Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Please don't sue.
His screams immediately woke up Ron, Dean, Seamus, and Neville. Ron quickly fumbled for his wand and cried, "Mutus!" After telling Dean, Seamus and Neville to go back to sleep, Ron went over and stepped inside the muting sphere. Harry wasn't screaming anymore, but was gasping like a fish out of water.
"It's ok, Harry," Ron said softly, putting his hand on Harry shoulder. Harry looked up at him, and Ron continued, "You should probably try to get some sleep – you've got class in three hours."
Harry nodded jerkily, and lay back down in his bed, panting. However, he couldn't get the image of Voldemort with his knife in the air, poised to ritually kill the death eaters. Finally, at 6:30, Harry gave up on sleep and got out of bed. He was alarmed; he was still shaking a little. He took a long hot shower, and mindlessly got ready for his Arithmancy class, aware he was getting ready almost an hour early.
Harry silently sat down in one of the chairs by the fire. "Another nightmare, Harry?" came a soft voice beside him. He turned and saw Ginny was already down in the commons and he hadn't noticed.
Harry slowly nodded, and Ginny quietly asked, "Do you want to tell me what happened?"
Harry immediately said, "No."
This threw Ginny for a moment. "No?" she asked finally.
"No." Harry replied again, and then added, "I wish I hadn't seen it, and I wouldn't want to put what I saw into your head as well."
"Harry," Ginny softly pleaded, "you'll feel better if you tell someone."
"That may be true," Harry quietly replied, "but you'd feel worse. And I'm not going to do that to you." Harry saw the somewhat hurt expression on Ginny's face, and added, "I'll tell you later about what Voldemort is up to. But about what he did… I've… I've got to talk to Dumbledore."
Harry felt Ginny's eyes on him as he left the common room to seek out the headmaster. He felt sorry about not telling her, but he wouldn't want to hoist that terrible image onto anyone. Voldemort, his arm held high; the dagger poised to strike…
Harry shuddered, and walked faster. He finally came to the Stone Gargoyle, and realized he had no clue what the password was. "Lemon drop…Canary Creame, Fizzing Whizbee, er, Niffler Nougat… no wait, that was Ron's candy, er…"
However, before Harry could think of any more sweets, the Gargoyle came to life and Dumbledore stepped out. "Good morning, Harry," Dumbledore said, "I heard your attempts to enter my office; I trust you have a reason…" However, the headmaster trailed off as he saw the look within Harry's eyes. "Ah, yes," Dumbledore said softly.
Dumbledore led them into the office, and Harry had a seat. "What happened?" Dumbledore asked quietly.
Harry gathered himself and said, "I had another dream. Malfoy's followers returned, and Voldemort had them tied up. He started speaking about Necromancy, and how corpses that had just died made more powerful creatures. And he… he pulled out a knife and was about to ritually kill one of them as I woke up."
Dumbledore's hand involuntarily twitched, and he slowly said, "This is grave news. When Voldemort killed the death eaters and reanimated them, they lost a lot of their raw magical ability. But the ministry needs to know that Voldemort now has a new power." Dumbledore looked up, and said, "Thank you Harry. I will have to think about this for awhile. I believe you should get your books. Your arithmancy class begins in 15 minutes."
Harry exited the chamber and headed back the Gryffindor tower. By the time he got there, everyone else that had class at 8:00 had left already, and those that didn't were still sleeping. He quickly grabbed his bag and ran down to his class – he didn't want to be late and anger Professor Vector again.
Fortunately, he arrived barely in time and quickly found his seat next to Hermione's. Vector began the class, but Harry had other things to worry about than trigonometric identities. He pulled out his parchment and began working on the assignment, but his mind was turning over what Dumbledore had told him. His new power? Harry thought, well that made sense – he could perform necromancy. But Dumbledore also said that the procedure robbed the victim of most of their magical power. So why would Voldemort even bother doing it?
Harry frowned as he thought That's right! That legion of undead soldiers that attacked the ministry, surely they couldn't all have been evil when they were alive. So necromancy must take away the victim's will. So they would all be completely loyal to Voldemort. It made sense, Harry had to admit, that Voldemort would wish to perform the ceremony on the traitors that followed Malfoy.
However, this left an even bigger problem. If Voldemort could force the undead to do whatever he wanted, he didn't need to kill evil death eaters. He could kill decent witches and wizards and perform the ceremony on them, effectively turning them over to his side!
Harry trembled a little, and somewhat wished he hadn't thought everything through. He could have remained blissful about the consequences of Voldemort's study of the Obsidian Tome. Harry quietly drew his wand and cast a weak cheering charm on himself. He finally finished his assignment when the lack of sleep overtook him. Not having the horrible images of Voldemort's escapade on his mind, he quickly fell into a dreamless sleep.
"Uh oh," called a Hufflepuff from a short distance away, "Harry's really going to get it from Vector now." Sure enough, the professor noticed that Harry had dozed off, and walked towards him. She managed to pry the parchment from his grip and read it over.
"No, Harry can sleep. I assume he's got a good reason for dozing off in class, and he's already completed the assignment." Vector put the parchment down by Harry, and Hermione gasped. "Harry's done with the assignment already?" she asked herself, amazed. She was still only half of the way done!
Hermione managed to finish in class as well, although there were only a few minutes left of class. Hermione looked around, and saw the rest of the class, minus herself and Harry, were still working on it. She glanced at Harry, and guiltily picked up his parchment to look at it. Not only was the assignment complete, but every answer appeared to be correct. She put his parchment down, shook him lightly, and said, "Class is almost over, Harry."
Harry woke up and debated whether to put another weak cheering charm on himself. He decided against it, and looked at Hermione, whose face was unreadable. "Is something the matter, Hermione?" Hermione shook her head no, and the two made their way back to the Gryffindor commons.
Several days later, Harry had come to grips with the horrid imagery in his dream. However, the horror came back in full force as Hermione casually handed him the daily Prophet on Thursday.
Harry gulped and read the article.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Attacks Again
You-Know-Who recently led an attack on Salisbury. However, the attack was extremely brief, and the aurors who arrived shortly on scene almost immediately chased the Death Eaters away. There were no casualties, and the only people missing after the attack are Mike and Cheryll O'Connor, two wizards which graduated from Hogwarts less than 10 years ago…
Harry shook a little as he finished. He knew that the O'Connors weren't missing. They were the target. Voldemort was looking to increase his numbers, and abducted the two.
"What's wrong, Harry?" Ginny asked, alarmed at Harry's facial expression.
"Harry," Hermione chimed in, "Voldemort's been killing people for years. And you don't even know those two were killed – they're just missing."
Harry didn't say anything and slowly looked over at the head table. Dumbledore looked back at Harry and quietly nodded. So Dumbledore concurred – the two were likely Voldemort's minions now, and Harry felt his worst fears come alive.
Harry turned to Ron, Ginny, and Hermione and said, "I need to talk to you three, alone."
"You can't say it here?" Hermione asked.
Harry looked at Seamus, Dean, Lavender, and Neville who were also sitting next to the group. None of them appeared to be paying attention, but Harry still insisted, "No, we need to talk alone. Let's go to the commons."
Hermione, Ron, and Ginny silently followed Harry back up to the Gryffindor tower. They knew that whatever he had to say was very important, if he didn't want anyone to overhear it. As soon as they all sat, Harry said, "Voldemort found the Obsidian Tome. It's a book detailing how to perform necromancy."
Everyone sat in silence, and a few seconds later Hermione gasped, "The O'Connors!"
Harry sadly nodded. It appeared that Ron and Ginny hadn't worked out what was going on yet, and Harry explained, "Voldemort is killing wizards now, to reanimate their bodies to do his bidding."
Ron and Ginny looked shocked, but Ron managed to say calmly, "You don't know that. Like Hermione said in the Great Hall, they could just be missing. I mean, no one has seen Voldemort kill anyone for this, have they?"
Harry looked down at his knees in sorrow. "The nightmare," Ginny realized and went to comfort Harry. Ron and Hermione gasped, and neither could think of anything to say.
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First thing, I got several complaints about math. Ok, I realize a lot of people hate it. But Arithmancy is defined as 'Divination by Numbers'. Obviously it has to do something with mathematics (even if I chose 'divination' to mean telling how spells will interact). Oh well, I apologize if I thrust something you hate within fantasy. There's only going to be one more Arithmancy calculation scene – and it's needed to er… well, you'll find out. Hehe…
Second, I LOVE YOU ALL! I never would have imagined getting that many reviews over the last two chapters.
Third, we're nearing the home-stretch. This is the 5th to last chapter, so I decided to wait, and write/post the last 4 in pairs (so this is the only chapter today)
Kaelli: Of course the Sphere of Madness is relevant! Hehe, you won't find out how until the last two chapters. And I guess you got your wish in a way – you know where Wormtail and Lucius are at…
You said something about the Black Cauldron being parallel to my story. I've never heard of it before, but I went onto the internet and found a brief summary of it. It looks like it does have the same underlying idea behind it – the object that can create undead forces – but the entire plot seems different.
However, I don't think I'd feel too guilty about writing this story, even if I had seen the movie, because the idea of Necromancy within fantasy is commonplace. I'd go so far to say the idea is more of an archetype anymore.
Temporary Insanity: No red herrings here. In fact, if I do write a sequel to this, it will probably be titled: Harry Potter and the Sphere of Madness.
Seifer: You know, whenever I read fanfiction, it seems everyone frees Sirius. Some go as far as to free him as soon as Harry gets back to the Dursleys – apparently some people don't like writing Harry back with his relatives. So I purposely avoided freeing the man. Call me callous. But, I couldn't let the trilogy be completed and STILL have him innocently hunted by the ministry.
JadedDragon: Draco fan? Let me guess – you're a fan of the stories where Draco turns out to be good, and reaches salvation? Even becomes friends with Harry? Haha, not in my story! And I don't mean to scare you, but it gets worse…
Garina: Another Draco fan? Er…
Beefywpac: You like Draco, too? Um…
Penda: Uh… I'm starting to feel outnumbered here. Am I going to have a mob come after me if I have Draco truly die? Please, don't hurt me! He's still alive, kind of…
Sherman: Thanks!
Alison: You're absolutely right. This will get grisly.
Ariel: I'm sorry. But, hey, you'll only to deal with it one more time.
AllAboutMe: I'm truly sorry! Well, not really. But like I said before, one more time…