At midnight a silver fox could be seen bounding across the grounds of Hogwarts and up into its castle. The fox ran all the way to a stone gargoyle that sprang aside automatically when he pushed on its right knee cap. After riding the spiral stair case up to a large oak door Cameron transformed out of his fox form and raised his fist to knock on the door. The muffled sound of voices from the other side made him stop half way to the door. Cameron transformed back to a fox and pressed his ear against the doors smooth surface.
"I understand the position you're in Severus but I must do what is best for my school." Dumbledore said evenly. Snape continued to pace in front of the Headmaster.
"The Dark Lord will know something is wrong if you are all prepared when the Death Eater's arrive." He argued.
"We will not make it obvious that we know. The aurors will arrive shortly after the battle begins. This would happen whether or not there was any prior warning."
"What will you do until they arrive?" Snape asked.
"The students will fight." Dumbledore went on to explain the work Cameron had been doing during these past few days.
"Cameron Scott." Snape said spitefully. "You can't possibly be considering setting him free. He single handedly almost destroyed Hogwarts during his years here."
"I remember very clearly, Severus. That is precisely why I have no intention of freeing him. As a matter of fact after the battle I plan to trap him in the forest so he cannot leave it at all. Not even for the hour I granted him the first time." Dumbledore said.
Cameron growled at the door and considered running in and shredding the professor with his bare teeth and claws. He refrained himself when he realized Snape would probably kill him before he even reached the headmaster. Anger coursed through the teen's veins as he flew through the corridors and back into the darkness of the Forbidden Forest. Once back at the burrow he'd slept in since his entrapment Cameron transformed back into a human and began kicking at a near by tree. He ripped grass out of the ground and threw it as hard as he could. Cameron continued this until he was exhausted and fell to his hands and knees as he fought back furious tears.
He changed back into a fox and climbed into his burrow where he plotted his revenge on the headmaster.
The next morning excitement was heavy in the air as everyone awaited the mail. Finally a whole swarm of owls poured into the Great Hall; pelting the students with letters. Most were confused to find their envelopes to be red and puffing out smoke. In a deafening chorus they all exploded together.
"-are forbidden from speaking to him!"
"-stay away or you will be severely punished."
"-don't listen to anything he says."
Warning after warning blasted through the Great Hall. The few students who hadn't received Howlers found their letters just as forbidding. As usual on weekends the Head Table was vacant of teachers. But slowly the students realized someone was watching them from where Dumbledore usually sat. Cameron waited as silence fell and all attention fell on him.
"Forbidden, almost each and everyone one of you has been forbidden to have anything to do with me. Did any of your letters tell you exactly why you're not to have anything to do with me?" He looked out over the students waiting for an answer he knew wouldn't come. "Dumbledore, back when all you're parents were in school he made them promise, swear even that they would never, ever speak of what happened here; of what happened to me.
"Some of you parents very well might be followers of the Dark Lord which puts them against Dumbledore in every way but as you've just figured out even they don't dare go against the promise they made to him so many years ago."
Cameron stood from Dumbledore's seat and walked around the table so that he was in front of it. He began to pace as he spoke again.
"Dumbledore has extended his control over you even outside of school. He knows none of you are willing to contradict him. He knows none of you are strong enough to demand the information you have every right to posses."
Murmurs of protest broke out among the students.
"What? Some of you think you could walk up to the Headmaster and get him to tell you what he did and why he demanded your families keep it quiet?"
A majority of the older students either nodded or muttered something under their breaths. Cameron took on a different approach.
"So maybe one or two of you thinks you could do it, maybe even three or four, what difference do you think that will make? Dumbledore could easily send you on your way. He would dismiss you and then laugh behind your cowardly backs. No, small groups won't due. You have to stand together. All of you have to stand up to him as a single unit. Among you is a leader who will unite you and make Dumbledore talk."
Draco looked up and Harry caught his eye. The pair nodded and stood. They walked up to the Head table and stood on either side of Cameron.
"Dumbledore can control us here at school but what right does he have to mess with our home lives as well?" Harry called out.
"For years he's tried to unite us under him so that we will be his own little army. If we unite on our own he has no power over us at all." Draco added.
"There is only one of him and hundreds of us!" Harry said.
"Let's show him who really has the power around here." Draco put-in.
Around the Great Hall students started standing, first one at a time and then in large groups until all students 3rd year and above were standing along with most of the younger students. Draco and Harry leapt down and led the way to the teacher's lounge where the teachers usually spent their weekends.
Harry knocked on the door roughly. The door opened and their headmaster stood in the doorway.
"What brings all of you here on this beautiful day?" he asked.
"Why did you make our parents swear not to tell us anything about Cameron?" Draco demanded. The twinkle left Dumbledore's eyes as he looked from the Slytherin to all the other students crowded behind him.
"That is between them and me. I suggest you all go find something more productive to do with your time off." Dumbledore said. He began to close the door but Harry stuck stopped it with his hand.
"No more secrets Dumbledore." He said. Draco raised his wand and all the students behind him did the same. Dumbledore looked to the very back of the crowd where Cameron stood leaning against the wall with his arms crossed in front of his chest. His eyes shone with a challenging gleam.
"Lower your wands before someone gets hurt." Dumbledore said firmly. No one moved and at that moment Dumbledore could almost feel his power over his students leave him.
"What did you do that was so horrible you can't even let our own parents explain it to us?" Harry asked.
"I did what had to be done and I will not hesitate to do it again." Dumbledore slammed the door shut in his students' faces and everyone stood in slight shock. Harry and Draco looked at each other and then at the hundreds of faces looking back at them.
"Any headmaster keeping secrets from his school is unfit to be followed." Cameron said icily. "You have all just done an excellent job of separating yourselves from an untrustworthy man."
"What do we do now?" A Hufflepuff said from somewhere in the middle of the crowd.
"Ask your leaders." Cameron said with a nodded towards Harry and Draco.
"Do whatever you like for now. Later anyone can feel free to join us in the library to look up more information on whatever Dumbledore might be hiding from us." Draco said. Harry nodded beside him. Both boys were shocked to see the crowd thin out as the students followed their orders. Soon the only ones left where Draco, Harry, Pansy, Hermione, Blaise, Ron and Ginny. Ron looked at his best friend curiously.
"What happened to the two of you?" he asked. Harry shrugged and looked up at Cameron but found he was no longer at his spot on the wall.
"How does he keep disappearing like that?" Harry asked.
"So what do we do now? Writing home didn't get us anywhere, confronting Dumbledore certainly didn't tell us anything." Blaise said. Hermione pulled out a folded letter from her pocket.
"This might help." She said. "Sirius and Remus told me to meet them in the Gryffindor Common room tonight at midnight. They'll be coming through the floo."
"Excellent that must mean they're going to tell us something important if they couldn't just say it in the letter." Ginny said excitedly. Harry turned to Draco.
"We will tell you everything they tell us tomorrow morning alright?"
Draco nodded.
"What about the rest of the school? They'll want to know too." Pansy asked.
"After we hear it we can decide how much to tell the rest of them." Draco said. Everyone nodded in agreement and decided to meet in the Room of Requirement two hours before classes started in the morning.
The rest of the night seemed to pass agonizingly slow. Harry lay on the couch with Ginny sleeping beside him and resting her head on his chest as he stared into the dying embers of the fire. Ron was sound asleep in his favorite chair and Hermione was reading.
Just as Harry's eyes began to droop the fire burst to life and Sirius stepped into the room closely followed by Remus. Hermione smacked Ron on the arm to wake him while Harry gently kissed Ginny on the top of her head until she woke up.
"Hey Siri." Harry said as he and Ginny sat up.
"Alright you lot what do you know so far about Cameron?" Sirius asked sharply. The teens looked at each other in confusion.
"Um not much really, he was at school around the same time as you and he played Quidditch." Hermione said.
"He spends a lot of time around the Forbidden Forest." Harry added.
"And none of this struck you as odd!?" Sirius snapped.
"Calm down, Padfoot." Remus said. Sirius took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair.
"I'm sorry its just that it thought you had better judgment; especially you Hermione."
"We're sorry Sirius but I don't understand why you're getting so worked up. Cameron seems fairly harmless and he's really done an excellent job of uniting the school." Hermione explained. Sirius scoffed.
"Yeah I bet he has. Has he told you lot that there's something hidden in the Forest?"
The blank expression on the teenager's faces moved Remus into explanation.
"As you said Hermione Cameron did go to school with us. He was in his 6th year while we were in our first. He wasn't the kind of kid anyone really noticed; he really kept to himself. The Ravenclaw Quidditch team went undefeated every year he was on the team until James started playing that is. He'd catch the snitch before the other team got a chance to score too many times." Remus winked at Harry before continuing on with his story. "Anyway one day something seemed to change about him. He started talking to people more and became quite popular. Somehow he managed to befriend at least one person in every house."
"Oh yeah I can see why you'd hate him. Who could be friends with a Slytherin?" Ron said in disgust. Harry fixed him with a pointed glare. "Sorry Harry."
"No that's not why we hated him, Ron. Actually that's why we looked up to him as much as we did. James aspired to be as popular as he was and Sirius planned to get just as many girlfriends. I was more impressed with his grade point average."
"So I don't see the problem. Cameron seems like a really great person." Ginny said.
"That's what we thought and that's where the trouble started." Remus said before Sirius picked up the story.
"See he started talking about this secret door he'd read about. It was supposed to be hidden deep in the Forbidden Forest and was told to hide the most amazing treasure anyone had ever seen. The way he talked about it made it seem like who ever possessed this treasure was sure to be all powerful. The catch was the only way to open it was to have two members of each house touch it and mutter a spell at the same time." Sirius explained.
"Naturally the entire school became obsessed with the thought of getting to this treasure and soon Cameron selected two students from each house; Zabini and Malfoy from Slytherin, Boot and Bones from Ravenclaw, Abbot and Smith of Hufflepuff and Sirius and James from Gryffindor."
"Why didn't he pick older Gryffindor's or himself to go for Ravenclaw?" Hermione asked. Remus and Sirius shrugged.
"We never figured out his reasoning and honestly no one cared. The point was, we were chosen and everyone was eager to help us succeed." Sirius explained.
"Potions were made. New spells and hexes were developed for defense. Everyone worked together at what they were best at no matter what house they were from." Remus said. "It really was incredible."
"So that's what Cameron meant when he said that he'd almost achieved school unity once." Hermione said thoughtfully. The adults nodded.
"Exactly right." Remus said.
"Well soon it was the full moon before Halloween. Cameron had said that this was the only time the door was visible so everyone was ready to get the expedition started. The eight of us snuck out of Hogwarts after everyone else had been sent to bed. We pulled out the map Cameron had drawn out for us and charged into the Forbidden Forest." Sirius explained. "Hours passed and we seemed to be going in circles but Lucius, our map reader, insisted we were going the right way. I can't even remember how many times we were attacked; luckily the spells we'd learned were strong enough to save us."
"Finally they got to the end of the map and before them stood the tree that was supposed to hold the greatest treasure of all time. Instead it held nothing but a single note." Remus said.
"Congratulations, you've reached the tree of nothing special. Now pat yourselves on the back and say I'm as bright as a flobberworms arse." Sirius recited spitefully. The teens gasped in shock. Remus nodded and continued the story.
"When they got back and told everyone what had happened all hell broke loose. People started blaming each other for letting everyone believe such an outrageous lie. Lucius and James went to Dumbledore and told him everything that had happened."
"I've never seen him so angry." Sirius said distractedly.
"What did he do to Cameron?" Ginny asked.
"Dumbledore completely lost it. He was so livid he put a curse on Cameron that trapped him in the Forbidden Forest and made it impossible for him age or to leave the forest for longer then an hour at a time without feeling severe physical pain." Remus said.
"That seems extremely harsh!" Ginny gasped. The adults nodded.
"It seems that way now but back then we were glad we never had to see that bastard again." Sirius said.
"What about his parents, didn't they wonder what happened to him?" Harry asked. Sirius and Remus looked at each other for a minute.
"Dumbledore told them he died in a Quidditch accident." Sirius said quietly.
"He even transfigured a boggart to look like his dead body." Remus added.
"That's what Dumbledore didn't want us to known." Hermione whispered.
"He made the entire school swear not tell another living soul." Sirius said.
"And no one did. No one ever spoke of it again until the letters came." Remus said.
"Why did you tell us? None of the other parents told their kids anything." Harry asked.
"We figured if we didn't tell you now you wouldn't rest until you figured it out yourselves." Sirius said, ruffling his godson's hair fondly.
"I can't believe Dumbledore would so such a horrible thing." Ginny said.
"After all that why would Cameron come back to unite the school?" Harry asked.
The group fell silent.
"Well we should be going and you lot should get some sleep." Remus said after a while.
Everyone bid their goodbyes and after Sirius gave them all a firm warning to stay away from anything to do with Cameron the men left the same way they'd come in. By now sleep was the farthest thing from any of the teen's minds.
"I can't imagine Dumbledore losing control like that." Harry said.
"I don't understand why Cameron would come back here to unite us." Hermione wondered aloud.
"Maybe there's something in it for him." Ron suggested with a shrug.
"I guess the only way to know is to ask him." Hermione said. Ginny giggled.
"I don't think it's very likely that Cameron is just going to out and tell anything."
"Sorry Hermione but Ginny's right. Cameron isn't very open with his information." Harry reasoned.
"Maybe now that we know more about him we might actually be able to help him. If we offer to help he might be more willing to tell us what he's really up to."
With brains buzzing and bodies begging to be allowed to sleep, the teens dragged themselves off to bed.