Hello there, friends. And welcome to the next chapter. I'll be honest, I've been a bit distracted from this story.

Hope you enjoy now story time.


Claire scrambled to her feet and looked around; they had arrived in the gloomy basement kitchen of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. The only sources of light was the fire. Sirius and Margaret were hurrying towards them all, looking anxious, both wearing dark dress robes.

"What's going on?" Sirius said, stretching out a hand to help Ginny up, "Phineas Nigellus said Arthur's been badly injured..."

"Ask Harry." Fred said.

"Yeah, I want to hear this for myself." George said, the twins and Ginny were staring at Harry.

"It was..." Harry began, "I had a... a kind of vision..."

And he told them all that he had seen, though he altered the story so that it sounded as though he had watched from the sidelines as the snake attacked, rather than from behind the snake's own eyes.

Ron, who was still very white, gave him a fleeting look, but did not speak. When Harry had finished, Fred, George and Ginny continued to stare at him for a moment.

"Is Mum here?" Fred said, turning to Sirius and Margaret.

"She probably doesn't even know what's happened yet." Margaret said, "The important thing was to get you away before Umbridge could interfere. I expect Dumbledore's letting Molly know now."

"We've got to go to St Mungo's." Ginny said urgently, she looked around at her brothers; they were of course still in their pajamas, "Can you lend us cloaks or anything?"

"Hang on." Sirius said, "You can't go tearing off to St Mungo's!"

"Course we can go to St Mungo's if we want!" Fred said, with a mulish expression, "He's our dad!"

"And how are you going to explain how you knew Arthur was attacked before the hospital even let his wife know?" Margaret said, "We don't want to draw attention to the fact that Harry is having visions of things that are happening hundreds of miles away. Have you any idea what the Ministry would make of that information?"

Fred and George looked as though they could not care less what the Ministry made of anything, while Ron was still ashen-faced and silent.

"Somebody else could have told us..." Ginny protested, "We could have heard it somewhere other than Harry."

"Like who?" Sirius said impatiently, "Listen, your dad's been hurt while on duty for the Order and the circumstances are fishy enough without his children knowing about it seconds after it happened, you could seriously damage the Order's..."

"We don't care about the damn Order!" Fred shouted.

"It's our dad dying we're talking about!", George yelled.

"Your father knew what he was getting into and he won't thank you for messing things up for the Order." Margaret said, speaking up before an angry Sirius could respond, "You don't understand yet, your too young to understand, there are things worth dying for. I know it's hard, having to wait and do nothing, but we have all got to act as though we don't know anything yet. We've got to stay put, at least until we hear from your mother, all right?"

Fred and George still looked mutinous. Ginny, however, took a few steps over to the nearest chair and sank into it. Ron made a funny movement somewhere between a nod and a shrug, and they sat down too. The twins glared at Sirius and Margaret for another minute, then took seats either side of Ginny.

"That's right..." Sirius said encouragingly, looking appreciative of his friend, "Come on, let's all have a drink while we're waiting. Accio Butterbeer!" he raised his wand as he spoke and ten bottles came flying towards them out of the pantry, skidded along the table, and stopped neatly in front of the ten of them.

They all drank, and for a while the only sounds were those of the crackling of the kitchen fire and the soft thud of their bottles on the table.

Then a burst of fire in midair illuminated the dirty plates in front of them and, as they gave cries of shock, a scroll of parchment fell with a thud on to the table, accompanied by a single golden phoenix tail feather.

"Fawkes!" Sirius said at once, as Margaret picked up the parchment.

"Tis is not Dumbledore's writing. It must be a message from your mother." she said, handing the letter over to George, who ripped it open and read aloud.

"Dad is still alive. I am setting out for St Mungo's now. Stay where you are. I will send news as soon as I can. Mum."

George looked around the table, "Still alive..." he said slowly, "But that makes it sound..." he did not need to finish the sentence.

It sounded to Claire as though Mr. Weasley was hovering somewhere between life and death. Still exceptionally pale, Ron stared at the back of his mother's letter as though it might speak words of comfort to him. Fred pulled the parchment out of George's hands and read it for himself, then looked up at Harry, who's hands were shaking on his Butterbeer bottle again, he felt the soft smaller hand of Claire holding his, gripping it tightly to stop the trembling.

They mostly sat in silence around the table, watching the candle wick sinking lower and lower into liquid wax, occasionally raising a bottle to their lips, speaking only to check the time, to wonder aloud what was happening, and to reassure each other that if there was bad news, they would know straightaway, for Mrs. Weasley must long since have arrived at St Mungo's.

Fred fell into a doze, his head lolling sideways on to his shoulder. Ginny was curled like a cat on her chair, but her eyes were open; Claire could see them reflecting the firelight. Ron was sitting with his head in his hands, whether awake or asleep it was impossible to tell.

At ten past five in the morning by Ron's watch, the kitchen door swung open and Mrs. Weasley entered the kitchen. She was extremely pale, but when they all turned to look at her, she gave a warm smile.

"He's going to be all right." she said, her voice weak with tiredness, "He's sleeping. We can all go and see him later. Bill's sitting with him now; he's going to take the morning off work."

Fred fell back into his chair with his hands over his face. George and Ginny got up, walked swiftly over to their mother and hugged her. Ron gave a very shaky laugh and downed the rest of his Butterbeer in one.

"Breakfast!", Sirius said loudly and joyfully, jumping to his feet, "Where's that accursed house-elf? Kreacher! KREACHER!"

"Oh, forget it." Margaret said, standing up and counting the people, "So, it's breakfast for eleven... bacon and eggs, I think, and some tea, and toast."

Harry, Claire, Alex and Neville hurried over to the stove to help. None wanted to intrude on the Weasleys' happiness. However, Harry had barely taken plates from the dresser when Mrs. Weasley lifted them out of his hands and pulled him into a hug.

"I don't know what would have happened if it hadn't been for you, Harry." she said in a muffled voice, "They might not have found Arthur for hours, and then it would have been too late, but thanks to you he's alive and Dumbledore's been able to think up a good cover story for Arthur being where he was, you have no idea what trouble he would have been in otherwise, look at poor Sturgis..."

She soon released him to turn to Sirius and Margaret, thanking them for looking after her children through the night. The two told her it was no big deal, and were pleased to have been able to help, and hoped they would all stay as long as Mr. Weasley was in hospital.

"Oh, I'm so grateful... They think he'll be there a little while and it would be wonderful to be nearer... of course, that might mean we're here for Christmas."

"The more the merrier!" Sirius said, with such obvious sincerity that Mrs. Weasley beamed at them, threw on an apron and began to help with breakfast.

"Margaret." Harry muttered, unable to stand it a moment longer, "Can I have a quick word?"

She nodded and walked into the dark pantry and Harry followed. Without preamble, Harry told her every detail of the vision he had had, including the fact that he himself had been the snake who had attacked Mr. Weasley.

When he paused for breath, Margaret said, "Did you tell Dumbledore tis?"

"Yes. But he didn't tell me what it meant. Well, he doesn't tell me anything anymore. But that's not all." Harry said, his voice became something only a little above a whisper, "I... I think I'm going mad. Back in Dumbledore's office, just before we took the Portkey... for a couple of seconds there I thought I was a snake, I felt like one... my scar really hurt when I was looking at Dumbledore... I wanted to attack him!"

He could only see a sliver of Margaret's pretty face; the rest was in darkness. "Harry, Voldemort will try extra hard to rectify the fact you keep escaping him and will use all kinds of tricks." she told him, sounding rather serious, "You need to sleep. You are going to have breakfast, then go upstairs to bed, and after lunch you can go and see Arthur with the others. But it's lucky you did witness it or Arthur might have died. Just stop worrying for now."


Their trunks arrived from Hogwarts while they were eating lunch, so they could dress as Muggles for the trip to St Mungo's. Everybody except Harry was riotously happy and talkative as they changed out of their robes and into jeans and sweatshirts.

When Tonks and Mad-Eye turned up to escort them across London, they greeted them gleefully, laughing at the bowler hat Mad-Eye was wearing at an angle to conceal his magical eye and assuring him, truthfully, that Tonks, whose hair was short and bright pink again, would attract far less attention on the Underground.

Tonks was very interested in Harry's vision of the attack on Mr. Weasley, something Harry was not remotely interested in discussing.

They arrived at a station in the very heart of London, and in the bustle of leaving the train he was able to allow Fred and George to get between himself and Tonks, who was leading the way.

They all followed her up the escalator, Moody clunking along at the back of the group, his bowler tilted low and one gnarled hand stuck in between the buttons of his coat, clutching his wand. Harry thought he sensed the concealed eye staring hard at him.

"So, where is St Mungo's?" Harry asked Margaret as they stepped out into the wintry air on a broad store-lined street packed with Christmas shoppers.

"Not far from here." she said, keeping an eye on her surrounding, "It wasn't easy to find a good location for a hospital. Nowhere in Diagon Alley was big enough and we couldn't have it underground like the Ministry because of health concerns. In the end they managed to get hold of a building up here. In theory, a sick wizard could come and go and just blend in with the crowd."

She seized Harry's shoulder to prevent them being separated by a gaggle of shoppers plainly intent on nothing but making it into a nearby shop full of electrical gadgets.

"Here we are." Moody said a moment later.

They had arrived outside a large, old-fashioned, red-brick department store called 'Purge & Dowse Ltd'. The place had a shabby, miserable air; the window displays consisted of a few chipped dummies with their wigs askew, standing at random and modelling fashions at least ten years out of date.

Large signs on all the dusty doors read: "Closed for Refurbishment".

Claire heard a large woman laden with plastic shopping bags say to her friend as they passed, "It's never open, that place..."

"Right." Tonks said, beckoning them towards a window displaying nothing but a particularly ugly female false eyelashes were hanging off and it was modelling a green nylon pinafore dress, "Everybody ready?"

They nodded, clustering around her and Tonks leaned close to the glass, looking up at the very ugly dummy, her breath steaming up the glass.

"Wotcher." she said, "We are here to see Arthur Weasley."

Next second, the dummy gave a tiny nod and beckoned with its jointed finger, and Tonks had seized Ginny and Mrs. Weasley by the elbows, stepped right through the glass and vanished. Fred, George and Ron stepped after them.

Harry, Claire, Alex, Neville, Sirius and Elizabeth stepped forward as Moody kept looking around, and together they stepped forward through what felt like a sheet of cool water, emerging quite warm and dry on the other side.

They were in what seemed to be a crowded reception area where rows of witches and wizards sat upon rickety wooden chairs, some looking perfectly normal and perusing out-of-date copies of Witch Weekly, others sporting gruesome disfigurements such as elephant trunks or extra hands sticking out of their chests.

The room was scarcely less quiet than the street outside, for many of the patients were making very peculiar noises: a sweaty-faced witch in the center of the front row, who was fanning herself vigorously with a copy of the Daily Prophet, kept letting off a high-pitched whistle as steam came pouring out of her mouth; a grubby-looking warlock in the corner clanged like a bell every time he moved and, with each clang, his head vibrated horribly so that he had to seize himself by the ears to hold it steady.

Witches and wizards in lime-green robes were walking up and down the rows, asking questions and making notes on clipboards like Umbridge's.

"Over here!" Mrs. Weasley called, above the renewed clanging of the warlock in the corner, and they followed her to the queue in front of a plump blonde witch seated at a desk marked Enquiries.

There was also a large portrait of a witch with long silver ringlets which was labelled:

Dilys Derwent:

St Mungo's Healer 1722-1741

Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry 1741-1768

Dilys was eyeing the Weasley party closely as though counting them; when Harry caught her eye she gave a tiny wink, walked sideways out of her portrait and vanished.

After a few minutes of waiting it was finally Mrs. Weasley's turn.

"Hello." she said, "My husband, Arthur Weasley, was supposed to be moved to a different ward this morning, could you tell us?..."

"Arthur Weasley?" the witch said, running her finger down a long list in front of her, "Yes, first floor, second door on the right, Dai Llewellyn Ward."

"Thank you." Mrs. Weasley said, "Come on, you lot."

They followed her through the double doors and along the narrow corridor beyond, which was lined with more portraits of famous Healers and lit by crystal bubbles full of candles that floated up on the ceiling, looking like giant soapsuds. More witches and wizards in lime-green robes walked in and out of the doors they passed as they climbed a flight of stairs and entered the Creature-Induced Injuries corridor, where the second door on the right bore the words:

'Dangerous' Dai Llewellyn Ward: Serious Bites.

Underneath this was a card in a brass holder on which had been handwritten:

Healer-in-Charge: Hippocrates Smethwyck. Trainee Healer: Augustus Pye.

"We will wait outside, Molly. Arthur wouldn't want too many visitors at once... And it should be family first." Sirius said and Mad-Eye growled his approval of this idea and set himself with his back against the corridor wall, his magical eye spinning in all directions.

Harry drew back, too, but Mrs. Weasley reached out a hand and pushed him through the door, saying, "Don't be silly, Harry, Arthur wants to thank you."


After a few minutes of waiting, Harry, Ron, Fred, George and Ginny trooped back into the corridor, Sirius, Margaret, Mad-Eye and Tonks went in and closed the door of the ward behind them.

Fred raised his eyebrows, "Fine." he said coolly, rummaging in his pockets, "Be like that. Don't tell us anything."

"Looking for these?" George said, holding out what looked like a tangle of flesh-colored string.

"You read my mind." Fred said, grinning, "Let's see if St Mungo's puts Imperturbable Charms on its ward doors, shall we?"

He and George disentangled the string and separated eight Extendable Ears from each other. Fred and George handed them around but Harry hesitated to take one.

"Go on, Harry!" Neville said, "If anyone's got the right to eavesdrop on them, it's you."

"Yeah!" Fred said, "You saved dad, so its your right!"

Grinning in spite of himself, Harry took the end of the string and inserted it into his ear as the twins had done.

"Okay, go!" Fred whispered.

The flesh-colored strings wriggled like long skinny worms and snaked under the door. At first, Claire could hear nothing, then she jumped as she heard Tonks whispering as clearly as though she were standing right beside her.

"...They searched the whole area, they couldn't find the snake anywhere. It just seems to have vanished after it attacked you, Arthur... but You-Know-Who can't have expected a snake to get in, can he?"

"I reckon he sent it as a lookout." Moody growled, "Because he's not had any luck so far, has he? No, I reckon he's trying to get a clearer picture of what he's facing and if Arthur hadn't been there the beast would've had a lot more time to look around. So, Potter says he saw it all happen?"

"Yes." Margaret said, she sounded rather uneasy, "He seeing things from inside Voldemort's snake."

"Obviously, Potter doesn't realize what that means." Moody growled, "But if You-Know-Who's possessing him..."

Harry pulled the Extendable Ear out of his own, his heart hammering very fast and heat rushing up his face. He looked around at the others. They were all staring at him, the strings still trailing from their ears, looking suddenly fearful.


Everybody spent the following morning putting up Christmas decorations, all except Harry, who was cooked up in his room. Claire could not remember Sirius ever being in such a good mood; he was actually singing carols, apparently delighted that he was going to have his family over Christmas.

"Well tis proves one thing though." Alex said to Claire as they were climbing the stairs towards Harry's room, "That article in the Quibbler about Sirius being the lead singer in a band? Complete bullshit."

Claire gave a small nod and then hammered hard on the door of her boyfriends room, "Harry, I know your in there." she said, "Open the door, I want to talk to you."

"What do you want?" Harry asked, opening his door.

"Oh, I don't know." Alex said, "Maybe the fact that you have been hold up in your room?"

Harry was about to protest, but Claire interrupted him, "You have and you won't look at any of us!" she said, crossing her arms, "Look, what we overheard last night on the Extendable Ears..."

He growled, his hands deep in his pockets as he walked back into his room and his friends followed him. Alex closed the door behind him as Harry was watching the snow now falling thickly outside.

"Harry, can you remember everything you have been doing?" Alex asked, remembering what his mother had explained, "You don't have blank periods where you don't know what you have been up to?"

"No..." he said after a while.

"Then according to mum, you were never possessed by Voldemort." Alex said, "According to her findings, when someone posses another, one common sign of it happening is being unable to remember what you were doing for hours if days at the time."

Harry hardly dared believe him, yet his heart was lightening almost in spite of himself, "That dream I had about Mr. Weasley and the snake, though..."

"Its not like you have had dreams like those before." Claire said, "You had flashes of what Voldemort was up to last year."

"This was different." Harry said, shaking his head, "I was inside that snake. It was like I was the snake... What if Voldemort somehow transported me to London?..."

"Well you can't Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts as Hermione keeps reminding us. Even Voldemort couldn't just make you fly out of your dormitory, he is not some sort of god." Alex explained, "Also you didn't leave your bed. I saw you thrashing around in your sleep for at least a minute before we could wake you up."

Harry started pacing up and down his room, seemingly thinking. "I'm not the weapon after all." Harry thought. His heart swelled with happiness and relief.


That's it, chapter over. Hope you enjoyed.

Many thanks to everyone who reads, favorite, follows or reviews this chapter. If you enjoy my work, don't forget to leave a review and I hope to see you beauties next time.

Mischief Managed.