Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated characters are property of J.K. Rowling, spells used in the elementals book are property of Blizzard

Chapter 5: Explanations

"Harry…Harry wake up," Ron's voice echoed in Harry's head. "Dumbledore wants to see us Harry…wake up.

Harry opened his eyes and saw Ron standing over him, still in his pajamas prodding him in the shoulder. "Wus a matter?" Harry said groggily.

"We gotta get dressed," Ron replied. "Professor McGonagall just told us that we all had to make our way to Dumbledore's office as soon as possible. "Come on, every one else is waiting for us in the common room."

Harry steadily got up and started to get dressed. He was sore all over, from the previous night and just wanted to rest. However about five minutes later he entered the common room to find everyone but Ron and Hermione gone



"Everyone else has left already….We figured that we would wait here for you," Hermione said. "You don't look so good…here hold still. Hermione ran up into her Dormitory and about thirty seconds later emerged holding her sorceress staff in hand. "Dawed Sisos," she muttered.

All of Harry's aches and pains had been relieved. "I've definitely got to remember that one," Harry exclaimed.

"Yea me and you can practice elemental magic later on. But for now we have to go to Dumbledore's office," Hermione replied

With that the trio made their way out of the common room and down to Dumbledore's office. When they arrived there, they found everyone standing in front of the secret entrance to his office. "What is everyone doing," Harry questioned.

"We are waiting to be let into his office," Mr. Weasley replied.

"Here let me try," Harry muttered. "Chocolate frogs…Bertiebots every flavor beans…Lemon drop...Fizzing Whizzbies"

Harry walked away from the statue, "hey it was worth a shot."

The group waited there for about another five minutes. Suddenly the statue sprang to life and on the foot of the spiraling staircase, which lead to Dumbledore's office was the wolf like man that the group had seen yesterday. "The headmaster will see you now," the man said in a soothing voice.

The man led the way up the stairs into the fascinating office of Dumbledores. Professor McGonagall was standing in front of Dumbledore's desk, where the wolf like man soon joined her. "Listor go fetch Arabella from her dormitory…Dumbledore should be here any minute," Professor McGonagall directed firmly to the wolf like man.

"Right away," he replied in a calm tone.

"I know what has happened in the past twenty-four hours had been quite the ordeal for you all…….But we all need to relive the events….We all need explanations," Professor McGonagall stated.

The eight of them started over to the center of the room, where they all stiffly sat down on the chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk. Harry stared around the room, it was full of magical things that he had never seen before. There was a giant orb full of blood red lines that was floating motionless above a piece of metal. And a giant mirror which kept changing pictures to different views and corridors of Hogwarts. Harry figured that it was what wizards used as surveillance for certain areas. After about five minutes of waiting the door to the office was opened and in came the wolf like man, who was accompanying a panicky Mrs. Figg into the room.

"MINERVA IM SO SORRY I SHOULDN'T OF-," Mrs. Figg yelled to Professor McGonagall.

"That will be enough Arabella…it was not your fault," Professor McGonagall interrupted.

Mrs. Figg calmed down at these words and slowly sat down into the last remaning chair, in front of Dumbledore's desk.

"What are you doing here Mrs. Figg?" Harry questioned.

Mrs. Figg didn't respond, in fact she didn't seem to hear Harry at all. She just kept muttering the same words, "all my fault…dead…why didn't I see it…Severus."

Harry became increasingly alarmed at these words but held his tounge for the present moment. About thirty seconds later Professor Dumbledore walked into the room. He was looking extremely grave and weary. Harry had never seen Dumbledore look like this, not even at the end of last term when Sirius died. Dumbledore slowly took his seat behind his desk and stared around at the nine people setting in front of him.

"It is time we all told our account of the events that took place in the past twenty four hours," Dumbledore stated. "Do I have any Volunteers to start?"

They all looked around the room tensely, until after an awkward moment of silence Harry spoke up. "I'll go first Proffesor," Harry stated nervously.

"Well you have all of our ears…begin when you are ready," Dumbledore replied.

Harry told them everything from the original letter that he received from Mrs. Figg to Hermione's rescue of him against the death eater when Dumbledore interrupted.

"Sorry to disrupt your story Harry, but this is the part where Miss Granger needs to explain her piece."

Hermione took a deep breath and started on her story. "Well it all started out when I was browsing through Diagon Ally and met Mrs. Figg. She introduced me to her friend John Oxford, and told me all about the elemental magic Harry was learning. Well, I obviously also wanted to learn it, and she seemed to think it would be a good idea if I could help keep a watch on Harry. Any ways to make a long story short Mr. Oxford, who was a sorcerer at the time ended up passing down the gift to me." She paused, as if waiting for someone to comment but when everyone remained silent she continued. "Well, as you know a sorcerer's or sorceress's staff turns red if someone you love is in trouble," Hermione shot a quick glance at Harry, but Harry pretended not to notice. "Well anyways when I looked up at my staff it was the deepest shade of blood red I had ever seen. I was already at Ron's house, so we immediately jumped in the car and drove off." With that she seemed contempt with her story and slouched back down into her chair.

"Thank you Miss Granger…Harry if you could continue," Dumbledore said soothingly.

Harry proceeded to tell them of the events at the burrow, and of Snape's rescue at them when he stopped.

"Professor…what-what happened to Snape," Harry asked Dumbledore tensely.

Dumbledore suddenly looked as weary as he had when he entered the room. "Professor Snape fought valiantly against Voldemort, and saved all of your lives….But it is my regret to inform you, that it was at the cost of his own."

"WHAT!?!?" Harry cried "Snape is-Snape is-It cant be. After the years of hatred between us he…sacrificed his life for me."

"Professor Snape never hated you Harry. It was your father he hated….He disliked you because you where James's son, he knew that he couldn't fully blame you for that."

They all stood there dumbfounded. The one person Harry frequently wished death and pain upon had died, and he felt full of remorse.

"I know this news bears sorrow and guilt on your shoulder, but I must please ask you to bury these feeling for now and continue with the explaining," exclaimed Dumbledore.

"Well Dumbledore," spoke up Mrs. Weasley. "We had just noticed the children where gone so naturally we were worried sick."

"Next thing we know," Chimed in Mr. Weasley "The door is blasted open and a group of hooded figures knock us out….The rest of the story is no different from Harry's revelation."

"The past twenty-four hours have held grievous events for us all," said Dumbledore in a worn out voice. "We knew that getting into this war and putting a stop on evil would hold immense sacrifices. Sirius Black and Severus Snape are two of the ever growing list of names for wizards murdered by Voldemort and his followers. I cannot promise the deaths to stop….But I can promise that you Harry will either kill Voldemort and purge the world of evil…or you will die, and no one will be left to stop him and his evil ways. I am sorry to depress you all with these words, but I speak the truth, and the truth is all that is keeping us united during this dark time." Dumbledore cast a final look at the fellow occupants in his office, "the rest of the summer is yours to use as you see fit. I urge you not to leave the castle without notifying one of your superiors, and excessive vigilance should be used…by all.

A few hours later as Harry, Ron, and Hermione relaxed in the common room Harry brought something up. "Hey why is it that I was able to use magic over the summer without being expelled, or at least receiving an official notice?"

"Yea I was wondering the same thing," answered Hermione. "Well one explanation is that I don't think the ministry keeps tabs over the elemental magic, so we never received notices for that. And you know what, I figure Fudge is in extreme debt to Dumbledore so he probably let you slide owing to the dangerous circumstances that we where presented with."

"Yea that's probably it," Ron piped in absentmindedly, as he added another sentence to his charms Homework. Hermione seemed to notice Ron was actually doing work and was quite surprised.

"So, your going into N.E.W.T charms Ron?" Hermione questioned.

"Yea I did quite good on my O.W.L.S so Flitwick decided to let me in," Ron exclaimed proudly.

"What other courses are you taking Ron?" Harry asked.

"I got into Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures and unfortunately-not like I really had a choice-Potions,"Ron said in a tone that clearly said he didn't want to think about the start of sixth year.

"Hey me too!" Harry said excitedly. "Except I'm taking herbology instead of Care of Magical Creatures. Not that I don't want to take it but I'm seriously trying to become an Auror, so Hagrids gonna have to get along without me in his class this year. What do you plan on doing once you get out of Hogwarts Ron?"



Ron became slightly flustered at the question "Mum wants me to work in the ministry like Dad and Percy.…But to tell you the truth after visiting Charlie again I'm kind of starting to appreciate what he does."

"You two talk about your life after Hogwarts as if your going to pass sixth year," Hermione said mockingly.

"Good point," Exclaimed Harry as he whipped out a piece of parchment and started on his Herbology homework.

"So…who do you think our new Potions teacher is going to be now that Snape is…gone?" Ron asked uncomfortably as the three of them made their way down to dinner.

Harry, who had been trying to not think of Snape's fate suddenly felt a twinge of guilt run through his body. "I don't know, but who was that weird wolf looking guy that we saw earlier?"

"I don't know, but I heard dad muttering something about Druids when we where walking back to our dormitorys," exclaimed Ron.

"I've read about those!" said Hermione "There supposedly really in touch with nature and can even transform into certain animals!"

"Well the only open job that was here before Snape…" Harry suddenly broke off, it gave him much pain and anguish to talk about Snape right now.

"He must be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," Hermione said, noticing how disturbed Harry had become.

No one talked throughout dinner, and Harry barley ate anything. Up at the staff table Proffesor Dumbledore, McGonagall, and the wolf like man Proffesor McGonagall called Listor earlier where its only occupants. The rest of the staff must be on Vacation Harry thought to himself upon noticing the emptiness of the Great Hall.

Harry was the first to leave the Great Hall that night and walked slowly back up to the Griffyindor common room. Hogwarts was somehow much more dreary without the everyday bustle that it usually held. He made it up to the portrait of the Fat Lady and muttered the password, "mustang mold."

He immediately went into his dormitory and collapsed onto his four poster straight away falling into a deep slumber.

Voldemort was standing in a dark dungeon looking down upon a cloaked man.

"You have failed one to many times," Voldemort hissed in an icy tone "It will not happen again."

"Yes master," replied the hooded figure in a croaky voice "I will be going to him…not even Dumbledore can foil our plans now…they will all die"

"Just to be sure you never decide to be unsuccessful again… CRUCIO," hissed Voldemort.

Harry heard the man begin to scream, and awoke in the middle of the night covered in sweat his scar searing with pain.