They were as striking as their daughter, remaining arrogant in appearance despite their grief. Devona had inherited her black-and-white streaked hair from her father, who also sported a short Van Dyke beard with a white blaze, and gasflame-blue eyes. Her mother was a full-figured woman, built a bit like Mrs. Weasley but carrying it well in expensive, tailored clothes. She had hair the color of a storm cloud and a necklace with a ruby pendant the size of a doorknob.

Both Stormdarks spotted Harry at once, and Mr. Stormdark whispered something to Snape behind his hand. Snape gave a single curt nod. 

"You have some nerve, Potter," Draco Malfoy whispered, passing him. "Come to gloat? Another one down?"

"I would have saved her if I could," Harry said. 

The sincerity in his voice made many Slytherins stop and look at him. Blaise Zabini shrugged philosophically. Pansy Parkinson took Malfoy's arm and hurried him by, sneering at Harry in a way that turned her pug nose even more piggish. 

He sat with Ginny, Colin and the other non-Slytherin fifth-years, all of them gathered together in a defensive group to one side of the chapel. 

It was a long, narrow chamber, windowless except for an eastern-facing round stained-glass mosaic that sparkled like a dazzling handful of jewels on sunny Sunday mornings when the rising sunlight streamed through. On this, a cloudy Tuesday night, the panes of tinted glass were dark and gloomy, and all the illumination in the room came from rows and rows of candles in brass holders. The candles were of two varieties – tall and tapered, and short and stubby. 

They cast a flickering glow on the portraits that covered the oak-paneled walls, portraits of saints and angels and scenes from mythologies ranging from Christian to classical, portraits of priests of a multitude of diverse religions from all around the world. Several smaller rooms branched off, each devoted to a different faith; in the nearest gleamed a many-armed brass figure, and in the one beside that was an alabaster statue of a moon goddess. 

Thanks to the Dursleys' fear of what would happen if they ever took Harry to church, he had not been brought up to adhere to any particular faith. It had never occurred to him to wonder if his parents had. Just one more thing he would never be able to ask them. 

He hadn't attended the memorial service on the first weekend of school, the one for Nott and Crabbe. There hadn't even been one for Goyle, his death coming as it had so close on the heels of that of Cornelius Fudge and Dumbledore's emergency appointment as Minister and the subsequent upheavals. 

Fudge's funeral had been a small, private affair, much to the indignation of the Daily Prophet. From listening to the teachers talk in the faculty lounge while delivering a stack of essays to Professor Golden, Harry understood that it had been kept that way on purpose out of a very valid concern that the Death Eaters would not be able to resist the temptation offered by such a large public congregation of influential wizards. The entire Wizengamot would have turned out, and all the staff of the Ministry, and dignitaries from other countries as well. 

He saw Jane sitting with Nadine Zellis, Tiberius Flint, and other of Devona's closest classmates, near the front of the chapel. What, he wondered, would Jane's stepfather the vicar have thought if he could see this room? And full of black-clad young witches and wizards, as well. 

The school chaplain led a nondenominational prayer, which was followed by a brief speech from Dumbledore, a few words from Devona's parents, a longer speech from Snape, and then an invitation for her fellow students to come up and speak if they wished. A few did, haltingly, and then it was Jane's turn. 

Ginny stirred and glanced at Harry. He kept his expression carefully neutral. Ginny was too keen by half, too observant. He hadn't told her about kissing Jane, but somehow he had the idea that she already knew. 

"I'm to blame for Devona's death," Jane said, standing at the front of the room with her dark eyes catching the glimmer of the candlelight, and her face drawn and pale. "I was the reason she was out there on that hill. We should have sheltered somewhere else. It was dangerous, risky. I should have known better. But we argued, and then the lightning came … and we paid the price for our folly. Devona paid a far higher price, and I will carry that with me all of my days. It was only blind luck that my life was spared."

Harry wanted to object, but what would he say? The real truth of that night wasn't anything he could talk about, least of all here. 

"I can only think how cruel and unfair fate is," Jane said. "When I look at Devona's parents, and all of her friends here, I know that she will be missed far more than I would have been, if it had turned out the other way. She has parents who love her, and I want to say to them … Mr. and Mrs. Stormdark … I am so, so sorry for your loss. It shouldn't have been this way."

"Thank you, Miss Kirkallen," Snape said, moving toward her with an arm outstretched as if to usher her back to her seat. 

Jane twisted away from Snape's touch with a stifled cry. Harry tensed and Ginny grabbed his arm before he could do something dumb, like leap up and command Snape to keep his damned hands off her.

Snape drew back, disconcerted. Jane murmured apologetically and scurried to her seat, not looking at him or anyone else. Nadine Zellis leaned close to whisper something, and Jane still didn't look up, just shook her head with her gaze fixed on the floor. 

Harry watched, feeling frustrated that he could neither say nor do anything to help. He saw that Dumbledore was watching, too, and that Dumbledore's light blue eyes were shadowed and thoughtful. 

Tiberius Flint got up next, and spoke admiringly about how proud and clever Devona had been. "A true Slytherin," he said. "And she –"

"Was cursed!" a high, shrill voice rang out. 

Flint stopped, dumbfounded. Heads turned. 

The boy in the aisle was small and scrawny, his face gaunt, his hair standing up in wild spikes and corkscrews that made Harry's look well-groomed. The smudges under his eyes suggested he hadn't had a good night's sleep in a while, and his nails were gnawed down to the quick. 

Harry had seen him Sunday morning at breakfast, when a Gryffindor first-year had pointed him out. Then, he'd looked unwell. Now, he looked positively deranged. 

"Mr. Hawke," began Snape irritably. 

"Cursed!" Edmund Hawke's voice splintered. Huge tears, like silvery pearls in the flickering light, coursed from his bulging, unblinking eyes. "She was cursed, that's what killed her, that's what killed Ted and Vincent and Greg too, and we're next!"

"Mr. Hawke!" Snape said, more loudly. 

"Edmund," Dumbledore said, opting for warm, carrying gentleness instead of harsh volume. 

"What in the world?" cried Devona's mother in an operatic alto. 

Edmund proceeded up the aisle, and the students sitting nearest him actually cringed away as if, instead of a frightened eleven-year-old boy, he was some Old Testament prophet of doom. 

"All of us! Evil spawn, tainted blood! Descendants of Death Eaters!" he raved. He jabbed one nail-bitten finger at Malfoy, who recoiled. "We're next, Draco! You, and me! Nigel thinks he got away but he hasn't, he can't, it'll get him, too!"

"I'll handle this," Snape said, drawing his wand. 

Dumbledore stayed him. "Please, Severus. Permit me."

Everyone was on their feet now, backing away from the aisle and scrambling out of their seats as Edmund passed. One young Slytherin girl held out a tentative hand – "Eddie?" – but he didn't look at her. He kept staring at Malfoy, advancing on Malfoy, and Malfoy had run out of room to retreat.

"Stop it, Hawke," Malfoy said, putting on a show of bravado that fooled no one. 

"Edmund." Dumbledore stepped between them. "Edmund, what is the matter?"

"Children of darkness," Edmund said, and cackled. "We're all going to die."

"No, Edmund," Dumbledore said soothingly. He hunkered down, robes and long silver beard pooling on the floor, to bring his eyes to Edmund's level. 

Snape caught Malfoy by the collar of his robes and bodily lifted him away, like a mother cat with a recalcitrant kitten. 

Harry was in the midst of the throng of fifth-years from other houses. Over their heads, he saw Jane, who had her arms crossed as if hugging herself and looked stricken. 

"Eddie, no," she said. "It isn't like that."

"The Order of the Phoenix," Edmund said. 

Both Dumbledore and Harry blinked. 

"What did you say, Edmund?" Dumbledore asked quietly. 

"Phoenix fire to burn out the darkness! Burn out the evil!" Edmund broke away from Dumbledore and ran, students scattering before him in a whirlwind of flying black robes. "But I'll show them! I'll show them! Before they can get me!"

"Eddie!" Jane screamed. "Eddie, no! Not you!"

"He's a lunatic!" Malfoy yelled, hiding behind Snape. 

There was a royal-blue blur, and suddenly Dumbledore was in front of Edmund again, as if he'd crossed the intervening space so fast that it was one step short of Apparition. But Edmund didn't stop or even slow. He plowed into Dumbledore at full speed, and though he was only a scrawny kid, the collision caught Dumbledore by surprise and knocked him down. 

Dumbledore crashed to the floor, and even over the tumult of panic building in the room, Harry heard the dry, dusty snap of a breaking bone. He saw Dumbledore's face blanch with pain. 

Then Edmund was at one of the candle-racks, dozens of votive candles in brass holders. "I won't let the curse get me!" he shrieked, and seized the edges of the rack. 

"Hawke!" Snape lunged, but Malfoy was clinging to his robes. Malfoy's weight jerked Snape off-balance. They both fell, Malfoy landing solidly atop Snape's back and driving Snape's long, hooked nose into the steps leading up to the altar. 

"Burn!" Edmund yanked the rack over onto himself. 

Candles tumbled out of their holders and rained down on Edmund. Many whiffed out, thin coils of smoke rising from their extinguished wicks, but others ignited his robes with a quick whooshing flare of light. 

A screaming, trampling stampede of students made for the door. Mr. and Mrs. Stormdark were right in there with them, all pride and dignity forgotten as they clawed and elbowed their way toward escape. The chaplain was shouting frantically for everyone to calm down, but they were having none of it. 

"Get off me, Malfoy!" Snape thrashed, and Malfoy was flipped into the air like a tiddlywink. 

In the midst of the panic and rising conflagration, Harry drew his wand. His mind was crystal-clear. He thought of a paper he'd written on witch burnings, and how Wendelin the Weird had so enjoyed the cool minty-fresh tickling sensation of the flames when she used a …

He waved his wand at Edmund and cast a Flame Freezing Charm. 

Edmund's robes were on fire and more blazes had sprung up wherever the errant rolling candles had landed, but his skin quit blistering and his hair quit charring. Through a corona of fire, Harry saw his eyes fly open in disbelief. Then despair filled them. 

"Noooo!" he howled. 

Jane fought through the surging tide of people until she was close to Edmund. She reached out, hissed, and snatched her singed hands back. 

Ginny, who had managed to stay at Harry's side through everything, whipped out her wand and jabbed it around. "Aqueous!" she said, and water-balloon sized globs of water appeared in mid-air, splashing down on several of the smaller fires, extinguishing them each in turn. 

Snape, blood streaming from his crushed nose, got to his feet and stalked over to them with his wand gripped in his fist. Behind him, Malfoy was spread-eagle on the floor, groaning, gazing blearily up at the rafters. 

"Combusticus Nullio!" Snape intoned, his voice clogged and fog-hornish, spitting a bloody mist. He waved his wand in an ascending spiral.

The flames surrounding Edmund turned black, then fled upward and diminished like fleeting smoke. Edmund's robes were reduced to scorched flaps and tatters of cloth, but the clothes he wore beneath, as well as his skin and hair, were barely damaged. 

Crying hysterically at being denied his chance at self-immolation, Edmund whirled toward another rack of candles. 

"Petrificus Totallis!" Snape added, with another swipe of his wand. 

Edmund went rigid and toppled over. Jane caught him, and lowered him tenderly to the ground. 

The chapel smelled of smoke, furniture was upended, and it was hard to believe that only moments ago, it had been a place of peace and orderly mourning. 

It was now deserted but for the few of them. Snape, standing over Edmund with his wand at the ready and his nose dripping blood. Jane, kneeling beside the paralyzed boy and looking anxiously up at the Potions Master. Harry and Ginny, side by side with their wands at the ready too. Malfoy, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. And Dumbledore, still prone with his right leg oddly bent and shortened, and his face lined and ghastly with pain. 

"You saved his life," Jane said, shifting her gaze to Harry. 

Snape's lip curled. "Yes, quick thinking, Potter," he said, as if it hurt him to do so. And then, as if it really hurt, he grudgingly added, "Ten points to Gryffindor."

"Ten?" blurted Ginny, irate. "Is that all it's worth, a measly ten points, saving a boy's life?"

"This is hardly something to haggle over, Miss Weasley," Snape hissed. "Need I remind you that your conduct could just as quickly lose Gryffindor those points."

"If you're quite finished," Dumbledore said dryly, "I would greatly appreciate it if someone would send for Madame Pomfrey. I seem to have broken my hip."

"I'll do it," Ginny said, though not without a final glare at Snape. She rushed from the chapel, though judging by the clamor in the hall outside, Madame Pomfrey would probably already be on her way, along with everyone else in Hogwarts. 

"It's true, isn't it?" Malfoy asked, looking at the darting, frantic eyes that were the only mobile part of Edmund Hawke. "There is a curse. We're going to die, aren't we?"

"Don't be ludicrous, Malfoy," Snape said. He scrubbed his sleeve and the back of his hand over his face, examined the blood he wiped away, and grimaced. "I think I'd know if anyone in my House was under a curse."

Malfoy did not look convinced. 

Harry wanted to go to Jane but knew that he couldn't very well do that, so he went to Dumbledore instead and knelt at his side. "Is it bad, do you think?"

"Nothing Poppy can't fix right up," Dumbledore said, smiling with what was probably forced gaiety. He looked past Harry, and pursed his lips. "Oh, dear."

Rayyid arrowed into the room on wings of fire, spear held aloft and ablaze. He saw the fallen Dumbledore and a roar burst from him. Harry sprang back and raised his hands in surrender. Heat washed over him as the burning leonine guardian advanced. 

"It's all right, Rayyid," Dumbledore said. "A mere accident. Harry is not trying to harm me."

Within moments, the chapel was crowded again as Madame Pomfrey bustled in to take charge. She had Dumbledore moved to the hospital wing, followed by Edmund Hawke – physically unhurt, but still raving once Snape's spell wore off, he had to be strapped down and his wand taken away from him. The nurse ordered Snape to the hospital wing as well so that she could mend his broken nose. 

With all of that going on, Harry found himself shunted aside. There, by a wall of the chapel beneath a portrait of Roman gods, he ended up near Malfoy and Jane, both of whom had also been brusquely ordered out of the way by Madame Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall. 

"—really is some sort of curse?" Malfoy was asking. 

"Maybe there is," Jane said in a soft, toneless voice. "Maybe there really is. Poor Eddie. Poor Devona. I never thought …"

"Well, at least you're safe," he said, a little petulantly. A sudden thought struck him, and Malfoy added in a whisper, "Your mother didn't have any Death Eater relatives, did she?"

"No," Jane said, and looked like she was trying to keep from either laughing or crying. "Not my mother."

A sudden sharp noise sounded, but it was only McGonagall clapping her hands. "All of you, out," she proclaimed. "To your dormitories. There's nothing more to see here."

Harry didn't want to go without talking to Jane, but there was no way he could manage it. Not with so many people about. He went upstairs, his head aching and packed full of disturbing thoughts. The day had been too long, too troubling. In too many ways. 

The Gryffindor common room was abuzz, Ginny and Colin and the other fifth-years excitedly relating what had happened in the chapel. 

"—with a really good Flame Freezing Charm," Ginny was saying as Harry came in. 

"—nose crunched like an eggshell and bled all over the place," Colin said at the same time. 

Ron, only recently awakened by the groggy look of him, rubbed his eyes and peered at Harry. "How long have I been sleeping?" he asked. 

"Just since this afternoon."

"I take one nap, and miss everything?" 

Harry drew him aside. "Have you talked to Hermione yet?"

"Give us a break, I only just got up!"

"I really think you should."

Ron's face drooped unhappily. "Do I have to?"

"What, you were thinking that you could ignore your problems and they'd conveniently go away?"

"Wouldn't that be nice," Ron said. He glanced into the corner, where Hermione was concentrating her homework … or was pretending to be concentrating on her homework. "What'm I going to say to her?"

"You could ask her out."

"Luna would kill me!"

"So you're going to keep seeing Luna?"

"Do I have to?"

Harry sighed. "Ron, listen … you've got to make up your own mind about this. I can't help you. It's been a long damned weekend and my head hurts and I'm going to bed. Good luck."

He felt Ron's soulful, pleading gaze follow him all the way to the stairs, wanting Harry to come up with the perfect, painless answer to his troubles. But once he had ascended a few turns, the contact was broken. 

Neville was the only one in the room when Harry got there, and Neville was sitting on his bed with a lap desk propped across his knees, frowning over a letter he was writing, and chewing so much on the end of his quill that it had become very sad and bedraggled. He gave a start when Harry came in, and scrambled first to try and hide the letter, then to act as if it were nothing important. 

"Hi, Harry!" he said. 

"Hey, Neville. Writing to your gran?"

"Yes! Yes, that's it exactly. Writing to my gran. She likes to hear from me, you know."

"Mm-hmm," Harry said. "Going to tell her about Cecily?"

Neville went scarlet and slapped his hand guiltily over the letter. "I … um …"

"Never mind." Harry grinned. "Good night, Neville."

He pulled the curtains around his four-poster. After a while, he heard the scratching of Neville's quill resume, and grinned again. 

Sleep was slow in coming. Harry lay there so long, looking up into the blurry dimness with his glasses off, that he heard the others come in, change, get into bed, and start to snore. He almost stuck his head out to ask Ron how it had gone with Hermione – he hadn't heard any angry shouting from downstairs, so that was a positive sign – but figured it could wait until morning. 

As he closed his eyes, a tremendous searing pain exploded through his scar. It was so huge, so shocking coming as it did with no warning, that Harry couldn't even cry out. He tried to take a breath and felt like his throat was constricted to the diameter of a drinking straw. 

It passed almost at once, leaving him clammy and shivering. Harry gingerly probed at his forehead with his fingertips. The pain had been so severe that he wouldn't have been surprised to find his skull split open. But it was intact, and aside from a bit of tenderness, he no longer hurt at all. 

"Voldemort," he whispered silently into the dark. 

Something had happened. Something big. There hadn't been anything, not so much as a twinge, for months now. No shooting pains, no feelings of coldly alien fury or glee welling up inside of him as he sensed Voldemort's moods. 

And now, out of the blue, this. There and then gone. 

What could it have been? The flash had been so fast that Harry couldn't tell if it had been angry or delighted. Good news or bad? 

A possible explanation came to him then, one so nastily plausible that Harry got goose bumps. 

He tried to push it out of his mind and go to sleep. What else could he do? There was no need to see Madame Pomfrey, because there was nothing medically wrong. And Dumbledore? For one thing, Dumbledore would be resting in the hospital wing, most likely asleep. For another, what could Harry report? That his scar had hurt again? Old news. No big deal. 

The next thing he knew, his curtained four-poster had disappeared. He was someplace else. Standing, fully dressed – in his bottle-green dress robes, no less – in a well-lighted chamber surrounded by people. 

"What …?"

Ron was beside him, and as Harry turned to him to ask what in the world was going on, the stench hit him. 

Because Ron was dead. His face was bloated and waxy-purple, his body pocked with the pinprick holes of countless spider bites. Ron's corpse was wearing his old dress robes, the ugly maroon ones with the lace collar and cuffs, moldering now and streaked with graveyard dirt. 

Slowly, telling himself that this couldn't be real but had to be a nightmare, Harry turned around. He saw other people he knew, Hogwarts students and teachers, Ministry officials, the Weasley family, people from Hogsmeade, sitting in formal wear on long high-backed benches. Hagrid bulked large among them, but Hagrid was dead, too, his body hideously torn by long claws. 

They were all dead. All of them. Neville and Hannah Abbott and the Patil twins and Oliver Wood and McGonagall and Flitwick and Madame Rosmerta and Tonks and Lupin and everyone. Dead … but looking at him with accusing eyes. 

It was, he realized, the school chapel again. The stained glass window was lit from behind by some feverish, hellish light, so that its colors spilled across the polished wooden floor like smears of blood. 

Ron wasn't beside him any more. Now it was Draco Malfoy, looking very much alive, his white-blond hair combed back, a triumphant sneer stamped on his pointed features. "Time, Potter," he said. 

Beyond Malfoy came more living people, the only live ones in this hall of the dead. Malfoy's parents, Macnair the executioner, Karkaroff, Barty Crouch Jr., others that Harry didn't know. But some of them shouldn't have been living … some of them were faces he had seen in the Daily Prophet, the faces of Dark witches and wizards who'd died long ago, like Lethia Nox. They filed in and took their seats, waiting expectantly. 

Up in the organ loft, a black-haired woman hammered out a soulless dirge. Harry knew her at once. She was Bellatrix Lestrange, the Death Eater who had tortured Neville's parents and killed Sirius. Even as he looked at her, the awful melody changed to a tune Harry almost recognized, eerily familiar but wrong in some unspeakable way. 

The doors at the back of the chapel opened and a line of dead girls came in. Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Cho … all bled chalk-white, heads lolling, withered bouquets clasped in shriveled, bony hands. Following them was a little boy. Arcturus. Carrying a cushion almost as big as he was, and on the cushion was the severed head of a dog. A large, shaggy black dog sometimes known as Padfoot, and sometimes known as Snuffles. 

"This isn't real," Harry said. 

"Oh, it's very real, Potter," Malfoy drawled. "Very real indeed."

At the front of the room, a man who had previously stood with his back to Harry now turned. Vicar Kirkallen had been flayed, his flesh raw and weeping where the skin had been stripped away. His eyes glared above red cheek muscles crisscrossed with the narrow whitish straps of tendon. 

"Who gives this woman?" he rasped. 

"I do," said Snape, rising from his seat in a swirl of black robes. 

"And I," Lucius Malfoy said.

"Me, too," added Peter Pettigrew, tittering his rodent's laugh. 

"We, her fathers, give her," said an unfamiliar man Harry nonetheless knew to be Regulus Black. And Karkaroff, Barty Crouch, Macnair, Mulciber and the other Death Eaters murmured their assent.

Jane walked down the aisle toward Harry alone, her gown frothy with black lace, a writhing bundle of silvery-green snakes serving as her bouquet. He saw the frantic distress in her eyes but she moved smoothly, and he realized that she was in the grips of the Imperius Curse. He looked around to see who was controlling her, but the only one holding a wand was …

… himself. 

"No," he said, and tried to drop the wand, break the spell. 

Nothing happened. Beside him, Malfoy snickered. 

"Too late for that, Potter. You're in this to the bitter end."

"It's a dream. A nightmare."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"It is!" he insisted as Jane came down the aisle. 

Her left hand floated up as if through deep water and Harry took it. 

"Jane! Can you hear me?"

He was holding a ring, a gold ring shaped like a snake, with glittering flecks of rubies for eyes and ivory fangs glistening with venom. The golden snake was alive, hissing at him, flicking its tongue in warning. 

"She's yours now," the vicar said. 

But it wasn't the vicar. Vicar Kirkallen had a mellow, resonant voice, perfect for delivering sermons and counseling his parishioners. This voice was whispery, high, and terrible. It slid into his ears like icy liquid. 

Harry's head turned and he beheld not the vicar at all but Voldemort, tall and gaunt, those hateful red eyes with their vertically slit pupils shining with malevolence. 

"She's yours now," Voldemort said again. "And that makes you mine!"

"No!" Harry bellowed, and hit the floor with a bone-jarring crash. They sprang on him, the Death Eaters, their robes smothering him and wrapping around his limbs –

"Harry! Blimey! Harry, wake up!"

"Not yours!" Harry flailed his limbs, kicked and punched wildly in all directions. "Never … yours … never!"

"Neville, help me! He's – ow! – fighting me!"

"What's the matter with him?"

"He's having a fit."

"Hold him, Ron … I'll …"

"Whatever you're going to do, Neville, do it quick!"

A ringing slap drove Harry's head sideways, into one of the bedposts with a solid bonk. The room spun around him, this way and that way and up and down and back and forth around-around-around and gradually settled back into its normal configurations. 

In the lit wands of Dean and Seamus, both of whom stood back at a respectful distance, Harry saw the blurry outlines of Ron holding him by the upper arms, and Neville holding his hand poised for another blow. 

He was on the floor beside his bed, so tangled in the bedclothes and curtains that he resembled an Egyptian mummy. His breathing was a series of ragged heaving gasps and his pajamas were soaked with sweat. 

"What …?" he panted. "What … happened? Ron?"

"I think that did it, Neville," Ron said. "Good one. Harry, are you back?"

"Sorry I hit you, Harry," Neville said. He fumbled Harry's glasses off the bedside table, almost dropped them, and poked them at Harry's face. The end of an earpiece stabbed Harry in the eye. "Sorry! Sorry!" He dropped them after all. 

"Ah! Okay … I'm awake … let me go." Harry retrieved his glasses and put them on, one eye watering. The world swam into focus. 

Ron let go of him and sat back on his heels. "What was it?" he asked intently. "What'd you see? It wasn't my dad again, was it?"

"No," Harry said. Now that he knew where he was, the shakes set in, and he huddled with his back to the wall, running a hand over his clammy face. "No, nothing like that. Just …" He swallowed hard. "Just a bad dream."

None of them believed him. He could see it in their identical expressions. 

"It was him, wasn't it?" Ron asked. "You-Know-Who."

"I'm telling you, it wasn't."

"Why're you rubbing your scar, then?"

Harry lowered his hand guiltily. "I had a nightmare. It's nothing to get –"

"Should I go find Professor McGonagall?" Neville asked. 

"No!" Harry took the deepest breath he could, held it for a five-count, and slowly let it out again. "It was a nightmare, but it wasn't one of those nightmares. Really. I'm all right. Go back to sleep."

With looks that said they still weren't fooled but were willing to play along just this once, Dean, Seamus and Neville returned to their beds. 

"D'you want to talk about it?" Ron asked quietly. 

"Thanks, but no," Harry said. "Think I'll go downstairs and see if there's anything around to drink. I'm thirsty."

"I'll come with you."

"Ron, I'm fine. Honestly."

"Sure," Ron said, and shrugged. "But I slept so much this afternoon that I'm wide awake now. So I'll come with you."

Harry gave up and didn't protest as Ron followed him down to the common room. The fire was down to embers but they kindled it up again, headed for their favorite overstuffed chairs, and Ron stopped short. 

"Oh, no," he said. 

Hermione had been sitting unnoticed in the shadows. She looked up, her mouth set in a resolute line. "Ron, we need to talk."

**

Continued in Chapter Twenty-Five -- The Mind-Journey.