Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 36

The following day we received a reply to our letter to Sirius during breakfast. As soon as the letter was given to us, I quickly went around the table so I could read it over Harry's shoulder.

Harry and Emily

Harry, what do you think you are playing at, walking off into the forest with Viktor Krum? I want you to swear, by return owl, that you are not going to go walking with anyone else at night, that includes you too Emily. There is somebody highly dangerous at Hogwarts. It is clear to me that they wanted to stop Crouch from seeing Dumbledore and Harry, you were probably feet away from them in the dark. You could have been killed.

Your names didn't get into the Goblet of Fire by accident. If someone's trying to attack you two, they're on their last chance. Stay close to Ron and Hermione, do not leave Gryffindor Tower after hours, and arm yourself for the third task. Practice Stunning and Disarming. A few hexes wouldn't go amiss either. There's nothing you can do about Crouch. Keep your heads down and look after yourselves. I'm waiting for your letter giving me your word you won't stray out-of-bounds again.

-Sirius

"Yeah, because he's really one to preach to us about staying in the boundaries of the school," I muttered. "After everything that he did at school…"

"Who does he think he is?" Harry demanded.

"He's just worried about you two," Hermione said.

"No one has even tried to attack us all year," I said.

"Someone put your name into the Goblet Emily," Hermione said. "So someone has got to be after you - there isn't any question in that."

She did have a point, and so did Sirius I suppose. It just felt a little ironic that Sirius of all people is trying to encourage us to stay out of trouble. A bit ironic if you ask me, but Hermione was right. He was just trying to keep us safe from whatever was going on.

For the next few days, we did our best to stay inside of the castle. While we were there, we spent most of the time looking for different types of spells that could help us in the third task. In other words, Hermione made sure that we were in the library if we weren't in class - that or we were in empty classrooms practicing these spells.

"Can't we find someone else to practice on?" Ron asked as he sat up for the millionth time.

Because we didn't really have any other choice, we recruited Ron and Neville as our test subjects for the spells that we were practicing in the empty Charms classroom. By this time, we had stunned each of them about a dozen times each. I couldn't imagine that this was too pleasant for them, so I couldn't really blame Ron for getting tired of it.

"I second that," Neville muttered as he sat up.

I held out my arm to help him stand up again and Harry did the same for Ron. They both appeared to be slightly dazed from all this stunning, but overall their moods seemed to be the biggest problem. Well, Ron was the one that was complaining the most, Neville just stumbled around a bit after each spell was cast.

"Well, I think that we're done with that one anyway," Hermione said as she looked down at the list of useful charms that she created in the library. "They aren't having any problems with that one, so we should probably move onto the next one."

"Please tell me it isn't going to be painful," Ron mumbled miserably.

"It's the Impediment Curse," Hermione read off. "It's supposed to slow down any attacker…"

We were only allowed to practice that one a couple of times because we were interrupted by the bell. Unfortunately for us, this meant that we had to go up to the North Tower for Divination. How wonderful, I couldn't wait to have my death predicted again.

When we made it up to the tower, it was boiling in the room. The fire was still going because Trelawney refused to ever put it out which made it a real challenge to concentrate at all. Luckily enough, Harry managed to open up the window slightly so a small breeze could come through.

"We have nearly finished up our unit on planetary divination," Trelawney said in a misty voice. "Today, however, we have an excellent opportunity to observe the effects that Mars will have on us."

"Wonderful, I can't wait," I whispered to Neville who let out a small snort.

"What was that Mr. Longbottom?" she asked.

"N-nothing," he said. "I had something in my throat."

Neville had been around me far too long. He was starting to be able to lie on the spot, something that he hadn't been to good at when I had first met him.

As she went on about how Mars was going to effect us, I laid my head down on the table and looked out the window. It would be really nice to be out there, but Harry and I had decided that we weren't going to go out there because we knew that Sirius wanted us to stay in the castle just in case anything were to happen.

Before I knew it, my eyelids slowly began to close as I drifted off into a dream world. I was walking outside of the castle with George. We were laughing about something and looking out at the lake together. I was feeling the cool breeze as it flew around us and George's hand that held onto mine. We stopped around a tree and he put his arms around me. Just as he leaned in to kiss me, something changed.

All of a sudden, the scene changed to something incredibly familiar, but slightly different from what I remembered. I was now standing outside of a large house and looking in through the window. Inside of the house, I saw a small, balding man wheezing on the floor in front of a chair that was facing in another direction that had a large snake slithering around it.

Just as I looked in, an owl swooped into the room and dropped a letter to the person that sat in the chair. The balding man continued to sob uncontrollably as the owl landed on the chair and sat for a few moments.

"You're in luck Wormtail," a cold voice came from around the chair. "You're blunder hasn't ruined everything. He is dead."

"T-that's w-w-wonderful n-news, my l-lord," Wormtail stuttered.

"It appears, however, that you are out of luck Nagini," the cold man said. "I will not be feeding you Wormtail today…there are always the Potter Twins though…"

A cold chill went down my spine as the snake hissed hungrily and slithered around the room. It's tongue flicked angrily as it glared at Wormtail who was still sitting on the floor with tears staining his face. He looked terrified.

"There will be a consciences for your mistakes Wormtail," the cold voice said. "To remind you that I will not tolerate any kind of mistakes."

Wormtail looked up from the floor suddenly with a look of terror flashing across his face. He stood up shakily and began to walk slowly backwards in fear.

"M-my lord…I beg of you-" he said.

"Crucio!"

Wormtail screamed loudly and began to twitch on the floor in a way that looked completely unnatural. I tried to hold my ears to keep from hearing his painful screams, but it did nothing. My scar began to burn on my forehead and I heard myself screaming and every nerve in my body felt like it had been lit on fire.

"Emily!" someone was yelling.

Did he find me? Did Voldemort see me through the window?

"Emily!" the person said again.

This time it sounded all too familiar. The pain in my scar began to fade only slightly as I opened my eyes and looked frantically around the room to find out where I was. Standing over me, looked frightened and pale as ever, was Neville accompanied by some others that were in my class.

"A-are you all right?" Neville asked shakily.

Everyone in the room was silent and looking either at me or at the floor a little ways from me. When I turned my head, I saw Harry looking at me as well. He was sitting up on the floor slowly and looking completely terrified and confused as he held onto his scar.

"Of course they aren't all right," Professor Trelawney spoke up. "What was it? Was it a premonition? What was it?"

Harry and I met each others eyes and I knew instantly that he had seen the very same thing that I had seen. We had to tell someone immediately - we had to see Dumbledore. But there was no way that Trelawney was going to just let us go if she knew anything.

"It was nothing," we both said at the same time.

"Just a headache," Harry added.

Professor Trelawney looked at us like we were completely insane. I guess that it would be extremely obvious that we were just lying.

"Both of you were grabbing your scars!" she proclaimed. "Both of you saw something!"

"We always get headaches at the same time…" I lied. "Didn't you notice that before?"

"Can we go to the hospital wing?" Harry asked.

"But-" she started.

"We need to go to the hospital wing," I said.

Both of us went back to our tables to grab our stuff. Of course, we weren't actually going to go to the hospital wing, but I knew for sure that I wasn't going to be returning to this class after what had just happened. On our way out, I caught the glances of Ron, Hermione, and Neville who all looked worried and confused. They were just going have to wait for an explanation.

As soon as we made it down from the North Tower, we both went in the direction of Dumbledore's office without even asking the other if we thought we should go there or not. It really wasn't a question - we had to tell Dumbledore, that was obvious to both of us. However, we ran into a problem when we arrived at the gargoyle that stood in front of Dumbledore's office.

"Do you know the password?" I asked Harry after a moment of looking at it.

"No…but maybe we could figure it out," Harry said. "How about…sherbet lemon?"

Nothing happened at all.

"Pear Drop?" I suggested. "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans?"

"Chocolate Frog?" Harry said. "Licorice Wand?"

"Oh come on, this is urgent!" I said and kicked at the gargoyle.

"How about…Sugar Quill?" Harry said, starting to get aggravated. "Drooble's Best Blowing Gum?"

"This is useless…" I muttered. "It could be anything! What about Cockroach Cluster?"

When it moved, we both looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

"I was joking…" I said.

We both stood there for a minute and then simultaneously stepped onto the staircase that started moving up automatically. After a minute or so, the staircase stopped moving and we stood in front of a closed door that we knew to be Dumbledore's office.

"I just don't see the connection Dumbledore," a familiar voice came from behind the closed doors.

"Is that Fudge?" I asked Harry.

He nodded as we slowly stepped towards the door so that we could listen to what was going on in the room. What was Fudge doing at Hogwarts?

"The Ministry has sources that know Bertha very well," Fudge continued. "They all say the same thing - it is very likely that she got lost all on her own. We have no evidence at all that involves foul play. I really don't think that Barty Crouch's disappearance can be linked to her disappearance!"

"So what do you think happened to Crouch, Minister?" Moody said in his familiar growl.

"Either he finally cracked from all the pressure," Fudge said. "Which wouldn't be very surprising if you ask me. He's probably lost his mind and gone wandering-"

"If he was wondering, how do you suppose he got away so quickly?" Dumbledore asked calmly.

"Well…" Fudge said. "I'm not sure. I just need to see the place where he was found. Didn't you say that it was near the Beauxbaton carriage? Dumbledore, I'm sure that you know what that woman is."

"A very excellent dancer in my opinion, it's a shame that you couldn't discover that for yourself," Dumbledore said innocently.

"I think we ought to wrap up this conversation," Moody growled suddenly.

"Of course, let's go see the grounds," Fudge said.

"It's not just that," Moody said. "It appears that the Potter twins are standing outside of your door waiting to speak with you headmaster."

I blinked in surprise, then remembered that Moody can see through walls and such. Why didn't we think about that before? I guess that it didn't matter much now that they all knew. The door suddenly opened and we stood there awkwardly as all three of the men looked at us.

"Harry, Emily, please come in," Dumbledore smiled at us.

Slowly and awkwardly, we both came into the room and looked around at everyone. I wonder how long Moody had known that we were listening in.

"How are you two?" Fudge asked.

"Fine," we both lied at the same time.

"We were just talking about the night that Mr. Crouch showed up on the grounds," Fudge said. "I believe that it was one of you that found him there."

"That was me," Harry said. "And I didn't see Madame Maxine there either."

"Oh…" Fudge said awkwardly. "Well, it was just a thought."

"Not a very logical one if you ask me," I said. "Wouldn't you think it would take a bit of effort for her to hide around without anyone noticing?"

Fudge didn't have an answer for that one, probably because he knew that he was wrong. It was true, the headmistress would have a real time trying to hide from everyone - she's rather tall.

"We were wondering if we could have a word with you Professor," I said after a moment.

"That would be wonderful," Dumbledore said. "Our examination of the grounds won't take long - just wait for me here."

Each one of them exited the room at that time. Once they were all gone, we decided to have a look around the room. Well, Harry did, I was more focused on Fawkes, the phoenix that was standing on a golden perch next to the door.

"Hello Fawkes," I smiled. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

I hadn't seen Fawkes in a good while now and he had gotten a great deal bigger. I still will never forget the first time that I had seen him. He burst into flames, so it was a rather gruesome sight to say the least. I sat next to him and pet him for a while as I looked around at all of the different portraits of previous headmasters looked at me. I didn't recognize any of them, so it was a little strange.

"What is this?" Harry asked.

I stood up again and walked over to see what he was looking at. It was a large, shallow basin that had a silvery light to it. It didn't look familiar at all and I wondered how long it had been there. Then I noticed that there was a door that had apparently kept it locked away from view. So it probably wasn't supposed to be something that we should see.

"I don't know," I said after looking for a minute.

Harry went to touch the stuff in the basin, but I quickly swatted his hand away and gave him a look. Had he not learned anything?

"Don't touch it," I said. "You don't know what it could be…"

"I just wanted to see…" Harry muttered.

"Here," I said as I took out my wand. "Let me try this."

I prodded at the unknown substance and everything in it moved around and swirled quickly. When it stopped, it looked like glass. When I looked into it, there was, instead of the bottom like I expected, a large, circular room below that we were looking at from a bird's-eye view.

There weren't any windows in the room, but there were crowds of people that were sitting on the rows that were around every wall. In the center sat an empty chair that had chains surrounding it. It was strange looking, but I couldn't help but try to get a closer look.

Just when I stood close enough so that my nose was touching the substance, I felt myself falling quickly into the basin with Harry right next to me.

Thanks for reading - I hope that you all liked it! I know that it was weird to end it right there, but I wanted to include all of that in the next chapter.

ATTENTION ARTISTS! I mentioned before that I would really love it if people would submit art. I was wondering if anyone could draw a picture that included Emily and either Snape, Harry, George, or Neville in it. That or any other characters would be fine. You can submit it through my Tumblr page, Twitter, or even on here. Thanks!

So, tell me what you think!