Hello fellow HP fans! Short message I would like to deliver. Firstly, thanks to all my readers. It feels so weird saying I have readers :P Secondly, comments would be appreciated... especially from this point on in the story, as I'm taking a bit more risks in my scenario and my characters life stories... Also, summer is almost here. So enjoy all the nice little things of life (including this chapter!):

Harry slowly walked down the empty hallway and climbed up the stairs until he arrived in front of the Gryffondor common room. Before the Fat Lady even had to ask, he muttered: "Cornucopia". This simply horrible password had been chosen by the Fat Lady herself about two months ago, the day she threatened to kill a student if the password was to be changed to another incomprehensible quote a single other time. This big drama, which had captivated the inhabitants of Hogwarts' portraits since the beginning of the year, had been started, just like any other drama, by one of the Weasley brothers. Ron, taking advantage of his status of prefect, had taken the habit of using different types of insults and vulgarities as passwords, to the Fat Lady's great displeasure: she did not enjoy being regularly sworn at by thousands of students. Unable to stand this "humiliating torture", the Fat Lady had rummaged through the library, trying to find a misplaced coma that could permit her to simply ignore the passwords chosen by prefects. She failed to do so, but she had still managed to find an ancient rule that gave her the right to name one of the two prefects "Key Master". She had obviously given this somewhat prestigious title to Hermione, who had then decided, simply overwhelmed with joy, that the new Gryffondor password would be NATURAM EXPELLES FURCA, TAMEN USQUE RECURRET. "In honor of Horace, of course," she had replied when her two most faithful friends had dared to asked why in her right mind she would choose such a complicated, Latin sentence as a password. Complaints had burst forth the very day this new password had been officiated, forcing Hermione to change it once again. Sadly, her love for Latin quotations had not died, and for about two weeks, students had taken the habit of writing down the new password in order to remember it. It was only when a pack of first grade students had been obligated to wait for an hour outside the door that the Fat Lady had taken things in hand. On that sunny day of mid-October, it had been declared that the new password would be Cornucopia.

Leaving the fascinating epic of the Gryffondor password, Harry came back to reality. In front of him the Fat Lady's portrait had swung open, and he could easily distinguish the rabble that filled the common room to it's brim. Almost all the red and golden uniforms were in the circular tower, celebrating in advance the upcoming vacations. This display of joy gave Harry a little grin, but still somehow filled his heart with disgust. Without even stepping into the small tunnel that led to his friends, he turned around and pursued his pointless walk. Behind his slouched back, the Fat Lady simply swung back into her original place, and left her portrait, probably joining some type of Christmas celebration herself. As he was wandering within the school walls, Harry suddenly realized he had lost many hours recently, simply wandering within the school walls. His head has filled with thoughts he did not dare express, but now his skull was tearing him apart. "The Dark Lord never managed to trouble my mind," he thought bitterly, "but one of my teachers is about to drive me insane." It was ridiculous. The only reason why Thalia's image was permanently engraved in Harry's mind was that he refused to let her out by talking to anyone. On the other hand, when it came time to talk about Voldemort… Dumbledore. The name jumped into Harry's mind like a cat on a mouse, taking the boy by surprise. Of course. He could never be completely honest with his two friends, but the Headmaster had always been there to reassure him. Harry sighed in relief. He had finally found a point to his walk.

The student knocked three times on the heavy wooden door and waited. He had heard voices inside the Headmaster's office, but they had vanished the second he knocked. The door creaked open, and Harry's sight was immediately embellished by Dumbledore's honest smile. Harry felt a warm rush spread in his body. Without waiting for an invitation, Harry stomped in the office. "So Harry," the Headmaster simply stated, slouching his old carcass on his tall chair. The boy took a seat facing the old man and waited. "I believe you came here of your own will… so why don't you start," the bearded man added with a wink.

"Erm, yes. I…"

Right at that moment Harry realized he had no reason for sitting on the uncomfortable wooden chair facing Dumbledore's desk. He said the first thing he could think of. "Why is Thalia at Hogwarts?" he asked.

"Has there been a problem?" Dumbledore frowned.

Harry could think of a dozen problems he had encountered, starting with a small cut he could still feel on his neck. "No, not at all. I just keep wondering how you manage to bring teachers who always have something… new, to tell about my parents."

"I see. Rest assured, I have not brought her to the school simply for that…"

There was a moment of silence, then he continued. "I guess you already know enough on her account that I don't need to try to hide anything from you anymore. Snape had mentioned her a few times these last years. They had lost touch when Voldemort's reign had ended, but they had renewed their relationship only a few years after, through old friends. Friends Thalia had until then refused to meet face to face... Apparently she had left her retreat and was starting to renew with the Dark Lord and his supporters."

"How come?"

"I don't believe it's my role to tell you her entire life story… Though of course you might have started to sort it out," he admitted to himself. "As I was saying, she was starting to turn towards these ancient comrades for support, and I feared they would accept her once again."

"You mean you thought she would go back to being a Death Eater?"

"Not a Death Eater no…" Dumbledore replied. "Well maybe, actually, I don't see why not, but I was mostly scared she would… She's a powerful witch, but most of all she's passionate. She does not use her reason to make decisions, she leaves all the place to her anger and her frustration. I saw her as an ambulant bomb, ticking faster and faster, ready to burst in our hands. I thought giving her another noble cause to fight for might be a way of evacuating this anger she keeps inside in such an unhealthy way."

"Did it work?" Harry asked, voluntarily ignoring the fact he also had this unhealthy habit.

"No."

Dumbledore let out a sincere laugh, and pursued. "You know, I'm starting to believe there are some things men are not meant to meddle with. Women for instance. Yesterday I destroyed all my chances of saving her…"

"How come?"

"I think she understood I was trying to save her. She does not like putting her faith into someone else's hands. That's why she chose to take no position. She could adore Voldemort, or she could follow orders. Nothing was appealing to her."

"And she chose to say neutral."

"I don't think she's neutral. I believe she has friends on both sides, and enemies on both sides. And she's trying to find a way both can win. "

"It's impossible."

"Maybe it is…"

A small knock came from the door and Dumbledore pointed it with the tip of his chin, silently asking Harry to open it for him. The boy did so, and he found himself facing Thalia. Inside him something burst in anger. He found that for a traumatized girl who couldn't stand being in his presence, she was around far too often. He stepped aside and let her enter. "I see I am not the only one who considers Albus as a psychiatrist," she giggled. Dumbledore gave Harry a grave look, and Harry gently nodded. He understood he had to leave. After all, he had completely forgotten the purpose of his visit, and he would rather not steal any of Dumbledore's precious time. He was about to walk down the stairs under his teachers' supervision when Fawkes gave out a low cry, probably biding his friend goodbye. Harry observed the animal. He was at the end of his life. His eyes were small and tired, and his entire silhouette was leaning forward, as if he was about to fall of his perch. His feathers were now a dark crimson, so dark from far the animal seemed as black as a crow. A crow. Harry jumped back into Dumbledore's office, feverish. "Thal… Miss Beauregard, about the attack, I have to tell you…"

"Harry," replied his teacher, "calm down. There is no attack. There's been a terrible misinterpretation."

"What?"

"We believe the Thin Ices…" Dumbledore started, adopting a very diplomatic tone of voice.

"I'll be honest Albus," Thalia interrupted. "The Thin Ices had a little fun on our account, predicting a catastrophe they had planned themselves. It only affects Severus and I so don't worry…"

"I told you, you shouldn't have kept as many of them together," the Headmaster objected.

"Wait," Harry objected, "it, it did affect me. I got a message."

"What?" Thalia asked simply by reflex.

"During Divination class, I read something in my tea."

"Did it announce you were going to die?" the woman asked with a skeptical smile.

"No, I read it myself," Harry replied harshly. "The tea leaves had the shape of a black crow. A black crow backwards, actually, and the book said it was evil in disguise."

At the mention of a black crow, Thalia had frowned. But now, she seemed radiant. She looked at Dumbledore with a superior glint in her eyes, and turned back towards Harry. "Well it turns out this fits perfectly with our original scenario. When did you get this message?"

"Erm, yesterday I think…"

Recently, time had gotten out of Harry's control. He had always liked the fact that a minute was always sixty seconds long, and that a day held only twenty-four hours. Only it seemed that these days, it was impossible for Harry to tell apart a day from another. The chronological time line that usually served as a background to his memories had simply vanished. Nevertheless, he added : "Yeah, yesterday."

"Harry you are completely serious?" Thalia asked.

"Of course."

"Well then Headmaster…" she said turning towards Dumbledore.

"I believe you were right… sadly. Well I'll take care of warning all the teachers… Would you mind going back to your apartments to see when this attack would happen?"

"My pleasure," Thalia replied.

She quickly paced down the stairs and Dumbledore sighed. The old man looked weary as he sat down back into his great chair, as if he had suddenly grown older of a year or two. Harry, though he knew his friend needed silence and peace, couldn't help but ask: "You did not believe there would be an attack in the end?"

"I tricked myself into believing it, to be honest…" Dumbledore replied with a smile.

"How?"

"Well this morning I realized that the mirrors were probably announcing a simple argument between two professors."

"Thalia and Snape."

"Exactly…"

"But you said… that the mirrors had crafted the catastrophe themselves, or something…"

"Yes. You know, sometimes destiny acts strangely. Knowing your future might cause you to accelerate it. One often finds his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it…"

"Err… what?"

"Nothing," Dumbledore laughed. "It's a proverb I have discovered recently. I find it explains the world and it's peculiarities with much insight."

"Also interested in ancient runes?" Harry asked, at random, thinking of the most intellectual place where the Headmaster could find these pearls of wisdom.

"No, I heard it in a muggle movie about a panda doing Kung-Fu," Dumbledore stated with a giggle.

"…"

"I'll try explaining, Dumbledore laughed. I would have rather have the mirrors announce a little fight between them two… The mirrors could have been announcing many things, and I chose to believe it was predicting the simplest, most harmless one. Therefore, I sent Snape away for a mission, which infuriated Thalia, and which caused the fight. No harm was done, and we simply blamed misinterpretation for the small wave of panic that had hit us."

"Isn't that what happened?" Harry pointed out, puzzled.

"Yes. But then, by sending Snape away and creating this… lets call it a disagreement, well, I might have caused a battle to take place."

"So if you hadn't sent Snape away…" Harry tried.

"Oh it would have probably happened. Faith always has its way. It simply gives us the illusion we can change it."

"But now there is a fight?"

"Yes Harry. A fight will take place. Probably tonight."

The boy sat down, his head throbbing. He did not understand any of the subtleties of Divination, and he hated the fact that he had been forced into them for about a week he would have said, but what a normal calendar would have indicated as… he simply could not say. The Headmaster smiled at him, and offered to bring him back to the Gryffondor common room. The boy refused any help, and instead chose to walk by himself back to the tower. After Dumbledore made him promise multiple times not to talk of the upcoming invasion to any students, Harry making a personal exception of Ron and Hermione, which he considered more like a part of himslef than like other students, he silently walked in the dark corridors, creating a mental calendar and trying to pin the main events he had recently experienced on particular dates.

Harry let out a slow moan of delight as he sunk into his bed. Only now did he realize he had been up for such a long time. Of course, a small voice in his head kept reminding him he still had to survive diner, and then an other entire day before he could finally pull the sheets over his nose and surrender to the sweet call of sleep. Oh, and he probably would have to fight a few Death Eaters before that too. Harry groaned, unable to find any pleasure in his total inaction anymore. He sat up on his bed and stared out the window. The school grounds resembled a muggle postcard. Hagrid had even brought back to life an old, rickety horse-drawn carriage. Of course, it could not budge, buried in the heavy snow that covered every inch of Hogwarts, and the two-horses that should have officiated at it's front were absent, protected from the icy weather. Nevertheless, Harry was tempted to snap a quick picture of the scene and send it to someone, whoever that someone was.

Suddenly, a small black owl appeared in Harry's field of vision. It gently tapped the glass with it's dark claw, and Harry immediately oppened the window, regretting his action the second a freezing breeze entered the dormitory, which penetrated in his flesh to what Harry believed was the very marrow of his bones. He cursed against the animal, that required at least an eternity and a half to squeeze it's small silhouette into the room and then crash on Neville's bed. Harry hoped his friend would not take notice of the small pile of snow that was quickly melting on the sheets as he shut the window with such force that the owl had a jump of fear. The boy approached the animal, who docilely waited for him to untie the parchment wrapped up around it's small claw. Immediately after, it spread it's thin wings and rushed to the window, starring blindly at Harry. As the boy simply starred back, it let out a small cry, that could only mean: "Yes, I am stupid enough to voluntarily ask that you throw me out in this endless tundra." Harry, ignoring the voice of reason that shouted to him that he was sending the bird to it's death, opened the window once again, shivering as the heavy metal frame swung sideways. Once he was sure no part of the bird's anatomy was blocking the whole piercing the wall, he closed the window once again, damning the idiot that had invented windows. Or, as it is, cold.

He shrugged, and quickly opened the letter he held in his stiff hands, as if hurrying up would somehow cause his blood to circulate once again. He quickly glanced at the signature at the bottom of the piece of parchment. It was from Sirius. The letter was divided in two sections, as if his godfather had stopped halfway through his letter to continue it later on… with a different color of ink. He read the first paragraph, which was far more lengthy than the three lines that composed the second part of the message.

Dear Harry,

Christmas is approaching quickly. I love the snow, it's so beautiful to see light once in a while. At least now, when I'm starring out my window, I can see the shine of the sun reflecting on the white ground. Beautiful.

Harry paused his lecture to look outside once again. This letter had not been written recently: at that moment the sky was gray and the sun barely managed to light up the scenery.

I thought that we could somehow manage to see each other during the holidays. Do you intend on visiting Ron and his family? Molly has been so kind…

Harry quickly skimmed through the rest of the first paragraph, written in a light, blue shade of ink. Sirius was simply chatting about the Weasleys, the weather, the upcoming holidays, and the results of the last hockey games – a muggle sport he was especially fond of now that it was the only thing his old television would broadcast. Harry simply skipped to the next three lines, written this time in black, and in a rather botched calligraphy.

Snape has warned me. Be careful, you know who you can trust, stick to them. Don't take any personal initiatives. I don't like this at all. Protect your good old body – but also your mind. Yours,

Sirius

Harry was puzzled. Protect his mind? It was obvious that his godfather had sent his christmas greetings card in advance in order to warn him, only he did not understand of what. He already knew there would be an attack on the castle. He had actually heard of the news way before Sirius had. But his message seemed coded somehow. He could simply not figure out what he ment when he told Harry to watch his mind: was it linked to this capacity of reading Voldemort's mind Harry had discovered during the summer? He thought of this as an acceptable explanation, and moved on to the next point that triggered an uncomfortable felling in his gut… you know who you can trust, stick to them… What on earth was that supposed to mean? Did Sirius think Snape was actually an ennemy? No, of course not, he was aware that Dumbledore was confident Snape was their ally. Thalia? Harry could not believe she could be mutining against him. If she was bad, than Snape was bound to be as, if not more, evil. She had joined the ranks of Voldemort out of frustration, whereas Snape had done so because he shared his ideology. He sighed. He did not trust Snape, Sirius did not trust Thalia. The student would simply have to stay away from both these teachers for the next few days. If course he doubted it would be possible.

PS: Slight modification, I've learned the difference thurst and trust.