Disclaimer: Standard, J.K. Rowling owns the universe and the characters that appear in her books. I own my additions to it…yadda yadda yadda. For the full disclaimer (that applies to the whole story not just the first chapter, see chapter one).

Chapter 21: A Question of Earning

The next day the staff surprised everyone at breakfast by canceling all the classes for the day so that they could hold a dueling competition and demonstration. Most of the students were rather elated at the class free day and the chance to see some of the most prominent witches and wizards of their day going at it.

The DA members had a much more solemn view of the situation. Harry exchanged a few worried looks with random DA members who looked just as worried as he was, or at least neutral but aware. The demonstration meant that the teachers were even more worried about the possibility of students having to defend themselves, or worse the school coming under attack. The fact that they were canceling all classes and not just using defense against the dark arts classes for the demonstration meant that the situation was indeed dire.

Harry was somewhat elated to see the professors duel, but that feeling was almost totally overridden by his worry.

After an hour of preparation time during which it was recommended that students change into something more comfortable (Harry exchanged smiles of thanks with Leon when Dumbledore announced this) they were all sitting in the great hall, which was set up similarly to how it was in his second year when Lockheart had tried to run that useless dueling club, and more importantly when he was revealed as a parselmouth. The platform in the center of the room was lower to the ground and more square shaped (Harry suspected to give the professors more room to maneuver) and there were chairs set up on three sides with small walkways every twenty chairs or so and a bit of free space between the front row of chairs and the platform. The teachers table remained where it was facing the fourth side of the platform and the professors were all sitting in their normal seats.

Harry, along with the other Sixth year Gryffindors had decided to take front row seats. Hermione was on one side of him and Ron was on the other. Seamus was next to Ron and Wesley was next to Hermione. Dean was surprisingly next to Seamus, and Lavender and Parvati were on the other side of Wesley. Fred and George had taken seats on either side of the group. Harry noticed that the front row was mostly DA members, the other students seemed to be milling about or trying to get seats further back with a better view of the whole platform. Harry knew why the DA members were up close. They didn't just want to watch impressive duels. They wanted to see the intricate things that were done, the details that could save their lives in the future.

It was a while before everyone showed up but by the time Dumbledore stood up and motioned for everyone's attention, nearly every chair in the room was filled. "Welcome to today's festivities, although they are not without reason nor are they merely for fun. We are quite aware of the difficulties of the current times and it is our hope that this demonstration will be helpful to you all should you ever be in a situation which would warrant using such skills." He looked over his half-moon shaped glassed as he said this. His eyes were not twinkling. The message was clear to Harry: pay attention, it is likely that you will be is such a situation sooner rather than later.

"Please be aware that no highly dangerous or deadly curses will be used today. The tournament will consist of four pairs of two professors who have each agreed to take part of this duel ahead of time. After these demonstrations, volunteers from the audience will be taken who wish to demonstrate what they know to the rest of the school." Harry noticed a distinct look in his direction as Dumbledore said this.

"This is a special case and it should be noted that there will still be no dueling allowed on school grounds except under great adult supervision. Also, no highly dangerous or deadly curses are to be used in any demonstrative duels." Dumbledore then sat down and motioned towards professor Sinistra, "You and Filius are ready?" He asked her politely.

"Yes, I believe we are." She responded, Flitwick had quickly hopped off of his stool, disappearing behind he table before he quickly appeared again and bounced more so than walked up to the center platform. Sinistra, whom Harry had barely seen, walked very elegantly towards the platform.

Given that Flitwick was the charms professor and a great wizard as far as anyone could tell, Harry expected this to be an incredible duel. He was greatly unimpressed. First and for some reason that Harry just didn't understand, the two professors were using quite a bit of etiquette with each other, even warning each other about oncoming spells and waiting for the other to cast a return spell after they had completed casting. The duel looked horribly rehearsed and by the end both Ron and Hermione had nudged him and given him looks which clearly said "what in the world is this?" Even some of the professors had odd expressions on their faces. Of course whether he thought this was strange or not, Dumbledore's face remained a happy smile. The most interesting thing about the duel was the fact that some charm was stopping every spell cast from exiting the dueling area, which wasn't even that unexpected considering they were surrounded by students on most sides.

After a good ten minutes of very gracefully cast curses, all of which were gracefully countered with exactly the right counter curse. Both professors stopped and faced the audience, which seemed for the most part stunned at the utter inanity of the so called duel.

Flitwick spoke first, "It was our intention to show that a duel does not have to be a debased violent battle. Duels can be fought with poise and etiquette." He smiled bouncily as he said this.

Sinistra spoke next, "Certainly, one should remember that in a proper duel, dignity is just as important as victory." They both then bowed to each other, and then bowed towards each side of the platform.

Harry wasn't sure what kind of "proper" duels they were referring to, but that looked more like a dance than a duel to him. He had heard that professor Flitwick was an established duelist as well and was greatly disappointed with what he had just seen. Dumbledore however stood up and clapped as if it had been the best duel he had ever seen, "Marvelous, jolly good show!" He announced.

Good show is right! That was an act not a duel! Harry thought.

Dumbledore then sat down again and turned towards McGonagall, "Are you and Nymphadora ready?" Tonks looked at Dumbledore with disdain at the mention of her first name, and not more than a few students smirked in her direction. Maybe it was because she was a metamorphmagus, but her face looked scarier than normal as she looked menacingly out into the audience, daring them to say anything. All such snickering and smirking stopped at that point, even from the Slytherins. Dumbledore completely ignored this and acted as if nothing had happened. McGonagall simply walked up to the platform with a neutral but stern expression. Much like she wore at the front of her classroom. Tonks was a bit more animated but her expression was far from relaxed.

They stood at their ends of the platform looking at each other evenly, not staring but certainly attentively ready for whatever came their way. Harry was already anticipating a much more serious duel, Tonks was an Auror and McGonagall was pretty much established as one who was very capable at just about anything. This start was nothing like the practically friendly start of the last duel. So then Dumbledore said "Go." And the two jumped into the fray, literally in the case of Tonks, who appeared to have much better footwork than normal when she was dueling. This fact seemed to support Harry's theory that Tonks' clumsiness was at least somewhat active.

Tonks dove forward and to the left, coming very close to the edge of the platform before launching a curse at McGonagall, who had simply readied her wand. The next feat was simply amazing. McGonagall at the very last second used the vary decoy charm that she had taught Hermione over the summer, creating a small purple sphere which the curse harmlessly arced to, totally ignoring its original target. Tonks did not seem surprised at this and continued casting curse after curse. Whereas at the beginning of that battle she was her usual stern self, McGonagall now had an expression of glee on her face that made her look quite scary as she decoyed or dodged, quite quickly considering her cane, every spell that came her way. She even had time to return more than one curse and Tonks had more than few close calls within the first few seconds of the duel.

It became very clear to both duelists that a direct assault was not going to be effective against the current opponent, both backing off but still ready for any surprises. Tonks then made a crucial mistake, she summoned McGonagall's cane. At first it seemed the logical thing to do, that is until McGonagall showed her preparedness by transfiguring it into a table, which was much too large for Tonks to catch or get around and so she had no choice but to dive to the ground. McGonagall had known this and so she had sent a disarming charm low, effectively forcing Tonks to jump off the platform or lose her wand, either which would end the duel with McGonagall as victor. The table, which of course would have continued going off the platform and into the audience anyway, was caught in mid air by a quick leviosa charm from Flitwick. McGonagall quickly transfigured it back into a cane before summoning it back to herself.

The entire room broke out in applause despite the relative shortness of the duel. Not only was it a very impressive show of general spellmanship, but it was also much more impressive than the first duel between Flitwick and Sinistra. Dumbledore had a bright twinkle in his eyes as he clapped and if they were offended at the cheers for the duel when there was none for theirs, Flitwick and Sinistra did not show it, appearing just as excited and happy as everyone else.

The next duel was between professor Vector and professor Sprout. Harry didn't know very much about either professor, only being somewhat interested in Herbology, which of course wouldn't show him anything related to this anyway, not having anything to do with Arithmancy, which also wouldn't, at least to Harry's knowledge, affect a duel in the slightest.

The duel was impressive, although not spectacular. Harry imagined it was what any standard duel would look like between any two wizards or witches that were competent duelists. This isn't to say that he wasn't impressed with their spellwork, as it was exemplary. But with the exception of Sprouts victory, which she had accomplished by catching Vector off guard by conjuring a vine that held her tight while she was disarmed (proving Harry's theory of Herbology not having anything to do with dueling somewhat inaccurate) the duel was mostly well cast curses and countercurses. It lasted around five minutes.

Dumbledore reacted exactly the same as he had to the other two duels and the audience gave an excited applause although it was somewhat subdued from the ecstatic response to the duel between Tonks and McGonagall.

The next duel was predictably between Leon and Snape. Who both simply got up and walked to the platform without even being announced. Neither had a discernable expression, of course this didn't surprise Harry either as these were the two people whom seemed to be the best at hiding their true feelings of anyone.

Harry didn't know what to expect, but he hardly expected the duel to be the shortest duel so far. Not after Leon's display in class with the sword and Snape's history with the dark arts. But the duel was easily the most anticlimactic and fastest one yet. As soon as Dumbledore started the duel Leon immediately yelled, "Legillimens!" Harry was surprised that Leon would choose this spell, as even though he was certain that he was better at psionics than Snape (after all, Leon had spent most of his life studying the lost art whereas Snape simply seemed to have a knack for it) he wasn't certain that he was so much better that it was a reliable tool. However Harry was mistaken, and totally shocked by what happened next.

Snape started laughing, and it wasn't a sickening or scary laugh as Harry imagined Snape's laugh would be. No it was a very merry laugh that would have sounded quite appropriate coming from Dumbledore or Flitwick but sounded scary coming from Snape by the fact that is wasn't in the least bit scary. Leon took the split second of distraction to disarm him and that was that. There was no applause, everyone seemed utterly shocked. Even Dumbledore seemed surprised, as he raised an eyebrow noticeably and his eyes were that much more twinkly.

Snape soon calmed down and instead of getting embarrassed as Harry thought he would he smirked in Leon's direction, obviously impressed. "I should have known you would do the one thing that would allow you to win the duel." He said evenly.

Leon smirked back, "I'm surprised it worked, it was a desperation tactic on my part." He then turned to the audience. The members who knew him were even more stunned then before. "There was no way I was going to beat him, or any sighted person in a standard spell duel without some corrective tool. Most spells do not have an audio component other than the incantation, and incantations can be spoken incredibly softly or, if one knows how, not at all. Given that there is no feasible way for a blind person to actively dodge or counter such spells."

A sixth year Ravenclaw girl who Harry didn't know raised her hand, then stood up and spoke. "What about that demonstration in class? You seemed quite capable of dodging spells then."

Leon faced her, "I was wondering if someone was going to bring that up. The truth is that in that case the sword was doing nearly as much of the work as I was. I was merely reacting to its presence. It was guiding my actions. There is no way I could have done that on my own, even if I could see. My reflexes are good, probably much better than the average person, but they are not nearly good enough to do that, at least not without substantial magical help."

The girl wasn't through though, "Ok, I can see that. But then what did you do? Certainly laughter is not a standard effect of legillimens." She said, truly perplexed. Harry had a pretty good idea what he had done, having experienced that spell used in a similar manner before.

Dumbledore stood up as she asked and said, "Yes Leon, I am curious as well. I have an idea what you did, but I should think that you might want to enlighten us all as to the nature of your obviously effective stratagem." Dumbledore's eyes were still Twinkling far more than they even normally twinkled, he seemed truly curious something that Harry rarely saw in the man. Most of the time he seemed to know everything about what was going on and more, his twinkling a manifestation of mystery not of curiosity.

"Well, ok, since I was going to explain anyway now is as good a time as any. In most cases when someone is dueling they are in a state of anxiety, or at least high alertness. Thoughts are generally more neutral and negative, thinking about strategies and dangers. In this state positive thoughts are generally totally out of the persons mind and that is the key. Legillimens does not just show a legillimencer another person's memories, it makes the legillimencee and the legillimencer experience those memories. Great legillimencers simply combine the charm with memory charms to make the person forget about it. Either that or makes it seem like the person is simply remembering something as oppose to sharing that memory. In any case, legillimens is just as useful for making someone else experience a memory as it is for taking them. In this case I went for truly joyous memories on the hunch that he would not expect that at all and thus not be particularly occluding or even thinking about them. Given that I hoped that he would react as he did, reacting to the sudden infuse of emotion in the only wayonecan, by laughing, the fairly universal reaction to anything that the brain can't quite understand. After that I suspect he simply continued to laugh merrily out of the joy those memories contained." Snape simply raised his eyebrow at the explanation.

"Marvelous, marvelous, truly a good show." Dumbledore said, obviously quite happy. "Now let us get on with this shall we?" And that was that, no more was spoken about the errant duel.

He then stood up and directly addressed the audience. "Now is there anyone who would like to try the arena?" His eyes continued twinkling as he gazed over the room, daring the students to come up.

Harry was not surprised when Blaise stood up and walked up to the platform. "Ah Mr. Zabini… Do we have any challengers?" No one else taking the bait, Harry was about to stand up, but then Padma stood and calmly walked to stage. Harry saw a mischievous gleam in both of their eyes. He wasn't sure but he suspected that something was up.

"Hello Slytherin, I wonder what your Death Eater parents will think of this?" Padma taunted very uncharacteristically. Blaise over dramatically grabbed his heart and feigned pain. The other teachers looked affronted but didn't say anything. As oppose to affronted, Snape looked rather intrigued.

"I don't know Ravenclaw. What do your parents think?"

Harry was now confused. He wondered exactly was the point of this? He knew Padma and Blaise were quite friendly to each other, as was everyone else in their Psionics class. Both of them were also incredibly clever, so there had to be some purpose to this beyond just simple taunting.

Padma then started with a quick pertrificus totalus which Blaise quickly dodged. "Interesting!" Blaise said before launching a quick stupefy which Padma deflected. "I would think that you blood traitors would be more effective. Or are you mudbloods? It gets harder to tell these days!"

Harry was shocked, what was this? Padma seemed totally unaffected in fact her grin had gotten even wider if that was possible. Many of the students looked like they were about to hex Blaise. The DA members, at least that Harry could see looked perplexed.

"Wouldn't you like to know Death Eater! But look, no mark? Must have been too tainted to make the cut!" While she spoke, Blaise tossed another supefy at her which she quickly dodged.

Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling more than ever and Snape seemed impressed for some reason. McGonagall was about to stand up but something stopped her. Sprout looked almost sick and yet she stayed seated. Harry pondered this. Anyone who knew anything could tell that neither of them was taking the actual duel seriously. Harry thought more and more that this was just an excuse to taunt each other. Most of the DA member's looked incredibly perplexed. Zacharias looked like he wanted to Rip Blaise' head off.

Eventually Blaise shot a well placed diffindo which nearly split Padma's entire robe in two. This would seem to be a good tactic except that Padma was not nearly as sheepish as he apparently hoped. She simply grabbed her robe, pulled it clear off, revealing her underclothes and threw it at Blaise. One alacritis later and Blaise was now quite wrapped in the robe and also quite off the dueling platform. He had barely missed hitting Lavender, who was gaping at Padma. Harry wasn't certain whether to look away or stareas Padma was quite beautiful. Padma quickly solved this problem by summoning back her robes and then transfiguring them complete again before quickly shoving them over her head. Despite this he heard a distant sigh of delight from Dean's direction and if what he saw was correct, quite a few of the boys shared his sentiment. Padma didn't seem to care in the slightest.

Blaise calmly, and still smiling walked back up to the platform where he almost congratulated Padma saying, "Nice work blood traitor. You might just be able to hold yourself against a Death Eater…" He trailed off as if to imply that he was definitely kidding.

Padma responded with, "No wonder they wouldn't let you in. That was only so so."

Dumbledore stood up, and Harry was curious what his response was going to be to their obvious show of quite inappropriate taunting. "Well, well, well. That was an interesting event. I certainly hope that you all learned something from it. I know I did." The way he looked at the audience over his glasses showed he was quite serious. What he meant by this Harry was left to ponder. Snape seemed rather pleased at this for some reason. The rest of the teacher's looked rather confused except Leon who had a totally neutral expression the whole time.

Blaise and Padma then walked back to where they were sitting. Harry hadn't noticed before but they were sitting right next to each other, and in fact had been the entire tome. This seemed to perplex everyone even more as they both went and sat down as if they hadn't spent the last ten minutes taunting each other.

The rest of the so called tournament was rather normal, with a few more people standing up and dueling. Harry had pulled a rather mean trick on Ron using serpensortia to conjure a large number of Snakes whom he told to trap Ron in the corner where he was easily disarmed. He was quite happy with himself and afterwards Dumbledore looked quite happy. Most of the audience were a little freaked at his overt use of parseltongue but Harry realized that he didn't particularly care. He looked for Devon Witter and found him sitting in the front row smiling in Harry's direction knowingly. Ernie on the other hand looked a tad lonely, and a bit envious Harry thought.

Other than that, the duels were typical. Curses, counter curses, what Harry imagined a duel might look like. Harry noticed that most of the DA members had chosen not to duel. Harry guessed they didn't want to show off the best of their talents in front of possible Death Eaters. Harry thought this wise, but stood up anyway to play Ron for the fool. After all, he had never truly gotten him back for that punch in the nose that first week.

The tournament was over by lunchtime and the students had the rest of the day to "Muse over the events of the morning." According to Dumbledore, but as the Teacher's and the majority of the order members were nowhere to be seen. Harry was certain that they were having a meeting somewhere. Wherever they were, it wasn't on the marauder's map, so with nothing else to do, Harry decided to ask Padma and Blaise what their duel had been about.

He found Padma sitting in the Library lazily reading Hogwarts, A History. She looked quite bored, and when Harry approached her she immediately perked up. "Hey Harry. That tournament was rather dull wasn't it? Nice trick on Ron with the snakes though. Even if it was chilling to hear you speak parseltongue again." Madam Pince gave the two of them a menacing look and a grandiose "SHH!" that Harry was certain disturbed more readers than Padma's comment. Still, they both stood up and left the library. Leaving the book open on the table where it was and earning another glare from the cantankerous librarian.

"Funny you should bring up the tournament because…"

Padma cut Harry off, "I figured you were wondering about that duel between me and Blaise." Harry just nodded. "We have been planning such a thing for a while now. We wanted to test how far the professors would let us go on with our taunting. We were going to start a random duel in the courtyard but then this tournament came up and it was the perfect time. As we suspected the teachers got rather put off but didn't actually do a single thing to stop us. Leading both of us to believe that the way they intend to solve the problem of inter-house fighting is to ignore it unless sit gets dangerous as to not appear to take sides. While this might seem like a good idea it means that we as students are even more responsible." Her face got more serious as she said this. "On the one hand it means that the adults will have to spend less time bailing us out. On the other hand it means that we are being left to our own devices. Which means that if it ever comes down to a battle for Hogwarts and we are not sent somewhere else, the entire battle could be decided before the fact by how divided the students are. Especially if more of them follow Theodore's footsteps and join the Death Eaters."

Harry got silent. "Should we be talking about this where everyone can hear us?" He asked solemnly.

"Why not? People need to know. We can't foster house unity if we keep secrets from each other. Someone is going to have to budge on that and I for one think it should be us. After all, the DA is the most interlinked group with students from not just multiple but every house that Hogwarts has had in a very long time. The fact that we have three Slytherins including Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle whom most of us used to hate with a passion shows that."

Both Harry and Padma looked down towards the floor in intense thought. The whole world seemed to have fallen on their shoulders. Of course Harry had already felt that way. But this was a tad different. It wasn't on his shoulders. It was on their shoulders, the group's. Harry had heard the statement a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. He wondered if they were up to this self appointed task. With respect to inter-house unity their most obvious weak link was Zacharias Smith who couldn't seem to fully discard his dislike for Slytherin. But he wondered. He knew that there were more who were at least wary of them, possibly worse. If push came to shove would they jump in the line of fire for a Slytherin student? He doubted it. Would they for another? He thought it was more likely.

Harry shook his head. Why was he even considering these things? He is a sixth year in school, and not even legally an adult. Yet he had been thinking of such things for years. It was only nearing Christmas and he was already feeling the weight of time. Padma's point scared him in more ways than just the responsibility. He was certain that Hogwarts was going to be attacked, and he was not at all certain that the students would be able to avoid it.

When they reached the moving staircases, Harry decided to go find Blaise. Padma said she was going to go to her room and do some studying. So Harry headed down towards the Dungeons and Padma headed up and disappeared into the moving staircases. Harry realized again that he had no idea where the Ravenclaw dormitories were. He decided that he should rectify that in case it ever became important, such as that night with Devon, for him to know where it is. He would have to ask one of the Ravenclaws in the DA, either that or professor Flitwick.

As he pondered this he was totally not paying attention to where he was going and as he walked around a corner he ran straight into Snape. Who was quite less than pleased to see him, especially as he had been holding a vial of some sort that was now shattered and was quickly staining both their robes a rather ugly shade of green.

"As expected Mr. Potter, you still lack the decency of watching where you are going." He sneered in Harry's direction. But there wasn't the same disdain for him that Harry was used to in his dealings with his potions professor. No it seemed that Snape was just truly annoyed with the situation. Of course he was playing his part well, but Harry began to see it for what it was: an act.

"I'm sorry sir…" He said quietly.

"That is what you always say and frankly it got old a long time ago. Now would you kindly tell me why you are headed in the opposite direction from your common room? Alone no less. You know the current situation just as well as I. You are supposed to be accompanied by at least two other students at all times. Or did you forget the headmaster's announcement?"

Harry was surprised. Snape seemed actually worried about him. That and he hadn't so much as mentioned house points. If I had been a year ago he would have taken away fifty points for the stain, another ten for him being absentminded and yet another ten for only having 'I'm sorry' as a response. "No I remember it…" he said sheepishly.

"Then I suppose you decided that you were beyond such rules?" It was odd. Snape's tone was exactly the same as it always had been. Yet it seemed a lot less offensive to Harry. True he hadn't immediately taken off house points, but still. Harry almost felt ashamed. Something his professor had never been able to get out of him before. He wondered if Snape's former vindictiveness had just been his imagination or if something had happened between now and the summer to change the man.

"I was looking for Blaise Zabini. And I was with Padma Patil until a few minutes ago, although I admit that isn't exactly a group of three."

Snape growled, "Well that's better. At least you are starting to get something of a brain. Now, as you have ruined this potion I was taking to Remus for his monthly cycle I have to return to my office, so I will escort you to the Slytherin common. You will have to find your own way back however. And it will be with at least two people or I will be forced to report this digression to the headmistress." Harry nodded and they started walking towards the Slytherin commons. Of course he already knew where they were and the fact that Snape was not giving him directions at all showed that either he was quite aware of that or didn't care either way.

After a few hallways of silence Snape snidely turned his head Harry's way and said, "Twenty points from Gryffindor for absolutely no reason at all."

Harry blinked and looked up at his professor, suppressing his urge to get furious. One side of Snape's lip was slightly upturned in a subtle smirk. Was this some sort of test? It had to be. "Severus," Snape's expression neutralized at the sound of his first name. "I know that I have had difficulty respecting you before, and that we both got off on the wrong foot for reasons that had little to do with each other…" Snape didn't respond at all. He didn't interrupt Harry and if he was mad he didn't show it. In fact his general scowl didn't seem to be present at all. "I think I understand why you want respect now."

At that Snape snickered indignantly as if Harry were a complete idiot. His voice was deadly serious as he spoke however. "I should think that you would know better that that Mr. Potter. You know as much as I do that respect that is not earned is not respect at all."

Harry wasn't nearly as surprised as he expected himself to be. "Yeah, like my 'respect' for the headmaster as a child. You know, as soon as I had a reason to respect him it turned out that I didn't, not really."

Snape smirked at him. Harry realized that this smirk was the same as if anyone else had given him the biggest smile. His voice remained unaffected by his change in demeanor. "The headmaster awes with his power and draws superficial respect for the same reasons that the Dark Lord does. I doubt he has felt capable of earning respect for a very long time."

Harry nodded, he understood. He had been "respected" as soon as he was thrusted into the wizarding world. He hadn't done anything to earn this respect. Even the thing everyone had respected him for was an action of his parents not his own. He realized what the difference was. His friends and the DA respected him for who he was, not some scar on his face. But what of a man whose very essence called for respect? He would be incapable of earning respect at all. Harry couldn't imagine what that would feel like.

"As for your so called respect, I am not so dense as to think that students automatically respect me, or any teacher for that matter. What I ask for when I call for respect is simple etiquette." Snape's tone was still no nonsense.

"Oh… So if you can't get real respect from students than you at least want the illusion of it?"

For the first time in this conversation the old hateful Snape returned. He stopped faced Harry and met him eye to eye. "You idiot boy! Even you have to know it is not that simple!"

Harry just nodded, and pondered this for a minute. "Why the sudden change of heart? Just a few months ago you were reveling in my misery and now we are almost being civil to each other."

"A respected friend…" Harry caught the double entendre there, Snape wasn't referring to just anyone. He was referring to someone who had really earned his respect. Leon, it had to be Leon. Snape knew Harry knew. It was plainly obvious. Harry realized that it wasn't just his expression. Harry and Snape were communicating on a whole other level. Snape was showing himself really to Harry for the first time. Harry also realized that for the first time he was truly showing Snape the very same thing, himself.

Harry looked at him again, "You don't really want respect at all do you?" He asked bluntly. Snape responded with total neutrality, his stare was deep and rather menacing however Harry understood it. "It's because of that isn't it?" Harry nodded his head in Snape's arm's direction, the one that beneath those black robes held the Dark Mark. Again Snape responded only with a deep stare that could only mean accent. "All this time I thought you were just mean, and it was really because you didn't want us to like you. You knew we would have to choose sides and that us worrying about you would be a liability. You expect to be killed… And you don't want anybody caught in the crossfire. You know what… I think I understand what you meant by respect…"

Snape nodded, "That was a very astute, although not totally accurate assessment. I fully expect to live. And as for the students liking me I could really care less…"

"But it's more than that. Students liking you would create a liability that you could do without. The Slytherins are an exception. You don't really have to worry about them since most of them wouldn't pry anyway and you knew that. Any other student might have found out what you were. What you still are in a sense, and then all of this would be for not regardless of which side you were on."

"Again Potter you should think before you speak. Anyone who wishes may know of my former alliances. All they would have to do is look at the files at the ministry about known Death Eaters. Either that or the morning paper, after all they seem to reprint that bit of information every few weeks."

Harry thought about it again, Snape was right that wasn't a particularly reasonable assumption. Then he got it, he really got it. "It's a question of who deserves what. You don't want to earn anyone's respect because you don't feel a need to. Any respect could be a liability and without the true need of it you don't try. The students then hate you which serves your purposes just fine. You keep up your menacing demeanor and no one guesses about you because they are too busy hating you or unreasonably blaming you for everything. A natural shield against the truth…"

Snape smirked again, and Harry nodded. He got that the truth was he was miserable. Snape was a hateful man, but he was not a stupid hateful man. He realized that being hateful could be a benefit given the right circumstance. As a true Slytherin, he had worked every angle to instigate such a situation. This revelation didn't make Harry like Snape at all. However, he finally truly respected him and he knew that Snape finally respected him.

"A truce then," Harry said, voicing what they both knew had just happened. Snape simply turned towards the common room as if that deep talk had never happened. Harry then noticed that Snape had led them off to a very secluded part of the dungeons while they were talking. So this was planned. He looked at his shirt and the green stain was no longer there. It had to be, but how did he know?

With that Snape knocked on the door to the common room in an odd pattern. The door opened and Snape shoved Harry in. He then walked off towards his office, the door shutting behind him, leaving Harry to face a room full of Slytherins by himself.

The room looked exactly as he remembered it, except of course it was a lot smaller than it seemed when he was twelve. It felt rather dreary and Harry was inclined to find Blaise as soon as possible before leaving. The fact that everyone in the common room was staring at him only served to heighten his sense of impending doom.

A couple of Slytherin seventh years walked over to him. "And what do we have here? Apparently Professor Snape left us a treat." A boy said. A group was forming around him staring at him, sadistic Grins on their faces.

Harry was certain this was going to be a quite unpleasant experience, at least until the door to the common room opened and in walked a rather fast moving Malfoy. One look at the situation and he was appalled. "What are you sods trying to do? Get us all killed!" He yelled at them.

A fifth year responded, "Harry was brought here by professor Snape. Why else would our own heroic Gryffindor be brought here than to be taught a lesson?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes, "To meet his friend you idiot. You really think that anyone would bring Potter here just so you could attack him? You realize what will happen if Potter returns from our common room hurt right? We would never live it down! The rest of the school would kill us, not to mention most of the known world."

"We could kill him?" Harry was not fond at all of this third year's suggestion.

Malfoy just looked down at him with an expression of total indignation on his face. "If the Dark Lord couldn't kill him, and a group of highly trained Death Eater's couldn't kill him then what makes you think that you have any chance of killing him! Besides if nothing else Snape knows he's here, and I am guessing that at least one of his little friends knows he's here as well. Suppose you DID succeed in killing him! Then we wouldn't be facing an attack! WE WOULD BE FACING A MARTYR!" Malfoy gazed around the group as if they were the stupidest people in the known universe. "I certainly hope you all understand what that would mean. I for one would like to keep my head where it is attached to my shoulders, and I am not so fond of the prospect of Azkaban either. So stop being idiots and wait until you are full fledged Death Eater's before making any moves! As for me, I am going to pretend that I didn't find you all about to dig us an early grave and go do my Potions essay."

A Seventh year remained smug, "So the rumors of you and Potter's friendship are true eh?"

Malfoy did an about face and his face said nothing less than the words that came out of his mouth. "You really are daft aren't you? Potter is no more my friend than you are Harkins! But friend or not, hurting him now would only serve to hurt us later. I for one want to protect my own hide! Not to mention the fact that he would probably beat the lot of you. Don't get cocky. It is a fact that he has survived more than you will probably ever know. Hatred is no excuse for stupidity." At that Malfoy turned and left the shocked Slytherins and a somewhat impressed Harry before heading of towards his dormitory.

Blaise was coming out as they spoke and Harry noticed that both boys pointedly ignored each other. "Harry? What are you doing here?" Blaise said surprised at seeing Harry at the top of the stairs by the entrance to the room. He then looked at the group of Slytherins around him. "And what is this about?" His voice was distinctly more threatening as he said this.

The boy called Harkins responded, "Look its Slytherins resident Gryffindor. I don't know what the hat was thinking putting you here Zabini but you certainly don't deserve the blood in your veins."

Blaise totally ignored the comment and said. "I highly suggest that you leave him alone unless you want to get hurt." His tone remained threatening.

"So you would fight for him? You blood traitor!"

"I would fight alongside my friend. But you have messed with the wrong person even if I had never showed up. He could probably at least injure the lot of you. Besides that the rest of the school would kill you." Blaise threat stood there.

A third year pulled on Harkins robed. "Draco said the same thing. Do you think they might be right?"

Harkins grabbed the smaller boy menacingly and lifted him off the ground, but before he could say or do anything more both Harry and Blaise had leveled their wands at him. "Drop him!" Blaise said.

"Or what Zabini? You wouldn't dare curse me. With your standing you wouldn't live it down." Harkins' cocky tone said it all.

Harry said, "Who said anything about him? Besides, if you think that your family can protect you here you are distinctly mistaken. More powerful families than yours have failed at this." Harry honestly wasn't sure how powerful his family was, but he knew how powerful Lucius was and he had barely been able to protect his own son let alone his interests so he thought it was a significant threat.

Harry noticed that while the common room seemed united a few seconds ago that it seemed a lot more distinctly divided now. It appeared that the thought that the Slytherin manipulated each other using fear and family standing was not at all off. But now they were beginning to see that their family standings meant little here.

Harkins went for his wand but Harry quickly disarmed it and then tossed it over the room to Blaise, who was a safer distance away from the group. Blaise smiled silkily, "I suppose you might want to change your mind. After all I could make your remaining stay at school rather unpleasant…" Harry was seeing the Slytherin side of Blaise and it was darker than he expected. Blaise pointed his wand at Harkins' wand glaring at the boy with an anger that Harry had only seen in his own reflection. Harkins' face whitened. He looked around. The people that had been by him were either watching expectantly or had lost interest. He had considerably less followers than he had started with and now his wand itself was being threatened. "Don't mess with me or my friends Harkins!" Blaise said. "You are not the master wizard you claim to be. And I doubt that your parents would condone such behavior." Blaise threw Harkin's back his wand. "As for the rest of you, you are bloody Slytherins for Christ's sake! Show some dignity at least! How can you expect to make it to the top if you bow down to the first larger person to come your way? Honestly, what does our house stand for anyway? No wonder we need to cheat to win at this school. None of you sods have been paying enough attention to the rules at all in order to use them! Take a hint from me, or professor Snape for that matter. The only person you can truly rely on is yourself. Certainly not a family of Slytherins who would just as well use you and then throw you away!"

Harry lowered his wand, he wanted this to end. "Blaise, I actually came down here to find you." He said, the truth being just as good a change of subject as anything else.

"Ok, but let's get out of here shall we?" Blaise asked, Harry nodded and they quickly left the Slytherin common area, but not before leveling one last accusative gaze at Harkins for good measure.

After they were suitably down the hallway, Blaise turned towards Harry. "So how did you get into the common room anyway?" He asked.

"Snape let me in, although I already knew where the Slytherin commons was from previous experience." Blaise simply nodded.

Harry thought about Blaise reaction to Harkins in the common room. Yet another darker side he had yet to witness. "Did you really mean that? When you said that the only person you can truly count on is yourself?

Blaise looked at Harry with a raised eyebrow. "Of course I did. It's the truth."

Harry looked down at his feet, "What about counting on your friends."

Blaise looked at him, "You can count on them to an extent. But friends can't always be there, even if they want to be. You have to be able to accomplish anything that needs to be done without them. Even if you wish they could help you. If Slytherin teaches you anything it's that."

That made sense but was still unsettling to Harry. "I think it is better to wait for your friends than to escape alone. There is something to be said for unity…"

Blaise looked down at the floor, "Friendship versus survival… That is the hardest decision anyone can ever have to make. No one should have to make that decision, yet we are forced to all the time."

Harry nodded, Blaise understood. Harry also understood, Blaise was right, the only person on can totally rely on is one's self. And that is assuming that one can totally rely on anything.

"So why did you really want to talk to me?" Blaise raised his eyebrow again as he said this.

"I wanted to talk to you about your duel this morning. But now I think I just want to go to sleep. Sorry for dragging you out but I really needed someone to accompany me out of the Dungeons. Snape already got on my case for coming down here alone.

They reached the moving staircases as he said that. "No problem." Blaise said, he then let out a huge yawn. "I really should go to sleep as well. After all, I think we all have been losing some with everything that has been going on."

Harry nodded and quickly went back to his common room where he took a long nap. He woke up and went to dinner, but afterwards still found himself rather exhausted. With his classes and the DA and Quidditch and everything he hadn't had a full nights sleep in weeks and he thought he might as well use his off day to get as much rest as possible so after dinner he went to his room and fell into bed for what he hoped would be dreamless sleep.

Harry woke up with a kink in his neck and an aching back. He felt rather rested, but there was something wrong. He wasn't lying on his bed at Hogwarts. He was lying on a hard cold floor. It was also darker than he was used to and when he opened his eyes he found himself staring between two buildings at the night sky. He stood up and stretched his aching muscles and cracked his neck releasing the tension from having slept on the hard ground. When he looked around he found he recognized the place, but barely. He was in Knockturn alley. Harry felt odd, he was certain that Knockturn alley would be very busy at night. He remembered from his third year how Diagon Alley was. Knockturn alley was the low side of town where the less honorable business took place. If that was anything like the muggle world then this place should be even more crawling with people now then during the day.

It certainly shouldn't have been totally devoid of life except for Harry himself, and then it finally occurred to him to wonder how he had gotten here. Although with his previous experiences it hardly mattered. He had accepted that strange things happened to him and that he would likely have it all explained to him later, if he survived of course.

He was about to explore the area when he heard the sound of quickly approaching footsteps. It appeared that the alley was not as devoid of life and Harry had expected, so he ducked into a nearby empty alley which conveniently shadowed in such a way that he could look out at the street in either direction and anyone on the street would be unlikely to ever spot him.

The footsteps were moving quickly and it occurred to Harry that whomever they belonged to was most likely running. Harry realized that he didn't have his wand, something that made him distinctly more wary of the thing running towards him.

A human figure quickly approached him and when he realized that he recognized it he was incredibly relieved. So he stuck his hand out and pulled Blaise into the alley with him, what he got was not what he expected.

Blaise shoved him into the wall and said, "Harry? Is…is that really you?" He was guarded. Harry was stunned, of course it was him. But something told him that Blaise wouldn't take a simple yes. But how could he prove to him that he was in fact Harry?

Blaise looked anxious and more and more ready to punch Harry in the face. Harry could think of nothing better to say so he decided to mind speak, "Yeah it's me."

Blaise mind spoke back, "Really? You're not a metamorphmagus in disguise or something?"

Harry had not expected that response and he looked at Blaise in confusion. "What would make you think of that?" He asked. It never was the first thought to come to his mind although now that he thought about it, especially considering what he knew about Wesley, it probably should be something he might want to consider.

Blaise' response was hardly what Harry expected. He started shrinking and growing thinner and before Harry knew it he was staring at a copy of himself, minus the scar. If it weren't for his bright green eyes he would have thought he was looking at his father.

Harry blinked as he stared the truth now obvious to him. He found himself looking at Blaise again once his eyes came back into focus. "You're a metamorphmagus?" Blaise nodded then let Harry down.

"That's the real reason why I was sent to America while most of the other Death Eater's children were sent either home or to other's homesif their homes were too dangerous. Dumbledore didn't want to chance adding a metamorphmagus especially one with potential access to the school to their ranks. The funny thing is that I didn't even know I WAS a metamorphmagus until over the summer. Everyone knew but me, I was being prodded on both sides, prepared as the perfect Death Eater on one hand and modeled against them at the same time. I honestly never had any intention of joining them. I knew that with my 'imperfect' blood, which I was aware I had but was unaware what it was or what that meant that I was only wanted to be used." He sat down.

"There is another thing, the reason I took the Psionics class. I lied to you. It wasn't just to protect my secrets." Harry sat down and listened. It was clear that they were alone. Whatever this place was he felt no danger within it. "I wanted to be able to protect myself from imperius. I have always been highly susceptible to mental intrusion. Why do you think I was so quick to take up the Occlumency lessons? I have learned a lot but I still think that anyone who actually wanted to could get anything they wished out of my head."

"You seemed rather good with the penseive from what I saw…" Harry said.

"That's different. All I had to do there was reconceptualize one thought. This is reconcepsualizing my entire thought process. I don't think I am quite capable of that, at least not anytime soon." He looked over at Harry. "Despite the front I put up I am actually don't trust my abilities that much. I can pull off some decent spell work in a safe environment but when it comes to something with stuff on the line I choke. For instance I only got acceptable on most of my OWL practicals. The only one I got beyond that was potions and that requires no wand work, and it's something I have always loved. I only made E on the requirements for my NEWTs through hard work on my theoreticals. And even then I almost choked during the test."

Harry only nodded. Blaise had always seemed overconfident in his abilities. That made more sense now. Harry had wondered whether he was fallible or not but it appeared that he was just like the rest of them. In fact now that he looked at him, he seemed quite a bit like Neville. He guessed he was seeing the Blaise that everyone in Slytherin had known for ages. After all, before this year he hadn't stood out at all.

It then occurred to Harry that they were both in their sleeping clothes and presumably wandless. Why else would Blaise physically force Harry into a wall? Harry was small and nearly anyone could do that to him. Blaise was bigger than him certainly but he wasn't extremely large, so it didn't seem prudent for that to be his general course of action. Harry suddenly had an unreasonable feeling of embarrassment at being seen in his pajamas that he felt was rather ridiculous given the circumstances. Blaise was wearing a wife beater and boxer shorts. Harry still wore full body pajamas. He didn't quite know why, he had never thought to get anything else. And since they used to be Dudley's, he never had any worry of growing out of them.

After that bout with embarrassment, he thought it best to get straight to the point. "Um, do you have any idea how we got here?"

Blaise scratches his head, a look of confusion on his face. "I have no idea, I just woke up here with the incredibly urge to run away from Death Eaters. Honestly I don't even know if I ever saw one. I just sprung up and ran."

"I didn't quite have that but I did wake up here and it felt like I had been here for some time. My back was really sore." Harry rubbed his back and neck which were still a tad stiff.

"I didn't have time to notice, although now I think I have a bit of a headache." Blaise rubbed his forehead a bit before continuing. "You wouldn't happen to have your wand would you?" He asked hopefully.

"Nope," Harry responded, and Blaise let out a dismal sigh.

"What are we going to do then?"

Harry furrowed his brow, "Well there is certainly something up. This can't really be Knockturn alley. It's too quiet, I'd think there would be someone here even at this hour. Not to mention it really should be snowing this time of year."

"Do you have any idea what time it actually is? The moon isn't up right now and I can't see enough of the sky through the narrow building to see any constellations." Blaise said.

"You can tell time by the night sky?" Harry asked, intrigued.

"Well no, but I figured we could at least get something of an idea from its orientation. After all we have been taking astronomy for a while now." Harry nodded, although it hardly mattered as they had no way of knowing if where they were even followed normal rules of time.

"So what should we do?" Blaise continued. "I don't see any point in staying here, and it is getting a tad cold in just my underclothes." Harry noticed that too, whether where they were was real or not it certainly felt real and Harry was cold even in his pajamas. He could guess what it night be like for Blaise wearing what amounted to nearly nothing. In fact, now Blaise was shivering.

"Well, I suppose we just pick a direction and walk." Harry said, not seeing anything else they could possibly do. Blaise simply nodded, and they started to walk down alley in some random direction. Blaise was now holding his arms in front of him shivering and Harry had his hands in his pockets. They both could see the mist of their breaths as they walked.

And then they reached a door. It was a strange door in that it appeared to be stuck onto the wall as oppose to being built there. Even the wall itself seemed a bit out of place as it seemed to jut out of the sides of the alley quite jaggedly as if it were put here after the fact. Harry looked at Blaise with a raised eyebrow.

Blaise shrugged and motioned towards the door, his arms held tightly around his chest. Harry took the hint and opened it. Beyond it was a rush of warm air and bright light. Both of them shielded their faces, their eyes long ago adjusted to the smallest starlight. The warmth more so than the light beckoned them and so, still shielding their eyes as they waited for them to get used to the light again they stepped through the door.

When Harry's eyes finally adjusted to the light and he could look around without squinting he noticed that they were standing on a path in what appeared to be a tropical jungle. Blaise was still blinking although he had removed his arm from his face. The door that they had come through had disappeared, leaving them no option but again to choose a direction and walk. It seemed even less relevant now as both directions looked rather identical so Harry just motioned one direction once Blaise stopped blinking. Blaise shrugged and they both started walking in that direction.

Ahead of them was a clearing with a person sitting in it. As they got closer they saw that the person was in fact a girl and that she was sitting in what looked to be an awkward position. Blaise called it lotus position and said he saw a lot of people in America meditating in it. As they got closer it was apparent that the girl was in fact Padma. Much like they were she was wearing what was obviously sleeping clothes. Her outfit was more similar to Blaise, her top covered with a female tank top, and her legs covered with longer leggings, as oppose to Blaise' boxers. Harry felt even more out of place now, both of them were wearing white and he was wearing faded yellow pajamas.

"Hello Harry, Blaise." She said without ever opening her eyes. Harry gaped at her, she opened one eye and peeked at him, "Oh come on! You can't think that after three months of psionics with you that there would be any question of who you were?" Harry's surprise subsided. After all she really was the star of the class, with the notable exception of the work on penseives.

"Um, you seem rather calm considering." Blaise stated, quite curiously.

Padma stood up and looked at them. "Why shouldn't I be? I have had weirder dreams so I figured that's what this was. Eventually I realized that it was more than that but being in the middle of a benign tropic isn't exactly my idea of scary so I figured why not make the most of it?"

Harry looked at her oddly. Then again he and Blaise hadn't exactly ended up in the most pleasant of places. He probably would have been much more positively inclined as well had he ended up here.

"So what do we do now?" Blaise asked no one in particular.

"I suppose I should ask you what happened to you. After all you both seemed slightly spooked when you entered the clearing." Harry then told her what had happened to him. Blaise followed with what happened to him and then they took turns relating the rest of the story to her until there was agreement that that was what happened.

"Hmm…" was her only response.

"What do you think this is?" Harry asked her, thinking that she, like Hermione, would know much better than him.

"I can't say." She responded. "But it seems rather obvious that it has something to do with whatever thing has been going on for this entire year. Like the random objects we all handed to Hermione for instance."

Harry thought about it, and he agreed that was the most likely explanation. "I agree, although that doesn't exactly explain what is going on. Like why we were all dragged into this crazy wherever we are in only our night clothes."

Padma thought for a moment. Blaise answered, "Maybe this is some sort of meeting ground or something? For some reason I have had this odd urge to search out people for some time and now it has finally gone away."

Padma and Harry both looked at him. "You know I think that might just be right." Padma said, "I have felt rather more outgoing than usual this winter…" Harry wasn't sure why, but he somehow knew Blaise was correct.

"Well, do you think this is it?" Harry asked.

Padma thought for a second before responding, "Well, I can't say either way. The first question is how do we get out of this clearing now isn't it?"

Harry was just about to suggest the path that they had come in on when he noticed that it was no longer there. There was no way they were going to get through the trees and they were so close together that Harry doubted anything but maybe ants could fit between them. The path had been the same way but as they had had a place to go and they were rather bewildered at the change, Harry hadn't noticed and he suspected that Blaise hadn't either.

"You don't have your wand do you?" Harry said with a hopeless sigh, he already knew the answer.

"Nope, I take it you don't either." She responded, both of them shook their heads.

"If only Wesley were here, he could turn into a saw or something and then we could at least get somewhere." Blaise said quite obviously annoyed. Padma and Harry nodded, although they all knew that wishing wasn't going to do them any good.

"Well… you could try it couldn't you?" Padma suddenly said.

Blaise looked at her oddly, "Metamorphmagus can't become non human let alone non living things." Blaise said, "And how did you know?"

She shrugged, "I saw you look slightly different on certain days and I asked Leon and he told me. Apparently you're not the only special wizard in our Psionics class. Leon said that learning to read auras can tell you a lot more about a person than just who they are. But he said that was seventh year material, so I don't actually know how to do it yet. He refused to teach me telling me that it was difficult to get accurate readings and that he wouldn't feel comfortable teaching that without a more proper background in it and at least a year of training." Padma looked dejected at this, although Harry was certain that was more of a childish response than anything. He was certain everyone in the class trusted Leon enough by now to trust his judgment on these matters.

"But you said that I wasn't the only other special wizard in the class? Whatever do you mean?" Blaise said, more than a hint of curiosity in his voice. "Well there is Harry of course, although everyone knows that." Harry blushed at this. "And there are at least two more that I know of, but I won't say who as that would be rather imprudent of me. Not to mention possibly get me expelled." Blaise nodded and didn't push the issue.

Harry and Blaise started to chat idly as they had nothing better to do and Padma just started looking around. "That's odd," she said, Harry and Blaise looked at her. "Why does the sky look further away at points? One would think being the sky that it would look more uniform…"

Harry and Blaise both looked up and indeed, the sky did look a bit awkwardly distorted. Harry wondered about it then something occurred to him. "Well… what if that isn't really sky? If it was instead sky charmed onto a flat surface and ceiling might it not look something like that?"

"That is quite possible…" Padma said, "Blaise what do you think?"

Blaise was squinting up at the sky in concentration, "I think there is definitely something funny about it. And it seems like Harry's theory is just as good as any that I can think of off the top of my head."

Padma then looked at the trees that surrounded the clearing. "Now that I think about it, those trees do look a bit flat to me now. I could have sworn they were actual trees when I got here though. I inspected them somewhat thoroughly."

Harry looked at her, "Considering that me and Blaise stepped through a door in Knockturn alley to get here it seems feasible that when you checked them they could have been more real." Padma nodded and then got deeply thoughtful.

Harry also started to think, but Blaise said. "While if they are not just images charmed onto a wall. Could we not simply knock it down? After all there are three of us."

Harry and Padma both looked at him, "That has a bit of logic to it." Padma stated intrigued, "But how do you suppose we do this? Just ram ourselves into the wall? We don't exactly have a large object to use handy."

Blaise thought for a moment, "Well we could just see what pushing against the wall does. It is at least as logical as anything else that has happened to us so far." Blaise reasoned.

Padma snickered, "You have a point, care to try your idea out?" Blaise shrugged and simply walked over to the wall and gave it a small push. As if it was a simple cardboard wall it fell over and flat revealing a rather large dark orange-is colored stone room with nothing but a single door. Like the other door Harry had gone thought it didn't look like it was part of the wall but rather stuck on it after the fact.

As if the entire clearing was braced on that one wall, it all fell down too leaving a rather oddly colored floor and ceiling (which was still blue, at least right above them). The other parts of the room were much more shadowed as if the light was being produced right where they were and significantly dimmed after leaving the previous area that was the clearing.

"That was odd." Harry said, not being able to think of anything much better to say at that moment.

"It seems as if the intention was not to make it difficult to go on." Padma said.

"Shall we?" Blaise motioned towards the door.

"Might as well." Harry responded, after all there wasn't much else they could do other than gawk as the oddness of it all. Padma nodded and so they went through the door.

The sight on the other side shocked them. The room was similar to the previous room except instead of light being produced from the clearing it was much more shadowed and there was no blue spot on the ceiling or the floor. Instead there were chains dangling from the ceiling in the middle of the room. That wasn't what caught their horrified attentions though, for hanging form them was Justin, unconscious and completely naked.

"What is this…?" Blaise asked no one but himself.

Harry was too shocked to respond. After the pleasant clearing this was totally unexpected.

"Come on, help me get him down." Padma said, and then she again showed her total lack of shame but running over and bracing herself on the naked boy to try and remove his chains. Blaise and Harry quickly snapped out of their shock and ran over to help her. Blaise was the tallest one there so he worked with the locks while Padma and Harry tried to hold Justin still so Blaise could work.

"Damn!" Blaise swore, "Either of you know how to pick a lock? I was never very good at it."

Harry shook his head, he hadn't had the chance to learn at home and here Hermione had showed him alohomora before he had ever thought to learn and so he had never bothered. Padma also shook her head.

"Well this is just great!" Blaise yelled, apparently at the locks.

"Is Justin's wand here by any chance?" Harry asked semi hopefully. Blaise looked at him as if he was an idiot. Harry had to admit it was a long shot, even more so than with the rest of them. Justin didn't even have clothing to have it hidden in.

"So what do we do now? We can hardly leave him here." Harry said angrily. Blaise was also angry, Padma looked helpless. None of them could think of anything to do.

"TheyARE locked…?" Harry asked, in one desperate attempt at a hopeless gesture.

"Yeah, I already thought of that…" Padma stated.

"Well I can't think of anything." Blaise said, "I don't want to leave him here but I don't see much choice…"

Padma thought about this for a second. "I don't think we have a choice. Look around you, there doesn't appear to be any exits. I think this is some sort of test alongside of being a gathering." She sighed, "Although this does seem rather hopeless."

Harry wasn't so certain of that. He looked. The door to the previous room was still there. Harry got up and went to the other room, Blaise and Padma just watched him curiously. He saw that the walls of the building were still there but that wasn't what he was looking for. He looked around slightly cursing the bright light generated from the center of the room. Sure enough, in a particularly shadowed corner was a rusty looking glint that was barely a different color from the floor. Sure enough it was an incredibly rusted key.

Harry rushed back into the room with Justin holding the Key which he quickly handed to a slightly startled Blaise, who was tall enough to comfortably unlock the manacles which neither Padma nor Harry were. Sure enough the key worked and Padma and Harry were left to catch Justin's unconscious body.

With no way to wake the unconscious boy, Harry and Padma, who were closer in height than Padma and Blaise, held him between them with his arms over each of their shoulders. His feet were still dragging on the floor as he was an inch or so taller than them but there was nothing they could really do about that at the moment.

Blaise offered to carry him, but Harry wasn't certain that he could. Justin wasn't that heavy and he also was slightly smaller than Blaise but both Harry and Padma were a bit worried he might drop him.

As soon as they had Justin's body secure, the three of them noticed a strange spinning whirling pool of what looked like some form of jelly. Having no other place to go and realizing that this was likely their "easy route forward" as Padma had put it before, they stepped up to it, looked at each other, nodded and then jumped in.

They landed in an empty but otherwise nice room set in Slytherin colors. The room was lit from a rather nice silver chandelier inset with green candles and the walls and ceiling shined as if it had been polished recently. As with the stone room there was a door however this door was cleanly shining like the rest of the room and was clearly set in its frame, unlike the other two doors Harry had gone through previously.

With nowhere else to go and Justin's body getting heavy, the three of them went through the door. What they found there was almost as amusing as the scene with Justin was horrifying. In fact, Harry thought that had that not been etched into their minds it might have been even more amusing. For taking up the majority of the room was a quite eloquently furnished cage, which would be a very nice room if it wasn't surrounded by bars.

In the cage was a very indignant Malfoy, sitting wearing a nightgown and a pointed hat drinking a glass of water. He was facing them when they entered the room and he immediately yelled, "Don't point that queer mudblood's…THING at me!" Harry would have normally gotten angry at that remark but it was so ridiculous given the circumstances that he couldn't help but laugh.

"What do you find so amusing Potter? No one should have to be subjected to the likes of that!" He motioned towards Justin with his hands and while actively looking away with a totally disgusted expression on his face. This only made Harry laugh even more.

Harry was too busy laughing and Padma responded. "You're trapped, in a cage, in some random house, and you're worried about a little nakedness?" Malfoy sneered in response, obviously not happy that they found his distaste amusing.

"For your information this isn't a random house it is my house!" He said, "Although there never was a cage here before." He then seemed to realize something. "What are you all doing here anyway?" He asked, as if the weirdness of it all was sudden and hadn't been permeating this entire experience.

Harry had calmed down so he answered, "Your guess is as good as mine. But I have a feeling that this is something beyond just the five of us." Malfoy just glared at him, as if to say 'duh,' 'it's all your fault,' and 'I still hate you' all at the same time but couldn't decide what to say first. Harry decided to ignore this and figure out why they were here. "Padma, why do you think we are here? What could Malfoy have to do with this?"

Padma shrugged, "I have no idea. I was assuming that if we ran into more people that they would all be people from our Psionics class or at least the DA. Apparently I was mistaken."

Blaise shook his head, "It's more than that, as Harry said, its more than all of us."

Malfoy looked at Harry, "Well, whatever you have dragged me into I refuse to have any part of it. So get along and get that vulgar display away from me." He motioned towards Justin's unconscious form again and stubbornly sat on the bed in the cage and continued drinking from his glass of water.

"I'm sorry to say this, but in every other instance we were only allowed to leave after we freed the person in question and even then there was only one exit for us to take. So it seems you're rather stuck with us." Padma said.

"Well then go back to wherever you came from!" Harry would gladly do so if he thought they could, but as he had suspected there was no jelly funnel in the ceiling. And even if there was it would likely be going down into the room, and without wands they wouldn't be able to get into it even if it was going up as the rooms they were in had ceilings that were four meters high at least.

"Sorry Draco, can't." Blaise said, "We kinda fell into that room. There is nowhere else to go. And I think there will be nowhere to go unless we get you out of that cage."

Malfoy scoffed indifferently, "Then I shall simply wait until I wake up and this dreadful nightmare ends." He then turned around and faced the other way, obviously making a point of ignoring them.

Harry turned to them, "Do you think this is a dream?" He said, for some reason it never occurred to him that it would be before.

"I don't think so. It just doesn't feel normal enough to be a dream." Blaise said.

"Yeah, dreams tend to not feel odd until after the dream is over. Plus it seems unlikely that we would all be having a communal dream." Padma quickly pinched Blaise' arm.

"OW!" He yelled and started rubbing his bicep, eying Padma suspiciously.

"So, Blaise do you usually feel pain in your dreams?" She smirked at him. Obviously there was something between them that Harry was missing.

"No, in fact I never do. But did you really have to pinch me that hard? I am going to have a bruise there for a while. Not to mention the fact that you pinched my wand arm!" He stepped away from her, eyeing her like an aristocrat might eye a known pickpocket.

She smiled at him smugly, "Well, there you have it. Not a dream." Harry was confused by this interaction. Malfoy pointedly ignored it completely.

"I suppose we have established that, but that still doesn't answer how we are going to get out of here." Blaise looked annoyed, then again Harry would be as well if someone had pinched his arm that hard. Harry could already see a bruise forming.

Harry was tired of such bickering, true it was much more playful than the constant bickering between Hermione and Ron, but he was getting tired of it none the less. Of course from experience he knew that the best way to stop it was to change the subject, so that's exactly what he did, since he had made a convenient observation while Blaise and Padma were taunting each other. "It looks actually like this cage is an open bottom cage, if I'm guessing correctly then it isn't actually attached to the floor. We might just be able to lift it." He mused.

Padma and Blaise looked at the cage. "I'm not sure if we can," Padma said. "It looks too heavy for us to lift."

Blaise looked into the cage, "Even if Draco helps?" He asked.

Padma thought a bit more, "Well, I suppose it can't hurt to try?"

Blaise turned towards Malfoy, "Hey, care to help us get you out of there so we can get on with whatever this is?" He asked.

"I told you to go away! I will have nothing to do with this stupid dream!" Malfoy responded without even turning around. He was still drinking water. Harry began to wonder where all this water was coming from, certainly he should have drank an entire pitcher by now and yet the pitcher looked like it hadn't had a glass poured from it at all.

"Well, let's just try then." Blaise suggested. Forgetting the pitcher for the moment, Harry nodded seeing nothing better to do. Padma nodded as well. The three of them then tried their hardest to lift up the cage. They were able to get it barely a centimeter above the ground before someone's arms gave way and the cage dropped to the floor again.

"That was heavier than I thought." Blaise said, wiping sweat form the exertion off his forehead.

Padma looked at them, "Do you think we could do it if Justin were awake?" She asked.

Harry thought and then it hit him, "I think we could." He then walked over to the cage. "Hey Malfoy, can I see your water for a minute?" He asked.

Malfoy faced him and responded quite venomously with a sadistic smile on his face. "Why of course Potter. Why don't you just come in here and get it?"

Harry just frowned at him. "Draco I'm serious. I don't think this is a dream and I really think we need your help to get out of this."

Draco stared at him, "I don't know what you're playing at Potter..." He bit out viciously.

Harry cut him off, quite annoyed but strangely not angry. "I'm not playing at anything Draco. I just want to be done with this."

Draco looked at Blaise, then Padma, and then Justin's body which he quickly turned away from. "Ok, ok. But only because I want that mudblood's sickening form away from me as soon as possible!"

"The water then," Harry said, reaching through the bars. Draco refilled his cup and then handed Harry the pitcher. It just barely fit though the bars and it occurred to Harry that he might just be able to squeeze through them himself. He then looked at Draco and realized that Draco was just a tad too big for that. It was almost as if the water pitcher itself was cut to be the exact space between the bars, and that was only slightly too small for Draco's lithe form.

Blaise looked at him funnily but Padma smiled and quickly ran to Justin, obviously getting what he intended to do. She propped up his head with her hands and then nodded. Harry threw the water out of the pitcher at Justin's head. To Harry's surprise, a much larger amount of water came out of the pitcher than he had expected drenching both Padma and Justin entirely. Justin started to cough and then shivered. He also waved his hand about drearily obviously not totally conscious, but waking up.

The pitcher seemed to have the same amount of water in it that it had before he through it. Harry then realized that he had soaked the legs of his pajama's through and figured now was as good a time as any to discard them. After all he was wearing briefs and a t-shirt underneath them, and this t-shirt was so big on him that it covered his briefs anyway. It was then that Harry realized that Draco had made no mention of his attire whatsoever. So maybe their relationship had changed? Became less childish perhaps.

While Padma continued to nudge Justin awake, Harry unzipped his pajamas and simply left them there, happy to be rid of them now that he thought about it. Harry then turned to Justin who seemed to be more conscious now.

"Wha…?" Justin started as he woke up staring into Padma's face. He then instantly went from somewhat out of it to obviously fully aware as he stood up quickly and covered his crotch self-consciously.

"Don't bother," Padma started nonchalantly. "You don't have anything that we haven't seen at this point. We carried you here after all." She spoke as if there was nothing odd about lugging the naked body of an unconscious friend around. Then again, considering what was happening to them at the moment, it wasn't all that odd. Justin still didn't remove his hands. His face was getting quite red.

Blaise walked over to him, "Justin we kinda need a hand with something, which requires your hands." Justin didn't respond. Bad move Harry thought, remembering his experience with Blaise and a human bench. Blaise sighed and grabbed Justin's shoulders turning him to face the cage. Justin dropped his hands. He didn't seem prepared to be grabbed in his current state at all. "We need your help opening that."

Justin's mortified expression turned to one of confusion. "Sorry, I was a bit shocked that's all." He said, still obviously nervous but his curiosity was getting the better of his nervousness. "What is going on?"

Blaise shrugged, "Beats me, but at the moment we need to get Draco out of that cage. And we need your help to do it."

Justin stared at the cage, his hands covering his crotch again, although it seemed it was more out of etiquette than mortification. "I don't think we can lift it." He said after thinking for a bit. "It looks pretty heavy…"

Padma groaned, "Justin's right, unless something magical helps us there is no way we are going to get him out of there. We barely lifted it an inch before our arms gave way, I doubt Justin's help will really make a difference…" She sighed and sat down before continuing. "Making the suggestion at all was just a desperate move on my part…"

Blaise then looked at them, "There has to be a simple way out of this. Obviously we are missing something. The others had a very simple solution."

Harry then got an inspiration, "Draco, I think you need to help us lift the cage." Draco raised an eyebrow at him, but did move towards the edge of the cage. He was obviously not happy about this but it seemed to finally occur to him that this wasn't just some bad dream that would eventually go away.

Padma stood up, "I think we all need to do this together…" She said before grabbing the cage. Justin stood next to her and grabbed the cage with one hand, his other hand still covering himself. Harry and Blaise each grabbed it as did Draco. They started lifting and it didn't seem any lighter than before.

"Justin, use both hands! You're not really helping!" Blaise yelled. It was instantaneous. As soon as Justin stopped self consciously covering himself and put himself into the lifting, the cage flung straight up surprising all of them, the cage disappeared into the ceiling and the room now looked like the cage was never there.

Draco immediately grabbed the sheet off of the bed and tossed it to Justin. "Please cover yourself. This is bad enough without being subjected to your nudity." Draco then pointedly faced away from Justin, who glared at him through squinted eyes. Despite this Justin still covered himself up with the sheet, folding it around himself in a makeshift toga.

Harry looked around for the exit, they had freed Draco what more could this forsaken place want?

Blaise looked around. "Ok…we obviously were supposed to work together to get out of the cage… Now how are we supposed to get out of here?"

Harry noticed that there was more than one cup on the table and found himself rather thirsty. The pitcher of water seemed to have some form of infinite charm on it. While he was certain Draco would protest his stealing of the precious infinite supply of water, he also didn't really care. While he expected Draco to complain about Harry taking the water, he had not expected Draco to snatch the pitcher out of his hands. Harry lost his grip on the pitcher and Draco apparently never had one because the pitcher fell to the ground and shattered.

Draco looked like he was about to shout but before that Justin, Padma and Blaise screamed. Harry quicklysaw why.Without the pitcher to contain it whatever spell was generating the water continued to do so and the room was very quickly flooding.

The five of them rushed towards the door but for some reason the water started spinning like a whirlpool and they were snatched away from it at the last second. The door was forced shut by the water and Harry was certain that with the rapids and the weight of the water that they would never be able to get the door open.

As they were running out of air space and the ceiling forced them under the water, Harry thought they were doomed so he shut his eyes. The water no longer seemed as cold in fact it was getting quite warm. Also it seemed to be lifting him. He couldn't breath but his body wasn't suffocating either. It was almost as if his breathing had been shut off. It occurred to him that this was what they were supposed to do to move forward although he wondered what insane person had thought of it, all of this really.

He then gasped and shot into open air. The sudden change of sensation forced open his eyes and boy was he glad of that. He had been launched into open sky, a firebolt floating there for him to grab the only thing between him and what seemed like an eternity of sky in every direction.

Harry looked around, Blaise was on an old Numbus 1000 model and Justin was on a Comet 260. Padma was on an old Shooting Star and Draco was on what appeared to be his trusty Numbus 2001. Harry surmised that each person was on his or her own broomstick.

Harry was about to yell out to the rest of them when it suddenly started raining snakes. At first Harry wasn't that surprised until Padma yelled, "Ah! Don't let them bite you, their vipers!" At this point Harry went into gear and started dodging.

"Help me!" All of the viper's seemed to say simultaneously, Harry was so startled that he almost fell off his broomstick. Harry watched as they fell around him continuously, all of them saying "help me" every so often. While their bite was deadly venomous, the snakes didn't seem to be attacking them at all. Harry decided to be the Gryffindor and take a risk. Much to the others dismay, he caught one of the falling snakes which quickly wrapped itself tightly around his arm. It was soon readily apparent that there was in fact only one snake falling because as soon as Harry caught it the rest of them disappeared.

"I'm so glad it's you! I didn't know what to do…" Harry suddenly recognized the voice. It was odd to notice a voice in parseltongue but he had heard him speak it. The only other person he had heard speak it was Voldemort. He had never heard himself. All it sounded like to him was his own normal voice.

"Ernie?" He asked the snake.

"I would hug you if I could. Don't you ever tell anyone I said that!" Ernie, for it was now obvious to Harry that that is who it was, made a small biting motion in Harry's direction. Harry shrunk away from the deadly jaws. He knew Ernie wouldn't hurt him on purpose but with something like a viper he wasn't going to take any chances.

"Don't do that!" Harry said to him, "You know if you bite me and I die then you're stuck falling again! Why are you a viper anyway?"

Ernie looked at him, "I was having a dream about becoming an Animagi and I ended up here falling and unable to turn back. I thought I was still dreaming and then you showed up. Then I wasn't so sure that it was a dream. Harry? What if I can never turn back?" Harry didn't know what to say so he just listened.

"This may seem trivial but the fact that I can't blink is getting rather irritating." Harry snickered, "I know you laugh but I am so used to blinking that not having eyelids is a rather odd experience…"

Justin stared at him for a moment, "What isit saying?" He asked.

Harry wasn't sure what to say. He was certain Ernie didn't want to be "outed" as a parselmouth especially not like this. He looked down at him. "Did you hear that?"

Ernie seemed to do the closest thing a snake could do to a scoff. "I can still understand English you know!" An indignant tone sounded rather odd in parseltongue and Harry was somewhat wierded out by it, although it made it clear that this could be no one other than the boy he knew.

"So? What should I tell them?" Harry asked.

"I don't know… I suppose the truth… I only hope Justin will speak to me after this…" Harry detected a hint of sadness in his serpentine eyes. He obviously expected the worst.

Harry looked at Justin, then at the rest of them and said, "Ernie says hi." The group stared at Harry as if he had grown a new head. "Yeah, I know. Weird isn't it?" Harry tried to lighten what he was saying. But it was clear that no one was buying it. Justin looked quite uncomfortable, Blaise looked intrigued. Padma's expression was just plain odd.

Justin then looked at him again, "Um… Ernie?"

Ernie looked over at Justin and then did his best to nod. Justin responded by getting more uncomfortable and Ernie pulled back towards Harry, obviously hurt. Justin looked at them fearfully.

Blaise looked at them, "Ernie… I remember that day, the snake. I was on the opposite side of the platform as you. The day Harry spoke to the snake. You looked tired and scared. You… You're a parselmouth aren't you?"

Ernie faced them, and slowly nodded before hiding his head in his coils around Harry's arm. Justin paled, he looked betrayed. Harry wouldn't have this. He didn't want to see such good friends broken up over something so trivial. "Justin... Ernie was scared. He was about to tell the snake to stop you know. I just beat him too it." Justin stared at Harry. "He then saw how everyone treated me and it scared him to the core. Imagine him growing up as a parselmouth in the wizarding world knowing people would think him a dark wizard for something so trivial. Neither of us grew up there so it was new, but to him it was just confirming what he had been afraid of his entire life. Please don't cut him off. He really is afraid that's what you'll do. That's why he didn't tell you." Harry looked into Justin's eyes again before continuing. "And don't say that he should have trusted you. It's not that simple and we both know it."

Justin looked at him. He then flew over to them and cautiously held out his hand. Ernie slowly moved his tail over to it. Justin felt it, he seemed rather uncomfortable but that didn't surprise Harry given the situation. Ernie then removed his tail and curled it around Harry's arm. "I'm sorry for not telling you." He said.

"He says he sorry for not telling you." Harry said. Justin nodded.

"Ok now that that sob story is over. How do we get out of here?" Draco said, clearly feeling good that he had waited as long as he did before interrupting.

"I want to bite that git." Ernie said.

"No you don't. That would make you a murderer, and I know you don't want that."

"Yeah I know. I wouldn't actually DO it. I don't want to bite anyone. I don't even know why I took this stupid form!" Ernie seemed annoyed with himself.

"You know it is rude to have private conversations." Draco said. Justin gaped at him.

"Oh whatever, it had nothing to do with anything anyway. I do want to know how we are supposed to get out of here though." Harry said, he was getting annoyed with this entire situation quite quickly and Draco was not helping.

"Hmm…wait. What do you mean go on?" Ernie asked confused.

"Honestly it really doesn't surprise me that you turned up as a snake. This whole ordeal has been really odd." He then went on to explain the ordeal so far. Ernie was shocked at how they found Justin. He then laughed as best as a snake could at the whole sequence with Draco. He then asked Harry again if he could bite him, just a little. Harry snickered his way and then said it was a bit morbid to be joking about something that horrible. Ernie agreed.

Justin then, out of the blue, let go of his broomstick and fell. Harry went to catch him but he just seemed to disappear into the sky. Of course! Harry thought. It would be that simple. Blaise and Padma had already let go. Draco was just staring at the sky below where they had disappeared.

"Best to just do it quick," Harry said. He then turned to Ernie "Hold on tight." Ernie then began constricting Harry's arm much too tightly. "Not that tight!"

Ernie let out a hissed "Sorry, not used to this remember." Harry then let go and fell. It felt rather odd as he fell below the sky he felt like he was swallowed up by the color blue before he found himself sitting on a couch in what appeared to be a…pub?

Sitting at the pub was none other than Cho. "Huh? What is she doing here?" He asked himself. Upon further notice it was clear that he was drunk off her rockers. There were at least five empty cups in front of her and she was clearly drinking fire whisky.

No one else could be seen, "Where is everybody?" Ernie asked. At least he's still on my arm, Harry thought.

"Hi (hic) Harry, Ernie. How's it goin? (hic)." Harry stared at her.

"How can she tell it's me?" Ernie asked quizzically.

Cho surprised them both again by answering. "Of course it's you silly. Who ELSE would be wrapped around Harry's arm like that? Well…maybe thirteen roses. Or was that beyond the brick wall?" Harry stared at her. Had Ernie been able to blink, Harry imagined him blinking in confusion. "I digress though. What brings you to my abode?"

"Her abode?" Ernie asked.

"Why of course my abode, who ELSE would live here silly." Harry then looked around and they were no longer in a bar, now they were in a simple living room. He also noticed that Cho was no longer swaying drunk. No it appeared she was now just plain nuts.

"Ernie, I like you that way. You're scales really go with your green eyes. Of course it would look better with a squirrel and some rutabagas. That's it! I will make a rutabaga cheesecake." She then mumbled to herself more as her statements started making less and less sense.

"Um Cho?"

"Yes Harry?" She stared looked at him quizzically.

"Um… What exactly is going on here?"

"What? Would you prefer a rutabaga pound cake? Or maybe rutabaga ice cream? Oh I got it! You want rutabaga crepes! I heard you always liked crepes! I'll be right back!" And with that she stormed through a little door that Harry was certain wasn't there before leaving an even more confused boy with a just as lost snake around his arm.

"She has gone totally nutters." Ernie said.

"Yeah, and apparently in this strange world she can speak parseltongue."

"Either that or she is just so out there that she can't tell that I am a snake. After all, she did know exactly who I was." Ernie said. Harry thought that was more likely. Although it did bring up some interesting questions about insanity that Harry would have to ponder later.

She then came in dragging Draco with her. "Look who I found. Silly boy was lost in the drawing room." Draco looked quite freaked, and his face seemed relieved if not happy to see Harry and Ernie.

"What is this Potter? Are all your friends' psychopaths or something?"

"Sometimes it seems that way yes." Harry deadpanned. Ernie snapped at him again causing Harry to swing his arm away from his face.

"I could get used to this." Ernie said.

"Stop doing that or when I get my wand I will turn you into a rutabaga and give you to Cho to put in those crepes!"

Ernie got what Harry looked at as a look of horror on his face and nodded. "Sorry, yeah it would be a bit scary. But don't ever threaten me with that again. What are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?" Harry responded with just a victorious smirk.

Cho then came in with a strange radish shaped thing. Harry wasn't sure what a rutabaga was but whatever she had didn't look like any vegetable Harry had seen. And it certainly wasn't anything resembling crepes.

"Well, I didn't have any rutabagas so I just brought in a galladonia root. Don't eat it though it will cause a nasty blister to appear in your stomach. I really wish we had rutabagas… Hmm… Well I suppose I will just have to make mandrake crepes instead."

Harry's eyes went wide and he said, "No thank you I am not in the mood for crepes."

"Oh ok. So what brings you three here?"

Harry couldn't think of anything to say. Draco sighed, "You owe me Potter." He said under his breath.

"He owes you what? I have a lot of stuff here I could pay you back for…"

Draco cut her rambling off. "Before you are possessed any more by Lovegood…" Draco explained what had happened. Cho seemed interested and remained silent for the entire time.

"Ah yes that explains a lot." She said. "So what should we do about this eh?"

Harry couldn't tell if the old Cho was back or if it was just more insanity. Harry then had a thought. "Cho have you seen Blaise or Padma?"

"Oh them? Yeah last I saw they were wandering in my rutabaga patch." Harry wondered… But she said. Then his eyes grew big and he ran out the door. It appeared to go outside to a garden where he could see two figured desperately covering their ears in the distance. There was a plant that Harry recognized as Devil's snare in the process of prying Blaise' hands off of them. Harry didn't know what to do.

Suddenly Cho appeared and said. "Those naughty plants, they shouldn't be hurting my friends that way." She then ran out to them without flinching and somehow lit the entire garden on fire. Blaise and Padma seemed to be in a worse situation now, or would have been had Cho hadn't just picked up both of them each in one hand and carried them over her head out of the garden. Harry and Ernie stared at her more. Blaise and Padma seemed totally shocked.

Upon entering the room, Draco looked at them all with a raised eyebrow and then said, "I don't even want to know."

Cho then looked at them all, "Were you looking for Cho and Justin?"

Harry had been so shocked that he had totally forgotten about Justin. "Um…you know where Justin is?" Harry asked, wondering why she referred to herself in the third person.

"I will bring them to you." She then left through yet another door that Harry swore wasn't there before. A few minutes later she returned with a very bewildered Justin who was now wearing shorts and a t-shirt and Cho. Harry stared at the two Chos in front of him.

"Harry?" The new Cho asked. Harry nodded. "I am so glad to see you! I have been trapped in this strange ever-changing house with that insane…me for a good hour or so. She is driving me crazy!"

The other Cho looked at them before saying, "Touchy, but don't you all have something to do? After all, the rutabagas won't pick themselves. In order for them to be picked you have to skip down the purple brick road."

Everyone just stared at her again. Even the normal Cho was bewildered instead of greatly relieved. "Um… Yes we will have to do that." Harry said to her.

"It's this way come along." Having seen what she could do Harry, Blaise and Padma quickly followed. Justin and Cho also immediately followed. Draco lagged behind but obviously didn't want to be left in the house with the strange girl any more than the rest of them so he followed as well.

To Harry's surprise, she actually led them to a purple brick road. "Isn't it supposed to be yellow?" Was the only comment made and it came from Justin. Harry and Ernie seemed to be the only ones there to understand the muggle reference. Padma didn't respond at all. Draco and Blaise just raised their eyebrows.

"No silly, it's purple see. Now remember to skip or the rutabagas won't be picked. Also remember that two lefts is right but a right after a left is nothing. But just go straight and everything will work out." The odd Cho said before rushing off towards the house.

"Well…skip I suppose?" Harry figured that considering what had happened so far that it was completely logical that they would have to skip and that that would somehow get Cho's rutabagas to pick themselves or something. Cho looked at her funny but the rest of them, even Draco, just started skipping.

"I hope we ALL aren't supposed to skip." Ernie deadpanned. Harry was learning a lot about parseltongue expression just from listening to Ernie. He found it interesting.

So they skipped, and skipped and skipped and skipped until their feet hurt. After Harry started to consider that indeed Ernie might have to somehow skip they heard the sound of metal against metal in the distance. Harry then saw that they were no longer on the purple road but back in a similar if not exactly the same forest with a like clearing to the one that they had found Padma.

The major difference was that instead of a figure meditating there were two figures with swords. One was on the attack against the other who seemed to be haphazardly and uncoordinatedly fending for their life.

Harry was shocked, he recognized the attacker immediately. It was Leon. Harry ran forward, wondering how Leon had not killed his obviously unskilled opponent yet. When he got there he saw that the scene was different even than he thought. The person who was being attacked was Seamus and the Leon looked like he was about thirteen at best. Which Harry surmised meant he was in his early twenties. He wasn't nearly as composed as he fought now that he thought about it. His attacks were coordinated, but lacked the true skill of his adult counterpart.

The rest of them caught up at that point and Blaise and Padma stared in disbelief while Justin stared in horror. It was Ernie who finally acted. He dashed off of Harry's hand with a speed that Harry had only seen from a broomstick and coiled around the legs of the man. Harry remembered then that snakes could be incredibly fast. It was merely luck that basilisks are of the slower variety. Leon fell over and then froze.

"Ah, ah, ah," He said in a younger sounding but still recognizable voice. "A viper? Please don't hurt me. I…I don't want to be a death eater."

The people in the psionics class stared at this, Leon Saren whining? They had never imagined that in a million years. Ernie even seemed to stare. Or at least Harry thought so.

Seamus was staring at the snake. Harry wasn't certain if he was frozen in terror of the snake or shock that it had saved him.

Justin walked over to him, "Shay?" He asked nervously.

"Justin! Please get them away from me!" Seamus said before hiding behind the slighter boy quite unsuccessfully.

So he is afraid of snakes.

Justin turned around and looked him in the face. "What happened to you?" He asked, ignoring Seamus' comment.

"I, just…get that snake away from me please!" He nearly yelled. Harry was shocked. Seamus never seemed that scared of anything.

"That snake is Ernie, so don't worry he won't hurt you." Justin's healer mode had kicked in and he seemed to have lost all his former misgivings with his friend.

Seamus stared at Leon who was now shivering in fear and then looked Justin deep in his eyes. Whatever he saw there Harry had no idea, but he nodded and got a little less terrified. "I was just here being attacked for some reason and then you all showed up a few minutes later. I was shocked to see Leon attacking me though… I for some reason had a sword and was somewhat able to defend myself. But boy is he strong."

Padma looked at the boy, "A dhampyr, yeah he would be stronger than normal. I bet if he were an adult he could have chopped you in half before you had a chance to defend yourself. I wonder why he is here though?"

Leon then stammered, "Please get this thing off me. I'll do anything. I don't like vipers…"

Harry thought about that for a second. I don't like vipers? He had heard of a fear of snakes but he had never heard of a fear of vipers other than the general fear of their generally deadly venom. Harry didn't want to take any chances to he went over and took the sword Leon was using before telling Ernie that it was ok and to back off. Ernie rushed over to Harry's arm really fast.

"I could get used to this. I wonder if I am actually an animagus now? I hope I'm not permanently a snake." Ernie said to Harry.

"Thank you. You're not Death Eaters? I could have sworn…" Then the scene began to shift and everyone present started looking around. Ernie dropped from Harry's hand and became a boy again. Leon himself disappeared into the blur until the background looked like the dream with all his friends that he couldn't remember but yet knew in great detail.

"You see? I knew you guys would do it. It was almost problematic for a bit. I wouldn't have wanted to see another failed batch, and it was getting close there. Waiting another decade to try for the trials again would have been such a bore." The eight of them turned to see Devon Witter smiling at them. "You're dream led them here. It was only that that allowed this to happen."

"My dream?" Harry asked. He would not have been surprised after all his dreams had been odd forever.

"No, it was all of your dreams. You all led each other here, through your collective bonds which show your true spirit. Only as a group could you succeed, will you succeed."

"I remember this place, you were all here. Unconscious and then zombie like. I was told by Devon Witter and Dennis Creevy that I would not remember this until I needed too." Padma said.

"Yeah I remember it too." Ernie said. Everyone stared at him.

"You just spoke parseltongue." Harry reminded.

Ernie blushed, "Sorry, been a snake for the last few hours." Seamus still stared at him. "I…I…"

"Let's worry about this later so we can GET OUT OF HERE ALREADY!" Harry agreed with Draco. Now was not the time to worry about who was what odd thing.

Harry then thought of something. "If we drew each other here than why is he here?" He motioned towards Draco, who actually nodded his agreement. "We aren't exactly buddies in fact we don't like each other much at all."

Devon laughed and then they heard another voice. "What brought you here was not like but trust. The bonds of hatred are just as strong as the bonds of friendship. They pull just as hard."

Harry turned towards where Dennis had just appeared. "But I don't trust him."

Dennis laughed, "Don't you? You trust him to be a git. You trust him to say what he wants and not care about anyone else. You trust him to look out for himself above all else. Can you honestly say that you ever distrusted him? Trust isn't necessarily positive. Think about it. Has he ever actually lied to you?"

Harry thought about it. He honestly couldn't remember a time when Draco had outright lied to him. Been mean and stated partial truths with the intent to harm. But he had never actively attempted to deceive him, at least not that he could remember. "You see?" Dennis continued, "Trust to do harm is still trust. For good or for ill, you all trust each other greatly."

"So why are we here?" Cho asked.

Devon answered, "You are the picked, those whom the school has picked to represent them in the trials."

"Trials?" Ernie asked.

"Yes, the trials. You have been the only group to pass the preliminaries. A few have tried previously. They all failed." Devon's voice was ominous.

"So you're saying that we were picked because the students wanted us?"

Dennis snickered, "Well, all but Harry…"

Harry through his hands up in the air, he had had enough of special treatment with the prophecy let alone something seemingly totally unrelated. "Why me? Is this a part of my prophecy too?" He yelled. The people there who didn't know about the prophecy gaped at him. He didn't care.

"No actually. The truth is that you already solved half of Slytherin's trial. You wee made a part of this when you did that whether you were worthy to be or not." Devon responded.

Harry thought for a second but Padma spoke up, "The Chamber of Secrets?"

"I believe you call it that now. That was never its intended name however." Devon's voice was still ominous. It was a trait that the real boy shared with his dreamlike counterpart. Even though this was obviously not the boy Harry knew.

"Wait…if what you are saying is true then Slytherin not only did not make that room to be a death trap for muggles but that it is a trial, presumably of more made by the founders?" Cho said in a moment of clarity. Harry saw why she was a Ravenclaw. She may not have been the keenest individual but she had an intuition about her that beguiled her casual demeanor.

"Yes, there is one for each actually. Although beyond that I cannot say more. Except that now you are going to go through them." That sounded much like a command as oppose to a statement.

"And if we refuse?" Draco said sternly.

"After this there is no refusal. You will go through the trials. It is only now a matter of when. There will be a time when you all get together, with very few others here. You will then all go through the trials. Why? Because the key to possibly saving your school lies there. Why do you think it has activated now? It shows up when the school is in great peril. Hogwarts had never been in such peril than it is now." Dennis sounded uncharacteristically serious now. It almost seemed as if Dennis and Devon represented different parts of the same person rather than two separate entities.

"Ok, but how?" Padma stated. "Other than the chamber, we have no clue where to begin?"

"Don't think you are doing this alone. There are others who are helping you. You are simply those who are going to do the actual deed. There are plenty of clues so far. You all are a part of them." Dennis and Devon spoke simultaneously in a very eerie fashion since their expressions were totally opposite. Devon looked deadly serious and Dennis had a mischievous smile.

"The basilisk Hermione made…" Harry said. That strange event made a lot more sense to him now.

The rest of them gaped at him. Then Padma got a look of inspiration, "That is what those random things were for? So Hermione could make a basilisk out of them?"

Harry nodded.The rest of them had looked of recognition on their faces but said nothing except Draco who said. "I always wondered why I bothered giving her anything at all. I figured that I had gotten her that toilet seat to torment her. Although how I could ever think that would work is beyond me." He seemed to take solace that his idiocy was the result of his mind making sense of a magical geas.

"You know another who failed. He will indirectly help you to accomplish your goals. Now I have given you everything you need. Just listen to those around you and the path will open." They both disappeared and then everyone but Harry and Ernie disappeared as well.

"You two wondered about your teacher? He will help you." Devon said with an uncharacteristic smile. "I show you two this because you are most prepared to see it. It is hard but you have experienced harder. It will also affect you the least." Ernie looked at Harry confused. Harry shrugged back.

They both then saw a short scene. A thirteen year old looking Leon was next to a blond boy of about sixteen or so. Harry figured they were the same age. The blond boy was wearing a Ravenclaw robe and was staring at something, but as they were facing him and had no control over what they saw whatsoever they could not see what he was staring at.

Harry looked closely at this unknown blond boy. He had green eyes that shined even more brightly than his own. They were a cross between aqua and emerald really and seemed to shimmer like water. Unlike Draco's blond head, this boy's hair was golden, and the darkness seemed to shine off of it just as much as the light. It was really short and straight, cut much like Leon's hair was but with even less bangs.

The boy's face was deathly pale and Harry couldn't tell if that was just his facial expression or if that was his natural skin color. He looked rather normal of build and honestly he thought the boy wouldn't stand out at all except his eyes and possibly his hair. Although the scene was dark accentuating the brightness of both. The scene was dark and still so they couldn't see much else.

Harry and Ernie looked at each other confused before the scene began to fade away. Devon looked at Ernie for a second before saying, "Oh and it looks like you lucked out. You will have to figure out how to actually change on your own. The preliminary trial can grant powers and apparently you got animagus." Devon then smiled and Harry found himself shunted up into a sitting position.

The eight of them were now sitting on the floor in the great hall in their original varied states of undress (though Ernie was not a snake). The tables were obviously filled for breakfast and more than a few people were staring at Ernie and Justin's nudity.

The teachers seemed shocked at this except Dumbledore who had a curious twinkle in his eye, Snape who had a bolank expression on his face and Leon who had an ominous look of recognition. Harry groaned. This was the last thing he needed…

Afterthoughts

Here you are: a GIANT chapter to make up for my long cliffhanger and relatively inane following chapter. Also it appears that my reviews are working again. If you are the moderator that fixed them, than thank you. If they just work now magically, then well it means you call can still review, which is really all that counts.

Some of you may notice that Cho was not in the original dream. I added her later so you can imagine that she was always on the list of names or you can go read her there. As for the rest, the plot is starting and I hope you all like it. This is a LONG chapter and so I want to see good reviews of it. I put a lot of effort into it and I hope it shows. More changes, I made the boy a Ravenclaw, because he is that now. That isn't particularly important to this story, but it will greatly effect the prequel if I ever write it.

Hope you like this.

Nightlit – All ya need is a little HOPE.