Chapter 16

Cnorth

Beta: Winthrops Slayer

Disclaimer: All HP Characters belong to JKR.

A/N: Sorry for the long break between chapters, but exams kept me away for a while, and then a job hunt and unpacking once I got home. So here it is: Chapter 16.

The next morning at breakfast, Harry was back to his normal suspicious but not violent nature. Hermione still hadn't been able to figure out what had been his problem at the party, but she was sure that whatever it was, it had nothing to do with the Winthrop girls, or at least not the gryffindors that she was close to.

Hedwig swooped into the Great Hall, carrying the morning paper, and Harry grabbed it from her talons, petting the soft feathers as he absent-mindedly scanned the headlines. One caught his eye, and his hand stopped moving on his bird.

DEATH EATER ATTACKS IN GODRICS HOLLOW

By: Rita Skeeter

Recently, a rash of attacks have hit the small community of Godric's Hollow. The area is best known for being the former home of Lily and James Potter, parents of The Boy Who Lived. It's lesser known claim to fame is as the site of the mythological Gryffindor Estate, said to be the home of Godric Gryffindor, after whom the town was named.

Several families have been killed in recent weeks, but attacks continue, as though He Who Must Not Be Named is searching for someone, or something.

See page 12D for continued story….

Harry looked up, and shoved the paper over to Hermione, before taking off without finishing his breakfast, leaving Hedwig to pick at his eggs and bacon.

He wasn't seen for the rest of the day, and Hermione had an extremely worried look on her face as she sat down next to Ashley for dinner.

"Where's Harry? He looked really upset this morning." Ashley commented, turning to her friend for an answer. Hermione shook her head, and took a bite of pot roast before continuing.

"He's not in the tower, and he took the cloak and the map with him. I'm really worried about him, Ash, I mean, he's never acted like this before."

"Maybe we should find him," Jenny piped up, from her seat across the table from Ashley. Hermione lit up at the idea, and smiled briefly, but then her face regained its downcast look.

"But he's got the cloak…we can't find him if he's wearing it!" she murmured, barely loud enough to be heard.

"That's what YOU think." Jenny crowed triumphantly. "Harry doesn't have the map, we do. We nicked it before the party to keep an eye on Lori and Chelli. We also borrowed the cloak, but that, we put back. Figured he'd notice if it was gone for more than a day. The map we couldn't get back in time, though, so we still have it."

Hermione grinned, an almost-smirk that she had picked up from Hollie and Chelli, mostly. "Well, in THAT case, then we'll go look for him. Where's the map?" she asked, eager to find and reassure her friend.

Jenny pulled a piece of parchment unceremoniously from the pocket of the jeans she was wearing that day instead of her robes.

Harry, however, wasn't on the map. As Hermione realized, that meant he could only be one place: The Room of Requirement. They kept a close eye on the map all day, waiting for him to leave the room, and finally, just after curfew, he did, moving hurriedly towards the front door to the castle.

They quickly took off, Ron joining them when they hurried past Gryffindor Tower. Harry ran through the front doors to the castle, heading for the Forbidden Forest. Ron and Hermione ran off to the Quidditch Pitch to grab brooms for all of them, and the others followed Harry discreetly, watching as he rode back out of the forest on something they couldn't see, presumably a thestral.

While he was invisible, and riding an invisible steed, the map allowed them to follow him to the border of the school grounds. From there on, they used a tracking spell to make his footprints show up to them, and them alone, and followed him for several hours on end. They weren't surprised when, not long before he stopped, they passed a sign welcoming them to Godric's Hollow. Chelli, meanwhile, had spent most of the trip muttering under her breath about following someone who didn't like them in the first place, and saying things like "Sure, I've got nothing better to do with my time. Let's all go off and get ourselves killed!"

They stopped when Harry did, staying back by about 100 feet, and hiding in a clump of bushes. He had stopped in a graveyard, by a pair of well kept tombstones with flowers on them. Ron, who had just come back from watching the Gryffindor quidditch practice, since he was off the team for a match due to a fight with a Slytherin beater, had a pair of omnoculars with him, and hurriedly trained them on Harry, while Lori popped her head over the bushes in order to cast a quick spell on Harry that would let them eavesdrop if he said anything.

"Mum, Dad, I feel like I've let you down…and now they're attacking here, Voldemort is attacking Godric's Hollow, just because he knows it will bother me. People are losing their lives because of me again…" He fell to the ground crying, and Ron and Hermione started to go to him, but Chelli and Hollie held them back as a strange glow started to encompass Harry. It was crimson red, interlaced with a gold sparkle and rimmed in shimmery white. At the same time, Lori had started glowing, as had Ashley and Sam. Lori was glowing cornflower blue, with a bronze sparkle, Ashley was glowing sunflower yellow with black specks, and Sam was brightly glowing green, with silver ribbons running through it.

Lori remembered the spell she had cast, and understood. But Voldemort was the heir of Slytherin…so why was Sam glowing? And apparently, Harry and Ashley were the heirs of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff….

The glows faded, and Harry apparated away. His watchers turned with a sigh, knowing they couldn't follow him anymore, and started back to Hogwarts, knowing that since the next morning was Christmas, he would probably come back eventually.