Great job again with the reviews, guys! :) I'm glad you guys like the story. So I won't bore you with a long author's note! Chapter 29!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. :'(


Sitting in the dormitory, Alex tried to figure out what just happened. Why did Harry hate her so much now? She hadn't done anything. Right? No, Harry had a reason, she just had to figure out why.

Hermione came in, looking concerned.

"Hey, Alex, do you have any idea what just happened?" Alex shook her head slowly.

"I'm just as lost as everyone else. Did Harry tell you anything?"

"No. I surprised. He usually talks to me and Ron at least. Besides, nothing happened over the holidays that would make him act like that. I think." Alex let her hand fall into her hands.

"Why does he hate me? I tried to be nice, but..." Tears started leaking out of her eyes. Her shoulder shook with silent sobs. Hermione was at her side in an instant, rubbing her back.

"Shhh, it's okay. It's gonna be okay. I'll talk to Harry, and see what's up, okay?" Alex nodded silently. She still wasn't happy, though. Harry wasn't going to stop hating her any time soon.

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Harry still couldn't believe her. How could she do that? Even he had been suspicious of her, he didn't expect her to be a spy for Voldemort. He had finally given up on the Death Eater angle. But now that all this had happened, how could he trust her? Somehow Alex must have found out about the Order and told Voldemort. And he was going to have to find out why.

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Unnerved, Alex sat trying to read in the common room. Hermione had told her Harry wasn't there so she had braved coming out. She was so distracted though. She hadn't thought of any reasons why Harry would be so mad at her, and Hermione hadn't been able to find anything out. She was totally lost on what was going on.

Over the next week, a number of eventful things happened. First, there was a mass breakout from Azkaban, and Fudge was blaming it on Sirius! Apparently a Ministry worker, who had been in St. Mungo's, was killed by a potted Devil's Snare. Unfortuantely, despite Alex's wishes, Hagrid was put on probation. And to top it all off, Umbridge got another one of those stupid decrees passed.

The decree banned teachers from talking to the students about anything other than their subject. It caused a lot of jokes, including one by Lee Jordan, about teachers not being able to tell off the students for talking in class. The next time she saw Lee, his hand was bleeding.

Hagrid and Trelawney were both becoming more and more nervous. Umbridge seemed insistant on sacking someone soon. She was becoming harder and harder on the two of them. Alex seriously hoped Hagrid would be able to keep it together longer than Trelawney, but that didn't seem to happening. Nobody had any idea who was going first.

The entire DA was improving quickly. The most noticable difference, however, was Neville. He had gone from worst in the class to being almost as good as Hermione. Alex remembered seeing that one of the Azkaban escapees had tortured an Alice and Frank Longbottom to insanity. She assumed these were Neville's parents, as he lived with his grandmother and rarely spoke of whis parents.

Quidditch was amazing. Every practice she felt like she was improving, and being on a broomstick was exhilirating. She set Harry as her example, and strived to be as good as him. It was unlikely, considering Harry was the best Seeker the school had had in years, but she still wanted to try. The entire team was doing well, but Ron was still missing self confidence, plus Jack and Andrew were nowhere as good as Fred and George. Under Angelina's direction, though, everyone was confident they could still win the Quidditch Cup.

There were many evenings when Harry would be gone from the common room. Ron and Hermione had said he was doing Remedial Potions, but Alex didn't buy it. Even Harry wasn't as bad as a lot of other Potion students. Besides, there was no way Snape would be willing to spend extra time teaching Harry unless he had to. Hopefully it wasn't anything too bad, but why would he keep it covered if it wasn't important?

The next Hogsmeade visit was coming up, but Alex wasn't going to go. Angelina had scheduled an all-day Quidditch practice, and she was not looking forward to it. But at least she could spend the day up in the air! As she glanced towards the path leading to the village, she saw Harry walking with Cho Chang. She smiled despite herself. Harry may have hated her, but she still cared about him and she thought it was great that he was going out with Cho.


I was pushing through major writer's block and lack of motivation guys, sorry. To MadiWeasley, I'm not apologizing about the pace of the story, but about the time it took me to get it up. I really appreciate everyone's continued support. Just a little something random, has anyone noticed J.K. Rowling's like for hogs? I mean, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, Hog's Head. Strange, isn't it?

Guest Review Replies:

a. b. ginzburg : To your first review: What? To your second review: No, the story is still in progress.

Ellie: Well, this chapter should have at least sorta explained. It'll go more into detail later on.

Nirvik: Look on my profile. :)