I whistled softly to myself on my way to the Great Hall, looking forward to a quiet study session away from the mid-Friday bustle of the library, prime time for Ravenclaws to take over the place. When the staircase I was on moved sooner than I anticipated, though, I decided to take the long way around. Why not? I had all weekend to study, after all. I could use a good walk.

I was just coming down a flight of stairs that would put me back on the floor I needed when I heard hoofbeats from an intersecting hallway. Hoofbeats. That had to be, without a doubt, the new divination teacher. What was his name again? Realizing I would not remember it no matter how hard I tried, I settled instead for speeding up so I did not run into the centaur at all. Part of me greatly mourned this missed opportunity to learn from a centaur; to understand how such a mystical creature understood the Sight would make a world of difference given my situation. The rest of me, though, was terrified of him. Half man, half horse? I wouldn't be able to stop staring at the tail.

I just passed the intersection without even glancing at Trelawney's replacement when the hoofbeats stopped. I let out a deep sigh that I was not even aware that I'd been holding in and smiled to myself. No centaur interactions today!

Or, so I thought.

"Melbecka Harper."

I froze in my tracks, and I swear that my heart actually stopped beating for a moment. His voice startled me that much. Very slowly, I turned to find that he was now in my hall, staring at me with wide, unassuming eyes, the same stare I gave so many people. Damn. That stare was disconcerting.

"Y-you know my name?"

"The stars speak of you."

"O-oh. Oh, do they? That's…that's…the stars? Really?" My voice squeaked, and I forced a smile to hide it. "An-and what do…the stars…say…about me?"

Firenze. That was his name. Firenze cocked his head to one side, studying me slowly up and down. "You are frightened."

"The stars say I'm…? Oh, no, sorry, that's coming from you…yeah, I'm frightened. You frighten me. Don't think too much of it, though," I waved my hands dismissively and widened my smile. "Everything frightens me. I once screamed at my own shadow."

"I am sorry."

"It's all right. Hardly your fault. It's all in the upbringing." I swung my arm sharply in front of me, further pouring it on entirely too thick. If he was unaware of how extremely uncomfortable I was, he certainly was by now. Way to play it cool, Mel.

"You know why I apologize," Firenze answered evenly, straightening his head. "You understand. Your eyes are open wider than those of the scurrying child."

I gulped. "You…how do you know?"

"The stars speak of you."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, you did say that. Do the stars say more than that I have wide eyes?"

Firenze smiled softly at my attitude, which I found even more disconcerting than the stare he began with. "Do you know what courage is, Melbecka Harper?"

"What do you mean?" I narrowed my eyes.

"Courage is to be afraid, yet to do still do what one must. You, Melbecka Harper, have courage."

"Well…thank you," I smiled genuinely. "That is very…thank you. Now, I really must be go…"

"The sun has set, and before it rises again, we will all fall in the darkness. The planets whisper of it, and it is written in the stars."

If there were words to respond to that, I did not know them. Instead, I took a few steps backwards and eventually turned around and walked away from Firenze until the slapping of my feet on the stones mixed with the clopping of his hooves fading into the opposite direction.

It was written in the stars, and the stars spoke of me. Now, if I only knew what he meant.

FGFGFGFGFGFGFGFGFGFG

"Let's play our game," Angelina announced, dropping her stuff next to mine on the Ravenclaw table. For the second time in as many weeks, I screamed at the sudden intruder in my dome of solitude. It was that odd time of day on Friday, that time between lunch and dinner when no one is in the Great Hall because it is not meal time but everyone is secretly starving. I loved to set up camp at the Ravenclaw table and get work done that time of day because the Great Hall was almost always abandoned and therefore much more peaceful than the actual library. Still, it should not have been that surprising for someone else to appear. I was just so engrossed in the restricted Potions book I'd finally whined my way into getting Snape's permission to read, the perfect distraction from my earlier meeting with Firenze, that I hadn't realized she was there.

"Fine," I sighed, marking my page and closing the book. Our game would take entirely too much time; I would forget all about how to make Veriteserum by then, which was a damn shame. I was really trying to figure out what Snape was up to all those months ago. "I take it you want to start?"

"I do," Angie nodded, sitting on the bench so she faced me fully. "What if I knew that the twins had enough money, right now, to open up shop? They could just pop right out of here and walk into, say, Hogsmeade or the likes and buy a building straight up, no loans or nothing, and be good to go. Would you want to know?"

I wrinkled my nose. "No," I finally decided. "Given the current state of things, I would hold out and wait for George to tell me."

"What if I knew that they got the money by stealing things from small children? Would you want to know then? George would never tell you that."

"He wouldn't," I agreed, biting my lip at the hypothetical conspiracy presented to me. I was so engrossed in thought that Roger's appearance in the Great Hall as I debated had no effect. "I still say no. Let them live with the guilt until it eats them alive and they have to tell me because the innocent faces of those poor little babies haunt their nightmares."

Roger froze with his bag halfway to the tabletop. He gaped at us as if we were completely bonkers, but finally decided it was just safe enough to sit down veeeeery slowly. "What are you two doing?"

"Playing our game," I supplied. "I suppose it's my turn, isn't it?"

"What's the game? Can I play?"

"Not really," Angie shook her head. "It's sort of our thing. It's the 'If I Knew, Would You Want To Know' game." I could tell by the way his eyebrows rose as high as they would go that she had lost him, so I jumped on the explanation.

"We throw hypothetical situations at each other. If I knew that someone was planning to put salt in your drink, would you want to know? Things like that, only more serious. Sometimes, it's stuff we actually know, and sometimes we make it up. So, it's all purely hypothetical. And if you have to ask, 'Why, do you really know that?' then you should have said yes and we would explain it, but you said 'no' so you don't get an explanation until you've had time to think on your decision. It's only fair."

Angie nodded. "You can't go changing your mind willy-nilly."

Roger wrinkled his nose. "Sounds like a girl's game."

"Well, look who's playing," I gestured between Angie and myself. "Now, either get so absorbed in your Quidditch playbook that you stop paying attention or go away." Roger rolled his eyes at me.

"Look, I hate to interrupt such academic pursuits, but I really need to talk to you, Mel."

I frowned at how serious his tone had become. "Why?" I glanced at Angie, as if she had an answer. "What's wrong?"

"Well, nothing's wrong, per say. I just came from a meeting with Umbridge."

"Umbridge?" We now completely forgot about our interrupted game, and I leaned slightly towards him. "What did she want?"

"Well," Roger made a face. "See, I don't really know. She asked me a lot of questions. I think she did something to me, maybe, I don't know, maybe in the tea, hard to say," he rambled, shaking his head as he tried to figure something out. "I just couldn't stop saying things."

"What did she ask you about?" Angie prompted. That seemed to focus him, and he locked eyes with me seriously.

"You, Mel. She kept asking about you. What you've been up to lately, to be precise."

Angie and I shared a look, and I asked, "What did you tell her?"

"The truth. See," he shook his head again, "that's all I seemed to be able to tell her." He shook the thought off and focused again. "She asked if you were gone a lot, and I asked her how was I supposed to know? We're not attached at the hip. So, she asked why you weren't in bed most nights, and I said I had no idea if you were or weren't in bed seeing as our beds are nowhere near each other, but that if you weren't in bed you were probably asleep over a pile of homework or passed out in the Gryffindor common room because you fell asleep hanging out with that lot, or maybe you weren't sleeping because you got absorbed in making a potion." Angie gave me a pointed look, and I made a mental note to slap Roger. "When I asked her how she knew you weren't in bed, she just said she'd heard it somewhere. Well, she used some frilly term about cats and whatnot. Point is, she's talked to someone else, Mel."

"Yeah," I nodded. Of course she had. Why only talk to Roger? If she wanted to know about my activities without alerting me, there were plenty of people to ask. Roger was a risk for this very reason, and she must have known that. Why even question him? How desperate was she? "Did she ask you anything else?"

"If you were gone more often or something. I said yeah, but that's to be expected, isn't it? What with you and George getting all chummy," Angie snorted at that, "I figured you were popping off somewhere to get a little whew-whew," he elbowed the empty air next to him, and my cheeks flushed from both embarrassment and irritation at his childishness. "Besides, you've always been a bit of a loner. You like wandering off on your own, doing things by yourself. Especially since Cedric…well, since then, you need more time alone. It's been that way all year."

"Was she happy with your answers? Or did it seem like she wanted more?" Angie prompted.

Roger shrugged. "I don't know. She just kind of smiled and said 'I see' a lot. Look, you two, what is all this about? Mel, what did you do? Did you piss her off again? If you get kicked off the team, I swear…"

"No, no," I waved my hand quickly. "I didn't do anything, Roger. Keep your knickers on. The woman is clearly batty. I don't know what this is about."

Unless you consider that I spent my holidays in the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix and belong to a secret defense club led by Harry Potter meeting to learn all of the things that she refuses to teach us. Then, maybe she is on to something.

So, I have a bit of a quandary, and I'm hoping your opinions can help me. This story has grown to be much longer than I imagined it would, but I still have so much more I want to do with it. So, what do you think: Should I end this at the end of the Order of the Phoenix and start a new sequel story that covers books 6/7 (I can cover them in one story, believe you me), OR would you prefer I keep this one going straight through to the end? Your opinion will really help me out, so please share!

Next chapter: Playing with Patronuses