1

Petunia decided that she should probably threaten someone into explaining the Statute of Secrecy. Lily had told her that mugges like herself wouldn't be able to perceive Castle Hogwarts as anything but an abandoned ruin. But was it her relationship with Lily that negated that? Harry because he was still alive? The fact that she hopped the fence anyway with intent? She did see the ruins just as much as she had felt the wall at Platform 9 & 3/4. But once she was over the fence, all that changed.

And then there was the fact that Lily had told her this was one of the most warded secure places on the planet. And she surely meant harm to the occupants and residents. Did you have to have one of these magical cores to interact with it? Or were wards more probability fields, and 'protection wards' kept people from blowing their heads off when their cauldrons exploded in Potions or kept them from gluing themselves to inanimate objects in Transfigurations?

The Flower of Death was convinced she was going into this too blind. She knew the name Forbidden Forest, but that didn't necessarily mean the woods she saw. She had heard the term Black Lake, but how many lakes did the grounds truly hold? How much area could be fenced off and the wards and that Statute still hold? There was a tree standing by itself - it looked like a whopping willow, or at least what she remembered one did look like.

At a noise, she dropped flat. Her black dress trying its best to blend in with the darkness of a somehow golf-tournament level kept lawn that spanned nearly to the horizon in the dead of night. The student passed by. The wards were probably luck enhancers. If she had been noticed, then the child would be dead.

2

"No Severus."

"No?", Snape asked MacGonnogal.

"Yes - no.", She said. "You've taken every night patrol since the boy has arrived. We've indulged your spite long enough. The boy isn't going to go wandering the hallways after curfew when he just got here. Considering the muggles he was raised with, he has to find this all very off putting like any of the other muggleborns. You need your rest as well. I won't have you endangering every Potions student for the simple dislike of one child."

The Potions Master folded his cloak over himself. "Everyone does seem to have exactly half of the story now, don't they?"

And then they both pretended he had not noticed when she drew her wand.

3

Dumbledore was in his office because of course he was. The student body was still a buzz with talk of the forbidden 3rd floor corridor after his grand and obvious speech. Of course, any magical person would make short work of the 1st year tricks it held. But the muggle he was planning for was muggle. And obviously he would be hiding himself there, away from the students and behind his authority. After all, it's not like the gargoyle that led to his real office read "Headmaster, this way" upon it. What a tempting target he had become.

4

Quirrel's turban lay unwrapped on the chair next to his desk. The moonlight shone through the skylight onto the tarot cards and tea set, tools of divination. Another voice spoke as the Professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts gazed at the results. "Tonight is it."

"Are you certain, my lord?", the man asked. "There's so much death on the board. The object of this infiltration was to be able to stealthily sneak the stone away. This...this implies absolute carnage."

"And that is why I will always be superior!", the voice rasped out. "You have missed the signs that point to plans coming to fruition and tactical precision. There will be death. But it will be intentional, not accidental. It will be assassination not war.

"And remember my servant. I cannot die.

5

Trewlawny passed the bottle back to Sinestra. They too looked up at the night sky.

"Should we try to help?", one asked while looking at stars.

"By doing what exactly?", the other challenged.

They passed the bottle back and forth, hoping to survive long enough to tell the tale.