Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Alex Rider.

Sorry for the long delay, & short chapter! Thanks so much for the reviews, Analya-Goddess of Emotions, General E, ihatecliffhangers, Tenshi Aine, Morphixgirl, percyjackson2012 and Mythomagic-Champion!

More Developments

Alex woke up early the next morning, and headed down to the Great Hall before any of the other boys had stirred, not wanting to talk with Alfie again. Luckily, a memory honed in spying missions allowed him to find the Great Hall without any trouble and he settled down to a comfortable cooked breakfast at a totally empty table.

He had nearly finished when a couple of boys his age drifted over.

'What do you think you're doing?' one of them, a thickset blond boy with gorilla-like arms, asked aggressively.

Alex raised his eyebrows. 'Eating. It's lovely to meet you, too.' He made to turn back around, but the other boy grabbed his shoulder. Alex tensed automatically.

'What are you doing here? This is the Slytherin table. Weren't you sorted into Gryffindor? We don't want your lot round here.'

'My lot?' Alex unsuccessfully fought the urge to roll his eyes. 'Taking things a bit seriously, aren't you?'

The second boy was eyeing him beadily. 'What's your name again?'

Alex stared. 'Is this the way you usually introduce yourself?'

'You're a mudblood, aren't you?'

'We should teach him a lesson.'

The boy's grip on Alex's shoulder tightened, while the other one reached in his pockets for what Alex supposed must be his wand. But their reflexes were slow and Alex had had enough. He forced himself to his feet, kneeing the boy holding him in the groin. As he doubled over, Alex grabbed the other boy before he could raise his wand and slammed him face-first into the remainder of his bacon and egg. Then he marched out of the Great Hall before any of the other slightly startled-looking diners could stop him.

Harry was meeting with Professor McGonagall over arrangements regarding muggleborn students. The Aurors had kept up an unobtrusive watch on the train journey from Platform 9¾ in case of further political attacks: however, it hadn't yet been decided how protection should continue at Hogwarts. Gawain Robards had shown no signs of organising anything, so Harry had decided to take things into his own hands. Luckily, he'd already made copies of all the documents relating to the Pureblood League to share with Ron and Hermione, and now he presented them to Professor McGonagall to have a look at. She glanced through them, her eyes lingering on the 'CONFIDENTIAL' at the top of each page. When she'd finished, she glanced up at him, looking tired.

'Quite honestly, Potter, I don't know what to say. Notwithstanding the fact that the ministry itself has shown no signs of providing Aurors for Hogwarts, they might easily do more harm than good. Everyone's nervous at the moment, and if parents see Aurors hanging around Hogwarts and assume it's been marked as a target, they might easily take their children away. And Hogwarts is the safest place for them.'

Harry could see her point, but...'What if the attacks come from inside Hogwarts? From the students? Remember Malfoy?'

'How could I forget? Especially when he's applying to be a school governor.'

'What, Malfoy?' Harry wasn't sure what he'd expected Malfoy to do after school, but this didn't seem very like him. Then again Harry didn't really know what would be like him – rolling around mounds of gold in his manor house, possibly.

'Yes, he sent me an letter after Elfreda Jones died, suggesting it would be good to have someone young, keen and enthusiastic, with relevant experience in the school in recent years.'

Harry snorted. 'Did he ever even finish seventh year? Or was he too tied up being an underage member of a terrorist organisation?'

McGonagall sighed. 'It might be good to have him on board. I get so many letters from hardline purebloods, saying that Hogwarts is brainwashing their children. We want to avoid being seen as biased – it just encourages grievances.'

Harry scowled. 'I don't see why we have to pretend murderers have any validity.'

'He's not a murderer, though. That's the point. Better him than a Lucius – which is what they really want.'

'I know.'

McGonagall shuffled some papers around on her desk, then said thoughtfully, 'How about the DA?'

'Start them up again, you mean?'

'Not necessarily, although that's a possibility. I was thinking, how busy are its members? Neville will obviously be working here, but possibly we could work out an excuse for others to stop by as well.'

'That's an idea!' Harry thought rapidly through the list of names. 'Ginny might be available – she's on the reserve team for the Harpies at the moment, but she;s got some spare time. And then there's George and Angelina...'

They had both settled down to sorting out who to approach and what valid excuses they could find when there was a knock on the door.

'Come in!' shouted Professor McGonagall, and two boys entered the room. One was walking very gingerly and the other had a slightly swollen face.

'Crabbe? Roper? What on earth happened?'

'That nutter new boy just attacked us, professor!'

'We were just being friendly, and he went mental!'

McGonagall sighed, then said to Harry 'We'd better continue this at some other time. I've got to sort all this out.'

Mrs Jones and Kingsley Shacklebolt were having a conversation over tea and biscuits. Actually, to call it a conversation would be very generous: they were both trying to get as much information as possible out of the other, while at the same time limiting what they revealed and keeping their tempers. It was a difficult skill, and one which Mrs Jones was very good at.

'So, you haven't been able to identify the dead man?'

'No, not yet...and we don't know why they targeted you?'

Mrs Jones said smoothly, 'I suppose they might know I was important in the non-magical world.'

'That's not usually their style – they prefer not to expend any effort in understanding the muggle world. And the man who vanished?'

'I'm afraid he was wearing a mask.'

'Just like other occasions. Oh well.'

'Have you had any other events within the wizarding world?'

'There were attacks on many mixed-blood households just a couple of nights ago. No deaths, thankfully, but some serious casualties. It's awful, this break-out of violence has happened so suddenly. You feel it must be planned.'

Mrs Jones filed away this information for closer consideration later.

'So, you don't have any further names or follow-ups?'

'Not yet. I'll tell you if we do manage to identify this man.'

Alex spent the next hour skulking around, hiding behind pillars whenever he heard people approaching. He couldn't be as invisible as he liked, however, as the portraits found his meanderings very curious. He's soon collected a flock of knights, ladies and various others who followed him around, debating with each other as to what he was doing.

Finally, he saw it was around 8.30. He was supposed to meet the head mistress at that time to have his timetable sorted out, and having asked the painted group behind him (who all said 'Oh, why didn't you say so in the first place? You didn't need to spend so long wandering around.'), he headed for her office.

He knocked, and heard McGonagall's voice telling him to come in. When he opened the door, he saw the two boys he'd attacked standing beside her desk. They looked extremely smug.

'And what do you have to say for yourself?' she asked.