"Damn, this fanfiction has more secrets in it than 'Lost'," said Harry. "How could your father possibly scare Umbridge like that?"

"Well, he's been acting a little funny lately," said Ron. "It's hard to be explain how exactly. He's just seemed kinda shifty about a few things."

"Such as?"

"He's just been talking about some stuff that's been going on at the ministry without going into any details," explained Ron. "That's all I really know."

"Ugh, you're no help at all!" shouted Harry. "We need to find out what your father's been up to, Ron! It's important to our mission?"

"How so?" asked Ron, looking a little surprised by Harry's haughty attitude.

"Because he might know something about Voldemort!" said Harry. "Didn't you realize that Umbridge is somehow making contact with him? She actually believes that story that she heard about Luna Lovegood killing someone in a girls bathroom today."

"I thought that Bellatrix LeStrange did that," said Ron.

"Of course she did!" shouted Harry, almost letting go of Hermione's shoulders as he did so. "Voldemort is using this to cover it up!"

"Please don't drop Hermione," Ron said quickly. "I don't want for her head to fall on the sidewalk."

"Don't worry," Harry assured him. "We're almost at the hotel."

"Hotel?" said Ron, looking shocked. "I thought that we were going camping."

"I'm Harry Potter, and I don't want to go camping," said Harry sternly. "The Boy Who Lived shouldn't have to live without indoor plumbing."

"But that's not even an issue for wizards," Ron tried to tell him.

Harry didn't listen. "My mind's been made up," he said. "We will all be checking ourselves into a hotel as soon as we see one."

They finally arrived at a hotel that was called The Prancing Pony.

"Ugh!" says the reader. "How creative of the author!"

"Here we are," said Harry. "The Prancing Pony. A popular hotel for wizards with a name that's a pointless reference to 'Lord of the Rings.'"

"Let's just get in there!" said Ron. "My arms are starting to get tired."

They entered the hotel and went over to the counter.

"Can I ring the bell?" asked Ron.

"Do whatever you want," said Harry, laying Hermione down on a small sofa.

"ZZZzzzzz!!!" went Hermione.

Ron rang the bell, but no one came.

"Maybe they're on lunch break," suggested Ron.

"Lunch break?" said Harry, exasperated by his friend's stupidity. "It's almost 1:00 in the morning! Why would they be on lunch break?"

Ron said nothing, and sat himself down next to Hermione.

Harry went over to the desk and started tapping his fingers on it, beginning to lose his patience. The day had not been a productive one for him, and all he wanted to do was get to sleep.

Finally, a man wearing a very strange purple uniform arrived at the desk. He was very overweight and didn't seem to have much regard for personal hygeine. It wasn't until Harry saw his arm that he realized who it was that he was looking at.

"Wormtail!" shouted Harry. "What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

Wormtail bowed at Harry, attempting to appear civil.

"Merely making an honest living, Harry Potter," he said making that ugly smile of his. "I decided that I no longer wanted to work for the Dark Lord."

"Too late for that," snarled Harry, pointing his wand at Wormtail's throat. "You already murdered Cedric Diggory. I saw you do it."

"WHAT??" shouted Ron from the sofa.

Harry looked back at his friend. "What are you talking about?" he asked him, sounding a little disgusted.

"You...always said that You-Know-Who was the one who killed Diggory!" shouted Ron, looking too shocked for words.

"Well, that was true for a certain point of view," said Harry. "I thought it would make everyone feel a lot better if they thought that Cedric was killed by someone like Voldemort, instead of someone who used to be your pet rat."

"I don't follow you..."

"Look, Ron, do you really think people would've taken what happened to me in the graveyard seriously if they knew that Cedric was murdered by a guy who looked like that?"

As though trying to help prove Harry's point, Wormtail made that ugly smile of his even wider.

"Hey, Ron," he said, making a small wave at him. "How's the family?"

"They're okay, considering everything that's been going on," answered Ron as he stroked Hermione's hair a little. "Well, except for Percy, of course. He's dead."

"Ron, stop it!" shouted Harry. "You can't make casual conversation with a murderer."

"But James Bond does it all the time," said Ron.

"Please, Ron, we both know that you're no James Bond," said Harry as he rolled his eyes a little. He then turned his attention back to Wormtail.

"Now, what are you doing here?" he asked him, putting his wand so close to his throat that he was nearly cutting it open as he did so.

"Like I told you," said Wormtail, looking incredibly nervous. "I'm just trying to make an honest living. Would you like a room for the evening?"

"Why, so you can go in there and kill us in our sleep?" said Harry with a false laugh. "I don't think so!"

"You aren't going to kill me," said Wormtail, attempting to make that ugly grin of his again. "Lily and James wouldn't have wanted it..."

"DON'T MENTION THEIR NAMES, YOU FILTHY RAT!!" shouted Harry, pounding one of his fists down on the desk. "DON'T YOU EVER MENTION THEIR NAMES TO MY FACE AGAIN!!"

"Harry, you're going to wake Hermione," said Ron carefully, but Harry paid him no attention.

"Why do you think that we would want a room for the evening?" said Harry, furiously trying to keep his voice calm.

"Because this is a hotel," said Wormtail, gesturing his arms around the room. "It's a place where people go to sleep."

Wormtail then put his two hands together and pretended to lean his head down against them. He then closed his eyes and made snoring sounds.

It was an incredibly disturbing sight.

Harry smacked Wormtail across the face. "What are you trying to do? Disturb us for life? Now, tell me why you're here!"

"I already told you," said Wormtail, rubbing his sore cheek. "I'm just trying to make an honest living."

"Harry!" shouted Ron. "This scene is going around in circles! Let's please just ask for a room and be done with it."

"Never!" shouted Harry. "We're going to leave this place right now, and then we'll steal some construction equipment and have it destroyed with a giant wrecking ball...with Wormtail still inside."

"Noooooooo!" shouted Wormtail. "You can't do that to me! I'm a good man now. An honest, good man who just wants to work in a hotel."

"Yeah, right," said Harry, turning to the door. "Pick up Hermione, Ron. We're leaving."

But when Harry tried to open the door, it wouldn't budge.

"Oh, no," said Wormtail, looking very amused. "It looks like the hotel is now closed."

"Make the door open up this second, you butt-ugly creep!" Harry roared at him.

"I'm sorry, Potter, but there's nothing that I can do," said Wormtail with a small shrug. "Once the hotel closes, it doesn't open up again until the next day."

"That's stupid!" said Harry.

Wormtail shrugged again. "Blame the author, not me."

"Can we please just get a room, Harry?" said Ron, looking very frustrated. "I'm tired."

"Fine!" growled Harry, pulling out a bag of money and placing it on the table. "How much is a room for three people?"

"For you, Harry Potter, it will be free of charge," said Wormtail, giving another small bow. "I hope that this kind gesture helps show you what an honest person that I have become."

"Yeah, whatever," said Harry as Wormtail handed him a small key. "You're lucky that I don't make you watch a 'Hannah Montana' marathon right now."

Harry then looked down at the key.

"I can't find a number or anything on this thing," he said. "How am I supposed to know which room we're in?"

"Oh, don't worry, I can help you out with that," said Wormtail. "You see, the number on that key has been removed because some people are...superstitous about these things."

"What are you saying?" said Harry. "Are you saying that we're going to be in the 13th room or something?"

"The 13th room of the 13th floor," said Wormtail. "There's plenty of room for three people in there."

Ron looked extremely concerned. "Isn't there another room that you could give us?"

"Not for three people," answered Wormtail simply.

"C'mon, Ron," said Harry, getting annoyed. "You wanted a room, and now we have one."

Ron slowly hoisted Hermione up over his shoulders and followed Harry into the elevator.

"I wanted to go camping," he mumbled.

"Well, it's too late for that now," said Harry as he pushed the button to shut the elevator door.

"I don't like the number 13," said Ron. "The number 13 is bad luck."

Harry rolled his eyes and said nothing until the elevator reached the 13th floor.

"Well, here we are," said Harry as they walked into the hall.

"Couldn't we just sleep outside?" Ron suggested, seeming desperate to find a way out of this situation.

"No," said Harry firmly as he stuck his key into the door of their room. "You heard Wormtail. The hotel won't open up again until morning."

"But what if there's a fire? What are we going to do then?"

"Look, right now I'm concerned about Wormtail being here," said Harry. "I don't have time to worry about your silly concerns."

He then opened the door and looked into the room. His moith fell open almost immediately.

The room was in complete disrepair. The wallpaper, which was an ugly shade of orange, was peeling off the wall. The three so-called beds appeared to have springs coming out of them. Worst of all, the door to the bathroom had apparently been removed years ago, and had yet to be replaced.

"Brilliant," said Harry, slamming his backpack onto the floor. "Just brilliant."

"Which bed should we put Hermione on?" asked Ron.

"I don't know," said Harry, still disgusted by the sight of the room. "Probably the one with the fewest springs coming out of it. I don't imagine that we want her waking up until morning if we can help it."

After examining the beds for at least five minutes, Ron gently placed Hermione down on the bed that he deemed the most worthy. He carefully placed a very badly torn blanket over her.

"I'm glad for that," he said. "I was feeling kinda weird seeing her in only her underwear for such a long period of time."

Ron then collapsed into a bed that was much more bouncy than the one that he had put Hermione on. Despite the condition of the mattress, he was soon snoring almost as loudly as she was.

Harry sighed. He had very much wanted to talk with Ron for an extended period of time about everything that had happened, and about where they were to go next. There was no point in continuing to look for a horocrux in Diagon Alley, so now he had to choose between two options: Go to Hogsmeade or go to Hogwarts. After what had happened tonight, he was in no hurry to put Hermione anywhere close to the Hog's Head, especially since National Butterbeer Day was approaching.

"Hogwarts it is, then," he said outloud to himself. "It makes sense anyway, since there are supposed to be two horocruxes over there anyway."

Feeling the need to stretch his legs, and also wanting to get away from Ron and Hermione's snoring, Harry Potter left the room to get ice (wait...why the hell is he doing that?). On his way to the ice machine, he hummed "Breakaway" to himself, feeling content that he would soon have two pieces of Voldemort's soul in his hands.

It was then when he heard his name spoken.

"Potter must be stopped!" a voice said. "He can't be allowed to die!"

Harry noticed that the voice was coming from a hotel room that had its door knob opened by just a tiny crack. He immediately knew that this must mean that a secret conversation must be taking place, because it was a little known fact that you always left the door open a bit by mistake whenever you intended to have a private conversation with someone.

Naturally, he leaned down on the floor next to the door, trying to be as quiet as possible.

"Harry is only doing what he thinks is right," said the voice of Lupin. "He feels that he is obligated to destroy You-Know-Who. I for one believe that he is old enough to make his own decissions."

"Potter's a fool!" went the other voice, which Harry now knew was Mad-Eye Moody's. "He may be brilliant for a wizard of his age, but he doesn't seem to think twice about walking into traps."

"You think that Potter is walking into a trap?"

"Yes!" Moody snarled. "He showed me this thing that he got off of that muggle thing called the internet. He thinks it'll help him in his quest. Well, I looked at that thing, and it didn't look good to me at all. I could feel it in my bones. That thing had black magic in it!"

"Black magic? But I thought that you said that he got it off the internet?"

"Wizards lately, particuarly the bad ones, have taken to using the internet for their own purposes. It's quite useful, really, and I frankly can't believe that muggles were smart enough to come up with something like that."

"So you think that this object that Harry recieved was in fact sent to him by a Death Eater?"

"Who else would send something like that to him? We don't know anything about anyone in the Order using the internet for purposes other than finding porn."

"Is there anything else you wish to tell me?"

Moody sighed. "Unfortuantely, there is," he said. "We've been hearing some rumors lately. Only rumors, mind you. Nothing official. But they're about the Dark Lord's most trusted agent."

"Are you saying that you know who it is?"

"Like I said, it's nothing but rumors. But some people think that they know the identity, and yes, it will definately disturb you."

"Try me," said Lupin.

Harry noticed Mad-Eye limping towards Lupin and saw him whisper something into his ear.

"Good lord!" he shouted. "Moody, that's not possible! You're paranoid if you believe something like that!"

"Never the less, we must act quickly," said Moody. "If that rumor is indeed true, we are all in much more danger than we thought."

"I refuse to believe it!" insisted Lupin. "Are you saying that we should just go out and make an arrest without any proof? Where is the justice in the world, Alastar, if we are to send someone to Azkaban based on rumors alone?"

"We can't be too careful right now," said Moody. "That's all I'm saying."

"Well, until we know more actual facts, I shall keep an open mind," said Lupin simply. "By the way, why did you whisper the rumored name into my ear? It's not like we're being watched or anything."

"Actually, we are," said Moody. "Harry Potter has been listening to us for quite a few minutes now."

Harry dropped his empty ice bucket on the floor and bolted back to his hotel room.

"Curses!" he shouted to himself. "How the hell could I forget that Moody can see through walls?"

There were so many questions in his head. Why did Moody believe that the Horocrux detector was a trap? Who was the rumored identity of Voldemort's most trusted agent? Why was Lupin so convinced that it was a false rumor?

And why were Moody and Lupin sharing a hotel room with each other?

There was no way that he could answer those questions now. He opened the door to the 13th room on the 13th floor, and slammed it shut behind him out of frustration.

What he didn't know was that there was an uninvited guest in the room with him.