Unofficial Portkey Archive

"Hello, Susan."

She froze, her arms curled around her books as the light glanced off her red hair. It was night again, where Harry preferred doing much of his investigative work. He learned long ago the inherent fear of darkness people had. The cupboard would get so dark in the middle of the night that he wouldn't be able to see his hand if he held it right against the tip of his nose.

"Harry." It was more of a question than a statement and judging by the way she kept rolling back to the balls of her feet, she was more than a little bit apprehensive without the rest of her Hufflepuffs.

"How are your classes going?" he opened.

"Good. 137th on the Master List. Nowhere near as high as you, but I'm improving."

It was as if she wanted to prove herself to him and make sure he knew that she was competent. Strangely enough, Harry took it as a compliment. She respected him enough to know that he was better than her but also wanted him to know that she didn't take herself lightly as well. Blaise was right, she was the correct target. According to him, she was the daughter of Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. According to younger Hufflepuffs, she was stringent and obsessed with the rules, carefully avoiding any wrong doing.

"I was wondering if I could talk to you about something."

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Here? In the middle of the night by myself in a dark hallway? Are you sure you want to talk?"

Harry frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I've heard the rumors, Harry. How you intimidate people in the middle of the night and scare them off. I'm not going to let you do that to me." She was trying to hold a serious facade but the quiver of her bottom lip gave it away.

Finch-Fletchley. He's trying to make me the bully in the night.

"I don't know what you've heard Susan, but I don't do any of that. Let me guess though, it was Justin who told you that."

She hesitated, as people often do when confronted with something unexpected. It was a confirmation for Harry that Justin was going far beyond just trying to intimidate him in the middle of the night. Justin, and whoever he was working with, was trying to incur a deep sentiment against him while trying to simultaneously cow him into submission.

Dudley would have been quite disappointed at the effort.

"How'd you know that?" Susan whispered.

"Justin's not as discrete as he thinks he is. Just do me a favor and keep your ears open for him, Susan. You don't have to report to me or anything, but just make sure you know what he's saying and ask yourself if you think I'm really capable of that."

She blinked in confusion. "But I don't even know you. And why would Justin want to do that? He's once of the nicest people I know."

"I'm not asking you to make judgments, Susan. Just listen."

Harry stepped away from the light and allowed himself to melt into the darkness, casting an obscure haziness around him. He hoped that there was enough mystery left in his message so that it would rightly disorient Susan. While he didn't expect her to completely betray her fellow Hufflepuffs, a seed of doubt could go a long way into making inroads to get to Finch-Fletchley.

"Harry," she called out, unable to see him anymore due to his spell. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I think you're a good person, Susan. I think you know when something isn't right."

* * * * * *

Slipping past the barrels to access the Slytherin Common Room, Harry internally grimaced when he spotted Tracey waiting by the fire, her legs crossed and her hanging foot bouncing impatiently. She tucked her curly hair behind an ear, blue eyes filled with worry and a tinge of annoyance. Harry was just considering placing a Muffling Charm on his feet to bypass her, but her head snapped around as the stone entrance closed shut.

"Out again?" She asked, a barely repressed tremor in her tenor.

"Tracey, there were things that needed to be done." If he didn't draw a line soon, she would continue pestering him.

"Like what? Looking for them again?"

"No, I was looking for someone else this time."

Be patient with her. She's your friend. You have to be patient with her. But damn, it was hard.

She licked her lips, debating something internally. "And did you find what you were looking for?"

Trying to delay the inevitable confrontation, Harry attempted to shoulder past her, but she stuck out a hand and grabbed his shoulder. It wasn't rough but firm, an obvious tell that she wanted to speak to him.

"Did you find it?" she repeated.

"What does it matter, Trace?" Harry sighed, willing himself not to be frustrated with her.

"It matters to me, Harry. You can't just...go sneaking out like this! Not alone! Let me....let me help you."

Harry arched an eyebrow, acutely aware of her hand still on his shoulder. He didn't move, not out of discomfort, but looked away from her nonetheless. Is she asking what I think she's asking?

"Tracey..."

"I didn't like what they did to you, Harry," Tracey interrupted him. "I know you may think I'm not up to it or whatever you want, but I'm in Slytherin too. If you think that I didn't realize what they were trying to do you, then you think far more lowly of me than I assume."

"I would never think that lowly of you, Trace."

Her earnest but vengeful tone surprised him. Singularly focused on finding the others associated with Finch-Fletchley, he hadn't given thought to how Tracey felt about the attack. Protective? Yes. Vengeful? That wasn't something he was used to seeing out of her.

"Then let me help you," she said with a steel in her voice.

Can I trust her?

He preferred to do things alone, there was a lot less complexity and it freed him from having to relay any decisions. Furthermore, any moral and school bound obligations were his to face alone. Including Tracey would incur a myriad of logistics headaches that would most likely hinder or delay his progress. On the other hand, an extra pair of eyes and ears and a different, very female, perspective could be helpful. She was also more liked, at least in general terms, than he. If Harry Potter was asking questions, others would grow suspicious, thinking that he was trying to find leaks in their ability. If Tracey was asking questions, there might be the same cloud of suspicion, but it would be considerably less.

If I can't trust her, who can I trust?

"I talked to Susan Bones. Blaise identified her as someone who is a bit of a straight arrow. I think if I plant a seed of doubt within her, she'll come to me if she thinks there's more to Justin than meets the eye. I doubt that there would be more than one Hufflepuff in on it, so I'm trying to investigate the other Houses."

It came out in a rush, the words quickly spoken in a hushed tone, but he felt relieved when he finally exhaled. Internally, it was as if a dam had let loose, a flood of gratefulness directed towards the dark-haired, blue-eyed girl in front of him. She pulled him closer to a corner of the Common Room, slightly further away from prying ears and eyes.

"Why wouldn't it be a few of them from Hufflepuff?"

Harry shook his head, unable to pin down the feeling. "It just doesn't feel like it. I know it sounds dumb, but why would a bunch of Hufflepuffs gang together to beat me up? Does that sound like Hufflepuffs to you?"

Tracey frowned in confusion. "It doesn't. Not at all."

"Justin's one of them, but it has to be from other Houses...including ours."

Her eyes fluttered around but she couldn't spot any mops of blond hair in the room. "Surely, you can't be serious?"

"This is what you wanted to know, Trace. We can't rule out anything."

She nodded, still unsure at accusing her own house, but Harry wasn't so naïve. There were others, besides the adjoining Houses, that would look to knock him down the rankings and belittle him until he lost confidence. Little did they know about his childhood experiences.

"I can talk to some people. There are a few girls that are rather chatty if you get them in the right mood."

"Good. More information is what we need right now. We'll worry about the other bridge when we get there."

"What other bridge?"

"Don't be so naïve, Trace. I'm not just going to let them get away with it."

* * * * * * * *

After a brutal Transfigurations class that involved more than one intensive questioning by McGonagall, Harry excused himself to allegedly watch more duels in Trow's classroom. Neither Blaise nor Tracey took any suspicion with his late night studying, but Harry did note that Tracey kept an eye on him all the way to the exit of the Common Room. Curious, he doubled back on his trail and waited in an alcove to see if she followed him, but there was nothing except for the sound of air whistling through the castle.

Convinced he was alone, Harry made his way to the rendezvous point. It was a spot adjacent to the kitchens that was rarely frequented by patrols and professors. He and Granger had agreed upon the location through a series of clandestine communiques. Despite his insistence on meeting in a more secrete place, she insisted on this room. He could already see that it would be difficult working with her.

By this time, he had become an expert at avoiding patrols and professors. There were always multiple alcoves and classrooms he could duck into and he routinely placed Cushioning and Balancing charms on his shoes. Sometimes, he wistfully wished for one of those Invisibility Cloaks but that was for naught. He arrived at their predetermined meet up point and was unsurprised to find Granger waiting there already.

"Let's go," she said, bypassing pleasantries and walking back towards the direction he came.

Harry followed without a word, content with tracking her bushy mane of hair as they crept along the hallways of Hogwarts. Once or twice, she signaled for a stop to let one of the Prefect patrols pass them, but she always moved forward, never wavering. The temperature changed as they descended to the lower hallways and for a moment, Harry wondered if she was leading him back to the Slytherin Common Room. They were certainly within the general vicinity.

Yet, she turned down a different hallway that he was accustomed to, leading him to an area that he didn't frequently explore. The air was colder, a certain damp quality that made him wonder how Granger found this area in the first place. It was only when she pushed against a wall that he realized this was no ordinary hiding spot.

The wall caved easily, but the magic was the way the bricks folded within themselves, much like Diagon Alley's entrance. She beckoned him inside with a wave of her hand and pressed her palm against the wall again. Harry watched as it closed itself up until all that was left was the dim light of Granger's wand.

"Come on and watch your step."

That she led with astonishing precision was unsurprising to Harry. Clearly, this was her private domain and while he was buzzing with questions on the identity and means she has discovered it with, he was content with following her down the dimly illuminated path. Once again, the air was a predictor of their environment as the temperature suddenly leveled off while the humidity rose. Judging by their elevation, they were clearly underground Hogwarts at this point.

Resisting the temptation to ask her a mountain of questions, Harry kept his mouth shut and observed his surroundings. The walls were undeveloped by precise, clearly a work of magic. He doubted that Granger had the means of creating the tunnel herself. That would require precise, and more importantly, risky tactics. The tightly packed mud didn't look freshly made either, judging by the vines and overgrowth that crept through the dirt.

This tunnel had been here for a long time.

The soft putter-patter of their footsteps echoed louder until the tunnel finally opened up to a beautiful sight. The ceiling stretched higher and as Harry looked up, he gasped. The ceiling was translucent, reminding him of the one time the Dursleys brought him to an aquarium. Above him, fishes and seaweed floated about and once or twice, he thought he spotted the Giant Squid lurking in the distance. It was astonishing and brilliant. The actual cave was expansive, nearly the size of the Great Hall and at the very end, a pool of clear, blue water reflected against the dark ceiling.

"Lumosonta!"

Granger said the words and torches came to life, bathing the cave in a bright, yellow light that allowed some brightness into the cave. Harry whistled lowly and started clapping, beyond impressed with the setting.

"How'd you find this place?" Harry asked in genuine awe.

"Dumb luck mostly. It was during Second Year when I was having some trouble and...here I was..." Granger said with her back turned as she pulled something out of her bag.

"You can't tell me it was simple as that. This place has to be as old as -"

"-the Founders most likely. And as I said, it was dumb luck. I was having some trouble navigating some things and here I am."

Harry sensed there was more to story than simple discovery, but he let it slide for now. She had already shown him this wonderful place, there was no point in pushing the issue just yet. Mentally, he filed that question away for a more amenable time.

"Before we get started, I need you to promise that you won't tell anyone of this place. This is...my place, Potter -"

"Harry."

"-Harry. I'll blow the whistle on this whole thing if you tell anyone of this place."

He readily stepped forward and stuck out his hand. "I will never tell anyone of this, Hermione."

She hook his hand hesitantly and he could feel the waves of distrust emanating from her, but she had already taken a giant step by leading him to this cave. There was progress to be made and Harry was excited that he was present for it.

"Okay then." She exhaled loudly as settled into one of two seats and a table that was in the cave. There was no other furniture barring that. "While I appreciate your word, you still need to sign this."

He should have been surprised that she had a contract drawn up, but he wasn't. It totally fit in her with mental psyche and astonishingly meticulous preparation. Snorting, he picked up the quill she had laid beside the parchment.

"Can I get a copy of this?" he asked.

"No."

"And I assume its magically binded?"

"Yes."

He signed it anyways, not bothering to read the fine print. If she had gone through the lengths to secure his confidence, then she wouldn't have put some sort of loophole in there that rendered him her slave or something ridiculous. At least, he hoped so.

"You know that I have a lot more to lose from this relationship than you," Harry coolly said.

"I know. I just like to keep everything in order just in case."

"You really think that I'd let lose your secret? For what gain?"

"I don't know, Potter," she snapped. "I'm just trying to make sure I have everything in line."

Her strange behavior puzzled him. Defensive, he expected, but this magically binding contract was almost paranoid. Distrust, he also expected, but what did he have to gain by revealing this location, no matter how magical it seemed. Again, silence was the better option here so he signed the contract with tight lips, practicing an inordinate amount of self-control not to mouth off to her.

A slight glow overtook the parchment, but she quickly pocketed it and in one smooth motion, brought forth a tome with jagged pieces of paper sticking out of it. It was a brown, unmarked journal and Granger held it with a palpable amount of trepidation. She was gripping it two-handed, seemingly unwilling to let it go. Harry waited, not wanting to spook her, sensing he was close to the answer he had craved for so long.

How'd you do it, Granger?

"This is it," she said.

"Your translator?" he wondered aloud, expounding on Lovegood's idea.

"No, you don't get to see that." The wry smile on her face beckoned a smug omnipotence in that regard. "But you do get to see the results."

Excitement thrummed along his fingertips as he itched to reach towards the journal. There was the solution to his problem, the answer to his quagmire. How had she defeated him so soundly, predicting every move while deflecting all of his? If it was some advanced magic he did not yet know, he wanted to learn it. If it was a simple spell that he overlooked, he wanted to rectify the error. Instead, Granger opened up the book to something different entirely.

Numbers.

"What's this?" He frowned in confusion as he flipped the journal his way so he could read it more clearly.

The condescension could barely be held from her voice. "It's how I beat you."

But there wasn't anything there! There were no spells of ancient descent nor an indication that she had found some sort of charm or hex that could predict his own movements. His own theories that ranged from outside help to Sneakoscopes to plain time travel seemed to be just as unfounded.

There were just numbers upon numbers.

But as he looked closer, finally noticing that the heading contained his own name, he found something just as intriguing. He didn't quite understand all of her short hand and other unfamiliar terms. Scrawled among the page was Linear Regression and Inverse Correlation and Confidence Interval. He knew none of what that meant, but he had taken enough Maths to understand the simple concept of percentages.

Harry J. Potter Attacks:

Expelliarmus - 42%

Stupefy - 37%

Bombarda - 11%

Misc. - 10%

Listed below that were a series of terms, some of which he understood implicitly and others that required explanation.

Defense:

Range Factor - 10

Protego Usage (Engaged) - 37%

Protego Usage (Predictive) - 55%

Protego Usage (Pre-Emptive) - 8%

Power Levels:

Attack - 8

Defense - 5

Movement - 10

Complexity - 6

Aggression Expectancy:

Movement Attack - 44%

Movement Defense - 32%

Stationary Attack - 15%

Stationary Defense - 9%

"Stats..." Harry said the single word breathlessly and disbelievingly. While he wasn't confident of what all the numbers meant, the overall implication was evident. Hermione Granger didn't use a secret spell or some unknown magic to beat him. She had used simple arithmetic to define him.

"Not what you expected?" It would've been gloating if it wasn't so true.

"But this is so...simple...so..."

"Muggle?" Hermione offered, raising a thick eyebrow.

Harry was still pouring over the numbers, trying desperately to find some other answer, but the numbers were static and evident. It was only after a beat of silence that he asked the important question.

"How'd you get these numbers? What are the different Protego Usages? These Power Levels too. What does it mean? I still don't understand how you beat me. How can you predict the spells? Aren't these just estimates?"

She cocked her head as he fired off rapid questions, over burgeoning curiosity taking hold of him. He held the journal even tighter, demanding an answer to such a simple question. This can't be it. This can't possibly be it.

"So...you believe me? You think this is how you did it?"

"How did you get to it, Hermione?!" Harry was bewildered that she was so calm.

"I think a better question is why I got to it, Harry."

"I don't follow."

Hermione sat up and Harry could recognize the lecturing tone as the one she took whenever she had the correct answer in class - which meant all the time.

"Don't you ever wonder why wizards never ask why things happen? Why do spells work the way they do? Why do they teach us certain spells? Does saying a spell make it so or is there something innate about how he perform a spell? Is it the incantation? The wand movement? Why are some of our spells stronger than others? And no one ever asks why! It's always how, what, how, what, how, what!"

"What does this have to do with the numbers?"

She leaned back in her chair, a flicker of shadow sliding over face. At once, Harry was reminded that they were sitting underneath the Great Lake in some sort of secret cavern discussing the process in which she defeated him. The whole situation would be absurd if it weren't for the fact that Harry was holding a journal of numbers that was the apparent source of his defeat.

"No one ever asks why around here. Why are you better than everyone at dueling? Are you more talented? Are you more powerful? Or do you simply do something different? I couldn't believe that you were so much more powerful at a younger age than all of us. I simply couldn't believe it, so I found an answer in the one thing I could understand and rationalize. Numbers. Numbers can't lie, Harry."

Hermione was so emphatic in her belief that her eyes had grown wide and her chest heaved as she spoke. Part of Harry reveled in her explanation but the other part of him, the competitive side, still couldn't believe that a bunch of statistics had led to his downfall.

"And?"

"There was a reason. And it was all right there in the numbers. Flip to page 167 and you'll see my graph comparison on your aggression tendencies."

He flipped to the correlating page and indeed saw a graph marked with different colored lines.

"The blue line is you. Do you see how often you move in comparison to everyone else? You're constantly moving, whether it be attacking or defending. 44% of your attacks come on the move and you use movement to avoid spells nearly 32% of the time. Everyone can see that you move, but they don't realize how often you do it. If they knew that you moved so much, they wouldn't try to hit you. How many times did I try to hit you when we dueled?"

The Jelly-Legs. A simple jinx that I didn't understand.

"Not that many."

"You're aggressive, almost to the point of being over-aggressive but people are so scared of you that they don't like confronting you. But I saw exactly what you were doing. You moved faster than everyone else, kept them on their toes by constantly attacking and barraging them with spells. But you have two faults."

"Two?!"

"Yes, Harry, two! One, you don't mix up your spells. You use your bread and butter of Expelliarmus and Stupefy, but if people realized that you use them almost two-thirds of the time, they wouldn't be so fearful. People have this horrifying idea that you cast all these spells as you move around them, but in reality, you're only ever casting two or three spells. It's just that you cast them so quickly that people create this illusion of you in their heads. All they have to do is block and stay calm, but they can't."

"But you could...because you knew..."

"Not just because I knew. I knew exactly what you would do and how you would do it. It's the why, Harry. Everyone asks how you beat them or what spell they use, but they don't ever ask why you perform the way you do. They just think that if they perform the spell better or they catch you off-guard, you can defeat them. You did the same thing, adapting to out pace everyone else, only you didn't need the numbers."

And just like that, Granger shattered any expectations that Harry had of one-on-one duels. It was as simple as diagnosing the exact number of times he used a spell and how he used them. It was the systematic deconstruction of his dueling style that caused him to lose, a turn so simple that it was pure lunacy that no one had ever tried it before. But Harry knew why wizards didn't ask. It was below them.

But it wasn't below Granger.

"You said I did two things wrong. What's the second one?"

"It's the same reason no one's been able to figure me out. You didn't ask why."

"When didn't I ask?"

"When I was performing my Duplication Spell. I watched you on the tape. You kept wondering what I was doing, but it didn't really matter. I could have been performing any other number of spells that you couldn't know, besides a Duplication Spell. If you had taken a second to ask why I was avoiding you, you could have easily avoided my trap. But you were too proud, Harry. Too confident in being a wizard. Too..."

"...convinced that my magic would overpower you."

It wasn't a revelation. Something so simple as a statistical breakdown couldn't be some ground-breaking revelation. In reality, it was the simplicity that was the key. Wizards were so keen and proud of their own magical powers that they would never think something as lowly as number crunching could defeat them. Yet, here was Granger.

"So that's all?" Harry was still astonished. "You just have pages of everyone? How could you have enough time to do that?"

"Neville helps me," Hermione answered. "He's been instrumental in collecting the data. I just wish he would execute better." Hermione grumbled the last part.

"If you could tell him to stop being afraid of his own shadow, he might be able to think for longer than two seconds."

"Don't make fun of Neville," Hermione warned.

Harry held his hands up in mock defeat. "Apologies."

Harry flipped through the page as Hermione explained the tedious statistical progress of classifying everyone's spells and coming up with the Power Levels. They were on a scale from 1-10 and it helped when Hermione was trying to determine the tactic she should use against them. For example, Padma Patil rarely moved but had a strong complexity of spells. To rebut this, Hermione barraged her with a variety of simple executables that prevented her from being able to attack. Forced to move, Padma was reluctant to reveal her arsenal of potent spells.

It was common sense brutally broken down to irrefutable numbers.

"Where's your page?"

"I don't have my own. It would be biased. Only Neville has it," Hermione explained. "And no, you can't have it."

"You never make it easy, Hermione," Harry murmured with a smile. "Can I borrow the Hufflepuff ones?"

"Go ahead, you can test it yourself tomorrow when you have Battle class."

He thumbed through the pages,making copies of the Hufflepuffs. Finding Justin Finch-Fletchley, Harry licked his thumb and folded the corner of his page, taking special care to mark Justin's scouting report. A grim smile overtook his face, one Hermione mistook as being pleased to have the numbers on hand.

As he looked at Justin's specifics, he said something that Granger wrongly interpreted.

"We just might be onto something, Hermione."

* * * * * * *

Hermione ran over a few more explanations, but they were well into the night at that point and protracting their stay would raise flags from their dorm mates. Resolving a time to meet next week, Harry bid Hermione good-bye as he took the relatively short walk to the dungeons where the Slytherin Common Room lay. He offered to escort Hermione back to the Gryffindor tower, but she haughtily explained that she had traveled that road several times without his help.

Neither Tracey nor Blaise was awake by the time he returned, something Harry was thankful for despite having an elaborate lie prepared. Retiring for the night, he dreamed of numbers and Granger repeatedly crunching a Muggle calculator. When he awoke, he felt a renewed sense of purpose as he waited all day to return to Battle class. Discretely reviewing all of the Hufflepuffs' scouting reports, Harry entered Battle class with an extra spring in his step.

After watching a few lopsided duels, Harry was disappointed to hear himself matched up with Zacharias Smith. The sadistic part of him so desperately wanted Justin Finch-Fletchley, but the Hufflepuff boy would have to wait until another time. The arena this time was a relatively ho-hum setting of a plain field. It was nothing like the jagged, rock arena that was the setting of his duel with Granger.

Bowing slightly, Harry reviewed Smith's specifics.

Smith Attacks:

Stupefy - 35%

Petrificus Totalus - 29%

Appendo - 24%

Flipendo - 12%

Range Factor - 6

Power Levels:

Attack - 5

Defense - 7

Movement - 4

Complexity - 3

Aggression Expectancy:

Stationary Attack - 43%

Stationary Defense - 30%

Movement Defense - 15%

Movement Attack - 12%

He left out Protego usages as he found them unhelpful when trying to determine the best course of action against Zach. Without these notes, he would have never known that Smith preferred using spells that restricted or tried to impact movement. Both Appendo and Flipendo were under the same classification of spells used to disrupt one's movement and judging by Smith's over reliance on Stationary Attacks and Defenses, he wanted to have a strong core that relied on pinning a player down. It was a wrestler's tactic.

Solution: Move ably, dodging his slow-moving spells. Circle Smith and avoid using strong spells as he usually had an apt defense for it. Within close proximity, unleash a strong string of spells to overwhelm him at close range.

It felt so simple, so easy. Did Granger feel the same way? Did she revel in the knowledge that she was leading him into a trap that was childishly easy to predict? Is this how she rocketed to the top of their class?

"Begin!" Snape started.

And Harry sprinted, half-dodging and half-observing.

"Stupefy! Petrificus Totalus!"

The two spells sprang out of his mouth, one quickly after another as Harry rolled along the grass to avoid them. As he coiled his legs to spring out and quickly evade a follow up of Appendo and another Stupefy, a maddening grin split Harry's face. He could feel the solid and damp dirt beneath his feet and the wind whistling through his air as he pressed his body to the ground again to avoid the duo of spells. The next few steps were so clear and so evident and Harry could already imagine himself disarming Zacharias up close. The excitement and adrenaline of knowledge poured through him as he zig-zagged closer and closer to the Hufflepuff, but there was only one thought going through his mind.

Granger was right.

* * * * * *

"Remarkable, don't you think?"

"Not the exact word I would use, but the ease of which Potter dispatched Smith was compelling. Perhaps you aren't so wrong about the Muggleborn."

"The tactical improvements alone would be a boon. He feels at ease with her ideas. Have you given any though of perhaps implementing her as his new Number Two?"

"Don't be so preposterous. That role is already filled. We need someone to obey his every order, not someone who will question him at every turn."

"Perhaps a bit of objectivity would be good for him. It wouldn't serve him well to surround him with yes-men at every turn."

"He is his own objective paragon. You may be correct that this relationship will allow him access to new ideas, but he needs orders obeyed in the battlefield, not a second-guessing of himself."

"No. And that answer is final."

"As you say..."

"Is there any progress on finding the Fourth?"

"The Marauder proves difficult to find. I have my sources in place, but ever since he disappeared from the Weasleys, it has been quite the journey to find him. I'm afraid that he is slipping further and further out of our grasp."

"We should have known sooner. How many filthy rats could there possibly be in one household?"

"It was a simple thing to overlook...for both of us."

"The time table has been altered. His return might be sooner than we planned.

"Will Harry be ready before then?"

"He must. If not, this was all for naught."

* * * * *

A/N: I know, I know, I promised a quicker update, but I compromised and gave you a longer update instead. Thoughts on Hermione's revelation? Are you surprised by her simplicity? I gave a few hints on some future plot lines, but they're there to see for yourself. I hope to update within this week again but its a battle of balancing chapter lengths with plot ideas. Hope to hear from you via review. Thanks again

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