Harry walked to the edge of the forest. Ginny was at his side, and Ron was behind them.
"Wonder where Hermione went." Ginny said.
"Hermione?" Ron asked
"Yeah. She was with us, but Hagrid stopped her."
"He probably took her back to the castle. Stay here." Harry said. He walked up to Hagrid's hut and looked into one of the windows. Hagrid was feeding Fang. Harry turned around and went back to Ron and Ginny. He threw his invisibility cloak on Ron.
"What's this for?" Ron asked.
"I think he'd notice someone floating around, don't you?"
"True."
"Ginny, start going that way." Harry said as he pointed "Try to get back to the castle without being noticed."
"What am I supposed to do with Ron?" she asked
"Take him with you. Try to make it back to our dorm."
"Shouldn't I take him to the hospital wing?"
"No. To the dorm."
"But -"
"Go!" Ginny sighed and started walking along the forest. Harry waited a few seconds and then followed her. He watched as she went up to the castle and then inside. Harry went back for his broom, which was still where he'd left it, and then flew up to the owlery. He wanted to write a note to Dumbledore. They needed him here. "Hedwig!" Harry called as he wrote. "Hedwig, come here." The snowy owl flew down and landed on his shoulder, looking very annoyed. "Take this to Dumbledore. Go as fast as you can." He went to the window and let her go.

The Fat Lady was gone. Harry had come up to her picture, but she was gone. He looked at a few other pictures. She wasn't there either. Neither were the people who were supposed to be in them. Well that's odd, Harry thought. He tried to pry it open. No luck. Maybe someone's inside... Harry pounded on the door. No one answered. Where is everyone? "Hello?" he heard from behind the portrait.
"Hermione?"
"Harry?"
"Yeah."
"Alright. Step back." He did, and then the door flew open and Hermione fell out. Harry jumped forward and grabbed the picture before it could close. "It keeps getting stuck shut. The only way to open it is to ram yourself against it."
"Right..." Harry helped her up and they both went inside. "Where is everyone?"
"Asleep. It's five AM."
"But what about the pictures? And the professors?"
"What about them?"
"The pictures are empty, and I didn't see anyone on my way back."
"Everyone has to sleep sometime." Suddenly she jumped forward and hugged him. "I'm so glad you found Ron. I knew you could do it. You - where did your neck brace go?"
"I took it off." Her jaw dropped. "Come on. Let's check on Ron." The two of them went up to the dormitory. Hermione immediately went to Ron, while Harry dug through his trunk. A few seconds later he pulled out the map. Harry sat down on his bed and looked at it. Besides the clusters of students in four different areas, there was no one on the map. No one at all. No Snape, no McGonagall, not even Mrs. Norris was there. Harry stood up and took the map to Hermione and Ron.
"See?" he said to Hermione.
"Oh my gosh." she said. "Where is everyone?"
"I told you." Ron said. His eyes got really wide. Hermione covered her mouth. "Harry..." Ron pointed to the map. Near the whomping willow were two dots: Peter Pettigrew and Tom Riddle.

Harry got up and went for the door. "Harry? Harry, no!" Hermione said. "You can't go out there."
"Would you like to?"
"Not particularly."
"Then sit down and shut up. I'll be fine." Hermione got up and stood between him and the door.
"Harry, you can't. I won't let you."
"Listen. Just stay here, take care of Ron. I'll go out there, chase them away, and everything will be peachy." He grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the door. "Now if you'll excuse me." He opened the door and headed for the exit, but then Harry stopped. He'd heard something. A pounding sound. Something was pounding on the dormitory doors. The dream... he'd had a dream... exactly like this. (Those of you with a good memory will remember that.) Something pounded on the door, then he'd get up and run to his dormitory, then... oh crap, he thought. Harry turned around and sprinted up the stairs. Semus, Neville, and Dean were slowly backing out of the dorm. Hermione was screaming. Three deamons had her cornered. The others were all over Ron's bed.
"Harry," Semus said "What the hell are those things?" Harry ignored him and stepped into the dormitory. A few of the deamons turned to look at him.
"Baneranificio!" Harry screamed. There was a bright light. Hermione looked up at Harry, and then ran over to Ron.
"Ron!" she screamed. Harry was afraid to look at Ron. He knew what he'd see. He'd seen the same type of thing not to long ago, except that time it was himself. Instead, he went back out to the three others.
"What's going on?" Neville asked.
"Vengeance deamons. Voldemort's attacking the school."
"He can't." Semus said. "Dumbledore-"
"Is gone."
"Well this is a lovely predicament. At least you got them." Harry laughed.
"You think that's it? He has hundreds more. Voldemort is standing right next to the willow right now."
"So... what's the plan?" Neville asked. Harry turned back around and went over to Hermione, who was frantically trying to stop the bleeding. He tried not to look at Ron.
"How can I get into the girl's dorms?" Harry asked.
"Skip the third step. That's the one that sets off the spell." Harry turned around again.
"Which one of you knows a barrier spell?" Dean said that he did. Harry took him to the entrance to the boy's dormatories. "Go on."
"The whole dormitory? I dunno... I've never tried anything like that..."
"Well now's your chance." Dean tried, and it looked like he'd done it. Of course the only way to tell was to get a deamon near it. "Alright, listen. You two," Harry pointed to Semus and Dean "Stay right here. Neville and I are going to go into the girls dorm's and get them all over here. Make them go in there. On the off chance that the barrier spell doesn't work... baneranificio. It banishes them." The other three nodded.

"Why'd you pick me?" Neville asked.
"Just shush. Jump over the third step."
"This feels so wrong." Harry jumped and looked down the hall. At the other end was a group of deamons.
"Start waking them up." Harry watched Neville go into the dorm on his right. At almost the same time, the deamons began splitting up and going into the dorms. This is taking too long..."Blastansma." Harry said. A large ball of light came out of his wand, and then exploded, making a very loud sound. "Everyone out of bed! Let's go! Don't ask questions. Get into the boy's dorms or stay here and die. Your choice." The girls were confused, but when they saw the deamons, they took off running to the exit. Harry made another explosion. The deamons weren't liking that at all. Harry ran down to the end of the hall. "Baneranificio!" A group of the deamons disappeared, and the others fled. Neville and Harry began helping the girls that had been injured. Harry was handing one of them to Semus when Neville said:
"Do you smell that?... Smoke..." They ran back into the dorms to find the back half of the hall on fire.
"Is there anyone left in there?" Harry asked.
"I dunno."
"Tell Semus and Dean to get the girls together. See if anyone's missing." Harry began putting the fire out, but decided it was useless and went to the boys dorms. The girls were crowded in the hallway, along with a few boys. Everyone seemed to be there... except... "Where's Ginny? Semus! Did Ginny come out?"
"No. I didn't see her."
"Her dormitory is the twelfth one on the left." one girl said. Harry nodded and ran back into the girl's dormatories.

"Ginny!" Harry called. Nine, ten, eleven... he stopped to put out the fire in front of him, and then called again. He went into the twelfth one. "Ginny!" He heard her cough. "Ginny?"
"Harry?" She called back.
"Ginny you have to get out of there."
"I can't. I'm stuck." Harry crawled over to her. The bottom half of her was caught under a wardrobe that had fallen over. "It's too heavy to lift." Harry tried to lift it. Ginny managed to pull herself free. The door on the wardrobe opened. "Harry look out!" Something that was covered in flames fell out of the wardrobe and onto Harry's left arm. Harry grabbed his wand and put it out.
"Come on." he said. They helped each other out of the girl's side and into the boy's. "You have to go put that fire out." Harry told Semus. "Get a few others and go put it out." Semus nodded. Harry and Ginny went into his dormitory and lied down on the floor so they could catch their breath.
"You alright?" Ginny asked. Harry nodded. "The answer to that was no. Your arm-"
"I'll be fine." Harry sat up and looked at Hermione. "Is he gonna live?"
"Yeah, he'll be okay. He needs to get some medicine soon, or else - oh my gosh! What happened to your arm?"
"It's nothing. I'll be fine." Hermione continued to protest, but Harry ignored her. Mark Evans was over by his bed. "Mark. Get me that paper on my bed." Mark picked up the Marauder's Map and brought it to Harry. "Thanks."
"You need to be more careful with that thing." Hermione said. "You forgot to turn it off." Harry looked at the map. Yes, he had forgotten. But now there were several more dots on the map, including a lot of the professors. Wormtail and Voldemort were gone, and where they had been was a new dot that said Albus P.W.B. Dumbledore.
"Now they show up."

About five minutes later, McGonagall entered the dorms and started to get the most injured students onto floating stretchers and into a van from St. Mungo's. She seemed surprised that there weren't that many. Apparently the other houses hadn't been able to stop the deamons. Ron was the first to go. Hermione looked like she was going to cry. "He'll be okay." Harry said to her. She nodded. "Hermy." Harry knew that Ron called her that sometimes. She looked up.
"Only Ron's allowed to call me that."
"Ronny's gonna be alright, Hermy."
"Shut up." She acted annoyed, but Harry knew that it had made her feel a little better. McGonagall came back for the rest of the injured people. Hermione helped Harry and Ginny up. Ginny didn't look injured, but she limped badly and had a few bad burns. They were floated outside where they crowded into the van with the others. The vans looked small, but inside they could fit up to fifty people. There were enough beds for thirty.
"We need there to be more than one person per bed." a witch said "We have a few more to get in here." Harry and Ginny shared a bed. Ginny leaned back and put her leg up on the bed. Harry felt a hand on his shoulder. Ginny pulled him back.
"Lean back. You deserve to take a break." Harry leaned back. Ginny slumped over a bit and put her head on his chest. Harry put his good arm around her.
"Alright, let's go." The witch said. The van shook. Harry looked out the back window to see the ground shrinking away underneath them. "Hold on everyone. We'll be there soon."