and the blue hue of daylight lifted, the stars became visible behind the curtains of clouds in the sky. It was strange how a faraway aspect of something so unknown and something so vast as the universe could provide comfort when other prospects of life failed.

For Margaret, the solace was in the solitude. She had been hanging out in the entrance courtyard long before dinner had even started, watching the stars above and trying to find constellations to pass time.

Ever since she was young, she had always been referred to as half of a whole. Wherever she was, her brother was with her; they would never be found one without the other. Ever since he had gone, however, she had learnt to find comfort in the quiet. She had gone from hating the silence to craving it, simply because it was not filled by the one person she wanted.

Don't get her wrong, she loved the company of her friends.

They were a joy to be around whether they were all studying by the fire in the common room, having a D.A. meeting or simply trading Chocolate Frog cards in between study sessions, their company was that fitting to fill the silence around her. But sometimes she needed space to clear her mind.

"Miss Xenakis," a voice calls.

Snapping out of her daydream, she looked in the direction to see Dumbledore strolling out of the entrance hall, glancing up at the sky that she was watching a moment prior.

"Quite a misty evening," he comments.

"Yeah," she says softly. "Are you going to the centaurs?"

Dumbledore smiled as though he knew she would know. "And for a cup of tea at Hagrid's. Would you like to accompany me?"

Margaret was rather taken aback by the offer, rather puzzled. She thought about it quickly, then slowly shook her head.

"Er, sorry, Professor. I might have to pass on this one. I don't think the centaurs are going to be very happy, to begin with... Thank you, though."

"I see. Well, I better be off," says Dumbledore, ambling the rest of the way to the large oak gates. Just as Margaret thought he was going to leave, the Headmaster paused, turning his head to look at her from the corner of his eyes. "Margaret?"

"Yes?"

"Do remember, it does not do one well to dwell on dreams and forget to live..."

Margaret had heard that before, so her response was almost instant. "And if dreams feel real...?"

"The only thing which is real is what is now," says Dumbledore, gesturing leisurely around the courtyard in which she sat alone. "The only thing which is now is something you don't want to miss. Take it from an old man; we don't always remain young," he adds with a smile before the giant double doors opened wide for him and he walked out into the hazy night.

Margaret looked to the ground, sighing, as the enormous doors shut behind Dumbledore.

She had little to no motivation to do anything these days, not after that nightmare she had had at the beginning of March. It had been two weeks since then but the phantom sensation on her left arm appeared at random moments making a shiver run down her spine as the skin tingled.

The feeling was the same as having a bug suddenly sit on your face – you do not expect something like that and even after you slap it away, the strange sensation that it was still there lingered.

That was not the only thought plaguing her mind. Another one was that of Maximus Smith, the very new and very unfamiliar name that had come to light.

"I hope that one day... you can forgive me."

Remembering that she had met him had left her feeling all sorts of uneasy, but also finding out that he had likely become a Death Eater left her empty stomach lurching.

Reaching up to clutch her necklace, which she had put on again immediately after the nightmare to find some relief in its familiarity, she felt the locket warmer than usual. It was somehow equivalent to holding her brother's hand, and she smiled at the innocent thought.

Margaret thought back to the odd vision Harry had had two weeks ago. They had spoken about it, and she had to finally tell the trio what happened in St. Mungo's that night she sneaked out to see Alice.

They stood in the corner of the cool and breezy Transfiguration courtyard in the afternoon while Harry told Hermione and Margaret every detail of the dream he could remember, including that Voldemort had definitely seen Margaret's face.

When he had finished, Hermione said nothing for a few moments, staring with a kind of painful intensity at Fred and George, who were both headless and selling their magical hats from under their cloaks on the other side of the yard.

"What about Maximus Smith?" she voices her thoughts, irritated. Harry was never supposed to see this Smith character; he was only ever supposed to see Rookwood. It was boggling her mind. She did not like not knowing, and the unknown seemed to follow her in every aspect these days.

"Voldemort said something about him being a great asset due to his loyalty," says Harry, trying to remember.

"What else did he say apart from wanting to recruit him?" she asks, scratching her left arm. For some reason, a bitter taste filled her mouth at the prospect of Voldemort gaining followers.

"I dunno; Rookwood seemed to hint at something about Smith erasing Bode's memories-"

"Hang on..." says Hermione, eyes shining with realisation. "The break-ins at St. Mungo's! It had to have been him! He must've erased Bode's memories and failed to get out quietly. He looked injured, so it could be that he was being punished for that..." she trails off as Margaret slumps back on the tree trunk behind her, "Are you all right, Margaret?"

Harry and Ron looked to her. Margaret had gone very white in the face, her mouth falling open in shock.

"I saw him..." she breathes.

"Who? Smith?" asks Ron. "Where?"

"In St. Mungo's! That night of the last break-in!" she whispers sharply, noticing the confusion on their faces.

She looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping, but most students around them were interested in Fred and George's jester tricks; so she lowered her voice and finally admitted to having been one of the two to break into the magical hospital back in January. She narrated how she had been there to see Alice Longbottom's sudden improvements (although keeping her accidental telepathy with Alice a secret for now) and how she had come face-to-face with the boy she thought was a Death Eater at the time.

"That was a terrible risk," Hermione criticises immediately, looking concerned. "You could've died; you could've been caught."

"I am surprised I wasn't," Margaret admits, lost in her thoughts. "What I don't understand is why he told me to leave... He could've easily blamed me for it."

"Maybe that's why You-Know-Who saw you," Ron speaks up. "Smith had already seen what you looked like... I dunno, since they were talking about Bode, you could've been on his mind and when, er, You-Know-Who used Legilimency, he saw you?"

Hermione nodded thoughtfully. "That could be the reason, Ron. But..."

Margaret understood where she was going. "But why would he lie and say he didn't know who I was."

"Because he didn't, did he?" says Harry. "He only saw you once, he never knew your name. All he knew was that you were there and that you were the reason why he got into trouble."

"Which is exactly why he could have just said that I was the reason he got into trouble; he could've shifted the blame," Margaret insists, beginning to get frustrated at her lack of knowledge about this new character. She had enough uncertainties to deal with and hoped that he would not set the future on a different path than what she knew.

"I don't think Voldemort – get a grip, Ronald – I don't think he would've believed him," says Hermione. "I mean, think about it, he was likely already being punished for not being careful enough. So nothing could've made much of a difference anymore, since they can't come after you."

Margaret shook her head, not getting a good feeling about this Maximus. "I've never heard of him and... he talked to me like he knew me when he said I was always ending up in places I shouldn't be in, and yet I have no clue who the hell he is and where the hell he came from..."

"Perhaps you should talk to Dumbledore," Hermione suggests patiently with a side glance at Harry as well. "Maybe he'll know... what with Snape being – er – who he is."

"No," says Harry firmly, and for once Margaret agreed. "It doesn't matter. What about Bode? He's safe now, isn't he? He's gone back home and has no memories of what happened to him that night at the Ministry."

"Speaking of which, what did happen to him-"

"Oh, Ron, that's why they wanted to kill him," Hermione begins quietly. "When Bode tried to steal this weapon, something funny happened to him. I think there must be defensive spells on it, or around it, to stop people from touching it. That's why he was in St. Mungo's. But remember what the Healer told us? He was recovering. And they couldn't risk that, could they?

"Once he got his voice back, he'd explain what he'd been doing. They would have known he'd been sent to steal the weapon. Of course, it would have been easy for Lucius Malfoy to put the curse on him. Never out of the Ministry, is he?"

Margaret cringed slightly at Malfoy's name, her thoughts going momentarily to his son. She was kind of embarrassed about what she had said to him the last time they had seen each other, not understanding what had come over her to blurt that out.

"He was even hanging around that day I had my hearing," Harry remembers. "In the – hang on..." he trails off slowly, eyes lighting up with recognition. "He was in the Department of Mysteries corridor that day! Your dad said he was probably trying to sneak down and find out what happened in my hearing, but what if-"

"Sturgis!" Hermione gasps.

"Sorry?" asks Ron, looking bewildered.

"Sturgis Podmore," she says, breathlessly, "Arrested for trying to get through a door. Lucius Malfoy got him too. I bet he did it the day you saw him there, Harry! Sturgis had Moody's Invisibility Cloak, right? So what if he was standing guard by the door, invisible, and Malfoy heard him move, or just did the Imperius Curse on the off chance that a guard was there? So when Sturgis next had an opportunity while on his guard duty, he tried to get into the department to steal the weapon for Voldemort but he got caught and sent to Azkaban..."

"And now Rookwood's told Voldemort how to get the weapon?" asks Ron.

"I didn't hear all the conversation, but that's what it sounded like," Harry says. "Rookwood used to work there... Maybe Voldemort'll send Rookwood to do it? Or Maximus?"

All this guesswork was nonsense to Margaret. She already knew what was in the Department of Mysteries, how that was going to turn out for all of them, and how exactly it was going to end. All this was only adding to her anxiety about the upcoming months.

Hermione nodded, apparently still lost in thought. Then, quite abruptly, she says, "But you shouldn't have seen this at all, Harry."

"What?"

"You're supposed to be learning how to close your mind to this sort of thing," Hermione remind him, suddenly stern.

"I know I am," Harry tells her. "But-"

"Well, I think we should just try and forget what you saw," she says firmly.

"It's pointless," mumbles Margaret, drawing their attention again. "Occlumency can't be learnt from textbooks, and Snape's methods are way too harsh."

"Exactly!" says Harry, grateful that someone understood.

"If Dumbledore thinks Snape is suitable then it must be for a reason," Hermione insists. "At any rate, Harry, you ought to put in a bit more effort on your Occlumency from now on."

Margaret snapped out of her thoughts when she heard screaming echoing from the north tower.

It was growing closer by the minute, and soon enough, the woman herself appeared, looking even madder than usual. Her screams drew the attention of the students in the Great Hall where dinner was still in progress.

Professor Trelawney stumbled to the middle of the entrance courtyard with her wand in one hand and an empty sherry bottle in the other. Her hair was sticking out on the ends like a cat after being electrocuted; her glasses were lopsided so that one eye was more magnified than the other; her innumerable shawls and scarves were trailing haphazardly from her shoulders, giving the impression that she was falling apart at the seams.

Margaret's eyes caught the two large trunks filled with Trelawney's belongings flew after her down the stairs.

She shot to her feet, eyes glowing red for a split second as her hands reached outwards. The trunks slowed at her command and she could put them one over the other instead of having them thrown carelessly.

Thankfully, everyone that was now watching was too busy trying to figure out why their Divination Professor was shrieking in terror to notice Margaret's little trick.

Students were now cramming in the entrance hall and on the Grand Stairs to see what was going on. A moment later, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Fred and George came to stand next to where Margaret had got to her feet by the stone bench on the side. Fred took her hand in his, lacing their fingers, and she shifted closer to him.

"What's going on?" Ron asks in mingled amazement and incredulity.

"Trelawney's been sacked," Margaret whispers to him, her tone laced with pity.

The perpetrator, Dolores Umbridge, stood at the foot of the stairs, an expression of utmost glee and satisfaction stretched across her toad-like face.

"No!" Trelawney shrieks. "NO! This cannot be happening... It cannot... I refuse to accept it!"

"You didn't realize this was coming?" says Umbridge, sounding pitilessly amused. "Incapable though you are of predicting even tomorrow's weather, you must surely have realized that your pitiful performance during my inspections, and lack of any improvement, would make it inevitable you would be sacked?"

"You c-can't!" howls Professor Trelawney, tears streaming down her face from behind her enormous lenses, "you c-can't sack me! Six- Sixteen years I have... lived and taught here... H-Hogwarts is m-my home!"

"It was your home," corrects Umbridge, enjoyment stretching her toad-like face as she watched Professor Trelawney sink, sobbing uncontrollably, onto her trunks, "until an hour ago, when the Minister of Magic signed the order for your dismissal. Now kindly remove yourself from this hall. You are embarrassing us."

"Should we do something...?" Ron asks unsurely, identical looks of discomfort on Fred and George's faces as well.

"What can we do?" says Hermione, equally sympathetic. "She'll have us on our way home with Trelawney."

"Don't worry," says Margaret confidently. "Not all hope is lost."

To their surprise, she was staring not at Trelawney, but at the closed entrance gates. They followed her gaze, unable to guess what she was waiting for.

Meanwhile, Umbridge stood and watched with an expression of gloating enjoyment, as Professor Trelawney shuddered and moaned, rocking back and forth on her trunk in grief. Margaret spotted Harry in the crowd near the stairs, looking at Umbridge as though she made him feel sick.

Then Professor McGonagall broke away from the spectators, marched straight up to Professor Trelawney and began patting her on the back while withdrawing a large handkerchief from within her pocket.

"Would you like to say something, Professor McGonagall?" asks Umbridge sweetly.

"Oh, there are several things I would like to say," replies McGonagall with a sharp look before turning back to Trelawney and handing her the napkin, "There, there, Sybill... Calm down... Blow your nose on this... It's not as bad as you think, now... You are not going to have to leave Hogwarts..."

"Oh really, Professor McGonagall?" says Umbridge, this time in a deadly voice, taking a few steps forward as though trying to be intimidating. "And your authority for that statement is...?"

"That would be mine."

The oak front doors swung open. Students beside them scuttled out of the way as Dumbledore appeared in the entrance.

There was something impressive about the sight of him framed in the doorway against the oddly misty night. Leaving the doors wide behind him, he strode forward through the circle of onlookers and towards the place where Professor Trelawney sat, tear-stained and trembling, with Professor McGonagall alongside her.

"Yours, Professor Dumbledore?" says Umbridge with an unpleasant little laugh. "I'm afraid you do not understand the position. I have here" – she pulled a parchment scroll from within her pocket – "an Order of Dismissal signed by myself and the Minister of Magic. Under the terms of Educational Decree Number Twenty-three, the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts has the power to inspect, place upon probation, and sack any teacher she — that is to say, I — feel is not performing up to the standard required by the Ministry of Magic. I have decided that Professor Trelawney is not up to scratch. I have dismissed her."

To everyone's surprise, Dumbledore continued to smile.

"You are quite right, of course, Professor Umbridge. You have every right to dismiss my teachers. You do not, however, have the authority to banish them from the grounds. I am afraid," he goes on, with a courteous little bow, "that power still resides with the Headmaster; and it is my wish that Professor Trelawney continues to live at Hogwarts."

Margaret shook her head slightly at the infamous eccentricity of Dumbledore.

He turned to Professor McGonagall. "Might I ask you to escort Sybill back upstairs, Professor McGonagall?"

"Of course," McGonagall says with a small smile. "Up you get, Sybill... Come now."

Professor Trelawney, still choking and sobbing, looked barely relieved. No one deserved such humiliation. Yet still, she reached out and took Dumbledore's hand in both of hers gratefully as she passed him.

"Th- Thank you..." she squeaks, barely legible.

Professor Sprout came hurrying forward out of the crowd and grabbed Professor Trelawney's other arm. Together they guided her past Umbridge and up the marble stairs.

Professor Flitwick went scurrying after them, his wand held out before him; he squeaks, "Locomotor trunks!" and Professor Trelawney's luggage rose into the air and proceeded up the staircase after her.

Professor Umbridge was standing stock-still, staring at Dumbledore, who continued to smile kindly.

"And what," she begins in a whisper that nevertheless carried all around the entrance hall, "are you going to do with her once I appoint a new Divination teacher who needs her lodgings?"

"Oh boy, here he comes," Margaret murmurs, drawing attention of her friends as she once again stared at the now open doors. A figure was growing larger and larger – way too tall to be human, yet humanoid nonetheless; at least partly.

"Oh, that won't be a problem," says Dumbledore pleasantly. "You see, I have already found us a new Divination teacher, and he will prefer lodgings on the ground floor."

"You've found-?" says Umbridge shrilly. "You've found...? Might I remind you, Dumbledore, that under Educational Decree Twenty-two-"