Chapter 48:

The boys didn't talk about Harry's vision to Hermione all morning, and only at break did they think to mention it. The four were standing in their usual corner of the cool and breezy courtyard where they were very unlikely to be heard. Harry went into every detail of his dream with her, and Alicia listened as well, having for once not seen it herself.

When he had finished, she said nothing at all for a few moments, but stared with a kind of painful intensity at Fred and George, who were both headless and selling their magical hats from under their cloaks on the other side of the yard.

"So that's why they killed him," she said quietly, withdrawing her gaze from Fred and George at last. "When Bode tried to steal this weapon, something funny happened to him. I think there must be defensive spells on it, or around it, to stop people from touching it. That's why he was in St. Mungo's, his brain had gone all funny and he couldn't talk. But remember what the Healer told us? He was recovering. And they couldn't risk him getting better, could they? I mean, the shock of whatever happened when he touched that weapon probably made the Imperius Curse lift. Once he'd got his voice back, he'd explain what he'd been doing, wouldn't he? They would have known he'd been sent to steal the weapon. Of course, it would have been easy for Lucius Malfoy to put the curse on him. Never out of the Ministry, is he?"

"And it would have been easy if they picked an Unspeakable to do the job, they can enter without being suspected. And if Lucius is in the ministry he could collect it from Bode before anyone noticed, whether it was bit or small. To think, if there hadn't been charms to stop him touching it Voldemort could have gotten it already." Alicia mumbled. "It mustn't be very big though," she believed "If one person is all it takes to collect."

"You're still hanging on the idea of this weapon not being weapon aren't you?" Ron said

"I just said it was a possibility. A weapon doesn't necessarily have to be something that kills a lot of people." she shrugged. "I mean the Imperius Curse doesn't kill people but it's a weapon, as demonstrated by many more besides Lucius Malfoy."

"He was even hanging around that day I had my hearing," said Harry pointing to Alicia, she nodded remembering. "In the — hang on…" he said slowly. "He was in the Department of Mysteries corridor that day! Your dad said he was probably trying to sneak down and find out what happened in my hearing, but what if —"

"Sturgis," gasped Hermione, looking thunderstruck.

"Sorry?" said Ron, looking bewildered.

"Sturgis Podmore," said Hermione, breathlessly. "Arrested for trying to get through a door. Lucius Malfoy got him too. I bet he did it the day you saw him there, Harry. Sturgis had Moody's Invisibility Cloak, right? So what if he was standing guard by the door, invisible, and Malfoy heard him move, or guessed he was there, or just did the Imperius Curse on the off chance that a guard was there? So when Sturgis next had an opportunity — probably when it was his turn on guard duty again — he tried to get into the department to steal the weapon for Voldemort — Ron, be quiet — but he got caught and sent to Azkaban…"

"If that's the case though, the Death Eaters and Voldemort could have gotten some insight into the Order as well. With Sturgis under the Imperius Church he'd be forced to blab." Alicia worried

"Well luckily he can't give up Grimmauld Place." Hermione said and Alicia nodded

"And Voldemort was likely to know we knew what he's before they had Sturgis." she looked annoyed "Mustn't have said much though, or Snape probably wouldn't be here anymore." the three shared a look as Alicia contemplated the idea.

Hermione turned to gaze at Harry.

"And now Rookwood's told Voldemort how to get the weapon?"

"I didn't hear all the conversation, but that's what it sounded like," said Harry. "Rookwood used to work there… Maybe Voldemort'll send Rookwood to do it?"

"How? He's a most wanted, he can't walk into the Ministry." Alicia reminded him.

Hermione nodded, apparently still lost in thought. Then, quite abruptly, she said, "But you shouldn't have seen this at all, Harry."

"What?" he said, taken aback.

"You're supposed to be learning how to close your mind to this sort of thing," said Hermione, suddenly stern.

"I know I am," said Harry.

"Alicia didn't see it." Hermione pointed

"I wasn't asleep." Alicia said obviously "Neither of us get pulled in unless we're sleeping so far. Or I concentrate."

"He shouldn't be seeing it at all. He needs to practice."

"But —" Harry tried to interject.

"Well, I think we should just try and forget what you saw," said Hermione firmly. "And you ought to put in a bit more effort on your Occlumency from now on."

Harry was so angry with her that he did not talk to her for the rest of the day.

It wasn't a great day, which wasn't unusual around the castle anymore. When people were not discussing the escaped Death Eaters in the corridors today, they were laughing at Gryffindor's abysmal performance in their match against Hufflepuff; the Slytherins were singing "Weasley Is Our King" so loudly and frequently that by sundown Filch had banned it from the corridors out of sheer irritation.

Alicia did not disagree with the caretaker for once.

Things moved along at a lousy pace. Harry received two more D's in potions, Hagrid was still on probation and possibly getting the sack and they were still moving through Occlumency lessons.

Harry ended up once more on the floor of Snape's office during another of their sessions. It had been a couple of weeks since Harry had seen Rookwood and Snape seemed yet to delve into those memories, having not told Harry off for it, and Alicia assumed Harry had put it to the back of his mind.

"Get up, Potter." Snape commanded.

Alicia sighed. She had managed to figure out the best way to get Snape from her head. She could see through the memories flashing through her mind to Snape and either use a spell to deflect him or even direct her thoughts to confuse him and stop him finding what ever he might have been looking for.

Harry however had not had as much luck.

"That last memory," said Snape. "What was it?"

"I don't know," said Harry, getting wearily to his feet. He was finding it increasingly difficult to disentangle separate memories from the rush of images and sound that Snape kept calling forth. "You mean the one where my cousin tried to make me stand in the toilet?"

"No," said Snape softly. "I mean the one concerning a man kneeling in the middle of a darkened room…"

"It's… nothing," said Harry. Alicia released a slow breath from her seat.

Snape's dark eyes bored into Harry's. Remembering what Snape had said about eye contact being crucial to Legilimency, Harry blinked and looked away.

"How do that man and that room come to be inside your head, Potter?" said Snape.

"It —" said Harry, looking everywhere but at Snape, "it was — just a dream I had."

"A dream," repeated Snape.

There was a pause during which Harry stared fixedly at a large dead frog suspended in a purple liquid in its jar.

"You do know why we are here, don't you, Potter?" said Snape in a low, dangerous voice. "You do know why I am giving up my evenings to this tedious job?"

"Yes," said Harry stiffly.

"Remind me why we are here, Potter."

"So I can learn Occlumency," said Harry, now glaring at a dead eel.

"Correct, Potter. And dim though you may be" — Harry looked back at Snape, hating him — "I would have thought that after two months' worth of lessons you might have made some progress. How many other dreams about the Dark Lord have you had?"

"Just that one," lied Harry.

"Perhaps," said Snape, his dark, cold eyes narrowing slightly, "perhaps you actually enjoy having these visions and dreams, Potter. Maybe they make you feel special — important?"

"No, they don't," said Harry, his jaw set and his fingers clenched tightly around the handle of his wand.

"That is just as well, Potter," said Snape coldly, "because you are neither special nor important, and it is not up to you to find out what the Dark Lord is saying to his Death Eaters."

"No — that's your job, isn't it?" Harry shot at him. Alicia blinked, surprised Harry had returned with such a comment.

For a long moment the two stared at each other, Harry convinced he had gone too far. But there was a curious, almost satisfied expression on Snape's face when he answered.

"Yes, Potter," he said, his eyes glinting. "That is my job. Now, if you are ready, we will start again…"

He raised his wand. "One — two — three — Legilimens!"

Alicia watched as Harry began to fall towards the floor again before suddenly he was raising his own wand.

"Protego!"

Snape staggered; his wand flew upward, away from Harry — and Alicia felt as though her head was rather crowded all of a sudden. She closed her eyes and saw a quick image of a hook-nosed man shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner, then a greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies…

"ENOUGH!"

Snape shouted and Alicia opened her eyes as her head seemed to have the pressure released.

Harry suddenly staggered backwards and hit some of the shelves covering Snape's walls and heard something crack. Snape was shaking slightly, very white in the face.

The back of Harry's robes were damp. One of the jars behind him had broken when he fell against it; the pickled slimy thing within was swirling in its draining potion.

Alicia shook her head and looked between the two, she put a small smile on her face as though trying to look impressed at Harry for clearly blocking Snape from his mind. She knew that the feeling of her crowded mind had come from Harry, and the images were most definitely Snape's. The shielding charm had put Harry into Snape's head instead of the other way around.

Why she'd been drawn in as well when that hardly happened she was unsure.

"Reparo!" hissed Snape, and the jar sealed itself once more. "Well, Potter… that was certainly an improvement…" Panting slightly, Snape straightened the Pensieve in which he had again stored some of his thoughts before starting the lesson, almost as though checking that they were still there. "I don't remember telling you to use a Shield Charm… but there is no doubt that it was effective…"

Harry said nothing, as though he was worried to do so.

"Let's try again, shall we?" said Snape.

They moved back into position with the desk between them. Alicia said nothing about having a shot herself and watched the two. It was more important for Harry to learn.

"On the count of three, then," said Snape, raising his wand once more. "One — two — Legilimens!"

Alicia was pulled in again, the room vanished from before her. They were hurtling along the corridor toward the Department of Mysteries, past the blank stone walls, past the torches — the plain black door was growing ever larger; they were moving so fast that a collision was inevitable, feet from it and that chink of faint blue light was there again —

The door had flown open! They were through it at last, inside a black-walled, black-floored circular room lit with blue-flamed candles, and there were more doors all around him — he needed to go on — but which door ought he to take — ?

"POTTER!"

Alicia gasped as she was kneeling on the floor, the chair she had been sitting in had fallen over and Harry was lying beside her, flat on his back.

Alicia took several deep breaths and shook her head as she tried to recompose herself. She hadn't dreamed of the door as constantly as Harry had since they'd started Occlumency lessons but she knew it had never opened before. And it explained why Harry let it continue instead of pushing Snape and her out, he wanted to know what was on the other side. Alicia could feel his desire to get through the door finally.

Snape was standing over Harry and he looked even more furious at the idea of Harry letting the vision continue than of Harry entering his head and seeing his memories. He glanced at Alicia who stood the chair up and sat herself back down on it.

"Explain yourself!" said Snape

"I… dunno what happened," said Harry truthfully, standing up. He moved to Alicia checking she was alright despite his legs shaking slightly. "I've never seen that before. I mean, I told you, I've dreamed about the door… but it's never opened before…"

"You are not working hard enough! You are lazy and sloppy, Potter, it is small wonder that the Dark Lord —"

"Can you tell me something, sir?" said Harry, firing up again. "Why do you call Voldemort the Dark Lord, I've only ever heard Death Eaters call him that —"

Alicia sighed, her stability coming back to her. Snape had been a Death Eater of course it's a habit of his.

Snape opened his mouth in a snarl — and a woman screamed from somewhere outside the room.

Alicia looked up surprised at the celling as Snape's head jerked upward, the professor doing the same.

"What the — ?" he muttered.

There was a muffled commotion coming from what was likely to be the entrance hall. Snape looked around at him, frowning.

"Did you see anything unusual on your way down here, Potter?"

Both Alicia and Harry shook their heads. Somewhere above them, the woman screamed again. Snape strode to his office door, his wand still held at the ready, and swept out of sight. Harry hesitated for a moment while Alicia got from her seat and grabbed Harry on her way past to follow.

The screams were indeed coming from the entrance hall; they grew louder as the twins ran toward the stone steps leading up from the dungeons. When they reached the top they found the entrance hall packed. Students had come flooding out of the Great Hall, where dinner was still in progress, to see what was going on. Others had crammed themselves onto the marble staircase. Alicia and Harry pushed forward through a knot of tall Slytherins and saw that the onlookers had formed a great ring, some of them looking shocked, others even frightened. Professor McGonagall was directly opposite Harry on the other side of the hall; she looked as though what she was watching made her feel faintly sick.

Professor Trelawney was standing in the middle of the entrance hall with her wand in one hand and an empty sherry bottle in the other, looking utterly mad. Her hair was sticking up on end, her glasses were lopsided so that one eye was magnified more than the other; her innumerable shawls and scarves were trailing haphazardly from her shoulders, giving the impression that she was falling apart at the seams. Two large trunks lay on the floor beside her, one of them upside down; it looked very much as though it had been thrown down the stairs after her. Professor Trelawney was staring, apparently terrified, at something neither twin could not see but that seemed to be standing at the foot of the stairs.

Alicia already had a guess of what it was.

"No!" she shrieked. "NO! This cannot be happening… It cannot… I refuse to accept it!"

"You didn't realise this was coming?" said a high girlish voice, sounding callously amused, and Harry, moving slightly to his right, saw that Trelawney's terrifying vision was nothing other than Professor Umbridge. He pulled Alicia towards him and pointed at the toad women. Alicia nodded, her suspicions confirmed. "Incapable though you are of predicting even tomorrow's weather, you must surely have realised that your pitiful performance during my inspections, and lack of any improvement, would make it inevitable you would be sacked?"

"You c-can't!" howled Professor Trelawney, tears streaming down her face from behind her enormous lenses, "you c-can't sack me! I've b-been here sixteen years! H-Hogwarts is m-my h-home!"

"It was your home," said Professor Umbridge, and Harry was revolted to see the enjoyment stretching her toadlike face as she watched Professor Trelawney sink, sobbing uncontrollably, onto one of her trunks. Alicia balled her hands up angrily, remembering to keep them away from her wand incase her anger got the better of her. "until an hour ago, when the Minister of Magic countersigned the order for your dismissal. Now kindly remove yourself from this hall. You are embarrassing us."

But she stood and watched, with an expression of gloating enjoyment, as Professor Trelawney shuddered and moaned, rocking backward and forward on her trunk in paroxysms of grief. Harry heard a sob to his left and looked around. Lavender and Parvati were both crying silently, their arms around each other. Professor McGonagall broke away from the spectators, marched straight up to Professor Trelawney and was patting her firmly on the back while withdrawing a large handkerchief from within her robes.

"There, there, Sibyll… Calm down… Blow your nose on this… It's not as bad as you think, now… You are not going to have to leave Hogwarts…"

"Oh really, Professor McGonagall?" said Umbridge in a deadly voice, taking a few steps forward. "And your authority for that statement is…?"

"That would be mine," said a deep voice.

The oak front doors had swung open. Students beside them scuttled out of the way as Dumbledore appeared in the entrance. What he had been doing out in the grounds Harry could not imagine. He looked at Alicia and she shrugged. He'd either have left the school for some weird reason or been to see Hagrid for something… or perhaps something else. She had to admit though that there was something impressive about the sight of him framed in the doorway against an oddly misty night. Leaving the doors wide behind him, he strode forward through the circle of onlookers toward the place where Professor Trelawney sat, tearstained and trembling, upon her trunk, Professor McGonagall alongside her.

"Yours, Professor Dumbledore?" said Umbridge with a singularly unpleasant little laugh. "I'm afraid you do not understand the position. I have here" — she pulled a parchment scroll from within her robes — "an Order of Dismissal signed by myself and the Minister of Magic. Under the terms of Educational Decree Number Twenty-three, the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts has the power to inspect, place upon probation, and sack any teacher she — that is to say, I — feel is not performing up to the standard required by the Ministry of Magic. I have decided that Professor Trelawney is not up to scratch. I have dismissed her."

But Dumbledore only continued to smile. He looked down at Professor Trelawney, who was still sobbing and choking on her trunk, and said, "You are quite right, of course, Professor Umbridge. As High Inquisitor you have every right to dismiss my teachers. You do not, however, have the authority to send them away from the castle. I am afraid," he went on, with a courteous little bow, "that the power to do that still resides with the headmaster, and it is my wish that Professor Trelawney continue to live at Hogwarts."

At this, Professor Trelawney gave a wild little laugh in which a hiccup was barely hidden.

"No — no, I'll g-go, Dumbledore! I sh-shall l-leave Hogwarts and s-seek my fortune elsewhere —"

"No," said Dumbledore sharply. "It is my wish that you remain, Sibyll."

He turned to Professor McGonagall.

"Might I ask you to escort Sibyll back upstairs, Professor McGonagall?"

"Of course," said McGonagall. "Up you get, Sibyll…"

Professor Sprout came hurrying forward out of the crowd and grabbed Professor Trelawney's other arm. Together they guided her past Umbridge and up the marble stairs. Professor Flitwick went scurrying after them, his wand held out before him; he squeaked, "Locomotor trunks!" and Professor Trelawney's luggage rose into the air and proceeded up the staircase after her, Professor Flitwick bringing up the rear.

Professor Umbridge was standing stock-still, staring at Dumbledore, who continued to smile benignly.

"And what," she said in a whisper that nevertheless carried all around the entrance hall, "are you going to do with her once I appoint a new Divination teacher who needs her lodgings?"

"Oh, that won't be a problem," said Dumbledore pleasantly. "You see, I have already found us a new Divination teacher, and he will prefer lodgings on the ground floor."

"You've found — ?" said Umbridge shrilly. "You've found? Might I remind you, Dumbledore, that under Educational Decree Twenty-two —"

"— the Ministry has the right to appoint a suitable candidate if — and only if — the headmaster is unable to find one," said Dumbledore. "And I am happy to say that on this occasion I have succeeded. May I introduce you?"

He turned to face the open front doors, through which night mist was now drifting. The sound of hooves sounded and Alicia began to grin. There was only creature that could teach, being able to speak to them, and had hooves. Umbridge was going to flip. There was a shocked murmur around the hall and those nearest the doors hastily moved even farther backward, some of them tripping over in their haste to clear a path for the newcomer.

Through the mist came a face Harry and Alicia had seen once before on a dark, dangerous night in the Forbidden Forest: white-blond hair and astonishingly blue eyes, the head and torso of a man joined to the palomino body of a horse.

"This is Firenze," said Dumbledore happily to a thunderstruck Umbridge. "I think you'll find him suitable."