The black magical siderite blade gleamed in the pale moonlight as its owner knelt on a bed of flowers. A great tree cast long shadows across the still meadow, shrouding the two men in its darkness.

Dead eyes poured tears down worn cheeks as they waited for the end, their final end. The end to a dream they had been yearning for since taking up their title and duties. Months of what could only be called torture had removed any semblance of life from the blue orbs and nothing remained save for a husk.

A tall old man with a peg leg stood over him. His wooden leg sinking into the soft soil, but he did not notice, too focused on the pitiful man in front of him. Powerful corded arms betrayed the apparent age of the man as he held a massive scythe up as easily as if he was merely reaping barley.

"I had hopes for you, Frederick," The old man said sadly, "You lasted longer than many others and I thought that you may have been the one. The one to finally allow to me to find my peace..."

The man in the dirt remained silent, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him.

"But I was wrong," The old man sighed wearily as his arms tensed. "I release you from the dream and you shall know the salvation that you have denied me. Farewell, and may you find your worth in the waking world."

The old scythe swung down and parted through skin and bone as if they were not even there. A dull thump echoed through the empty clearing as the headless body collapsed, blood spraying down the front of the old man.

The grey haired man bent down when he noticed a shine coming from the man's belt. Slowly, he formed an idea that blossomed into reality a moment later. He reached for the man's belt and drew the weapon that had faithfully served him to the end. The metal turned out to be more unyielding than the man that wielded it.

"I curse this blade to do what its master couldn't," He intoned as a great deal of energy was flooded into the twisted blade. "One day, this blade will find the hunter I need and bring him to me. A hunter that will finally end this dream. They will not back out even if their mind shatters and their body flags. Go forth and find a worthy master."

He carefully planted the blade back on the body and felt the man's consciousness finally transcend the dream, taking the cursed siderite blade with him. However, unlike the past couple hunters that he had released, his soul did not go back to Yharnam where it would be free from the dream. Rather it flowed off into the distance before disappearing in its journey to another land. The old man pushed it away from his mind, it did not matter where the soul went as long as he got the hunter he needed to end it all.

A stiff breeze flew through the meadow, kicking up flower petals that coated the blood slowly seeping out of the body. The old man fell backwards and settled into his wheelchair with a grunt.

"Doll!" The man barked harshly, "It is time to lay another one to rest, get your useless body over here and bury him."

A woman came out of the shadows and slowly grabbed the body and began dragging it away with practiced ease. She would have left the clearing straight away, but a gnarled, blood coated hand stopped her. The old man's grip fastened around her wrist in a painful grasp that dug into her skin.

"Get me a towel too," Commanded the old man harshly, pushing her out of his way roughly, "Worthless doll. Why'd I get stuck here with you?"

"Yes master," The doll replied sadly as she pulled the still warm corpse from the clearing. "Right away."

The second the head had rolled from his shoulders and into the field of white flowers, Frederick awoke to the sunlight bearing down on his face.

He looked around and found himself in a rural village that looked familiar, but for the life of him, did not know where he was. It did not feel like home and he was sure that his small twenty person village did not have over fifty wooden buildings in the town square.

He looked down and noticed that he was not wearing the clothing that he last remembered putting on. Rather than a simple farming outfit, he had dirty robes swathing his body in hot fabric. What caught his attention was the blade that was sheathed at his hip though.

He tried to remember the last thing that he had done, but for the life of him, he could not figure it out. He knew something important happened to him, but it was as if the memory was just not there anymore.

The next thing he knew, a group of townspeople were in front of him with torches and pitchforks, all of them were shouting about wizardry and devil worship. He felt some stirring of familiarity to such a raving crowd, but a heavy rock colliding with his forehead knocked what little sense he had gathered. He was soon bound, gagged, and hauled away from where he had been laying, his blade left in the dust.

The blade soon fell into the hands of a greedy townsperson, who had seen the quality of the blade and noted the rarity of the metal. It was the reason that he had told everyone that the strange man was in cohorts with the devil after all. It worked like a charm.

The blade remained in the man's possession for a couple years before it was traded away to settle a debt to a travelling caravan. The trader had no need of the sword, so he had pawned it off to a black market weapons dealer as soon as he could.

The exotic appearance of the blade attracted one of the man's most loyal customers. A collector by the name of O'Reilly, a minor lord with a love for unnatural blades. Not to use, but to put into a show that he could show off to other lords and make it seem like he was interesting.

The blade hung on the wall for years, never losing its edge and gleam, even after years of poor maintenance. When O'Reilly and his family fell out of grace with the king, his castle was ransacked and the blade was one of the treasures that was stolen. From there it saw much more combat, so much so that the metal was slowly coated in dried blood as people's inability to maintain such an odd weapon started to build over the years to the point where the blade was almost useless.

Then after such a long history, the blade was stored away and would not see the light of day save for small intermissions of transit from one box to another for the next twenty years.

The next time that it saw the light of day was when a boy popped open the wooden box it had been locked in for years and look inside with glee. The irish boy grinned at his small find and quickly secreted it away in his trunk.

"Hurry up Seamus!" A heavily accented voice called from below, "I don't know what you are doing up there, but you will miss the express if you do not get down here,"

"I'm coming, ma!" The boy called back as he sealed his find in his trunk. He could not wait to show the guys at school what he had found.

It was not like he was breaking any rules. Nothing in the rulebook said they could not bring a sword, they just couldn't use it on anyone. As Seamus stepped away from the box, his foot stomped on something. He looked down and found a note.

"Cursed blade. Blood soaked battles. Blah blah blah. Rumored to have come from a strange man accused and tried for consorting with devils and witches." Seamus read before tossing it to the side. "Cool! A wizard sword! I'm definitely showing the guys this!"

[page break]

Harry was annoyed, both at Hogwarts and Dumbledore. Most of his frustration had to do with his favorite sport, Quidditch being canceled for the year. He just did not understand why an entire year had to be taken up by a measly three events that happened every couple of months. They could have easily fit the quidditch tournament into the year around the triwizard schedule.

From the dour mood that pervaded the Gryffindor common room, the sentiments were shared with almost everyone.

Several of the sixth and seventh years that qualified for the tournament, all huddled together, talked about how they would join the tournament and what they would do with the money and notoriety. Harry personally did not see the point of wanting fame. He had it and he had come to the consensus years ago that being famous was overrated. He could not even walk down Diagon alley without being swarmed by fans and people that wanted to get close to him to leech off his fame.

However, out of all the students down about the absence of Quidditch, only one did not look too put out from the announcement despite being a huge fan. Seamus Finnegan almost seemed to have been vibrating in his seat throughout the entire feast and it had only gotten worse when he had stepped into the common room.

Throughout the rest of the day, he was buzzing around the room, his general happiness had begun to grate on everyone's nerves.

It all came to a head when they went up to their new dorm room that night. Ron had been eating some of the candy he picked up from the train and after watching Seamus twitch for the hundredth time, he threw a jelly bean at him.

"Oi!" The gangly teen loudly called out, "What is wrong with you?"

Seamus would normally throw something back or make a rude comment, but he just let the assault go. "I got something to show you!" He dove off his bed and started rummaging around in his trunk. Now everyone was curious about what the boy had with him.

The little souvenirs that he brought from home to show everyone were always interesting. The most interesting being an old disarmed mortar from World War 2. Well interesting to Harry since he, like every other boy in primary school, had read about them and found them fascinating. It was horrifying to all the purebloods though, but that may have been because none of them knew anything about muggle weapons and how dangerous they actually were.

However, what he pulled out could be appreciated by everyone. It was a thin wooden box that was longer than his arm. He carefully laid it out on the bed and opened it. Inside was quite the sight.

Laying on a red cushion was the strangest blade that Harry had seen in his life. The metal was entwined and was missing the middle. The top of the blade was like a talon pointing back while the hilt had a notch on the bottom for some reason. The black metal had a wave of red along the edges of the blade.

"This blade is an heirloom that my family has had for years," Seamus said as he lifted up the sword, struggling slightly with the weight. "I found a note in the case saying that it used to belong to a hunter or something centuries ago. It is supposedly cursed with something, but that's just nonsense. It comes from my father's side of the family and all of them were muggles. Does anyone want to hold it?"

Dean immediately rolled off his bed and was next to Seamus in an instant. "Give me, give me, give me," He chanted with his hands held out. he had gotten so close that Seamus was forced to take a step back.

Seamus handed the sword to Dean who started to look at the blade from every angle. "What is this red stuff?" He ran his finger over one of the waves and examined it.

"I think that it is the blood of the people its slain, dying the blade." Dean immediately drew his finger back and held the sword out like it had bit him. Harry personally thought that was hogwash. He looked closer and found that the red metal was flush with the black metal. From what he could tell, it was just the forging processes that gave it that color.

Nevertheless, Dean was done looking at the blade, so Harry took it and looked it over. The first thing that he noticed was that it was not a light blade. It may have been small, but it was almost as heavy as the sword of Gryffindor. He ran his hand over the guardless hilt and found a small catch in the notch on the bottom. He touched it and the blade shuddered for a moment before stopping. Looking very closely, he could see that the two separate blades of metal had come apart slightly, but the years of poor maintenance had caused it to stop whatever it was doing. Harry was no expert with how blades were forged, but even he could tell how well made it was despite the wear on the weapon.

The metal showed very little sign of degradation from the years of disuse. A good cleaning and a couple hours of work and the blade would be as good as new. Harry gripped the hilt of the sword and held it for a moment to get a feel of how heavy the sword would be to wield one handed and he was surprised. The sword was balanced quite well and fit in his hand like it was meant for him.

Harry eventually handed it off to Ron, who was looking at the blade with undisguised want. As he handed it over, Ron pulled it back carelessly and the blade gashed his palm causing Harry to cry out in pain and covered the bleeding gash with his hand.
The redhead set the blade down and started profusely apologizing to Harry who just waved him off. It was strange, the moment the blade cut into his skin, it felt like molten steel was poured into the wound. Just a moment later, it was just a normal cut, nothing that he had not felt before.
Neville came over and looked at the wound before paling at the blood. "Do you need to go see Madam Pomfrey?" asked the shy boy.

Harry immediately shook his head while fishing his wand out of his robes. "No, I want to stay as far away from that place this year as I can," He did not want to have to deal with the woman that cowed even Dumbledore. "Could you imagine what she'd say if I go on the first day of school? She'd skin me alive! I learned some charms for this kind of thing."

One did not get into as many life or death situations as Harry did without learning some healing magic, so he pulled out his wand and cast a small healing charm on his hand. The magic went into the cut and sewed the flesh closed, the only proof that he had been cut was a small thin scar where it had been.

After getting assurance that Harry was fine, Ron went back to the blade and started looking over it with awe, though some was tempered by his accident. Harry watched in silence as the blade was passed around the room, the only one not looking over it was the passive Neville, who was satisfied watching everyone else play around with the blade.

The entire time that the blade was being passed around, Seamus was talking about the blade's history. Harry was pretty sure that he was making it up as he went along though. The boy was prone to exaggerating facts a lot and he was sure that the little story about the blade coming from a different world was just made up in a second to spice up his tale. It didn't help that he contradicted himself four times in as many seconds. The blade was forged by dwarves, but also by goblins, but also by blind men. It was tempered in a magic spring or in the blood of it's enemies, or whatever he could think of at the moment. In reality it was probably just some showpiece that he had found.

Several minutes later saw the blade placed back into the box and put away inside Seamus' trunk. All of the boys in the room were sound asleep, if sound asleep meant that the twin snores that would give a chainsaw a headache filled the room, it was as if Ron and Seamus were competing against each other for the loudest noises they could make asleep. If it was not for years of practice, none of the others would have been able to sleep.

However, one occupant in the room was not sleeping well and that occupant was Harry Potter. He was laying in bed, tossing and turning every other second and alternated between shivering and breaking out in a sweat. The nightmare, because dream was nowhere close to what he was having, tormented the teen for hours through the night.

Harry's eyes snapped open as he shot through the air and off of his bed. His sleep addled mind could not make sense about what had happened as he swung his wand around, looking for someone that was out to get him.

"You alright, mate?" Ron looked at him through sleep ladened eyes.

Harry took a deep breath to calm his racing heart and nodded, "Just a dream I guess,"

"About what?"

"I don't know," Harry said in surprise, just a moment ago he knew that something had happened in his dream, but now he could not even recall what it could have been to cause him to leap from his bed.

"If it was about spiders, kill a few for me, aye?" He mumbled sleepily as he rolled over and threw his blanket over his head. The chainsaw revved up moments later.

Harry remained sitting on the floor. While he could not remember the dream, he knew that it was not one of the usual ones he had. It did not feature Voldemort and Wormtail in any way, that much was for certain. Those dreams were much too clear to forget like this. However, for some reason, he felt like he was missing something.

As he sat there, he made a sound of disgust at how absolutely drenched in sweat he was, as if he had just finished a grueling Quidditch match and then fought a cerberus in celebration. The next moment he found that he felt as if he had done just that. All of his muscles ached and moving around was no walk in the park. It was not the first time that he had woken up like this before, but it was the first time that he could not remember the reason behind it.

He peeled the sticky sweat stained shirt off his skin in disgust and quickly rushed to get to the showers. He was relieved to find that he was the first one there and could take a moment to ease under the showerhead without having to fight the other more rambunctious members of Gryffindor for a spot. As much as he liked the others, he was not quite as willing to fight over every little thing like they were. Physical contact still made him uncomfortable after so many years of living with the Dursleys. Physical contact in the form of pushing and shoving were much more uncomfortable.

The magically hot water flowed over his muscles soothing them and washing away his aches and pains. When he finally opened his eyes and looked down, he noticed a red tint to the water that was washing away. He twisted and turned, looking for the wound until he felt a slight sting on his legs. The pain had been so minute that he had not been able to feel it until he had recognized that it was there.

The wound was not too bad, but Harry had no idea how he had gotten it. The long scratch was ragged as if he had scraped it against a stone rather than cut it in his sleep and for the life of him, he could not figure out what caused it. He sent a quick healing charm at it and sighed in relief as the small pain left.

He quickly forgot about the wound, he rationalized that he had probably gotten it at the quidditch world cup and had forgotten to heal it and it just reopened while he slept. It wasn't the first time something like that had happened.

Finally finished with his shower, he cast a quick tempus charm and found that it was still a couple hours before he normally got up. He could not go back to sleep though. He was wide awake now and nothing was going to change that.

Deciding to get ahead with his studies for once and not flail around in desperation for the rest of the year, he cracked open his defense book. Besides, Moody looked like the kind of man that expected everyone to have already finished their books and was able to perfectly cast what was in it by their first class. Hermione would love it.

It was also defense, so that was another plus for him to read the book. Without Ron bugging him to play quidditch or chess with him or Hermione pressuring him to study, he found that he could lose himself in his books. It reminded him of back when he used to frequent the library in Little Whinging, mostly he went when Dudley was tried to play some "Harry Hunting" with his friends.

He had spent a lot of time in the library.

Back then he used to love reading and escaping into books where he would not be tormented by his relatives or other school children. He did not know when he had stopped loving books though. Between all the magic, school, and life threatening situations, he just stopped reading in his spare time.

The defense book was interesting for a change. It was rather dry compared to some of the other course books, but the sheer amount of information covered in the book captured his attention. Unlike the other books he had read, this one was about more than just spell casting and mentioned non magical ways of fighting off the dark.

Harry was sure that he would have hated it if he had been with Ron when he first opened the book though. That boy had the ability to whine about anything that was not quidditch, chess, or food. However, his eyes were opened that he knew very little about combat when he had seen all those death eaters at the world cup. The only spells that came to mind were harmless spells that could not do anything, but momentarily stall any competent wizard.

He could have used the fact that he was only in Hogwarts for three years as an excuse for his lack of knowledge, but he knew that it was just that, an excuse for his shortcomings. He had survived most of his yearly adventures on luck alone and it was time to change that. Knowing his track record, he was due for something to try and kill him soon anyways and he'd like to get a head up on this one before it was too late.

He was a fourth of the way through the defense book when he was shaken out of his reading trance.

Around him was a frowning Ron and a smiling Hermione. He looked around in confusion and found that the common room was bustling with people. A quick time charm and he found that he had been reading for almost two and a half hours and had not noticed it.

"What are you doing, mate?" Ron said "Class has not even started and you are already reading your books. Are you turning into another Hermione?"

Ron yipped in pain as Hermione hit his shoulder. "I am right here, Ronald!" She huffed, "I, for one, think that it is marvelous that Harry is starting on his school work early,"

Harry snapped his book shut and got in between to two of them before they could begin another row. It was too early to listen to the two of them fight like an old married couple.

"I just woke up early and decided to read a bit," Harry shrugged as he guided them out of the common room.

Hermione looked worried, "Was it another nightmare?" She asked quickly.

"No," replied Harry, "I actually don't know what I dreamed about."

"Are you alright? Does your scar hurt?" She asked quickly, "Do you need to see Madam Pomfrey?"

"No!" Harry replied loudly, before he realized what he had done and calmed himself."No Madam Pomfrey. I am fine. It was probably just a bad dream or something."

The bookworm breathed a sigh of relief while Ron rolled his eyes.

The three of them fell into an easy conversation on their way down the hall. Ron was completely fixated on the Triwizard Tournament and discussing how he would try to break the age line to try and get to the goblet of fire. Hermione scolded him and told him in great detail how it was a bad idea and how he would never be able to break through Dumbledore's wards. Harry allowed the words to wash over him as they made a beeline to their table.

He regretted not getting enough sleep now that he was at the table. When he was tired, he got snappish and his already short temper shortened even further. He had to hold himself back from yelling at an annoying first year who was enamored with his fame. He knew that it was not their fault that they were in awe of him, but his lack of sleep had him at the edge of his patience with the hero worshiping eleven year olds.

"Today's not bad... outside all morning," said Ron, who was running his finger down the Monday column of his schedule. "Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures... damn it, we're still with the Slytherins,"

"Language, Ron," Hermione replied so fast that it must have been instinctual at this point. Harry snickered at the scowl on Ron's face.

"Double Divination this afternoon," Harry groaned, looking down. His day had just gotten ten times worse.

Divination was his least favorite subject, apart from Potions. Professor Trelawney kept predicting his death; which, like anyone else, he found extremely annoying. There is only so many times someone could die before it becomes ludicrous. The rest of the house had a bingo game going about how he would die with a new one each month. From what he heard, the Weasley twins even had a reward for the winners.

"You should have given it up like me, shouldn't you?" said Hermione briskly, buttering herself some toast. "Then you'd be doing something sensible like Arithmancy."

Ron made several faces as she said that, but Harry could not help, but agree with her. He had gotten nothing from Divinations and would have rather spent his time in arithmancy, but it was too late for him to transfer.

The rest of the day proceeded like any other, as if summer break was just a weekend instead of a couple months. Sprout had them working in the dirt already and Hagrid had a new animal for them all to take care of. Though the blast-ended skrewts were new and for once, he agreed with Malfoy that they should all be eradicated before they hurt someone too much.

Nothing interesting happened for the rest of the day until Malfoy came skipping up to Ron with a paper in hand and insult on his lips. The sneer on his face was colored with malicious glee that was mirrored by the cruel smiles on the boys large friends.

"Weasley! Hey, Weasley!" The peroxide blonde called from across the hall, putting on a show to get everyone's attention.

"What?" said Ron shortly.

"Your dad's in the paper!" said Malfoy, brandishing a copy of the Daily Prophet and speaking very loudly, so that everyone in the packed entrance hall could hear clearly.

"Listen to this!" He called before snapping the paper open in a flourish. "'Further Mistakes at the Ministry of Magic.

"'It seems as though the Ministry of Magic's troubles are not yet at an end, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Recently under fire for its poor crowd control at the Quidditch World Cup, and still unable to account for the disappearance of one of its witches, the Ministry was plunged into fresh embarrassment yesterday by the antics of Arnold Weasley, of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office.'"

Malfoy looked up with a grin on his face. "Imagine them not even getting his name right, Weasley. It's almost as though he's a complete nonentity, isn't it?" he crowed. His two brutes both let out twin belly laughs. Everyone in the entrance hall was listening now. Malfoy straightened the paper and read on:

"'Arnold Weasley, who was charged with possession of a flying car two years ago, was yesterday involved in a tussle with several Muggle law-keepers over a number of highly aggressive dustbins. Mr. Weasley appears to have rushed to the aid of "Mad-Eye" Moody, the aged ex-Auror who retired from the Ministry when no longer able to tell the difference between a handshake and attempted murder. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Weasley found, upon arrival at Mr. Moody's heavily guarded house, that Mr. Moody had once again raised a false alarm. Mr. Weasley was forced to modify several memories before he could escape from the policemen, but refused to answer Daily Prophet questions about why he had involved the Ministry in such an undignified and potentially embarrassing scene.'

"And there's even a picture, Weasley!" said Malfoy, flipping the paper over and holding it up. "A picture of your parents outside their house - if you can call it a house! Your mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn't she?"

Ron was shaking and so was Harry. The lack of sleep had frayed his temper and to hear the woman that had all, but adopted him spoken about in such manner infuriated him. "Shut your mouth, Malfoy," Harry said as he motioned for Hermione to drag Ron away, both of them knew he did not have enough discipline to not rise to Malfoy's bait.

While she was doing that, Malfoy had focused on Harry's eyes.

"Oh yeah, you were staying with them this summer, weren't you, Potter?" sneered Malfoy. "So tell me, is his mother really that porky, or is it just the picture?"

A slight grunt showed that Hermione could not hold Ron back completely and a blur of red crossed Harry's peripherals. His hand shot out and caught a hold of Ron's trailing collar. With strength he did not know he possessed, he was able to stop Ron dead in his tracks before pulling him back and away from Malfoy. He put too much energy into it though and Ron almost fell as he stumbled back.

"That is enough, Malfoy," Harry said, turning to him. "It is not like you are one to talk with your mother. Let me ask you, is that pinched look because she bit into a lemon or because she is around you and your father all the time?"

Malfoy's pale face went slightly pink."Don't you dare insult my mother, Potter."

"Then shut up about others, huh?" said Harry, he turned away, but an odd buzz was felt on the back of his head. Along with the buzz came a feeling. Harry decided to follow through with whatever he felt and ducked left.

A bang sounded and white hot pain lanced through his face as the cutting curse gouged a line from below his eye to just before his nose. Rather than go for his wand, he let the instincts that he thought he had forgotten years ago, take control and spun on the balls of his feet, using his momentum to swing around quickly.

Harry leapt across the distance separating them and swung a fist at Malfoy's surprised face, the blonde's eyes widening his surprise, and the next moment he hit the ground with a cry of pain. His wand flew into the crowd as he grabbed his nose.

Before he covered it, Harry noted with savage glee that the boy's nose was smashed and most likely broken. The boy did not get up to continue the fight he started, instead Malfoy curled into a ball as he tried to hide his hot tears from everyone around him.

Harry felt a sharp throbbing pain from his hand and found that he had broken one of his knuckles. He hissed in pain as he straightened out his finger. It was nothing that a quick episkey could not fix though and while he was at it, he healed his cheek.

"Harry!" He was pulled out of motions of healing himself by his frantic friend who had been trying to get his attention. Hermione looked indignant that Harry had fought while Ron was behind her looking at Harry with a mix of awe and worry. The latter outweighing the former. "Are you okay? He did not get your eye, did he?"

"It's already gone, Hermione," Harry said, tapping the light scar under his eye that was already fading.

She breathed a sigh of relief before drawing herself up and he knew that he was about to get the ranting of a lifetime. He really regretted not getting enough sleep. If he had, then he could have reigned in his temper like he normally did.

The hall suddenly went silent as an asymmetric step came from the other side of the room. The clop of a wooden leg steadily came closer as people stepped aside. It was not long until Mad-eye Moody was standing before them, looking back and forth to try and determine what happened.

"What happened here?" Moody eventually said, getting a feel of the situation. His magical eye swinging around nonstop since he had arrived.

"Potter attacked Malfoy," Crabbe answered slowly.

Moody looked around the room for answers and found that all of them were nodding their heads at what the large teen was saying.

"That slimy git tried to kill Harry when he was walking away!" Ron shouted, pointing at a deep scratch in the wall that was so clean it must have come from magic. "If Harry had not moved, then that curse would have taken off his head!"

"Did he get you?" Moody's deep and gravelly voice asked.

"No," Harry said, "He mostly missed,"

"So why did you punch him? You have a good wand right there in your pocket," asked the scarred man.

"It was faster," Harry muttered. "I don't have a holster...yet."

"Good," Moody said, causing everyone's eyes to snap to him in surprise. "Always use every tool at your disposal! You never know what you will have when an enemy strikes! CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" He barked, startling everyone. "Get back here!"

Harry looked around, bewildered at the sudden order, "What?"

"Not you," Moody said and spun with his wand in hand. A sweep and jab had Malfoy's retreating body shift into a ferret. "Him."

Moody started to limp toward Crabbe, Goyle, and the ferret, which gave a terrified squeak and took off, streaking toward the dungeons.

"I don't think so!" Moody yelled, pointing his wand at the ferret again and it flew ten feet into the air, fell with a smack to the floor, and then bounced upward once more.

"I don't like people who attack when their opponent's back's turned," Moody growled as the ferret bounced higher and higher, squealing in pain. "Stinking... cowardly... scummy thing to do..."

The ferret flew through the air, its legs and tail flailing helplessly.

"Never... do... that... again..." said Moody, speaking each word as the ferret hit the stone floor and bounced upward again. "It is something only a no-good death eater would do!"

"Professor Moody!" said a shocked voice.

Professor McGonagall was coming down the marble staircase with her arms full of books.

"Hello, Professor McGonagall," Moody responded calmly while bouncing the ferret higher still until dropping it straight to the floor.

"What... what are you doing?" said Professor McGonagall, her eyes following the bouncing ferret's progress through the air.

"Teaching," said Moody. Harry noted the sneer that adorned the strange professors face.

"Teaching? Moody, is that a student?" shrieked Professor McGonagall, the books spilling out of her arms onto an unfortunate student's foot.

"Yep," said Moody happily.

"No!" cried Professor McGonagall, running down the stairs and pulling out her wand; a moment later, with a loud snapping noise, Draco Malfoy had reappeared, lying in a heap on the floor with his sleek blond hair all over his now bright pink face. The blood leaking from his nose coated his jaw.

"Moody, we never use Transfiguration as a punishment!" said Professor McGonagall angrily, a slight brogue tinting her voice. "Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that?"

"He might've mentioned it, yeah," said Moody, scratching his chin unconcernedly, "but I thought a good sharp shock-"

"We give detentions, Moody! Or speak to the offender's Head of House!" McGonagall screeched at the man, "We do not injure students!"

"I'll do that, then," said Moody, staring at Malfoy with great dislike.

Malfoy, whose pale eyes were still watering with pain and humiliation, looked malevolently up at Moody and muttered something in which the words "my father" were distinguishable. He wiped his nose of the blood pouring out of it, doing little more than smearing it across his cheeks and clothing.

"Oh yeah?" said Moody quietly, limping forward a few steps, the dull clunk of his wooden leg echoing around the hall. "Well, I knew your father, boy. You tell him Moody's keeping a close eye on his son, you tell him that from me. Now, your Head of House is Snape, is it?"

"Yes," said Malfoy resentfully.

"Another old friend," growled Moody. "I've been looking forward to a chat with old Snape. Come on, you."

He seized Malfoy's upper arm and marched him off toward the dungeons.

Professor McGonagall stared anxiously after them for a few moments, then waved her wand at her fallen books, causing them to soar up into the air and back into her arms. She briskly walked off in the same direction she came from.

"Don't talk to me," Ron said quietly to Harry and Hermione as they sat down at the Gryffindor table a few minutes later, surrounded by excited talk on all sides about what had just happened.

"Why not?" said Hermione in surprise.

"Because I want to fix that in my memory forever," said Ron, his eyes closed and an uplifted expression on his face. It looked like he had briefly experienced nirvana. "Draco Malfoy, the amazing bloody bouncing ferret," he whispered to himself.

Harry and Hermione both laughed, but Hermione had at least tried to hide it.

"He could have really hurt Malfoy, though," she said, but Harry could tell that it was mostly because she felt obligated to. "It was good, really, that Professor McGonagall stopped it-"

"Hermione!" said Ron furiously, his eyes snapping open again, "You're ruining the best moment of my life!"

Hermione made an impatient noise while Harry smiled with his friend. She began shoveling food into her mouth as fast as she could.

"Are you going to the library again?" Ron asked as if he dreaded the answer.

She nodded her head, "I have loads to do," She said as she stood up, "I'll see you guys later,"

"Wait," Harry called out as he took one last bite of his food, "I'm coming with you,"

Ron looked like he had just been struck. "What are you doing mate?"

"I want to finish up the defense textbook and look some stuff up," Ron grumbled in reply. Harry looked up and noticed that Hermione had a happy glint in her eye that stayed there the entire way out of the hall.

"Why are you coming with me?" Hermione asked, "I know that it is not just because you want to read your textbook,"

Harry was silent for a moment. "I realized something earlier," Harry said slowly, "I have no idea how I am still alive."

Hermione opened her mouth to argue, but Harry cut her off. "Hermione," he said, "You know better than anyone what kind of dangers that we have gotten into over the years and here I am, barely scraping by in half of my classes. I need to get better so that the next time someone tries to kill me, they won't succeed,"

"How do you know that someone would try something?"

"Because every single year that I have been here, I have almost died several times and gotten out by being lucky," Harry said, "Fluffy, the troll, Quirrell, the basilisk, Voldemort, Werewolf, dementors, others. Hell, Malfoy nearly killed me like twenty minutes ago. I don't want to rely on luck forever though, so I am going to read through my defense book and find a couple other books that I could check out."

Hermione was quiet as they walked down the halls. "I'll help you," She eventually responded, surprising him.

"What? I thought that you had your own classes to deal with,"
"I finished reading all my textbooks before I got on the train," She admitted, "I was going to research house elves, but this is more important than that at the moment."

Harry smiled happily at his friend as they made their way to the library where no one, not even Ravenclaws, were studying.

His bed was too soft and inviting, Harry determined as he fell into it. He and Hermione had scoured the library for almost all the combat related books and had quickly amassed a list that contained so many books that it rivaled even Hermione's own list of studying guides. He refused to give up and had decided that he would read each and every single one of them and master everything that he could. They only stopped when they were kicked out of the library by a disgruntled Madam Pince. Maybe staying late on the first day of school when the librarian normally got to relax was a bit much.

Harry closed his eyes, only to open them what seemed to be a couple seconds later, shooting out of his bed with his wand swinging back and forth, looking for enemies. The tip of his wand glowed red and flickered as his flame making charm threatened to be expelled.

He had no idea why he felt like he was in so much danger, but for a moment it felt like he was wandering through the forbidden forest without a wand.

This time he did not have Ron wake up and ask him what was going on. Everyone else was safely tucked in their bed with no worry.

Harry stumbled backwards onto his bed and immediately seized up as his back exploded in pain. He forced down a scream as he rolled over and got up. He stumbled to the bathroom and threw off his shirt, careful to not irritate his back anymore than it seemed to already be.

In the dim light of the bathroom, he could see that there was a long scratch straight down his back, as if he had been attacked with a cutting curse or a large animal just several moments ago.

Then images flashed through his head. He saw a city with streets filled to the brim with coffins, blood staining everything like a crimson paint. He saw brief clips of tall mutated men that looked like they were trapped between transforming into a werewolf and remaining human. The sight of the scar on his back that was tinting the floor red had him think of one of those men chasing him and slashing at him with a rusty sabre before he escaped him. Beyond those few images, he could not remember anything else about what had happened. Harry sat down on one of the benches in the shower and removed the rest of his clothing, looking for any other injuries. He found that the bottom of his feet were red and raw from running so much, but as he had yesterday, he was able to cast several healing charms and fix all his wounds.

He tried to think of how this could have happened, but he had no idea. He briefly entertained the thought of going to Hermione with his problems, but then dismissed the idea. Hermione would likely drive herself to ruin trying to figure out what had happened to him and he refused to do that to her.

His new injuries did bring new light to his leg from the other day. It was possible that something of a similar nature happened before, but this time he could remember some of it, even if it was just a couple snapshots and feelings of terror and desperation.

A closer examination of his body revealed that he had gained a small bit more muscle than he had before or he had lost what little fat he had gotten with the Weasley's. That brought up a dozen new questions, none with answers though. He washed the blood off of himself and changed into a new pair of clothing, throwing the bloody ones in the laundry.

Harry did not even have to look at the time to find that he had woken up earlier than before.

He grabbed a couple books from his trunk and went down to the common room and began reading again. He quickly immersed himself in his book so that he would not have to deal with not being able to tell what was wrong with him. He finished off his defense book and immediately opened another one, not letting his mind wander for even a moment.

When everyone had slowly trickled their way down the steps, Harry closed his books and went with his best friends to breakfast, making sure to keep his book on hand so that whenever he had downtime, he could read it and, hopefully, ignore the questions nagging at him.

The entire day proceeded without incident, the only issue arising was when he had potions, but he had other things on his mind that were more important than Snape at the moment. Harry went to bed late that night, dreading what he would find in his nightmarish dreams and what would happen to him when he woke.

Harry woke up again, this time he was not able to jump out of bed. His leg felt like he had been stabbed and when he pulled up his pant leg and found that he had a deep puncture wound on the back of his calf. Any higher and he would have been hamstrung and would have had to go see Pomfrey which would bring about more questions that he did not have answers to. As Harry healed himself, he remembered the nightmare. This time he could see several different streets of the city and everything was crystal clear. He still had no idea where he was dreaming of. What he did know was that the dream had taken place over two or more days if his memory served him right. In any case, it felt like he had been running for two or more days and he really needed to fix his leg.

As Harry cleaned his clothing and wrapped a bandage around the rapidly healing wound, he got up to shower as was becoming routine recently. He would heal his wounds, wait for them to finish before cleaning the sweat and blood off of his body.

Gazing at the bandages, he wished that he could go talk to someone about it, but he knew in the pit of his stomach that it would not accomplish anything. The best that he could do was research it on his own and hopefully stumble across mention of what may cause his dreams to come true. Harry wrote a note as he grabbed a book from his trunk and stuck it to Ron's bed so that he would not be worried when he found Harry missing in the morning.
He read through more of his defense book and practiced some of the spells against the blank wall in the back of the common room. When curfew was lifted, Harry sprinted down to the library and immediately looked for several books on dream magic and curses. He spent the next several hours engrossed in his books, but in the end, none of them had the answers he was searching for. The dream magic was a dead end because most of it had to do with divination and interpreting dreams into predictions for the future. The curses were more informative. He found several that may apply to his situation, but there was always something missing from them that was enough for him to dismiss them.

The torment curse was the closest and would explain his dreams, but they would not explain the injuries he received while the mind-body curse would explain the injuries without the dreams. He supposed that he could have been placed under both, but that would make no sense since he had not been in contact with anything that would give him the curse. The closest thing that he could think of was the sword that Seamus brought in, but he had held it. There was no magic in the blade that he could feel and he was not the only one that had messed with it. These curses were very general and if he had touched the blade and gotten it then everyone would have been cursed as well.

He decided to give it a week or two before he brought it to Dumbledore's attention. If the dreams did not stop by then, he would ask him to help him.

Harry casted the time charm and his eyes widened. If he did not get moving, he would be late for Moody's class, a class that he did not want to miss.

Harry made it to the classroom was barely any time to spare. He took a seat next to Hermione, just as Moody stepped in the classroom. The frizzy haired girl looked over and saw the bags under his eyes and would have commented on it, if not for Moody stomping down the aisle with his wooden peg leg.

"You can put those away," he growled, stomping over to his desk and sitting down, "those books. You won't need them."

They returned the books to their bags, Ron looked particularly excited about not having to read. Harry just felt tired. He had not gotten more than seven hours of sleep over the last three days and it was catching up with him.

Moody took out a register, shook his long mane of grizzled gray hair out of his twisted and scarred face, and began to call out names, his normal eye moving steadily down the list while his magical eye swiveled around, fixing upon each student as he or she answered.

"Right then," he said, when the last person had declared themselves present, "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling Dark creatures. You've covered boggarts, Red Caps, hinkypunks, grindylows, Kappas, and werewolves, is that right?"

There was a general murmur of assent.

"But you're behind, very behind, on dealing with curses," said Moody with a frown. It was a horrifying thing when coupled with all his scars. "So I'm here to bring you up to scratch on what wizards can do to each other. I've got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark-"

"What, aren't you staying?" Ron blurted out.

Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at Ron, who looked extremely apprehensive, but after a moment Moody smiled. The first time Harry and most people in the room had seen him do so. The effect was to make his heavily scarred face look more twisted and contorted than ever, but it was nevertheless good to know that he was capable of something as friendly as smile. Ron looked deeply relieved that he was not the target of the man ire.

"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody said. "Your father helped me out a few days ago with a small mishap. Aye, I'm just staying the one year. A special favor to Dumbledore... One year teaching you lot, and then back to my quiet retirement. Teaching wasn't really what I saw myself doing after the war."

He gave a harsh laugh, and then clapped his gnarled hands together. The class jumped suddenly as his mouth twisted into a parody of a smile once more.

"So straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you counter curses and leave it at that.

"I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year. You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then. But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves, he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you isn't going to tell you what he's about to do. He's not going to do it nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful." Moody said as he paced around the room. "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" He startled several of the students that had not been paying attention. Several girls even yelped in fright as their heads shot up to stare at the strange professor.

"This lesson would have been later in the year, but bah. To hell with that, the sooner you know what you are up against, the better I say." Moody groused as he limped to the front of the class and collapsed into his chair. "Do any of you know the most punishable curses by the wizarding law?"

Several people's hands raised slowly in the air, including Ron's for once.

"Yes, Mr. Weasley," Moody pointed at Ron. Though his magical eye was still sweeping the class.

"Er," said Ron tentatively, "My dad told me about one... Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"

"Ah, yes," said Moody appreciatively. "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse. Gave everyone a lot of trouble."

Moody got up from his chair heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. Harry saw Ron recoil slightly with a squeak of fear. Everyone else watched in fascination as Moody grabbed one and put it in his hand.

He showed it to everyone and Harry could swear that Ron was one step away from passing out. "Imperio," The professor incanted and jabbed his wand at the spider. Even without a flash of light or anything signifying that the spell was activated, everyone knew that it had. The spider had ceased its struggles and had stood docilely in Moody's hand.

Suddenly, the spider leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a backflip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.

Harry felt sick as he watched the spider go through the routine and start waltzing on the desk. Harry could not imagine what it would be like to be completely under the control of another being. Everyone else besides Hermione, Ron, and Moody giggled at the silly sight that the spider made. Hermione seemed to share his sentiments while Ron was just terrified of the large spiders.

"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?" The laughter instantly silenced.

"Total control," said Moody solemnly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats... Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse. We had to determine if those who committed crimes were actually at fault or just acting. Trying to sort the monsters from the innocents... an almost impossible job.

"The Imperius Curse can be fought though, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked, and everyone jumped. "And don't you forget that, it can save your life one day,"

"Anyone else? Another illegal curse?"

Many of the hands that had raised eagerly in the first place had dropped. Only Hermione's, Harry's and surprisingly; Neville's were raised.

Mad-eye's mad eye directed itself to Neville and he pointed to the boy.

"Yes?" Moody prompted.

"There's one..." Neville hesitantly said as if surprised that he was answering, "The cruciatus curse,"

Moody was looking very intently at Neville, "Your name's Longbottom?" he said, his magical eye swooping down to check the register again.

Neville nodded nervously, but Moody did not follow up the question, apparently satisfied with the answer. Turning back to the class at large, he reached into the jar for the next spider and placed it upon the desktop, where it remained motionless, apparently too scared to move.

"The Cruciatus Curse," said Moody, pointing his wand at the spider. "It needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea."

The spider grew to ten times its size and Ron apparently had enough and had pushed himself as far away from the spider as he could. His face had paled to a chalk white and Harry was surprised that he had not passed out.

"Crucio," Moody snarled, the amount of anger in his voice shook the classroom. However what followed disturbed them even more.

With a flash of bright red, the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but Harry was sure that if it could have given voice, it would have been screaming.

As he watched, several memories poured into his head. The image of a man writhing on the ground as his body cracked and broke as he became a wolf filled his mind. He could hear the cracking of bones and screams of pain as his body tortured him. Harry dropped his head into his hands to try and block the unwanted intrusions. However his memories expanded from the one man being torn apart and put together as a monster to watching crows the size of wolves pick apart half insane men and women as werewolves howled while they caught their prey. It was like the memories were sitting behind a dam, trying to break through and some of them got past with the help of witnessing the crucio.

Harry heard Hermione scream something at the teacher. He did not understand what she had said, but it was enough to snap him out of his unwanted memories. The black haired student looked up in time to see Moody start talking.

"Pain," said Moody softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse... That one was very popular once too." He finished quietly as he reflected on his past.

"Right... anyone know any others?"

Harry did not have the energy to raise his head and look around the room. "Yes?" said Moody, looking to his side at Hermione..

"Avada Kedavra," Hermione whispered. Several people looked uneasily around at her, including Ron.

"Ah," said Moody, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "Yes, the last and worst. Avada Kedavra... the Killing Curse."

'Not the worst,' Harry wanted to say as he watched Moody grab the other spiders. The imperious curse was so much worse. To lose control of one's body and forced to do even the most despicable acts was so much more terrifying than death ever was. The fact that you could be used against your will to commit atrocities with just a single word scared him more than the endless oblivion could.

Moody put his hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody's fingers, but he trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop. It started to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.

"Avada Kedavra!" Moody roared. His voice much deeper and wrathful than any of the spells before, his lips twisted into a snarl of fury. Harry couldn't tell which was worse, his smile or this.

A bright flash of emerald green filled the room for a moment. That was it. There was no great sound or feeling. All that showed that one of the most evil spells in history had just been cast was the spider curled around itself on the desk before lying still.

The defense professor swept the spider onto the floor and began talking to the stunned class. "Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of me."

Moody turned to face Harry along with everyone else in the class. Harry stared ahead, not paying attention to any of it. They noticed a slight tremble in his shoulders and just attributed it to witnessing the curse like everyone else. They could not possibly know the thoughts that were dancing around in his head.

He had just witnessed how his parents had died. He had to wonder if it was as quick and clean as it was for the spider. He wondered if they had died that quickly with only a green light to herald their end or if they had fought and just got caught by a different spell. He did not even know how his father died and the only thing he knew was that his mother was a victim of the same curse that he had just watched.

Moody was speaking again, from a great distance, it seemed to Harry. With a massive effort, he pulled himself back to the present and listened to what Moody was saying.

"Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it along with meaning. You could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed. But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to teach you how to do it. Now, if there's no countercurse, why am I showing you? Because you've got to know... You've got to appreciate what the worst is to understand just what you may have to fight. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're facing it. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he roared, and the whole class jumped again.

"Now... those three curses - Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus - are known as the Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban. That's what you're up against. That's what I've got to teach you to fight. You need preparing. You need arming. But most of all, you need to practice constant, never-ceasing vigilance." Everyone braced for him to shout again, but he sat heavily in his chair. "Get out your quills and copy this down."

They spent the rest of the lesson taking notes on each of the Unforgivable Curses. Harry had trouble trying to concentrate on the lesson after what he had seen in his dreams. His notes were incoherent even to him and no matter how much he tried to pay attention he could not keep track of what was being said. No one spoke until the bell rang, but when Moody had dismissed them and they had left the classroom, a torrent of talk burst forth. Most people were discussing the curses in awed voices.

"Hurry up," Hermione said tensely to Harry and Ron. Harry followed behind the girl out of the classroom, massaging his head and trying to push the images that had been circling his mind out of the way. There had been a slight pause as he witnessed the killing curse, but they had come back with a vengeance minutes later.

He could still hear the sound of bones breaking and skin tearing as if he was there watching it happen instead of standing in Hogwart's halls. The sounds filled his ears until it was all that he could hear and the sight of the blood flying blocked out everything else. He could smell the cloying scent of the dead that littered the street and feel the warmth in the air that signaled the changing seasons. It reminded him of the hot breath of the beasts that roamed the hellish nightmare that he could not escape.

He followed behind Hermione listlessly, too lost to notice that they were heading towards Neville. He ran into the back of Ron when the redhead stopped in front of him. The touch was enough to bring him back to reality for the most part.

"Neville?" Hermione said gently. Her voice felt so far away. It was like he was at the other side of an abnormally long tunnel.

"Oh hello," An abnormally high voice responded which took Harry a moment to place as Neville's. "Interesting lesson, wasn't it? I wonder what's for dinner, I'm - I'm starving, aren't you?"

"Neville, are you alright?" said Hermione.

"Oh yes, I'm fine," Neville gabbled in the same unnaturally high voice. "Very interesting dinner - I mean lesson - what's for eating?"

Harry swayed into Ron for a moment before steadying himself against the wall. Ron looked to him in surprise, noticing his state for the first time.

"Oi, Harry...?"

But an odd clunking noise sounded behind them, and they turned to see Professor Moody limping toward them. When he spoke, it was in a much lower and gentler growl than they had yet heard.

"It's all right, sonny," he said to Neville. "Why don't you come up to my office? Come on. We can have a cup of tea."

Neville looked even more frightened at the prospect of tea with Moody. He neither moved nor spoke. Moody turned his magical eye upon Harry.

"You alright, are you, Potter?"

Harry remained silent, he looked at Moody for the first time since he arrived. The screams had yet to recede and he couldn't focus on the man in front of him.

"Perhaps you should go lay down, Potter," Moody said, the voice cutting across the sounds he was imagining. His remaining eye locked onto Harry's own or more specifically, the bags that were under them.

Harry recoiled away from the man, "No!" He harshly replied to the man before he caught himself and cleared his throat. "No, professor. I'm fine,"

"Harry..." Hermione asked, putting her hand on his arm. Harry flinched away and stepped back.

"I'll be... somewhere if you need me," Harry muttered and made his way away from the group. He did not know what he was going to do, but what he did know was that he was not going to sleep anytime soon.

It did not take long for Harry to find a random abandoned room. Much of Hogwarts was abandoned since the school took up, at most, a fourth of the castle.

Harry used the spare time that he had now that he refused to sleep to research curses in what books he had and reading through his defense book. However, he could not stop the memories that had resurfaced from lingering in the back of his mind. He could only force himself not to pay attention to them.

As he read his head kept dipping down as his blinks slowly began to encompass seconds rather than instants. However every time Harry caught himself drifting off, he would jerk himself awake and pinch his arm sharply. The brief burst of pain woke him up. Unfortunately, the amount that it woke him up was slowly, but surely becoming smaller as the hours toiled along. He desperately dived into his books to find cures for curses. The problem was that, unlike curses cast with wands, curses enchanted to objects were notoriously difficult to remove and one needed to know exactly what the curse was because it was dangerous to mix and match counter curses. Harry had already tried the standard finite, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that it did nothing to help him.

Harry checked the time and paled, he had completely missed curfew. It was almost two in the morning and he did not have his invisibility cloak with him. Harry decided to risk making his way back to the common room, than risk falling to sleep in a random room. If he fell asleep and dreamed, then there would be no way for him to get back to patch himself up.

Harry wished that he had one of the many different devices that he kept with him for his late night adventures. The cloak would be invaluable while the marauder's map would have been almost perfect. All he could do at the moment was stalk his way through the halls and try to be quiet.

As he was walking through the third floor corridors, he heard a soft footfall behind him and ducked into a dark alcove. He waited with baited breath for over a minute before a prefect had walked past his hiding place.

Harry did not pause to reflect as he walked quietly a couple meters behind the prefect to reach his next turn. He did not notice how his footfall had become near silent and he knew exactly where to place his feet so that he was as fast as possible while still maintaining a low profile. A flash of having to follow behind a wolf man briefly illuminated his mind and almost caused him to falter, but he had reached his turn and ran down it on silent feet.

The rest of the way to his dorm room was very much the same. When he heard someone coming, he would duck into a room or other hiding spot before quietly leaving and finding a new path.

Harry had reached the common room without an issue and found that he was the only one still up. He went up to his dorm and put away his books. He took a moment to sit down on his bed and realized his mistake a moment later as his eyes closed and he fell back on the bed.

(A/N:

Hello all, I have one thing to say and that is that I am terribly sorry about such a horrendously long hiatus between my posts. I want to say that I have a good reason for it, but I'll be completely honest, I don't. Back when I first wrote Nothing Left, I was pushing myself constantly to write and suddenly it was like all the fun was just taken out of it and all the constant feedback was nice, but I was a mess when I was writing it. I burnt out plain and simple and honestly, the thought of posting the chapters just made me anxious so I stopped altogether.

I wrote this story more than 4 years ago and it has just been sitting on my google drive since, I go back to it and edit it every now and again, but for the most part. It is mostly done with just some stuff that I need to touch up, but I just want to get it out there now. I can keep editing it forever and I have to just stop eventually and put it out there.

As to why I have been gone... life just happened, I graduated high school, went to college for a bit, found a job, found a girlfriend, got an apartment, got healthy, got unhealthy, got healthy again. You know just life happened. Time just slipped by and like that, it is 2019 and I haven't posted in years. I never really stopped writing, but I just stopped posting.

Special thanks to VaatiVidya's videos explaining the lore for this story, without him this would never have even happened. It had helped me greatly in puzzling together the story. )