CHAPTER TWELVE

Ambush

"You're going to have to explain this to me again," Harry said, as he and Terry crept through the school after hours.

"I don't understand what you find so confusing about this," Terry reply came free with an exasperated sigh. "We need a certain book that has a certain potion. What's so hard to understand?"

"I understand that bit, but why are we doing this after curfew?" Harry asked. "And why can't the other Marauders know about this?"

Terry smiled sheepishly. "Well, the potion we're after isn't strictly legal."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "And by not strictly legal you mean-?"

"It carries a three-year sentence for anyone caught brewing it without authorisation."

"Terry!"

"But only eighteen months if you're caught drinking it!" Terry said this as though it helped his case. "Look, you said you wanted help disguising yourself and this is the best method by far."

Harry sighed. "I was just gonna ask the older kids to help me with my human transfiguration."

"This is miles better, believe me." Terry assured him. "Human transfiguration can be undone with a spell, but with Polyjuice Potion you and the person you're imitating are identical down to the last freckle and no spell or potion can undo it."

Harry frowned. "I don't like to think of myself as a vain sort of person, but I'm rather attached to my own face. How do you counteract the potion?"

"You don't." Terry smiled, before quickly explaining himself when Harry opened his mouth to scold him. "I mean, the potion just wears off after a while."

"How long is a while?"

"You're just brimming with questions tonight, aren't you?" Terry sighed. "No, "Thank you, Terry, for offering to brew such a rare and powerful potion for me." I mean, how ungrateful can you get?"

"I'll thank you once I've understood what you're even offering." Harry said calmly, trying to reign in his scepticism. "How long is a while?" He repeated.

"It depends on all sorts of factors. Your age, height, body weight and those of the person you're transforming into, as well as how much potion you actually drink. It's all very complicated, but we'll have time to do the arithmancy calculations once the potion has actually been brewed."

Harry, finally satisfied now that he had received a definitive answer, fell silent for the rest of the journey. With the Marauder's Map confirming that their route to the Room of Requirement will remain undisturbed by any authority figures, the two boys strode confidently through the castle and its corridors, which were unusually well lit for this time of night, but not due to torchlight. No, it was so late that all the fires in the castle had been extinguished. Instead, the early-January night sky was unusually clear, and the full moon's rays shone unobstructed on the snow-covered grounds, lighting up the castle in an ethereal white glow.

At the sight of the full moon Harry's mind had drifted to Remus, who had managed to make it to class today despite being in clear discomfort. Now, he was somewhere in the school or its grounds, curled up instead of rabid due to the Wolfsbane Potion's influence, and counting down the hours until his curse allowed him to return to human form.

These thoughts kept Harry distracted from his surroundings, so much so that by the time they arrived at their destination, Terry had to shake him by the shoulder in order to get him to snap out of it.

"You alright?" Terry asked, concerned.

Harry shook his head, as though hoping to dislodge his previous thoughts from his mind. "Yeah, I just get lost in my own head sometimes."

Terry smiled, as though Harry had just told him a joke. "Tell me about it. It's been happening to me a lot lately." Harry pursed his lips, knowing that his friend's isolation over the last half year had affected him more than he wanted to admit. Terry was a social creature, and he had been denied that by his closest friends for months. It was part of the reason why he had suggested Terry join in on the investigation to catch the Heir of Slytherin, as he just didn't feel comfortable leaving him out.

Besides, he needed someone to watch his back in case his paranoia was right and Susan really was responsible. After all, it wouldn't be the first time someone had pulled the wool over his eyes.

The door for the Marauder's Headquarters shimmered into existence, melting from the castle's stone wall almost, and the two stepped inside and headed right for the private library. Harry was about to ask which text they were actually looking for, but Terry seemed to spot it already and he drew it from the shelf.

The book was a heavy one and so dark that it seemed to draw in the light around it. Written in bone white cursive on the front cover were the words: Magik Moste Evile.

"That title is not reassuring at all," Harry said, unable to keep the worry from his voice, "Are you sure this potion is safe?"

"Safe?" Terry scoffed. "Name one thing that's "safe" and I'll tell you ten different ways you could die doing it."

"That doesn't really answer my question."

Terry sighed. "If brewed and used correctly it's perfectly harmless. Happy?" Even though it was rhetorical, Harry nodded anyway, as he trusted Terry potioneering abilities.

Terry carried the book over to the nearest desk and began to flip through it, and after a minute of two, he stopped at a certain page that had the words Polyjuice Potion written at the top. "Well, considering that some ingredients need to stew for weeks and others need to be picked and added at certain times, I'd say it'll take at least three weeks to brew this, and that's only if everything lines up perfectly."

Harry stared at him. "Tell me you're joking." When Terry only shrugged, Harry asked, "What the hell am we supposed to do until then?"

That question had definitely been rhetorical, but Terry answered it anyway. "Err…cross our fingers and hope the Heir just had a grudge against Myrose?"

Harry pinched his nose. "Look, you just handle the potion and let me know if you need any help getting ingredients or with the brewing process."

"What will you do in the meantime?"

Harry shrugged. "Narrow down the list of suspects, I suppose."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

With at least three weeks of brewing time ahead of them, Harry and Susan had agreed to spend the time narrowing down the list of suspects from the entire population of the castle to something more manageable.

Unfortunately, the list of people who would have good reason to attack Myrose was not a short one. It was plain to see even among Harry's own year group.

Second Year Slytherin, Andrea Watkins was a bit of a loner, and the only person she spoke to with any kind of regularity was her twin brother in Hufflepuff, Gordon. Myrose, perhaps sensing the younger boy's fragility, had singled him out for verbal abuse and outright attacked him more than once this year. It was clear that Myrose had only felt safe doing so because their older brother Richard had now graduated, and Christopher was far too self-involved to notice his sibling's dilemma. In Harry's opinion, Andrea seemed more than capable of utilising Dark Magic to attack her enemies, particularly if they had attacked her twin brother first.

However, while Andrea was aloof most of the time, she had already proven herself to be compromised when it came to family. The last time Myrose had cursed Gordon, she had attacked him in the Great Hall in front of all the teachers without any kind of attempt at being discreet. In fact, her screamed threats that had alerted most of the hall to the fight in the first place and made Professor Vector hurry down in order to break it up.

Whoever the Heir of Slytherin was, they had proven themselves to be level-headed and methodical, as they had attacked Myrose in one of the rare moments that he had failed to surround himself with friends and hangers-on. But what really convinced Harry was how the Heir had left no trace of magic at the scene of the crime. Andrea was a decent student, but that kind of Obscuring Magic would be beyond her.

The other Second Year suspects, and also of Slytherin House, were Theodore Nott and Alabaster Wellington. Few people were willing to speak of it, and Harry had only got the barest of details of the event, but last year they had been the victims of a very cruel and humiliating prank at the hands of Myrose and his gang. Ever since then, they have taken special care to avoid the common room, and Harry had found their hideaway which was hidden deep within the school, a windowless dungeon in which they could be alone.

As someone who had grown up on the outside of social groups and knew first-hand what it was like to experience a schoolwide shunning, Harry should have known better than to judge someone on their outward appearance, but he had always gotten weird vibes from Nott and Wellington.

Despite lacking any kind of blood relation (he had checked Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy to make sure) the two were remarkably similar in appearance, what with their dark hair, thin, lanky frames, and skin so pale that it looked as though neither of them had ever seen the sun. The two were abnormally quiet, never speaking to anyone but each other, and remaining painfully silent whenever they were called upon in class.

To put it frankly, Harry thought they were a couple of creeps.

It was only during his investigation of them, where he followed them around for a few days underneath his Cloak and with the Map, that he discovered that they were simply shy, painfully so. Hiding in a corner of their private dungeon, he found that the two could hardly speak to one another without stuttering.

The irony of his aversion to their perceived behaviour while he was committing an act that was far creepier was not lost on him.

Outside of their year group, there was Sabine Richards, a Fifth Year Ravenclaw. Her best friend, Olivia Franklin, had dropped out two years ago because Myrose had used a love potion on her. No trace of such a potion was found in her system when she went to Madam Pomfrey for an examination, but that was typical for certain love potions when their effects wore off, especially the stronger ones that burned its way through the body.

As no evidence had been found, Myrose remained unpunished as any acts that had been committed had been deemed consensual, and Olivia dropped out of school as she, allegedly, couldn't bring herself to see Myrose every day after what had happened.

It had all happened before Harry's arrival at Hogwarts, but he couldn't help but think that Olivia had made the right choice, as public opinion had not gone her way. Rumours had been spread about her, some of which even Harry and his friends had heard about even though they hadn't even been in school at the same time as her, and they were all rather cruel. No one believed her side of the story, and her return to the Muggle world had only seemed to convince most people that she was running away after her lies had been revealed.

Well, most people believed that, but not everyone. Sabine Richards had been Olivia's best friend and had been the one who had been with her when the potion wore off and had dealt with the aftermath. While everyone else was happy to spread rumours about her for a laugh, Sabine remained the only one who was vocal about what Myrose had done.

Last year, when Christopher had been telling Harry and his friends the story in the common room, she had stormed over and proceeded to tell him off. When he did nothing but laugh at her, she then turned to the First Year boys and told them Olivia's side of things.

Harry remembered how it had felt to hear that story the first time around from Christopher, how silly the idea of a love potion seemed and that such a fuss had been made over the fallout, but his smile had slowly slipped from his face when Sabine explained what a violation it was, to have your decision-making stripped from you, and your will subsumed by an alien force outside of your control. By the end of it, even Terry couldn't find anything funny in it anymore.

Despite his logical half telling him that it was far from the same thing, he could not help but recall Sabine's words whenever he used the Confundus Charm.

As a few days turned into one week and one week turned into two, Harry began to feel a little overwhelmed at the growing list of Myrose's possible attackers, or to put it more accurately, Myrose's established victims.

"I mean, come on!" Harry exclaimed. "How has this guy not been expelled? How has this guy not been to prison?" He shook his head. "His parents or Head of House should have forced him to take an extracurricular activity or to build up a hobby or something! This guy had way too much time on his hands!"

"Maybe we should be quiet when we disparage the person everyone thinks we already attacked?" Susan hissed between gritted teeth.

Harry rolled his eyes as he gestured to the empty corner of the library around them. "I used an Obscuring Charm that I know to muffle our desk. As long as we stay here, no one can hear anything we say or do."

Susan narrowed her eyes and said nothing. From her expression, Harry could see that she was at war with herself. One half wanted to learn such a useful charm, while the other abhorred the idea of admitting some kind of weakness or lack of knowledge to someone she so disliked. While it was amusing to watch, Harry needed to move things along, as they had limited time together before someone noticed them back here, and he wasn't about to teach an outsider a Marauder spell anyway.

"So, you've heard what knowledge I've gathered. What did you manage to learn?" Even though they were supposed to be working together now, he couldn't stop himself from sounding dismissive of her efforts. Which was why he was so surprised when she drew a thick stack of parchment sheets from her bag and placed it on the table in front of him.

"Unlike you, with your creepy spells and stalking tendencies, I manage to gather my information the old-fashioned way." When his expression remained blank, she clarified, "Gossip." Harry made a face, but she spoke over what he had been about to say. "I have enough knowledge and blackmail at my fingertips to get any information I want about any student in school."

"Not me." Harry said boldly.

Susan shot him a cocky smirk as she leaned back in her chair, throwing one arm confidently over the back. "Want to make a wager?"

Harry, realising that he had far too many secrets to go around casually making bets to uncover them, quickly returned to the topic at hand. "All of this is from people Myrose has done bad things to?" He flicked through the stack and estimated that there had to be at least a hundred pages here. "Seriously, where does this guy find the time?"

Susan, still grinning at Harry's cowardice, explained. "Your search was too limited. I widened it to what his entire gang have done to other people in the castle ever since their first year, from destroyed homework, serious injuries, and," she paused and before saying, "other things." She grimaced. "They're the worst."

Harry, having come to that conclusion during his first week of school, nodded absently, as he was fixating on something Susan had just said. "You said, "other people in the castle", and not students. Why?"

"Because it might not be a student at all." Susan glanced around, as though looking for eavesdroppers even though they were entirely alone on the topmost floor of the Library Tower this early on a Saturday morning. She leaned forward and said, "Snape is a Death Eater."

"I know." The words fell out from his lips before he could stop them. Trying to rectify it, he added, "I mean, someone told me that he was tried and acquitted. He's innocent, otherwise Lord Dumbledore wouldn't allow him to teach here."

"You honestly believe that?" Susan sounded almost betrayed, as though she had expected a different reaction from him. "If he was suspect enough to stand trial before the High Court of the Coalition, then he was at the very least associated with the Knight of Walpurgis as an organisation." She sounded as though she were repeating the words an adult had told her. "He has masteries in both Potions and the Dark Arts! Who knows what he was supplying them with? That as good as makes him a Death Eater!"

Harry decided to go along with her theory for now. "Alright, say he is responsible. Why attack Myrose, the brother of a Death Eater and self-admitted blood supremacist?" Susan had deflated slightly, but her expression remained stubborn. Harry tried to explain his new idea. "Look, going through everything that I've learned about him, I don't think this was a personal attack."

"What?"

"Maybe it was wrong place, wrong time. Or maybe it was an accident and Myrose got in the way, or it was an experiment and he was just a convenient target-"

"Are you daft?" Susan asked, as she shook all the pages she had brought along. "Look at how many people hate him in this castle alone. Myrose was a guy who was always going to get on the bad side of the wrong person and end up paying the price for it."

"I don't think so." Harry shook his head. "I hate to admit it, but he's rather clever in how he picked his targets. Just look through all the suspects he hurt personally. He always went after vulnerable students, be they orphans, the financially poor, or emotionally fragile, the kinds of people who had few, if any, way to counter-attack." Harry knew this first-hand. "The kind of person the Heir is, a person who can and will use an ancient monster to attack an enemy doesn't seem like someone Myrose would mess around with."

"You're giving him too much credit." Susan had her arms folded. "He might have been careful in how he chose his victims, yeah, but he would have needed to make an example out of a few people here and there who threatened his reputation." She sounded as though she were speaking from experience. "Among them there might have been a person who is capable of attacking him right back."

Harry raised his hands, conceding for now. "I was never saying we should stop investigating. It would be stupid to stop on just a hunch, but I seriously don't think its going to lead us anywhere." Susan rolled her eyes as she divided the stack of parchment in two for each of them to peruse, she made a comment under her breath about where his hunches could shove themselves.

Harry withheld a sigh. Susan could be frustrating to work with, but at least she had proved herself productive and efficient.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The next day, Nicolas had arrived in the training hall for their usual weekly check-up.

Under his guardian's critical eye, Harry steadily worked his way through his entire training routine, from stretching and dodging, to climbing and falling. He pushed himself during his quick burst sprints and demonstrated the perceptible growth in his Mana Reserves as he pushed his spellcasting to its limits. However, while Harry was proud of the growth he had made in other areas, he knew it wouldn't be able to hide his lack of such in others.

Together, Harry and Nicolas made their way to the windows were the latter conjured furniture identical to the set from Brightstone House. The resumed their usual meditative positions, lying down for Harry and sitting upright for Nicolas, as they both receded their conscious minds to the safe, empty room they had built for themselves.

Or at least Nicolas did. Harry was still struggling with imagining the empty room at all.

"I don't know what I'm doing wrong." Harry admitted once Nicolas had brought the training session to a close, and the two remained on the furniture, chatting. "I can sometimes picture the empty room but it never lasts longer than a second, and it's always chased away by other thoughts." He sighed. "Please tell me it's this hard for everyone."

"Oh, yes," Nicolas smiled, "and that's just with the other varieties of Occlumency. Of my own apprentices, several decided to remain with the other types that they had previously learnt as the use of two at the same time is too difficult to maintain."

Harry's eyebrows scrunched together. "They had difficulties maintaining two at the same time, but I'm guessing they were fine with managing the empty room and obscuring memory methods individually." When Nicolas said nothing, Harry took that to mean yes, and he let out a small groan.

"You have to realise that these apprentices came to me as students of the Magisterium, often Masters of one Esoteric Art or another. You are still a boy." Nicolas reasoned. "Give it time."

Later, Harry made his way back to Ravenclaw Tower with Nicolas' pacifying words ringing in his ears. Telling him that his age was a detriment was not as comforting as his master seemed to think and, perhaps it was merely his imagination, but Harry couldn't help but recall the expression Nicolas had worn; one of abject disappointment.

It had now been a month since he had first began studying the defensive Mind Art, but he had no improvement to show for the time that he had dedicated to it. Following his teacher's advice, he practiced both before falling asleep, when his mind was at its most disorganised, and as soon as he awoke, as his mind was at its most vulnerable when it emerged from a dream. All this had served to do was give him extra time in the day to ruminate over his worries and perceived mistakes.

Opening the door to his dormitory, he stepped inside with his mind filled with all the stress from catch up work from his suspension, training, investigating, and the school's general animosity that had been directed at both him and his new Hufflepuff colleague. Stripping out of his clothes and leaving them strewn across the floor, Harry made his way to his favourite de-stressor: a long, hot bubble bath.

When the water was almost scalding (just the way he liked it) and the lemon scented bubble bath solution (courtesy of the Automatons) was doing its job, Harry got in the bath and almost immediately felt his body begin to relax. He half-heartedly went through the motions of cleaning himself but gave up midway through and just lay back. His mind drifted without direction, and lulled by the water into a comfortable state, halfway between consciousness and unconsciousness, his mind relaxing alongside his body.

Without realising what was happening, Harry's conscious mind had receded into a clean, blank, empty room.

Distantly, he heard a tapping sound coming from far away, muffled as though he were hearing it through water. It wasn't stopping and Harry felt a jolt of irritation shoot through him, and that was enough to shatter his self-induced illusion.

Harry's eyes opened slowly, and he lazily examined his surroundings. He was still in his bathroom, in the bath in fact, and he distantly noted that the water around him had turned cold. This didn't bother him, as at some point during his trance his mind had separated itself from his body.

Hearing the tapping continue in the next room, Harry climbed out of the bathtub and wrapped himself in a towel as he went to go see what it was. There, at the dark window, was Argos. Annoyed at being kept waiting, he continued tapped his talon on the window even though he clearly saw Harry headed his way.

"All right, all right, come in." Harry muttered, smiling as he opened the window. "Were you waiting out there for long?" Argos didn't deign to answer him, flying to his perch in an owl's impression of a huff, so he picked up his watch and saw that it was half-past nine. Harry looked down at his hands, noticing how pruned he was, but despite that he couldn't believe that he had spent three hours in the bath. It felt like minutes.

Harry examined himself on a deeper level, having more of a grasp on his emotions in this moment than he could ever remember having. He didn't feel triumphant like he would have expected, but content, as though he was in the state of mind that he was always meant to be in. It wasn't permanent, as he could already feel it fading away, but enough lingered for him to revel in it.

Shaking his head in wonder, Harry began to get dressed. He had intended to take a bath before dinner, but now that it was past W.O.M.B.A.T curfew he needed to sneak down to the kitchens for a sandwich or two in order to tide him over until breakfast.

As he left the dorm and made his way down the stairs, he wondered how he was supposed to tell Nicolas that he had finally cracked Occlumency without mentioning bubble baths.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Michael had felt bad about blowing up at Marcus, but he felt worse when he felt the repercussions on the team. It went unspoken, but they had been willing to overlook his performance during last season's finals only because they had won. Now it was a new year and new season, so any of his tantrums would be considered threats to their chances of winning this year's season. At least, that was what Michael had inferred.

When he had arrived for the first practice of the year, Fiona had given him an odd look before turning away to address the team as a whole. Michael had known then that either Marcus had tattled on him (which was unlikely as he couldn't imagine the brooding boy gossiping) or the couple who had been far too interested in his blow up had spread it around. Either way, it had gotten back to the team captain, and she was not happy about it.

But she never spoke to him about it. In fact, the entire team kept their distance from him.

Maria and Eddie had never followed through with their plans to include him in the welcome for the new professors, and he only realised this when Professor Lupin taught an entire lesson speaking as though he were in a Shakespearean play and Professor Snape was chased out of the Great Hall by his own personal thundercloud.

If it didn't have to do with Quidditch, then the other players didn't speak to him at all.

Michael told himself that he didn't mind. After all, at the end of the day all that mattered was the Quidditch Cup remaining on the Ravenclaw mantle place for another year. However, that didn't exactly pan out either.

While this year's Ravenclaw team was strong, they lost their first match rather brutally at 190-80 in Hufflepuff's favour. Michael had wanted to say that the team thrived even without Harry, but the truth was his speed, unpredictability and recklessness made him a force to be reckoned with. Cho couldn't quite compare, especially when playing against Cedric who was now back to being the best Seeker in the school.

The worst part was that Harry seemed so focused on his upcoming duel against Marcus that he didn't even seem to know that Ravenclaw's first match had taken place. He certainly hadn't been in the stands. None of his so-called friends were.

As though to rub salt in the wound, Michael had been called into a meeting with Flitwick that Monday. "Professor, if this is about the match-"

"No matter how you perform in the Quidditch stadium, it shall never lead to a meeting in my office, Michael." Flitwick assured, before adding, "Unless a school rule is broken of course," He added hastily, as though wanting to prevent him from getting the wrong idea. "No, this is about your grades."

Michael felt his stomach sink. Flitwick proceeded to explain how his classwork had fallen from last year, and how his homework grades were nearly unrecognisable. He had managed to get by last year by his own innate understanding of practical magic, but when it came down to the theoretical portion, he had only gotten top grades by studying with his friends. Without them, he had avoided studying in favour of Quidditch practice.

After the meeting with his Head of House, he had resolved himself to keeping his nose to the grindstone and banned himself from personal Quidditch training until the New Year. It worked, as he had managed to pull his grades back up to last year's standard but studying for weeks on end had been a lot more fun last year, when the four of them had suffered together.

Michael decided to stay at school during the holidays, using his newfound free time to catch up with Marauder work. Dealing with Mundungus, running errands for Pam in exchange for using her passageway, and collecting bets for both the local winter duelling competition and the Appleby Arrows vs Montrose Magpies match. It all kept him too busy to even think about the one thing that had been dragging him down for months, more than all the other horrible things in his life.

Neither one of his parents had written to him all term.

It was only when the New Year arrived did he find out why. A single short letter from his dad that explained everything, but he only found himself taking in seven words:

Your mother and I are getting divorced.

It was later that same day when Harry bumped into him, apologising for being a self-centred prick or whatever, but Michael didn't want to hear any of it. He didn't care about what his former friends were going through, just like they clearly didn't care about what he was going through.

However, the truth of it was, a truth that he didn't accept until hours later when he was struggling to fall asleep, that he didn't trust that Harry or anyone else to keep the promises they made. His parents had filled his head lies about blood mattering less than love, but when it came down to it, when they had lost their real son, they had stopped acknowledging his very presence.

If he was ever going to stop feeling like this, feeling powerless whenever someone he cared about let him down, then he needed to stop caring about others entirely. And he couldn't do that if he remained the same little boy who needed Robert to look after him, or his friends to micromanage his life.

Rolling out of bed, Michael grabbed his Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook and made his way to his desk. He should probably begin his road to independence by reading ahead. At least it couldn't hurt anyway.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Harry made his way to the Library Tower for his now usual Saturday morning meeting with Susan, but he had a different plan in mind for the day. Spotting her about to head in, Harry called out to her. "Oi! Bones!"

She snapped her head towards him with a glare, before looking around to make sure that no one heard him call out to her. "What are you doing?" She hissed. "We're supposed to meet inside, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not daft." Harry waved her concerns aside as he finished his approach and stopped in front of her. "But I'm not going in today. I promised Terry that I'd help him purchase ingredients for that project of his in Hogsmeade today."

Susan huffed. "You couldn't have told me that yesterday? I could have had a lie in."

Harry shrugged. "You're a difficult person to find." He said even though he hadn't bothered looking for her at all. "Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea if you'd join us."

"You really are daft." Susan bluntly said. "What part of "secret meeting" don't you understand?"

"No one goes to Hogsmeade this early except First Years, but they got through their first trip weeks ago so even they're over the novelty." He gestured to the stairs. "Come on. No one is going to see us, and you need to learn about this potion too, just in case neither one of us are in position to add an ingredient at the right time, or whatever."

That was just one reason. The other was far more cynical. If they got caught with Polyjuice Potion, it would not only be an instant expulsion, but they would be facing criminal charges too. Susan had an aunt in law enforcement, the head of the department in fact, so it would be prudent to get her implicated so that he and Terry could get away with it as well.

Let it not be said that he was unpragmatic.

Not finding a way around his argument, Susan sighed and followed him down the stairs. Along the way, they exchanged their findings during this week's investigations, but found that they had gained little more knowledge than last week. Even with a suspect pool as deep as theirs, there was a limit to what could be gathered during intermittent spying and gossiping.

Making their way outside, they met up with Terry who was chatting with Hagrid by the Thestral carriage that he had reserved for them. The friendly giant waited for them all to clamber in before shutting the door behind them, leaving the three in an awkward silence.

"Sooo," Terry stretched the word awkwardly, in the way that people did when they were forced to speak to a practical stranger, "what's it like being a lonely Hufflepuff? It must be strange, being so antithetical to the rest of your house, like a stupid Ravenclaw or a quiet Gryffindor or a trustworthy Slytherin." He paused, as though expecting her to laugh, but she simply stared menacingly at him.

Harry sighed. This was going to be a long day.

When they at last arrived at the high street, Terry led them straight to Dogweed and Deathcap, the local apothecary, but they each cast the fragrance spell around themselves before going in. "Verbena Odorem!" Harry really wished he had learnt this spell sooner, as he could spend all day in the apothecary with it active.

Terry got to work, speaking with the wizard behind the counter as though they were old friends, and haggling him for over prices and weights that made Harry's eyes drift around the shop in boredom. Finally catching on, Susan spoke up. "He doesn't need our help at all." She hissed at Harry so the man wouldn't hear. "There was no reason for either one of us to be here."

Aside from the man now being able to identify you as being present when the ingredients were bought, Harry thought, but on the outside, he said, "I wouldn't know. I'm pants at potions."

Susan scoffed. "No, you are not."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Did you just compliment me?" She gave him a filthy look before walking away. "I'm counting that as a compliment." He said to her retreating back. Realising that Terry was going to be a while, Harry began to wonder the shop, but eventually found his feet moving towards Susan by the windows.

"You know, if you don't want anyone to know you're here with me, you should probably get away from the windows." Harry told her as he made his way over.

Susan drew herself up to her full height which, much to his dismay, was a few inches taller than him. "It would have been fine if you had just stayed away." When Harry did nothing but smirk at her prickly attitude, she turned back to the window. "What happened between the two of you?" She jerked her head across the street where Michael was entering Tomes and Scrolls on his own.

"Why do you care?" Harry asked distantly, more interested in why Michael was entering a bookshop without being prompted.

"Entertainment purposes." She shrugged. "I like to watch him squirm." Harry snapped his head towards her, and his expression must have matched what he felt in that moment as she flinched in response.

"I know there's a lot of history between you two, so don't expect me to get involved, alright?"

Susan paused for a moment before shrugging. "I'm only asking because you both seem so sad without each other."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "You mean like how you seem so sad without your friends?" Harry jerked his thumb at the street and Susan immediately ducked away, as though afraid to be spotted by the girls Harry had lied about being there.

He was about to go after her and make fun of her for her overreaction, but he spotted something that made him pause. Exiting Tomes and Scrolls, Michael stopped when he noticed Harry in the apothecary window. After an awkward moment in which they both looked at each other, he jerked his head to the left towards the path that led to the park, before he started walking in that direction.

Gaping at his back, Harry deliberated for a moment before deciding to go see what he wanted. If he wanted to make up where no one would see him act all mushy, then Harry could understand that. Michael pretended to be cool, but he could be a bigger softy than Hagrid sometimes.

Ducking out of the shop, Harry made his way to the path that led to the park, spotting Michael's blonde head far ahead, right by the entrance of the park. He would have called out to him, asking him why they needed to be so far away, but before he could Michael was struck from behind with a Stunning Spell.

Michael fell in slow motion, and Harry had already ducked into the doorway of Tomes and Scrolls side entrance before he could hit the ground.

Summoning his Invisibility Cloak, Harry threw the hood on and took off running to the park entrance, silencing his footsteps as he went. Slowing down as he neared the wrought iron gates, he kept his head on a swivel in order to catch sight of the perpetrators, but he needn't have bothered. The three kidnappers were not subtle at all, as they levitated Michael through the park as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Harry saw a small family playing with their toy broomsticks in the distance, but not a single one of them seemed to realise that they had criminals in the midst. In fact, they seemed to be avoiding looking in their direction all together.

There either in on it, Harry thought doubtfully, or, more likely, there's some kind of repulsion spell or enchantment at work here. Either way, these guys were dangerous. He needed to be careful.

As the men headed for an opening into the park's wooded area, ducking into the shadow of the trees and out of sight, Harry followed, frowning. Making his way into the thicket of trees, he found a small clearing in the centre but stopped when he noticed that Michael wasn't unconscious at all.

No, he was standing amongst the men and smiling like the cat who had caught the canary.

They weren't wearing the same burnt orange cloaks that he had seen last time, but he could guess from their strictly Wizarding dress and unscrupulous demeanour that they were, Fallen Sun Rogues.

As he tried to back away, leave the clearing before any of them could realise he was here, he felt a wand press in between his shoulder blades. "Well, what do we have here?" A deep voice said, chuckling as they lowered the Cloak's hood and revealed Harry's presence.

Footprints, Harry thought furiously as he glanced down at the small, flattened patches of grass he was standing on, the invisible man's natural enemy.

"I'm guessing you're not Michael then?" He asked, fingering his wand and preparing to cast the Anemoi spell.

Faux Michael responded casually. "So, you've finally caught on. Too bad we don't give points for recognising an ambush after you've fallen into it."

"Kitty Lawless?" Harry asked. "Is that you?" Faux Michael paused, before nodding. "I'm getting pretty sick of you, lady. Can't you just leave me alone?"

"After what happened to my father? Not a chance."

Despite his growing fear that this was it, he couldn't stop himself from showing a little attitude, even in the end. "I really don't give a damn about you and your old man, Kitty." He ignored how her hand tightened on her wand. "You should rethink this. You know who I'm aligned with, and you know that even after all these months that you've never been able to land so much as a scratch on me. So, what makes you think today will be your lucky day?"

"Because-" Harry never did find out what she was going to say, as at that moment a jet of blue light was shot from the trees and impacted the centre of the group. The Expulsion Curse was powerful enough to even lift Harry off his feet from twenty feet away. Months of training kicked in as he fell through the air, and he hit the ground in a roll and ended up on his feet with his wand pointed at the scattered Rogues.

From the trees strolled a tall woman, with inky black hair that fell to her chin and arched eyebrows over her narrowed dark eyes. She wore a black, knee length peacoat and combat boots, and as she strode forward, she exuded, not power exactly, but an intense sort of confidence that was intimidating in and of itself.

The glamorous stranger stepped in front of Harry, almost as though she were shielding him from his enemies.

"You know who I am." She told the grounded Rogues, and Harry jumped as he recognised her voice. "Be grateful that I have left you alive." She gave a dismissive wave and the Rogues that could stand quickly did so and Apparated away with their more injured comrades.

They led me right to an Apparition Point, Harry finally realised. I could have been taken to anywhere in the world if it weren't for her, he pondered as he observed his two-time saviour.

When they were alone, she turned to face Harry and gave him a small, cautious smile. "Next time, try to be aware of the possibility of an ambush before you walk right into it, alright?"

"I'll keep that in mind." Harry said, before asking, "Are you the same person who saved me back in London this past June?"

The woman raised her eyebrows. "Your memory can't be that bad, surely? Or perhaps I am just forgettable." She shrugged.

"No, you look…err…different." That was putting it mildly. In June, she had looked as though she was on the brink of starvation and her clothes had clearly been stolen or scavenged, as they were both mismatched and carried a putrid odour. But now she looked as though she had just walked off the cover of one of Petunia's fashion magazines and into real life.

"I'm not the best healer but I managed to fix myself up just fine. Sorry if I gave you a fright. That's not how I wanted us to meet, but you just can't seem to stay out of trouble, can you Harry?"

Harry found himself smiling, even though nothing the woman was saying was making sense. "You know who I am, but I don't know who you are."

She made a noise of realisation. "Ah, of course they wouldn't tell you about me. Must be too much of an awkward conversation that no one wants to have." Before he could decide if she was speaking to him or just to herself, she sheathed her wand and held out her hand for a shake. "It's a joy to finally see you again, Harry. My name is Maia Black. I'm your godmother."