Somehow Harry found himself on the chessboard again. Only this time he knew it was a dream, and he was no longer trapped. He stood at the centre as he had before, shrouded in flowing, grey robes.
The pieces were in different positions than before; the game had progressed. The black pieces had moved, pushing further up towards the centre of the board, but the white pieces had barely shifted, and the crying, bearded king could only watch as his cold-eyed counterpart took the advantage.
Harry didn't feel any urge to touch the pieces this time. His grey handprints lingered on some of the pieces, both black and white, and he knew that if he wished it he could move them.
A dull grinding noise began, rising louder and louder as a black pawn slid diagonally forwards on the board. The white pieces remained still, blissfully unaware of what was coming.
Something hot flared on his forehead, and he flinched from his pillow, clapping a hand to his face.
The heat faded the instant he was awake and upright.
Tentatively he raised his forefinger and pressed it against his scar. It hadn't troubled him since he had ripped Riddle's horcrux from himself, and Salazar had been sure that it was gone for good, whether it had been absorbed by him or expelled.
His forehead was warm, unnaturally so, but to his relief the heat was not confined to the area around his scar. He pulled the hangings open an inch to gauge how light it was outside. There was faint bird song from outside, and pale, orange light. He guessed it was somewhere around five.
Harry pulled the hangings open a bit further, just to check. Dean's glowing clock, a rather hardy piece of muggle equipment that he had to repeatedly charm to keep it working amidst all the magic, told him that it was actually half past seven.
Winter has come, Harry realised.
He was still used to it being light as early as four in the morning.
A second check of the clock told him that it was only one more day until the christmas holidays began. The holidays wouldn't make any difference to him. He would officially be remaining at Hogwarts, but he hoped to be spending at least some of it in France with Fleur. He would rather like to spend all of it in France, but he had plans to make. He needed another place, a more convincing, obvious target for the Dark Mark to be cast over.
Nothing springs to mind.
He knew his options well enough. The Dark Mark wasn't lightly cast by Death Eaters. It signified a victory of import, a signature to create a stir and strike fear. Harry couldn't just stroll around casting over random houses. Godric's Hollow was the only place he could cast that might be believable without someone disappearing, and he wasn't so in line with Dumbledore's beliefs that he would willingly sacrifice someone for such a small chance of convincing the Ministry. He was more likely to simply lengthen the list of his godfather's crimes. Harry pulled his robes on as quietly as he could, not wanting to disturb anyone, though he doubted anyone would hear him rustling over Ron's snores. There didn't seem much point staying bed now he was awake and it was so close to the morning.
Pulling his wand out from under his still warm pillow he conjured a simple, glass goblet fro the air and then whispered the water conjuring charm.
Sipping his slightly warm drink of water he rubbed the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes, made one futile attempt to flatten his hair and slipped as quietly as he could down into the common room.
It was blessedly empty.
The fire had died down over night to nothing but cold ashes, so Harry threw a few logs onto it from the basket nearby and cast a quick spell to set it alight. He almost cast fiendfyre, the offensive, dangerous piece of magic being the first flame spell that sprang into his head, but fortunately he remembered at the last minute and used the simple Fire-Making Charm.
The logs crackled merrily, glowing a hot orange along the cracks in the ash.
Harry was fairly sure that the house elves were meant to take care of the fire, it was alway lit in the evenings, but everyone liked to add logs, and poke the flames, so the dutiful creatures kept a small basket full of wood to one side.
There were several things he could be doing and probably should be doing instead of warming his feet in front of the fire. He needed to speak to Sirius about the prophecy, though he was confident that he would have more success after Christmas when the members of the Order, who likely included the elder Weasleys and other staunch supporters of Dumbledore were unable to do anything to keep his godfather occupied. He could also be doing any of the three essays that were due in. Charms and Transfiguration were no longer a challenge, and he could probably breeze through Flitwick's and McGonagall's assignments in an hour, but Snape, who'd been avoiding him to the extent of only speaking a single sentence to cancel their occlumency sessions, had set an essay on the strengthening solution.
The potion had eerily similar ingredients to those Harry had procured for the second ritual he intended to carry out and a small amount of research had revealed that griffin's claw enhanced the strength of muscle fibres, while salamander's blood, the key ingredient sped up the rate at which the fibres moved, significantly increasing the speed of reflexes and movement, and slightly enhancing strength. The potion used a higher ratio of the claw to the blood relative to the ritual, but Harry had been quite fascinated to see the connections between potions, alchemy, rituals and blood magic all unfolding in front of him.
He knew too much about the potion because of his curiosity to feel satisfied with his normal acceptable or exceeds expectations grade. He also wanted to play with the potion teacher's emotions. If Snape couldn't bare to look at him or speak to him after seeing the memory of his mother, then Harry would have to find other way to remind him of his and its existence.
His other option was to continue plotting while he had no company and time to think. His plan to remove Dumbledore waited only on a single spell and Marietta Edgecombe, the moment Harry could make his way into the Department of Mysteries and see the memory of the prophecy then he would remove the headmaster from his way. That left him free to rid the school and world of Dolores Umbridge, whose recent efforts to claw back control over the students had left her more unpopular than ever.
The blood quill was gone, but a handful of the more outspoken students were beginning to suffer increasingly nasty accidents. The blond Ravenclaw who Harry occasionally saw around Ginny had been given detention for insulting the Ministry with absurd theories and speculation and made to open Umbridge's mail. Unlike Lockhart it seemed someone had sent her an envelope of Bubotuber pus, but Harry had heard that the letter had been blank, and the the Pink Professor had staged the accident herself.
Someone needs to keep an eye on that woman.
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