Disclaimer: All characters belong to JK Rowling, I presume. She created them, I didn't. I'm just having a little fun with them. Takes place in sixth year, making the kids 16. Spoilers for Chamber of Secrets, specifically. None for any of the other books, really. This is the first story in a trilogy of shorts, this trilogy of shorts the first part of a trilogy of three stories made of three shorts apiece. (Confusing, isn't it?)

Witch's Hourglass

Glass: Harry Potter

In my life, I never once went looking for trouble, yet it always seemed to find me. When I was a baby, my parents were murdered. Perhaps that's a bit blunt, but it's the truth. An attempt was made on my life then too, but my mother sacrificed herself to save me.

After that, from the time I was a year old until I was eleven, I lived with my mother's sister and her family full time. It was miserable, and still is every summer, when I return home from school. Since then, the man who murdered my parents has attempted to murder me no less than four times out of the five I've attended school.

Oh yeah. Did I mention that I'm a world famous sixteen-year-old underaged wizard? My two best friends are as well. So is my—well, he's not my friend, but he isn't my greatest enemy, either.

This time, that's how all the trouble started.

My friends, Hermione and Ron, had been dating for about two months. Draco was annoying, which was really no different from normal.

Then Ron dumped Hermione for some fifth-year Ravenclaw.

Then the real trouble started. The thing between my friends was only a tiny drop into the bucket compared to what happened afterward. Things started disappearing from the common rooms. Accidents that could never have truly been accidents began to happen.

Then a student disappeared. It wasn't like Ron's little sister disappearing under the influence of the Dark Lord in my second year. This was a Prefect. Specifically, a Slytherin Prefect whose father held a lot of pull in the British Ministry of Magic.

This time, no one knew it would happen. When the Chamber of Secrets had been opened, everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before someone was attacked again, someone was killed, and someone was taken. This time, no one ever suspected a student would be kidnapped.

No one thought for a moment that a student that was the son of a man known—well, thoroughly suspected, anyway, because only I knew for sure—to support the Dark Lord Voldemort.

When Draco Malfoy was kidnapped, the whole school knew within the hour what had happened. Owls were speeding to and from, delivering letters from terrified students to unknowing parents.

Hermione and I were in the library. She was flipping frantically through a book.

"Here," she said. "The sand that was found. This is the only thing that I can possibly think of it being."

"Witch's Hourglass," I read aloud. "You think that this is how they took him? Not that I'm not happy that he's gone."

Hermione gave me a weak smile. "Yes, well, Voldemort will gain more power if we leave Draco to him. Believe me, before I read that, I was tempted to not look for a way to save him at all."

I laughed. I shouldn't have, but I did. "So now, what do we do?" I asked. "I mean, everything has always happened on school grounds. Now… I know what has to be done, but I don't know how it can be done."

"You could talk to Dumbledore?" Hermione suggested.

"It won't do much good," I said, and leaned back in my chair, gazing out the window. I could see the sunlight shimmering off the tops of the trees in the Forbidden Forest.

My chair tipped over backwards. "The forest!" I cried. My voice echoed in the empty library.

Hermione's eyes widened. "That's it!" she cried.

"I guess we use the cloak," I said. "And hope we meet a centaur or something else that can tell us where we need to go."

"What about Ron?" Hermione asked. She made a face as she said it.

"If he wants to go," I said.

"He won't want to bring Draco back," she said. She began making quick notes on a scrap of parchment.

"Well, I say we just go then," I said. "Midnight tonight."

"Okay," she said, and she continued making notes.

Later on that night, we met in the common room. Hermione wore the muggle clothes she'd worn on the train beneath her robes, jeans and a sweatshirt, her long hair bundled back.

"Ready?" I asked her. She nodded, gripping her want tightly in her hand. I pulled the Invisibility Cloak up over us, and we left the common room.

The night was almost warm with the approach of spring. We walked silently into the forest.

Hermione's hand gripped mine tightly, and her breath was fast. She was scared, I could feel it.

After ten minutes, I began to hear hoofbeats. Centaurs, I hoped, pulling the Cloak off of the two of us.

"Harry Potter," a familiar voice said. I turned to see Firenze, a palomino-like centaur.

"Hate to be all in a rush, sir, but we need to get to the Witch's Hourglass," I said. "fast."

"I have seen it in the stars," the centaur said, stomping his hooves uneasily.

"Can you take us there?" I asked, gesturing to Hermione and myself.

"Most certainly," Firenze said. "I am aware of what is at stake. You must ride."

Hermione looked stricken. She knew that it was a great honor to be asked—or in this case, ordered—to ride on a Centaur's back.

I put my hands on her waist and helped to lift her up. Then I swung up after her. Firenze galloped deeper into the woods.