Disclaimer: Not mine, I just like to play with them for a little while.

Notes: My dear friend Iremione, I know I'm being mean to Hermione, but it was your remark when I suggested Neville as Harry's best friend that put me up to this. I just had to try it and see how Hermione would deal with the situation. Hope you're not too angry with me. (I swear she isn't going to date Ron in this AU at least.)

Chapter 2: New Teachers and Disappointments

Draco was still a little tired when they went to breakfast the next morning and then they only caught a glimpse of Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom already leaving the great hall.

"Damn." muttered Gregory. "We missed them."

"We'll catch them at lunch then." Draco decided distractedly.

The porridge smelled funny. Maybe the milk had gone sour? Draco shrugged and opted for ham and eggs instead, even though he wasn't particularly fond of it.

"Weasley and his girlfriend just came in." Vincent remarked. "We could start with them."

Draco frowned and shook his head. No, he didn't feel like playing with the Gryffindor class-clown and know-it-all. Ron Weasley was just too easy and Granger wasn't worthy of his attention.

The two Gryffindors were a weird pair anyway. Despite his occasional jabs about it he knew that they weren't dating, just friends. Why Hermione Granger, the brightest witch in their year, despite her Mudblood status, was best friends with the most stupid Gryffindor Draco had ever met was beyond him, though. Surely Granger could have done better than that.

She could, for example, have attached herself to the Potter-Longbottom duo quite easily. Draco had noticed how they, particularly the forgetful Longbottom, often sought her advice in class. A simple offer of free tutoring for Longbottom should have opened the door for her quite easily.

Or, she could have hung out with the other Gryffindor girls. A little whispering and giggling seemed to be all that was needed for a girl to join Patil and Brown's club of friends.

Instead Granger spent all her time trying to teach Ron Weasley basic manners. She'd been doing it for two years now, but he still needed to be reminded not to slurp his soup at every meal.

"I guess she must like a challenge." he decided.

"Who?" Blaise asked looking up from his pancake.

"The know-it-all." Draco explained. "She still hasn't given up on teaching Weasley how to hold his silverware."

"Well, the class work certainly doesn't appear to be taxing enough for her." Theo commented. "Maybe she keeps him as a reminder what it's like to fail."

"It's the only possible reason." Draco confirmed pouring himself some more pumpkin juice. Even that tasted too sweet today, but he was thirsty and the teapot was already empty.

Professor Snape came by with their time tables.

"Feeling better today?" he asked as he handed Draco his.

"Oh yes, perfectly fine." Draco smiled at him gratefully. "It must really have been just a cold."

"Hey guys, we've got History first." Blaise beamed. "I wonder what Professor Binns is like. Can't be any worse than Trelawney, can he?"

"And Religion right after that." Theo frowned. "Do you think Pomfrey would believe me, if I told her I caught Draco's cold right at the end of History?"

"Even if she did, she'd just give you a dose of pepper-up potion and send you right on to class." Snape commented. "And Sir Saint-Aignon will think you're skiving no matter what you tell him unless you can prove that you're either bleeding badly or delirious. Kindly don't bring the inquisition down on me by attracting his ire."

"In other words Snape doesn't like the Templar either." Theo commented as soon as the teacher had walked on.

"Surprise, surprise." muttered Pansy. "Most likely even the other Templars don't like him and that's why they've assigned him to Hogwarts. It means they only have to put up with him for two months per year."

Binns was worse than Trellawney Draco decided less than a minute into the lesson. At least Trellawney had been able to read out the register. Binns was making his up.

That is Draco was quite sure that none of their Hufflepuff classmates had changed their names to Apple or Suchard over the holidays.

Indeed the series of mistakes continued with the Slytherins as Binns called for "Melissa Bahlsen, George Channel, Garfield Giocco and Dorah Goldfish."

"Oh, of all things!" Draco heard Daphne Greengrass groan to herself as Binns happily continued with ...

"Derek Mentos."

"I'm not Greek." he informed Binns.

"Oh, what a strange name for you to have then." Binns wondered and promptly moved on to: "Anya Mirabell."

"I hope that comes from 'admire' and 'belle'." Alice Mortimer confided to Daphne.

Theo Nott was soon turned into Thomas Nestle, Pansy became Penny Peppermint (The Hufflepuffs tried to console her with the weird comment that at least it wasn't Betty.), Estella Rushton tried unsuccessfully to refuse the name Elisabeth Raffaello, and Blaise ended up as Blake Zotti.

Draco decided that being turned into a Greek wasn't quite as bad as suddenly becoming a sweet and settled back for the lesson.

Binns started listing Goblin names and Draco dutifully wrote them down until a sudden thought caused him to drop his quill. What if Binns' Goblin names were just as correct as his student names?

Granted he wasn't reading them out, but Blaise wasn't taking any notes, so maybe he knew something. Maybe it would be better to get the list out of a book. If it wasn't in his History text, it had to be somewhere in the library.

Binns' droning was a veritable lullaby. Draco nodded off within minutes after stopping to write. Soon he was Salazar Slytherin again, this time curled up comfortably on a lush sofa while Godric Gryffindor was droning on about ... something or other of absolutely no consequence ... and absently scratching behind his left ear. Draco-Salazar purred happily.

"You were purring like a cat." Vincent informed him as they were leaving the class after the lesson.

They'd had to shake Draco awake when Binns had finally stopped droning.

"I was dreaming about being a cat-animagus again." Draco yawned. Great, thanks to Binns he was once again just as tired as the day before.

"That story really got to you, huh?" Theo grinned.

Draco shrugged. "I guess, I've just always wanted to be a cat. This just made me aware of it."

"Well, come on then Catboy." Pansy called. "I don't want to be late for our first Religion class with a real priest."

"You do realise that you can't become a priest yourself, don't you Pansy?" Draco laughed. "Though I don't see why you'd want that."

"And why is that?" a sharp voice demanded.

Draco whirled around to find Sir Fulko Saint-Aignon right behind them.

"Uh ... oh well, In order to become a priest Pansy would have to be a boy right?" he stuttered groping for a good excuse.

"And why would she not want to be a priest, if she were a boy?" the Templar glowered.

"Well ..."

"Because I'm an only child." Pansy saved him. "And if I were a boy I'd be obliged to continue the family line."

"Her parents are devastated that the manor house will go to Pansy's cousin someday." Draco lied. Actually the Parkinsons were quite fond of their nephew Roderick.

"Yes, I suppose you'd want to make your parents happy, wouldn't you?" Gregory nodded sagely.

"Probably." Pansy agreed. "But I'm not a boy and can neither continue the family line nor become a priest, so it's all quite beside the point."

"You could join a convent." the Templar suggested waving them on towards his classroom.

"Perhaps." Pansy said noncommittally. "But Mother keeps saying it's much too early for me to decide."

Draco thought she deserved an Oscar for her performance. If only he were as good an actor.

Sir Fulko Saint-Aignon seemed to have it in for Draco. Maybe he really did hate cat-animagi as well as Catar, Draco thought. He must have overheard his comment about wanting to be one at least.

Religion class dragged on apparently twice as long as History thanks to the fact that this time they couldn't just go to sleep. They reviewed the Ave Maria and Pater Noster in both English and Latin, then followed a quiz on the church year and religious symbolism.

"That was dreadful." Saint-Aignon announced finally. "I will have to have a stern word with Professor Harker. If it were only Slytherin, I could at least attribute the lack of knowledge to laziness, but even the Ravenclaws were disappointing. I expect you to review last year's Religion texts thoroughly until next week. Then we will have a test to ascertain that you are on the required level. Yes, even you Mr. Malfoy!"

They fled from the room to find that the lesson had gone overtime and lunch had already started.

Draco stumbled to his usual seat in the great hall dizzy from all the questions the Templar had sprung on them.

"That went even worse than I feared." Theo groaned dropping into his own chair.

"At least you didn't have to make any career promises." Pansy retorted. "I might be forced to become a nun now."

"Nah," said Draco. "You can just fall in love with the wizard of your dreams and have a big, very catholic wedding. I bet Saint-Aignon will forgive you, if you ask him to conduct the ceremony."

"Ewww." Pansy frowned.

The day only got worse from there. After lunch they had Transfigurations followed by Latin, both of which they shared with Gryffindor.

It should have been the perfect time to have some fun with Potter, but Draco wasn't feeling up to it. Lunch hadn't agreed with him, probably because he'd been forced to wolf it down much too fast thanks to the late end of Religion. He was feeling sick and a little dizzy so he decided to just sit down and content himself with glaring at Potter and Longbottom.

Granger and Weasley seemed to have had a disagreement. They were sitting at opposite ends of the class and Weasley was looking demonstratively in the other direction. A familiar sight. Usually Weasley sulked until his grades got so bad that he had to ask Granger for help if he didn't want to fail.

This time his sulk put him right in the Slytherin center of the classroom, though. A situation that might have potential, if McGonagall ever left them unsupervised long enough to ...

Draco hadn't even finished his thought when Weasley's chair fell over.

"Mr. Weasley, how often do I have to tell you not to rock on your chair?" McGonagall seemed to have missed Theo's triumphant smirk. "Please concentrate on your button."

Draco gave Theo a thumbs up behind her back before turning back to the task of turning a button into a beetle. It should be easy enough, but apparently his upset stomach was affecting his performance. His button turned into a large black plate with a cat's-paw design.

"That is very beautiful, Mr. Malfoy." McGonagall stated sternly. "But I'd prefer if you stuck to the set assignment."

"I was trying to." Draco tried to explain. "I just ... May I go to the bathroom?"

McGonagall glared at him, but then unexpectedly gave him a terse nod. "Very well, but if you don't return to finish this assignment I have to grade it a T."

Draco nodded and hurried out of the classroom. Why had McGonagall changed her mind? Did he look sick or something?

Another wave of dizziness hit him and he moved on trailing his hand along the wall. Luckily the bathroom wasn't very far from the class. He'd feel better once he got rid of the food.

In fact he already felt better once he only sat down on the toilet and closed his eyes for a bit. The bathroom was nice and quiet and Draco almost nodded off, but then the noise of someone slamming the door open woke him up again. There were noises in the stall next to his, running water and then the door slammed again.

He probably should go back to class.

A little cold water in the face helped clear his head, even though he was still feeling sick and he hurried out of the bathroom.

The corridor was full of students, so he'd missed the end of class.

"I'm sorry, Professor." he told McGonagall, for once honestly. "I must have eaten something bad."

He didn't expect her to be impressed. After all McGonagall was head of Gryffindor and hated Slytherins. He'd never gotten along with her.

"That's alright." she said to his surprise. "You can still do the assignment for an A on Thursday, though I won't grade you anything better than that."

"Thank you, Professor. That's very generous."

"Maybe you ought to go up to the hospital wing?" she suggested. "Some stomach soothing solution does wonders for an upset stomach."

"I don't think that's necessary." Draco decided. "I'm already feeling much better and I don't want to miss any classes on the very first day."

He picked up his bag and Transfigurations book and ran all the way to Latin class, but didn't manage to get there before Professor Stylus.

"Five points off Slytherin for being late and running in the corridors, Mr. Malfoy." the Latin teacher announced casually.

"Sorry Professor." Draco panted while the Gryffindors snickered and the Slytherins protested.

Maybe he should have explained. Professor McGonagall would certainly confirm his innocence, but he needed to catch his breath and his heart was hammering wildly from the effort of running.

He didn't usually have such problems after only a short run, but apparently all the dizziness had exhausted his body. He decided to go to bed early today. Only one more class to go after this and then he could take a rest before dinner. With a little luck all Professor Flitwick would do today was ask what they'd learned from Professor Calligra. Draco was good at Charms, so a few practical demonstrations wouldn't be too difficult.

Albus Dumbledore glanced over the assembled members of the Order of the Phoenix. Most of them looked tired, some downright exhausted. The war was taking a big toll on them all.

"Therefore I have decided to aim for an alliance with the Catar." he ended his speech.

Severus Snape's head jerked up in surprise and what Albus identified as worry. Ah yes, Severus had immediately realised the possible problems such an alliance would cause. Albus wasn't surprised.

"The Catar, Albus?" Minerva McGonagall asked.

"Yes Minerva, the Catar." he confirmed. "They are powerful fighters and have quite an influence in the very circles that Voldemort gains most of his support from."

"But ... but they're dangerous!" squeaked Minister Fudge and Albus once again asked himself whether it mightn't have been better to initiate another ministry representative as contact with the order.

Perhaps Madame Bones, or Mr. Scrimgeour. Both of them had more nerve than the minister at least.

"Albus believes that they would be even more dangerous, if they joined up with the Dark Lord." Sir Fulko Saint-Aignon explained gravely. "I do not like the idea either, though. It is an alliance with evil."

"Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire." Remus Lupin argued. "And they are at least able to control their transformations and use them for our ends."

His Lycantropy was mostly a hindrance, though it enabled him to gather information from other werewolves. Poor chap.

"But how do you plan to contact them?" Minerva asked. "Do you know where to find them?"

"No." Albus admitted. "I was hoping that one of you might have an idea. Fulko? Severus?"

Severus started. He was terribly jumpy today. The double workload of spying and teaching was really getting to him, Albus thought. Perhaps he ought to find a way to give him a few days off for recreation.

"Why me?" the Potions Master asked sounding surprised.

"Your house's founder was a Catar, was he not?" Sir Fulko demanded.

"That's true," Severus admitted, "But as I'm sure you've noticed he's been dead for close to a thousand years and I don't think you of all people would suggest an attempt at necromancy."

"You do have a lot of contacts with underground society, though." Albus stepped in before those two could get into a real fight. He'd seen what could happen if either of them lost his temper. He didn't want to know how bad they'd get when fighting each other. "Nobody that might know somebody?"

"No." Severus insisted. "The Catar are very secretive and have always kept their distance from the underground. All I know is that the information network between their clans was failing when they last made contact half a century ago. It might well be that by now they are no longer able to reach each other themselves. Perhaps our resident were would know, though."

"The werecats never thought very highly of werewolves, or of being referred to as weres in the first place." Remus defended himself. "As far as I know there never were any direct contacts between the two groups at all."

"The clans used to meet at Stonehenge." the Templar threw in. "It might be worthwhile to have it watched."

"And I suspect the Temple has been doing just that for years, hasn't it?" Minerva asked. "The Catar won't be foolish not to know by now."

"That's true." Sir Fulko admitted. "In fact we stopped watching it a while ago, because it hadn't yielded any results in years."

"That's useless." Albus decided. "I want all of you to ask your contacts. Put out word that we're looking for Catar. Maybe we can get them to contact us."

"I doubt it." Severus stated grumpily. "They know we're allied with the Temple. We are quite officially a Christian organisation. They won't risk it."

Albus sighed. Severus had a point there. No matter how much Catar hated dark magic, experience had to tell them that Christianity was even worse and what reason did they have to trust wizards? There'd been nothing but hatred and pain between the two races for centuries.

"We need them Severus." he said softly. "We're losing the war without them."

Severus retreated to his office to brood. He should check up on the Slytherins, he knew. It was well past curfew, though, so even the stragglers were probably in bed by now.

What he really should have done was visit the common room before curfew and spend some time with the first years. He usually inspected them on the first day to establish a base of trust and assess possible sources of trouble.

Much too late for that now. The children were sure to be fast asleep.

His finger was getting worse. It was constantly throbbing now reminding him that he'd have to see Madame Pomfrey soon.

Not now, though. She too was probably asleep by now. Severus wished that he could sleep as well, but there was too much on his mind today. Maybe he ought to just write to his great-uncle and ask him for advice? Neither Voldemort nor Dumbledore needed to know. His great-uncle was even less likely to tell anyone about the letter than he was to actually read it.

Severus snorted to himself while absently casting a cooling charm on his finger. Some help that would be.

At least the cooling charm helped a little.

At about the same time somebody else was having no compunctions about floo calling this late.

"Sir Fulko?"

"Ah, Grand Master. You have heard my news, I assume?"

"Indeed." the Grand Master confirmed gravely. "Dumbledore is too trusting for his own good, I fear, but his faith in the good in people is admirable nevertheless."

"Of course." Sir Fulko agreed. "It is not Albus I worry for, but the impressionable young souls at this school. Albus just won't see the danger the werecats represent for them."

"Yet, this alliance of his can work to our advantage." the Grand Master decreed. "We have discussed it in detail and believe that it is worth the risk. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. We might not be able to put a stop to their devilish work while Dumbledore's alliance is in effect, but we will no doubt gain hints about their number and hiding places. Perhaps even learn names and faces. We should be able to make good use of that information once we have won the war."

"Ah, but the thought of the young souls we might lose in this pains me." Sir Fulko bowed his head in mourning.

"Sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good." the prior reminded him. "Don't forget all the souls that will be saved once we eradicate the Catar once and for all. It will be a glorious day for Christianity."

"What's our first class today again?" Neville asked after draining the last of his tea at breakfast.

"Religion." Harry frowned at his toast. "I really hate that class. What's so important about it anyway?"

"You're Anglican, aren't you?" Neville said glancing around nervously.

Nobody noticed that as Neville was always nervous, especially when in the same room as Professor Snape.

Harry shrugged. "Sort of. It's not like the Dursleys ever took me to church, or went there much themselves. Officially I think we're listed as Anglican, though."

Neville leaned in close to whisper into Harry's ear.

"I'm not catholic either, but the Templars still burn people at the stake if they find out." he confessed. "That's what Religion class is about. So we've got to be careful not to let it show."

"But what's the big deal whether we're Catholic or Anglican?" Harry asked. "Frankly, I don't even see the difference."

"Don't see the difference?" Lavender Brown yelped. Obviously Harry had been just a little too loud. "The Anglican church is devil worship. A sect leading you down the wrong path! It ..."

"All Harry was trying to say was that he doesn't know enough details about it to see where they went wrong." Neville assured her hastily. "We've never learned about it in school."

"And we won't." Saint-Aignon had come over. He had an uncanny knack for knowing whenever somebody was talking about religion. "I will not spread their blasphemous teaching to innocent minds."

"So how can we be sure we don't accidentally stray from the right path, Sir Saint-Aignon?" Hermione asked with that tiny touch of irony in her voice that always rankled the Religion teacher.

"You just do and believe as the holy order of the Temple tells you to." he snapped. "Then you can't go wrong. To understand and judge false teachings is for the experts who are well trained in the ways of god, not foolish children. Too big is the danger in that."

"Of course, Sir." Hermione lowered her head in submission.

"Why really," she snapped as soon as he had returned to the head table. "That guy is all about blind obedience. What an intolerant prick. How are we to choose our faith, if we don't even know all the choices."

"Leave it be, Hermione." Neville warned. "Nothing good can come of it."

"We're not supposed to doubt or choose." Ron threw in. "We must follow the correct path and he's here to show us the way."

"Well, what if he's wrong and somebody else, say the Anglicans, is right?" Hermione challenged.

"He's not." Lavender insisted.

"We have the pope to tell us what's right." Ron declared. "He represents God on Earth. His words and the Bible tell us all that we need to know."

"You shall not suffer a witch to live?" Hermione mumbled under her breath, but didn't argue.

"Hey look, there's Malfoy." Neville changed the topic. "And he still looks like hell. I wonder what's wrong with him."

"Probably allergic to holy water." Harry joked.

"Of course." Ron nodded earnestly. "Those Slytherin purebloods are all Satanists. Malfoy's probably part demon anyway. The result of some terrible werecat ritual in which their women offer themselves to the denizens of hell."

"Uh Ron," Harry started patiently. "He looks like an identical copy of his father."

"So his mother's the demon." Ron declared. "Or maybe both his parents are half demons and ..."

"Catar do not allow sex during their ceremonies." Neville stated with just as much conviction. "And they don't summon demons either."

"Who?" asked Hermione.

"How do you know?" demanded Parvati Patil.

"Oh," Neville hesitated groping for the least suspicious answer. "From my Gran. One of her brothers wrote a book about the times before Merlin and did a lot of background research about the old religion back then."

"What old religion?" Hermione looked fascinated.

"Ah, primitive blasphemous paganism." Lavender brushed off the question. "It's illegal."

"Well, Gran thought it was interesting. From a historical standpoint, of course." said Neville.

"Anyway, there wasn't any holy water in Transfigurations, Ron." Harry stated.

Ron had a tendency to come up with weird ideas that took Hermione's logic and a lot of patience to talk him out of. Harry could already see him try to explain to Saint-Aignon why he'd snuck into the chapel and attempted to steal a bottle full of holy water which he'd intended to poor over some unsuspecting Slytherin. The number of points that would cost Gryffindor ...

"He was probably just having trouble with his transfiguration and cut class to avoid a bad grade." Harry commented. "Maybe used one of your brothers' skiving snackboxes to make himself look so sick."

"But he's still looking sick." Neville observed. "And he hasn't bothered us at all, yet."

"Yes, he's up to something I tell you." Ron said. "You'd better watch out. He's trying to lure us into complacency and then he'll curse you with his demon powers and summon an army of death eaters to murder us in our sleep and then ..."

Lavender and Parvati groaned. Neville buried his face in his hands.

"You're an idiot, Ron." Harry stated without much malice. Ron, he'd decided back in first year, wasn't entirely right in the head, but mostly harmless.

"Now look at him, Ron." Hermione started patiently. "Do you see how pale and tired he is? See those black rings under his eyes? He's obviously not well. Most likely he just doesn't have the energy to spare to be a nuisance."

"I bet he has some really dangerous plaque that he intends to infect all of us with so You-Know-Who can get into the school and ..."

More groaning. This time Harry joined in as well.

"Oh yes," Ron snapped jumping up. "Go ahead and ignore my warnings. You'll be sorry when we're all dead and the demons have taken over."

Harry looked after him as he stalked off sulking once again.

"How do you stand being friends with him, Hermione?" he asked the studious girl. Shouldn't she of all people want a more intellectual companion?

Hermione shrugged. "Someone just has to watch out for him, I guess. He'd be lost without me. If I didn't remind him to study and do his homework, he'd never get anything done."

"Yes, just think of all the points he'd lose us, if left to his own devices." Neville agreed.

"Just be sure that he doesn't attempt to melt Malfoy in holy water or something like that." Harry said remembering his earlier thought. "Snape would definitely not be amused, no matter how ridiculous the plot."

"And in the condition he's in right now, Malfoy just might catch pneumonia, if forced to walk around in wet robes." Neville added. "Then Snape'd get really mad."

"And it'd be abuse of holy water, too." Lavender gasped. "That's probably a really big sin. Disrespectful towards God."

"I don't know." Harry calmed her. "After all Ron is God's creature, so he must know that he made him a little soft in the head. He'd probably understand that Ron didn't mean any harm. I'm more worried about Snape and Saint-Aignon."

"But what if Malfoy really is contagious?" Neville asked a little nervously.

"Then Madame Pomfrey will know to stock up on the cure as soon as he goes to see her." Hermione declared. "And who says he's really sick anyway. Maybe he just hasn't been sleeping well."

"Is that what I look like when I have my nightmares?" Harry asked slightly worried. He didn't like Malfoy one bit, but he didn't wish his Voldemort induced nightmares on anyone.

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "That's exactly what you look like."

"I wouldn't say exactly." Neville amended. "But very much like it."

"You're definitely not that blond, Harry." Lavender giggled.

Harry rolled his eyes at the girls. "Alright, I'd better get to class. Don't want any trouble with Saint-Aignon."

They followed him as they usually did. It was good to have so many friends who stood behind him.

"Should we go to mass today?" Gregory suggested on the way back from dinner on Tuesday. "Get it over with?"

The headmaster had taken the occasion to announce the changed rules about religious services over pudding. Maybe he'd hoped to sweeten the blow with chocolate cake.

"Nah, I'm much too tired." Draco refused. He'd never attended the masses in the chapel and didn't want to start now.

"We can't continue to skip mass, if the Templar starts checking." Theo warned. "He'll get suspicious and he doesn't like us anyway."

"Just not today." Draco pleaded. "Lets go tomorrow. Today I just want to sleep."

"You've got Quidditch tryouts tomorrow." Pansy reminded him. "And if you fly the way you did in class today, you'll never make it onto the team."

"There you see, I need to sleep tonight." Draco yawned. "I'd fly better, if I weren't so tired."

Actually he'd been dizzy again. Maybe it was the weather?

"You're awfully tired lately." Vincent observed. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"It's nothing." Draco told him even though he was getting a little worried himself. "Just need more time to adapt my sleeping rhythm to school life again. And those cat animagi dreams are quite addictive."

"Oh, did you dream about being him again last night?" Pansy cooed.

Draco nodded. "This time I was in the forest, though. With lots of other cat-animagi. We played catch in the trees."

"What climbing?" Vincent exclaimed.

Draco nodded. "In cat form it's really easy. Or at least it was in my dream. All I had to do was use my claws to hold on and withdraw them when I wanted to lift my paw."

"I wish I had such cool dreams." Gregory sighed. "I dreamed that I was terribly hungry, but had to go to Transfigurations and McGonagall screamed at me because my Charms homework was all wrong and then I had to do detention with Lupin, only he was really scary and turned into a huge dog."

"And then?" Pansy asked excitedly.

"Then I woke up and was still hungry." Gregory stated.

"Oh." made Pansy.

"I once dreamed I had forgotten my Transfiguration homework." Theo said.

"And?" Pansy asked again.

"And McGonagall never asked for it, but it was terribly scary. All through the lesson I was waiting for her to ask me to hand it in. I woke up drenched in sweat."

"Oh, what a nightmare." Blaise snorted.

At the same time two Gryffindors were having similarly serious problems.

"Mass?" Neville asked for about the fifth time. "We have to go to mass?"

"So?" Harry shrugged. "What's the big deal? All we have to do is sit through it, right?"

"But where and when is it?"

"An hour after dinner in the Hogwarts Chapel." Harry replied. "At least that's what Dumbledore said."

"And where's the chapel?" Neville asked. "I don't remember ever seeing one."

That was right. Harry vaguely remembered having been given directions in his very first Religion lesson back in first year, but he'd never needed the information and now couldn't remember.

"I think it was somewhere near the Ravenclaw common room." he decided. "We could ask Lavender or Ron. They're both very religious."

"And they might tell that we've been skipping for two years." Neville shook his head. "You heard what Ron thinks of my religion and he's not the only one. The Templars kill people for this."

Harry gulped. Surely Neville was exaggerating. After all Saint-Aignon kept going on about how good and forgiving God was. He wouldn't kill people in that god's name, right?

"How about Hermione, then?" he suggested. "She isn't catholic either, but she'd never dare break a rule. She's probably attended mass every week for two years, so she'll know where it is."

"And you're sure she won't tell?"

"She doesn't like being forced into changing her faith any more than you do. She'll understand."

"Can we at least tell her we're secretly Anglican, then?" Neville pleaded. "That's much less dangerous. They don't kill you for that."

"Alright." Harry agreed. "But I'm sure she won't tell."

Sometimes Neville was afraid of his own shadow, but Harry had learned to live with it. After all Neville was his best and first ever friend.

He could still remember very well how lonely and nervous he'd felt when he'd arrived on platform 9 ¾ for the very first time. He'd rolled his huge trolley down the platform, stared at the beautiful red engine and all the strangely dressed wizards and witches and tried to ignore his fears that he might not fit in here, that nobody would like a skinny boy with cheap taped glasses and too large second hand clothes. Then there'd been a sudden splat and a toad had landed on his trunk.

"Trevor!" somebody had screamed behind him and realising that this was obviously an escaped pet Harry had scooped up the toad and returned it to the frantic, slightly pudgy boy.

Neville had been very grateful and just as lost among all the strange children as Harry, but they'd both felt better now that they weren't alone anymore and had made fast friends.

Harry smiled in memory. Neville might be clumsy and insecure, but he'd been raised in the wizarding world and had known so much more about it. It had helped a lot to have a friend who could explain about moving portraits, how to eat chocolate frogs and how to correctly fasten ones robes.

Preppygirl: Yep, that was a prologue. I even entered it under chapter title when uploading it, but refuses to accept chapter titles before you upload the second 'chapter', so I had to re-enter it when posting the chapter. (Oh well, a minor annoyance. done much worse over the years.) ... As Sevi said, it might be the flu. Though there are a lot of other things it might be, especially something Sevi knows, but wasn't even remotely thinking of. ... Originally Catar live in 'clans' ( tribes) scattered all over the world. There used to be regional centers where several clans would meet once a year (for example at Stonehenge in England) and those meetings would often include visitors from other regions as guests. Until the Templars started to persecute the Catar those places and the usual meeting times were well known in the wizarding world, so the meetings became the first targets. Soon it was too dangerous to keep the traditional places and times and while some attempts were made to organise secret meetings elsewhere more and more clans stopped attending and contact became more and more difficult. The individual clans' homes were known and targeted as well, so they had to relocate to harder to find places. Still many clans were found and their members killed, though occasionally a few escaped. Since they usually no longer had contact with any of the other clans their chances of locating one weren't much better than those of an average wizard, so those survivors usually hid among wizards instead. By the time our story begins even the remaining Catar themselves have no idea how many of them are left or how to contact others of their kind. Whether any clans remain at all is unknown at this point. Raven is an outcast and completely on his own, though he has occasionally had contact with Catar who are living as wizards. (The survivors I mentioned tended to marry into wizard families. Children from such marriages are always Catar, but usually raised in wizarding culture with very little knowledge of Catar culture and traditions. They attend Hogwarts like any other young witch or wizard.)

Wirretine: Also ein Leser hat Raven schon erraten ... allerdings per e-mail ... Catar kann man übrigens nicht einfach so werden. Man ist es entweder von Geburt oder nicht. Das ist eben der Unterschied zu den Werwölfen.

lavondyss21 – Thank you. Don't worry there's at least one more HP fic coming from me after this (plot hedgehogs enough for three, but not all of them good ones).

Alfa Wolfcub – I don't like Ron either and I suspected that's how all the readers that know me recognised the culprit so easily. If it's obvious to you as well, though ... Oh well, it was my first ever attempt at mystery. I'm definitely going to stick with the fandom through this fic and another one that I'm planning. Whether there'll be more after that I can't say at this point. There are some vague fic ideas, but also other fandoms that are tempting.

brandnewsemester – There are a lot of good stories hidden far in the back of lists, you know ... and a lot of excellent writers that had already left the fandom by the time I arrived here, stories written pre-GOF that I still number among my favourites. Ah, memories of digging through the archive unearthing treasures so long ago ... Glad you liked my fic.
I don't think I've ever read a one-shot or even a story that was this old. Or a one-shot with this many reviews. I liked it, it was sweet.

Yukura – I'll try to update every week again, but no promises. Sometimes I just don't have enough writing time, or need to write something else out of my system before I can return to my story.

samson28 – Thanks. Ah, you haven't even seen most of the plot and characters, yet. I just hope I can do them justice.