A/N

A/N Hello again. This would be chapter 17 of my little story, although it's not so little anymore. I was happy with the number of reviews I got last time, even though it wasn't as many as there had been. I'm back to writing these, so it might not be every day as it has been. However, if I happened to get another twenty reviews for this story, I think that I might be able to type fast and get the next part out tomorrow night. Here it is, read, enjoy, and please REVIEW!

CHAPTER 17

Professor Dumbledore couldn't sleep that night either, as he was up the whole night rolling in his bed.

How could Death Eaters have gotten past the defenses I put up?

They shouldn't have even been able to find the house, let alone get in and kill Harry's family.

What if they had help from somebody on our side?

No, they couldn't have. The only people who even have a clue where Harry lives are the Weasley's, Arabella, Remus, and Sirius. They would never betray Harry.

What if it wasn't Death Eaters? What if somebody else killed them? But who would possibly care about a few worthless muggles?

I'm getting to old for this, he told himself as he drifted off to sleep.

_____________________

Early in that same morning, Cornelius Fudge was busy having a meeting in his office.

"Now, Percy, I am well aware off your perfect track record. Head boy at Hogwarts, perfect OWLs and NEWTS, quick promotion within the ministry, and you're still quite young. How old are you, son?"

"I'm nineteen, sir."

"Now, you know that I'm the highest power in the land, right?"

"Yes, sir." Percy was starting to get very confused.

"And as the highest power, I can reward those who are loyal to me, and me only. I've seen that you have ambition, Percy. I can see that you want power. I can give it too you, and no one else."

"I don't know what to say, sir."

"Don't say anything yet. Think about it. We're going to start a new order here. No more of that fool Dumbledore failing miserably at trying to run things, no more scare from Voldemort attacking us, only me at the head of a powerful nation. Picture yourself right there beside me, Percy, with thousands obeying your every command."

"What about Voldemort?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about him. I have taken the personal liberty to make an arrangement with him. We only have to cater to a few of his smaller wishes, and he will leave us alone." He pulled out a small parchment of paper. "All you have to do is sign this paper. You'll never have to take orders again, except from Voldemort and me." Seeing that Percy was still hesitating, he continued. "I'll give you everything that you have ever wanted. All you need to do is sign."

That did it. Picking up the minister's gold lined quill, Percy put his name down on the paper below seven other names, all of which he recognized as young and extremely smart, if somewhat overly ambitious. Glad that he wasn't like them, he signed and heard the minister sigh in relief.

"Excellent. Now, the first thing that I need you to do for me is…"

_________________

Hermione was waiting for Ron down in the common room the next morning.

"Did you talk to Harry?"

"No, I didn't even see him. I think he already went down to breakfast."

"Well, hurry up! We need to find him so that you can apologize for what happened yesterday."

They continued walking down the hall towards the great hall, but Ron was still indignant.


"What do you mean I have to apologize? The last time that I checked there were two of us."

"Yes, good math skills, Ron. However, since you're the one that started it again, like you always do, it's your fault. You apologize."

"No way!"

"And why not?"

It continued this way until breakfast. When both of them noticed finally that Harry wasn't there, which was about half way through the meal, they started to get worried.

"He's really late, Ron. If he doesn't hurry up then he's going to be late for double potions."

"That's not something that I'd like to think about."

"Just go up and get him when you're done eating."

"And why do I have to do it?"

Hermione sighed again. Taking on an air surprising like Professor McGonall, she began. "Because you are a guy, Ron, or at least I hope you are, and Harry is also a guy. That means that he is sleeping in the guy's dorm, like he always does. I am a girl. Girls can't go into guy's dorms. Do you understand stand now, Ronald?"

"Shut up."

___________________

"Harry. Harry? Harry!"

"Go away."

"I would love to, but Snape is going to have both our asses unless we hurry up."

"Tell him I'm sick."

"Funny Harry, now get up."

"Ron, I mean it. Leave me alone!"

Ron was puzzled. It sounded almost as if Harry was crying. But Harry didn't cry. What the hell was going on? "Harry, we're going to be late."

"I told you, I'm sick. Tell Snape that."

"Ever heard of the saying 'kill the messenger?'

"Tell him I'm fucking dying, it's not like you or Hermione would care! Now leave me alone!"

Giving up, and slightly angry with Harry, Ron took off at a run down the stairs and all the way to potions, which they once again had along with Slytherin.

"Weasley, you're late!"

Ron grunted in reply.

"That will be twenty points from Gryffindor! Ten for being late and ten for your rudeness. Where's Potter!"

Ron started to give Harry's excuse, but was cut off by Snape. "Don't give me any of that Gryffindor bull. That's ten more points from Gryffindor."

Ron was extremely angry, but Hermione held him arm tightly and kept him from doing anything stupid.

"Now, now, why is the little hero not in class today. Oh, yes, I remember why. I suppose that the headmaster wouldn't mind if I let you all in on a little secret. Potter isn't in class today because he couldn't possibly face a normal day of school when his aunt, uncle, and cousin were just killed. So instead of facing the world like a true brave Gryffindor, he has decided to sulk the day away alone in his room-"

Snape was finally interrupted by Ron, who had jumped up and was starting to shout.

"YOU NO GOOD DEATH EATING SON OF A-"

Luckily the last parts of what he was yelling were drowned out by the screaming of every other Gryffindor in the room, who had all jumped up and were screaming at Snape at the top of their lungs. Hermione was the only one who kept her cool the whole time, as she only sat watching Snape with a look of extreme hatred. The Slytherins were looking on in amusement, imagining how many points Gryffindor would lose.


Meanwhile Snape tried to regain control.

"Quiet!

"QUIET!"

"I SAID SHUT UP!" When even that didn't work, he cast a silencing charm on what he thought was the entire Gryffindor side of the room. "Nobody move, and I mean NOBODY!" He walked out of the room.

"So Weasel, Potty's to ashamed to show his face. Although if I had that face, I'd be ashamed too."

Seeing as how Ron couldn't talk, he just flipped Malfoy off. Hermione however, finally stood up. She had been sitting, so Snape's charm hadn't hit her. Taking the silence charms off of the rest of the class, she slowly turned to face Malfoy with her wand pointed directly at him.

"One more word and you'll be worse off than on the train yesterday, Malfoy."

"Try it, Mudblood."

Nobody moved for a minute, then Malfoy whipped out his wand and tried to curse Hermione. She blocked it easily, then shot the disarming curse at him and caught his wand as it flew in the air. Then all hell broke loose.

Curses were being shouted left and right, cauldrons were spilt, tables overturned, and chairs being thrown. Hermione and Ron quickly ducked behind their table and toppled it over to give them more protection, then proceeded to fire curses at the Slytherin side of the room. Hermione shot off a particularly powerful stunning spell and was rewarded by a thud from the other side of the room, and she still had Malfoy's wand. She continued shooting off spells, and could see that the rest of the Gryffindors were doing the same.

When Snape burst in through the door with Professor McGonall, the last thing that either of them expected to see was the classroom is disarray and curses flying everywhere. It took quite a while and a lot of shouting from Snape and McGonall before everyone was calm again. After enervating Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson and getting an extremely scared Neville down from the ceiling, McGonall led the Gryffindors out of the classroom.

"I have never seen anything like it! Gryffindors acting like that! You should all be ashamed of yourselves!"

"But the Slytherins started it! Malfoy tried to curse Hermione." Ron pointed out.

"Well, I had figured as much, and I am glad to see that you got the upper hand on them. I don't know what I would have said to Professor Snape if you had lost. But that doesn't take away from the fact that you behaved extremely poorly, and you will all have a detention."


The class groaned collectively, but knew not to press their luck and hurried off towards Herbology, which they had with Hufflepuff. Hermione, however, held back.

"Ron, tell Professor Sprout that I'm going up to see Madame Pomfrey, I'm not feeling good at all."

"Oh, great, so now you're going off and abandoning me too."

"I'm not abandoning you, but what if Snape said was true? Someone should go see Harry, and from what you said you obviously screwed up earlier, so now it's my turn."

She turned and went off towards the Gryffindor tower before he could stop her.


__________________

Sirius Black quickly poked his head above the dark fence and caught a glimpse of Remus Lupin on the other side, pacing back and forth around a table, on which sat a small paper bag. He quickly relayed this to Sean, who was lying on his stomach next to him. It was nighttime, and the only noises were those of crickets and birds.

"Listen Sean, can you get over the fence without him noticing you?"

"Probably not, but I can go around and hop over the stone wall."

"That will work. I'll give you about five seconds, but that's all. Once you get the bag, go around to the edge of the lake, and I'll meet you there and we can head back up to the house."

"Wouldn't it be easier to go through the forest back?"

"Yes, but Remus will be expecting us to do that, so we'll go in the lake. I'll give you fifteen minutes to get close enough to grab it. With that Sean took off, and Sirius smiled while he watched him go. Sean reminded him of a non-magical version of himself, incredibly smart, but so full of mischief that the only thing that they took seriously were their pranks, or in this case, their espionage.

This was only training, and it helped immensely that they had Remus around to help them out. They always trained in pairs first, before moving on to trios. Sirius, Remus, and James had always been a trio when working for Dumbledore after they graduated, with Peter Pettigrew staying at home to guide them.

Training against Remus was always much tougher than normal, since he knew all of Sirius tricks. Also, because he was a werewolf he had the extra senses of sight and hearing that came with it. However, Sean was no amateur himself. Despite all the airs that he gave off of being a moron and his notably lack of success in trying to learn magic, he was really quite smart, not to mention an expert at stealthy missions like this.

That was fifteen minutes, Sirius thought to himself. Using a screw that he had brought along, he poked a small eyehole in the fence so that he could just barely make out Remus, still patrolling back and forth alertly.

Picking up two sticks that he had on the ground, he took off his coat and propped it up on the sticks. Rolling over so that he was on his back, he looked to make sure that Remus was turned around and held the cloak up so that it was barely visible over the fence. Propelling himself slowly along the ground with his legs, he was soon rewarded with a shout from Remus and two curses hitting the coat. He dropped the coat and took off silently towards the lake hoping that Sean had done his job.

Remus, however, was aware of what they were attempting to do. As soon as he was done stunning what he thought was Sirius, he quickly turned around in the opposite direction, and the bag was gone. He took off towards the stone wall at a slight jog, expecting to catch Sean as easily as Sirius. He got a shock when Sean was nowhere in sight. Calming down and thinking logically, he took off towards the woods to try and search them out.

Watching him look around in vain, Sean soon jumped out of the ditch in front of the dark fence he had been hiding in and took off towards the lake. He saw Sirius hiding half in the water at the beach, and quickly showed him the bag.

"Nice work Sean. Now all we have to do is get back to the cabin." Getting back to the cabin was rather easy, a nice sprint along the edge of the lake and then a leisurely jog through a field to the cabin that they were staying in. When they reached the front door, Sirius put up a long trail of red sparks to signal that they had returned, and then they went inside to relax.

A few minutes later Remus came in the door, looking a little disheveled and holding Sirius' coat. "All right, what'd you do?"

Sirius looked to Sean and laughed. "Did you have fun stunning my coat, Moony?"

"Shut up."

"I'd rather not."

"How did you get the bag?"

Sean finally spoke up. "Well, I figured that you would guess what we were doing, so after I got over the stone wall I doubled back into the ditch in front of the fence. Then when you were busy stunning his coat, I took the back. You figured that I would be on the opposite side, which should have been right, and as soon as you gave up and went to the woods I hopped the fence and met him at the lake."

"Damn."

___________________

Hermione quickly and quietly stole up to the Gryffindor common room then climbed all the way up to Harry's room. She wasn't supposed to be in the boy's dormitory, and on top of that she was a prefect. In other words, it would be extremely bad if she was caught. Opening the door slowly, she went over to the bed that she remembered was his from the summer.


"Harry?" She called softly.

"What the hell! Can't a guy get any sleep? First Ron, then you. What?"

"Nothing. I just figured that there might be something that you wanted to talk about."

"Well, I hate to disappoint you and pull you away from fighting with Ron for thirty seconds, but there isn't. Now will you please just leave me alone?"

"Look, I'm sorry that Ron and I were fighting, okay."

"You two are supposed to be friends, then all you do is fight all the time. Then you try to pull me into it, try to make me take sides, and no matter what happens I always hurt one of you."

"You always hurt one of us? How about we always hurt you. I promise that Ron and I will stop fighting so much."

"Good, I'm happy, now would you please leave me alone now."

"I will in a minute. There's nothing else that you want to talk about? You know that it's always better to talk about it." Hermione gave him a look.

Harry was silent for a minute, then started to break. "You know, don't you?" Hermione nodded. He turned away and threw his head into a pillow so she couldn't see him anymore, but Hermione could tell that he was crying. His whole body was shaking, he recoiled from her touch again.

"Harry, it's okay, it'll be okay."

"No, it's not okay. I have no clue how you think that it could be okay!"

"Calm down, it was only the Dursley's."

"It was only the Dursley's! It was only the only family that I've ever had or ever will have! I cared about them and they cared about me, deep down. We were family, and I killed them."

"Harry, they weren't your family. They were horrible to you. And you didn't kill them."

"They weren't that bad."

"Yes they were that bad! Take off your robes and I'll show you that they were that bad!"

"They were never that bad. They probably didn't want to do that to me, they only did it because I made them do it. I probably deserved it."

Hermione grabbed him and turned him over so that she was talking to his face. She had begun to cry also, and was holding him comfortingly.

"Don't ever say that again, Harry. You know that's a lie."

"It was my fault. It was always my fault."

"It wasn't your fault that they were messed up and did that to you, and it wasn't your fault that they were killed."

"Yes, it was. They were the only family that I ever had, and now I killed them." Hermione just hugged him softly. "First Cedric and then the Dursley's. Who's going to be next? Who's going to die because of me?"

"Harry, stop."

"No, what if it's you? Why are you here, you shouldn't be worrying about me, you should be worrying about yourself."

"I'm worrying about you because I care about you."

"I take back what I said earlier, Cedric wasn't the first. It was my parents. If I had never been born then they would probably still be alive and happy."

"If you had never been born then Voldemort would rule the world right now."

"Somebody else would have stopped him and you know it. If I were you I would just run. Get away from me. Help yourself."

"I'm not leaving. I'm staying right here next to you until you are all better, okay?"

"No, it's not okay. You have to leave! Go! What if they're planning to kill you right now? Just go!"

"I'm not leaving!"

"When are you going to realize that you're in danger! You're in danger because of me!"


"I'm not going anywhere."

"What do I have to say to make you figure it out? I thought you were smart?"

"I'm smart enough to realize that what your saying right now isn't true."

"JUST GO! Get out, MUDBLOOD!"

Hermione didn't say anything, only pulled Harry closer to her. Lying next to him with her arms around him, she had Harry in a hug and wouldn't let go. Harry was also silent, but dissolved into fresh waves of tears.