A/N: Okay everyone, I'm making this chapter really long since I'm not going to be able to update for 2 ½ weeks!! This Saturday I'm going to England. I'm soo sorry but don't forget about me okay. Cause I'll update again when I get home. I hope you like it!

Lucius Malfoy slowly set down his wand but he didn't stop smirking at Harry. Harry's heart was beating faster and faster until he was worried Mr. Malfoy might hear. Harry kept his wand steadily pointed at him while Lucius dropped Snape and stood up.

"You going to Kill me Harry?" Lucius said laughing cruelly. Harry thought about this. He couldn't kill Draco's father even if he was a deatheater. But Harry didn't understand why Snape was in the picture.

"Why are you hurting Snape? What's he ever done to you?" Harry said through clenched teeth glaring at Lucius as his wand scraped the side of Lucius's neck. He heard Snape moaning which came as a relief to Harry to know that at least he was still alive. Lucius laughed again, harder then before.

"Well," Mr. Malfoy said. "Let me see... he betrayed Lord Voldermort and the rest of the deatheaters. Now as bad enough as that may be... he HAS something of ours and has chosen not to return it." Malfoy turned and gave Snape an evil glare. Harry's heart began to beat faster. Even though he was in control of this situation he felt like something was sneaking up on him. Also, what was this thing Professor Snape had?

"Tell me what it is," Harry said firmly. Malfoy laughed again.

"In your dreams perhaps, Harry Potter," Lucius said sniggering. Harry pushed Malfoy against a tree with his wand and Malfoy stopped laughing that instand. Suddenly Harry realized that something wasn't right here.

"Why aren't you in Azkaban?" Harry asked.

"Well, I escaped of course," Malfoy said in a deep eerie voice that made Harry shiver. His eyebrows raised in confusion and Malfoy sniggered. "No, no, no, boy. If you're thinking I escaped the way your lover Sirius Black did then you're quite wrong." At that moment Harry felt a strong, strong sense of hatred towards this man and he felt his face boiling in fury.

"ARRRGGHH!!" Harry cried, shoving the wand into Malfoy's neck more causing him to back up against the tree further. "DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK OF SIRIUS BLACK! HOW DARE YOU SPEAK HIS NAME!" for the first time Harry saw a flicker of fear in Malfoy's eyes but it left as soon as it had come and he simply continued his explanation of escaping in a simple manner as though Harry had never yelled at him.

"Bellatrix rescued me. You know that there are very few dementors left to guard Azkaban. The lot of them have made the correct choice to join Lord Voldermort, so it was very simple for her to learn the Patronous charm and get to me on time. After we left he building we apparated to Lord Voldermort where he told me I had to retrieve our artifact from this traitor," Malfoy then made a motion to kick Snape but Harry gave him a warning look and Malfoy stopped.

"Tell me what it is," Harry said. No reply.

"I repeat," Harry commanded determinedly. "Tell Me What It Is." Mr. Malfoy stood there silently and expressionless when, to Harry's surprise, he's mouth spread out in an evil grin again and he repeated his past words.

"You going to kill me Harry?" Harry glared at him in anger and frustration. Then he made up his mind.

"No," Harry said confidently. "But I am going to do this." Harry stepped hard on Lucius's wand and it crushed in half. Malfoy shouted loudly in and he was about to reach for Harry's wand wrist when Harry muttered a loud incantation and before Lucius Malfoy could breath another word he had passed out on the hard and cold dirt ground. Harry picked up the pieces of Lucius's wand and stuck them in his sweatshirt pocket next to his. He then ran to Snape, who was now passed out and checked his pulse. He still had one to Harry's great relief. Harry lifted both men onto his broom with much difficulty and they flew into the air. The three of them weighed the broom down quite a bit but the strong Firebolt still managed to fly over the forest and to the castle.

Once Harry had reached the castle, he checked his wristwatch. 4:38 A.M. 'There probably isn't a single wake person in this entire castle,' Harry thought to himself. He then looked over at the two men pathetically, both were lying at the top of the staircase he had just dragged them up. He was just learning a weight reduction charm in Charms class but he wasn't sure he could remember it.

"Er— reducio!" Harry yelled waving his wand at both men. Nothing happened. "Wehreducto!" Harry yelled again. Still, nothing happened. "Wriducto!" He yelled. Finally, both men were floating in the air as Harry sighed in relief. He tucked his wand in his sweatshirt, grabbed the two men by their wrists and gave a light tug and they walked up the stairs. On his way Harry saw a cluster of ghosts sitting on a chandelier staring at him strangely. At first Harry couldn't understand why but then he realized how odd it must look to be walking around with two unconscious, floating men beside you. The men seemed to practically be moving by themselves that Harry hardly had to do anything. Harry finally reached Dumbledore's office room and said, "Fizzing Whizbee." The door flung open and Harry walked up the spiral staircase, which rolled upward. When he reached the top he realized that Dumbledore probably doesn't sleep in his office.

"His room must be connected somewhere around here," Harry said softly to himself. Harry searched around the room for a hidden door when he suddenly realized bookshelf across from his desk looked oddly like a door. Harry pushed on it and pulled and finally it swung open. And there, behind that door, was Dumbledore in his huge king size bed sleeping soundly. Harry wasn't exactly sure what to do. He walked over to Dumbledore and tapped on his shoulder.

"Er--- Professor?" Harry pushed him again. "Dumbledore, sir? You... might want to wake up." Dumbledore stirred turned over and mumbled in his sleep something that sounded oddly like "Fizzing Whizbee" when he shot straight up in bed and blinked at Harry.

"Er- professor—I'm sorry to disturb you, but--" Dumbledore cut him off immediately.

"I know, I know, just hand me my glasses," Harry stared at him confused. How could he possibly know? "Just hand me my glasses, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said. Harry retrieved Dumbledore's glasses from his nightstand and handed them to him.

"Sorry sir.. but how could you know?"

"I do. Trust me dear boy, I do," Dumbledore stood up from bed and walked over to Snape and Mr. Malfoy who were outside his bedroom and behind the desk in his office. How did he know where they were? "Harry, I thank you. You may give me the pieces to Mr. Malfoy's wand and I award you one hundred points to Gryffindor for catching Mr. Malfoy at precisely the right time," Dumbledore said, quite calmly. "Now, I will talk to you another time but for now, go to bed."

"But, professor," Harry started, "I -- "

"Ah, Ah, Harry, you must go to bed. I will speak to you about this matter later," Dumbledore repeated. With that, Harry grabbed his broom, turned on his heels and exited the office down the spiral staircase, utterly bewildered and dazed at what just happened to him. As Harry walked back to the Gryffindor commonroom Harry thought to himself, 'maybe I do need to sleep.'

A few hours later, Harry awoke from underneath his red and gold bed covers to a cold stormy day. He looked over at Ron's bed. He was just waking up as well. Ron rolled over and stretched one of his arms out and muttered something a cross between talking and breathing as his eyes fluttered open and stared at Harry who was looking out the window that was in between their two beds.

"Harry?" Ron blinked while sitting up in bed. Harry raised his eyebrows at Ron who was barely what you would call awake. "What day is it?"

"Sunday," Harry muttered.

"Oh," Ron said. He looked around the room, which was empty besides the two of them and Neville who was snoring a few beds away across the room. Ron spoke again. "What day is it?"

"Sunday," Harry repeated, sighing and shaking his head at Ron who was staring around dazedly. Ron blinked at Harry.

"What time is it?" Ron said, now beginning to actually wake up as he stretched again and glanced out the window at the rain.

"It's..." Harry glanced at his watch. "... half past eight."

"Oh," said Ron, standing up and pulling the curtain aside to look outside. "If it's like this in a few days they'll have to cancel Quidditch," Ron said as a huge bolt of lighting struck one of the goal posts.

"Nah," Harry said. "They never cancel quidditch unless a Slytherin fakes getting injured," Harry said, speaking of his and Ron's third year when Draco had pretended to be seriously hurt by Buckbeak when really he just wanted Hagrid to get fired. "Ron, I've got to tell you something."

"What is it?" Ron said.

"Let's go down to breakfast and I'll tell you and Hermione at the same time."

"Okay," said Ron. The two friends headed down to the Great Hall where many students were feasting noisily. When they spotted Hermione she sat up and pointed to two seats across from her and smiled at them. "Hello, how are you two? Nasty weather today, isn't it?" Hermione said, munching on a piece of toast and flipping through a book, which was sitting on her lap.

"Hermione," Harry said, trying to get her to look up from her book. "I've got to tell you and Ron something," Harry said lowering his voice so that no one could hear him. Hermione finally looked up and watched him, as did Ron. Then Harry broke off into the whole story of the previous nights happenings. After he had finished telling them everything from waking up and four in the morning all the way to exiting Dumbledore's office they were both staring at him in utter shock and amazement. Hermione's first question was, "Dumbledore didn't mind that you were out of bed at four and off wandering by the lake?" And Ron's first question was, "Why didn't you kill him after he asked you to?" Harry was rather frustrated with them.

"You guys! Come on. BE SERIOUS. What do you expect it is that Snape has that Voldermort wants so bad?" Both Hermione and Ron looked from each other to Harry in a look of unknowing and slight disturbance in the sound of the name.

"Perhaps its another Prophecy?" Hermione said hesitantly, for both she, Harry and Ron knew that this was very unlikely.

"Maybe there's some sort of ..." Ron started. Hermione and Harry waited but Ron obviously had forgotten what he was going to say, or perhaps never had any idea.

"What about you, Harry?" said Hermione. "What do you think?" Harry blinked and thought carefully for a logical answer but realized that he too did not have one.

"I have no idea," said Harry.

Days went by and classes became increasingly worried about their potions master. At first when Professor Snape began missing classes, the students were rather pleased as anyone would be since first of all, Snape is rather cruel to all his students except Slytherins and also, their substitute teacher was a handsome, French warlock named Professor Sunreju who's long black hair fell to the tops of his shoulders and his smile made all the girls melt. But after weeks and weeks, students realized that something must be seriously wrong. Rumors began to spread. Some said he was attacked by a werewolf in the Forbidden forest. Others said he tripped and fell into his huge shelf of potions, all of which spilled on him, leaving him with a mixture of blisters, hair growth problems, laughing gas, and a mixture of other problems, some even more serious. Although Harry, Ron and Hermione would have quite desired to explain to all the others about what had happened weeks before, he decided that it would not be the best idea, considering the fact that it involved a deatheater.

When December finally came, the students' first trip to Hogsmeade was coming up since their Halloween trip was canceled due to the storm that forced all the stores to close. Harry quite wanted to ask Ginny to go with him but they had only spoken to each other a few times the past few weeks and he wasn't sure if she'd even want to. They were all in the Great Hall for dinner when Dumbledore announced it.

"Well, finally," said Hermione. "I was beginning to think Hogsmeade was stepped on by a dragon or something." She glanced at Ron and smiled at him. He grinned back in a silly way, which was obviously out of embarrassment and not knowing what to say. Harry was just beginning to get used to this relationship between his two best friends and he finally understand that now that they were in their sixth year it's only natural. Harry saw Hermione clasp Ron's hand.

"We- er- we're going together. Right Hermione?" Ron said slightly nervously.

"Of course," Hermione said back. "Harry you can come too of course." Harry was grateful that she offered just in case Ginny said no. But he'd prefer to go with the girl he liked rather then these two who would probably never be able to stop touching each other anyway.

"Thanks, but I – er – thought I might ask Ginny," Harry said carefully, trying not to pinch any of Ron's nerves.

"That sounds fantastic! Doesn't it Ron?" Hermione said in excitement while grinning at Harry. Ron seemed to twitch a little, but without looking at Harry, he approved.

"Er- yeah that sounds, erm.. cool," Ron said while cracking his neck and pushing a strawberry around in circles on his plate, but this satisfied Harry.

"Great! I'll probably ask her tonight," said Harry grinning widely feeling happier then he had in weeks. This was sure to work out for the best.