If a day were to be special, hold meaning disproportionate to its footprint, it did not usually seem to begin that way. After all, the world was blind to the trivialities of man.

So the philosophisers might say – or perhaps they would say the opposite, suggesting that the world, in fact, reflected or even heeded the lives of men. More likely, some would say the first, and some may say the second. No idea, indeed, has ever stood without opposition – and perhaps, no idea could ever stand without opposition.

For Harry, it was the latter of the two ideas which reflected that day. That Friday was not to be an ordinary Friday, to be sure, though perhaps not in a good way for those who would have liked the final day of the week to finish early and head out with friends onto the grounds. There was to be an Exploratory that afternoon, at which Professor Vector was to speak about Arithmancy. Harry, though, did not personally mind, and even looked forward to hearing what Arithmancy was all about. Professor Cauverina had talked about the subject on several occasions, and though she did not speak of it in too much detail, it was enough for Harry's interest to be piqued.

That was not to be the end of the unusual events, however, for in Transfiguration, Hermione nearly fell victim to the mysterious pranker – though based on what Tracey had let slip over the holidays, Harry thought he could quite reliably narrow the pranker's identity down to a handful of suspects. Whoever was playing the prank was not very clever, however, for they completely underestimated their target's memory and preparation. The contents of Hermione's Transfiguration book, as it transpired, had been switched with those of the fifth-year book by the same authors, perhaps out of a hope that Hermione would be tortured and made a fool of when McGonagall would ask them to turn to some page and answer the questions there. Hermione, however, knew the year's outline by heart, and correctly deduced in short order that someone had tried to prank her. With a single 'Finite incantatem', the trickster's plans were ruined.

The Exploratory, for once, did not hold any unusual surprises at all. As always, it was held in the Great Hall, but unlike the Care of Magical Creatures Exploratory, Professor Vector provided no demonstrations nor exhibitions, and the period consisted of a rote presentation followed by a brief session for questions at the end. Vector's less-than-exciting speech, Harry thought, was quite a let-down, especially since he thought that the class had potential to be rather interesting – more than Care of Magical Creatures, in his personal opinion. Arithmancy, as Professor Cauverina had spoken of many times, involved the application of mathematics to understand the foundations of magic as well as to a methodical method for building new spells. Quite complex mathematics, it seemed, in fact.

'What exactly is this "infinitesimal analysis" that we'll be learning for the next two years?' Anthony Goldstein asked as the Exploratory began to draw to a close.

'You will not be learning the methods of infinitesimal analysis for the next two years,' Professor Vector replied somewhat severely. 'You are not prepared, with your current knowledge from Elementary Studies, to study the subject until your fourth year. In the third year, you will be taught elementary algebra and the algebra of linear systems as fundamental foundations. At the end of the third year, you will be given an examination on this material. Only those who pass this examination will be permitted to continue in my class at all. Another examination will be given at the end of your fourth year to test your knowledge of infinitesimal analysis and equations involving infinitesimals. Again, only those who pass this examination will be allowed to continue to the fifth year, at which point you will begin to finally study the applications of mathematics to magic and spells.'

'In case you believe otherwise, my requirements are not unusual,' she continued without a pause – she seemed to quite like to listen to herself talk, or perhaps she was simply extremely passionate about the subject. 'Professor Babbling requires mandatory examinations on standard and runic Eltrys at the end of the third and fourth years before students are allowed to continue to the fifth. My class and Runes and Enchantments are two of the most difficult subjects available at this school, and for good reason. By the time you finish your seventh year, you will have barely broken the surface in your knowledge of either of these subjects. Even those who have received their Magister have only an incomplete knowledge of a small subset of all there is to know. To become a master arithmancer or a master runewright requires a lifetime of nonstop learning and practice.'

Soon after, the Exploratory was dismissed, and the second-year students gathered in the Great Hall went their separate ways. Harry, Hermione, and Neville went to the library, Harry hoping to finish a good amount of homework before his Mind Arts session with Snape that night. By this point, Harry had stopped being frustrated with his lack of progress at Mind Arts and simply accepted that he would not be learning even the fundamentals anytime soon, and his failures no longer vexed him.

'What do you think about Arithmancy?' Hermione asked as they walked.

'It sounds interesting,' Harry replied. 'Professor Vector, though…was it just me, or did she come off rather…'

'Condescending?' Neville supplied.

Hermione cocked her head. 'Did she?'

'I mean, the way she answered everyone's questions,' Neville said. 'It was like she…I don't know…thought that she was more clever than everyone else or something.'

Hermione shrugged. 'I don't know. I thought she was just telling things the way they are.'

Harry made better than expected progress on his homework, and by the time he left for Snape's office, he was already done with a good portion of his work for the weekend, save for a few small assignments plus the large Potions essay Snape had forced upon them, on which Hermione and Neville had begun to work just as he departed. If all went well, they would finish everything by around midday the next day, and have the rest of the weekend to relax, something about which Harry was quite happy.

'Sit down,' Snape ordered as Harry entered his dungeon office. Few words were exchanged between them at any given lesson, as there was naught for Snape to teach him. To be honest, Harry did not expect anywhere the level of patience Snape displayed during these Mind Arts lessons – a patience which instantly evaporated at the beginning of each Potions lesson. Despite the painfully little progress, never once did Snape suggest that they may reduce the number of times they met per week, and Harry did not dare ask, despite the prospect of spending less of his ultimately limited free time with Snape being incredibly appealing.

Harry sat down without a word and began the exercises, the same ones which had yielded no results time and time again before. He had no expectations that this time would be any different. After all, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results was, to some, a definition of insanity. The trouble was, of course, that neither Snape, and certainly not Harry himself, knew of any other way to do things.

After a stretch of time that Harry would find impossible to quantify – there were times when the entire ninety minutes passed, and Harry felt that he had only been there for a few minutes, while at others, thirty actual minutes felt like hours – he felt nothing, thought of nothing other than the flow of the transcendental energy emanating from him. A long distance away, perhaps a few metres out, he could feel his transcendental energy interacting with Snape's, producing a weak turbulence he could just feel but not describe. Curious, he tried to reach out and feel for it. He felt pressure on the flow of his own transcendental energy, a pressure which prevented it from propagating further away from him.

Suddenly, the pressure he felt began to rapidly decrease, and the 'wavefront' of his transcendental energy began to recede. The flow kept slowing, until soon, it was at a complete standstill. It did not stop there, however. Soon, it was accelerating again, but in the opposite direction.

Harry began to quickly feel lightheaded, as if he had just stood up too quickly. Instead of quickly going away, however, the feeling only increased in magnitude. Very quickly, all he could feel and…see…was energy, flowing quickly, chaotically. It was a feeling that he could not describe in words even if he had the physical and mental ability to. He felt his consciousness being pulled this way and that by the vortexes of transcendental energy. The feeling grew and grew. Harry wanted to cry out, but he was unable to do it. He had no facility over himself, the processes which would normally have gone on in his mind completely disrupted by the sudden rush of anarchic power.

The feeling must have reached a climax, for the next thing Harry knew, a bucket of cold water had been dumped on his face, and he scented the noxious odour of smelling salts.

'Well, well,' Harry heard Snape's voice, his eyes still closed and his senses disoriented. 'It appears that you have finally achieved something.'

Harry shifted. 'Wh-What?' he mumbled.

'What did you feel?' Snape asked.

'Cold water?' Harry replied, still too dazed to understand what Snape was exactly asking.

'Clearly, your achievement did not come with a side of perception and manners,' Snape drawled. 'Before you passed out, Potter, what did you feel?'

Harry took a few moments to sit up and gather himself before responding. 'I…I felt lightheaded…I couldn't think, couldn't do anything,' he recalled. 'My mind…it was like a storm was blowing through it.'

'And before that?'

'Everything was normal,' Harry replied. 'And then…I suddenly felt my energy stop flowing out, and then it started to come back in. And then I started to feel lightheaded.'

Snape nodded slowly. 'Very well, Potter. Colour me…surprised. In three months, you have managed a critical breakthrough that takes some years. I will admit that I myself was convinced that you would never achieve this. Now, the question is, of course, whether you have managed this out of sheer coincidence and dumb luck, or if you will manage to repeat the feat. Of course, even if you are indeed skilled enough to repeat this achievement, there is much more in the Mind Arts which you may or may not be competent enough to learn.'

'You will return here on Monday, at which time you will attempt to repeat your successful redirection of transcendental energy from tonight,' Snape said. 'You are not to attempt redirection independently until I tell you explicitly that you are ready to practise that stage, for you do not yet have sufficient skills to safely control your redirected energy without losing consciousness. For now, your practice is to terminate immediately at the point at which the flow of your transcendental energy reverses. This will allow you to become accustomed to and speed up the reversal procedure, as well as to practice greater control over said energy. Understood, Potter?'

'Yes, sir.'

Snape grabbed a piece of parchment and scribbled on it before shoving it towards Harry. 'We are finished. You lost consciousness and I was forced to revive you using standard means – those not using magic, for additional magic may have wreaked havoc on you in the state you were in. It is currently thirty minutes past your curfew. This is your pass. Go straight to your dormitory.'

Harry did not need any further prompting, and he hastily left the room. A pair of Patrollers were, as ever, waiting a few steps away. Harry showed Snape's pass to one of them, and she nodded. Without a word, she began to lead him up to Gryffindor Tower.

When Harry returned to the portrait entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room, he was surprised to see more Patrollers than the usual pair standing outside. The moment they saw Harry and his Patroller escort, they walked towards them.

'You are Harry Potter?' one asked.

'Y-Yes,' Harry answered. His heart began to speed up. Was there something wrong? Was he in danger? Why were they here?

'Is there something – '

'You are to come with us,' the other interrupted. 'Albus Dumbledore has asked us to escort you to him.'


Three bodies, hard and cold as granite. Even their hair – straw, brown, and black respectively – was like it had been carved out of stone: rigid, and when pressed too hard, broke with a snapping sound and a small cloud of un-humanlike dust. Their eyes – blue, brown, and green – looked very much lively, but besides the evident shock in all of them, there was something utterly terrifying about them, about how they looked without seeing or responding or feeling, almost as if they were but marbles.

To call them bodies would feel defeatist – they could, they will, be cured – but in their current state, they were about as alive as statues. What else could they be called? Statues? But there was no way to think of some other term, no way to do anything except stare in a horrified stupor.

'They were found in the corridor leading from the library to the staircases,' Dumbledore said quietly to McGonagall. The two of them were standing a short distance away from the beds holding the newest victims, but separated from them by a divider, which filtered their voices so that they sounded muffled and hallucinatorily imagined. 'Most likely, Miss Granger and Mister Longbottom stayed too late in the library, and Anna decided to walk them back as it was close to, or already past, curfew. Irma discovered them about twenty minutes ago after she left the library for the day and reported to me at once.'

'The corridor outside the library?' McGonagall gasped. 'That's supposed to be heavily guarded, Albus. How many Patrollers were supposed to be in that corridor? What were they doing?'

'Four Patrollers were supposed to be keeping watch over that corridor, it being a shorter one,' Dumbledore answered. 'Strangely, Irma reported that there was not a single Patroller in that corridor, nor in the ones before or after it, which should have had an additional four and two Patrollers keeping watch, respectively, when she found the bodies.'

Bodies.

No. No, they were not bodies.

'What?' McGonagall hissed. 'No Patrollers? What the bloody hell was going on? Where are those Patrollers now?'

'When Poppy and I arrived on the scene, the missing Patrollers had all already returned,' Dumbledore replied. 'I stopped briefly to ask them a few questions, but they did not seem to remember what they had been doing just five minutes ago.'

'Someone cursed them,' McGonagall guessed.

'I reached the same conclusion,' Dumbledore affirmed. 'I did not have time to examine the situation more thoroughly, but I sent for help from Aurors – trusted ones, of course. Shacklebolt and Tonks are already here, albeit unofficially. I trust them to investigate what has happened thoroughly.'

There was a pause. 'In the meantime…'

Harry felt a hand on his right shoulder. 'Mister Potter,' came McGonagall's voice.

He did not respond. The blow had knocked the wind out of him, and he was still struggling to respirate, but now, the site of the impact had begun to throb, too.

'Harry.'

The use of his given name and the uncharacteristically gentler tone of McGonagall's voice got Harry to look up. The Deputy Headmistress no longer looked stern or strict, but more kindly and understanding, exuding a sense of safety that she rarely did. Teacher and pupil stared at one another. Harry did not know what to say, and could not think up anything.

'I am sorry that you have to go through this,' she said mellowly.

Harry still said nothing. He began to grasp the reality of what had happened. His two best friends, with whom he had shared a substantial majority of his life ever since he had come to Hogwarts, and who had come to save him from the clutches of Voldemort, plus someone who had been some sort of hybrid between an older sibling and a mentor, a trusted and approachable authority, were gone. He had been unable to do anything about it.

Petrified. Not gone. Those were two very, very different things.

'Do not despair, Harry,' McGonagall consoled, seemingly sensing what Harry was thinking. 'The petrifications will be reversed. The potion will be ready before spring.'

'Why of all people…'

'They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,' McGonagall said. 'It could have happened to anyone. There was nothing you could have done. Even if you were there, nothing would have changed. The only thing that would have happened is that you would be lying here on another bed, petrified along with them.'

Harry heard the doors to the Hospital Wing open, and heard McGonagall walk away. It was probably the Aurors whom he had heard Dumbledore mention, but he did not turn around. He did not care, did not have at the moment the ability to care. He placed his head down on the back of the chair which he was straddling, listening without thinking.

'We've finished our preliminary investigation,' said a feminine voice.

'What're your findings?' Professor McGonagall asked hurriedly.

'The Patrollers were indeed cursed,' a second voice, deep and masculine, replied. 'Their behaviour was extremely lethargic, exhibiting poor motor abilities and mental coordination. We have already sent them to St Mungo's, where they should recover fully in about one to two weeks with appropriate therapy. A surface-level inspection of their minds showed clear signs of their recent memories being altered.'

'More precisely, evidence that someone wiped their recent memories,' the first voice clarified. 'Or at least attempted to. The caster of the memory charms was either unskilled or heavily distracted while casting them. Some of the charms were poorly cast, which led to some memory being recoverable.'

'Were you able to find the perpetrator, then?' Dumbledore questioned. 'Or at least, whoever cast the memory-altering spells? We cannot rule out that a group of people are behind this.'

'No. Unfortunately, none of the fragments of memory gave any clues to the identity of the perpetrator,' the male Auror said. 'However, one fragment of memory – corroborated by the examinations of the victims' symptoms, shows something…quite disturbing. In it, you can clearly hear the incantation "Imperio".'

'The Imperius Curse?' McGonagall gasped. 'Who… How?'

'We don't know,' the man replied. 'However, the perpetrator was also highly unskilled at casting the Imperius, or like Nymphadora said, extremely distracted. Perhaps he or she was afraid to be caught, and it threw off their casting.'

'The physical symptoms you describe align with the after-effects of a sloppy Imperius,' Dumbledore agreed. 'Which begs the question, who in this castle could possibly have cast the Imperius, and how did they learn to do so?'

'If we had a wand, we could check it against the wand registry…'

'I highly doubt someone involved in an organised reign of terror at Hogwarts and capable of casting the Imperius would be careless enough to leave their wand around, Miss Tonks,' McGonagall pointed out.

'We are dealing with a serious dark wizard here,' the man – Shacklebolt, it must be – said quietly. 'The Imperius Curse is the most challenging of the unforgivable spells to cast. Even though our perpetrator is evidently an amateur, his or her knowledge of dark magic must certainly not stop at a subpar Imperius.'

'With all due respect and confidence in your abilities, Albus,' Shacklebolt continued, 'I believe this matter has grown too big for you and your staff alone to handle.'

'I would prefer not to handle it at all, Kingsley,' Albus responded grimly. 'I would have long ago ordered the evacuation of the school. The Orkneys Academy and the Ysgol Hud yn Eryri have both assented to the plan, but – '

'The Board of Governors and Fudge are obstructing you,' Kingsley Shacklebolt finished. 'Or, if we may speak frankly, is it Lucius Malfoy alone?'

A pause. 'Word travels fast, it seems.'

'Old Mad-Eye has ears in every closed room,' Shacklebolt said with a small chuckle. 'It's surprising how much he hears, but then again, with him…the way he is…is it really? He's a one-man Department of Mysteries – if we exclude the foreign components.'

'It is indeed no surprise,' Dumbledore affirmed. 'Nonetheless, to answer your question, Kingsley, yes, indeed. Lucius Malfoy is obstructing every move I could make to protect Hogwarts and its students.'

'Do you – '

Tonks stopped. A long, sudden silence.

Shacklebolt cleared his throat. 'Albus, as I was saying, I believe that the situation is beyond your – considerable – abilities to manage. If we are dealing with a serious dark wizard, and if your hands are tied with regards to an evacuation, then I think the best option to keep the students safe might be to replace the Patrollers with an army unit.'

'The Army? At Hogwarts?' McGonagall demanded, sounding shocked. 'Not to mention the panic the presence of the army would cause at Hogwarts, you do not seriously believe that the Board of Governors, which has already blocked repeated appeals to evacuation, would allow an army unit to march into the school, do you?'

There was a silence, perhaps as Shacklebolt reconsidered the feasibility of his proposal. 'Neither the Board of Governors nor the students need to know,' he finally said slowly. 'We already have the Patrol deployed at Hogwarts. Considering that, we can simply arrange a…discreet swap of units. The Army can assume the place of the patrol, down to the very details – uniforms, equipment, stations – so that no one would suspect anything had happened at all – except for perhaps that there had been an increase in the number of Patrollers, if you wish that. The only one who would know the truth – besides us – would be Amelia, and she is under no obligation to report such…details…to the Minister.'

'The Department of Security has indeed always had a stunning level of independence from the rest of the Ministry,' Dumbledore commented in a neutral voice which obviously suggested that he had particular feelings on the topic, which he was hiding.

'What do you mean?' Tonks asked, picking up on Dumbledore's tone.

'Many things,' Dumbledore replied evenly. 'None of which, however, are relevant at this moment. In fact, currently, it would be imprudent and inappropriate for me to voice any of them, for I see sense in your proposal, Kingsley.

'Good,' Shacklebolt said decisively. 'I will speak to Amelia immediately. Do you have a fireplace connected to the Floo network nearby, Albus?'

'In Poppy's office. Poppy, would you be so kind?'

'Certainly.'

The two Aurors followed Madam Pomfrey away, as signalled by the fading sounds of their footsteps. As they went, Harry heard another set of footsteps walk quietly up to him. Harry did not need to look up to know that it was Dumbledore.

The headmaster sat down next to him on a chair that Harry swore had not been there just moments ago – Dumbledore must have conjured it. Harry expected him to speak, perhaps say some words of consolation – words which he did not need, for they would have no use. Dumbledore, however, remained silent, saying and doing nothing. Harry, though understanding that Dumbledore's intention was to let him speak, also said nothing. There was nothing he could say as he stared at the petrified forms of his friends. Consciously, he knew that it was temporary, that they would be okay, but what if they were not? What if they had not been petrified, but something else had happened to them? What if the potion did not work? Images of all that they had done together flashed through his mind. What if they would never…

Don't think like that, he told himself. They'll be okay.

Madam Pomfrey's office door opened, and Harry heard her and the Aurors step out. Dumbledore rose, too, to join the Aurors.

'Amelia has agreed,' Shacklebolt reported. 'She will give the order immediately to deploy one battalion of the Nadat Cuznawtecot Welsh Infantry Regiment to Hogwarts. Three hundred soldiers, some of the finest in the entire army, will arrive tomorrow at midnight in disguise and relieve the Enforcement Patrol. You need not be worried about Fudge nor the Board, for – '

'The Department of Security operates only on its own terms, which, combined with the fact that the Department of Mysteries is currently quite sympathetic towards Amelia, means that the rest of the Ministry will be kept quite conveniently in the dark,' Dumbledore finished. 'Considering this, I trust that I can also count on your discretion in this matter?'

'We only report to Amelia, and – '

'And Amelia needs not report to anyone. Thank you, Kingsley, Nymphadora. Before you depart, will you please bring Mister Potter to Gryffindor Tower?'

Harry did not want to get up, to move, but somehow he did. His dormitory was as silent as death, as dark as the abyss, when he arrived. He laid down on his bed and closed his eyes, and hoped that all that he had seen in the last hour was all just a nightmare.


But it was not all just a nightmare. The empty places at the Gryffindor table, places once usually occupied by Hermione and Neville, made the reality of what had happened painfully explicit.

Halfway through breakfast, Dumbledore stood and walked up to the lectern. Harry already knew what was going to happen, and did not want to listen. Instead, he buried his head in his copy of the Daily Prophet, trying his best to tune out Dumbledore's speaking by focusing on an article on the third page, titled Agitation in Russian Poland: Białystok Riots Reach Fifth Day. His focus, however, seemed more concentrated on not hearing what Dumbledore was saying rather than on reading the article itself, and outside of some cursory information such as the fact that the riots were caused by the Protectors press-ganging locals into their army, he did not comprehend or remember much more.

As painfully explicit as the truth was, Harry could not help but still try to deny it to himself. Immediately after breakfast, he dashed up to the Hospital Wing, thinking that perhaps, when he got there, he would find his friends sitting and chatting on their beds, healthy and recovered – or perhaps he would not find them there at all, and be pleasantly intercepted along the way and assured that it was all, indeed, just a nightmare. When he arrived, however, the same terrible sight that had greeted him the night before burned itself into Harry's eyes once more. For a moment, he wanted to run away, hide away in his dormitory and wait…however long he needed to…until everything was all right once more. Yet he could not simply leave them there, as if abandoned. He would not have wanted to be treated this way if it were him who were laying in those beds. He debated what to do for some time, and eventually decided to pick a few flowers from the grounds of Hogwarts and place them on the nightstands by their beds.

Harry could not do anything that weekend. Every time he tried, he found that he was unable to concentrate on what was in front of him, for there was no way to miss the absence of Hermione and Neville. Normally, on Sundays, they would go to Anna, where they would talk and she would help them with whatever questions they had on their homework – but that was now, too, no more. Despite Tracey's best attempts to cheer him up or distract him in some way, Harry was not responsive, unable to snap out of his sullen and depressed mood.

Monday came, and without anyone to keep him at breakfast – and without any desire to sit longer than he had to at his table where Hermione's and Neville's absence was near its most obvious, he trudged up early to History of Magic. There was no one there when he arrived, and he sat down outside the classroom, trying to fill his time by attempting to start Snape's essay, which he still had not been able to finish – or even begin in any meaningful way. It was just as impossible to write now as it had been over the weekend, and the only progress Harry managed to make in the approximately fifteen minutes was finishing the introduction.

Eventually, other students began to arrive. They did not speak much to him, did not attempt to wish him well or give him condolences – he doubted many Slytherins, with whom the Gryffindors shared the class, would have cared to give him well wishes, anyway – but he was quite glad that they did not. He did not want to be held up on some pedestal of pity for what had happened. He only wanted to forget about it, as difficult as it was to do so.

'Look at Potter,' said Malfoy to his fellow Slytherins, though Harry knew that he was speaking purposefully loudly so that he, too, would hear. 'Seems like the Chamber decided to do us all a favour and get rid of those friends of his – and the teacher who's young enough to be my sister but thinks she can boss us around. No harm done, I'd say. Hogwarts is better without them – even if it's unfortunately temporary.'

Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy and her gang laughed. Tracey looked at Harry and tried to give him an apologetic look, though she did not need to. 'Could've gotten Potter, too, while it was at it,' Pansy cackled.

'It'd have been more funny if his friends had gotten picked off one by one,' Daphne crowed. 'Left him wondering who'd be the next one to get petrified. Maybe it was better this way, though. Suddenly, most of our troubles are gone.'

Harry did not respond. He knew that they were trying to goad a reaction out of him with their caustic words, but he would not allow them to. In part, it was to maintain his self-respect, but at the same time, he did not trust himself to respond. He felt like an over-taut rope, waiting to be cut and release all his fury, anger, grief, and whatever else he was feeling, all at once on a target that more than deserved it. He feared that if he did anything, he would seriously hurt Draco, pansy, Daphne…all of them. As much as he disliked them, he still did not want to physically assault them – nor would it be at all right for him to do so.

Malfoy, however, seemed determined to derive satisfaction. 'What do you think, Potter?' Malfoy asked directly, now, turning to Harry and giving him a nasty look. 'Are you crying over your friends? Are you scared, Potter? Do you think you'll be next?'

Harry's temper flared, the metaphorical rope groaned, and his hand twitched, perhaps wanting to bring out his wand with a flick of the wrist or perhaps simply form a fist and punch Malfoy. He did neither of those things, however. He heard Hermione's voice, telling him that calling Malfoy's bluff rarely did any good, as experience showed. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his temper with limited success, but it was enough to prevent him from immediately lashing out.

'Are you scared yourself, Malfoy?' he replied, as calmly as he was able to. 'I mean, it could happen next to any of us.'

Malfoy's face flashed in anger. 'You think I'm scared, Potter?' he snapped, and Harry saw him quickly look around nervously on either side of him, as if looking to his housemates for confidence. 'What reason do I have to be scared?'

'I don't know, because you're a coward?' Harry asked, pressing the buttons he knew always managed to irritate Dudley. 'It doesn't seem like you're capable of doing much more than taunting, so you might be right to be scared, I suppose.'

One of the Slytherins – Harry was unable to identify who – laughed, and Daphne and Blaise exchanged a look that seemed to indicate that they thought Harry had a point. Draco's countenance, upon hearing and seeing the betrayal from his own housemates, suddenly turned red, in a signature look of anger mixed with humiliation that he wore all too often when he found that he had jumped into a grave he had dug for himself.

'I'm a Slytherin!' Malfoy cried. 'Plus, my father is more powerful than you will ever be! I'm not scared!'

'My, my, Draco. Daddy's little baby, aren't you?' Blaise chortled. 'Bringing daddy dear into it whenever you can't think up a response. Not sure if you noticed, but not even your great and powerful father can be everywhere at once.'

'How does it feel to be the biggest baby in the House?' Elizabeth Murke derided.

Suddenly, nearly the entirety of the Slytherin House turned on Draco, him becoming their target of ridicule in place of Harry. The only ones who remained by his side were Crabbe and Goyle, but their support did not mean all that much, for they were not the most eloquent. The Gryffindors, in a rare show of unity between these two Houses, joined in deriving pleasure from Draco's misfortune. Draco's face turned redder still, until it was now nearly purple, matching the colour of Uncle Vernon's countenance when he got particularly angry but could not find anything else to say.

'I am – '

What Draco was, or thought he was, Harry would never know, for at that moment, Professor Ross arrived on the scene. 'Mister Malfoy, I could hear you shouting from the next corridor,' she scolded. 'Ten points from Slytherin House for your behaviour, and five more because this is not the first time you have done this. Class, you may enter.'

For a split-second, Malfoy glowered at Professor Ross, but only for a split-second, for even he quickly realised that it was quite a poor idea to disrespect a teacher that way. Disgruntled, he shuffled into the classroom in the middle of the pack of Slytherins, who were shaking their heads in disapproval at the loss of points caused by his misbehaviour.

History of Magic, as ever this year, proved rather chilling. Harry had neglected to do the assigned reading over the weekend, and was initially lost when Professor Ross began a lecture about the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany which carried out disturbing spying and interrogation practices and, at one point, reportedly had one informant per every sixty citizens. He was not entirely sure what the moral of the lesson was supposed to be – besides the now rather typical understanding of the depths of human evil. Perhaps it was the danger posed by people who would stop at nothing to control the lives of others? Or perhaps the idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely? There must have been many lessons one could take away from this piece of history.

Days at Hogwarts were always rather mechanical, but to Harry, this day felt closer to completely insentient. It was just his foul luck that Lockhart's lesson that day was perhaps one of the most demanding he had ever encountered, for it involved something not only completely foreign, but also unexpected and surprising – melee weapons.

'Melee weapons,' Lockhart said as the lesson began. 'You may ridicule the notion, consider it unnecessary, obsolete when you also possess a wand. Many other wizards have also thought the same throughout history. Do you know where they went?'

At this point in the year, Lockhart had asked this question enough times that there was little need for Harry to think on it. The answer was always one and the same – the cemetery.

'Yes, they are now long dead and buried, after suffering extremely excruciating and entirely preventable deaths,' Lockhart said, answering his own question. 'If instead of trying to aim and cast a spell in a close-quarters duel, these wizards had instead swung their swords or stabbed with their daggers, they would have lived longer. Yet because they refused to carry a sword out of hubris, they were cut down – decapitated, burned alive, melted into a puddle. The truth is simple: casting spells takes time – time which you do not have in a close-quarters fight. If you want to live, sword-work is essential.'

Lockhart picked up a scabbarded sword from his desk. 'This is my sword. Arondight. Forty standard inches in length, forged from goblin silver – a special and mysterious alloy that resembles silver but has few properties in common. This has saved my life too many times to count, in situations where, had I tried to cast a spell, I would have been blown into thousands of tiny pieces. It is my sincere hope that you do not suffer such a fate. Therefore, in these next few weeks, I will be teaching you the basics of how to use a sword.'

For the next forty minutes, Lockhart showed them some basic stances, strikes, and parries and held a mock fight with Dean to demonstrate the importance of closing openings and taking advantage of those of the enemy. After this short 'lecture', he split them into pairs to practise those moves using heavy wooden sticks in place of actual swords. Harry, his mind enslaved by other matters, performed dismally. Out of what must have been more than fifteen attempts, Harry managed to defeat just two or three of his partner Raul's strikes, while on the offensive, he again and again failed to exploit the openings available to him and, as a result, was blocked time and time again. Perhaps it was not a fair match-up, he told himself, considering Raul must have had abnormally fast reflexes from Quidditch – though that excuse only comforted him in a very limited way.

Frustrated and irritated by his lack of competence and comprehension, Harry dragged himself to the library after dinner, hoping that the change of environment might help him concentrate somewhat. It did not help in the least bit, however, and less than an hour later, he trudged out of the library, having dejectedly given up. As he left, he, for the second time that day, encountered Lockhart, who suddenly appeared out from between two rows of shelves.

'Good evening, Professor,' Harry said, stopping short.

'Good evening,' Lockhart replied monotonously. He was holding a large stack of books. Harry, glancing at their spines, saw a few dedicated to dark spells and several more discussing dark enchantments.

'Be sure to not wander from the guarded corridors,' Lockhart added.

Harry nodded.

'On your way, then.'

Harry did not think very much of that encounter with Lockhart, but two days later, he – literally – ran into him again, this time in front of the Restricted Section. Harry did not manage to stop himself in time, and barrelled right into Lockhart, causing the books he was carrying to tumble from his arms and scatter all over the floor.

'I'm sorry,' Harry said, bending down to help pick up the books he had caused Lockhart to drop. As he did so, he glanced at the spines out of curiosity. The first book he picked up was titled Secrets of the Darkest Art, and somehow, Harry felt a deep unease in just touching the book, as if the tome itself was steeped in dark magic. The second book, called Dunkle Geheimnisse: eine Übersicht der bösesten Flüche mitteleuropäischer Häuser, felt even more unpleasant to the touch.

'Is this what you're going to be teaching us?' Harry asked as he hastily dumped the gathered books into Lockhart's arms. He did not think he liked the idea at all of learning about such magic, even if Lockhart might deem it a necessity in the present situation.

'No,' Lockhart answered.

Harry furrowed his brow. He was quite relieved by Lockhart's answer, but if not for class materials, for what reason for was he researching with these vile books? Unless…

'Does this have anything to do with the Chamber of Secrets?'

'No,' Lockhart said again, but the hastiness of his answer and the slight defensiveness of his voice seemed to point to a different truth.

'Has the Chamber been found yet?' Harry pressed despite knowing that Lockhart was unlikely to appreciate his questioning, nor give him an answer he was looking for. The drive of curiosity, augmented by hope, was too strong.

'No,' Lockhart replied for a third time, but unlike the last, he sounded sincere.

'I am trying to find out more about the petrifications,' he added quietly, defying Harry's expectations. 'I think if we knew more about who is behind them, we might have a much clearer lead on where to locate the Chamber itself.'

'You know for sure it's a "who" who's behind the petrifications?' Harry questioned.

'Obviously. It cannot very well be a "what" going around petrifying people, can it?' Lockhart answered sarcastically. 'Even if the "who" is using a "what" to achieve his ends, it is still always more effective to cut off the hand wielding the sword than to merely break steel.'

Harry thought about how to respond. Should he tell Lockhart what he knew? Dumbledore had instructed to keep quiet with what he knew, but Lockhart was searching for leads, despite evidently doing so in the wrong direction with his focus on magical spells rather than creatures – had Dumbledore not told him what he suspected? Whatever Lockhart was and whatever unpleasant qualities he may have, he was beyond a shadow of a doubt a capable and intelligent man – perhaps he could come to a conclusion Dumbledore had overlooked? In any case, it was not like he had kept steadfastly to the promise he had made to Dumbledore, anyway.

'The Chamber,' Harry said. 'It contains a serpent of some sort. Probably a large, magical one. I know. I've heard it. Ever since September.'

Lockhart set his books down at the nearest table. 'A magical serpent?' He looked at Harry. 'Why…it makes sense. Then that means…'

'Have you any other information?' he asked, narrowing his eyes.

Harry shook his head. 'No. Sorry.'

'Do not be,' Lockhart said. 'I thank you for your help, for it was very helpful indeed. If you find anything else, inform me at once.'

Harry nodded. 'Yes, Professor.'

'And…uh…good luck,' he added awkwardly. 'I…uh…hope you find something soon. My friends…'

Something shifted in Lockhart's countenance, something strange, foreign, and unreadable. 'I understand,' he said, but with that statement, he seemed to speak more to Harry directly than as a mere affirmation of his words. 'I hope I do, too. I must.'