Chapter 5: Solutions and Questions

"Cho," Harry lowered his wand and motioned for Hermione and Ron to go on. Cho squinted at Hermione and waited till their steps couldn´t be heard anymore.

"It´s about Marietta. I know you´re probably still angry that she talked about your club but it´s really enough now! She can´t have forever that horrible thing on her face! They tried everything during the holidays, her parents even went to St. Mungo´s with her, but nothing worked. You have to take it off!"

"Eh, I don´t even know what that curse was, Cho, you should have asked Hermione while she was here."

"That girl! I should have known that it was all her idea!"

"It was Hermione´s idea, but I agree totally with her! Your friend deserved what she got! Why did she have to run to Umbridge and betray us? Dumbledore had to go because of her!"

"She didn´t have much choice, -it was her family, they work in the Ministry, she had to! And don´t you think it´s enough now? It´s bad enough the whole school knows what she did. Please, she´s a nervous wreck, and I promised her you would help."

Her eyes were bright again and Harry wondered if she would start to cry for her friend now or if it was just his presence that made her teary-eyed all the time.

"Oh, well, I´ll ask Hermione about that charm, and how to reverse it," he sighed, after all it didn´t really matter anymore if Marietta had her face covered in blisters or not. Something like triumph flashed in her eyes, but it was gone in a second and he didn´t know if he had just imagined it.

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"What did she want?" Ron enquired as soon as Harry climbed through the portrait hole.

"To know how to get rid of the curse on her friend."

"I thought so." Hermione said from behind a book. "I gather they tried everything they could think of and didn´t succeed, and she didn´t want to ask me because she thought you´d be easier to convince?"

"Er, yeah, I told her I´d ask you about it. So what was that charm anyway? And can you reverse it?"

"Of course I can. Or rather she can. In fact I was thinking about using something similar for the DA again. It was a Goblin curse –maybe that´s why they couldn´t help her at St Mungo´s, Goblin magic is not very well known by wizards. I only found it while I was looking into house-elf magic.

It´s one of the simpler curses they use at Gringotts –you get "Thief" written over your face when you steal something, and to reverse it you have to give it back to the owner. As she can´t undo what she did she has to honestly regret doing it and to apologise to the betrayed one."

"And how do you want to use it for the DA again?"

"Well, I thought we should set up some rules, and then let everyone sign a parchment again, but this time knowing what will happen if they break their promise. And perhaps I can get the parchment to show the names only to members. We might be allowed to meet openly now but I still think some precaution would be good. Mhm- I´ll see what other Goblin spells I can find, maybe there are some to find out whom you can trust…"

When Harry went to bed that night Hermione was still poring over books and he wondered how she intended to start researching Goblin magic on top of everything else she was already doing –and what was she doing all the time anyway?

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On Friday morning Harry noticed bewildered Ginny´s weird behaviour around him –he had sat down next to her at the table but when the other Gryffindor boys entered she had suddenly scooted off, knocking over the milk, and then blushed darkly. He sighed. He really did not understand girls. Last year he had thought she had finally gotten over her crush on him, and she was with Dean now, so why this backfall into shyness and awkwardness? Maybe he should ask Hermione, she had explained Cho´s behaviour last year to him and –

"Oh my god! Of course, that´s it! How could I forget!"

Ron dropped his toast at her sudden outburst. "Hermione, would you mind keeping your newspaper away from my plate!"

"Here, look! It just reminded me, I don´t understand why I didn´t remember it sooner!" and she shoved the Daily Prophet on the table for Harry and Ron to read.

Ministry puts more guards at Azkaban Prison

Minister Fudge yesterday announced the stationing of more Aurors at Azkaban. "The public need not fear that any of those prisoners can escape. Due to certain rumours the Ministry decided to put some more guards there to calm the fears in the wizarding world that the situation at the prison might not be totally under control." The Minister said that all rumours about prisoners having escaped or planning to escape -probably with the help of You-Know-Who- are completely false and only spread by those that seek to undermine Ministry´ authority….

Harry saw that Ron had a similar clueless expression on his face. What did Hermione get so excited about? It was just the usual rubbish from Fudge.

"Harry, can I borrow Hedwig for a letter?" she said stuffing her things into her bag.

"Sure, but what…" But she was already gone.

"I hate it when she does that. You´d think she enjoys keeping us in the dark!"

They didn´t see Hermione until their first class, Transfiguration, again. "So, what was so important about…" but before Ron could finish his question McGonagall stepped in and began her lesson. "Today we will begin to animate objects. It requires a lot of concentration so I expect you to focus especially hard on your task today. Please take out your Transfiguration book and try to animate it so it will turn the pages on its own."

Due to the concentrated silence in class they could not ask Hermione again. She was the only student to make her book at least twitch, and after over an hour of concentrating hard on an unmoving book the rest of the class left frustrated and exhausted. Harry thought he might have done better if he hadn´t been wondering about Azkaban and newspaper articles every time he tried to focus.

McGonagall called Ron back at the end of the lesson and meanwhile Hermione had to go to Ancient Runes. "I´ll tell you both tonight in the common room. I think I´ll have some more information by then too!"

Harry had a free period and so he waited for Ron. "What did she want?"

"It´s about Quidditch-tryouts. I have to do them quickly so I arranged with her to book the pitch on Saturday. You´ll help me, won´t you? You´ve been on the team longer than I have. I don´t know if I can pick the right ones."

Harry assured his friend that he would help him, and that Ron would make a great captain and they lost themselves in a Quidditch discussion till their next lesson.

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Before dinner Harry made his way back alone from his late afternoon lesson in the green houses. Neville had stayed behind to discuss some rare plant that was supposed to be extinct with Professor Sprout and Harry had dawdled a bit behind the rest of his classmates to enjoy the last rays of sunlight.

"Ah, Mr Potter." He turned sharply. Rookwood was standing there, his mouth curled in a friendly smile. "Just the person I was looking for." His voice was exactly like the rest of him -smooth and forgettable.

"As you know I´m working for the Ministry on the security of Hogwarts. And while we can prevent danger from entering the school we need to work on what´s already inside. So I am checking everyone inside the castle, and since you always seem to know a lot of what´s going on here I wanted to talk to you too. Is there anyone in the school that you think can´t be trusted?"

Harry could think of some people he didn´t trust, but tell Rookwood? He didn´t know if he could trust Rookwood after all…

His hesitation must have shown because Rookwood continued: "I think we both agree that we want to protect Hogwarts, don´t we?" His smile had not changed once throughout his whole speech. Harry mumbled a noncommittal "Yeah".

"I do understand if you don´t want to talk bad about a teacher but I´d really like to hear your opinion. Of course I´d keep everything you tell me confidential."

He leaned a bit closer. "We have reports at the Ministry about a certain Professor of you, nothing definite, but enough to raise some suspicions. So tell me, Mr Potter, what do you think of Professor Snape?"

Harry remembered with a jolt the night of the DA meeting when he had overheard Malfoy and Rookwood. What was the liaison officer playing at? Asking everyone about Snape? Surely Dumbledore wouldn´t like that, wouldn´t have allowed that… And Snape –he definitely was one of the people Harry didn´t trust, but say that to a Ministry employee about whom he did know even less…

"Erm, well, he´s not exactly my favourite Professor, I think he doesn´t like me, but I really don´t know that much about him…"

"So, he doesn´t like you, you think? Why? Can you tell me more?"

Harry could see no danger in telling Rookwood what the whole school knew anyway. "He always picks on me during class, and he´s really unfair to Gryffindors in general and favours his own house. He knew my Dad at school and they didn´t like each other, and I think he hates me because of my father."

"But didn´t he offer you remedial potions lessons last year?" Rookwood´s eyes were piercing now. Where did he know that from? – Malfoy…

"No, the Headmaster made him give me these lessons because I need Potions to become an Auror, and my Potion´s marks weren´t good. He didn´t give me those classes for long though –he threw me out of his office because – because he said I didn´t work hard enough…"

"Now did he indeed…" There was a glint in Rookwood´s eyes that Harry could not read. "I thank you for your answers Mr Potter, they were of great help to me."

The liaison officer walked back to the castle and Harry shuddered in a sudden cool breeze. The sun had set while they talked and he hurried through the rising darkness to the brightly lit school.

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That evening in the common room Ron was planning what to do the next day for tryouts and Harry read through his Occlumency books once more. In his lesson with Dumbledore they had done nothing but talk about the different concepts of Occlumency. There were so many –one claimed you had to think hard on one sole thing, for example an apple, and shut everything else out so the one trying to read your mind would see only the apple, another theory consisted of putting your thoughts in different spaces in your head depending on how much you wanted to hide that thought, and yet another one said you just needed to "feel completely at home in your own body and mind" and everything would be okay. Apparently there were as many methods of Occlumency than wizards capable of the art.

Dumbledore had pointed out to Harry that the main idea behind all approaches was control over one´s mind, which was a terribly difficult thing to do, and therefore all those methods were developed to help with the task. Harry had settled for placing all his thoughts in different bundles with those of highest importance, like the prophecy, buried deepest under all his other thoughts, and thinking of a paper clip to focus on. For being in control of the mind it was important to get rid of all feelings and emotions and he surely had no particular emotion or feeling connected with a paper clip.

He was sifting through his memories, trying to order them, to put the most secret ones deep down in his mind. With time he would hopefully be able to close off all of his thoughts but for now hiding any dangerous knowledge would be a sufficient improvement.

He didn´t know how much time had passed when Hermione arrived. She sank out of breath into an armchair near him and Ron immediately came over. "Now, tell us! What was it about that Azkaban article this morning?"

"You remember the first evening back here, when I said I couldn´t remember where I had heard the name of Rookwood? When I saw the paper this morning it reminded me. So I sent Hedwig to the Daily Prophet and asked for one of their old copies."

She handed them an newspaper. It was the article about the mass breakout from Azkaban from last year. Among the pictures of the escaped prisoners there was a pockmarked man with greasy hair, slowly tapping his fingers together. Algernon Rookwood, convicted of leaking Ministry of Magic secrets to He Who Must Not Be Named. Harry gasped. The man had been at the Ministry last year.

But Ron was louder than him: "A Death Eater? You mean there´s an escaped Death Eater running loose in Hogwarts?"

"No," Hermione rolled her eyes, "that´s Algernon Rookwood, the liaison officer´s name is Henry."

"So what?! Maybe they are brothers then or something. Probably from one of those old pureblood lines with the whole family worshipping You-Know-Who!"

"You can´t judge someone by his brother. Look at you and Percy! You wouldn´t want everyone to think you´re just like him only because he´s your brother!"

"Yeah," Harry joined their talk, "Sirius was from one of these pureblood families as well, and he turned out differently. And Rookwood was one of the Death Eaters who tried to get the prophecy, so I doubt he´s running loose any more."

There was a short silence after he said Sirius´ name, then Ron cleared his throat: "Why did you tell us if you don´t think it´s important?"

"I think it is important, I just don´t want to jump to conclusions. I think we should be careful around him. –What is it , Harry?"

He told them of his encounter with Rookwood today and what he overheard the day of the first DA meeting. Hermione seemed worried. "Either he´s a Death Eater trying to find out if Snape is loyal to them which isn´t good because Snape is a spy for the order or he´s working for the Ministry trying to prove Snape is a Death Eater which isn´t much better. Maybe you should tell Dumbledore, Harry, or at least make sure Snape tells the same story as you."

Harry said nothing to this. Maybe Snape was a Death Eater? Did he trust Dumbledore´s judgement about the teacher? But if Rookwood was a Death Eater too… -it was all so complicated, he had lots of information but was missing the important pieces, it didn´t fit and he didn´t know what to believe.

At any rate his story should align with Snapes´. Staying as close to the truth as possible seemed to have been a good idea. Only Snape -and Dumbledore of course, but Rookwood would never ask Dumbledore -could contradict what he had said, and the teacher wouldn´t talk about Occlumency and the events that led to throwing Harry out of his office… But nevertheless he needed to know exactly what Harry had told the liaison officer so he wouldn´t make up something different. Harry sighed. Trying to have a polite talk with Snape –fat chance.

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Saturday morning dawned bright and windy. Ron kept watching the sky and hardly ate anything for breakfast. "Come on, it´s not as if this was an important match! You´ll just let them fly around a while and then you post the new team tomorrow."

Ron looked at Harry like he was mad. "Picking the team is one of the most important parts of being captain! And I don´t know if I can do this…What if I´m no good at captain, what if Gryffindor looses because I´m no good… I should never have agreed to become captain in the first place."

Finally it was time and Harry dragged Ron outside. Kirke and Sloper were standing already on the pitch and Ginny arrived shortly after them. Ron suddenly seemed to have lost the ability to speak. Harry stooped on his foot. "It´s only your sister and Kirke and Sloper!"

Ron gave him a panicking look but then visibly pulled himself together. "Eh, hello, okay – we´re all the players that are still on the team, so we need to find two more chasers. Ginny agreed to play chaser now that Harry´s back. I want you all to get into the air and play a mock game with those who want to try out. One Beater, three chasers on each team. Harry, you´ll play the other keeper. –What are you waiting for? Get up!"

Soaring on his broomstick –that McGonagall had rescued from the Dungeons and given back to him on his second day- and enjoying the feeling of ease Harry could see Ron telling the dozen or so student s that had shown up for tryouts about the procedure.

Three hours later he didn´t feel at ease anymore. His back was sore, his hands and feet hurt from stopping the Quaffles and he had gotten a Bludger to the head as he tried to prevent a goal. The other team members weren´t doing much better. Kirke and Sloper had let the Bludgers do what they wanted for most of the past hour. Ginny seemed ready to fall of her broom, constantly playing with rookies left her to dive after all the misdirected shoots. Ron was the only one still playing with verve.

Luckily half an hour later all students that had shown up for tryouts had played long enough for Ron and he called an end. "Good, thanks everyone who showed up, I´ll think it over and then I´ll post the new team on the message board! Team, I need you stay behind a moment."

The team members groaned. Harry longed for a shower. When everyone else had left Ron continued: "All right, now I want your opinions. Who do you think we should pick?"

Kirke and Sloper shuffled their feet. Harry knew they had had enough to do with the Bludgers and hadn´t payed much attention to the chasers at all. Ginny croaked: "I don´t know, that third year girl was pretty fast, Elizabeth I think, though her aim was off… or Richard, he´s in my year. Not that second year girl who kept falling of her broom and definitely not Dennis Creevey! And now, please, let´s end this, I need something to drink."

Ron looked put out by the teams less than enthusiastic attitude but relented. "Okay, then we call it a day now. If you have any more ideas tell me before I post the member list tomorrow."

When Harry emerged from a long shower and went back to the common room he spotted Ron brooding over notes and names and Hermione sniffing disapprovingly. "You could have taken a shower too, Ron, you really need one."

But Ron for once didn´t didn´t listen to her. "… not him, he´s no team player… no, afraid of speed… -Harry! Good you´re here, you can help me with this! What did you think of the lot?"

Harry went through the possible new chasers in his head. No, not Dennis –he was way to reckless, had flown straight into his fellow chaser so she had to go to the hospital wing – then there were two or three second years who knew practically nothing about the game, or flying for that matter… a fifth year who was absolutely scared of the Bludgers… -a fourth year girl had scored sometimes against him, she was very quiet and one didn´t notice her much but her aim was good…

"That girl from fourth year, I don´t know her name, she´s rather shy I think, but she´s good at the goals… And I was wondering, well, you know how much games I missed because I spent the time in hospital wing or something –maybe we could get a reserve seeker? The girl Ginny mentioned, Elizabeth, she is a good flier and she doesn´t need to aim as a seeker."

Ron stared into space for so long Harry thought he hadn´t heard him. "Yeah, right, good idea, I know who you mean, Joanne Tailor. I´ll think about a reserve…" and he turned back to his notes. They looked more complicated than Transfiguration, and at least twice as much as Ron usually wrote down during a lesson.

It was past midnight when Ron scribbled down a few words on a parchment and put it on the board.

Gryffindor Quidditch Team:

Seeker: Harry Potter

Beaters: Jack Sloper

Andrew Kirke

Chasers:Ginny Weasley

Joanne Tailor

Richard Burkes

Keeper: Ron Weasley

Reserve: Elizabeth Eaton

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The following day left Harry feeling restless. He had spent the whole day catching up on his homework, only taking a break for meals, and in the evening he craved for something to do. Neville and Ron were in an even worse mood, they had to write a three rolls of parchment horoscope about their future life for Trelawney (Firenze was teaching the students below NEWT level as she had insisted her Inner Eye worked better with only the older ones around) and were running out of ideas. Hermione of course had long since finished with her homework, however she was working on translating the Black-books again.

On which Ron had made a snide comment, she had snapped back and in the end it resulted in them not speaking to each other and both being extremely edgy. It was an explosive atmosphere that evening in the common room.

"Hey, there´s Hagrid! Looks like he´s making tea. We haven´t yet visited him this year…" Harry said looking out of the window at the giant´s hut.

"Harry, it´s already dark out there, and it´s after curfew. In any case you´ll see Hagrid tomorrow in Care of Magical Creatures."

He knew she was right but her tone irked him –like she was talking to a three year old, like she was sometimes talking to Ron when she was particularly exasperated with him.

"It won´t be the same. It´s class, I can´t ask him about Grawp then, now can I?"

Hermione looked up from her book, rolled her eyes and sighed: "You really think you should get out now and risk getting caught by Snape? Just to ask about Grawp? And with Rookwood around the school?"

"With the map and the cloak nobody would know I´m there."

"Oh, be sensible! This is just plain stupid! Why don´t you go tomorrow afternoon, after classes?"

"Maybe I don´t want to be sensible! I just want to visit Hagrid, what´s the big deal?"

"Fine!" She huffed, "Why don´t you go then already? Why ask me if you don´t want to hear what I tell you? I really don´t know why I even bother to talk!" She grabbed her things and stormed up the stairs to the girl´s dormitories.

Harry felt a bit guilty but her bossy attitude annoyed him too much to call her back. Neville ruffled his parchments awkwardly while Ron remarked gruffly: "Yeah, we´re all too bloody immature and stupid for Miss I´m-All-Grown-Up-And-Sensible."

"You want to come?"

"No, I can´t. The horoscope´s due tomorrow and I haven´t yet reached graduation…" Neville shook his head as well and Harry could see that he didn´t think much of his plan to sneak out.

While he went through the still full common room to retrieve his cloak and map he had the nagging feeling that it was indeed a bit childish and sulky to sneak out just to spite Hermione.

He crept down the stairs of the dormitory hidden under his cloak and stood by the door waiting. When a large deck of Exploding Snap cards went off by the first years and everyone was busy watching them he slipped out the portrait hole and into the dark corridor. He slowly made his way down to the entrance, carefully avoiding Peeves who was placing water buckets above all classroom doors on second floor. Otherwise the castle was deserted and he did not see a living being until he entered the Great Hall.

Fast steps made him shrink back and hold his breath. But it wasn´t a teacher – a girl quickly moved to the doors, her wand grabbed hard in her hand and her eyes searching the Hall. With a last glance around she wrenched the door open and sneaked out. He knew who she was – the girl who got sprayed with potions by Goyle, though he couldn´t remember her name.

His curiosity aroused he waited a moment then followed her. She walked straight to the forest and he hesitated, but the curiosity won.

She had enlightened her wand and kept looking around at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Glancing around nervously and wincing at the sounds of animals and whatever else lived under the trees she seemed afraid to venture in any further. Then a cry inside the forest caught her attention –and Harry´s. It was a human cry, the cry of a child.

She straightened and strode determinedly in between the trees. Harry thought about alerting Hagrid but yet he didn´t know what was going on and until he would reach the hut the girl would already have vanished between the trees. They passed a suspicious looking pond with bubbles slowly ascending in the middle, and something gnarling behind some bushes, and a sudden horrible cry directly above them made her stop dead in mid step. Harry could see the white in her eyes in the moonlit clearing as she seemed scared stiff. But she began to move forward yet again.

It was then that Harry realised they had some company. Following the girl beside the path were twigs bent, some branches swinging back just as he reached them. He could not see anything though –wait, there were some blurry lines. Then it hit him. Whoever was there had himself disillusioned, which meant it was a wizard and not some forest creature. He did not know if that reassured him or not.

"Sarah! Jolene!" the girl called out suddenly. Harry turned back to her. Two other girls had scrambled out from behind some trees. One was sobbing uncontrollably, the other looked too frightened to make a sound. They were at the most twelve or thirteen.

"Let´s get back to Hogwarts. Come on! The sooner we get out of the forest the better."

"They brought our stuff in here, all our books and homework. And Ruby! And they told us they had hidden it here and we would never get it back… We´ve been in here for hours, and then it got dark, and we couldn´t find the way back…" sniffed the crying one.

"I know, I heard them talking about it in the common room. Did you find your things? And Ruby? Then let´s go!" Harry noticed the quiet girl holding a tiny cat pressed against her chest and both of them carrying backpacks, obviously filled with their school things.

It might have been the loud sobbing that drew attention to them or simply bad luck but their way back went not as smoothly as the way in. About half way out a ferocious growling made the group of girls stop. "Run! Stay on the path! Go!" the older girl shouted as she saw a giant dark green creature move out of the trees. "Impedimenta!" The curse halted the beast and she turned and ran after the younger girls. However the creature recovered after a moment. Harry could see it clearly now –green, doglike, but as big as a bull.

He intended to fire a stunner as someone else cried "Stupefy!". He had completely forgotten the disillusioned one. Seeing that the beast was subdued for real this time Harry hurried after the girls. The Forbidden Forest was becoming a bit too crowded for his taste this night.

Finally he reached the last trees and could see the three girls running toward the school. He stopped near some bushes and carefully took out the Marauders Map. Being back on Hogwarts grounds and with the help of the moonlight he might be able to find out who the disillusioned wizard was that had helped the girls so unexpectedly. Scanning the map he quickly found "Daphne Greengrass", "Sarah McLachlan" and "Jolene Martin" moving to the Slytherin common room. Searching outside the castle he spotted between himself and the entrance another dot, labelled "Graham Cole". And just inside the Hall "Argus Filch".

Harry stood in front of the doors watching his map. "Argus Filch" had seen the door open and sent "Mrs Norris" to sniff around, and "Graham Cole" had dodged them by slipping up to the first floor and now was hiding near the broom closet there. Harry decided to go in as Filch went up to the first floor too. Sneaking up the stairs he heard the caretaker murmur: "Go, sniff around, we know there´s someone here. Nasty students, we´ll find them."

Being especially careful on the first floor he climbed silently further on the staircase. After the second floor he hesitated. No one deserved getting caught by Filch. "Alohomora!"

The spell, aimed at the whole second floor, made the classroom doors fly wide open. Peeves´ buckets made a shattering racket, the water flooded the corridor. "There! On the second floor! We´ll get them!" Harry ran.

Out of breath he reached the common room and was glad it was empty. Apparently Ron and Neville had tired of waiting for him. His watch showed half past one in the morning –he hadn´t realised he had been gone that long.

And what had happened this evening? He looked at the map again. Filch was on the second floor, probably cursing about the water, and "Graham Cole" walked safely away from first floor. He couldn´t place the name and hadn´t seen anything except a blurry shape but the disillusioned wizard had definitely watched over the girls and made sure they reached the castle. Who was he?

"Graham Cole" moved through the Great Hall. He took the same route as the girls before him had. He went straight into the Slytherin common room.

What the hell was going on at Hogwarts?

A.N.: I picked the name Algernon Rookwood from the article mentioned in the text when I started to write that story. Now I´ve found out that there´s also an Augustus Rookwood, mentioned in the fourth book, chapter 30. Augustus was working in the Department of Mysteries and had a network of spies giving him information he then passed on to Voldemort. Harry watched Karkaroff telling the Wizengamot about it in Dumbledore´s pensieve.

I don´t know if the different names are a mistake (their crimes are rather similar –I don´t think two different people with the same surname committing the same crimes is very probable), but for my story at least they will be only one person -Algernon Augustus Rookwood.