Disclaimer: Hogwarts belongs to Dumbledore, Harry belongs to JK. Rowling. Tamara belongs to me and heaven belongs to God. Bla, bla.

Author's Note July 3, 2004: This is practically the same chapter as before – I just changed a little bit, I wasn't too satisfied, I'm still not, but... if you've read it already, you don't have to read it again. It's not very changed.

Review-thank yous:

Imprisoned – Thanks, ::blushing::, agree with everything you say. I don't want Draco to be completely evil either; he kind of fascinates me. Who knows? He might actually be a nice guy... what the heck am I talking about? He's a character from a book!

ViviBlack – Might be an idea. Hm... actually it sounds very appealing. Oh, I dunno, I'll see what I'll do. Thanks, keep reviewing!

Kagome Sengoku – Heh, thanks. I think almost everyone can relate to the feeling that the whole world around is hooking up, but you're not. It's annoying!

Croaker – Glad you liked it, did you read the whole story?


Chapter 15 – Making Plans for the Future

So Christmas passed by, and it was time for my career advice with Professor McGonagall. I thought it was going to be rather interesting. You see, I hadn't made any kinds of plans for the future for myself.

So it was with curiosity that I went to McGonagall's office for the career advice instead of the DADA class. Lucky me, I had gotten the advice-time on the DADA class.

"Welcome, Miss Malfoy. Sit down."

"Thank you," I said and sat down on the other side of the desk from her.

"So, here we are. Have you been thinking about what you'd like to be?"

"Er... not really," I said.

"What would you enjoy doing?"

"I don't know," I said.

"No ideas?"

I simply shook my head.

"Let's take it the other way, then. Which subjects do you enjoy? What do you enjoy doing?"

"I-I don't know, really," I said, starting to feel stupid.

"Work at the Ministry, maybe?"

"Is not that appealing to me," I admitted.

"Auror?"

"I'm not sure that would fit my personality," I said.

"Teacher?"

"I don't know which subject that would be. I don't have a favourite subject or something that I'm extra good in."

"Healer?"

"Not like dream job, but that could work," I said.

She sighed.

"Then tell me, what is your dream job?" she asked, sounding a little desperate.

"I don't know!"

"You're in the quidditch team, right? Quidditch player, perhaps."

"Depends on which position," I said. "I'm not much of a chaser."

"You could apply for the seeker position during your last year, when Harry has graduated."

"I might do that, if I don't get the chaser-thing right."

"Seriously, now. Would you like to be a quidditch player?"

"I enjoy playing quidditch, but I'm not like a super talent, I'm not that brilliant."

"You said healer would be okay, maybe that's something. I think you'd do well as a healer."

Healer? The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. It could be cool.

"It might be," I admitted. "Which classes should I take for the NEWTs, then?"

"Let me se... potions, obviously," she said and I groaned inside. Another two years with Snape? No, thanks! "Herbology could be very useful," she continued. "Care of Magical Creatures, Transfiguration perhaps, Charms might be good. Defence against the Dark Arts."

"Oh – okay."

"But again, the more NEWTs you take, the better. Things like... Muggle Studies, for example, might not seem to be useful, but can be useful if someone wants to try alternative cures."

"Oh. But I'm not taking Muggle Studies."

"It's not necessary. Oh, I see we're running low on time. Anything more?"

"No, not really."

"See you in class, then."

"Thank you, Professor.!

"Hey, Tamara!" Ginny said when I entered the common room later that afternoon. She was sitting in a couch with Dean. "What did McGonagall say?"

I walked over to join them, but didn't sit down. I didn't want to interrupt their little 'session'.

"She just said I'd do well as a healer," I said.

"Healer? Well, that's cool."

"Yeah, maybe. I don't know. But I'd have to take classes like Potions and DADA. Great!" I added sarcastically.

"Don't McGonagall's advices too seriously," Dean warned. "She told me that I should be driving the Knight Bus."

Ginny and I laughed.

"Did she really?" Ginny said.

"Yep."

"Wonder what she's going to tell me," Ginny said curiously.

"When are you seeing her?"

"Tomorrow, during the last lesson."

"Herbology?"

"Exactly. It's going to be interesting..."

"You are not going to believe this!" Ginny said the following afternoon.

I had been sitting in the library, writing another essay for Professor Frederic Dumbledore. He said I had been stammering when I was reading a chapter from 1001 ways to defend yourself out loud, so he assigned me an essay containing five hundred words about stammering. Okay, I had been stammering, but that was only because he scared me!

"What, Ginny?"

"I had my career advice with McGonagall, you know?"

"Yes, what did she say?" I asked curiously.

"She told me I should start a coffee bar in Diagon Alley."

"A Coffee Bar," I repeated.

"I know it sucks, you don't have to tell me!" she whined and threw herself down beside me on the couch.

"It could be cool, honestly. Which NEWTs did she recommend?"

"Potions – imagine two more years with Snape-"

"Then you could keep me company."

"-Herbology, that's okay. Plus usual 'good-to-know'-subjects such as Charms, Transfiguration, Care of Magical Creatures, you know. Muggle Studies. But I don't want to have a damn coffee bar!" she complained. "I want to be an auror, I want to fight against the Dark Side like the rest of my family! Everyone always tells me I'm to small or something, but I mean, am I still too young when I'm nineteen or what?!"

"Calm down, Ginny! Of course you can do whatever you want, it's your decision! It's only advices."

She snorted.

"I'm going to show them! I'm going to show who can fight..."

"Just don't do anything stupid, Ginny."

She sighed.

"Of course I won't, not purposely. So what are you doing?"

Now it was my turn to sigh.

"Writing that damn essay about stammering."

"Oh, yeah. I can't believe it, what kind of punishment is that? He never gives detentions or something."

"I know! He always orders us to write essays," I said. "There's something wrong with him, I just can't figure out what."

"Have you noticed that he's always avoiding questions? Even if they're about DADA?"

"No, but you're right. He does."

She shrugged.

"Whatever," I said, "I have to go to the library, I've got a potions essay."

The essay was to be on one thousand words, about the Polyjuice Potion. I decided to go over to the library for an hour before dinner. Because of all the time I had spent there in my earlier years, I was able to find a fitting book already after five minutes; 17 potions to change yourself into another person by someone called Marina Baker.

This was probably one of the busiest times of the year, classes starting again after the Christmas Holiday and OWLs and NEWTs coming closer. Anyway, my point is that the library was almost filled with students. There wasn't a single empty table, but I caught sight of Harry, sitting alone at one of the tables and decided to go over and sit with him.

"Hi, okay if I sit here?"

He looked up.

"Yeah, sure."

"It's really packed with people."

"Yeah," he said, sounding very unaware of what I was saying, so I decided to just leave him alone. I'm not that kind of person who likes forcing myself upon somebody.

So instead I opened my book and turned over to page 134, where the index had told me there would be something about the Polyjuice potion. After having read a couple of pages I pulled out a piece of parchment and my quill from my bag and started writing.

The Polyjuice Potion

The polyjuice potion is especially used for transforming a person used into another person-

Sigh.

I looked up. Harry had shut his book and was now staring straight into the empty air.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Huh? Yeah, sure."

I looked at the book that he just had slammed. It looked old, almost ancient, the colour starting to fade away and so the golden letters, although it was still possible to read them.

"The Biggest Mysteries of the Wizarding World," I read out loud. "Were you looking for anything special?"

"No, nothing important."

"Sure? Because you look very disappointed."

He sighed again, almost the only thing he did nowadays.

"I was looking for something about... a veil."

"Huh?"

He sighed yet one time.

"Remember last year?"

"Of course."

"When you... knocked out your father, you turned around and left. But if you had continued, you would have come to a room with a veil."

"Okay... and why so interested in that veil?" I asked curiously.

"Because... I heard voices from behind. It's some kind of... life between life and death."

"Your godfather," I said suddenly. "He fell in there, didn't he?"

He didn't answer but stared down into the table. From the look on his face, I could tell that I had been right.

"Creepy. But now that you mention, I think I remember reading about it somewhere. Some story about someone visiting the place, but no one believed him when he came back, because there were no witnesses."

"Where did you read about it?" he asked urgently.

"I'm not sure... it might have been in some newspaper... The Quibbler, maybe."

"Are you sure? The Quibbler?"

"Yeah, I think so. Well, I wouldn't like swear on my life, but-"

"Gee, thanks!" he said and rose. "I've got to run, could you put that book back for me?"

"Yeah, su-"

"Thanks!" he said.

Five seconds later he had disappeared through the doors out into the corridor.


Author's note: I've got nothing to say here. Cool, isn't it?! I mean, I always go on blabbing about something totally pointless and that's a complete waste of time, both for me to write and for you to read. I feel really proud that I haven't got anything to write here and can leave this space without a lot of written stuff... er... ooups...

Lovin' you guys who are reviewing. To you who aren't; you can still make a difference. Press go!

Megafreak