A Few Unpleasant Facts

"Headmaster, I would like to speak with you regarding Mr. Potter." McGonagall told him once the other Heads of House had left the Headmaster's office after their weekly Friday meeting.

"What else has he done, Minerva?" Dumbledore was beginning to regret forcing young Harry to go back to Hogwarts, but he wasn't going to give up on or abandon the boy, not this time. Aside from the fact that the wizarding world still needed Harry Potter, he had no intention of making the same mistake he'd made last year, the one that had led to Harry's incarceration in Azkaban.

"He hasn't done anything else Albus. It's what he might do next that has me concerned, given his actions toward Miss Granger. Not to mention the oath he made her swear that is going to force her to stay away from him or risk losing her magic. I know it was your intention to try and get him to forgive his friends and now that door has been slammed in Miss Granger's face forever." McGonagall told him.

"Not quite, Minerva." Dumbledore told her. "The oath doesn't block Mr. Potter from talking to her and if he does, then it will not cause the loss of Miss Granger's magic. It is possible that we may be able to convince him to release her from the oath he had her swear."

"That will never happen." McGonagall snorted. "It has been almost two months, Headmaster, and I see no signs of his anger diminishing. At best he ignores his fellow students and at his worst he is so contemptuous of them that they want very little to do with him. I don't think your plan is going to work Albus. If it were we should be seeing signs of it by now."

Dumbledore sighed and got up from his desk to stare out the window for a moment. "He just needs time, Minerva."

"How much time and is he to be given this time at the expense of the other students?" McGonagall wanted to know. "Because I must tell you Headmaster the first year Gryffindors will have nothing to do with him. They stay as far away from him as possible and a number of them were quite pleased that they were going to be in the same House as Harry Potter until they met him."

"Has he harmed them?" Dumbledore asked quickly.

"If you mean has he done anything similar to what he did to Miss Granger, then no, but he treats them with outright contempt and they had nothing to do with what happened last year. He is tarring them with the same brush that he has used for the second through seventh year students and they don't deserve that Albus. They are innocent of the wrongdoings of their fellow Gryffindors." McGonagall told him. "I never thought I would ever say this, but it may be in the best interests of all if Mr. Potter were segregated from his fellow Gryffindors, if only for their safety."

Dumbledore shook his head. "I'm sorry Minerva, but that can't happen. Also I doubt that Mr. Potter will do them any physical harm, unless they first try and harm him. He may be an angry young man, but he still has a strong sense of right and wrong and there are lines even he will not cross."

"What do you call what he did to Miss Granger if not physical harm?" McGonagall couldn't believe how calmly the Headmaster was taking this.

"No it was not," Dumbledore disagreed. "The harm he did was emotional and maybe mental. If he had wanted to, I think Mr. Potter could have easily blinded Miss Granger. He did block her ability to see the written word and for an avid reader like Miss Granger that was far more painful. I do have to agree with Mr. Potter about one thing. Miss Granger is a very stubborn young woman and it is very hard to get her to change her mind about some things. Also she is thoroughly convinced that she knows what's best for those around her and that she has the right to meddle in their lives."

"Hmm," McGonagall mused with her first smile of the evening, "that sounds an awful lot like some one I know."

Dumbledore drew himself up and tried to look affronted, "I have no idea who you could be taking about."

"Are you sure?" McGonagall teased, her grin broadening.

"Can we get back to the matter at hand?" Dumbledore requested. "As I was saying, all Mr. Potter did was cause Miss Granger severe emotional distress probably equal to what she caused him when she destroyed the photo album containing the only pictures he had of his parents."

"It was far greater surely Albus!" McGonagall protested. "The punishment didn't fit the crime simply for picking up a book off a table."

"But ultimately, I don't think that's what he was punishing her for. I think that was just the trigger. I think he was punishing her for destroying his photo album." Dumbledore countered. "She knew how much those pictures meant to him and she also knew how much it would hurt him to see those pictures destroyed by someone he thought of as his friend. By the same token, Mr. Potter knows how much Miss Granger loves to read and knew how much it would hurt her to not be able to do that."

McGonagall conceded that he was probably right. "I still think his final punishment far outweighed any crime she may have committed. He was Miss Granger's first friend here and I know how much she wanted to make up with him and get that friendship back."

"And that is why he has to stay in the Gryffindor dorms." Dumbledore told her. "He needs to work through his anger at his fellow students and the Wizarding world as a whole and he can't do that if we allow him to hide from us. It is important that young Harry remain in the wizarding world. He is too important to lose."

"You keep saying that Albus, but compared with the future witches and wizard of our world, why is he so important? If this keeps up it is possible that we may lose these students to other schools, if they don't decide to give up their education completely." She pointed out. "Tell me why he is so important."

Dumbledore sighed and met her gaze, the twinkle for once gone from his eyes. "Part of what I am about to tell you is confidential, known only to those in the Department of Mysteries and a few senior members of the Wizengamot. Did you know that the number of new wizards and witches being born is slowly declining and that the Wizarding world is basically stagnant?"

"What are you talking about?" McGonagall knew what the word meant, but didn't see how it related to the current topic under discussion. "I know that because of the deaths caused by the last two Dark Lords that the population of the wizarding world as a whole might be down, but I had no idea the birth rate was going down."

"Inbreeding among wizards and witches has caused the birth rate of magically able children to go down." Albus told her simply. "There are more squibs being born every day."

"Surely the infusion of muggle-borns and half-bloods is able to counter that." McGonagall seemed surprised that things might be as bad as he had indicated.

"It isn't something that is obvious to the naked eye yet," Dumbledore began to explain, "but as head of the Wizengamot among other things, I can get a look at the birth statistics and I did about 40 years ago, when I started noticing, a decrease in the number of witches and wizards attending Hogwarts. I also checked with the Headmasters and headmistresses of other European schools and they were also showing small but steadily declining numbers, more than could be accounted for by the actions of Grindelwald and his followers or even now Voldemort and his followers. Even though the pure bloods will not admit it, muggle-borns and those with a mixed magical heritage far outnumber them and it is among the pure bloods that the decline is the most obvious and the children are some of the weakest magically."

After a few moments pause he continued, "Also except for a few new potions such as the Wolfsbane potion, there have been no magical advances of any kind in the last fifty years or so. It has also been noted that with each generation while our first years start out fairly powerful with the first year spells, but as they progress through their years of school, their power seems to level out by their third year and even at the point where they would normally go through their magical maturity around fifteen or sixteen, their power level doesn't increase all that much. This seems to be the case even for muggle-borns. This trend has been studied for the last twenty years, using records going back over the last one hundred years. There is some speculation among a few members of the Department of Mysteries along with several other departments that more of our kind should be capable of wandless magic given the power levels recorded for them when they start their first year of school. It has also been noted that among the pure-blood families that refuse to even consider marrying muggle-borns or half bloods that the number of Squibs is rising steadily due to inbreeding."

"Do they have any idea what is causing this?" McGonagall was caught up in what she was hearing. She had quickly realized the implications behind the fact that each generation of witches and wizards seemed to be a little weaker than the last.

"Several factors," Dumbledore told her. "Did you know that most muggle-borns, unless they have married into wizarding families or are very clearly powerful, leave the wizarding world within a few years of graduating from Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, or Durmstrang."

"Why would they want to do that?" McGonagall hadn't been aware of this.

"Discrimination." Dumbledore told her simply. "About a hundred years ago, the Purebloods of the time realizing that the muggle-borns were growing in number and would quickly outnumber them put legislation in place limiting what occupations a muggle-born could do, because they were afraid of losing their power. They managed to lock them out of most positions of power in the Ministry, so they couldn't do anything to make changes." Dumbledore told her. "Some of those who have left the wizarding community here have immigrated to America or Australia where there is very little distinction between muggle-borns and pure-bloods, so they can exercise their full potential. Others have just returned to the muggle world and for those who can not afford it the wizarding world is forced to pay for their re-education to the ways of the muggle world so they can find a job there."

"And nothing has been done to try and reverse these laws?" McGonagall couldn't believe the wizarding community could be so short-sighted.

"Every time someone has recognized what the discrimination of muggle-borns is doing to our world and tried to get legislation enacted to relax or remove those restrictions, the pure bloods step in and block it." Dumbledore shook his head over the sheer stupidity of it. "As for what is causing the magic levels to decline among our students instead of increasing, besides inbreeding, all we have are guesses. All accidental magic is wandless and while usually driven by emotion, it is quite powerful. It might be how our students are taught, the wands themselves, or maybe a combination of both. We are forcing their ability to do wandless magic to follow a path of specific words and gestures to work and for the power they use to flow through the wands instead of flowing the way it wanted to. This probably causes their wandless magical ability to weaken from lack of use if not completely atrophy."

"While all of this is indeed cause for concern," McGonagall put in, "that still doesn't explain why Mr. Potter is so important."

"There are several reasons." Dumbledore told her. "The first being that as the Destroyer of Voldemort, he has a lot of clout and though he doesn't like the idea he is in a position to make changes and even have abolished those laws that prevent the muggle-borns from being able to make any real contributions in our world so they will stay. Not to mention it would be nice to see him get married and settle down with a nice young witch"

"And possibly father some magically powerful children?"

"Yes there is that." Dumbledore agreed, as if the idea only just now occurred to him, but McGonagall wasn't fooled.

"Any other reasons?"

"Just one other, if at some point we can convince him to become a teacher at Hogwarts, he might be able to help our first years begin to harness their wandless magic, which might lead to them getting more powerful magically when they reach magical maturity. Otherwise, according to the best guesses made by those who have been studying this and also taking into account all the powerful wizarding families that were lost during the times of Grindelwald and Voldemort, we have maybe two hundred years before the only thing being born in the wizarding world will be squibs." Dumbledore's expression was grim as he said this.

"So once again we need to get Mr. Potter to become the wizarding world's salvation without telling him why." McGonagall concluded tartly.

"I'm afraid so," Dumbledore agreed. "If he knew that the existence of our entire race hinged on him remaining here, given his current level of anger, he would run far and fast and that would be the end of wizardkind."

abc 123 abc 123 abc 123 abc 123 abc 123

A large sealed envelope suddenly dropping onto the table in front of him startled Harry. He looked up and saw a grey eagle owl just settling on to the table in front of him. He offered the owl some of his bacon as he carefully turned the envelope over.

The front of the envelope just had: Harry Potter written on it and the handwriting looked familiar and the envelope seemed to be stuffed full. However given that he hadn't been expecting anything, Harry did several detection spells on it looking for hexes, traps, or any other nasty surprises. He remembered very clearly the booby-trapped letters that Granger had received during their fourth year after Skeeter's article had come out about her and suspected the angry Gryffindors might have decided to try and do the same thing to him. Since the spells detected nothing dangerous, Harry slit the envelope open with a nearby knife and poured the contents on the table.

There were a number of cut out articles and a small note. A quick glance at the note reminded Harry of the request he'd made to Alex after Fudge's attempt to award him the Order of Merlin a few weeks ago. He's asked him to send him copies of any articles that came out about Minister's attempt to give him that award and its fallout, since he didn't want to have to track down each story/paper personally. He'd been curious to know if any of the reporters would report what happened accurately or if they would they put their own personal spin on it. If he were to judge by the glares of his fellow students over the past few days, then some of the reporters had put their own personal spin on it, or else they didn't like hearing the truth about themselves.

He expected Rita Skeeter to run her own personal smear campaign, especially after he outed her as an animagus. He was willing to bet that she was going to find it much harder to get into places she shouldn't be, given that anti-animagi wards had probably been put up all over the Ministry and anywhere else that someone wanted to keep her out of. He wondered if she would manage to stay out of prison.

The article on top appeared to be the whole front page of the Daily Prophet and the headline on it said: Boy-Who-Lived Accuses Minster And Ministry Of Corruption! And in a smaller headline: Fudge accused of Knowing about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's return for over a year before announcing it to the public! Actually, Harry reflected, as he skimmed the article, I accused the whole wizarding world of being corrupt, not just the idiot Fudge. They got the second part right though.

Certain sections jumped out at him like: Boy-Who-Lived-And-Destroyed-Voldemort refused to accept the Order of Merlin from Fudge... Minister Fudge accused by Boy-Who-Lived of knowing about the Dark Lord's return since the end of the Tri-Wizard tournament.... Boy-Who-Lived accuses Minister and Ministry of sending more than one innocent person to jail by failing to use all tools at their disposal to get to the truth.

Harry noticed that none of the reporters made mention of his accusing the wizarding world itself of hypocrisy or the fact that he had told them that he would have left the wizarding world to deal with Voldemort on their own, if it hadn't been for those who couldn't defend themselves against the Dark Lord and the fact that he wanted justice for those the bastard had killed. Most of the clippings were practically identical, though some of them contained calls for Fudge's resignation and others wanted an investigation of the Ministry justice system, given that at least four innocent people had been sent to Azkaban in the last hundred years. He doubted anything would come of it, and given the rather convenient way the wizarding world had of ignoring anything that didn't directly affect them, he was fairly sure that innocent people would continue be sent to Azkaban.

At least they won't have to worry about the Dementors now. Harry thought to himself. I wonder if they'll employ regular wizards or try to find something as bad as the Dementors to guard the island.

The only article that reported the happenings at the award ceremony accurately was the Quibbler, but even they'd glossed over Harry's intention to leave the Wizarding world at the end of the year. He guessed they couldn't conceive of any wizard wanting to live in a non-magical world. Well they were going to be in for a rude awakening.

Harry glanced at his watch and sighed, time for Transfiguration. Dumbledork had apparently decided it was time to escalate his attempts to get Harry reintegrated into the Wizarding world, because now in some of the classes they had been assigned a study partner. He'd been given Ginny Weasley as a partner. The way it had been explained in the first class was that it was to help them learn to work together without conflict before getting out in the real world.

The real world indeed! Harry grumbled as he headed to class. These fools know absolutely nothing about the real world.

He was one of the last in class, but that didn't matter to him, he still took a seat on the back row.

Ginny who had gotten a seat at a desk in one of the middle rows, glared angrily at him and gestured for him to join her. Folding his arms, and leaning back against the wall, Harry just stared back at her with an expressionless face. Ginny gestured again, but Harry remained where he was.

Slamming her book shut in a way that would have earned a glare from Hermione for her mistreatment of a book, Ginny grabbed her things and stalked to the back of the classroom.

"Since I was here first, you should have joined me." Ginny growled in a low angry voice.

"And why would I want to do that?" Harry countered flatly.

"I'm your partner for this class, remember?" Ginny stomped her foot under the desk, making sure to bring the heel of her shoe down on Harry's foot.

"Not by my choice," Harry disagreed dryly.

Before Ginny could say anything further, from the front of the room, Professor McGonagall asked, "Is there something you wish to share with the class, Miss Weasley?"

Ginny looked down at the desk and said softly, "no Professor McGonagall."

"Mr. Potter?" Professor McGonagall wanted to know.

"Do you really want me to answer that, Professor?" Harry inquired with a smirk on his face.

"Only if it concerns this class," McGonagall told him stiffly.

"Then you have answered your own question, ma'am." Harry didn't bother hiding his grin.

Determined not to let him have any more control over her class, Professor McGonagall returned to the front of the classroom and began the lesson.

At the end of class, McGonagall assigned two feet of parchment due by the next class on how to make a transfiguration permanent and the reasons why the spell might fail and each partner was to do only one part of the assignment.

They were in the back of the group that was headed toward the north tower and Divination when Ginny asked. "Do you want to meet in the Library after dinner to do this assignment?"

Harry shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me. I have no intention of doing either part of the assignment."

Harry was caught by surprise when he was shoved against the wall by a redheaded shrieking banshee. "I've had it with your attitude!"

He just stared at her not saying a word and that infuriated Ginny even more. Growling, she took out her wand and pointed it at him. "You may not care about your future, but I care about mine. Since you are my partner in Transfiguration, your lack of participation affects my grade and my future. Now you will be in the Library tonight after dinner prepared to study our assignment, or I promise I will make your life a living hell."

"You've already done that, Weasley, remember?" Harry gestured and Ginny was flung against the wall her wand clattering to the ground several feet away. "You and your whole traitorous family condemned me to hell last year. What more do you think you can do? Scream? Cry? Stamp your feet like a little child when she doesn't get her way? Nothing you threaten me with can be worse than what you did to me last year. You owed me your life! I saved yours during your first year here remember? And nearly lost my own in the process when you were stupid enough to write in a cursed diary, instead of talking to your yearmates or your family about your problems of trying to fit in at Hogwarts. Were you really so stupid that you could forget that enchanted objects might just be dangerous? Then once you realised what was happening, you still didn't tell anyone. You were so embarrassed at the thought of me finding out what you'd been doing, or that Tom might tell me you had this infantile crush on me that you stole the diary back, instead of leaving it with me. If it had been left with me, we might have solved the problem before you nearly got yourself killed because of your own damn ego and refusal to get the help you needed to stop it. I could understand a muggle-born making that kind mistake since they wouldn't know that enchanted objects might be dangerous but not someone who had lived in the wizarding world her whole life."

Harry paused for a moment, then got back on track with what he had originally intended to say. "Even with the life debt hanging over your head, instead of trying to help me, or standing by me, you joined the rest of your kind and condemned me without even listening to me. The life debts you and your father owe me will never be repaid, because I won't accept anything from you ever again. What happens I wonder when a life debt goes unpaid for generations? Will your whole family eventually lose its magic? I know that if your father's debt remains unpaid it is passed on to all of his children for one of them to redeem. That's means that you and your children, if you have any, will have two life debts unpaid, not just one. I rather imagine there will eventually be some kind of stigma, if the wizarding world doesn't turn a blind eye to it the way they usually do to most things. Enjoy your life Weasley, may it be long and a total misery."

From her position on the floor, Ginny stared at Harry's back as he stalked away, not toward Divination, but in the opposite direction.

Tears began filling her eyes as she searched for her wand. She'd wanted to provoke a reaction and she'd gotten one, only it wasn't the one she wanted. While she hadn't pestered Harry over the last two months the way everyone else had and was still doing, Ginny had hoped that time and her quiet supportive presence would ease Harry's anger toward her, but that hadn't happened. Harry had treated her like she didn't exist for the most part. At other times she had the feeling he was thinking he should have left her in the Chamber of Secrets five years ago. Well she wasn't giving up. He might hate her now, but he was hers and no other witch was going to take him away from her. She'd already had to take steps to discourage several of the more determined and predatory witches from their pursuit of her man.

abc 123 abc 123 abc 123 abc 123 abc 123 abc 123

Ginny didn't see Harry again until dinner. He was sitting at the end of the Gryffindor table his attention fixed on the pages of the book he was reading. She started to go over to apologise for her earlier behaviour, but Ron intercepted her.

"Ginny," he hissed, "don't rock the boat right now. According to what I heard from McGonagall the replacement Firebolt will be here tomorrow. We need to give it to him and get him back on the Quidditch team before that game against Slytherin next week. If you make him madder than he is right now, he'll refuse to play and I don't want to see us flattened like we were by them in last year's game that was embarrassing. Not to mention the fact that Draco Malfoy was positively disgusting the way he gloated over the fact that he got the snitch before you."

"What makes you so sure he will want to play Quidditch for Gryffindor?" Ginny asked. "I mean given that he hates our entire House right now, why would you think he would want to help us beat Slytherin?"

"He loves to fly and he loves playing Quidditch. He also hates Malfoy." Ron reminded her. "Even if we can't get him to play Seeker for any of the other games, I'm sure we can convince him to play in the one against Slytherin. And I'm sure that once we've got him back on a broom, he'll want to continue playing and the Quidditch Cup will be ours once more."

Ginny just shook her head at her brother's priorities as she allowed herself to be dragged away. Hermione was right. Ron was Quidditch mad. She was certain that if he were to die tomorrow, Ron's last thoughts probably wouldn't be of his family, they would probably be about the Chuddley Cannons and whether or not they would have a winning season and lamenting the fact he wouldn't be able to see it.

As she ate her dinner, Ginny watched Harry and tried to work out what she was going to say to him so he wouldn't freeze her out again. She would have the man she'd dreamed of having since she was a little girl and had first heard of Harry Potter. Even though she made some mistakes early on, she knew he liked her or rather he had until she had turned against him last year. He just needed to see that this time it would be different. She needed him to see that she'd regretted what had happened last year and her part in it. He had to see that she wouldn't make the same mistakes again and that it was safe for him to trust… no love her because she would never betray him again. She would die before she did that!

abc 123 abc 123 abc 123 abc 123 abc 123

"Potter," Colin Creevy poked his head into the sixth year dorm.

"What is it Creevy?" Harry looked up from the notebook he was writing in.

"You're wanted in the Common Room by McGonagall." Collin told him before ducking back out of the doorway.

Sighing Harry put the thick book he was reading and his notebook back into his book bag and took it to the Common Room with him.

As he reached the final stairway that led to the Common Room he saw the room was full of people and level of noise from their conversations sounded like a large hive of bees. A quick check showed him that none of the first years were there only the second through seventh years were waiting there with McGonagall. What was going on now? He tensed, determined to be ready for anything. They weren't going to catch him by surprise like they had last year.

McGonagall seeing him at the top of the stairs called, "Please come down, Mr. Potter. We're all waiting for you."

Sighing, Harry headed down the stairs, wondering what Dumbledore and McGonagall had planned now.

As he was heading down the stairs, Harry saw all the Gryffindors, carefully manoeuvre around until their Head of House was closest to the foot of the stairs and Harry. He smirked at their actions So much for the bravery of Gryffindors.

"What did you want to see me about Professor?" Harry asked as soon as he reached the foot of the stairs.

"Your fellow Gryffindors would like to make a little presentation to you, Mr. Potter." McGonagall told him.

"Oh and what might that be?" Harry folded his arms across his chest, now certain that Dumbledork was trying to manipulate things again.

McGonagall stepped to one side, revealing Ginny who had been concealed behind her. Ginny was holding a broom in her hands and around the handle was tied a red and gold ribbon.

"Harry," Ginny's voice squeaked. She took a deep breath and tried again. "Harry, we your fellow Gryffindors would like to apologise for our behaviour last year and for destroying your possessions and to let you know how sorry we are for what we did. While we can not replace everything that was destroyed, we have gotten together to replace your Firebolt."

She stepped forward and held the broom out to him a slight smile on her face. Her smile faltered when Harry made no move to take it. "Harry, please take it. It is yours."

"And your place on the Quidditch team is waiting for you too!" Ron called from within the crowd behind Ginny.

Harry shook his head. "This isn't mine. The Firebolt I got as a Christmas and birthday gift from my godfather was destroyed last year. This is a guilt offering. I rather imagine that Dumbledore and McGonagall thought of it. I mean I doubt the Gryffindors wouldn't have thought of this themselves, especially given that a Firebolt is a very expensive broom."

"What does it matter who thought of it?" Ginny was beginning to get a little angry. This wasn't going at all like any of them had planned. They had all thought he would be pleased to have his broom back instead he was acting like an ungrateful git. "The point is we all paid for it so we could give it back to you."

Harry looked around the room for a moment and then at the floor before saying. "So this is for me. Mine to do with as I please."

"Yes, Harry," Ginny said pleased that he seemed to be accepting their gift and apology. This time when she handed him the broom he took it.

"So if I were to throw it in the fire over there, no one would stop me because it's mine." Harry commented.

"Why would you want to do that?" Ron shouted. "You need a broom to play Seeker. You can't fly without a broom."

"Who said I wanted to be Seeker? Especially Seeker for this House." Harry shot back meeting Ron's gaze.

"Well you surely don't want Slytherin to win the Quidditch Cup or the House Cup do you?" Ron countered.

"To tell you the truth Weasel, I could care less who wins the stupid Quidditch Cup." Harry told the group flatly, earning gasps of surprise and outrage from the diehard Quidditch fans.

Harry removed the ribbon from the broom and then released it so it was hanging in the air. He could see near the handle tip his name had been embossed in gold with a lighting bolt beneath it. They must have told the broom company who the broom was for and probably got it at a discount since the broom company could then say they made the broom that Harry Potter Saviour of the Wizarding World flies and prefers.

With a flinging gesture of his hand, the broom flew backwards across the room toward the fireplace, causing a number of Gryffindors to have to duck to avoid being hit by it. The broom came to rest not in the fireplace as they all feared it might, but against the side of it. A moment later a shiny bronze plaque appeared beneath it.

Harry headed for the portrait hole, pushing people out of his way when they tried to prevent him from leaving.

Ginny stood there stunned for a moment and then followed him out, calling his name.

abc 123 abc 123 abc 123 abc 123 abc 123 abc 123

When she returned to the Common Room about an hour later it was almost empty.

"Did you manage to catch up with him Miss Weasley?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"Almost Professor McGonagall." Ginny told her. "I was just able to keep him in sight until he went to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. When I tried to follow him in there, I hit some kind of invisible wall that wouldn't let me through right away. It took several minutes before I was able to pass it and when I got inside, Harry was gone. I think he went into the Chamber and the entrance was closed so I couldn't follow."

"Well I'm glad you didn't," was all McGonagall said before quickly heading out of the common room and to the Headmaster's office.

Ginny went over to see what was on the plaque beneath the broom they had given to Harry.

THIS IS HERE TO SERVE AS A REMINDER TO ALL WHO DWELL WITHIN THESE CHAMBERS. YOU THINK YOU HAVE BECOME A PART OF AN ANCIENT AND NOBLE HOUSE. I WARN YOU, YOU HAVE NOT.

YOU MAY HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT NEVER HAS A GRYFFINODR GONE DARK, BUT THAT WILL MEAN THEY HAVE FORGOTTEN OR CHOOSE TO IGNORE AT LEAST TWO GRYFFINODRS WHO CHOSE TO SERVE LORD VOLDEMORT OTHERWISE KNOWN AS TOM RIDDLE. WHO ARE THESE TWO GRYFFINDORS WHO SO DISGRACED THEIR HOUSE AND HONOUR YOU MIGHT ASK? WHY THEY ARE PETER PETTIGREW AND PERCIVAL WEASLEY.

YOU WILL FIND AS YOUR YEARS OF SCHOOLING PROGRESS YOU HAVE IN FACT ENTERED INTO A HOUSE OF JACKALS NOT LIONS. YOU WILL FIND THAT THEY WILL TURN ON YOU QUITE QUICKLY IF YOU DO ANYTHING OR ACT IN ANY MANNER THEY DO NOT FEEL IS RIGHT FOR A GRYFFINDOR, SUCH AS DO SOMETHING THAT WILL COST YOUR HOUSE POINTS, BUT YOU DO IT BECAUSE IT IS THE "RIGHT" THING TO DO IN ORDER TO HELP SOMEONE ELSE OUT. OR MAYBE YOU HAVE AN UNUSUAL GIFT THAT THEY CONSIDER "DARK" SUCH AS BEING A PARSELMOUTH. THAT WILL QUICKLY GET YOU THOUGHT OF AS EVIL AND YOU WILL BE SHUNNED, NOT ONLY BY YOUR OWN HOUSE, BUT THEY MAY SPREAD IT AROUND SO THE OTHER HOUSES KNOW FOR THEIR PROTECTION AND THEY WILL SHUN YOU AS WELL.

YOU WILL ALSO FIND THAT SOMETIMES WHEN YOU TELL THE TRUTH BECAUSE IT IS ALL YOU HAVE, YOU WILL NOT BE BELIEVED, BECAUSE IT DOESN'T FIT WITH WHAT THEY BELIEVE AND NOTHING YOU SAY OR DO WILL CHANGE THEIR MINDS.

IF EVER YOU THINK THIS PLAQUE IS WRONG ASK ANY GRYFFINDOR AND SEE IF THEY WILL TELL YOU WHAT THE MEMBERS OF THIS NOBLE HOUSE OF GRYFFINDOR DID TO HARRY POTTER DURING THE YEARS HE WENT TO SCHOOL HERE. SEE IF THEY WILL OWN UP TO OR COVER UP THE TRUTH. SEE IF YOU CAN EVEN FIND IT IN THE SCHOOL LIBRARY IF THEY WILL NOT TELL YOU. DO YOU HAVE THE COURAGE TO SEEK THE TRUTH, OR WILL YOU BE LIKE THE REST AND IGNORE THE TRUTH IN FAVOUR OF WHAT IT IS PREFERRED THAT YOU BELIEVE?

WE SHALL SEE.