The next morning began the Great Theatric, as Aria thought of it in her head. Draco, Theo, Pansy, and Millicent entered the Great Hall first with Pansy on Draco's arm. This did not cause too much attention from the other tables at first, until Aria and Harry came in leading Daphne, Tracey, and Blaise while Aria was on Harry's arm. On top of that, they made a show of sitting at the Gryffindor table and with some subtle jerks of the head, several other fourth years from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff joined them.
"Are you and Harry a thing now?" Lisa asked, trying to keep her voice down.
"No," Aria answered. "It's just . . . politically complicated."
"Ah, Lord Malfoy's still being an ass is he?" Lisa questioned. Aria nodded and the Ravenclaw gave her an extra piece of toast.
Hermione came bounding up to the table, glad to see so many friends all at once.
"I've taken the liberty of getting OWL information from the Ministry," she declared, drawing a stack of booklets from her bag. Each booklet was not very large and made from the same parchment type that The Daily Prophet was made from. She began handing them out to the various fifth years gathered.
"This is just a general overview of each OWL subject," Hermione explained, "a guide to help us revise and study."
"Exams aren't until the end of the school year!" Seamus cried.
"Never too early to begin studying," Hermione retorted. "Now, there are separate booklets dedicated to each subject and I'm going to put an order in for mine, so if anyone else would like one for their subjects, I can just place it all in my order form and you can pay me back. It's a Sickle per booklet."
Immediately the fifth years began rattling off the booklets they would need, and Hermione scribbled down a list. Money began changing hands and Hermione was soon tucking nearly the entire amount into her bag with a few short IOUs attached to her list.
"Hem, hem."
Aria grimaced before smoothing out her features as the fifth years turned towards Professor Umbridge. She wore another pink business suit with pink heels. It was as ugly an ensemble as it had been last night at the Welcome Feast.
"Good morning, Professor Umbridge," Daphne greeted sweetly.
"Good morning, Miss Greengrass," Umbridge answered. "What is going on here?"
"Breakfast, ma'am," Daphne replied.
"I thought I saw money being exchanged. Gambling is strictly prohibited."
"We're not gambling," Daphne assured her. "We've charged Hermione to order the OWL booklets from the ministry to help us revise for our exams." Umbridge's gaze flickered up to Hermione. Something passed in her gaze, something that gave Aria the creeps.
"Why not order them individually?" Umbridge asked.
"A bulk order's just easier," Parvati answered. "Imagine all the owls that would have to be used!"
Umbridge did not have a comeback for that. Instead, she swapped topics.
"I'm not sure I like you all sitting at the Gryffindor table," she said instead. "When some of you aren't Gryffindor. It breeds a familiarity that isn't quite conducive to a healthy learning environment."
"A little bit of house unity never hurt anyone, Dolores," McGonagall said, startling the pink toad. Aria hid a grin at the woman's face as she spun around to face all four Heads of House who looked anything but amused. "It's not against school rules except during feasts and other major events." She stepped forward and began handing out timetables to her Gryffindors.
"I think it's quite inconsiderate," Umbridge insisted. "They should have been at their house table waiting for their timetables."
"It's no bother," Flitwick assured her, handing his Ravenclaws their timetables. "We encourage this sort of thing. This class is well known for its inter-house unity! We're all very proud of them."
Snape handed Aria and the Slytherins their timetables.
Umbridge scowled and hurried off, her heels clacking against the stone. At least, Aria thought, they would be able to hear her approach.
"You will need to be on alert around her," McGonagall muttered to the fifth years with a particular look at Harry. "She's not one to be trifled with. The Ministry is just looking for an excuse to try and take over Hogwarts."
"Yeah, except it's a private institution, isn't it?" Blaise drawled.
"Be as it may, Dumbledore's allowing her some freedom to show Minister Fudge that we have nothing to hide," Snape stated. "So you would do well to keep your heads down until this all blows over."
"We are the most inconspicuous people in the world," Aria assured him. "We're quite boring."
"Dear Merlin," Snape muttered. "I'm getting too old for this."
"Ah, Severus, don't be so pessimistic," Flitwick admonished. "If anything, the students keep you young."
Aria began flipping through her booklet. It was set up with the core subjects in the front and electives in the back half. Each subject had a spread dedicated to its overview which included a non-exhaustive list of what spells the OWLs would be covering and in what year at Hogwarts the spells or potions should have been taught. For the electives, it did the same, but the years started in third year instead of first.
Looking at the basic overviews, Aria felt very good about OWLs, but having witnessed four years' worth of fifth years panic over the OWLs, she knew that there was much more to the revision and studying than met the eye.
"We're going to need to come up with a study schedule," Aria said to Hermione who nodded in agreement. "One that will keep us on track for our homework this year, but also allow us time to review the previous four years."
"If you make the schedule I'll show up," Dean said.
"Me too!" Lavender cried. "And maybe one of us could lead the study group depending on what subject we're reviewing? Like Harry would obviously help us review Defense while Aria would help us do potions. I'd of course do Divination."
"Why you?" Parvati questioned. "Why not me?"
"Because I'm better at the subject."
"Wrong," Ernie cried. "Aria's the best at Divination. She's the one who's had visions."
"That doesn't qualify her to lead a study group!" Parvati retorted. "No offense, Aria."
"None taken," Aria assured her. "I'd prefer it if one of you led the group anyway. I'm not sure I want to continue Divination past OWLs anyway. I want to see what electives are available for NEWTs. I know that there's the usual electives like Divination, Care, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes, but I read in Hogwarts, A History that if there's enough interest then other electives could become available, or a self-study could be done."
"Oh, like what?" Susan questioned.
"Um . . . I think the book said that alchemy was an elective once for NEWTs students," Aria said. "But I think it had a prerequisite of a Potions and Transfiguration OWL. Or maybe you had to also be continuing your Potions and Transfiguration. I'd have to double check. But there were also art subjects like music and stuff like that too."
"If only Hogwarts did that," Lisa said. "I love music. I can play the guitar!"
"You play guitar?" Dean cried.
"Since I was little! Mum wanted me to learn to play the piano or the flute, but my cousin Todd played guitar and I wanted to be just like him, so Dad got me guitar lessons."
The end of breakfast bell rang signaling that students had ten minutes to get to class. Students, like Ron, shuffled a last piece of toast into their mouth or tucked extra food into their uniform robe's pockets before dashing out of the Great Hall. Aria decided to walk to class with Lisa and Padma as all three of them had Ancient Runes first thing.
After classes Aria met Draco in the secret room of the Restricted Section. She had only been waiting to meet him for six minutes before he appeared, swooped her into his arms, and kissed her silly.
"Draco!" Aria laughed, wiggling out of his grasp.
"Sorry," he said, grabbing her again by the waist and simply holding her to his side. "I missed you and this summer was absolutely horrendous!" She felt a shudder go through him and she tightened her own grip around his waist.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.
"Not particularly," Draco said. "But you should know that Grandfather had a . . . guest . . . at the manor over the summer. Who is still there." Aria gasped, feeling sick. Voldemort had been at Malfoy Manor all summer and Draco had to see him every day?
"Is he really grotesque like Harry told me?" she blurted. Draco snorted.
"He's certainly an ugly piece of shit," Draco agreed. "He . . . he looks like a snake. His eyes are red and he's got slits in his face for nostrils instead of a nose. Father told me that the Dark Lord did not look like that when Harry defeated him."
"I suppose using dark rituals to give your remaining soul a body might do that to you," Aria muttered. "We discovered over the summer a horcrux that Voldemort created."
"Ah, so he and Tom Riddle were friends then? Or at least studying the same books." Aria hummed thoughtfully, pressing her face against Draco's chest. He had had a growth spurt over the summer and was now a complete head taller than her as he could easily rest his chin on the top of her head which he proceeded to do without apology.
"Bit of a coincidence don't you think?" Aria asked. There had to be plenty of coincidences in the world, but two horcruxes? That just so happened to be connected to either Harry or Hogwarts a place he frequented? Aria wasn't sure that when it came to Harry, coincidences were a thing.
"Why wouldn't it be a coincidence?" Draco asked.
"I just . . ." Aria didn't want to break Harry's confidence by telling Draco where exactly the second horcrux was found. "It just seems strange that within three years Harry and I've run across a horcrux. It's not like we're cursebreakers or going looking for cursed objects and two just happen to fall into our laps? And one is connected to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"
"When you put it like that, it does seem a bit suspicious," Draco said. "But the first one didn't have anything to do with the Dark Lord. I just found it in my grandfather's study when I went snooping in places I didn't belong."
That reminder didn't make Aria feel better. In fact, it put her thoughts on high alert. A common denominator between Harry and Lord Malfoy was the Dark Lord. The latter as a follower and the former as a victim. Was Tom Riddle somehow connected to Voldemort as well? Was he a former follower? Or a current follower? Maybe someone who had changed his name so as to avoid being detected and arrested?
"Oi!" Draco poked Aria's nose. "Don't think so deeply. Classes are over. And I've been wanting to snog you all summer. Especially since some prat of a prince decided to infringe on my territory!"
"Your territory?" Aria teased as she let Draco back her up against the wall. He leaned down to capture his mouth. Draco's hands first came up to cup her face before smoothing down her shoulders and arms to her waist. A thrilling tingle Aria had never felt before shot from her heart down to between her legs and she gasped in surprise which allowed Draco to deepen the kiss. Her own hands wrapped around Draco, running up and down his spine which made him moan into her mouth. She teasingly ran her hand lower, feeling quite daring as she ran her hand across his waist and over his backside. Draco's hips jerked forward and something long and hard pressed against her.
"What did our parents say?"
Aria screamed as Draco jumped away from her. No one was in the room, but that had been Harry's voice. After a few seconds Harry appeared, throwing something off of him while he grinned at them. Aria narrowed her eyes and thought of multiple ways to hex Harry into next Sunday.
"Aria," Harry said, still grinning like Aria was contemplating his murder. "Didn't you pay any attention to the sex talk we were given?"
"The what?" Draco cried.
"Oh my god! Shut up, Harry!" Aria cried, dragging her hands down her face. "That was so awful! I've never wanted to just melt and die like that before!"
"Hold on," Draco cut off any more moaning. "What did you call it?"
"The sex talk?" Aria questioned.
"Is that what Muggles call it?"
Aria withheld the laughter that wanted to bubble up from her belly, but it was a hard thing. Even Harry was trying to keep his face straight. Was Draco pulling their legs or being serious?
"Please tell me your parents have had the sex talk with you," Aria said. "I know you were busy this summer, but you are fifteen years old. Even if it was to tell you not to have sex." Draco blinked at her for a moment.
"Do . . . do you mean the physical relations discussion?" he asked.
Aria and Harry did burst out laughing. Draco continued to stare at them, completely honest and bewildered.
"Your family's so traditional it can't even use the word sex?" Aria asked in between bouts of laughter. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Harry leaned against a chair.
"I'm assuming by sex you mean the physical relations between a man and woman that result in a child being born?" Draco asked.
"Yes, Draco," Aria answered with her poshest accent. "That is exactly what I mean."
"Then, yes, we've had that discussion," Draco replied. "Father had it this summer with me. He had pamphlets from my healer's office."
"Does the wizarding world not use the word 'sex'?" Harry asked.
"Father didn't use it," Draco said. "He used 'physical relations'."
"So much to unpack there," Aria said. Turning to Harry she said, "and what were you doing sneaking up on us like that? Getting off watching us?"
"Gross, don't be disgusting. It's not my fault you two were too busy sucking each other's faces off to notice a door opening and closing. I came here in hopes of there being some peace and quiet for me to do my homework but apparently you two got here first!"
"We can do homework," Aria assured him. Draco nodded his head. "I'm sure Hermione and Ron will be by eventually too. So, um . . . what exactly is that?" She pointed to the silvery cloak on the ground. Harry knelt on the floor and patted the stones until his hand reached the cloak and then he lifted it. Aria watched as the cloak went in and out of sight. Sometimes it was a beautiful silvery color that was nearly translucent, and other times it was invisible.
"Sirius gave it to me last year," Harry replied, holding it up. "It belonged to my dad. Apparently, it's a Potter family heirloom."
"An Invisibility Cloak," Draco said, impressed. "It can't be an heirloom though. Invisibility Cloaks lose the effectiveness of the demiguise fur after fifty years."
"It's definitely older than that," Harry said. "Sirius said it was handed down to my dad on his seventeenth birthday by my grandfather. Fleamont apparently said that it was tradition to pass it down alongside the pocket watch, but Sirius wanted me to have it early just . . . you know . . . in case. Dumbledore apparently had it." Harry sighed as his hand ran over the cloak. "If . . . I think if . . . a part of me thinks that if Dumbledore hadn't had it . . . then maybe we could've hidden under the cloak when Voldemort arrived."
"Why didn't you tell me about it when you got it?" Aria asked, only a little miffed that Harry had kept something so cool from her. Harry shrugged.
"I just wanted something of my dad's that no one else knew about," he answered. "It was like . . . just him and me."
Aria nodded and dropped the subject, but she did take a step closer as Harry held up the cloak so that she and Draco could take a closer look at it. The material was unnaturally smooth and went back and forth from being silverly translucent to invisible, which didn't seem to be very helpful if this was meant to be an Invisibility Cloak since anyone could see the cloak when it was silvery translucent. She picked up a corner of it and held it out to see if she could catch a design on the cloak, when a figure suddenly appeared on the other side of the cloak. It was there one second, tall and dark with its own cloak pulled up over its head, obscuring its face, and then Aria yelped in surprise, dropping the cloak and pulling her wand, and then it was gone.
"What is it?" Harry asked as he and Draco pulled out their wands. The three of them pointed their wands around the empty space for a moment before Aria lowered hers.
"I . . . I don't know," she replied. "There was a figure . . . I picked up the edge of your cloak and the figure was just there and then it was gone . . ."
"What sort of figure?" Draco asked.
"Tall. He . . . it . . . had a cloak on. A dark cloak obscuring its face and it . . . it seemed to want Harry's cloak."
Harry frowned, definitely creeped out by that.
"Well, whoever it was can't have it," he declared. "It's mine now."
Aria shivered, the room suddenly very cold.
The door swung open and Ron and Hermione tumbled in.
"Good afternoon!" Hermione cried, trotting over to the table. "What're you all just standing around for?" She glanced at what Harry was holding. "What've you got there?"
"Is that an Invisibility Cloak?" Ron cried, picking up the edge to admire it. "That's wicked, mate! Where'd you get one?"
Aria tried to put aside the vision of the figure from her mind, but she had the feeling that it wouldn't be the last time she saw it, though she could not tell herself why she thought that. She glanced over her shoulder into the shadowed corners of the room, certain that whoever had been there was still in the room, lurking, unseen, by any of them.
Madam Bones had hoped for a relatively quiet afternoon. Minister Fudge was still trying to run a bit roughshod over the DMLE, but the reprimand he had received a month ago had done quite a bit to make him settle and at least try to be subtle, though she knew that was a tall order for the man. Thankfully, the days at the ministry had quieted down since Umbridge had left. She, like many at the ministry, had thought that Umbridge had died or at the very least, found another job.
Which she had, Madam Bones thought a bit sardonically, though at the Minister's bequest.
Susan's rather alarmed letter last night had caused Amelia to lie awake in bed for hours wondering what game Minister Fudge was playing at and why on earth he had chosen Umbridge of all people to be his spy for the ministry at Hogwarts. He could have at least sent one of the aurors that was in his pocket. Amelia could never several that he could have sent. She knew Umbridge did not have the qualifications to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts and she had been sure to include the woman's qualifications (or lack thereof) in her return letter to Susan. Her niece would figure out what to do with that information. And if not her, one of her little Slytherin friends would certainly know what to do with it.
Still, it was nice not to have to worry about the woman walking about the ministry. Everyone liked Fudge's junior undersecretary better. Percy was the perfect example of professionalism even though he was young. And everyone knew that he could get the job done. He had done an amazing job with the Department of International Cooperation. Under his short interim as Head, that department had never run so smoothly! It was really a shame Minister Fudge had moved him.
A bit of a shame that Percy had taken the job, Amelia told herself. Didn't he know that Fudge had wanted him beside him so that he could spy on the Weasley family? Not that that had done much good in the end. Everyone and their mother seemed to know about the fight between Percy and his father. It was very reminiscent of Arthur's own argument with Lord Weasley that most people younger than Amelia didn't know about. But she did because she could remember hearing about it.
It was strange though, she thought, that Percy was so at odds with his family over Dumbledore. The Prewetts had long been supporters of Albus. The connection had first come when Dumbledore and Molly's own grandparents had been in school together. It had only continued to flourish as he had become famous in the world of alchemy and transfiguration and had been helped along by him becoming a favorite professor at Hogwarts. Then he had defeated Grindelwald and the rest, as they say, was history.
Amelia wasn't sure why Septimus Weasley didn't like Dumbledore. They had been at school together, at least for a few years, though she was certain that both Lord and Lady Weasley were older than Dumbledore. The two of them had had their children later in life, and there was about seven years between Bilius and Arthur. It was just so interesting that the one thing that turned Weasley men against each other was Albus Dumbledore.
As an auror, she did not believe in coincidences.
Just like she didn't believe that it was a coincidence that the two horcruxes she had dealt with in the last three years were a coincidence even though it appeared they had been created by two separate people. She had had to go and do research on what a horcrux was after Susan's second year. It was not something she had studied for NEWTs, but she vaguely remembered the term after some thinking from when she had been studying for her defense mastery. It was such dark and obscure magic that coming across one in her line of work was a rarity, but two? If a third appeared it would be a pattern.
So she had dived back into the notes she had saved about Tom Riddle to see if maybe there was a connection? Two British wizards within the same time frame creating horcruxes meant that they probably had known each other.
Her secretary knocking on the door to announce that Bill Weasley, Cursebreaker for Gringotts, wanted to see her urgently, immediately told Amelia she was going to need a headache potion.
When Bill came into her office, Amelia was just putting two Headache Relievers on her desk. Bill paused, eyeing the potions, then eyeing her.
"I could be here for a friendly call between colleagues," he said.
"I didn't become Head of the DMLE by believing lies like that," Amelia pointed out. "I can only assume you're here because of the horcruxes. Unless there's a new crisis that Gringotts feels the DMLE need to be informed of?" She could count on one hand the number of times the goblins had called the DMLE. They tended to take care of things themselves, as per the treaty between the British and the Goblin Nation. Most crimes that would involve the DMLE were crimes most wixen were not willing to commit against Gringotts.
"Right," Bill said with a sheepish look. "Well . . . I was tasked to dispose of the horcrux that we pulled from Harry's head. But I was also tasked with studying it for a bit. Egyptians created a lot of horcruxes during the Old Kingdom. Anyway, I performed a ritual on the horcrux before I disposed of it, one that would tell us if there were any . . . siblings to the horcrux."
"Siblings?" Amelia cried.
"That's a rough translation of the Egyptian. Some people would make multiple horcruxes. The most we ever saw in Egypt was three. It's theorized that the soul becomes too unstable the more horcruxes you create."
Amelia held up a hand before Bill could go into a long-winded speech about horcruxes. As interesting as it probably was, she wanted him to get to the point.
"Mr. Weasley," she said. "Get to the point."
"I managed to figure out what the results said last night," Bill told her. "I informed my superior and they told me to inform you."
Amelia nodded, knowing Bill would have needed that permission in order to discuss Gringotts business with the DMLE.
"The results are . . . horrifying," Bill said, handing a thick piece of folded parchment to her. "Basically, the soul piece we pulled out of Harry was not the only one. There are siblings. Or were. The results in black are the soul fragments that no longer exist, they're dead. The ones in silver are the ones still active and alive."
"And these numbers?" Amelia asked.
"Coordinates. We need to decipher what the coordinates mean because the ritual's Egyptian, so the coordinates are in Egyptian and I've no idea what they mean in terms of the British countryside. But we know what we're looking for because the ritual at least tells us what the object the horcrux is . . . or at least I hope the translation into English is accurate. I believe the 'papyrus' means the diary that we got rid of three years ago."
"But if . . ." Amelia trailed off, the dots starting to connect. There was no such thing as coincidences. Bill finished her thought.
"Tom Riddle, whoever he was, is Lord Voldemort."