- CHAPTER NINE -
The DA Meets Again

Harry was clearly not the only one who was well aware something was amiss. As the Hallowe'en feast broke up for the night, several members of the Defence Association he had formed the year before just happened to drift rather close to him and his knot of friends in Gryffindor.

"Harry, can you be at the Room of Requirement in twenty minutes?" murmured Terry Boot urgently.

"We're calling a meeting of the DA," Ginny Weasley explained quietly. "I think we all need to talk. There's something very strange going on here."

"We'll be there," he promised, though he wasn't sure how much he would or could say to everybody. They always expected him to be the one with the answers... but on the other hand, it was a relief to be reminded that he did have more allies out there than just his two closest friends.

"Harry, it's a bit late," Hermione said anxiously.

"Hermione, we're Prefects!" Ron reminded her. "It's our job to make sure people go back to their beds! Who's going to notice if we go missing?"

Hermione still seemed doubtful, but conceded the point. Actually closer to half an hour later, the DA reassembled for the first time since the beginning of term in the Room of Requirement. It had turned into a kind of lecture room with a semi-circle of seats, and Harry somehow found himself standing at the front. He couldn't help but notice that their numbers were sadly depleted; the departure of last year's seventh-years had taken a big chunk out of the group. A few others just hadn't come, although he wasn't sure whether it was because they hadn't got the message in time. He wasn't sure to be dismayed or just a tiny bit relieved by the fact that Cho Chang wasn't there.

"We've called this meeting because we all know there's something funny going on," Ginny Weasley announced. She was almost unrecognisable now as the terribly shy eleven-year-old who'd gone pink every time Harry so much as walked into the room. There were only two routes a girl could go down after growing up with six boisterous older brothers, and Ginny had ended up taking the one that gave her a strong dose of fearless self-confidence.

Harry nodded, and leaned on the conveniently provided podium. It was exactly the right height for him. He wondered absently how the Room of Requirement worked - did it shape itself from the subconscious thoughts of the first person to enter, or was it adjusted to take into account what all the different occupants wanted? Was the podium his size because it was what he, Harry Potter, had required, or because everybody in the room had naturally assumed he would be up there?

Oops, he was wool-gathering.

"I've noticed a couple of things myself," he said hastily, "but I'd like to see what everybody else has spotted before I put my thoughts out there." It was a technique he suspected he'd nicked from somebody, possibly Moody or Dumbledore, but he thought it was a good idea. Whether he liked it or not, his own thoughts were given more weight than other people's, so he didn't want some half-baked idea of his taken as gospel if somebody else was sitting on a better theory. "What have you noticed?"

There was a moment of long and rather awkward silence that made him feel for his teachers. Hannah Abbott cautiously raised a hand. "Something's not right with our magic."

"I've been messing up some really simple spells," said Terry Boot.

"I've been hopeless at Divination," wailed Lavender Brown.

"Our Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons have been a complete joke," said Ginny. "Things keep going horribly wrong, and the teachers don't really know what they're doing - you sixth-years are lucky. At least you've got Snape."

"At least?" yelped Ron.

"We have to have half our Defence lessons with Professor Trelawney! She keeps telling us there's no defence against fate, and according to her, the best thing to do in the middle of a battle is stop and consult the omens to see what to do next!"

"Better Trelawney than Snape," Dean Thomas said with feeling.

"Probably not, actually," said Harry grimly. That got everybody's attention - especially an incredulous Ron's. "Ginny's right. Snape might be a total git, but he does know his stuff, and we need to know ours. Which means we need to get to the bottom of what's wrong right now. We need to know why our magic is losing its potency."

Dennis Creevy waved a hand overenthusiastically. "Harry! I don't think it's just that people are losing their magic - it's all completely mixed up! The other day, in Charms, Kevin Whitby managed to shrink a whole table to the size of a matchbox!"

"It's not mixed up, it's reversed," said Neville Longbottom. They all looked at him. "Harry, remember how I knocked you off your feet with that Shuddering Hex? I've never been any good at doing them before. And you and Malfoy both couldn't get it to work, even thought you're really good at duelling."

"So that means that those of us who are really good at things have been failing them," said Hermione slowly, "and those who are usually bad at things are suddenly boosted..."

"And anybody who's completely average wouldn't notice at all," said Ron. "Which explains me," he added, not particularly bitterly.

"But what's causing it?" wondered Padma Patil. "I mean, it doesn't make any sense. Even if it was... You-Know-Who-"

"Voldemort," Harry supplied. She only winced a little.

"-Why would he take some people's magic away when he's only boosting others'?"

"Maybe it's a side-effect and he can't stop it," suggested Ron.

"But who could he possibly do something like this, anyway?" Justin Finch-Fletchley demanded.

"I think it may have something to do with the Curse of Durand," said Harry.

There was a muffled gasp... and then a slight buzz of confusion.

"Er, Harry... what's the Curse of Durand?" asked Dean, after a moment.

"None of you have heard of it?" he asked, feeling a faint thread of hope die off. They all shook their heads.

"I've heard of the Curse of Duffleganger," Luna Lovegood volunteered. There was a brief pause.

"What was that, then?" Terry asked eventually.

"He was doomed to forever have gerbils pop out of his ears every time he sneezed. He was responsible for the Great Gerbil Plague of Hartlepool in 1927 when he caught a chill after falling in the sea."

"Er, I think that's probably not related," Harry said diplomatically.

"We don't know what it is either," Hermione took over. "We only know that some of the teachers mentioned it, and they seem to want to keep it a secret from us. There was some writing that appeared in the library before Professor Flitwick covered it up." She pulled out a piece of parchment from her inner pocket, and tapped it with her wand. "Verbus Projectus!"

Harry turned to see that the words of the poetic clue she'd taken down had appeared on the screen behind him. There was a brief pause as everybody read.

"Well... what does that mean?" demanded Michael Corner in frustration. Harry could only shrug.

"That's what we need to find out," said Hermione. "We need everybody to keep their eyes and ears open, and see if they can find out anything about who Durand was or what the curse means."

"What about the attacks?" said Colin Creevy in a hushed whisper.

Harry raised his hands, feeling strange having to be the voice of reason. "We don't know that what happened to that boy tonight was another attack."

"Snape would have said so, if it wasn't," objected Ernie Macmillan.

"Since when does Snape tell anybody anything?" said Dean.

"All we know for sure is that Emma Aufstand was attacked, and Kirkpatrick might have been," Hermione said.

"Emma doesn't remember what happened to her," Harry added. "Or at least, she claims she doesn't."

"What could have attacked them, anyway?" Justin wondered. "We're completely sealed in."

"It could have been a Lithuanian Slime-Hound," Luna suggested helpfully. "They can ooze through walls."

"Perhaps something had already got in before they put the barrier up," said Parvati, looking worried.

"If it has, it's probably down in the dungeons," said Ginny. "Kirkpatrick might have been down there too, as he's a Slytherin."

"Maybe we should look around," said Neville, not sounding as if he was very happy about this idea.

"With Snape on the loose?" demanded Ernie. "I'm not sneaking around down there, he took five points off me last week for staying in the corridor too long!"

"We don't even know that there's anything down there to find," Harry reminded them. "But everybody keep an eye out. After all, we're only doing exactly what Dumbledore told us to do - being cautious, and watching for signs of trouble."

As the meeting broke up, Harry realised that he hadn't said anything about his doubts over the purpose of the dome, or those voices that he'd thought he'd heard under the influence of the Muscomens. But then, they should find out the truth about the former when Dumbledore lowered the barrier again at Christmas. And as for the latter...

Well, it surely wasn't anything important.

Neville was rather glum as the meeting broke up.

"I should have known," he said wearily. "I really thought I was getting the hang of some of those hexes. Now it turns out that it's just that the magic's gone topsy-turvy."

"Cheer up, Neville," Ron reassured him. "Remember last year? You did great. When it counted, you did great."

None of them had really talked much about events in the Department of Mysteries. Harry in particular didn't want to think too much about them, because if where they inevitably led.

If I hadn't been so incredibly stupid-

Neville gave a rather unconvinced sigh. "Still, it's not me we should be worrying about," he said, putting the matter aside with his usual good nature.

"Neville's right," said Hermione seriously. "Harry, you're the one in danger from this. If Voldemort knows that your powers are weakened-"

"He's not even watching me!" Harry snapped, frustrated with the constant need to make everything that happened focused on him. "Seriously, Hermione, I haven't had a single nightmare, or felt anything from my scar, or- or anything!"

"Even so, you should be prepared," she said.

"How? If my magic is weakened, there's nothing I can do about it!"

"I've got this book," said Neville shyly. "It's called Maximise Your Mastery of Magic. My great-aunt bought it for me before I started at Hogwarts, when everybody thought I might be a Squib. It's all these little tips and tricks for making the most of magic even if you don't have a lot of it."

Harry's first instinct was to dismiss the idea outright - and then he felt like a complete git for it. Who was he to look down on ways people tried to make themselves better if they didn't have much natural talent? It wasn't as if most of the things he was good at came from hours of hard study like Hermione. If he was going to start sneering at the idea of not having the sheer dumb luck to be born with plenty of magical potential, he was no better than Malfoy.

"Thanks, Neville," he said instead. "I'll have a look at that. There might be something useful in it."

"Good," said Hermione, with a nod. Of course. The moment he agreed to look at a book, she considered the problem as good as solved.

He, Ron and Hermione ended up hanging behind to talk to some of the Ravenclaws, who had lots of questions about what books they'd already checked in the library. Harry was all but dead on his feet by the time they headed back towards Gryffindor Tower.

"We should probably get some sleep now," he was saying as Ron gave the password to the Fat Lady. "We can go back to the library tomor- oof." He'd just walked straight into Ron, who had suddenly come to a halt in the middle of the common room.

Hermione pushed past him irritably. "Really, Ron, what-" She too stopped dead.

"What?" demanded Harry, confused.

Ron extended a hand to point somewhat shakily at the wall over the fireplace. "Look!"

Harry looked - and saw that another one of the magical clues had melted out of the stonework.

To make one yield you almost seek
But first, must call for hush
In hours where the world seems bleak
Pass time in one quick rush

Beneath the castle's feather beds
A score of monsters dwell
Look on, without once counting heads
And rest your eyes a spell

A word you need, if you would go
Or so it might appear
The magic that all Muggles know
Will make the way seem clear

"Oh, so that's what it meant," said Hermione.

"What?"

"Nothing." She glanced around the room. "Quickly, we need to find some way to cover this up. If anyone else spots it, they'll report it! And Flitwick will probably vanish this one, too. We need a chance to study it and copy it down before we decide what to do about it."

"Quick - move one of the Gryffindor banners over it," Ron suggested. "We can come back tomorrow when everyone's in lessons to take another look."

"It's all right, keeping it hidden for a while, isn't it?" said Hermione, second guessing herself after charming one of the red and gold banners from the opposite wall to stick over the fireplace. "I mean, we will report it eventually..."

Harry shrugged. "It's only temporary," he said, the excuse as much for his own benefit as hers. "We can tell the teachers about it later. And anyway, it's stupid of them to try and keep it from us. If it's a puzzle that needs to be solved, then we should all be trying to solve it." He remembered Flitwick's words to McGonagall from the first day of term. "It only makes sense; the more minds we have working on it, the better."

"Yeah, that's right, Harry," Ron said. He yawned. "We're not doing anything wrong - we're helping. Or we will be, anyway. Just as soon as we've had some sleep..."

The yawn was contagious. A few moments later, Hermione was stumbling off to the girls' dorm, and the two boys wearily ascended the stairs to their own. Puzzle solving could wait until they were actually fully conscious.

The next day, the school was abuzz, and it took Harry several sleep deprived minutes to remember that they were talking about Neil Kirkpatrick, and not their own late-night discovery. Rumours were flying wildly at breakfast, and Harry found several people giving him highly suspicious looks.

"Oh please," said Ginny Weasley loudly. "Harry was right here in the Hall with us last night, doesn't anybody remember?"

"And he was in Potions class when Emma Aufstand got attacked," Hermione added.

Harry pushed his porridge around rather moodily, and could have told them not to bother. Since when did anybody use logic when it came to suspecting him of things?

"I reckon it was Professor Snape," Ron was telling a group of impressionable first-years. "They say he's a vampire - or a necromancer! He's doing horrible experiments down there, testing poisons on his own students."

"Ronald Weasley, you're a disgrace," said Hermione, glaring at him over the breakfast table.

Ron just snickered, and watched with glee as his eager listeners ran off to join their friends and start spreading this - admittedly, rather believable - theory.

None of them had a lesson first thing, but several other sixth- and seventh-years didn't either, and they had to wait a frustratingly long time for the common room to finally clear. Hermione scribbled down the poem one line at a time, nervous about holding the banner aside for too long in case anyone should come in.

They set the two poems side by side on the table, and studied them.

"Well, it's pretty obvious what the first one means now," said Hermione.

"Is it?" said Ron.

"Well, look! 'Four pieces do the puzzle make' - obviously, there are four things we need to find, or solve, or understand-"

"Yes, I got that much, thank you."

"So that probably means four more clues like this one that's just appeared. And look at the second verse - 'open to all, but not to all'... well, this is the common room. It's open to everybody, but not to everybody - just the people in our house."

"'We call them homes, though none there dwell...'" Harry read. "Hogwarts houses!"

"Exactly," agreed Hermione.

"But then what was all that stuff about dead bodies?" Ron asked, frowning.

"'We call them homes, though none there dwell - but there does rest its head... a body that lives nine months well, and in the rest is dead'." Hermione recited. "It's a riddle! Not body as in corpse, body as in a group of people - us! We're at school for about nine months of the year, if you don't count staying for the holidays. And in the rest of it, we're still all alive, obviously, but in a sense the group is dead. So the four clues are going to appear where we live during the school year: in the common rooms of the four different houses. That's what it means by telling us we have to befriend our enemies - because we need the clues from all the houses, or we won't be able to solve the puzzle."

Ron thumped his head against the desk. "I hate riddles," he said, with feeling.

Ignoring this, Hermione jumped to her feet. "Come on, everybody, let's get to the library! We've got to start working on this new clue."