a/n: (stops flailing a light saber around long enough to say hi to readers)…HI!...(goes back to messing around with light saber)

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter any more than I own the light saber used in the above author's note. Where'd I get it from, you ask? (fidgets) Erm—Yoda lent it to me…Don't stare at me like that! He really did!...Okay okay, fine—but I won't say I stole it! I—er—borrowed it without permission! And NO, I did NOT steal that line from Jack Sparrow! Tuh! (stalks off, perturbed by readers lack of trust in her)

Chapter 25: Siriusly Screwing Up

Claire blinked, screwing up her face in a lame attempt to focus her vision. Her feathery companion looked nothing short of livid.

"Ugh…Not now, Aquinas…" she mumbled, letting her head flop down on the pillows once more.

"Not now? NOT NOW!" Aquinas exploded, grabbing the front of her robes with his talons and shaking her head violently. "YOU BETTER BELIEVE WE'RE GOING TO HAVE THIS CONVERSATION NOW!"

"OW! Aquinas, for the love of—let go of me!" Claire fired back, trying to grab the little feather ball. "You have no idea how bad a headache I have—"

"Oh, she has a headache," said Aquinas in mock sympathy as Claire reached over to light her lamp. "Let me just stop explaining how she basically KILLED US ALL so she can rest because she has a headache—I mean—do you have any idea what you've just done! ANY IDEA AT ALL!"

Claire stared at him, reaching up a hand to steady herself. The world would not stop spinning and she still felt extremely weak. Aquinas lightened up slightly upon seeing the state she was in.

"Here, sit back," he instructed her, grabbing her robes by the shoulder to steady her as she leaned back against her headboard. "You look terrible."

"Thanks, Quin," she said sarcastically, trying to breathe normally again.

Claire sat there for a minute until her head cleared somewhat, and then looked up to see Aquinas flipping through the pages in her Prisoner of Azkaban book.

"What are you doing?" Claire asked, confused.

"What am I doing? What am I doing?" Aquinas muttered to himself. "You are so thick. You don't even realize what you've just done…"

"Quin, I didn't do anything—"

"Tuh! That's a good one!"

"Aquinas, the dementors…I can hear things when they get near me," Claire blurted out suddenly, hoping that Aquinas would be able to explain what the voices meant. "Terrible things, Quin!...Two people, screaming…I think one of them is me—but Aquinas, none of those things the voices are saying have happened! It's not a memory at all! Do you—do you think it's possible I could be hearing something that's going to happen? In the future?"

"I don't know," Aquinas said, turning pages. "We have no way of knowing what the future holds any more, so if that is what you're hearing that might be helpful."

"No way of knowing…But Aquinas, what about the books!" Claire said, trying to sit up but having to lean back again quickly. The room was still spinning.

"See for yourself," Aquinas said, turning the book around and pointing down at the page.

Claire picked it up and brought it to her eyes with trembling hands.

Harry had to admit, though he did fine, he would have felt a lot better about the lesson if he had at least managed to conjure something, anything, when facing the dementor. Even something as simple as a wisp of smoke.

A rock dropped in Claire's stomach. She tried to swallow, but couldn't.

"You—you mean that…Lupin didn't let Harry try again?" Claire croaked through her unusually dry lips.

"That's precisely what I mean," Aquinas said through narrowed eyes.

"But—but—" The wheels in Claire's brain worked out the rest of the problem quickly. "Then Harry never managed his feeble Patronus!"

"My, you're a bright one, aren't you?" Aquinas said scathingly.

But Claire wasn't listening; she was much busier flipping through the pages, looking for something, anything, to prove that she was wrong.

"Where—where are all the other parts where Lupin is teaching Harry! They go on! Where are the rest of the lessons!" Claire could feel the blood pounding in her ears. "She wrote them, I'm sure she did—"

"Oh, noticed the missing lessons, have you?" Aquinas went on, faking a casual tone. "It gets worse than that, Claire, much worse…"

"Aquinas, I'm going to check the last chapters," Claire said, flipping pages so fast that she gave herself a paper cut. "Ouch!" She cradled her thumb in her hand, but quickly stopped caring about the cut and resumed her page flipping. "Aquinas, do me a favor and dig out the fourth and fifth books for me while I check—"

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Aquinas said, putting a wing to his ear as if he couldn't hear properly.

"I said, get the fourth and fifth books out!" Claire repeated. "I need to—…oh my God…"

Claire had just flipped all the way to the end of the book. Only, instead of the chapter title at the top of the page reading "Owl Post Again" it read…

"'The Dementor's Kiss'…" Claire read aloud. "But that's not the last chapter! There's supposed to be two or three more chapters after that one!"

"Two more," Aquinas said, folding his wings under his feathers. "There were two more."

"Were?" Claire asked, looking up. "What do you mean 'were?'?"

Aquinas sighed and pointed to the book.

Claire flicked it open to the last page and read aloud:

"But a pair of strong, clammy hands suddenly attached themselves around Harry's neck. They were forcing his face upward…He could feel its breath…It was going to get rid of him first…He could feel its putrid breath…His mother was screaming in his ears…

She was the last thing he ever heard."

And that was the end of the book.

Claire stared into the darkness silently before she murmured, "There aren't any more books after this one, are there?"

"I'm afraid not," Aquinas answered.

Claire put her head in her hands. Blood from the paper cut on her thumb dripped onto the pages of the now final novel in the Harry Potter series as Claire asked a hallow question to the bedspread.

"What have I done…?"

Claire opened her eyes groggily the next morning to find the dormitory completely deserted. Realizing she was late and glad that she had been to upset last night to even bother changing into her pajamas, she grabbed her bag and pulled her hair hastily into a ponytail as she ran full speed down the Great Hall, hoping she wasn't too late for breakfast.

Only the last minute stragglers were yawning their way through a quick bite of toast in the Hall. Claire threw herself into a seat at the Gryffindors' table. She threw down her bag in the empty seat next to her and was about to seize a piece of toast when she heard something fall out of her bag and onto the floor.

Leaning down to retrieve the item, Claire saw the cover of The Standard Book of Spells: Grade 2 but wasn't fooled by its disguise; she knew it was Prisoner of Azkaban, hidden underneath the cover from prying eyes. Not that it really mattered any more, seeing as there was no future to ruin for Harry and his friends any more…

She picked up the book and hugged it tightly to her chest, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Harry…" she murmured, sobbing in spite of herself.

"For what?"

She looked up. Harry was seating himself next to her, reaching for a piece of bacon.

Claire lost it. She threw her bag over her shoulder and ran from the Hall, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Was it something I said?" Harry said, staring after her and biting heartily into his toast.

The weekend approached without Claire noticing much of her surroundings. She was consumed in her misery, though by the time Saturday rolled around and Slytherin was playing Ravenlcaw in Quidditch, Claire's attitude changed from one of mourning to one of determination. She had brought about this tragedy of early death, surely she could find some way to stop it…

Jumping off of her four-poster and throwing on her cloak, Claire grabbed her third Harry Potter book and ran down the spiral staircase and into the common room. It was completely empty, seeing as everyone was down at the stadium; she had been in such a bad mood before the match that she had refused to go down to the Quidditch pitch with the rest of the girls in her dormitory, preferring instead to sulk about her misfortunes.

The sky was clouded over and Claire's shoes made a dull crunching noise in inch or so of snow that was leftover from the blizzard of Christmas as she made her way across the grounds alone. She clutched her book tightly, hoping against hope that the match would somehow jolt her mind into thinking of some brilliant scheme to saving Harry and Sirius from a fate worse than death.

Not feeling much like sitting with a bunch of her rowdy peers, Claire chose instead to stand against the stone wall at the entrance of the pitch, watching what she could see of the match from a lower view. Ravenclaw and Slytherin were neck-and-neck, each team scoring a goal to come back on top only to be losing again a second later.

She sighed up at the Ravenclaw keeper as a Slytherin beater sent a bludger his direction to give his chaser a clear shot at the middle goalpost, when Claire suddenly felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see an empty space behind her. No one was there.

"Hello?" Claire asked apprehensively.

"I've been looking all over for you," said a voice, sounding rather irritated, to Claire's right. "Just when I head up to the dormitory you've stopped moping about and decided to take some action. How convenient…"

Robin Gregory's head appeared in midair, shaking back her long blonde hair and looking rather satisfied with herself. Claire stared at her blankly.

"What are you talking about?" she asked. Robin's head rolled its eyes.

"You're such a moron," the Robin muttered, taking odd her Invisibility Cloak and draping it over her arm. "Here, this might interest you, Woods…"

She thrust a heavy something into Claire's stomach. Slightly winded, Claire grabbed the object to find that it was a rather thick book…a familiar looking book…

"The Goblet of Fire!" Claire gasped. She gawked up at Robin. "But—but how did you—?"

"—save your ass yet again?" Robin finished for her, smirking bemusedly. "Well, it wasn't easy, Woods, I'll say that much. Man, when you screw up, you really screw up—for the love of Merlin, don't start blubbering again! That show at breakfast yesterday was enough to make me puke, honestly…"

Claire choked back her tears.

"So—so everything's okay?" Claire said, hardly able to believe it. "Harry? Sirius?"

"To some extent, yes," Robin sad, brushing a non-existent bit of dust off of her shoulder, reminding Claire forcibly of Aquinas when he had proved someone wrong.

"Thank God," Claire muttered, sinking to her knees against the stone wall, hugging Goblet of Fire as if it was a life preserver and she'd been thrown out to a raging sea.

"Don't thank anyone just yet, Woods," Robin said seriously, staring off into the Quidditch pitch where Cho Chang was catching the Snitch just as a Slytherin chaser was scoring a winning goal to narrowly win the match. "There's still a lot of work to be done…"

a/n: DUN DUN DAAAAAAAAAaaaa! So! How did Robin "save Claire's ass yet again?" What work to be done is she referring to? And what is Aquinas up to? Has ANYONE noticed yet! C'mon, guys, take a stab at it! I love it when I get guesses in your reviews! This fic is nearing its end—there's only a few more chapters left to make guesses for! So guess away, dear readers, guess away…See you soon with Chapter 26!