Author's Note: Well, well, well, I'm going to Washington D.C., I'll be gone just on April 4, 5, and 6, so, wonderful person that I am, and it being spring break, I'm taking the time I should be using on my work, to get this chapter up before I go. All bow before me! J/K Obviously… Well, about the bowing part. But you could, if you wanted to, ;), I wouldn't mind the power trip. Hehehe. If you don't remember anything about Harry's condition, I'd suggest going back to Chapter Six: The Cimeriian Mysteries, to refresh your memory… I know I plan on it. In fact, I am going to ASK you to go back to Chapter Six, because your memory of the events that happened in that chapter is EXTREMELY VITAL. ;) Well, I'd better start typing this chapter – AKA: (speaking in the future) I'll let you get reading… Enjoy!

Chapter Nine

Who Do You Trust?

And now, oh ye who hear my tale, it is time to ask yourselves a question… Who do you trust?

~**~_~**~_~**~

"Who do you trust?" The words slithered like a serpent into Harry Potter's ear. The voice was enshrouded in mystery from every angle, each syllable darker than its predecessor. It was as though venom had slipped into his head. He half expected to hear further "Beware the Ides of March!"

"What did you just say?" he said aloud, aimlessly, to no one in particular, casting his voice around the room in the hopes of finding a pleasant response.

"What? I didn't say anything… I haven't said anything in the past half-an-hour." Ron sounded suspicious: surprise, surprise. "Are you alright, Harry?" he asked uncertainly…. The expression on his face however, spoke with a voice of certainty all its own, with a different message, this being: "You've finally lost it haven't you, ol' pal?" Even Ron, however, had the sense to keep from saying this, instead, he chose to remain diplomatic, or so it seemed, and his mouth squiggled in determination whilst his complexion attained a shade reminiscent of seasickness: a perfect mixture of purple and green.

It was an hour past dawn, 6:45 AM, as the two best friends sat in stupified silence… Time seemed to stand completely and utterly still, that is, until it was shattered by a very familiar strangled cry… Hermione was standing there, in the entrance to the Common Room, having just emerged, quite obviously, from the Girls' Dormitories. Harry was not so sure he had ever seen her in such a state… Her naturally olive-skinned face had gone paper-white, with little patches of brown reminiscent of mud and mulch contaminating her complexion. Beneath her eyes sat unbelievably, violently vivid, loudly bright violet half-moons, puffing out and sagging as though they had been swollen and then popped like a balloon. Her chocolate-brown eyes seemed desolate, empty, as though nothing sat behind them. Her mouth was like a thin white-purple line on a distant face. Her dark brown hair was scraggly, hanging limply in bedraggled corkscrew curls which seemed to fly out in every direction. A borrowed white nightgown was too big for her and one of the shoulders had fallen off, hanging loosely to her arm, her hands lost inside her sleeves, tripping over the endless hem. She didn't seem to notice as she stumbled forward with every other step. She looked as though she hadn't slept in two full weeks, either that or she had hit middle-age at an astonishingly early time in her life. Lavender and Parvati would never have shown their faces in public again… But she was neither Lavender Brown nor Parvati Patil, she was Hermione Granger, and frankly, she didn't give a damn.

Both boys, stood up, quite without thinking, and Harry would regret this impulse in another moment. She looked like a madwoman, and yet, she studied their faces as though they were violently insane. After a moment's visual searching of them, she cried out and ran forward as fast as the bulky nightgown would allow her. She grabbed Harry, tripping forward as she did so, so that they were both on the floor, Hermione hugging him so tightly that he began to worry about his circulation. Struggling to speak, he gently attempted to shove her off, as he panted "Hermione!… Need… Air…. Can't… Breathe…"

But Hermione didn't seem to hear him, and she squeezed him even tighter, and Ron, grumbling, eventually had to peel her off of him. She stood up shakily, and standing there she looked like a tower of blocks that a small child had piled far too high, as though she'd topple over at any given moment. But Hermione would do no such thing.

Harry lay there for another moment, looking up at his two best friends looking down at him as though the fate of the world depended on his every movement. Ron looked grim but brave, like a soldier off to the battlefield, like an infantryman in the First World War about to go "Over the Top." Hermione's expression was far more disturbing… A tear or two streaming silently down her cheek, she seemed resolutely standoffish, hardened and impossible to approach, standing there with her arms crossed, looking down at him as though he were already dead. There was a brief moment of complete stillness, before Harry decided to face the world, and shakily rose.

She spoke in a voice so distant and cold and harsh that it was very unlike her. "Harry, tell me you're alright."

"Errr… I'm alright." He couldn't stand their penetrating stares, and glanced away, escapingly.

"Mean it."

"I mean it." A brief disbelieving silence ensued, and Harry knew that his answer wouldn't be accepted as long as he was looking at the fireplace, at the clock, all about the Common Room, anywhere but into the eyes of she who had questioned him. Screwing up his steely resolve, he bored his eyes into her and repeated, "I mean it."

"Mmmmm…" She mumbled indistinguishably.

Harry could see by the look on Ron's face that he had taken it upon himself to bring some form of communication into the chilled atmosphere. "Hermione, you didn't actually sleep in the same room as that girl did you?"

Of course, no one had to even bother asking who Ron was referring to when he mentioned "that girl."

"Don't be thick Ron, of course I didn't. We all went up and camped out in the Sixth Year Dormitories. I was the first to wake… I was the only one to get up so… That's not true, Parvati and Lavender are currently curling their eyelashes," she scowled, "how they can be so insensitive and idiotic as to be so concerned with their eyelashes after last night's events, when we all could have been killed… Is irrelevant anyway." She groaned, stopping short, and Harry was a bit taken aback, it wasn't like Hermione to speak ill of people behind their backs, in fact, he and Ron had never had the slightest of ideas what went on in the Gryffindor Girls' Dormitories, what was spoken about, nor did they care either, but still… Although, he thought, it had to be admitted that Hermione had restrained herself in that last moment, and in any case she wasn't exactly herself that morning.

"In any case, I was the first to rise, and I checked out our usual dormitories… She wasn't there. She's gone."

Ron, returning to his usual self, again jumped three steps ahead of the game. "That's it! She's made off, run away, scampered! I told you two… Now tell me," again, Ron was forgetting himself and began to pester Hermione when he quite obviously should not have done so, "Miss Smartypants, if she's so decent and not at all evil, where's she got to and why?"

He wore an annoyingly smug, arrogant scowl-smirk, and it seemed as though Hermione was holding herself in from the urge to slap him across the face. "I don't know, Ron!" Her eyes glittered insanely. "Perhaps you should tell us, since you obviously know everything. Perhaps when you've found the answer you'll be so kind and let the rest of us know, my Lord." Her voice was tense and icy.

Stupefied silence once more.

Frustrated, she stomped off towards the Girls' Staircase calling out coldly behind her, "You lot had better get dressed before someone comes and starts asking the wrong questions."

The two boys raised their eyebrows in perfect synchronization and shot one another their characteristic sidelong glances.

"Meet you at breakfast?" Ron called timidly and uncertainly to her retreating form. She didn't respond, simply slamming the door behind her.

Harry didn't know quite what to make of it.

~**~_~**~_~**~

Breakfast that morning was unusually cold and mushy, reminiscent of gruel, and even the weather seemed to share their gloomy mood. Not long after sunrise, what had been a clear day had quickly turned to grim, grey haze. Ron wondered whether or not the house elves had been feeling it.

It was, that morning, a silent affair, the unbroken stillness filled with the same tense atmosphere as had the Cold War. It seemed that, forty-five minutes later, as he sat midway chomping on whatever it was that he was eating, that Hermione wasn't pleased with him… He wondered why. What had he said? Something about the whole fiasco was nagging at him, pulling at his gut as it would not have a few years earlier. He did not want to see her unhappy, and he knew that there was some kind of reason behind that, something beyond his usual desire to keep his friends in the best of spirits, but he couldn't figure out quite what that reason was… And it was riddling the heck out of him, driving him mad. He had half-a-mind to ask her about it himself, after all, Hermione could figure anything, couldn't she?… But no, asking her something about his own thoughts and feelings seemed strange and awkward, even though he knew well that Hermione would relish the thought of tackling any sort of problem, and so he kept his big mouth shut.

No, it was too confusing, he'd just have to figure it out himself, later on… Now there were more important things at hand. Harry was so very quiet, and not an ordinary sort of quiet, disturbedly silent. Something was very wrong. Okay, so there was obviously something wrong, any fool could have told you that after last night's events, but there was more to it than that… He knew it, somehow, call it intuition, call it the strong bonds of friendship, call it whatever you like, but somehow, he knew. Harry knew something that he and Hermione did not know. There was definitely something he had not told them. Why would Harry be keeping things from them? It was so unlike him… And it was that that bothered Ron even further, what could possibly have disturbed Harry so much so as to knock his character out of him?

What, indeed.

~**~_~**~_~**~

"Ah, Cimerii," the Dark Lord hissed to no one in particular, holding the letter in his hand. He gazed out of the prison-cell-like window of his chamber throne room, out into the midnight sky. "Cimerii, Petranni, my faithful servant, I must commend you on your acting skills, I did not think that your daughter would trust you so easily. Perhaps she is more a sentimental, gullible fool than I thought her to be. No matter, I shall fix that, and soon."

"And at last, Harry Potter, you will be done for."

~**~_~**~_~**~

That morning the Fifth Year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had double Defense Against the Dark Arts first thing in the morning. The students of the latter house swarmed in that morning in a particularly glorious temperment, and several of the boys slapped Harry on the back in congratulations for yesterday's food fight. Evidently, they had not heard.

For obvious reasons, the Gryffindors were not in their usual spirits, and were not feeling nearly as wonderful as the Ravenclaws, to say the least. The classroom was unsurprisingly enshrouded in whispers, and before long the eagles were in the same state as their brother lions. Doubtless by lunchtime the entire school would know the story.

Just as the day before, Professor Sanies scrambled in at only the last moment, just as the bell rang, wearing another pair of sunglasses. Although she was tiny, only having been about five feet tall or thereabouts, there was something about Professor Sanies that made her seem like so much more, larger-than-life if you will, and even Hermione Granger could not quite put her finger on exactly what that was. No, even Hermione did not quite know, but it didn't really matter, she just hoped the woman stayed on beyond a year.

As she entered the classroom, Lorelei Sanies was calling down at someone down the hallway, scolding them for causing her such tardiness, and she soon slammed the door behind her, and strolled in charismatically. "Little blighters," she mumbled to herself, to Hermione's surprise, and popped herself Indian-style on top of her desk. The professor flipped up her sunglasses distractedly, so that they sat from behind her ears to her crown and functioned as a headband, and it took only a moment for her eagle-sharp electric blue eyes to notice that something was amiss.

"Somebody's missing," she observed grabbing the roll, she was certainly not having the best of days, Hermione concluded, although she didn't seem to let it carry over to her students. Hermione liked that in a teacher.

"Petranni!" A Ravenclaw in a distant corner called out, the voice for all of them. Now, here one would expect the room to explode in whispered furor, but here

something truly remarkable and unique did occur… The class, out of love and respect for a teacher they had just met, waited in complete silence for her to respond. Hermione was impressed.

Professor Sanies raised her eyebrows and allowed them to hang there for a moment, her eyes telling them that she did not like the absentee, but her words obviously trying to hide that fact. "Well… Well, well well." She did not seem to be able to find the proper words, and so she simply conitnued. "Everyone else here then?" She seemed too tired to do anything else but trust the class, and made a small, single mark on the roll as the class affirmed that this was in fact the truth.

"Professor – …" started that same Ravenclaw, whose name happened to be Devon Evanshire.

"Eht!" Professor Sanies interrupted sharply and strongly, "First of all, how many times must I tell you, it's Lorelei, none of this 'Professor' business, not when we're alone anyhow. Second of all, I'm afraid that we have a very important lesson planned for today, and it's very extensive, so I'm afraid we'll have to jump right into it. I'll have to take a rain-check on that last comment, question, whatever."

Hermione grumbled inwardly, she was unable to think of anything productive that morning, and she did not want to miss anything important in her absence of mind. I would simply say here that it was not her day, but that would be an understatement, and would not do the girl justice.

And so, Professor Sanies began immediately to discuss the unit on Aurorship, and the most important aspect of it… Something or other. Hermione found that try as she might she simply could not keep her mind where it belonged, in class, and after much struggling, she resigned herself to the fact that she could think of nothing else…

She had gotten word last night. It had been a close call. One of the other girls had almost received her owl… She shuddered to think what might have happened had such a misfortune befallen her. She rubbed her aching left arm and thought of how much she had changed that summer, how she had done things she had never thought she could do… And she knew what would happen if these things were discovered. She would leave this school and never return, she would never again see the faces of her "friends," unless of course, she saw them die. That was the only way. She would sink into complete darkness… Well, she thought, filled with anguish, how much further into darkness could she sink?… Knowing what she had done already. She cradled her left arm, which was burning something miserable, and tears streamed down her face, thinking of how she had made all the wrong choices that summer… How could she have done it? How? She gazed over at Harry and then Ron, looking at him for a while, they both seemed to be paying rapt attention, although Harry was struggling a bit, and thought of how she had betrayed them. How could she call herself their friend after what she done? Ah, the pain, she could barely stand it, her arm seared unbelievably, and she knew what that meant… But not now, no, she couldn't leave right now, in the middle of it all, it would be so obvious, and the truth would come out, and she didn't think she could stand that.

Oh, what had happened? What had happened to the girl she used to be?

~**~_~**~_~**~

Demetrius Petranni sat in his cave hideout. He had sent word out about his "triumph," so called, last night. He thought about his daughter, and what he had done to her… How easily she had trusted him, he hadn't expected that. Why? Why hadn't she just saved herself and ran from him? If only she knew what was to happen to her, if only she knew…

Oh how he had tricked and treated that poor girl. It had been so easy, simple really, but it was so hard for him to bear. Had he saved her, would the Dark Lord now have mercy on her? Had he hurt her? Put her right in harm's way, throwing her so that she fell perfectly into the trap of Voldemort?

There was no turning back. Not now that he had made all those wrong choices. Not now that he had done what he had done. He knew that.

Oh what had he done?

Oh what had happened? What had happened to the man he used to be?

~**~_~**~_~**~

Alina Petranni simply could not go to class. She simply could not. She walked past the Defense Against the Dark Arts room, the windows were shut and the blinds down and the students in the classroom (which she was supposed to be in) could neither see nor hear her.

She stealthily drew the poisoned dagger she had been secretly carrying… She smiled with twisted glee. She could not wait to draw blood with this knife… To see them suffer. They were all fools. Fools. Fools not to have taken her out from the moment they knew of her presence.

And soon they would pay for it.

~**~_~**~_~**~

Somewhere deep in the heart of the unknown, a voice was calling out, it was asking… "Who do you trust?"

~**~_~**~_~**~

A/N: Ha! Mwahahahahahaha! Weren't expecting all that were you? I hope I've left you something to think about! Mmmm… I'm sick, bleck. I have a bad sore throat, I feel like [insert prefered unpleasant term here], my head is tight with headache and yet spinning, it's 3:30 AM, and I have to get up early tomorrow! And, I can't go to bed until I've finished thanking all of you (all two of you that is), because I promised I would… And you can trust ME, hehehehehe. Yes, I'm perfectly evil aren't I? Well, I'd like to thank my loverly reviewers, without you, I'd be lost… Since Jess and Ady are so wonderful for reviewing, the next chapter will be dedicated to them. ^_^ Thanks guys! ::sticks out tongue at everyone else::

Jeanne: How about this? Is this better? I upped it from size 10 to size 12, but I don't know if it'll work. WOW. YOU MEAN IT? REALLY? THANX!!!!!!!

Ady: You expect me to reveal the narrator, easily as you revealed the true nature of James Bell, eh? LOL. Obviously I'm not going to say a word about it, only that the clues are there if you look hard enough, and I personally don't think it takes much looking, but after all, I did write the thing. ::gasps and blushes:: Wow, THANKS!!!

Both Ady & Jeanne: Wow. Very few times have I ever been so flattered, you have no idea how much this means especially coming from you, so infinite hugs of thanks and an eternity of gratitude!