Yet Another Sibling Who Lived Fic

It was a large dreary room with several half empty bookshelves. The fireplace crackled, and the smell of burning paper filled the air. Muggle books made excellent kindling.

A cloaked woman approached, and knelt before a grotesque figure lounging in an old but elegant armchair.

"Rise, Citrina. Have you successfully infiltrated Hogwarts?" asked the being hosting the spirit of Lord Voldemort.

"Yes, my Lord," replied the woman.

"Speak at will. What happened during the first task?"

"Potter is an Eagle Animagus. This was how he escaped Rosier and Carnavon."

"What? Why was this not noticed before?"

"Even Dumbledore appeared surprised by it, my Lord. The boy is also displaying more power than one would expect, even for a Slytherin."

"How does he compare with Lucius' spawn?"

"Draco Malfoy is a fool, and no match for Harry Potter. But there is more."

"Go on."

"Potter is beginning to change attitudes in Slytherin. He is in a serious relationship with a Gryffindor Mudblood called Hermione Granger. The neutrals within Slytherin are beginning to think this is acceptable. So far only Blaise Zabini is his only public ally there, but this may change. The attitude of young Malfoy is truly Gryffindor in its stupidity."

"Perhaps I should have a talk with Lucius about his son. As for the Potter boy, what is his relationship with his family?"

"Poor, my Lord. James Potter tried to talk to him. Harry is still angry with him. He is jealous of the attention bestowed on his brother. At least that is the information I was able to obtain from McGonagall."

"Ah, Minerva, my old friend," sighed Voldemort with a note of mock wistfulness. "How is the old tabby doing?"

"She is a pathetic Occlumens."

"Of course she is." Voldemort laughed. The sound reminded Citrina of a troll in labour. "So Harry is angry? That sounds promising. Tell me, do you think Harry can be turned to our side? Is he a pawn of Dumbledore?"

"He is not pleased with Dumbledore. He only trusts the Mudblood, Zabini, and some Ravenclaws. There could be ideological problems, however. He has publicly proclaimed that Blood Purity is a myth. "

"That is useful information, Citrina. I will be aware of that when I try to recruit him. Very well. How much of an influence is his Mudblood whore?"

"They appear very attached. She is as smart as his mother was, and a major influence."

"Eliminate her influence. Make her push him away, or the reverse. Make sure he never trusts a Mudblood again."

"Yes, Lord. Should I kill her or her parents?"

"Do not kill her. That could make her a martyr in his eyes. But if they are not broken up by the New Year, kill her parents and blame it on an error of Dumbledore. You have many errors to choose from, I'm sure."

"Yes, my Lord. Is there anything else you wish me to do?"

"Yes. I need two vials worth of Harry Potter's blood. Can you obtain this?"

"I believe so, but it may cost me my cover."

"It is worth it. I can always send other spies in to complete the job of dealing with the Mudblood."

The next couple of weeks were uneventful. By Harry's recently acquired standards, that meant that they were eventful but all the events were related to normal student activities. His frequent visits to the Hospital Wing had messed up the Quidditch League schedule, and they had to play two matches the next weekend, against Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Slytherin were crushed by Durmstrang the same weekend as Krum caught the Snitch within two minutes. Harry managed to catch the Snitch both times, much to Cedric and Cho's chagrin, and the Beauxbatons team celebrations were entertainingly different from anything they had experienced with Slytherin.

"The two of you should leave Hogwarts and join us in Beauxbatons," said Demaitre, the Quidditch captain. He had finished off a couple of bottles of Cuvee Speciale - a local red wine from the Breton part of France where he came from - but was still astonishingly sober. "You'll be able to be in the same house, and all you will not have to worry about all this politics!"

Harry looked at Hermione. She was wearing simple Muggle clothing, but her black jeans and loose white shirt with long fluffy sleeves were still causing him attention deficit problems. He was aware that his Quidditch captain was saying something, but that was about it.

"Ow!" cried Harry. "What did you do that for, Mione?" He rubbed the side of his stomach where she had not-so-gently prodded him with her elbow.

"You were staring off into space," she replied.

"We have no idea why, of course," added Michelle Levoy, one of the Beaters. Harry saw that she and Demaitre were smirking. He blushed, realizing what they had noticed.

"Er, sorry," he said, embarassed. "I didn't quite get that."

"Potter!" she hissed. "Get your mind down here right now! What were you thinking of anyway."

"An angel..." he replied.

"A what?" she asked, bemused. "Oh, hey Jean, are you alright?"

"Dot a probem, 'ermione," said Demaitre, reaching out for a napkin. "Just dum wine thru de dose."

Michelle burst out laughing. Harry blushed further. They were attracting a crowd now.

"What's going on?" asked Fleur, curious.

"Potter... staring into space... angel... Granger... Jean ... wine... nose... " said Michelle incoherently.

"Jean was just telling Harry here how he and I should come to Beauxbatons next year," answered Hermione more coherently.

"And what's so funny about that?" asked Fleur. "It's a good idea!"

"We're not laughing!" said Hermione defensively. "They are!" She pointed to Demaitre and Levoy, who were still trying to return their breathing patterns to something more regular.

"It's a long story," said Harry, in a voice that he hoped made it clear that he would not be doing any storytelling. Hermione would Hex him if she knew what he was thinking. "I'm sure they can explain it to you later. There's no way I could come to Beauxbatons - my father would not pay for me to go there."

"And if money was not a problem?" asked Fleur. "Would you come then? You would have to learn French, you know."

"If Hermione wanted to go and money was not a problem," replied Harry, looking at his girlfriend's face. She seemed very interested in the offer. "I would be delighted to. But it's impossible, so why think about it?"

"We have Quidditch scholarships," replied Demaitre. "You would get one at once."

"And I do not think Hermione would have any trouble getting an academic scholarship," added Fleur, "if what I have heard is true."

"Really?" asked Hermione, surprised.

"Madame Maxime has been talking to the teachers here about you," replied Fleur. "The short professor and the vampire were especially impressed."

There was a shout elsewhere in the party room, and Harry was very relieved as everyone's attention turned towards it.

Harry sat down next to Hermione at their Ancient Runes class one morning. He looked oddly pleased as they waited for Professor Gorgonzola to turn up.

"Knut for your thoughts, birdbrain," she said as she looked in her satchel for her Sumerian Runes dictionary.

"It's worth more than a knut," he replied.

"You misunderstand, Potty," she countered in their traditional script for this particular banter. "You're giving me the knut for the privilege of sharing your thoughts with me."

"Snape gave me a message."

"So?"

"The message is for you."

She raised an eyebrow. Or at least she tried. Her other eyebrow went up a bit as well, much to her annoyance.

"Nothing much," replied Harry. "He just ordered me to take you to the Yule Ball this year."

"What?" she asked.

"He ordered me to go to the Yule Ball this year," Harry explained, "which automatically means you're going with me, right?" He noticed Hermione's absence of a response. "Unless you'd rather go with someone else. I've noticed you've been getting chummy with Miss Delacour... mmpf!"

"Ten points from Gryffindor and Slytherin!" said Professor Gorgonzola, walking into the room. "For indecent behaviour during class!"

Harry did not escape the Hospital Wing entirely during these two weeks. He was attacked by rabid leeches in one lesson and Professor Sprout took him to the Hospital Wing herself. Blaise began taking bets on how long it would take him to land there again.

Much to Harry's chagrin, Hermione placed a bet for two weeks. When he complained about this to his mother - who he spent several hours talking with under the guise of a research project - she laughed her head off and contacted Blaise at once. Unfortunately for him, she just wanted to place a bet herself - for ten days.

Interhouse politics remained fairly stable, with the Draco Malfoy and Paul Potter loyalists keeping to themselves. Malfoy was behaving in a suspiciously subdued manner - Hermione even heard him criticizing Crabbe for using the word 'Mudblood' in her presence.

More people had been eating at the Neutral table, mostly from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. A few Gryffindors joined them, especially when all the Gryffindor team (other than Paul, their Seeker) did so at the same time. Hermione and Harry were much amused at how Katie Bell always managed to sit near Blaise. Terry told him that Blaise Bell was a cute name.

Surprisingly, the first new Slytherin to sit with the Neutrals was Millicent Bulstrode. Once she sat down, she was promptly flanked by Padma and Cho, who quickly found that they had a mutual interest in the prospects of the Holyhead Harpies. Hermione wanted to join them, but Blaise stopped her, saying that Millicent would have less trouble dealing with the other Slytherins if she did not immediately associate with Muggleborns. Both Padma and Cho were Purebloods. Hermione wasn't happy, but she understood.

In retrospect, Harry realized he should not have been too surprised with Millicent's approach. He considered her the Slytherin best able to defend themselves in his year, other than himself. And this was fortunate, because Bulstrode was promptly attacked by some Seventh Years. She fought them off by herself - by the time Harry and Blaise realized she was in trouble and got to her side, her attackers were lying on the ground suffering from third degree burns.

She received a week of detentions with Professor Snape for that, much to the Neutrals' disgust. The Weasley twins even asked her if she had any 'prank requests' for her Head of House. She looked at them warily and said she would think about it once her detentions were complete. Then George gave her a dare to have a three-way Beaters contest, and the evil grin on her face caused the rapid creation of another impromptu betting pool.

A few days later, Snape asked Harry to stay behind after Potions. Hermione, who had been working with Neville while Harry worked with Blaise, gave her boyfriend a glance to say that she would be waiting outside. After a couple of minutes, she heard two surprised screams. Ignoring what Snape could do to her, she rushed back inside.

Harry was on his knees, clutching the back of his head again. She could already see a trickle of red running down his neck, nearly reaching his robes. Meanwhile, Snape was clutching his left forearm and wearing a look of horror.

"Granger!" shouted the teacher. But there was no trace of his usual snide and bitter demeanour. "Stun him!" Snape looked terrified, and the thought of anything that could terrify Snape was, in Hermione's opinion, extremely terrifying.

Recalling what the Headmaster had done three weeks previously, Hermione sent a red bolt of light at Harry, who crumpled. She wondered why Snape had not stunned Harry himself, and looked up. But the man had already dashed into his office.

She dashed out the door into the corridor to look for help. To her immense relief, Blaise was already walking back to the Potions classroom, presumably wondering why Harry had not followed him to their Charms lesson.

"Blaise!" she cried. "Harry's hurt! We need to get him to the Hospital Wing!"

Blaise resisted the temptation to shout 'Again?' and rushed after her into the classroom. He crashed into Snape in the doorway and fell to the cold stone floor.

"Zabini!" shouted the older wizard. "Get Potter to Pomfrey now! Granger must tell the Headmaster exactly what happened!"

Blaise suddenly realized that Snape has holding a white mask. He paled. The Potions Master followed his gaze and swore when he realized what Blaise had seen.

"You have seen nothing, Zabini!" Snape hissed before shrinking the mask and running off again.

Blaise stared, shocked. He had heard rumours that Snape had been a Death Eater, but had never actually believed them. It was too obvious for such a bitter, vengeful and biased individual to actually be a Death Eater. And now to see it actually in the flesh...

"Blaise!" hissed Hermione, rushing out of the classroom. "Get Harry to the Hospital Wing!"

"Right," said Blaise unsteadily. "And you? Oh, and Snape said you should see Dumble..."

"Yes, he said that to me too," she shouted before running off.

Still in a state of shock, Blaise entered the Potions classroom and prepared to levitate Harry. Then he remembered that the previous attack had worn off quickly. Perhaps it was over by now? He enervated Harry again.

Harry screamed.

"Stupefy," sighed Blaise. "Mobilicorpus."

Albus Dumbledore sat in his office, reading some of the new suggestions that had come in. They alternated between the good, the bad, and the hilarious. The one he was reading right now was the seventy first he had received that requested that Binns cease teaching the History of Sleep. He put it in the 'Dealt With' pile. He had already told Binns that this was the last term he would be teaching and placed several ads in British, Irish, and other European newspapers asking for applications.

He sighed. How could he have let Binns teach for so long? He had been completely unaware of just how deep resentment against the History teacher ran. And if he could not keep track of such things, then he did not deserve to be Headmaster.

He would resign at the end of this year, he decided, and let Minerva take over. He would announce that decision soon, just before students left for Christmas.

He heard a commotion downstairs, and gazed into his periscopic setup of mirrors to see who was trying to play the Guess The Password game with the gargoyles guarding his office. When he saw that it was Hermione Granger, he waved his wand to cast a spell that would allow her entrance.

After half a minute, she stepped into his office. She had been running, and was obviously not used to the physical effort.

"Headmaster!" she said, panting. "Harry got the pain in the back of his head again! It was bleeding!"

Albus blinked. That was unusual, yes, but surely not why she had run here.

"Professor Snape sent me," she continued, her hands still on her knees. "He was holding his left arm - like this - at the same time that Harry was hurting. He looked - he looked scared! And then he rushed into his office, and came out again - he was holding something white - and then ran off - maybe to the gates - he told me to come tell you. He looked terrified, sir!"

Albus Dumbledore's face paled, which terrified Hermione even more. The puzzle pieces in his mind were coming apart rapidly and coming together to form a picture that he definitely did not want to see.

He stood, and walked to the exit. "Come with me, Hermione." If she noticed the use of her first name, she said nothing of it. "Is Harry in the Hospital Wing?"

"He should be," she said, following him. "Blaise took him."

"Let us follow him there, then."

They walked quickly, and Albus asked the student several questions while maintaining a portable silencing charm within two metres of himself. His gait was surprisingly fast, and Hermione had to run a few times to catch him up.

By the time they reached the Hospital Wing, he had asked her several questions about the timings of Harry's previous 'headaches' and whether he had had any 'odd' dreams. Her answers were unnerving, and causing him to gravitate rather rapidly to the hypothesis that the killing curse that Paul Potter survived had not been fired by Lord Voldemort, but by Peter Pettigrew.

Which would mean that he was now rushing to the Hospital Wing to meet the real Boy Who Lived.

"Oh dear," he thought. "This changes everything."

Hermione was spreading butter on her toast when the Daily Prophet owls arrived the next morning. Her subscription landed in front of her, narrowly missing her coffee. It did manage to land on the tongs of a fork that then headed for her boyfriend sitting opposite her. He was still feeling miffed at having had to spend the night in the Hospital Wing.

"Hey!" he shouted as he dodged the fork.

She ignored his protests as she reached for her coffee and the morning paper.

"HEY!"

She ignored his protests as he wiped off the coffee on his face that she had just sprayed at him.

Other newspapers had been scattered across the Hall, and there were scattered cries of varying degrees of loudness and shock. Hermione was still looking at her newspaper with her mouth open, and Harry realized something was very wrong. Resisting the temptation to jump over the table, he walked around so he could see what the newspaper said.

NATIONWIDE ATTACKS KILL TWENTY!

He read over her shoulder that there had been eight attacks at around eight o'clock the previous night by unknown assailants. Twenty witches and wizards were named, and some of the surnames looked familiar, though none were in Slytherin.

He looked up at the Head Table. Dumbledore was there, looking very old. McGonagall was there, looking horrified. Snape was ... not there.

He glanced over at Blaise. His friend had also noticed the absence of the Potions Master... and was indicating to Harry that they needed to talk? Outside? With Hermione?

"Hermione," he said softly. "Blaise wants to talk with us." Blaise made jabbing gestures in the direction of the doors of the Great Hall. "Outside."

She said nothing as she got up and followed them. They walked out of the castle, and headed for the lake. It was a bright and glorious day that completely belied the import of the news they had just received.

As they approached the lake, Blaise explained that he had seen Snape's white mask. Harry understood the implication at once, as did Hermione. Despite their shared dislike of the man, they were both as shocked as Blaise had been.

"But he can't be a Death Eater!" cried Hermione. "Dumbledore would know! He wouldn't have hired one!"

There was a cough behind them.

"Mum!" cried Harry. "Stop sneaking up on us!"

"He is a Death Eater," said Professor Vanescu behind them. Her silent approaches were a running joke amongst Harry's friends. (Fortunately, the teasing had stopped once he left Blaise stuck to their dormitory ceiling for two hours.) And that was just her capacity to sneak up on him - her vampiric ability to track him had earned several looks of pity from Blaise and of relief from Hermione.

"But", Crina added, "he's been a spy for Dumbledore since the middle of 1981. The Death Eaters think he is a spy on Dumbledore for them."

"A double agent?" asked Hermione.

"Yep," replied Crina.

"Wossat?" asked Blaise. Harry looked similarly enquiring.

"Muggle term for a spy who works for both sides," replied Hermione. "Each side thinks he works for their side and that the other side is silly enough to believe he's working for their side. I'll lend you some storybooks on that if you like."

Blaise nodded uncertainly. He'd got the bit up to 'both sides' and the word 'storybook', but the rest was over his head. Still, he thought he understood the basic concept, and wasn't sure whether to feel pity, respect, or disdain for his Head of House.

"Do you know anything about the attacks, Mum?" asked Harry.

"It's very much Voldemort's style," replied their teacher, causing a visible flinch from Blaise. "I think he's back. Dumbledore said there were Dark Marks at all the attack locations, but that was not printed in the Prophet."

Back. Lord Voldemort had returned to the wizarding world.

Blaise sat down on the grass. Heavily.

"But how?" asked Harry. "The Headmaster said he needed my or Paul's blood or flesh to do this! I've been on Hogwarts grounds ever since the First Task!"

"Maybe Paul snuck off to Hogsmeade?" suggested Hermione. "He's got his methods." She didn't name the Invisibility Cloak for Harry's sake. "But we would have known if he had been attacked."

"Actually," said Crina, "I wanted to ask you if there was ever an opportunity for someone to collect blood from you in the past month."

"Er," said Harry. "What?"

"This would be so much easier to explain if you were a girl," muttered Crina, causing Hermione to blush wildly. Blaise started snickering after several seconds.

Harry remained oblivious.

"Um, not in the Quidditch matches," he said thoughtfully. "I did get hit during duelling practise, but that was always with Hermione or Blaise or Cedric."

"The leeches!" shouted Blaise suddenly.

"What leeches?" asked Harry. "Oh, that Herbology lesson..."

"Yeah," replied Blaise. "When Professor Sprout tripped and hit that bucket of leeches on the shelf onto your arm!"

"Professor Sprout?," asked Hermione with a note of high skepticism. "Helping You-Know-Who? That's ridiculous!"

"She could have been under Imperius," said Crina thoughtfully, "though how a class of observant Slytherins would fail to notice that is not clear."

"One of us might have Imperiused her," offered Blaise. "And undone it very quickly."

"She had sunglasses that day," added Harry suddenly. "It wasn't very sunny and Daphne asked if she was alright, remember? She said she was having eye problems!"

"And a sore throat," recalled Blaise.

"Oh dear," said Hermione. "This isn't very good, is it?"

"We're going to see the Headmaster now," said Professor Vanescu. Blaise got up, and the quartet proceeded back to the castle.

A/N: Certain things are happening in my life, and I may have to give up this fic. If this story does not get updated within three days (October 13), then there will be no more updates for a long, long time. In this event, I will leave notes on the remaining mysteries in this fic in a file on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vanescu. Do not read that file if you dislike spoilers...

Has anyone compared reviewing stats on Portkey and ffdotnet ? The last chapter was posted simultaneously on both sites. By the time of posting this, 615 people had read Chapter 5 on Portkey and 7 had left reviews, meaning that one in 87 readers left a review. In contrast, 32 out of 1088 - one in 34 - readers left a review on ffnet. Note that I am counting only reviews of the last chapter posted, otherwise the difference would be much higher. In any case, does this correlate with other authors' experiences?