Notes: As many of you have already noticed, this chapter took way longer than expected to release, the main reasons being that we had a problem with the original file and it had to be re-written from scratch, and that classes once again started for me which gave me even less time to rewrite the missing chapter (if my current schedule were any crappier it'd be an actual turd). There were also a couple of other reasons, but those are the main ones. Chapter 55 shouldn't take that long, though.

Also just wanted to say that it looks like we're finally reaching this fic's final stretch. As always thanks for all your wonderful support! I've gotten a lot of really great feedback and I really wanted to thank all of you who've stopped by and left a review :)

….

(ARC) (Wow there's a lot of 'em this time around so I'll add a bit of the first sentence of each review just to make it clear as to what review I'm replying to.)

Review 1: "awe,i was really hoping for one this chapter…"

To Guest:

Yeah, I haven't been able to get omakes out lately, so unfortunately no omake on this chapter either. I'm really glad you're enjoying them and I'll likely write more omakes even after the story ends. I'll be sure to add a couple of plant themed ones just for you. Thanks for reviewing!

Review 2: "so...how many chapters do u think there will be before…"

To Guest:

Good question. Assuming that may happen (and I'm making no promises) I'd say there's not all that many chapters left for that. Thanks for reviewing!

Review 3: "life is getting to hectic and busy?"

To Guest:

Why yes, yes it is.

Review 4: "LOVELESS? The FFVII reference had me…"

To Guest:

Congrats for getting that reference! I thought similarly seeing as both of them are complete drama queens (and I wouldn't like them any other way). Your pun amuses me, and thanks! I really wanted to write a FFIX/HP crossover for that exact reason. I pretty much live for Zidane and Kuja's antics as a dysfunctional sibling relationship (the ultima spell thing also sounded like something my older sister would have done to me when we were kids). Anyways thanks reviewing and I hope you enjoy what's coming :D

(end ARC)

….

Chapter 54: Dark Clouds on the Horizon

….

The wind blew eerily through the dilapidated house. It was an old thing located by the edge of a dark, old forest in what could easily be described as the middle of nowhere. Though at one point it had been a quaint little country house filled with the laugher of children, it had long since been abandoned by the previous owners whose old age made it impossible to maintain. The once pearly white paint had cracked away while nature had reclaimed the structure for itself. Even the forest had slowly been enveloping the property, large trees looming over the house and blocking out the moonlight only to add to the abandoned feeling the property gave.

However, the house was not empty. A warm light flickered from the inside, though the dusty windows and broken blinds made it impossible for the casual passerby to peek inside. Of course, there was no such thing as a casual passerby given the remote location of the house. Only occasionally did people show up, all of them dressed strangely, which was why amongst locals the place had gained a dangerous reputation.

As it was, tonight was one of such occasions.

A lonely hooded figure walked up to the door, the wind howling and the large house creaking as the person walked up to the entrance and opened the door.

The inside of the building hardly resembled its former self, rather it looked more like a storehouse or a cellar, with crates piled up and cluttered with various objects that seemed to occupy every available surface of the room. In the middle of what would have been a living room was a large wooden desk with various tomes, writing equipment, and other strange instruments strewn about. Behind the desk sat a large, intimidating robed man with an unkempt appearance. Several scars decorated his face, one of them running right over his left eye under his oily brown hair and another one over the bridge of his nose, which made it look as if a large beast had raked its claws over his face.

"Are you looking to buy or sell?" The sketchy wizard asked, scowling from across the messy desk. "Well, Miss?"

After all, nobody else came to this smuggler's outpost other than to engage in dubious transactions. The man had already received a message that this man would come, not through an owl though, since they could easily be intercepted. Shadows danced across the hooded person´s face, a smirk tugging on painted lips. Porcelain white hands reached out to pull down the dark hood, revealing silver hair and lavender tipped feathers adorning it.

"I'm no Miss, but I believe you can assist me." Kuja said, the deepness of his voice making the man before him scowl further, the scars on his face seemingly stretching and looking deeper in the candlelight.

"I'm listening." The man said, not hiding the look of distaste on his face, even as he picked up a polished black pipe and began to blow circles of smoke.

"You see." Kuja began, walking up to the desk and sitting on it in a leisurely way, his cloak falling to the side to reveal an exposed thigh and elaborate high-heeled boots. "I just recently spoke to your colleague back in Knockturn Alley and I don't think he was very helpful at all. I need to track some of the orders that were sent to various locations around Europe. They were pretty large orders at that, so I think you probably know what I'm talking about. Give me a list of where all of them are."

The man let out a booming laugh, though the silvery-haired man remained passive, a smile still present on his face. "What the bloody hell makes you think I'll give that away, ya poof."

"Oh don't misunderstand me. That wasn't a request, it was an order." Kuja said, smiling despite the predatory look in his eyes.

"I'll give ya ten seconds to scram before them spells go flyin'." The man said, pulling a wand out of a holster on his arm. "Then you won't have to worry about messin' up your pretty little makeup."

For a moment there was only the sound of the old house and the wind howling outside and then, there was laughter. The genome laughed, his voice loud and yet melodious, making the scowl on the man's face further increase at the thought of him being considered part of some joke. The magic in the air stirred as the man swung his wand, however, Kuja was faster. A sphere of light materialized and shot towards the man's hand like a bullet, the wand going up in flames and the man's hand blistering over and turning an ugly shade of red. The man howled out in pain, clutching his injured hand as he stepped back.

Kuja left his perch on the desk and walked slowly towards the injured man, his heels clicking ominously as he approached. The man inched backwards, gone was the overconfidence he had displayed not ten seconds ago.

"Let's not continue to kid ourselves, shall we? You know what I'm looking for, now we can do this the easy way or the hard way." Kuja said calmly.

The man suddenly yelled before making a mad grab for something on the desk.

"That Portkey won't be taking you anywhere anytime soon." Kuja said with a matter-of-factly tone. The man then frantically searched his pockets, only to stop in terror as Kuja spoke once more. "Don't even bother trying to contact the rest. I already took care of them on the way over."

In a desperate attempt, the man suddenly ran to the door, likely with every intent to apparate once outside the ward that surrounded the old house. With a wave of Kuja's hand, ropes suddenly materialized from the ground, slithering quickly towards the man like snakes and wrapping around his ankles. With a pull, the ropes dragged the man back, screaming, until he was tied down on the floor just in front of Kuja.

"Ye won't get away with this." The man called obscenities as he tried to resist. "The Dark Lord won't let this to go unpunished."

Kuja narrowed his pale eyes as he regarded the man –no Death Eater– before him one more. With a click of his fingers, the man suddenly became unable to speak. His lips moved but no sound came out of them.

"Let me make something perfectly clear. I do not appreciate having my inventions stolen. If this had happened a few months back, perhaps I would have been willing to overlook such a transgression. However, there's been a small change of plans." Kuja began as he dug his heel slowly into the man's chest, his tone dark as he stared the man down with a predatory grin. "I supposed it was partially my fault for making them so easy to produce. I won't deny that I did know their potential and what great and terrible things could arrive from this. I just honestly didn't care what would happen to this world, in fact I still don't, but let's not blame the victim here. Give me the list of locations and I might even consider sparing your life."

With a click of his fingers, sound once more emerged from the man's mouth. "Fuck you."

With a sigh, Kuja held his hand out once more, a ball of light forming and striking the man right in the left thigh. Howls of pain went ignored as Kuja spoke once more. "This is your last chance."

"They'll find me and know what happened." The man said, struggling to speak. "Then you'd better sleep with one eye open."

"The downside of carrying illegal items around is how sometimes very dangerous items may slip through the cracks. There's hardly ever any regulation, you see." Kuja brought up both hands, making several small crates in the room fly towards him before settling around the man. "Like say, if someone were to begin smuggling large quantities of exploding fluid from Erumpent horns and some of it were to be mishandled, then it's very likely to explode. Especially if whoever happened to bottle the product were to hypothetically neglect taking the appropriate steps in protecting the vials from outside damage. Since there's likely records of this being in the inventory, then it's very likely that nobody would bat an eye if an entire den of smugglers were to suddenly go up in flames."

The man struggled to get free, but after a few moments went still, dark obscenities being muttered under his breath. Finally, the man spoke. "I only know of one other place. A small village in south-west England. We were supposed to drop them off at an old factory. Nobody said what they were for."

"Well that's too bad." Kuja said before walking towards the door.

"Let me go!" The man yelled, his body writhing as he tried unsuccessfully to free himself. "I gave you what you wanted!"

"Can't have you telling others of me, can I?" Kuja said before pausing. Giving the rest of the crates in the room one last look, he spoke. "Tell me. You wouldn't happen to have been involved with smuggling dragon eggs around a year ago, were you?"

"I'll give them to you! Ironbelly eggs, Opaleye hides, you name it." The man desperately called out.

"I see, I thought I recognized you." The genome said, his eyes becoming unreadable.

"I told you what you wanted!" The man called again.

"It's a real shame, but I already destroyed that place a while back." The genome said with a smile, not even looking back as he headed towards the door. With the wave of his hand, a small white flame ignited from his index finger and flew slowly like a will o' wisp until it landed on one of the crates and began spreading over the wooden surface.

Ignoring the man's cries, Kuja was out the door and on Sylph's back by the time the old house was up in flames.

Stroking Sylph's pearly scales, the dragon crooned softly as Kuja spoke. "Everything is okay now."

…..

On the day of the History of Magic OWL, Hermione awoke with a start, her notes and her wand still lying on her bed with her. She had spent the early morning investing every ounce of her willpower into remembering names, events, and dates, as well as their significance in a historical context. She should have tried to get some rest, least it prove detrimental to her performance. However, sleep did its best to elude her. Whenever she closed her eyes she recalled Hagrid's shouts, McGonagall's limp body falling to the ground, and the fight with whom she assumed had been Marcus Crescent. In the end she had escaped to the comfort of her books once again, though her obvious lack of sleep had not helped her studies.

Hermione shook her head. At around four in the morning they had confirmed that McGonagall was okay for now, in spite of Madam Pomfrey's attempts to get them to head back because of the long-forgotten curfew. Hagrid should have been just fine, Crescent too, must have made himself scarce. In fact, the only thing that should matter to her at the moment was the impending History of Magic OWL.

Uneasiness ran rampant in her mind. She knew she had done her best and studied all she could, but what if she forgot a date? What if, at the moment of the examinations, she suddenly went blank? The teen tried to calm her anxieties as she went through the information once more in her head. She knew all this, so she shouldn't have to worry.

'Then again, I could use giving my notes another read-through. After all, OWLs only happen once in a student's life. Putting that into perspective, taking a few minutes to read over my notes is nothing compared to a lifetime of getting anything other than an 'outstanding'.' Hermione thought. It seemed reasonable enough.

She may be statistically the smartest witch in their year, but it wasn't without effort. She didn't have the luxury of growing up in a wizarding family, so she'd made sure to make up for it with sheer diligence and an insatiable thirst for knowledge.

Grabbing her nearby bag, the teen opened up her notes and began reading. Facts began to pour from the pages, each sentence summoning pieces of information from her memory which then expanded further and further into extensive networks of knowledge. She didn't know how long she sat on her bed with her notes spread out before her since her mind was too absorbed into her reading that any and all outside stimuli were promptly ignored. At some point she thought Lavender spoke to her, but she was not entirely sure since admittedly, the girl normally did an awful lot of talking.

It wasn't until a rather large growl from her stomach made her realize that she was starving, or more importantly, that she had no idea what time it was.

The door suddenly opened, revealing Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, both girls chatting amiably. At the sight of Hermione, the teens paused in their tracks.

"Are you still studying? You're going to miss out on breakfast at this rate." Parvati began.

"Yeah, what are you so worried about? If there's anybody going to get an outstanding on ole' Binn's subject it's you. You're actually making me nervous just by looking at you. I should be the one worrying about it." Lavender said, though Hermione was too busy putting her things away and hastily gathering her uniform to really care about her words. Mentally, she rolled her eyes. Why did Lavender's lack of study have to negatively affect hers? It wasn't her fault that Lavender didn't take the necessary preparations.

"Seriously, have you been getting enough sleep? We didn't see you come upstairs last night." Parvati said with concern. Hermione appreciated it, she really did, but just not right now.

"We hardly saw you yesterday." Lavender began.

Hermione recalled that they had often offered to give her make-overs or just girl-talk, and though she really did appreciate their attempts to include her, it just really wasn't her cup of tea. Rather, this past month or so she had purposely avoided their room just because it was hard to concentrate on her studies with all the racket. It wasn't that they weren't studying for their OWLs as well, it was just that this particular ritual of theirs apparently served as some kind of coping mechanism for their stressful study sessions.

"Oh, that's right. We forgot to give it to her." Parvati began as she walked over to the nightstand between her bed and Lavender's and then pulled out a rather thick looking envelope before handing it over to Hermione. "I found it wedged between your trunk and the bed while I was looking for my lip balm, so we thought it was yours."

"We didn't open it though, I swear." Lavender quickly added, making Hermione raise a brow in question.

Hermione took the dusty and slightly crumpled-up envelope, feeling like she had seen it before, memories tugging at her, though still out of reach. With a shake of her head, the bushy-haired girl shoved it roughly into her bag. She didn't have the time to ask questions. She could deal with this after the examination. For now she had to hurry if she hoped to get any breakfast.

"Right, thanks." Hermione said before taking off.

…

The History of Magic OWL would be taking place in the evening and Harry could not wait for it to be over. He was still somewhat shaken from the events from yesterday, not to mention that sleep deprivation and the discovery that he was likely being stalked by a mysterious and possibly very powerful wizard, had not done any wonders for his current mood. At this point he just wished that the test had been scheduled earlier just so that he could have already gotten this over with.

Ever since Sirius told them about their group being seen at the Hogshead, not to mention that Crescent had been attacked shortly afterwards, the teens had suspected something was amiss. Only now did they realize that things were likely worse than they imagined.

Last night Hermione had recognized those weapons as belonging to the elusive Order member, Marcus Crescent. After breakfast they had tried to come up with reasons as to what the man was doing there in the first place while hastily going over their notes for the upcoming exam. The timing was, after all, too perfect, and with Dumbledore gone, there weren't many reasons they could come up with to explain Crescent's presence, other than that he was watching over something while the Headmaster was away.

Harry's mind had quickly recalled the incident at Dumbledore's office, just after the old wizard had disappeared, and remembered how someone else had been there then, unseen under the cover of invisibility. Of course the only person he knew that could become invisible without the aid of an invisibility cloak was Crescent. His presence there that night made it very unlikely that Dumbledore had asked him to watch the castle in his absence, rather, because the timing seemed off, they had deemed it safe to assume that he'd been tasked to watch over something else.

Unfortunately that only left them with one likely choice. Crescent was watching him.

The idea of having an invisible wizard watching him from the shadows at all times had instantly horrified him. Paranoia had gripped him so intensely that at times he felt he was channeling Moody. He'd found himself subconsciously checking his surroundings, his eyes darting about to find even the strangest anomaly, such as a misplaced breeze of air or a shadow moving on its own accord. Sudden noises made him flinch on occasion, his eyes tracking the sound and suddenly expecting to find Crescent, the darkness under his black hood staring back at him.

Hermione had already told him several times to 'come off it' and that Crescent likely meant no harm given that he'd done nothing at all to interfere with their daily lives. However what disturbed him the most was that Hermione had never at any point dismissed the notion that he was being watched. Rather, it probably looked to her as the most probable answer. Whatever the case, she seemed far more preoccupied with studying now than with anything else.

Then again, perhaps Crescent really wasn't as bad as Harry believed. He'd given them Christmas presents and he did confront Umbridge last night. Apparently he had even been the one responsible for taking McGonagall to the Hospital Wing, or at least, that's what it seemed from what they heard after taking their examination. It was impossible to know for sure given that McGonagall had been taken to St. Mungo's due to the severity of her injuries.

"Well, I don't think I'll be able to cram anything else. Wanna get some lunch?" Ron said in defeat as he closed the large tome he was reading with a loud 'slam' that managed to kick up a small cloud of dust.

With a sigh Harry did the same. After all, he didn't think he'd be able to concentrate on studying, either.

"Are you coming, 'Mione?" Ron asked, though the girl only reluctantly looked away from her books, the bags under her eyes were quite evident.

With a sigh the teen conceded. "Fine."

"Don't worry so much about it. I'm sure you'll probably be the only one in our year to get an 'Outstanding´." Harry said reassuringly.

He hoped he could feel the same way about himself.

…

Zidane bade Neville and Luna goodbye before heading outside the castle. Once there, he found the most secluded spot he could find and made himself invisible to the world. The History of Magic OWL would take place in the Great Hall, but even so, he still felt the need to stick close by in case anything happened. He'd been lucky to be close by when Hagrid and McGonagall were attacked, and currently he did not know what else to expect from Umbridge.

'Kuja's a big boy, he can deal with her by himself when he comes back.' The teen mused.

Approaching the old stone walls, Zidane accelerated and ran up a length of the side before grabbing purchase on one of the crevices and beginning his climb up the side of the building. Passing by one of the windows, the teen noticed that the students were now heading towards their seats as the old instructors provided directions. On one end of the room was a large clock face with a pendulum that had begun to swing as the examination begun.

'Break a leg guys.' The teen silently wished the teens luck as he located them in their respective seats. After all, this was Binn's subject and Eidolons knew just how boring it was.

Continuing with his climb, the teen finally reached the tiled roof where he found a comfortable perch on one of smaller window's dormer. Closing his eyes, Zidane heard the Castle underneath him come alive with sounds; if he focused he could even hear the swinging of the clock's pendulum and the general buzz of the students as they took their exam. If something happened, he'd be able to tell from here.

Satisfied, the teen opened his cyan hued eyes and gazed at the scenery as he crossed both arms behind him and leisurely rested on the roof. He could see the vast greenery of the Forbidden Forest and the glittering reflection of the sun on the waters of the lake. The sky was a deep blue except for some dark clouds in the horizon. Even so, several birds soared gracefully above in what could doubtlessly be called a beautiful day. With a yawn, Zidane watched, taking a good look at the surroundings he'd become familiar with these past months. He still couldn't believe he had come all this way. He'd been in this world for almost a year and yet, in a few days, almost a week, the semester would end and he'd be home in Gaia at last.

The scenic background he was looking at right now would be nothing more than a memory.

Zidane frowned.

'Well, not just a memory.' The teen thought to himself. It had been a very unique experience. He'd seen things he would have never imagined in his life, and despite the bad things that had happened, he could never regret coming here.

The thought of leaving this all behind made a part of his soul ache dully, however, even he knew that he had spent long enough in this place already. It was time to go home and he knew it.

'I sure hope Dumbledore keeps up with his side of the deal. Well, Kuja did say that things were pretty much ready, asides from a couple of quirks.' The blonde thought as he stretched lazily. 'I already told Dagger we'd be there before June ends. I just hope Kuja doesn't run out on me at the last second. There's definitely a storm waiting for us when we get back.'

Indeed there was no telling what would happen to Kuja when they got back. Considering his crimes, an execution seemed like the more probable outcome. According to Dagger, she had already done the best she could, though there was still no telling what would happen.

"I told the others about Kuja." The young queen –his queen– said.

The two of them were sitting under the large tree in the dream-like world, their hands interlocked and their bodies leaning against each other. Neither of them moved, each of them reveling in the other's warmth and scent. Above them the sun and the moon both shined, united, but only in this place of dreams, so in a way just like them.

"Yikes." Zidane said playfully as his eyes met with chocolate brown. "How did that go? Did Rusty already start fortifying our defenses?"

Dagger bit her lip to hide her amusement as she rolled her eyes at him. "It wasn't that bad. They are all uneasy about the news, that's true. But considering everything he has done I don't think it's an unreasonable reaction. Ever since the war ended, nothing has been quite the same. Things are better than before, but none of the destroyed cities have managed to fully recover from what happened, in fact, many of them will probably never be the same."

Zidane looked down as he asked his next question. "What will happen to Kuja then?"

Dagger glanced away, her eyes downcast. "He will have to be put to trial. As queen I can't overlook this and neither can I hide it from the other rulers unless we're looking to make new enemies. For now only we know about Kuja, but you know we can't keep that a secret forever."

"Yeah, I suppose so. Eiko has Regent Cid, and Freya has Burmecia's royalty to worry about. It's unfair to ask them to turn away from their people." Zidane said with a sigh. Lindblum and Burmecia were Alexandria's allies and nothing good would come from hiding stuff from them, and even though they had a history with Regent Cid and Prince Puck, those two were duty-bound by their people. Hiding Kuja may very well start another war. "We should probably at least tell them beforehand."

"I'm happy you feel that way. Don't worry, I promise we'll do the best we can." Dagger said, pecking him on the cheek. "I don't think we know how to feel about Kuja's return just yet, but he did save us once and we're not the type to forget our debts."

"You're amazing you know that." Zidane said with a smile as he returned the gesture and softly kissed Dagger on the neck twice, tickling her slightly and making the queen laugh and push him away. In retaliation Zidane smiled mischievously and pounced, his gloved hands reaching for Dagger's sides and began tickling her. The teen laughed, tears forming in her eyes, before she too went on the offensive. Hugging Zidane's middle, the young Summoner rolled Zidane over and pinned him under her, eliciting a yelp of surprise from her partner, which was then silenced by the suddenly kiss on his lips.

Zidane felt his breath leave him as the kiss deepened. He closed his eyes and reciprocated, his heart racing as the warmth spread through his body. In his mind he was in complete bliss.

When the kiss finally ended, both teens looked at each other and laughed at their flushed and disheveled appearances before getting up and shaking the blades of dry grass from their clothes.

"So, do you know when you're getting back?" Dagger asked, running her fingers through her hair to pick bits of grass out of it.

"Term ends on the third week of June, so I'd say well be back before June ends. I'd like to have a little time to wrap things up over here. There's a couple of things I have to do before I leave." Zidane said, shaking his head to get the grass out, but then stopping in his tracks as Dagger began doing it for him.

"Do what you must. Just be safe, okay?" Dagger said, giving him another peck on the cheek before wrapping her arms around him. "I'll be waiting for you. We all will."

Zidane sighed, yearning for his Dagger once more. He supposed he would be getting his wish soon enough.

'I'm really going to have to make it up big time for her once this is over.' The genome thought, yawning. 'I should give her something really special. I was already thinking of what to get the others as souvenirs.'

All that was left was to wrap things up and hope nothing else went wrong. Perhaps it would be a boring ending to an exciting story, and perhaps it would even count as a sign that he was getting old, but boring was safe and safe was good for these wizards.

'In a way it's a shame since I finally got that new fighting style down. Still, I'd rather these guys be safe.' Zidane thought, his tail waving lazily side to side. 'All I have to do now is to finally tell Neville and Luna the truth. Well, I suppose Harry, Ron, and Hermione as well. I don't want Harry to continue thinking that he's being stalked even when I'm gone. Poor kid has enough on his plate to deal with.'

Since the end of term was coming, then he supposed he had around a week to figure out how he'd tell his friends. At least he hoped they'd still be his friends by the time it was over. It seemed like the time had finally come for his secret to come out, though he didn't quite know how to do it.

'Hey guys! Listen this might be really sudden, but now that the term is about to end, I thought I should tell you that I'm not really a wizard. Well, funny thing is I'm not really even human.' Zidane thought humorously. 'Yeah maybe I can also pull my tail out of a hat for extra effect while I'm at it. Hey look guys, ta da!'

The genome sighed as he looked up at an owl flying overhead.

'As if that'll work.' Turning on his side, the teen looked down at roof beneath him. 'They're sure taking their time.'

Zidane was about to lean over to look through the castle's clerestory when it suddenly hit him. A wave of malice rushed over him, making the hairs on the back of his neck and tail stand on edge. The teen lost his footing and nearly fell off the roof from the surprise, but luckily he was able to get a grip on one of the ledges right on time.

Beneath him the Great Hall erupted into chaos.

….

Harry stared at his parchment, wishing deep down that everything were already over. He was tired and it was taking considerable effort not to fall asleep on his desk. Looking around, Harry wondered if Crescent was watching him from somewhere; perhaps from one of the dark corners of the room where he'd be able to hide his shadow. Around him students were busily writing on their parchments, the sound of scratching quills filling up the large room.

Not wanting to make it seem like he was cheating, Harry looked down at his own parchment once more, particularly at question five. Admittedly he hoped that if Crescent really was watching him, he was finding this just as dreadfully boring as he was.

How was the statue of secrecy breached in 1749 and what measures were introduced to prevent a recurrence?

His written answer was mediocre at best, with not nearly enough depth and he was almost positive that he was missing a key part of it.

'There was something about vampires.' Harry thought to himself as he ran a hand through his messy jet-black hair.

He was finding it increasingly hard to remember names, and even worse, he kept mixing dates up, even though he had spent most of the morning going over Hermione's extensive notes.

Looking at the questions for one that he could actually answer, Harry found a small kindling of hope in number 10.

Describe the circumstances that led to the formation of the International Confederation of Wizards and explain why the warlocks of Lichtenstein refused to join.

'I know this.' Harry realized as he raked his brain for the very elusive piece of knowledge he needed. 'The first Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards was Pierre Bonaccord, but he had done something to offend the wizards of Lichtenstein. What was it?'

Harry looked at the large clock face besides Professor Marchbanks as if it would give him the answer he was seeking. Around him the scratching of quills continued and he was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate.

'Something with trolls. He wanted to give them rights, but Lichtenstein had a problem with a tribe of them.' Harry wrote two sentences in his answer, but after reading it over, he realized that it was neither detailed nor complete. The teen then ran a hand through his hair again in frustration. 'There was more on Hermione's notes. Think…goblins, there was something about goblins wanting to attend but being ousted, what else…think.'

Looking back at the front of the hall, he stared at the sand slowly trickling down the hour-glass at the front of the hall that showed how much time they had left.

'Think.' Harry repeated to himself, though his eyes continued to hypnotically gaze at the falling sand…

He was walking down the dark corridor in the Department of Mysteries, his gait meaningful as he then ran to the black door at last. The door swung open and he continued running, this time finding himself in a round room full of doors. He ran ahead through one of them, feeling the intense need to get to his destination. Patches of dancing light reflected off bits and pieces of the room he found himself in, however his need to go on ahead far surpassed any desire to explore the place and soon he found himself at another door which swung open like the others. He was now in a large room full of tall shelves. His heart raced further as he ran through the corridor. There were glass spheres on the shelves, however they were not what he was after. When he finally reached ninety-seven he turned left and hurried along between the two rows.

There was a dark shape on the floor, like that of a wounded animal that beckoned him over with both fear and excitement.

A voice poured forth from his mouth except it was not his own.

"Take it for me...lift it down, now…I cannot touch it…but you can…" The voice spoke. It was cold and empty, devoid of any semblance of kindness.

The figure on the floor stirred and Harry saw at the end of his arm a white hand holding a wand pointed at it. The voice spoke again.

"Crucio."

The man let out a scream of pain, and in spite of his efforts to stand, fell back down, writhing on the ground. Meanwhile Harry laughed in that same cold voice. When the spell lifted, the man crumpled down and lay motionless. The empty voice issued from Harry's mouth again.

"Lord Voldemort is waiting."

Very slowly the man before him lifted his head and looked up. His face blood-stained and gaunt, twisted in pain and yet defiant.

"You'll have to kill me." Sirius said, eyes piercing him.

"Undoubtedly I shall in the end." The cold voice spoke again. "But you shall fetch it for me first, Black…you think you have felt pain thus far? Think again…we have hours ahead of us and nobody to hear you scream…"

But someone did scream. Somebody yelled and fell sideways off their desk onto the cold stone floor. Harry awoke with a cry, his scar burning harder than ever before. Around him the Great Hall was in an uproar.

…

To be continued…

...

A/N: There's a small reference in this chapter as to how Kuja came across Sylph. Not sure if I'll delve deeper into it, but I might just write about it once MOTA is over. Anyways, see you guys next time!