AN: This chapter gets to rambling a bit. I swear to god that it won't happen again. Also, there is an innacuracy, and this is a weak and not-so-good chapter. I'm sorry... I think it starts off strong and ends weakly. I wouldn't mind your reviews with suggestions to writing, I'm really trying to learn here. Also, I think the next chapter is about forty times better than this one, so you should just give it another shot... it's really only two chapters. I apologize about the innacuracy to Rowling's story, but don't worry, it won't happen again.

Standing in the dark alley, she lifted her wand. An eerie glow passed about the alley, and another hooded figure walked up the alley.

"Put away that stick, fool."

The woman whispered something and the eerie glow waned into non-existence.

"I didn't come here to chat." The woman said.

"Perhaps you are looking for this?" The hooded man held up a photograph. "Yes… it did belong to Gryffindor. But, to get it, you must first find a way into Hogwarts and then break into Dumbledore's office, and perform the charm. All without Dumbledore noticing or interfering, no small task."

"Dumbledore's dead." The woman said simply. "Snape killed him."

"Snape? I knew he was a fool. I shouldn't have let him… well, what's in the past is in the past, and we've no way to alter it. Perhaps it is for the best, after all, your task has become much easier."

"Do you intend to tell the master?"

"No. The less he knows, the better. His temper has been poor, lately, with the untimely death of Sirius."

"I thought our master hated Sirius."

"Disliked him, yes. Sirius' style was always against our master's, Sirius was very, flashy. But our master loved Sirius, as one would love a brother. And Sirius was a powerful pawn, though still only a pawn."

"I am glad I am no pawn, that our master sees fit to give me important assignments. Be good to our master, Thomas. Keep him well."

The woman left with a swish of her cloak.

"I will, pawn."

The quaffle was easily blocked by Ronald Weasly.

"What do you do again?"

Charley Weasly had come home for a week's vacation, and brough one John O'Sullivan with him. John was a close friend of Charley's, who had played a bit of quidditch at Hogwarts with Charley on the old Gryffindor dream teams. John had been an okay chaser, by far the worst player on the team.

"Magical research. Personally, I'm working on a potion that makes the human body resistant to fire. Charley's group has agreed to participate in field testing of the potion. So far it's going pretty well, but we need to make the effect more long-lasting. Right now it needs to be taken ever twenty minutes." John had the quaffle stolen by Ginny.

"Working on anything else?" Ron asked, as he missed a save against Ginny.

"Yeah, a divination potion. It would be used to discern the location of someone or maybe even some thing."

"How would that work?" Harry asked.

"Well, you would quaff the potion, obviously, and then you would try to, ask a question of a person's soul. Usually, you'll have trouble because of occlumency and such, but if you asked it something like 'where's this,' we expect the soul, which has no connection to it's current mental housing, would not choose to use legillimacy against you. Plus, it might not even know."

"How's this different from, say, veritaserum?" Ginny had just gotten schooled by Charley.

"Well, veritaserum requires them to take the potion. That's really the only difference. Theoretically, the soul would be less likely to use legillimancy, I guess…" John trailed off, tried to steal the quaffle from Harry, failed, and watched Ron easily block Harry's shot.

"Dinner!" Fleur Delacour called.

The quidditch players flew back to the Burrow.

The moon shone dimly into the third-story window, its kiss falling on a gently snoring lump.

"wake up" something spoke in parseltoungue. "wake up."

The snoring lump sat up in its bed, staring out into its room. "Wh, who's there?" Shakily the lump stuttered.

"Imperio!" something said, moving his wand.

Acting not of its own accord, the lump moved its wand to its head, and withdrew a silvery substance which fell neatly into a waiting vial.

"you have been, most helpful" the parseltoungue whispered again. "Obliviate!"

"Ginny, your O.W.L. results came." Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione had just woken up and headed down to breakfast. "Here you are. And you lot, you all got letters from Hogwarts too."

"We weren't planning on going back." Hermione said. "But thank you anyway."

"Well, now that I've thought about it, it might be best to go back to Hogwarts, at least for a while." Harry said. "There's a couple of loose ends I need to tie up."

"What? But what about…" Ginny smashed her older brother's foot. "That trip to America we'd planned? We'll have to cancel the whole thing!"

"Well, our 'trip' can wait until after seventh year, though I expect I'll be done with my business by the end of winter break." Harry sighed and picked up his letter. "Might as well shop, though. I might learn something usefull this year. Hey, Hermione, later on I want to practice some non-verbal spells, care to help out?"

"Sure."

By this time, Ginny had opened her results.

"Whad'ya get?" Ron asked, attempting to take the paper from her.

"I'm not going to tell you if you're going to be like that." Ginny replied. "Suffice it to say that it was much better than whatever you got."

"Aw… c'mon… tell us!" Harry said, coming over.

"And you" Ginny said menacingly. "If you want to know, it'll cost ya."

Harry reached for his money pouch and was immediately smacked on the back of the head by Hermione.

"You know full well what she meant." Hermione laughed.

"Yeah, well, all I can say is if she doesn't want us to read her results, she'd better start running!" Ron called.

"Like you could catch me!" Ginny laughed, and tore out of the house. Ron followed her at an easy loping trot, not having any difficulty keeping up with his sister.

"Gonna join them?" Hermione asked.

"Actually, no, running's not my bag." Levicorpus Harry thought, and Ron shot in the air. Ginny turned and started laughing at her brother.

"You missed." Hermione noted.

"Right."

"Ah, Mr. Weasly, how may I help you today?" Scrimgeur didn't even look up from the scroll in front of him.

"I need a little help with the Magical Law Enforcement office… there has been a request for a raid on a small wizard shop for some time now, and the enforcement office hasn't made good on their promise." Arthur sighed. "And I need this bill signed into law."

"Zonk's? Certainly they aren't getting into the fake defense item business."

"We've had reports." Arthur shrugged, and then frowned. "And don't think that I'm doing this because Zonko's is my sons' fiercest competitors."

"Far be it from me to assume one of my employees would abuse their power for their family's economic gain." Rufus eyed Arthur. "Now let me see this bill…"

Rufus examined the bill. "Ah, well, I can sign it by the end of the week. Right now I need to run, and I want to discuss this with my advisors."

"Take your time." Arthur smiled as he left.

The clock sounded two in the afternoon.

"Arthur, you've been reading that article for fifteen minutes! We were supposed to leave by three quarters of one!" Mrs. Weasly snatched the article from Mr. Weasly.

Long Lost Wizard Found:
Despite the death of Albus Dumbledore, new Hogwarts Headmistress Professor Minerva McGonnagal has had little trouble locating a Defense teacher for the coming term. Famous Wizard Marcus McCadell, who disappeared before the Dark Lord's attack on Godric Hollow, 16 years ago. "He taught once before at this school under (Albus) Dumbledore, for one year. His defense class was loved by all, and so we decided that bringing him back would be a good idea." Whether or not his skill as a wizard prompted McGonnagal to bring him back as an extra defender of the castle, McGonnagal would not say, as the 60 year old ex-Head Auror was once considered one of the best duelists in the country.

"Who is that guy?"

"I remember him when I joined the Ministry. He preformed a background check on me, and then quit the ministry to teach." Mr. Weasly said.

"McCadell?" Bill asked, levitating his and Fleur's trunks down the stairs. "I had him in my fourth year, I'd credit my curse breaking skills to him if he'd let me. Great guy, played the guitar like a madman. A bit eccentric, not unlike, well…" Bill trailed off as they all remembered Albus Dumbledore.

"Well, at least Minerva isn't having any trouble getting a new Defense teacher. Even Albus had troubles before… you know… but now, with Dumbledore gone, Hogwarts isn't nearly as safe."

"If reports are true about this McCadell guy, it should be nearly as safe." Mr. Weasly said. Even Moody thinks McCadell was the best thing ever to happen to the Auror office."

"We must be going" Mrs. Weasly fussed. "Okay, we're going to apparate there… Ginny, you'll side-along with your father. Hermione? You wouldn't mind side-alonging with me would you? And Harry, Ron, you've both passed your tests, so…"

Five minutes later with a pop, all the witches and wizards of schooling age staying at the burrow (as well as one Arthur and Molly Weasly) were in Diagon Alley, prepared for a shopping spree in which robes, books, and other sundries necessary to life at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry Potter and Ronald Weasly looked over the lists for Seventh and Sixth-year students.

Books:
Defense Against The Dark Arts, N.E.W.T: Darkest Darkness, By Tom Marvolo Riddle Charms, N.E.W.T: Standard Book Of Spells, Grade 7 (6 for ginny)
Ancient Runes, N.E.W.T: Translations: A Study Advanced Herbology, N.E.W.T: 10000 More Magical Herbs and Fungi Potions, N.E.W.T: Advanced Potion Making Transfiguration, N.E.W.T: Switching and Conjuring: A Study

Fortunately, Harry and Ron had all but the Defense book, so they needed to carry very little. As Harry looked over the by line of the Defense book, his brow furled.

"What's wrong, Harry?" Ron asked.

"Tom Riddle is the real name of Voldemort." A small twitch from Ron. "I wonder why an ex-Auror would have us read a book by Voldemort himself?" A shudder from a passing woman who overheard naught but the final two words.

"Hmm…" Ron opened the book. "Look, there's nothing but Dark magic in here… I wonder if McGonnagal knows about this"

Hermione walked down the street with Ginny. "You know, it's really not your fault."

"I know, Hermione, okay? He doesn't want me to get hurt, I understand that. What he doesn't understand is that this hurts me more than anything. He thinks I'm so weak that I can't take care of myself emotionally."

"No, he doesn't. He just doesn't want to take that chance."

"Still… it hurts that he doesn't trust me to know that I want."

"He knows what he wants isn't conducive towards relationships. Be happy that he let you go. It means he truly cares."

Over the next few days, the weather became increasingly cloudy until the sun rose, and all thought it was night.
"Time to get to the train!" Molly Weasly had a way of screaming at her kids that allowed them to quickly out of their beds and their hands on their ears.

Hermione watched Harry dash to put his stuff in his trunk for about five minutes before handing him his wand, and leaving one word, "Pack."

Harry, in is infamous insanity, attempted to use the spell to a modicum of success, and all of his things were packed in about five seconds.

Ron on the other hand, had attempted the same charm with an oddly different result: as opposed to things flying into his trunk, they flew out. The result of this was several pieces of used parchment, rotting food, and all sorts of inkpots, books, and clothes came flying out about the room. In what must be considered a stroke of pure genius from Ronald Weasly, he decided that since saying 'pack' did the opposite of what he expected it to, saying 'kcap' would get things INTO his trunk. Strangely enough, it worked. Though whether this was due to his genius or Hermione saying 'pack' and moving a small stick of wood at the same time is up for some speculation.

Harry levitated both his and Ginny's trunks down the stairs, while Ronald floated his trunk down the stairs. Hermione's trunk was levitated by Arthur, because in the words of Hermione herself, "Ron needs to keep more concentration on his trunk than he has…"

The practical upshot of this was that both of the girls whom our main male characters have fallen in love with had their bags carried for them by a male, at least closely related to their particular choice in boyfriend.

As the Weasly family neared Kings Cross, they began to notice that their clock read 10:00 am, but there was no light out. Shrugging, Mr. Weasly drove on.

Unbeknownst to them, a shadowy figure cast a simple spell onto their car, and went to cross the street.

Unfortunately for this person, the moment he decided to cross the street coincided with an eighteen-wheeler with damaged headlights making an attempt to get to the repair shop without maiming or killing anyone. Needless to say, the poor driver failed in his last mission as a truck driver, as he was fired the next day.

As the weasly family entered the station, they noticed many muggles speaking in hurried voices about the new darkness, and what it meant. Ignoring the foolish people without wands, the Weasly family crossed the barrier, and two thirds of the convoy boarded a train headed for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

AN: if you want to find out WHICH two thirds of the convoy… stick around, that's in the next chapter ; )

Which you should do anyway, because it is much better than this one.