Author's note: In this chapter, HP cognoscenti will notice that the Hogwarts timeline has been tampered with. Just a little, I promise.

SEVEN

Harry entered the Gryffindor Commons after class and paused just inside the portal whole to find that the whole large room had been transformed into a lush world of red-and-green tinsel, holly wreathes, and gold candles burning on the mantelpiece. It was the first day of December, and he'd somehow forgotten about Christmas. Elaine Parker and her younger sister Yolanda were pointing their wands at every available surface, causing poinsettias to blossom out of bare wood. Apparently they'd been at it quite a while. Before he could take in all the decorations, Yolanda squealed and pointed. "Look! Potter's under the mistletoe! Get him!"

The two girls rushed at him, giggling, and he only just made it to the tapestry and up the stairs to the boys' dorm.

Just as Harry walked into the room he shared with Ron, Hermione emerged from the toilet, drying her hands on a towel. "You know," she said cheerily, "I've never been in a boy's loo before. You have very odd commodes."

Ron looked at Harry and tapped his temple. "That's Hermione for you. Top marks in class, knows everything there is to know about the magical world, never misses a question in Wizardly Pursuit, yet still intrigued by the concept of a lidless toilet."

Hermione unloaded her ubiquitous stack of books from Harry's bed, centralizing them in a pile on the floor. "I'm only intrigued by how you find your bed under that mess of schoolbooks and sweets wrappers, Ron, but that's for another day. Are you sure this is safe? It's seventy-five points if I'm caught in the boys' dorm."

"How did you sneak her in here?"

"Borrowed your cloak. Do you mind?"

"Not any more, obviously." Harry sat down on the floor near Ron, leaving the comfy chair for Hermione who, blithely brushing aside the attempted chivalry, threw herself to the rug with the rest of them.

"You arrived just in time, Harry, Ron's just been brilliant."

"I'm sorry I missed it, then. Ron being brilliant is like Haley's comet. Happens once every seventy-six years."

"Stuff it, Potter," growled Ron. "Hermione and I were just discussing the information she found about the BBC."

"The baobhan sith." Hermione had the rare quality of being able to correct someone for the thousandth time with as much patience as though it were the first. She picked up the first leather-bound volume in the heap, unlocked it, flipped through all the pages, set it aside, and picked up the next. "Ron just remembered our third year Dark Arts class, the one we had under Lupin, when everybody was taking on the boggart. Remember when Seamus's turn came up, and it turned into a banshee?"

"And before that it turned into Snape in Neville's grandmother's hat," said Ron. "That's what put the two together for me. The banshee, I mean, not Snape in the hat--although that's still bloody hilarious. Professor Evensong doesn't look much like that green-faced screaming thing, I'll tell you."

"Harry, take that red book from the bottom of the stack and turn to where I've stuck the scrap of parchment in."

The book's title had so flaked away that the title appeared to be have been eaten, and the gilt from the paper's edge clung to his fingers as he searched. Here and there a chapter heading stuck out: 'Etiquette to be Observ'd When Dining With Thee Kinge of Faerie' was one. A single conspicuous woodcut occupied the whole of the marked page. It showed a wild-haired creature, its face covered by peeling scales and black teeth surrounding the hole that was its mouth, floating in the air above a number of astonished Muggle peasants. Its black garb was covered in a pattern of stars and moons, and long swooping lines which Harry took as a representation of a gust of wind flowed from the monster's mouth. Beneath the woodcut a legend ran: Onct yearlie thee bayvhan shee is sayd to call for them.

"Yes!" cried Harry. "That's it exactly. I'd almost forgotten about the boggart."

Hermione turned the brittle page and tapped a line. It was in Gaelic, meaning nothing to Harry's mind, and he glanced at Hermione for a translation.

"Years, Harry. The baobhan sith needs to steal years, to keep young."

"Why pick Snape, then? He can't be the youngest person here. He's been teaching sixty years."

"Don't you even notice what's under your own nose? Does Snape look sixty? Does he even look forty?"

Harry had to admit it was true.

"None of the teacher here look the proper age because none of them are the proper age. I thought you said you'd read Hogwarts: A History."

"I never said I read all of it."

"Look." Hermione heaved a book to the floor and cracked it to a well-worn, ink-splattered page. She must have brought a selection from shelf in the library. The two boys leaned over her head to read. "All the professors at Hogwarts sign a standard Magical Scholarship contract. If they reach tenure they're hired for a term of a hundred fifty years, ruling out death or disbarment. During that time they are granted an Aging Immunity which extends until they choose to leave the school, at which time they resume their normal life. Snape came here in 1941, when he was thirty-six. McGonagall started teaching in 1950 when she was forty."

Harry put his finger on a column. "And this long list here are Dark Arts professors who didn't survive to make tenure?"

"Yes."

"And Dumbledore?" asked Ron.

Hermione frowned. "I don't know about Dumbledore. He's not in any of the listings. "

"It seems rather inconvenient," said Harry doubtfully.

"It does, a bit. According to the records, Helga Hufflepuff instated the Aging Immunity rule to prevent replacement problems in the event of a wartime teacher shortage. Of course, that was during the Punic Wars. Point is, Snape came in thirty-six and he's going to be thirty-six until he leaves. Then his real time starts back again. But he won't be thirty-six because the years Evensong took off were real time, not Hogwarts time. If

he resigns, the minute his signature's on the page he could instantly be ninety. Or he could just fall over dead. It's basic Arithmancy."

"And that would be a handy method of killing yourself, wouldn't it?" muttered Harry. "Sign your name on the line, then just keel over."

"Killing yourself?" Hermione shut the book sharply. Thick yellow dust mixed with elderly paper particles puffed up. "What's all this about killing yourself?"

"I don't know. I've just gotten out of two very nasty confrontations with two very scary people. All I want is a bath, a hot cocoa, and a nap by the fire. That's all I ever wanted out of life, and I don't care if I sound like Eliza Doolittle. If only for one year, I'd like to simply go to class, do my studies, win the Quidditch Cup, and go to sleep without worrying whether or not the morning will mean my getting dead at the hands of some indescribably unpleasant monster. If this is too much to ask from an educational programme, tell me now and I'll never say another word."

Hermione's face squinched up. "Do you have gum or something, Harry?"

In a burst of comprehension Ron pounded his fist against the carpet. "Yes! Thank you, Hermione, I've been wondering what that was for two days now!"

"Would everybody please stop talking round my head and tell me what the heck is going on?" said Harry.

"Ever since you got back from the infirmary you've been reeking of cinnamon gum, only I couldn't figure out just what it was. Thought I'd forgotten a package of Dimona's Four-Alarm Cinnamon Crackerbombs on top of the fire mantel."

Harry looked at Ron blankly. "Smelling sweets on people must be a genetic trait dominant only in Weasleys. Your sister just asked me if I'd been sucking peppermints, which I hate."

"It is pretty heavy," admitted Ron. "Especially just now."

"Never mind how I smell. Professor Evensong wants to rid me of my darkness, whatever that means, and Professor Snape is either stupidly in love, mad, or just plan stupid. That's the latest from the front lines." He turned to Hermione. "I all but shoved the lighter in his face and told him I'd seen everything. He didn't even blink hard. And Evensong caught up with me after class and begged me not to try and remember anything else. Her major concern seems to be that I might upset him. I don't think you could 'upset' Snape if you lit fire to him."

"Did that once," Ron reminded him. "It worked. You never did tell me what you saw that night when you followed them."

"Who cares what I saw? I've been trying to forget it ever since I saw it. And so far it's working because I can't remember anything."

"I've translated the laying ceremony. Here." Another paper mark stuck out toward the

back of the book, covered with Hermione's precise, tiny scribbling . She drew it out and handed it to Harry. "There's only just one tiny problem with it."

"What?"

"Well . . . have you ever heard how Muggles got rid of vampires in the old days?"

Harry read aloud. "'The sharp branch of a rowan, wrapped in a blood-soaked thread, and thrown true at the monster, will drive into its heart and destroy it utterly. But to unleash the baobhan sith's unlucky prey, one must determined first its key. The noise of various chimes does distract the beast, and make it to lose its bearings, though it try to take away its pursuers with its dreadful shriek.' You mean we'll have to actually kill her?"

"We're not going to kill anybody," said Hermione sharply. "I for one won't do anything without some sort of proof that she really is a baobhan sith. This is all still too chancy for me. And I'd go to Dumbledore before I'd let either of you try it, and damn the consequences." Hermione sat back on her heels, frowning as she studied the translation for a loophole. "The difficult part is getting close enough to perform the ritual without the baobhan sith's song taking the person into its thrall. Otherwise he'll just do whatever she says."

"What's this about a key?" asked Harry.

"The key is a term for whatever the baobhan sith puts upon her victims to mark them as her own, and to lure them to her for her feeding. Banshees do something like to their territory, to keep other magical creatures away. The tricky part is determining what the key is, because it could be anything--a certain sound, or a word. An object. It could even be a particular colour."

"Could it be a scent?" Ron asked unexpectedly.

Hermione's head lifted sharply from her study of the laying ceremony. "I suppose it might could."

After a moment's indecision, both Ron and Hermione timidly shifted a few inches away from Harry. Harry stared down at himself in horror. He lifted the tail of his shirt to his nose and took a deep whiff. It smelled like nothing more than shirt--a combination of cotton, sweat, and the Fresh-Cut Lemon scent-o-spell the laundry house-elves put on all the clothes they cleaned.

"I don't smell it."

"I do," said Ron. Beside him Hermione nodded, her brown eyes huge behind her reading glasses.

"Snape smelled of cinnamon earlier. That's why Jenni was laughing. I couldn't think why." Harry turned the page back. Trapped behind the frame of the woodcut, the baobhan sith glowered over her victims. Onct yearlie thee bayvhan shee is sayd to call for them.

Hushabye . . . don't you cry . . . go to sleep my little baby . . . .

"They come because she calls to them in a voice they recognise," said Harry slowly. "Then they can't resist it. I heard my mother. Somehow she knew what my mother meant to me, and she used it." His voice dropped to a growl, thinking, she used me; she found the place it would hurt most and dug her claws in deep. The memory of shivering in the cold while trying to sob in total silence was so close that he shook in spite of himself. "I could barely keep in place when I heard it, even though I knew I had to. When I heard it . . . I just went."

Hermione suddenly, viciously wadded up the laying ritual and flung it into the corner. "Damn it all! I've translated this seven ways 'til Sunday and this is the only option! But I can't allow it, I can't, I can't! If she is a baobhan sith, you're in danger, Harry, but Snape is in danger worse. But we've got to be absolutely sure before . . . well, before we do anything, um, permanent."

In the far top tower, the bell rang: eight slow, heavy strokes.

Hermione raked both hands through her hair in pure aggravation. Pushing her way between the boys, she retrieved the ball of paper from its spot under Ron's bedside table, smoothing it flat again. Neither of them had ever seen Hermione explode quite that way before, even at her worst. She played with the paper for much longer than necessary, with her back to them and her face hidden behind a swatch of brown hair.

"I've got to go back to the girls' dorm," she muttered, as if in apology for the outburst. "Someone will miss me. Will you walk me there, Harry? Ron got all grabby last time he had me alone under the cloak."

"I already told you--your stupid books were slipping. I was trying to catch them."

This whole thing between Hermione and Ron was rapidly degenerating into a vast, immature range of logic, on the level of the did-not-did-too fights Harry remembered from childhood, and between them and the Evensong affair he was suddenly tired of dealing with it--tired of dealing with everything, truth be told. Baths and naps and uneventful school careers were starting to seem like things that happened to other people. He tossed the cloak off his bed and threw it hard at Hermione, who caught it, wide-eyed.

"I'll gather your books, Hermione. Wait for me in the Commons."

She nodded, then slipped the cloak over her head and promptly vanished. Footsteps across the room, muffled by the carpet; a second later the door opened itself, and closed.

Hoping she was really gone and not just shamming, Harry scooped up the books, making a gesture for Ron to load the rest on him. In silence they gathered up the last of them, and Ron held the door open.

Harry started out, paused in the doorway, started again, then decided that if it didn't get said now it never would. He glared at Ron. "If you like Hermione, just say something to her. The worst she could tell you is piss off, and she won't, because she's Hermione and even if she hated your guts she'd never tell you off like that. But tell her. I for one am very tired of sitting in the middle while you two bicker around the subject. It gets old very quickly."

Leaving Ron to gape, he headed out to the Commons.

The Commons were empty, save for a lone Gryffindor asleep in a chair by the fire with a book across his lap. Harry saw a mug of cocoa on the floor beside him and nearly cried. Just behind him, Hermione pushed the hood back from her face and reappeared, eyes dark and quiet behind her reading glasses. She took a share of the books and stood looking at him.

"I heard you telling Ron off," she said.

"Sorry. You two are getting to be a little much."

"I honestly don't mean to, you know I don't. It's just that sometimes something about that boy just rubs me the wrong way."

Harry grinned. "You don't have to sleep in the same room with him."

Hermione scuffed one foot against the floor and looked away from him, as if this small confidence had required enormous trust. Aside from the faint snoring by the fireside, the room was very still.

"What do you think is going on with Evensong? Honest, now."

"From what I know now, I don't think she's a baobhan sith, and if she is she's an incredibly clever one to sneak herself into Hogwarts. I think she's got Snape in her grip, but she's not particularly interested in you. I think she was casting a spell on him when you followed them to the greenhouse, and you wandered into the line of fire. When she did your Cleansing in the infirmary, she would have recognised her own spell, but she didn't try a counter-spell--either because Pomfrey and MacGonagall might have seen her or because for some reason she didn't want to. And I think if she shows you any untoward interest, ever, you should run and hide underneath Dumbledore's desk until he says it's safe to come out again."

"What about Snape, then?"

From a lower floor came a low rumbling sound--the main staircase shifting, or perhaps a distant mutter of thunder. Hermione cleared her throat. "Leave him alone."

"But--"

She held up a finger for silence. "No, Harry. Toad or not, he's probably the best wizard in this school next to Dumbledore, and if he really wanted to protect himself from her, he would have already done it. And if it's as you say, and he's really so stupidly in love with her that he hasn't even noticed what's happening--leave him to hang himself, I'd say."

"I can't do that."

"Oh, you and your noble impulses. I know you can't. Or won't. With you it's all the same."

Her mouth screwed up, her soft face twisting. For a moment Harry thought she was about to cry, but her dark eyes remained still and clear. Awkwardly, he shifted the weight of the books in his arms and put his hand on her shoulder, but she nudged it away. A small smile bloomed in her eyes; she took off her glasses and rubbed them with her knuckle.

"Silly boy," she said. "I've got to go to bed."

All at once the whole room seemed to vibrate under their feet, low at first but rapidly becoming a violent shaking that sent Hermione lurching against the wall. Harry grabbed her instinctively, trying to steady them both, but as it mounted louder and more insistent they both collapsed to their knees, books dropping like thunder and shimmying on the floor as if a current ran through them. The sleeping Gryffindor work with a start as the painting above the fire fell with a crash of glass shards. The very stones seemed to detach from each other and rattle together like loose teeth as a wail rose from deep within Hogwarts, something that began like an old air-raid siren and swiftly surged to a high-pitched crescendo that set Harry's teeth on edge. It sounded like someone being flayed alive.

Gryffindors flooded the Commons, all of them fighting to be heard, some of the girls crying in terror while their friends tried to calm them, but there could be no calming while that horrid sound went on and on, louder than Harry could imagine anything being and still gaining volume. Hermione shouted something at him, but she might have been a character in a silent movie, lips moving to words that didn't exist.

"What?" he shouted at her, and she leaned her head against his neck and said again, "Either that's her, or the Jerries have been sighted off the coast!"

It did not merely die out, but cut off short, just in the middle of one of those nerve-rattling wails. The silence in its wake was stunning, the only sound coming from a first-year desperately trying to choke back her sobs. Everyone else held perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe, as if attracting any attention would start it up again.

Exactly as the floor ceased trembling, Professor MacGonagall stepped through the portal hole.

"All students go directly to your rooms," she said brusquely. Harry saw a red trickle going down the side of her cheek; her ears were bleeding. "Everything is being taken care of, and an official explanation will be given in the morning. Any student not in his or her room when I return will receive detention and a hundred points off. Go to."

"Official explanation, my arse," muttered George Weasley as he headed back toward the boys' wing.

Ron appeared from the other side of the room, kneeling beside Harry and Hermione. "Any idea what that was?"

"Evensong." Hermione quivered all over--they were all shaking; it seemed not feasible to do anything else--but otherwise she was level-headed, almost serene. "There's nothing else it could have been."

"You don't think--"

"No, if the teachers are on it then she's done for anyway. Why are you holding your head like that, Harry? Ears still ringing?"

"My scar." His green eyes were bright with pain. "Whatever it was, it was a bloody close call.