DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters of the honourable J.K Rowling

The Truth

THE PLAN OF LORD VOLDEMORT AND WHY IT FAILED

"Did you see that?" breathed Sirius,

"Yeah," said Potter, shaking his head and smiling grimly, "But it doesn't really help. We have to do something. If Voldemort does take the Ministry of Magic, and is on his way, and with Dumbledore, er, restrained, things could go very badly." He'd reached the same conclusion as I had. We had to do something.

"He might still break free of them," I said in a small voice. I felt myself flush as Potter looked at me scornfully,

"He might, but what if he doesn't?" no one answered, the answer was hanging in the air: basically, we would be dead. We thought for a while in silence. I imagined several scenarios in which we charged head long into the room, dispatched all the deatheaters, freed the teachers and rode out in glorious victory. They were not helpful.

I thought of the way the deatheaters were so fidgety. Obviously the Dark Lord was late. We might be able to use that against them.

"You know how they were all so nervous?" I started off slowly, and they nodded,

"And the ones covering Dumbledore are really weak…" I trailed off; the idea in the back of my mind was too insane even to contemplate,

"Yes?" prompted Potter, his eyes burning. He was cleaning his glasses again. Why'd he have to clean them again? Surely they weren't that dirty?

"I don't suppose we could…I don't know…pretend to be messengers from Voldemort, or the Dark Lord himself?" It sounded stupid even as I said it.

"What, just walk right up to the door and knock?" asked Sirius, fingering the bridge of his nose. I looked at the floor, why had I even spoken?  The two of them were looking at each other thoughtfully, and my heart sank. They couldn't seriously be considering my insane ramblings, could they?

"It'd be bloody dangerous," commented Potter, "Could be worth a shot-"

"We'd have to plan what to say," added Sirius, "It'd be useless to pretend to be the Dark Lord, I shouldn't think he'd sound like a seventeen-year-old school boy – but maybe we could try to be a messenger."

"But we'd be counting on them not asking for a name, or knowing who their own fellows are-"

"But if they're nervous they'll just go with it-"

"Potter! Black! I wasn't thinking straight, we can't just march in there…" I began, but what could I say? March in there and do what, precisely? Potter looked me. Black looked at me. No one said anything.

"Shit," said Potter suddenly, in a quiet voice, "Looks like we don't have a choice. If we do anything, it has to be now. Right this second, actually." He was looking at his wonderful map, and my gut seemed to tie itself in knots,

"What are you saying-"

"Voldemort is making his way across the school grounds as we speak, take a look," replied Potter in a strangled voice. Black snatched the map from him and I leaned closer. There was no doubt about it; a dot labelled 'Lord Voldemort' and a swarm of followers were travelling slowly but surely towards the Entrance Hall. Obviously he was not worried about being seen now and did not bother with cloaking charms which would fool our map. We stood taking this in for moment.

"Right," said Potter, "There's no choice. We are going to walk in there and hope to goodness we can distract them enough to get Dumbledore free. We'll put illusion charms on us so we look more like deatheaters. Actually, there's no need for all of  us to do it. Evans, you can fly back to warn the school that they're coming, take the invisibility cloak-"

"I don't think so," I replied calmly, "I've come this far, and besides, I was the one who put it into your heads." Both Potter and Black looked like they were going to protest, but decided against it when they took another look at the map. The enemy was in the Entrance hall – probably at this moment posting guards to keep everyone in the Great Hall.

Everything after that seemed to go really fast. In moments, Black had performed some fiddly little charm which I sure isn't on the school syllabus, and in our places stood three sinister looking black-cloaked figures in deatheater masks. At least, I imagined that I looked the same as the other two – apparently the illusion doesn't work on the actual person being concealed. I didn't want to think how he knew how to do it. We looked at each other. Black extended his hand to Potter and patted my shoulder,

"It was a pleasure to know the both of you," he said seriously, and Potter nodded sagely,

"Yes, we had some good times-"

"Oh, shut up!" I cried, unable to bear it, "We are not going to be killed, ok?" and with that, I dragged them by their robe sleeves (their real ones, not their thick black illusionary ones) towards our destination. All of us carried our broomsticks, which would add to the pretence that we were flying messengers, and I felt somehow safer because no one would be able to see my face – all they would see would be a skull shaped mask.

"Who's going to talk?" I asked,

"Play it by ear, eh?" replied Sirius. Oh, just great. What if we all started to talk at the same time? But there wasn't anything for it, we were now standing in front of the dreaded door, our hearts in our throats. I was sweating and we hadn't even started yet. Potter squared his shoulders, seemingly gathering himself to his full height, and pushed the door open as confidently as he could. He strode in first, every inch the arrogant deatheater. The effect of our entrance was instantaneous. Every single head (except Professor Dupinkay's) turned to look at us. I have to tell you, I almost broke down there and then. What if there was some protocol that we didn't know how to perform? What if we had already given ourselves away? I couldn't have managed a squeak at that moment, but Potter, as bold as brass, stepped forward and spoke,

"We bear a message from our Lord," he said grandly, and I would never have placed the cold, haughty tones which rolled of his tongue as naturally as if he'd been speaking that way all his life.

I was impressed, but I was trembling with fear. This was the moment of truth. What made it worse was that the man whom Potter had addressed, the Leader, was masked, so we had no idea what he was thinking. Every faceless head was turned towards us, scrutinising us, how could they not realise? After what seemed like an age, but what was most probably only 30 seconds, the man spoke,

"Deliver, then," he said, fidgeting with his sleeve and glancing back at Dumbledore, who was looking on curiously. I wondered wether he could tell it was us. I suddenly had the mad urge to giggle. Why wasn't the deatheater asking for our names? Was it possible that he was too stressed to think straight?

"Our Lord is minutes from arrival," continued Black, his voice deeper and more sinister than usual, "The attack on the ministry has gone entirely to plan," (He was basing this on the little we'd heard. I hoped to God they wouldn't call his bluff).

"And my Lord wishes that all who are not needed to restrain the fool Dumbledore bring the remaining prisoners to the Entrance Hall of the castle, where they should await orders," added Potter, inspired. The silence was palpable. The fool Dumbledore? I winced at this part, but it seemed to pass the test. No one appeared to be protesting, so I suppose it was just lucky Voldemort hadn't filled them in on all the details of his plan – otherwise we'd have had no chance. But just when I thought we'd fooled them, someone spoke up,

"What, d'you mean we leave him here with only a few weakened guards?" a man said, jerking his head toward Dumbledore. I sensed Potter's panic as he stiffened under his robes. He didn't know what to say. We were all going to die. There was nothing for it,

"Do you dare question the orders of our Lord?" I said, trying to make my voice sound colder and more mature. My heart sounded like it would explode through my ribcage any second as I went on, "I'm sure he would understand if we just returned and told him you refused to obey," Where did I get this crap from? Toby's vast collection of science-fiction/fantasy movies, I suspected. I hoped my wild guess at deatheater jargon was correct. I watched anxiously as they took in my amateur attempt at evil side-kick language. Who would have thought I could be so daring? Oddly, through my mind-numbing fear, I felt a twinge of pride. 

But I guess all the deatheaters were in a hurry to get away from Dumbledore, who's wand was a good deal nearer his hand than it had been before. I suppose orders were orders, and they obviously believed that we were somehow their superiors, so they questioned us no further. I thought it was unbelievably stupid of them, but perhaps they were thinking of what 'Out Lord' would do to them if they didn't obey at once rather than of what would happen if we were phoneys. Their leader nodded his head, (in relief, I thought), and said quite politely,

"And our Lord will deal with Dumbledore in due course? I am afraid we will not be able to restrain him much longer,"

"Of course," I said, feeling weak at the knees, "That will be his first priority after his orders have been issued." And that was it.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

The teachers were all bundled out, some struggling, some, like McGonagall, walking poker straight, and smouldering. They obviously thought we were genuine deatheaters. Soon, we were left alone in the room with the twenty-or-so deatheaters who were concentrating entirely on keeping Dumbledore pinned down. The leader didn't even bother to check if we were following. I had no idea Dumbledore instilled such fear in the Dark Lord's minions. Phase one of our plan was complete.

Since the deatheaters weren't facing us, Potter and Black turned their backs to them and removed the illusion from their faces. Potter grabbed my arm and pulled me around too, obviously he'd taken off my face as well.

"We have about three minutes," he mouthed to us, his face radiant with excitement – or fear – I couldn't tell which.

"Should we attack them?" asked Sirius silently

"Yeah," I mouthed. If we took out enough of them, Dumbledore would probably be able to get free. But how to do it without saying word? Difficult, but not impossible. I walked carefully up behind one of the enemy who'd taken his mask off. He didn't notice – his eyes were closed and sweat trickled down his ugly nose. Dumbledore had his eyes closed too, so he didn't see me either. I hoped this wasn't a sign that he was tiring. The entire school, and probably the ministry as well, had all their hopes pinned on him. 

So then we attacked. We all took our wands and aimed for a deatheater. Luckily Professor Dupinkay had deigned to teach us the stunning spell already this year, although I had  the feeling that Black and Potter would already have know it anyway. It seemed like an odd thing to do, attack three out of twenty armed men, but it was all we could think of. Black held his long fingers up, one…two…THREE

BAM

Three of them were gone, slumped on the floor. The next part is hard to describe. It was kind of funny, watching them waver between holding Dumbledore and attacking us. The fear on the faces of the unmasked deatheaters was undeniable. Where did they come from? was their silent plea. I felt quite empowered. But it wasn't completely over. Soon they worked out that some of them could attack while others did their best to hold on. It was kind of touch and go for a few minutes after that – what really saved us was that Potter thought to leap on his broom at that moment. Black followed suit, and before I knew it, Potter was swooping towards me and hauling me up before him. It took a couple of seconds to get seated properly, but by then we were in the rafters, ducking and weaving as the various curses were fired up at us. I didn't have time to think that Potter had one of his arms around me, or that he was practically breathing down my neck, I just concentrated on raining stunners down on the enemy as Potter displayed his extraordinary flying ability. 

We managed to hit at least seven more deatheaters before Dumbledore got free. When he did, it was like and invisible explosion had occurred in the room. Shock waves seemed to reverberate around the space, blowing our hair back from our faces and rendering every remaining deatheater unconscious. I'd have let our a whoop of joy if I hadn't been such a jumble of nerves. Black did it for me anyway, diving and plunging around Dumbledore like some kind of over-excited puppy. Potter and I landed more sedately in front of him, both of us grinning and flushed with success. We just couldn't help it. Dumbledore shook his head and smiled anxiously,

"There is no time for speech now, but you should know, you may very well have saved many lives tonight." His old face had looked very sad, "I must go…I hope I am not too late. Do not under any circumstances go back to the Entrance Hall…hide somewhere…" he trailed off vaguely, "Some very nice acting there, Mr Potter, Black, Miss Evans…" and then he was gone, and we were left alone with a pile of unconscious deatheaters who looked as though they were out for the count. I let out a very big sigh of relief.

Potter and Black began to chuckle at that, and then to laugh,

"Come on," Potter said between giggles, and mounted his broom. Not in the mood to care what we were doing, I searched around for my own broom,

"Nah, Evans, you can come with me again," said Potter, blushing slightly. Feeling light headed and giddy with relief, I agreed and hopped on in front of him again. Controlling the broom with one hand, he wrapped his other around my waist, causing my stomach to do the whole butterflies thing. I laughed aloud and the others joined in as we zoomed through darkened corridors, finally emerging out of a large stone window and into the crisp night air. That was when we really began to laugh in earnest, noisy great peals of laughter that seemed to bounce off the cold grey walls of the castle and back into our faces. I hadn't laughed like this ages, not in this wonderful, belly-aching way. 

Bathed in the eerie light of the full moon, Potter began to do loops and turns in the air, laughing all the while, grasping me tightly as he guided the broom effortlessly through the night.

"This is insane," I tittered after a while, still with a huge grin plastered across his face, apparently unaware of my fear of heights.

"I know!" shouted Black from somewhere below, "But wasn't it fucking brilliant?"

"What?" I laughed,

"What we did! What you did!" cried Potter, "We beat them, we crushed them!"

"Yes!" I cried, full of enthusiasm. It did not even occur to me that Dumbledore might fail to fix the rest of the problem. We had done our part and the euphoria was only just kicking in.

"Did you see their faces?" Potter shouted, "Did you?"

"And your voice, Potter, I mean to say, 'the fool Dumbledore',!" I said, imitating his words from before. Potter cackled,

"And you, 'Do you dare question the orders of our Lord?' Ha!"

And then we were off again, Potter and Black weaving figure eights around each other, me holding on as tightly as I could, my brain too muddled to be fearful. Suddenly a small brown wood pigeon fluttered up in front of us, looking disgruntled, and I realised we must be over the forest now. We took one look at the bird's bobbing, squawking face and dissolved into mirth again. With a jerk, Potter pulled me to him so tightly that I couldn't breath and shot straight up into the air with a mad cry. Up, and up we went, until the air became cold and my cheeks began to burn. I turned my head to look at Potter and grinned back,

"You ready?" he asked mischievously, 

"Ready for what?" I asked bemusedly, not catching on.

"Ready for this!" he shouted and suddenly angled the broom downwards. Straight downwards. At over a hundred miles an hour. You have to imagine absolute terror here. Terrible, brain-freezing, cardiac arrest causing terror. There was no time for me to scream or pray to God for mercy, for it was like that horrible ride they have at the amusement park that free-falls you straight down without any warning whatsoever. Only it was a thousand times worse, because I wasn't secure in one of those magnetic seatbelts, nor sitting in a proper seat. I was astride a piece of wood which was hardly four inches across.

Potter was still yelling, but I couldn't hear him, or see anything either. All I could feel was the wind in my face, almost searing my skin off, and wood under my hands, threatening to splinter me to within an inch of my life. I think my heart really had stopped beating, because when we finally pulled out of the dive, bare inches from the treeline of the forest, I had a sharp pain in my chest and my arms were so weak I couldn't even get my fingers to close around the broom anymore. I knew I was going to fall…I just knew it…

And suddenly I was sobbing, great big fat tears which streamed steadily down my face and plopped of my chin to land silently somewhere in the foliage below. But I was laughing at the same time, laughing and crying at the same time.

"Potter," I choked out, "How could you do that?" I had felt more terror in that moment of vertigo than I had in the entire night. I had never been more afraid, but even though I was crying, I felt like it was the greatest thing I had ever done (that's not saying I'd do it again, mind you). Now the adrenaline was really pumping, for my mind was absolutely clear, though my nasal passages were not,

"It was…it was-" I couldn't describe it so I buried my face in my hands and crouched over the broomstick. I felt a tentative hand on my back. Why wasn't he saying anything?

"I need to – get of the – broom," I said after a while, wiping my eyes, "Please?"

"Alright," said Potter, who still hadn't taken his hand off my shoulder blade, "Sorry, I thought you'd like it," he sounded anxious, and I smiled through my tears,

"Oh, I did like it, but, oh, Potter, it was the most horrible thing you've ever done to me!" What? Even I didn't know what I meant. Potter looked quite worried,

"That's really saying something, I suppose," he said, guiding the broom back towards the castle. He landed on a ledge jutting out from the Eastern tower which, judging from the corresponding ledge on the Southern Tower, had once held a number of gargoyles. It was now completely bare and had quite enough room for both Potter and I to sit, stand or even lie down. It was a part of Hogwarts that I had never thought I would be occupying. I'd never even thought of the possibility of flying up here – much less actually landing. It offered a wonderful view of the moonlit lake and the mountains surrounding it. The lake at night was like another world, a fairy world, which, I reminded myself, it probably was...

"Are you all right?" asked Potter nervously, dragging me back to the present. He was looking apprehensively into my face, his skin made waxen by the moon. He obviously thought he'd somehow damaged me…maybe he had…

"Oh, yes, I'm fine," I said, though my cheeks were still wet with tears, "Just gave me a shock, that's all…" I wondered vaguely where Sirius Black had got to. Carefully, Potter put a hand to my forehead, and I squirmed inside. Pushing his hand a way I endeavoured to behave more normally,

"Potter, why did you have to that?" I said sharply, "Frightened me half to death!" I even managed to get a scowl onto my face, and I saw Potter visibly relax. To all intents and purposes, I was all right.

"Nearly had a heart attack," I rambled on,

"Oh, how-"

"Could've fallen to my death-"

"Not with me holding on to you-"

"I like that!" I exclaimed, but my heart wasn't in it.

"Wasn't it just a little bit amazing?" he asked, grinning. I found myself grinning back,

"Well, you know, it probably was, a little bit," I admitted, laughing softly. He looked extremely pleased, and we sat there in silence for ages, the present catastrophe down in the castle the last thing on our minds.

"You know, Evans," he remarked after a while, "There's really no reason why we shouldn't be friends." His tone was deadly serious, and he wouldn't look at me. Perhaps he was blushing again.

Friends!

I was suddenly wrenched out of my blissful reverie and thrown back into the turmoil that always surrounded my Potterish thoughts. James Potter wanted to be friends! Whatever could I say to that?

"I – I mean, well, I suppose there isn't," I said in a rush, and at the same time it hit home to me how high up I really was. I scrambled quickly to my feet and backed up against the wall, sweat breaking out along my spine. Potter jumped up at once,

"What's wrong?" he cried, his eyes wide,

"Oh…nothing, I mean, something…I mean we're very high up, aren't we?" I said plaintively, feeling like a fool. But he didn't smirk or make a smart comment, he didn't say anything actually, he just pulled up his broom and gently ushered me onto it. We slowly floated down to a convenient open window and glided in, landing smoothly on carpet with an extraordinarily thick pile. I tumbled of the broom and lay gasping on the floor, an itch behind my eyes telling me I was on the verge of tears again.

"You must think I'm a little fool," I said in low voice, unaccountably embarrassed. A hand passed across my line of vision and as Potter helped me to my feet he patted my shoulder,

"Well, I shouldn't worry too much. You've never considered my opinion before," he said, and though his words should have been  harsh, they weren't, "And I've never thought you a fool," he added comfortingly,

"Really?" I asked pathetically,

"Really. You have been a little selfish at times, I'll admit-"

"Oh,"

"And a bit of a control freak-"

"Alright, alright, you've made your point!" he raised his hands, smiling softly. We stood in the hallway for a while, wondering what we were supposed to do now. A low, mournful howl sounded in the distance. I shivered, and gripped Potter's arm,

"Lupin-" I began, but Potter silenced me with a look. To my surprise, there were tears glistening in his eyes,

"Some other time, alright, Evans?"

"Ok." I self-consciously removed my hand from his arm.

The howl sounded again and I thought of that mad wolf-face that had been so eager to do me in earlier this evening. There hadn't been a trace of any human emotion in that look, only raw animal rage. How could Lupin deal with something like that? How could he live everyday knowing that at some point he would have no control of his body or mind, would feel the need to attack and kill anything that stood in his path? It was mind-boggling. I guess I was starting to realise that not everyone was what they seemed – and quiet, frail Remus Lupin was only an extreme example. The simple fact that Potter and Black were still friends with Lupin when they knew about him was more telling than a hundred practical jokes could ever be.

"Potter, about…what you said before?" I said impulsively, and he glanced up sharply, "I – I think we should be friends…" I trailed off, unsure. But then this huge grin broke out across his face. And he nodded.

And that, really, is the end of the story. As you may have gathered, I lived through it to tell the tale. Fortunately for Potter and I, we had been right in assuming that our part in this night of adventure was over when we freed Dumbledore. Although in retrospect I can see that we had no right to be so confident, I do not feel that we could have done any more. According to Dumbledore, who spoke to us briefly afterward, he had arrived 'just in the nick of time' to meet Voldemort himself in the entrance hall. The master-of-all-evil was in the middle of meting out severe punishments to his followers for obeying false orders, and planning his strategy in the event of Dumbledore breaking free. Apparently the attack on the Ministry of Magic had not been entirely successful, and they had had to withdraw. Voldemort had still hoped to take Hogwarts while the wizards at the Ministry were regrouping, but he had counted on Dumbledore being safely detained. From the way Dumbledore told it, the rest of the evening had been a piece of cake, with him performing complex defensive magic, rescuing the teachers and simply holding the fort until the Ministry Defence squads arrived. I am sure what we heard was only a summary. Voldemort had of course fled with the uncaptured deatheaters, and it seemed everyone was safe for the moment, though the school will be closed down tomorrow to up security measures. We'll all be sent home for a little holiday. I was curious to know how the deatheaters had got in undetected in the first place, or if there objective had simply been to dispose of the headmaster, but I didn't like to ask as Dumbledore had his mind on other things. That's the problem with being a child: no one ever explains things fully to you.

So after we'd had our chat with Dumbledore (when he'd brought us out of hiding using that nifty little speaker-crystal), Potter and I joined the rest of our house in Gryffindor Common room. There was no sign of Sirius Black, and Potter offered no explanation so perhaps he didn't know where he was. The rest of the students had returned to the common room as soon as Dumbledore gave the all-clear. The buzz of chatter came to a startling stop as soon as Potter and I entered, and everyone was staring at us, some faces alive with excitement, others streaked with tears, all hungry for information. Incredibly, the occupants of the Great Hall had neither heard or seen very much of what had happened except for the odd bang or flash of light. I could feel their intent to bombard us with questions, so before anyone could say anything I clapped my hands,

"I don't know what you've all been told," I said loudly, "But Dumbledore says everything is safe now, and the enemy have gone. We don't know much more than you do but I'm sure Dumbledore will fill you in tomorrow morning. The message is that you must all pack your bags and then get some sleep; they're sending us all home tomorrow." And with that I strode towards my dormitory with out another word. The incredulous silence that followed was soon broken by angry yells and demands to be told more, but I just left Potter to deal with the rest, which was quite cruel of me I suppose. I don't know if I was neglecting my duty as Head Girl, but I seriously couldn't deal with anything else at that point. I got into bed and closed the curtains around my four-poster. Thankfully, Celine intimidated the other girls into leaving me alone and I've been here ever since, writing in my diary and trying not to think about Lupin.

It is now four o'clock in the morning and I'm due on the Hogwart's express in four hours time, so I suppose I should go to sleep. The night after my first hare-raising adventure. I'm not feeling the same thrill the Famous Five always seem to, but at least I've made a new friend, or to put it another way, an old new friend…