Chapter 11 - When you plan for a drizzle, you'll soon get a storm

The next morning came in a rush, as sunrise woke him up, Harry thought back on what happened last night, shivering under his covers. He looked around blearily, and saw that he had woken up back at Ravenclaw tower. He sat himself up, and thought about what had happened…

He remembered pain, and that he was running, and then…. It came back in a flash.

What did they mean? Quirrel knocks me out with some weird spell, and they expect me to just forget it? What is going on at this school?

Harry got out of bed and quickly dressed. He was disturbed to see that he had been put into his bedclothes while unconscious, and that his books and parchment had been brought in from the Library. Harry looked out of the window and saw that it was still dark, but the first light was coming up over the distant mountains. He went directly to Ron, and roused his snoring friend.

"No! I don't want to go on the cart…." Ron mumbled as Harry shoved him.

"Ron, wake up."

"What? Harry? What's wrong." Ron gave a quick look out of the window. "It's barely even sunrise yet." And with that he plopped back into bed.

"Wake up you dolt! We need to talk." Harry grabbed the blankets off of the bed, and pulled out a grumbling but awake Ron out to the still empty common room. Everything seemed normal, but Harry knew that their home for months had been broken into with an unconscious boy in tow.

"Ron," Harry began, "Did you hear anything last night when I came in?"

"What? No, I didn't. I went to bed a little after midnight and you still weren't back yet. What were you doing out all night?"

"I was attacked by Snape and Quirrel."

"What?!" Ron. "What happened? How did you escape? Why?" Ron was getting into a minor rage now, deeply annoying a pair of 6th year boys who were on their way down to an early breakfast. "Tell me everything." He said in a calmer tone, at full attention.

Harry explained to Ron about the voice. He told him about how he was convinced that it was somehow connected to whatever had attacked Marietta and Hermione. And that when he had followed the voice to its source he was caught by Snape and Quirrel, that they were talking about some stone, and that Quirrel was looking for something in the school that Snape didn't want him to see.

"And then Quirrel said 'O-O-Obliviate'" with Harry doing his best Quirrel impression, "And I woke up in bed…. in my pajamas."

"Wait a second Harry, are you sure about that spell Quirrel used on you?"

"Pretty sure. Why?"

Ron grabbed Harry's hand and started dragging him towards the girl's side of the tower.

"We've got to talk to Cho now."

"Wait, what's going on?" Harry had broken free of Ron's grasp but was following nonetheless.

"I need to make sure what we were talking about last night with the Quidditch team was the same as what you just said."

"Yeah, the Quidditch team. Cho and I hung out with them last night doing homework and chatting, and Raymond, you know, the bigger beater, was talking about memory charms. I think that might have been the spell that you said earlier."

"Look at you Ron. One night alone with Cho and you're already hanging around the Quidditch team." Harry had barely heard what Ron had said after that. Despite the strangeness of his evening Harry found it in him to smile.

"That's not the point now Harry." Ron and Harry were about halfway up the staircase, but it quickly they turned into a slippery soup, and the boys had found themselves being washed down the steps as if they had fallen into a river. "What the effing hell is this!" They stared at the staircase that was quickly returning to some sort of solid form.

"Nice of you to drop by." Said a voice from up the stairs. A few moments later the ever beautiful and smiling Brengwen Jones, Ravenclaw seeker. "How's ickle ronny doing this morning?" Harry gave a short snort at the absurdity of it all, and Ron gave him a quick punch to the shoulder.

"Do you mind getting Cho for us? We tried to go up, but, you know…"

Brengwen gave an infectious grin and went back up to grab their friend. A very sleepy Cho arrived at the bottom of the stairs with her hair hastily tied into a semi-pleasing pony tail.

"This better be worth it you two." She snarled. "You can tell me whatever it is on the way to get some coffee."

"Don't drink too much caffeine Cho," said Brengwen, who was already almost to the exit. "I don't want my potential future replacement becoming a dependent addict." She left with a chuckle and closed the door behind her.

"So you're going out for seeker next year?" Said Harry.

"Yeah, she's the only real candidate right now." Said Ron. "We talked about it last night."

"It's still not guaranteed until the trials next year. But I'm hopeful." The sullen expression was a little bit brighter on Cho's face. "So what is it you wanted to talk about?"

Over the next hour they wandered the school with some floating toast and drinks and explained the situation. By the time they got to the spell, Cho snapped to attention.

"But Harry, that's a memory spell! You shouldn't be able to remember any of what you saw last night." She pulled his messy bangs back from his face to feel his forehead, and then took out her wand. "Revalio magicus humanus". A sultry female voice appeared from thin air stating 'The most recent operated spell on this person was the memory charm" and Cho gasped.

"The professor actually tried to wipe your memory, but it didn't work."

"I told you this sounded fishy." Said Ron. "The only question is, what can we do? Can we just go up to Dumbledore and call them out?"

"I have no idea." Said Harry sullenly. "It's not like we can prove that it was Quirrel or Snape that did that spell, can we? Anyway, the ministry and half the school think I'm some dark wizard already without me spreading conspiracy theories. On top of that Hermione's gone, there are death eaters on the hunt for me out there, and now even the teachers are trying to mind control me. What's next? I might as well just chuck myself to the giant squid now and save everyone the trouble of needing to kill me."

"It's like too much is happening to you at once. We need to do something." Cho looked like a candle had been lit above her head, and began to unroll a sheet of parchment and began to write. "What we need… is to get together… a TASK FORCE." On the sheet she quickly had a list of ten action items.

Operation: Protect the School

Get together the task force!

Snoop around Snape and Quirrel. Act like Harry remembers nothing.

Research protection from memory spells.

Research magic stones

Tell Dumbledore? Talk about this later

Get our friend's un-petrified ASAP

Figure out what's petrifying people

Prove Harry's innocence

Stop the Death Eaters

Celebrate our Victory!

"What even is this?" Harry said, looking at the sheet of parchment.

"The plan to fix your shitty mood!"

"Cho!" Both boys said in unison.

"You know what? I'm tired of you two boys being so depressed. Harry,

you've been a huge support since Marietta got hurt. Ron, I know you can have a great time when you give yourself the chance like last night, and I want you to stop moping as much as the guy who actually has all of the problems over here" Cho said while pointing her thumb at Harry. "And I think we have a chance here to actually do something seriously cool." Now she was fully manic, and raring to go. "Harry, you take tasks 3 and 4. Ron, start rounding up your brothers. We'll need their help on this one. I'll start snooping on our villainous teachers." And off she ran down the hall.

"How many cups of coffee did she have?" Ron asked.

"We really should have been keeping better track." Said Harry, thinking over what this plan could mean.

"I'll have some of whatever she's having." Said Vim, peeking her scaly head down from the ceiling. The two boys glared, but with half smiles creeping up their faces.