Daphne sat in her room, reading through one of the books on muggle sciences that Hermione had given her for Christmas. It was rather fascinating, really, that muggles had been able to exceed magical understanding of the world in certain ways. This particular book was about the muggle understandings of the workings of the brain (a concept Daphne quickly realised was similar to, yet separate from, the magical world's understanding of the mind). Comparing the two was a fascinating endeavour; it reminded her of the difference between the mundane calculations her father used in financial work and the magical calculations her mother used in arithmancy.

Magicals and muggles both seemed to assume that the other didn't understand how the world worked, but the more Daphne looked at it, the more she began to suspect something else. It was almost as if the laws of the world operated on fundamentally different principles depending on whether or not magic was involved…

Before Daphne could consider that idea further, a soft pop announced the arrival of her family's house elf.

"Mister Greengrass wishes to see you, Miss Daphne. He is in his study."

Daphne sighed. When her father didn't confront her about this after she got back, she assumed he was going to be waiting until after Yule for this meeting.

"Thank you, Tillop. Tell him I'll be there shortly."

Daphne watched Tillop give a nod before disappearing. Sighing, Daphne put her book down and used her occlumency to settle her nerves. She'd been getting better at doing that, lately, probably just because school put her in an environment where she had greater need to practice it. Feeling sufficiently ready, she walked down to the first floor and knocked on the door of her father's study.

"Come in." Her father's voice sounded out.

Daphne opened the door and quietly slipped in, taking a seat in front of her father's desk.

Her father shuffled around the papers on his desk for a moment before he spoke up.

"How has your school year been so far, Daphne?" He asked.

"It's been going well, father. I couldn't tell you the exact rankings without seeing the official reports, but Harry, Hermione, and myself are all among the top students in our year."

Her father's face gave no indication of emotion, though the tone of his response conveyed some minor discomfort. "The Harry and Hermione in question would be Harry Potter and Hermione Granger? The 'boy-who-lived' and the 'Slytherin muggleborn' I've heard others speak of?"

Daphne nodded. "That is correct."

"…You are aware that neutrality is important to those in our family business, correct?"

Daphne nodded again. "I am aware, father. I am also aware that my friends are far from neutral figures, at least in the public eye." She shrugged. "But, despite having my share of grievances about befriending them in the first place, I enjoy their company."

"Befriending them was Tracey's idea, I assume?"

"Pretty much any odd thing in my life can be traced back to her." Daphne replied.

Her father shook his head. "That girl, I swear to the Morrigan… Well, If she's anything like her mother, which she certainly is, she'll tend to throw herself into various messes for her own enjoyment. Be careful about letting her drag you into too much, lest she get you into any sort of real danger…" He sighed wistfully. "A part of me would like to cut you off from her altogether, if only for your own safety, but I know that your sister, your mother, Tracey, and her mother would all have my head for it." Her father shuddered. "I know better than to deliberately draw the ire of Melody Davis. She's terrifying once you get past her upbeat exterior…"

"What does Mrs. Davis do for a living, anyways?" Daphne asked.

Her father's visage paled and he eyed the bottle of firewhisky on his desk before shaking his head and answering.

"Ask me again when you're older."

Annoyed at the lack of an answer, but unwilling to show it, Daphne excused herself and stepped out of the room.

Her father meant well, but he, like Daphne herself, had trouble expressing his emotions. Daphne's mind wandered back to the muggle book on brains and wondered if the muggles had coined a term for such a condition. They did seem to love labelling small behavioural oddities, from what she'd read so far.

Her mind now focused on the book, Daphne went back to her room, content to read the day away.

Wayne put down one book and picked up another, eliciting a sigh from Ron in the process.

"I don't understand how you can read so much, mate. My eyes start to glaze over after half an hour of staring at the page. Trying to sort through all those facts is headache inducing." Ron said.

"Have you ever tried to read anything besides textbooks, Ron?" Wayne asked.

Ron raised an eyebrow. "What, you mean stories? Sure, I've read Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle, and I read the Tales of Beedle the Bard when I was younger."

Wayne pinched his eyebrow. "Ron, Martin Miggs is a comic book, not a novel. You haven't read any muggle nonfiction?"

Ron gave Wayne a look. "No? Why would I have?"

Wayne pinched his brow. "Because, unlike wizards, muggles have a large industry that prints nonfiction. My dad mentioned that the small size of the wizarding world means that there aren't enough people to fulfill certain niche jobs, like fiction writing. As a result, if you want to read fiction that isn't either targeted towards kids or lonely housewives, you need to get your books in the muggle world."

"Huh." Ron said, a quizzical expression on his face. "I never really thought about muggle society like that. Can you recommend any books worth reading?"

Wayne looked down at the book he just picked up, the sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"Um… Well definitely not this one. I can mail my dad and ask him for some recommendations that don't need extensive knowledge of how the muggle world works."

"Okay, thanks mate." Ron said, though by the look on his face, he clearly wanted to say more.

After a few minutes, Ron spoke up again.

"Erm, Wayne, I just, uh, wanted to thank you."

Wayne raised an eyebrow. "What for?"

"For, well, you know, staying here over the winter hols. I know that you'd probably have preferred to spend time with your parents and such. And I wanted to thank you for staying back here instead."

Wayne shrugged. "It was no big deal, honestly. My family doesn't do a lot over the Christmas, anyways. Susan's aunt's schedule is super busy, and I know Christmas is one of the only times they get to spend a lot of time with each other, so there was no way she'd stay behind."

"Yeah, That makes sense. I'm actually kind of glad you stayed behind instead of her. While I like Susan, I'd hate to be trapped in a room while she tells her terrible jokes."

Wayne laughed. "I suppose you would find that to be a pun-ishment like no other."

Ron groaned. "Not you too!"

Wayne chuckled. "Anyways, I would have honestly felt worse going home knowing that you'd be the only Hufflepuff staying behind, at least of those that aren't drowning themselves in study as they prepare for their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s."

Ron shuddered at the mention of the dreaded standardised exams. "Ugh, yeah, I'm really not looking forward to fifth and seventh years."

"Hey, if you hung out with Granger, you'd probably be prepared for the N.E.W.T.s by the end of fourth year."

"Ugh, I respect Granger for her brains, but there is no way I could study like she does."

Wayne nodded. "Yeah, I agree with you on that. I respect her for her intelligence, but I don't think I could hang around her as much as Potter, Davis, and Greengrass do. It would drive me barmy. Anyways, why don't I write up that letter to my dad before I forget. We can mail it out after dinner."

Ron smiled appreciatively. "Thanks, mate. You're a lifesaver."

"Hey, no problem. My dad would be glad to help. He's a really understanding guy."

"You can't ground me!" Parvati shrieked through her locked bedroom door. "I am the founder of a new world order! I am the mastermind of a machine beyond your understanding! To constrain me is a crime against the principles of knowledge and information!"

Parvati quickly realised that the blustering approach wasn't working. She decided to try reasoning with them.

"What I was doing wasn't even technically blackmail! It's only blackmail if I use it as leverage! I'm simply offering people a price to ensure that no one else purchases their sensitive information! It's a valid business opportunity! If people don't want incriminating information about themselves getting out, then they should do a better job keeping it under wraps! And there's nothing wrong with tapping into the Hogwarts wards either! Lots of students have done it before." Technically, she only knew of four students who'd done it before, and they used weird codenames. Fred and George hadn't been forthcoming about other information regarding their mysterious map.

After several moments of silence passed, Parvati realised that reasoning with her parents also wasn't working, if they were even listening at this point.

"You're just jealous of my business! I'm way more successful than you were at my age!" Parvati pouted before stomping over to her bed.

Seriously, nothing she'd done so far was illegal! The most objectionable things she had done were all in a grey area at worst! It was so unfair!

Parvati wondered briefly about the ethics of finding blackmail material on her own parents. Maybe then they'd think twice before grounding her again.

She'd have Carmichael look into the legality of that once she got back to Hogwarts. Maybe then her parents would see the wisdom and power she held.

Draco watched as his father paced idly around the second floor sitting room. (The second floor sitting room was reserved exclusively for family, unlike the ground floor sitting room, which was used for the riff raff, or the first floor sitting room, which his father used for business.)

"Are you certain about this, Draco?" His father asked, trying not to sound exasperated.

"Very certain, father. While Longbottom and MacMillan may be blood traitors by legacy, I am certain that they can be brought around to see things from our point of view. It will take time, but I can help them see the wisdom in keeping wizarding blood pure."

Draco's father stopped pacing and glared at him. "While I would not deny the… advantage that such alliances could bring us, I am skeptical of your ability to bring them about. After all, were Longbottom's parents not casualties of the end of the last war? While they boy is lacking in convictions, I doubt he is so lacking as to side with the allies of those who cost him his parents."

Draco stared back at his father. "I am very capable, father. I was already able to help Longbottom in a matter of great importance. His grandmother insisted that he use a legacy wand instead of getting one of his own, and I brought the attention to our head of house. By not calling in the obviously owed debt for such an action on my part, I was able to pass it off as an action of friendship, putting me in his good graces. And while Longbottoms may have been historically against us, the Macmillans suffered no such losses, and will be easier to draw in once they see the rightness of our cause."

Lucius sighed. "I will not stop you from consorting with the blood traitors, though I expect no success from your attempts to sway them. See that you do not find yourself swayed instead."

Draco scoffed. "As if I could be swayed in such a way. I am fully loyal to our cause."

Draco stopped himself from bristling as his father sighed again. He was more than capable of doing this! He'd show his father that he could be Slytherin! Being in Gryffindor was a greater advantage than he could have thought, as no one expected subtlety and manipulations from a Gryffindor! Draco knew that someday, he would be counted among the best.

"Harry! Harry, wake up!"

Harry groaned into his pillow.

"C'mon, Harry! Let's go exploring!"

Harry groaned again. "Tracey, we have explored the castle every night for the past four days. It's basically the same as the castle in the day, except darker. We do not need to go out exploring for a fifth day in a row."

"But I actually thought of something to do, this time! We can get into the library's restricted section!"

Harry actually perked up at that. A lot of the more advanced books on combat magic were in that area, and Harry would admit to being a sucker for any books on his personal area of expertise.

"Explain." He demanded. "Why couldn't we do this during the day?"

"Oh, I thought that would be obvious. It's because of the wards around the restricted section. There's a ward that trips anytime someone who isn't a N.E.W.T. student or a staff member enters the restricted section. During the day, Madam Pince is always right next to the entrance at her desk, but at night, she's asleep in her quarters.

Harry blinked. "And so, your plan is to…"

"Use the invisibility cloak to run in and hide. We should have a solid delay before anyone gets there after we trip the alert ward, and we can use that to hide ourselves deep in the section before anyone gets there. Then we just have to outwait them, and bam! Full access to the restricted section."

Harry considered Tracey's plan. It wasn't foolproof, but the prospect of even a few hours of reading time there could be very interesting.

"All right," he said, "I don't think I can bring myself to pass up an opportunity like this. I'll put on some clothes and grab the cloak. Wait for me down in the common room."

Tracey grinned and pulled Harry into a tight, but brief hug. "Don't keep me waiting for long!" She said before bolting out of the room.

Harry sighed at his friend's energetic behaviour before he pulled himself out of bed and threw on a robe over his pajamas. He then pulled the cloak out from the bottom of his trunk, taking a moment to once again marvel at the bizarrely liquid-like behaviour of the fabric.

A part of Harry felt that there was something more to this cloak than was immediately obvious, though he had no idea what that might be. It was like he was missing a key piece of information…

Pushing that thought aside, Harry walked down to the common room, where Tracey was bouncing on her heels next to the exit.

"Ready?" He asked.

Tracey broke out in a grin and nodded enthusiastically before Harry swung the cloak over the two of them. Tracey cast a silencing charm at the cloak (a charm that Harry had, much to his annoyance, yet to cast properly), and the duo set off.

Harry never really got over just how different Hogwarts looked at night. Even in the dungeons, several levels below the ground floor, the hallways were lit with a soft, sourceless light that one would assume was moonlight if they were outdoors. The light's dim glow and blue-ish tinge contrasted heavily against the bright orange light of torches that lit the halls in the daytime.

Harry had long grown to love the night. The sensation of being awake and active while the world slept was exhilarating for a social recluse like himself. While Harry was certain that his anti-social behaviours were at least in part due to his time at the Dursleys', he was fairly certain they weren't totally to blame. He'd enjoyed isolation even before it was enforced by Dudley beating up anyone who got remotely close to having a positive interaction with him. The fact that his relatives were such abysmal company merely reinforced his solitary nature. Being awake at night, able to act with the knowledge that there were fewer people about, was both relaxing and exhilarating.

So Harry did enjoy these nighttime excursions with Tracey, although he couldn't let her know that. She'd just get insufferably smug.

As the pair neared the library, Tracey began to outline her plan.

"Alright, once we cross the entrance, we move as quickly as we can while staying under the cloak. We'll then find a place to buckle down for a while until the coast is clear. After that, we should have free run of the place."

Harry nodded, and they crept into the library and wandered deep into the restricted section. After wandering randomly for a while, they sat down and waited. Minutes ticked by, and after waiting for what felt like half an hour, Harry spoke up.

"Are you sure there are wards blocking the entrance? I would have thought someone would be here by now."

"Yeah, it is weird…" Tracey commented, "Given the fact that at least some of these books delve into actively dangerous stuff, there's no way there aren't wards, but we may have found a way to avoid tripping them?" Tracey shrugged. "I'm not really sure, honestly."

Harry stood up and stretched his back. "I'm going to have a look around, then. Let's just do our best to keep an ear out, in case someone does actually come."

Tracey gave him a thumbs up before turning to the shelves, while Harry wandered around for a bit. None of the books nearby caught his attention, most of them being focused on theory and rituals. Harry was no big fan of theory, and even he knew better than to mess around with rituals at his age. Eventually, he came across a large section filled with books on the "practical use of the dark arts".

Harry shrugged. Practical was practical, right? He picked out a book at random and opened it to a page in the middle. Once he got a good look at the page, he slammed the book shut and placed it back on the shelf.

Seriously, did a book on dark curses need to have graphic visuals alongside the spell descriptions?

Once Harry thought about it for a bit, though, it did make sense. If he couldn't stomach a depiction of using such a curse, he doubted he could stomach the real thing. Harry decided that he would leave the dark arts alone until he was older. Much older.

Shaking his head once more, Harry tracked down Tracey, and found her buried deep inside an old tome.

"The combat magic here is a bit… extreme for my taste. I think I'll look elsewhere."

"Alright." Tracey replied flatly, clearly absorbed in her book.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "What are you reading there, anyways?"

"Alchemy. Since it's considered too advanced for anyone below their N.E.W.T. years, it's kept in the restricted section. Very few people learn the discipline, too, so the supply of books is basically nonexistent. It's easier to sneak in here than it is to try and find my own copies of these things." She said, gesturing at the books as she did so.

"Right, well, I'm going to go look around for something less… gruesome. Have fun with your alchemy books."

Harry went back to wandering through the shelves, trying to see if anything caught his eye. Eventually, he stopped when he entered a section that seemed to mostly pertain to something called "blood magic". Somewhat reluctant from his last book, but curious nonetheless, he grabbed one of the books and opened it.

Harry was surprised that a field of magic with "blood" in the name was focused more on utility than on harm. Blood magic seemed to be a versatile field that used the blood of a magical person (usually the caster) as a catalyst for a spell. Since the loss of a few drops of blood counted as a sacrifice, and because said blood was tied to a person's magic, blood magic was substantially more powerful than standard casting. It covered everything from more powerful versions of existing spells, to forms of magic that were only possible with blood, like tracking charms. As a whole, it seemed like a fascinating subject.

As Harry began finding several spells that looked promising as an introduction to the art, he realised that he didn't bring any parchment with him. Harry looked around at the books he'd pulled out and lamented. There was no way he'd be able to memorise all of the spells that caught his attention, and while he was able to sneak in well enough, he doubted he'd be able to actually remove a book from the section without getting caught. Sighing, he memorised a few of the most interesting ones (at least as well as he could manage. He didn't have Hermione's memory, after all) then put the books back in their proper locations.

It was getting late, so he decided to find Tracey and head back to the common room. He would have to return here on a later date with writing materials so he could actually copy the interesting bits for later study.

He found Tracey exactly where he left her, surrounded by alchemy books.

"How are you doing?" He asked.

She let out a small, dissatisfied grunt. "This stuff is complicated. I'm good at potions, so the parts of alchemy that draw from that make sense to me, but there's a lot of transfiguration as well, which I'm bad at…"

Harry sighed. "I think Hermione's the only one in our year who's 'good' at transfiguration, though Daphne's not half bad at it. Now, as interesting as spending time here has been, I didn't bring any note-taking materials, and I lack Hermione's perfect memory. We should come back later with some proper materials."

Tracey sighed, but nodded. "Yeah, I'm not making as much progress as I would have liked. Looks like it will be a few years before I'll be able to crash the wizarding economy by flooding the market with gold… Philosopher's stones are very advanced."

Harry sighed and pinched his brow. Did Tracey do anything for a normal reason?

"Yeah, that's… I don't even know what to say. Put the books back and let's go."

Tracey began haphazardly shoving the books back onto the shelves before she turned to face Harry. As Harry threw the cloak over the two of them and they left the library behind, Tracey spoke up.

"So, what did you look up?" She asked.

"Well, I looked at a dark arts book at first, but it was a bit too… visceral for my taste. I found some books on blood magic that seemed interesting, though."

Though Harry couldn't see Tracey's face, he knew she was grinning from the tone she used to reply. "Ooh, going straight for the illegal stuff, huh?"

"It's illegal?" Harry asked. "It all seemed pretty benign. I thought it was just in the restricted section because it could be dangerous."

"Nah, it's illegal. No idea why, though. Every time I asked my mom, she just started muttering about obstructive bureaucrats and reactionary laws."

As they went down from the fourth floor to the third floor, the sound of softly spoken voices drew their attention. Tracey nudged him and pointed in that direction, and for once, Harry was in total agreement with her course of action. Who in their right mind would be having a conversation in the hallways after three am?

As Harry and Tracey snuck closer, the voices gradually became clear.

Snape's signature drawl came into focus first as the duo drew closer.

"…should be more careful, Quirrell. People might think you're… up to something."

Quirrell replied in his usual stutter.

"N-n-not at all, S-Severus! I'm s-s-simply enjoying this fine evening. Hogwarts is s-such a b-b-beautiful place, after all. It simply must be enjoyed once in a wh-while."

"And I'm sure that your proximity to the third floor corridor is mere… coincidence, is it not? One would hardly like to think that you'd been… snooping."

Quirrell's face twitched for a moment before he replied. "W-well, one can never be t-too sure about the protections, eh? An artifact as v-v-valuable as the S-Stone must be protected. It would b-be a shame if someone s-stumbled upon it by accident, w-w-wouldn't it?"

Snape's gaze burrowed into Quirrell for a moment before he replied.

"…Indeed. Watch yourself, Quirinus. You can never be truly sure of one's loyalties, after all."

Quirrell gave a shaky nod and walked off. Snape watched Quirrell retreat for a moment before he turned around and began stalking towards the dungeons.

Unfortunately, Tracey and Harry were directly in his path.

Harry felt Tracey grab him from behind and pull him out of Snape's way. Unfortunately, Harry tripped on the cloak as he moved, and knocked the arm of a nearby suit of armour loose. As the arm clattered noisily on the floor, Snape whirled around faster than Harry would have believed possible, wand appearing in his hand as if from nowhere. Snape quickly murmured a spell.

"Homenum Revelio."

Harry felt Tracey tense as a dim, red wave of magic pulsed from the end of Snape's wand, spreading in all directions. Harry wasn't sure what that spell was supposed to do, but whatever it was, Snape seemed satisfied with the results and left.

Once Snape was out of view, Tracey grabbed Harry and pulled him into a nearby classroom. Once the door was shut, she whipped the cloak off of them and held it in her hands.

"What the hell is this thing?" She asked.

Harry cocked his head. "An invisibility cloak? I thought we established that."

"No, I mean… Harry, we got past the wards protecting the restricted section with this thing. At first I thought that our trespassing was simply being ignored, but that spell Snape used back there was the humanoid revealing charm, but it didn't show us. An invisibility cloak only hides us from view, not from detection by magic. If it was simply one or the other, I would call it a fluke, but we were clearly able to avoid two things we shouldn't have by using this thing. Whatever it is, it is not a normal invisibility cloak."

"How do you know so much about invisibility cloaks, anyways?"

"My mom has several, remember? She's always talking about the weaknesses they have and how it interferes with her business."

Harry was becoming increasingly sure that "business" was a euphemism for something, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know what it was a euphemism for, at least not at this point.

"So, what is it, then?" He asked.

Tracey continued to stare quizzically at the cloak. "I mean… It's obviously an invisibility cloak, but it's somehow… stronger? I'm not sure. I'll send a letter to my mom asking about various forms of cloaking and we'll see what we can learn from that."

Harry nodded. "Maybe we should run some tests on it ourselves? See what the cloak can and can't do."

"That's a good idea. Here, put it on, then let's see how it reacts to mirrors." She said as she gestured to a mirror on the other side of the room.

"Mirrors?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. You can't see yourself with the veil up, but you can with the veil down, right? Does the veil let you see your reflection as well?"

"That's… actually a really good point. I was so overwhelmed by the idea of getting an invisibility cloak that I didn't even think about testing the cloak's limits."

"Exactly!" Tracey exclaimed. "Now, go stare in the mirror!"

Harry walked up to the ornate mirror as he donned the cloak. As the veil fell over his face, he stared at the mirror to see… something that was definitely not his reflection. Well, he was in the reflection, but he was not wearing the invisibility cloak and had two other people standing behind him.

Harry had too many thoughts competing to be voiced, so all he got out was "Huh".

Tracey stared at him, or rather, the direction his voice came from. "Well? How does it work?"

Harry shrugged before realising that the gesture was useless while he was invisible. Rolling his eyes in annoyance, he pulled down the cloak of the hood and gestured to the mirror behind him, before realising that his gesture was also useless since his arm was still invisible. Giving up on body language, he spoke instead.

"I think it's a magical mirror. I'm showing up in the mirror, but not wearing the cloak. Also, I see people whom I can only assume are my parents." Harry explicitly didn't mention the severe emotional response that seeing his parents induced. He really tried his best to avoid thinking thinking about them for fear of getting caught in a cycle of longing for something he knew he could never have.

"Really?" Tracey said, clearly intrigued. "Let me take a look."

Harry gestured to the mirror behind him before remembering that his arms were (still) invisible. Rather than go through the bother of taking the cloak off, stepped out of the way

"Go ahead." He said, feeling a lot less confident in his ability to keep his voice level.

As Harry stepped to the side, he was grateful that the apparitions standing near his reflection disappeared once he was no longer staring into the mirror head-on. He silently vowed to never step foot in front of it again.

Tracey stared in the mirror, cocked her head to the side, then broke out in a huge grin.

"It's beautiful…" She said reverently.

Feeling morbidly curious, Harry asked her, "What do you see?"

"Freedom…" She murmured faintly.

The unusual airiness to her tone and increasingly glassy look in her eyes were all the proof Harry needed to decide that, whatever this mirror was, it was bad news. Harry pulled Tracey's hood up over her eyes to block her view of the mirror, then dragged her struggling form towards the door. Before he could leave the room, the door opened to show a very surprised looking Albus Dumbledore.

The shock on the headmaster's face was quickly replaced with the calm demeanor he usually showed in public.

"Mister Potter, Miss Davis." He greeted genially. "It's rather late to be going out for a stroll, is it not?"

Tracey, who had since broken out of her mirror-induced stupor, paled at the sight of the headmaster as she pulled her hood down. "We were just, uh…"

Dumbledore smiled. "Going out for a three-in-the-morning stroll, I'm sure. It's a rather peaceful time of day, is it not? Although I must say, you two are far younger than the usual pairs of students I find in abandoned classrooms."

Harry had heard the older students talking about things like that, though he had no idea why they would do it. Though if the faint red tinge on Tracey's cheeks was an indication, it was something embarrassing.

"I was trying to get Tracey away from that cursed mirror over there." He said as he gestured back towards the other side of the room. He didn't dare look back, lest he catch another glimpse of his reflection.

Dumbledore gazed back at the mirror (that Harry was still trying very hard not to look at, unlike Tracey, whose gaze kept wandering behind her).

"Yes," he said solemnly, "The Mirror of Erised is a beautiful and terrible thing. I'll be moving it elsewhere after tonight, if it helps you feel better about it."

It did make Harry feel better, and he quashed down the parts of himself that longed for him to lose himself in its depths. Harry simply nodded in reply.

Dumbledore smiled again. "I suggest you two be off, then. Filch was lurking nearby, and I imagine neither of you would appreciate a detention with him."

As Harry started dragging Tracey out of the room, Dumbledore called out from behind him. "And Mister Potter? The next time I see you, I would like to see all of you, not just your head."

It took Harry a moment to realise that he had been wearing the invisibility cloak, sans hood, the whole time he'd been in the room.

Oops.

He pulled the cloak around Tracey and they vanished into the halls.

Once Dumbledore was sure that Harry was out of earshot, he closed and locked the door before letting out a deep sigh. He wasn't surprised that Harry was using the cloak to snoop around after hours; Merlin only knew how many time James had done the same. It was, however, highly unfortunate that he and Miss Davis stumbled across the Mirror before he finished working on it. Just a few more tweaks and it would be perfect for the end of the third floor corridor. Albus was just glad that no one had managed to make it to the end of the corridor yet. It would be embarrassing if someone made it to the end only for it to be empty.

As Harry and Tracey made their way back to the dorms under the cover of the invisibility cloak, Harry brought up one of the big points from the past hour that they had yet to address.

"What's at the end of the third floor corridor? Snape and Quirrell mentioned a stone…"

"I'm not sure…" Tracey mused, "but the only valuable 'stone' I know of that's worth protecting like that would be the philosopher's stone. I mentioned it when I was going through those alchemy books, remember? It's used to make permanent transmutations of mundane metals into gold, and it's also used in an insanely potent restorative potion. There's only one alchemist who was ever good enough to make one, though, some Flamel guy."

"Are there any other stones they could be talking about?" Harry asked.

"Nothing that I know of that isn't a myth or a legend."

"Why would they be keeping the philosopher's stone in a school, though? It seems like a bad idea to attract that sort of attention to the school, especially if all the teachers know about it. Heck, Snape even accused Quirrell of snooping around the corridor."

"Hmm, do you think Quirrell was actually snooping around the corridor, or was Snape simply accusing Quirrell of snooping to deflect attention off of Snape's attempts at snooping?" Tracey asked.

"I… wouldn't know." Harry replied.

"Anyways, unknown allegiances of our professors aside, do you realise what this means?"

Harry wasn't sure he liked that tone of voice.

"No, Tracey, I'm afraid I don't."

"It means…" She paused dramatically. "That we have a mystery to solve!"

God help him.

A/N: Harry and Tracey absolutely commandeered this chapter. Seriously, I expected the scene with them to be slightly longer than the others, not take up more than half the chapter!

This chapter introduces a few ideas I've wanted to add in for a while, the most notable of which is blood magic. Blood magic will be used throughout the story, and I'll actually deal with the legal side of why blood magic is outlawed later on.

Here's something I didn't realise when I first started writing Scrambled Sorting. I gave a few of the main cast some of my issues. In particular, Daphne got several of my autism spectrum traits. Once I realised that I did this, adding in the scene where she interacts with her father, who has similar issues, came naturally to me.

As for Parvati… Well, just because Parvati mostly trades information doesn't mean that's all she does. After all, if Parvati finds out one of your secrets, then there's nothing stopping her from selling it to anyone who wants it, unless you'll be able to pay more than all of her prospective buyers would.

Thanks to Xgenje and Dezmar for help with editing.

E/N (Xgenje): I'm seriously ready for the discovery of Tracey's mom's job. It's gonna be lit fam.

I'm honestly amazed at how well Ten has come along with her writing. I've known her since middle school and this isn't one of the talents I expected from her.