IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE REGARDING HALF-BLOOD PRINCE: Alright, because I started this before HPB was published, I have to tell you what I'm keeping. I AM NOT KEEPING: Draco/Snape turning bad, Dumbledore dying, and . . . well . . . that's about it. If I think up anything else, I'll let you know.

Chapter Fourteen: Professor Every

The clock on the mantle above the fireplace chimed ten thirty. Four people were still in the Gryffindor common room. Two of there were concerned friends.

Harry and Ron had long ago abandoned their game of wizard's chess and were now staring at each other. One of Hermione's annoying traits was her tendency to be on time. 'On time' (even with Hermione's need to obsessive-compulsively search everywhere during her rounds) had passed a half-hour earlier.

"Where the bloody hell is she?" finally asked Ron, breaking the icy silence. Neither mentioned it aloud, but they were remembering clearly the incident with the snake over the summer. Voldemort was ruthless in his efficiency. Even Hogwarts wasn't safe.

After an unseemly pause Harry said lamely, "I'm sure that Hermione has a reason for being late." Bullshit, retorted the little voice in the back of his head. Harry and Ron both knew that it was bullshit, but they needed reassurance.

Hermione's face frozen in surprise as the snake sank its fangs into her ankles.

Her eyes rolling as the venom steadily pulsed through her system.

The awful silence of St. Mungo's.

Waiting. Waiting.

Shut it, he told himself.

To keep his mind away from coming up with other creative injuries that Hermione could be receiving right them, he whirled around with a huff of annoyance and stalked to the windowsill. To his surprise, the grounds were obscured by whirling white winds.

He blinked.

"Bloody hell!" he shouted, backing away from the window as if it had the plague. The two sixth year boys conversing in the corner looked up, but seeing that the culprit who had interrupted their plans was just the delusional Boy-Who-Lived, they returned to the sheet of parchment spread on the floor in front of them. Ron appeared at his side, and his eye widened.

The youngest Weasley boy whistled through his teeth at the sight. "Is that snow? In September?" Harry didn't reply, and instead cranked open the window, thrusting his hand out into the blizzard. Ron bit back a shout, and watch the thick white flakes gather in his best friend's palm. They were large enough that he could distinguish patterns.

A teeth-chattering wind swept into the common room, bringing with it what looked like the contents of a Fluffy-sized feather pillow. Disgruntled, the sixth years packed up their parchment and huffed up the stairs to the boys dormitory, grumbling.

Harry stuck his head out the window, feeling the flakes brush against his skin and gather on the bridge of his glasses. Gooseflesh began to rise on the back of his neck as snow tangled in his hair. From what he could see of it (which wasn't much), the Forbidden Forest was indistinguishable from the rest of the grounds. The lake wasn't even visible, probably frozen under at least a foot of snow.

When he pulled his head back in, Ron had gotten rid of the snow, and was staring in wonder. "It's snow," confirmed Harry, shaking his head. He pulled off his glasses to sweep his finger across the bridge between the lenses. Ron pulled the window shut, and in unison they turned their eyes to the grounds.

"Hey," declared Ron, with dawning comprehension in his eyes. "I think Hermione's rounds near the quidditch pitch. D'you think she got caught in this, had to get shelter?" Harry shrugged.

"I'm not even sure when this started. It's coming down so thick it's hard to tell. The map would say," he decided.

"The map!" repeated Ron. "Why didn't we–"

"Shh!"

"–think of the ruddy map?"

Instead of answering, Harry took the stairs two at a time to the seventh year boys dormitory at the top of the tower. There he quietly unpacked his trunk, so as not to wake Neville, Seamus or Dean, and drew the old piece of black parchment from its place between some wrinkled blue jeans and the homework planner from Hermione, which he had never gotten around to throwing away.

He returned to the common room, and sat in front of the fire. He tapped the parchment with his wand, muttered, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good" and lay it out. Spidery writing flooded the parchment, and when Ron settled next to him, the Marauder's Map was in its full form.

They each took a half and began to search frantically. It was Ron who finally found her dot. It was right next to the one labeled 'Oliver Wood', right before the broom shed. Harry and Ron exchanged looks.

"Wood?" they asked each other.

"You don't think," began Ron, but Harry cut him off.

"Why would they be in front of the broom shed, not in it? Something's off." He resolutely ignored Ron's implied message.

Still ignoring Ron's raised eyebrows, he drew his Invisibility Cloak from his bag on the couch. Ron folded up the map to show their path, and they slipped under. Quickly, they rushed down the corridors to the Entrance Hall, only a glance needed to tell them that no one was near.

The front door was locked and bolted, but some quick wandwork and a handy spell Bill had taught them over the summer had it swinging open into the blizzard. Harry spared barely a glance to Hogsmeade, which seemed to be unharmed, and then they closed the doors behind them.

With combined effort, Harry and Ron blasted a path through the deep drift in the general direction of the quidditch field. When they were within a few feet, they saw Hermione and Oliver, luckily not fully frozen, sitting in what Harry guessed to be almost three centimeters of solid ice. They dropped the Invisibility Cloak, rushing forward. He ignored Oliver, and pulled his sister out of the ice.

Harry could tell that she was feebly trying to raise up herself, and he stuffed his wand in his back pocket to pull her up. Panicked thoughts were racing through his mind, and he swept her up into his arms. He left Ron behind with Oliver, and rushed towards the boys locker room.

Oh god, what have I done?

What's wrong with her?

Why didn't we think of the map beforehand?

Will she be okay? Please, please, be okay.

Be okay, Hermione. Don't die.

The door was locked, but the latch exploded into splinters as he came closer. Without conscious thought he moved through the benches, hitting lockers to keep his balance, and stopped when he reached the showers.

There he dropped his sister onto the tiled floors, and tugged her cloak from her. She was shivering, teeth chattering. All the same, she was rubbing her heart to keep the blood flowing. Hermione, reliable to the end. Harry turned on the showers full blast, a warm temperature that wouldn't shock her system, but would hopefully melt the snow and ice away.

Known that Harry didn't want to speak, Ron silently followed his exact movements with the huddled form of Oliver Wood. The flying professor seemed worse off, seeing as most of his cloak was wrapped around Hermione, but he was alive.

They dropped the frozen clothing in the dirty laundry shoot, and then sat down to worry. Hermione seemed to be coming back to herself at a faster rate than the professor, though her teeth were knocking together hard enough to chip.

Her eyes were closed.

She rested her left cheek on her knees and slowly opened her eyes. A black form was surrounded by an aura of smoke. It took her normally logical brain a moment to translate the smoke into steam, and the black form into Oliver.

Slowly, achingly, she turned her head so her right cheek rested on her knees, and there she saw Harry and Ron, watching her with restless eyes, concern scrawled over their faces. Her frozen features cracked into a smile.

"Get up to the castle and get Madame Pomfrey," whispered Harry to Ron out of the corner of his mouth. "And Professor McGonagall." Hermione could hear his words through the hissing of the steam. It took her a moment, long enough that Ron was already halfway out the door, to find the proper words and her voice, but then she was saying: "No."

"No!" It was a whisper, but it echoed around the locker rooms.

Darkness.

"I . . . don't . . . need . . . a . . . nurse."

"You were stuck in the snow for how long? You're getting a ruddy check-up!" snapped Harry, concern making his irritable. Hermione shook her head slowly.

"All she . . . can do . . . is give me . . . a Pepper-Up . . . potion. Nothing . . . sleep . . . can't fix." Oliver turned his head from staring at his knees to staring at Hermione, who was continuously surprising him.

"You don't know that! Dammit, Hermione! Get the check-up! If I have to stun you, you're getting there!" hissed Harry.

"No."

What Harry didn't know was that Hermione was beginning to develop a phobia of hospitals. Seldom a year at Hogwarts went by when she wasn't clutching Harry's cold hand after a disastrous quidditch match, or there herself, getting healed for various serious injuries. The stint during the summer had convinced her.

No more hospitals.

Harry and Ron had known Hermione long enough to realize that she was in one of her stubborn phases. Nothing would take her out of it, so they sat there for another ten minutes, as Hermione and Oliver came out of their frozen comas.

As though to further convince Harry and Ron of her good health, Hermione chattered incessantly about trivial things, mostly asking about what she had missed during Potions, and how badly she would be penalized.

Oliver sat silently, watching her. His eyelashes were frozen with ice, and when he looked at Hermione, she was framed by a silver circle.

Finally, Hermione had stood up under the shower, and turned hers off. Oliver slowly took to his feet. Both automatically reached for their wands, Hermione to her pocket and Oliver to his arm strap. They stopped in unison. "Wands," they both said.

Harry and Ron, who were sullenly watching Hermione for any sign of weakness, were quickly informed of Oliver and Hermione's dilemma. Ron was dispatched to fetch their wands from the broom shed, and Hermione helped Harry turn his wand into an impromptu hair-drier to dry her soaking clothes. After a while, she gave up, and Harry pulled some old sweats for her and Oliver to change into.

Appearing from around the corner, drowned in scarlet and gold pants and jacket (the latter which was unzipped far enough to show the top of a loose tank Harry had found), she looked fragile, and with her sodden hair air drying into a frizzy mess, she looked like, well, a mess. Oliver's inbred hero complex began to urge him to save her. From what, he didn't know.

Harry, the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Save-People, however, saw a friend and sister who looked like she needed seven good-night-sleeps and a Pepper-Up Potion. As he opened his mouth to ask her again if she didn't want to see Madame Pomfrey, Oliver spoke.

"Because I'm a professor, I'm bound to tell Headmaster Dumbledore about what's happened," he said quietly. Harry's jaw, which had already been open, snapped shut.

"Do you have to?" asked Hermione, purposely leaving off his title. The Scotsman, however, gave a wry half-smile that made Hermione's insides squirm with an unknown feeling.

He sighed. "Unfortunately, yes. And Harry's right, you should go in for a check-up." At the sight of her face, he quickly added. "Most likely you'll be called in for one by an irate Madame Pomfrey. And we all know how loose she is with sharp objects when she's irate." Hermione smiled, and so did Oliver. For a moment, they forgot that they were in a locker room, and Hermione took a half step towards him. This was Moment, when their eyes locked, something clicked, and two and two came together to –

"I suppose you won't take points off for us being out past curfew, will you, professor?" asked Harry hopefully, shattering the wall of privacy they had created. Hermione's head jerked, and Oliver thought seriously about telling Harry exactly where he could put his points.

"It's coming down even faster now. I had to make a new path," announced Ron, banging open the door, shaking snow out of his hair and brushing off his shoulders. Ignoring the tension in a very Ron-ish way, he held out the two wands. Oliver took both, and when he handed Hermione hers, their fingertips brushed.

"We'd better go," said Harry, suspicion laced through his voice. Oliver mentally shook off the cobwebs, and smiled a brilliant grin that was a very good copy of a real smile. Hermione knew, though – she knew that the quick grin was hardly his best.

"Oh, fifty points each to you and Ron, for saving my life and Hermione's," added Oliver.

Surprisingly, Hermione never got that check-up notice. For the next two meals, when she looked up to the Head table, Oliver, Dumbledore and McGonagall were all watching her, but a note from Madame Pomfrey never came.

Also surprisingly, Snape didn't give her detention for missing his class. He certainly had enough time – she made it to meals before him and she passed him in the hall numerous times – but he always seemed a bit off, a bit distracted.

For the next three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, she could feel something on the edge of her mind knock repeatedly against her skull. Remember, remember, remember. There was something she was forgetting, something that was so very important, if she could just remember what it was.

By Monday, the feeling was a throb against her right eye. It didn't diminish the quality of her homework or class work, but it annoyed her to no end. During lunch, she pushed it forcefully away, and threw herself into the cheerful gossiping of Harry and Ron.

After lunch, they had DADA with the mysterious Professor Every. Over chicken wings and celery sticks, they swapped the numerous tales that had been spreading like wildfire. Harry and Ron had previously come to the conclusion that she was a vampire, and were trying to convince Hermione.

"That's the only reasonable explanation," said Ron around a mouthful of chicken. Hermione snorted, carefully chewing on her celery stick before deeming to reply. When she did so, she waved the half-eaten stick for emphasis.

"Hardly," she sniffed. "She couldn't be a vampire if she had her first year class down by the lake, now could she?"

"Well, regardless," huffed Ron. He didn't bother finishing his sentence, however, as he had just noticed the platter of raspberry tarts next to Hermione, and was happily filling his plate with the sticky treats.

Any possible out-of-doors classes were, for now, out of the question. The bad weather that had begun on the first day had just increased. Friday night, Dumbledore had said that the new wards were causing a weather phenomena that, as of yet, had no cure.

Saturday morning they had been forced to trudge through the thick snow to the greenhouses, the seventh years bundled in scarves, coats, gloves and hats, and now all Herbology classes had been temporarily suspended as the professors reputedly fought to hold back the snow.

Ron was still stuffing desserts as the other seventh year students packed their bags quickly, and exited the Great Hall. He and Harry chatted (once Ron had finished inhaling raspberry tarts and cleaned off the spot of jam that Hermione pointed out on his chin) about quidditch practices. Hermione hung behind, chewing her bottom lip and tried in vain to fight the gnawing feeling that she had forgotten something.

The door to the DADA classroom was fully open, and all the window blinds were raised. Hermione triumphantly shot Ron a raised eyebrow, which he pointedly ignored. From the doorway she could see Professor Every sitting behind her desk with her strange angled hair, in butterbeer-brown robes, shuffling through her lesson planner.

Unwilling to be the first, the students milled in the doorway. Without raising her head or pausing in her shuffling, Professor Every said, "Come in, come in. Choose your seats. Be warned, however, that if I do not like it I will change it." Harry, Ron and Hermione chose the center table in the front row. Immediately, Hermione took out her parchment and quill. The professor stood after a while, dropping the planner carelessly on her desk.

"My name, as you most likely already know, is Vallorie Every." She gave a wry smile. "Contrary to popular belief, I am not a vampire." There were titters. "Nor am I any other creature, dark or otherwise. So the rumors stop here."

"Those of you that have landed in my NEWT class are most likely pursuing careers are Aurors. Although the administration would prefer if I simply taught you what you would need to get into the Academy, I think in these dark times you would be better served to know about dark magic. At this point, feel free to leave my classroom if you are uncomfortable." No one moved. "All right. I am going to teach, to a certain extent, dark magic." Harry leaned forward, intrigued.

"Ah, I see you are all stunned. Once again, I repeat my offer. No one? Very well, let me explain my reasoning. You are fighting dark magic. It would help a great deal to know what you are fighting.

"Now, understand, I am in no way endorsing the use of the dark arts. But knowing what you're up against will help you. Save your life, in many occasions. Thus, I have not put a text on your booklist. We'll be doing this verbally. I did ask you to bring self-writing quills, because your notes will become your text of sorts. Please take out a sheet of parchment and quills." Harry and Ron slowly unpacked as Hermione rearranged hers.

"Stand up please. Everyone," said Professor Every. The class took to its feet. "Put your wands on the table. Not touching. I don't want you casting it, not yet. The first spell I'll teach you is simple. At least, compared to the others you'll learn. Malumos. Repeat. Malumos."

"Malemos," stumbled Ron.

"Malumos," corrected Hermione.

"Male–" said Ron, and Hermione pressed her hands against his cheeks, forcing his mouth into the shape to pronounce 'u'. "–mos," he finished. Although her hands felt warm where she had touched him, the euphoria felt brittle.

"Malumos," whispered Harry. The hair on the back of his neck tickled, and he could feel something slithering across his back.

Voldemort.

He gave a short shudder, and returned to the present. Professor Every was speaking, and his quill was jotting notes quickly.

"It means dark light," translated the professor. "It performs a watered-down effect of the Dementor. The curse surrounds it's victim with cloud of black light, and deflects any good feelings or positive thoughts. Takes away hope." His quill continued furiously.

Waving her wand, Professor Every produced a cage of small rats. "Mr. Filch has kindly caught these fellows for our practice." A rat twittered, and Harry's mind saw Peter Pettigrew's once-rotund face contorted in pain as he sliced his flesh for Voldemort's revival.

"Harry?" Hermione's face was close, and he noticed, detached, that her eyes were strangely gold around the edges, and green towards the middle. Her eyelashes fluttered a little. "Harry!" She shook him, and Harry blinked.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I went out for a moment. The rat reminded me of Pettigrew." Hermione's mouth opened into a little 'O'.

"Mr. Potter, please come and fetch your rat," came the voice of Professor Every. Still off, he wandered off, and picked up the animal by it's tail. When he returned Hermione was already tapping hers resolutely.

"Don't worry Harry. I heard they use badgers in the Academy," consoled Hermione. Then she froze. "Badgers," she whispered.

I remember!

Within five minutes, she and Harry were the only ones who had successfully forced depression upon their rats. "What are you doing?" hissed Ron under his breath.

"Think of the rat as Umbridge," whispered back Harry. The next moment, Ron's rat was enveloped in a cloud of blue smoke, and when it cleared, a small black turtle was lying in its place, motionless.

"I killed it!" whispered Ron sorrowfully. Snorting, Hermione tapped it with her wand, and seconds later a grey rat was sitting, twitching its nose in a rat-esque way. "Thanks a ton, Hermione. I didn't mean to do that." Hermione smiled at him.

After she had returned her rat, she packed her things and sat, chewing her nails and thinking furiously. The last twenty minutes of class she pulled out her scribbled copy of the Sorting Song, and transferred it to a larger piece of paper. Then she added notes, scratching out and writing in cramped handwriting that betrayed her haste.

When the bell rang, she pulled Harry and Ron after her into the corridor. Her hands grabbing each of theirs, she dragged them to a secreted niche around the corner.

"Silencio," said Hermione, waving her wand to form a barrier around them. "I found it! The next Horcrux! I know where it is!"

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Who is the evil person who loves cliffies?

MEEEEEE!

Sorry. WAY too much kettle corn. Also, tomorrow is my last day of midterms. YES. SO . . . CLOSE . . .

Just review, please. Make this weekend even better.