Disclaimer: I remain HPless.


Hermione pushed open a cleverly disguised door into an empty classroom. This wasn't one of the abandoned classrooms, but rather the one that some of the school clubs used as a meeting place. As a result there were no cobwebs and none of them had the overwhelming urge to sneeze. She walked to the windowsill, glancing out over the castle grounds, and waited for her friends. She shouldn't have been surprised that, when they did arrive, Harry pushed Ron in the door and Ron threatened Harry with disembowelment. Well, maybe the disembowelment was a little surprising. Laughing loudly, Harry swung the door shut and quickly cast an imperturbable charm on it, even as Hermione was casting the much-despised Muffliato. To be fair to her though, she was making faces as she cast it, still not comfortable with taking instruction from a total stranger. Or worse, from someone who had defaced a book.

Harry couldn't help but grin as he thought that but quickly wiped the smile off his face as she glared at him. He was too happy about Ron being back (and seemingly having not been brainwashed into being a crazy pureblood fanatic) to let her lecture him about something or other. He threw his bag to the floor, where it landed with a thump next to Ron's, and took a seat not far from the Weasley boy. As expected, Ron was already leaning back in his seat with his feet on the table. Harry and Hermione turned to him, expectant looks on their faces, but Ron seemed to be content with tossing Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans into the air and trying to catch them in his mouth. He was getting quite good too when Hermione groaned loudly, obviously frustrated.

"Really Ronald! Are you just going to sit there?" He glanced up, flustered, and a bean bounced off his head and onto the floor with a quiet 'plink' sound.

"Uh... sorry? Would you like one?" He held the bag out to her and she flushed red with anger. Harry, catching sight of the glint in Ron's eyes, roared with laughter. Ron grinned cheekily at her and her anger deflated as quickly as it had flared. She even managed a smile.

"Right then. What do you two want to know?" He let his chair fall to the ground but kept his feet on the table and the bag of beans on his lap. Harry and Hermione shared a look and turned to him.

"Everything, I suppose." Ron frowned and muttered something about not knowing where to start, so Hermione took pity on him and actually asked a question.

"Well, what did Basingstoke have to say for himself? Why are the IWF interested in Hogwarts at all?" Ron grimaced again and swung his feet off the table, leaning forward in his chair toward her.

"He didn't say much of anything really. Spouted a load of tosh about Hogwarts being unsafe and that in the current climate it was the 'responsibility of the Federation to protect the future of the magical community.'" He popped another bean into his mouth, gagging slightly as he encountered the mustard flavour. "From what he said though, it seems that there's always been a representative appointed to Hogwarts, even if it was in name only. I think he was working in Germany somewhere before he got sent here. I'm not even sure that he knows why he's here- just that he was the representative at the time, so it's his job."

"Well, I knew that." She sounded unhappy. "Did he say anything else?" Ron shook his head slowly, trying to remember the previous evening.

"I don't think so. Just the usual rubbish really- he sounded like McGonagall at our first prefects meeting. 'Maintain control', 'Act with the best interest of the students at heart', 'Don't go mad with the power and open a torture chamber inside your house'." Ron grinned. "Okay, that last one was mine, but it was along those lines anyway. There's nothing really for him to do here anyway, I don't think. He might like to think he has some influence, but he really doesn't. Not over the students anyway."

"What do you mean? Not over the students?" Her eyes narrowed as she spoke and her voice was tight.

"Well, I think he might be able to do some review or other of the teachers and their teaching methods- like Umbridge last year, I suppose- but I don't think he has the power to sack them or anything." Hermione made a face, and even Harry doubted that one.

"If he can do that, though, there's bound to be more. I hardly think that the IWF would have agreed to a contract that didn't actually give them any control over the school- what would be the point?" Harry nodded in agreement.

"Yeah mate, there's bound to be more. There's always more." Ron shrugged.

"I dunno. I don't think so, but there could be. I wasn't really paying attention to him anyway- and he didn't say much really. Just handed us all a stack of books and then sat there as we talked. Nosy git." He remembered something then, and hopped up from his seat and crossed to his abandoned bag. "He also gave us each one of these- I haven't read it yet. Forgot all about it." He rooted in his bag for what felt to Harry like an eternity before brandishing a yellowing scroll in the direction of his friends. Harry couldn't help but feel acutely disappointed that it was a scrap of parchment and not something far more interesting. Hermione, on the other hand, looked delighted. She jumped up from her own seat and ran over, hand out to take it from Ron. Obligingly, he handed it over and she moved to the desk Harry was sitting at so that they could all see. Or would have been able to see it, had she been able to unroll the bloody thing. Aiming her wand at the scroll, she muttered every revealing charm and general disarmament spell she could think of until Harry finally took it away from her, fearing for the safety of the desk itself.

"I suppose now would be the time to tell you that, according to Basingstoke, only the council members can open them, eh?" Harry was really, really glad that he wasn't Ron when Hermione turned to glare at the redhead. But that didn't stop him from laughing.

"Why didn't you tell me? You just let me stand her and try all those spells when you knew they wouldn't work? What if I'd damaged it- what would we have done then Ron?" True to form, Ron glared back.

"Maybe I didn't say anything because you just bloody took it upon yourself to read the ruddy thing- you didn't give me the chance to tell you, so maybe I decided to let you find out for your bloody self! And of course you're not going to damage it- this is concord magic, remember? Not likely to be destroyed by a simple charm, eh?" There was real anger in his voice and Hermione, for once, chose to back down instead of goading him further. She even offered a (quiet) apology, which Harry forced Ron to accept before thrusting the scroll at his friend and demanding that he open it. Ron took the parchment with only minor grumbling and gently broke the wax seal. He missed Hermione's scowl. The scroll unfurled easily and rested gently in his hands. He held it so that his friends could read it from their own seats, scanning his eyes quickly across the page. There wasn't much there- just a few lines, and he looked up at the others.

"Well that's fairly straightforward I suppose." It was then that Ron realised his friends were staring at him with new expectant looks on their faces. "What? What's the matter?"

"That might as well be Klingon for all I understand of it Ron- what does it say?" Ron blinked, glancing down at the parchment again and the words that were glittering at him. In English.

"What's Klingon? Is that a language?" Hermione tutted and glared at Harry, who turned a little red. He was usually good at not using muggle terms- at least unless Dean was around.

"It's a Muggle thing Ron- tell us what it says, will you?"

"Eh, well. It's not much really. It says 'Guardian of Gryffindor, be watchful of thine enemies. Your task be perilous and a dark time doth lie ahead.'" He laughed a little "Are you sure you can't read it? It's not exactly world-shattering information here." They both shook their head no. "Well that was a waste of time, I reckon."

"Yeah, pretty much. What about the books he gave you then? Anything interesting in there?" Harry watched as his friend rolled the scroll up carefully, and he waited for a response. Ron simply shrugged again.

"Dunno mate, never even looked at them. We spent most of yesterday trying to decide what we were going to do, and most of today trying to get the bloody in-house councils sorted." He tucked the scroll into his robes and retrieved the pack of sweets. "Ginny got a shiny badge and everything. She has the books too, I think. I'll get them from her later." His eyes widened suddenly. "Bugger! What time is it?" Not waiting for Harry's answer (half past four), Ron rushed to his bag and gathered together everything that he'd thrown out of it in his hurry to find the bloody scroll. "I said I'd meet Ginny and Neville five minutes ago- I'll see you two back in the Tower!" And he was gone, leaving Hermione and Harry to stare at one another, half amused and half exasperated. Well, Harry was amused and Hermione was exasperated. Sighing, she gathered her things and prepared to leave.

"I suppose we should be getting back to the Tower anyway. We have that essay for Snape to start, remember?"


Dumbledore handed the letter to Fawkes, smiling sadly as the Phoenix thrilled a few notes. The bird disappeared in a bright burst of flame and the headmaster turned to the audience in his office.

"Given the circumstances, we must put our own plans in motion now." There were a few grumbles but nobody challenged his assertion. "It's earlier than we expected, I know, but we remain prepared, nonetheless. That is more than can be said for the last time we faced this same opponent, and we have every reason to believe that we will be successful this time where we were not the last." His words sounded hollow to his own ears, but he knew that there were some in the room that needed to hear them. He needed to hear them himself, he supposed, hollow or not. "You know what you have to do, and there is nothing more to say."

It was a marginally more optimistic group that flooed from his office, leaving the headmaster alone to mull over his latest dilemma. Brow furrowed in concentration, he scribbled a quick note onto a scrap of parchment before moving from his desk toward the staircase.

He must remember that he had a job to do, also, and promises to keep.


Ron ran to Gryffindor all the way to the tower, eager to get this over and done with, and found Ginny and Neville waiting outside the portrait hole for him- neither of them looking particularly impressed.

"Sorry I'm late." He panted, resting his hands on his knees as he leaned over in an attempt to catch his breath. Ginny scowled at him but he'd known her for long enough to know that she wasn't really angry.

"It's okay Ron, we just got here ourselves." Ginny shot the boy a murderous look but Neville wasn't fazed either. She may have lost her guilt-trip opportunity but Ron looked relieved enough that Neville didn't regret it. Any other time he might have worried about Ginny's potential revenge, but not now. Not when she was too busy worrying about other people's revenge on her.

"Come on then, inside. We have to face the music sometime." Ron turned to the Fat Lady to tell her the password but, to his amazement, the portrait swung open without it. Looking back to Ginny and Neville, he saw the shock on their faces too. That hadn't happened the night before, he didn't think. Then again, the night before it had been all he could do to not fall asleep standing and all the Portrait had wanted to do was talk- she could have been setting fire to her own painting and he wouldn't have noticed.

As he stepped into Gryffindor common room, every eye turned to him and Ron could feel his ears begin to burn. Lavender waved from across the room and shouted out a cheerful greeting and Ron's ears burned redder. She really wasn't helping matters. Everyone else was quiet but the tension in the air was obvious, even to someone as perceptive as Ron.

"I, uh, that is we have a few things to announce. Um, there'll be a house meeting at half five, so if there's anyone missing I'd appreciate it if the prefects could round them up- I'd rather just do this once." There was some muttering after he spoke but Ron chose to ignore it as he led his sister and Neville up the stairs to the sixth year boy's dorm. They needed somewhere private for a while and the girl's dorm was out of the question, for obvious reasons. Not least being Lavender's potential presence.

They were fortunate then, that neither Seamus nor Dean were in the room when they got there. Neville flushed a little and shoved his dirty clothes under the nearest bed with his foot. When he'd imagined a girl seeing his underwear for the first time, said underwear wasn't dirty and on the floor. Ginny, having grown up with six elder brothers, hadn't even noticed. Instead, she flopped onto her stomach on Ron's bed and propped her head up with her hands.

"What's the plan, then? Do we just hide in here until everyone is downstairs?" The boys looked at her for a second before nodding in unison.

"It's not like there's a lot to tell them anyway, and I'm quite happy to hide for as long as no-one interrupts us. I'm glad we got out of there before someone got hexed. I've grown used to my head being on my shoulders, you know?" Ginny laughed darkly, and sat up again, crossing her legs under her this time.

"Do you think we should tell them that if they kill us off then Lavender takes over?" Ron looked horrified.

"It's not Lavender next, is it? Surely there's someone else in between Lavender and us?" His head swung between his first and his second, watching and wincing as they both shook their heads.

"I even owled my Grandmother to ask, Ron. According to her, we're the only ones over ten in the whole house- Lavender is a nine." Ron paled considerably, and sat down suddenly on Harry's bed.

"Merlin, I knew it was bad but I never thought it was that bad- I had hoped there were a few elevens in there, or even a twelve maybe." Ginny laughed again.

"That would be far too easy, brother mine. Nope, it's us or it's Lavender and a bunch of half-bloods. At least the half-bloods know what's going on though, which is more than we can say for Lavender and the Muggleborns." That got a short laugh from the other occupants of the room. "Dean was ready to revolt last night and the rest of the house weren't far behind him." Ron's laughter died in his throat.

"Was it that bad? Harry and Hermione didn't say anything." His sister scowled.

"I told you we had a fight Ron- Neville was there, he can tell you how bad it was if you don't believe me." Ron protested that of course he believed her and she finally agreed to tell him what had happened. Neville, being an only child, marvelled at how they moved from laughter to near-fight and back again with such ease and almost missed what Ginny was saying.

"I'm not surprised they didn't say anything. They're probably hoping that I won't say anything either. It was bad, Ron, really bad. Percy bad. I said some things that I really didn't mean about both of them and they said some things to me that I don't want to repeat. Then some of the others got involved and they were demanding answers about the concord and whining about how unfair this whole thing is." She paused and bit her lip. "I was doing really well until one of the fourth years mentioned Dad and how we don't have any money. I think his exact words were 'Leave the Weasley's their pureblood nonsense. After all, that's all they have.'" Ron tensed with anger, sensitive as ever to any mention of his family's finances. "And then I started hexing people, and everyone went to bed to get away from me."

"And me." Neville added, smiling a little at Ginny. "I threw some curses too, at Harry and Dean. Mostly at Dean, but I hit Harry by accident. He called me a crap wizard." His smile vanished at that and Ron's scowl grew even deeper.

"That's not true Neville and you know it. He didn't mean it either, I'm sure. Dean's not like that." Regardless of what had been said the night before and the fact that she had ignored him that morning, Dean was still her boyfriend and Ginny couldn't help but want to defend him.

"We'll put an end to all this soon enough anyway. They'll have no reason to be mad with us after this evening. Dumbledore and the rest of the houses? Now that's another cauldron of trouble entirely."

The quiet only lasted for a few minutes before it became too much for Ginny. She was a Weasley- they weren't inclined toward silence.

"Hey Ron?" Her brother grunted in response, apparently drifting towards sleep as he lay down. She took that as a 'Yes Ginny? What is it that you want?'

"How did you get up into the girls dorm this morning without the stairs turning into a slide?" There was a beat, just one, before her brother raised his head to meet her eyes.

"What in Merlin's name are you on about, Gin?"


Molly Weasley had her head in her hands. This wasn't unusual for the mother of seven children, especially the mother of seven magical, trouble-seeking, children. Although, to be fair, only six of them seemed to actively pursue it, the seventh just managed to fall into it. No, it wasn't unusual- in fact, for Molly, it was fast becoming her favourite place to rest her head. She was sitting at the kitchen table in Grimmauld Place, doing her best to pretend that the children were all at home, safe and sound, and that when she looked up she wouldn't see her husband sitting across from her, looking as depressed as he had after his brother Bilius died. As it turned out, thinking about Bilius hadn't helped at all. Given what her eldest boys had volunteered to do, what they were leaving to do, thinking about one of the ones that would never be back wasn't going to do any good.

Sniffling a little she looked up at Arthur and, sure enough, he wore the blank look she hated to see. The one that meant something really bad had happened. Or was about to happen, maybe. Bill had slung his arm around his father's shoulders just as Charlie had with her, but Arthur didn't look like he was getting any more comfort from the gesture than she was.

"Promise me something, will you?" She hardly recognised her own voice when she spoke, only knowing it was her because her boys turned to look at her. Even Arthur gazed at her, something sparking briefly in his eyes.

"What, mum?" Charlie's breath tickled her ear and she fought the urge to laugh, knowing that it would turn to tears. She was afraid that if she started to cry, she might never stop.

"Promise me that you'll come home again. Promise me that you're both going to outlive me." The only sound in the silence was their breathing, deep and heavy with expectation.

"I wish we could, Mum. I wish we could."


A/N: Two updates in two days. You've been spoiled. Spoiled, I tells ya.