"To win a game of chess one must be willing to lose a few pawns." Not-Bree said lazily from her seat next to Red Queen Bree. They were both sitting at a table that had a tea set on it. Red Queen Bree was watching the nearby board. The opposing pieces were dressed in black Death Eaters' robes with Voldemort as their leader. Rookwood's piece had been smashed, as was Otto's. Vince's piece, the king, hovered at the boundary of the board.

"Shut up." Bree muttered from across the table.

"Deep down you know it's true, otherwise I wouldn't have said it." Not-Bree replied.

"Otto wasn't a pawn, he was a person." Bree snarled.

"Then why do you have a chessboard in your head?" Not-Bree asked. "Face it, people are pawns to used and thrown away."

"Not the people I care about!"

"They're the ones most likely to get hurt! Have you seen yourself! Have you seen what you do? You play games. You won the last game and then you killed your opponent!"

"I didn't kill her!"

"You picked the poison! What will you do when you're done playing with Draco? He thinks you're going to kill him, but you're just like him! All bark and no bite. The way things are going, you're going to have to take a life, and you'll be too damn scared to do it."

"Is that so wrong?"

"Maybe, maybe not, but if you don't decide soon you'll be the casualty."


"It sounds like your mind is trying to warn you." Ben stated after Bree had told him about her latest experience with the Not-Bree.

"About what?" Bree asked.

"You're coping mechanism for dealing with death is no longer working because of your double standard. Instead of seeing you're allies as pawns see them as soldiers fighting with you. When they fall honor their sacrifice and keep fighting on." Ben replied. "As for your enemies, look at them as if they are mad dogs that need to be put down before they kill again."

"Is that what you do?" Bree asked. Ben was silent.


The snow melted around the school as February arrived, to be replaced by cold, dreary wetness. Purplish-grey clouds hung low over the castle and a constant fall of chilly rain made the lawns slippery and muddy. The upshot of this was that the sixth-years' first Apparition lesson, which was scheduled for a Saturday morning so that no normal lessons would be missed, took place in the Great Hall instead of in the grounds.

When Harry and Hermione arrived in the Hall (Ron had come down with Lavender) they found that the tables had disappeared. Rain lashed against the high windows and the enchanted ceiling swirled darkly above them as they assembled in front of Professors McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick and Sprout-the Heads of House-and a small wizard whom Harry took to be the Apparition Instructor from the Ministry. He was oddly colourless, with transparent eyelashes, wispy hair and an insubstantial air, as though a single gust of wind might blow him away. Harry wondered whether constant disappearances and reappearances had somehow diminished his substance, or whether this frail build was ideal for anyone wishing to vanish.

"Good morning," said the Ministry wizard, when all the students had arrived and the Heads of House had called for quiet. "My name is Wilkie Twycross and I shall be your Ministry-Apparition Instructor for the next twelve weeks. I hope to be able to prepare you for your Apparition test in this time-"

"Malfoy, be quiet and pay attention!" barked Professor McGonagall.

Everybody looked round. Malfoy had flushed a dull pink; he looked furious as he stepped away from Crabbe, with whom he appeared to have been having a whispered argument.

"-by which time, many of you may be ready to take your test," Twycross continued, as though there had been no interruption.

"As you may know, it is usually impossible to Apparate or Disapparate within Hogwarts. The Headmaster has lifted this enchantment, purely within the Great Hall, for one hour, so as to enable you to practise. May I emphasise that you will not be able to Apparate outside the walls of this Hall, and that you would be unwise to try.

"I would like each of you to place yourselves now so that you have a clear five feet of space in front of you."

There was a great scrambling and jostling as people separated, banged into each other, and ordered others out of their space. The Heads of House moved among the students, marshalling them into position and breaking up arguments.

"Quiet!" and silence fell again. Malfoy turned slowly to face the front.

"Thank you," said Twycross. "Now then..."

He waved his wand. Old-fashioned wooden hoops instantly appeared on the floor in from of every student.

"The important things to remember when Apparating are the three Ds!" said Twycross. "Destination, Determination, Deliberation!

"Step one: fix your mind firmly upon the desired destination," said Twycross. "In this case, the interior of your hoop. Kindly concentrate upon that destination now."

Everybody looked around furtively, to check that everyone else was staring into their hoop, then hastily did as they were told.

"Step two," said Twycross, "focus your determination to occupy the visualised space! Let your yearning to enter it flood from your mind to every particle of your body!"

Harry glanced around surreptitiously. A little way to his left, Ernie Macmillan was contemplating his hoop so hard that his face had turned pink; it looked as though he was straining to lay a Quaffle-sized egg. Harry bit back a laugh and hastily returned his gaze to his own hoop.

"Step three," called Twycross, "and only when I give the command ... turn on the spot, feeling your way into nothingness, moving with deliberation. On my command, now ... one-two-THREE!"

Bree spun on the spot, lost her balance and nearly fell over. She was not the only one. The whole Hall was suddenly full of staggering people; Neville was flat on his back; Ernie Macmillan, on the other hand, had done a kind of pirouetting leap into his hoop and looked momentarily thrilled, until he caught sight of Dean Thomas roaring with laughter at him.

"Never mind, never mind," said Twycross dryly, who did not seem to have expected anything better. "Adjust your hoops, please, and back to your original positions ..."

The second attempt was no better than the first. The third was just as bad. Not until the fourth did anything exciting happen. There was a horrible screech of pain and everybody looked around, terrified, to see Susan Bones of Hufflepuff wobbling in her hoop with her left leg still standing five feet away where she had started.

The Heads of House converged on her; there was a great bang and a puff of purple smoke, which cleared to reveal Susan sobbing, reunited with her leg but looking horrified.

"Splinching, or the separation of random body parts," said Wilkie Twycross dispassionately, "occurs when the mind is insufficiently determined. You must concentrate continually upon your destination, and move, without haste, but with deliberation ... thus."

Twycross stepped forwards, turned gracefully on the spot with his arms outstretched and vanished in a swirl of robes, reappearing at the back of the Hall. 'Remember the three Ds,' he said, "and try again ... one-two-three-"

But an hour later, Susan's Splinching was still the most interesting thing that had happened. Twycross did not seem discouraged. Fastening his cloak at his neck, he merely said, "Until next Saturday, everybody, and do not forget: Destination. Determination. Deliberation."

With that, he waved his wand, Vanishing the hoops, and walked out of the Hall accompanied by Professor McGonagall. Talk broke out at once as people began moving towards the Entrance Hall.


Over the next few weeks Harry became obsessed with finding out what Draco was up to. He examined the map as often as he could, not that it would help him much. The room of requirement wasn't on the map.


Vince's condition was improving and he was receiving therapy. With Vince recovering and Lisa's due date only weeks away Leo was left to run the family business. They'd already lost territory and customers to rivals.

"Well you were right Ben. They saw weakness and leap on it like a lion on a baby zebra." Bree commented.

"What a lovely picture." Ben replied dryly.

"I try." Bree responded.


February moved towards March with no change in the weather except that it became windy as well as wet. To general indignation, a sign went up on all common-room noticeboards that the next trip into Hogsmeade had been cancelled for all Hogwarts students. Ron was furious.

"It was on my birthday!" he said, "I was looking forward to that!"

Bree was planning on going anyway to meet the twins since technically she wasn't a Hogwarts student. Her plans were derailed before she had even left the castle. Ron had been poisoned.

You see, Ron had ingested a love potion meant for Harry so Harry took Ron to Slughorn's office for a cure. Once Ron was cured Slughorn offered Harry and Ron some mead. The mead was poisoned. Ron drank first and the effect was almost instantaneous. Harry shoved a bezoar down Ron's throat.

"So, all in all, not one of Ron's better birthdays?" said Fred.

It was evening; the hospital wing was quiet, the windows curtained, the lamps lit. Ron's was the only occupied bed. Harry, Hermione, and Ginny were sitting around him; they had spent all day waiting outside the double doors, trying to see inside whenever somebody went in or out. Madam Pomfrey had only let them enter at eight o'clock. Fred and George had arrived at ten past.

"This isn't how we imagined handing over our present," said George grimly, putting down a large wrapped gift on Ron's bedside cabinet and sitting beside Ginny.

"Yeah, when we pictured the scene, he was conscious," said Fred.

"There we were in Hogsmeade, waiting to surprise him -" said George.

"You were in Hogsmeade?" asked Ginny, looking up.

"We were thinking of buying Zonko's," said Fred gloomily. "A Hogsmeade branch, you know, but a fat lot of good it'll do us if you lot aren't allowed out at weekends to buy our stuff anymore ... But never mind that now."

He drew up a chair beside Harry and looked at Ron's pale face.

"How exactly did it happen, Harry?"

Harry retold the story he had already recounted to Dumbledore, to McGonagall, to Madam Pomfrey, to Hermione, to Ginny, and to Bree.

"... and then I got the bezoar down his throat and his breathing eased up a bit. Slughorn ran for help, McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey turned up, and they brought Ron up here. They reckon he'll be all right. Madam Pomfrey says he'll have to stay here a week or so ... keep taking Essence of Rue ..."

"Blimey, it was lucky you thought of a bezoar," said George in a low voice.

"Lucky there was one in the room," said Harry, who kept turning cold at the thought of what would have happened if he had not been able to lay hands on the little stone.

Hermione gave an almost inaudible sniff. She had been exceptionally quiet all day. Having hurtled, white-faced, up to Harry outside the hospital wing and demanded to know what had happened., she had taken almost no part in Harry and Ginny's obsessive discussion about how Ron had been poisoned, but merely stood beside them, clench-jawed and frightened-looking, until at last they had been allowed in to see him.

"Do Mum and Dad know?" Fred asked Ginny.

"They've already seen him, they arrived an hour ago-they're in Dumbledore's office now, but they'll be back soon..."

There was a pause while they all watched Ron mumble a little in his sleep.

"So the poison was in the drink?" said Fred quietly.

"Yes," said Harry at once; he could think of nothing else and was glad for the opportunity to start discussing it again. "Slughorn poured it out -"

"Would he have been able to slip something into Ron's glass without you seeing?"

"Probably," said Harry, "but why would Slughorn want to poison Ron?"

"No idea," said Fred, frowning. "You don't think he could have mixed up the glasses by mistake? Meaning to get you?"

"Why would Slughorn want to poison Harry?" asked Ginny.

"I dunno," said Fred, "but there must be loads of people who'd like to poison Harry, mustn't there? The 'Chosen One' and all that?"

"So you think Slughorn's a Death Eater?" said Ginny.

"Anything's possible," said Fred darkly.

"Except that." Bree stated. "He's not a Death Eater."

"He could be under the Imperius Curse," said George.

"It's not that either." Bree.

"How can you know that?" Ginny asked.

"I can tell." Bree replied.

"How?" Ginny pressed.

"I just can." Bree stated. "Anyway the poison could have been in the bottle. It was pure chance the Ron took the first sip."

"So it might have been for Slughorn." Ginny said.

"Who'd want to kill Slughorn?" George asked.

"Dumbledore reckons Voldemort wanted Slughorn on his side," said Harry. "Slughorn was in hiding for a year before he came to Hogwarts. And..." He thought of the memory Dumbledore had not yet been able to extract from Slughorn. "And maybe Voldemort wants him out of the way, maybe he thinks he could be valuable to Dumbledore."

"But you said Slughorn had been planning to give that bottle to Dumbledore for Christmas," Ginny reminded him. "So the poisoner could just as easily have been after Dumbledore."

"Then the poisoner didn't know Slughorn very well," said Hermione, speaking for the first time in hours and sounding as though she had a bad head cold. "Anyone who knew Slughorn would have I known there was a good chance he'd keep something that tasty for himself."

"Er-my-nee," croaked Ron unexpectedly from between them.

They all fell silent, watching him anxiously, but after muttering incomprehensibly for a moment he merely started snoring.

The dormitory doors flew open, making them all jump: Hagrid came striding toward them, his hair rain-flecked, his bearskin coat flapping behind him, a crossbow in his hand, leaving a trail of muddy dolphin-sized footprints all over the floor.

"Bin in the forest all day!" he panted. "Aragog's worse, I bin readin' to him-didn' get up ter dinner till jus' now an' then Professor Sprout told me abou' Ron! How is he?"

"Not bad," said Harry. "They say he'll be okay."

"No more than six visitors at a time!" said Madam Pomfrey, hurrying out of her office.

"I'll be going then." Bree said, standing up.

"You do'n have to do tha'." Hagrid protested.

"I have business that needs attending to anyway. I'll see you all later." Bree replied. She gave George a quick kiss on the cheek before she left.


"Draco!" Bree called into the room of requirement. "Draco! I know you're in here! You can't hide from me!" She found Draco underneath an old desk.

"You made another mistake." She told him.

"You're the one who suggested poison!" Draco snapped as he crawled out from under the table.

"So you're saying this is my fault?"Bree asked in a dangerous tone.

Draco immediately realized his mistake. "No." he replied quickly.

"Good. Because I know that if Slughorn has a bottle of high quality mead, he's going to keep it for himself. If I were to pick an unwitting accomplice to deliver the poison to Dumbledore I wouldn't have picked him." Bree stated. "Are you sure you don't want to try an axe and a bear costume?"

"Yes." Draco answered tersely.

Bree shrugged. "Your loss then." She said. "But you know, this is the second time you've broken a rule. It's starting to become a pattern with you. Hogwarts is raging. If you weren't a student you'd be dead but now. You're getting a bit of underserved leniency. I suppose I'll show a bit of leniency as well."

She looked Draco over.

"There's this thing in California called the three strikes law. You commit two crimes and you get normal punishments for them, but on the third strike the hammer really comes down on you. How's that sound Draco, if you break a rule on more time you get a harsher punishment then for your other two transgressions."

"I won't make another mistake." Draco replied.

"You'd better not, because if you do… if you break a rule one more time, things will get messy." Bree stated.


Ron was unable to play in the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff match. He was still in the hospital wing. Harry had no choice but to allow McLaggen to play keeper for the match. It was an abysmal failure. McLaggen was too busy trying to tell the rest of the team what to do to that he forgot to play his own position. The game ended when Harry got hit in the head by a bludger that had been hit by McLaggen after he took one of the beaters bats to correct their form and Harry ended up joining Ron in the hospital wing.

Ginny and Dean had a fight because Dean had thought it had been funny to see Harry get hit by one of his own teammates.

Harry had asked Dobby to follow Draco around and tell him what the Malfoy heir was up to. A week later he had finally figured out that Draco was going to the room of requirement after Dobby told him. He tried to get the room to show him what form it was taking for Draco. He was so consumed with trying to get in that he was late for defense.

"Late again, Potter," said Snape coldly, as Harry hurried into the candlelit classroom. "Ten points from Gryfrindor." Harry scowled at Snape as he flung himself into the seat beside Ron. Half the class were still on their feet, taking out books and organizing their things; he could not be much later than any of them.

"Before we start, I want your Dementor essays," said Snape, waving his wand carelessly, so that twenty-five scrolls of parchment soared into the air and landed in a neat pile on his desk. "And I hope for your sakes they are better than the tripe I had to endure on resisting the Imperius Curse. Now, if you will all open your books to page-what is it, Mr. Finnigan?"

"Sir," said Seamus, "I've been wondering, how do you tell the difference between an Inferius and a ghost? Because there was something in the Prophet about an Inferius -"

"No, there wasn't," said Snape in a bored voice.

"But sir, I heard people talking -"

"If you had actually read the article in question, Mr. Finnigan, you would have known that the so-called Inferius was nothing but a smelly sneak thief by the name of Mundungus Fletcher."

"But Potter seems to have a lot to say on the subject," said Snape, pointing suddenly at the back of the room, his black eyes fixed on Harry. "Let us ask Potter how we would tell the difference between an Inferius and a ghost."

The whole class looked around at Harry.

"Er-well-ghosts are transparent -" he said.

"Oh, very good," interrupted Snape, his lip curling. "Yes, it in easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. Ghosts are transparent."

Pansy Parkinson let out a high-pitched giggle. Several other people were smirking. Harry took a deep breath and continued calmly, though his insides were boiling, "Yeah, ghosts are transparent, but Inferi are dead bodies, aren't they? So they'd be solid -"

"A five-year-old could have told us as much," sneered Snape. "The Inferius is a corpse that has been reanimated by a Dark wizard's spells. It is not alive, it is merely used like a puppet to do the wizard's bidding. A ghost, as I trust that you are all aware by now, is the imprint of a departed soul left upon the earth ... and of course, as Potter so wisely tells us, transparent. "

"Oh, great teaching method professor. As a question and when you get the right answer make the student out to be an idiot. Bravo. I except your teacher of the year award will arrive any day now." Bree stated dryly. A few students snickered quietly. Snape looked furious. Bree grinned at him a little too widely, with teeth that were a little too sharp. Snape took out his flask and took a sip.

"Open your books to page two hundred and thirteen," said Snape, "and read the first two paragraphs on the Cruciatus Curse."


Ron and Lavender's relationship was deteriorating. Lavender was complaining about it a lot, that and how Hermione was trying to steal Ron away from her.

"Shut up!" Bree snapped at her when she was complaining to Parvati. "You're entire "relationship" consists of sucking face." Lavender turned red with anger.


The day of the apparition test, only three students, other than Bree, showed up for potions. Harry, Ernie, and Draco Malfoy.

"All too young to Apparate just yet?" said Slughorh genially, "Not turned seventeen yet?"

They shook their heads.

"Ah well," said Slughorn cheerily, "as we're so few, we'll do something fun. I want you all to brew me up something amusing!"

"That sounds good, sir," said Ernie sycophantically, rubbing his hands together. Malfoy, on the other hand, did not crack a smile.

"What do you mean, 'something amusing'?" he said irritably.

"Oh, surprise me," said Slughorn airily.

Malfoy opened his copy of Advanced Potion-Making with a sulky expression. It could not have been plainer that he thought this lesson was a waste of time. Undoubtedly Malfoy was begrudging the time he could otherwise be spending in the Room of Requirement.

Draco was looking thinner and paler; his skin still had that grayish tinge, probably because he so rarely saw daylight these days. But there was no air of smugness, excitement, or superiority; none of the swagger.

"Well, now, this looks absolutely wonderful," said Slughorn an hour and a half later, clapping his hands together as he stared down into the sunshine yellow contents of Harry's cauldron. "Euphoria, I take it? And what's that I smell? Mmmm... you've added just a sprig of peppermint, haven't you? Unorthodox, but what a stroke of inspiration, Harry, of course, that would tend to counterbalance the occasional side effects of excessive singing and nose-tweaking... I really don't know where you get these brain waves, my boy... unless -"

Harry pushed the Half-Blood Prince's book deeper into his bag with his foot.

"- it's just your mother's genes coming out in you!"

"Oh... yeah, maybe," said Harry, relieved.

Ernie was looking rather grumpy; determined to outshine Harry for once, he had most rashly invented his own potion, which had curdled and formed a kind of purple dumpling at the bottom of his cauldron. Malfoy was already packing up, sour-faced; Slughorn had pronounced his Hiccuping Solution merely "passable." Bree had produced a simple blue solution that gave off multicolored bubbles.

The bell rang and Bree left at once.


Harry used his Felix Felicis that night so he could get the memory from Slughorn. It worked and he viewed the memory with Dumbledore that evening.

They finally found out what Slughorn had told Voldemort about Horcruxes. A Horcrux was and object that contained a part of a person's soul, made by split your soul and hiding part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if your body is attacked or destroyed, you cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged.

Dumbledore believed that Voldemort had made several Horcruxes. One had been Tom Riddle's diary, one had been the Gaunt family ring. The rest were all conjecture on Dumbledore's part, but there was evidence that proved the a cup that had once belonged to Helga Hufflepuff and a locket belonging to Slytherin had become Horcruxes. There were two more Horcruxes, these ones were living beings, Voldemort's snake, Nagini, and, most disturbingly, Harry Potter.

Bree was livid.

"He wants Harry to die! He's been doing this kind grandfather act for years and the whole time he's wanted Harry to die!" Bree fumed. "But we're not going to go along with Dumbledore's little plan, oh no."

"What's your plan?" Neville asked.

"Find the Horcruxes before Dumbledore and destroy them." Bree answered.

"But Harry's one of the Horcruxes. I like Harry, I don't want to destroy him." Luna said.

"We won't." Bree stated. "And no one else will either." She added seeing the look on Ben's face.

"That what do you intend to do?" he inquired.

"Treat it like any other procession and excise the evil spirit, leaving the host intact." Bree replied.