Harry was bored, very bored. He'd been following Ron and Ginny for two weeks now, and nothing interesting had happened with the two siblings. In fact, in that time Harry had only seen them talking a few times. For the time being the pair seemed busy with their own separate lives. Harry had debated giving up, but he was sure something was going on with the pair.

When Harry hadn't been able to watch the pair, Hermione and Draco had helped with the surveillance. However, at the moment Hermione and Draco were busy studying, while Harry was lurking around in another part of the library, watching Ginny as she finished a History of Magic essay. Harry's interest in watching Ginny was severely waning and he was contemplating giving up for the evening when suddenly the redhead gasped out loud and pulled the book she was reading off the table and stuck her nose in it.

"I don't believe it," She gasped.

Harry watched in bemusement as Ginny suddenly threw all her things into her bag, including her unfinished homework, jumped to her feet and practically ran out of the library. Luckily, Harry was already wearing the invisibility cloak so it was easy enough for him to follow after her without being seen. Once out of the library, Ginny went straight back to Gryffindor Tower. Harry half expected her to approach Ron, but from what he saw, she just passed through the common room and headed up to the girls dorms without acknowledging her brother.

"Bugger," Harry muttered to himself as he snuck back out of Gryffindor Tower and removed the invisibility cloak.

He'd been sure something was going to happen, but he'd been wrong. Obviously, whatever had gotten Ginny all excited in the library had nothing to do with what she was planning with her brother. Still wanting to keep an eye on the pair, Harry stuffed the invisibility cloak into his bag and entered the common room. Settling down next to the fire, he kept an eye on Ron and the stairs leading to the girls dorms so he would know when Ginny returned.

Unfortunately for Harry, there was no action for a while as Ron sat quietly flicking through a quidditch magazine while there was no sign of Ginny. Finally, Ron got up, but he didn't head out of the common room, he headed up to the boys dorms. Knowing they would only get into a row if he headed upstairs, Harry remained where he was, keeping an eye out for Ginny.

However, what he didn't realise was that Ginny was also up in the boys dorms with her brother. In the brief moments Harry had been out of the room removing his invisibility cloak, Ginny had slipped from the girls dorms and headed into the boys dorms without been seen by anyone.


C.O.T.D.


"What took you so long?" Ginny demanded the second Ron entered the boys' dorm.

Since they were keeping up the act of not speaking, they'd develop subtle signals for when they wanted to talk to each other, and upon entering the common room, Ginny had indicated to Ron to meet her in his dorms. However, by her reckoning she'd been waiting for nearly ten minutes for her brother to show up.

"I couldn't just get up and leave," Ron pointed out. "If we keep leaving rooms together, people are going to put two and two together. What's so urgent anyway, I thought we were going to wait until the weekend to try the room again."

"I found something while doing my homework," Ginny answered as she reached into her bag and pulled a thick book out of it. Flicking through the book, she opened it at the page she'd spotted in the library and showed it to her brother. "I'm doing an essay about the Hogwarts founders and I saw this."

"What's so special about this?" Ron asked with a frown. From what he could see, his sister was showing him a page about the traits of Rowena Ravenclaw, and what sort of students she used to teach.

"Look at the picture," Ginny said, pointing to a small oval picture of Rowena Ravenclaw at the bottom of the page.

"I'm looking and I still don't see anything," Ron replied as he squinted at the picture to see what had caught his sister's attention.

"The tiara on her head," Ginny said. "Look at it Ron."

"Very nice," Ron said with a shrug.

"Does it not look familiar?"

"Funnily enough, no," Ron snorted. "I've never paid any attention to Ravenclaw's preferred headwear before."

"It's the tiara from the junk room," Ginny excitedly told her brother.

"And?" Ron threw the book down on his bed, not getting the significance of Ginny's discovery.

"And remember the ideas for Horcruxes," Ginny prodded. "Dumbledore thought You-Know-Who used things belonging to the founders."

"And he also thought one might be hidden here at Hogwarts," Ron added, finally understanding what Ginny was getting at.

Ginny grinned at her brother, pleased he'd managed to engage his brain and get what she was trying to say. "Precisely. And we might just have found it."

"Do you think that's what they've been doing in the room, trying to find the Horcrux?"

"Could be. Or might just be a coincidence. After all, Harry and the dark don't know that we know about the Horcruxes. There's no reason for them to be looking for it. As far as they're concerned, it's safe."

"Not for long," Ron said with a wicked grin. "I say we go and get it. If we're right, we need to get it back to the Order as quickly as possible. Sirius said they were expecting a delivery of Basilisk fangs and venom later this month."

"After dinner, we'll sneak away and find it," Ginny said as she shoved the book back into her bag. "Meet you outside of the room at eight."

With that, Ginny slipped out of the boys' dorms and carefully made her way back to her own rooms without being spotted. She then changed and freshened up, before heading downstairs to join her friends for a bit before dinner.


C.O.T.D.


"Do you want me to watch the Weasels tonight?" Hermione whispered to Harry over dinner.

Even though she and Draco had been helping out with Harry's surveillance, her nephew had still taken on the bulk of the work. In one way, Hermione was pleased as it gave her time to spend with Draco, but she felt bad that Harry was losing his free time. She doubted he even had time to say more than a quick hello to Daphne over the last couple of weeks.

"I can handle it tonight," Harry replied. "But maybe you can take them tomorrow night. I promised Daph we could do something. I've been a bit neglectful lately."

"Of course I'll help out, and I'm sure Daphne understands," Hermione said.

"She does," Harry confirmed with a smile. "That's because she's amazing."

"Aww, someone's smitten," Hermione teased.

Harry rolled his eyes at his aunt, but he didn't bother to contradict her. He was pretty smitten with Daphne, and while it was still early days in their relationship and they were still getting to know one another, he had high hopes they could have a real future together.

For the rest of dinner, Harry and Hermione just chatted about school while Harry considered what he could do with Daphne the following day. He did feel bad about neglecting his girlfriend, and he wanted to make it up to her.

"There goes Ginny," Hermione whispered, giving Harry a nudge as Ginny stood up further along the table. "Are you taking her or Ron tonight?"

"Ginny," Harry replied. "I reckon she's more dangerous. Ron's open in his hostility, but she hides it well. If I wasn't such a suspicious person, I would have believed her act."

"She's certainly got most people fooled," Hermione conceded as her nephew got up and loudly told Hermione he was off to study.

"Catch you later," Hermione called, waving casually to her nephew as he strolled out of the Great Hall.

The second Harry was out of the Great Hall, he slipped into the shadows and pulled on his invisibility cloak. He then pulled out the map he'd gotten from Sirius and used it to locate Ginny. Taking a shortcut he caught up to Ginny on the third floor and followed her as she headed to the secret room.

"Got you," He whispered to himself as he followed her into the corridor where the room was located.

Deciding he wanted to slip inside the room with Ginny, to find out what she was using it for, Harry got as close to her as he dared. However, instead of making a move to enter the room, she just stood leaning against the wall. It wasn't until he heard footsteps and Ron entered the corridor that he realised she'd been waiting for her brother. Either they'd spoken at some point and he hadn't seen, which was a possibility as he couldn't watch the pair twenty four hours a day, or the meeting had been pre-arranged.

"Let's get on with this," Ron announced, shooting his sister a grin. "We're going to be such heroes, Gin."

"If we're right," Ginny replied. "Step back while I summon the room."

While Ron stepped back to give his sister space, Harry made sure he was close enough to where the door would appear so he could sneak in with the pair. He was hoping to get some sort of clue as to what the pair wanted from the room as Ginny summoned it, but she did her thinking in her head. Even when the door appeared in the middle of the wall, he didn't know what sort of room they'd summoned as the door was always the same.

"This is it," Ginny declared as she yanked the door open.

Harry managed to slide into the room in between Ginny and Ron, and he very almost skidded to a stunned stop as he found himself in the junk room where the vanishing cabinet was still located. Luckily, he still had his wits about him and he sidestepped out of the way before Ron stepped into the room.

"Right, let's get to it," Ron said, pulling the door shut behind him.

Harry wanted to reveal himself and stun the pair where they stood, but he was curious as to what they were up to. As eager as he was to confront the pair, he controlled his violent urges and followed behind them as they prowled through the room. It soon became clear they were looking for something, and it was also clear they had a rough idea where they wanted to be searching as they weren't looking everywhere.

"There it is," Ginny suddenly declared.

Harry frowned as he suddenly recognised the bookshelf the redheaded witch was pointing to. It was the bookshelf that stood in front of the vanishing cabinet, and more importantly it was the shelf where the diadem had sat until just a few weeks ago.

"Let's get it and get out of here," Ron said as he looked around the room and shivered. "It feels like someone's watching us."

"No-one's watching us," Ginny chuckled as she searched the bookshelves. Harry watched as she searched for a few more minutes before turning to her brother with a frown. "It's gone."

"What do you mean, it's gone?" Ron asked. "It has to be there."

"I'm telling you, it's not here," Ginny said. "It's missing."

"Shit, they've taken it," Ron swore. "They know we're onto the Horcruxes. We have to warn the Order, they need to destroy the ones they've got as soon as possible."

Harry was gobsmacked by what he was witnessing, and his mind was working overtime to figure out how they knew about his grandfather's Horcruxes. All he could think of was that Dumbledore had confided in someone else, but the headmaster had been pretty adamant that Harry was the only person he'd ever shared his theory with. Either Dumbledore had lied to him, or else the information had come from somewhere else.

As the Weasleys checked the shelf another time, Harry's fingers curled around the wand in his pocket. He'd actually pulled the wood from his pocket and had it pointed at Ron's back before he reconsidered. As much as he would love to do some damage to the pair, it really wasn't wise. The Weasleys would go ballistic if anything happened to their precious Ron and Ginny while they were at Hogwarts. While Harry wasn't bothered about the Weasleys and their reaction, he did realise it could reflect badly on his father and Nott's regime. If children of people known to oppose Voldemort were injured in Hogwarts, it could be just the ammunition the Order needed to gather some supporters.

Reluctantly, Harry slipped his wand back into his pocket and he remained where he was as Ginny and Ron left the room, still worrying about the missing Horcrux. Harry waited until he was sure the pair had gone before pulling off his cloak. Pulling his wand back out of his pocket, he let out a cry of rage as he aimed a spell at a nearby vase, causing it to shatter into millions of pieces.

Regaining control, Harry took a few deep breaths before shoving the invisibility cloak into his pocket and stalking out of the room. Knowing Hermione and Draco were planning on studying in the library, he headed down to find them. When he did find them the pair were in the secret room, but all they were studying were each other as they were lying on the sofa, half dressed and groping each other.

"Harry," Hermione hissed in annoyance as she pulled her open shirt shut.

"Sorry, but this is an emergency," Harry said impatiently. "We've got trouble."

"The Weasels," Draco guessed as he and Hermione sat up and straightened their clothes.

"And the Order," Harry said. "We need to go and speak to someone now. In fact, Hermione go and get Beth and Draco go and get Lucius. Bring them to Dad's office and I'll fill you in."

"It's not good, is it?" Hermione questioned with a sigh.

"No, it's not good," Harry said sombrely as the trio left the room and headed off to get the adults.

Harry had been lucky enough to find out what the Order were up to, but what he'd found out wasn't good. The Order were a bigger threat than anyone of them had thought, and he knew his grandfather would want to act sooner rather than later. It was time to strike and get rid of the threat the Order represented.