The first thing Harry noticed upon arriving at the Headmaster's office was the sign on the door: Do Not Enter. The shade was drawn. He put his ear to the door, hearing the sounds of a quill scratching away and Snape muttering. He worked up his courage to knock, and a moment later the door opened.

"Potter." The Headmaster's voice was expressionless. He looked haggard, and in the yellow light of the candle brackets the lines on his face looked deeply carved. Strands of greasy hair fell over his forehead, where Harry could see crumbs of black fluff still clinging. He glanced past Snape into the office, seeing the Sorting Hat on the corner of Snape's desk, and several owls waiting on the windowsill. Snape did not invite him in.

"Sir, I came to apologize for what happened in Potions today." The Headmaster's hooded eyes continued to stare at him, but his eyebrows moved up imperceptibly. Harry continued. "I behaved badly – I shouldn't have run out. I'm sincerely sorry for it and I give you my word it won't happen again."

Snape pressed his lips together and lifted his head. Here it comes, thought Harry, seeing Snape's eyes narrow. All the accusations about arrogance, and rule-breaking, and fame I don't deserve, and how lucky I am. All the slurs on my father.

"Your apology is accepted. Ten points from Gryffindor. You will make up the missing work at my convenience. Now go away." Snape retreated into his office, leaving Harry dumbstruck in the hallway. What had happened to the Headmaster? When had he ever been too busy, or tired, to berate a Gryffindor student? Harry looked down as the door swung closed. Just before it slammed in his face he saw – or thought he saw – a piece of Hecate's bamboo patterned note paper in the wastebasket next to the door.

A couple of weeks later they all returned to Hagrid's hut for a late breakfast. The large tail feather had been pinned high on the wall above the door.

"Like a horseshoe, fer a lucky charm," Hagrid told them. "It'll keep evil from enterin' over the step an' I can watch it when I'm lyin' in bed an' can't sleep. Yer ter tell me if you find it does somethin' else from yer books, Hermione."

Hagrid passed around the plates as Harry told him how Snape had accepted his apology.

"Not even detention?" said Hagrid. "He's mellowin'."

"He's got a long detention planned for Harry," said Ron darkly.

"I don't care, I'm ready," Harry replied.

"He's got other things ter worry about," went on Hagrid. "'Nother teachers' meetin' yesterday evenin'. Lucius Malfoy was lurkin' round. Again. Hasn't that man got a home ter go to?"

"What did he want?" asked Harry.

"I wasn't in the meetin', jus' wanted ter tell Perfessor Snape somethin'."

"About what Firenze told us?" put in Hermione.

"Nothin' ter bother yeh," Hagrid told her quickly. "Erm, shall I tell yer what Lucius had ter say? Save yer wheedlin' it out o' me like yeh usually do."

Harry, Ron and Hermione all nodded. Hagrid lowered his voice even though there was no one else there but Fang.

"I didn' hear it all, rightly, but here goes," he whispered.

"Lucius sez: 'So, I shall see yer at the Institute on the 25th, Severus. I am so lookin' forward to yer lecture. What's it on again?'

Perfessor Snape sez, "Usin' Dark Arts knowledge for Good."

"What?" said Harry. Beside him, Ron snorted out a mouthful of tea.

"Ooh, I'd like to hear that!" said Hermione enthusiastically. "If Snape wasn't giving it, of course," she added.

"Don' ask me what it means," went on Hagrid. "And don' ask Lucius either cos he goes 'Oh, a subject I know nuthin' about, Severus. Where do yer pick these things up? Sign of a misspent youth, I suppose. Still, we were all young once. Don't imagine any of us would want people knowin' the things we got up to before we were respectable, eh?' Then he gives the perfessor a pat on the back.

"'Indeed,' sez Snape an' he's lookin' pretty fierce, more than usual, yeh see."

"Then Lucius goes, 'Remind me ter introduce yeh around, yeh know the President o' th'Institute's retirin' in a couple o' years? And yeh can tell me how yer likin' yer new potions equipment, too.'"

"New stuff? I haven't seen it in lessons," said Hermione.

"It's all in Perfessor Snape's private office," said Hagrid. "Great big cauldrons an' silver vials an' a pile o' stuff I didn't recognize. Lucius sent it all down from London. I know because Filch was tryin' ter chivvy me inter helpin' him unload it. I told him 'Not on yer nellie!' an' Snape wouldn't let him make Fred an' George do it, o'course, so Filch had ter unpack it all himself. He's still moanin' about his back."

"Anyway. Then Perfessor Snape sees me standin' there.

"'What is it now, Hagrid?' he asks me. 'Potter gone missin' again? Yeh can save yer breath; he'll be back as soon as he's hungry and wants some attention.'

"Lucius goes, "Not worried about the little lost lamb, then, Severus?' an' Snape tells him "I am a headmaster, Lucius, not a sheepdog. Potter is one pupil here and I shan't be worryin' myself about him in any particular way in the future."

"Lucius jest laughs and sez 'That's good to know, my friend.' Then he sees me glarin' at him and goes "I'm speakin' as the concerned parent of another child o' course. Glad we understand each other, Severus,' and then he strolls away."

"We'll have to take a look at that equipment," said Hermione eagerly as they walked back. "Did I tell you Crispin showed me one of the labs? Those pan balances we have in Potions are fossils. I mean, even my parents use the top-loading kind...which reminds me, I wonder if they sent that catalog I asked for..."

"Go on, we'll catch up with you later," said Ron, rolling his eyes. With a quick wave she set off at a run.

"Funny, the way she gets fixed on things," Harry remarked with a chuckle.

"Yeah, remember first year it was Quidditch strategy, and then that idiot Lockhart, and then Arithmancy? And then dressing up for that dance – with a bunch of Slytherins, no less. Now it's Potions. She's a strange one, no doubt about it."

"It's not just Hermione. All the girls are acting strange. Dean said Lavender and Parvati fell out last week. They both like the same guy."

"Right, it's Neville. He hasn't a clue what to do about it."

"I wouldn't either if I were him." Harry replied as they trotted up the pathway to the castle entrance. "Girls are weird."

"You can say that again." Ron sprinted off the path and vaulted over the low stone wall into the courtyard as Harry passed under the archway. Grinning, he brushed the snow off his hands. "I'm starved. D'you know what's for lunch today?"

Harry reached out to poke him. "Hey, Ron, look who's here."

Waiting at the other end of the courtyard at the bottom of the stairs was Percy Weasley.

"'Ullo, Perse, can't keep away from this place, can you?" called Ron, walking up to him.

Percy made a great show of brushing an imaginary speck of dust off his cloak before looking down his nose at his younger brother.

"Ronald," he said, extending a hand. "Don't you have exams you should be revising for?" He nodded to Harry.

"Here on your own then?" countered Ron, putting his own hands in his pockets. "Dad not with you? How's Penelope? Started dragging you round jewelry shops yet?"

Percy scowled and began to walk towards the school entrance. Harry saw that he was now wearing the same kind of pinstripes as Fudge. There was a large bundle of papers tucked under his arm together with a flat wooden case.

"I'm here on important ministry business and no, she is not," he hissed. "Where are your brothers? I need to have words with them. All this messing around with Bludgers and ink and dung bombs. The Headmaster was not very impressed, I can tell you." He ran a finger around his collar.

"Why bother?" retorted Ron. "Fred and George never took any notice of you when you were Head Boy."

"So you've been to see Snape?" asked Harry at the same moment.

"The Headmaster, young Potter," Percy told him. He patted the bundle of documents and the box under his arm.

"Are those the things that you gave Dumbledore before he died?" said Harry, realising where he had seen the box before. It held the items that Snape had given to Hecate so that she could speak to the dead.

Percy nodded. "At the ministry, Harry, we don't like to have confidential papers out of our sight. If anyone but Dumbledore had asked to borrow them, I wouldn't have allowed it. But now he's no longer with us, I've had to put my foot down."

"With Snape?" said Ron, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes, with Snape," retorted Percy. "As it happens he doesn't need them any more, so I didn't have to insist."

Ron snorted. "You're the tea boy at that office. They probably just about trust you to go out and buy a packet of biscuits."

"Dumbledore was reading those papers to find out something about Vol– , er, You-Know-Who and Squibs, I think," interrupted Harry. "Didn't Snape say anything to you about that?"

"Not your business," Percy shot back, "and if you must know, he had more to say about Fred and George. Honestly, anyone would think I was still a pupil here. Don't worry, though, Harry, the absolute inside information about He-who-must-not-be-named now is that he's gone back into hiding to recover from what happened when he attacked Dumbledore. He didn't come off very well, after all. No, if he were up to anything, the ministry would have heard. So you can sleep safe at night," – he glared at Ron – "whatever fanciful stories anyone's been telling you."

"Fred and George will be in the common room with Lee Jordan now," Ron told his brother with a meaningful stare. Percy stalked off, his cloak flapping.

"What did I do to end up with him as a brother?" he continued watching Percy go. "Still at least I know I'll look like Charlie when I'm grown up and not him. Poor old Dad, being stuck in an office with him all day. No wonder he sent him up here."

"Why do you think Snape didn't want those papers any more?" Harry asked him.

"He knows what's going on. You said it sounded as if he'd worked it out that night you heard him talking to the Mirror. And Hecate's talked to all those dead people. What else does he need them for?"

"But we still don't know what Voldemort's attacking Squibs for," Harry pointed out. "What do they have that he could want?"

After lunch, they walked down to the Quidditch field still puzzling it over. When they got there, Ron put on his weighted gloves while Harry threw a Quaffle to him again and again from every possible angle.

"We won't play in a match again this term," Harry said mildly after ten minutes or so.

"There's always next term," Ron told him, pushing his hair away from his sweaty face. "A professional is always training, you know."

Harry threw the ball back again. He was vaguely aware of the Ravenclaw team practicing at the other end of the pitch. He wondered who was getting all the cheers and applause he could hear but the last thing he was going to do was turn round and look directly. He was so busy not looking that he threw the Quaffle at Ron's feet.

"Give me some chance," Ron protested but before he could bend down, a large ginger paw reached over and patted the ball away as easily as if it had been made of wool.

"Crookshanks!" said Harry. "Get lost, you flea-ridden moggy! Give us that Quaffle!" for Crookshanks was rapidly knocking it up the field away from them.

"Come back, you furry git! Can't you get it back off him, Harry?"

"You're the one with leather gloves!"

Ron was putting his hand out very carefully – Crookshanks had a rough sense of humour and could probably cut open a chimera in the right mood – when they heard Hermione's voice calling "Good cat! Don't hit him, Ron!"

"I wasn't going to hit him!" protested Ron, adding "hard," under his breath as Hermione hurried forward and gathered Crookshanks up in her arms. The cat began to purr greedily and stared back at Harry and Ron with insolent yellow eyes. Harry grabbed his chance and pocketed the Quaffle.

"Your brother's here," Hermione told Ron.

"We already saw him; he came to get those papers and stuff from Snape. Looks like he's has worked out what You-Know-Who has been up to with the Squibs."

"That's what I came to talk to you about." said Hermione. "I found a book in the library just now, 'A Natural History of Magical Talents'. There's a chapter on Squibs. Anyway the point about them is, they do have magical abilities but they only develop very slowly. That's why they have to take extra courses like Filch. Sometimes the powers never develop at all, but the people just have more than their share of good luck."

"Not the ones that Voldemort got," Harry put in.

Hermione ignored him. "The only other mention of them is in regard to...are you going to be OK with this, Ron?"

"With what?"

Hermione grimaced. "Power transfer spells. The book talked about Emeric the Evil and his son Emeric the Impuissant – remember them from first year History?"

Harry and Ron looked at her blankly.

"All right, never mind. But I looked them up too, and it turns out that Emeric the Evil spent years trying to transfer other people's powers to his son. It caused disaster after disaster. It's what earned him his name. The book said the only time there wasn't a huge disaster was when they tried to transfer powers from another Squib."

"Well, what happened?" asked Ron.

"It went the wrong way. It killed Emeric the Impuissant, and the other Squib escaped, and that was the end of it."

"Lucky for him," Ron put in. "But I suppose that's the point, isn't it?"

"So Voldemort wants their powers?" asked Harry." But what good would they do him if they're so weak?"

"Lots of them together would add up."

"But wait, what about the earthquakes and so on that Hecate talked about?"

Hermione set down the wriggling cat. "That was when they tried to take powers from normal witches and wizards. You might get away with it if the power was just Squib sized. And some strange things did happen around the dead Squibs. There was the little boy who was so upset because his stuffed dog changed color – and the woman whose car fell to pieces around her."

Harry nodded eagerly. "The first one Hecate talked to – he said it started to rain from thin air. Something strange, or impossible, happens every time they kill someone. It's like what Professor Takushiki talked about in class. The structure of matter has changed. It has to be a power transfer spell. There's no other explanation." He broke off and looked at Ron.

Ron put his hands under his arms and hugged himself. "This is dodgy, dodgy stuff," he said miserably. "But it makes sense, taking just a tiny bit of power, again and again."

They considered this in silence. "So Voldemort is building up his powers," said Harry finally. "But how many would he have to kill before he's powerful enough?"

"Lots," Ron told him. "Unless he can get strong enough to steal the powers of someone with real magical ability."

"Like Dumbledore?" asked Hermione, "or..." But there was no need to finish that sentence; all three knew whose powers Voldemort would particularly like to have.