Friday couldn't pass fast enough. Finally, it was dinner, and all six of the Gryffindors were eating together. Cedric had given them a significant nod when he'd sat down at the Hufflepuff table.

"So, who's going?" Lee asked, with only mild interest. He had already expressed his desire to stay behind, for reasons he kept to himself. Harry couldn't blame him; the Hospital Wing was hardly her favorite spot in Hogwarts when it was empty; now it was filled with unconscious students.

"I think that I should go with Harry," Hermione said. She hadn't touched her dinner, but had spent the entire meal pushing the food around on her plate in nervousness.

"Cedric said that he wants to go too," Harry told the others. "And I think he should, in case I have questions, or something." In truth, she wanted him there because he was almost like a security blanket; with him there, she would be calmer, more at ease. "And I think that you two should stay behind," she said, addressing the twins. When George opened his mouth to protest, she concluded, "To provide a distraction, just in case."

The twins glanced at each other. "Well, when you put it like that…" Fred trailed off, looking thoughtful. "You've got it, right?" he asked his brother.

"Where it always is."

"Good, we'll need it." They stood and left the table without a backwards glance.

Hermione looked pained as she watched them leave. "Do I want to know?"

"Nope," Harry and Lee said together. Lee grinned, picked up his plate, and moved on down the table to sit with the third year girls, Alicia and Angelina.

"So that's just us, then," Harry commented. "You, me, Neville, and Cedric."

Neville gulped audibly and shot a longing glance down the table to where Ron, Seamus, and Dean sat, laughing over some joke. "I - what do you need me for? I'm useless."

"You can keep a watch on the doors," Hermione said immediately. "A lookout." Neville nodded, but didn't look any less unsure of himself.

The three of them waited until most of the rest of the students had left the Great Hall before getting up. Cedric had left only a few minutes before, and Harry knew that he'd be near the Hospital Wing, waiting. They'd only just reached the doors when a rumbling explosion sounded from high up.

"Was that…?" Hermione trailed off, like she already knew the answer but didn't want to acknowledge the truth of it.

"Fred and George," Harry confirmed, but she glanced up the marble staircase in worry. They'd really exploded something big, to make such a large noise, and she could only hope they hadn't been caught in their own trap, otherwise they'd all be in the Hospital Wing, and not by choice.

Filch rushed past them in his normal limping shuffle when they were halfway up the stairs. "That's it?" Harry snorted. "There's something seriously wrong with the professors if they're not rushing to find out what was blown up." Hermione, a little pale-faced, nodded her agreement.

"Let's hurry up," Cedric said, glancing back down the stairs. "They might send the students to the common rooms, and we don't want to be in their way if that happens."

"Fat chance," Harry muttered, but sped up and led the other three through one of Fred and George's favorite passageways that would put them into corridors largely untraveled by the rest of the school.

Three minutes later, they were sneaking into the Hospital Wing, with Neville left stationed just inside the doors in a shadowy corner where he could, if anyone came in, cast the Tripping Jinx that Harry had drilled into him over the past month as a method of retaliation for Malfoy hexing Neville near the library.

Oliver was right where she'd last seen him, closed behind white privacy curtains like the vast majority of the other beds in the Hospital Wing, a testament to how many students were currently in states of induced sleep. Nervously, Harry stood next to the bed.

"How do I get in?" she asked Cedric worriedly. They'd always used eye contact to initialize the Legilimency.

"You don't need eye contact if you're strong enough," Cedric reassured her. "And you are."

Harry took a deep breath and pulled out her wand. Over the few days she and Cedric had been practicing, they'd gotten to the point where she didn't have to use her wand to enter his mind; he'd willingly opened up to her, and multiple contact between the two of them had forged a remembrance of each other's psyches. For this, though, she'd need her wand, so she pointed it at Oliver's head, just between his eyes.

"Wait," Hermione said suddenly, twisting her hands together nervously. "Maybe you should sit?" she suggested uncertainly. "It's just - I don't know how long - and you and Cedric were always sitting when you practiced."

"He can't sit - he'll be too short," Cedric protested.

"So sit on the bed," Hermione snapped, then looked remorseful. "Sorry."

"No," Cedric said with a small self-deprecating grimace. "It's fine. I should have thought of sitting myself."

Harry ignored the two of them as they stumbled over apologies and clambered onto the bed. She got comfortable, even though it felt weird to sit so close to Oliver, and directed her wand back at his head. This time, it didn't wobble, not even a little.

"Legilimens," she whispered, and was sucked violently away from Hermione and Cedric's startled gasps into a world of blackness.

Oliver's first three layers were completely blank: no surface thoughts of any kind. The layers underneath that showed so little activity, it was almost like he wasn't even alive. Only brief flashes of images and lone strands of words hinted at Oliver's nearing center. As she progressed, images became more solid, and the words less fleeting. Finally, she was there.

As she'd suspected after seeing Cedric's center, Oliver's was a reflection of himself. They were in the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, the stands completely empty. Oliver was flying around on a broom, running drills against invisible opponents. When he spotted her, he flew down to greet her.

"Excellent," he said with a grin. "You can drill with me."

Harry, startled at how different Oliver looked - here, he was very clearly older. His hair was shorter, he himself had grown a few inches, and he had larger muscles. A short, three-day stubble was growing on his face. In the Puddlemere uniform he wore, he looked like a professional Quidditch player.

"Here," he said, handing her a broom that hadn't been there before. She accepted it - a Nimbus 2000 like her real broom - and mounted up. She wasn't all that surprised to note that she was wearing the same clothes she'd been dressed in while in Cedric's center. Like she'd been there, she was but a projection of how she saw herself.

Even though she wanted to start asking questions - they were on a schedule, and ten minutes here could amount to an hour in reality - she held off for a good five minutes as she took pass after pass at the goals. Oliver blocked every one, grinning and teasing good-naturedly in between offering advice on her technique.

Eventually, though, she approached the goals at a slower pace, Quaffle tucked under her arm with no intent to throw it.

"Time to talk?" Oliver asked gravely, his face falling into unnaturally serious lines that she'd never seen on him before.

"Yeah," she said. He followed her down to the stands. She sat in the Gryffindor section of the stands. To her surprise, there were small brass nameplates evenly spaced on all of the benches, each with a single name etched into it: Percival Weasley was next to Lee Jordan, who was next to Kathryn Bell. She glanced at the bench below them and saw, with a thrill of surprise, her own name - Harry Potter - was glowing slightly. Memories being made.

"Why are you here?" Oliver asked, sitting down between the plaques for Lee and Katie, and pulling off his Keeper's gloves.

"To ask you what you remember." She sat too, between Katie and Alicia's names.

Oliver frowned. "About what?" He looked around the pitch in confusion.

Harry sighed - she didn't know how much Oliver knew about where he was, or wasn't. "You're trapped in your mind, Oliver," she said seriously. "You have been for almost a week now."

Oliver frowned. "That's not possible. I've only been here for a few hours."

"Time passes differently."

He still didn't look like he believed her, so she added, "You remember the Ravenclaw Seeker?"

"Eric Seaver?" Oliver asked in surprise, glancing over to the Ravenclaw sections of the stands on reflex, almost as if he expected to see him there. "What about him?"

"He never got better, remember? The Ravenclaw Captain was complaining about having to find a replacement."

Oliver frowned. "So? That doesn't prove anything."

She barely refrained from rolling her eyes. "He's like you - trapped in his own mind."

"So why aren't you talking to him?" Oliver asked, scratching his short beard absently. "He's a Ravenclaw - he'll know more about whatever this is, if you're telling the truth about any of this in the first place."

"I don't know him well enough," Harry replied easily, all too aware of how much time she was spending just getting Oliver to realize what was going on. "And I don't know if he's had any Occlumency training."

"How'd you know about that?" he blurted out in surprise.

"You woke up briefly," she explained, leaving off the part where she'd hexed him multiple times to get him to do so. "Told me that you were trapped in your own head."

"I did?" He looked impressed with himself.

"You did."

He frowned. "So why can't I remember?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. I've only just learned Legilimency to be able to talk to you like this." She paused before adding, a little desperately, "So you don't remember anything? About how this…happened?"

"I - " He broke off and heaved a sigh. "I might," he admitted, standing up and mounting his broom. "Follow me." He took off without another word.

Quickly, Harry followed suit, tailing Oliver as he flew straight to the opening for of the Slytherin locker rooms. However, there was no plaque on the outside reading 'Slytherin'. There was no plaque at all, and the door - normally the same brown as the rest of the stadium - was painted black. A thrill of foreboding shot down her spine.

Oliver dismounted and stood before the door, sucking in a deep breath before placing his palm where the plaque should have been. The doors opened slowly and silently, revealing a surprisingly well-lit locker room identical to that of the Gryffindors.

It was completely bare - the chalkboard starkly clean - and all of the lockers were closed. Some had odd markings on the doors, and one had started to show discoloration at the corners. Oliver headed straight towards it, stopping abruptly in front of it.

"I tend to avoid this place," he said, tapping his fingers nervously against the handle of his broom, studiously avoiding the locker.

Harry nodded. She herself had no idea of how her mind would manifest itself, but it wasn't difficult to figure out what Oliver's meant: these were his bad memories, recollections tainted by bad feelings or emotions. And the memories in the locker before her would be of the worst sort.

They stared at the locker in silence for a good ten seconds before she turned to him. "Are you…" she trailed off as Oliver grimaced but nodded, jaw set.

"I'm a Gryffindor," he said. "I've lived them once; a second time can't kill me."

Harry set the Nimbus down when Oliver did, and grabbed his hand for good measure. Cedric's mind had been vastly different; she hadn't even seen where he kept his bad memories.

With an impressively steady hand, Oliver opened the locker. Nothing happened.

"Well," Harry said with a shaky laugh. "That was - " She cut off when a seething mass of black mist flowed from the locker, pooling on the bench before shaping into a horribly familiar black-cloaked figure.

She leapt back, pulling Oliver with her. "That's the thing!" she squeaked in horror, staring at the cloaked man, face so shadowed that nothing could be made out.

Oliver's face was pasty white, but he stood steady. "It can't do anything," he said firmly. "It's just a memory."

"I'm touching you just fine," Harry snapped, holding up their entwined hands. Oliver looked slightly abashed but no less adamant in his belief.

"Doesn't matter," he said.

After a moment, Harry asked, "Why isn't it doing anything?"

Oliver shrugged. "I don't want it to." At Harry's astounded face, he amended, "This is my head, right? So obviously it only does what I want it to do."

"I'm not sure it works that way," Harry said carefully, but Oliver didn't seem to care.

"Ready?" he asked, before looking back at the figure.

Harry didn't get a chance to respond before it was moving again. She flinched back, but it ignored them, turning to the side raising one of its arms. A wand tip poked from the end of the sleeve, directed at the handle of a door that hadn't been there only a few seconds before. Slowly, like water seeping through cloth, their surroundings changed, with the door at the epicenter: lockers changed to dark stone walls, the smooth stone floor to the larger, rougher stone of Hogwarts' main.

Harry recognized the hallway right away: she, Neville, Hermione, and the twins had run down it while trying to escape Filch all those many months ago. It was the right-hand third-floor corridor.

The figure hissed a spell in a low voice, and the door started to creak open, but just then a familiar voice shouted from down the hall. "Hey!" Harry turned to see a second Oliver, with his normal appearance. She glanced to her right and saw that Oliver - the projected Oliver - was inspecting his other self, slowly gaining the other's characteristics until two identical Olivers stood at different points in the hall. "Hey, what do you think you're doing!?" the memory-Oliver called out, striding down the hall with a scowl on his face. "I'll report you to McGonagall, regardless of House," he threatened, coming closer.

Harry could see the moment the memory-Oliver realized he wasn't talking to a student, but a cloaked man. His face showed momentary shock before hardening as he pulled out his wand and let his book bag drop to the floor. "Stop whatever you're doing and drop your wand," Oliver barked out, wand steady even though his face was paler than normal and his voice a little higher pitched. Harry couldn't find it in herself to make fun of him for it; she herself would have been terrified in his shoes. As it was, the memory itself was frightening.

The figure paused, and then slowly turned around, it's wand still pointing straight ahead of it - now directly towards Oliver, who was far too slow to block the colorless light of a curse that was only vaguely visible as a blurring of the objects behind it as it sliced through the air towards him. There was no incantation - Oliver simply stiffened, a distracted air about him, and then pocketed his wand.

Harry gripped the real Oliver's hand tighter as the memory-Oliver walked towards the figure; she knew, logically, that Oliver would survive whatever happened next, but it didn't make watching this any easier.

The figure reached waited until memory-Oliver was right in front of it before dropping a vial filled with sickly red-brown potion - thick and viscous from her brief look at it - into Oliver's waiting palm. Memory-Oliver then turned his back and left the figure by the door concealing the massive three-headed dog, only pausing to pick up his bag. As he left the corridor, Harry saw memory-Oliver slip the potion into his robes pocket.

As soon as memory-Oliver rounded the corner, the corridor faded from sight, leaving Harry clutching Oliver's hand in the Slytherin locker room, all the lockers closed tight once more; the discoloration of the wood on the locker containing the recently-viewed memory was gone.

"Is that it?" Harry asked, letting go of Oliver's hand. "Is there anything after?"

Oliver shook his head mutely. "I don't think so," he said. "But I don't really know. I've never been here before." Whether he was talking about the Slytherin locker room or his own center, Harry wasn't sure, but either way…

"Where would you have hidden the vial?" she asked, grasping for anything that could help them figure out how to reverse the effects of whatever potion-spell combination the figure had placed Oliver, and by extent, everyone else, under.

Oliver gave a brief grin as he started to move towards the exit. "With the rest of my non-Percy-approved items. Behind my nightstand in a box."

Harry nodded. "And if it's not there?"

He shrugged. "No idea. But," he added hastily, "It should be there somewhere. Try Summoning it."

"I don't know that spell," Harry said glumly. "I mean - I know the incantation, Dad's used it enough, it just doesn't work for me."

"Flitwick said you've just really got to want it," Oliver told her with an air of superiority that crumbled after a few seconds. "Hurry up and get it, will you. I know I'm probably the biggest Quidditch jock at Hogwarts, but even I don't enjoy playing by myself for hours on end."

They stood in the middle of the pitch, where a broom and a Quaffle awaited Oliver not far away. Her broom - or the one she'd been using - was gone, vanished into thin air.

"I'll get you - all of you - up and about in time for the Quidditch final," she promised, knowing even as she spoke that it wasn't very likely to happen.

"The Cup will be ours," Oliver swore, but his grin didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Thanks," Harry said, backing away a little. She wasn't supposed to bring him out like she had Cedric; it might harm him even more.

"See ya'," she heard Oliver say as the surroundings blurred together into one large conglomeration of color before fading into blackness. When she opened her eyes, she was staring at Oliver's sleeping face.

"Done," she croaked, and nearly jumped at how hoarse her voice was. She licked her chapped lips. "How long was it?" she asked the room at large.

"Nearly two hours," Hermione whispered back, standing up from where she sat in the shadows cast by the privacy screen. Cedric was sleeping, sitting with his back against the wall, head tilted back and a small amount of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth.

Harry got off the bed, knees creaking slightly, and poked the boy awake.

"Whazzapinin?" he groaned, waking slowly and reaching for his wand.

"I'm out," Harry told him in a quiet voice.

Cedric woke up fully, shaking his head to clear the last vestiges of sleep from his thoughts. "Did you find out anything?" he asked seriously.

"Yeah," she said, but didn't elaborate.

"Well?" Hermione prompted impatiently.

"Later," Harry said. "We should get out before we're caught, and Fred and George will want to hear this too."

Neither of the other two could find an argument with her logic, so they followed her as she lead the way to Neville, who was wide awake in his shadowed corner by the door. He very nearly threw a tripping jinx at Harry before he realized who it was and held off. "Oh, good," he said weakly, stowing his wand and emerging from the shadows. "I was starting to get worried."

Harry smiled and led the way up through the utterly desolate halls; they didn't even pass a ghost, let alone a teacher. Harry twitched whenever a shadow moved the wrong way, remembering how Oliver's memory had coalesced from darkness. That figure…once had been more than enough; twice was more than she'd ever need in her lifetime, and somehow she didn't think she was done with whoever it was quite yet.

At the portrait of the Fat Lady, they paused. Harry shot a worried glance at Cedric before shrugging and, leaning up as close to the Fat Lady as she could get (the woman in the portrait had to bend down, nearly spilling her chest from the tight top of her silken dress), whispered the pass-phrase. The Fat Lady scowled and sniffed a little as she readjusted her dress, but the portrait swung open.

"Come on," Harry muttered to a slightly scandalized Hermione. Neville was already on his way through, but Cedric was hanging back uncertainly.

"Er - I can find out tomorrow," he offered, eying the opening with trepidation.

Harry rolled her eyes and drew her wand. It was a testament to how comfortable they had grown with each other that Cedric didn't so much as flinch. With a jab at Cedric's uniform, she transfigured all of his house-affiliated clothes - really just his tie, his badge, and the trim on his robes - into Gryffindor colors.

"Now you'll blend right in," she bit out a little sarcastically. "Come on," she repeated, following Hermione through. She only had to wait a moment before Cedric was next to her and the portrait swinging shut. "This way," she said briskly, ignoring the looks the four of them were getting from some of the students who either cared that they'd been out of bounds - first years' curfew was eight o'clock - or those who knew that Cedric wasn't a Gryffindor, which, surprisingly, wasn't that many as all of the third years were conspicuously absent.

Fred, George, and Lee were lounging in their dorm, the twins looking slightly singed around the eyebrows as they whispered over a journal on George's bed.

"You survived, I see," Harry said as she flopped next to George, who muttered a swear word as he blotted a word.

"As did you," Fred rejoined, unbothered by her upsetting George's writing.

"Well," Hermione asked again. "What did you learn?"

Harry sighed and sat up, moving until she was cross-legged on the end of the bed. Lee pushed aside his magazine; Neville had settled himself on the boiler, Hermione perched on the windowsill, and Cedric leaned against the closed door.

"He didn't really realize that he was trapped in his own mind until I told him," she said tiredly. "We played Quidditch for about five minutes before talking. I had to persuade him that he was really in a magically-induced coma by reminding him about the Ravenclaw Seeker." George gave a snort of humorless laughter.

"Sounds like Ollie," he said with a sour smile.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Anyways, he believed me and took me to his bad memories - "

"Took you to his bad memories?!" Hermione burst out, looking both intrigued and alarmed.

Harry shot her a quelling glare, and her friend muttered an apology and shrunk down on herself, waving a hand for Harry to continue the story.

"Yes, he took me to his bad memories," Harry reiterated. She gave a small shudder. "Remember that thing in the forest?" she asked George. The redhead gave a wary nod. "That's who it was; that's who's trying to get the Sorcerer's Stone."

There was a moment of stunned silence before, in a small voice, Hermione asked, "Are you sure?"

"A hundred percent."

"Hang on," Cedric cut in before she could explain the memory. "The Sorcerer's Stone? As in, the one belonging to the Flamel's? Is here, in a school?" His voice rang with disbelief, and Harry only just remembered that, in all her explaining to Cedric, she had never told Cedric about why the third-floor corridor was out-of-bounds.

"Um. Yeah?"

"We could hardly believe it either," Fred offered helpfully.

"But I reckon three-headed dogs would only be brought into a school for something that important, don't you?" George added.

"The Sorcerer's Stone?!" Cedric repeated before realizing what George had just said. "There's a Cerberus in the school!?" he asked quietly, shaking his head in what Harry could only assume was disgust. "Does Professor Dumbledore even know how dangerous those are? It could rip a person in half while napping!"

"Regardless," Harry barked out, trying to regain control of the conversation, "the cloaked figure is after the Stone, and I really don't have to point out that nothing good can come of it, which makes it even more important for us to find out how to cure Oliver."

"And the teachers," Hermione added.

"And the teachers," Harry amended with a roll of her eyes.

"And just how are we going to do that?" George asked.

Fred grinned. "I'm all for dunking them in the lake. It's never too cold for a nice dip."

"If you'd let me finish," Harry grumbled, "You'd know that Oliver's memory included him being magically coerced into not attacking the figure, and then leaving with a potion." She waited for Hermione to open her mouth to continue, cutting off her friend before she could begin. "A potions vial that should, if Oliver is right, be just down the stairs in his room."

There was a moment of silence, and then Fred spoke up. "Well, what are we waiting for?" he asked, getting up and heading to the door.

"Perce is on patrol for the next - " George glanced at his watch " - twenty minutes or so. Let's go!"

"Er. I'll stay here, I think," Hermione said as Harry and George followed Fred to the door.

"Me too," Neville seconded.

"Cedric?" Harry asked. The Hufflepuff shrugged. "I'll wait with them," he said, nodding to Hermione, Neville, and Lee, who hadn't said much of anything since Harry had come in. Lee waved her unasked question away as he picked his magazine back up. Harry followed the twins out the door.

They were back less than five minutes later, the vial tucked safely into Harry's pocket.

"Got it," she declared victoriously, fishing the mostly-empty vial out and showing it to the four students in the room. "Right where Oliver'd said it would be."

"And now we know where he stashes his contraband," Fred added smugly.

Harry gave a long-suffering sigh but inwardly had to stifle a grin. She was a flobberworm if Oliver didn't change his hiding spot as soon as he was back from the Hospital Wing.

"There's still a few drops left," Hermione said, coming over from the window and taking the vial, holding it up to inspect the glutinous brownish liquid.

"Which is really good for us," Harry agreed, snatching a spare quill, an ink bottle, and a scrap of parchment from the debris that littered the floor. The twins wouldn't mind - they probably wouldn't have even noticed it missing if they weren't right there watching.

"It is?" Neville asked.

"Yes, it is," Harry said, scribbling down potions ingredients. "Hermione, you're good at potions, yes?" she asked unnecessarily before pressing on, "If we brew the standard base for Ichibods' Poison Detector, but substitute hensbane and linseed oil for the bezoar tisane - "

"It will tell us the composition of the potion, even though it's not a poison!" Hermione finished in an excited rush. "Oh, Harry, that's brilliant!"

"Don't get too excited," Harry said. "I read that in one of my mum's old school books."

"Still got those?" George asked solicitously from the bed. Harry ignored him.

"But we've got to get the ingredients," she went on, talking strictly to Hermione, "and I can't see Snape letting us into his private stores to get Ashwinder eggs or the Demiguise hair."

George whistled slightly. "Those are expensive," he commented.

"Won't be easy getting to them." Fred frowned pensively, already plotting the theft.

"You're forgetting that Snape's not been on top of his game," Lee pointed out.

"I can get them," Cedric said suddenly. Everyone turned to stare at him. Harry had expected Hermione to offer to steal from Snape's privates stores before Cedric; even Neville was a more likely candidate.

"You?" Fred scoffed, obviously sharing Harry's doubts.

"Yes," Cedric said, a dangerous tone coming into his voice. "Me."

"But - " George started.

"Shut up!" Harry hissed, standing up and moving to the center of the room. The petty arguing was starting to get on her nerves; she just wanted this whole fiasco done and over with. "Why is it so startling that Cedric would offer to steal from Snape's stores? Is it his House? Because let me tell you, I was only put in Gryffindor because I asked to be put here!" Her voice had nearly risen to a shout at the end, and a ringing silence followed her words.

"So," Fred said to Cedric in a conversational tone, "When's the soonest you can get it?"

"Tomorrow evening," Cedric said slowly, eyebrows bunched together in thought. "If I can get the signature…" he trailed off.

"Excellent," Hermione said briskly when it became apparent that he wasn't going to continue. "That should mean…" she made a few quick jots on the parchment that Harry had abandoned next to her, "we can have the modified detector finished by Sunday tea-time if I get the slugs started tonight." She snapped her gaze over to the twins. "If I brew in here, you'll swear not so much as breathe on it?" She narrowed her eyes at them.

"Marauder's honor," the twins said in unison, holding their right hands up like they were pledging a solemn oath. Harry shook her head - sometimes the twins were weirder than even she could imagine - but the phrase struck a chord deep in her memories. She didn't linger on the thought, instead returning her attention to Hermione's instructions.

"…need a standard cauldron - I'll use mine, don't know what you've done to yours - , two liters of purified water and six horned slugs, butterflied."

"You can use my ingredients," Harry offered quickly, already moving towards the door. "The sooner we get this started, the sooner we'll be able to find out just which potion the Autumn Misery was mixed with."

"Or potions," Hermione said absently, before adding, "And bring your book, will you? Write down everything you remember from your mum's work."

Harry nodded and left, Cedric at her side. "I'm going to start back down to Hufflepuff," he said. They paused in front of her dorms' door. "I'll get the ingredients to you as soon as possible."

"We'll probably be in here," she told him. She eyed him carefully before saying, hurriedly, "The password is Flibbertigibbit. It changes on Tuesday, so it'll only work until then. And don't tell anyone I told you," she added as an afterthought. "Percy'll flay me if he finds out."

Cedric actually snorted. "I'd pay to see Percy flay anyone," he muttered with a grin. "But, thanks, and I won't." He was gone without another word, and Harry only spared him a single glance as she darted into her room, ignored Seamus, Dean, and Ron as they built an Exploding-Snape card-tower on top of the boiler, and pulled her potions kit and book out of her trunk before running back up the stairs, two at a time, to rejoin the rest of the schemers, eager to start on what she hoped would be the eventual cure for whatever nefarious plot was being enacted.