Chapter Nine – You Occupy My Thoughts

Harry had decided it was time to get even, with his foolhardy plan that he was going to concoct he had to find a suitable secret place to plot.

Walking down an unusual corridor that Harry and his friends did not normally walk down, not to mention the rest of the student body. The corridor was rumoured to be haunted; not only by ghosts but also by entities not of this world that caused havoc and chaos. However, Harry had no way of knowing if the rumours were true.

Harry walked slowly down the corridor known as 'The Dark's Long Hall', well that was what it was rumoured to be called by the Death Eaters although he couldn't see or feel any dark omens anywhere. He knew that one should never dismiss rumours about a place even if there were no evidence to back up the wild claims, as there could still be horrible things hiding in the shadows. With this in mind, Harry strolled carefully and alert down the "Hall".

Halfway through, he found a door marked with a label 'The Dark's Meeting Place'. The door was marvellous, it was a highly polished black stained oak and at a distance, you would think that the door was made of stone. Studying the door, Harry found something else about it; a small caption in the centre read:

"Walking through this door, you will find what you are looking for.

In the dark, nothing can be seen, and this is what I mean. Be prepared, if you are not you will be ensnared. Everything that you know will become nothing that you knew. If you are brave and think you are strong enough, think again because you are wrong.

Those that have entered through this door, that have thought this, left being nothing more than a puppet of the dark, you have been warned".

Harry was sweating, shaking in fear? He turned on the spot and high tailed it out of there as fast as he could, feeling that after he read those words that something sinister had awoken and that he had no desire to stick around and find out. He now knew why everyone said that the corridor called "The Dark's Long Hall" was "haunted". Harry now understood why, in a split moment of certainty and clarity – this was where the dark gathered, and when he meant "The Dark", he didn't mean people with dark affiliations, no he meant it as if "The Dark" was a living, breathing thing that could hurt others at will and Harry was sure as hell that it was true.

Harry finally made it back to the common room and decided to inform his friends about what he knew, after that the four friends made their way to the mysterious door. They all felt unsure at first, but with hesitant looks at each other the four friends pushed open the door and entered the room beyond, everything appeared normal on the inside, but like with all things dark, that's exactly how it appears.

After a couple of hours planning and plotting they left quite happy and not being puppets of the dark. It was time to put their plan into action, no one saw them do it, the friends had laced the sugar supply in the staff kitchen with a potion, this would make all the teachers feel tired for 24 hours.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and Luna entered the lunch hall for dinner when they saw the headmaster sitting in his throne looking very, very angry. He wasn't looking at them thank Merlin, so they hurried unnoticed to their seats. Most of the teachers were lounging in their chairs half asleep, the headmaster clinked his glass with a spoon and stood up. Everyone in the hall turned their attention to the headmaster as he spoke with a menacing tone in his voice, "Someone has been causing problems for the staff as you can see, they are not in their right minds at the moment due to someone who'd laced the staff sugar with a relaxing potion. If anyone knows or is the culprit, I suggest you own up or else." With that, the headmaster cast a critical eye over all the students and retook his seat.

This announcement made the ones responsible giggly but scared all the same. The next day would be the first day of spring, Harry had always liked the season as it brought out the exotic flowers at Hogwarts, plus he also found an old note that had been placed in his school trunk and he had no idea how it got there, it read:

Dear Harry,

I write to you in hopes that when you read this you are well and that we will be together some day again. I'm sure that I will be immensely proud of you, when the time is right I will come back to you I promise.

Your loving Father,

James

Wherever Harry went, no matter what he did, he could not stop thinking about his father. It was as if he was haunting him or something, trying to convey a message maybe? What was completely baffling was the overwhelming urge that was telling Harry to go into the Forbidden Forest, he just did not understand it.

However, in the end of his extraordinarily long internal debate Harry had scrounged up enough courage and nerve, and dared to venture out, but he changed his mind at the last minute. Now that it was Spring, the snow of winter and coldness had disappeared. Therefore, it was only natural that Harry, Hermione, Ron and Luna went outside for lunch to sit on their favourite hill overlooking their school.

The friends were having a very good time playing magical games such as; Exploding Snap and they also did mock duelling – which was a safe risk-free version of a combat duel.

Whilst they were playing, the friends heard the sound of galloping hooves on the wind and the whooshing sound of a cloak that was moving quickly nearby. Harry and his friends turned towards the sound and found to their dismay a black clad figure astride a light grey horse who tuned on the spot and disappeared into the misty depths of the Forbidden Forest in the direction of the mountains.

"You know, there's something I don't understand" said Luna standing next to Harry.

"Oh, what's that?" asked Ron, glancing at her.

"Well, I mean mist always appears whenever the mysterious rider on the grey horse appears, it's as if that's how he gets from place to place so fast." Luna replied, looking at the forest and the fading mist.

"Now I don't understand," Hermione commented, confused.

"Well, I reckon he rides into the mist…" Luna's voice faded away as Harry flashbacked, his mother telling him a story when he was only seven, "He summoned a thick mist to roll in and surround him, and once the mist had cleared, there was no sign of James anywhere." Another memory came to the forefront of his mind straight afterward - Professor Malfoy telling him, "The rain poured down to an unusual extent and a gathering mist came to thwart our immediate plans, this is what James had wanted we now realise. He disappeared like a ghost in the mist and rain, to this day he hasn't been seen since."

"I think your right, Luna. He uses the mist to travel, he doesn't need to but he does. On the night he vanished, he used the mist to escape." Harry said in a daze. The four friends walked back to the castle in silence, occasionally adding a thought to think about. They reached the castle around 3:00pm, since they walked slowly.

Soon as they walked in through the doors, Antonin Dolohov stepped into view saying, "I knew you were up to something, and guess what..."

Harry, Hermione, Ron and Luna looked at each other than back to Dolohov, thinking 'What on earth?'

Antonin Dolohov continued saying, "I found this lying in a very old abandoned corridor." As he said this, he held up a copy of a "Book of Potions" by Zygmunt Budge. That was not the book that they had used, no because "Advanced Potion-Making" by Libatius Borage was in fact sitting in their dormitory.

Nevertheless, that was not what mattered, what mattered was that someone had followed them or knew enough to place a potions book in an abandoned corridor. Only two people came to mind: Barty Crouch, Jr. and Draco Malfoy.

"Let me guess", Harry said, "Draco, told you right?"

"That's right", said a proud Dolohov.

"Well, guess what? He was wrong and we returned all our books. We were just having a study session." The lie as blatant as it was slipped smoothly off Harry's tongue quite easily, as if he really were telling the truth.

"You know what I think? I'm think you're trying to tell me that he lied about what you were up to!" said Dolohov angered. There was no way that they could possibly get out of this situation so they surrendered.

"Fine, we give in. We were bored and decided to take a stroll down 'The Dark's Long Hall', satisfied?" Harry asked, however the exasperated look on his face changed as he watched Dolohov's face begin to show a rising fear that plastered itself there.

"I d-didn't find this b-book down that f-forsaken corridor" replied Dolohov, shaking and his voice stuttering. "Oh dear, oh dear," He muttered to himself.

"What, what's so bad about it?" Luna asked curiously.

"You don't know, do you?" Dolohov questioned, "There are various rooms down that 'Hall' that have different names and different riddles on the doors, and each door is something else that contains enough power to change who you are." Looking sternly but fearfully at the four of them, he asked, "You didn't enter one of the rooms did you?"

Harry could tell that this particular professor was afraid, however, this time he didn't bother lying as he was curious to know what was so bad about it. "Yes, all four of us entered." At this sentence, the four friends watched on as Dolohov's face lost the remaining colour that it had.