Disclaimer: If I owned these characters, I wouldn't be writing a disclaimer.

(A/N: Thanks for reviewing my very few reviewers! This is mostly the same as the last chapter 3 I posted, but with minor changes)

Chapter Two
A Girl and Her Cat

At least it hadn't been Ron and Hermione. That was all Harry could think as he sat slumped some book, a week to the day he had found Neville's blood swollen corpse. He had taken refuge in the library because he was sick of how people had been treating him lately. He was not fragile, he was not made of glass, so why did they all treat him like he was about to break? It was exactly how he'd been treated after the Dementor Incident in third year. In a way, though, the dementors had touched Harry again; he could no longer think of anything happy, just Neville's murder. It was his fault Neville was dead, if only he'd just gone to the damn astronomy tower. He cursed himself aloud, slamming the book in front of him shut. There was time; this wasn't the end, he knew it. They would be back, and when they came, he would be ready.

'Mr. Potter, I hope you see now that we are serious. We are highly regretful that you refused to listen to us the first time, but perhaps now you will follow our instructions. Go to the astronomy tower an hour after you receive this. We will be waiting.'

Harry trembled and slowly ripped the note into tiny shreds, letting them flutter down to the floor. They had just jibed him about Neville's death, like it was a joke! He furiously pounded his heel into the tatters of parchment and marched off in a murderous mood. He started for the astronomy tower, hoping to head them off, but thought better of it. This time he would do exactly as they said, and perhaps no one would get harmed.

So, exactly an hour later, he found himself ascending the stairs to the astronomy tower. He clambered up quickly and with no rests, finally noting how many stairs there were after six years of having to climb them. He was out of breath by the time he reached the top. Harry paused, clutching his side and letting the blood flow back to his head.

He glanced around searching for his wand under his robes. Thankfully it was there; however, that appeared to be the only thing in the tower with him. He'd been expecting a circle of death eaters to close in on him, or Voldemort to jump out of the shadows and kill him with a gust of green. But no one was there. Not even a lifeless corpse.

Harry gave the chamber a good search, jumping at every shadow from the flickering torches, blasting at stationary rocks in the wall. He didn't know what to think. Half of him was relieved he was perfectly safe for the time being, but the other half was seething. He had been looking forward to revenge, he had wanted to face the murderers and show them exactly how he felt about them, but they were too gutless to show their faces. Scowling, Harry turned to leave, when something caught his eye. It was just a flash of silver, a tiny speck, but it was enough to make him turn around and take a few tentative steps into the room. He searched the floor, because Harry was positive that's where it came from. But nothing was there.

'Lumos,' he muttered. A beam of pale blue light shot to the ground and probed around. He viciously waved his lit wand until he finally found what he was looking for.

'No,' he whispered. 'No, no, no.'

He carefully wrapped part of his robes around his hand and picked up a knife. It was finely carved, with ribs of silver and a curved blade, once a beautiful antique. But now it had a coating of dried blood on it so thick it looked like rust. Harry felt like he was going to hurl as he stared at it, scratching some flaked of crimson off with a fingernail, and sniffing the stale, bitter smell about the wretched thing. He was so distressed he wouldn't have noticed the faded note dangling from the knife's hilt had it not swung around violently and given him a paper cut.

He fingered it carefully, glad to see it didn't have a trace of red on it. Just dark purple ink curved into beautiful cursive handwriting. At least, it would have been beautiful writing had it not been for what it said.

'Mr. Potter,
So good of you to have come. But perhaps your time would be better spent searching for a certain friend of yours...and their cat.'

'Oh damn,' Harry swore. He read the paper over and over again, willing it not to be who it sounded like, willing it to be someone else, anyone else...He raced back to the Gryffindor common room yelling for Hermione at the top of his lungs. There was no one else it could possibly be. He was weeping by the time someone finally appeared at the top of the girl's staircase. Unfortunately it wasn't Hermione.

'Shut up, you lunatic,' Parvati Patil snapped sleepily. Harry glowered at her, but there was no time for petty bickering.

'Where's Hermione?' he panted.

'I don't know, why don't you go look for her if you're so keen to find her?' Parvati sneered.

'What? You mean she's not in her bed?'

'No, she said something about extra credit for history of magic,' Parvati shrugged. 'You know Hermione, even though she's got over a hundred in that class she still has to...wait, Harry, where are you going?' Harry didn't hear a word Parvati said after that. He had thrown himself out the portrait hole and hurtled towards the History of Magic room.

Queenofinsanity: what's about it for now?

Spike: Yes, Tracy, the bird is dead

Becca-gurl: Nope, they didn't die...yay!

TinkerbellCutie: Um, dani? U feeling ok?