A/N: Actually, there are none, so this is sort of redundant.

Disclaimer: You see this bank account? The one with all the zeros? That's mine.

See this other bank account? The one with all the zeros, but with other numbers in front of them? That's Rowlings. Go figure.

CHAPTER FIVE: SECRETS

By the time Harry reached the bottom of the cliff, he found Katlin laying amid a pile of debris. Her robes were covered in dust and dirt, numerous small cuts and tears showing were her arms and legs were equally covered in cuts and scratches. But the worst of her injuries, from what Harry could tell, was a large gash across the side of her head, which was bleeding rather profusely.

Harry quickly rushed to her side and was trying to move her to a more comfortable position when she moaned slightly.

'Idiot!' Harry quickly told himself. 'She probably broke half of her ribs in that fall. Moving her is only going to make things worse.'

But Harry suddenly felt the weight in his arms shift as Katlin slowly pulled her arms under herself and managed to get herself into a sitting position.

"What happened?" She murmured, moving her body so that she could lean against the large stone that had stopped her from going any further in her fall.

"You...stopped me from falling over the edge of the cliff." Harry tried to explain, pointing above them at the precipice Katlin had fallen from.

Katlin reached up to brush a bit of hair out of her face, wincing as she moved her arm. But she quickly pulled her hand back as she felt something wet in the hair. Staring at the blood covering her hand, she gave a deep frown.

"Oh. This can't be good." She said. Looking up, Katlin scanned the horizon. In the distance she could just make out the towers of Hogwarts. They were so close. "Harry, listen to me." Katlin said, leaning back against the rock for support. "Hogwarts is just in the distance. You can even see the tops of the towers from here. All you have to do is head for them. You should be there by nightfall."

"But what about you?"

Katlin shook her head. "Harry, at best I have a few badly bruised ribs. Maybe even a couple f broken ones. I don't think my legs could even support me right now, much less take the travel." Katlin took a shallow breath against the pain seizing her body again as she shifted slightly. "I've done what I set out to do, Harry. In a few hours, you'll be beyond Voldemort's grasp. At best I would slow you down. Getting to the castle could take two days if I try to make it as well, if I could make it at all. Now the Deatheaters aren't going to stay off our trail for that long. They're probably very close right now. But if you stay under the cover of the trees, and move carefully, they likely won't see you. I'll slow them down if I get the chance. But you have to hurry."

"I'm not leaving you here." Harry stated firmly. "If the Deatheaters find you, they'll kill you."

Katlin stared up at the boy next to her. "You don't know that for certain. If you recall, the last time we met the Deatheaters, they were the ones that didn't fair very well."

"And you weren't injured then." Harry protested. "And that's another thing. You're hurt. You need help. Madam Pomfrey's the best nurse I've ever been to. I'm sure she can heal whatever's wrong. She's had to patch me up quite a few times."

Katlin sighed in exasperation. "Harry, will you just do as I say, please. There's really no time to argue. Now, I've risk a great deal to get you back to Hogwarts safely. Likely my life. Don't make that be for nothing. Just...just follow the towers. And stay under the trees. The Deatheaters will be looking for you from the air. So stay under any cover you can find."

Harry was about to protest again when something in what Katlin was saying caught his attention. 'Stay under cover.'

Harry didn't think twice about what he was about to suggest. "Katlin," he said, "what about Hogsmeade? Could you make it to Hogsmeade?"

Katlin turned to face him again. "Hogsmeade? What good will that do?"

"If you can get to Hogsmeade, I can get us to the castle safely. We could take days getting there and no one would ever see us or find us."

"How?"

Harry paused for just a few seconds. "An underground passage. There's one in Hogsmeade that runs from the town to the castle. If we can get to Hogsmeade, I can get us into the passage. Once there we'll be as safe as we would be at the castle."

"A secret passage?" Katlin repeated, trying desperately to keep her voice sounding surprised instead of pleased. "There's a secret passage from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts?"

Harry nodded, but he quickly frowned as he thought over his plan. "But I'm not sure we can use it, Katlin."

"Why not?"

"Well, we can't very well walk into Honeydukes and..."

"Honeydukes?" Katlin asked with a wince of pain as she shifted slightly.

Harry paused for a second. But he had already gone this far, so what was the point in stopping. And if they were to use the passage, she would know about it then anyway. "That's where the passage comes out." Harry told her. "But like I was saying, we can't very well walk into Honeydukes, say 'Hi, can we have a look 'bout your cellar?', and then not come out again. I mean, Ron and me sneaking down there is one thing. We're quick. But you..."

"Aren't as quick as I used to be." Katlin finished for him with a slight smile. "No, I'm not. No, if the entrance to this tunnel is in Honeyduke's cellar, then we'd have to wait until nightfall. We might just stand a chance if we try getting in at night. And besides, I could use the rest anyway. The only question is where?"

Harry thought for a few moments about where they could go that they would be safe and unseen, but still be near to the town. But his expression quickly brightened as the answer came to him.

"I know just the place." Harry stated quickly. "If you can just do a small bit of climbing."

"Climbing?" Katlin looked doubtful.

"Not a lot." Harry assured her. "And it's not very steep. You can lean on me if you need to."

Katlin paused, giving a tired sigh before she slowly nodded her head. "Anything just to be able to sit down and get a good rest."

An hour later, traveling painfully slow, they made it up the hillside to the small, sheltered cave where Sirius had spent his time during Harry's fourth year.

"Well, this is very comfy." Katlin observed as she carefully collapsed to the dirt floor.

"My friends and I found this cave while we were out exploring one day last year." Harry lied. He was still very careful about disclosing anything to anyone that involved his godfather.

"Well, your curiosity is serving us very well, Harry." Katlin replied.

Harry kept the tip of his wand lit as Katlin performed a few healing spells. When she was finished the gash to her head was no more than a thin red line, and most of the cuts and bruises were barely visible anymore. Finally she rolled her robes up into a bundle and slipped them under her head as she laid down.

"Are you going to be all right?" Harry asked in a concerned tone. She still looked far from well to him.

"One of my natural talents is healing, Harry. Believe me, I know what I'm doing. But healings take a lot out of me. Especially when I'm doing them to myself. I just need some rest, and we can't go forward right now anyway. But I don't think we were followed here, so we should be safe." She added, curling up to her make-shift pillow.

"Well, I'm waking you up every hour." Harry told her. "You shouldn't sleep longer than that."

Katlin gave a tired nod. The truth was that the healing she had done had taken more out of her than she had expected. She was grateful to have a few hours were she could just sleep, even if it was going to be just one hour at a time. but so far, things were going along very nicely from her point of view. She had managed to get the boy away from the lair, away from the Deatheaters, and now he had told her exactly what Voldemort wanted to know.

The problem was, what to do now? Technically, her mission was almost complete. She almost had all the details she needed to find the passage. Tonight Harry would take her right to the entrance. If there were any spells needed to get into the tunnel, she felt certain the boy would perform them right in front of her without question.

Katlin rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling.

She had promised Orion she would take care of the boy. She had ask him to trust her.

But Voldemort was expecting her to complete her mission. He was expecting her to tell him what he had sent her to find out.

How could she accomplish both? She was going to end up being hated by someone. Orion or Voldemort. And neither option appealed to her in the least.

"Hey."

Katlin turned her head towards the teenager.

"You're suppose to be sleeping." he told her, trying to sound stern as a small played across his face nonetheless. "I'm waking you in an hour. Not an hour after you actually fall asleep."

Katlin studied him for a moment. For a teenager she supposed he was really quite handsome in a way. Or at least he showed a great deal of potential to turn female heads as he grew older. She would have to teach him one day how that could be solely used to one's advantage. Even the most suspicious person, on some basic, instinctual level, trusted good looking people.

"Go to sleep." Harry told her again, the smile still present beneath the stern command.

Katlin found herself returning his smile. "Yes, sir." she answered as she turned back to the ceiling.

There had to be a way out of this dilemma for her. She just had to find it. But until then she would stay in her comfort zone. Work her mission as best she knew how, and wait for opportunity to present itself.

With a quiet sigh, she quickly drifted off to sleep.

Harry sat watching over Katlin throughout the night, waking her at regular intervals to make sure she was all right. He was thankful to see the morning light just breaking over the horizon finally, as that the last time he had woken Katlin she had started to go for her wand before she was fully awake, mumbling something about people bothering her when she was asleep.

As he sat near the cave entrance a sudden sound outside caught his attention. At first he was sure he had imagined it. But when the sound called out again, he was sure of it.

An owl's hoot.

Harry jumped to his feet and ran outside the cave.

"Hedwig!" Harry called in a whispered voice as the snowy white owl came swooping down out of the rose tinged dawn sky.

Harry stretched out his arm as the owl came in for a perfect landing on it.

Overjoyed at the simple connection to something familiar again, Harry's excitement quickly grew as he noticed a piece of parchment tied to the owl's leg.

A letter?

Who would possibly be trying to send him a letter? Who even knew where he was? Or if he would receive it?

Harry quickly untied the letter from Hedwig's leg and opened it.

Even before he read it, Harry quickly scanned to the bottom of the letter to see who had sent it. He could have screamed for joy at the name scribbled across the bottom.

Snuffles.

Harry couldn't believe it. He quickly went back to the beginning of the letter.

'Harry;' it started off, thought the name was scribble so badly over the paper he had a hard time making out his own name. Sirius must have been in an awful hurry when he wrote it.

The rest of the text read like frantic ramblings.

'Where are you? Are you all right? I can only pray you get this letter. That Hedwig somehow manages to find you. We were told by the Ministry that they have some idea where you are and that you are not in any immediate danger. But that could mean anything, coming from the ministry. Arabella, Remus, and I decided to give Hedwig a shot. Since she seems able to find just about anyone anywhere, maybe she can get this to you.

The ink on the letter is enchanted. The letter will recognize your voice, and you can simply tell it what you want to write.

Write me back. Tell me where you are and I will come and get you. Arabella, Remus, and I are very worried for you. We want to know you are safe.

Love, Snuffles.'

Harry stared at the parchment as he thought for a second, then started out, "Dear Snuffles."

As soon as he started talking, Harry watched in amazement as the ink already on the parchment began to move about on the page like black silk threads, twisting and turning about as they reformed themselves into the words he spoke.

"I'm fine." He went on. "You don't need to come and get me. I'm headed back to Hogwarts and should be there soon. I'm with a woman named Katlin Griss, who has been traveling with me. We will be coming to Hogwarts by way of the passage you know. So far, we're safe. We ran into some Deatheaters earlier, but Katlin and I fought them off and we haven't seen any since. Please don't worry. I'm fine."

Harry looked over the letter. He didn't mention that Katlin herself was a Deatheater. He didn't think, given the circumstances, that that mattered much. And he didn't say which passage he was coming through, where it was located, or that it was secret, in case Hedwig got captured on her way back to the castle. Even in so short a distance, he learned, anything can happen. Just look at how this whole thing had gotten started, he told himself. But he felt certain Sirius would know what passage he meant.

As Harry quickly re-read the letter, he noticed a few last words left from Sirius' original letter still at the bottom of the parchment that hadn't been used to construct his return letter. He thought for a moment, then added with a small, sad smile, "I love you. Harry."

He quickly rolled the parchment up and tied it back to Hedwig's leg.

"OK, girl." He told her. "You take that right back to Snuffles. And you be careful."

Harry watched as Hedwig climbed gracefully into the sky. He was glad for the pale ray of the sun streaking the sky now. A white owl wouldn't' be as noticeable in the pale morning light as it would have been on a clear night with a nearly full moon.

Harry watched Hedwig until she disappeared over the trees.

"Don't worry." He whispered to his worried godparents. "I'll be home soon."

Q&A

Essence Of Magic:

Essence! Good to hear from you again. Wondered where you'd gone off to.

Well, Dear, the wait is almost over. Just a few more chapters here and then we launch into Family Relations. But come on! I've given you four previews! Something take goes so against my character you have no idea. But people whined and begged so well, I started with the previews. Unfortunately, I have to swear off any more due to the fact that anything further in that story has to have the background of this story to have it make any real sense, or the relationships alone will throw you.

Sorry to be killing you, Dear. That was never my intention with my readers. Cuts into my reviews something fierce!

I am glad you are enjoying Runaway. Yes, I do like my cliffhangers. Wonderful writing tool if ever there was one.

Nessie:

That's all right. Many people would like to forget about Treaks.

Thank you for your condolences, Dear.

She swears it was a good reason and essential to the plot. But I still think it was just a cheap plot device.

I just can't stir the same enthusiasm I had for Book Five coming out. And I'm afraid while I am still doing Harry Potter (obviously), I am also heavily immersed in other things related to my other projects right now. One project is coming along very slowly while on the other I already have the first chapter out.

I am still running with the survivor theory for Lupin. He's made it this long, he'll probably be the only one left at the end!

All reviews are as of 02/27/2005.

And remember;

Hurricane season is only four months away!