to himself. “Maybe I should send Umbridge a thank-you card. If I didn’t have to keep all this a secret, I might actually do it.”

“How come this has to be a secret, anyway?” Tyler asked. “I’ve kept quiet about it for months, but I never understood why it’s such a big deal.”

Hermione shook her head as if to clear it. “Wizards are a lot more like Muggles than most like to admit, Tyler,” she explained. “We all tend to fear the unknown, and this ability of Harry’s definitely qualifies as unknown. If word of this gets out, he’ll be accused of being a Dark wizard. That’s why Dumbledore tried so hard to keep the fact that Harry’s a Parselmouth quiet.”

“What’s being able to talk to snakes got to do with being a Dark wizard?” Tyler asked in a confused voice.

“For the most part, only Dark wizards can do it.” Harry answered. “I sort of knew that back at St. Brutus’s, actually; Hassseth hinted at it the first time I talked to her. That’s not the point, though. The point is, I can do magic without a wand, and it needs to be kept quiet. Alright?”

Everyone nodded, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Back to Christmas, then.”

“And speaking of Christmas,” Ginny piped up, “I’ve got something special for you, Hermione. I didn’t send it to your parents’ house because I wanted to see your face when you open it.” She held out a present, which Hermione took after a moment’s hesitation.

“This isn’t going to blow up, or turn my hair purple or anything, is it?” she asked warily.

Ginny laughed and shook her head. “Hermione, who do you take me for?” she asked in mock-indignation. “I know there’s a ‘G’ on my jumper, but I swear it doesn’t stand for George.”

“No, I’m quite aware that your ‘G’ is for Ginny. That’s what frightens me, actually,” Hermione retorted.

“Hey!” George shouted from across the room. “I heard that, Granger, and I consider it a challenge to make you fear me.”

Ginny rolled her eyes at her brother. “Just open it, Hermione. I promise it won’t attack you.”

With a hint of trepidation, Hermione carefully tore off the wrapping paper, revealing a framed photograph of Harry, Ginny, Colin, Luna, and Hagrid standing behind Hagrid’s hut. She scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion.

“Er, thanks Ginny,” she said politely. “Out of curiosity, though, why did you give me a photo of your Care of Magical Creatures class?”

Ginny smirked at her. “It’s more because of what the lesson was on that day,” she explained as she pointed to what looked like a potbellied pig with long horns curling around each side of its head.

“What is it?” Hermione asked, scrunching up her brow in thought as she tried in vain to recognize the strange creature. “I know a lot of magical creatures, but I’ve never heard of one that looked like that before.”

“Oh, you’ve heard of it,” Harry told her as he tried vainly to hide a smirk.

“You don’t know what that is, Hermione?” Tyler asked, looking over her shoulder at the photo. “Even I know what it is.”

“You do?” Harry and Ginny asked in unison as they and Hermione turned to look at Tyler with skeptical expressions.

“Course I do,” he replied. “I mean, I’ve never seen a photo of one before, but it’s easy enough to recognize from the drawings I’ve looked at.”

“Would somebody please tell me what this is all about?” Hermione asked in an exasperated voice. “What is that thing?” She pointed to the pig-like creature.

“It’s a Crumple-Horned Snorkack,” Tyler said matter-of-factly.

Hermione made a spluttering sound. “That’s impossible,” she scoffed. “Those things don’t exist. They’re just wild stories dreamed up by people who are slightly... off.”

Beside her, Tyler stiffened. “You know, Hermione,” he muttered, “I think what you said earlier was spot on. Witches and wizards really can be just as bad as closed-minded Muggles.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked defiantly. Harry and Ginny exchanged a worried look. They both recognized Hermione’s tone of voice as the one that had once been reserved for starting arguments with Ron.

Tyler calmly looked her in the eye. “It means just what it sounded like. Harry had to practically shove his wandless magic down your throat before you’d believe he could do it, and now you’re standing there looking at a photograph of your friends with a Crumple-Horned Snorkack and all you can say is that they don’t exist.” He shook his head in disgust, and when he spoke again his voice started rising steadily.

“If I thought the way you do, Harry and I would both be back at St. Brutus’s right now because I never would have thought to convince him that he could really do magic! No, I take that back. Pettigrew would’ve captured him and taken him to You-Know-Who! No, wait; I’m wrong again, because we both would have gotten killed by Big Tom long before Pettigrew even thought about showing up!” He took a deep breath to calm himself before finishing, “So pull your head out of the sand, Hermione, and try realizing that you don’t know everything about everything.”

Hermione’s mouth opened and closed several times like a fish out of water as Tyler turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

Harry sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, Hermione,” he said. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that.”

Hermione shook her head. “No, he’s...” she murmured more to herself than to Harry. “Is this really a Crumple-Horned Snorkack?”

“Yeah, it really is,” Ginny replied.

“This isn’t some joke?”

Harry and Ginny both shook their heads.

Hermione let out a long, slow breath. “Maybe Tyler’s right,” she said quietly as she wandered back to her seat, never taking her eyes off of the photograph.

Harry looked up at Ginny. “Think I should go talk to him?” he asked.

“Well... I don’t remember ever seeing him act upset before, so for him to blow up like that.... He’s probably really angry. On the plus side, though, at least he can’t jinx you, right?” she answered.

“I don’t know,” Harry replied with a small smile. “Knowing the twins, they’ve probably figured out some sort of magical weapon for Muggles.” He sighed. “I suppose I ought to at least go see what’s wrong, though.” Reluctantly, he got to his feet, pulled his new jumper over his head, and headed for the garden.

A moment later, Harry stepped out the back door of the Burrow. Bright sunlight reflected off of the snow-covered ground, causing him to squint as he looked around for his friend. It didn’t take long to find him; Tyler was standing a short distance away, leaning against the house with his right shoulder while he gazed at something that was hidden in his left hand.

“Tyler?” Harry called hesitantly. Tyler spun around, shoving whatever he had been looking at into his pocket.

“Hey Harry,” he greeted. Harry was relieved to note that his friend’s voice held no hostility. “I suppose you’re wondering about my little outburst back there, huh?”

Harry nodded. “Not that what you said was wrong, though,” he added quickly.

Tyler exhaled loudly as he ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t usually blow up like that, but.... Gah! Her attitude is so infuriating sometimes. It’s like she thinks it’s impossible for anything she’s read in her books to be wrong.”

Harry grinned. “That’s Hermione, all right. She’s coming around, though; it’s just a slow process. She actually said that you might be right.”

Tyler’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Seriously?”

Harry nodded.

“Maybe I didn’t give her enough credit,” Tyler mused. “I’d always taken her for a complete conformist.”

Harry nodded. “She does come across that way most of the time, but she’s more than willing to break the rules when she thinks it’s for a good reason.” He chuckled to himself. “Actually, some of our more daring plans were originally Hermione’s ideas. She was the one who came up with the idea of making Polyjuice Potion and sneaking into the Slytherin common room, not to mention that she came up with the idea of the D.A.”

Tyler nodded his head, clearly impressed. “I’d forgotten that.”

“Yeah, well there’s a lot to remember. I’d say you’re doing pretty good,” said Harry. “Anyway, since you’ve calmed down now, I wanted to ask you something. How do you know what a Crumple-Horned Snorkack is?”

Tyler’s face flushed slightly, and he looked away. “Remember how I said I’ve been writing to someone?” he asked.

“Luna?” Harry supplied.

Tyler nodded.

“Is that what you were looking at when I came out here? One of her letters?”

Tyler shook his head and slowly pulled the item in question out of his pocket, holding it out for Harry to see. It was a photograph of Luna Lovegood, and Harry had to work very hard not to laugh at her appearance. While most girls would have sent a potential boyfriend a photo with their hair and makeup done perfectly, Luna had sent one in which she was wearing her usual necklace of Butterbeer corks, and her long, dirty blonde hair was pulled up into a messy sort of bun with her wand stuck haphazardly through the middle to hold it in place. As usual, she had a half-dreamy, half-lost expression on her face, and her protuberant eyes stared almost blankly into space.

“Unfortunately, I have no idea what to do,” Tyler said after a moment. “I mean, I’ve gotten to know her pretty well through our letters, but I haven’t seen her since Ginny’s birthday.”

“Can I assume this means you fancy her, then?” Harry asked with a slight chuckle.

“Is that a problem?” Tyler asked defensively, snatching back the photo.

Harry put up his hands in surrender and backed up a step. “No need to get upset, mate.”

Tyler shook himself. “Sorry. It’s just... I know she’s a bit-” he paused, searching for the right word.

“Odd?” Harry supplied.

“Different,” Tyler corrected. “But I like her anyway. I probably like her because she’s so quirky. I just have no idea what she thinks of me, that’s all. I mean, I don’t pretend to know a lot about girls, but if she was interested in me, don’t you think she’d have sent a picture of herself all done up or something?”

Harry laughed. “Any other girl? Definitely. Luna?” He shook his head. “Not a chance. You’ve gotten to know her a bit, right? She is who she is; if people accept her for that, then great, but if not she won’t waste her time on them. I think you ought to talk to Ginny, though - she knows Luna way better than any of the rest of us do.”

“Speaking of Ginny,” Tyler began with a playful glint in his dark eyes, “what happened there? You got your memory back and she just jumped into your arms, or what?”

Harry felt his face growing uncomfortably warm as he shook his head. “Actually, me getting my memory back almost scared her off. It’s a long story, though. Let’s save it for later, when we’re not outside in the cold.”

Tyler shrugged as he slipped Luna’s photo back into his pocket. “Okay. Want to get some hot chocolate?”

“Sounds good,” Harry agreed as they headed back for the house.

---

The Christmas holidays flew by, and before he knew it Harry was back at Hogwarts. He sat in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room on the night before classes were to begin, just staring into the dancing flames.

Neither can live while the other survives, he thought morosely. While at the Burrow, he had somehow managed to avoid thinking about the prophecy, but now that he was back at Hogwarts he knew he couldn’t avoid it any longer. It was something he would have to face sooner or later, and his friends deserved to know.

But you promised Dumbledore that you’d keep it to yourself, a little voice in his head reminded him.

I promised him I wouldn’t let anybody know about the wandless magic either, but my friends know about that, Harry argued with himself.

That was something you couldn’t help; you’re making a conscious choice to tell them about the prophecy. It’s totally different.

But Dumbledore isn’t always right, Harry shot back. If he hadn’t kept secrets from me, I never would’ve gone to the Ministry and Sirius would still be alive. My friends deserve to know what’s really going on - what they’re getting into by sticking with me. Making up his mind once and for all, Harry got to his feet and approached the table where Ron and Hermione were in the middle of a game of chess.

“About done there?” he asked casually.

Ron nodded without looking up from the board. “Pretty close, yeah. You want to play next?”

“No,” Harry answered, shaking his head. “I just need to talk to you two in private. I’ll go get Ginny and we’ll wait for you.”

“We’ll let you know as soon as we’re finished,” Hermione said, giving Harry a little wave as he started walking toward Ginny, who was sitting in a corner talking excitedly with some of her roommates. He let out a soft laugh as she made a wild sweeping gesture with her hands.

“Ginny?” he called softly as he approached. She looked up and smiled brilliantly at him.

“I was wondering when you’d find your way over here,” she said playfully. Her expression and voice softened as she added, “I thought about sitting with you, but you looked like you needed some time to sort through things. I know it’s probably still difficult dealing with everything.”

Harry shook his head. “It’s not what you think, honestly. But there is something I need to talk to you about as soon as Ron and Hermione are ready.”

“All right,” Ginny replied with a nod. “Want to sit with us while we wait?”

Harry smiled at her as he took a seat at the table. “Sounds good to me.” As the girls’ conversation resumed, his thoughts quickly returned to the prophecy that Professor Dumbledore had told him about at the end of his fifth year.

Power the Dark Lord knows not... neither can live while the other survives.... But what was this power he was supposed to have? Dumbledore had said it was love, but how could love defeat an evil wizard like Lord Voldemort? Could his power be his ability to do magic without a wand instead? He thought back to Dumbledore’s duel with Voldemort in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic and shuddered. He had no idea how to fight like that, and he couldn’t expect to dodge Voldemort’s curses for more than a few minutes before becoming exhausted and getting hit. And he was fairly certain that not even his wandless magic could block the Killing Curse - not that he was willing to risk testing that theory anyway.

“Harry?” Ginny snapped her fingers in front of his face, jerking him out of his thoughts.

“Huh? What?” he asked, looking around. Ron and Hermione were standing next to the table, waiting patiently for him to acknowledge their presence. “Oh, sorry. I was sort of out there, wasn’t I?”

Ron let out a little snort of laughter. “You could say that.”

“What did you need to talk to us about, Harry?” Hermione asked.

“It’s sort of... personal,” Harry answered evasively as he glanced around the room. “Could we maybe go someplace a little more private?”

Ron and Hermione glanced at each other for a moment, nodded, and then said in unison, “The Heads’ Room.”

“Okay, you two are spending way too much time together,” Ginny teased.

“Heads’ Room?” Harry questioned. “How come I’ve never heard of this before?”

Ron shrugged. “There was never a reason to talk about it, really. Come on.”

Ginny bade her friends goodbye, and she and Harry followed Ron and Hermione out of the common room through the portrait hole. They walked in silence down two flights of stairs and then down a long corridor until they finally reached a large portrait of a stern-looking witch. The witch glared at them with a grim expression on her face, but didn’t speak.

“Canons,” Ron said in a forceful voice. The witch narrowed her eyes for a moment before allowing her frame to swing forward, revealing the hidden entrance to the Heads’ Room.

“Welcome to our office,” Hermione said as they all stepped inside. The room was cozy but not overly small, with a fireplace, sofa, and two armchairs at one end and two large wooden desks at the other.

Harry looked around appraisingly, a slight smirk forming on his lips. “So is this where you two really go when you have ‘Head Duties’?” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“Of course,” Hermione answered, ignoring the innuendo. “We patrol the halls at times too, of course, but this is where we do all of our administrative work.”

Harry looked at Ginny, who was wearing a smirk almost identical to his own. “Heads’ Room sounds just a bit pompous, don’t you think?” he asked. “They ought to just drop the pretense and call it the Snogging Room.” Ginny giggled and Hermione rolled her eyes, but Ron just looked disgruntled.

“If only,” he muttered as the group sat down in the comfortable seats near the fire. “This room’s got loads of Propriety Charms on it. We knew about them, but I didn’t realize how bad it would be until I gave Hermione a peck on the cheek one day and the next thing I knew McGonagall was coming out of the fireplace.”

Harry and Ginny howled with laughter. “I’ll bet you couldn’t look her in the face for a week,” Harry said gleefully.

“More like two,” Ron corrected with a small chuckle of his own.

Hermione cleared her throat importantly. “Not that this isn’t an interesting topic of conversation, but I don’t think you came here to talk about Propriety Charms, Harry.”

The laughter died in Harry’s throat. Neither can live while the other survives. He had to tell them. They needed to know. Taking a deep breath, he nodded to himself and plunged ahead.

“Do you remember the prophecy I took from the Ministry at the end of fifth year?” he asked hesitantly. His friends nodded and he took another deep breath. Suddenly, looking them in the eye became an impossible task, and he turned to stare into the dancing flames in the fireplace. “I know what it said.” His voice was quiet, barely more than a whisper, but it sounded like a shout in the stillness of the room. Hermione made a small gasping sound, which she quickly stifled. Ron and Ginny remained silent.

After the silence had stretched on for about a minute, Hermione hesitantly asked, “How? I thought it was destroyed before anybody had a chance to hear it.”

Harry blew out a long breath before answering. “Dumbledore was there when it was made. He showed me the memory in his Pensieve right after we got back from the Ministry.”

“And you never told us?” Ron asked in surprise, the smallest hint of reproach finding its way into his voice.

Harry finally turned to face his friend just long enough to shoot him a withering look before returning his gaze to the fire. “I wasn’t really in the mood to talk at that point, remember? Plus, Dumbledore told me to keep it to myself. When I remembered on Christmas, I decided to wait to say anything until we were back at school because I didn’t want to ruin the holiday.”

“Why did Dumbledore change his mind?” Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head. “He didn’t,” he said simply. “Or if he did, he hasn’t told me. But in the end, this is my secret to tell if I want to, and I think you three have a right to know.” He fell silent again, and his friends waited with bated breath for him to continue.

After an almost intolerably long period of silence, Ginny laid a gentle hand on his arm and said, very softly, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Harry nodded resolutely, but his eyes remained locked on the flames dancing inside the fireplace. “That prophecy was given a little while before I was born,” he said in a loud, hoarse whisper. “It’s the reason Voldemort attacked me as a baby; the reason he won’t leave me alone. I know it word-for-word. I can’t get it out of my head.”

Finally forcing himself to look around at his friends’ faces and seeing their expressions of mixed concern and terror, he plunged ahead. “It says, ‘The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies....’”

Silence reigned in the Heads’ Room for what seemed an eternity as Ron, Hermione, and Ginny slowly digested this information. Finally, just when Harry was beginning to think he couldn’t stand the silence any longer, Hermione spoke up.

“How can we be certain this prophecy is really talking about you?” she asked in an unusually subdued voice. “I mean, it doesn’t mention you by name, right?”

“There were two of us who it could have been talking about - two wizards born at the end of July to parents who had defied Voldemort three times. For whatever reason, Voldemort chose to go after me. He marked me.” Harry pointed to the lightning bolt scar on his forehead for emphasis. “I’m the one the prophecy is talking about.”

“So what, exactly, is the big deal?” Ron asked. Harry’s head swung around in a sharp motion to stare incredulously at him as he continued, “I mean, it’s not as if we didn’t already know You-Know-Who was out to get you, right?”

“That’s not the point, Ron!” Hermione scolded. “If this prophecy is true, then it means Harry will have to face him again.”

“I could have told you that, Hermione, and I got a ‘D’ on my Divination O.W.L.” Ron shot back.

“Ron’s right,” Ginny interrupted before Hermione had a chance to retort. “This is a good thing.” She turned slightly so that she was looking directly at Harry. “Harry, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve always known deep down that you’d have to face him again because he won’t rest as long as you’re still alive. The only thing this changes is that now we know for certain that you have a fighting chance. You have the power to defeat him.”

Harry stared at her in wonder as the truth of her words hit him full force, driving all argument from his mind. Ginny was right; the only thing this changed was that now he knew he at least had a chance of surviving his final encounter with Lord Voldemort.

“You’re right,” Hermione breathed, her eyes wide. “I hadn’t looked at it like that.” Turning to address Harry, she asked, “Do you have any idea what this power is that you have and he doesn’t?”

“I bet it’s the wandless magic,” Ron supplied. “I mean, that’s got to be dead useful in a duel.”

Harry shook his head. “That can’t be it. I saw Dumbledore and Voldemort dueling at the Ministry at the end of fifth year, and I promise you, no amount of wandless magic could save me in that sort of a duel.”

“Don’t you have any idea what it might be?” Hermione persisted.

“Love,” Harry said so softly that no one could hear him clearly. He cleared his throat and said, in a louder voice, “Dumbledore thinks it’s love. He said my mother’s love was what saved me when Voldemort attacked me as a baby, and love is the one thing Voldemort can’t understand.”

“Love?” Ron asked, pulling a face. “How can you use love to defeat a Dark wizard? Does Dumbledore expect you snog You-Know-Who to death, or something?”

Harry let out a mirthless laugh at his friend’s joke. “I have no idea, Ron,” he said quietly. “That’s part of the reason I needed to tell you about the prophecy - it says I have this power, but it doesn’t seem like it’s something I can actually use in a duel.” He looked at Hermione. “I could use some help figuring out how to use it.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Of course! We’ll get right to work researching it in the library tomorrow, won’t we?”

“Thanks a lot, mate,” Ron muttered.

“Not a word of this to anyone, right?” Harry asked anxiously, signaling to the others that he was finished talking about the prophecy for tonight. His friends all agreed without hesitation, and he sank back into the sofa, finally allowing his body to relax.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you two,” Harry said after a moment, looking over at Ron and Hermione. “I hadn’t really thought about it before, since you were already dating when I, er, met you for the second time, but... how exactly did that happen?”

Ron and Hermione smiled at one another, and even in the dim light, Harry could see his best friend’s ears begin turning red.

“Well, er-” Ron stammered.

“It was so romantic,” Hermione sighed in a dreamy and thoroughly un-Hermione-ish voice. “Ron took me up to the Astronomy Tower one evening, and he had absolutely filled it with all sorts of beautiful flowers. Then we just lay there cuddling for a long time, watching the stars. After a while, he started reciting some poetry, and when he kissed me-” Ginny’s howl of laughter interrupted her story. A moment later, everyone else had joined in.

“You don’t actually expect me to believe all that rubbish, do you?” Harry laughed. “Poetry, Hermione? Come on, you know Ron better than that. He looked disgusted just from hearing you mention it.”

“Well, it’s not really my thing, is it?” Ron chuckled.

“So what really happened, then?” Harry asked a moment later.

“Ron clubbed her over the head and dragged her by the hair back to his cave,” Ginny answered as she wiped her eyes and tried to stop laughing. Ron’s frown sent her, Harry, and Hermione into a fresh set of giggles.

“Sorry, but I think that story’s a bit more plausible than the first one,” Harry chuckled.

“You know what? You’re right,” Ron replied as he joined in the laughter once more.

Several minutes later, after everyone had regained some measure of composure, Ron turned to Harry and said, “All right, here’s what really happened. Hermione and I spent pretty much all our time together last year, just the two of us. A lot of that time was spent worrying about you, mind - we even snuck off to look for you a couple of times. But we talked about other stuff too, you know? Anyway, we ended up going to Hogsmeade together just like always, only without you around, everybody thought we were there on a date. When we realized that was what everybody thought, we decided to play along, so we acted like we were dating. Then, when we came back to the castle, I-” He broke off abruptly and glanced away as the color began rising in his cheeks.

“When we got back, he kissed me,” Hermione continued for him.

Harry looked at his best friend in surprise, utterly shocked that Ron would be so bold.

“Well, I figured if she didn’t like it I could just say it was all part of the act, and there wouldn’t be any harm done,” Ron said sheepishly. “Thankfully, I didn’t have to use that excuse.”

Harry laughed and shook his head. “Well, no matter how it happened, I’m glad it did. Although now it looks like I’m not the only one who owes Umbridge a Thank You.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” Ron agreed with a snort of laughter as he got to his feet. “It’s getting late; we should get back to the common room.”

Harry stood and followed Ron and Hermione out of the Heads’ Room, taking Ginny by the hand and lacing their fingers together as they walked. Nothing more was said until they arrived in the deserted Gryffindor common room and the four friends bade each other goodnight. As Harry turned to follow Ron up the stairs to the boys’ dormitories, a small hand caught his elbow.

“Harry,” Ginny whispered as he turned around to face her. “I’m really proud of you.”

Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What for?”

She smiled sweetly at him, and he felt a slight weakness in his knees. “For sharing your secret with us. I’m glad you’re not trying to push us away or hide things from us.”

“I could never push you away,” he murmured. “I’d go crazy.” Placing a gentle hand on her cheek, he leaned down and kissed her softly. “Goodnight,” he whispered as their lips parted.

“Goodnight,” Ginny answered. Harry followed her with his eyes until she disappeared up the girls’ staircase, and then turned around to follow Ron up to his own dormitory.

---

“Welcome back,” hissed Professor Snape. How that man could manage to make two innocent words sound so sinister was completely beyond Harry. “We shall begin this term by studying-” he grimaced and lowered his voice just slightly, “-Love Potions.” Harry had to bite his lip to keep from snickering at the Potions Master’s obvious disgust, and out of the corner of his eye he could see Ginny’s face reddening from a similar effort.

“As you ought to know already if you have been paying attention in my previous classes ” Snape glared directly at Harry, “-I dislike the name ‘Love Potions,’ as they do not create love, but obsession.” Harry had to fight very hard to resist the urge to whisper to Ginny that Snape’s real reason for disliking the name ‘Love Potions’ was because he didn’t believe in love. One glance at her face, however, told him that she was most likely thinking the same thing.

“Elixirs of Obsession, as they ought to be called, are among the more powerful methods available to a skilled witch or wizard who is interested in bewitching the mind of another,” the Potions Master continued. “When properly brewed and administered, a sufficiently strong elixir can control its victim in situations where even the Imperius Curse would fail.”

The class, which had already been very quiet, suddenly became absolutely silent. When the professor spoke again, his voice was even more deadly than usual. “For this reason, if I find that I have cause to even suspect that one of you has misused the knowledge gained in this class-” his gaze lingered on Harry and Ginny just a bit longer than it had on the Slytherins, “-I will not hesitate to remove you from my class and take all measures necessary to ensure that it does not happen again. I am by no means squeamish about Obliviating a student-” his eyes flicked to Harry for a split second, and Harry felt his jaw clench involuntarily, “-if the situation calls for it.”

Snape glared menacingly around the classroom, allowing his threat to sink in for a long moment. “Today, we will begin brewing the Eye of the Maiden, a ‘Love Potion’ which is reasonably simple to concoct, but quite effective nevertheless.” He tapped the blackboard with his wand, causing the instructions for the potion to appear. Harry resisted the urge to groan at the brew’s complexity.

“Your written assignment is a three-foot essay on five different types of chocolate-” Harry wondered how anyone could make the word ‘chocolate’ sound so vile, “-and the effects that each can add to a Love Potion, due one week from today. You may begin.”

The remainder of the class period passed in relative silence, the only sounds being whispered instructions between partners and the bubbling of the cauldrons. By the end of the lesson, Harry and Ginny’s potion was a shimmering silvery-gray color - not quite the bright silver it should have been, but at least as good as any of the other potions they could see as they glanced around the room while packing up their ingredients.

“Do you know how to block a Memory Charm?” Harry whispered urgently as soon as they were free of the dungeons.

Ginny looked at him quizzically and shook her head. “Never thought about it. Why?”

“Snape,” Harry answered simply. When she continued to look confused, he added, “You know how he likes to blame everything on me. If anything suspicious happens with these Love Potions, he’s bound to try and pin it on me. And there is no way I’m letting him or anyone else play around with my memory.” His eyes flashed dangerously. “Ever.”

Ginny nodded in understanding. “I really don’t think even Snape would try Obliviating a student without Dumbledore’s permission, but I see your point. Let’s ask Hermione at lunch. If she doesn’t know the answer, she’ll probably at least know where to find it.”

They soon arrived at the Charms classroom, where they slid into their usual seats with plenty of time to spare before the beginning of the lesson.

“Welcome back, class,” squeaked tiny Professor Flitwick from where he stood atop his desk. Harry reflected on the fact that, although Flitwick and Snape had begun their classes with exactly the same greeting, the meaning the words conveyed was completely different.

“We will be beginning the term with a very complicated charm that is normally reserved for Healer or Auror training,” Flitwick continued, “but I think you’ll all agree that it is quite important for all of us to have a few good healing skills at the present time.” Harry and Ginny shared a nervous glance, and Harry noticed most of the other students doing the same. Everyone knew there was a war on, despite the fact that Voldemort still had yet to launch a full-scale attack. Harry privately suspected that the only reason for the relative infrequency of Death Eater attacks was because their master’s first priority was eliminating the boy who supposedly had the power to defeat him.

“The spell is commonly known as the False Death Charm, because it gives the patient the appearance of death,” the tiny professor continued. Two or three students nodded in understanding. “It is used for serious medical cases because it puts the patient into a state of suspended animation, in order to keep him or her alive long enough to get proper medical attention.” Harry’s ears perked up; this charm could turn out to be very useful indeed.

“The incantation is Moreproba,” said Professor Flitwick. He demonstrated the proper wand motions before continuing, “The counter-charm is Alacrita, since a simple Rennervate would have no effect, but we won’t concern ourselves with that just yet. For now, we will focus on correctly performing the charm on rabbits.”

Flitwick hopped down from his desk to his chair to the floor with considerable agility, and then began working his way around the room with a small basket from which he somehow produced a rabbit for each member of the class.

“Did anyone not get a rabbit?” he asked once he had finished. When no one responded, he smiled, nodded to himself, and said, “Very well; you may begin.”

Harry took a deep breath, aimed his wand at the rabbit on his desk, and said, “Moreproba,” while making a small circle in the air with his wand tip and jabbing it lightly toward the animal. The rabbit blinked at him, but certainly didn’t appear to be dead. He sighed, realizing that no spell that was above N.E.W.T. level was going to be easy.

“Moreproba,” Harry tried again, still with no effect. He glanced around the room and noted with a bit of relief that none of his classmates were having any more success than he was.

Halfway through the class period, the room was suddenly silenced by Professor Flitwick loudly clearing his throat. Harry looked up to see the professor once again perched on top of his desk.

“Now that you have a bit of a feel for the level of difficulty of this spell, I believe a demonstration might be helpful,” Flitwick squeaked. He placed a rabbit next to him on the desk (Harry noticed with amusement that the crouched animal came up past the professor’s knees), and cast the False Death Charm on it.

“Moreproba!” A bolt of red light erupted from the tiny professor’s wand, and the rabbit toppled over. An involuntary shudder passed through the room as some of the students began murmuring uneasily.

“If I hadn’t heard the incantation and seen that the light was red, I’d have sworn he’d actually cast the Killing Curse,” Ginny whispered just barely loud enough for Harry to hear her. He shuddered as he nodded his head in agreement.

“As you can see,” Flitwick continued, drawing the class’s attention away from their hushed conversations, “the rabbit appears to be dead. However... Alacrita!” He used the same wand motion he had used for Moreproba, but in reverse. This time, the bolt of light was blue, and the rabbit perked up immediately. Flitwick clapped his hands rather loudly, and the animal took a startled hop off of the desk and onto the floor.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Harry muttered. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ginny nodding her agreement as Professor Flitwick instructed the class to go back to practicing the spell. Infuriatingly, by the end of the lesson the closest anyone had gotten to making the charm work had been when an overly enthusiastic Colin Creevey had accidentally poked his rabbit in the eye with his wand. In his typical fashion, however, Professor Flitwick did not seem the least bit concerned, and simply assigned a short essay before dismissing them.

Harry’s week seemed to be progressing normally until the next day after lunch, when Professor Moody stomped into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom with a murderous expression on his scarred face. His magical eye was spinning nauseatingly fast as he hurriedly surveyed the room with his normal eye before limping quickly past the rows of students. As he passed Colin Creevey’s desk, he suddenly grabbed the small boy by the shoulder, yanking him to his feet and dragging him to the front of the room.

“Watch closely!” Moody barked as he shoved Colin into the blackboard and pressed the tip of his wand into the boy’s throat.

Harry shot to his feet, drawing his wand and shouting, “Expelliarmus!” At the same moment, Moody whispered a spell and Colin collapsed to the floor with a look of terrified shock frozen on his face just before the professor’s wand flew from his grasp. Images of Cedric Diggory’s lifeless eyes flashed in Harry’s mind, but he determinedly forced them away; there wasn’t time to focus on that just now.

“Impressive, Potter,” Moody growled as he slowly turned around to face him. “I suppose I should’ve known that you wouldn’t just sit there in shock like the rest of these.” Harry chanced a quick glance around the room only to see looks of stunned horror on every one of his classmates’ faces. As his eyes passed over Ginny, she shook herself and then shot to her feet, drawing her wand and training it on the professor in one fluid motion. When he glanced at Zacharias Smith, he did the same.

“I should kill you now,” Harry growled as he refocused his attention on the professor.

“Wait!” Ginny exclaimed. Her eyes narrowed as she glared menacingly at Moody. “I want to know who you really are. Last time, it was Crouch. Who is it this time? And why-?” Her voice faltered for just a moment. “Why Colin?” she ground out.

Moody’s face twisted into the closest thing to a smile it could manage. “Simple,” he answered brusquely. “He’s small and easy to manhandle, and he’s far too trusting for his own good. Now if you three will just let me retrieve my wand, I can wake him up and get on with the lesson.”

Harry let out a hollow laugh. “Wake him up? I don’t think so, Professor.” He put an exaggerated amount of stress on the word, contempt practically dripping from his lips as he spoke. “A wise wizard once told me that no spell can reawaken the dead. As you’re about to learn firsthand.” He extended his wand more forcefully in the aged ex-Auror’s direction.

“You’re so bloody sure he’s dead, are you?” barked Moody, completely ignoring Harry’s threat. “Did you hear me say, ‘Avada Kedavra?’ Did you see a flash of green light? Hear a sound like rushing wind? Did you? Didn’t think so.”

“Then what-?” Harry stopped himself. “The False Death Charm?” he inquired quietly.

“Very good, Potter. Now let me get my wand so we can get on with this lesson. I haven’t got all day!”

Harry licked his lips uncertainly before giving Moody a curt nod. “But don’t forget our wands are on you.” In addition, he readied himself to cast a Shield Charm with his left hand if necessary as the professor stumped over to where his wand had fallen. He bent down very slowly to pick it up, and immediately pointed it toward Colin’s prone form. Harry’s eyes flicked involuntarily to his friend’s body, and he shuddered at the sight of his lifeless eyes, still open wide in terrified shock.

“Alacrita!” Moody bellowed. A bolt of blue light shot from his wand, hitting Colin in the chest. Immediately, Colin sat up, looking around dazedly. It only took him a moment to see Harry, Ginny, and Zacharias with their wands trained on Moody. In the next moment, his wand was out and pointing at the professor as well.

“All right, Colin?” Harry asked warily.

“Yeah,” Colin muttered, rubbing the back of his head where it had hit the floor. “What happened?”

Harry slowly lowered his wand and returned it to his pocket. “Professor Moody demonstrated the False Death Charm on you,” he replied as he slid into his seat. A moment later, Ginny dropped into the seat next to him with a relieved look on her face, while Zacharias nodded curtly at Harry and sat back down as well.

“Oh,” Colin said as he began lowering his wand. “So you all thought I was dead?” A slow smile began spreading over his face. “Wicked! Wait ‘til Dennis hears about this!” he exclaimed happily as he hurried back to his seat. Harry rolled his eyes and chuckled with relief, and was surprised to hear gruff laughter coming from the front of the room.

“Your enthusiasm is greatly appreciated, Mr. Creevey,” Moody growled, his face once again twisted into something that vaguely resembled a grin. After clearing his throat, he addressed the entire class. “Mr. Potter is correct, for those of you who might still be doubting. What you have just seen is a demonstration of the False Death Charm or, as it’s called by those of us who know its more sinister applications, the False Death Curse.”

The class sat in silence, their attention riveted on the grizzled ex-Auror’s words as he continued in an almost haunted voice, “There are few things in life worse than watching someone you care about die, while you can do nothing to stop it. That is the first application of the False Death Curse to the Dark Arts.”

Moody shook himself and looked around the room for a moment before his eyes came to rest on Ginny. “Miss Weasley,” he began slowly, “you have a rather large family that is well-known for its involvement in the fight against the Death Eaters, correct?”

Ginny swallowed hard, but kept her face impassive as she nodded. Harry’s hand sought hers under their shared desk, and he gave it a little squeeze for support. He had a sinking feeling that the Weasley family was about to become Professor Moody’s next example.

“And what would happen to your parents if you were all captured and they were forced to watch as, one by one, each of their children died before their eyes?”

Bile rose in Harry’s throat, and for a moment he considered cursing the man then and there for even suggesting such a thing. Somehow he managed to master the impulse and simply kept a reassuring pressure on Ginny’s hand as her grip tightened.

“Well, obviously I don’t know,” Ginny answered in a voice that did nothing to betray the fact that she had Harry’s hand locked in a death-grip beneath the desk. “But if I had to hazard a guess, I imagine they’d both prefer the Cruciatus Curse.”

Moody nodded gravely at her as he said, “I know both of your parents, and I’d say that’s probably accurate. But what if the Death Eaters weren’t able to capture the rest of the family, but did manage to steal say, a hairbrush?”

Ginny was silent for a moment, and Harry found himself raising his free hand, if for no other reason than to save her the necessity of answering. When Moody gave him a nod, he cleared his throat nervously.

“They could use the hairs that were stuck in the brush to brew Polyjuice Potion. Then one of their own supporters could pose as the person they failed to capture and they could put on a show like what you did with Colin a few minutes ago.”

“Exactly,” Moody growled. “That is the first reason you need to know how to recognize and counter the False Death Curse. Its second application to the Dark Arts may be even more sinister, if you can believe that.” His eyes swept across the classroom before he asked, “Do any of you know what happens when a witch or wizard dies?”

Demelza Robins raised a tentative hand, which was acknowledged by Moody’s curt nod. Her voice had a slight rasp to it as she answered, “They have a choice to either move on or become a ghost.”

“Precisely,” Moody responded. “But what if that person never has the chance to fully die? It has been estimated that about one person every century is buried alive by grieving relatives while under the False Death Curse. Few are ever discovered.”

Harry felt his insides go cold at the very thought of being buried alive. Of course, someone in that position would be completely unaware of what was going on, but still... the idea of being essentially dead but unable to die was chilling - nearly as bad as suffering a Dementor’s Kiss.

“The False Death Curse’s third application to the Dark Arts is as a means of indirect torture,” Moody continued. “Have any of you ever heard of an ancient Chinese wizard named Ranka?” No one moved to answer. “What about a Jewish wizard known as Honi the Circle-drawer? German wizards by the names of Peter Klaus and Karl Katz?” Still no response from the class. “What about an American wizard called Rip Van Winkle?” One or two hands moved tentatively into the air, but it was painfully obvious that no one really knew what Moody was talking about.

Professor Moody sighed heavily and ran a hand through his grizzled gray hair in frustration. “What the devil does Binns teach you lot, anyway?”

“No one knows,” Colin called out. “Nobody’s ever been able to stay awake for an entire lesson.” The class fell into nervous laughter as Moody smiled - or maybe it was a grimace; it was hard to tell - and shook his head.

“All of the wizards I mentioned managed to run afoul of somebody they ought not to have messed around with and ended up being placed under the False Death Curse, only to be reawakened years later. Some of them, like Katz, were lucky enough to wake up after only a few years, and their enemies’ plans were foiled, but others... others woke up only after their entire world had changed. Everyone they had ever known or cared for was long dead, and they lost the will to live themselves.

“This is also a tactic that Dark wizards will sometimes use when they can’t, for whatever reason, kill someone they want out of their way permanently. Maybe they were forced to swear with an Unbreakable Vow that they wouldn’t kill that particular person, or maybe they just feel squeamish about doing it outright - that happens a lot when purebloods end up fighting their own family members but don’t want to kill one another because they don’t want to risk ending the bloodline. Instead, they put their adversary to sleep for a hundred years or so as a way of ensuring that the family name won’t entirely die out.”

Much of Moody’s explanation was going over Harry’s head by now, but there was one very important thing he now knew: he would not, under any circumstances, allow that curse to be used on him.

After a short pause, Professor Moody produced the body of a rabbit from one of his desk drawers and laid its stiff form gently on top of the desk.

“Professor Flitwick was kind enough to loan me one of his rabbits,” he said. “This one has been under the False Death Charm for a full week.” Several students blanched at this statement, but the ex-Auror paid them no mind. “I want you all to come forward now and touch it to see just how convincing the illusion of death can be. Come on, now!”

Harry glanced around hesitantly, only to see that the rest of the class was doing the same. Taking a deep breath, he got to his feet and, tightly gripping Ginny’s hand, approached the professor’s desk along with the other students. He could hear quiet sounds of disgust coming from a couple of people as they touched the stiff rabbit, and it sounded like Colin Creevey actually stifled a little shriek after laying his hand on its chest for nearly thirty seconds.

When it was Harry’s turn, he released Ginny’s hand and reached tentatively toward the rabbit’s body. Its fur felt normal, so he allowed himself to move his fingers around a bit. When he came in contact with the rabbit’s skin, he jerked his hand back in surprise.

“It’s cold,” he whispered before moving aside to allow Ginny her turn. She began lightly stroking the rabbit’s fur with such confidence that Harry thought she was totally unaffected until he noticed her tiny shudder as she walked back to her seat. Immediately upon sitting down, her hand sought his and they clung tightly to one another.

Their reaction didn’t make sense, really. After all, it was only a rabbit, and the charm it was under was temporary. Then again, Harry reminded himself, Moody might just be morbid enough to make them touch a rabbit that was really dead before producing the one that was only in suspended animation. It was hard to tell with him.

“Who can tell me something that makes this rabbit appear to be dead?” Moody called out as soon as all of the students had returned to their seats. After a moment, he nodded toward someone to Harry’s left.

“It’s stiff,” answered Zacharias Smith in a voice that was hovering somewhere between boredom and disgust.

“Very good,” Professor Moody growled. “What else? Creevey?”

“Its heart wasn’t beating,” Colin replied quickly. The complete lack of enthusiasm in his voice caused a small shiver to run down Harry’s spine.

“It wasn’t breathing, either,” added Demelza Robins.

“And it was cold,” Harry murmured just barely loud enough to be heard.

“Very good,” Moody muttered. “In fact, the only noticeable difference between this rabbit and one that has actually been dead for a week is the fact that this one’s body shows no signs of decomposition. Now, watch closely. Alacrita!” A bolt of blue light burst from the tip of Moody’s wand, hitting the rabbit squarely in the chest. The rabbit immediately opened its eyes and twisted around into a standing position. Then it sat, its nose quivering slightly, in the middle of the desk.

“I’m sure you’ve all realized by now that it’s impossible to tell just by looking or feeling for a pulse whether or not a person is really dead,” the ex-Auror added after a moment. “The only real way to tell is to try reviving them. So that’s what we’re going to be learning.”

Moody picked up a small sack that had been sitting behind his desk and directed its contents to the students’ desks with a casual wave of his wand. In seconds, a seemingly-dead mouse was in the center of each desk.

“Take turns trying to revive your mouse,” Moody instructed. “Try and help each other see any problems with the wand movement. Get to it.” No more encouragement was needed, and the classroom burst into activity as wands were drawn and partners began taking turns casting the spell at their mice. By the end of the lesson, nobody had made any progress, but that didn’t surprise anyone anymore. For homework, Moody told them to write a foot-long essay about one of the victims of the False Death Curse that had been mentioned in class.

As he stowed his books and took Ginny by the hand on the way out of the classroom, Harry felt the reality of the war with Lord Voldemort beginning to close in on him. Students were learning spells that were years beyond what they would normally be taught because they had to be able to defend themselves and others. He sighed quietly as he glanced sideways at Ginny and felt a bit of the hope she always gave him rise in his chest. She had been right when she’d said that the prophecy was a good thing; it meant he could end all of this. He had the power to defeat Lord Voldemort. And there was no way he was going to allow himself to fail.

---

A/N: Just in case you want to know, Moreproba is a combination of the Latin words mors (“death”) and reproba (“false”). Alacrita is Latin for “Animate.” If I’m wrong about that, I blame it on the online Latin translator.

For those of you who are interested, I recently received a message from our long lost friends, Lena and Tom. They wanted to let everybody know that they’ve had quite a few problems with their computer and Internet, and their work load has gotten much bigger so they won’t be returning to fanfiction or online life or a social life at all for a while. Tom is all better with no casts or anything. Lena is still wearing her promise ring, and she has taken Toby’s cage out of her room. They also want me to say hi to everyone, and that they apologize for not coming back.

---

“A strong Protego should do it,” Hermione whispered in Harry’s ear as she slid into her seat at the Gryffindor table for breakfast on the first Saturday of the new term.

Harry acknowledged her statement with a silent nod as he calmly took another bite of eggs. There was no need to ask what she was talking about; Hermione had been researching the best method for blocking a Memory Charm ever since Harry had expressed his concern over Professor Snape’s threat. Just as a feeling of relief at having avoided the necessity of learning yet another difficult spell began settling over him, Ginny tugged on his sleeve.

“What is it?” Harry asked as he turned slightly in his seat to face her.

“Look,” Ginny replied, nodding toward the large doors of the Great Hall. Harry immediately followed her gaze and felt his heart leap at the sight of a shabbily-dressed wizard with prematurely graying hair leading a young, pink-haired witch into the Hall.

“Remus,” Harry whispered, suddenly ashamed that he hadn’t even thought to make an effort to get together with his father’s old friend during the holiday.

Remus Lupin turned just slightly to smile at the witch, whose hair color indicated that she really couldn’t be anyone other than Nymphadora Tonks, before he turned toward the Gryffindor table and she continued on toward the staff table.

“Professor Lupin!” cried Lavender Brown as she nearly jumped out of her seat to wave enthusiastically at him.

Remus smiled politely as he replied, “Good morning, Miss Brown.” Harry couldn’t help being impressed at the man’s memory. It had been years since he’d been their teacher, and yet he hadn’t even needed a moment’s pause to remember her name. Harry stood, bracing himself as Remus continued to greet his former pupils as his footsteps carried him ever closer.

“Hello, Harry,” Remus muttered with a small, sad smile.

“Hi, Remus,” Harry somehow managed to choke out. “I’m back.”

Remus’ smile grew and he clapped Harry affectionately on the shoulder. “So I’ve heard. I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch with you over the Christmas holiday, but I was very busy with something I felt I had to do.”

Harry nodded in understanding. “I’m finished here, if you’d like to go up to the common room or something,” he said in a rush, hoping that Remus would take him up on the offer. He wanted desperately to have a chance to apologize for the way he had treated him the last time they’d met, but he didn’t think he could do it in front of so many curious eyes and ears.

“Of course,” Remus replied, turning to head back the way he had come. “How was your first week back?”

Harry shrugged. “Not bad, I guess. It just seems like we have to learn so much so fast because of the war. Did you know Flitwick and Moody are teaching us to cast and counter the False Death Charm?”

Remus nodded as they started up the stairs. “It doesn’t seem right, does it? Being forced to learn so many advanced spells just to stay alive.”

“Not all of our classes are like that, though,” Harry quickly amended. “Hagrid just teaches us about whatever creature strikes his fancy, and I don’t think the war has changed much about Herbology or Transfiguration.” He paused, a wicked grin playing around the corners of his mouth as he added, “I think Potions class is the most fun at the moment, though.”

Remus’ eyebrows rose in surprise. “Is that so?” he asked. “Funny, I was under the impression that the return of your memory would also re-kindle your animosity for Professor Snape.”

“Who says I don’t still hate the git?” Harry shot back. “I just know how to deal with it a little better now. Besides, do you have any idea how funny it is to watch Snape lecturing about Love Potions?” The very thought caused him to snicker, and soon he and Remus were laughing openly.

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” Harry called out to the portrait of the Fat Lady as soon as they arrived at Gryffindor Tower, adding in an undertone, “I wonder who comes up with these bloody passwords.” Remus just chuckled and followed him into the empty common room.

“It’s been years since I was in this room,” he mused as he gazed around, taking it all in. “Doesn’t look much different, though.” He sighed and sank into one of the armchairs near the large fireplace. Harry followed suit, sitting across from him.

After a moment’s silence, Harry cleared his throat nervously. “I’m- er, about what happened in the summer- I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat again. “I knew that I didn’t really understand the situation, but I blew up at you anyway. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Remus shook his head. “No, Harry; you had a right to be angry. I’m the one who ought to be apologizing to you. After all, I knew all about your memory loss, but I acted like you should understand anyway. I’m-” he let out a long, slow breath. “I’m sorry for that, Harry.”

After a moment of quiet contemplation, Remus’ expression brightened somewhat as he said, “But I didn’t come here to talk about what happened over the summer. I came because of this.” He pulled a small scroll of parchment from a pocket of his robes and passed it to Harry.

“What is it?” Harry asked as he took the scroll and began to unroll it. Remus didn’t have to answer; the message was only a few lines long.

31 December, 1997

Upon review of the evidence in the case against Sirius Black, the Ministry of Magic of Great Britain hereby declares Mr. Black to be innocent of the murders with which he was charged.

The document was signed by Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic; Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; and Albus Dumbledore, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Each signature was accompanied by an official seal.

Harry exhaled heavily. “They did it on New Year’s Eve so there wouldn’t be any publicity, didn’t they?”

Remus nodded slowly. “Dumbledore pushed for something more public, but in the end he was just happy to have Fudge finally acknowledge that Sirius was innocent. And even now, the Ministry still hasn’t bothered to acknowledge his death.”

“Too little, too late,” Harry muttered. Looking up at sharply at Remus, he added, “What do you say we make Fudge squirm a bit for taking the coward’s way out?”

Remus looked appraisingly at him before replying, “What do you mean by make him squirm?” His voice was even and his expression unreadable, but Harry was not deterred.

“I mean we should publicize this,” he announced, gesturing toward the parchment in his hand. “There’s got to be somebody out there who’d be willing to publish a story about Sirius’ acquittal, right? And then, after we get some public support, we can push for proper recognition of what really happened.”

Remus nodded slowly as a smile began creeping across his features. “I think Sirius would like that,” he said quietly. “And as the last of the Marauders, I’m just the man to help you.”

Harry grinned back at him. “That’s what I was hoping you’d-” He cried out and slapped his hand over his scar as it suddenly seared with white-hot pain.

“Harry?” Remus asked, his concern evident in his voice. Behind him, the portrait hole swung open to admit Ron, Hermione, and Ginny just as the pain subsided and Harry quickly lowered his hand.

“Harry, what was that?” Hermione called out as soon as the portrait door had closed behind them.

Harry shook his head, trying to clear it. This wasn’t supposed to happen anymore - his scar hadn’t hurt in over a year.

“It’s your scar, isn’t it?” Hermione questioned as the three friends approached.

“Yeah,” Harry answered with a small nod. “It hasn’t hurt like that since fifth year.”

“We’ve got to tell Dumbledore,” Ron piped up immediately. For once, Harry didn’t feel inclined to argue. He stood, fully intending to head out right away to find the Headmaster, when the voice of the very person he was looking for began reverberating around the room.

“Attention Hogwarts students and staff,” Dumbledore’s voice boomed from an unseen location. “The castle’s magical protections have come under attack. All students are to report to their house common rooms immediately. Prefects are responsible for helping the younger students. Above all, you must remain calm and leave no one behind. Teachers are to meet in the Entrance Hall. Once again, I urge you all to remain calm. Ministry Aurors have already been contacted, and you are all safe enough. There is no need to panic.”

Frightened and panicking students began pouring through the open portrait hole before the echoes of the Headmaster’s voice had completely died away. Remus rushed to the portrait hole, but had to stand off to the side, waiting for a break in the tide before he would be able to make his way down to the Entrance Hall to join the professors. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny pushed their way to his side just as he stepped out of the common room.

“Hey, wait up,” Ron called after him.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Remus warned, spinning around to face the four students. “I’ll seal you in this tower if I have to, but you are not coming!”

“Do you really think you can keep us away?” Hermione scoffed. “Not even Dumbledore’s protections for the Sorcerer’s Stone were enough to stop us, and that was in our first year.”

“And they didn’t have me helping them back then,” Ginny added, determination radiating off of her.

“I don’t have time for this,” Remus sighed. “All right; you can come. But no one else.” He punctuated his point by using his wand to swing the Fat Lady’s portrait closed before sealing it with a muttered, “Colloportus.”

“Let’s go,” Harry called out, and the three wizards and two witches took off down the corridor at a slow jog. Nothing more was said until they reached the staircase between the second and third floors, where they were suddenly halted by a barrage of flying water bombs.

“Peeves!” the group shouted as one, while the merry poltergeist cackled with delight from where he hovered several feet in front of them.

“I’ll teach you to-” Ron began as he drew his wand, but he was cut off abruptly by Remus placing a firm hand on his arm.

“You just have to know how to deal with him,” the older man murmured quietly. Then he cleared his throat and addressed the poltergeist.

“Good morning, Peeves. Did you happen to hear the Headmaster’s announcement?” he asked in a polite voice.

Peeves narrowed his eyes at Remus, surveying him thoughtfully. “Peevesy knows students shouldn’t be out. Should call Mr. Filch, I should.”

Remus rolled his eyes dramatically. “The castle is under attack, Peeves. We need your help to defend it.”

Harry gaped at him. It was one thing to talk nicely to Peeves to get him to leave you alone, but suggesting that he should help defend the castle? Unless.... A slow smile began creeping across Harry’s features as he realized that this must all be a ploy to distract the poltergeist. The feeling of pleasure was short-lived, however; they were wasting valuable time dealing with a mere nuisance. He tugged impatiently on Remus’ sleeve, but the former professor warned him off with a stern look.

Peeves frowned. “Attacking the castle is what Peevesy does best,” he replied after a moment, and then burst into a maniacal cackle as he did a back flip in midair.

“I’m not talking about pranks, Peeves,” Remus continued in a completely calm voice. Harry had to hand it to him; the man definitely knew how to keep his cool. “I mean a real attack. If it’s successful, someone a thousand times worse than Dolores Umbridge will be put in charge.”

Peeves abruptly stopped cackling and seemed to consider this for a moment before shaking his head vehemently. “Can’t go helping teachers,” he insisted. “What would Mr. Padfoot say?”

It happened so fast that Harry couldn’t be sure he had actually seen it, but it looked like Remus had winked at him. “It’s been over three years since I was a professor here, Peeves. You know what that means, don’t you?” Peeves swooped down in front of him, stopping so close that their noses were nearly touching.

“Mr. Moony?” he whispered.

“The one and only.”

“Prove it. Help Peevesy stuff Snivelly’s head in the toilet. Oooh, it’s been so long!” Peeves’ wicked grin was unmistakable, and his beady eyes danced in anticipation.

The entire group was fighting to contain their laughter as Remus slowly replied, “I don’t think so, Peeves; you know that was never my style. But if you help us, I promise to pull a prank on Severus for old times’ sake.”

Peeves considered the offer for a moment before bowing in acceptance and flying down the stairs. As soon as he was out of earshot, Remus sighed and once again began leading the way toward the Entrance Hall.

“I shouldn’t have agreed to that,” he muttered to himself.

“But- You won’t really go through with it,” said Hermione. “Will you?” she added uncertainly.

Remus sighed again and ran a hand through his hair. “I gave my word,” he answered simply. “I can’t go back on it now. Besides, Severus’ wrath is a small price to pay for Peeves’ help in this confrontation. We need him.”

Before anyone had a chance to ask what he meant, they heard an explosion and a cacophony of shouts downstairs, and made a mad dash for the next staircase. From their vantage point, they could see that the castle’s great oak front doors had just exploded inward and twenty or thirty Death Eaters were rushing the entrance. Dumbledore stood in the center of the Entrance Hall, his wand flashing in the bright sunlight as it streamed in through the hole where the doors had been only moments before. He danced nimbly aside to dodge a jet of green light, and spun behind a large stone pillar for protection from three more.

Curses continued to fly back and forth between the Death Eaters, who were taking cover behind the doorframe, and the staff, who had hidden themselves behind various pillars and banisters. As Harry, Ron, Hermione, Remus, and Ginny rushed toward the first floor, an ear-piercing scream of pain rent the air. Harry glanced down to see a blur of black robes and pink hair writhing on the ground.

“Tonks!” Before the shout had finished leaving his throat, Remus had vaulted over the railing and was hurtling down over one-and-a-half stories toward the stone floor of the Entrance Hall, firing off curses at the Death Eaters in the doorway as he fell.

“Remus, no!” Harry shouted, rushing forward and preparing to do whatever he could to help break his friend’s fall. Ten feet from the floor, Remus flicked his wand upward and a thick rope appeared, tied around his waist and the banister of the staircase where Harry still stood. The rope stretched, slowing his fall substantially before it disappeared, leaving him to collapse onto the floor.

Satisfied that Remus would be all right, Harry turned and raced down the rest of the stairs toward the Entrance Hall, quickly catching up with Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, who were all crouched at the bottom of the stone staircase, using it for cover as they hurled curses at the attacking Death Eaters.

“Stupefy!” he shouted the second a hooded head came into view around the doorframe. The Death Eater jerked back out of sight, and Harry’s Stunner collided harmlessly with the wall.

“Avada Kedavra!” rang out a voice that was somewhere outside of Harry’s field of vision.

“Watch out!”

Harry spun at the sound of Tonks’ voice just in time to see a jet of green light rushing toward Remus. He threw out his hands, ready to try something - anything - to deflect the curse, when a little man dressed in pink and purple striped trousers and an orange and brown polka dotted shirt suddenly appeared directly in its path.

“Peeves?” Harry whispered in disbelief as the green light collided with the poltergeist’s chest and he collapsed to the floor. He couldn’t believe it; Peeves was gone, and he had sacrificed himself for Remus. But if Peeves was dead, then where was that cackling coming from?

Harry’s eyes widened in wonder as the little poltergeist picked himself up off the floor, brushed off the seat of his trousers, and proceeded to blow a loud raspberry at the Death Eaters outside.

“Can’t hurt Peevesy!” he taunted before zooming up into the air to retrieve a very large bundle of walking sticks, which he immediately started throwing at the attackers with even more enthusiasm than usual.

“Stupefy!” Harry shouted again. This time, his target was too occupied with Peeves’ attack to be able to pull back in time, and the Stunner hit him in the side of the head. He collapsed, unconscious.

“What happened to Dumbledore?” Ron wondered aloud.

“They’ve got him pinned down behind that pillar,” Hermione replied as she deflected a Reductor curse into the floor a few feet in front of them. Sure enough, now that he looked, Harry could see that Dumbledore’s hiding place was being bombarded by an almost constant stream of Killing Curses, making it impossible for the aged Headmaster to do much of anything other than stand there and wait.

“Peeves!” Remus shouted from his hiding spot near the doors to the Great Hall. “Help Dumbledore!” Harry sighed with relief; Remus must have noticed the same thing they had.

Without a moment’s consideration, Peeves swooped down right into the path of the Killing Curses that were keeping Dumbledore out of the action. He laughed gleefully each time a jet of green light collided harmlessly with his chest. A moment later, the jets of green light stopped as Dumbledore stepped out from behind his pillar and began firing curses of his own at the Death Eaters. A shout went up outside, and after only a few moments, Harry saw the Headmaster stow his wand with a satisfied nod.

Curious, Harry ventured out of his hiding place to get a glimpse of what was happening outside. His friends followed closely behind him, and soon they could see the reason for the abrupt end to the fighting. Fifteen Aurors had arrived on the scene, and were now busy ensuring that the Death Eaters were properly disarmed, identified and bound before being taken to the Ministry for questioning.

“We ran into another group near the gates,” Harry overheard a deep voice saying. He looked to his left to see Kingsley Shacklebolt talking with Professor Dumbledore. “Otherwise, we’d have been here sooner.”

Dumbledore waved off his apology, and Harry headed across the Entrance Hall in search of Remus. He found him locked in a very tight embrace with Tonks, whose cheeks darkened to match her hair as soon as she noticed Harry watching them.

“Well,” Tonks said, clearing her throat uncomfortably, “I suppose I’d better go help take care of that lot.” She gestured toward the group of Death Eaters outside.

“Potter!” Harry groaned inwardly at the sound of Professor McGonagall’s voice behind him. “Did you not hear the Headmaster’s instructions that all students were to remain in their common rooms?” He turned slowly around, not the least bit surprised when he saw that her expression was even more stern than usual.

“I did hear it, Professor,” he answered, “but this is my fight. I can’t be sheltered from it.”

If anything, McGonagall’s lips tightened into an even harder line. “Regardless of what you may believe, Potter, you are still required to follow the rules of this school. You will serve detention with me on Monday evening at six o’clock.” She paused to glance around at Ron, Hermione, and Ginny before adding, “All of you will. Remus, will you please escort these students back to their common room?”

“Of course, Professor,” Remus replied while hiding a smile. As they began climbing the staircase to the first floor, he whispered to a now-invisible Peeves, “Thank you, Peeves. I’ll make good on our bargain as soon as I can set a plan in motion.” Harry bit his lip as he tried not to laugh at the mental image of Remus and Peeves shoving Snape’s head into a toilet. He hoped that Remus’ alternative plan would be at least that funny.

“Didn’t hear her complaining when I blocked that Bludgeoning Hex for her,” Ron muttered darkly.

“Oh, quit complaining!” Hermione snapped. “We knew the risks when we came, and we accepted them. Now we have to live with the consequences.”

Ginny just shook her head in amazement at the other couple’s ability to argue about everything under the sun, and slid her hand comfortably into Harry’s. They walked in silence until they had almost reached the Fat Lady’s portrait, when Harry’s scar suddenly exploded with pain and he collapsed onto his knees.

---

“He’s angry,” Harry moaned through clenched teeth as he writhed on the floor with his hands clamped tightly over his scar. After an eternity, the pain began to subside a little and he managed to choke out, “He knows what happened today. He’s furious!”

“What was he after, Harry?” Hermione asked gently as she knelt beside him. “Do you know why he sent the Death Eaters to Hogwarts?”

“Me,” Harry croaked. “He wanted me.”

Hermione stifled a gasp, while Ginny ran a soothing hand along his arm.

“I think that Harry and I may need to take a little detour to the Headmaster’s office,” Remus stated in a calm but authoritative voice. “You three, however, need to get yourselves into your common room before you get into any more trouble.”

Ron and Ginny both protested immediately, but after a short, heated argument, Hermione finally succeeded in convincing them that Remus would take good care of Harry, and that Harry probably needed some time to himself at the moment anyway. As Harry slowly pushed himself to his feet, his friends wished him well before unsealing the entrance to the Gryffindor common room and clambering inside.

“Feeling better?” Remus asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Harry answered, still slightly out of breath. “It’s not hurting much at all now.”

“Good,” Remus nodded. “I won’t have to carry you, then.” He led the way down the corridors to the Headmaster’s office, and Harry was only mildly surprised to discover that Dumbledore was standing near the entrance, waiting for them.

“Good morning, Remus; Harry,” Dumbledore said warmly as he gestured for them to precede him onto the moving spiral staircase that led to his office. “The portraits have just informed me that you were on your way here. How may I be of service?”

Harry sat down heavily in his usual chair across the desk from the Headmaster; Remus pulled up a second chair and sat down next to him as he cleared his throat nervously.

“Voldemort’s angry,” Harry blurted. “He already knows what happened here today.”

Professor Dumbledore’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch, but he gave no other indication of being the least bit surprised. “Indeed,” he muttered to himself. Looking up at Harry after a long moment of contemplation, he asked, “Did you have a vision?”

Harry shook his head. “No sir. I was walking back to Gryffindor Tower with Remus and my friends, and my scar just exploded with pain and I could feel Voldemort’s anger.” He swallowed hard before adding, “The only other thing I could tell was that he was angry because they didn’t get me. I’m the reason they came.”

Dumbledore nodded very slowly; his face was grave, and the twinkle in his eyes was conspicuous only by its absence. “I have it on good authority that Lord Voldemort is determined to eliminate the ‘Chosen One’ before stepping up any of his other activities. That is the reason we must keep you well-protected: not only because we know he is after you, but also because his single-mindedness is preventing him from doing as much damage as he could otherwise.”

“Hang on; so you’re saying by just staying alive I’m keeping a bunch of people safe?” Harry asked in disbelief. “But there have been attacks, even back when I was missing.”

“But not nearly as many as there would have been if Lord Voldemort had not been so determined to find you before doing anything else,” Dumbledore said firmly. “Tell me, Harry, other than today, when was the last time you felt pain in your scar?”

When had it been? It hadn’t hurt him all last term, and he couldn’t remember it ever happening when he was at St. Brutus’s. “Fifth year, I think,” Harry answered after a moment.

Dumbledore nodded again. “As I had suspected.” He sighed and stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Because you never once mentioned your scar hurting during the time you were under the Memory Charm, I had assumed - correctly, I see - that you did not remember ever having had such an experience. This, I reasoned, was because Lord Voldemort had begun using Occlumency to keep you from learning any of his secrets. I fear that I was gravely mistaken.”

“What do you mean, Professor?” Harry asked quietly. He cast a sideways glance at Remus, but the older man remained silent, waiting for Dumbledore’s answer.

Dumbledore sighed heavily. “It means that we must resume your Occlumency training. I realize that your previous experience with this branch of magic was far from pleasant, but it is imperative that we keep Lord Voldemort out of your mind.”

Although he wasn’t looking forward to going back to Occlumency lessons with Snape, Harry couldn’t exactly disagree with the Headmaster’s conclusion. Remus, on the other hand, apparently could.

“Surely there must be another way,” he insisted, speaking up for the first time. “It’s been over a year since the last time your scar bothered you, right Harry?”

Harry nodded.

“Yes, but why is it bothering him again now?” Dumbledore asked thoughtfully. “It is most unusual; if Lord Voldemort was blocking him before, why would he choose this particular moment to lower his guard?”

Harry was beginning to feel uncomfortable under the Headmaster’s piercing gaze. “Er- Does it really matter why Voldemort’s not blocking the connection anymore?” he asked hesitantly.

Dumbledore shook himself as though he was awakening from a daydream, but he didn’t answer Harry’s question. Instead, he turned to Remus and murmured, “What if Lord Voldemort wasn’t the one blocking the connection in the first place?”

Remus’ eyes widened ever so slightly, and his head snapped around to peer at Harry. “When did you say was the last time your scar hurt before today?” he asked urgently.

“Fifth year,” Harry answered without any hesitation.

Slowly - almost painfully slowly - Remus turned back to face the Headmaster. Their eyes locked for a long moment before they both breathed, “The Memory Charm.”

“What?” Harry asked in confusion. Remus and Dumbledore both started slightly, as though they had forgotten he was there. “How could a Memory Charm block my connection with Voldemort?”

Dumbledore turned to face him as he stroked his beard thoughtfully. “A Memory Charm can be a very powerful thing, Harry, as you know from personal experience.”

Harry nodded grimly, signaling for the Headmaster to continue.

“What you may not know is that Memory Charms block certain parts of the mind from being accessed. It appears that when Dolores Umbridge placed her Memory Charm on you, she not only blocked your memories of the Wizarding world, she also unwittingly blocked the portion of your mind that houses your connection with Lord Voldemort.”

That statement was practically begging for another question, so Harry asked it without hesitation. “So why can’t you just block off that part of my mind again, and then I wouldn’t have to learn Occlumency?”

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. “If only it were so simple,” he sighed. “Using magic to modify a person’s memory is difficult enough in and of itself, but the experimentation that would be necessary in order to find and block your connection with Lord Voldemort without damaging your memory would be prohibitively so. Unless, by some amazing stroke of luck, we were able to locate and block the connection within the first couple of tries, we would risk causing you permanent memory loss.” Harry felt the blood drain from his face at that prospect.

“I’ll learn Occlumency,” he managed to choke out.

Dumbledore smiled sadly at him. “I thought you might say that.” His expression brightened as he added, “There is good news, however. It is still painfully clear to me how wrong I was to entrust your Occlumency training to Professor Snape in your fifth year, Harry, and for that I am truly sorry. I assumed that he would be able to get past his grudge against your father, but... well, it’s best not to dwell on such things. Suffice it to say that I have decided to teach you myself this time around; that should help us avoid any more... misunderstandings.”

Harry grinned, hardly able to believe his luck. He would have been willing to study Occlumency with Snape again if it meant keeping Voldemort out of his head, but the prospect of learning from Dumbledore was so much less daunting that he wanted to laugh out loud with relief.

“Thank you, Albus,” Remus said quietly.

Dumbledore nodded his head in acknowledgement. “Harry, why don’t we start meeting here on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at seven o’clock? That ought to give your supper plenty of time to settle before we get started.”

“That sounds fine,” Harry replied. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he added, “Thank you, sir. For everything.”

“Think nothing of it, Harry,” Dumbledore reassured him with a kind smile. “For now, though, you need to be getting back to your common room before the Hogwarts rumor mill starts convincing everyone that you were killed this morning.”

Harry managed a half-hearted smile as he left the office with Remus; that was exactly the sort of story he expected to be circulating when he arrived back in the common room. What he did not expect was to be mobbed with questions about the battle the second the portrait hole swung open.

“Harry!”

“Harry, where...?”

“...happened?”

“...kill three Death Eaters?”

“...You-Know-Who...?”

“Shut up!” Harry roared at the large group of younger students as he looked around desperately for Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. “You people are worse than the press.” The room fell eerily silent.

“Did you really die?” asked a wide-eyed first-year boy. One of his friends smacked him in the back of the head as Harry pushed his way through the crowd.

“Okay, break it up,” called Seamus Finnigan as he began shunting the excited younger students aside.

“Over here, Harry,” Ron hollered from his position near the fireplace. As the crowd began to disperse and Harry drew nearer to his friend, he could see that Hermione and Ginny were there waiting for him as well. As soon as there was a clear path, Ginny rushed forward and threw her arms around him.

“Are you all right?” she whispered.

Harry nodded as he whispered, “I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong,” into her hair. He held her for a moment longer before pulling away and leading her back to one of the large armchairs near the fire.

“It’s all right,” Harry said in response to Hermione’s worried look. “Come over here and I’ll tell you all about it.”

The four friends settled into two armchairs - Harry and Ginny sharing one, and Ron and Hermione sharing the other - and Harry quietly filled the others in on the details of his conversation with Dumbledore.

“I hadn’t even thought about the fact that your scar wasn’t hurting you anymore,” Ron said after he had finished.

“None of us had,” said Hermione. “We were just so glad to have you back, and then we were all so concerned with your memory loss that I guess we just didn’t think about it. I’m sorry, Harry.”

Harry waved away her apology. “My memory’s been back for a couple of weeks now, and I never thought about it either. Besides, it’s not as if we’d have done anything even if we had realized; Dumbledore thought Voldemort was blocking me, remember?”

Hermione nodded.

“We just wish we could help you,” Ginny said softly.

“You are helping me,” Harry replied. “You’re all still here. You all went with me this morning. That’s all I really need.”

“Really?” she asked, looking up at him with those big brown eyes that he had been able to lose himself in ever since he first dreamed about them so long ago.

“Well, I might want a little more than that from you,” he whispered in her ear, smiling to himself when her cheeks turned a light shade of pink.

“Harry,” Hermione interrupted, drawing his attention back to her and Ron, “did you ask Professor Dumbledore how Peeves was able to survive the Killing Curse? If he has some sort of protection that we could take advantage of....”

Harry shook his head. “I’d forgotten all about it, honestly. I was too worried about my scar. I can ask him about it on Tuesday, though.”

“Good idea,” Ron put in. “Try and find out about that move Remus used to get downstairs, too. That was seriously cool!”

“Yes,” Hermione agreed. “I really never would have expected.”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “That was more the sort of stunt I’d expect out of my dad or Sirius, not Remus.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “Well, it is true, but I was talking about Tonks.”

“I know,” Ginny gasped, grinning at her. “Who would’ve thought?” Harry and Ron shared a confused look.

“Er, did we miss something?” Ron asked.

“Of course you did,” Ginny replied with a smirk.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t notice why he jumped off of the staircase like that,” said Hermione.

“Well, Tonks had just gotten hit with the Cruciatus Curse,” Harry began. “But I still don’t-”

“He fancies her,” Ginny whispered dramatically. Harry’s eyes widened as he remembered the sight of Remus and Tonks clinging to one another just after the battle had ended.

“You think so?” he asked.

“Of course he does,” said Ron. “That’s not news. I’ve known it for ages.”

“Sure you have, Ron,” Hermione laughed as she rolled her eyes at him.

They continued laughing and speculating about Remus and Tonks’ relationship as they whiled away the time with multiple games of Wizard chess and Exploding Snap. Since no one was allowed out until the Aurors had confirmed that the threat had been eliminated, all of Gryffindor house spent the rest of the day either in their dormitories or in the very crowded common room. By the time evening arrived, Harry was only too happy to fall into bed.

As he lay there in the dark, however, he quickly realized that sleep was going to be impossible. Every time he shut his eyes, he remembered dreaming about long corridors ending in locked doors for much of his fifth year. Those dreams had been planted by Lord Voldemort, and now he knew that Voldemort had access to his mind once again. On an intellectual level, of course, he knew that Voldemort could enter his mind just as easily when he was awake as when he was sleeping, but somehow it felt just a little bit safer to remain conscious rather than risk dreaming through the eyes of his sworn enemy. Round and round these thoughts swirled in his head until finally, sometime after midnight, exhaustion overtook him and he slipped into a fitful slumber.

It wasn’t until Monday morning that the students were allowed to leave their common rooms. Harry had never looked forward to Potions class so much in his life; anything - even class with Snape - was better than spending another minute locked in Gryffindor Tower with the entire population of the house. He and Ginny arrived in the dungeon a few minutes early and walked directly to their shared desk, deliberately ignoring the Slytherins’ whispers as they passed and began quietly unpacking their ingredients.

Soon, the sound of the classroom door slamming shut announced the arrival of Professor Snape. To Harry’s relief, the entire lesson was spent stirring and adding ingredients to their Eye of the Maiden potions. By the time class was over, he noted with satisfaction that his and Ginny’s gray potion was beginning to take on a pinkish tint. They would still need a few more class periods to complete it, but it was coming along nicely just the same. Even more satisfying, however, was the fleeting look of anger that passed over Snape’s face when he checked on their progress. He had hidden the emotion quickly by rearranging his face into a sneer, but the vein in his forehead had continued pulsing ominously as he stalked away.

“Well, that wasn’t too bad,” Ginny announced as they ascended the stairs from the dungeon.

“Nah,” Harry agreed. “I’m starting to worry about Snape, though. The way he bottles up all that anger can’t be healthy.”

“Wait a minute,” Ginny laughed. “Are you worried about Snape’s health now? I thought you were trying to pop a blood vessel in his head!”

Harry shook his head sheepishly. “I still think that would be funny, but- I don’t know; I just don’t want to make him have a heart attack and die or something. Because that really would be my fault, and I don’t ever want to have to feel like I owe Snape anything. That’s how he feels about my dad, and look what it’s done to him.” He shuddered involuntarily. “I definitely don’t want to turn into that.”

“We’re agreed on that one,” she chuckled. “What do you think we’ll be doing in Charms today?”

“Pretending to kill cute little bunny rabbits; what else?”

Nothing interesting happened in Charms until halfway through the lesson. They were still working on the False Death Charm, and so far nobody had gotten any results, so Harry was as surprised as everyone else when he called out, “Moreproba!” for what felt like the five millionth time and red light leapt from his wand. His rabbit toppled over on the desk and lay still.

“Well done, Mr. Potter,” Professor Flitwick squeaked, hurrying over to inspect his work. “Five points to Gryffindor.” Harry gave him a hand up, and soon the tiny professor was bent over the rabbit, examining it closely.

“Put your hand here,” he instructed, pointing to the rabbit’s chest. Harry obeyed, and was surprised to feel a very slow but steady heartbeat. “The heartbeat has slowed considerably, but it is still there. Your spell is somewhere between a common Stunner and a true False Death Charm. Keep working at it, and you’ll soon be there.” With that, he revived the rabbit, hopped nimbly down from the desk, and resumed making his rounds of the classroom.

“Nice work,” Ginny murmured in congratulations as soon as the professor had left. “What did you do?”

“I don’t know,” Harry replied with a shrug. “I didn’t notice anything I did differently, did you?”

Ginny shook her head. “Moreproba!” Nothing happened. In fact, nothing else noteworthy happened for the rest of the lesson, as not even Harry was able to reproduce his previous results with the spell.

---

“Nosebleed Nougat,” Harry whispered to the stone gargoyle that guarded the entrance to the Headmaster’s office. It immediately sprang to life and leapt aside, and Harry stepped onto the moving spiral staircase that led up to Dumbledore’s door.

“Come in, Harry,” Dumbledore called before Harry had a chance to knock. Harry pushed the door open and walked quickly to his customary chair in front of the Headmaster’s desk.

“Good evening, Professor,” he greeted politely. For some reason that he couldn’t quite place, he was nervous all of a sudden. “Er, are we going to be working on Occlumency tonight?”

Dumbledore nodded as he regarded Harry over the top of his half-moon spectacles. “Yes, but first I wanted to give you a chance to ask me any questions you might have. I will, of course, answer them to the best of my ability.”

Harry stared at the Headmaster in shock for a moment before remembering that Dumbledore had promised to stop hiding things from him at the end of his fifth year. Despite the fact that that conversation was still relatively fresh in his memory, it seemed a lifetime ago.

“I-” Harry stopped, suddenly unsure what to ask. After a moment’s consideration, he decided to begin with Hermione’s question, knowing that she would hound him about it if he didn’t come back with an answer.

“I was wondering about Peeves, Professor. How was he able to survive the Killing Curse? I mean, does he have some sort of protective magic that the rest of us could take advantage of?”

Dumbledore smiled indulgently at him and shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Harry. I’m actually rather surprised that Miss Granger was not able to answer that question for you. It seems I have come to expect her to know practically everything that can be learned from the Hogwarts library.”

“Well, I didn’t really ask her if she’d tried looking it up, but it’s not like Hermione would ever not go to the library for information. She didn’t know the answer, so I guess I just figured it wasn’t there.”

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully for a moment before saying, “Harry, Peeves is a poltergeist - what a textbook would call an ‘indestructible spirit of chaos.’ Tell me, when you hear the word ‘indestructible,’ what do you think that means?”

Harry cleared his throat nervously. “It’s- Well, if something’s indestructible, then it can’t be destroyed, right?”

“Exactly,” Dumbledore replied, beaming. “Poltergeists are indestructible, and therefore by their very nature they cannot be killed. Had the Death Eaters stopped to think of that, they could have removed him from the fight quite easily with a simple binding spell. Thankfully, they do not appear to have been overly bright.” There was a bit of a pause before he asked, “Is there anything else you would like to know?”

“Yeah,” Harry answered. “I was wondering about that trick Remus used to get downstairs in a hurry when Tonks was being tortured. I’ve never heard of anything like it. Was that something they used to teach in school?”

“Ah,” Dumbledore chuckled knowingly. “Perhaps it would be best if I showed you.” With a lazy flick of his wand, he Summoned his Pensieve from its storage cabinet. “That particular maneuver was invented by one of Remus Lupin’s closest friends,” he continued as he carefully removed a silvery strand of memory from his temple and placed it in the basin.

The aged Headmaster frowned slightly as he regarded Harry over the top of his half-moon spectacles once again. “I want you to understand, Harry, that I have my reservations about allowing you to view this memory. In the past, I never would have considered it. However, I believe that you now possess the maturity necessary to keep everything in perspective. You happened across a memory of your parents during your last Occlumency lesson with Professor Snape, did you not?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry answered automatically, despite his small surprise at the Headmaster’s sudden question.

Dumbledore’s frown deepened for a moment. “That was regrettable indeed,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t like to think that you would form opinions of them based on that one unfortunate incident. At the same time, however, I should hope that viewing this particular memory will not lower your opinion of certain other people who were involved, particularly Professor Snape.”

Harry clamped his jaw firmly shut, resisting the urge to say that nothing could possibly lower his opinion of Snape, while Dumbledore continued, “I am trusting you to have the maturity to recognize that, just as your father did a lot of growing up after the incident you saw in Professor Snape’s memory, Professor Snape has grown into a different person than he was back then as well.”

Harry nodded, understanding that he was being trusted to view something that not long ago would probably have caused him to fly off the handle.

“After you, Harry,” Dumbledore said with a nod and a gesture toward the Pensieve. With only a moment’s hesitation, Harry leaned over the swirling silver mass and felt himself being tipped into the memory. When he regained his footing, he found himself standing on the third floor landing of the grand staircase with two Albus Dumbledores, one of whom looked just slightly older than the other.

“Good afternoon, boys,” greeted the younger Dumbledore. Harry spun around to see four young men, probably a year or so younger than himself, descending the stairs. His breath caught in his throat as he got a closer look at them. In front were two black-haired boys, one of whom had very messy hair and looked remarkably like Harry. The other had longer hair, and was laughing at a joke that Harry hadn’t quite been able to hear. The other two boys, both of whom had lighter hair, followed closely behind.

Harry watched in fascination as his teenaged father, along with his friends, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, strolled down the great staircase toward the Headmaster. He smiled slightly as he realized that Remus was teaching Peter how to twirl his wand between his first two fingers in much the same way that the Weird Sisters’ drummer liked to twirl his drumsticks.

“Hello, Professor!” called James Potter.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” asked his best friend, Sirius Black. Harry couldn’t help smirking to himself; they were up to something, and Sirius’ tone of voice had just given them away.

“That it is,” Dumbledore replied with a wink as he continued on his way up the stairs and the boys continued going down.

“This way, Harry,” the older Dumbledore instructed, hurrying after the four Gryffindor boys. Harry wasted no time in following.

“What exactly are we looking for, Professor?” he asked quietly. Although he knew that the people in the memory could neither hear nor see them, he still felt the need to be as unobtrusive as possible.

“Just keep your eyes on your father,” Dumbledore advised. Harry’s eyes remained glued to his father’s back as they headed across the second floor landing toward the next staircase.

“Abigo!” hissed a harsh voice from the shadowy alcove where Harry had come so close to kissing Ginny the previous Halloween. Instinctively, his eyes flew to the source of the sound. It took a moment before he realized that time seemed to have stopped. No one was moving, and the only sound he could hear was his own breathing.

“Remember to keep your eyes on your father, Harry,” Dumbledore reminded him gently.

“Right,” Harry answered as he tore his eyes away from the shadowy figure. “Sorry.”

With a flick of Dumbledore’s wand, the memory resumed as though it had never been interrupted. The Banishing Charm hit James squarely in the chest, sending him hurtling over the banister.

“James!” The cry was torn from three throats as Sirius, Remus, and Peter watched helplessly while their friend went hurtling toward the ground. Another whispered spell from the shadows was deflected by Peter, who was the only one with his wand in hand.

Harry’s eyes never left his father, and he watched in amazement as James calmly drew his wand and flicked it upward. Instantly, a thick rope materialized out of thin air. One end was tied around his waist, while the other was secured to the railing on the second floor landing. The rope stretched, slowing his fall substantially before it disappeared, allowing him to drop nimbly to the floor.

“Big mistake, Snivellus.” Sirius’ growl pulled Harry’s attention back to the situation on the landing. He swung around to see Remus, Sirius, and Peter with their wands pointed threateningly at a sneering, greasy-haired Severus Snape.

“Oh?” Snape asked in the same mocking tone he used with Harry in class.

“Watch out!” Harry shouted as a curse was fired at the three Marauders by an unseen figure in the corridor.

Even though he knew they couldn’t hear him, Sirius, Remus, and Peter all seemed to react to Harry’s warning. Remus and Peter both ducked, but Sirius confidently deflected the curse with a casual flick of his wand.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” he scoffed before unleashing a hex of his own at Snape. Snape sidestepped it easily as three more Slytherins entered the landing from the corridor.

“Honestly, Wilkes, I’d expect this sort of sneak attack from these three, but not from you,” Remus said mildly. “What would your father say?”

“Reducto,” spat one of the Slytherins - Harry assumed him to be Wilkes. Remus deflected the curse, sending up a small cloud of dust as the spell bit into the stone floor, and the fight began in earnest. Even though he knew they couldn’t touch him, Harry soon found himself ducking to avoid the multicolored jets of light that were flying back and forth across the landing as the three Gryffindors clashed with the four Slytherins. Within seconds, Peter, Wilkes, and one of the other Slytherins were down, while Sirius and Remus continued dueling with Snape and his final companion.

“Stupefy!” Harry turned abruptly to see his father standing at the edge of the staircase, panting heavily but looking none the worse for wear. His unexpected Stunner hit the Slytherin who Harry didn’t know in the side, causing him to crumple to the ground.

“All right there, James?” Sirius called.

“Peachy,” James gasped.

As one, James, Sirius, and Remus advanced on Snape with their wands drawn.

“Expelliarmus!” they all shouted at the same instant.

“Protego!” Snape hissed, but his Shield Charm simply wasn’t able to block all three spells at once. His wand sailed out of his grip and into Remus’ waiting hand. Immediately, Snape made a desperate dive for Peter’s wand, which was on the ground a few feet away.

“Petrificus Totalus!” The voice that shouted this spell was feminine, and Harry recognized it instantly. He slowly turned his head to face the red-haired girl who was hurrying down the staircase from the third floor. For the second time in his life, he found himself watching the memory of his teenaged mother.

“Peter!” James shouted as Lily’s spell immobilized their final opponent. He rushed to his friend’s side as Lily slowly advanced toward Snape’s frozen body. After carefully rolling Peter onto his back, he and Remus began waving their wands over him in an attempt to determine what was wrong.

“You two are pathetic,” Sirius remarked with a shake of his head as he pointed his own wand at Peter. “Rennervate.” Immediately, Peter’s eyes snapped open.

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw his mother arrive at Snape’s side. “Your sneak attacks are just as disgusting as Potter’s,” she muttered quietly. “The only difference is that at least he only aims to humiliate. You aim to injure, at the very least.” She paused, and a look of sadness passed fleetingly over her features. “I defended you all the time last year, you know. I won’t make that mistake again.” Lily’s expression hardened once again, and she glared at Snape for a long moment before finally collecting his companions’ wands.

“Did I miss the fighting again?” Peter sighed as he sat up. “I wish I had better reflexes.”

“Cheer up, mate,” Sirius told him. “If it hadn’t been for your Shield Charm there at the beginning, we’d have really been in trouble.” Peter beamed at his praise.

“What’s going on here?” demanded an authoritative voice from the corridor, causing everyone to jump.

“Professor Slughorn!” Lily exclaimed as a short, balding wizard with an enormous mustache and an even larger belly strode into view and took in the scene on the landing.

“Ah, miss Evans,” the Professor said, smiling broadly at her. “Perhaps you can tell me why four of my students are lying here on the floor.” He raised his eyebrows inquisitively.

“Of course, Professor,” Lily answered in a businesslike tone. “I was just coming down the staircase when I saw these four attack Potter and his friends from out of the shadows. Naturally, being Prefects, Remus and I immediately moved to break up the conflict before it could really get started. Unfortunately, the instigators resisted and we were forced to subdue and disarm them in order to prevent anything more serious from happening. Here are their wands.” She held out the bundle of three wands as Remus stepped forward to add Snape’s wand to the collection.

“I see,” Professor Slughorn muttered as he took the wands. “Very well. I commend you for your quick thinking, Miss Evans, Mr. Lupin. I’ll deal with this lot,” he sighed, “but it’s probably best if you’re all gone before I revive them. Off you go, then.”

“Evans? Hey, Evans!” James called as the five Gryffindors headed down the stairs.

“What is it, Potter?” Lily asked in a guarded voice.

“You just passed up a perfect opportunity to land the Marauders in detention by telling Slughorn the truth. Why’d you cover for us?” James’ whispered question was obviously sincere, and Harry could tell by the look on her face that Lily knew it. She stopped on the first floor landing to turn and face him.

“Honestly? I did it because of you. You were worried about Peter instead of hitting on me, and I- I thought that was decent of you. Plus, I didn’t want Gryffindor to lose a bunch of points.” Without giving him a chance to respond, she spun around and hurried down the last flight of stairs.

“I’ll bet Snivelly’s really getting it right about now,” Sirius commented as they watched Lily disappear down the staircase.

“Yeah,” James answered distractedly as he looked over the banister and down at the ground floor. Suddenly, he looked up at his friends and grinned. “Hey, watch this!”

Harry watched in surprise as James vaulted over the banister and began plummeting toward the ground below. A confident flick of his wand once again conjured a thick, stretchy rope which slowed his fall nicely and dropped him right in front of Lily, who was just arriving at the bottom of the staircase.

“Fancy meeting you here, Evans,” James said with a false air of nonchalance as he ran a hand through his messy hair.

Lily didn’t miss a beat; she just rolled her eyes at him and continued on her way.

“Hey, Evans?” James called as she headed toward the front doors of the castle.

She turned around and looked inquisitively at him.

“There’s a Hogsmeade weekend coming up,” he said hopefully. “Would you like to-”

“No,” she interrupted.

James’ smile faltered, but he nodded bravely nonetheless. “Right. Listen, about what happened upstairs.... Thanks. It was... decent of you,” he finished with a smirk.

Lily’s mouth slowly curled into a smirk of her own. “You’re welcome,” she said softly before turning and heading out through the front doors of the castle.

The next thing Harry knew, he was floating up through swirling, silvery mist before landing hard on his feet back in Dumbledore’s office.

“Thank you, sir,” he said in a hoarse whisper as Dumbledore calmly returned the silvery memory to his temple.

“I thought you might enjoy seeing that,” the Headmaster replied with a smile. “Of course, you understand that I am trusting you not to repeat any of the more sensitive information from that memory.”

Harry nodded. “Of course, Professor.”

“I still remember the day I had to ask your father to stop using that particular spell,” Dumbledore reminisced. “It was about a week after what we just saw, and in that week I don’t think he walked down the stairs even once. I finally had to call him into my office and request that he stop using his new method of getting downstairs before one of the younger students attempted it and.... You get the idea.”

Harry nodded again. That really wasn’t something he wanted to think about.

“Professor? How were we able to see all that in your memory if you weren’t there?” he asked after a moment.

Dumbledore smiled again. “I was two or three floors above them and completely oblivious to what was happening at the time. Fortunately for us, however, I was still close enough to the action for my subconscious mind to work its magic and recall the details. Now, we need to get to our lesson, but first, do you have any other questions for me?”

Harry nodded nervously. He wasn’t really sure that he wanted to know the answer to his next question, but he felt like he had to ask. “What’s Voldemort up to? I know the attacks haven’t gotten to the level they were at during the first war, but it’s still hard to just sit back and just let things happen. I mean, what’s he playing at? Why isn’t he coming out into the open?”

“The answer to your question is simple, Harry, and I believe you already know what it is,” Dumbledore answered quietly. “He is focusing all of his energies on you.”

“Yeah, we talked about that when I was here with Remus. But why would Voldemort want to keep quiet about his return?” Harry asked curiously.

“Contrary to what some people like to think, Lord Voldemort is not stupid - far from it, to tell the truth. He is actually quite intelligent, and always has been. He knows that you were his downfall during the first war, and he is determined not to allow that to happen again. Voldemort is, therefore, avoiding other confrontations while he concentrates on the task of eliminating what he sees as the one true threat to his eventual reign over the Wizarding world: the child of the prophecy.”

“Me,” Harry muttered. “Still, I guess that’s okay as long as it keeps other people safe, right?”

“Exactly. At any rate, there is nothing for you to worry about at the moment; you are quite safe both here at Hogwarts and at the Burrow, especially now that the protective spells around the castle and grounds have been updated.” He clapped his hands suddenly. “Are we ready to begin?”

Harry nodded, trying to ignore the nervous churning of his stomach. His last Occlumency lesson had ended with him being kicked out of Snape’s office and ordered never to return. He hoped that tonight would prove more beneficial than his poor excuse for Occlumency lessons with Snape.

“Excellent,” said Dumbledore. “Now, I want you to clear your mind.”

Harry closed his eyes and tried his best to force the images that were floating around in his consciousness out of the way. He almost groaned in exasperation when he remembered just how incredibly useless the instruction to ‘clear your mind’ really was.

“Legilimens!” Images of his classes and other things that had happened earlier that day flashed through Harry’s mind. After a mere couple of seconds, Dumbledore broke the spell.

“You did not clear your mind, Harry,” he said with a hint of reproach in his voice.

“I tried!” Harry insisted. “It’s just, I don’t really know how.”

Dumbledore closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration while muttering something under his breath, but the only word Harry managed to catch was ‘Severus.’ When the Headmaster looked up a moment later, his expression was grave.

“Once again, Harry, I feel that I must apologize for not personally teaching you Occlumency from the very beginning. It seems painfully clear that I overestimated Professor Snape’s ability to ignore his personal feelings toward you.”

Harry shook his head. “It’s over and done with, Professor. You already apologized; you don’t have to do it again.”

“Thank you,” Dumbledore replied, and Harry was surprised to note the relief in the old man’s voice. “Now, we shall begin with some exercises that are designed to assist you in clearing your mind. First, you will need to close your eyes.” Harry obeyed and waited patiently for more instructions.

“Now I want you to pretend you are about to conjure a Patronus,” Dumbledore continued in a quiet, soothing voice. “Focus on a single happy memory and allow yourself to sink into it, driving everything else from your mind.”

Harry nodded slightly and allowed himself to be immersed in the very pleasant memory of his time spent snogging Ginny in the garden of the Burrow on Christmas morning, when it had seemed that they were the only two people in the entire world. He felt the muscles of his face relax into a contented expression as he settled deeper into his chair. After a few very pleasant moments, the sound of Dumbledore clearing his throat brought Harry back to reality. He slowly opened his eyes and focused them on the Headmaster.

“Were you able to clear your mind of everything but that one memory?” Dumbledore asked.

Harry nodded. “Yeah. It was almost like I was there reliving it all over again.”

Dumbledore smiled benignly. “Powerful memories often have that effect on us. Unfortunately, these powerful memories are usually the very things we wish to keep hidden from our enemies, so focusing on one of them generally isn’t much help. The first step in learning Occlumency, therefore, is to develop your ability to immerse yourself in a perfectly mundane memory. Although Lord Voldemort might learn a lot about your weaknesses if he were to witness the memory that you use to conjure a Patronus, he would learn nothing if you cleared your mind by focusing on a memory of, say, watching the grass grow.”

“So, what you’re saying is that I need to learn how to relive something boring so I can hide all the important stuff when Voldemort tries to look inside my mind?” Harry asked.

“At first, yes,” Dumbledore replied. “Of course, once you have mastered that skill, you will begin learning how to protect your especially secret memories, and once you have mastered that you will learn how to close your mind completely.”

“Sounds great,” said Harry. “So, er, what do I do now?”

“I want you to take some time tomorrow - it needn’t be much, just ten to fifteen minutes - and stare at something completely ordinary. If it weren’t winter, I would suggest watching the grass, but I’m afraid that pastime won’t be available for a few months yet. Perhaps you could stare at a flagstone in an empty corridor, for example. Whatever you choose, I want you to memorize it. Know it so well that you can conjure up the memory at a moment’s notice, just as you did with your more powerful memory this evening.”

Harry swallowed nervously and nodded. “I’ll do my best, sir,” he said quietly.

“Excellent!” Dumbledore clapped his hands once and immediately got to his feet, signaling that the lesson was over. “If your scar happens to hurt you again, be sure to let me know during our next lesson, or, if it’s urgent, contact me right away.”

Harry made sure to thank him for his time before hurrying out of the office and back to Gryffindor Tower. When he arrived, his attention was immediately drawn to the notice board, where Ginny, Colin, Demelza, and a couple of the other sixth-years were crowded around a new announcement. As he drew closer and realized what it was, Harry’s stomach twisted with nervousness anticipation; their Apparition lessons were to begin the following Saturday.

* * * * *
When Harry and Ginny returned to the Gryffindor common room after their first Apparition lesson, they were both in much higher spirits than either had expected. Harry spotted Ron and Hermione immediately and bounded over to the table where they were studying.

“I take it you enjoyed your lesson, then?” Hermione asked, looking up with a smile.

Harry nodded enthusiastically as Ginny joined them. “Yeah. I mean, nobody was actually able to Apparate on their own yet, but it was still pretty fun when Twycross took us Side-Along.”

Ron gaped openly at him. “I thought you said you hated Side-Along Apparition,” he exclaimed in disbelief.

“Well, I did,” Harry answered, “but it turns out Dumbledore was right! Shocking, I know,” he chuckled. “Anyway, he told me once that Apparating gets more comfortable the more you do it, and I started feeling that today. It didn’t feel like I was suffocating anymore; it was more like... I don’t know, really, but it was weird!”

“I’m glad you’re so excited Harry,” Hermione laughed.

“You should’ve seen him when I Splinched myself,” Ginny giggled, her eyes sparkling with mirth.

“You Splinched yourself?” Ron asked, immediately looking worried. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Ron,” she replied, waving away his concern.

“It was the closest anybody got to actually Apparating on their own,” Harry put in with a small smile.

“That’s right,” Ginny confirmed in her haughtiest voice. “Anyway,” she continued, reverting back to her normal tone, “I Apparated halfway across the Great Hall, but I sort of-” she paused as a slow blush began creeping up her cheeks, “-I left my legs behind.”

Ron snorted as he tried not to laugh, but Hermione’s eyes widened in shock. “When you say you left your legs behind, do you mean everything from the waist down, or just your legs?” she asked slowly.

Ginny’s blush increased as she answered, “Legs and feet, shoes and socks.”

“So your skirt was....”

“Still around my waist, yeah.” Ginny’s face was now nearly as red as her hair, and Harry reached over and took her hand in silent support.

“And here I thought you weren’t embarrassed by any of this,” he said quietly.

“That’s because if I acted upset it just would have made things worse,” Ginny explained. “At least this way, nobody will tease me about it - it’s no fun to tease somebody who doesn’t get embarrassed. Besides, anyone who’s ever seen me swimming has seen that much of my legs anyway, right?”

“You mean all those blokes in the Great Hall were....” Ron’s voice trailed off as his ears began to be tinged red.

“Not after what happened to Markson,” Ginny laughed, her embarrassment subsiding.

“Who?” Ron asked.

“Markson,” Harry answered. “I don’t know his first name, but he’s a sixth-year Ravenclaw.”

“What happened to him?” asked Hermione.

Ginny looked at Harry and started laughing so hard that she couldn’t answer. Sighing, Harry realized that it was up to him to share this story with Ron and Hermione before they got a distorted version from someone else.

“He started looking a bit too, er, appreciatively at Ginny’s legs,” he said slowly. “Then, when the teachers were busy talking to her on the other side of the Great Hall, he started reaching his hand out to try and touch her thigh like he was being sly or something. The next thing anybody knew, he was crumpled against the wall on the other side of the Great Hall, he could barely see, and his robes and hair were pink.”

Ron and Hermione’s eyes widened in surprise, and Ginny tried in vain to stifle her continued laughter at the memory.

“It was priceless,” she gasped. “After that, all of the boys were afraid to even look at me. Of course, as soon as the teachers realized what had happened, Snape started throwing around accusations.” She got her laughter under control enough to lower her voice and do a passable imitation of Snape. “‘This is all Potter’s doing!’ You know how he is.”

“You didn’t get into trouble, did you?” Hermione asked, her concern causing her to unconsciously lean forward in her chair.

Harry shook his head and grinned. “My wand was in my bag on the other side of the Hall, so it couldn’t have been me, as McGonagall so helpfully pointed out.”

“Oh, of course,” Ron said mockingly. “So what really happened?”

Harry held up his right hand and whispered, “Banishing Charm.” Then he held up his left hand, whispering, “Color Change Charm.” Finally, he held up his right hand again and whispered, “Conjunctivitis Curse.”

“Harry, you really shouldn’t risk getting caught like that,” Hermione admonished him at once. “Think what would have happened if somebody had realized you were doing magic without a wand.”

“But he couldn’t just let that git get away with goggling Ginny like that!” Ron protested.

“Ginny said herself that no more skin was showing that when she goes swimming!” Hermione shot back.

“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t embarrassed,” Ron countered. “Besides, he tried to touch her!”

“I’m right here, you know,” Ginny interrupted, folding her arms angrily. “I’m not upset about what Harry did, and you shouldn’t be either, Hermione. He was careful about it and eliminated a problem before it got out of hand. If he hadn’t done what he did, he probably would have ended up in detention for punching Markson later, am I right Harry?”

“Probably,” Harry admitted. “Besides, I’m getting better at nonverbal spells. The only one I had to say out loud was the Conjunctivitis Curse, and I whispered that one.”

“Harry, if we’re going to do this, we need to get moving,” Ginny said suddenly as she leaned over and glanced at his watch.

“What?” he asked, startled. “Oh, right. Listen, Ginny and I were wondering if you two have an hour or so that you could spend helping me train in the Room of Requirement.”

Ron and Hermione looked at one another for a moment before Ron shrugged.

“Of course we’ll help you, Harry,” Hermione assured him. “When were you thinking we should do it?”

“Right now’s good for me, if you’ve got the time,” Harry replied.

“Sounds great,” Ron answered, springing to his feet and shoving his half-finished essay into his bag.

“I suppose I can finish this later,” Hermione sighed. “Just let me put these things away and then we can go.”

“Take your bag with you, Hermione,” Ginny advised.

“Why?” Hermione asked, knitting her brow in confusion.

“So if anybody sees us we can just pretend we’re going off to study somewhere a bit quieter than the common room.” Harry answered.

“When did you get so devious?” Ron asked in amusement as the four friends climbed out of the common room through the portrait hole.

“Spending a few months with a bunch of criminals and then a couple of weeks with your twin brothers can do that to a person,” Harry answered dryly as they headed off for the Room of Requirement.

---

A/N: In case anybody’s interested, the two unnamed Slytherins in Dumbledore’s memory are Avery and Evan Rosier. In GoF, Sirius named them, as well as Wilkes and a few others, as members of Snape’s “gang of Slytherins.”

Also, it took me forever to figure out how to write about an Apparition lesson without feeling like I was just rehashing a scene from HBP. I hope you like what I finally came up with!

---

Before Harry knew it, January had given way to February and the castle was abuzz with talk of dates for the Hogsmeade visit on Valentine’s weekend. Of course, there was never any question in his mind that he was going with Ginny, and he knew that was what she expected as well, so the idea of actually asking her never even crossed his mind. Fortunately for him, a week before the Hogsmeade visit, Ron had asked him if he had asked Ginny yet.

“No,” Harry had replied. “It’s not like I need to, though. We always go to Hogsmeade together; she knows that.”

At this point, Ron had burst out laughing. “That’s what I thought last year, mate. Trust me; you do not want to make that mistake.”

From the frightened look that briefly crossed his best friend’s face as he thought about it, Harry could tell that Hermione’s wrath must have been terrible. Accordingly, he had immediately gone out and found Ginny, and properly asked her to be his date for Valentine’s Day.

So it was that Harry and Ginny ended up in the village of Hogsmeade, blissfully walking hand-in-hand down the main street. A soft blanket of snow covered the ground and the rooftops, and long icicles hung like natural decorations from the eaves of nearly every building. If it hadn’t been for the red and pink hearts visible in many of the shop windows, it would have looked like the quintessential Christmas village.

“Where do you want to go first?” Harry asked as they approached the shops.

“Honestly? I really don’t care,” Ginny replied happily as she bounced along beside him. “All I care about is that I’m here with you, and we don’t have any classes or extra training or anything else to worry about.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Harry chuckled. Not even the increased security in the village was able to dampen their spirits, and they barely even noticed the presence of several Ministry of Magic Aurors as they strolled up the street. They spent the next few hours browsing around the different shops without actually buying anything other than some Honeydukes chocolates before deciding it was time for lunch.

“So, where do you want to eat?” Harry asked with a smile as they left the sweetshop.

Ginny gave him an appraising look out of the corner of her eye. “What do you mean? Don’t we always eat at The Three Broomsticks?”

“Well, yeah,” Harry answered uncomfortably. “I just wasn’t sure you wanted to go there this time; you know, since it’s Valentine’s Day and we’re dating and stuff.”

“What, did you think I wanted to go to Madame Puddifoot’s or something?” Ginny giggled. When Harry didn’t immediately respond, she gasped and turned to stare at him.

“That is what you were thinking, isn’t it?” she demanded with more than a hint of laughter still in her voice.

Harry shifted uncomfortably but didn’t relinquish his hold on her hand. “Honestly, I was really hoping you wouldn’t want to go there, but I wanted to give you the choice,” he answered after a moment. “I want today to be special, so if you want to go to Madame Puddifoot’s, then that’s where we’ll go.”

Ginny stopped walking and turned to face him. Her expression was serious, and for a few horrifying seconds Harry was afraid he had said something terribly wrong. He soon changed his mind, however, when Ginny slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him swiftly. When she pulled away, he could see that her nose and cheeks were pink from more than just the cold, and her brown eyes were sparkling merrily.

“I’ve actually never been one for frills and cupids and such, so I doubt I’ll be asking you to take me to Madame Puddifoot’s anytime soon,” she explained softly. “But the fact that you were willing to take me there, especially since I know your last visit wasn’t exactly a good experience, means more to me than I can say. Thank you. Now, let’s get to the pub before we freeze!” Grasping Harry’s hand once again, she raced down the lane toward The Three Broomsticks, pulling him along in her wake.

“Harry!”

Harry stopped in his tracks, staring in surprise at the couple that had just exited the pub.

“Tyler?” he asked. “What’re you doing in Hogsmeade?”

“Valentine’s Day. I came to visit Luna,” Tyler responded, nodding toward the dreamy-eyed blonde witch on his arm. She smiled broadly at him.

“I take it things are going well, then,” Ginny said with a grin. “It’s good to see you out and about, Tyler.”

“Did anybody else come with you?” Harry asked. There was a war on, after all, and it wasn’t exactly safe for a Muggle to travel around the Wizarding world unescorted.

Tyler shook his head, and when he answered, it was in a whisper. “No; don’t tell anybody, but Fred and George made me a Portkey. They said it was safer than traveling the Muggle way, even if I do have a few magical protections with me.”

“He’s quite safe here, though,” Luna offered. “After all, the Death Eaters are all so busy with their plan to kidnap the London Philharmonic Orchestra that they don’t have time to worry about a Hogsmeade weekend.”

Harry, who was used to these sorts of comments coming from Luna, didn’t normally have much trouble keeping a straight face around her. However, when he saw Tyler’s grin grow larger and larger as she spoke, he couldn’t hold in his laughter.

“That’s the way to keep things in perspective, Luna,” Tyler responded while winking at Harry. “Seriously, though, I do have some pretty cool magical protections that the twins have developed.”

“And you trust them?” Ginny asked incredulously.

“Why shouldn’t he?” Luna asked, turning her unblinking gaze toward Ginny.

“Because they’re Fred and George,” Harry pointed out with a laugh.

“Yeah, but they wouldn’t mess around with something like self-defense,” Tyler said reasonably. “Like this cloak, for instance. They gave it to me for this trip.”

“It looks nice,” said Ginny. “Is it warm?”

Tyler nodded. “Yeah, but that’s not why they gave it to me. It’s got a built-in Shield Charm to block minor hexes and stuff.”

“Cool,” Harry breathed. “That’s not a bad idea for everybody to have.”

“Well, the Shield Charm only stays good for so many hits, so it might not be the best thing to rely on in battle if you can conjure a shield yourself. For sneak attacks, or for those of us who can’t do magic, though, it’s brilliant. Oh! And they let me borrow a prototype of one of their newest inventions, just in case.” Tyler’s dark eyes danced with excitement as he pulled a short wand out of his pocket.

“Tyler, you can’t use a wand,” Ginny blurted.

“Tyler Stevens: Magical Muggle,” Luna sang quietly.

“It’s not a wand,” Tyler explained. “Like I said, it’s one of your brothers’ newest inventions: Stunning Sticks for Squibs. All you do is hold it like a wand and flick your wrist toward your target, and it shoots a Stunner.”

“Seriously?” Harry asked in awe.

“Yeah,” Tyler answered. “Can’t show you now, though. This is the only one they’ve managed to make so far, and Fred guesses it’ll only be able to do half a dozen Stunners at most before the magic wears out. George thinks it’s closer to three, but they won’t know for sure until they test it after I get back. They made me promise not to use it unless it was an emergency.”

“Still, that’s brilliant,” said Ginny. “I’ll have to write and congratulate them.”

“You should do that,” Tyler said with a smile. “They enjoy hearing from you.” Glancing at Luna, who appeared to have become very interested in the way the sunlight was catching one of the icicles hanging from the eaves of the Three Broomsticks, he added, “We’d probably better get going.”

“Right,” said Harry. “See you later, mate. And send me an owl sometime; I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“I could say the same to you,” Tyler called over his shoulder as he led Luna toward a nearby shop.

“They’re sweet together, aren’t they?” Ginny observed as Harry opened the door to the Three Broomsticks for her.

“Yeah,” Harry chuckled. “They make each other smile, anyway.”

Upon entering the warm pub, Harry’s glasses immediately fogged over, and he hurriedly cleaned them with the edge of his shirt. Now able to see, he glanced around the room and quickly spotted Ron and Hermione, who were just getting up from a two-person booth tucked in a nook near the back of the room. Waving cheerily at his friends, Harry led Ginny over to where Ron and Hermione stood, still fastening their cloaks in preparation for the cold.

“How’s your Valentine’s Day going?” Harry asked as he approached.

“Not bad,” Ron answered. When Hermione elbowed him in the ribs, he turned to chuckle at her. “I figured you’d react like that. Honestly, it’s been brilliant.”

“We’re in a bit of a hurry, though,” Hermione said as she flashed Harry and Ginny a grin. “I really need to get to Dervish & Banges, and they’re closing early today. You can have our table. See you later!”

“See you,” they echoed as they slid into their seats and Hermione dragged Ron toward the door.

“We’ll see you back at the castle,” Ron called over his shoulder as he hurried to keep up with his girlfriend.

“Dervish & Banges isn’t closing early today,” Ginny observed just as her brother disappeared out into the cold.

“Well, it would’ve been a good excuse if your memory weren’t so good,” Harry laughed.

The meal and conversation were pleasant, and Harry was relieved to find that it was really no different from the other times he and Ginny had gone to Hogsmeade together, except for the obvious difference that they were by themselves rather than with Ron and Hermione. As they prepared to leave, he took a small square box that was tied up with a red ribbon out of his pocket, and placed it gently on the table.

“I got you something,” he said with a slight waver in his voice. No matter how many times he tried to convince himself that there was no reason to be nervous about this gift, he couldn’t shake the feeling of worry that came over him whenever he thought about it. It was, after all, his first Valentine’s Day as Ginny’s boyfriend, and he didn’t want to mess things up. “I, er, hope you like it.”

Ginny smiled at him as she took the little white box. “I’m sure it’s wonderful, whatever it is,” she replied. “Do you want me to open it now?”

“Sure,” Harry answered with an attempt at a casual shrug. He was so tense that it probably looked more like he had a cramp in his shoulder. He watched in silence as she carefully removed the ribbon and opened the small box. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion as she lifted out a tiny jade carving of a coiled snake. It was barely an inch tall, and it glittered almost eerily in the soft light of the pub.

“Harry,” she said slowly. “You do remember that I’m in Gryffindor, right?”

“What?” Harry asked dumbly.

“Well, it’s just that this looks rather... Slytherin. You know?”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and ran a hand nervously through his hair. She had no idea what he was trying to say with that gift. Was he really that bad of a gift-giver?

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Ginny quickly added when she saw his reaction. “It’s just.... I know there has to be a story behind this gift, and I want to understand.”

Harry slowly opened his eyes and looked across the table at her. Her bright brown eyes were open wide, and he saw nothing but sincerity in them. She might not understand yet, but she genuinely wanted to. Heartened, he cleared his throat and began to explain.

“You know how I hate being gawked at, right?”

Ginny chuckled. “Yeah, I know that. It’s the reason I keep all my pictures of you in an album instead of in frames - so my roommates can’t gawk at you.”

“I know,” Harry replied with a small grin. “Well, I wanted to give you something that would make you think of me whenever you saw it, but that you could keep out in the open where it’s always visible.”

“So you got me a snake?” Ginny giggled.

“Yeah,” Harry answered in a serious voice. “I thought it was appropriate because you like it so much when I say-” he switched to Parseltongue, “-I love you.”

Ginny smiled and sighed contentedly. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what you’re saying yet, are you?”

Harry shook his head. “Sorry; not yet.”

“Okay, so that explains the snake - and it’s a very good explanation, by the way - but why is it Slytherin green?”

“It’s not Slytherin green,” Harry answered, looking offended. “I’ll have you know that that snake is-” he lowered his voice to a whisper and winked at her, “-fresh pickled toad green.”

Ginny’s reaction was exactly what he had expected: color began rising in her cheeks as she whispered, “Never mention that again!” Her quiet laughter quickly gave away her amusement, however, and Harry felt safe laughing along with her.

“So the green snake is supposed to remind me of a certain green-eyed Parselmouth, is it?” she asked after their laughter died away.

“That’s right,” Harry answered with a nod.

Ginny looked appraisingly at the jade serpent for a long moment before announcing, “There’s something missing.”

“What?” Harry asked. “What’s missing?”

“When I tell you to, I want you to say whatever it is that you like telling me in Parseltongue, okay?”

“All right,” Harry answered, his confusion still showing on his face.

Ginny discreetly drew her wand and tapped the tiny snake’s head while muttering, “Audictus Tactum.” She nodded at Harry.

“I love you, Ginny,” Harry hissed in Parseltongue.

Ginny tapped the snake’s head again and muttered, “Finis,” before returning her wand to her pocket.

“What did you just do?” Harry asked.

“A speech recording charm,” Ginny replied with a smile. “It’s a simpler version of the one I used to make that singing get-well card I gave you back in second year. Watch.”

She tapped the top of the snake’s head with her fingertip, and suddenly Harry’s hissing voice was saying, “I love you, Ginny.”

“Now I can hear you say that anytime I want,” she explained with a shrug.

“Brilliant,” Harry chuckled. “I just hope there aren’t any other closet Parselmouths hanging around.”

“Why’s that, Harry?” Ginny asked with a wide grin. “Is it really so terrible?”

Harry shook his head. “No, it’s just... never mind.” Seeking to change the subject, he quickly asked, “So, did you get me anything?”

“Of course I did. What kind of girlfriend do you think I am?” She reached into the pocket of her robes and took out a small envelope, which she quickly handed to him.

Harry held the small square of parchment for a long moment, just examining his name written in her flowing script. Whatever was inside this envelope had probably cost her next to nothing, but he knew that it would be a treasure to him. Taking a deep breath, he carefully broke the wax seal and tipped the envelope’s contents into his hand.

It was a very small, round photograph of himself and Ginny. All he could see was their faces, really, but he watched, mesmerized, as they laughed and joked with one another. He smiled as he watched Ginny lean over and kiss him lightly on the nose before pulling back and giggling at the expression on his face.

“Do you like it?” Ginny asked nervously.

“Do I.... Are you kidding? It’s perfect,” Harry breathed. “Where’d you get it?”

“George,” she answered with a smirk. “He took it at Christmas. You didn’t even notice when he stole his camera back after Percy attacked you. Don’t worry, though; he and Fred know better than to actually let anybody other than family see those photos.”

“If you say so,” Harry responded warily. “Is there a reason it’s so small, though?”

“You really are daft sometimes, aren’t you Harry?” Ginny laughed. “It goes in the other side of your locket - you know, the side that doesn’t have a picture in it yet.”

“Really? I didn’t realize it could hold two.” He pulled the locket out from where it rested under his shirt, grateful that their booth shielded them from prying eyes. As much as he loved that locket, he still didn’t want to be teased about it.

Ginny patiently showed him how to fit the new picture into the empty half of his locket, and they stared at both photos for a long moment after she had finished. With a satisfied smile, Harry snapped the little pendant shut and slipped the chain back around his neck.

“Thank you, Ginny. I love it,” he whispered.

“I love my little green snake, too,” she replied as she placed the small jade carving back into its box. “I’ll keep it on my night table so it can watch over me while I sleep.”

“Sounds good to me,” Harry smiled as he got to his feet and led her toward the door, stopping on the way to pay Madam Rosmerta for their meal.

As they chatted happily on their way back to the castle, Harry couldn’t help thinking that he had just experienced the best Valentine’s Day imaginable.

* * * * *
Monday started out just like any other day. Harry rolled out of bed, hurriedly dressed, gathered his books, and got ready for class, and then met Ron, Hermione, and Ginny for breakfast. They were all still in exceptionally good moods (which had carried over from a very pleasant Valentine’s weekend) until the morning post arrived. No sooner had Hermione opened her copy of the Daily Prophet than her eyes widened in shock and she hurriedly folded the paper into a tight roll.

“What is it, Hermione?” Harry asked immediately. “Was there an attack?”

She shook her head. “Everything’s fine,” she said in an unnaturally bright tone.

“Come off it,” said Ron. “We all know you just read something that upset you, so out with it. If you don’t tell us, somebody else will before long.”

Hermione sighed and began unfolding her paper. “Before I let you see this, Harry, I want you to promise me that you won’t do anything rash.”

“Me? Do something rash?” Harry asked in mock-surprise. “You must have me confused with somebody else, Hermione. Now let’s see it.” He snatched the newspaper out of her hands and finished unfolding it until the offending article was visible beneath a large photograph of Ginny kissing him in the middle of the street in Hogsmeade just two days before. He stared at the picture for a moment before he realized that it was moving in slow motion, making the kiss look much longer than it actually had been. His temper already rising, he tore his eyes away from the photograph and began reading the article.

Her Very Own Boy-Who-Lived
By Matilda Johansen

After surviving numerous encounters with Dark wizards, disappearing from the Wizarding world for a year, and overcoming severe memory loss to return to Hogwarts School and continue his education upon his return, it seems that Harry Potter, 17, has finally been dealt a blow from which he may not be able to recover. Although his current adversary may not mean him physical harm, her influence may prove fatal nevertheless.

Ginny Weasley, 16, sister of Potter’s longtime friend, Ronald, is well-known among her peers for having harbored unrequited affections for Harry Potter for the past six years. During that time, Mr. Potter repeatedly fled from her advances, even going so far as to pretend he was dating his good friend, Hermione Granger, during his time as Triwizard Champion. Apparently, Ginny Weasley can’t take a hint.

The disturbing news reached the ears of your Daily Prophet reporter on St. Valentine’s Day, of all days. Harry Potter had been spotted in Hogsmeade in the company of one Ginny Weasley, but her affections were suddenly and miraculously being returned. What could possibly have changed Mr. Potter’s attitude so dramatically? Draco Malfoy, 17, a Hogwarts Prefect who has had extensive dealings with both Potter and Weasley in the past, believes he knows the answer: a Love Potion.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” young Mr. Malfoy asked our reporters. “Sixth-years start studying Love Potions right after Christmas, and we all know that Weasley wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of anything she could to hook up with Potter.”

When questioned about Miss Weasley’s potion-making ability, Ravenclaw Michael Corner confirmed that she is more than competent in the subject. We are once again left to question the wisdom of teaching such mind-altering potions to teenagers.

However, with increasing numbers of witches and wizards believing that the future of the Wizarding world rests in Harry Potter’s hands, perhaps we should do more than merely question. This is a very serious situation indeed, and it is Albus Dumbledore’s responsibility as Headmaster to...

Harry threw the newspaper aside in disgust, his pulse pounding in his ears as he considered the best way to lash out at Malfoy, Matilda Johansen, the Daily Prophet, and anyone else who might in some way be responsible.

“Harry!” Ginny’s giggling voice in his ear jerked him out of his thoughts of revenge. “Don’t you think it’s funny?”

“What?” he seethed. “Were we reading the same article?”

Ginny rolled her eyes dramatically. “Honestly, Harry. Everybody knows we’ve been together since Christmas, and most people know you spent all of last term trying to win me over. No one we know is going to take this rubbish seriously. Besides, it’s not as if you act like you’ve been taking a Love Potion.” She smirked at him. “You’d be much more obedient if you had been.”

“You’re- You mean you’re really not angry?” he asked in surprise.

“I knew what I was getting into when I decided to get involved with you, Harry. I just don’t care. Being with you is worth it. Besides, it’s not like they can really do anything to me. It’s all just talk.”

“She’s right, Harry,” Hermione said as she stood up from the table. “Everybody who matters already knows the truth. This will all blow over in a few days. Come on, Ron; we’re going to be late for Transfiguration.”

“Right,” Ron muttered, getting up to follow her. “Let us know if anybody gives you any trouble, Ginny.”

“Thanks,” Ginny replied as she stood and tugged on Harry’s arm. “Let’s go, Harry; you can’t be Snape’s model student if you’re late for class.”

---

A/N: I realize that the singing get-well card was in Harry’s third year; however, that was Ginny’s second year, so that’s how she would refer to it. Also, for anybody who’s interested, Audictus Tactum comes from the Latin words for ‘listen’ (audio), ‘speech’ (dictus), and ‘touch’ (tactum). The idea is that you touch (or tap) an object and it speaks to you. Finis just means ‘end’ or ‘finish’.

---

Harry and Ginny slid into their seats mere seconds before Professor Snape stalked into the Potions classroom. He strode to the front of the room, his black robes billowing menacingly as the students’ whispered conversations faded away and ceased.

“Your Eye of the Maiden potions should be nearly finished,” Snape snapped as he spun around to face the class. “If you have managed to follow instructions correctly, all that should remain is the addition of the final two ingredients. Instructions are on the board.” He tapped the blackboard with his wand, causing a few lines of sloppily written instructions to appear:

• Find your subject’s weight and add one ounce of dark chocolate per fifty pounds while stirring anticlockwise


• Continue stirring until the chocolate has completely dissolved, then simmer exactly ten minutes, remove from fire, and add three of your own tears

Snape’s lip curled nastily as he continued, “Unfortunately, the only way to determine a Love Potion’s effectiveness is by testing it on a human subject. You may decide amongst yourselves which partner will add the tears and which will drink the completed potion. Miss Winters?”

Iris Winters, a tall Slytherin girl with long, shimmering black hair, looked up abruptly at the mention of her name.

“Yes, Professor?” she asked in a deferential, almost admiring, voice.

“You mentioned last week that you were in need of extra credit in my class. Is that still the case?”

“Yes, sir,” Iris answered.

Snape nodded. “Jamison, Gibbon, you may use Miss Winters as your subject. You may begin.”

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the two skinny Slytherin boys at the back of the room relax their tense posture. When Snape had announced that they would be testing their potions on their partners, he had immediately thought of William Jamison and Miles Gibbon, the only same-gender partnership in the class. Now, he found that this was one of those rare occasions when he actually agreed with Snape’s judgment. As funny as it would be to see those two profess their undying love for one another, it wasn’t something he wanted to have to watch.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to have you as my Potions partner,” Harry whispered as he and Ginny began setting up their cauldron.

“I know what you mean,” she laughed quietly. “Can you imagine suddenly becoming obsessed with one of those Slytherins?”

“Not really,” Harry admitted as he retrieved his silver knife and a large chunk of dark chocolate. “So, who gets to be the victim?”

“You do,” Ginny answered, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Why me?” Harry asked playfully. “You’ve got me wrapped around your little finger already and you know it. I should get a turn for once.”

“You had your turn for several years; I get the next few.” She smiled sweetly at him, and he knew it was no use arguing.

“You had to bring that up, didn’t you?” he grumbled. “Fine, I’ll do it. But only because I don’t feel like arguing with you.”

“I knew you’d see things my way,” Ginny replied with a smirk.

Harry quirked an eyebrow at her. “Oh, really? How?”

She leaned in close to his ear and lowered her voice even further. “Because I’ve got you wrapped around my little finger.”

Harry chuckled along with her as he went to get in line to use the scales.

“A hundred and fifty pounds,” he reported a few minutes later when he arrived back at their table.

“So that’s three ounces of chocolate, then,” Ginny murmured to herself as she began cutting their block of dark chocolate into small pieces and placing them carefully on her set of brass scales.

Harry watched in silence, not wanting to disrupt her concentration as she measured out the precise amount of chocolate.

“Do you want to stir?” she asked when she was satisfied that she had measured out the perfect amount.

“All right,” Harry answered with a shrug. It wasn’t like he actually cared who stirred the potion, after all.

As he slowly stirred the simmering solution in an anticlockwise direction, Ginny added the chocolate a bit at a time. It took another five minutes of stirring for the chocolate to completely dissolve, turning the potion dark brown.

“Start,” Harry ordered. Ginny flipped over her ten minute hourglass, and they sat back to watch as their potion bubbled sluggishly. Before thirty seconds had passed, however, Ginny spoke up.

“How am I supposed to get exactly three tears into that potion?” she wondered aloud.

Harry frowned. She had a good point; forcing yourself to cry wasn’t exactly a normal activity.

“Well, you’re a pretty good actress,” Harry offered. “Can’t you just, I don’t know, make yourself cry or something?”

Ginny bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud.

“Is there a problem, Miss Weasley?” asked a sneering voice. Harry and Ginny looked up to see Professor Snape looming over them.

“Actually, there is, sir,” Ginny replied with a polite smile. Snape’s eyes narrowed.

“You see, Harry and I were just trying to figure out how I could make myself cry to get the tears we need for the potion.”

“Do you have any suggestions, Professor?” Harry added in a light tone.

Snape glared at him. “Physical pain would most likely be effective,” he answered before moving on to another table.

Harry bit down hard on the insides of his cheeks to avoid laughing at Snape’s response to his question. Ginny’s face was flushed dark red as she held her breath in an attempt to stifle her own laughter. Finally, just as Harry was beginning to worry that she might faint, she took an enormous gasping breath.

“I’ll bet he wanted to be the one to provide the physical pain, too,” she whispered after regaining her composure. “But to answer your question from before, I can’t just make myself cry. If I’m pretending, I have to cover my face or run off to the bathroom or something so nobody can see that my eyes are dry.”

“What about onions?” Harry asked.

“What about them?” Ginny asked in return.

“Does chopping them make you cry?”

“That’s brilliant, Harry,” she whispered excitedly. Then her face fell. “But we don’t have any onions, and it’s not like Snape’s going to let us run to the kitchens to get one. There’s no time for that, anyway; look, we’ve only got about three minutes left.”

“Then we’ll have to conjure one,” Harry said simply as he picked up his wand. Although he had never had a reason to try conjuring an onion before now, the fact that they had been working on conjuring spells in Transfiguration ever since school began in September gave him the confidence he needed to try.

Harry focused his thoughts on a mental picture of an onion and made a small circular movement with his wand while whispering, “Conjurus.” A small, slightly lopsided white onion appeared on the table.

“You did it!” Ginny exclaimed in an excited whisper.

“Yeah, but hurry; I don’t know how long it will last,” Harry replied as he pushed the onion and knife toward her.

Ginny picked up the knife, sliced the onion in half, and brought one of the halves up to her face as she inhaled deeply. Almost immediately, tears began forming in the corners of her eyes. After several more deep breaths of the onion’s fumes, Ginny’s eyes were streaming. Harry carefully captured three of her tears in a small potion vial before Vanishing the onion and helping her wipe her eyes.

“Thanks,” she murmured as her tear ducts finally began to calm down.

“No problem,” Harry whispered as he glanced at the hourglass. They had just over a minute to go before the fire needed to be extinguished and the tears added. He stood with his wand ready to douse the flames, while Ginny picked up the vial of tears.

“I wonder if this is like Polyjuice Potion,” Harry mused idly as he watched the sand falling through the hourglass.

“What do you mean?” Ginny whispered.

“What? Oh, I was just wondering if the tears have to be added right away or if you can save some of the potion for later and add the tears to it then.”

Ginny’s eyes widened and she broke into a grin. “You can! I remember reading that part just last night. It said that people almost always just add the tears to the whole batch all at once since they don’t want it to be used to attract ‘the object of their desire’ to someone else, but it isn’t necessary. Harry, we have to save some of that potion and sneak it out of here.”

Harry looked at her in alarm. “What?” he hissed. “Ginny, you know Snape threatened to Memory Charm us if he found out we were misusing this potion.”

“Yeah, but how likely is it that Fred and George will go running to him after we use it to prank them?” she retorted with a self-satisfied smirk. “Now hurry up; we don’t have much time.”

Harry rolled his eyes, unable to quite believe what he was agreeing to do, and quietly retrieved five glass vials from his potions kit as he watched the last grains of sand fell through the center of the hourglass. As the final grain dropped, he waved his wand at the small fire under the cauldron, extinguishing it neatly.

“He’s looking the other way,” Ginny whispered. Taking that as his cue, Harry quickly filled his five vials with the dark brown potion. As he slipped them into his bag, Ginny tipped her three tears into the cauldron, causing its contents to sizzle and pop, and finally turn bright red.

“We did it,” she whispered, her tense body relaxing with relief.

Harry just nodded and took her hand under the table as they waited for Professor Snape to give them further instructions. Twenty minutes before the end of class, the professor returned to the front of the classroom.

“Prepare a vial of potion,” he instructed. “We will test them one by one.” He paused for a few moments as the students fumbled around, each pair filling a glass vial with a sample of their potion.

“Davidson and Winters, you will begin,” Snape ordered silkily. Peter Davidson and Iris Winters strode confidently to the front of the room and presented him with a small vial of dark purple potion.

“Which one of you is the subject?”

“I am,” answered Davidson.

Snape handed the vial back to him. “Drink.”

Looking only slightly nervous, Davidson uncapped the vial and drank the potion in one long gulp.

“Now, Mr. Davidson, what is your favorite color?” Snape asked coolly.

“Black,” was the prompt reply.

“Oh?” Snape affected surprise, although it was clear to Harry that Davidson’s answer had been exactly what he was expecting. “Would you care to explain why to the class?”

Davidson turned to gaze adoringly at his Potions partner. “Black is the color of Iris’s beautiful, shimmering hair.” He reached out his hand to run his fingers through it and she blushed. “It’s perfect in every way, so soft and wonderful. And her dark eyes are almost the same color. I could spend days just gazing into them and never get bored. They’re-”

“Shut up, Davidson, before you make the entire class sick,” Snape spat as he forced an antidote down the boy’s throat. Harry ducked his head and bit his lip, trying to control his laughter. This must be the reason Snape hated being required to teach about Love Potions.

“Was that amusing, Potter?” Snape hissed.

“No, sir,” Harry answered in a surprisingly steady voice. He was not, however, able to hide his grin as he spoke.

Snape’s eyes narrowed before he turned back to the pair who had just tested their potion. “Infatuated rambling is the most difficult side-effect to eliminate,” he stated. “Other than that, your potion was quite effective. Exceeds Expectations.” Smiling broadly, Peter Davidson and Iris Winter headed back to their seats.

“Potter! Weasley! You’re next,” Snape announced with a calculating sneer.

Harry stood and followed Ginny to the front of the room, where she handed the professor their vial of bright red potion.

“Which one of you will be taking the risk of getting poisoned by your own substandard potion-making?”

With extreme effort, Harry forced himself not to rise to the bait. “I will, sir,” he answered politely.

“Very well,” Snape replied with an almost triumphant smirk as he handed him the vial of potion. “Drink up, Potter.”

Harry uncapped the vial and swallowed a mouthful of potion. An odd tingling immediately began spreading from his stomach out toward his extremities. When the tingling reached his head, his eyes immediately sought out Ginny. She was the most beautiful girl in the room. Of course, that wasn’t saying much at the moment, but Harry was certain that it would always be true, no matter who else happened to be in the room with her. And the best part was, she was his. He stepped forward and slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her close to his side. She was his, and he needed to keep all of those other blokes in the class away from her.

“Feeling a bit protective, Potter?” Snape sneered.

“So what if I am?” Harry asked belligerently.

“I wonder.... How would you react if I did this?” Snape slowly drew his wand and aimed it at Ginny’s chest. In a flash, Harry’s wand was in his hand and he was aiming it threateningly at the professor’s throat.

“Do not threaten me, Potter,” Snape growled.

“Then don’t threaten Ginny,” Harry shot back.

“Can’t we just give him the antidote now, Professor?” Ginny asked worriedly.

“There is no need,” Snape replied as he stowed his wand. “You may take your seats.”

“But-”

“Sit down, Miss Weasley!” Snape ordered. Ginny turned as if to walk back to their table, but immediately spun back around with her wand out.

“Accio antidote!” A vial of clear potion shot from Snape’s pocket to her outstretched hand, and she dumped it into Harry’s mouth before the professor could react. Harry’s head cleared at once, relief flooding him as he realized that he no longer felt that frightening possessiveness toward his girlfriend.

“Detention, Weasley,” Snape seethed as he snatched the vial of antidote away from her. “And fifty points from Gryffindor.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ginny responded as she pulled Harry back to their table.

“As you have all seen, Mr. Potter’s behavior was not altered in the slightest by that potion,” Snape announced to the class. “It was worthless. Dreadful.”

Harry and Ginny’s mouths fell open in identical expressions of shock as Snape turned to them with a triumphant sneer. “Be grateful I didn’t make it Troll.”

Harry didn’t hear him call the next pair of students forward as he set his vial of potion back on the table in front of him. His mind was still reeling from outrage at Snape’s blatant unfairness, and fear of his own reaction to the Eye of the Maiden. He shuddered at the memory of how possessive he had felt. Snape had been right about one thing: ‘Love Potion’ was definitely a misnomer. There was no question in his mind that he loved Ginny, and what that potion had made him feel was an extremely poor imitation at best. After all, love wasn’t possession. If it was, then Lord Voldemort would have no trouble at all understanding it.

A scream and a crash pulled Harry from his thoughts. He looked up to see Miles Gibbon lying on the floor, trapped underneath Iris Winters as she kissed him with desperate passion.

“Petrificus Totalus!” Snape’s voice rang out. Iris’s arms snapped to her sides and her body went rigid, allowing Gibbon to push her off of him and scramble to his feet. Snape knelt down and poured three full vials of antidote down her throat before releasing her from the Full-Body Bind. Red-faced and staring at the floor, she rushed back to her seat where she buried her face in her hands as her shoulders shook with silent sobs of mortification.

“Poor,” Snape hissed at the pair of Slytherin boys who had prepared the potion. “You must have added nearly three times the amount of chocolate necessary for someone Miss Winters’ size.”

“Professor?”

Harry’s jaw tensed at the sound of the drawling voice coming from the doorway. He didn’t need to turn around to know it was Draco Malfoy.

“Your class does not begin for another fifteen minutes, Draco,” Snape reminded him smoothly. Harry marveled at how quickly the Potions Master could remove the venom from his voice if he wanted to.

“I know, sir,” Malfoy drawled. “I just thought you might want to see this before you dismissed your sixth-years.” Harry looked up to see him handing Snape a copy of that morning’s Daily Prophet. Snape’s eyes rapidly scanned the page, but his expression remained unreadable.

“Thank you, Draco,” Snape said after he had finished. “I may be late for the seventh-years’ class. Tell your classmates to continue working on their antidotes until I return.”

Malfoy nodded in agreement, and then turned to leave after pausing just long enough to send a smirk in Harry’s direction.

“Class dismissed,” Snape announced. “Weasley!” Ginny looked up. “Come with me.”

---

Panic flooded Harry’s mind as he hurriedly packed away his potion ingredients. He knew exactly what Snape was planning: he was going to take the Daily Prophet article about Ginny’s abuse of Love Potions seriously for no reason other than his hatred of Gryffindors in general and Harry in particular. Harry just hoped that a peaceful method of preventing him from Obliviating Ginny would present itself. If one didn’t, however, he was fully prepared to duel the Potions Master if necessary.

“Strong Protego,” Harry whispered as he passed Ginny on his way out of the classroom. She nodded bravely, and he could see that she was discreetly gripping her wand inside the pocket of her robes.

Once outside in the corridor, Harry ducked into the shadows behind a suit of armor to wait for Snape to lead Ginny out of the classroom. At least if he followed them, he might be able to find a way to help.

Sure enough, a moment later, the Potions Master and the young redheaded witch exited the classroom and strode briskly toward the stairs leading up to the ground floor. Harry noted with relief that Ginny’s right hand remained in the pocket of her robes.

As inconspicuously as possible, Harry stole out of his hiding place and followed them down the corridor, trying to keep them in sight without alerting Snape to his presence. He silently cursed himself for not having his Invisibility Cloak with him at such a critical time, but quickly pushed the thought aside; classes were just letting out, and he wouldn’t be able to keep up if he had to avoid colliding with a mass of students while invisible.

He quickened his pace as Ginny’s bright red hair disappeared into the stairwell, and didn’t slow down again until he had reached the ground floor. Cautiously, he leaned around the corner and spotted Snape ushering Ginny into a room near the end of the hall.

Harry broke into a run. He had to get there before Snape had a chance to do anything to her. He knew very well that her Shield Charm was strong enough to block a Memory Charm, but he still couldn’t risk it. He knew what memory loss was like, and there was no way he was going to allow it to be forced on someone he cared about, especially when there was no way to be sure of exactly how much Snape was going to try to make her forget.

Skidding to a stop outside the staff room door, which had been left slightly ajar, he listened carefully.

“You were well aware of my warnings, Miss Weasley,” Snape was saying, “and I am tired of your denials. Obliviate!”

“Protego!” Harry and Ginny shouted together as Harry burst into the room.

“Potter!” Snape spat the name as though it were the foulest curse he could think of.

“Snape,” Harry said coldly, acknowledging him with a curt nod.

“Lower your wand, Potter,” Snape ordered, his lip curling nastily.

“You first.”

The room was filled with silent tension for what seemed like hours, neither side willing to back down.

“Potter! Miss Weasley!” Harry jumped at the sound of Professor McGonagall’s voice. “What’s going on here?”

“Your students seem to have decided that I am a target, rather than a Professor, Minerva,” Snape replied smoothly.

“He tried to Obliviate Ginny,” Harry inserted before McGonagall could respond. “As you might imagine, I don’t take kindly to people handing out Memory Charms the way Dumbledore hands out sweets.” McGonagall arched a thin eyebrow, but otherwise her expression did not change.

“What did the girl do to merit a Memory Charm, Severus?” she asked. Her tone was completely neutral, betraying no hint of whose side she might be on.

“The students were warned not to misuse the Love Potions they’ve been learning about,” Snape explained disdainfully. “Miss Weasley has done so, and it is therefore my responsibility to remove the dangerous information from her mind.”

McGonagall’s eyes narrowed very slightly. “In what way did she misuse the knowledge gained in your class?”

Instead of answering, Snape thrust Malfoy’s copy of the Daily Prophet at her.

“Don’t tell me you believe that rubbish,” she scoffed. Harry silently cheered; finally, someone with authority was on their side.

“Test Potter’s blood if you don’t believe me,” Snape said unconcernedly. “You’ll find traces of the Eye of the Maiden Love Potion.”

“Only because you made him drink it in class to prove that it worked!” Ginny shouted, her face red with anger.

Snape looked disdainfully at her. “Do not cheek me, Miss Weasley. The potion Potter took in class didn’t work, did it? His behavior didn’t change in the slightest when he drank it because you had already snuck in and finished your concoction in time for Valentine’s Day and replaced it with something else.”

“If that’s true, then why would she have made me drink the antidote in class?” Harry demanded. “And why didn’t I decide to break up with her right after drinking it?”

“Because, Potter, unlike you, Miss Weasley knows how to read,” Snape answered in his most condescending tone. “As you ought to know, that antidote is only effective if taken within ten minutes of the original Love Potion.”

“Enough of this,” snapped McGonagall. “You’re behaving like children! Severus, do you have any of their potion with you so we can test it and get this mess dealt with?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Snape replied without taking his eyes off of Harry. “You’ll just have to take my word-”

“I’ve got it here, Professor,” Harry announced, holding up a small vial that was half full of bright red potion. “I put it in my pocket before I left class, just in case.”

Snape glared at him, but said nothing.

“Go ahead and try it, Professor,” Harry continued, holding the vial out for Snape to take. “I’m pretty sure you’re heavier than I am, so there shouldn’t be too much chocolate for you.”

Snape slowly reached out his hand and took the vial. He held it up near his face and glared at it for a long moment before throwing it down hard on the stone floor. The vial shattered.

“Severus!” McGonagall shouted.

“You shouldn’t try to poison your professors, Potter,” Snape said in a venomous whisper. “It’s not polite.”

“And how would you know it was poisoned without testing it?” McGonagall asked imperiously. Snape opened his mouth to respond, but she continued speaking over the top of him. “This has gone much too far. The Headmaster must be informed.” She flicked her wand and a silvery mass shot from its tip and flew from the room.

“Professor Dumbledore should be here momentarily,” she explained. “You may as well sit.”

“As much as I’d love to stay, Minerva, I have a class to teach at the moment,” Snape said, turning to leave.

“Your class will have to wait, Severus,” she replied authoritatively. “This cannot continue, and if your students have to miss one lesson in order for it to be dealt with, then so be it!”

Snape glowered at her, but sank into a straight-backed chair in a far corner of the room. Harry, Ginny, and McGonagall all sat nearer the door.

After several tense minutes of silent waiting, Professor Dumbledore appeared in the doorway. His face was grave, and he looked older than Harry remembered. With a sad sigh, he dropped into an armchair near the middle of the room.

“Minerva,” he began, “Your message was rather vague. Would you mind explaining what’s going on here?”

“I only arrived a few minutes ago,” McGonagall explained. “The problem apparently began in the sixth-years’ Potions class. I have a class waiting for me, Albus; do you have everything under control?”

“Yes, yes, go on,” Dumbledore muttered distractedly. “What happened, Severus?”

“Today was our final lesson on the Eye of the Maiden,” Snape answered smoothly. “Potter became angry with me when his potion did not work, and threatened me at wand-point in front of the entire class. Then, in a pathetic attempt to prove that the faulty potion had, in fact, worked, Miss Weasley stole my antidote and forced him to drink it, an action for which I have already deducted points and assigned a detention.”

Snape stood and began to walk around the room as he continued his narrative. “Near the end of the lesson, the front page of this morning’s Daily Prophet was brought to my attention. Needless to say, I was concerned, and determined to resolve the matter as quickly as possible. Now, I realize, Headmaster, that the Daily Prophet is hardly the most reliable publication in the Wizarding world, but I have reason to believe that this morning’s story has at least some merit.”

“How so?” Dumbledore asked evenly.

“Potter and Weasley’s potion had absolutely no effect when ingested. Even a very poorly concocted potion would do something, but it was as if Potter was drinking red water. The only explanation is that Miss Weasley finished the potion on her own and replaced it with something else so that she could begin giving the real potion to Potter on Saturday morning. I have warned the students repeatedly about the misuse of Love Potions, and you and I have already agreed that a Memory Charm would be the most appropriate course of action if something of this nature were to happen.”

Snape stopped in front of Ginny’s chair and drew his wand, but before he had a chance to cast a spell, Harry was on his feet, shielding her with his body. His wand was at the Potions Master’s throat.

“Stand aside, Potter,” he snapped impatiently. Something clicked in Harry’s brain as voices from long ago echoed in his memory.

Stand aside you silly girl ... stand aside now.

Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-

Expelliarmus! Harry shouted in his mind. To his satisfaction, his nonverbal use of the spell caught Snape by surprise, and the professor’s wand flew from his hand. Harry pressed the tip of his wand into the flesh of Snape’s neck.

“You’re sounding a bit too much like your old master, Professor,” he spat, scornfully exaggerating the title. “Did you know that was what he told my mother just before he killed her?”

“Harry-” Dumbledore began.

“But she didn’t stand aside, Professor, and neither will I,” Harry continued, ignoring the Headmaster.

Without warning, Harry’s wand flew out of his grasp. He looked around in alarm to see Professor Dumbledore standing a few feet away, holding both Harry’s and Snape’s wands.

“That’s quite enough from both of you,” Dumbledore said, taking control of the situation. His voice was as calm as ever, but there was an intangible forcefulness that accompanied it. “Miss Weasley, you are free to go, and your detention will be served with Professor McGonagall, rather than Professor Snape. I will inform her of the change as soon as we are finished here.” He turned to look intently at her as he added, “I would appreciate it if what has transpired today remained just between us.”

“Yes, Professor,” Ginny answered with a nod as she picked up her bag and headed for the door. When she reached it, she turned back to look anxiously at Harry, who was still glaring daggers at Snape.

“Not to worry, Miss Weasley,” Dumbledore reassured her. “Harry will be joining you shortly.” Ginny sighed heavily and left the room.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Dumbledore rounded on Harry and Professor Snape.

“Sit down,” he ordered. His voice was neither loud nor soft, but there was something about his tone that made disobedience next to impossible. Snape and Harry sank into chairs a short distance from one another.

“Severus,” Dumbledore began, “you know as well as the rest of the school that Mr. Potter and Miss Weasley have been involved since the Christmas holiday. Your excuses for accusing her of misusing a Love Potion are uncharacteristically weak. Furthermore, we both know that I have never given you or anyone else authority to Obliviate a student without my direct involvement. Why would you lie to me so blatantly and unconvincingly?”

Snape remained silent.

“I have not seen you behave in this manner since you were a student yourself, feuding with James Potter and Sirius Black.” Dumbledore sat down across from Snape, forcing the Potions Master to meet his gaze. “You are a Hogwarts Professor, Severus. You must put these childish grudges behind you.” Their gazes remained locked for several minutes, causing Harry to wonder if Dumbledore was continuing his lecture by means of Legilimency. Just as he was beginning to think they might be sitting like that all day, Dumbledore broke eye-contact and turned to face him.

“I realize that your heart was in the right place, Harry, but I still cannot condone any sort of attack on a teacher by a student. You will serve detention with Professor McGonagall tomorrow night.”

Harry bit his tongue and nodded as the Headmaster sighed.

“I had thought that you had finally decided to put aside your father’s grudge. What happened to change your mind?”

“This has nothing to do with my father,” Harry spat, much more bitterly than he had intended. “At least, to me it doesn’t. If Professor Snape wants to continue doing his best to make me fail Potions, I can take it. I can even take the rude comments about my family, my House, my friends, and me personally. But if he thinks he can get away with cursing someone I care about-”

“A Memory Charm is not a curse, Harry,” Dumbledore interrupted.

“Oh, really?” Harry shot back, making sure to inject as much sarcasm into his voice as possible. “What would you call it, then?”

Dumbledore sighed heavily and massaged the bridge of his nose. “I see your point. In your unique experience, I suppose it would qualify as a most dreadful curse.”

“It is,” Harry quietly agreed. The room was silent for a moment before Dumbledore dismissed him. Harry picked up his bag and walked to the door, but he stopped with his hand on the knob and turned to face Professor Snape.

“I’m willing to move past this for the time being, Professor,” Harry announced, and he was surprised to note something similar to Dumbledore’s forceful tone in his own voice. “But if you ever threaten me or someone I care about again, I won’t hesitate to do whatever’s necessary to eliminate the threat. I have no qualms about hexing a professor - if the situation calls for it.”

From the look on Snape’s face as the door slammed shut, Harry could tell that he recognized the similarity between this threat and the one he had just tried to carry out on Ginny. Even better, Snape knew that he meant it.

---

At breakfast the following morning, Harry sat pondering creative ways to make Draco Malfoy’s life miserable. He fully recognized that his desire for revenge on the blonde Slytherin was rather juvenile, but that didn’t matter to him at the moment. What mattered was the fact that Malfoy was responsible for yesterday’s fiasco with Professor Snape.

Snape. He was another matter entirely. Harry felt his blood start to boil at the mere thought of the man after what he had tried to do. He quickly reined in his anger; he had promised to put it all behind him, and he intended to keep that promise. But there was only so much a person could be expected to take. If Snape did anything to aggravate the strained truce between them - and that was sure to happen, sooner or later - Harry would be ready to remind him of what was and was not appropriate behavior for a Hogwarts Professor.

“You all right over there, mate?” Ron’s voice pulled Harry from his thoughts with a start.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Just thinking.”

“What about?” Hermione asked. “You were miles away, and you didn’t look too happy.”

Harry smiled ruefully at her. “Sorry. Just thinking about Snape and Malfoy. Plotting revenge, you know.”

Ron grinned at him, while Hermione’s expression vacillated between amusement and indignation.

“Any good ideas?” Ginny asked. Harry turned to look at her and found her bright brown eyes sparkling with mischief. “Normally I don’t let things get to me, but what happened yesterday was a bit much. Even you have to admit that, Hermione.”

“Well,” Hermione began hesitantly. “I can’t deny that Malfoy is insufferable-”

“He’s a git, Hermione; just say it!” Ron interrupted.

“Fine,” Hermione amended as she shot Ron a playful glare. “Malfoy is an insufferable git.”

Ron grinned broadly at her.

“I really don’t think you should go doing things to him and Professor Snape, though,” Hermione continued in a worried voice. “Neither of them is worth the effort, and I don’t even want to think about what would happen to you if Professor Snape caught you trying to prank him.”

“First of all, I won’t get caught,” Harry replied. “And second-”

He broke off at the sound of a strangled yell coming from the staff table. Looking up, he quickly located its source: Professor Snape was half-standing, his hands braced against the table in front of him and his goblet overturned on the floor. He shuddered and for a moment it looked like he was going to retch. Then his hair started getting shorter and less greasy. His stature shrank a couple of inches, his long nose suddenly wasn’t so long, and a lightning bolt scar appeared on his forehead. The Great Hall fell into complete silence.

The moment the transformation was complete, a brown barn owl swooped in through the window and dropped a small hand-held mirror and a scrap of parchment onto the table in front of Snape. He scowled as he stared into the mirror for a long moment, squinting in disbelief at his reflection.

“Oh, please,” Harry muttered. “My eyesight’s not that bad.”

“Severus,” Dumbledore called with a hint of amusement in his voice, “I believe these may help.” He conjured a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, identical to Harry’s, and sent them down the table to his transformed Potions Master. Snape’s scowl deepened, but he put them on and glanced quickly at the parchment before looking back into the mirror.

“Potter,” he whispered viciously. The Great Hall was still so silent that his voice carried all the way to the end of the Gryffindor table where Harry and his friends sat. Harry braced himself for the explosion that was sure to come any second now.

Snape stormed away from the staff table, heading directly for Harry and his friends, with Professor McGonagall hot on his heels. Harry stood up to meet them.

“You’ll be expelled for this, Potter,” Snape hissed. “I’ll see to that myself.” Harry had to fight not to laugh at the sight of those words coming out of his own mouth.

“Empty threats, Professor,” Harry replied coolly, once again contemptuously exaggerating the man’s title. “I wasn’t involved in your- er- transformation.”

“This is Polyjuice Potion, Potter,” said Snape, and Harry was amazed to see his lip curling in exactly the same manner as it always did. The expression looked extremely strange on Harry’s face, and he immediately decided it didn’t suit him at all. “Even you should know that this particular potion requires part of the person you are planning to change into. That means a part of you was used to make it.”

“Yes,” Harry said unconcernedly. “It would certainly be difficult for someone to snatch a stray hair off of my robes or my pillow, or pick up one of my fingernail clippings, wouldn’t it?”

“Severus,” McGonagall said quietly, laying a hand on Snape’s shoulder. “There is no proof that Potter was involved, and you are making a scene. If you do happen to find any actual proof, please take it to the Headmaster; otherwise, stop this now!”

The two Harrys glared at each other for a long moment, identical green eyes glittering behind identical wire-rimmed glasses, before one stormed out of the Hall, his black robes billowing behind him, and the other dropped back into his seat at the Gryffindor table. As soon as the large doors leading into the Entrance Hall slammed shut, the entire student body exploded in conversation. The only exceptions were Millicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson, who shot to their feet and hurried out of the Great Hall after their Head of House.

“That was brilliant!” Ron exclaimed.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have loved to help,” Ginny said accusingly.

“I can’t believe you would do something like that, Harry,” Hermione huffed.

“It wasn’t me,” Harry cried.

“You mean you didn’t get Dobby or one of the other house-elves to slip Polyjuice Potion into Professor Snape’s drink?” Hermione asked. Her eyes were narrowed accusingly, and Harry was sure she would have been using Legilimency on him if she had known how to do it.

“No,” Harry insisted. “Thanks for the idea, though.” Hermione reached across the table to swat him on the arm.

“You really weren’t a part of that?” Ron asked quietly.

Harry shook his head. “I think I know who did it, though,” he whispered just loud enough for his friends to hear.

“Who?” Ginny demanded.

“Peeves and Mr. Moony,” Harry answered as a slow smile spread across his face. “Remember when Remus promised to help Peeves do a prank on Snape? Who else could pull off something like that?”

“True,” Ron replied, grinning broadly once again. “That was pure genius.”

Hermione shot him a withering look. “This is bad, Ron. Now Professor Snape thinks Harry’s responsible.”

“He knows there’s no way I could’ve slipped anything into his pumpkin juice, Hermione,” Harry said patiently. “If he chooses to blame me anyway, I’ll just have to follow through on what I told him yesterday.”

Ron and Ginny grinned in agreement, while Hermione’s eyes widened in shock and she opened her mouth to begin a lecture on having proper respect for teachers.

“Well, I’d best be going,” Harry announced before she could get started. “I’ll see you later.” He stood up and hurried toward the Entrance Hall, calling over his shoulder, “You should get to class soon too, you know.” It was a stupid thing to say, as it was still so early that the morning post hadn’t even arrived yet, but he wanted to say something to make his sudden departure sound a little more credible.

As he exited the Great Hall, Harry nearly collided with Pansy Parkinson, who was hurrying back inside with a particularly disgusted expression on her face. Ignoring her, he slipped out through the large doors and into the Entrance Hall.

Harry was so thankful to have escaped Hermione’s lecture that he almost didn’t notice the rather large girl who was standing a short distance down the corridor. Her face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders shook with silent sobs. Instinctively, he took a few steps toward her, wondering if he might be able to help cheer her up, but he stopped abruptly when he realized that the crying girl was Millicent Bulstrode. He had seen her and Pansy Parkinson hurrying after Snape just a few minutes ago, and she had seemed perfectly fine then. He quickly decided that either Pansy or Snape must have said something particularly foul to her when they caught up with him. Perhaps both of them had.

It’s too bad Malfoy wasn’t the one to go after him, Harry mused. This would have been the perfect opportunity to get back at him. At this thought, something clicked in Harry’s brain, and he started digging through his bag for an empty potion vial. As he uncapped it, he took a quick look around to verify that he and Millicent were still alone; then he pointed a cautious finger at her face and spoke in his mind.

Accio tear! A tiny water droplet sailed through the air toward Harry and landed neatly in the little glass vial. Millicent didn’t seem to notice.

Accio tear! Harry repeated in his mind. Another teardrop flew into the vial.

Accio tear! The final silent spell worked perfectly, and Harry quickly capped his vial and slipped back into the Great Hall.

“Back so soon?” Hermione asked as he sat back down in the seat he had hurriedly vacated barely a minute earlier.

“What? Oh, er-” Not one good excuse for his hasty departure and return came to mind, and he finally had to admit that the truth really was the best option.

“Sorry, Hermione,” he muttered, hanging his head. “It’s just, you had that ‘I’m about to lecture you’ look on your face, and I couldn’t deal with it just then so I ran off.” He glanced up to see an amused smile forming on Hermione’s lips.

“Are you afraid of me, Harry?” she asked evenly.

“Should I be?” he asked in return.

“Yes,” Ron and Ginny answered before Hermione got the chance.

“Well, when it comes to lectures, anyway,” Ron amended.

“I still think you should just let this go, Harry,” Hermione said, ignoring the others’ comments. “Professor Dumbledore knows about the situation now. Things will be different.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Hermione,” Harry replied in a low whisper, “but Dumbledore knew Voldemort was after my parents, he knew how the Dursleys treated me growing up, he knew Umbridge was a threat even after she left Hogwarts, and he’s known about my situation with both Snape and Malfoy since first year.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Nobody respects Dumbledore more than I do, but the fact is that no matter how great he is, he can’t be everywhere at once and protect everybody from everything. Sometimes we’ve got to look out for ourselves.”

“And by that you mean pulling childish pranks on teachers?” Hermione demanded fiercely.

“Who said anything about pranks?” Harry asked. “All I said was that I was plotting revenge. I’m not out to embarrass anybody, Hermione. Okay, maybe I am out to embarrass Malfoy, but not Snape. Believe it or not, I just want to make sure he doesn’t try anything else. If he does, annoying but totally unexplainable things are going to start happening in his classroom. He’ll know it’s me, but he won’t be able to prove it. If that doesn’t get the point across, then I’ll just have to get harsher and harsher with him until he finally learns.”

“And who are you to decide when a professor needs to be taught a lesson?”

“I’m somebody who’s sick and tired of his rubbish,” Harry shot back. “I’m somebody who’s paying him to teach me about potions. We all are - or our parents are. Don’t forget that. And we’re not paying good money because we want Snape to be able attack and belittle us whenever it strikes his fancy.”

“He’s got a point there, Hermione,” Ron agreed. “I mean, it’d be different if Snape was just being a git while he did his job, but yesterday went way beyond that. It’s not like Harry’s trying to get special treatment or anything; he’s just trying to make sure he and Ginny don’t get attacked during class!”

Hermione sighed. “Fine, but don’t come crying to me when this all goes wrong, and don’t you dare expect me to help with whatever it is you’re planning.”

“Don’t worry,” Harry grinned. “I wouldn’t dream of involving you unless you asked me to.”

“Good,” she replied, still looking irritated. Further conversation was halted by the arrival of the morning post. Harry watched in surprise as owl after owl deposited letters in front of Ginny.

“Getting fan mail?” Ron asked in a teasing voice as she reached out to pick up one of the letters.

“Wait!” Hermione exclaimed, grabbing Ginny’s hand to prevent her from touching any of the envelopes. “After that article yesterday, these are probably all cursed. Don’t touch them until I’ve checked them out first. I learned a special charm for this back in fourth year after I opened that letter full of undiluted bubotuber pus.” She drew her wand and began Levitating all of the letters into a neat row as three red Howlers dropped onto the center of the table. They all exploded at once, filling the Great Hall with a cacophony of incomprehensible shouting.

Hermione shook her head in disgust as she began waving her wand over each envelope in a complicated pattern. The first three letters glowed red, but the fourth glowed blue. She snatched up the fourth letter and continued testing the rest of them. They all glowed red except for the last one, which glowed a yellowish-green color, and she sighed as the Howlers finally stopped screaming and faded into little piles of ashes.

“This one’s clean,” she said, handing the envelope that had glowed blue to Ginny. “The rest all have one curse or another in them, except for that one-” she pointed out the envelope that had glowed yellowish-green, “-which has some sort of a mild poison. Nothing strong enough to kill or anything,” she added hastily as she saw the looks of concern on her friends’ faces. “It would probably only make you sick, but still.... Well, I’ll just gather all of these up and take them to Professor McGonagall. Maybe she can find a way to prosecute these people for trying to attack a student.” She stood and conjured a small bag, and then Levitated all of the dangerous letters into it and hurried up to the staff table.

“Who’s that letter from?” Harry asked when he saw Ginny reading the one safe letter.

“Mum,” she answered. “She’s just saying that she feels really bad about the article, and not to worry about what the family thinks because they all know what really happened.” She grinned. “She also says to let her know if anybody writes to give me a hard time, and she’ll ‘straighten them out.’”

“Too bad Hermione already took all those letters,” Ron laughed. “I’d love to see what Mum would do the gits that sent them.”

“If I get any more, I’ll be sure to write down the senders’ names before turning them in,” Ginny agreed. “Oh, she also says she’s going to ‘have a little chat’ with Matilda Johansen.” Ron burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Harry asked.

“You still don’t know what Mum means when she says she’s going to ‘have a little chat’ with somebody?” Ron asked in surprise. When Harry shook his head, he just shrugged and said, “Let’s just say you don’t ever want to ‘have a little chat’ with Mum.”

“Mum’s ‘little chats’ usually involve a lot more wand work than actual talking,” Ginny elaborated with an amused smile. Harry chuckled at the thought of Mrs. Weasley hexing the living daylights out of the reporter who had slandered her daughter.

“Do you think she’ll involve Fred and George?” he asked. “This seems like the sort of thing they’d love to be in on.”

“They would,” Ron agreed through a mouthful of sausage. “Mum would never let them, though.”

“She doesn’t need to,” Ginny added before taking a sip of pumpkin juice.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked curiously. “They’re brilliant at pranks and revenge and stuff.”

“Harry,” Ginny said patiently, “we’re talking about the woman who gave birth to them. The woman who raised them. It’s not widely known because it embarrasses the twins, and Mum’s ashamed of ever participating in it, but there’s a reason she intimidates them and it has nothing to do with how loud she can yell. Mum got into a prank war with the twins a few years ago, and she completely decimated them. It only lasted a few hours; the rest of us were in shock for days.”

“I would be too,” Harry breathed.

“It was downright scary, mate,” Ron agreed. “I don’t think she’s ashamed of beating them, though. She just thinks she went too far with the prank that ended it. I mean, Fred and George are usually just out for laughs, or maybe to embarrass somebody, but Mum....” His voice trailed off, as though he couldn’t quite put what he wanted to say into words.

“She goes straight for the jugular,” Ginny filled in for him. “Her pranks are designed to create terror, not laughter.”

“What did she do?” Harry asked, wide-eyed.

“We weren’t actually there,” Ron answered. “Mum made sure nobody else was home at the time. All I know is Fred and George both had nightmares for weeks. She felt terrible about it, but it’s definitely stopped them from ever trying to prank her again. The rest of us are still fair game, of course, but after that, Mum’s off limits.”

Harry didn’t have a chance to ask any more questions, because at that moment Hermione returned from talking with Professor McGonagall.

“Come on, Ron; we need to get going,” she said as she stooped to pick up her bag.

“Yeah, we should probably head off to the Room of Requirement for a while,” Harry commented as he, Ron, and Ginny got to their feet and headed for the doors.

“Isn’t it a bit early for a snogging break?” Ron teased.

“Actually, I was planning on doing some training, but I think I like your idea better,” Harry laughed. He and Ginny soon parted ways with Ron and Hermione, and continued on their way up to the Room of Requirement. When they arrived, Harry paced in front of the hidden entrance three times, just as he always did, causing the door to magically appear.

“Harry!” Ginny giggled as they stepped inside. “I thought you were joking when you told Ron we might go off and snog.”

“Well, it does sound like a lot of fun,” Harry teased as he gave the room an approving look. There was a comfortable loveseat sitting near a fireplace complete with a roaring fire, and floating candles lit the room with a soft, relaxing glow. “That’s not the main reason I made the room look like this today, though,” he continued as they sank into the loveseat. “The main reason was because I wanted to discuss our revenge on Malfoy.”

“You’re serious?” Ginny cackled. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun! Do you have any ideas?”

“Just one,” Harry replied calmly. “But it’s a good one!”

“And...? Are you planning on sharing it with me?”

Harry ignored her question as he began rummaging in his bag. “When Sirius went after Wormtail back in my third year, he said he wanted to commit the crime he had been imprisoned for. Even though I’ve regretted it off and on, I still think I was right to convince him not to do it - murder’s a big deal, after all. But in this case, I think Sirius’ idea is about right. Recognize this?” he asked as he produced a vial of brown liquid.

A slow grin spread across Ginny’s face. “Who are we going to make him fall in love with?” she asked gleefully. “I wonder if it works on animals; we could probably figure out a way to get a few tears out of Mrs. Norris. I bet Snape’s physical pain idea would work quite nicely.”

“No,” Harry laughed. “It doesn’t work with animal tears, although that would be really funny. But I think I’ve got the next best thing.” He held up a tiny vial with an even tinier amount of clear liquid inside.

Ginny raised her eyebrows in question. “Please tell me those aren’t your tears, Harry.”

“Ugh!” Harry groaned, pulling a disgusted face. “Don’t go there, Ginny, please. No, I got these from Millicent Bulstrode. She was out in the corridor crying when I left the Great Hall this morning, so I Summoned three of her tears and snuck back inside before she had a chance to see me.”

Unable to hold it in any longer, Ginny dissolved into a fit of laughter. “That’s even worse than Mrs. Norris!” she cried. “You really do hate Malfoy, don’t you?”

“Just now figuring that out, are you?” Harry asked with a crooked grin. “Now all we have to do is figure out when and how to slip him the potion. We’ll want to do it sometime when Snape isn’t around; otherwise he might get the antidote in time and it’d all be for nothing.”

“Let’s just get Dobby to put it in Malfoy’s pumpkin juice once Snape leaves the Great Hall after lunch,” Ginny suggested. “Dobby hates the Malfoys and he loves you; he’d agree in a second!”

“No good,” Harry said sadly. “Dobby works for the school, so he has to tell the truth if somebody on the staff asks him about it. We need to find a way to do it so there’s no possible chance of getting caught.”

They spent the next half hour tossing ideas back and forth and working out a plan. By the time they had to leave for Care of Magical Creatures, both were confident that their plan would work.

For the rest of Tuesday and all of Wednesday, Harry found himself barely able to concentrate in class, or even during his detention with McGonagall. Mentally going over and over his plans for revenge on Malfoy was just so much more interesting! In fact, the only other thing he was able to concentrate on properly was Quidditch practice. Potions class on Wednesday was particularly unbearable, and Harry was sure that the only reason he survived it at all was because Dumbledore must have somehow convinced Snape that he was only allowed to dole out verbal abuse, and not physical punishments.

By the time Thursday morning came around, Harry’s anticipation at the prospect of carrying out his plan had grown to the point that he was barely able to eat his breakfast.

“Harry, what’s wrong?” Hermione asked as she watched him push a puny helping of eggs around his plate.

“Hmm? Oh, nothing,” Harry replied, shaking his head distractedly as he watched the occupants of the Slytherin table across the Great Hall.

“Not nothing,” Hermione argued. “You’re barely eating; something must be bothering you.”

“Just nerves about the match with Hufflepuff,” Harry mumbled.

“That’s not until Saturday,” Ron said, looking at him skeptically. “Besides, since when do you get nervous about playing Hufflepuff? They’re terrible!”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Ginny sighed, “but they’re your best friends; you can trust them not to make fun of you.” She turned to Ron and Hermione as she explained, “Harry doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s been feeling sick since we saw Mrs. Norris chucking her breakfast in the corridor on our way down this morning.” Glancing back at Harry, she asked, “There, that wasn’t so difficult, now was it?”

Harry just shook his head, knowing that he couldn’t lie nearly as well as Ginny. Her ploy seemed to work on Ron at least, who made a comment about not wanting to hear that sort of thing while he was eating, and then went back to his sausages. Hermione, however, spent the rest of breakfast alternating between looking thoughtful and shooting Harry and Ginny accusing glances. Harry was quite relieved when breakfast ended and he and Ginny were able to head back to the common room for their free period. When they arrived in the empty common room, however, Harry quickly pulled his Invisibility Cloak out of a pocket in his robes, wrapped it around himself, and slipped back out into the corridor.

“Good luck,” Ginny whispered as the Fat Lady’s portrait swung closed.

Harry stole silently through the corridors until he arrived outside the Transfiguration classroom, where Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass were hurrying to get inside before the bell. He slipped through the doorway right behind them and tiptoed to the back of the room, hardly daring to breathe as he settled into the corner and Professor McGonagall stood to begin the lesson.

“Today we will be continuing our work on conjuring small mammals,” she began briskly. Harry slunk along the side wall to get a better view of the class. It was seventh-year Slytherins only, and Draco Malfoy was seated near the middle of the room. Harry ignored the professor as he carefully pulled a small vial of light green potion from his pocket, uncapped it, and created a small opening in the folds of his Invisibility Cloak.

Wingardium Leviosa, he called out in his mind while waving a finger over the vial. Just as he had intended, a single drop of potion rose up to hover over the mouth of the vial. A silent Banishing Charm sent it flying, unseen, into Malfoy’s waiting mouth.

Harry waited, not daring to move despite the fact that he was invisible. Malfoy didn’t react.

Wingardium Leviosa. Abigo!

Another drop of potion sailed across the room and into the blonde Slytherin’s mouth. Harry repeated this process over and over as McGonagall continued to lecture. After five minutes, he saw Malfoy pull a face and glance around.

I’m going too fast, Harry thought. He waited a full minute before sending the next drop of potion careening toward the pale-faced Slytherin. When Malfoy didn’t react, Harry had to clamp his mouth shut to avoid breathing a sigh of relief and giving himself away. Instead, he simply waited a few seconds and Banished another drop of potion into the back of Malfoy’s throat. When the vial had only a few drops left in the bottom, Harry noticed Malfoy starting to glance around the room when McGonagall wasn’t watching. Terrified of getting caught, he concentrated very hard on keeping his breathing quiet as he finished force-feeding potion to an unwitting Draco Malfoy.

As he unconsciously swallowed the final drop of potion, Malfoy’s eyes once again began to rove around the classroom. When he caught sight of Millicent Bulstrode, however, he froze, and his wandering gaze suddenly became an obsessive stare. Harry had to bite down hard on his bottom lip to keep from crying out in triumph. The plan had worked perfectly so far; now all he had to do was wait for the class to end and quietly make his exit.

---

A/N: I realize that some of you may feel that Harry has taken a step (or two) backwards in the maturity department in this chapter. Although I agree that his way of going about it isn’t the most mature, Harry is trying to come to grips with a very important lesson: adults aren’t always there to fix things for him. He’s had to deal with this reality repeatedly over the years, but only now is he truly recognizing it and trying to do something about it.

---

Harry did his best to remain perfectly silent and still as he stood, hidden beneath his Invisibility Cloak, in the Slytherin seventh-years’ Transfiguration class. As the class period dragged on however, his legs began to tire. He wasn’t used to standing still for an entire hour, and he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other in an effort to relieve the protesting muscles in his legs. Fifteen minutes before the end of the lesson, he was startled by the sound of chairs scraping against the floor as everyone in the class got up to move. He silently cursed himself for not paying attention to what McGonagall had been saying, and pressed himself more firmly against the wall in order to avoid Goyle’s elbow as he moved to partner Blaise Zabini.

“Find somebody else, Crabbe!” Malfoy snapped, catching Harry’s attention. “I’m working with Millicent today.”

Harry stifled his laughter as Millicent Bulstrode shot Malfoy a disgusted look and turned back to her chosen partner, Daphne Greengrass.

“Millicent?” Malfoy asked hesitantly as he laid a hand on her arm. She shook it off angrily. “Wouldn’t you like to work with me?”

“What’s with you?” she asked. “Can’t you see I’m working with Daphne?”

“I just thought-”

“Is there a problem, Mr. Malfoy?” Professor McGonagall asked as she strode over.

“No, Professor,” Malfoy answered quickly. “I was just asking Millicent if she’d like to work with me today.”

McGonagall’s eyebrows rose slightly.

“Yeah, and you won’t take no for an answer,” Millicent shot back.

“Mr. Malfoy, you will partner Mr. Crabbe and stop harassing Miss Bulstrode,” said McGonagall. Her tone was as stern as ever, leaving no room for argument, and Malfoy nodded angrily and turned around to work with Crabbe.

Harry’s heart sank. If the potion was weak enough to allow Malfoy to give up that easily, then what was the point?

“Millicent,” Malfoy whispered as soon as McGonagall turned her back. Harry smiled triumphantly.

“Leave me alone, Draco,” Millicent whispered back.

“If that’s what you really want,” Malfoy replied with a sad nod.

“It is,” she said.

Malfoy nodded sadly again and turned back to Crabbe. He looked so dejected that, had it been anyone else, Harry would have felt sorry for him. As it was Malfoy, however, all Harry felt was satisfaction and a bit of relief. His relief was short-lived, however; all too soon, Theodore Nott succeeded in conjuring a mouse, which promptly escaped onto the floor and started running straight at Harry. Harry shuffled sideways to try to get out of its way, but it changed course with him.

The classroom’s relative silence was broken by a loud shriek from Pansy Parkinson, who had just noticed the mouse. Professor McGonagall swung around, her wand raised as if she expected an attack. Spotting the mouse, she relaxed and Summoned it just before it ran into Harry’s Invisibility Cloak. Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he slumped back against the wall.

“Whose mouse is this?” McGonagall asked as she examined the little creature.

“It’s mine, Professor,” said Nott.

“Good work, Mr. Nott. Five points to Slytherin.” She gave a satisfied nod and Vanished it for him. “Back to work, everyone.”

The final five minutes of the lesson were some of the tensest of the year for Harry. His hearing seemed to be magnified as every little sound caught his attention, causing him to brace himself to dodge both students and conjured mice. By the time the class was dismissed, his leg muscles were screaming in protest, but there hadn’t been any more close calls. Harry pressed himself up against the wall as the Slytherins made their way out of the room, and slipped out just before the door closed behind Tracey Davis.

Navigating in a crowded corridor while invisible turned out to be even more difficult than Harry had expected. He moved slowly, doing his best to keep his distance from the multitude of students on their way to their next class. He was halfway to the end of the corridor when a disruption behind him caught his attention. Wheeling around, he saw with more than a little satisfaction that Malfoy was once again attempting to attract Millicent Bulstrode’s attention.

“Leave me alone, Draco!” Millicent shouted. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

“Let’s go, Draco,” snapped a red-faced Pansy Parkinson as she tugged hard on the sleeve of his robes. He shook his arm loose of her grip and turned back to Millicent.

“What would I have to do to get a chance with you?” Malfoy asked desperately. “Just tell me and I’ll do it.”

“Just leave me alone!” Millicent yelled, turning on her heel and almost running to the end of the corridor, where she disappeared around the corner. Malfoy just stared at her retreating back until she was out of sight. Then he rounded on Pansy.

“Let go of my arm,” he snapped, jerking away from her grip once again.

“Draco, what are you doing?” she shrieked as he strode down the corridor in the same direction Millicent had just gone.

Harry felt a slight pang of guilt at possibly having broken up a couple that was rather serious about their relationship. It only lasted a second, however, as he remembered all the foul things both Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson had done to him and his friends over the years. Besides, he reasoned, even if they broke up today, they would be back together by tomorrow after the potion wore off. Malfoy might have some groveling to do, but Pansy would always take him back.

His guilt having vanished, Harry turned back around to make his way up to Gryffindor Tower. He found himself face to face with a wall of Hufflepuff seventh-years on their way to Transfiguration. They were walking shoulder to shoulder, stretched across the entire width of the corridor, and he had no choice but to start backing up to avoid a collision.

“Has Malfoy gone completely nutters?” Ernie Macmillan wondered aloud.

“Why?” asked Hannah Abbot. “Because he dumped Parkinson?”

“Nah, I don’t blame him for that,” Ernie replied. “It’s who he dumped her for. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Parkinson’s a cow, but at least she’s decent-looking.”

“I know what you mean,” agreed Justin Finch-Fletchley. “Bulstrode’s just as mean as Parkinson, but she looks like a gorilla to boot!”

Harry let out a silent sigh of relief as they reached the Transfiguration classroom, clearing his path to the stairwell once again. He rushed forward as quickly as he could manage without making so much noise as to give himself away. Within minutes, he was hurrying toward the portrait of the Fat Lady that protected the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. As he drew closer to the portrait, it swung open from the inside and Ginny stepped out into the corridor. He grinned as he slipped past her and into the empty common room.

“Hurry up, Harry,” Ginny called over her shoulder as he pulled off his Invisibility Cloak and stuffed it into his pocket. He snatched up his bag from where it was sitting next to one of the overstuffed armchairs and hurried after her.

“How’d it go?” she asked quietly as they made their way down the corridor.

“Perfect,” Harry answered with a grin.

“Excellent,” Ginny whispered, grinning back at him as she handed him a very old and worn looking piece of parchment. “Using this was a great idea, by the way; I knew exactly when to open the portrait hole.”

“That was the idea,” Harry replied as he tucked the parchment into his pocket. “We’re going to be late; hurry up!” he added, checking his watch.

“Hagrid won’t mind,” Ginny shrugged. “Besides, I’m not the one who was late getting back.”

“Not my fault,” said Harry, holding his hands up in a gesture of his innocence. “I got boxed in by a bunch of Hufflepuffs; had to back up half the length of the corridor before they made room for me to get by.”

Ginny laughed. “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about being late to a class where the professor would punish us. We probably ought to start talking about something else before we run into somebody.”

“Good point,” said Harry. “So, how are you feeling about the match this Saturday?”

“Honestly? I don’t want to sound cocky or anything, but Hufflepuff doesn’t stand a chance.” They continued chatting about Quidditch the rest of the way to Hagrid’s hut. As expected, Hagrid commented on their tardiness, but didn’t hand out any punishments. He was in the middle of a very excited speech about dragons when they arrived, and the thought that he might try to import one for them to study made Harry’s stomach clench nervously.

“So like I was sayin’,” Hagrid continued after welcoming the latecomers to class, “I been tryin’ ter get a dragon for us ter study this term. Well, I been tryin’ ter get one fer years anyhow, but since Dumbledore made me a teacher I’ve had a better reason, see. N.E.W.T. students ought ter get ter study ‘em in person, not jus’ outta books. I’ve asked fer a dragon for me older classes every year, but the school governors keep sayin’ they’re too dangerous.” Hagrid rolled his eyes, making it abundantly clear that he was of the opinion that the governors had to be insane to think such a thing.

“It would be cool to get to see a dragon up close,” Colin murmured excitedly.

“Trust me,” Harry whispered, “it’s not nearly as cool as you’d expect.”

“Tha’s why Professor Dumbledore gave me this!” Hagrid announced, pulling a large box out of one of the many pockets in his enormous coat. He placed it carefully in the snow at his feet and prepared to tap it with his pink umbrella.

“You lot might want ter stand back,” he said as he gave the box a gentle tap with the tip of the umbrella. Harry, Ginny, Colin, and Luna all scrambled backward as an enormous shape burst out of the box. It kept expanding until a fully grown dragon with a silvery-blue hide stood before them. It snorted angrily, emitting large puffs of smoke from its nostrils. Harry was speechless with shock.

“Wicked,” Colin breathed.

“Hagrid, are you insane?” Ginny hissed angrily. Hagrid just laughed from where he stood on the far side of the beast.

“Nothin’ ter worry about,” he called. “See?” The class watched in amazement as Hagrid walked through the dragon to join them.

“It’s jus’ a memory Dumbledore put in tha’ box for me,” he explained. “This way you get ter see a real Swedish Short-Snout up close without havin’ ter worry about gettin’ burned.” Harry breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief at this announcement and took a sheet of parchment out of his bag so that he could take notes.

After the initial shock, the lesson turned out to be fairly normal. Hagrid explained all about the Short-Snout’s habitat, diet, favorite pastimes - all of the things he usually taught them about the animals they studied. By the time class was over, Harry was even more glad than he had been that Hagrid couldn’t get a real dragon for them to study. Colin seemed to have a different opinion however, as Harry heard him asking Hagrid right after class if there was any chance that he would be able to get a real dragon before the end of the school year.

Harry and Ginny had just barely taken their seats at the Gryffindor table for lunch when Professor Snape swooped down on them.

“On your feet, Potter,” he snapped. Harry let out a weary sigh as he stood up. He really didn’t want to deal with Snape right now. Actually, he never wanted to deal with Snape, but that particular moment was especially bad because he hadn’t had a chance to eat anything yet.

“Follow me,” Snape growled.

As Harry stood to follow him, Ginny mouthed the words, “Good luck.” He gave her a weak smile before hurrying after the Potions Master.

As they entered the staff room, Harry relaxed at the sight of Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall - Snape was outnumbered; he wouldn’t dare resort to an actual attack. He noticed that Draco Malfoy was also present, and suddenly realized the reason he had been pulled out of the Great Hall.

“Hello professors,” Harry greeted warmly.

“Good afternoon,” Dumbledore replied. McGonagall gave him a curt nod.

“Mr. Malfoy has been fed an Elixir of Obsession, Potter,” Snape began without preamble.

Harry raised his eyebrows in feigned surprise. “Who’s he obsessed with?”

“As if you don’t know,” Snape sneered.

“Millicent,” Malfoy sighed. “Can I go see her yet, Professor?” he asked hopefully.

“No,” Snape snapped. “What do you know about this, Potter?”

“Er- I know that whoever made the potion would have needed three of Millicent’s tears,” he answered thoughtfully.

“And exactly how did you obtain those tears?” Snape asked casually.

Harry forced a laugh. “You’re not actually accusing me of this, are you?”

“Well, you do have a history with Mr. Malfoy, Potter,” Snape replied.

“This is a very serious accusation, Severus,” McGonagall put in. “I hope you have some sort of proof this time.”

“I will in a moment,” Snape said coolly. “Turn out your pockets, Potter.”

Harry reached into his pockets to comply, when he suddenly felt the small potion vial that had contained the Eye of the Maiden potion he had force-fed to Malfoy that morning. He was fighting to keep the panic from showing on his face when a sudden thought almost made him smirk. Silently and wandlessly, he Vanished the vial before turning out his pockets, producing a spare quill, a chocolate frog, and the blank Marauder’s Map. Snape glowered at him but remained silent as he tried to think of another angle of attack.

“I’m not sure when you think I slipped him a potion, Professor,” Harry said, taking advantage of the silence. “I haven’t even been in the same room as Malfoy all day except for right now, unless you count breakfast, and then we were on opposite sides of the Great Hall.”

“Mr. Malfoy, when was it that you first began to develop feelings for Miss Bulstrode?” McGonagall asked suddenly.

“I’ve loved her forever,” Malfoy replied solemnly. Snape closed his eyes and clenched his jaw as though struggling to rein in his temper. The vein in his forehead pulsed dangerously.

“Think hard, Draco,” he said, forcing his voice into its silkiest tone. “You were dating Miss Parkinson until this morning. When did you decide you wanted Miss Bulstrode instead?”

Malfoy looked confused for a long moment as he thought about Snape’s question. “It was in Transfiguration,” he answered at last.

“Well, neither Mr. Potter nor anyone else interrupted my class this morning,” said McGonagall.

“Where were you immediately after breakfast this morning, Potter?” Snape asked.

“I’ve got a free period. I went back to the common room until it was time for Care of Magical Creatures,” Harry replied

“Can anyone verify that story?”

“Ginny was with me,” Harry shrugged. “Everybody else was either in class or off somewhere else.”

“Convenient that the only witness is likely your accomplice,” Snape sneered. “Fortunately, there is another way to settle this.” He turned to look Harry directly in the eye, and Harry immediately knew what he had to do. He forced himself to sink into his memory of staring at a blank flagstone in a deserted corridor. Their eyes remained locked for a long moment before Snape broke his gaze to look at Dumbledore.

“Look me in the eye, Harry,” Dumbledore sighed. Without any hesitation, Harry turned to look into those startlingly blue eyes. Surprisingly, it took almost no effort to keep his mind focused on the memory of the flagstone until Dumbledore broke eye contact and shook his head slightly.

After a long silence, Harry decided that it might be safe to speak. “Well, if that’s all, then I’ll just be on my way,” he said.

“Not so fast, Potter,” Snape growled. “You’re hiding something. What is it?”

“Why don’t you use Legilimency to find out, Professor?” Harry retorted. “You know, you insist that I’m rubbish at both Potions and Occlumency, but for some reason you can’t break into my mind and you’re accusing me of making a perfect potion.”

“The fact remains that you are hiding something, Harry,” Dumbledore said.

“Well maybe I don’t want my personal thoughts to be on display,” Harry replied. “It’s not very polite to go around breaking into unsuspecting people’s minds, is it?. If you really want proof that I was in the common room this morning, though, just go ask the Fat Lady. I’m sure she’ll be happy to tell you.” The professors seemed to agree that this was a good idea, and soon the group was standing outside the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.

“Good afternoon,” Professor Dumbledore greeted the portrait of the Fat Lady.

“Oh, what a pleasant surprise, Headmaster,” she replied, batting her eyelashes at him.

“I was wondering if you might answer a few questions for us,” Dumbledore continued. “You see, there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding about Mr. Potter’s whereabouts this morning after breakfast.”

“Oh, of course,” said the Fat Lady. “He and Miss Weasley came back here right after breakfast and didn’t leave until it was time for their first class. They left a bit late, actually.”

“Thank you.” Dumbledore gave a satisfied nod and, despite Snape’s protests, dismissed Harry to go back to lunch. Not wanting to tempt fate any more than he already had, Harry took off for the Great Hall at a near run.

“What happened?” Ron demanded as soon as Harry slid into his seat. “Ginny said Snape came and dragged you out of here as soon as you got in.”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “Apparently, somebody slipped Malfoy a Love Potion, and Snape wanted to pin it on me.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “I’d heard that he’d dumped Pansy to pursue Millicent, but I didn’t even think of a Love Potion. Do you think Millicent did it?”

“Not likely,” Ron snorted. “The way I heard it, she’s spent all morning turning him down. It’s probably somebody who hates both of them, and Pansy too.”

“Harry, you didn’t!” Hermione gasped.

“Didn’t what?” he asked innocently.

“Don’t give me that!” she hissed. “What did Professor Snape do when he found out?”

“He didn’t find anything out, Hermione,” Harry answered calmly before relating the story of his interrogation.

“So how’d you pull it off?” Ron asked quietly after he had finished. “I mean, let’s face it; we know it was you and we’re not going to tell. Right, Hermione?”

Hermione looked tense and indecisive for a long moment before finally taking a deep breath and saying, “You know I’m not a rat, Harry. I think it was immature and wrong, but... you’re my friend. Plus, it is pretty funny,” she finished with a small giggle.

“I own an Invisibility Cloak,” Harry answered simply. “And I can do magic without a wand, so when greasy gits make me turn out my pockets I can Vanish anything incriminating without anybody realizing.”

Ron burst out laughing, and even Hermione allowed herself a small grin. As he grabbed a sandwich, Harry promised to tell them the whole story in detail that evening, when nobody would be able to overhear.

“Before or after your Occlumency lesson?” Hermione asked. Harry swore under his breath. He had completely forgotten that Dumbledore would be trying to break into his thoughts that very evening.

“After, I suppose,” he muttered after a moment. Unless he manages to break into my mind this time and decides to expel me, he thought dejectedly.

---

As he made his way to Dumbledore’s office for his Occlumency lesson, Harry’s contented smile slowly gave way to an expression of dread. His plan to embarrass Malfoy by showing him what it was really like to be under the influence of a Love Potion was working flawlessly, but now he had to face Dumbledore alone after having employed Occlumency against him earlier in the day.

“Nosebleed Nougat,” he sighed as he arrived at the stone gargoyle. It leapt aside, and Harry stepped uneasily onto the moving staircase that would carry him directly to the Headmaster’s office.

“Good evening, Harry,” Dumbledore greeted him warmly.

“Hello, Professor,” Harry replied as he sank into his usual seat in front of the Headmaster’s desk.

“I was most impressed with your use of Occlumency earlier today,” said Dumbledore, getting to the point immediately. “You were able to prevent both Professor Snape and myself from seeing into your mind; that is excellent progress.”

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said politely as he waited for Dumbledore to begin lecturing him on the inappropriateness of using Occlumency against his professors.

“The praise is well deserved, Harry. However, I wonder if you will meet with the same success when I perform Legilimency using my wand.”

Harry gulped. This was it; the moment of truth. He had to keep Dumbledore out of his mind now, or the Headmaster would find out all about how he and Ginny had tricked the Fat Lady into giving them an alibi so that he could force-feed the Love Potion to Malfoy.

“Are you ready?” Dumbledore asked as he drew his wand.

Clear your mind, Harry told himself firmly. Clear your mind! He tried to focus on the blank flagstone, but his worries about getting caught kept invading his consciousness, breaking his concentration. Finally, after a much longer wait than Dumbledore usually allowed him, Harry had to give it up as hopeless. He nodded.

“Legilimens,” said Dumbledore.

Immediately, all Harry could think about was a blank flagstone in an empty corridor. He sat calmly as the Headmaster continued trying to break into his mind, but all either of them could see was that flagstone. Finally, after several minutes of trying, Dumbledore lifted the spell and Harry’s mind was once again bombarded with a multitude of thoughts. Dumbledore sat thinking for a long moment before he spoke.

“Tell me, was your mind already focused when I began my assault or did you wait until you were able to feel it?”

“I waited,” Harry answered. “I mean, I didn’t do it on purpose, but I just had so many thoughts flying around that I couldn’t concentrate on the flagstone. But when you started your attack, suddenly that flagstone was all I could think about.”

“Excellent,” Dumbledore exclaimed happily. “That means that emptying your mind has become a reflexive action. We may now move on to the second phase of your Occlumency training: hiding specific memories.”

“Professor?” Harry interrupted. “Why do I need to do that if I can already keep you out of my mind?”

“Because it would not be practical for you to focus solely on a blank flagstone if Lord Voldemort were attempting to use Legilimency on you during a duel. Of course, there is also the fact that your current success will not be able to block out your visions. Our goal is to make your mind impenetrable to attack, and hiding away specific memories is the next step in that process.”

“What do you mean, I can’t block the visions?” Harry asked in surprise. “Voldemort can’t be any better at Legilimency than you are, can he?”

Dumbledore shook his head. “No, he is no more skilled than I. However, the ability to keep me from seeing what is hidden inside your mind is not the same thing as the ability to keep me out of your mind completely. Observe. Legilimens!”

Once again, Harry found himself immersed in the memory of watching a blank flagstone in an empty corridor. A moment later, however, the flagstone was replaced by Dumbledore’s face.

“You see, Harry?” said Dumbledore. “Although I am unable to see what you are hiding, I can still force words and images into your mind.”

Dumbledore’s face vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared, and Harry was left with his blank flagstone. A moment later, the spell ended and he found himself back in the Headmaster’s office.

“Did you just appear and talk to me in my mind?” Harry asked in amazement.

“Yes,” Dumbledore replied. “What I just did is very similar to what Lord Voldemort sometimes does by accident, and has done intentionally on a few occasions.”

Harry’s heart sank; it had seemed he was getting close to being able to keep Voldemort out of his head, but now he felt like he was right back at the beginning.

“This is why we must continue our lessons, Harry,” Dumbledore continued. “Not to worry, though; I am quite pleased with the pace at which you are progressing. Now, before we begin the second phase of your training, I would like to discuss today’s situation with Mr. Malfoy.”

If Harry’s heart had sunk before, then it must have fallen into his toes at this announcement. Nevertheless, he willed himself to maintain a passive appearance as he asked, “What about it, sir?”

“Harry,” Dumbledore said kindly, “we both know that you are responsible for the predicament in which Mr. Malfoy currently finds himself.”

Not trusting himself to be able to make a convincing denial at the moment, Harry didn’t move.

“However,” Dumbledore continued, “as you seem to have an acceptable alibi and there is no actual evidence against you, neither I nor any other member of the staff will be able to punish you for it.” His eyes twinkled merrily as he added, “And between you and me, given how well your rather creative punishment fits his crime, I find myself lacking the inclination to search for evidence.”

Harry allowed himself a small smile as he began to relax. Dumbledore wasn’t going to punish him! But how could that be?

“Sir?” he asked hesitantly. “I appreciate what you just said, but I really wish that I didn’t have to take matters into my own hands. I mean, Malfoy publicly slandered Ginny and then convinced a professor to Obliviate her, and yet no one even suggested punishing him for it. He didn’t even so much as get detention or lose a few House points! How come he always gets away with that sort of thing?”

“Because Mr. Malfoy is extraordinarily well-versed in the laws and customs of the Wizarding world,” Dumbledore sighed. “He knows exactly where all of the lines are drawn, and is therefore able to walk very close to them without actually crossing into the realm of prohibited behavior. This particular situation is one that dates back several centuries to when the Wizarding world and the Muggle world first began to be divided. You see, the governments of that time were nearly always controlled by Muggles, and their fear of magic led to the creation of some rather outrageous laws. These were usually prohibitions on the practice of magic, but in a few cases they went so far as to actually prohibit merely referring to anything magical in conversation.”

“Sounds like they’d get along great with the Dursleys,” Harry muttered.

“Indeed,” Dumbledore chuckled. “What you need to understand, Harry, is that because of these strict limitations on what could and could not be expressed aloud or in writing, one of the first things the Ministry of Magic did when it was formed was guarantee the right to free speech. At the time, this was understood to mean that the government could not arbitrarily dictate topics that were taboo and could not be discussed. Over the centuries, however, the definition has been broadened to the point that now it protects people like Rita Skeeter and Matilda Johansen from being prosecuted for libel, and it protects young Mr. Malfoy from being punished for slandering another student.”

“But surely you could make a school rule against it,” Harry insisted. “I mean, okay, so the Ministry’s being stupid about this as usual, but-”

“Believe it or not, I attempted that very thing years ago, when I first became Headmaster,” Dumbledore interrupted. “Alas, the school governors overruled me, and I daresay they would do the same today. Perhaps one day things will be different, but for now we have to simply work with what we have.”

Harry nodded, although he was still less than pleased. “I understand, sir.”

“Good,” said Dumbledore. “Now, at the risk of sounding like a responsible educator, I would like to urge you not to continue Mr. Malfoy’s punishment. The humiliation he has suffered today was appropriate to his crime, but to attempt to go further would be unwise.”

“Honestly, Professor, I wasn’t planning anything else,” Harry replied quickly.

Dumbledore nodded. “In that case, I believe we still have time to begin the second phase of your Occlumency training. As we discussed, this phase involves hiding certain memories within your mind so that they cannot be viewed from without. I will be teaching you a simple but relatively unknown charm that will help you. Do you have any questions so far?”

“Er, what’s the charm?” Harry asked in a half-joking manner.

“The incantation is Occultus. You will be casting it on individual memories, so it will take some time to effectively hide everything that you want to protect.” He paused, lost in thought for a moment, before asking, “Have I ever taught you how to use a Pensieve?”

“No, sir,” Harry answered. “You’ve sort of explained what it does before, but I don’t really know how to use it.”

“Then that is where we shall begin,” said Dumbledore. “In order to remove a memory from your mind, you must immerse yourself in it, much the same way you do when clearing your mind to ward off a Legilimency attack. Then you simply touch your wand to your temple and will the memory to flow out of your mind as you draw the wand away. Any questions?”

Harry shook his head; it seemed simple enough, after all.

“Excellent. Go on and give it a try, then. Use a simple memory to start; something pleasant, but not too long or emotional.”

“All right,” said Harry. He closed his eyes and focused his thoughts on the memory of his last Quidditch practice. It had been pleasant enough, but he had no real emotional attachment to it. Concentrating hard, he sank into the memory of a particularly satisfying dive. He could feel the smooth wood of his Firebolt’s handle under his fingers as he hurtled toward the ground, the wind whipping through his hair as he inched closer and closer to the fleeing Golden Snitch.

Moving slowly, so as not to break his concentration, Harry raised his wand to his temple and forced the memory to follow it as he drew it away. The memory began to fade as his wand moved further and further from his temple until it finally disappeared entirely.

“I forgot it!” Harry exclaimed, his eyes snapping open.

“Of course,” Dumbledore said with a satisfied nod. “That is because you have removed it from your mind. Look.” Harry turned to look where he was pointing, and saw a shimmering silvery strand hanging from the tip of his wand.

“That’s my memory?” Harry asked in awe.

“It is,” Dumbledore confirmed. “Now, return it to your mind by touching the tip of your wand to your temple and willing the memory to re-enter your mind.”

Somewhat uneasily, Harry brought the tip of his wand back to his temple and closed his eyes, mentally pulling the memory back into his mind. He gasped as what had been a blank spot in his recollections began to take a hazy form, almost like a dream. As he focused on it, the memory became clearer and clearer until, a moment later, he could feel the Firebolt beneath him and the wind in his hair. He opened his eyes.

“Did I do it?” he asked.

“See for yourself,” Dumbledore replied with a smile. Harry turned to look at his wand once again, and found that the memory had completely disappeared. He grinned.

“Okay, so what do I do now?” he asked eagerly.

“Now you must begin the long and grueling process of concealing your most secret memories by removing them one by one, casting the Occultus Charm on them, and then returning them to your mind. This will take quite some time, but it is well worth the effort, as it will allow you to continue thinking even when your mind is under attack.”

“What happens next, Professor?” Harry asked.

“When you have mastered this phase of your training, you will be able to function more or less normally when under attack by Legilimency, unless you are trying to hide thoughts that have not been concealed with the Occultus Charm,” Dumbledore answered. “If you are thinking about something that has been magically concealed however, your mind will split its attention between that thought or memory and your memory of the flagstone. Once you become used to splitting your attention in this way, you will be ready to begin the third phase of Occlumency training.”

“Out of curiosity, what’s the third phase?” asked Harry.

Dumbledore smiled indulgently. “The third phase is when you learn to completely block your mind from attack. You will start by using your ability to split your attention between two tasks to protect your mind even when you are not thinking about something that has been magically concealed. Once you have mastered that, you will condition yourself to ignore the attacks. At that point, your subconscious mind will be able to take over your Occlumency, and neither Lord Voldemort nor anyone else will be able to see your thoughts or implant their own into your mind.”

Harry sat quietly for a long moment before saying, “That sounds like it’s going to take a long time.”

“It probably will,” Dumbledore agreed. “But it will be well worth the effort. Now, if you please, I’d like you to remove your memory of the prophecy that was made about you before you were born, and place it in here.” He pulled a small glass vial out of a drawer in his desk and placed it in front of Harry.

“Er- Do I need to use my wand for this?” Harry asked hesitantly. “I think I might feel more comfortable just using my finger, you know?”

“Of course,” said Dumbledore. “As long as you are alone, that should be fine. If anyone else is around, however, please use your wand so as not to provoke uncomfortable questions.”

“Right,” Harry agreed. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and called up the memory of Professor Trelawney’s face rising up out of Dumbledore’s Pensieve to recite the prophecy that had led to his parents’ deaths. A wave of sorrow and anger passed over him as he sank deeper into the memory, the emotions of that night flowing through him anew. He breathed deeply, reining in his emotions, and began drawing his finger away from his temple. This memory took longer to extract than the first one had, but after a few moments it completely disappeared from his mind and he opened his eyes to see a short silvery rope clinging to his fingertip. He was surprised to note that it was many times thicker than his memory of Quidditch practice, and immediately asked Dumbledore why this was the case.

“The thickness of a memory depends on the emotion associated with it,” the Headmaster explained. “That particular memory is a very emotional one for you, and is therefore quite thick. Go ahead and drop it into the vial, Harry.” Harry obeyed, lowering the memory into the vial and giving his finger a gentle shake to drop it.

“What now?” he asked when Dumbledore didn’t immediately give any more instructions.

“Now you simply jab your wand at the memory while saying, ‘Occultus.’” Dumbledore chuckled softly as he added, “In your case, though, I suppose the wand isn’t necessary. You could simply jab your finger at it instead.”

“Right,” Harry said with a small smile. He looked down intently at the shining memory and thought of how badly he wanted to prevent Voldemort from seeing it. Then he pointed at it and made a small jabbing motion with his finger while saying, “Occultus.” The memory glowed blue for a fraction of a second.

“Well done,” said Dumbledore, looking immensely pleased. “Now return the memory to your mind and we can test your spellwork.”

Harry nodded and gently touched the end of the silvery strand with his index finger. The memory adhered lightly to his skin, and he brought it slowly back to his temple and pulled it into his mind. When he was finished, he looked expectantly at the Headmaster, who was watching him thoughtfully.

“I am going to use Legilimency on you again,” Dumbledore said at last. “This time, however, I want you to force yourself to think of the Prophecy, rather than the flagstone.”

“All right,” Harry nodded.

“Good. Legilimens.”

Harry’s mind was immediately filled with an image of a blank flagstone, and he suddenly found it extremely difficult to think of anything else. He knew he was supposed to be thinking about something other than the flagstone, but he couldn’t remember what it was. It had something to do with Dumbledore, didn’t it? Yes, it was the-

A hazy image formed in Harry’s mind as he tried to remember what Dumbledore had told him to think about. The more he focused, the clearer his mind became, until he was finally able to remember seeing Professor Trelawney’s face delivering the prophecy. It was hard to concentrate, however, because half of his attention was still occupied with the image of the flagstone. Then, quite suddenly, the flagstone was gone, and he was able to think about the prophecy with ease.

“Were you able to think of the prophecy while I was using Legilimency on you?” Dumbledore asked immediately.

“Yeah,” Harry answered. “It was hard to concentrate though, and when I finally was able to think about it I kept getting distracted by the flagstone.”

“It will become easier with practice,” Dumbledore replied, waving away his concern. “I was only able to see the flagstone, so it appears that your Occultus Charm is working perfectly. Now, it’s getting rather late and you should be heading back to your common room soon, but before you go I have an assignment for you.”

“Homework, you mean,” Harry commented with a wry smile. “Let me guess; you want me to spend some time every day deciding which memories I want to keep hidden and doing the Occultus Charm on them, right?”

“Exactly,” Dumbledore smiled. “That way, you will have more to work with when you start trying to get used to thinking about a protected memory and the flagstone at the same time.”

“All right,” said Harry. “Er, Professor? There’s one more thing I wanted to talk to you about before I go.”

“Go on,” Dumbledore prompted.

“It’s about Sna- I mean, Professor Snape. When I was leaving the staff room the other day, I meant it when I said I wasn’t going to stand for his rubbish anymore. I just thought you ought to know that.”

Dumbledore nodded gravely. “Might I inquire what you are planning?”

“It’s nothing too serious,” Harry quickly explained. “I just plan to do little things to get his attention if he starts to be too much to handle, you know? Like if he gets in my face and starts ranting about my father I might make a jar of frogspawn fall off of the shelf or something.”

“I see,” Dumbledore said slowly. “Harry, I need you to remember that no matter how you might feel about Professor Snape, he is still a Hogwarts teacher and must be treated with respect. Having said that, however, I know that the only way to stop you from carrying out your plan would be to publicize your ability to perform magic without a wand, as I am quite sure that that is how you plan to accomplish it. Since I am not willing to expose you in such a way unless it is absolutely necessary, I will only ask you this: please do not make it necessary. If breaking a jar every once in a while is enough to prevent another confrontation like those we have seen this week, then by all means do it. But use your good judgment, Harry, and if your plan escalates things instead of fixing them, come talk to me about it and I’ll see what I can do to help. The last thing I want is a repeat of what happened on Monday.”

“We’re agreed on that,” Harry said as he got to his feet. “Thank you for everything, Professor.” The look in Dumbledore’s eyes told him that they both knew he was referring to much more than his Occlumency lessons.

“Not a problem,” Dumbledore replied. “Oh, and Harry?” he called out just as Harry was opening the door.

“Yes sir?”

“Good luck in Saturday’s match.”

---

The rest of February and March passed quickly for Harry, as his schedule was filled to bursting with classes, homework, Quidditch, Occlumency lessons, Apparition lessons, practicing wandless dueling with Ginny (and sometimes with Ron and Hermione), and corresponding with Tyler. Somehow, he and Ginny managed to continue making time for each other outside of class as well. Despite his busy schedule, however, Harry was relatively happy. After all, he had great friends and a wonderful girlfriend, plus Gryffindor had completely destroyed Hufflepuff in Quidditch, and Potions class had become bearable once again after Snape had realized that he needed to back off a bit if he didn’t want the Headmaster to intervene.

Of course, life still wasn’t perfect. Although Snape had become more or less manageable once again, he was still incredibly rude and sometimes downright nasty to both Harry and Ginny in class. The difference was that he had gone back to using strictly verbal assaults, rather than outright attacking them with magic. Harry assumed that Snape’s cutting remarks were protected by the same laws and traditions that gave Malfoy the “right” to slander anyone he wanted, but he figured he could handle it as long as it was all talk. Malfoy was another matter. He had been relatively quiet about Harry and Ginny ever since he had spent a day trying to win Millicent Bulstrode’s affections. This led Harry to believe two things: first, that Malfoy knew who had slipped him the Love Potion, even if he couldn’t prove it; and second, that he was lying low while he plotted his revenge.

The most troublesome thing to happen as the school year progressed, however, was that Harry’s scar started burning more frequently. It still didn’t happen all that often - only about once a week - but every time it did, it was followed by a report of a Death Eater attack. Harry was just grateful that Voldemort wasn’t personally present at the attacks since he was still doing his best to prevent his return from becoming widely-accepted by the Wizarding world. If Voldemort had been out torturing and murdering, Harry was sure that he would have seen it happening at least once, and he didn’t think that was something he could stomach. It was bad enough when Voldemort was torturing his Death Eaters; he didn’t want to know how he would feel if he were forced to watch him torture and kill innocent people.

The morning of the first Saturday in April was one of those rare occasions when Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were all free to practice dueling at the same time. Accordingly, as soon as they finished breakfast, they walked together to the Room of Requirement.

“What are we doing today?” Hermione asked as soon as the door clicked shut behind them. The room was as large as it had been for the D.A. meetings in their fifth year, but it was completely bare except for the fact that the floor was rather soft.

“Three against one,” Ron answered immediately. “None of us stands a chance against Harry in a fair fight anymore.”

“It’s true,” Ginny agreed when Harry tried to protest. “The only way to even the odds is for all three of us to gang up on you. Even then, you’ll still probably beat us.”

“Fine,” Harry sighed, “but try not to gloat when you win.”

Ron snorted a laugh, and he, Hermione, and Ginny took up positions around the large room while Harry stood alone in the center.

“Everyone ready?” Hermione called out.

Harry nodded while Ron and Ginny both said, “Yeah.”

“Here goes, then,” Harry muttered. “Stupefy!” Ron dodged his Stunner easily, and Harry had to dive to his left to avoid being hit by a Body-Bind Curse from Hermione and a Tickling Charm from Ginny.

Protego! he cried out in his mind as he rolled back to his feet. There was no way he would be able to win this battle if he kept saying his spells out loud. Hermione shot a Stunner at him, but instead of dodging he trusted his Shield Charm to absorb her attack and responded with a volley of his own, firing Stunners back at her at an alarming rate. In less than three seconds, Hermione was down.

“Going after the girls first, Harry?” Ron taunted. When Harry opened his mouth to respond, Ron flicked his wand and said, “Locomotor Mortis.” Harry bit back his retort and sidestepped Ron’s Leg-Locker Curse. He stepped right into the path of Ginny’s silent binding spell, which would have effectively disabled him if he hadn’t been using his left hand to maintain a constant shield around himself.

Rictusempra, Rictusempra, Rictusempra, Rictusempra, Rictusempra! Harry mentally shouted while aiming his right hand at Ron and his left at Ginny as they attempted to block or dodge his sudden and unrelenting stream of Tickling Charms. After a long moment, Ron doubled over laughing, and Harry quickly bound him with a silent Incarcerous before turning his full attention to Ginny.

Even as he kept her occupied blocking his Tickling Charms, he couldn’t help admiring the grace with which she moved. He might have been concentrating a little too much on his opponent and not enough on the duel, however, because he was caught completely by surprise when she suddenly dove to her right, rolling once before springing to her feet and pinning him down with her own constant stream of powerful hexes.

“Ginny!” Harry shouted, trying to get her to slow her attack so he would have a chance to fight back rather than just focusing on maintaining his Shield Charm. “That isn’t very nice, trying to get me with a Bat-Bogey Hex. What did I do to you?” Ginny didn’t rise to the bait, and he realized that he would have to try something else soon.

While keeping both hands extended in front of him to support the powerful shield that was necessary to deflect Ginny’s attack, Harry subtly kicked his right foot in her direction while silently casting a Disarming Charm. Her eyes widened in surprise when her wand suddenly flew out of her grasp.

“Did I win?” Harry asked innocently as he began slowly walking toward her.

“No,” Ginny insisted, shaking her head defiantly. “I haven’t been eliminated, and I definitely haven’t yielded.”

“I see,” Harry replied. “And what would I have to do to get you to yield?” Ginny shrugged, and then lunged to her right, sprinting toward her fallen wand.

“Accio,” Harry called after her, and she was jerked away from her wand and into his waiting arms. “So, do you yield?” he whispered before giving her a playful peck on the lips.

“No,” Ginny laughed. “But you did win the duel. Congratulations.” She leaned up to give him a much longer congratulatory kiss.

“Oy!” yelled Ron. “Can somebody please untie me so I can at least look the other way when you do that?”

“Sorry,” Harry chuckled. “Finite.” The magical ropes that had bound Ron dissolved and he pulled himself to his feet. Harry quickly revived Hermione, and Ron gave her a hand up.

“Who won?” Hermione asked as soon as she was standing.

“Who do you think?” Ron answered. “I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t me or Ginny.”

“Oh, congratulations, Harry,” Hermione gushed. “You’re getting really wonderful at this.”

“Thanks,” Harry muttered, feeling slightly embarrassed by her praise.

“Can I ask you a favor for any future duels we’re in though, mate?” Ron asked. Harry shrugged. “Please don’t tie me up when I’m under a Tickling Charm. It’s torture!” Harry’s slight embarrassment vanished as he laughed with his friends.

“Harry, did you realize that that duel lasted for less than five minutes?” Ginny asked after the laughter died down.

“Seriously?” Harry asked, genuinely surprised. “It felt a lot longer.”

“I’m sure of it,” she insisted. “You really have gotten good at fighting without a wand. I was surprised by that bit at the end, though.”

“What did he do at the end?” Hermione asked.

“Ginny had me pinned down with a constant stream of Bat-Bogey Hexes - which I still think was a dirty trick, by the way,” Harry answered, shooting his girlfriend a playful glare. “The only way of escaping that I could think of was to attack with one of my feet while I used my hands to maintain my shield.”

“You can do spells with your feet?” Hermione asked in amazement.

“Yeah,” Harry answered. “I haven’t done it in a while because there was no reason to, but I used to practice doing spells with both hands and both feet when I was at St. Brutus’s. I’d pretty much forgotten about it until I needed to do it just now.”

“Could you do a spell without pointing a hand or foot?” she asked excitedly.

“Dunno,” Harry shrugged. “I’d never really thought about it.”

“Well, try it out,” Ron suggested. “That’d be seriously cool if you could do magic just by looking at stuff.”

“All right,” Harry grinned. “Maybe I should start by trying to Levitate a feather.” As soon as the words escaped his lips, a fluffy white feather appeared on the floor in front of him. Harry shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the feather.

“Wingardium Leviosa,” he commanded. Nothing happened. He tried again, this time moving his eyeballs to approximate the swish-and-flick wand motion used for the spell.

“Wingardium Leviosa!” Again, nothing happened.

“Well, it was a good idea,” he sighed. “I guess you have to have something to swish and flick, though, like a wand or a hand.”

“Why don’t you try a spell that doesn’t need you to move your wand?” Ginny suggested. “Like a Summoning Charm, maybe?”

“Yeah, that might work,” Ron agreed. “Go on, Harry.”

Harry sighed, but turned his attention back to the feather. “Accio!” The feather rocketed toward his face and plastered itself up against his glasses.

“Amazing,” Hermione whispered.

“Wicked!” Ron exclaimed with a broad grin. “Next time Snape gets up in your face, just look him straight in the eye and Banish him to the other side of his dungeon!”

“Ron!” Hermione scolded. “You don’t need to go giving him ideas!”

“It’s all right, Hermione,” Harry chuckled. “I thought of that one myself a long time ago, and it would be just as easy to do with a subtle hand motion. I think I prefer to just let Snape seethe, though, as long as he doesn’t try to attack us again.”

“Well, I’m glad one of you has a little bit of sense,” she huffed.

“It was just a joke,” Ron grumbled.

“Anybody up for a little flying?” Ginny asked suddenly in an attempt to change the subject.

“I’m in,” Harry said quickly.

“Yeah, all right,” Ron agreed. “Coming, Hermione?”

“I don’t know,” she hedged. “I mean, I’ve got so much studying to do, and N.E.W.T.s are just around the corner.”

“Come on,” Ron wheedled. “It’s a nice day out. Tell you what; if you’ll come flying with us now, I’ll study with you all afternoon.”

“Promise?” Hermione asked shrewdly. “We’ll actually be studying for our exams?”

Ron nodded.

“You won’t try to drag me off to ‘patrol the corridors’ every five minutes?”

Harry and Ginny snickered as Ron promised not to distract her all afternoon and they headed outside.

* * * * *
That afternoon, while Ron and Hermione were hunched over their books, Harry and Ginny went to the Great Hall for an Apparition lesson. By this time, nearly all of the sixth-years were able to Apparate around the Great Hall with varying degrees of effort. Much to Harry’s relief and satisfaction, he now found Apparition not only comfortable, but positively easy. Ginny’s feelings on the matter were similar, although she still needed a bit more experience before the discomfort would completely disappear.

The evening was spent writing essays and discussing Harry’s Apparition test, which he would be taking at the end of the month along with the other sixth-years who had already turned seventeen. All in all, it was quite an enjoyable day, and Harry fell into bed with a feeling of peaceful satisfaction. After forcing himself to sink into his flagstone memory just as he did every night, he slipped into an easy slumber.

Harry was staring at a blank flagstone in an empty corridor somewhere in Hogwarts Castle. It was a very relaxing pastime, as it required neither effort nor thought, so he stared contentedly at his flagstone, glad of the rest it provided.

Quite suddenly, the flagstone began to shimmer and ripple, as though it had been turned to liquid. Then a glowing red spot became visible in its depths. Harry scooted closer to get a better look, and saw another glowing red spot near the first one. Soon, the glowing spots began to rise, and the dim silhouette of a human head formed around them. Harry shot to his feet in surprise as the face of Lord Voldemort floated up into view.

On the verge of panic, Harry looked up to decide upon the best route of escape. What he saw surprised him even further; he was no longer at Hogwarts. Finally remembering to draw his wand, he turned his eyes back to the liquefied flagstone that held Voldemort’s face, but all he found were blank stones. He spun around, barely managing to suppress his fear as he searched in the dim light for his enemy, but all he could see was an empty corridor that definitely was not at Hogwarts.

Slowly, cautiously, he walked forward, his path lit by dim and infrequent torches anchored to the walls. As he crept toward the end of the corridor, the faint outline of a door became visible straight ahead. Reaching it, he put out his hand to tentatively touch it when he noticed a very dark shadow to his left. He spun quickly to face it, but saw nothing other than more blackness. The only sounds to reach his straining ears were his own heartbeat and ragged breathing.

“Lumos,” he whispered. Light shot from the tip of his wand, illuminating a staircase leading down to another corridor. With a jolt of surprise, Harry turned back to the corridor from which he had come. In the bright wand light, he could see the faint glint of metal doors at the far end, confirming his suspicion. He now knew where he was, and it most certainly was not Hogwarts. He was inside the Ministry of Magic, standing at the entrance to the Department of Mysteries.

Harry sat bolt upright in bed, his hand slapped over his throbbing scar and sweat pouring down his face.

---

“Sleep well last night, Harry?” Hermione asked as Harry slid into his seat at the Gryffindor table on Monday morning.

“Yeah,” he nodded while piling eggs onto his plate. “Not one dream.”

“See, Hermione? It was a fluke,” Ron concluded. She shot him a withering look.

“Just because he didn’t have a nightmare again last night doesn’t mean that the one he had on Saturday night wasn’t real.”

“It wasn’t a nightmare,” Harry grumbled. “It was just a stupid dream. Besides, I already told you that Dumbledore said to talk to him at my next lesson unless it was an emergency.”

“But how do you know this isn’t an emergency?” Hermione asked.

“I think when Dumbledore said ‘emergency,’ he meant something concrete, Hermione,” Harry explained. “If I’d seen somebody getting attacked or something, then yeah, I’d have told him right away; but this was just the entrance to the Department of Mysteries, and it wasn’t even a vision; it was just a dream.”

“Harry,” Ginny said gently, “don’t you think he’d want to know if Voldemort’s obsessing over that place again?”

“Of course he will,” Harry answered. “But we don’t even know if he is obsessing over it. He might’ve just been having a random dream about wanting to find the Prophecy and it somehow leaked out and got into my head. Look, I’m planning to tell Dumbledore tomorrow during our lesson, so can we just drop this in the meantime?”

Ginny nodded, even though he could tell she didn’t agree with his decision. Hermione looked like she wanted to argue, but after a vigorous whispered conversation with Ron, she reluctantly let the subject drop. Much to Harry’s relief, the conversation for the rest of breakfast consisted mainly of topics directly relating to school.

When it was finally time to leave, Harry and Ginny bade Ron and Hermione goodbye and headed down the stairs to the dungeons. Ever since the end of the disastrous unit on Love Potions, they had been covering advanced poisons and their antidotes, which Harry had decided wasn’t much better. Fortunately, Snape hadn’t tried to poison or curse either of them, so he and Harry had been able to slip back into their old relationship of mutual loathing without actually trying to physically harm one another.

When Snape swept into the classroom, Harry could tell by the look on his face that he was already upset about something, and resolved to try extra hard to make himself as unnoticeable as possible. His effort was doomed from the start; Snape looked directly at him as he began the lesson.

“Continue working on your antidotes for the poisons I gave you,” he snapped. His lip curling into a nasty sneer, he added, “Gibbon, do not let me catch you trying to copy Miss Winters’ work again; as I explained before, I have given each of you a different poison to work with.”

Miles Gibbon nodded, wide-eyed, from where he sat near the back of the room.

“Begin,” said Snape. Immediately, everyone in the class began measuring and adding ingredients, stirring their cauldrons, or adjusting the height of their small fires. Harry began laying out the ingredients they might be needing - a vial of crocodile tears, three rats’ feet, a clump of knotgrass, several petals from a Purple Coneflower, and some Agrimony leaves, among other things - while Ginny slowly stirred their existing concoction and brought it up to the correct temperature.

“All right,” Ginny murmured, “once it gets up to the right temperature, if it turns blue we add the Agrimony, and if it turns green we add the knotgrass. How much of each was it?”

Harry consulted his notes before whispering, “Five blades of knotgrass; three Agrimony leaves.” He immediately set aside the correct amount of each plant before joining Ginny in watching their potion simmer.

“This isn’t so bad,” he whispered after several minutes of waiting in silence.

“Isn’t it, Potter?” Snape hissed from so close to Harry’s ear that he couldn’t help jumping in surprise.

“Er- No, sir,” Harry answered after a moment.

“I wonder if you would feel so at ease if you were preparing this potion for a fellow student who had been poisoned,” Snape remarked in an almost casual manner, although he was looking directly at Ginny as he said it.

Taking advantage of the fact that Snape was looking away from him at the moment, Harry used a silent Summoning Charm to pull a small jar filled with some kind of eyeballs off of the shelf at the back of the classroom. It fell to the floor with a crash, causing Snape to spin around and glare at the empty desk in front of the mess. Without a word, he turned back to Harry, whose wand was still in the pocket of his robes. Their eyes locked for a moment, and Harry felt himself sink into his memory of the blank flagstone for a moment before Snape stalked away to deal with the mess.

“Well, that was lucky,” Ginny observed, shooting Harry the briefest of winks.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed as he turned back to their potion. A few minutes later, it turned blue and he added three Agrimony leaves while Ginny reversed the direction of her stirring. They continued working in tandem, speaking only when necessary, until class was over and they were allowed to leave.

“He’s getting worse again,” Ginny observed as she and Harry reached the ground floor.

Harry nodded. “There’s not much we can do about it at the moment, though, other than hope that jars keep falling off the shelves at opportune moments.”

Ginny giggled softly and squeezed his hand in understanding as they continued chatting happily all the way to the Charms classroom. When they arrived, they found Professor Flitwick perched atop his desk, ready for the lesson to begin.

“Good morning, class,” he greeted when everyone had taken their seats. “Today we’re going to finish up our basic Healing Charms and then review the False Death Charm to see how you’re all doing with it. I hope you’ve been practicing.” Harry and Ginny shared a quick smile, as they had both been practicing with a decent amount of success on mice that Hermione frequently conjured for them.

After hopping down from his desk, Flitwick quickly made his way around the classroom passing out various broken bones to the students, which they were instructed to mend. As soon as everyone had successfully mended their bones, he collected them and passed out rather large pieces of raw meat, which the students were supposed to clean and disinfect. Harry thought this was a waste of perfectly good meat until he realized that it had probably been conjured for this specific purpose.

They continued reviewing the various Healing Charms they had learned over the course of the year until Flitwick passed out a live rabbit to each pair of students and ordered them to perform the False Death Charm.

“Ladies first,” Harry said with a wink while gesturing toward the rabbit he was sharing with Ginny.

“All right,” she replied as she drew her wand and pointed it at the rabbit. “Moreproba!” A bolt of red light jumped from her wand and connected with the rabbit, which toppled over sideways without even closing its eyes.

“Nice work,” Harry whispered as everyone paused to watch the professor examine her handiwork. Flitwick hurried over and waved his wand over the rabbit in several different complicated patterns before turning to Ginny with an uncharacteristically solemn expression on his face.

“Miss Weasley,” he said very seriously, “you have either done this charm perfectly, or you have killed this poor rabbit.” Ginny, along with several other students, gasped before Flitwick’s face broke into a grin and he added, “But since even an extremely poorly-cast False Death Charm won’t kill, I have to believe that you’ve done it correctly.” As if to prove his point, he cast the counter-charm and as soon as the jet of blue light made contact with its skin, the rabbit scrambled to its feet and hopped off the desk.

“Well done, Miss Weasley,” Flitwick exclaimed amid her classmates’ congratulations. “Twenty points to Gryffindor for being my first sixth-year student to master this very difficult charm.”

“Thank you, Professor,” Ginny breathed as she grinned broadly at her success. While the tiny professor moved on to check the other students’ work, Harry Summoned the rabbit and prepared to cast the charm himself.

“You know,” he commented as he tried to get the rabbit settled back on top of the desk, “I knew Flitwick had a sense of humor, but I never would’ve expected that sort of a joke to come from him.”

“Maybe he’s been hanging around with Moody,” Ginny suggested.

“Maybe,” Harry chuckled. Turning his full attention to the rabbit, he took a deep breath to clear his head and focused on the spell he was about to cast. “Moreproba,” he said firmly while doing the correct wand movement. Red light burst from the tip of his wand, and the rabbit fell over with a soft thud. A few moments later, Flitwick came to check his work and determined that Harry had performed the charm perfectly as well.

They continued practicing the False Death Charm for the rest of the class period. Harry, Ginny, and Colin - the only ones who had completely mastered the charm - spent the last few minutes of the lesson working on the counter-charm, but none of them met with any success.

The counter to the False Death Charm turned out to be so difficult, in fact, that everyone was still struggling with it at the beginning of May. By that time, Harry and most of the other sixth-years who were of age had already passed their Apparition tests and therefore, in Professor Moody’s opinion, had that much more time to work on his assignment of learning that particular counter-charm (or counter-curse, as he called it).

On the second Tuesday in May, Harry and Ginny arrived in Defense Against the Dark Arts reasonably confident that they would be able to reverse the False Death Curse. It had taken them both quite a lot of extra work to master it, though, and Harry wondered just how many students would be able to do it for the quiz Moody had planned.

“Everybody here?” Moody called out as soon as the bell had signaled the start of the lesson. No one answered, so he pressed on. “Good. We’re going to start out with mice. When I come around, I want everybody to take a mouse from my bag. Don’t worry; they’re not really dead.”

When everyone had a seemingly-dead mouse, Moody limped back to the front of the room. “Good. Now, each of you revive your mouse, and keep in mind that I can keep an eye on all of you at once, so don’t even think about trying to get one of your friends to do this for you. It won’t do you any good to have a friend who knows this counter-curse if your friend is the one who needs it performed.” There was a short pause before he said, “Well, what are you waiting for? Get to it!”

Harry drew his wand and concentrated hard on what he was about to do. When he thought his mind was sufficiently focused, he performed the wand motion while saying, “Alacrita.” His mouse immediately rolled to its feet and began looking around nervously. Glancing around, he saw that nearly everyone else had succeeded as well. Moody seemed rather pleased with the results, and quickly gave an extra assignment to the few students who hadn’t managed the spell before stumping back up to the front of the room and turning to address the class once more.

“Now for the more challenging part,” Moody announced. “Most of you can do the counter-curse for a mouse, but can you do it for a human being?” Harry nodded his head in thought, as he had just been wondering that very thing.

Colin Creevey volunteered to be the class’s test subject in exchange for some extra credit since he was one of the few who hadn’t managed the spell on his mouse. Moody put a Cushioning Charm on the floor and allowed him to lie down before hitting him with the False Death Curse and ordering Zacharias Smith to come wake him up.

Smith sauntered to the front of the room and pointed his wand confidently at Colin. “Alacrita!” he called, causing blue light to jump from his wand to Colin’s chest. Colin blinked and sat up, grinning.

“Good job, Smith!” he enthused. Moody just grunted and nodded for Smith to return to his seat before placing Colin under the False Death Curse once more and calling another student forward to remove it. It was slow going, but by the end of the lesson everyone who had managed to perform the counter-charm on a mouse had also proven able to perform it on Colin. Moody dismissed them with the admonition to continue practicing so they wouldn’t forget what to do in a pressure situation.

* * * * *
That evening, Harry arrived at Professor Dumbledore’s office eager for his Occlumency lesson. Not only did he have an important question he wanted to ask, but the Headmaster had also hinted at the end of his lesson the previous Thursday that Harry was ready to begin the third phase of his Occlumency training.

“Puking Pastilles,” Harry whispered the new password to the stone gargoyle. He thought it a bit odd that Dumbledore seemed so amused by Fred and George Weasley’s Skiving Snackboxes, which were designed and marketed as easy ways to get out of class, but he never saw a reason to bring it up.

Stepping onto the moving staircase, Harry took a deep breath and slowly let it out. When he arrived at the top, the Headmaster’s door was open, and he was greeted by Dumbledore saying, “Legilimens.”

Doing his best to ignore the mental invasion, Harry said, “Why yes, Professor; I’d love to come in,” and proceeded to let himself into the office. Before he had taken two steps, Dumbledore tried to view his memory of the prophecy and Harry felt his attention split between what he was doing and his memory of the flagstone, which he knew was all Dumbledore could see in his mind while he was looking for the prophecy.

“Would you like to have a seat, Harry?” Harry asked, continuing his mock-conversation with himself.

“Why yes, I’d love that; how thoughtful of you,” he answered himself as he sank into his usual chair. Dumbledore removed his spell just as Harry was beginning to sit, but Harry’s movement didn’t change and he sat down without faltering in the slightest when his full attention was returned to him.

“Excellent work, Harry,” Dumbledore congratulated him with a twinkle in his eye. “And I’m very glad to see that you feel comfortable enough to invite yourself in when the door is open.”

“Well, I figured Come in and Legilimens sound similar enough, right?” Harry joked.

“I suppose you’re right,” Dumbledore chuckled. He took a deep breath and his expression sobered before he continued. “I have a bit of intelligence for you, but first, do you have any questions for me?”

“Actually, I do have a couple of questions, sir,” Harry replied. “The first one is something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately. I was wondering how it is that Professor Snape is able to fool Voldemort with Occlumency. I mean, shouldn’t Voldemort be able to tell when he’s being blocked?”

“Ah,” said Dumbledore. “You’re wondering why Lord Voldemort does not see a flagstone or a blade of grass when he tries to view Professor Snape’s secret memories.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry answered.

“The answer to that is really quite simple,” Dumbledore replied. “Professor Snape has spent a great deal of time working on his Occlumency, and has a very large number of Protector Memories, similar to your memory of the flagstone. The difference is that he has used normal memories to mask his secret ones. For example, if Lord Voldemort were to try to see a memory of Professor Snape reporting confidential information to me, he might find a memory of him discussing a student’s detention with me instead. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” said Harry. “But that still sounds like it’d be pretty easy for him to get caught.”

“I agree,” Dumbledore sighed. “However, he is quite good at what he does and his role in the Order of the Phoenix is strictly voluntary.” Against his will, Harry felt a bit of respect for Snape.

“Did you say you have another question?” Dumbledore asked after a moment.

“Oh, yeah,” Harry said as he shook himself a bit. “Er, I was just wondering if you’ve found out anything about the Department of Mysteries lately. I’ve been dreaming about it more and more often, and every time I wake up with my scar burning.”

“Actually, that’s the very news I was referring to a moment ago,” the Headmaster replied with a slight smile. “However, it’s painfully little information and it doesn’t really tell us anything new that we couldn’t have guessed. All we know is that Lord Voldemort is planning ‘something special’ that is to take place inside the Department of Mysteries. Unfortunately, we have no information about what this ‘something special’ is, nor about when it is to take place.”

Harry sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair. “So I guess all your information really tells us is that my dreams really do mean that Voldemort’s obsessing over that place again.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Dumbledore. “Minister Fudge assures me that security has been stepped up considerably since the events of two years ago-” Harry’s derisive snort caused him to pause and smile. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Harry. However, all we can do at this point is wait and hope that the Ministry is better protected than we suspect.”

Harry nodded in understanding, although he felt extremely uneasy about the idea of the Ministry of Magic being the only thing between Voldemort and something he wanted.

“Well,” Dumbledore clapped his hands, “are you ready to begin the third phase of your Occlumency training?”

Harry grinned. “If you say I’m ready, then I’m ready.”

“Excellent. Now, here’s what we’re going to do: I’m going to try to view a memory that you’ve hidden with the Occultus Charm, and then I’m going to switch to try and view your current thoughts. I want you to try to keep your attention split between your normal thoughts and your flagstone when I make that change, all right?”

Harry nodded. “Ready when you are.”

“Very well,” said Dumbledore. “Legilimens.”

In an effort to keep his thoughts separate from the flagstone that was hiding his most secret memories, Harry began listing all of the dueling spells he could think of. Stupefy, Protego, Incarcerous, Impedimenta, Expelliarmus....

Suddenly, the memory of the flagstone was gone and he could feel Dumbledore inside his mind, watching and listening as he continued his list of spells and tried unsuccessfully to split his attention between the list and the flagstone. A moment later, he felt the Headmaster leave his mind as the spell ended.

“Sorry,” Harry said immediately.

“No need to apologize, Harry,” Dumbledore said easily. “This isn’t exactly easy to do. Just let me know when you’re ready to try again.”

“I’m ready now,” Harry responded.

Dumbledore nodded and repeated the process with similar results. Harry continued trying to consciously split his attention between the flagstone and something else for the next forty five minutes. When he left the Headmaster’s office, all he had to show for his efforts was a mild headache.

---

May soon faded into June, and before Harry knew it the end of the school year was almost upon him. As he ate a hurried breakfast on the morning of the final Quidditch match of the term, he reflected on how much had changed over the past year. He had rediscovered the Wizarding world and ‘met’ all of his friends, seen Dolores Umbridge carted off to Azkaban, had his memory returned - by Hagrid of all people, started dating Ginny, survived a direct assault on the castle, and forcibly stopped Snape from attacking his girlfriend. All in all, it had been a rather eventful year, and he was suddenly amazed to realize that he hadn’t spent one day of it in the hospital wing. With any luck, he planned to keep it that way, although if past experience was any indicator, he’d probably still end up paying Madam Pomfrey a visit before the train left in two weeks.

“Ready for the match?” Ginny asked cheerfully as she patted him on the arm.

“What?” Harry said distractedly. “Oh, yeah,” he muttered, shaking himself out of his stupor.

“Where were you just now?” she asked, grinning at him.

He smiled back at her, glad for the excuse to look into her sparkling eyes. “I was just thinking about everything that’s happened in the last year,” he answered finally. “Did you realize I’ve managed to stay out of the hospital wing all year?”

“Yeah, but now you’ve gone and jinxed it,” she laughed. Harry was laughing along with her when Hermione pulled a dejected-looking Ron into a seat across from them.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Ron; you’ve got to eat something,” she was muttering to him.

“Nerves?” Harry asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

Ron and Hermione both shook their heads. “Just thinking,” Ron mumbled.

“About what?” Ginny asked. “You look really depressed.”

“You would be too if it was your last real Quidditch match ever,” Ron snapped.

“Hey, no need to get all huffy, mate,” said Harry.

“Sorry, Ginny,” Ron mumbled.

“It’s all right, Ron,” she said quietly. “Just remember to play at your absolute highest level for the entire match so you can look back on it as a happy memory.” That seemed to cheer Ron up slightly, and he began buttering a slice of toast.

Thirty minutes later the Gryffindor team was out on the pitch, and Ron appeared as cool and confident as ever as he shook hands with Chris Chambers, the Ravenclaw captain. After her usual short speech about good sportsmanship, Madam Hooch ordered the players into the air and released the balls. The spectators erupted into cheers as Theodore Nott began commentating in a magically amplified voice.

“And it’s Chambers with the Quaffle. Passes up to Fawcett; she barely touches it before sending it over to Bradley, who drops it right into Chambers’ hands for an easy sc- No! Weasley drops out of nowhere, swinging from his broom handle, and kicks it away just before it can go through.”

Harry breathed a sigh of relief and glanced over at Ron to see him grinning from ear to ear. Smiling in satisfaction, Harry returned to his search for the Snitch.

“Ravenclaw recovers the loose Quaffle after Weasley’s save, and they’re at it again. It’s Fawcett, up to Chambers, across to Bradley, back to Chambers; he takes the shot, and Weasley catches it easily. Still no score as Robins takes the Quaffle for Gryffindor.

“Robins streaking up the pitch; dodges a Bludger and passes back to Thomas, who tosses it up through a pair of defenders to Weasley. She reverses and shoots- Ten nil, Gryffindor!”

Harry cheered right along with everyone else as Ginny flew back to play defense. He had to hand it to Nott; he might not sound overly enthusiastic about a Gryffindor goal, but he was definitely a fair commentator.

As his eyes searched for the elusive Snitch, Harry considered the opposing Seeker. Stewart Ackerley was a fourth-year, and this was his first year on the House team. Still, he seemed to be a better flier than most, and Harry knew better than anyone that age didn’t matter much when it came time to catch the Snitch.

Deciding to test his opponent a bit, Harry fell into a steep dive as though he had just spotted the Snitch. Almost immediately, Ackerley was in a matching dive, his eyes searching frantically for the glittering golden ball. The boy was quick, Harry realized as he pulled out of his dive and rose to begin searching the pitch once more.

The match was a hard-fought one, especially when Dean Thomas took a Bludger to the head within the first ten minutes and had to be sent to the hospital wing for the rest of the match. An hour later, Harry checked the score and was surprised to find that Gryffindor was leading thirty to nil, despite the fact that they were playing one Chaser short. Demelza and Ginny had to be playing their hearts out, he realized, but Ron really must have taken his sister’s comment at breakfast to heart, judging by the ferocity with which he guarded his goal hoops.

With renewed vigor, Harry turned back to his search for the Snitch. His team was doing an amazing job, and it was his responsibility to make sure their phenomenal effort wasn’t in vain. Suddenly, Ackerley shot upward. Not knowing if it was a feint or if his opponent had really spotted the Snitch, Harry had no choice but to take off after him. It only took a second to realize that Ackerley really was in hot pursuit of the tiny golden ball as it rocketed upward.

Without warning, the Snitch broke to the right and then straight down. Its change in direction favored Ackerley, but Harry had the faster broom and was rapidly gaining as they hurtled toward earth. About ten feet above the ground, the Snitch made another quick change in direction, this time shooting back up at an angle. Harry stayed on its tail, but Ackerley couldn’t manage to turn quite as sharply, and started falling behind.

As he climbed above the Chasers and stretched out his hand, Harry could see a Bludger streaking toward him. Gritting his teeth against the impact, he closed his fist around the Snitch just as a red and gold blur shot up in front of him at full speed and absorbed the Bludger’s impact with a sickening crunch. The figure shot past Harry in an out of control spin toward the far end of the pitch, her long red hair whipping in the wind as she struggled with her broom.

His heart in his throat, Harry flattened himself against his broom handle and rocketed toward Ginny as fast as his Firebolt would carry him. She was losing altitude fast, but also seemed to be slowly regaining control of her broom. Just as he reached her, she let go of her broomstick and dropped the last two feet to the ground, landing hard on her back.

“Ginny!” Harry shouted as he leapt off his broom and rushed to her side. She groaned in response.

“Shouldn’t have... dropped like that,” she gasped, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. Her breathing was very shallow, and he could tell she was in a lot of pain.

“Stand back, Mr. Potter.” Harry looked up to see Madam Hooch standing over him. As soon as he moved out of her way, she began waving her wand over Ginny, checking her for injuries. “She’s got several broken ribs, and there’s going to be quite a bit of bruising, but she should be all right once we get her to Madam Pomfrey. Would you like to accompany her, Potter?”

Harry could only nod dumbly as he listened to the diagnosis, unable to ignore the fact that those injuries should have been his. Madam Hooch gently Levitated Ginny onto a hastily-conjured stretcher, and Harry began following it toward the stadium’s exit.

“Hang in there, Ginny,” he repeated over and over in a barely-audible voice. Her skin had gone deathly pale, reminding him far too much of the end of his second year, when he had found her near death inside the Chamber of Secrets.

“Harry,” Ginny gasped when they were about halfway to the castle. A fit of coughing prevented her from continuing, and Harry’s eyes widened in horror at the sight of a small red trickle coming from the corner of her mouth.

“Ginny, no!” he shouted, gripping her hand tightly and wishing the stupid stretcher would go faster.

“Listen,” she wheezed before coughing up a much larger quantity of blood. “False... Death....”

She was in the middle of another coughing fit when he finally realized what she was telling him. Without another thought, he pointed his wand at her and, while making a small circle in the air with his wand tip and jabbing it lightly at her, said, “Moreproba.” He heard the air leave her lungs as her chest fell. It didn’t rise again.

Furiously wiping at the frightened tears that were burning his eyes, he was surprised to discover that his cheeks were already wet. As he trudged toward the castle, all he could do was hope and pray that she would be all right.

“Harry!” Ron’s shout jolted Harry to his senses just as he was following Ginny’s stretcher through the large front doors of the castle. He looked up to see Ron flying his broomstick toward them, closely followed by Hermione, who was riding on Ginny’s broom and awkwardly carrying Harry’s Firebolt in one hand while doing her best to steer with the other.

“How is she?” Ron asked as he landed at the top of the front steps and hurried inside after Harry.

“Not good,” Harry whispered, turning his gaze back to his girlfriend’s limp body.

“Harry, she’s not breathing!” Hermione exclaimed a moment later.

“False Death Charm,” he muttered before either she or Ron had a chance to panic.

Hermione’s eyes widened in surprise. “That was really good thinking.”

Harry shook his head. “She asked me to do it.”

They walked on in silence until they reached the hospital wing, where Harry explained everything to Madam Pomfrey.

“The False Death Charm is an excellent spell to use when you’re not sure of the extent of a patient’s injuries,” she observed as she waved her wand over Ginny’s apparently lifeless body. “Ah, as I suspected. Both of her lungs have been punctured by broken ribs, and there’s some damage to her liver and pancreas as well.”

“Will she be all right?” Ron asked worriedly.

“She’ll be fine; not to worry,” Madam Pomfrey said kindly, “although it’s very lucky that Mr. Potter knew the False Death Charm. If she hadn’t had that cast on her, her injuries might very well have been life-threatening.”

“What?” Harry and Ron exploded together.

“Boys!” she scolded. “Madam Hooch did the best she knew how, but some of those injuries can be extremely difficult to find. Don’t be too hard on her; I’ve never seen injuries this extensive from a Bludger before, although I suppose that’s because people don’t generally fly head-on into them at full speed.”

“That’s not much comfort, Madam Pomfrey,” Harry seethed.

“No, it isn’t,” she sighed. “But it is the truth, and you really ought to calm down and focus on the fact that Miss Weasley is going to be fine, rather than plotting the demise of our flying instructor. Now, please stand back and let me work.” She began waving her wand over Ginny’s chest, and there was a faint cracking sound as her ribcage expanded slightly.

“There,” Madam Pomfrey muttered to herself, “that’s it for the bones. Now, a bit of....” Her voice trailed off as she waved her wand in an intricate pattern, first over the right side of Ginny’s chest, and then again over the left side. Nodding in satisfaction, she retreated to her office, returning quickly with three vials of potion.

“We may as well get these into her stomach before we revive her,” she explained. “Potter, Weasley, if you’ll lift her up slightly so I can help her swallow?”

Harry and Ron moved so that one was on each side of Ginny’s bed, and together they gently lifted her upper body, allowing the matron to pour the three potions down her throat.

“Very good,” said Madam Pomfrey after they had laid her back down. “Potter, would you like to be the one to revive her?”

“All right,” Harry replied. With a slightly shaky hand, he performed the counter-charm. As soon as the blue light collided with Ginny’s chest, she took a deep, gasping breath before opening her eyes.

“Harry?” she called softly.

“Hi,” he answered quietly. “How are you feeling?”

Ginny shifted experimentally and took another deep breath before grinning up at him. “I feel fine.” Harry, Ron, and Hermione breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“Sorry we weren’t with you sooner, Ginny, but they wouldn’t let Ron out of the stadium until they’d given him the Quidditch Cup,” Hermione explained.

“Everybody said it was no big deal - just some cracked ribs,” Ron added. “If I’d known-”

“Forget it, Ron,” said Ginny. “I’m fine now, and that’s what matters. Besides, you’re the captain; you had to accept the Cup for the team.”

“You should’ve seen him,” Hermione giggled. “He was in such a hurry to get to you that he practically threw the Cup at Professor McGonagall before jumping back on his broom and flying after you and Harry.”

“Yeah, he caught up with us right at the doors of the castle,” Harry agreed. “You should’ve seen Hermione, though. If I hadn’t been so worried, I’d have probably burst out laughing when I caught sight of her.”

“What did she do?” asked Ginny.

“I picked up both of your broomsticks and took off after Ron,” Hermione answered primly.

“Flying,” Harry added.

“You rode Harry’s Firebolt?” Ginny asked in surprise.

“No! I’m not crazy; I rode your broom and carried Harry’s. I don’t trust myself on anything that fast.”

“Hermione, Ginny’s got a Nimbus 2001 - it’s not exactly an old clunker,” Harry chuckled. “Anyway, you looked ridiculous trying to fly it one-handed and carry my Firebolt in the other hand.”

“I could’ve just left it on the pitch, you know,” Hermione shot back.

“Ouch; Hermione, you’ve wounded me,” Harry said, raising his hands in surrender.

“That’s what I thought,” Hermione sniffed haughtily, although she couldn’t quite keep the corners of her mouth from quirking upward.

Turning back to Ginny, Harry regarded her seriously once again. “Why’d you do it, Ginny?” he asked quietly.

“Do what?” she replied in her most innocent voice.

“Why’d you fly in between me and that Bludger? You were going at it at full speed when it hit you; you know that’s why you were hurt so badly, right?”

“Of course I know that,” said Ginny, doing her best to brush away his concern. “I just figured it was my turn to spend some time in the hospital wing at the end of term.”

Harry’s heart plummeted as he remembered the conversation around the breakfast table that morning. He had told Ginny how happy he was to have avoided a stay in the hospital wing, and she had taken it so seriously that she had been injured in his place.

“Ginny,” he croaked around the lump that was rapidly forming in his throat. He swallowed hard and tried again. “Ginny, I appreciate what you did for me, but please don’t ever do it again.”

“Why not?” she asked, looking up into his eyes. “You’d do the same for me.”

“That’s not the same thing,” he argued. “Okay, so maybe it is, but still.... I can’t stand to see you hurt.”

“Harry,” she said patiently as she reached out to take him by the hand, “look at me. I’m fine.”

Harry shook his head vehemently. “You wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t told me to do the False Death Charm. Hooch missed your punctured lungs and a few other things; Madam Pomfrey said that if that charm hadn’t been put on you, you might’ve-” He couldn’t continue.

Ginny paled as she realized the implications of what he was telling her, but recovered quickly. “You did put the charm on me, though, Harry,” she insisted. “That’s all that matters; I’m fine. And since I’m fine, I believe we have a party to get to.”

“Not so fast, Miss Weasley,” said Madam Pomfrey, placing a firm hand on Ginny’s shoulder to prevent her from getting out of bed. “I’ll need to keep you for observation for at least another hour before I can allow you to leave.” Ginny sank back onto her bed with her arms folded angrily across her chest.

“How’s Dean, Madam Pomfrey?” Hermione asked suddenly. Harry glanced over at the next bed to find an unconscious Dean Thomas with his head tightly wrapped in bandages.

“Mr. Thomas sustained a mild head injury and will have to stay overnight, but he should be ready for visitors tomorrow morning and I expect him to be ready to leave by lunchtime.”

“Ron, you and Hermione can head up to the common room,” said Ginny. “Harry will stay and keep me company, won’t you Harry?”

Harry just grinned at her as Ron said, “I recognize that tone. Come on, Hermione, before they start snogging all over the place.”

Despite Ron’s assumption, Harry and Ginny didn’t spend any time snogging in the hospital wing. Instead, they merely sat and talked about her injuries and how frightened both of them had been. By the time Ginny was released, she was pleased to have convinced Harry that they should just be grateful that she was all right, rather than focusing on what might have happened. On that note, they left Dean sleeping soundly in his bed and headed up to Gryffindor Tower to join in the post-match festivities.

* * * * *
The last two weeks of the school year passed quickly for Harry, and it seemed that every spare moment was devoted to revising for his exams. His only consolation was that at least he didn’t have it as bad as Ron, who was getting ready to take his N.E.W.T.s and had to deal with Hermione’s constant harping whenever he tried to take a break.

What concerned Harry far more than end of year exams, however, was the fact that his scar had been hurting him more and more frequently. He had, of course, passed this information on to Dumbledore, but neither of them knew what to make of it, other than to suppose that Voldemort was planning something big. When end of term exams came and went without incident, however, Harry’s hopes were high that maybe Voldemort’s latest plan wasn’t going to be focused on him.

On the morning that they were to take the Hogwarts Express back to London, Harry and Ginny enjoyed a leisurely breakfast while waiting for Ron and Hermione to finish up their final duties as Head Boy and Head Girl. Harry grimaced when he heard them coming - or, more accurately, he grimaced when he heard what they were arguing about.

“Because I really don’t care anymore, Hermione,” Ron said in a tired voice.

“But Ron, our N.E.W.T. scores will determine the sorts of jobs that are available to us, and-”

“I know,” Ron groaned as he slid into a seat at the Gryffindor table and buried his head in his hands. “It’s just that we’ve gone over every test together at least once, and doing it again isn’t going to change our answers. Why can’t we just enjoy our last meal here?”

Hermione fell silent, surprising not only Harry, but Ron and Ginny as well.

“You all right, Hermione?” Harry asked tentatively after a moment.

“Yes,” she nodded distractedly. “It’s just that, well, Ron’s right; this really is our last meal here. Not yours, I mean, but Ron’s and mine. I guess I never really thought this day would ever come.” She blinked rapidly, fighting the tears that were accumulating in the corners of her eyes until Ron slipped his arm around her and she buried her face in his shoulder. Ron looked helplessly over her head at Harry, who could only shrug, as he had no more idea what to do than Ron did.

“Ron,” Ginny said very quietly.

“Yeah?” Ron whispered.

“Remember how you felt the day of the Quidditch final when you were acting all down because it was your last match as a student?”

Ron nodded.

“That’s how Hermione’s feeling right now.”

Comprehension dawned in Ron’s eyes, and he pulled his girlfriend a little closer as she continued battling her conflicted emotions. After about a minute, she pulled away and wiped her eyes.

“Thanks, Ron,” she whispered.

“For what?” he asked in a surprised voice. “All I did was sit here.”

“That’s all I needed you to do,” she said with a soft smile.

“Oh. Well, er, if you ever need somebody to just sit here, I’m your man.” That got a quiet laugh out of her. The rest of breakfast was rather subdued, but Hermione’s melancholy did not return.

Once they had finished eating, the students all headed outside, where they rode to Hogsmeade Station in the school carriages. Upon arriving, there was the usual mad dash for an empty compartment on the train, but they managed to find one without any problems. Before they were able to get settled in, however, the compartment door slid open.

“Remus!” Harry exclaimed when he saw his old professor standing in the doorway.

“Hello everyone,” Remus Lupin said with a grin. “Mind if I join you?” They welcomed him warmly, and he settled comfortably into a seat.

“So, what brings you here?” Harry asked.

“Just a precaution,” Remus replied unconcernedly. “We’re still not sure what Voldemort’s planning, so we thought it would be best to have a few Order members on the train. Tonks and Moody are here as well.”

“Do you really think they’ll try attacking the train?” Hermione asked in surprise.

Remus shook his head. “No; our intelligence still suggests that Voldemort’s planning something big that has to do with the Department of Mysteries. We’re just here for a little added security.”

Before anyone had a chance to respond, the compartment door slid open again, revealing a rather small boy with light brown hair and beady black eyes. He grinned when he saw who was inside.

“Tyler?” Harry asked in disbelief.

“In the flesh,” said Tyler as he stepped inside, pulling Luna Lovegood behind him.

“It’s good to see you mate,” Harry said with a large grin. “But, er, what’re you doing here?”

“I came to ride the train with everybody,” Tyler answered simply. “Fred loaned me some old robes so I’d fit in a little better, and he and George Portkeyed me right into Hogsmeade. They said it was a crime for someone who loves magic as much as I do to be denied the opportunity to ride the Hogwarts Express at least once.”

“Those two,” Remus muttered, shaking his head. Harry couldn’t tell if he was exasperated or amused.

“So, what’s the word?” asked Tyler as he and Luna squeezed into seats next to Ron and Hermione.

“Exams are over,” said Ron.

“I think this might interest you,” said Remus as he pulled a folded up copy of the Evening Prophet out of a pocket in his robes. “This came out last night, but I don’t think any of you will have seen it since post only comes in the mornings at Hogwarts.” Carefully unfolding the paper, he revealed the front page.

Sirius Black Acquitted! read the headline. Harry grinned and quickly scanned the accompanying article.

In a surprise move made even more surprising by the secrecy with which it was carried out, the Ministry of Magic declared Sirius Black, the first person ever to escape from Azkaban, innocent of all charges against him. Black had been sentenced to a lifetime in Azkaban nearly seventeen years ago after several witnesses claimed to have seen him kill a dozen Muggles and one wizard - Peter Pettigrew - with a single curse. In light of recent events, however the testimony of those witnesses has been called into question.

As recently as last year, Peter Pettigrew was still alive. He died of a snakebite just over a year ago while trying to abduct Harry Potter, lending credence to young Mr. Potter’s repeated claims that Pettigrew was working for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It now appears that Potter and other Black supporters were correct when they insisted that it was Pettigrew, not Black, who was responsible for the deaths that day in 1981.

In light of this recent development, we as citizens must ask what our government is really doing. Sirius Black was imprisoned for twelve years before his escape, and was never granted a trial at which he might have defended himself. Since his daring escape from the Dementors, he has been forced to live the life of an outlaw, unable to move about freely for fear of being captured. After all this, his name was cleared in an extremely short resolution, and no restitution was even suggested. This abominable abuse of power by the Ministry must be put to a stop before more innocent lives are ruined.

The article went on, but Harry didn’t need to read any more. He looked up at Remus and grinned broadly.

“It’s working,” he said happily. “People will finally remember Sirius for who he really was.”

“Exactly,” Remus agreed. “Of course, the fact that the Ministry had no advance warning that this was being published also makes it a wonderful prank on dear Minister Fudge.”

“Speaking of pranks,” said Ginny, “would you happen to know anything about Snape suddenly becoming quite attractive a while back?”

“Yes,” Remus laughed. “I thought you lot might enjoy that, although I heard later that the timing could have been better. I’m sorry if I caused any more trouble for you, Harry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry said dismissively. “The timing was perfect as far as I’m concerned.”

“How did you do it?” Hermione asked as she leaned forward in her seat, not wanting to miss anything.

“It was simple, really,” Remus answered. “I had a bit of leftover Polyjuice after an Order assignment, so I had Peeves take a stray hair off of Harry’s robes and put it in the potion, and then dump a bit into Severus’ morning pumpkin juice.”

“But how did he do it without being noticed?”

“Peeves can fly and make himself invisible,” Remus said with a shrug. “It wasn’t difficult for him. Then, as soon as the potion started taking effect, he released the owl that we had prepared earlier and it delivered the mirror and the note.”

“What did the note say?” Harry asked. “I’d been meaning to ask you that, but I kept forgetting.”

“It said, Congratulations! For the next hour, you will look exactly like your favorite student!” The compartment broke into a fit of hearty laughter, and soon Remus excused himself to go find Tonks as the teenagers began conversing comfortably about their plans for the summer. It wasn’t long before the compartment door slid open again, and this time the visitor definitely was not welcome.

“Well, it looks like we’ve found the rubbish bin,” drawled Draco Malfoy, causing Crabbe and Goyle - who stood slightly behind and to either side of him - to chuckle stupidly.

“Stuff it, Malfoy,” Ron snapped. Malfoy raised his eyebrows in an expression of annoyed superiority.

“I told you to enjoy your time as Dumbledore’s Head Boy, Weasley,” he sneered. “You’ve got nothing to hold over my head now.”

“You mean other than the fact that his father’s getting more and more influence while yours rots in Azkaban?” Harry asked calmly. To his momentary satisfaction, Malfoy’s pale face flushed with anger.

“At least my father’s still alive,” he growled. “Besides, he’ll be out before long, but you’ll be off to join your dead parents soon enough, Potter.”

Harry’s jaw clenched in anger, but before he had a chance to hex Malfoy, Tyler had jumped to his feet, his eyes wide with apparent awe.

“I know you!” Tyler exclaimed, rushing forward to grab Malfoy’s hand and begin shaking it furiously. “You’re Puff, right?”

“What?” Malfoy asked as he shoved Tyler away and looked at his hand as though it was covered in slime. His voice registered equal parts confusion and disgust.

“Well, Draco means dragon, and since you’re a wizard you can obviously do magic, so that would make you a magic dragon. Puff’s the only magic dragon I’ve ever heard of, so it seemed appropriate.” Hermione giggled quietly, and Harry looked at Tyler in shocked amusement as he remembered learning a song about Puff the magic dragon back in primary school. Aunt Petunia had punished him for corrupting Dudley when she had heard her son singing it after school one day.

“You know,” Tyler continued when there wasn’t more of a reaction. He began to sing, “Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea....”

Red-faced and furious, Malfoy plunged his hand into the pocket of his robes. Before anyone had a chance to react, his wand was out and aimed threateningly at Tyler.

“You filthy little- Reducto!” he shouted. Harry threw his hands forward in an effort to conjure a shield for his friend, but he knew he was too late to do any good. He was extremely surprised, therefore, when Malfoy was the one to cry out in pain while Tyler simply stood there with a smug smile on his face, watching as the Slytherin’s wand beat him about the head and neck.

“Problem with your wand?” he asked innocently as Malfoy dropped his wand on the floor. It continued trying to beat him, although now it could only reach his shins.

“This isn’t over,” Malfoy spat before storming away, Crabbe and Goyle following in his wake with mildly confused expressions on their faces.

“What happened to his wand?” Ron exclaimed immediately.

“See for yourself,” Tyler answered with a smirk as he bent down to pick up the dropped wand, which had stopped moving as soon as Malfoy left. He tossed it to Ron, who read the writing printed on the wand’s handle in disbelief.

“Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes? How’d he end up with this?”

Tyler pulled another wand out of his sleeve and began twirling it lazily between his fingers. “Pickpocket,” he said simply, causing a new round of laughter to echo through the compartment.

“I wonder what he meant when he said his father would be out of Azkaban before long,” Hermione said thoughtfully after the laughter had died down.

“He was probably talking about the Heliopaths’ plan to free all of the Death Eaters that have been locked up,” Luna suggested in the closest thing she had to a serious voice. Harry opened his mouth to ask her what Heliopaths were, but thought better of it and stopped himself at the last second.

“Malfoy’s just running his mouth like usual,” Ron said dismissively, completely ignoring Luna’s comment.

“But what if he isn’t?” Hermione asked worriedly. “What if there really is a plan to break the Death Eaters out, and Malfoy knows about it.”

“Then we’ll just have to deal with it when it happens,” Harry said reasonably. “There’s not much any of us can do about it at the moment, anyway.”

“True,” Hermione muttered, although she didn’t sound completely convinced.

“Why don’t we play a game of Exploding Snap to take our minds off all this serious rubbish?” Ginny asked quickly in an attempt to lighten the mood. Everyone agreed to play, although some were more enthusiastic than others, and the conversation shifted back to plans for the summer holiday.

The remainder of the train ride was happily uneventful, and it was a smiling group that unloaded their trunks from the luggage rack and began carrying them toward the exit. Harry was just about to start climbing down the stairs when his scar exploded with pain, causing him to drop his trunk as he stumbled backward into Ron. He could hear panicked voices speaking around him, but for a long moment he couldn’t focus on anything other than the pain. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to focus on his flagstone memory instead, and the pain receded to a barely-manageable level.

“I see that your skill at shielding your mind has continued to increase,” hissed a voice inside his mind.

“What do you want?” Harry growled.

The voice laughed; it was a cold, high-pitched, nauseating sound. “I want the same thing that I have wanted for years, Harry,” it answered. “I want to meet you in a duel to determine, once and for all, which of us is the superior wizard. I have grown tired of listening to the deluded fools who believe that you could ever vanquish me, and I am sure you have grown tired of our little game of cat and mouse. Meet me for one final duel to prove whether or not you are truly a match for Lord Voldemort.”

“Why should I come to you?” Harry asked angrily, his increased focus causing the pain to fade a little more.

Voldemort’s voice laughed inside his mind once again. “We shall meet again today, Harry; you have no control over that. I am merely offering to let you choose the venue. My followers and I have taken control of the Ministry of Magic, and I await you in a place that has particular significance for you.” Against his will, Harry saw an image of the Death Chamber in the Department of Mysteries flash inside his mind.

In the same instant, however, he caught a glimpse of Voldemort’s unshielded thoughts, and what he saw chilled him to the bone. He suddenly knew why the rebounding Killing Curse all those years ago hadn’t been able to kill the Dark wizard: he truly was immortal. A complex combination of charms and potions had rendered his soul forever earthbound, unable to cross over into the land of the dead. As this realization washed over him, he suddenly realized what he had to do, and was immensely grateful that his Occlumency was good enough to prevent Voldemort from seeing his current thoughts.

“If you refuse, then I shall simply come to you,” Voldemort continued, wrenching Harry’s attention back to the situation at hand. Another image flashed inside his mind, this time of an immediate all-out Death Eater attack on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. His stomach churned uneasily, but he already knew which option he had to choose.

“I’ll be there,” he answered in a dangerous whisper. Voldemort laughed again, the high, cold laugh that would forever remind Harry of his mother’s death. Then, as abruptly as the invasion into his mind had begun, it ended, and Harry found himself lying on the ground, looking up into the concerned faces of his friends.

“Harry? Harry, are you all right?” Ginny asked worriedly.

Harry shook his head tentatively, and was relieved when the movement didn’t cause him any pain. “Voldemort wants to end it today,” he grunted as he forced himself into a sitting position. Several sharp intakes of breath told him that his friends had understood exactly what he meant.

“Then we’ve got to get you out of here, now!” Hermione exclaimed, trying to pull him to his feet.

“No, Hermione,” he argued, shaking his arm loose from her grip and getting to his feet on his own. “Listen, I don’t have time to wait around; I’ve got to go meet Voldemort for this final duel.”

“Are you completely nutters?” Ron hissed, grabbing him by the shoulder to prevent him from escaping. “You’re not ready yet! Hermione’s right; we can take you someplace safe until this whole thing blows over.”

“I’m not running away,” Harry insisted stubbornly. “If I don’t go to Voldemort, then he’s going to come here looking for me. Look around this platform.” He paused a moment while his friends reluctantly looked around at the hundreds of people who were gathered there. “How many people do you think are going to die if that happens?”

“Where are we going, then?” Ginny asked.

Harry shook his head. “No way; I am not taking any of you with me! Voldemort’s after me, and I refuse to sacrifice any of you to him.”

“If you go, we go, mate,” Ron shot back. “I don’t care what’s there waiting for us, I’m not letting you run off to duel You-Know-Who all by yourself!”

“Let go, Ron,” Harry grunted as he tried to twist his arm free of his friend’s grasp. “We don’t have time to argue about this!”

“So quit arguing and let’s go!” Hermione shouted. Several people on the crowded platform turned to look at her.

Harry shut his eyes for a moment and blew out a long breath. He might be able to convince his friends to stay away if he had a lot of time to argue with them, but there was no way he was going to convince them in the short amount of time he had available.

“The Ministry of Magic,” he said at last. “The Death Eaters have taken over the building, and Voldemort’s waiting in the Death Chamber. I caught a glimpse of his plan when he was in my head, and I’m pretty sure he’s hoping to unnerve me by making me duel in the room where I lost Sirius.”

“Do you think you’ll be all right there?” Hermione asked worriedly.

“I’ll be fine,” Harry affirmed with a nod. “I dealt with that a long time ago, and although Voldemort doesn’t know it, I’ll actually have a pretty big advantage in that room. Now come on, let’s go!”

“Go where?”

Harry spun around at the sound of a voice behind him and discovered Neville Longbottom, who was watching their heated discussion interestedly.

“We’re going to the Ministry so Harry can duel with You-Know-Who,” Luna supplied dreamily. “Care to come along?”

Neville looked questioningly at the rest of the group, but seemed to decide from their expressions that Luna was telling the truth. “Count me in,” he said, drawing his wand.

“All right, everybody Apparate to the Atrium,” Harry instructed. “Ginny, I’ll take you Side-Along.”

“Harry, wait!” Tyler exclaimed. “What about me?”

“Sorry, Tyler,” Harry said apologetically, “but you’re not armed, and this isn’t exactly the sort of fight where being a good pickpocket will help very much.”

“I’ve got a couple of Stunning Sticks and a Shield Cloak,” Tyler argued. “I can fight as well as anyone!”

Surprisingly, it was Luna who ended the debate. “Sorry, Tyler,” she said quietly. “I’m sure you’d be brilliant, but it takes a lot of experience to be able to Side-Along Apparate with a Squib or Muggle. If one of us tried it, you’d probably get Splinched, and that’s usually fatal for non-magic people.”

Tyler looked around the group for another suggestion, but found nothing but looks of sympathy. He growled in frustration.

“Find Remus, Tonks, and Moody,” Harry instructed. “Tell them what’s going on, and have them contact Dumbledore.”

“Right,” Tyler responded with a nod, still looking very unhappy about being left behind.

“Let’s go, then,” said Harry, and everyone but Tyler drew their wands and Disapparated with a resounding crack!

---

Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Neville reappeared a moment later at the edge of the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic, and were immediately greeted by a storm of spellfire from the opposite side of the room.

“Move!” Harry shouted, although it was hardly necessary. He sprinted to his right, where Hermione had already conjured a short brick wall to use for cover.

“Stupefy!” he shouted. A jet of red light shot from his wand, but was easily deflected by one of the hooded figures over near the security stand. Berating himself for forgetting to cast his spells silently, Harry tried again, while discreetly maintaining a Shield Charm with his left hand.

Stupefy! His jet of red light sailed over the head of his target as the cloaked figure ducked and moved aside. He needed to get closer to them if he was to have any chance of actually hitting anyone.

Reducto! Harry’s next spell collided squarely with the security stand, shattering it into thousands of sharp bits of wood. Stupefy! The surprised Death Eater whose cover had just been destroyed collapsed to the ground.

“Hermione, can you move this wall of yours closer to the Death Eaters?” Harry asked urgently as Ginny fired off another hex beside him.

“Closer?” Hermione shrieked. “Why would you want to get closer?”

“So they won’t have time to dodge,” Harry answered tersely. “Can you do it or not?”

Hermione nodded hesitantly before shifting to a kneeling position that kept her well-protected behind her wall, and then flicking her wand to make the wall start slowly moving forward.

Stupefy! Another of Harry’s Stunners was blocked by his target. Expelliarmus! Petrificus Totalus! Incarcerous!

To Harry’s intense frustration, he saw one of the Death Eaters revive another, who had just been Stunned by either Ron or Neville. He had to get close enough to be able to keep his opponents out of the fight, and he had to do it quickly.

Three loud popping sounds behind him caused Harry to spin around in alarm, but he was relieved to see that the sounds had signaled the arrival of Moody, Tonks, and Remus.

“What’s going on here, Potter?” Moody growled as he crouched behind the wall next to Harry. The little brick wall continued to do an admirable job of shielding them as it advanced slowly across the room, guided by Hermione.

“I’m on my way to kill Voldemort,” Harry answered simply as he fired off an Impediment Jinx.

“You’re not prepared for that!” Tonks shouted. “Incarcerous!”

“Look, it was either this or let him attack Platform Nine and Three-Quarters with all those people there!” Harry shouted back. Lowering his voice, he added, “Besides, I’d never be able to beat him there; at least here I have a chance.”

“Protego! What do you mean?” asked Remus.

“I’ll explain in the lift,” Harry replied before immersing himself in the battle. He ducked under a nasty-looking orange spell before popping up over the wall and firing a pair of Stunners at the nearest Death Eater, who was able to block the first one, but not the second. In less than two minutes after the adults’ arrival, all of the Death Eaters in the Atrium had been subdued.

“Let’s go!” Harry shouted as he sprinted toward the lifts. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see that Ginny was right there with him, and the others were close on her heels. He skidded to a halt outside the lifts and began impatiently pushing the call button over and over again.

“Calm down, Harry,” Remus said soothingly. “Now please, tell us what’s going on.”

Harry took a deep breath and blew it out slowly in an attempt to calm his nerves. “Voldemort talked to me with Legilimency just as I was getting off the train. He said he wanted to duel me once and for all, and that if I wouldn’t come meet him here he was going to attack the Platform. What he didn’t seem to realize was that it’s actually better for me to fight him here.”

The lift arrived, and they all hurried inside. Harry pressed the number nine, and then resumed his story. “Anyway, like I was saying, it’s really lucky that Voldemort wants to fight me in the Death Chamber.”

“Why?” Remus asked curiously. Everyone else was silent, waiting expectantly for the answer.

“Because Voldemort’s immortal,” Harry answered. “He can’t be killed - at least not in any normal way. If he could, then his backfiring Killing Curse would’ve killed him when I was a baby.”

“But if you can’t kill him, then what are we doing here?” Ron asked worriedly.

“Listen, when Voldemort was doing Legilimency on me, he wasn’t able to shield his own thoughts and I caught a glimpse of him using a combination of charms and potions to keep his soul on earth. He can’t die because his soul can’t cross over to the other side, even after leaving his body. But if I can push him through that archway in the Death Chamber, then his soul will already be on the other side when it leaves his body. It’s the only way I can think of to get rid of him for good, and I doubt I’ll ever have another chance to try.”

Further discussion was eliminated by the lift grinding to a halt.

“Get ready to move,” Harry whispered, the muscles in his legs tensing as he prepared to spring forward. The lift doors opened, and its occupants scattered amid a barrage of spellfire. Harry hit the ground a few feet in front of the lift, narrowly avoiding a jet of bright blue light as he rolled to his left and threw up a hasty Shield Charm. An instant later, he was granted a short respite when Hermione conjured another short brick wall to use for cover.

Stupefy! Harry’s spell hit a masked figure squarely in the chest, throwing the man backward against one of his companions. Harry grimaced when his target somehow managed to be revived before he even hit the floor.

Almost painfully slowly, Hermione directed her brick wall to slide forward along the hall, inching closer and closer to both the Death Eaters and the entrance to the Department of Mysteries.

Expelliarmus, Incarcerous, Accio! Harry cried out in his mind, desperate for some way of permanently removing his opponents from the battle. His plan worked flawlessly, as the Death Eater he had been aiming at was immediately disarmed and bound with magical ropes. Harry’s Summoning Charm sent him flying back toward the lifts, where his companions would have no chance of freeing him.

Soon the others were following Harry’s lead, and Ron, Ginny, Neville, Moody, and Tonks all managed to subdue at least one opponent each. Glancing over his shoulder, Harry saw quite a pile of bound or unconscious black-cloaked figures building up near the lifts. As he and his friends inched forward, the final three Death Eaters seemed to decide that it would be safer to fall back, and they retreated through the plain black door into the Department of Mysteries.

“Let’s go!” Harry shouted, immediately vaulting over Hermione’s conjured wall and sprinting toward the door at the end of the hall.

“Harry, wait!” Remus exclaimed. “There’s no reason to go rushing in there just yet.”

“Yeah, hang on a minute, mate,” Ron panted. Harry stopped and turned around to look at his friends. They were all breathing heavily, and he suddenly noticed that he was as well. Ron sported a purpling bruise on his left cheek, Remus and Hermione both had a few cuts on their faces, and Ginny seemed to be favoring her left arm a bit. A wave of guilt washed over him as he realized he hadn’t even bothered to make sure everyone was all right.

“Sorry,” Harry said in a sincere voice as he rushed back to join his friends. He waited patiently while the three adults quickly did their best to heal everyone’s injuries, and when he set off for the black door again, he didn’t go alone.

“What d’you reckon?” Ron asked nervously as Harry reached for the door handle.

“We flood the room with curses the second that door opens,” Moody growled. “Then we all rush inside together and subdue anyone who’s still upright.”

“Wait, can’t you see if there’s anybody inside?” Hermione asked curiously. Harry thought this was a good point, considering the fact that Moody’s magical eye was able to see through not only walls, but even Invisibility Cloaks.

Moody shook his head, causing a few strands of grizzled gray hair to swing down in front of his normal eye. Angrily brushing them away with a swipe of his hand, he answered, “Not here. Can’t see through anything in the Department of Mysteries.”

“All right; on the count of three,” said Harry. “One... two... three!” He wrenched the door open and immediately fired off several Stunners in rapid succession before launching himself forward with his companions right behind him.

“There’s nobody here,” Ron observed after looking around the circular room.

“They must’ve decided to hide in one of the rooms,” Neville suggested, gesturing to the dozen or so doors set into the wall.

“Right, then,” Tonks said brightly. “How ‘bout we mark this door as the way out and then start checking the other rooms?” Extending her wand, she wrote the word EXIT in shining, fiery letters on the open door.

“We’re looking for the room with the veil,” Harry reminded everyone. “I don’t expect any of you to come in there with me, though. Just do your best to round up all the Death Eaters.”

“Harry, we’re not leaving you!” Hermione insisted.

“Quit wasting time trying to get rid of us, Harry,” Ginny added. “Let’s do this.” She stepped away from the door, allowing it to close. The room was immediately plunged into semi-darkness, the only source of light the dim blue candles which lined the walls. Immediately, there was a low rumbling sound as the walls began to revolve faster and faster until there was no way to determine which door was which - except, of course, for the EXIT sign that Tonks had placed on the door through which they had entered.

After only a moment, the rumbling sound ceased and the walls began to slow, eventually settling back into place. As soon as the room stopped spinning, at least half of the doors sprang open simultaneously. Harry dove to his right, pulling Ginny with him as multicolored jets of light converged on their previous position.

“Run!” shouted Remus. Harry heard Moody growling something about an ambush, but he didn’t have time to think about it as he fired off a Body-Bind Curse at one of the two figures guarding the nearest door. Ginny Stunned the other one, and together they practically dove through the doorway, spinning around immediately to make sure they weren’t being followed. Luna tumbled through after them, and slammed the door shut behind her. The swinging door caught the middle of a pursuing Death Eater’s outstretched wand, snapping it in half and shutting its owner out of the room.

“Colloportus!” Harry shouted. The door made an odd squelching noise as it was sealed shut, but he knew from experience that even sealing the door wouldn’t buy them much time.

“I remember this place,” Luna observed as she looked around the room. “It’s really rather odd.” Harry allowed himself a moment to glance around as well, and found himself in a dark room with miniature planets sailing smoothly through the air.

“Come on,” he said after a moment. “We’d better keep moving.” Together, Harry, Ginny, and Luna began walking toward one of the many doors lining the right hand wall. They had only gone a few feet, however, when they suddenly weren’t walking anymore; they were floating in midair.

“What the-?” Harry exclaimed in surprise.

“I told you this room was odd,” Luna replied.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Harry,” Ginny said worriedly. “I’d completely forgotten, but Luna’s right; sometimes gravity just seems to disappear in this room.”

“Perfect,” Harry grumbled. No sooner had the word left his mouth than gravity was suddenly back, and all three teenagers tumbled to the floor.

“Hurry, get to one of those doors!” Ginny shouted. She, Harry, and Luna scrambled to their feet and sprinted for the right hand wall of the room. When they arrived, they all stared at the door for a moment before Harry wrenched it open and stepped through, his wand at the ready.

“There they are!” someone shouted. Harry spun to his left, casting a Shield Charm just in time to block the oncoming hex. Hoping that the girls were right behind him, he sprinted toward the center of the room, where there was a cluster of desks surrounding an enormous glass tank. Remembering that the tank contained brains, one of which had attacked Ron the last time they were here, Harry did his best to keep his distance as he crouched behind one of the desks and began trading spells with a group of four hooded figures near the end of the room.

“You all right?” Ginny asked as she slid to the floor next to him. Harry nodded and fired off another hex. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Luna hiding behind another desk a few yards away.

The hexes continued to fly back and forth for several minutes, neither side able to gain the upper hand over the other, until finally one of the Death Eaters managed to hit Luna’s desk with a Reductor Curse. She was thrown from her hiding place and out into the open, where she lay motionless. Before Harry could react to go shield her he heard running footsteps behind him. Fearing that they were about to be surrounded, he spun around just in time to see a jet of red light sailing over his head toward the Death Eaters.

As he realized that whoever had entered must be a friend, he turned back to Luna just in time to see her shake her head groggily and begin to sit up. Before she had a chance to regain her bearings, she was hit with a Disarming Charm, and her wand flew to the far end of the room. Just as another curse was fired her way, the newcomer leapt in front of her, shielding her with his body. Only then did Harry recognize his friend, Tyler. The curse’s impact was absorbed by the Muggle boy’s Shield Cloak as he dragged Luna back behind the cluster of desks.

“Tyler,” Luna breathed as her head began to clear.

“I’m here,” Tyler said softly as he gently brushed her hair out of her face. “I saw they got your wand. Use this one for now.” He pressed a wand into her hand. “It’s Malfoy’s, but I don’t think he needs it quite as much as you do.”

“Thanks,” Luna said with a slight smile as she got back into position to fight.

“How’d you get here, Tyler?” Harry asked as he sent yet another Stunner sailing toward their opponents.

“After I sent Moody, Remus, and Tonks after you, I got somebody to help me through the barrier,” Tyler explained. He paused to raise his Stunning Stick, and flicked his wrist, sending another jet of red light toward the Death Eaters. “Once I got outside, I hotwired a car and came straight here.” He flicked his Stunning Stick again, and this time the spell found its mark.

“Accio!” Harry shouted, pulling the newly-fallen Death Eater out of his comrades’ reach so that he couldn’t be revived.

“We’ve got to speed this up somehow,” Harry growled in frustration. It was now four against three in their favor, and yet they were still stuck in a stalemate.

“What if you, me, and Luna each focus on pinning one of them down, and then Tyler takes them out one by one while we’ve got them distracted?” Ginny suggested.

“That could work,” Luna agreed.

Harry nodded. “All right. Ginny, you’ve got the one on the left, I’ll take the center one, and Luna, you’ll take the one on the right. Tyler, as soon as you see an opening, hit them with Stunners.”

“Right,” Tyler replied, an excited grin lighting up his face.

Taking a deep breath, Harry readied himself for the offensive. “On three, everybody. One... two... three!”

As one, Harry, Ginny, and Luna popped up from where they were hiding behind the desks, firing curses as fast as they could. Harry extended his empty left hand along with his wand and began shooting Stunners from both hands. Within thirty seconds, all three remaining Death Eaters were down.

“Accio Luna’s wand,” called Ginny. Luna’s wand sailed across the room and into her hand. “Here you go,” she said, trying to keep her tone light as she handed it over to its owner.

“Thank you, Ginny,” Luna said sincerely, as she pocketed Malfoy’s wand.

“Where to now, Harry?” Tyler asked.

Harry nodded toward the doors on the wall opposite where they had entered. “If I’m not mistaken, then the Death Chamber’s right through there. That’s where Voldemort’s waiting.”

“Is he really in there?” Ginny asked worriedly. “I mean, if he is, shouldn’t your scar be killing you right now?”

Harry smiled grimly. “It is. I’ve just gotten good enough at Occlumency that I can ignore the pain enough to be able to function. Trust me, Voldemort’s close by.”

“Be careful, okay Harry?” she urged. He could see the tears beginning to gather in the corners of her eyes, but he knew that she would never allow herself to cry at a time like this.

“Ginny, I-” He paused to take a deep breath before trying again. “This isn’t really how I pictured this moment, but in case I never get another chance, I want to tell you what I’ve been saying in Parseltongue since Christmas.”

“No, Harry,” she insisted as she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him close. “Don’t talk like that; you’re going to be fine! You can tell me tonight at the Burrow after all of this is over.”

Harry shook his head stubbornly. “I can’t take that chance, Ginny. I’d never forgive myself if I lived my whole life without telling you how much I love you.” There. He had said it, at last.

“I love you, Ginny,” he repeated in a much more tender voice as she clung tightly to him.

“Thank you,” she whispered shakily back to him. A moment later, she pulled away, wiping the unshed tears from her eyes. Harry’s heart sank just a little. She hadn’t returned his sentiment. As she looked up at him, however, he could see in her eyes what she had been unwilling to say out loud, and he suddenly understood. She didn’t want to feel like she was saying goodbye. She was forcing herself to believe that she had all the time in the world to tell him how she felt, and he was not about to let her down.

“Everybody ready?” Harry asked in as normal a voice as he could muster. Ginny, Luna, and Tyler nodded. “All right, then; I’m going through this door. If any of you want to go back, I’ll understand completely.”

“We’re not leaving, Harry,” Tyler answered for the group.

Harry let out a small sigh. “I didn’t really expect you to; I just thought I’d better give you the option.” Without another word, he yanked the door open and stepped into the next room. He stood at the top of a large pit with stone benches running all around the sides. Multicolored light from multiple duels flashed through the dim light, and it took a moment for Harry to realize that Ron, Hermione, and Remus were all on the far side of the room, dueling for their lives. Without another thought, Harry rushed forward to help his friends, but he stopped short at the sound of a taunting voice coming from his left.

“Oh, is wee baby Potter here to search for his godfather?” Slowly, Harry turned to face Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius’ killer.

“You,” he growled low in his throat.

“Me,” she agreed in the same condescending tone she always used with him.

Without warning, Tyler leapt forward, flicking his wrist twice in rapid succession and sending a pair of Stunners at Bellatrix. She blocked them easily and responded with a spell that hurled him across the room despite his Shield Cloak. He hit the far wall with a sickening crack, and lay still.

“No!” shouted Luna as she turned to face Bellatrix. “Reducto!”

Harry and Ginny fired off a few curses of their own, but all of them were blocked with relative ease.

“You may toy with the Weasley, Bella,” hissed a cold voice from the center of the room. Harry’s attention immediately shifted, and now that his eyes had adjusted to the dim light he was able to see Lord Voldemort standing on the edge of the stone dais that held the crumbling archway with its ancient veil. A flick of Voldemort’s wand sent a surprised Luna sailing through the air to land in an unconscious heap next to Tyler.

“Come, Harry,” Voldemort continued almost conversationally. “You have kept me waiting for quite some time.”

“Stupefy!” Ginny shouted, hoping to catch Bellatrix off guard. It nearly worked, but Voldemort managed to block the spell for her.

Fighting the urge to stay and try to protect Ginny, Harry began descending the stairs toward the center of the room. His heart pounded madly in his chest as he stepped closer and closer to the monster who had stolen his parents.

“Your welcoming committee didn’t seem to want me to make it to our appointment,” Harry said slowly as he fought to keep the pain in his scar at bay. Voldemort laughed that high, cold laugh that had always haunted Harry’s nightmares.

“And yet here you are,” he observed. “You impress me, Harry Potter. But you are no match for me.” Harry had reached the bottom of the stone pit, and stepped up on top of the bottom bench to put himself close to the same level as Voldemort, who still stood atop the dais.

“Do you plan to make this a proper duel, or just attack without warning like you did when I was a baby?” Harry asked, trying desperately to keep the panic out of his voice.

Voldemort glared at him with those terrifying, glowing red eyes. “Crucio!”

Harry leapt aside, thankful that he had been expecting just such an abrupt attack. Abigo! he thought, flicking his wand at his lifelong enemy. Voldemort deflected the Banishing Charm with practiced ease and laughed.

“Have you learned nothing?” he asked in mock-exasperation. “You must always go for the kill, Harry. Avada Kedavra!”

Harry jumped down from the bench, allowing the green light to sail over his head.

“Or at least try to inflict some pain. Crucio!”

Already off-balance, Harry had no choice but to dive to his left to avoid being hit by the Unforgivable. He rolled as he hit the ground, springing to his feet and scrambling backward up the stone steps.

“Is this the best the famed Chosen One can do?” Voldemort mocked as he casually followed Harry’s flight. Harry didn’t answer; he was too busy trying to think of a way to get Voldemort closer to the veil, rather than drawing him further away from it as he was currently doing.

Reducto! Stupefy! Diffindo! Incendio! One after another, Harry’s attacks were repelled by his opponent. As he rose higher, dodging Voldemort’s curses and firing off a few of his own, he could see the other duels that were going on around him. Ginny was, thankfully, holding her own against Bellatrix, although that probably had a lot to do with the fact that she was crouched behind one of the stone benches. To his right, Harry could just barely see Ron dueling with Lucius Malfoy, and not doing too bad a job of it. Across the room, Hermione was being driven back by her opponent, but she didn’t seem to be in nearly as much trouble as Harry was as he ducked another Killing Curse.

As he reached the top row of benches, Harry started working his way around the perimeter of the room, hoping to get Voldemort to follow him so that he could lead him back toward the veil. Turning the corner, he caught sight of the most surprising duel of all. Remus Lupin was locked in hand-to-hand combat with his opponent; both of their wands lay abandoned on the floor. The other man was large, and even at a distance Harry could see his extremely long fingernails digging into the flesh of Remus’ arm and face. The real surprise, however, was Remus himself. His face was contorted into an unrecognizable mask of rage, and his attacks were no less savage than the other man’s.

As Harry worked his way around the top rim of the Death Chamber, Ron was being driven toward the center of the room by Lucius Malfoy. Just as he dodged a Cruciatus Curse from Voldemort, Harry saw a jet of rich red light - too rich to be a Stunner - hit Ron in the chest. Instantly recognizing the False Death Curse after having studied it for an entire term, Harry took a chance and tried to revive his friend.

Alacrita! The bolt of blue light shot from Harry’s wand, but it missed Ron by mere inches as he fell, instead sailing ineffectually over his head and disappearing through the archway in the center of the room.

“Avada Kedavra!”

Harry threw himself down the stairs to avoid the rushing green light and tumbled painfully over and over. As he came to rest at the bottom, he looked up to see another flash of green heading for him and rolled to the side before getting painfully to his feet and pulling himself up onto the dais. Only then did he realize that he had dropped his wand.

“Missing something, Harry?” Voldemort asked mockingly as he tucked Harry’s wand inside his robes.

“Not at all,” Harry growled. It was time to unleash everything he possibly could in order to draw the monster forward. Stupefy! His silent Stunner caught Voldemort by surprise, but he was still able to recover and block it in time.

“What’s this?” Voldemort muttered, and Harry was certain that he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

“Come and get me, Tom!” Harry shouted, trying desperately to draw his enemy closer as he backed up along the edge of the dais and moved around to the other side of the archway.

“You dare speak that name to me?” Voldemort hissed as he stepped up onto the dais. Harry had reached the other side, and was about to jump down when the sound of a girl screaming in agony distracted him. His head whipped around, and he felt his body temperature drop at the sight of Ginny writhing on the ground with Bellatrix Lestrange standing over her, laughing.

Pouring all of his fury into the spell, Harry threw out his hand and hit Bellatrix with a Blasting Curse. She was thrown hard against the wall, and Harry smiled grimly at the loud cracking sound that her head made as it impacted the stone. His celebration was short-lived, however, as he had to let himself fall over backwards to avoid being hit by a Cruciatus Curse from Voldemort. He hit the ground hard, and for a moment found himself unable to see as stars exploded behind his eyes. When his vision returned, it was just in time to see Remus and his opponent grappling a few feet away. The other man forced Remus back against the edge of the dais, and they both fell, still fighting desperately. Over and over they rolled, oblivious of their surroundings, until they disappeared through the archway. The veil fluttered violently for a moment, and then went back to its usual light fluttering.

Harry lay on the floor, bruised, broken, and in shock. Remus was gone, just like Sirius. He felt the old guilt and anger rising inside of him, but immediately squashed the emotions. He still had a job to do. Forcing his eyes to focus despite his physical and emotional pain, he looked up to find Voldemort standing in front of the veil with a puzzled expression on his face as he examined his wand, which was now inexplicably broken in half. Seeing his opportunity to end the conflict at last, Harry hurriedly pushed himself to his feet and lunged forward, his outstretched hands connecting violently with a surprised Voldemort’s stomach. Voldemort stumbled backward, his red eyes wide with shock as he realized too late what was happening. One of his flailing hands caught hold of Harry’s wrist as he fell. Harry fought to pry the long fingers loose, but Voldemort’s momentum was too much for him and they tumbled through the archway together. Harry’s last thought before disappearing through the veil was that he should have used a Banishing Charm.

* * * * *
Ginny Weasley, barely coming around after having been subjected to the Cruciatus Curse, watched in helpless horror as Voldemort’s hand caught Harry by the wrist and dragged him through the crumbling stone archway. The tattered black veil fluttered violently, and then returned to its light fluttering, as though nothing had happened.

“No!” she screamed, shooting to her feet. Her own physical pain was forgotten.

“Ah, ah, Miss Weasley,” said a cold voice to her left. “You mustn’t go running off when there’s still someone left to play with.” She turned to face Lucius Malfoy, cold fury burning in her eyes.

“Fine,” Ginny growled. “Impedimenta, Incendio, Diffindo, Reducto!” Malfoy was able to block the first pair of spells, but the Severing Charm and Reductor Curse made it through. “Expelliarmus,” she added as an afterthought as he lay bleeding on the ground. Several of his bones were broken, and he made no move to stand up.

“Expelliarmus!” Both Malfoy’s wand and her own flew out of Ginny’s grasp, and she whipped around to face her new attacker. It was the masked Death Eater that had been dueling with Hermione. Ginny was about to fling herself at him and fight him Muggle-style when the main door to the Death Chamber burst open and Dumbledore rushed inside, followed closely by both of her parents and her oldest brother, Bill. At the sight of the newcomers, especially Dumbledore, the Death Eater turned to flee, but two quick flicks of the Headmaster’s wand had him disarmed and bound.

“Ginny!” her mother shouted as she rushed over to gather her daughter into her arms. Ginny stood still as the shock of what she had witnessed began to set in. Her eyes glazed over, and in her mind she saw Harry being pulled through the crumbling stone archway over and over again.

“Harry,” she mumbled.

“Where is he?” Dumbledore asked her urgently. “We know that both Harry and Voldemort were here; did you see where they went?” Tears welled up in Ginny’s eyes as she pulled away from her mother’s embrace to face the ancient Headmaster. Looking into his wrinkled face, she felt her shock and grief being replaced by anger.

“Where were you?” she shouted at him. This was the man who was supposed to protect them; the only one Voldemort had ever feared. He was the reason Voldemort had never tried to attack Hogwarts in person. Harry would have been safe if Dumbledore had been there!

“I’m sorry, dear,” her mother said sadly. “I know I should have been at the station to meet you, but I’d just found out about the attack on the Ministry and-”

“Not you. Him.” She pointed a shaking finger at Dumbledore as her voice took on a quiet, threatening tone. “You were supposed to protect him. You were supposed to be there when he had to face Voldemort again. Where - were - you?”

Dumbledore sighed heavily. “I understand your distress, Miss Weasley, and I promise that we will discuss what happened today in detail, but right now the most important thing is that we find Harry as quickly as possible so that we can help him.”

Ginny laughed bitterly, her pain and anger pushing her dangerously close to hysteria. “You want to know where Harry and Voldemort went?” she asked lightly. After a short pause, the tears started flowing all over again and she screamed, “Do you want to know where Harry is? He’s right bloody there!” Her mother gasped and threw a hand over her mouth when Ginny pointed a wildly shaking finger at the crumbling stone archway with its innocent-looking veil.

“Let’s go right now, Professor!” she continued screaming. “We’ll go help him, shall we? How about if I throw you in there and you can see if there’s anything you can do to help?” She took a step toward Dumbledore, who looked as though he had just been hit in the stomach by a Bludger, but suddenly felt her strength give out and collapsed into her mother’s waiting arms as they sobbed into one another’s shoulders.

Ginny didn’t know how long she had been leaning against her mother when she heard her dad’s anguished cry. She looked up to see him bent over Ron’s prone body, sobbing incoherently. He was soon joined by Bill and Hermione, who Bill had just revived.

There was a short argument, which Ginny couldn’t quite make out until Hermione shouted, “He’s not dead!” and pointed her wand at Ron’s body. There was a flash of blue light, and Ron sat bolt upright, looking wildly around. More words were exchanged, and she saw Ron shake his head violently, as though refusing to believe something that was too unpleasant to even consider. She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder once again. It was obvious what her brother was refusing to believe; she would have refused to believe it too, if she hadn’t seen it herself.

“Ginny?” Hermione’s voice was quiet and filled with compassion. Ginny raised her head and opened her eyes to find that Ron and Hermione had come over to join her and her mum while her dad and Bill tended to Luna and Tyler.

“Ginny, what happened?” Hermione asked anxiously. “Your dad said-” She stopped abruptly, afraid to say it out loud. Ginny didn’t blame her.

“I’m only saying this once,” Ginny whispered in an anguished voice. “Harry pushed Voldemort through the veil just like he said he would, but- but Voldemort caught hold of his wrist and- and- p-pulled him through too.” She collapsed back into her mother’s shoulder, sobbing quietly to herself, as her friends looked on in shock.

“Come along, dear,” her mum whispered after a long moment. “There’s no point staying around here anymore.” Ginny shook her head numbly, refusing to move.

“I have to do something for him,” she whispered after a long moment of silence. “Harry would want to know that we’re all okay.”

“I’m sure he already knows, dear,” her mother said soothingly.

“Please, Mum? Let me do this. Let me write him a note and send it through the archway. I have to say goodbye.”

Her mum patted her back reassuringly. “Of course, dear,” she said in a kind, quiet voice. “I understand.” She silently conjured a sheet of parchment, a quill, and some ink for her daughter, and turned her attention to Ron.

Ginny blew out a long, shaky breath as she dipped the quill in the small inkwell. She spent several minutes composing her short letter while silent tears streamed down her cheeks. When she had finished, she blew on the ink to make sure it was dry, and then folded the parchment into a neat little airplane, which she charmed to fly through the crumbling stone archway in the center of the room. As the airplane disappeared behind the black veil, the veil increased its fluttering a bit for just a moment, and then returned to normal. Ginny stared at it for a long moment, trying and failing to absorb the finality of it all, before she numbly allowed her mother to lead her from the room.

---

Harry Potter was screaming in pain. He had suddenly realized this fact only a moment ago, although he was now sure that he had been screaming for quite some time. He writhed and cried out again, the pain centered in his scar was so intense. Hours passed, perhaps days or even years, and the pain slowly began to fade. As it receded, Harry gradually became aware that he was lying on something rather soft. He also came to the realization that he was not the only one screaming.

When the throbbing in his forehead reached a somewhat manageable level, Harry somehow found the strength to open his eyes. He blinked a couple of times, trying to clear his vision, before his eyes focused on the figure of a man who was sitting a short distance away. The first thing Harry noticed was the man’s fingernails. They were extremely long - so long, in fact, that they reminded him of how he had always pictured the fingernails of a long-dead corpse, ever since he had learned that fingernails continue to grow even after death.

Harry’s eyes traveled warily up the man’s arms, afraid of what he would find when he reached his face. His black hair and beard were long and unkempt, but what caused Harry’s breath to catch in his throat was the sight of the man’s eyes. He would know those mischievous grey eyes anywhere, although they now lacked the haunted look which had always been there in the past.

“Sirius?” Harry whispered disbelievingly. The man started, and looked down at him, a smile lighting up his face.

“Harry!” exclaimed the voice of Sirius Black. “I was starting to get worried there.”

“How-? Where-? When-?” Harry stammered. “Am I dead?”

“No more dead than I am,” Sirius laughed. Harry’s heart sank; he couldn’t believe his godfather was joking at a time like this.

“Sirius, I’m not playing around,” said Harry.

“I’m not either,” Sirius answered. “Do you really think you’d be in that much pain if you were already dead? And speaking of, are you feeling well enough to stand?” Harry nodded and pushed himself into a sitting position.

“I think so,” he muttered, looking around for the first time. There were three other men lying on the floor, he realized, and it took him a moment to recognize the one nearest him - the one who was still thrashing about and screaming in pain - as Remus Lupin.

“Is Remus all right?” he asked worriedly.

“I think so,” Sirius replied, but his own concern was evident in his tone. “You were just like that for a long time too. Actually, you were both a lot worse, which is why I cast Cushioning Charms on the floor so you wouldn’t hurt yourselves even more.”

“Thanks,” Harry breathed as his eyes traveled to the other prone figures. “What about Voldemort?”

Sirius shook his head in amazement. “I don’t know what you did to him, but whatever it was, it’s working. Come have a look.” He gave Harry a hand up, and led him over to where what was left of Voldemort lay. Harry gasped in shock as he caught sight of the rapidly-decaying body of his lifelong enemy.

“He stopped twitching over an hour ago,” Sirius explained. “Of course, I kicked him while he was down a fair few times before then. He’s definitely dead now, but his body still seems to be breaking down. Same thing with that big bloke that came in with Moony. Oh, and before I forget, I found this on him. Thought you might want it back.” He handed Harry his wand.

“Thanks,” Harry murmured, his eyes still on Voldemort’s corpse as he took the wand. “Are you sure Voldemort’s really dead, though? I mean, if we’re still alive, couldn’t his soul have escaped like it did when I was a baby?”

“He’s dead, Harry,” Sirius said solemnly. “You’re right; his soul, or his essence, or whatever you want to call it, did try to escape, but it just sort of dissolved into nothing as soon as it left his body.”

Harry nodded in acknowledgement. “What is this place?” he wondered aloud. “I mean, how can we be alive if these two-” he gestured toward the pair of decaying bodies, “-and everybody else who’s ever gone through that veil have died?”

Sirius shrugged. “No idea. All I know is that it’s not going to be easy to get out of here.”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked.

“I mean that it took a lot of effort just to be able to move one corner of that bloody veil from this side. I was pretty surprised to see Voldemort standing right there, especially since Remus and that big bloke had just tumbled in here, but I couldn’t do much because I couldn’t move any more than just a corner of the veil. So, I did the only thing that made sense: I reached out, grabbed the end of Voldemort’s wand, and broke it in half. Then I fell back inside here feeling like I’d spent all day lifting weights.”

“You did that?” Harry asked in surprise. “You saved my life, Sirius. I’d just hit my head, and he would’ve killed me before I had a chance to get my bearings and move.”

“What’s a godfather for?” Sirius replied with a grin. “What I want to know, though, is when did Voldemort get here?”

“He was here the whole time,” Harry answered, a little confused.

“He was?” Sirius raised his eyebrows in surprise. “How come I didn’t see him, then?”

Harry frowned. “Sirius?” he asked hesitantly. “What do you remember after you fell through the archway?”

“I don’t really remember falling through,” Sirius answered thoughtfully. “I remember I was dueling with Bella, and she slipped a curse past my shield. It hit me in the chest, and- and the next thing I remember was opening my eyes and trying to get back through the veil. I found out I could only lift a corner of the bloody thing, and I just told you the rest. Why? Was I out for a long time?”

“Sirius, I- you-” Harry struggled to find the right words. How did you tell somebody that they had been missing and presumed dead for two years when they didn’t even know any time had gone by at all?

“What’s wrong?” Sirius asked.

“You fell through that veil two years ago, Sirius,” Harry explained. As the initial shock of seeing his godfather again began to wear off, he felt tears beginning to prick the corners of his eyes. “I tried to come after you, but everybody said you were dead, and Remus held me back.”

Sirius paled momentarily before he let out a loud, barking laugh. “Wait a minute; everybody thought I was dead just because I fell through that archway?” he asked incredulously.

“Well... yeah, I guess so,” Harry answered.

Sirius laughed again and grabbed Harry by the shoulder, turning him around to face the stone archway that stood near the end of the long rectangular room. “Do you see that, Harry?” he asked solemnly. “It’s a curtain. A curtain! Here’s a life lesson for you from your godfather: it would take a whole lot more than a bloody curtain to kill off Sirius Black!”

Harry was surprised to find himself chuckling along with Sirius at the absurdity of assuming that he had been killed by a piece of cloth.

“You have no idea how good it feels to see you again, Sirius,” Harry said after a moment. He wasn’t a bit surprised to find that his voice was choked with emotion.

Sirius shook his head slightly. “I think I might. It’s good to see you again too, Harry, even if it doesn’t feel like it’s been very long to me.” He pulled Harry into a warm hug, and Harry basked in the joy of having his godfather back in his life. As they broke apart, Harry spotted something lying on the floor near the stone archway.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“What’s what?” Sirius replied, turning to look where his godson was pointing.

“That,” Harry repeated as he walked over and picked the object up. It was a paper airplane. He furrowed his brow in confusion.

“Is there anything written on it?” Sirius asked when he saw what Harry was holding. Harry unfolded the parchment and quickly began to read the message.

Dear Harry,

You have no idea how badly I wish I didn’t have to do this. I wish I’d told you earlier, when I had the chance to do it right, but I just couldn’t accept the idea of really losing you. I’m sorry for not telling you how I really feel. Either way, I guess you know now.

You’ll be glad to know that we’re all fine - physically, anyway. Dumbledore showed up not long after you fell through the veil, and he and the Order managed to capture basically all of the Death Eaters. So you can rest easy knowing that we’re all safe.

We miss you already, Harry. I miss you already. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you the way you saved me.

Love Always,

Ginny

“What’s it say?” asked Sirius.

“It says they miss me,” Harry answered. In a quieter voice, he added, “It says she misses me.”

“She?” Sirius interrupted, raising his eyebrows. “Who is this she?”

Harry smiled slightly. “Ginny,” he answered simply.

“Ginny Weasley?” Sirius asked, raising his eyebrows even further. “Little Ginny?”

“Not so little anymore, Sirius,” Harry chuckled. “Two years, remember?”

“Right,” said Sirius. “So, how long has this been going on?”

“More or less ever since I lost you,” Harry answered honestly. “We’ve only been dating since Christmas, though. Anyway, she says that everyone’s fine. Dumbledore showed up with the Order and they captured the Death Eaters.”

“The good news just keeps coming, doesn’t it?” Sirius exclaimed. He paused for a moment before observing, “I think Moony’s starting to come back around.” It was only then that Harry noticed that the anguished screaming had faded away and disappeared. He whipped around to see his former professor giving his head a slight shake, as though he was trying to clear it.

“Remus?” Harry asked tentatively as he slipped Ginny’s letter into his pocket and followed Sirius over to where their friend lay. After a long moment, Remus’ eyes fluttered open and he looked up at Harry.

“What happened?” he mumbled.

Sirius let out a bark-like laugh. “You nearly bowled me over coming through that archway, that’s what happened.” Remus’ head whipped around to stare at Sirius in wide-eyed disbelief.

“Padfoot?” he whispered. His face, which was already quite pale, lost all color, and Harry worried that he might faint.

“Surprised to see me?” Sirius asked casually. “Well, I guess that makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“How is this possible?” Remus croaked.

Sirius shrugged. “You’ve got me. I was hoping you could tell us that; you always were the smart one, Moony.”

“No, just the slightly more well-behaved one,” Remus corrected with a ghost of a smile. He sounded like he was so exhausted that he could barely even speak. Suddenly his face took on an expression of panic. “Where’s Greyback?” he asked urgently.

“Was that Greyback you were wrestling with?” Sirius asked in surprise.

“Who’s Greyback?” asked Harry.

“Yes, he’s the one I was fighting,” Remus confirmed in a labored voice, ignoring Harry’s question for the moment. “What happened to him?”

“He’s right there, mate,” Sirius responded, pointing to the decayed corpse that lay several feet to Remus’ left. Remus slowly turned his head, and sighed with relief when he saw the state of his adversary. After resting for a few moments, he turned to Harry.

“Fenrir Greyback is-”

“Was,” Sirius interrupted.

“Was-” Remus agreed, “-probably the most vicious werewolf of modern times.”

“He was the one who bit Moony when he was just a little kid,” Sirius supplied.

Remus gave a tired nod from where he still lay on the floor, and when he spoke, it was in a voice filled with disgust. “Greyback believed that werewolves should give in to their desire for human flesh, and he especially liked going after children. He used to position himself near neighborhoods or play parks just before transforming, in hopes of finding children to either kill or infect. Then he would do his best to lure the survivors away to live like animals in the forest with him. I was lucky enough to have parents who still cared for me after I was bitten, but most infected children were abandoned by their families, making Greyback’s job ridiculously easy. His plan was to eventually have enough werewolves to be able to overthrow the Ministry. Without him to interfere, perhaps the others will be willing to listen to reason.”

Harry shuddered at the thought of Greyback’s plans. “Remus, are you feeling all right?” he asked concernedly when he realized that Remus was still lying down. “I was able to get up and walk around after I’d been awake as long as you have.”

“I’m fine,” Remus mumbled. “Just exhausted. But we have to get out of here; full moon’s tonight.” At the mention of the full moon, Harry automatically checked his watch, but was dismayed to find that it had stopped working.

“We can’t go anywhere until you’ve got a bit of strength back,” said Sirius. “It’ll be hard enough trying to get back through that curtain without Harry and me having to carry you.”

As Sirius explained the difficulty of getting back out through the veil, Harry took the opportunity to look around the room. It was large and rectangular, and completely bare except for the crumbling stone archway that stood near one end. There were no torches or candles or light sources of any kind that he could see, and yet the entire room was bathed in a soft, comforting light that didn’t seem to come from anywhere in particular.

Gazing down toward the far end of the room, Harry suddenly noticed that something was different about the far wall. He couldn’t be certain in the low light, but it looked like- He took a few steps toward it and held out his wand.

“Lumos,” he whispered, causing bright white light to burst from his wandtip and illuminate the far wall. Now able to see quite clearly, he let out a sigh of relief; there was a door. Perhaps they wouldn’t have to go back through the veil after all.

“Nox,” he muttered, extinguishing his light. “Sirius, did you know there’s a door down there?”

“What?” Sirius asked, looking up from his conversation with Remus. “Where?”

“Down there.” Harry pointed to the door. “It’s kind of hard to see because it’s black and the walls are dark gray, but it’s definitely there.”

Sirius squinted in the dim light. “Remus, are you all right there for a minute?”

“Peachy,” Remus grunted.

Sirius and Harry jogged down to the far end of the room, where they found the door. Harry tried to open it, but it was locked.

“Alohomora,” Sirius muttered as he pointed his wand at the lock. He tried the door again, but it still wouldn’t budge. Frowning, he pulled a knife out of his pocket that looked exactly like the one he had given to Harry for Christmas during his fourth year, except for the fact that it looked far more worn. He slipped the blade into the crack between the door and its frame, and slid it quickly down from top to bottom. Withdrawing it, he threw his shoulder against the door, but it stood firm.

“I think I know where we are now,” Harry said quietly as he caught sight of Sirius’ knife and realized that the blade had melted.

“How?” Sirius asked. He swore under his breath when he glanced down and saw his ruined knife.

“Because that same thing happened to my knife when we came here at the end of fifth year,” Harry explained. “We found this locked door and Alohomora wouldn’t open it, and then I tried my knife but the blade just melted. We’re inside the locked room. Come on, let’s get back to Remus; that door’s not opening any time soon.” He started walking back the way they had come, but was stopped short by Sirius’ voice.

“Reducto!” Sirius’ spell hit the center of the locked door, but he may as well have blown on it for all the good it did. He tried a Blasting Curse and a couple of other spells Harry didn’t recognize, but nothing helped; the door remained firm and immovable.

“Looks like you’re right,” Sirius grumbled as he followed Harry back to where Remus was now sitting up. “Feeling better?” he called.

“A bit,” Remus answered. “No luck with the door?”

Sirius shook his head. “We’ll have to get out through the archway, but we won’t be able to do that if we’re carrying you. So, while you rest, why don’t you two fill me in on everything I’ve missed over the past two years?”

“Why don’t you tell us how you managed to spend two years in here and only wake up when we came back to the Ministry for another battle?” Remus countered.

Sirius shrugged. “No idea. Is there even a spell that could put me to sleep for that long? I mean, obviously there must be, but-”

“The False Death Curse,” Harry said suddenly. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. You were able to survive for so long because you were in suspended animation.”

“And Bella wouldn’t really want to be responsible for killing off the last of the Black line, would she?” Sirius mused. “It does make sense.”

“Then how did you wake up?” Remus asked.

“Lucius Malfoy hit Ron with the False Death Curse earlier, and when I tried to revive him I missed. The counter-curse went through the archway and must’ve hit Sirius,” Harry explained.

“Well, that was lucky,” Sirius chuckled.

“That still doesn’t explain why the three of us are still alive, when everyone else ever to pass through that archway has died,” Remus observed.

“It’s got to have something to do with how this room works,” said Harry. “Dumbledore told me that this room held the most terrible and wonderful power in the world - the power the Dark Lord knows not.”

“Power the Dark Lord knows not?” Sirius asked, puzzled. “Who talks like that?”

“Oh, right,” Harry said, shaking himself slightly. “For a minute there I’d forgotten that you don’t know what the prophecy about me and Voldemort actually said.”

“You know?” Remus asked in surprise.

Harry nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but....”

“Don’t worry about it, Harry. It was dangerous information; I understand why you didn’t want to spread it around.”

Harry nodded gratefully. “Basically, it said that a baby would be born with the power to defeat Voldemort, that Voldemort would mark him as his equal-” he pointed to the scar on his forehead, “-and that the baby would have ‘power the Dark Lord knows not.’ It also said that one of us would end up killing the other, although I never thought that this was how it would happen.”

“No wonder he was after you,” Sirius muttered as he glanced at what was left of Voldemort. Not much more than a pile of robes remained.

“Anyway,” Harry continued, “Dumbledore said that my power was love, because it’s the only thing Voldemort didn’t understand.”

“So this room is full of love?” Sirius asked incredulously.

“Can’t you feel it?” asked Remus. “I’d wondered why we all seemed to feel so at peace here, despite the rather large shocks we’ve just experienced. Actually, if you pay enough attention, you can almost hear the love in this room - it sounds like soothing whispers.”

“I see what you mean,” Sirius replied after listening quietly for a moment. “Still, that doesn’t explain why everybody else dies when they come in here, but we didn’t.”

“It’s because it’s my power,” Harry said softly. “I survived because love is my great power that the prophecy talked about. And you two survived because I- Well, what I mean is, I- love both of you. I guess.”

“You guess?” Sirius chuckled. Harry ignored him.

“The only thing I can’t figure out is how Sirius managed to survive in here when I’d lost my memory,” he continued.

“You what?” Sirius exclaimed. “How’d you lose-”

“We’ll explain everything later, Sirius,” Remus said placatingly. “It will take quite a while. Harry, Sirius survived because a Memory Charm only affects the mind, not the heart. Even though you couldn’t remember any of us, your love for your friends was always there. Now, I hate to put a damper on our little party here, but we really do need to get moving. Like I said, it’s the full moon tonight, and we have no idea how much time we have left before I start to transform.” He got wearily to his feet, and together the three men walked slowly toward the crumbling stone archway.

“What happened to Voldemort?” Harry asked as he approached the spot where his enemy’s body had lain.

“He must’ve finished withering away,” said Sirius. “Even his robes are gone.”

“There’s still a little bit left,” Remus observed, pointing at a tiny, black puddle on the floor. Harry bent down close to examine it.

“It’s blood,” he said after a long moment. “It’s my blood.” Shuddering at the thought, he quickly stood back up.

“If you don’t mind, Harry?” said Sirius, pointing his wand at the little puddle. Harry nodded his consent. “Evanesco.” The puddle vanished.

“Thanks,” Harry muttered.

“Ready to get out of here?” asked Sirius.

“Let’s get moving,” Remus replied. Harry nodded his agreement, and they stepped up to the stone archway. Sirius grasped the top of the right edge of the veil and pulled it to the left as hard as he could. It moved less than a foot.

“Don’t just stand there,” he grunted. “Help me!”

Harry and Remus rushed forward and grabbed onto the veil, helping Sirius pull it away from the archway. At an agonizingly slow pace, they managed to peel it back. Harry’s arms began to shake from exertion, and he had to fight the urge to let go and wipe the sweat out of his eyes. Finally, just as his arms were about to give out, they managed to create an opening large enough for him to slip through. Knowing that there was no way he would be able to keep pulling for much longer, he twisted around and ducked out of the archway. Once on the other side, he collapsed, breathing heavily for a moment, before he turned back to the veil.

Taking a deep breath, Harry grasped the edge of the veil and wrenched it back. To his surprise, he found it to be no heavier than an ordinary curtain, and Sirius and Remus were able to step out onto the dais without any difficulty.

“Well, I guess this is where I change into Snuffles,” said Sirius.

“You don’t have to do that,” Remus said quickly. “Have a look at this.” He pulled the folded up Evening Prophet out of his pocket and handed it to Sirius. Sirius’ eyes widened as he read the article detailing how he had finally been declared innocent.

“Is this for real?” he asked, his eyes searching Remus’.

“Is that the sort of thing I would joke about?” Remus responded.

“I’m free,” Sirius whispered disbelievingly. “I’m free!” Whooping and dancing around, he hopped down from the dais and began running up the stone steps toward the exit.

“Shall we?” Remus asked Harry in an amused voice. Harry nodded, laughing happily, and they took off after Sirius. They hurried back through the Department of Mysteries and into the lift, which they rode back to the Atrium.

“Where to?” Sirius asked as they stepped out of the lift.

“The Burrow,” Harry answered immediately. “The Weasleys all think we’re dead.”

“We can’t go there yet,” said Remus. “I need to be locked up for my transformation. We can do that at Grimmauld Place, and then you two can head over to the Burrow.”

“My place, then?” Sirius asked, a note of disgust in his voice as he said it. “Harry, do you want to Side-Along Apparate with me?”

Harry laughed. “I’ve got my license, Sirius.”

“Right,” Sirius said, shaking his head. “I forgot; I missed another two years.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry reassured him sincerely. “I’m just glad you’re back.”

“Let’s get moving,” said Remus. He disappeared with a loud crack, followed closely by Harry and Sirius.

The first thing Harry heard upon reappearing near Sirius’ childhood home was Remus yelling for him to run. It only took him a moment to realize why: the full moon was high in the night sky, bathing the street in silver light. He was preparing to Apparate away when Sirius’ voice made him pause.

“Look at yourself, Remus!” he shouted. “You’re not transforming!”

Harry took a few tentative steps toward his father’s old friends, and was relieved to see that Sirius was right. The full moon was high in the sky, but Remus Lupin was definitely not transforming into a werewolf.

“How can this be?” Remus whispered in disbelief as he looked from his perfectly human hands to the full moon shining above.

“I have no idea,” said Sirius, “but let’s get inside and try to figure this out. Then we can decide what to do next.” They crossed the street and entered the dark house, slipping silently through the entrance hall so as not to disturb Mrs. Black’s portrait, and finally arriving in the kitchen.

“Have you been trying any new treatments or anything?” Sirius asked as they sat down around the table.

Remus shook his head. “Nothing. I haven’t even had the Wolfsbane Potion for the past few months.”

“Then the only thing that could have done this is that room behind the veil,” Sirius concluded.

“What do you mean?” asked Harry.

“He’s just saying that that room is really the only unknown that we’re dealing with,” Remus explained. “But that doesn’t tell us why- Oh.”

“Oh?” Sirius asked, raising his eyebrows at his friend. “Oh, what?”

“Love destroys evil,” Remus muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. “That’s why that room killed Greyback and completely obliterated Voldemort. That’s why the pain Harry felt was concentrated in his scar - the connection between him and Voldemort was being severed. Sirius must’ve been unconscious when he was going through all that, so he wouldn’t remember it, but something had to have happened because he’s lost that haunted look that he’s had since Azkaban. And the room must have destroyed the werewolf in me. Werewolves are evil, and love destroys evil. Moony is... gone.”

“Werewolf or not, you’ll always be Moony to me,” Sirius said in a solemn voice as he gripped his friend’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Padfoot,” Remus replied, “although it’s not as if I’ll miss those transformations. It’s just a bit of a shock. I haven’t taken a stroll under the full moon as a human since I was a little boy.”

“Well, you’ll be taking plenty of them from now on,” said Harry. “And why don’t we start right now? Everybody’s probably at the Burrow, thinking we’re all dead.”

Remus shook himself slightly and got to his feet. “Right. We’d best be going. What do you think, Harry? Should we Apparate to the end of the Burrow’s lane and then walk the rest of the way?”

“Sounds good,” Harry agreed as he and Sirius stood as well. “I’d hate to land right on top of everybody and have them hex us before they realized who we are.”

“What the-?” Sirius muttered as they headed toward the front door. Harry turned to see his godfather peering at his reflection in the glass front of a large cabinet. “I look like hell. How come neither of you told me?”

“We’ve had other things on our minds,” Remus chuckled as Sirius used his wand to remove his beard and trim his fingernails. “After all, I just found out I’m no longer a ‘dangerous half-breed,’ and Harry’s in quite a hurry to find his young lady friend and assure her that he’s all right.”

“Ah, yes,” Sirius chuckled as he sat down on the floor and pulled off his boots and socks. “The lovely young redhead. James would be proud.”

“Sirius, what are you doing?” Remus asked.

“My feet hurt,” Sirius replied. “Stupid toenails are about three inches long.” He quickly trimmed the offending toenails and replaced his socks and boots before getting back to his feet. “All right; now we can go.”

They all fell silent as they reached the entrance hall and slipped out into the night. As soon as the door clicked shut behind them, they Apparated away.

A moment later, Harry was strolling along the dirt lane leading to the Burrow, listening contentedly as Remus marveled at being able to look at the full moon without feeling the urge to howl at it. Before long, the large, lopsided silhouette of the Burrow came into view. Light streamed from the living room windows, but the rest of the house was dark. Harry made straight for the front door, but was stopped short by a hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s go in through the kitchen,” Sirius whispered.

“Why?” Harry asked. “They’ll let us in if we knock.”

“Apparently, the tendency to play childish and inappropriate pranks isn’t evil enough for the Love Room to destroy it,” Remus muttered. “He wants us to sneak up on them.”

“No I don’t,” Sirius protested. “I just think Harry ought to go in first, and then you ought to go in.” He grinned roguishly. “I don’t want us to sneak up on them; I want me to sneak up on them.”

“Whatever you say,” Harry whispered impatiently. “Let’s just go.” They rounded the house and slipped inside through the back door into the kitchen. Swallowing hard, Harry stepped through the doorway to the living room.

The room was filled with so many people that there were several whose chairs must have been conjured that very night. The entire Weasley family was present, along with Tyler, Hermione, Luna Lovegood and her father, Neville Longbottom and his grandmother, and Tonks. Despite the multitude of people, however, the living room of the Burrow was uncharacteristically quiet. Several whispered conversations were being held as everyone sought comfort from their loved ones.

The atmosphere was so depressing that all eyes were downcast and no one even noticed Harry’s entrance, although he really didn’t mind. His eyes sought out Ginny, who was sitting on the sofa, leaning on her mother for support and looking thoroughly miserable. He slowly stepped toward her.

“What’s that you’re holding, dear?” Mrs. Weasley whispered to her daughter. Ginny held up her tiny jade snake to give her mother a better look.

“Harry gave it to me,” she explained as she tapped it on the head, causing it to hiss softly. “That’s him telling me he loves me in Parseltongue.” Fresh tears began falling down her cheeks as she continued, “I know I wrote that note to him before we left the Ministry, but- but I never really told him how I felt.”

“Then why don’t you tell him now?” Harry asked quietly as he arrived in front of her. Ginny’s eyes snapped up to his face.

“Harry?” she gasped shakily. He nodded and reached for her hand, pulling her to her feet. “How...?”

“Ginny,” he said solemnly, deciding to follow his godfather’s example, “you ought to know by now that it would take a lot more than a flimsy little curtain to kill off Harry Potter.” He broke into a smile, and Ginny laughed with delight and relief as she threw her arms around his neck

“I love you, Harry,” she whispered against his ear.

“I know,” he whispered back. “But thank you for telling me. I love you, too.”

“Remus!”

Harry released Ginny and they both turned to see Tonks launching herself at Remus, who had just entered the room. In an instant, her arms were around his neck and she was peppering his face with kisses.

“Hang on,” she said after a moment, “tonight’s the full moon.” Leaping away from him, she drew her wand and aimed it at his heart. “Who are you really?”

“Remus Lupin,” he answered calmly, as though he was completely unaware that a fully-trained Auror had him at wandpoint. “If you want proof, I can give it to you, but I doubt you’ll want everyone else to hear it.”

Without lowering her wand, Tonks stepped toward him, and he whispered something in her ear. She blushed furiously enough to make any Weasley proud and stowed her wand. Remus just chuckled at her reaction.

“But how-?”

“We’ll explain everything in a bit,” Remus said soothingly as he pulled her back into his arms.

“Welcome back, Harry,” Tyler called from across the room. This seemed to unleash a floodgate, and Harry was immediately engulfed in hugs and bombarded with questions about his and Remus’ safe return. He was trying to distinguish individual questions over the din, when a loud voice caused everyone to stop and stare at the doorway to the kitchen.

“Is this a private party, or is it all right if I join in?” asked Sirius. For a long moment, nobody moved. Then the silence was broken by none other than Luna Lovegood.

“Stubby Boardman!” she exclaimed. “Can I have your autograph?” Sirius laughed, and - much to Hermione’s consternation - conjured a quill and some iridescent ink and autographed Luna’s sleeve.

Once again, the room exploded with sound as Sirius was welcomed back and everyone tried to figure out what was going on. After several minutes, Sirius managed to quiet everyone down when he promised to tell the whole story. Harry conjured a large armchair, and Ginny curled up in his lap with her arms around his neck as Sirius began his explanation of what had happened.

Looking around the room, Harry couldn’t help but smile. His friends had all escaped yet another battle without any permanent damage. Voldemort was gone forever, Sirius was back, Remus was no longer a werewolf, and Ginny was cuddled up in his arms. Life couldn’t possibly get any better than this.

THE END