A flash of green light caused me to jump upright in my bed so quickly that my forehead smashed into my knee. I groaned pathetically as I plopped back against the sheet. Now not only was there a horrible searing pain in my wrist from Merlin knows what (a Quidditch practice gone wrong, I was sure), there was also sure to be a knot on my forehead from the impact. I rubbed my hand over my face a few times, feeling the sweat wipe off in droves, as I tried to calm myself down. Just a dream... it was only a dream. A very lifelike one, though.

Knowing that I should have laid down and tried to get back to sleep, I sat upright, rubbing at my wrist. It wasn't the first time that I had ever had that dream. At least, a dream that took place there. I had seen that place a number of times. Little Hangleton, as I recalled from earlier versions of it. This was just the latest in a string of them over the last few years. But this one was the most realistic and the one that I remembered the best. Plus I had never woken up in physical pain before. Not like this. Not the kind of pain that I had only felt twice before this in my life.

Trying desperately to ease the pain, I laid flat on my back, breathing hard as though I had been running. I had first awoken from a vivid dream with my hands pressed over my face. Now they were covering up my hand, rubbing at my wrist, trying to stop the pain that was slowly spreading. I was sure that the headache had nothing to do with my hand pain, but it wasn't helping. My wrist and entire hand was burning beneath my spare hand as though someone had just pressed a white-hot wire to my skin. Yes, I had felt this pain before.

Seldom, but I had felt it. My hand was aching much in the same way that it had been when I had been in the Forbidden Forest for a detention in my First Year and I had run straight into Professor Quirrell disguised as Voldemort - which he sort of was. It was that same miserable pain. That same desire coursed through me, wishing that I could tear my hand free from my body. Just as I had on that day. My heart was pounding as I tried not to puke, staring down at my hand. Nothing strange there. Just the average birthmark in the middle of the back of my hand. Nothing more.

Very slowly I sat up, one hand still on my hand, rubbing it gently, the other reaching out in the darkness for my lamp, which was on the bedside table. I flicked it on and instantly groaned. That definitely wasn't a good idea. Instead of leaving it on, I turned off the light and flicked on the reading lamp on the other side of my bed. The room slowly came into view a little bit clearer. It was lit by the soft yellow glow from my lamp and a faint, misty orange light that was filtering through the curtains from the street lamp outside the window.

I ran my fingers over the birthmark on the back of my hand again. It was still painful. Rolling my eyes at myself, trying to convince myself that I was being dramatic, I scrambled out of bed, crossed the room, opened my wardrobe, and peered into the mirror on the inside of the door. An athletic and slightly curvy girl of fourteen looked back at me, her bright blueish-brown eyes puzzled and slightly frantic under her untidy blonde hair. I examined the birthmark of my reflection more closely. It looked just as normal and harmless as ever, but it was still stinging.

Every part of myself looked completely normal - save that I was trying to get used to my slowly growing curves and the extra inch I had gained over the summer. Mom had told me that by my Fifth or Sixth Year I would likely stop growing. I couldn't wait, since I kept growing out of my clothes that I had now and those sweater vests and skirts that I would have to wear when I was back at Hogwarts would show a little more than I was comfortable with if my curves continued to grow. The athletic build was gifted by Dad. The curves were definitely Mom's fault.

Hopefully some other girls had gained them over the summer too. As I paced my room back and forth, I tried to think about something else. About the dream. I spent at least five minutes trying to recall what I had been dreaming about before the searing pain in my hand had awoken me. It had seemed so real... There had been two people that I knew and one that I didn't. The one that I didn't know seemed to be the only good one there. But the green light... Had he died? I concentrated hard, frowning, trying to remember what had happened.

The dim picture of a darkened room came to me after a few minutes. There had been a massive snake on a hearth rug. My absolute favorite animal, it so figured that a snake would be the central character in a lifelike nightmare. There had been a small man called Peter, nicknamed Wormtail. It was a name and nickname that I was all too familiar with. Not to mention that there had been a cold, high voice... the voice of Lord Voldemort. I'd hear it before. There was no mistaking it. I felt as though an ice cube had slipped down into my stomach at the very thought.

Could it have been real? Or was my brain just playing tricks on me because it knew what scared me the most? All I knew was that one of my worst fears was what could come from letting Peter Pettigrew go almost three months ago. Not that we had meant to let him go. He was supposed to have been given over to the Dementors. But Professor Lupin - our previous Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher - had transformed into a werewolf in front of us and the distraction had given Pettigrew a moment to transform into a rat and disappear.

Was there a chance that Pettigrew had gone and sought out Voldemort? I would have thought that he would have tried living like Sirius - in solitude far from here. But if he was scared of Voldemort, who would offer him protection, he might have. So did that mean that I had actually just seen Voldemort and Pettigrew in reality? I couldn't figure it out. It felt real and there was no mistaking the pain in my hand. But it could have just been a nightmare. The pain in my hand could have been a figment of my imagination. After all, it was already starting to fade.

But... There was always a but. My mind kept going back to the note that I had gotten from the mystery present sender in the beginning of the summer - the last time that I had heard from them. What about the note that had come with the present? See you soon. That was what it had said. What if it had been sent to me by Voldemort? It was a theory that I'd had before but never one that I had been able to substantiate. But what if he really was planning on seeing me again sometime soon? I knew that he wanted me. Like it always did when I started thinking too much, my head began to throb.

Now I knew how Harry felt when his scar started to hurt him. These were the worst type of headaches. Stress. My head snapped up after a few seconds as I realized something. There was one person that I knew I could talk to about my strange relationship with Voldemort. My best friend - Harry Potter. I glanced down at my Muggle alarm clock that sat on my dresser. It was just past three o'clock in the morning. I sighed. He wouldn't be awake unless he had been privy to the same nightmare, which had happened before.

Deciding not to risk waking him up, I closed my eyes tightly and tried to remember what Voldemort had looked like, but it was impossible... Definitely not the handsome boy that we had met down in the Chamber of Secrets two years ago. And not quite the lifeless creature in the back of Quirrell's head three years ago. All I knew was that at the moment when Voldemort's chair had swung around, and I had seen what was sitting in it, I had felt a spasm of horror, which had awoken me... or had that been the pain in my hand? Or the flash of green light?

All of a sudden I felt another headache coming on. I knew what that flash of green light meant. There were very few spells that emanated a green light. The Killing Curse being one of them. And who had the old man been? The one that had fallen victim to the curse. By Voldemort or Pettigrew, I wasn't sure. But I knew that there had definitely been an old man; I had watched him fall to the ground. Was he Frank Bryce? Had someone said that name? I didn't remember. But I knew that I remembered hearing it somewhere. It was all becoming confused.

It felt like trying to study Divination. I put my face into my hands, blocking out my bedroom, trying to hold on to the picture of that dimly lit room, but it was like trying to keep water in his cupped hands; the details were now trickling away as fast as I tried to hold on to them. I vaguely remembered that Voldemort and Wormtail had been talking about someone they had killed, though I could not remember the name... and they had been plotting to kill someone else... Harry! It suddenly dawned on me. And I remembered that they were talking about taking me.

Just as they had before. I knew that Voldemort wanted me. Pettigrew had almost handed me over to him when I was a baby - as he had been babysitting me on the night that Voldemort had murdered Harry's parents. Was there a chance that the nightmare had been real? Maybe it was... But who could I talk to about this? Who would know if it was true? That was when I remembered another detail. There had been a sign outside of the house. Little Hangleton, it had said. I was right about where the house was. But where was it? Who would know?

Certainly not me. Geography wasn't my thing. I was bad enough with it back in the States, here in England, I was next to useless. Perhaps my parents would know, but they would start asking why I wanted to know. Harry was just as bad with directions as I was. Harry! I had to tell him about the nightmare on the off chance that he hadn't shared it. He was involved, after all. And if it wasn't real... what harm would it do? Make him nervous and cautious for a few weeks? What else was new? Yes, telling Harry about it was definitely the best choice that I had right now.

Of course that started with getting up and heading over to his house, which wouldn't be a great idea, since it was barely three in the morning. At least if Mom and Dad saw me over there, they wouldn't care. They knew that the two of us were like siblings, so sleepovers and midnight rendezvous had never been anything strange. I took my face out of my hands, opened my eyes, and stared around my bedroom as though expecting to see something unusual there. As it happened, there were an extraordinary number of unusual things in my room.

A large wooden trunk stood open at the foot of my bed, revealing a cauldron, broomstick, black robes, and assorted spell books. Rolls of parchment littered that part of my desk that was not taken up by the large, empty cage in which my Great Horned Owl, Dai, usually perched. On the floor beside my bed a book lay open; I had been reading it before I fell asleep last night. The pictures in the book were all moving. Men in bright red and blue robes were zooming in and out of sight on broomsticks, throwing a red ball to one another.

Next to it was an open journal that I immediately snapped shut. I really had to be careful to make sure that my parents didn't see it. It was the journal that Cedric had given me for Christmas last year. Filled with options on what we wanted to do over the summer and my favorite memories of the two of us. Right now it was open to the time at the end of the semester that the two of us had fallen asleep up in the Astronomy Tower a few days before the end of the semester. My parents would have a cow if they read about that night.

Standing from the bed, I walked over to the book, picked it up, and watched one of the wizards - my own father - score a spectacular goal by putting the ball through a fifty-foot-high hoop. He had been the Head Chaser on the United States Stars for eight years before we had returned to England. Then I snapped the book shut. Even Quidditch - in my opinion, the best sport in the world - couldn't distract me at the moment. I placed Flying with the Stars on my bedside table, crossed to the window, and drew back the curtains to survey the street below.

As I should have been expecting, Privet Drive looked exactly as a respectable suburban street would be expected to look in the early hours of Saturday morning. All the curtains were closed. As far as I could see through the darkness, there wasn't a living creature in sight, not even a cat. Just about fifteen feet away, Harry's lights seemed to be on. Was he awake? Was he awake because of the same reason? I glanced back down at the street. Nothing seemed wrong. There was just the simple orange glow of the streetlights. That was it.

And yet... and yet... There seemed to be something wrong here. It felt like I was missing something. It felt like there was something wrong. My eyes scanned the streets three more times, but I didn't see anything. Not that I really wanted to. Before I could convince myself to check a fourth time for something wrong with the streets, I glanced away and shut my curtains. Just in case. I didn't want to see something wrong. I went restlessly back to the bed and sat down on it, running a finger over my birthmark again.

It wasn't the pain that was bothering me; I was no stranger to pain and injury. I had lost all the bones from my right hand once and had them painfully regrown in a night. My right leg had been torn apart and almost off by a massive snake not long afterward. I had nearly bled out in my First Year. Only last year I had fallen fifty feet from an airborne broomstick and broken almost every bone in my body. I was used to bizarre accidents and injuries; they were unavoidable if you attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and had a knack for attracting a lot of trouble.

It was much thanks to Harry Potter being my best friend. There were a number of other issues and injuries that I had received in school, but it would take me a year to get through all of them. No, the thing that was bothering me was that the last time my birthmark had hurt me, it had been because Voldemort had been close by. He had been in the Forbidden Forest, mere feet from me. But Voldemort couldn't be here, now... The idea of Voldemort lurking in Privet Drive was absurd, impossible. He wasn't a fool and it would be foolish to be here right now.

Suddenly there was a snapping noise from the outside of my bedroom. I jumped practically out of my skin and nearly toppled off of the bed. Once I had managed to calm myself down, I very slowly began moving around. Was the snapping noise Voldemort Apparating into my house? Was he on his way to murder my parents the way that he had Harry's? And then take me to do who-knew-what? But I knew that it was stupid. Voldemort was still a shapeless lump, trying to force his way back to humanity. He was too weak. He wasn't here.

So why was my heart still pounding the way that it was? I needed to calm down. He wasn't here. Lord Voldemort was gone, at least for now. He wasn't coming back. I just had to keep telling myself that. Still fearing the worst, I very slowly forced myself out of the bed. It definitely wasn't someone Apparating here. I could hear more knocking against my windowsill. I walked over and drew the curtains, throwing my window open. To my immense relief, I saw that it was just Harry throwing rocks, as he usually did when he needed me to wake up.

"Harry..." I whispered, placing my hand over my rapidly beating heart. "You scared the hell out of me."

"Sorry," Harry said guiltily. "Did I wake you up?"

"No," I said honestly.

"Bad dream?" Harry asked.

I perked up. Had he really had the same dream that I had? "Yeah. How'd you know?" I asked curiously.

"I had one too," Harry said.

"Hang on. I'm coming over."

"Okay."

There was only one way that we could handle this. The two of us needed to talk and we couldn't do it by shouting across the lawn where someone might have been able to hear us. I pulled my window up all of the way before ducking down underneath and swinging myself outside of my window, onto my trellis. I climbed down it slowly, jumping down the last few rungs, before crossing the yard to Harry's house. I grabbed onto the trellis outside of his bedroom and yanked myself up it. It definitely used to be easier when I was eleven.

It almost surprised me how hard it was now. Maybe it was because I hadn't practiced Quidditch in so long or maybe it was because I wasn't four feet tall anymore. Now I was pushing just over five feet. It took me almost two minutes before I managed to reach Harry's window. He reached out to my arm and grabbed me to let me practically throw myself into his bedroom. We just saw each other last night, but I still brought him in for a tight hug. Probably because the nightmare had definitely put me on edge.

Once we pulled apart, I glanced out towards his closed bedroom door. "Dursley's asleep?" I asked.

"Yeah. We should be fine as long as we're quiet," Harry said.

"Good." The two of us walked over to Harry's bed and we plopped down on it. "Tell me about your nightmare," I said.

"I only remember bits and pieces of it," Harry mumbled.

"Doesn't matter. Tell me about it," I goaded.

We really had to figure out what exactly that nightmare was about. Between the two of us, I knew that we were going to figure it out. We would be able to put the whole thing together. The two of us spent a long time chitchatting back and forth about our respective nightmares. It didn't take long for us to realize that we had actually had the exact same nightmare. There didn't seem to be a single difference between them. It wasn't the first time that it had happened so it wasn't very surprising that they were the same.

We were able to discern this much from the nightmare: It had taken place in a location called Little Hangleton. I remembered seeing that on a sign outside and also from old nightmares. Harry took my word on that. We knew that it had happened at a large and old fashioned house that seemed to have no permanent tenants. It was a lovely manor. There was a caretaker by the name of Frank Bryce; another thing that Harry had taken my word on. We quickly realized that he was just a normal Muggle man with nothing magical about him.

It seemed that what had happened was, upon hearing something strange, he had gone up to the house to investigate. Perhaps because he thought that there were some teenagers looting through the house. Once there, he had traipsed through the house to an upstairs bedroom. There were two voices speaking upstairs that Frank Bryce had listened in on, clearly not understanding what he was hearing. One had continuously used the term My Lord where the other had a high, cold voice.

There had been something about someone named Nagini. Neither one of us knew who or what that was supposed to be. I had never heard the name before. There was a slight mention of the Quidditch World Cup, which at least told us that this was happening sometime around right now, since the World Cup was only a few days away. They had also mentioned the Ministry of Magic, which made sense. The two of them had mentioned both Harry's and my own name. Apparently there was something to be done with Harry and they needed to finally find me.

Our thoughts were very fuzzy on what exactly it was that they had said. We only remembered bits and pieces of what had happened in the nightmare. We both remembered that Wormtail had insisted that we were well protected. And we were, being here with my parents, the Weasley's later, and then with Dumbledore at Hogwarts. They also had a theory that we were both rejoin them soon enough. I did remember hearing that the two of them had murdered a woman named Bertha Jorkins, whom I didn't know.

The Muggle man was clearly terrified of their words, seeing as they had just admitted to killing someone, and he had turned, planning on retreating to the village and telling anyone about what had just happened. Before he could move we had realized that Nagini was actually not a person. She was a monstrous snake that rivaled the Basilisk, warning her master that there was a Muggle man lurking in the hallway, listening in on their conversation. Then the door had fully opened, revealing that Wormtail was, indeed, Peter Pettigrew.

His rat like face had appeared in the doorway before Frank Bryce. He looked terrified to see the man. On the far side of the room the cold voice had warned Wormtail not to be rude and to invite their guest in. That was when the chair had turned and the owner of the cold voice had revealed themselves. It was definitely Voldemort, but neither one of us could remember what he had looked like. There was a flash of green light that I could just barely remember and then Frank Bryce had been no more.

That was the moment that both of us had awoken to the searing pains that we associated with Voldemort. Harry's had been in the scar on his forehead left by Voldemort thirteen years earlier. My own had been in the birthmark on my right hand, that same place that I had gotten the pain in while we had been in the Forbidden Forest three years ago. It didn't take either one of us that long to realize that it wasn't just a coincidence. There was something wrong with the nightmare and the pains that we had felt immediately afterwards.

"So the exact same dream with pains in the places that we know have something to do with Voldemort?" I finally asked.

Even saying it aloud sounded wrong. Harry nodded blankly. "That's what I was thinking. You're the only person that I could think to talk to about it," he said.

"Same. What do you think that it means?"

Harry was silent for a long time. "Could Voldemort be back?" he finally asked.

Now that would definitely be my worst nightmare. I thought about it for a moment before shaking my head. "Doubtful. The world would know. Voldemort's kind of got a big head. He would want to raise the banners in his name if he were back," I said somewhat honestly. We would know when he was back. Everyone would. "No... I think he's still a lifeless thing."

"So you think that we're overreacting?" Harry asked.

"No. I don't think that we both had the exact same nightmare for nothing, but I don't know how useful it would be to get worried about it either," I said half-truthfully.

It wasn't that I didn't think that there was a point getting worried. I had a good feeling that I actually did have a reason to be worried. The dream had just been too realistic and had seemed too pointed at us. But I didn't want to make a big deal out of it. We had been babysat by the teachers before and it was miserable. Plus I knew that if I said something about it, everyone would start making huge deals out of it. It wasn't that I didn't want to be worried about it, it was more that I didn't want everyone else making a huge deal out of it.

"Maybe we should tell someone," Harry said slowly.

"Who will we tell without freaking them out?" I asked him curiously. Everyone would panic if we told them that we had seen Voldemort. "We have no proof other than a vague memory of the nightmare."

Harry was silent for a few moments before saying, "You think that no one will believe us."

Would someone believe us? Not many. Maybe just a set few. "I think that no one ever believes us. Sometimes not even when we have proof," I said, remembering Professor McGonagall's words when we had told her about the Sorcerer's Stone being in danger in our First Year.

"The Dursley's would be pointless," Harry reasoned.

"Absolutely," I agreed.

"What about your parents?" Harry asked.

As far as adults went, they were the best. "They'd probably be our best bets. They have in's with the Ministry and Dumbledore. But even they would get oddly weirded out if I told them about the nightmares. Neither one of us would never be allowed to leave the house," I said truthfully. "And you know the Ministry and Fudge. They're useless! They'd think that we were overreacting and send us to St. Mungo's."

"What?" Harry asked dumbly.

"The Wizarding World hospital," I explained.

"Yeah. You're right. They don't want to believe that Voldemort could come back," Harry muttered.

Why we even had the Ministry of Magic was beyond me. They never did anything useful. "To be fair, neither do I. If we tell them, they're just going to think that we need some help. They won't go investigate it themselves. Remember, these are the people who didn't even know that Voldemort's birth name was Tom Riddle. They're morons," I growled.

Harry nodded blankly. "Another good point. We're probably just having a strange nightmare," Harry said, not sounding convinced.

"And we are linked by Voldemort anyways," I said slowly, trying to convince myself.

"Exactly. We've had the same or similar dreams and nightmares before."

"So we agree not to get too panicked?"

"Agreed."

It was obvious enough that neither one of us really wanted to mention this to anyone. We both clearly knew that it was the right thing to do - the safe thing to do - but it would cause all sorts of nightmares. We would be sucked into the Ministry and all of their foolishness and I would have no chance at a normal Fourth Year. Neither one of us would. Nope. It was best to stay quiet until we had something that was actual proof. Right now we only had a vague memory of a dream. We could stay quiet for just a little while longer. One normal year. That was all that I wanted.

A normal year with my normal boyfriend and my normal friends with nothing trying to kill me. That sounded nice. "Although, if it happens again, I'd be more inclined to tell them," I finally conceded.

"Agreed," Harry said immediately.

I supposed that it was a good enough happy medium. The two of us laid down in bed together for a little while, doing nothing. It wasn't often that we got a chance to try and relax with nothing more to worry about than grades. So right now we were trying to forget about that dream. I had my head in my hands with my elbows against my knees while Harry laid down against my leg. The two of us hadn't gotten much of a chance to see each other in general since Harry's birthday a few days ago. I had been out and about lately - mostly with Cedric.

As we laid together my brain started to wander off into the far reaches of my recent memory. As much as I would have liked to think about my summer afternoons with the twin's joke shop, or running around with Harry, or stolen kisses with Cedric, I started thinking about the the mystery present sender. I had never told any of the others about the present that had appeared on my bed after I had gotten back home at the end of the semester. Everyone had been so happy to see Sirius and get to talk with him that I didn't want to interrupt the happy air.

After he had left, I had kind of forgotten about it. When Sirius was here we had all had a nice dinner together and talked mostly about ourselves to catch up. Clearly Harry had been thrilled to get even an hour more with Sirius. During the dinner I had even found out that Justin was a boy that Mom had dated in her Fourth Year that Dad had relentlessly teased and threatened. It had gotten so hard that Justin had finally broken up with Mom, who hadn't been happy about it. Naturally she had screamed at Dad and hadn't spoken to him for weeks afterwards.

The story had made me laugh and practically forget about the present. But it was back in the forefront of my mind now. "I have to tell you something," I told Harry, sitting up.

"Okay."

"I got another one of the boxes," I spat out.

Harry's eyes bugged out of his head as he sat bolt upright. "What?" Harry gasped. "But it's been so long!"

"Hush!" I hissed, hearing Dudley and Vermin give loud snorts. We definitely didn't need to wake them up. "I know... I know... I got it the day that we got back home. It had a little piece of steel in it with that same number engraved into it."

"Was there a note with it?" Harry asked.

One had never come without a note. "Yes," I said.

"What'd it say?"

"'See you soon.'"

Harry stared at me for a few moments. "See you soon?" he repeated. I nodded. "What does that mean?"

Suppressing the urge to roll my eyes at the stupid question, I shifted on his bed slightly. "I'd imagine that it means exactly what it sounds like. I'm going to meet the mystery present sender soon," I said, an eerie chill shooting up my spine. "I thought that maybe someone was just playing a prank on me or it was meant to unsettle me... but now..."

Thankfully Harry and I had always been able to pick up on each other's thoughts. "You're thinking that it might be Voldemort. If he really is back," he said.

"Yeah," I mumbled.

Was the whole thing really that much of a coincidence? Voldemort could have been getting others to do his bidding for him. Now, as soon as I got a present that indicated that I would meet the mystery sender soon, I also have a nightmare that showed Voldemort returning. It just seemed too well-timed to be anyone else. The thought unnerved me even more. How much longer would it be before I met him? Would he kill me immediately or would he try and use me for something? Would he meet Harry too? A dull throb began in my temple and worked its way to behind my eye.

"But don't you remember what he said?" Harry asked suddenly, sounding excited about something. I shook my head. "He told you that it wasn't him doing it in the Chamber of Secrets and down in the dungeons."

"You don't think that he can lie?" I shot back.

Harry shook his head. "It's just so strange. Why is it only happening to you?" he asked.

As good of a question as any. It was one that I had asked myself many times. Why was I the only person who got the mystery boxes and notes? No one else that I knew had gotten any. Not even Harry, which didn't make much sense. He was the Boy Who Lived. I was just some nobody with a strange connection to Voldemort. No one knew who I was and I was perfectly happy letting Harry have all of the crazy things to deal with. I didn't want to be in the center of this. But it didn't look like I was going to get what I wanted this time around.

"Trust me when I say that I ask myself that question all the time," I groaned.

Harry gave a slight smile and grabbed my hand. "You haven't told anyone else?" he asked.

He was the only person who knew that I had even received the boxes - save Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, our two other best friends. But even they didn't know about this one. "No. I've never gotten one like that before," I said truthfully.

"Have you heard anything else since?" Harry asked.

That was the thing about the boxes that made them so hard to predict. "Radio silence. I just don't get it, Harry. I can't trace these packages. They just kind of show up. They're random. No pattern to them," I said.

The packages never seemed to appear at any specific times. I had gotten one every Christmas since starting my First Year at Hogwarts and I had also gotten one on the first day of summer after each year had ended, but those were the only ones that regularly showed up. Otherwise they appeared at random and without warning. All I knew was that they didn't appear for no reason. Each one had included something to do with whatever was happening to us at the moment. That was why I had thought that they were a friend and not a foe for so long.

"They always seem to have some kind of help in them though. Remember First Year?" I asked Harry. He stared at me blankly for a moment. "All of the packages had some kind of red stone in them."

"The Sorcerer's Stone," Harry responded, finally understanding what I was getting at.

"Mm-hmm," I confirmed. "Second Year. They all had snake skin or something like that, with the exception of the doll that looked like Hagrid."

"Warning you about the Basilisk and that Hagrid wasn't the heir," Harry reasoned.

"Yes. Last year was the rat's tail."

"Scabbers. Pettigrew."

"Yes. This person has helped us every single year in their own way," I said. It had been my own theory that they weren't actually bad, considering that they had been trying to help us. So it couldn't have been Voldemort. Could it? "We've always just been too slow to pick up on it. Now there's a piece of metal."

"What could that mean?" Harry asked.

On the off chance that it was Voldemort, I didn't really know what metal would have to do with him. I didn't know what metal had to do with anyone, actually. I didn't know what the number eighty-three had to do with anything. Being born in nineteen eighty-three maybe, but we had already come to the conclusion that we didn't know of anyone born that year worth any significance. I had always liked mystery novels growing up, but right now I really wasn't enjoying being in one myself. Even Hermione didn't have an answer, and that was when we knew that things were screwed up.

"I don't know," I finally admitted to Harry. "That doesn't make sense. The number doesn't make sense. The note... I guess that makes sense, but I don't want to meet this person. I don't have the slightest clue who it could be other than Voldemort and that just doesn't seem right."

There was no reasonable way that it could be Voldemort. I just didn't believe it. They knew that I was sharing the notes with Harry and Voldemort wanted Harry dead. It wasn't my own parents or anyone else's. That would have been way too creepy. It was no one at Hogwarts; that much I was confident in. Dumbledore, the man in my dreams, Professor Lupin, and Sirius were all out of the running. Pettigrew was too much of a coward to do it. Voldemort himself had told me that it wasn't him. So who did that leave? One of Voldemort's Death Eaters? I wasn't sure.

After a few minutes, Harry started laughing. I turned to him in surprise. "We seem to set a new record every year with how early we can cause a problem," he said.

We both smiled. "Aunt Marge came earlier last year," I pointed out. "How is the dear relative?"

"Never allowed to be in the same room as either one of us ever again."

"Good." Marge Dursley could stay on the other side of the planet from me for all I cared. Especially since she always had something rude to say about me. "Let's talk about something else. This creeps me out," I said quickly.

"How's Diggory?" Harry asked quickly.

"Really?" I snapped, narrowing my eyes at him.

Twenty years could pass and no one would ever like the fact that Cedric and I were together. "I'm just asking," Harry said, putting his hands up.

"He's good. Almost got caught last week," I mumbled.

There had been a number of near-misses between the two of us over the past few weeks. The first one had come just days after we had gotten back home. The two of us were in my kitchen when I had sat up on the counter. Cedric had been standing in between my legs and had leaned up for a kiss when Mom had walked in. I'd kicked him away from me so hard that I'd left a bruise on his ribs for days. Needless to say that I'd felt terrible about it. But that was only the first in a long line of near-disastrous misses that usually led to one or both of us getting hurt.

Harry seemed to find that part humorous, as he was normally the one that I told about the never-ending near-misses. "So I heard," Harry snorted, having been told about my latest disaster just the other day.

"I wish I could just spit it out but I know that they'll lose it," I groaned, dropping my head onto Harry's shoulder.

"You're gonna have to tell them at some point. Either you tell them or the relationship with Diggory will end," Harry pointed out.

He was right about one thing. I would have to own up and tell them at some point or wait until the relationship simmered out, which I was hoping wouldn't happen. Those were the only two options. At some point I would have to tell them. Although it was starting to sound like a better idea to wait even longer. Especially after Dad had just mentioned the other day that he really didn't start seriously dating until his Fifth Year. They would love me telling them that I was in a relationship with someone two years older than me for over six months...

"As much as I'd like it to, I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon," Harry continued, referring to the potential end of my relationship with Cedric.

I smiled at his wording. I knew that everyone wanted our relationship to end. The other girls in Hogwarts all had massive crushes on him. So had I - right up until the moment that we had started dating. Cedric's friends insisted that I was too young and brought danger and drama wherever I went. My friends agreed that I was too young and that he wasn't good enough - which was a complete lie. My parents thought that I was still too young to date. No, people were happy that I was happy, but no one really wanted us to be together.

"You're right. Better just telling them than getting caught," I finally said.

Which was destined to happen if the two of us kept going the way that we were. "That'll be worse. At least if you tell them they might have some respect that you finally spit it out," Harry said.

"Yeah," I mumbled.

Would that actually make things better? I wasn't sure. The only way to tell would be by telling them and hoping that they didn't lose it. For a while I listened closely to the silence around us. Only the gentle thrum of the air conditioning could be heard. Was I half-expecting to hear the creak of a stair or the swish of a cloak? On my side, I could tell that Harry was also listening for anything strange. And then we both jumped slightly as we heard Harry's cousin Dudley give a tremendous grunting snore from the next room over.

His snores were the only reason that the rest of the Dursley household didn't hear me whenever I made a midnight visit. "How do you sleep through that?" I whispered to Harry.

"Note that we're both awake right now," he replied.

That was a fair enough argument. I felt quite badly for him. Was Harry ever able to get a full night's sleep with Dudley making that noise? Or with the fear that something might have been coming for us. I shook myself mentally; I was being stupid. There was no one in the house with the two of us except Vermin, Horse-Face, and Dudley, and they were plainly still asleep, their dreams untroubled and painless. In my own house was only Mom and Dad, both fast asleep as normal. There was no one that shouldn't be in our houses. I was confident of that.

"In the meantime, how was your night?" I asked, trying to distract myself from the eerie thoughts.

Harry scoffed. "You know, the Dursley's are wonderful as always."

"At least they're letting you wander around a lot more."

They used to rule Harry with an iron grip, but they had let up on him a lot this summer. "Mostly because they think that I'll write to Sirius and tell him that the Dursley's are treating me terribly. They're scared stiff that he'll come here and kill them himself," Harry explained.

"Good," I said, laughing.

Asleep was the way that Harry and I - and pretty much everyone else - liked the Dursley's best; it wasn't as though they were ever any help to either one of us awake. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley were Harry's only living relatives. At least, by blood. They were Muggles who hated and despised magic in any form, which meant that Harry was about as welcome in their house as dry rot. They had always hated me - at least, they had since finding out four years ago that I was a part of the Wizarding World. The only reason that they knew about magic was because Horse-Face's sister, Lily Potter, was a witch.

A Muggle-Born, of course. She had been the only magical person in her family and Horse-Face had hated her for her abnormality since. They had tried to stamp out Harry's magic - which would have just created an Obscurus, which was even worse than a normal witch or wizard - but that idea had ended when Hagrid and I had come to tell Harry all about his lineage. For a long time I had asked my parents why we hadn't taken in Harry, but it seemed that most of the Wizarding World agreed that he was best off in the care of his Muggle relatives - which was a complete lie.

The Dursley's had explained away Harry's long absences at Hogwarts over the last three years by telling everyone that he went to St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. On the Dursley's request - and partially because we did happen to live in a Muggle community - my parents explained my absences by saying that I was going to an elite finishing school. It had definitely given me a good laugh when they had told me that after my First Year was over. I had a good feeling that the Dursley's tried insisting that I went to the sister school of Harry's supposed school.

The Dursley's knew perfectly well that, as an underage wizard, Harry wasn't allowed to use magic outside Hogwarts, but they were still apt to blame him for anything that went wrong about the house. Either that, or they came storming over to my house, demanding to know what my parents - perfectly well-qualified magical people - had done. Harry had never been able to confide in them or tell them anything about his life in the Wizarding World. The very idea of going to them when they awoke, and telling them about his scar hurting him, and about his worries about Voldemort, was laughable.

We were much better off telling my own parents about what had happened. But where the Dursley's would shout at him for using the M word, my own parents would have a conniption and head straight for Dumbledore. It seemed odd, and yet it was because of Voldemort that Harry had come to live with the Dursley's in the first place and I had been forced to move to America. If it hadn't been for Voldemort, Harry would not have had the lightning scar on his forehead. If it hadn't been for Voldemort, Harry would still have had parents and I would have never been taken from England.

Harry had been a year old and I had been two the night that Voldemort - the most powerful Dark wizard for a century, a wizard who had been gaining power steadily for eleven years - arrived at his house and killed his father and mother. That same night Peter Pettigrew had been babysitting me, with the intention to hand me over to Voldemort for a still undisclosed reason. Voldemort had gone to Harry's home first and murdered his parents and had then planned to come into my own to murder mine and take me with the help of Pettigrew.

His timing was the only reason that I had parents had Harry's didn't. After Harry's parents were dead, Voldemort had then turned his wand on Harry; he had performed the curse that had disposed of many full-grown witches and wizards in his steady rise to power - and, incredibly, it had not worked. The only person to have ever survived the Killing Curse was my best friend, still nothing more than an infant. Instead of killing the small boy, the curse had rebounded upon Voldemort, much to the surprise of every single person in our world.

The only thing that I remembered from that night was the flash of green light that had lit up my own bedroom. Harry had survived with nothing but a lightning-shaped cut on his forehead, and Voldemort had been reduced to something barely alive. His powers gone, his life almost extinguished, Voldemort had fled; the terror in which the secret community of witches and wizards had lived for so long had lifted, Voldemort's followers had disbanded, and Harry Potter had become famous in our world.

It had been enough of a shock for Harry to discover, on his eleventh birthday, that he was a wizard; it had been even more disconcerting to find out that everyone in the hidden Wizarding World knew his name. Thankfully he had had me to help explain what was going on. Harry and I had arrived at Hogwarts to find that heads turned and whispers followed him wherever he went. It wasn't long before they began to follow me, too. Being the best friend of Harry Potter was one thing, but I had made a pretty good name for myself too.

From hitting a teacher to consistently hitting one of my least favorite people on the planet (Slytherin student Draco Malfoy) I was always known for making trouble. Plus my boyfriend was one of the most popular people in the school. It had been surprising during my First Year. But we were all used to it now: At the end of this summer, the two of us would be starting our Fourth Year at Hogwarts, and we were both already counting the days until we would be back at the castle again.

Mostly Harry wanted to leave so that he wouldn't have to face the Dursley's again for ten months. I wanted to go so that I could kiss my boyfriend without having to worry about my parents walking in and potentially hurting ourselves by trying to stay hidden. Plus I really did miss the rest of my friends. Magical schools were nothing like Muggle schools, where kids dreaded returning to school. Magical kids could never wait to head back to their respective schools. But there was still a fortnight to go before we went back to school.

"We'll be back at Hogwarts soon enough, Harry," I said, knowing that he was thinking about how long he still had to go before returning to Hogwarts. "Just two more weeks. Before that we'll all get to go to the Quidditch World Cup."

"Who's playing?" Harry asked curiously.

"Bulgaria and Ireland."

"Who are you rooting for?"

"Ireland. They play a lot dirtier than Bulgaria, which makes them so much fun to watch. Ron will be rooting for Bulgaria," I said, snorting at Ron's man-crush on Victor Krum. "Fred and George are rooting for Ireland with me."

Harry grinned excitedly. "I can't wait. Are you staying here or coming to the Weasley's with me?"

"Weasley's. Mom and Dad are working hard to prepare for the World Cup right now. Notice how they're barely around." Considering that Dad worked as one of the heads of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, he was one of the main organizers of the Quidditch World Cup. "They'll meet up with us the morning before we head out and they'll join us," I explained.

"Diggory going?" Harry asked.

"Yes," I snapped. "He and his father are going."

"That ought to be fun, balancing everyone," Harry snorted.

My gaze narrowed at him. "You're such an ass," I growled.

Harry laughed softly, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. "Just kidding."

Although he really shouldn't have been kidding. It would likely be a lot of work, having to balance everyone. "What about you? Find anyone that suits your fancy?" I asked teasingly. Harry rolled his eyes. "That's not Cho Chang."

"Oh, Tara," Harry sighed.

Harry rolled his eyes, but I meant it. There was no way that I was ever going to throw my support for Cho Chang. She was certainly one of the worst people that I had ever met and was probably one of my least favorite people in the world. Cho Chang was a Fifth Year Ravenclaw who was the Seeker of their Quidditch team. We had met in Diagon Alley a few weeks before the start of our First Year where I had accidentally dropped ice cream on her shoes. She had hated me since. She hated me even more considering that she had a crush on Cedric Diggory - my boyfriend, who I hung over her head.

It was a little (very) childish, but that just showed how much I hated her. Harry was blushing a light red as he shook his head. "No. No one in particular."

"We've really got to get you a girlfriend," I teased.

"Why?" Harry asked.

Partially so that he would leave me alone about Cedric and have someone else to focus on. "Because people keep thinking that the two of us are dating and that's repulsive. No offense," I said quickly.

Harry scoffed. "Somehow I'm still slightly offended by that."

"We've been best friends since we were babies."

"And that's the way that it's going to stay."

"Exactly," I agreed.

The two of us would always be best friends and nothing more. The mere thought of looking at Harry like I looked at Cedric sent a shiver of disgust through me. As we sat in silence, I looked hopelessly around his room again. Some part of me was still thinking about the dream and the pain in my hand that had since faded to a dull throb. My eye paused on the birthday cards the other two of our best friends had sent him at the end of July. What would they say if Harry and I wrote to them and told them about his scar and my hand hurting?

Our two best friends knew about Harry's scar hurting each time that Voldemort was near. They also knew that my wrist had been only hurt when Voldemort had been near in the Forbidden Forest. The thought of both of our Voldemort-related pains killing us just after a dream about Voldemort would likely set the two of them over the edge. At once, Hermione Granger's voice seemed to fill my head, as she was always the first person with advice or reason, shrill and panicky.

"Your scar hurt? Harry, that's really serious... Tara! Last time that your hand hurt was when You-Know-Who was mere feet away! Write to Professor Dumbledore! And I'll go and check Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions... Maybe there's something in there about curse scars..."

"Hermione won't be of any help. She's the one who will make the biggest deal out of it. She reads too much," I mumbled, knowing that Harry was thinking the same thing.

"That's true. But she might know something," Harry said.

As smart as Hermione was - and she definitely had the best overall grades of anyone in our year - she wouldn't know the answer to this one. "Doubtful. Harry, the connection that we have with Voldemort is unheard of. All that anyone would be able to do is theorize. This isn't something that she'll find in a book," I reasoned.

"Who would know?" Harry asked.

"Dumbledore, maybe," I said. If there was anyone who knew about something that no one else would, it would be Dumbledore. "He seems to know the most about Voldemort."

Yes, that would be Hermione's advice: Go straight to the headmaster of Hogwarts, and in the meantime, consult a book. One of Hermione's favorite places in the world was the library. Muggle or magical, they were her favorite places. Usually it was easy for her to figure things out. But this wasn't something that was going to have a normal answer. We were going to have to go somewhere else for this answer. Harry and I stared out of the window at the inky blue-black sky. I doubted very much whether a book could help us now.

There was a good reason for that. As far as I knew, Harry was the only living person to have survived a curse like Voldemort's; in fact, I was certain that he was the only person to have survived the Killing Curse ever. It was highly unlikely, therefore, that he would find his symptoms listed in Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions. Plus there was the issue that no one really knew what my connection to Voldemort was. That meant that searching for whatever ailed me was going to be completely useless.

As for informing the headmaster, I had no idea where Dumbledore went during the summer holidays. I amused myself for a moment, picturing Dumbledore, with his long silver beard, full-length wizard's robes, and pointed hat, stretched out on a beach somewhere, rubbing suntan lotion onto his long crooked nose. Or maybe he was just traveling around. Wherever Dumbledore was, though, I was sure that Dai would be able to find him; my owl had never yet failed to deliver a letter to anyone, even without an address. But what would we write?

Dear Professor Dumbledore, Sorry to bother you, but my wrist hurt this morning. Yours sincerely, Tara Nox.

Even inside my head the words sounded stupid. Of course I would write more, but the question was whether or not any words that I could write would actually make any sense. Would Dumbledore think that we were overreacting? Probably not. Dumbledore always took every single person's concerns or worries completely seriously. He would take ours seriously. But that didn't stop me from wondering if we really were making a mountain out of a molehill. And would I even be allowed to go to the Quidditch World Cup if my parents were worried about Voldemort stealing me away?

Clearly Harry was thinking the same thing. "Dumbledore would never call us stupid for being panicked about something. But even he wouldn't have some totally rational explanation," I said. Dumbledore was often theoretical about things. "And we both know that he wouldn't want us to get involved with it. He'd do everything away from us."

"Because we're still too young," Harry said, filling in the blanks.

"Pretty much," I said carelessly.

That was the way that Dumbledore had been since out First Year. After we had woken up from our debacle down in the dungeons at the end of our First Year, we had both had a number of questions for Dumbledore about Voldemort and his words to us. We had also asked him the same things after we had met the mirage of Voldemort in our Second Year down in the Chamber of Secrets. We always got the same responses; that we were either too young or he didn't know the answer. I had a feeling that he was just trying to protect us.

We were both since used to it. I figured that one day we would get our answers, we were just going to have to wait patiently for them. That was the only reason that I didn't press for them. And so, knowing that Hermione would only make me even more paranoid about the nightmare, I tried to imagine our other best friend, Ron Weasley's, reaction, and in a moment, Ron's red hair and long-nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before me, wearing a bemused expression. In an instant I knew that Ron would be just as clueless as always.

"Your scar hurt? But... but You-Know-Who can't be near you now, can he? I mean... you'd know, wouldn't you? Or, at least, you would know, Tara. Don't you two have some weird connection? He'd be trying to do you in again, wouldn't he? Take you to his evil lair or something. I dunno, Harry, Tara, maybe curse scars always twinge a bit... I'll ask Dad..."

As much as I did love Ron, he had always been the slightest bit clueless. Which seemed odd, considering that he was from a Pureblood family - just like mine. But his even lived in the middle of nowhere so that they could freely use magic. Not even my own family was like that. Since we lived in a Muggle community, we had to hide who we were. Ron might have been a slightly better person to go to than Hermione, but a lot more people would end up knowing, since the Weasley's were a family of nine. Seven kids and their parents.

Mr. Weasley was a fully qualified wizard who worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, but he didn't have any particular expertise in the matter of curses, as far as I knew. He held a strange fascination with rubber ducks, which I was sure wouldn't help us at this moment. In any case, I didn't like the idea of the whole Weasley family knowing that the two of us were getting jumpy about a few moments' pain. Mrs. Weasley would fuss worse than Hermione. She was much like a second mother to me, much like my own was to Harry.

I'd never met Charlie or Bill (Ron's eldest brothers) but I knew that neither one of them worked with curses like the one that we were dealing with. Charlie was a dragon breeder and Bill was a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts (the Wizarding World bank). That wasn't the same thing as our curses. Percy would likely prattle my ear off about all of his many theories of what could be causing the pain and he would likely try and bring it to the Ministry whilst crediting himself. Percy had just graduated Hogwarts and was incredibly pompous about his wonderful grades.

Fred and George, Ron's sixteen-year-old twin brothers, might think that Harry and I were losing our nerve. They would likely never let me forget about my moment of weakness. I loved the twins, but they could be real jerks. Either way, the Weasley's were my favorite family in the world. They were wonderfully disastrous. I was hoping that I would soon get the invite for me to stay with them. Harry was too. I had to keep reminding him that the Quidditch World Cup was still a few days away. As strange as it seemed, I somehow didn't want my visit punctuated with anxious inquiries about Harry's scar and my birthmark.

Perhaps it was a little selfish of me, but I really wanted to enjoy being with the Weasley's. I loved them all - even Percy, although my love for him was a little less strong than the others. I wanted to tease Ron and help Fred and George on their joke shop without worry. Their mother would never approve, so I was helping them to make it a legitimate business once they graduated in two years. I even missed gossiping with the youngest of the Weasley's - Ginny, the only girl in their family. The two of us and Hermione used to love chatting about Cedric.

And speaking of Cedric, I tried to imagine what he might have said if I took the chance to tell him about the dream. He seemed to frequently be concerned that I was getting in over my head, which was very true. That just proved that he did know me well. I had a bad habit of getting involved with things that I probably shouldn't have gotten involved with. Honestly I was just lucky that I was still alive. But what would he think if I told him about the dream and how my hand had hurt the same way that it had in the Forbidden Forest and down in the dungeons?

"Tara... You can't keep doing this all on your own. This is too much for the two of you to handle. You're just teenagers. You need to tell someone else about this. Dumbledore would help. He'll know what to do. You're going to give me a heart attack, you know."

His handsomely worried face sprang right to mind. It was the same look that he gave me each time that he thought that I was getting in over my head, and that was frequently. Yes, I knew that it was exactly what Cedric would have said. It was the same thing that he had said to me all three years that I had already been in Hogwarts and had decided to do something that would probably get me killed. He would insist that I couldn't handle this by myself and beg me to go to Dumbledore, followed by some quip about how I was making him lose his hair.

No one seemed to be a good person to go to for this. I kneaded my forehead with my knuckles and dropped my forehead down into my hands. I could already feel a stress headache coming on. What I really wanted (and it felt almost shameful to admit it to myself) was someone like a... trustworthy criminal? An adult wizard whose advice I could ask without feeling stupid, someone who cared about me, and someone who had had experience with Dark Magic. The problem with Mom and Dad was that they didn't. Mom was a Healer. Dad was a professional Quidditch player.

They might have both fought in the first Wizarding War but I was confident that they couldn't help us here anymore than just going to Dumbledore and demand that he tell them what he knew - which I knew that he wouldn't. I wished that I knew a criminal that I could rely on. Maybe an old Death Eater that had come back over to our side. The only one of those that I knew of was Professor Snape and I had a feeling that he would sooner poison himself than help either one of us. He would probably find it funny if Voldemort came after us.

"Sirius!" Harry gasped suddenly.

I bolted up off of the bed and whipped around. "Is he here?" I asked breathlessly.

Did he know that we were here and in distress? Was he trying to help us? "What?" Harry asked me, looking baffled. "No. We should talk to him about it!"

If Harry had ever had a good idea, this was probably it. "Well... Sirius does know about the Dark Arts, having grown up in the Black house and having been in Azkaban as long as he was," I pointed out. He definitely had some knowledge of it, secondhand or not. "But he might write to my parents about it if he's concerned."

"So then we'll explain it to them," Harry said pointedly. "If nothing else, Sirius might have an actual explanation."

He might not have ever been on Voldemort's side, but Sirius had spent twelve years in Azkaban along with some of Voldemort's most trusted confidantes. Maybe he had heard something over the years. But I was concerned that he would mention it to my parents and I didn't want them panicking and potentially moving us back to the States again. I knew that Harry was concerned, but we had already agreed that we weren't going to tell anyone. Although that was kind of a selfish thought. He had a right to know.

"You really think that this is a good idea?" I asked slowly. I also didn't want to get Sirius worked up about it. "I thought we had promised not to tell anyone."

"It's one person and an adult's opinion. Something we can really use. I'll make it sound as normal as I possibly can," Harry promised.

"Okay," I conceded.

In the end, Harry was right. We couldn't hide this from everyone. Sirius was at least a good happy-medium when it came to who to tell. Harry leapt up from the bed, hurried across the room, and sat down at his desk; he pulled a piece of parchment toward him and loaded his eagle-feather quill with ink. I hopped up from the bed and plopped myself on the edge of Harry's desk, folding my legs up underneath me and hovering over Harry's shoulder so that I could read what he was writing. Harry took a moment, wrote Dear Sirius, and then paused.

For a moment I sat and waited for him to keep writing. But clearly he was stuck. I grabbed a spare quill and tapped it against my chin. We had to explain what had happened without potentially panicking Sirius. The last thing that I wanted to do was accidentally lure him out of hiding. So I sat, wondering how best to phrase our problem, while also marveling at the fact that I hadn't thought of Sirius straight away. But then, perhaps it wasn't so surprising - after all, we had only found out that Sirius was our godfather two months ago.

There was a simple reason for Sirius's complete absence from Harry and I's life until then - Sirius had been in Azkaban, the terrifying wizard jail guarded by creatures called Dementor's, sightless, soul-sucking fiends who had come to search for Sirius at Hogwarts when he had escaped. Because Sirius was an Animagus - a wizard who could transform into an animal - he was able to shift into his giant dog form and use his less human-like thoughts to slip between the bars and break out without being caught by the Dementor's.

Everyone had believed that Sirius was coming to kill the two of us to finish what he had supposedly started twelve years prior. Yet Sirius had been innocent - the murders for which he had been convicted had been committed by Wormtail, Voldemort's supporter, whom nearly everybody now believed dead. The very man that I had seen in the dream. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I knew otherwise, however; we had come face-to-face with Wormtail only the previous year, though only Professor Dumbledore had believed our story.

For one glorious hour, Harry had believed that he was leaving the Dursley's at last, because Sirius had offered him a home once his name had been cleared. I had believed that I would get a chance to have a godfather; a new family member to rely on without the constant badgering like Mom and Dad did. But the chance had been snatched away from the two of us - Wormtail had escaped before we could take him to the Ministry of Magic, and Sirius had had to flee for his life. We had helped him escape on the back of a Hippogriff called Buckbeak, and since then, Sirius had been on the run.

Buckbeak had also been condemned to death. With the use of a Time-Turner - highly illegal - we had gone back in time to save them and allow them their escape. Sirius had only dropped by the house once, on the first day of summer, to check on us and say goodbye properly, before heading deep into hiding. The home Harry might have had if Wormtail had not escaped had been haunting him all summer. It had been doubly hard to return to the Dursley's knowing that he had so nearly escaped them forever. My family was still around, but nothing could have beaten living with Sirius.

Nevertheless, Sirius had been of some help to Harry, even if he couldn't be with him. It was due to Sirius that Harry now had all his school things in his bedroom with him. The Dursley's had never allowed this before; their general wish of keeping Harry as miserable as possible, coupled with their fear of his powers, had led them to lock his school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs every summer prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Harry had a dangerous murderer for a godfather - for Harry and I (and my parents) had conveniently forgotten to tell them that Sirius was innocent.

Harry and I had each received two letters from Sirius since we had been back at Privet Drive. Mom and Dad had apparently received a couple as well. The first had been mostly to tell us that he had settled into hiding and was working on getting healthy again. The second was mostly just to check up on us and ask how our summers had been going (Harry with the Dursley's and me on my quest to tell my parents about my relationship). All of our letters had been delivered, not by owls (as was usual with wizards), but by large, brightly colored tropical birds. I had loved them and really hadn't wanted to send them back.

Hedwig and Dai had not approved of these flashy intruders; the both of them had been most reluctant to allow them to drink from their water trays before flying off again. I was positive that Dai was going to try and eat the macaw that came just a few weeks ago. Just like me, Harry, on the other hand, had liked them; they put the both of us in mind of palm trees and white sand, and we hoped that, wherever Sirius was (Sirius never said, in case the letters were intercepted), he was enjoying himself. He had been pale as a ghost when we had met after not seeing the sun for so many years.

Wherever he was, he deserved to be someplace with nice beaches and a relaxing ocean. Somehow, Harry and I both found it hard to imagine Dementors surviving for long in bright sunlight; perhaps that was why Sirius had gone south. He could run from people; Dementors, not so much. Sirius's letters, which were now hidden beneath the highly useful loose floorboard under Harry's bed while mine sat in my dresser, sounded cheerful, and in both of them he had reminded us to call on him if ever we needed to. Well, we needed to now, all right.

"When's the last time you heard from him?" I asked Harry. "With the toucan?"

The toucan had definitely upset Dai. "The what?" Harry asked.

"The toucan, Harry," I sighed, exasperated. "It's the bird with the large curved beak."

"Oh," Harry muttered.

"Honestly, you need to pay more attention in Care of Magical Creatures. Or maybe go back to Muggle school for a little while," I teased.

"Shut up," Harry snapped, shoving me to the side. "Yeah, that's the last time that I heard from him. What about you?"

"I got a letter about three weeks ago," I said.

Much like Harry, I wished that I had received more than the mere two letters that I had gotten from Sirius this summer. It was definitely not my preferred method of communication and I would have much rather him stayed here. But I knew that he was safer far from here and on the run. Like my parents had been expecting, the Ministry had stopped by the day after Sirius's escape to check if he was at our house. Thankfully they had found nothing and hadn't returned since. Sirius had left our house within hours and had asked many of the questions over his letters that he hadn't gotten the chance to ask at dinner.

After all, with five of us to chat with and only an hour to do so, he hadn't gotten to say much. I had replied to both of his letters very quickly, but Sirius had warned me before he had left our house that he would likely take a while to respond. He was right to do so. He didn't want to tip off anyone in the neighborhood - Muggle or magical - that something might have been off with the constant birds flying back and forth, especially since they were so easy to spot in the air. The Ministry could get wind of it and know where to start looking for Sirius again.

Harry's lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the cold gray light that preceded the sunrise slowly crept into the room. It was now pushing four o'clock in the morning. Finally, when the sun had risen, when his bedroom walls had turned gold, and when sounds of movement could be heard from Vermin and Horse-Face's room, Harry cleared his desk of crumpled pieces of parchment and reread our finished letter that had taken far too long for us to finish. Each time we had gotten close we had argued that it was the wrong thing to say or sounded too urgent.

Dear Sirius,

Thanks for your last letter. That bird was enormous; it could hardly get through my window. Tara says that it's a toucan. She says hi, too, by the way.

We got to go back to her old house in the United States a few weeks ago. I saw her old friends (I've met them once before) and traveled around with them a little bit. Wish you could have come. I think that you would have liked it. We got to play on the Stars Quidditch Pitch. Mr. Nox says that you have to come once they clear your name and see if you're just as good as you used to be.

Things are the same as usual here. Dudley's diet isn't going too well. My aunt found him smuggling doughnuts into his room yesterday. They told him they'd have to cut his pocket money if he keeps doing it, so he got really angry and chucked his PlayStation out of the window. That's a sort of computer thing you can play games on. Bit stupid really, now he hasn't even got Mega-Mutilation Part Three to take his mind off things.

I'm okay, mainly because the Dursley's are terrified you might turn up and turn them all into bats if I ask you to.

A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. So did Tara's hand. We don't know much about it, just that she felt the same pain when she saw Voldemort. Last time that happened to me was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don't reckon he can be anywhere near us now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years afterward? Or maybe why her hand would hurt that way?

Tara thinks that we might just be overreacting. We both had the same strange dream. She thinks that our bodies are just playing tricks on us. That's what I'm starting to think too. My scar doesn't hurt anymore.

I'll send this with Hedwig when she gets back; she's off hunting at the moment. Say hello to Buckbeak for us.

Harry and Tara.

It was almost stunning how long the two of us had taken to come up with the letter to Sirius. But we wanted him to know that this wasn't that urgent. We were more curious than anything. Yes, that looked all right. There was no point putting in a detailed account of the dream; we didn't want it to look as though the two of us were too worried. We couldn't risk Sirius getting nervous and coming here to try and help us - thus putting himself into danger. Harry folded up the parchment and laid it aside on his desk, ready for when Hedwig returned.

She and Dai were out on a long hunt together, as they so often did. "Dudley's diet is really going that badly, huh?" I asked.

"That's putting it mildly," Harry snorted.

"Has he lost any weight?" I asked curiously.

Because the Dursley's were so terrified of Harry and my connection to Sirius, they had practically ordered him to come to my house whenever the two of us wanted to hang out together. It also helped that my parents happened to be fully qualified magical people and I might have let it slip that they were now willing to perform magic since they could blame it on Sirius. Honestly, the Dursley's were such morons that it shouldn't have been surprising. Their fear was much of the reason that I had only set foot (that they were aware of) inside of the Dursley household a few times this summer.

"If he has, all he has to do is turn around," Harry said, referring back to Dudley and his weight-loss adventure. "He'll find it."

I snorted in amusements loudly. Harry was quick to hush me. Vermin and Horse-Face had surprisingly good hearing. "Well... I guess I'm not getting any more sleep tonight," I sighed, leaning back against Harry's pillows.

"Me either."

"What are you doing today?"

"Count down the minutes until I can leave with the Weasley's for the World Cup," Harry said sadly.

"Hang in there. It's coming," I said, patting him on the leg. At that same moment, I remembered my bag that I had slung over my shoulders before leaving my house. "Oh! I almost forgot. From Mom and Dad. Leftovers."

Harry smiled. "Oh, Tara, your parents always have the best food."

With Dudley being on a diet, that meant that Harry was hardly getting a chance to eat, something that had deeply bothered my own parents. They now made dinner for four and ordered me each night to bring the leftovers to Harry. I leaned down into my bag and dug out the cold store-bought fried chicken. It would have been better warm, but unfortunately Harry was going to have to make do this way. We might not have ever made our own food in my household, but we had always gotten the best frozen or pre-heated food from the Muggle grocery stores.

Honestly, Muggles did have some pretty great inventions. I was convinced that we would have starved long ago without microwaves or a stove. How people like Mrs. Weasley cooked was beyond me. I supposed that I was like a Muggle in that way. I rooted around in my bag a little deeper as Harry dug into the fried chicken. I pulled out some extra chocolate and candy that I had been smuggling him all summer long and split it between us. As Harry downed a Chocolate Frog, I munched on a Sugar Quill and the two of us chatted about the upcoming year.

After a while I leaned back and pressed my hand over my eyes. "I can't believe that I dropped Music but not Divination. What kind of moron am I?" I moaned.

"A massive one," Harry said.

"Oh, thanks," I snapped, throwing the Sugar Quill stick at him. "Why didn't you drop it, then?"

"Can't. If I drop Divination, I won't have enough classes to fill up my schedule. I'd have to take something else, which I can't do now that I'm past the introductory year," Harry explained.

"At least we can suffer together," I teased.

Harry smiled. We had both hated Divination since attending our first class last year. It was the art of Seeing, but without a real Inner Eye, it was almost impossible. Because of that, Hermione had stunned our entire class by giving up and walking out. I'd wanted to drop the class, but Professor McGonagall had recommended keeping it if I wanted to be an Auror one day. Apparently it made me look more rounded out than it would if I had kept either Ancient Studies or Music - both of which I enjoyed much more than Professor Trelawney's predictions of the many ways that I would die.

"I'll have to ask Cedric how Alchemy is. I wanna take that in Sixth Year," I said thoughtfully.

"Hogwarts offers Alchemy?" Harry asked.

"Sixth and Seventh Year students only. Cedric mentioned to me that he was taking it this year," I explained,

"Another class for Hermione," Harry said.

"Oh, definitely," I laughed. I was honestly surprised that she wasn't going to continue suffering with the Time-Turner so that she could take all of her classes. "Honestly I can't wait to drop Astronomy."

"Can we?" Harry asked excitedly.

Obviously he was thrilled at the thought of never having to deal with Snape and Potions again. "In Sixth Year, depending on how you do on your O.W.L.'s. You can only advance to Sixth Year classes if your score is good enough," I explained. Even with Cedric's help, I would never pass an Astronomy O.W.L. "So we know that my Astronomy one won't be."

"Sounds tough," Harry mumbled, paling slightly.

Perhaps I shouldn't have panicked him about schoolwork on our summer break... "Nah. Cedric said that as long as you study a lot, you'll be fine," I said half-truthfully. The O.W.L.'s were apparently killer, but Harry was a better student than I gave him credit for. "The only problem that he mentioned was that Snape requires you to have an Outstanding to advance to N.E.W.T. level. If you don't, it really limits what you can do after Hogwarts."

"Marvelous," Harry groaned.

There was no doubt in my mind that Dumbledore would have to step in to keep Snape from purposely failing us and keeping us out of his N.E.W.T. level class. I wanted to be an Auror - as I figured that Harry did too - and that meant that the two of us needed to be in Potions in Sixth and Seventh Year. But Snape hated us more than he hated anyone else and had tried many times to get us expelled from Hogwarts. I imagined that the last thing that he wanted to do was teach us for another four years when he would much rather kill us.

"I was thinking the same thing," I sighed.

"Did Diggory pass?" Harry asked.

Cedric was a Hufflepuff, who Snape still didn't like, but didn't despise nearly as much as he did the Gryffindor students. "Yeah. But guess what?" I said happily.

"Hmm?"

"Apparently it's about the Polyjuice Potion."

The two of us stared at each other for a few moments before bursting into laughter, having to hide our faces in Harry's pillow to keep the Dursley's from hearing us. When Cedric had first told me about the Polyjuice Potion, I had nearly lost it. While incredibly difficult to brew, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I were masters with it. Sort of. To find out who the Heir of Slytherin was during our Second Year to stop a string of attacks on the students, we had used the Polyjuice Potion to sneak into the Slytherin Common Room. It had been completely useless, other than getting my first kiss sprung on me.

What had horrified me at the time (getting kissed by my least favorite person in Hogwarts when I was disguise as my second least favorite person) was now a funny memory. "That ought to be good," Harry said, calming down a little.

The look on Snape's face when he realized that Harry and I knew better than anyone else about the Polyjuice Potion - thereby meaning that he couldn't fail us - it would make the kiss with Draco Malfoy well worth it. The two of us sat together for a little while longer before Harry finally got to his feet, stretched, and opened his wardrobe once more. Without glancing at his reflection, he started to get dressed, looking like he was about ready to go down to breakfast. It was still early, but I assumed that he couldn't sleep.

"You know that it's barely six in the morning, right?" I asked Harry dryly.

"Better than trying to go back to sleep after that," Harry shrugged.

At least he was trying to avoid having another freaky nightmare. "That's true," I said, standing up and heading back to the window. "I'm gonna head back and see if I can get some more sleep before tomorrow."

"Alright. Goodnight, Tara."

"Night, Harry."

I was about halfway out of the window when Harry called out, "Tara?"

"Yeah?" I asked, turning back to him.

"We're at an agreement?" Harry asked. I raised a brow, wondering what he was talking about. "If we have another nightmare that seems even slightly off, or we continue feeling the pain that we felt tonight, we tell someone about it. No more waiting."

He was right about one thing. We couldn't keep waiting and pretending that there were no problems with us. It had led to a few near disasters over the past few years. During our First Year we had tried to ignore the Sorcerer's Stone and that had nearly led to Voldemort coming back. During our Second Year we had tried to ignore the writing on the wall and that had nearly led to Voldemort coming back (again). Was this another thing that we were ignoring with the threat of Voldemort coming back?

Judging by the look on Harry's face, I knew that it was best to just agree with him. "No more waiting," I agreed. "We've been lucky in the past. But this one seemed different. I just don't want to get everyone in a huff if there's nothing to be worried about."

As I once more tried to climb out of Harry's window, he called back to me again. "You're planning on doing something, aren't you?" Harry asked accusingly.

"Do you really want to know?" I asked.

Harry narrowed his eyes. "What are you planning?"

"Bet you that there's a fireplace in Little Hangleton," I said sneakily. Harry's face fell. "Wherever that is," I added dumbly.

Harry grabbed my arm and started pulling me back into the bedroom. "Tara, if this really just happened, you have to know that it's a terrible idea to go there," Harry started. "You'll be walking right into -"

"Nothing," I interrupted. "If it really just happened, they'll know that someone's going to come for Frank Bryce and his body. They'll have to leave." It would be the middle of the day. No one would be there. I would be perfectly safe. "But if I can go and see what's become of him... I don't know. Just to see if something really did happen out there."

Harry still didn't look convinced. "Tara -"

"It'll be the middle of the day," I pointed out.

"You really think that's a good idea?"

"Yeah!" I chirped excitedly. Harry stared at me. "Well... no, but I'm going to do it anyways. I'll use the excuse that I'll be in Diagon Alley all day and I'll be back for dinner. No one will be any the wiser."

"And if you're caught?" Harry asked.

"I've been pretty successful with not getting caught so far," I said.

How many times had we done something stupid and not been caught? Going down into the dungeons to save the Sorcerer's Stone in First Year, a few unauthorized trips to Hogsmeade over the past two years, going down into the Chamber of Secrets in our Second Year, and saving both Buckbeak and Sirius just last year. Those were only a few of them. We had illegally brewed Polyjuice Potion. We had cursed a teacher. We had gone out after hours a number of times. Snuck into the Restricted Section of the library. It didn't seem to end.

"Tara -"

"You can't come with me, right?" I interrupted. Harry looked like he was about to argue that he would go with me when I spoke over him again. "You have to behave for the next few days if you want to go to the Quidditch World Cup." Harry stared at me, knowing that I was right. "Exactly. I'll do it alone and be fast. No one will realize that I was even gone. This is our chance to get some real answers."

Harry stared at me for a long few seconds before nodding. "Bring that cellphone that you have. Call if there are any problems," he snapped.

"You have my word," I promised, placing my hand over my heart.

"Come over when you're back, alright?"

"Deal. Love you, Harry."

"Love you too, Tara."

The two of us exchanged another hug as I swung a leg over his windowsill and threw myself onto the trellis outside of his bedroom. I was about halfway out when one of the neighbors walked out of their house. In a sudden panic, I dropped off of the trellis and whacked into the ground. The breath went out of my lungs and I heard Harry question if I was alright. I quickly hopped back to my feet and nodded at him, heading to the trellis on my own house. I scaled it in seconds and literally threw myself back into my bedroom.

As I tried to gather my breath back from the two impacts, I dragged myself back into my bed. I was in a lot more pain than I had been expecting after that fall. Maybe it was getting to the point that I wouldn't be able to do that anymore. As I glanced off to the side of my dresser, I grinned at the many moving pictures that sat in a mess on top of it. One of the biggest ones was of me and my parents standing in front of the Magical Congress and smiling at the camera. In ones next to them were my old friends from the States, who I had met at the Ilvermorny summer program.

Despite having not seen them much over the past few years, they had still been a huge part of my life. And I did write to them occasionally. We all still said happy birthday to each other and got together whenever I came to the States during the summers. Sitting all around the dresser were pictures of my friends from Gryffindor. My roommates Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown, and Fay Dunbar were all in a picture during a girl's night. Harry and Ron's roommates Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas, and Seamus Finnegan were all in a picture of us playing soccer.

Next to the picture with the boys was a picture of me with the Weasley's. We were all having a good time playing an impromptu game of Quidditch in their yard. Since they lived so far from Muggles, we were easily able to do it as long as we stayed low to the ground. Ginny and I were tossing the Quaffle back and forth, Fred and George were trying to knock us out of the air, Ron was flying behind us, Percy was rolling his eyes at us, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were smiling at us from the ground. It was a sweet picture.

Scattered all over the room were pictures of me with Harry from every age. There were lots of pictures of the two of us as babies, before Voldemort's attack had separated us. There were some from before our Hogwarts days - at the zoo, the park, and even at school. There were many of us during the summers and some from Hogwarts. Sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room, chatting at breakfast together, laying out by the Black Lake, and laughing with the others on the Hogwarts Express.

On the far corner of the dresser was one of my favorite pictures that I had. Hermione had invited me to go on vacation with her earlier in the summer. Her parents were Muggles and both were dentists, so they typically vacationed in normal spots. They had gone to Italy this year that the two of us had spent the afternoon sitting at an ice cream shop. Her parents had returned just before the sun had set and had taken a rather cute picture of the two of us with ice cream smeared all over our faces in the middle of a laugh.

My favorite picture that I had was sitting at the front of the dresser. There was another picture of Harry and me off to the side to keep my parents from questioning why that particular one was sitting up front. It was a picture from a few weeks ago. Cedric and I were standing in front of the Leaky Cauldron, smiling at the camera and holding our Butterbeer's. An older witch had thought that we made an adorable couple and Cedric had asked her to take the picture. I hadn't wanted to, but on seeing how cute it was, I had asked if I could keep it.

Cedric Diggory was quite the issue in my life right now - at least, the only issue that I wanted to deal with, since it wasn't related to Voldemort. We had known each other since just before I started Hogwarts, but had only started dating a few months into my Third Year. I had still yet to tell my parents about our relationship and had no plans to tell them anytime soon. I kept trying to but I couldn't find the words to do it. I knew that it had to come soon, since we had already nearly been caught a few times. The closest was just last week.

Cedric and I were sitting together at my house in the middle of the day while my parents were out. It was the weekend and I'd had nothing better to do so I had invited him over to come and do something. Which turned out to be nothing more than sitting on the couch, watching the Muggle television, which fascinated Cedric, since he had never used one before. MTV was playing at the moment. I laid back on the couch with my legs thrown over Cedric's lap. He clearly didn't understand what the fascination was behind the show that we were watching.

"If the station is Music Television, why does it not play music or music videos?" Cedric asked slowly.

"It used to. Just a few years ago they stopped," I explained.

"What did it used to be?"

"Music videos that played around the clock. At night they would have a couple really funny comedy shows. Then by the morning it would be back to music videos."

"Why did they stop?"

That wasn't something that I had ever thought of. But it was the reason that I had stopped watching it for the most part. I missed the music. "I don't know. It might have been a money thing. You'd get more money with advertising during a reality program then you would for a music video. I guess people like the reality television stuff more," I guessed.

"Muggles watch this crap?" Cedric scoffed.

"Hey!" I barked, kicking him. "I watch this crap."

Cedric stared at me like I had lost my mind. "I can't believe that I'm dating you. I've never been so ashamed of you," he teased.

"Oh, shut up," I huffed.

"This is really what you do when I'm not around?"

"I have a social life outside of you, thank you very much," I snapped.

"Sure you do," Cedric teased.

"What? How dare you!"

The two of us laughed madly as I launched after him, moving for the first time for what felt like hours. I sprang onto him as I knocked him back onto the couch. Cedric laughed as I threw him over my waist. He rolled us back over as I reached my legs up and wrapped them around his waist, tightening them in a constricting grip, not daring to lighten up. The two of us wrestled back and forth for a little while, Cedric unable to get out of my grip, before he finally pulled me into a kiss. We stayed locked together like that for a long time when the front door snapped open.

Fearing that it might have been my parents - and really not wanting to get caught in this position (which would have likely gotten the both of us killed) - I reached my legs around Cedric and kicked him roughly in the chest. He went flying off of me and whacked into the ground. I could hear him grunt as he landed on his stomach. I quickly rolled off of the couch and onto the floor, dropping to my knees as the front door closed. Cedric looked like he was about to get up when I shoved him down into a push-up position.

"Come on, you big baby! You're only on twenty!" I shouted.

Thankfully he was quick on the take-up. Cedric began doing push-ups, feigning struggle like he had been doing them for a long time. "You're starting to sound like Oliver Wood," he groaned.

"You see? This is why you've never won the Quidditch Cup," I shot back.

At that moment, as the two of us managed to calm down, Mom and Dad turned the corner and walked into the living room. I felt like a complete moron. I hadn't even bothered to ask if it was alright that Cedric came over. I had figured that the two of us would spend a little while together and he would leave before they ever even knew that he was here. Mom and Dad stared at the two of us confusedly, clearly trying to figure out what had happened, as they walked up to the two of us.

"Tara? Cedric?" Mom asked, clearly surprised to see him. "We didn't know that you were here."

We both sat up and I jumped to my feet, trying to give the least guilty smile that I could. "Sorry. I know that I should have said something, but we were just doing some Quidditch training and you always let Harry come over so I figured that this wouldn't be much different," I said dumbly. They both nodded slowly. "It's okay, right?"

"Well -" Dad started.

"Yes, darling, it's fine," Mom interrupted, giving Dad a look. "Just let us know in the future."

"Of course," I said brightly.

If I wasn't going to get in trouble for this (or caught) I would do whatever they wanted. Dad gave Cedric a hand up and patted him on the back "Since our girl has likely been bullying you all afternoon -"

"Hey!" I interrupted.

"Cedric, would you like to stay for dinner?" Dad asked.

Cedric smiled. "Certainly. Thank you, sir."

Stay for dinner... They certainly wouldn't have asked that if they had seen what the two of us had just been doing. "Can you two start getting the pots and pans out of the cupboard?" Mom asked.

"Sure. Come on," I said, dragging Cedric into the kitchen. The two of us ran in and laughed as we leaned up against the counter, wiping the sweat of stress off of our brows. "Damn that was close."

"I'll say. Good cover," Cedric whispered.

"Thanks. You okay? I dropped you kind of hard," I said guiltily.

"Better than falling fifty feet from a broomstick."

"Fair."

The two of us grabbed all of the pots and pans that we needed for a while before Cedric turned back to me. "They're suspicious, you know," he said.

Of course. I could see it in their eyes. "I know. I'm working on it."

"Come on. We should get everything ready," Cedric said, grabbing my arm and pulling me with him.

It made complete sense that they were suspicious. Honestly, I would have been surprised if they weren't suspicious. It was rather obvious that they were because the two of us were constantly so jumpy around each other. It also didn't help that the two of us were spending a lot more time together this summer than usual. We did usually see each other a bit, but we had seen each other almost twice as much this summer. Plus Mom did know about my crush on him from last year. But I couldn't just spit it out after we had been so careful not to get caught.

One day I would get around to telling them the truth about what was happening between the two of us. Perhaps when I was in my Fifth Year. At least at that point they couldn't argue that they hadn't been dating at my age. I knew that they both had been in semi-serious relationships in their Fifth Year. Yes, one day I would tell them. But that day just wasn't quite yet. Perhaps I would write them a letter once I was back at school telling them the truth. They couldn't kill either of us that way. But that also might incite a Howler.

Another problem for another day. In the meantime, there was something much more important than I had to deal with. As I climbed back into bed and shut the blinds, I went into my cabinet drawer and went searching for the Muggle cell phone that I had bought from a Muggle junk shop in London a few weeks ago. I went into the contacts list and dialed the only number in the phone book. It was only to talk to one person about our business plan anyways. The other line rang for a few seconds before the person on the other end finally picked up.

"Hello?" Fred Weasley's groggy voice asked.

"Freddie. Did I wake you?" I asked.

Fred gave a slight groan on the other end but was otherwise quiet for a little bit. "Well... yes, Tara, you did. You know that it's not even five o'clock in the morning?" Fred groaned.

"It's almost six in the morning, liar," I said.

"Whatever. It's Saturday morning!" Fred snapped. "No one should be awake this early."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Should I call you back later?" I asked, feeling a little guilty.

"What would be the point now? I'm already awake," Fred pointed out.

Perhaps I should have looked at the clock before calling him. "Sorry about that. I didn't really bother thinking about what time it was. I just knew that I was awake," I said stupidly. Fred hummed on the other end of the phone, still sounding half-asleep. "Weren't you telling me the other week that you were actually quite good at geography?"

"Yeah. What about it?"

"Have you ever heard of a place called Little Hangleton?"

"Little Hangleton?" Fred repeated. I hummed at him. "Yeah... I think I've heard of it. It's a small village in Yorkshire."

And just what the hell was that supposed to mean? "English, Freddie," I snapped. Fred huffed. "How far is it?"

"From you?"

"Yeah."

Fred was quiet for a few moments. "Oh, I don't know. I'd be willing to guess that it would be about three hundred and twenty kilometers away or so," he reasoned.

"American, Freddie," I barked.

"Two hundred miles, you wanker," Fred snapped. Maybe one day I would learn the metric system. Until then, I settled for scowling into the phone. "It's just a small Muggle community. Nothing of importance, I'd think. Why?"

"Had a strange dream that I think took place there. Nothing to worry about," I said quickly.

Stupidly I hadn't even bothered to think about what Fred would say once I asked him where Little Hangleton was. I had assumed that he would just give me my answer and hang up. But he was one of my best friends. Of course he would be curious about why I wanted to know about a little Muggle town of seemingly no consequence to either one of us. Now what was I supposed to say? I had a dream that Voldemort was there and murdered a Muggle man so I thought that I would take a day trip to check it out. No. Bad idea.

"Is that so?" Fred asked disbelievingly. I hummed dumbly. "It seems a little odd that you would have a dream of no consequence that would still, for some odd reason, possess you to call me at five-thirty in the morning just to ask me where the village was."

"Maybe I also missed you. Is that so hard to believe?" I snapped, hoping to distract him.

"It's near impossible, Tara," Fred said.

"Oh, shut up. Thanks for answering my question."

"Thanks for waking me up," Fred growled.

"Anytime," I teased.

"What are you asking about Little Hangleton for?"

Say something, Tara. Something that wouldn't make him wonder if I was doing something abnormally dangerous. "We have some family that I know lives not far from here. About a hundred miles or so. I was thinking that it might have been Little Hangleton, but clearly I was wrong," I said.

"That sounds likely," Fred scoffed.

He was almost always able to call out my lies. Try something else. "Wow, you're grouchy," I teased.

"When you wake me up with a stupid question at five-thirty in the morning? Yes, Tara, no matter how much I love you, I'll be a little grouchy," Fred pointed out.

"I really am sorry about that," I said, feeling a little guilty.

It should have occurred to me that it was a weekend and Fred might have still been sleeping. He always had slept in a lot anyways. "It's alright," Fred said. He was quiet for so long that I thought he might have fallen asleep when he spoke again. "Hey, we're coming to get Harry soon for the Quidditch World Cup. Mum sent him a letter but we're not really sure if it's going to get through. Either way, we're coming."

"Awesome!" I chirped happily. I couldn't wait for us all to be back together. "Mom and Dad said that I was okay to leave with you guys and they'll meet us the night before the World Cup starts."

"Can't wait to have you," Fred said.

"Can't wait to light my hair on fire, more likely."

"Now why would I do that? I love you."

There was the overly familiar teasing note in Fred's voice that warned me not to trust him. "That's exactly why you would do it," I pointed out. Fred laughed softly. "Rooting for Ireland, then?"

"Of course. Ron's in love with Krum, so he'll be rooting for Bulgaria."

"He's got a problem."

"That's what I've been saying for years," Fred said. We both laughed softly that time. Ron really did have a crush on the Bulgarian Seeker. I was sure about that. "What about Diggory?"

"What about him?" I asked slightly defensively.

"He going?"

"Honestly, you sound just like Harry," I scoffed. "Yes, he's going. He'll be going with his father."

"Still working on keeping your secret?"

"Yes, and it's been going reasonably well. I'd like to keep it that way. I have your word that you'll keep your mouth shut?"

"Well..."

"Freddie!" I snapped.

If there was anyone who I could trust to spill my secret, it was definitely Fred and George. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, I won't say anything about you or your stupid boyfriend," Fred said carelessly.

"The amount of sincerity in that statement just kills me," I said tonelessly. Fred scoffed. "Is the day ever going to come that any of you like him even the slightest bit?"

"They might," Fred said pointedly.

"As for you?" I asked.

"No. Probably not," Fred said quickly.

"He's not that bad. You might like him."

Years would pass before any of them - save Hermione and Ginny - even bothered to give him a chance. "You might forget that I've known Diggory longer than you have. He's in my year. I've known him for six years," Fred pointed out.

What was that supposed to mean? "Is this the part where you tell me that he's not as good as I think that he is?" I asked.

"No, because I don't want to lie to you. Diggory is a good guy. I know that he is," Fred said. I smiled slightly. That was surprisingly nice. "But that doesn't mean that I have to like him."

"Just tell me why you don't like him," I pleaded.

"Because he likes you."

"That's a terrible excuse."

"Don't want to see you get hurt?" Fred tried.

"That's better but still not good enough."

"Okay," Fred said slowly. His line was quiet for a moment as he thought about another excuse for not liking him. "How about the fact that I don't want to see you snog someone..."

Something about his thought seemed unfinished. "Was that the end of the thought?" I asked curiously.

"Yes."

"What a good older brother you are. Ginny is lucky."

"Oh, please don't say that," Fred groaned.

All six of her brothers were destined to give her a terrible time the moment that she got herself her first boyfriend. "Funny how it works out, isn't it?" I asked slowly. Fred hummed in confusion. "Boys always hate their sisters or friends boyfriends but girls never seem to have a problem with their brothers or friends' girlfriends."

"Is that so?" Fred asked.

"Seems that way," I said.

"So you'd have no problem with me snogging someone?" Fred asked pointedly.

In the back of my mind, an image formed of Fred kissing some pretty blonde girl in one of the hallways of Hogwarts between classes. To my complete surprise, there was a slight tugging behind my stomach. I bristled slightly at the thought of someone kissing Fred. Maybe it was because I had never seen someone kiss him before - although I was sure that he had had at least one before. I was the first of my friends to date. I guessed that I just wasn't used to people kissing in front of me. Of my friends, at least. That must have been it.

"Just make sure that she's good to you," I eventually said.

Fred chuckled quietly. "Deal. You make sure that Diggory stays good enough for you."

"Deal," I agreed. The air was oddly tense between the two of us. "Hey, while I'm at the Burrow, want to show me everything that you two have been working on over the summer?"

The twins had been hard at work over the summer. In fact, I was sure that it was the most work that I had ever seen them do. They were racking up costs from everything that they were trying to work on. Money was their biggest problem right now. I was able to help them out for some tester products of their mobile prank shop, but even I didn't have enough money for them to do a real start-up. Right now I was assisting with their accounting, and the latest number that I had gotten was far too high. They would never be able to afford it so I had kept it to myself.

"Absolutely!" Fred said happily. "Could use your opinion on a few things."

"Awesome. Can't wait to see what you two have up your sleeves."

"We'll just have to make sure that mum is asleep when we do it. She's not too happy with the few O.W.L.'s we got," Fred said.

"With Percy, Bill, and Charlie in the family? Didn't think that she would be."

"She thinks that the joke shop is a joke."

With three very successful older brothers in the traditional right, Fred and George's love of pranks and jokes didn't go over well with Mrs. Weasley. "Don't let her tell you that, Freddie. I see how hard the two of you are working on it. It might not be what she wants for her kids, but this is what you two love. When she sees how wonderful you are with it and how much you love it, she'll come around," I said sweetly.

"Thanks, Tara."

"You're welcome. See you soon then?"

"See you in a few days."

"Bye, Freddie. Love you."

"Love you too, Tara. Don't get into too much trouble without me."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Going to find out if Voldemort and his right-hand servant had really murdered a man after discussing killing Harry and taking me - in the exact place that they had done it - probably qualified as dangerous, but I wasn't going to tell him that. I merely hung up the phone and tossed it back in the bedside table. I dropped down in the bed, not quite ready to face what was sure to be an eventful day, and wondered just how I was going to get to Little Hangleton and find out exactly what had happened.

A/N: Next time... Tara and an unwelcome guest venture to Little Hangleton during the holidays to find out exactly what her dream might have meant. Welcome to the next installment of Tara's story! In the original story, the letter from the Weasley's about the Quidditch World Cup happens the day after the nightmare. For the purpose of mine, it will be two days. Just a head's up! Thanks so much for the follows and favorites on the first story! You guys are awesome! Please review! Until next time -A

VincentFGS91: Hopefully this one came out pretty fast! That's an interesting idea, to have some of the other languages. I definitely might be contacting you for that! The theory about Squibs and Muggle-Born's are actually confirmed by J.K. Rowling herself! I thought that it was fascinating and I had never known about that so I knew that I needed to put it in my story. Well I agree about more reviews! We'll see how that goes. Hope you enjoyed!

422: Here's hoping that you didn't have to wait too long for the new story! There is definitely going to be a chapter that will address the tension between Fred and Cedric (not in Tara's P.O.V. for a good reason). You're not being presumptuous at all! That's definitely what I was going for. There could definitely be something forming there. As for Tara and Draco's love/hate relationship, we'll see more of that in this story. Thank you for reading! I hope this one lived up to your expectations!