Cassia's POV

"What d'you reckon Mr. Malfoy was doing talking to Fudge?" Harry whispered as we made our way to the door. We would have asked if we were allowed to leave, but everyone was ignoring us except the toadlike witch who had been sitting to Fudge's right. For some reason, she wouldn't stop gazing down at us.

Ignoring her, I pulled open the door. "My guess? Trying to sway the verdict by bribing Fudge, which doesn't surprise me."

"You mean he's done that before?" Cedric asked.

"Unfortunately," Harry replied. "It's because of him that Draco's on the Slytherin Quidditch team."

"Bought them all the latest Nimbus models -- the 2001s -- just to secure Draco's position as the Seeker," I added.

"Damn..." Cedric muttered. "That guy's a snake." We came out into the corridor, where Mr. Weasley had been waiting.

"Dumbledore didn't say --"

"Cleared," Harry said, pulling the door closed behind us, "of all charges!"

Beaming, Mr. Weasley seized Harry by the shoulders.

"Harry, that's wonderful! Well, of course, they couldn't have found you guilty, not on the evidence, but even so, I can't pretend I wasn't --"

But Mr. Weasley broke off, because the courtroom door had just opened again. The Wizengamot were filing out.

"Merlin's beard!" he exclaimed wonderingly, pulling Harry aside to let them all pass, while Cedric and I simply stepped back. "You were tried by the full court?"

I nodded. "Unfortunately..."

One or two of the wizards nodded to Harry and I as they passed and a few, including Madam Bones, said "Morning, Arthur," to Mr. Weasley, but most averted their eyes. Cornelius Fudge and the toadlike witch were almost the last to leave the dungeon. Fudge acted as though the five of us were part of the wall, but again, the witch looked almost appraisingly at Harry and I as she passed. Last of all to pass was Percy. Like Fudge, he completely ignored his father and us; he marched past clutching a large roll of parchment and a handful of spare quills, his back rigid and his nose in the air. The lines around Mr. Weasley's mouth tightened slightly, but other than this he gave no sign that he had seen his third son.

I hope Percy comes to his senses soon, I thought as Mr. Weasley led us back down the corridor. I glanced at Harry and noticed he seemed a bit shaken. "Harry, are you okay?" I asked.

He nodded and then shook his head. "I didn't like the way that woman was looking at us."

"The one to Fudge's right? With the toadlike face?" Cedric questioned.

"Yeah. Her eyes went from Cassia to me. I couldn't tell why she was watching us, though," Harry said.

The lift arrived; it was empty except for a flock of memos that flapped around Mr. Weasley's head as he pressed the button for the Atrium and the doors clanged shut. He waved them away irritably.

"Mr. Weasley," Harry said slowly, "if Fudge is meeting Death Eaters like Malfoy, if he's seeing them alone, how do we know they haven't put the Imperius Curse on him?"

"Don't think it hadn't occurred to us, Harry," said Mr. Weasley quietly, "But Dumbledore thinks Fudge is acting of his own accord -- which, as Dumbledore says, is not a lot of comfort..."

"...and he's making the wrong decisions because he's afraid of losing his job," I finished.

Mr. Weasley nodded in reply. "Best not talk about it any more just now..."

<><><><><>

"I knew it!" Ron yelled, punching the air. "You always get away with stuff!"

"They were bound to clear you," said Hermione, who had looked positively faint with anxiety when we had entered the kitchen and was now holding a shaking hand over her eyes, "there was no case against you, none at all."

"Everyone seems quite relieved, though, considering you all knew I'd get off," Harry said, smiling.

Mrs. Weasley was wiping her face on her apron, and Fred, George, and Ginny were doing a kind of war dance to a chant that went: "He got off, he got off, he got off --"

"That's enough! Settle down!" Mr. Weasley shouted, though he too was smiling. "Listen, Sirius, Lucius Malfoy was at the Ministry --"

"What?" Sirius said sharply.

"He got off, he got off, he got off --"

"Be quiet, you three!"

"We saw him in the basement, talking with Fudge, not too far from the courtroom where the hearing took place," Cedric explained.

"What was he doing there?" Sirius asked.

"Cassia thinks he was trying to bribe Fudge. She said it didn't come as a surprise, considering he bribed the Slytherin team into making Draco their new Seeker," Harry answered, and I nodded to confirm this.

"Dumbledore ought to know," Mr. Weasley said.

"Absolutely," Sirius agreed. "We'll tell him, don't worry."

"Well, I'd better get going, there's a vomiting toilet waiting for me in Bethnal Green. Molly, I'll be late, I'm covering for Tonks, but Kingsley might be dropping in for dinner --"

"He got off, he got off, he got off --"

"That's enough -- Fred -- George -- Ginny!" Mrs. Weasley said, as Mr. Weasley left the kitchen. "Harry, Cassia, Cedric, come and sit down, have some lunch, you hardly ate breakfast..."

Over the next few days I could not help noticing that there was one person within number twelve, Grimmauld Place, who did not seem wholly overjoyed that Harry would be returning to Hogwarts. Sirius had put up a very good show of happiness on first hearing the news, wringing our hands and beaming just like the rest of them. Soon, however, he was moodier and surlier than before, talking less to everybody, even Harry and I, and spending increasing amounts of time shut up in his mother's room with Buckbeak.

"Don't you go feeling guilty!" Hermione said sternly, after I had confided some of my feelings to her, Ron, and Cedric while we scrubbed out a moldy cupboard on the third floor a few days later. "You and Harry belong at Hogwarts and Sirius knows it. Personally, I think he's being selfish."

"That's a bit harsh, Hermione," Ron said, frowning as he attempted to pry off a bit of mold that had attached itself firmly to his finger, "you wouldn't want to be stuck inside this house without any company."

"He'll have company!" Hermione said. "It's Headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix, isn't it? He just got his hopes up that Harry would be coming to live here with him."

"I don't think that's true," Harry said, wringing out his cloth.

"We asked him last week, and he didn't give us a straight answer," I piped up.

"He just didn't want to get his own hopes up even more," Hermione said wisely. "And he probably felt a bit guilty himself, because I think a part of him was really hoping you'd be expelled. Then you'd both be outcasts together."

"Come off it!" Harry and Ron said together, but Hermione merely shrugged.

"Suit yourselves. But I sometimes think Ron's mum's right and Sirius gets confused about whether you're you or your parents."

"So you think he's touched in the head?" Harry said heatedly.

"No, I just think he's been very lonely for a long time," Hermione said simply.

At this point, Mrs. Weasley entered the bedroom behind us.

"Still not finished?" she said, poking her head into the cupboard.

"I'd say we're barely halfway through," I replied.

"I thought you might be here to tell us to have a break!" Ron said bitterly. "D'you know how much mold we've got rid of since we arrived here?"

"You were so keen to help the Order," Mrs. Weasley said, "you can do your bit by making Headquarters fit to live in."

"I feel like a house-elf," Ron grumbled.

"Well, now you understand what dreadful lives they lead, perhaps you'll be a bit more active in S.P.E.W!" Hermione said hopefully, as Mrs. Weasley left us to it.

I rolled my eyes. "Here we go again..."

"You know, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to show people exactly how horrible it is to clean all the time -- we could do a sponsored scrub of Gryffindor common room, all proceeds to S.P.E.W., it would raise awareness as well as funds --"

"I'll sponsor you to shut up about spew," Ron muttered irritably, but only so Harry, Cedric, and I could hear him.

Harry's POV

I found myself daydreaming about Hogwarts more and more as the end of the holidays approached; I could not wait to see Hagrid again, to play Quidditch, even to stroll across the vegetable patches to the Herbology greenhouses; it would be a treat just to leave this dusty, musty house, where half of the cupboards were still bolted shut and Kreacher wheezed insults out of the shadows as you passed, though I was careful not to say any of this within earshot of Sirius.

The fact was that living at the Headquarters of the anti-Voldemort movement was not nearly as interesting or exciting as I would have expected before Cassia and I had experienced it. Though members of the Order of the Phoenix came and went regularly, sometimes staying for meals, sometimes only for a few minutes of whispered conversation, Mrs. Weasley made sure that I and the others were kept well out of earshot (whether Extendable or normal) and nobody, not even Sirius, seemed to feel that my sister and I needed to know anything more than we had heard on the night of our arrival.

On the very last day of the holidays I was sweeping up Hedwig's owl droppings from the top of the wardrobe when Ron entered our bedroom carrying a couple of envelopes.

"Booklists have arrived," he said, throwing one of the envelopes to me, and another to Cassia, who was sitting on the bed, taking a break from scrubbing the windows and floors. "About time, I thought they'd forgotten, they usually come much earlier than this..."

"Wonder what the holdup was," Cassia mused as she tore open her letter.

I swept the last of the droppings into a rubbish bin and threw the bag over Ron's head into the wastepaper basket in the corner, which swallowed it and belched loudly.

"Nice shot," my sister complimented, smiling at me.

I smiled back at her in thanks and opened my letter. It contained two pieces of parchment: one the usual reminder that term started on the first of September; the other telling me which books I would need for the following year.

"Only two new ones," I said, reading the list, "The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5, by Miranda Goshawk, and Defensive Magical Theory, by Wilbert Slinkhard."

Crack.

Fred and George Apparated right beside me. I was so used to them doing this by now that I didn't even fall off my chair.

"We were just wondering who assigned the Slinkhard book," Fred said conversationally.

"Because it means Dumbledore's found a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," George said.

"And about time, too," Fred said.

"What d'you mean?" I asked, jumping down beside them.

"Well, we overheard Mum and Dad talking on the Extendable Ears a few weeks back," Fred told me, "and from what they were saying, Dumbledore was having real trouble finding anyone to do the job this year."

"Not surprising, is it, when you look at what's happened to the last four," George said.

"One sacked --"

"Lupin wasn't sacked, he quit," Cassia pointed out.

"Right, sorry. One resigned, one dead, one's memory removed, and one locked in a trunk for nine months," I said, counting them off on my fingers. "Yeah, I see what you mean."

"What's up with you, Ron?" Fred asked.

Ron did not answer. I looked round. Ron was standing very still with his mouth slightly open, gaping at his letter from Hogwarts.

"Ron, are you okay?" Cassia asked.

"What's the matter?" Fred said impatiently, moving around Ron to look over his shoulder at the parchment.

Fred's mouth fell open, too.

"Prefect?" he said, staring incredulously at the letter. "Prefect?"

"What?"

George leapt forward, seized the envelope in Ron's other hand and turned it upside-down. I saw something scarlet and gold fall into George's palm.

"No way," George said in a hushed voice.

"There's been a mistake," Fred said, snatching the letter out of Ron's grasp and holding it up to the light as though checking for a watermark. "No one in their right mind would make Ron a prefect."

The twins' heads turned in unison and both of them stared at me.

"We thought you were a cert!" Fred said, in a tone that suggested I had tricked them in some way.

"We thought Dumbledore was bound to pick you!" George said indignantly.

"Winning the Triwizard and everything!" Fred said.

Cassia rolled her eyes. "Harry and Cedric tied." The twins weren't listening to her, though.

"I suppose all the mad stuff must've counted against him," George said to Fred.

"Yeah," Fred said slowly. "Yeah, you've caused too much trouble, mate. Well, at least one of you's got their priorities right."

He strode over to me and clapped me on the back while giving Ron a scathing look.

"Prefect...ickle Ronnie the prefect..."

"Oh, Mum's going to be revolting," George groaned, thrusting the prefect badge back at Ron as though it might contaminate him.

Ron, who still had not said a word, took the badge, stared at it for a moment, then held it out to me as though asking mutely for confirmation that it was genuine. I took it. A large 'P' was superimposed on the Gryffindor lion. I had seen a badge just like this on Percy's chest on my very first day at Hogwarts.

The door banged open. Hermione came tearing into the room, her cheeks flushed and her hair flying. There was an envelope in her hand.

"Did you -- did you get --?"

She spotted the badge in my hand and let out a shriek.

"I knew it!" she said excitedly, brandishing her letter. "Me too, Harry, me too!"

"No," I said quickly, pushing the badge back into Ron's hand. "It's Ron, not me."

"It -- what?"

"Ron's prefect, not me," I said.

"Ron?" Hermione said, her jaw dropping.

"Mm-hmm," Cassia hummed in response.

"But...are you sure? I mean --"

She turned red as Ron looked round at her with a defiant expression on his face.

"it's my name on the letter," he said.

"I...Hermione said, looking thoroughly bewildered. "I...well...wow! Well done, Ron! That's really --"

"Unexpected," George said, nodding.

"No," Hermione said, blushing harder than ever, "no it's not...Ron's done loads of...he's really..."

The door behind her opened a little wider and Mrs. Weasley backed into the room carrying a pile of freshly laundered robes.

"Ginny said the booklists had come at last," she said, glancing around at all the envelopes as she made her way over to the bed and started sorting the robes into two piles. "If you give them to me I'll take them over to Diagon Alley this afternoon and get your books while you're packing. Ron, I'll have to get you more pajamas, these are at least six inches too short, I can't believe how fast you're growing...what color would you like?"

"Get him red and gold to match his badge," George said, smirking.

"Match his what?" Mrs. Weasley said absently, rolling up a pair of maroon socks and placing them on Ron's pile.

"His badge," Fred said, with the air of getting the worst over quickly. "His lovely shiny new prefect's badge.

Fred's words took a moment to penetrate Mrs. Weasley's preoccupation with pajamas.

"His...but...Ron, you're not...?'

Ron held up his badge.

Mrs. Weasley let out a shriek just like Hermione's.

"I don't believe it! I don't believe it! Oh, Ron, how wonderful! A prefect! That's everyone in the family!"

"What are Fred and I, next-door neighbors?" George said indignantly as his mother pushed him aside and flung her arms around her youngest son.

"Wait until your father hears! Ron, I'm so proud of you, what wonderful news, you could end up Head Boy just like Bill and Percy, it's the first step! Oh, what a thing to happen in the middle of al this worry, I'm just thrilled, oh, Ronnie --"

Fred and George were both making loud retching noises behind her back but Mrs. Weasley did not notice; arms tight around Ron's neck, she was kissing him all over his face, which had turned a brighter scarlet than his badge.

"Mum...don't...Mum, get a grip..." he muttered, trying to push her away.

She let go of him and said breathlessly, "Well, what will it be? We gave Percy an owl, but you've already got one, of course."

"W-what do you mean?" Ron said, looking as though he did not dare believe his ears.

"You've got to have a reward for this!" Mrs. Weasley said fondly. "How about a nice new set of dress robes?"

"We've already bought him some," said Fred sourly, who looked as though he sincerely regretted this generosity.

"Or a new cauldron, Charlie's old one's rusting through, or a new rat, you always liked Scabbers --"

"Mum," Ron said hopefully, "can I have a new broom?"

Mrs. Weasley's face fell slightly; broomsticks were expensive.

"Not a really good one!" Ron hastened to add. "Just -- just a new one for a change..."

Mrs. Weasley hesitated, then smiled.

"Of course you can...Well, I'd better get going if I've got a broom to buy too. I'll see you all later...Little Ronnie, a prefect! And don't forget to pack your trunks...A prefect...Oh, I'm all of a dither!"

She gave Ron yet another kiss on the cheek, sniffed loudly, and bustled from the room.

Fred and George exchanged looks.

"You don't mind if we don't kiss you, do you, Ron?" Fred said in a falsely anxious voice.

"We could curtsy, if you like," George said.

"Oh, shut up," Ron said, scowling at them.

"Or what?" Fred said, an evil grin spreading across his face. "Going to put us in detention?"

"I'd love to see him try," George sniggered.

"He could if you don't watch out!" Hermione said angrily.

Fred and George burst out laughing, and Ron muttered, "Drop it, Hermione."

"We're going to have to watch our step, George," Fred said, pretending to tremble, "with these two on our case..."

"Yeah, it looks like our law-breaking days are finally over," George said, shaking his head.

And with another loud crack, the twins Disapparated.

"Those two!" Hermione said furiously, staring up at the ceiling, through which we could now hear Fred and George roaring with laughter in the room upstairs. "Don't pay any attention to them, Ron, they're only jealous!"

Cassia rolled her eyes again. "Somehow I doubt that." She left the room.

Cassia's POV

I walked out of the room, leaving my brother, Ron, and the Weasleys to their own devices. Probably not a good idea with Fred and George around. They can be unpredictable sometimes. I headed across the hall, stopping at the third door on my right. Cedric's room. The door was open, so I curiously poked my head inside. Cedric was busy packing the last of his belongings. I saw him pick something up from his bedside table and slip it into the pocket of a shirt he had been folding.

I gently knocked on the door, making him jump. The shirt, only half folded, slipped out of his grip and fell into the trunk. Cedric looked up at me and then put a hand over his heart, letting out a sigh of relief.

"Sorry," I apologized. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"Don't worry about it, love," he said, picking up the shirt and rising to his feet. I entered the room and, standing on tiptoe, gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Are you, er...upset that you weren't picked to be a prefect?" he asked. There was an apprehensive edge to his voice, like he was afraid of crossing a line with me.

"How did you --?"

Cedric chuckled. "The walls here aren't exactly soundproof."

"True," I agreed.

"So are you? Upset, I mean?"

I shrugged. "Yes and no. I mean, I'm a little jealous, but I'm happy for Ron and Hermione." I decided to get off the subject. "I see you're almost done packing."

"Yeah," he said, "Just a couple of things left to put away."

"Want any help?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No, I think I'm good. But thanks for offering."

"What was that thing you took off your nightstand?" The question vomited out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

Cedric looked up, meeting my eyes again. "You saw it?"

"Not exactly. I just saw you stash it away," I told him.

He reached into the front pocket of the shirt in his hands, and pulled the mysterious object out. "This thing?" he asked, showing it to me.

I took a good look at it. It strongly resembled the prefect badge I'd seen him wearing for the past two years, except it had the letters "H.B" superimposed on either side of the badger.

I gasped. "They chose you to be Head Boy this year?!"

A huge grin formed on his face. "Yeah. I wasn't sure when to tell you, though."

"Oh, my gosh! Congratulations!" I wrapped my arms around him. "I'm so happy for you!"

He kissed the top of my head. "Thanks, love."

"Just watch out -- I might 'break in' to see you at night," I playfully warned.

He chuckled. "I look forward to it."

Harry's POV

Ron didn't seem bothered in the slightest by Fred and George's teasing him. "They've always said only prats become prefects...Still," he added on a happier note, "they've never had new brooms! I wish I could go with Mum and choose...She'll never be able to afford a Nimbus, but there's the new Cleansweep out, that'd be great...Yeah, I think I'll go and tell her I like the Cleansweep, just so she knows..."

He dashed from the room, leaving Hermione and I alone.

For some reason, I found I did not want to look at Hermione. I turned to my bed, picked up the pile of clean robes Mrs. Weasley had laid on it and crossed the room to my trunk.

"Harry?" Hermione said tentatively.

"Well done, Hermione," I said, so heartily it did not sound like my voice at all, and, still not looking at her, "brilliant. Prefect. Great."

"Thanks," Hermione said. "Erm -- Harry -- could I borrow Hedwig so I can tell Mum and Dad? They'll be really pleased -- I mean prefect is something they can understand."

"Yeah, no problem," I said, still in the horrible hearty voice that did not belong to me. "Take her!"

I leaned over my trunk, laid the robes on the bottom of it and pretended to be rummaging for something while Hermione crossed to the wardrobe and called Hedwig down. A few moments passed; I heard the door closed but remained bent double, listening; the only sounds I heard were the blank picture on the wall sniggering again and the wastepaper basket in the corner coughing up the owl droppings.

I straightened up and looked behind me. Hermione had left and Hedwig had gone. I hurried across the room, closed the door, then returned slowly to my bed and sank on to it, gazing unseeingly at the foot of the wardrobe.

I had forgotten completely about prefects being chosen in the fifth year. I had been too anxious about the possibility of being expelled to spare a thought for the fact that badges must be winging their way towards certain people. But if I had remembered...if I had thought about it...what would I have expected?

Not this, said a small and truthful voice inside my head.

I screwed up my face and buried it in my hands. I could not lie to myself; if I had known the prefect badge was on its way, I would have expected it to come to me, not Ron. Then again, if anyone deserved to be prefect, it was Cassia. She was a better fit for the title. Did this make me as arrogant as Draco Malfoy? Did I think Cassia and myself superior to everyone else? Did I realy believe we were better than Ron?

No, said the small voice defiantly.

Was that true? I wondered, anxiously probing my own feelings.

We're better at Quidditch, said the voice. But I'm not better at anything else.

That was definitely true, I thought; I was no better than Ron in lessons. But what about outside lessons? What about those adventures me, Cassia, Ron, and Hermione had had together since starting at Hogwarts, often risking much worse than expulsion?

Well, Ron and Hermione were with us most of the time, said the voice in my head.

Not all the time, though, I argued with myself. They didn't fight Quirrell with us. They didn't take on Riddle and the Basilisk. They didn't get rid of all those dementors the night Sirius escaped. They weren't in that graveyard with us, the night Voldemort returned...

And the same feeling of ill-usage that had overwhelmed me on the night we had arrived rose again. We've definitely done more, I thought indignantly. We've done more than either of them!

But maybe, said the small voice fairly, maybe Dumbledore doesn't choose prefects because they've got themselves into a load of dangerous situations...Maybe he chooses them for other reasons...Ron must have something you don't...

I opened my eyes and stared through my fingers at the wardrobe's clawed feet, remembering what Fred had said.

"No one in their right mind would make Ron a prefect..."

I gave a small snort of laughter. A second later I felt sickened with myself.

Ron had not asked Dumbledore to give him the prefect badge. This was not Ron's fault. Was I, Harry, Ron's best friend in the world, going to sulk because I didn't have a badge, laugh with the twins behind Ron's back, ruin this for Ron when, for the first time, he had beaten Cass and I at something?

At this point I heard Ron's footsteps on the stairs again. I stood up, straightened my glasses, and hitched a grin on to my face as Ron bounded back through the door.

"Just caught her!" he said happily. "She says she'll get the Cleansweep if she can."

"Cool," I said, and I was relieved to hear that my voice had stopped sounding hearty. "Listen -- Ron -- well done, mate."

The smile faded off Ron's face.

"I never thought it would be me!" he said, shaking his head. "I thought it would be you!"

"Nah, I've caused too much trouble," I said, echoing Fred. "Cassia would've been a better pick."

"Yeah," Ron said, "yeah, I suppose...Well, we'd better get our trunks packed, hadn't we?"

It was odd how widely our possessions seemed to have scattered themselves since we had arrived. It took us most of the afternoon to retrieve our books and belongings from all over the house and stow them back inside our school trunks. I noticed that Ron kept moving his prefect's badge around, first placing it on his bedside table, then putting it into his jeans pocket, then taking it out and lying it on his folded robes, as though to see the effect of the red on the black. Only when Fred and George dropped in and offered to attach it to his forehead with a permanent sticking charm did he wrap it tenderly in his maroon socks and lock it in his trunk.

<><><><><>

The next day, we were all making our way through King's Cross Station, accompanied by various members of the Order. Cedric, Dora, and Moody were escorting Cassia and I.

"Padfoot, are you barking mad?! You'll blow the entire operation!" Moody hissed as Sirius -- in his Animagus form -- appeared between us.

"I would've called him out on how lame his pun was if this was a joking matter," Cassia whispered, making me bite back a laugh.

Sirius trotted ahead of us and disappeared into a small waiting area. Though he was out of sight from the Muggles, we could see his shadow on the wall as it changed shape.

"And I thought Fred and George were rebels," Cassia muttered, shaking her head as she followed me away from Moody and towards the waiting area. Sure enough, when we came inside, Sirius was there in his human form.

"Sirius, what are you doing here?" I asked, closing the door behind me. "If somebody sees you --"

"I had to see you off, didn't I? What's life without a little risk?" He beckoned us to come closer. All three of us sat down on a bench together.

"Sirius, it's bad enough we're facing the possibility of a war. The last thing we need is for you to wind up back in Azkaban again," Cassia objected.

"Oh, don't worry about me," he said. "Anyway --" I watched him dig around in one of his pockets, pulling something out. It looked like an old, folded up piece of paper. "-- I wanted you to have this."

I took the paper and gently unfolded it. Cassia glanced over my shoulder. It turned out to be an old photograph.

Cassia's POV (outfit in chapter pic)

I peered over Harry's shoulder at the photograph Sirius had just given us. There were several faces I recognized; Sirius (obviously, he was front and center), Remus Lupin, Hagrid at the very back, Wormtail, Dumbledore, Moody, and right next to Sirius were my mother and father. I willed myself not to cry.

"The original Order of the Phoenix." Sirius pointed to a woman standing far to the right in the photo. "Marlene McKinnon. She was killed two weeks after this was taken. Voldemort wiped out her entire family." He glanced at a man and woman who were positioned to the left of Marlene. "And Frank and Alice Longbottom."

"Neville's parents," Harry muttered.

"They suffered a fate worse than death, if you ask me," Sirius told us. I knew all too well what they had gone through, but I didn't say anything about it. He sighed. "It's been fourteen years, and still, a day doesn't go by I don't miss your dad."

"Do you really think there's going to be a war, Sirius?" Harry asked, looking up from the photo.

Sirius gave a hesitant nod. "It...feels like it did before." I tried to hand the photo back to Sirius, but he refused. "No, keep it. Anyway, I suppose you're the young ones now."

I glanced at the door to see Moody and Dora were standing outside it. Guess they saw Harry and I sneak away. We each gave Sirius a big hug before leaving the waiting area to get to the platform.

<><><><><>

The train ride was pretty uneventful, but Harry looked a little shaken when we got on board for some reason. I had decided wait on asking him about it.

After we got off the train, we started to walk toward the carriages. Cedric had went ahead of us because his friends wanted him to sit with them.

"Why's the Ministry letting you two walk around free?" Malfoy asked, coming over to us.

"I've got a better question, Malfoy," I retaliated. "Why the hell did Dumbledore choose a stuck-up, prissy, self-centered, bullying jerk like you to become a prefect?"

Of course, Malfoy ignored my comment and continued to taunt us. "Better enjoy your freedom while you can. I expect there's a padded cell in St. Mungo's reserved for you and a spot in Azkaban with your brother's name on it."

I lunged at Malfoy, and I would have wrestled him to the ground if Cedric hadn't grabbed my arms and pinned them behind my back. I could see, out of the corner of my eye, that Ron was holding Harry in a similar position.

Malfoy shook his head and walked away with his goons following him. "What'd I tell you? Complete nutters," he said loud enough for us to hear.

"Just stay away from us!" Harry yelled.

"I liked him better when he was a ferret," I commented, rolling my eyes. At least then he didn't get under my skin. I made a mental note to look for that spell in my Transfiguration book.

We finally reached the carriages, most of which were already en route to the school. Just two carriages were left, and what's more, one of them was completely full. The last carriage had only one occupant, a female student with waist-length blonde hair, but she was too absorbed in her magazine -- which, I might add, she was reading upside down -- to notice us. I saw Harry staring at one of the girls in the occupied carriage. Even though she had a different hairstyle, it was easy to recognize Cho Chang. She flashed a smile at Harry before her carriage took off in the direction of the school.

"Hey, guys," Neville greeted as he came over, carrying a Mimbulus Mimbletonia plant in one arm.

"Hi, Neville," we all said at once.

My eyes landed on a creature standing right in front of the carriage. I don't really know how else to describe it except...it looked like a skinny, hairless horse with batlike wings.

"What's that?" I heard Harry ask. Looks like he can see it, too.

"What's what?" Ron questioned.

Harry pointed to the creature. "That, pulling the carriage."

"Don't tell me you guys can't see it," I said, looking back at Neville, Hermione, and Ron.

"I hate to break it to you, love, but I don't see anything except the carriage," Cedric said apologetically.

"Nothing's pulling the carriage, guys," Hermione said. "It's pulling itself, like always."

I was about to argue, but then I realized how ridiculous it would be. They'd think Harry and I were hallucinating or something.

"You're not going mad," the girl sitting in the carriage suddenly spoke. We all looked up at her to see her lowering her magazine. "I can see them, too. You're just as sane as I am."

One by one, we climbed up into the carriage. It was a tight squeeze with 7 of us, but we managed. Mainly because I sat on Cedric's lap.

Hermione took the initiative to introduce us to the girl. "Everyone, this is Loony Love--" She paused, aware that she had almost outright called her a mean name. "Luna Lovegood."

"Nice to meet you, Luna," I greeted politely, earning a smile from her in return.

After several moments of awkward silence, Hermione attempted to cover up her slipup with a compliment. "That's an interesting necklace."

Luna fingered the pendant around her neck, which was basically a butterbeer cork tied on a string. But I decided to cut her some slack. "It's a charm, actually. Keeps away the Nargles," she said. "I'm hungry. I hope there's pudding."

"What's a Nargle?" Neville whispered as the carriage started off toward the castle.

"Yeah, what on Earth is a Nargle?" Cedric echoed.

"No idea," Hermione whispered back. I guessed they were like the 'invisible' winged horses Harry and I had previously seen. Maybe only certain people could see them.