Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters, places, etc. are owned by JK Rowling. The idea of Dawn is owned by Joss Whedon. Additional author's note at bottom.
The remainder of the train ride was uneventful and the group soon found themselves at Hogsmeade station. They piled into two separate coaches - Harry, Ron, and Hermione chose one and Neville, Ginny and Luna took another. Dawn was still out looking for Tenebrius to thank him for the core of her wand, and was disappointed when she didn't find him; she wanted to ask Hagrid about it, but he was busy with the first years and she would have to do it another time. When she returned Harry offered her a seat, but she decided to ride in the other carriage instead. "It's just because those are the people in my year," she told him, but he wasn't so sure. Anyway, it was the first time he had been alone with both Ron and Hermione since the previous year. As he expected they instantly launched into a round of questions about the prophecy.
"I already told you everything," he said, his frustration evident, and wishing he hadn't said a thing to anyone. He momentarily thought of the other carriage and wondered what Luna thought of it. He was starting to think that maybe he liked her, and was becoming warm to the idea, but he pushed that thought aside for the moment and listened to Hermione.
"I was thinking of the 'one must die at the hand of the other' part," she started out. "Prophecies are tricky even in the best of circumstances and I for one have trouble believing anything that came from Trelawny. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to murder him. It could mean something else entirely. Either way, it doesn't really matter does it?"
Ron was looking at her with a face full of confusion. "What! I'd say it matters! I'd much rather Voldemort die than Harry!" he said.
"Well, of course, that's not what I meant. What I meant was… what are you going to do in school this year Harry?"
"I don't know," he said. "I guess… go to classes and do my homework and play Quidditch and stuff. Why?"'
Hermione ignored the question. "And what would you do if the prophecy had never been made?" She answered her own question. "Go to classes and do your homework, and play Quidditch, right? So nothing's really changed."
"Oh," was all that Harry could say at that moment.
"You're brilliant," Ron said as he gave her a large smile. She blushed and mumbled a quick thank you and the carriage was suddenly very quiet.
Harry was staring out into the dark and thinking about what Hermione had said. Now that he knew about the prophecy he'd have to be careful of Voldemort, but then again, he'd always had to be careful, even in his first year. He started to feel all right about it and the weight lifting from his shoulders. Just then a small flash of light outside caught his eye.
"I've got to go," he said and bolted out the carriage door, not giving Ron and Hermione any sort of explanation. The carriage then pulled beyond the corner before they could follow.
Harry landed hard, losing his footing on the gravel roadway, before pulling himself up and running toward the grove of trees. Someone had thrown a powerful curse, he was sure of that, and in the light cast by the spell he had seen the man in brown robes who had followed them around Diagon Alley. Harry didn't know exactly how he knew, but he knew someone was in trouble and he acted without thinking.
As he neared the grove he saw there were two people, the brown-robed wizard, and a witch who was wearing a set of bright red robes and no hat. The witch had the man pinned to the ground with some sort of spell, although Harry was behind her and couldn't see her wand. He didn't think she knew he was there. Dark magic was radiating off of her and Harry nearly trembled at the power. The woman spoke.
"Where is my key?" she said, the anger evident in her voice. "You have it and I want it back."
The man on the ground said nothing; he just looked up at her in fear. The woman walked over to him and bent down, brushing the lint off his robe in a motherly way. When she next spoke it wasn't with the angry tones she had used earlier, her words were intoned with a syrupy sweetness that belied the malice behind her words.
"Sweetie," she said, and her voice reminded Harry of Dolores Umbridge. "There's no use hiding anything from me. I know, and you know, that I'll get what I want sooner or later, so why don't we just stop all the fighting and you can get me my key? What do you say? All this nasty pain will stop if you'd just finish this sentence for me 'You can get your key if you go…' Where?"
Harry decided he had seen quite enough. He didn't know much about the situation, but he could see the woman becoming more and more tense as she continued her questioning. He figured he had to stop her before she hurt someone worse than she already had. Harry slowly pulled his wand from its holster, took careful aim and spoke the first curse that came into his mind. "Petrificus totalus!"
The curse sped from his wand and hit the red-robed witch square in the back. To Harry's astonishment the spell had no effect and the woman calmly stood up and turned toward her attacker. Harry's heart beat wildly when he saw the malevolent look of pleasure on her face. He swore under his breath and just knew he was her new target.
Harry stood poised, waiting for the evil witch to make the first move. He didn't have to wait long; she mumbled something under her breath, Harry wasn't sure what, and a red light flew toward him. He jumped to the side and dodged it, and had to move again to miss being hit by a second. A third shattered the tree behind him leaving a mass of charred and splintered wood. He ran instead for another tree that was closer, but the flames reached it before he did. He tried quickly to run in the other direction, but as he did his left foot got caught up in his robes and he fell to the ground hard. He tried to get up and felt a high heeled boot touch his back and hold him down. It was compacting his rib cage and he had trouble drawing breath. He knew then the fight was over, he hadn't even thrown one effective curse, and he had no idea what the red-robed witch had planned for him.
Harry felt some of the pressure on his back release and was commanded to roll over. He complied, and for the first time got a good look at the woman. She was young to be so powerful, she couldn't have been more than a year or two out of school, and hadn't seemed to have been changed the way Voldemort and Bellatrix had. Her hair was blonde, though it looked dyed, and fell over her shoulders in waves. It was thick, but not as bushy as Hermione's, and it fell onto her neck unrestrained. Harry noticed that her lipstick was the same bright red as her robes and had a fleeting thought that this woman must spend a lot of time on her appearance. She looked down on him with large blue eyes and he thought he could have been quite attracted if she wasn't so evil. Her eyes held a hint of her malice and she replaced her red high heeled boot on his body, this time on his rib cage, effectively trapping him to the ground. She was the first to speak.
"Who do you think you are?" She didn't wait for a response. "Can't you see I'm having a conversation with the monk here?" She motioned in the man's direction and Harry finally understood the poor brown robes. So, the man was a monk. The witch turned her attention back to Harry and switched to that overly sweet voice. "Hey, you wouldn't know where I can find my key would you? 'Saint Francis' over here isn't talking which really kind of ticks me off, you know? Him and his stupid 'Order' are hiding it from me and I just want to get it back. It belongs to me! So what do you say, huh? Just a little hint?"
Harry was struck by how informal her speech was, it especially contrasted with Voldemort's formal English. What was this 'Order?' Was it the Order of the Phoenix? He hadn't seen any monk there before and had never heard of the woman in the red robes. He gave her a hard look and said, "I don't know anything." She looked at him coldly, and put even more pressure on the heel, forcing it between Harry's ribs. He felt them bend and stretch and almost cried out in pain. Just when he was about to pass out she released him and turned back to the monk behind her.
"You know, when you stop to think about it I'm the victim here," she started. There was a sickening sort of desperation in her voice. "First off, I don't even want to be here, and I'm not talking about this room or this city or this planet. I'm talking about the whole mortal coil now, it's disgusting. All I want is the key! Why can't you tell me where the key is?"
The monk was breathing hard, they had obviously fought for some time before Harry had arrived, and there was blood trickling from the man's nose down to his lip. He forced it away with a sharp blast of breath and he continued panting heavily. When he spoke it was with an accent. Harry tried to place it and was suddenly reminded of Viktor Krum. Eastern Europe maybe? He strained to hear the words. "I… will tell you…," the monk said. The witch's face lit up and Harry wanted to stop him from saying anything. He didn't know much about the situation but he was sure if that woman got the key no good would come of it. He winced in anticipation of what the monk might say. "I will tell you… nothing." With his final word a grim look of determination replaced the wheezing gasps and the witch pulled at her hair in frustration.
"I bet this is fun for you isn't it," she said. It was almost scary how her voice showed no emotion, but as she continued the desperation again crept into her voice. "Say it. You like to torture me. Why? You don't even own the damn thing. And I want it and I need it and I've got to have it now and you keep refusing to tell me where the key is!"
She started pacing frantically and Harry could hear her choking down her sobs as she completely lost her composure, spewing words that barely made complete sentences, nonetheless any type of normal sense. "And it's typical… it's typical… it's typical. The whole mortal meat sack comes complete with stink and bile, sweat and protein. Yes, I said humans. Not now mommy's talking. Wriggling, piling, crawling, clowning, cavorting, doing it over and over and over and over until someone's gonna sit down on their tuffet and make this birthing stop!" Her last word bled into a scream of anger and suddenly the woman disappeared in a crush of white light.
"What was that!" Harry said, more to himself than anyone else. The monk answered.
"She," the monk said while pulling himself to his feet, "cannot be named." He gave Harry an appraising look and continued. "Thank you Harry Potter. I knew you were the right choice."
"How do you know my name," Harry asked before he could stop himself. It was obvious how the man knew his name. Everybody in the wizarding world knew him.
"I know more than that about you," the man responded, "You have a sister, do you not?" Without waiting for Harry's reply the man continued. "Protect her. She is more important than you to the coming battle." And leaving that cryptic statement as their only farewell the monk disapparated and Harry slowly walked his way up to the castle.
The woman in the red robes and the monk are owned by Joss Whedon and some of the witch's dialogue isquoted from the BTVSepisode "Out of My Mind."