Disclaimer; most of the characters don't belong to me. They belong to J.K. Rowling

Chapter 7

Voldemort shall strike

Harry dropped onto his bed. Now, more than ever, he wished he had a dreamless sleeping potion with him. That would help with all the nonsense he kept dreaming. But he wasn't going to fall asleep again, he resolved. After all, he did have homework to complete, and why wait till it was too late? Why not do it now? He opened his Hogwarts trunk and got all his books out, spreading them to all corners of his room. When he reached his potions book he threw it with considerable more force against the wall than he had with the others.

The moment he touched his Defence Against the Dark Arts book, his scar hurt so much he almost blacked out. His knees buckled beneath him and he fell to his hands and kneed on the ground. He was sweating, and could feel his shirt getting damp. His breathing was ragged and he could feel his pulse beating irregularly.

He couldn't really tell what Voldemort was feeling at the moment. He didn't know if he was ecstatic over something or enraged. It could have been a mixture of both.

"She refused. She did not want to do his bidding. She would not be his servant. She would be punished for this. She would pay greatly for her foolishness. Nobody could defy the Dark Lord and live to tell the tale."

Without realizing it, Harry heard the words echo in his tiny bedroom. Finally, he understood that he had said the words aloud, in a voice that resembled that of Professor Trelawney when foreseeing a true prophecy. That realization frightened him the most.

What would the world say about this if it got out? Now that everybody finally believed what he was saying about Voldemort being back; he was loosing his marbles for real this time. He did not know what to do. Maybe he should send a letter to Dumbledore about this. He wished now more than ever that he had taken his Occlumency lessons seriously. It would have been easier. He would not have to go through these kind of trances. When he had finally got a hold of himself again, he took out a piece of parchment and scribbled on it.

"Voldemort's not going to stay low anymore. He'll strike tonight or sometime soon."

But then he thought about it a bit more. There was no reason to write to Dumbledore. The headmaster had his ways of knowing things like this. He had never depended on Harry to know what Voldemort's plans were. And just as Snape had told him on one of the evenings he had spent in his office learning Occlumency, what the Dark Lord was planning wasn't Harry's business; it was Snape's. He shredded the message letting the bits fall to the floor.

He wasn't going to think about it. He wasn't going to worry about it. After all what good would it do? Hermione was right, he had a "saving people thing". But he could not take his mind of that vision. And a voice in the back of his head kept nagging him that all this had some strong connection with the dreams he had and that girl that kept appearing in them, with the neighbour girl. Once this thought passed his mind, he knew he was mental. There was nothing between this muggle girl and Voldemort, there couldn't be.

He grabbed the book once again to study, but to no avail; he could never concentrate on trivial matters like homework now he knew the Dark Lord was going to show himself. The war had actually started. Don't think like this Harry kept saying to himself. Nothing good can come from it. The war had started long ago, if he thought about it, better yet, maybe it had never ended. They had to fight each battle, and win it. He slumped down his bed feeling exhausted.

He was the one who had to win the war. He was the one who was had to destroy the Dark Lord. He was the one who had to become a murderer for fear of being a casualty. All this did nothing to improve his mood, or the headache that had lodged itself firmly behind his temples.

A tray with some food on it was pushed through the pet door the Uncle Vernon had installed four years ago. The fact that none of the Dursleys wanted to bug him these last days made Harry feel almost a tad grateful to them. Almost. He knew Aunt Marge would have loved to torment him, though she had not done; he was sure the Dursleys had tried to keep her as far from him as possible, for fear of him loosing his temper and trying some curse on her. He had escaped so many times after doing that; they knew not to push their luck again.

He wasn't hungry, so he just gave all his food to the dog, who still refused to leave his side. There was something comforting about Rippers' presence. Though Ripper looked nothing like Sirius's animagus, there was something about having this dog around that made him feel better. Thinking about this made Harry remember the humiliations he had suffered because of this very same animal. Even Snape knew about the time he had been chased into a tree, somehow, though, he could not be mad at the dog.

Outside his window, the sun was high in the sky. It was a beautiful day yet Harry could not bring himself to go out. He could not find enough strength to move. And he did not have the mood to see all the happy faces that awaited him outside. He was becoming a grinch. If Ron could see him now, Harry knew he would have told him that all those lessons with Snape had rubbed off on him. Harry just couldn't stand seeing or being around something nice.

He closed his eyes, but this did not help. The image of the girl in his dream, her piercing stare, those eyes, so deep; it all kept haunting him. She was going to die, he knew it, felt it, "wanted" it.

Why wasn't he in the Order? Why wasn't he a member? What did it matter that he was not of age yet? He had stood in front of Voldemort and lived, more than anyone in that blasted order. He was the only one who could get rid of Voldemort, yet they did not think him old enough to be included. If they had told him about the Department of Mysteries and the Prophecy he wouldn't have gone there. He could have guessed it was a trap. Yet, through the veil of anger and rage, a small voice in the back of his mind told him it would have not been any better. He still would have been curious. He still would have gone and Sirius still would have died.

It didn't matter if he proved over and over again to be brave and courageous if he was foolish and hot tempered. Snape had told him that fools who wear their hearts on their sleeve were not capable of withstanding the Dark Lord, yet that had been the one thing that had saved him. All these thoughts were increasing his pain. Just the thought of Snape made him nauseous.

He was the only one guilty of it all. He, Snape, was responsible for Sirius's death. Knowing Snape, and the animosity he had towards his godfather he was sure that Snape would have danced on Sirius's grave, if only he had one. Harry was struck by the thought that Sirius didn't even have a grave. He had just disappeared from the face of the earth, gone through that veil, gone forever.

Thinking of losing Sirius made him think of his parents as well. They hadn't died this way. Their bodies must have been buried somewhere. But where? He had never asked Dumbledore this.

A.N.: like some of you have pointed out, this story has been here for quite some time, and now I've just made the chapters a lot smaller and am posting them again. And you are right.

But since in those several months, I had not received more then one reviews, and since even my beta reader sort-of-like complained, that the chapters are too long, I decided to make them small, and extremely easy to read.

For those of you who have already read this, you'll have to wait another ten chapters till you'll get something new.

For those of you who are new to this story, well tuff luck, if you hadn't ignored me the first time, you would have known a lot more things about the events to happen.

Still, I would like reviews, I love them, really. Push the button.