"Less than twenty four hours to go now." Ron said gloomily. He was sitting on his bed, plucking absent-mindedly at the covers. The walls around his bed were covered with posters of Muggle girls, models, singers, and of course, Sarah Michelle Gellar. It was Sunday afternoon, and the OFSTED inspectors were arriving first thing the following morning.

"Yeah, but it'll all be over soon and we can get back to normal." Harry lay on his bed with his hands behind his head.

"Back to learning magic."

"Back to Quidditch."

"Back to fighting with Malfoy."

"Back to Potions with Snape…"

They'd decided that they needed to keep an eye on Harris. If he was planning to sabotage the inspection, they intended to do their best to stop him. However, it proved quite difficult to spy on Harris, because he appeared to be watching Harry. Everywhere they went, he wasn't far behind them. If they met in the library to plot with Malfoy, Harris would be browsing the books. When they went out to play football, Harris was doing something called 'playground duty' which kept him outside with them. Without the invisibility cloak, they didn't dare to go creeping around after Lights Out, and in any case he seemed to always be in the common room office waiting for them to sneak downstairs.

Hermione was sitting in the library with a pile of folders and a worried expression.

"What are you doing?" Ron dropped into the seat next to her. "I thought you'd finished all your homework?"

"I'm just checking everything." Hermione finished reading the last page of notes in one folder and opened the next one.

"What for?"

"For the inspectors." Ron looked confused. Hermione sighed. "I told you, Ron. The inspectors want to see examples of students work. I was one of the students chosen. I have to hand in all of my notes for them to check through and examine the standard of teaching."

"You're not exactly a typical student though, are you? I mean, your work's a lot neater and lot more thorough than most people's."

"Which is probably why she was chosen and you weren't." Draco sat down on the other side of the table. "The Professors want to look good, don't they?" Hermione ignored them both and kept flicking through the pages.

"Your eye looks a lot better, Weasley." Ron prodded the fading bruise.

"Yeah. I've got fresh injuries since then anyway." He rolled up his sleeve to display a graze on his arm."

"Is that from DT?"

"Yeah." Ron didn't get on very well with the sanding machine, and Hagrid couldn't supervise everything at once. "Have you thought about what we're going to do next week?"

The boys had decided that they should stage yet another argument and fight for the benefit of the inspectors.

"If you're going to talk, can you go outside please?" Hermione looked up from her notes. "I'm trying to concentrate here." Ron and Draco pulled faces at each other and left her in peace.

"Any ideas?" They wandered down the stairs by the Great Hall.

"Nothing in particular. Can I win this time? I've still got the bruise from last time…"

"I suppose so. If we time it right it shouldn't last long anyway. We don't want to make it look too bad, as if the school has no discipline."

Ron had to laugh at Draco respecting the school's honour.

"Shut up, Weasley."

"Are you going to make me, Malfoy?" Ron was still laughing, and Draco joined in.

"I think we should leave it until the inspection starts before we get into trouble again." They reached the main door and walked out into the courtyard.

"So do you want to start it or shall I?"

"I will, I like insulting you."

"What are you going to say this time?"

"I haven't made my mind up yet. I've got a couple of ideas, but it'll be more spontaneous if I don't tell you."

"You're not going to use the bicycle comparison for Ginny again, are you? She says she'll beat you up herself if you do."

"Ooh, I'm scared…"

"You should be, she's vicious."

"No, I'll think of something else to get you angry. I think we should warn one of the teachers as well, so that they know to catch us fighting."

"Good idea. Who?"

"McGonagall?"

"No, she's being really strict, we'll probably get expelled or something."

"Not Snape, he's really stressed about this whole thing."

"How about Harris then?" Ron had a brainwave. "He wouldn't overreact."

"Plus it might help to convince him that we don't suspect anything. Let's go and find him."

"Harry's playing football, so I bet that Harris is outside watching him." The turned and headed for the courtyard from which the noise which accompanied any football games was coming. Sure enough, Harris was standing there watching the game.

"Mr Harris!" Draco called in his best 'talking to teachers' voice. "Can we have a word?"

"No, you can't pick it up! Only the goalie can pick the ball up!" Dean was getting stressed with one of the third years. "How are we supposed to win on Wednesday if you can't remember the most basic rules?"

Dean had been elected Captain of the Gryffindor inter-house football team, and he was taking it very seriously. They were playing against Hufflepuff on Wednesday evening, and Dean badly wanted to win.

Miss Hooch had wisely decided that the Slytherin team should not play during the inspection week. There wasn't a single Muggle-born player on the team, and their grasp of the rules was shaky, to say the least.

"Dean, calm down. We'll do fine." Harry tried to reassure him. "We thrashed Ravenclaw, remember?" He knew that telling Dean that it was only a game would be a bad idea.

"Yeah, we did, didn't we? Nobody's going to beat Gryffindor, we're the best team." Dean's West Ham football shirt had been abandoned in favour of the red and gold Gryffindor strip. The front of the shirt had the Gryffindor lion, captured mid-roar, the back had a large number 1 and 'Thomas' written over it. Dean was very proud of it.

"I just don't understand Harris." Ron deposited his dinner tray on the Gryffindor table, looking up at where the teachers were eating. The staff had quickly picked up on the Muggle tradition by which they pushed straight to the front of the dinner queue. "He's too calm. He sounded perfectly normal when Malfoy and I were talking to him earlier."

Most of the staff had settled into a composed panic. They all looked slightly wild, and jumped at nothing, but they'd stopped rushing around and snapping at people. Harris was chatting happily to Ms Trelawney, who claimed that her crystal ball had shown her that the inspection would go exactly as planned. Few people had any faith in her prediction. Snape was sitting as far away from Harris as he could, pulling out of his torpor occasionally to glare at him.

"I reckon Harris is working for You-Know-Who!" Ron whispered suddenly. "Maybe he is you know who, using Polyjuice or something."

"Don't be ridiculous, Ron." Hermione answered. "Dumbledore would never let him into school. And anyway, Harry's scar would be hurting him."

"Ow!" Just as she said that, a sudden flash of pain hit Harry's forehead, at exactly the same moment as the doors flew open and a dozen wizards walked in. They were dressed in Muggle clothing, and most of them looked slightly uneasy. The leader, a middle aged man in a pinstriped suit, caught Harry's eye and the pain multiplied.

"Harry?"

He didn't get a chance to answer, however, before Mr Harris was walking down the Hall to shake hands with the new arrivals.

"Ah, the board of governors." Dumbledore rose from his seat and went to greet them as well. Seats were found for them at the teacher's table.

"It's him." Harry hissed through the pain. "He's here."

Hermione gasped. "We have to tell Dumbledore. He can't know, or he wouldn't have let them in."

"Not now, though, not in front of them and Harris."

As soon as dinner was over they went straight to Dumbledore's office. Harry was wondering how to get past the numeric keypad which had replaced the gargoyle which guarded the headmaster's office, when Mr Harris turned up.

"There's no need to worry, Harry, everything's under control."

"I want to see the headmaster." Harry persisted, hoping that Harris wasn't about to turn nasty.

"What's the problem, Mr Potter?" The door to the office had opened, and Dumbledore himself was standing there.

"Sir, the governors, my scar…" Harry trailed off, not wanting to talk in front of Mr Harris.

"No need to worry, everything's under control." Dumbledore echoed Harris' words. "Just go back to your common room." He turned and walked back into his office.

"Run along then." Mr Harris waved his arms at them to get them to leave. Defeated, they trailed back towards Gryffindor tower.

"That wasn't like Dumbledore at all. He's never turned us away without answers before."

"Maybe they've got him too." Ron suggested.

"I don't understand that, Dumbledore's really powerful, You-Know-Who was always scared of him." Hermione looked rather scared.

"Maybe he trusts them, then." Ron didn't look like he believe his latest idea.

"Well even if he does, I don't. That was Voldemort, and if he's here then he's up to something, and I'm not just going to sit back and let it happen." Harry sounded angry, and he'd clearly made up his mind.

"We have to act normal, though, we can't let them know that we're on to them or we won't stand a chance." Hermione reasoned.

"So we'll act normal. Try and stick together, and try to find out what they're up to." Harry punched the code into the keypad by the Gryffindor common room door, and Ron pulled open the door as it unlocked. "I just wish I had my wand."