there was no way she was going to tell harry that that was her last vial of dreamless sleep potion. she had dreamed of azkaban the night before. it was all quite unsettling. there was a raging storm around the island. flashes of lightening and cracks of thunder echoed in her head quite magnificently.

stomach growling, elara stumbled down the stairs to find the common room almost empty and the same with the corridors. the smell of what was undeniably cinnamon rolls forced her to walk faster before ron inevitably ate them all.

however, when she reached where harry, ron, and hermione were sitting, they looked less than happy.

elara shoved a cinnamon roll in her mouth before asking, "what's up with you three?"

they exchanged looks before hermione slowly handed the daily prophet over to elara.

elara didn't even have to read to know that bellatrix and rodulphus broke out. she immediately dropped the prophet onto the table and rubbed her face with her hands.

"lara, are you — "

"um — i just remembered — i had — i have to — see you later!" said elara, standing up from the table.

elara fled the hall quickly. her heart was pounding in her ears. she did not want to become a death eater. she couldn't. she won't. she was just so, so happy a few moments ago. why didn't she just skip breakfast? but she would've learned later. she supposed she had to come back to the real world at some point in time.

elara hadn't made it very far when someone grabbed her wrist. she freaked out, spun around, slammed the person into a wall and drew her wand to point it at their throat.

the face of harry stared back at her, his eyes wide and his glasses askew.

"oh," elara cleared her throat, "er — sorry, my bad — didn't mean — "

"its okay," said harry, although his voice came out weaker than usual. "i shouldn't've just grabbed you."

before anything else was said, tears began to spill down elara's face. she quickly tried to wipe them up, but it was no use. she was so, so scared.

"i don't want to be a death eater," said elara quietly. "i — i just can't — "

"it's going to be okay — "

"how do you know?" said elara, although she did come across as harsh. "she — she could make me — "

"elara lestrange tonks," said harry, "you are the strongest, most terrifying person i know. you've never let someone force you to do anything in your life, so why start now?"

elara laughed through her tears. nothing else was said, except for the sounds of comfort as harry wrapped her in his arms.

the fact that hagrid was now on probation became common knowledge within the school over the next few days, but to elara's indignation, hardly anybody appeared to be upset about it; indeed, some people, draco malfoy prominent among them, seemed positively gleeful. as for the freakish death of an obscure department of mysteries employee in st. mungo's, elara, harry, ron, and hermione seemed to be the only people who knew or cared. there was only one topic of conversation in the corridors now: the ten escaped death eaters, whose story had finally filtered through the school from those few people who read the newspapers. rumors were flying that some of the convicts had been spotted in hogsmeade, that they were supposed to be hiding out in the shrieking shack and that they were going to break into hogwarts, just as Sirius black had done.

those who came from wizarding families had grown up hearing the names of these death eaters spoken with almost as much fear as voldemort's; the crimes they had committed during the days of voldemort's reign of terror were legendary. there were relatives of their victims among the hogwarts students, who now found themselves the unwilling objects of a gruesome sort of reflected fame as they walked the corridors: susan bones, who had an uncle, aunt, and cousins who had all died at the hands of one of the ten, said miserably during herbology that she now had a good idea what it felt like to be harry.

"and i don't know how you stand it, it's horrible," she said bluntly, dumping far too much dragon manure on her tray of screechsnap seedlings, causing them to wriggle and squeak in discomfort.

people seemed more scared of elara than ever. the whispers of the death eaters were punctuated with theories were punctuated with theories and rumors of if and when elara was going to become one. no matter how hard she tried, no one seemed to care that bellatrix and rodulphus weren't her legal parents anymore. she gave up with caring, but she began wearing her sleeves rolled up to showcase that she wasn't, in fact, a death eater.

it was not only the students' mood that had changed. it was now quite common to come across two or three teachers conversing in low, urgent whispers in the corridors, breaking off their conversations the moment they saw students approaching.

"they obviously can't talk freely in the staffroom anymore," said hermione in a low voice, as she, elara, harry, and ron passed professors mcgonagall, flitwick, and sprout huddled together outside the charms classroom one day. "not with umbridge there."

"reckon they know anything new?" said ron, gazing back over his shoulder at the three teachers.

"if they do, we're not going to hear about it, are we?" said harry angrily. "not after decree . . . what number are we on now?"

"two hundred something," said elara.

for new signs had appeared on the house notice boards the morning after news of the azkaban breakout:

this latest decree had been the subject of a great number of jokes among the students. lee jordan had pointed out to umbridge that by the terms of the new rule she was not allowed to tell fred, george, and aurora off for playing exploding snap in the back of the class.

"exploding snap's got nothing to do with defense against the dark arts, professor! that's not information relating to your subject!"

when elara next saw lee, the back of his hand was bleeding rather badly. elara recommended essence of murtlap.

elara had thought that the breakout from azkaban might have humbled umbridge a little, that she might have been abashed at the catastrophe that had occurred right under her beloved fudge's nose. it seemed, however, to have only intensified her furious desire to bring every aspect of life at hogwarts under her personal control. she seemed determined at the very least to achieve a sacking before long, and the only question was whether it would be professor trelawney or hagrid who went first.

every single divination and care of magical creatures lesson was now conducted in the presence of umbridge and her clipboard. dhe lurked by the fire in the heavily perfumed tower room, interrupting professor trelawney's increasingly hysterical talks with difficult questions about ornithomancy and heptomology, insisting that she predict students' answers before they gave them and demanding that she demonstrate her skill at the crystal ball, the tea leaves, and the rune stones in turn. elara thought that professor trelawney might soon crack under the strain; several times she passed professor trewlawney in the corridors (in itself a very unusual occurrence as she generally remained in her tower room), muttering wildly to herself, wringing her hands, and shooting terrified glances over her shoulder, all the time giving off a powerful smell of cooking sherry. if elara had not been so worried about hagrid, she would have felt sorry for her — but if one of them was to be ousted out of a job, there could be only one choice for elara as to who should remain.

unfortunately, elara could not see that hagrid was putting up a better show than trelawney. though he seemed to be following hermione's advice and had shown them nothing more frightening than a crup, a creature indistinguishable from a jack russell terrier except for its forked tail, since before christmas, he also seemed to have lost his nerve. he was oddly distracted and jumpy in lessons, losing the thread of what he was saying while talking to the class, answering questions wrongly and glancing anxiously at umbridge all the time. he was also more distant with elara, harry, ron, and hermione than he had ever been before, expressly forbidding them to visit him after dark.

"If she catches yeh, it'll be all of our necks on the line," he told them flatly, and with no desire to do anything that jeopardized his job further, they abstained from walking down to his hut in the evenings.

it seemed to elara that umbridge was steadily depriving elara of everything that made her life at hogwarts worth living: visits to hagrid's house, letters from sirius and nymphie, late-night kitchen runs, and astronomy tower visits. she took her revenge the only way she had: redoubling her efforts for the d.a.

elara was pleased to see that all of them, even zacharias smith, had been spurred to work harder than ever by the news that ten more death eaters were now on the loose, but in nobody was this improvement more pronounced than in neville. the news of his parents' attacker's escape had wrought a strange and even slightly alarming change in him. he had not once mentioned his meeting with elara, harry, ron, and hermione on the closed ward in st. mungo's, and taking their lead from him, they had kept quiet about it too. nor had he said anything on the subject of bellatrix and her fellow torturers' escape; in fact, he barely spoke during d.a. meetings anymore, but worked relentlessly on every new jinx and countercurse harry taught them, his plump face screwed up in concentration, apparently indifferent to injuries or accidents, working harder than anyone else in the room. he was improving so fast it was quite unnerving and when harry taught them the shield charm, a means of deflecting minor jinxes so that they rebounded upon the attacker, only elara and hermione mastered the charm faster than neville.

nowadays, harry's scar hardly ever stopped prickling, and he often felt lurches of annoyance or cheerfulness that were unrelated to what was happening to him at the time, which were always accompanied by a particularly painful twinge from his scar. he had the horrible impression that he was slowly turning into a kind of aerial that was tuned in to tiny fluctuations in voldemort's mood, and he was sure he could date this increased sensitivity firmly from his first occlumency lesson with snape. what was more, he was now dreaming about walking down the corridor toward the entrance to the department of mysteries almost every night, dreams that always culminated in him standing longingly in front of the plain black door.

"i always see that door," said elara when harry confided in her, hermione, and ron. "i've only seen inside once or twice. its not particularly interesting."

"come of it," said ron excitedly, "what's in there?

"an old, really creepy, stone archway with a kind of curtain, and a shit ton of glass circles."

"you're right," said ron disappointedly, "that is boring."

"going back to your issue, harry, maybe it's a bit like an illness," said hermione, looking concerned. "a fever or something. it has to get worse before it gets better."

"it's lessons with snape that are making it worse," said harry flatly. "i'm getting sick of my scar hurting, and i'm getting bored walking down that corridor every night." he rubbed his forehead angrily. "i just wish the door would open, i'm sick of standing staring at it —"

"that's not funny," said hermione sharply. "dumbledore doesn't want you to have dreams about that corridor at all, or he wouldn't have asked snape to teach you occlumency. you're just going to have to work a bit harder in your lessons."

"i am working!" said harry, nettled. "you try it sometime, snape trying to get inside your head, it's not a bundle of laughs, you know!"

"well, if i'm allowed to stare at it almost every night," said elara, "then why can't harry?"

"that's different!" said hermione.

"because i'm a seer?"

"yes!" said hermione exasperatedly. "remember what moody said in st. mungo's? you've got maybe the biggest role to play in this, elara!"

"maybe . . ." said ron slowly.

"maybe what?" said hermione rather snappishly.

"maybe it's not harry's fault he can't close his mind," said ron darkly.

"what do you mean?" said hermione.

"well, maybe snape isn't really trying to help harry. . . ."

elara, harry, and hermione stared at him. ron looked darkly and meaningfully from one to the other.

"maybe," he said again in a lower voice, "he's actually trying to open harry's mind a bit wider . . . make it easier for you-know —"

"shut up, ron," said hermione angrily. "how many times have you suspected snape, and when have you ever been right? dumbledore trusts him, he works for the order, that ought to be enough."

"he used to be a death eater," said ron stubbornly. "and we've never seen proof that he really swapped sides. . . ."

"dumbledore trusts him," hermione repeated. "and if we can't trust dumbledore, we can't trust anyone."

"wait," said elara slowly. "harry, if snape's been in your head, has he — "

harry looked embarrassed.

"oh merlin!" said elara, falling backwards onto a couch. "do you think about it all the time or something?"

harry turned significantly red.

"its kind of difficult not too!" said harry defensively. "what, are you embarrassed?"

"no! well — snivellous saw you and i snogging — hold on, i think i'm going to vomit — "

hermione and ron kept going at each other until they both decided it'd be better to just retire upstairs, but not before the both of them — separately — turned back and sent harry and elara a smirking look.

"peace at last," said elara contentedly, sliding off the couch and resting her back upon it.

"i think this is the first time we've been properly alone since christmas," said harry, staring off into the fire.

"if you're making that statement because you want to snog, just come outright and ask."

"no — wait, yes — no, that's not — yes, i do, but no — i wanted — " harry struggled to make a definitive statement and soon his stuttering was overcome by elara's laughter.

"you're adorable," said elara conversationally, nudging his leg with her shoulder.

he slid down to sit next to elara. either the fire was really hot, or elara really got him riled up, because his face was as red as ron's hair.

"well — i was sort of wondering, do you want to go to hogsmeade together?"

"don't we always?" said elara, confused.

"like, go as a date," said harry, refusing to meet elara's gaze.

"oh," said elara, pleasantly surprised. "yeah, of course! uh, which trip?"

"the one in february?"

"valentine's day?"

"or — or we could do another day — "

"no, valentine's day sounds great, actually," said elara with a bright smile.

with so much to worry about and so much to do — startling amounts of homework that frequently kept the fifth years working until past midnight, secret d.a. meetings, and regular classes with snape — january seemed to be passing alarmingly fast. before elara knew it, february had arrived, bringing with it wetter and warmer weather and the prospect of the second hogsmeade visit of the year.

on the morning of the fourteenth parvati and lavender barged into elara's dorm room with hermione en tow, who looked particularly guilty. aspen soon joined in the fetsivities too as she had woken up when elara vaulted over her bed followed by lavender with a frilly dress. it took some convincing, but everyone had finally agreed on elara's normal combat boots and jeans, but instead of a sweatshirt, she'd borrow one of parvati's brightly striped sweaters.

parvati and lavender tried their best with makeup, but elara only let them put on blush to appease them. and finally, with a very exasperated look at hermione, elara marched out the room to breakfast.

harry and ron arrived at breakfast around the time for the arrival of the post owls. hermione was tugging a letter from the beak of an unfamiliar brown owl as they sat down.

"and about time! if it hadn't come today . . ." she said eagerly, tearing open the envelope and pulling out a small piece of parchment. her eyes sped from left to right as she read through the message and a grimly pleased expression spread across her face.

"did she — ?" said elara ominously.

"of course she did," said hermione, glowing.

elara couldn't hide her smirk.

"listen, harry," elara said, looking around at him. "this is really important. . . . we have to meet hermione in the three broomsticks around midday? is that alright?"

"well . . . all right, but why?"

"i haven't got time to tell you now, i've got to answer this quickly —"

and hermione hurried out of the great hall, the letter clutched in one hand and a piece of uneaten toast in the other.

"are you coming?" harry asked ron, but he shook his head, looking glum.

"i can't come into hogsmeade at all, angelina wants a full day's training. like it's going to help — we're the worst team i've ever seen. you should see sloper and kirke, they're pathetic, even worse than i am." he heaved a great sigh. "i dunno why angelina won't just let me resign. . . ."