A/n: I know, I know. I took so so so long for me to update, and for that I apologize profusely. I am working hard, now that I'm on holidays (how does that work?) to update my fics as much as possible. So do not abandon me! I'm hurrying, I promise! And besides, I think this is a particularly long chapter, so please enjoy.Anyways, here comes another chapter, and to this, I MUST say, the plot thickens.....

Chapter 3

As expected, the Gryffindors partied well into the night. Someone had enchanted a large red and gold banner that read, "GO GO GRYFFINDOR" to continually spit out red and gold sparkles all night. People were trying to fish glitter from their punch the entire night.

The Snitch had been left to fly around the Common Room, with the occasional person trying to snatch it up.

"You were brilliant!" Sirius said, for the least the 50th time in five minutes.

Remus laughed. "He knows! You've said it at least a hundred times!"

Sirius shrugged and ruffled James' hair, knocking gathered sparkles here and there. "Well, he was!"

"It was the clover! I told you it was for good luck!" Peter squeaked.

"Ya... that's it." James said, trying to humour him. "The clover...."

Sirius, Remus and James held back their laughter.

"I'll be back. I need some more punch." Peter said suddenly, and fairly skipped off to the punch bowl.

The other 3 burst out laughing. All the giddiness of the victory, combined with the way James had answered Peter was just too much.

Finally, at about two o'clock in the morning, the party had fizzled out enough that James figuered he could also go to bed.

"G'night mate." James yawned and patted Sirius' shoulder.

"Night." said Sirius, the last of the four, it seemed, who would go to bed. Peter had left first, mumbling something about going to get a surprise for James before the morning came. Then Remus went next, his eyes drooping and commenting on how he hoped he did well on that test he was going to have on Monday. Now James was heading to bed, yawning the whole way. There was a handful of people left in the Common Room, all seeming to be rather wide awake considering the hour, and all very much willing to pull an all-nighter.

"I'll be here when you wake up!" Sirius grinned.

"You're goin' for it then?" James asked, not believing his friend would actually go all night with out sleeping.

"You bet!"

James shook his head, rolled his eyes and headed up the stairs. "Have fun!" he called over his shoulder.

"Oh, I will!" came the reply.

When James reached the dormitory, he was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. His feet and eyelids were heavy and he dragged himself into bed, not even bothering to change into his pajamas.

He briefly wondered where Peter was, because his bed hangings were open and there was nobody under the covers. But the thought was gone from his mind as fast as it had come.

He closed his eyes, sighed with content, and fell fast asleep.

Professor McGonagall was patrolling the Entrance Hall, among other areas of the school, looking for students out of bed. She kept a particular eye out for Potter and Black - they were especially known for being out of bed late into the night. They were harder to spot if they were under Potter's invisibility cloak, but Minerva had caught them twice before while they were under it, and she was sure she could do it again if need be.

She heard quiet footsteps down the hall to her right, and quickly hurried over to find out who the culprit was.

"Minerva?" Professor Dumbledore turned the corner, thus revealing he was the person who had made the footsteps.

Minerva McGonagall let out her breath. "Yes, Albus?"

"I wonder, have you seen the weather rather recently?" He asked. "As in, tonight?"

Confused by why he was asking, Minerva slowly shook her head. "No.... should I have?"

"Curious. Very curious..." he said and beckoned for her to follow him. Dumbledore opened the great oak doors in the Entrance Hall and the two Professors stepped out into the night air.

Minerva was shocked by how cold it was. And windy! She threw a hand over her head just in time to catch her hat as the wind took a mighty swipe at it.

Dumbledore's beard was being swished all around him, as were his robes, yet he made no effort to stop them from washing over his face momentarily, or tangling around his belt.

Minerva clutched the side of her skirt tightly, frightened at the feeling that it was going to blow upwards. "My goodness! Are we having some sort of hurricane?!" she called over the loud wind whipping through the trees.

Albus Dumbledore shook his head and slowly pointed to the sky, just as it flashed unnaturally blue.

The sky looked like what a night sky should look like, with the bright stars blinking and twinkling, except that there was a monstrous black storm cloud rumbling slowly towards the school. It appeared like blue bolts of electricity were snapping and crackling around the huge dark cloud. The cloud was making the buzzing sound of high voltage electricity, but at the same time, it growled like a mild thunderstorm, and was even strangely muted.

"What is that!?" Minerva said, unsure of what the foreboding cloud meant.

Dumbledore stared at the cloud, watching its sluggish approach. "I fear...." he started then was quiet.

The wind calmed slightly.

"Fear what, Albus?"

Dumbledore stood still like a statue, not blinking, not responding, his eyes fixed on the cloud. He suddenly took his eyes away from the cloud, blinked several times and shook his head. "Nothing, nothing." he mumbled. "Never mind. Silly thought. Couldn't happen...." he turned and said one last thing before abruptly heading back inside, "....have to keep an eye on things....."

Minerva found Dumbledore's behaviour to be very odd, and she didn't care if he thought his idea of the meaning or identity of the cloud was silly, she still wanted to hear it. Anything he could come up with would surely be infinitely better than whatever she could think of it.

She supposed this was not the time to ask, pester or persist, so she made no comment and solemnly followed him inside.

As soon as the doors shut behind the pair, the wind picked up to full force again, and the sounds of the strange black cloud seemed somehow magnified. Slowly, the frightening phenomenon moved closer to Hogwarts.

Sirius shot bolt upright in the Common Room chair. He didn't remember what he'd been creaming about, but some sort of loud noise had woken him up. He looked around, saw nothing out of order, and his heart rate began to slow. Must've been part of his dream...

He yawned almost immediately. The glittering banner was sputtering, and only dribbled sparkles every few seconds. His hair was thick with the glitter as he stood, and they fell everywhere. He shook his head, grinning, watching them settle on the chair.

"So much for the all-nighter." he mumbled aloud, and saw the handful of earlier go-getters all snoring or sleeping, on the floor, on the couch, or draped over some chair.

He had a kink in his back and decided to go up to bed. As he did so, he noticed the clock on the wall told him the time was about four-thirty in the morning. As he trudged up the dorm steps, he stopped as the heart-stopping loud noise sounded again. It wasn't a dream that time. He'd really heard it, and it was really loud. How was it that no one else was awake?

He hurried up the steps into the dorm. Was it thunder? But he heard no rain....

The dormitory was washed in brilliant blue light when he arrived, and it was not the type of light that the moon would give off. He walked past James' bed - noting by the noises he made that was very much still asleep - to the window, where the site outside thoroughly confused him.

A massive black cloud was hovering over the Forbidden Forest. Long, crackling bolts of blue lightning or electricity were snapping around it. The bolts slowly began to reach down the Forest tops and intertwine beneath the cloud, forming a tornado like structure. The bolts suddenly began to spin faster and faster, until they really were a blue-white tornado underneath the cloud.

Wind whistled sharply all around the castle, rattling the windows and pulling leaves and twigs into the air. Another smash of thunder-like noise sounded and Sirius nearly jumped out of his skin. How was no on hearing this!?

The electric blue tornado began to widen, and now small trees could be seen flying up from the Forest floor to get sucked into the spinning blots. There was a deafening crack of thunder, this one much louder than the rest. Sirius clapped his hands over his ears, but it still hurt.

"Wretched thunderstorms...." someone mumbled.

There were a few other grunts and groans and it was apparent others had been woken by the most recent noise. Sirius wanted to say something to alert them to what was going on, but his tongue wasn't functioning.

Now the swirling bolts seemed frozen. The leaves, small trees, twigs and such suddenly dropped to the ground from mid-air. Out of the top of the storm cloud, and travelling down inside the frozen tube of electricity was a blinding ball of white light. It was so intensely bright that Sirius had to look away.

More groans from the others.

"Turn off the light, you git...." someone said, and the sound of pillows being pulled over one's eyes and ears was made from several beds.

The bright white ball reached the ground somewhere in the Forest and abruptly went out. There was a third crack of thunder, this one significantly quieter than the last. The bolts sped up again, this time in the reverse way they had before. The small trees and things that had been sucked into the tunnel cloud before, were now being blown away from the spiral of lightning. The tornado receded back up into the cloud. The cloud began to crackle with the blue electricity again, and suddenly began to rapidly shrink until Sirius could barely see it. When it was no more than a black and blue pin-prick of substance against the sky, there was a loud "pop", and the now little cloud exploded magnificently like a huge blue firework. The bits of sparkles rained down on the Forest below.

"What was that?" James moaned.

"Thunderstorm." Remus answered sleepily. "Go back to sleep."

Sirius couldn't his eyes away from the Forest, or he would've answered. He opened his mouth to protest and explain what he'd seen when he saw something emerge from the Forest. It looked like a hooded figure, walking slowly but yet with purpose. The figure stopped, twitched its head from side to side.

Sirius' mouth hung open and he blinked - the figure was gone.

He gripped the windowsill, his mouth still open. What was going on?!

"James..." he said shakily. No answer. "James!" he said louder, but he didn't want to wake anyone else. Still no answer.

"Remus!" he hissed, not taking his eyes away from the spot where the figure had disappeared, hoping to catch another glimpse or clue to help him figure out what had just happened. Also, no answer. "Remus!!"

He heard renewed snores, and knew his friends were back in dreamland. Should he wake them now, or wait 'till morning?

He could feel fatigue nagging at him to climb into bed, and his adrenaline was beginning to subside. Sirius very unwillingly turned away from the window and climbed into bed. For several minutes he could think of nothing but what he had just saw.

He stared at the top of his bed canopy, his bed hangings shut. What did it mean? What was it? What, exactly, just happened? Who was the figure? Was it good, or bad?

Finally, as the sun began to creep over the horizon, sleep managed to take over. Sirius' sleep was very unrestful, however, and his thoughts and dreams were plagued with electric blue tornadoes and disappearing hooded figures.

A/n: So? So? What do ya think? Drop me a line! Review! (just no swearing, please!) By the way, excuse the typos, b/c its late and I'm just trying to get this up (lol). Oh, check out my bio frequently so you know what's goin on with me and my fics! ;)