Darkness and Light

Chapter 12

Updated as of 5/19/10

When I originally wrote this...this was the first chapter to come out after OoP did. So long ago! Of course, I slowly tried changing things so that they better fit in with those plots.

After they had all talked about the dream, confirming it was the very same one, Chibiusa, Ginny, and Hermione slowly returned to their bedrooms, to attempt sleep. Harry, however, could not.

He sat on the couch, staring into the fire for quite some time. They didn't say his name at all in the dream, how very odd. It was as if he was only a viewer in these events, it didn't circle around him anymore. How very odd.

Cosmos came in, sometime around two in the morning. She looked absolutely exhausted, her eyes were red, and her skin was paled. She nodded at Harry and then sat down in one of the big armchairs curling up into herself and resting her head on the arm.

"You know, I bet that Dumbledore would get you a room or at least a bed." Harry said, trying to make conversation. He figured asking a simple "what's wrong" would give him a very long answer.

"Thank you for the advice, it would be quite useful if I did sleep." Cosmos said, smiling a bit.

"You don't...I mean you can't...?" Harry asked.

"It's not the matter of 'can' and 'can't', as if I were of a separate species," Cosmos said in her always calm voice. Harry wondered if her voice ever changed with her emotions. Like a normal person. "It's a matter of will. I don't need to sleep, nor do I have a need or desire. But I can. And," she said looking him straight in the eyes, " I believe that you were going to ask me something else, yet another thought crossed your mind a bit subconsciously. May I ask why?"

Harry paused, not sure if he should mention it. "Sorry...but things-"

"Dreams, not things," Cosmos corrected.

"Okay, dreams and other things have been on my mind lately," Harry told her, "Plus...erm...people, including you, have seemed a bit...familiar."

And for the first time, Harry actually saw her looking surprised. For some reason, a part of him was glad that he had caught the strongest soldier, or witch, or whatever she was off guard.

"Familiar?" She said. No, her voice was still the same despite the surprised look on her face.

"It's nothing important!" Harry said as Cosmos got up. "But I saw you in a dream during summer break, in the cauldron with Usagi and them. That's all."

Cosmos looked down upon him and Harry had the vague feeling of being a little child stared down by an older sibling. And to his surprise, Cosmos smiled again.

"He's getting weaker." She muttered.

"He?" Harry asked. "Not Vol-"

"Not here, not here." Cosmos said, waving a hand. This, too, was familiar. "But...Harry?" She sat back down. Her head and eyes lowered. "Maybe you can help me out and clear my mind a bit. Answer me something. Do you have a family?"

"Er...well, my Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Dudley, my cousin, are sort of family, even though I hate them, but Sirius Black is my godfather and he's more like family then any of them even though we're not related by blood."

"Is that all? Who else is close to you?" Cosmos asked. Harry paused before answering. She knew what he would say, didn't she, why was she asking?

"Well...the Weasleys, I guess..." He said. Cosmos looked at him as though she wanted more. "Er... Gryffindor?"

"What about relations to these people?" Cosmos asked.

"Well...none of the other Dursleys liked me...although there was this girl a year older than me who kept trying to get me to get married to her..."

"I meant the people you think are family, not the people you know." Cosmos said.

"Er...I guess...I think that the Weaslys have a big distant family, but I haven't really met any of them...and Sirius doesn't have any other family, I think, and-"

"Zero out of two. Though I'm not surprised." Cosmos said. "All pure blood families are interrelated somehow, did you know?"

"So Sirius and the Weasleys are related?" Harry asked, not quite sure where this was all going.

"Yes, as well as many others that they aren't as happy to have... The Lestranges, the Tonks', the Malfoys-"

"Malfoy? Sirius...Ron...they're all related to them?"

"Yes." Cosmos nodded. "And if you consider yourself related to Sirius, then one could say that you are related to the Malfoys.

"Okay...but why are you asking me all this?" Harry asked.

"I just need to know something. Your opinion." Cosmos said, very inquisitively. "One more thing, then, since you've caught onto me. Say Sirius and Hermione were related, and you just found out. Now, you love Hermione, right?"

"Y-Yeah..." Harry said, still quite confused.

"And even though you said Sirius is like family, you would still love her and not feel awkward going out with her, right?" Cosmos asked.

"Well, I don't see what the difference would be..." Harry said. He still didn't know why she was asking him all this.

"Excellent, Harry, thank you. I suggest you try and go back to sleep. Mondays are supposed to be hard, yes? I fear today will be hard on all of us, even those who aren't involved." Cosmos said. Harry stared at her for a second, waiting to see if any more confusion come come from her cherry lips before sighing and going back up the stairs.

Cosmos stared at where the boy had once been. She had a perfectly good reason for asking him all those things. And it didn't have a thing to do with senshi or the reason she was here. Sort of. Almost.

The great hall was abuzz with chatter the next day. When Cosmos appeared in Dumbledore's office on Saturday, she removed the memory modification charm from everyone that was affected. People suddenly remembered the attacks on the school, that the princesses could turn into a fighting form. They all realized that the students claiming to be from the ruined school Mousetsu were indeed those princesses! They were right there again, like nothing had happened.

The only quiet place in the room was a small section of the Gryffindor table, where those who had already been very well informed by Cosmos sat, discussing the night before.

"So you four all had the same dream?" Ron asked at breakfast. Chibiusa, Hermione, Harry and Ginny all nodded. Hermione had already asked Cho and Cho had asked Draco; they had had it as well.

"I know what you meant now, Harry." Chibiusa said.

"It really was You-Know-Who, wasn't it?" Ginny asked. Harry nodded. "And he knew about us! How could he know so much?"

"That scum, Wormtail, was with him." Hermione told Ron, both of them very displeased at this.

"And they're planning something?" Harry asked, not quite sure about everything.

"Something to..."awaken" our full power?" Hermione recalled. "He said that...the only way to trigger it was to put that person in danger."

"But You-Know-Who can't get in the school, can he?" Chibiusa asked. "Right?"

"What do you all have today?" Said someone above them. Cosmos had arrived, standing tall and not looking as worn as she did just a few hours ago. She was no longer wearing the uniform she had on earlier, but creamy white robes wrapped tightly around her body. Those students who had not already seen the tall and ethereal sight that was Cosmos gaped.

"I have Transfiguration!" Chibiusa said happily. "And then a whole bunch of boring classes - History of Magic and Potions."

"I only have Divination and Care of Magical Creatures today," Ginny recalled.

"Double potions," Ron answered for the sixth years (though Hermione had two more classes on Monday then the boys did). "Then after that, Transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts..."

"Oh?" Cosmos said only that before leaving the Gryffindor table. She then made her way to the head table and sat down in the seat usually reserved for Setsuna.

"She's teaching us?" Was murmured across the whole room as Professor Dumbledore stood up and confirmed that Professor Cosmos would be taking over the position for a bit.

"Oh, Setsuna already left?" Hermione said sadly. "She said she was going to teach me some uncommon magic.

"I didn't really think you liked her," Harry said, taking a bite of toast.

"I didn't, before." Hermione admitted.

"She has to come back, tonight, though!" Chibiusa said. She was referring to the training that Dumbledore had instructed them all to undergo, and Setsuna had definitely said she would be there.

Like many classes for sixth years, Defense Against the Dark Arts was shared by all who had passed their exams with high enough marks to continue on. As they all slowly filed in from wherever they had been, the students saw Cosmos in the front, still wrapped in white, holding a wand that seemed to be dripping with a thick fog.

"She's so pretty!" Lavender whispered to Parvati, who nodded eagerly.

When Harry and Ron had gotten in the room from their study period, what stuck out to them was not Cosmos, but Draco, sitting for once not in the back of the room and not sharing a table with Crabbe and Goyle, or any other Slytherin for that matter. Rather, he was at the front of the room in a desk for two, all by his lonesome. He looked pale and bruise-like marks were under his eyes.

Harry remembered, as he sat next to Hermione, that in the dream that he knew Draco had as well his own father had found out about the celestial powers he had been given, and that he was more then willing to fight against the Death Eaters. It was a very odd feeling, to be sorry for Draco, but Harry found himself not being able to help it. He was more then likely imagining his father and Voldemort swooping into the classroom any second to Crucio him to insanity.

"I wonder what he's thinking about." Hermione whispered to him, seeing him stare at the sullen boy. "I don't think any member of the Death Eaters has actually quit. Not for real."

"I don't think Voldemort will ever let him," Harry whispered back.

The clock on the wall suddenly snapped from ten minutes until ten to ten exactly, and Cosmos whirled around, facing her second class of the day.

"Please, settle down," Cosmos said. The students, most of them not knowing what to make of her but the girl who sits in the Gryffindor common room with unnaturally styled silver hair, obliged and stopped their chattering and faced the front of the room. "As you know, my name is Cosmos, but I'd prefer you either call me 'Professor' or 'Cosmos', not 'Professor Cosmos' as that is a very harsh sounding phrase indeed. Now could someone please tell me where Professor Meioh left-"

"What happened to Professor Meioh?" Neville asked. Setsuna had always been kind to Neville and never lost her patience, even when he couldn't complete the required spell in the entire period. "She was one of them, right? One of the sailor warriors? They all disappeared!"

"She'll only be gone for a bit," Cosmos said, staring at Neville as if she were trying to read his mind. "With the exception of Professor Meioh and another one of the girls posing as students from another school; they have all gone to rest and sleep until a time when the White Moon will rule over this earth peacefully."

"They were the princesses, weren't they?" Someone else asked. "The ones who came last year?"

"Not exactly, but yes." Cosmos nodded. "They came for the same reason as they did last year, but unfortunately were forced to leave."

"They came last year because the school was in danger, so they're just leaving now before they get the job done?" An irate Ravenclaw shouted.

"You see, Mr. Finley," Cosmos said, the boy jumping that she already knew his name, "That is, in fact, the entire point of this class and were you paying attention for the beginning of the term (which I see by your grades you did not) I don't think you'd be complaining when someone who wasn't even supposed to help was here."

"Professor, why were you just sitting in the common room for two days?" Dean asked suddenly. "Because...you know, if you need somewhere to stay-"

"Professor, can you teach me how to do my hair like that?" Lavender asked, earning herself a few odd looks and laughs from both sides of the room.

After answering as many questions as she could without revealing any more information (and assuring Lavender that her hair would need to be much longer before attempting to try that), the entire class, Slytherins included, could say that the class went much quicker than usual. With what little time they had left, Cosmos taught them what must have been the most powerful repelling spell they had ever seen. Instead of practicing it on one another as they normally would, they practiced on fruit against a wall that had been shielded by a huge white sheet. While most of the period was quite fun - making the fruit fly as forcefully as it could and staining the sheet with the splattered juices was quite satisfying and even a little silly - Cosmos ushered them to stop and stand back when they only had a few minutes left.

"Look at this wall." Cosmos said, gesturing at the painting made of fruit splatters the class had created. "This spell is not usually taught at Hogwarts, I should add. Now, then. You have all mastered it. It was a very simple spell, wasn't it? It didn't take anyone too long to learn it, right?"

No one, not even Neville, showed any sign that they had any difficulty with the spell. Harry thought about it, it did seem like a spell that should be taught to a younger level.

"Right. So easy a child could do it." Cosmos continued. "But imagine if this fruit was not fruit but rather just someone you weren't very fond of at that moment - and you used this spell just on a whim." She gestured again to the wall, where in Harry's head the orange splatters from a tangerine turned into bloodstains dripping down the wall, leading to a fallen, faceless witch. He cringed at the image. "There are three other spells that are like this. Ones that with just an ounce of malcontent feeling, even a child could complete the spell without fail. Can you think of which three spells I'm thinking of?"

"The Unforgivable Curses." Hermione answered methodically. The room seemed to grow much quieter.

"Very god, ten points to Gryffindor," Cosmos nodded. "Defense Against the Dark Arts is not just teaching you to block spells when you're caught alone in a dark alley. It's teaching you to defend against yourselves, and the urge to do what is easy instead of what is right."

"Professor," Finley, the same boy from earlier, spoke up. "If it's three in the morning and I'm lost in a forest and a Death Eater has me cornered, I don't think I'm really going to think about what's right and just kill him."

"Why on earth would you do that?" Cosmos asked. "If you're so untrained in Defense that all you can think to do in a situation is just eliminate the problem and be rid of it, then I'm not quite sure you're fit for the position as an Auror, that's what you want to do, isn't it?"

"Of course it is!" Finley retorted. "What's so wrong about it? They try to kill me, I kill them."

"Or," Cosmos nodded, not quite making eye contact with anyone, "he tried to kill you and you repel, stun, and trap him, call the real Aurors who know what they're doing, and have him tried in front of a crowd throwing rotting food at him. He is sentenced as guilty and sent to Azkaban where he is flogged daily and assaulted by his fellow inmates, most of which are more then twice his size. By killing him, you set him free. By catching him, the rest of his life is spent repenting."

Her voice had gotten progressively darker as she went on, something that did not go unnoticed by the class. Harry looked to Hermione, who looked quite alarmed.

"But, Professor," Parvati asked, "If it's not right to end a life why is it right to condemn a man instead of try and change him? Isn't that what, you know, the sailor warriors stand for? Finding the good in evil?"

"Well if they were dense enough to get caught-!" Cosmos suddenly shouted, her normally light eyes dark. She paused, looked around as if she had forgotten where she was for a second, then said in a very quiet voice, "Class dismissed."

No one took their time to talk or wander, everyone quickly gathered their things and left. Everyone except for Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Not on the boys' wishes, of course, but on Hermione's.

"Cosmos," Hermione said gently, approaching the woman. Cosmos had made her way back to the front of the room, behind the desk and was leaning against the wall, almost hunched over as if she were sick. As Hermione drew close, she realized she could hear Cosmos breathing and she didn't sound right. She was gasping with every breath, it was almost a mechanical sort of sound that chilled Hermione to the bone.

The older woman whipped around and Hermione found her wrists locked tightly in Cosmos's grip. But she did not have the same dark look that plagued her before the class, instead she looked almost scared.

"Let her go!" Ron shouted, both of the boys jumping up.

At that moment, the heavy wooden door to the class opened and Professor Snape walked in, pausing at the sight before him. Cosmos slowly released Hermione's arms and stepped back, the face of a scared little girl still on her face. "Go," She told the three in a whisper.

The trio obliged, and quickly at that.

"You okay?" Harry asked Hermione.

"Fine, but..." She waited until they shut the door behind them to pull out something long ad flesh colored from her bag.

"One of Fred and George's Extendable Ears?" Ron asked. "You just carry that around, do you?"

"They just shoved it on me to get me to try ad buy some so I shoved it in my bag, but that's not important." Hermione said, uncoiling it and putting one piece under the door. "Something wasn't right with Cosmos and I want to know what." It was lucky that the classroom was in a hallway, as the sight of three sixth-years crowding around an ear on a cord was more then suspicious.

"This really isn't like you-" Ron sharted, but he was quickly shushed by the other two.

"-and Setsuna said I should make this for you." Snape said. His shoes could be heard moving farther away from the door. "She and I agreed this would be the best thing to try."

"Is that why you're looking at me like that?" Cosmos snapped. "I don't want your sympathy...I can't believe she told you!"

"She didn't tell me." Snape said. "The Dark Lord did."

There was a pause that seemed to go on forever before Comsos spoke in a voice that was hard to hear through the wire, "He...he told you? He told his followers?"

"Only myself and one other." Snape said.

"And he laughed when he told you, didn't he?"

"Yes."

More pauses.

"I don't want this. Thank you for going to the trouble of making it." Cosmos said shortly.

"You know you are at the moment suffering from a textbook case of denial, don't you?" Snape said smoothly.

"It's not denial if I know I have a problem and I've told people," Cosmos retorted. Footsteps could be heard.

"It's denial if you're accepting it and refusing help - it took me eight straight hours to make this!" Snape growled. "What's the harm in just trying it?"

"Because Sailor Moon wouldn't have needed it!" Cosmos shouted. The three heard something fall over loudly. "She would find the strength from within and-"

"You don't believe that he took it!" Snape cried out. "You're just too stubborn to admit the switch!"

"Sailor Moon would-" Cosmos started again.

"You're not Sailor Moon!" Snape growled. "I don't care what sort of ultimate form you think you may be but your body and soul bear absolutely no resemblance! You don't understand the danger you are putting every single student in this school in by not doing anything about it!"

On the other end of the Extendable Ear there was a sudden loud, sharp noise that had the three jumping back and steadying themselves from falling over. After a moment to let their hearts stop beating so quickly, they returned to the Ear just in time to hear Cosmos, now sounding like her old, calm self.

"I'll see you tonight, then." She said as if nothing had happened.

The three quickly jumped back again, this time puling the Extendable Ear with them. Seconds later Snape left the room (and, Harry noticed, without any sort of potion), storming off towards the stairs and not seeing the three students crammed behind a decorative statue.

"Well." Harry said after a moment. "I didn't get a word of that."

"Right." Ron nodded. "Let's get some dinner before we have to do who-knows-what tonight."

"Wait!" Hermione hissed as the two boys rose to their feet. "Something's clearly wrong with her! Don't you want to find out-"

"Hermione, she looked like she was going to throttle you in there when you tried to ask before!" Ron exclaimed.

"He has a point." Harry said. "It's obvious she doesn't want to talk about it."

"I just...feel sorta bad..." Hermione started. Ron unexpectedly let out a huffing sort of noise (one Harry would have expected to come from the girl next to him) before starting to walk off towards the great hall.

"What's your problem?" Hermione asked, running after him.

"It's just getting a bit annoying with you always talking about those girls over and over and over-" Ron said, his voice now quite disgruntled. Hermione let out a huff and Harry was running, trying to catch up with the bickering pair.

"I already apologized for that!" Hermione exclaimed.

"To Harry, maybe, not to me!" Ron retorted.

"Well sorry for being worried about another human being!" Hermione cried. Harry decided that maybe not being able to catch up to them was indeed a good thing. "What is the matter with you, Ron?"

"Well, sorry, every now and then it's a little hard not to feel like this when I'm completely left out of everyone else's world!"

"Left out?" Hermione asked. "Is this about me and Harry? Last year you said-"

"I-It has nothing to do with that!" Ron said. "But now you and Ginny are off fighting evil and Harry's of course included because he's Harry-"

"I can't stop "being Harry" mate!" Harry yelled from a few feet back.

"And of course all of you are having these dreams-"

"You're jealous because we all had dreams about Voldemort?" Hermione exclaimed, causing Ron to wince not only at the Dark Lord's name but at the tone of her voice. "Dumbledore said you should train with us, so no, you are being included, and if you would like to be able to turn into some form where you're wearing a short skirt that covers next to nothing be my guest!" And that was the end of that; Hermione stormed off and Ron stood there, not sure of what to do, and Harry finally caught up with Ron and wasn't really sure who to be with at the moment.

"You're not really jealous that we're all having those dreams, are you?" Harry asked after a moment.

"It's not the dreams," Ron said. "But, look at me. Look at who I am and then look at everyone else around me and all the great things they have."

"Money's not everything," Harry replied, not quite sure what Ron meant.

"I don't mean what things they own," Ron said, seeming to get more upset, "But all my brothers are somewhere great in their lives and Ginny's getting really popular and she's great with magic, and now you and Ginny and Hermione have been sucked into this world of sailor warriors and a cauldron or whatever-"

"Ron, you have no idea how lucky you are that you're not expected to fight Voldemort!" Harry shouted. "You can't always be the hero in life, none of us wanted to be where we are in in the danger we're always in!"

"Maybe you didn't want it," Ron said, his eyes now reminding Harry of how Cosmos had looked only minutes ago, "But you sure play up to it." Ron walked off, not towards the Great Hall but back up the stairs, probably to the common room. Harry sighed; this definitely wasn't the first time Ron had felt overshadowed and was mad at Harry for it. Hopefully it wouldn't take them as long to make up as it did the previous times. What with everything that was happening, Harry really found Ron the only person to talk to.

Harry had joined Hermione at the table, and she was not at all surprised to hear Ron had stormed off.

"When is he going to grow up..." She kept muttering between sips of broth.

As the evening grew darker and many people had begun to leave the room, Cosmos approached those at the Gryffindor table and beckoned them with her. Behind her long, white cloak were Cho and Draco. Cho looked somewhat scared, while Draco, if possible, looked almost eager. Harry, Hermione, Ginny, and Chibiusa got up and followed the tall woman from the Great Hall.

"Where is Ron?" She asked as she led them through the front doors and into the cool night air.

"I don't know if he's coming," Harry said after a moment. "We, er, got in a row earlier and I haven't seen him since."

"Shame," Cosmos muttered. Harry realized that she was leading them to the Quidditch pitch, which was fully lit, yet no houses were practicing.

"We're going to be practicing here, at nine, every other day." Cosmos told them, once she had stopped in the very center of the field. "If you practice here tonight, you are bound to secrecy. No one is to know about these lessons or what you learn, or any information you may learn. Is that clear?"

All of them nodded. Cosmos nodded as well and got out her wispy wand and began muttering something quietly as she flicked her wrist gently. Behind them, against the walls that divided the field and the first row of seats, several forms that looked to Harry like life-size voodoo dolls with sticks and wheels for legs sprouted from the ground. They were all twitching mildly, as if they were alive.

"When we practiced with Snape last year, he used these," Cho said, looking at the forms.

"Setsuna set them up, she said she couldn't make it tonight," Cosmos said.

"She's guarding the Time Gate?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, she's in no danger," Cosmos smiled slightly, knowing why Hermione asked. "Right then," Cosmos said, flicking her wand again. The dummies began rolling around, some slow and some fast, many of them coming at the group of students. "First, let's see what you've got. No transforming, no using planet powers, just use pure latin-based magic."

Two hours, several small explosions, and one small robe fire later, the group was exhausted. For two hours straight, Cosmos just wanted to see what they knew. At first, they could just blast the dummies back, but after a while they got more resilient and shot off small spells of their own. The six were all collapsed over on the grass, inhaling and exhaling deeply. Ginny had finished off the very last of them for good and Cosmos had finally told them that it was over.

"There's definitely a lot of work to be done, but you all have a strong foundation and are able to think quickly in a hostile situation." Cosmos nodded as she walked in a circle around the group. "But there is one final lesson that we are going to learn tonight, hopefully...one that requires a short walk. Come on now, up! Quickly!"

Chibiusa didn't even try to stifle her yawn. Harry assumed using so much normal magic (well, it was normal to Harry...) was uncommon to her. She had performed very well, though, even though for her level, she only knew a few spells that could knock back her targets.

The walk back to the castle seemed to take an eternity, but eventually, their still and tired legs reached the stone walls, and Cosmos continued walking, through a wooden door that led them all to the dungeons. Harry had a sinking feeling, and remembered the incident in Dumbledore's office when Cosmos tried to ask Snape for a favor. But, no it couldn't be...

...No, it was. Cosmos was knocking on Snape's office door, not noticing the air of dread that had swept over them as they remembered more of their unlocked memories from last year. Last year, Snape had been teaching them complicated magic much as Cosmos now was, but had also started teaching something called Occlumency. It was supposed to block others from reading your mind, but Harry was dreadful at it, and after two lessons of this Snape gave up and moved on to more physically damaging spells.

The door opened eventually to Snape, who took one look at the group of seven, and crossed his arms as if guarding something from view. He let out a sigh and looked to the ground for a moment before asking, "What do you want?" in a much darker tone then even Harry had heard before.

"I need you to start teaching Occlumency again. These six, along with one more, need the skills. You started before last year, so it shouldn't be hard to pick up from where you left off." Cosmos said.

"I told you two days ago no, the answer is still no!" Snape shouted. "If you're the most powerful witch alive, you teach them." That last line was spoken with a sneer on his face, and Harry had a thought that he was still upset about whatever had happened earlier that day with Cosmos in her classroom.

"You know you're the only one who can!" Cosmos exclaimed. "They all had a dream last night about Voldemort, one which I'm beginning to think he knew they would see."

Snape sighed again, looked at the doorframe, then at Draco. He sighed yet again before resolving, "Alright, but not tonight. Wednesday."

"Thank you, Severus." Cosmos said in a very sincere tone. "Right, then, I guess..." Cosmos started speaking to the group, but suddenly her face grew blank. "Chaos," she whispered.

"What?" Chibiusa explained.

"There is someone here who had a great darkness in their heart," Cosmos said. "I can feel Chaos's presence - it must have taken over-"

"Great darkness?" Ginny repeated. Harry, however, froze. He remember the way Ron had looked at him earlier. His eyes were dark and his voice was cold. No, no, it couldn't be...

"You can't deal with this now, get back to your houses this instance-!" Cosmos shouted. Snape drew his own wand from his robe and left the doorframe of his office, joining them in the hallway. Draco walked quickly further into the dungeon, while Cosmos and Snape led the way back to the other common rooms.

There were absolutely no candles flickering in the hallway, but only Cosmos kept her wand illuminated. Cho soon departed from the group, leaving only Gryffindor students left.

"It's getting closer..." Cosmos whispered. "My God, how could this have happened..."

"Now would be a perfect time to remind you of the potion still sitting on your desk, yes?" Snape muttered.

"Okay!" Cosmos hissed.

A chilling voice started to speak from nowhere.

"Chaos..." It said. "Chaos...I...need...again..."

"What is this?" Hermione said, her voice barely a whisper.

"Chaos...help me...find..."

Cosmos's wand fell upon a form coming out them in the darkness. Everyone drew their wands, but as they crept closer, they saw it was only Ron. He looked like he was about to throw up, his face was almost green. He seemed to have cuts all around his face.

"Ron, what happened?" Ginny exclaimed.

"Get...away!" Ron gasped, coughing terribly.

"Chaos...I...have...FOUND IT!"

As soon as these words rang out into the corridors, a figure that seemed to be made of green, liquid wax shot out from the darkness, raised one of its appendages in the air, and thrust it deep inside of Ron's chest.