Author's note: Hopefully, this will be the last time that an update will take forever to come. I couldn't start working on this chapter until just recently because finals got in the way (blegh). But now school's ended, I'm back home, and I have a lot of free time on my hands, so I plan to get pretty far into the story this summer. Hurrah! Anyway, thank you again for the reviews/alerts. They make me happy!

Meeting with Dippet

As soon as the door closed, Hermione moved to a desk and buried her head in her hands. "Oh Harry," her voice came out muffled through her palms, "what are we going to do?" She shifted her fingers and saw Harry pacing back and forth.

"I don't know, Hermione. I wish I did..."

"Well, maybe if we did manage to sneak into the Ministry, they might have notes on the veil locked up somewhere..." she began recklessly, "if we could find them we could learn to get back ourselves..."

Harry crossed his arms. "Yeah? And how are we going to get out of here? You heard Dumbledore; the gates are locked. It's too late now... we'll just have to wait."

Hermione sat up and looked at him quietly. "You're right," she said finally, coming to her senses. "There's nothing we can do. I just... hate having to wait so long. I want to get out of here, find Ron, and go back home. I feel so useless, just sitting around, doing nothing..."

Harry nodded, and she knew he understood.

"Well, I guess we should get out of here," she continued. "Dumbledore said we'll have to speak with Dippet. I daresay he'll want to know everything that happened."

"I suppose."

Leaving the classroom, they didn't have to wait long to find Dippet. A few moments later they almost ran into him turning a corner on the way back to the Hospital Wing.

He jumped. "Goodness! Oh there you two are. I was just looking for you." He looked positively shaken, and Hermione felt sorry for him, having to deal with this whole mess.

"Yes, sir?" she asked.

. "Would you mind running up to my office for a few moments? I'd like to have a word with you, but I can't this moment..." He looked around distractedly.

They nodded.

Mopping his brow, he continued. "Yes, well, run along then. I'll be over in a few minutes... I have to take care of a few things first... talk to a few people... Do you know where my office is? Good. I have someone at the entrance. They'll let you in." He then nodded in their direction and then turned away.

Harry shrugged, apparently not surprised at Dippet's behavior either. "Shall we, then?"

And together, they made their way to the Headmaster's office.

Just as they were reaching their destination, though, they turned the corner and stopped. There, standing by the gargoyle marking the entrance to the headmaster's office, was Tom Riddle. Hermione sighed; she should have known.

"Harry..." she warned under her breath.

He narrowed his eyes but nodded and said nothing as they reached the gargoyle.

Riddle was standing stiff against the wall, eyeing them like a hawk. As usual, Hermione found his stare quite off-putting, and she had half a mind to go running in the opposite direction.

"...yes?"

Holding her head high and taking a deep breath Hermione said, "we were sent here by Professor Dippet."

He cocked his head to one side, his gaze burning into the back of her skull. Hermione briefly wondered if he was performing Legilimency.

"Why would he want you here?" he finally said.

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "I don't know," she said stiffly. "Perhaps he wanted to speak with us about the Grindelwald attack?" She made an active attempt to stay composed and pleasant, but he was trying her already shortened patience.

Riddle continued staring at them, as though he could see through her skin to the very innards of her soul. Hermione began to awkwardly fidget. Is this all he does? Stare at people until they crack?

Finally, he gave them a curt nod and spoke the password. Both Harry and Hermione kept a close watch on him the entire time they crossed the threshold onto the staircase, and only after the gargoyle moved back to guard the entrance did they turn their backs.

"I guess he's officially stopped pretending to be nice to us," Hermione offered after a few moments.

Harry didn't respond.

After a few moments they reached the top of the staircase. Opening the door, Hermione saw that Dippet's office was packed. People were standing everywhere, talking and whispering to one another nervously. Every single one of them had a look of apprehension and confusion plastered upon their face, and several of them looked up at the entrance of the newcomers.

At first, Hermione didn't know where to stand. She assumed that everyone in the room was a professor or staff member, and after realizing that in no way did Hogwarts ever house that many staff, she saw a large group of terrified looking students standing against the far wall.

She motioned to Harry to follow her, and together they made their way through the crowd. As they approached the students, she realized that they all had a large, shiny prefect badge attached to their chest. Hermione didn't know any prefects here, but she did recognize one as a Gryffindor fifth year, and made to stand by him.

"Hey," she whispered, nudging him in the side, "do you know what's going on? Why are we all here?"

He shook his head. "I dunno. No one knows what's going on. As soon as we were taken back to the castle the professors started making announcements that all prefects should come up here. That was about a half hour ago, I guess, and nothing's happened since." He looked at her oddly. "Why are you here? You're not a prefect."

Hermione sighed. "I was just wondering the same thing."

As the boy turned away, Harry tugged on her sleeve to grab her attention. "Look," he said, indicating some point on the opposite side of the room. There, Hermione saw a nervous-looking Hagrid standing next to Ogg.

Hermione gave a small smile. "At least he wasn't excluded."

"Well he is staff."

She nodded. "True..."

Standing next to Hagrid and Ogg were Professors Slughorn and Merrythought. They were talking quietly to themselves, and as Hermione continued staring, Slughorn looked up in her direction. Embarrassed, Hermione turned away quickly, but not before she saw a strange look cross over Slughorn's features.

A few minutes later, the door to Dippet's office opened again and Hermione, like most everyone else around her, turned her head in that direction. She thought it would be Dippet, however, in walked little Professor Flitwick, Dumbledore, and Riddle.

Hermione smiled again; besides Slughorn and Dumbledore, Flitwick was the only professor she recognized from her time at Hogwarts. Being in his class was very amusing; though the lesson styles very vaguely familiar, Hermione saw few physical resemblances between this Flitwick and the one she had grown up with. Yes, he was still just as short, but he was so much younger, and his round face was sporting a rather large and voluminous dark brown beard. She guessed that he couldn't have been teaching at Hogwarts for more than a few years.

Hermione's gaze followed him as he continued his way through the crowd and stopped by a professor she didn't recognize. He was immensely old, and Hermione had only seen him come to dinner occasionally. Perhaps he was the Divination professor, and stayed up in his tower all day like Trelawney. If that was the case, he was much too old to be climbing up and down seven flights of stairs all the time. That would explain his elusiveness, anyway...

Then, as if she received a blow to the head, Hermione suddenly realized who this mysterious professor was.

"Harry!" she hissed excitedly. "It's Binns! Professor Binns!"

As Harry looked to where she was pointing, his jaw dropped.

"Merlin... Binns..."

No wonder why she hadn't recognized him before – she was so used to staring blankly at his pearly-white ghost during class that she would never associate him with a real, live, human being. And of course she wasn't taking History of Magic here, so she wouldn't have heard his name before, especially if he never showed up for dinner.

Finally, the door opened a third time, and this time Dippet strode through. The ambient noise stopped immediately, and everyone seemed to hold their breath as he took his spot behind his desk. "Thank you all for coming," he said in a tired voice. "I know you'll all want to get back to your friends during this stressful time, but if you'll just give me a few minutes..."

"Is it true, then?" Merrythought asked sharply. "Has the McKinnon girl...?"

Dippet looked at her sadly and then nodded.

Everyone in the room seemed to gasp at once; apparently, in all the chaos of the afternoon, few had known for sure what had happened to Julie.

Dippet held up his tiny hands. "Please, everyone," he said, "I have everything under control. Or... at least as under control as possible at the moment. I've contacted Ministry officials, and they are in Hogsmeade attending to all the damage. They've escorted the few who have been critically injured to St. Mungo's and put up protective wards around the village... Meanwhile, I've made sure all Hogwarts students are back in the castle. All those who are not injured and in the hospital wing are waiting in their common rooms for direction from their Head of House."

Slughorn stepped forward. "Would you like us to go there now?"

"No," Dippet said, shaking his head. "I have some more things to cover here, and then you may attend to your students.

"For those who have not heard yet, I have also closed all the school entrances. We are currently locked down. No one is getting in or out, including the Ministry. I suspect that will pose a problem tomorrow morning when parents start arriving to pick up their children, but they'll just have to wait; depending on the situation, I may decide to keep the wards up for several weeks."

Hermione turned to Harry and raised her eyebrows. 'Several weeks?' she mouthed. Harry also looked extremely nervous at this news. If all travel in and out of the school was closed for several weeks, then Dumbledore might not be able to even begin helping them until December... and even then he probably wouldn't find anything for a while. They could be stuck here for months...

"Wait a minute," a professor Hermione didn't know interrupted from the crowd. "Are you saying that we're closing the school?"

Dippet frowned. "Of course not. We're not dealing with a situation like that of two years ago... No, the danger is not in the school; rather, it is outside. I was merely commenting on the fact that with another death of a student, many parents will probably want their child home with them. They'll think it's safer there. Naturally, they're wrong. We have more wards here than perhaps anywhere in Britain. I'll have to owl everyone to explain the situation..."

At that point, none other than Tom Riddle stepped forward. Hermione felt a twinge of annoyance as he began to speak. "Sir, excuse me for asking, but what exactly is the situation? I know it may not be my business, but I'm sure many of the professors do not know the details of today's attack... if you could only recount what happened..." he trailed off, looking at Dippet innocently.

"Thank you, Tom," he said. "I was just getting to that. Unfortunately, though, I was not present at Hogsmeade today, and only after we received a peculiar message did Professor Dumbledore rush to the scene." He turned to Dumbledore. "Would you care to take over from here?"

He nodded. "Surely, though I have little to tell as well. I was here, actually, in this room with Armando around one o'clock this afternoon when, quite suddenly, a Patronus materialized out of nowhere."

Though this didn't seem to penetrate the prefects, the professors all seemed confused.

"Let me emphasize that this Patronus was neither mine, nor Armando's."

"What?" a professor asked sharply. "Was someone else in the room?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "No. It was unlike any Patronus I had ever seen... most notably because it spoke."

At this, the professors began talking amongst themselves.

"What?"

"That's impossible, surely a Patronus cannot speak..."

"It must not have been a Patronus, then?"

"Of course it was a Patronus," Dumbledore said loudly over everyone else. "Do you not trust my ability to spot the difference between magical apparitions?" He eyed everyone in the room and one by one, the professors all quieted down. Meanwhile, the students simply stared blankly at one another. This made Hermione certain that they had no idea what a Patronus was in the first place.

"As I was saying, the Patronus, in the form of an otter, spoke to us. It said, in the voice of a young girl, that there had been an attack in Hogsmeade, and that help was needed. Will you confirm this, Professor Dippet?"

Dippet nodded. "Of course, Albus."

"Immediately afterwards, I rushed to Hogsmeade, while Armando began contacting the Ministry. I arrived at the scene no more than five minutes later, and indeed, there was a large group of men causing a significant amount of chaos. Before I could do anything, though, they all Disapparated. I believe you all know the rest. Except..." he paused for a moment as his eyes scanned the group of students. "I did find out that the Patronus belonged to Miss Hermione Wilkins."

Once again, the crowd erupted into chatter. Hermione heard things like, "impossible!" and "but she's just a student!" and before she knew it, hands were pushing her forward, to the front of the room. She felt extremely exposed, standing there, with all eyes on her. Her hands began to sweat and she was sure her face was a brilliant shade of red. What did they expect out of her, to explain the theories behind Patronus communication? Wasn't that a bit off topic? They should be deciding what to do with the students, not stare at her like she was some circus show freak. Her eyes sought out Harry for help, but it was useless; she was on her own now.

"Well, Miss Wilkins?" Dippet leaned forward in his desk and peered at her intently. "What happened out there?"

So they didn't just want to hear about the Patronus. She could do this.

Hermione coughed. "Well," she began in a small voice, "we were having lunch at the Three Broomsticks... When I say 'we' I mean my brother, Harry, and a few other Gryffindors, including Julie McKinnon..." She looked at Harry again, and this time he was pushed to the front of the crowd. Everyone stared at him for a moment before turning back to Hermione.

Her face, if possible, turned even redder. "Yes, um... so we were in the Three Broomsticks, when I saw, er... a flash of green light. And the next thing I knew, Julie was slumped in her chair, er..."

"Yes, yes, we know," Dippet interrupted. "Then what happened?"

"Well, we saw three older men, who had been sitting at the bar, run for the door, and Harry and I followed them. When we got out in the street there were more of them. I'd say there were, oh, maybe fifteen of them altogether?" She looked at Harry and he nodded in agreement.

"Right, well, the whole group of them, they were causing complete havoc. They were destroying property, attacking students... and no one was able to fight back, really. Harry and I tried to help, but..."

"Professor Dumbledore said that you were dueling two of them when he arrived. Is that not true?" Dippet asked.

"Well yes, we were, but we weren't really getting anywhere. Before that, though, I did send the Patronus. It was something that, er, I've taught myself over the years..."

"Really, Miss Wilkins?" Slughorn said excitedly. "You can communicate with a Patronus?"

She nodded. "Yes, sir."

He beamed. "Amazing. And your brother?"

"Er," she paused. Harry had never tried it before. Merlin, she had never tried it before today. Hoping that he would be able to if asked, she said, "yes."

Slughorn looked delighted. "Wonderful! Imagine the possibilities this could hold! This could take magical communication to a whole new level! Miss Wilkins, can you do it again, so we can all see?"

Before she could respond, Tom Riddle spoke quietly to Slughorn. "Professor, isn't this getting off topic? We really should be attending to the current crisis at hand..."

Though Hermione secretly agreed with him, she felt more annoyed than anything. Who was he to tell a professor what to do?

"Now Tom," Slughorn said kindly, "this could be very important." He turned to Dippet. "Do you not agree, Headmaster?"

"Of course," Dippet said. "Miss Wilkins, if you would...?"

Hermione blushed again and stared at the floor. "Right," she said quietly. Having done it only once before, could she do it again? She closed her eyes and pretended that she was back in Hogsmeade. This was urgent, she needed to contact someone... Going through the same process as before, she pictured Dippet and concentrated hard. There's been an attack in Hogsmeade, there's been an attack in Hogsmeade...

"Expecto Patronum!"

A brilliant white light burst forth from her wand and materialized into the shape of an otter. Everyone watched as it swam through the air, almost playfully, and stopped in front of Dippet's desk. It turned to him and said in Hermione's worried voice, "There's been an attack in Hogsmeade..."

Hermione felt her insides swell with pride. She could do it... she was getting the hang of this, finally... Across the room, Slughorn, like almost everyone else, was staring at the Patronus in wonder.

"Astounding," Slughorn said as the otter vanished. "You must show us how to do this."

"Yes, I was thinking exactly the same thing," said Dippet. "Only, I'd like to... expand on this, if you will. Imagine how useful this charm will be – instant communication! Why, if anything ever goes wrong again, the proper people can be alerted immediately. Just think of how much more damage could have occurred today if Wilkins didn't contact the school. Apparition into Hogwarts was not a possibility, of course, so by the time someone ran to the school and brought back Dumbledore, more people could have been killed or injured. By using this form of communication, transportation time was cut in half.

"But think. Let's take it a step further. What if everyone who had been in Hogwarts today knew how to properly defend themselves? What if they had all fought back, just as Harry and Hermione had? Maybe, just maybe, we could have caught some of those men! We could have prevented needless injuries! Why..."

"Are you suggesting," Merrythought interrupted sharply, "that we send our students into combat?"

Dippet waved his hands impatiently. "No, no, of course not. I wouldn't expect that out of ordinary students, especially the younger ones. No, what I'm proposing is that we prepare our more advanced students to defend themselves, in case anything like this were to ever happen again."

"Isn't that the point of Defense Against the Dark Arts classes?"

"No – " Dippet stopped suddenly, and turned bright red at the look that Plunkett, the new Defense professor, was giving him. "What I mean," he continued more slowly, "is that students are prepared in class, but, excuse me for saying this, it's mostly theory, and even when it is practical, students don't take the material seriously.

"What I want to do is have all the students in this room learn proper, practical defense, so they are ready to defend themselves and their classmates in the case of a future attack. I think it would be immensely productive if they were to learn from one another, and from their professors. We all have certain abilities in this area, so if we all combine our knowledge we could really get somewhere! Everyone, including the professors, could learn so much from this... think of what even just the Wilkins siblings could teach us..."

Everyone in the room seemed to be both surprised and puzzled at this news.

"Are you saying," a professor spoke up, "that everyone will learn from everyone else? Professors will learn from students and other professors? Students from one another and their professors as well?"

"Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. What do you think?"

Dumbledore stepped forward again. "Personally, I think it is a brilliant idea. Everyone in this room is extremely intelligent, and we could all learn a great deal from one another."

Dippet clapped his hands together. "Wonderful! If no one has any objections then I'd like to start meeting as soon as possible. Also, on a slightly different note," he paused for a moment, thinking to himself. "Everyone here already has their normal watch-duty schedule, but starting tomorrow I think I will assign everyone more hours..."

Though no one said a thing, Hermione could practically see all the prefects groaning.

"I'd like to have more people on duty at a time, and to be safe, I'll have you all work in pairs..." He paused again. "Harry and Hermione," he said, turning to look at them, "would you also take a post with everyone else? We need as many people as possible... I think I might even recruit ghosts, as well..."

Of course they agreed; what else could they say?

"Wonderful," Dippet continued, still addressing Harry and Hermione, "and I was thinking you two might also take charge of the student end of this organization. Perhaps get a feel for everyone else's defense skills? Decide what might be useful, and you can liaison between the prefects and professors... goodness knows we need someone to take charge, and I'm in over my head at the moment."

"Excuse me, Professor," Riddle interrupted, and once again, Hermione felt thoroughly annoyed at his audacity. "Do you really think it best to let them head a project like this? I mean to say, they haven't been here very long, and know little about the school or its students..."

He stared in Harry and Hermione's direction – no, glared, actually – for this time his face, rather than staying calm and bored-looking, was gaining a pink tinge, and his eyes were flashing in a rather furious-looking manner.

This time, Dippet looked aggravated at his interruption. "Are you implying that you should be in charge of this? As Head Boy I should think that you already have plenty of responsibilities."

"Oh, of course not," Riddle said quickly, "I only meant to say perhaps one of the prefects may be a better choice..."

"No," Dippet said firmly. "I should think not. Harry and Hermione have proved themselves today to be more capable than many to be in charge of such an assignment. I would ask no one but them. So," he turned to Harry and Hermione once again, "will you help us?"

Once again, they couldn't say no, and Hermione had a feeling that Harry was extremely happy to get something that Riddle couldn't have.

"Certainly, Professor," he said promptly. Hermione just nodded.

Dippet smiled. "Wonderful. I'll let everyone know when we are to have our first class. As for now, I think we should all go. Professors, you may attend to your students..."

At that, everyone began talking again and moving to leave the office. Hermione, meanwhile, remained silent. This day had been completely and utterly shocking, and at the moment, she did not feel like reacting.

As she finally reached the door she felt a hand clap on the back of her shoulder. Slughorn was standing there wearing a funny expression on his face. "Impressive, Miss Wilkins; very impressive..." And before she could reply he was gone, leaving her feeling very strange inside.