Harry looked across the room and concentrated.
One of the herbology books on Neville's dresser picked itself up and flew over to him, landing in his hand. Harry glanced at his wand. It sat on his bedside table, unmoving.
It was true, then.
He looked at the book in his hand, realizing there had never really been any doubt in his mind. So he could use wandless magic. What did that mean? Were there special spells, or was it just that he didn't need his wand?
Why had Dumbledore repressed it? Was wandless magic considered a Dark Art?
Another week gone—another week spent contemplating, staring out of windows and into the empty eyes of the mask. Another week spent ignoring his dorm-mates and subtly practicing Dark magic. It had him in its grip now, he knew. He couldn't stop performing the spells, giving himself that strange feeling of exhilaration, if he had wanted to.
Yesterday he had tried the mask on.
It had been terrifying and thrilling at the same time.
He almost imagined a tingling sensation when he placed it over his eyes, but he knew it was in his head. The smooth white face had fit perfectly over his own, matching his bones and features exactly. When he looked in the mirror, it had shown him the face that he knew he had been projecting to the rest of the world for the past month; utterly expressionless, coldly polite, and detached.
At the same time, it was as if he could see more clearly through the eyes of a white mask.
Neville had walked in on him when he had just taken it off, and Harry had made use of an interesting memory charm that he had discovered in mid-October, which had caused Neville to believe that he had been asleep for the previous hour. It had left the boy confused and disoriented for the rest of the day.
He had received an odd invitation to a meeting that the new Potions Professor, Horace Slughorn, was holding. Harry had considered simply burning the letter after the first read through, remembering what he had been told of Slughorn and his habits of doting upon the powerful and well-connected. Moments later, however, he had remembered how Voldemort had been easily able to manipulate Slughorn and make use of his knowledge.
With this in mind, he followed Hermione reluctantly down to Slughorn's office on a chilly November evening, failing to pay attention to her nervous chatter.
What else could this man possibly know, if he had known of Horcruxes? Perhaps he would be able to provide the answer to the bizarre question of how Voldemort had been able to fix Harry's wand that first night with a mere wave of his wand.
It had taken Harry all week to get used to the idea that the strange, intriguing man that he had met in and out of his dreams was, in fact, the vicious monster that he had met and fought time and time again. It was disorienting to realize that Voldemort had an entirely different side which wasn't devoted to torture and murder at all…
He yawned widely as they entered the office. Slughorn was already there, with several students arranged in a circle around him. He looked up and positively inflated when he saw that Harry was there.
"Mr. Potter! So glad you could make it. I must admit, I was a bit disappointed when you elected not to take my class. Understandable, of course, understandable. I would have spoken to you earlier, maybe even been able to change your mind if I could have invited you on the Express, but Albus cautioned me against having one of my little meetings on the train ride down."
Harry took a step back, alarmed at the man's fast paced chatter. He took a seat on one of the comfortable chairs that lined the office, which itself was much different from when Snape had reigned here. The jars and beakers of mysterious liquids and objects were gone, replaced with cheerful portraits, snacks, and alcohol. There were about twelve students arrayed around the teacher, most of them sixth or seventh-years.
Slughorn was still talking. "I began this little group in my fourth year teaching. I've met some marvelous witches and wizards in this office, yes I have. Your own mother was part of it for quite some time, although your father of course refused to come. His loss, I always said. I was quite unhappy that your mother turned out a Gryffindor; she would have made a wonderful Slytherin, but then, of course, our lives are set by that Sorting in the First Year." The man stopped to draw a breath, and Harry took the opportunity to look around.
He didn't recognize many of the students who lined the walls. They all looked resigned to Slughorn's endless chatter. Harry vaguely recognized one as a seventh-year Gryffindor who had tried out for the Quidditch team, another as a seventh-year Hufflepuff that was currently on their team. Cho Chang smiled hesitantly at him from a seat across the room.
Beside her sat Blaise Zabini, who was lounging indolently in his chair and smirking at Harry. Harry raised an eyebrow back. There was something about Zabini, a feeling that Harry was getting. It was a sort of kinship, an almost magical tugging that caused Harry to want to make a truce with the black boy then and there. He filed away the feeling to analyze later.
"Now, Harry, do you know Cormac McLaggen?" Harry nodded at the Gryffindor seventh-year he had been unable to identify. Slughorn moved around the circle, making introductions, but Harry barely listened, still trying to understand the odd feeling.
"Now, we have a special guest that I was hoping to introduce to you today. I don't know if he will be…ah!" there came a loud knocking at the door, and Harry restrained himself from rolling his eyes. The knock had clearly taken its cue from Slughorn's words.
The man—or beast, thought Harry, eyeing the tall figure—who entered was not what he expected. He was a tall, emaciated man who looked as though he didn't get much sleep. Harry knew what he was instantly, and moments later felt the same odd sensation that he had felt toward Zabini.
"This is Sanguini, my friends. I was put in touch with him by a good friend of mine, Eldred Worple—and there he is!" Slughorn said happily as a small, bespectacled man entered the room behind the vampire. "Eldred lived with Sanguini's clan for—how many years, Eldred? Four? Yes, four years, spent learning their customs and ways of life." Slughorn burbled on happily, while Harry scrutinized the vampire, who looked bored with the proceedings.
After a few minutes the formal introduction ended and they began a more casual conversation, the students firing questions at Worple and Slughorn and occasionally Sanguini. Harry knew Hermione was disappointed when the vampire refused to answer most of their questions—the vampire seemed to prefer to stand in the background, ignoring everyone. Once the conversation became more informal, however, he drifted toward Harry.
"The Master sends his greetings," he said, his voice thickly accented. Harry looked around quickly, but no one else had heard. "He wishes to know, have you yet made your choice?"
"Youworkfor him?" Harry hissed, staring at the vampire. "But—him—" he indicated Worple with a wave of his hand.
"Yes, quite an amusing little man, is he not? He serves our purpose. We chose not to kill him, if only to have a secure pathway into the wizarding world. For you know, of course, that no vampire can go where he is not invited." Sanguini smiled, exposing his pointed incisors.
Harry had not known this, but he vowed to check up on it as soon as he left the room. "What do you…do?" he asked lamely, not wanting to ask any of his other questions in this room where they would be so easily overheard. Indeed, Blaise Zabini was making his way over to the two of them, though the rest of the group appeared enthralled by Eldred Worple's tales.
"He greeted us in Romania, where he asked us respectfully to hide a valuable possession of his. He offered us equal rights to wizards, and a world where we would not be hated and feared, in exchange for our service. He offered us blood." The vampire smiled again. "How could we refuse?"
"Blood?" asked Harry, frowning.
"They wouldn't be able to prey on just anyone," said Zabini, and Harry jumped. The boy had gotten to them much faster than he had expected. "Criminals, I expect, sometimes, but mainly animals. It isn't only human blood they need."
"Correct, young man," said Sanguini, nodding.
"Some might consider that…inhumane," said Harry, more for the sake of keeping up the conversation than because he actually believed what he was saying. Heavy on his mind were the dark spells and potions that he was memorizing and practicing at night, many of which required similar sacrifices.
"It is no worse than what you do now to criminals, with the Dementors, is it?" said the vampire, looking patronizingly at Harry. "You, young man," he said, turning to Zabini. "You are the son of Martina Zabini?"
Blaise nodded, and turned to Harry. "So the golden boy really isn't so…light after all, is he."
Harry frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Zabini looked closer at Harry, his high cheekbones moving slightly as he smiled. "It has you bad, golden boy."
"What?" snapped Harry, wondering what this nonsensical pronouncement meant. The expression on Zabini's face was slightly unnerving.
"Dark magic." The words were whispered so that Harry doubted even Sanguini heard them. "You've gone deep into it, these last few months, haven't you? See, I can feel it. Anyone who's done it enough can feel it from anyone else. I'm sure you noticed. You feel different about me," he indicated himself, "and him," he indicated Sanguini. "Because we've both done at least as much Dark magic as you have, probably more. Did you notice it, golden boy?"
"Stop calling me that," Harry growled.
"It's a nice little system. Dumbledore will never know that you've been doing this because he refuses to perform even the slightest bit of Dark magic. Neither will any of your friends. But I can tell you, Potter, that there are a lot of us in Slytherin who have noticed. You reek of it. Even Snape is being nicer to you, probably against his will. It's has a name, but I can't remember..."
Sanguini was nodding. "A masterful summary. It is called the Atrum Effect. No one knows quite what causes it, or why light magic users do not feel a similar connection, but those of us who have used Dark spells feel a certain affinity for each other." He smiled sympathetically at Harry. "Now that you have delved into the darkness, you will never again feel the same kinship with your friends as you once did, unless they choose to dabble in it as well, as you have."
"I saw you talking to Sanguini," said Hermione as they walked back to Gryffindor Tower. "What was he saying? I thought he was rather odd…"
"What?" said Harry hollowly, looking at her. So there was a reason, after all, that he suddenly felt less inclined to be near his friends, to talk to them and share his secrets—the same reason that had him continually seeking out Daphne, continually performing Dark magic under his Invisibility Cloak and a Silencing charm at night…
The Atrum Effect.
What were his choices now?
"Mr. Potter."
Harry looked up, his eyes glazed, at Professor McGonagall. She dropped his assignment on his desk, her lips pursed, though there was concern in her eyes. "See me after class."
Harry looked down at the essay that he had completed in about half an hour. A large 'D' in red in was scrawled over the top of it. He sighed. It was no more than he could have expected; he had spent practically no time reading the assigned material, and very little time writing the essay.
It wasn'tinteresting.They were reading history, history of spells that had been invented and improved over the years. Harry always did better at the practical side of things; he simply didn't see the point in endlessly learning names and accomplishments.
He wanted to learn something real.
"Tsk, tsk, Potter," said Pansy Parkinson, passing the table and seeing his mark. "Not doing theassignedwork, are we?"
"Shut up, Parkinson," snapped Ron from beside Harry. Harry glared at the girl. Did every Slytherin in the whole school know? The Atrum Effect was preventing him from being as angry as he knew he normally would be, and that bothered him.
He sat idly in his desk as the rest of the class filed out the door, wondering what McGonagall would say. He had had similar conversations with Professors Flitwick and Sinistra after he had achieved truly awful marks in their classes as well. He supposed that this one would be the same. The only subject he was truly excelling in was Defense Against the Dark Arts; this was surprising, considering who was teaching it.
"Harry," said McGonagall, walking over to his desk after she magically cleaned the blackboard. "I am very concerned with the way you have been acting recently." Harry sat silently, waiting for her to continue.
"You seem to be keeping to yourself significantly too much. As your head of house, I find myself a bit worried about what has caused this behaviour." She leaned into him. "Harry, do you still blame yourself for Sirius' death?"
Harry stared at her. He had never given any indication that he blamed himself; everyone seemed to be predicting this from what he had felt after Cedric's death.
"No, Professor. I don't."
"It is not a good idea to isolate your friends, Mr. Potter. They have helped you through some difficult times. You may find you need them more than ever in the near future." The Transfiguration teacher searched his face. He showed her nothing.
"What is it, then, that it causing you to keep to yourself? What is causing this?" she tapped the 'D' on his page. "In more subjects than this one. I am very concerned, Harry."
Harry glared inwardly at her. Why would she not leave him alone to do what he liked? If another student got a D, he doubted she would give them more than a detention. But not for the bloody Boy Who Lived.
Fed up, he raised his hand and flicked it, sending McGonagall flying into the wall behind her. She slid down and Harry Petrified her. Looking down at his bound Transfiguration teacher, he began to think through the lexicon of Dark spells that he had been building, ignoring McGonagall's horrified eyes staring up at him. He reached down and plucked her wand from the pocket on her sleeve where she kept it.
"Verdit," he said, drawing pointing his wand down at her. Her mouth opened involuntarily at the mild truth spell, and Harry felt a thrill run through his body.
"Why did you approach me about this?" he asked coldly.
"Albus Dumbledore asked me to," came the response. Harry growled.
"Did he tell you why he wanted to know this?"
There was a pause. "Yes."
"Why?"
McGonagall was clearly fighting the spell. Harry pointed again. "Verdit."
"He thinks you may be doing something involving Dark magic," the words came out in a rush. "He is worried that you have been speaking to Daphne Greengrass too much—"
Harry Silenced her. A window smashed and Harry paced around the classroom, ignoring the glass that crunched under his shoes. So Dumbledore now wanted to control who he spoke to, did he?
"What were you going to do if I didn't give you the answers you needed?" he asked harshly, removing the Silencing charm.
"Use…a…truth…spell…" the words forced their way out of McGonagall's mouth.
"And if I had told you that I was learning Dark magic? What would you have done?"
Sweat beaded her brow. "I would have…forcibly subdued you…and taken you to Dumbledore…" Harry swore and kicked some of the glass. So McGonagall had planned the very thing that Harry was doing to her right now, regardless of whether it was right or not.
The only difference was that he was using a Dark spell.
Was that really a difference at all?
He looked back at McGonagall, who was watching him pace with wide eyes. This had come as a complete shock to her, he realized. She had had no idea that Dumbledore's suspicions may have been correct. And how could the Headmaster have known, anyway? Harry hadn't seen him at all this year outside of meals, and he was constantly gone at those times as well.
"How did Dumbledore form these suspicions?" he asked. He watched her struggle for a moment more. "Verdit."
"Ron…Hermione…they told him…"
He snarled. His friends…
Not his friends. No longer.
No! There had to be some sort of mistake! The Ron he knew would never inform on him for Dumbledore. Hermione wouldn't even consider doing such a thing.
Would they?
"Oblivisci." It was a modified Memory Charm that he used, classified as Dark because the caster was able to not simply alter the memories, but replace them with nightmares taken from the victim's own consciousness. Harry removed her recollection of the previous hour and replaced it with an unidentified horror torn from her memory. He left her stunned on the floor.
But that wasn't right, was it? He strode out of the classroom and toward the Great Hall, thinking hard. Someone must have known that McGonagall was going to attempt her interrogation today. Someone would discover what had happened, and connect the two things.
He sat down alone at the Gryffindor table, to the inquisitive eyes of Ron, Hermione and the entire group they were sitting with. The rage was still burning inside of him, but he knew he had to make an appearance here, or Dumbledore would get suspicious. The Headmaster was sitting at the Head table and apparently chatting animatedly with Professor Vector, but Harry felt his eyes more than once.
He wandered in a daze through the next few days, seeing both his friends and enemies with new eyes. His friends, deceiving him and reporting on his actions to Professor Dumbledore, lying to him and watching him. His enemies, observing him and wondering, calculating…
He felt more friendly to most of the people who had been his enemies in the past six years than those who had been his friends. At least they were honest. At least Zabini had told him straight out about the Dark magic. At least Daphne had been completely truthful about her allegiances, where she stood.
It seemed to Harry that the Light side seemed to be spawning significantly more lies and deceit than any side that called itself good. Voldemort's lack of pretense, his frank honesty, was beginning to look significantly more attractive.
It was with this in mind that he put on his Invisibility Cloak on a chilly night near the end of November and followed Pansy Parkinson down to the Slytherin Common Room, following closely on her footsteps as she whispered the password and entered. The stone room looked just as cold and uninviting as it had in his second year, but somehow he felt more comfortable here now. He knew the reason now, of course; the Atrum effect was making him feel more affable toward the inhabitants of the room.
There were only about seven people sitting in the stone chairs in front of the fireplace, talking quietly. As Harry looked closer, he noticed that the chairs and sofas were not stone at all, but upholstery woven into an eye-deceiving pattern, probably with the help of magic, which looked like stone.
It had probably been foolish of he and Ron, in their second year, to assume that the Slytherins sat on blocks of rock at all.
He followed Pansy up the stairs to the girl's dormitory, carefully in case there was a similar enchantment on their staircase. Apparently there was not, or it could not sense him, shrouded in the Cloak; he entered the dormitory without incident, skipping the seventh stair on the way up just in case. This was a bit of knowledge imparted to him by Fred and George the previous year, that any boy could get into the girl's dorm if the skipped over the seventh stair, similar to the trick staircases in the halls.
He identified one bed as Daphne's by the inscribed trunk sitting at the base of it. It looked expensive, and Harry realized that he really had no knowledge of any of Daphne's life outside of school and Voldemort.
As Parkinson left, he sat down to wait, making sure that the Cloak covered him securely.
He was in luck; slightly less than half an hour later, Daphne entered the dormitory room alone. She casually removed her Potions book from her schoolbag, and then dropped the bag by her trunk, opening the trunk at the same time with a flick of her wand. Harry sat cross-legged on the bed and quietly removed the Invisibility Cloak, watching her root through the brown trunk, humming to herself.
Suddenly she looked up and jumped backwards, knocking over her schoolbag and falling into a bed across the room. At the same time, she pulled her wand and shot at least three unrecognizable curses at Harry.
It was only the wandless magic he had been practicing that saved him; he held out his hand, creating a shield, and the three beams of light shot harmlessly into the walls. One set Pansy's green bed hangings on fire, but Daphne quickly put these out with a wave of her wand. Harry breathed out carefully; he hadn't been sure that the shield would work. The shield he created with his conscious mind, without thinking an incantation, was certainly different from the one he could cast with his wand.
Her cool facade was immediately back in place, and she smiled coyly at him.
"Nice trick, Potter. How did you get in here? Followed someone else, did you?" she had looked angry, but she had immediately composed herself. Harry shrugged, not in the mood to admit that she had guessed what he had done first go. He was tired of being predictable.
"So why did you come in here?" she asked, waving her wand and casting a Silencing spell on the room. She now looked entirely unperturbed by him. "Just to see how fast I could react to seeing a stranger sitting on my bed?"
"No," said Harry flatly. "Why didn't you tell me about this, this effect of Dark magic? Atrum, or whatever it's called. You encouraged me to keep on researching, and looking into the stuff, and didn't tell me that it would separate me from my friends." It hadn't been what he had come here to ask, but it was what came out.
"It doesn't," she responded airily, taking a seat across from him and laying her potions book in her lap. She didn't really make eye contact with him, however; she seemed to be facing a slightly different direction, as though she didn't care what he was saying.
"What do you mean?" asked Harry angrily. "The vampire Slughorn brought to the school told me all about it. He said…what was it…oh, yes. He said that I would never again feel the same bond with my friends, now that I had delved into Dark magic and they hadn't." he sat back and glared at Daphne. "I don't agree with most of what the Order does, but I do want to keep my friends. Otherwise, what else am I living for, fighting for?"
It was difficult to sound sincere as he said the words, and he could see from Daphne's skeptical expression that he hadn't entirely managed it. The truth was that he had long since started to be frustrated and annoyed at his friends, long before he had delved too deeply into the Dark magic that he had found in the Grimmauld Place library. He wasn't living solely for his friends, and he certainly wasn't fighting for them. Caught in his lie, he was glad that she wasn't making eye contact, as he would have looked away anyway.
"It seems to me, Potter," said Daphne, putting her hands behind her head and still looking past him, "that you didn't really listen to what the vampire said."
"Yes I did," snapped Harry. He didn't need her condescending manner now.
"What did he say, then?"
The memory unfolded in front of Harry.
"Now that you have delved into the darkness, you will never again feel the same kinship with your friends as you once did, unless they choose to dabble in it as well, as you have…"
They sat in silence for a moment, and Harry heard someone shout, and then some laughter, from down in the Common Room. He felt the familiar swell in his magic that meant that someone had performed a Dark spell nearby.
The implications of the statement he had just repeated suddenly became clear to him.
"It isn't separating you from your friends," said Daphne softly, gently. The expression on her face was one of sympathy, similar to that of Sanguini when he had said the very words Harry had just repeated. "If they had chosen to go along with you, if they had considered at all that Dark magic isn't all as evil as Dumbledore claims, you wouldn't be feeling as if someone had taken them from you. Or taken you from them."
Harry opened his mouth, and then closed it. Daphne continued to stare past him intently.
"You can't always blame someone else, Harry. It was your decision to walk into that room after me this summer, just as it was your decision to perform your first Unforgivable." She smiled, and Harry noticed that she was much closer to him than she had been at the beginning of the conversation.
"I just…don't really know what to do," he deadpanned. "Not at all."
She turned to look at him at last, and he was struck by the odd illumination that kept the underground Slytherin common room well-lit. It glinted off her blond hair and gray eyes. She was closer than ever now, and he found that he was leaning toward her as well.
"There aren't many of us who really know what to do in this world, in this pointless war," she whispered. "All we can do is choose the best side."
"Best for whom?" asked Harry in a barely audible murmur.
She kissed him then, slowly and passionately. It took him not entirely by surprise, and he didn't resist, wrapping his arms around her slim body and melting into her. It was a startling feeling, even in his limited experience; he could feel the Atrum effect increasing his attraction, increasing the intensity of the experience. The blood rushed to his head, along with a feeling that he knew was magical, and not coming from him, but emanating from her…
The kiss lasted forever, and only for seconds, at the same time; Daphne pulled away moments later looking slightly bewildered, but smiling all the same. It was a shock to see her vulnerable, just for that one moment, not as the icy Dark magic user that she projected to him most of the time.
"It's different, isn't it," she said, studying him. "Different from anything you've ever known before. Could you feel it? Those of us who use Dark magic don't separate ourselves from our emotions, Harry. The magic intensifies them. It's part of the Atrum effect that the vampire didn't mention." She smiled beatifically. "We lead fuller lives. Better ones."
Harry was inclined to agree; the feeling of his Dark magic mingled with hers was still coursing through his veins, leaving him breathless. He leaned into her for another, but she moved out of the way, and he fell forward slightly, before righting himself. He stared at her in consternation, and the exposed expression disappeared from her face, replaced with a more familiar one.
Suddenly she had reverted back to the icy girl who had spoken to him the last few times he had seen her. She picked herself up off the bed and smoothed her rumpled clothes, waving her hand at the Invisibility Cloak.
"What…" began Harry.
She raised an eyebrow. "Have you made your choice yet, Potter?"
Back on last name terms, he thought ruefully. "No."
She picked up the Cloak, as Harry hadn't made a move toward it, and tossed it to him. He watched her wordlessly as she strolled out of the dormitory, casting one smile back at him before she vanished down the stairs. He watched the empty doorway with his mouth open for a moment, then groaned and rolled over. He hated when she got the last word. She had had it too many times in their past few meetings.
He looked at her pillow and concentrated intently, closing his eyes to make the task easier. When he opened them, a rose lay on the white pillow, fully opened. Through some miscalculation in his magic, however, it was not red, as he had meant it to be, but black.
He scrutinized it, deciding that the black would be more welcome than a rose in Gryffindor colors. He left it on the pillow, threw the Cloak over himself, and left the dormitory, creeping silently down the stairs and skipping the seventh one again. Daphne had taken a seat directly in front of the fire, between Parkinson and Zabini. Harry tread softly toward them and touched Daphne's cheek once before he left the Common Room, making his way slowly back through the school. He didn't need to keep his Cloak on, but he did; he didn't want to have to greet people as he walked the halls. He didn't want portraits calling out to him.
He only wanted the silence, the kind that had occurred directly after he and Daphne had broken apart, the silence that was at the same time a roar as magic filled and emptied from his veins.
Upon entering the Gryffindor Common Room, he noticed at once that things were not right. There was a certain worried atmosphere, and most of the Gryffindors were huddled in small groups, muttering. He silently noted the difference between this Common Room and the one he had just left, the noise, the shouting, and the environment.
In past years he had mistaken this for camaraderie; he had thought the silence of the Slytherin Common Room was cold, dead. He knew he didn't feel the same way anymore. The way Daphne had sat comfortably in front of the fire, surrounded by her friends and the low level of conversation, inspired him with a certain amount of envy. He wondered if it was the Atrum Effect speaking again, but knew it wasn't. Not entirely.
"What happened?" Harry asked Neville, who was hovering near the fire, clutching hismimbulus mimbletoniaand looking anxious.
"Someone attacked Professor McGonagall!" said the boy, his round face creasing in an expression of anguish. "Someone removed her memory and performed some extremely dark magic on her! Or at least that's what Professor Dumbledore says," he added. "None of us have seen her."
"It must have been one of the Slytherins!" shouted Ron from across the room. "No one else in the school would be scum enough to do something like that!" this proclamation was met with shouts of approval.
So the news had gotten out. Harry wondered dispassionately who had discovered the Transfiguration Professor. Regardless of who it was, he knew, Dumbledore had probably been on the scene in moments.
Harry thought furiously for a moment. Dumbledore had only had suspicions, nothing more. He wouldn't immediately suspect Harry; five years of trust wasn't so easily overcome.
Yes...he would immediately suspect Harry. He had told McGonagall to hold him after class, and then she had been found...like that...
He walked slowly up the stairs to his dormitory, so different from the stone and green one he had just been in, and quietly removed the two Dark magic books he had secured in his trunk. Now that he knew Ron was untrustworthy, he couldn't merely hide these under piles of dirty laundry, as he had been doing. He had their contents memorized, at any rate, and he felt no qualms about Vanishing the two books.
When he walked back down to the common room ten minutes later, the crowd had subsided into a state of sullen shock, rather similar to the state it had been in when Ginny had disappeared four years previously. Harry sat down by the fire with his Transfiguration homework, ignoring Ron when the redheaded boy sat down next to him, fuming.
"They've gone too far this time," he muttered angrily. "We'll make them pay. If it's McGonagall now, who knows who they'll attack next?"
"Mm," said Harry noncommittally.
Ron got a crafty expression on his face. "Say, Harry, what happened when she held you back after class? Did you maybe…" he lowered his voice. "Did you see the attacker coming toward the room when you left?"
Harry almost rolled his eyes at this pitiful attempt at subtlety. Ron was clearly trying to ascertain whether Harry had had anything to do with the attack, and he was doing so with all his usual tact.
"She told me that I needed to work harder and pick up my grades, or I would be moved out of NEWT Transfiguration," he said. "I didn't see anyone. She was cleaning up the room when I left."
Ron nodded, looking relieved and disappointed at the same time. "That's good. Er, I mean, not good. How are we going to find out who did it?"
"I'm sure Dumbledore has the situation in hand," said Harry, remembering a time when he would have jumped at the chance to solve this sort of mystery, as Ron was. "He'll find out who did it."
"Yeah…" said Ron, looking around the room. "Er…I'm going to go and…go."
"Right," said Harry, staring into the fire.
"Harry Potter?"
Harry stared sleepily across the breakfast table. He had been up late the previous night. Ignoring his sense of caution, he had taken the Cloak and traveled to the Room of Requirement, where he had practiced his newly-learned spells until he was exhausted, though high on the feel of Dark magic running through him.
"What?" he asked roughly. The small girl staring in awe at him jumped, and then offered him a small slip of parchment.
"Professor Dumbledore asked me to give this to you."
Harry took the parchment carefully in his thumb and forefinger. It read simply, 'see me'. It was handwriting Harry recognized, from his first year, when it had been present on the note that had come with his Invisibility Cloak.
He looked up, his eyes traveling across the Great Hall and coming to rest on Daphne, who raised an eyebrow back at him. The flower he had left her was nowhere in evidence on her person, and she hadn't mentioned it, but he hadn't particularly expected her to.
"All right," he said, standing up abruptly. "Thank you." The girl nodded, still looking at him.
He made his way slowly up to the Headmaster's office, for what felt like the umpteenth time this year. His mind raced. He had no doubt what this visit would be about, and he didn't quite know what to do; he certainly didn't know why he was actually obeying the note, only that it seemed to be the right thing to do...
The gargoyle that guarded the Head office had never given him such a feeling of foreboding as it gave him now, and Harry had to force himself to enter and mount the moving staircase when it jumped aside upon seeing him. The foreboding increased as he moved up the steps until it became outright fear, and Harry began to sweat.
The door opened, and Harry saw Dumbledore, sitting coolly behind his desk and studying a book. Harry read the title and noted with a sinking heart the titleDark Magic: Recognizing its Use, a Ministry Guide.
"Hello, Harry," said the Headmaster pleasantly. He stood, and Harry noticed too late the wand in his hand. "Legilimens!"
