"But Master, he must be at Hogwarts. The Prophet all but stated it. We cannot touch him there."

The all-too-familiar red-eyed figure of Lord Voldemort stood, towering above the silver-handed man who cowered at his feet.

"How did they let him slip away again? He was within our grasp! The plan was perfect—the Ministry would have been blamed. This will not go unpunished!"

"No! Master…please!"

"CRUCIO!" Wormtail writhed and screamed as the curse hit him once, twice, three times.

"You will find a way to infiltrate Hogwarts, my little rat. You will take Potter as well as the fraud seer. Hogwarts will no longer be Dumbledore's safe haven!"

Pain, killing pain, pierced his head as Harry woke to screaming. The pain pressed his head against the pillows and he writhed, twisting over on his bad arm and retching over the side of the bed as wave after wave of crushing pain hit him.

"No!" he moaned. "Not Hogwarts!"

"Harry! Harry, wake up!" The voice above him barely entered his consciousness as the young wizard continued to writhe and moan.

"Ron! What is it?" Ginny and Hermione had run into the room.

"Hermione! Get someone!" yelled Ginny as she ran over to help Ron try to wake Harry.

Hermione ran from the room to find Madam Pomfrey while Ron grabbed Harry's arms. Harry jerked in pain as Ron touched his injured arm. The fresh wash of pain finally pulled him into consciousness. He opened his eyes to stare into Ginny's face.

"Harry," she breathed softly. "It's just us…it's just us…"

"No! Wormtail….Voldemort's…angry." He was breathing very heavily, panting. He had pulled his arm to his chest and was cradling it now. The bandages were slowly turning red.

"Harry, mate, we'll get Dumbledore. Hold tight…" He turned to Ginny. "Stay with him, Gin. I'll be right back!" He ran from the room, nearly bowling over Hermione and Madam Pomfrey.

"I've called for the Headmaster, Mr. Weasley," said Madam Pomfrey.

Ron skidded to a halt and hurried back in the room. Ginny had crawled up on the bed and was cradling Harry in her arms. He was clutching her desperately, shaking, and she was rubbing his back and holding him tight. His bandaged arm was against her back, stained bright red with blood.

Madam Pomfrey hurried over but did not force the two apart. Harry's sobs were gradually subsiding. He had opened his eyes to see Ron, Hermione and Madam Pomfrey watching him just as Professor Dumbledore hurried in the room.

"Ms. Weasley, it will be best to let Madam Pomfrey examine Mr. Potter now," he said softly, walking over to the bed and offering Ginny his hand. Madam Pomfrey had already scourgified the mess and Ginny took the headmaster's hand and climbed down off the bed, keeping her eyes on Harry who had collapsed back onto the pillows of the large four-poster in the visitor's room. He and Ron had come back after lunch for a quick nap. The last thing he remembered before the dream was listening to Ron's comforting snores from the other bed. Now, his arm hurt horribly and his scar burned and his head was splitting. As Madam Pomfrey bent down over him, he closed his eyes but the vision he had just witnessed immediately came back.

"No," he muttered. "Not here…."

Dumbledore took a step forward but Madam Pomfrey waved him back.

"All in good time, Headmaster," she said. "Can you bring him back to the Hospital Wing or should I bring my supplies here?"

"Bring them here, Poppy," answered Dumbledore. He stood beside the bed as she left the room, gazing down at Harry with troubled eyes.

"What did you see, Harry?" he said. His voice was calm, but there was an urgency in it that Harry did not miss

"He . . I mean Voldemort . . . was punishing Wormtail. For not getting me earlier. He…Voldemort…said Wormtail was to come get me here…and Trelawney too! He said that the Prophet all but said I was here…that Hogwarts wouldn't protect me anymore…"

The headmaster reached down a long-fingered hand and laid it on Harry's head, touching his scar with his fingers before resting his hand completely on Harry's forehead. Harry felt a strange sensation and the residual pain slowly ebbed.

"Harry, you are safer here at Hogwarts than anywhere else," he said as Ron, Hermione and Ginny crowded closer in.

"Wait a a minute," said Hermione softly but very clearly. "Why would he…I mean Voldemort…why would he want Professor Trelawney?"

Dumbledore and Harry locked eyes, then, after an impossibly long time, Dumbledore nodded his head slightly.

"The Prophecy," whispered Harry. "He wants to hear the prophecy."

"What does that old fraud have to do with the prophecy?" exclaimed Hermione, slapping her hand over her mouth when she realized she had called Professor Trelawney a fraud in front of the Headmaster.

Dumbledore, however, did not react. His gaze was fixed on Harry.

"Sybil Trelawney is the one who made it, Miss Granger," he said softly. "And even though almost everything else that comes out of her mouth is rubbish, we believe this particular prophecy to be real."

"But it was destroyed at the Ministry, Harry," said Ginny. "Neville dropped it. He said no one could hear it."

"No," said Harry, barely audibly. "I mean, yes, it was destroyed. But that sphere was just the record of it. The person who first heard it remembers it."

"Who?" asked Ron quickly.

"Me," answered Professor Dumbledore. "Do you ever wonder at all why I've kept an "old fraud" here at Hogwarts for 17 years?"

"Will you show them? Please?" pleaded Harry, his voice scratchy. He'd cried too much, hurt too much, held this in way too long. Once again, he looked up at the headmaster, his eyes pleading, and the old wizard spoke.

"I will retrieve my pensieve from my office, Harry, and bring it here." He turned without another word and left the room.

Madam Pomfrey returned a few moments later. She spread a thick orange paste on the re-opened wound and wrapped it again, then immobilized the arm in its sling for further protection. She handed Harry a pain potion and instructed him to visit her again at bedtime.

They waited quietly for Dumbledore to return. The silence would have been awkward, except that Ginny sat down beside Harry and without a word took him in her arms, hugging him as Mrs. Weasley would have done had she been there. Hermione and Ron dropped down onto a small sofa and Hermione leaned her head into Ron's shoulder and closed her eyes.

Harry decided that he could hug Ginny Weasley forever. She was absolutely perfect. She wasn't asking him questions or worrying about his fate or pitying him in any way. Her hands rubbed comforting circles on his back, and when Dumbledore entered the room a few moments later, she let him go and settled back next to him on the bed as the headmaster placed a heavy stone bowl on a table beside Ron and Hermione.

Ron, Hermione and Ginny looked on curiously as Dumbledore raised his wand to his temple and extracted a long, gossamer strand which he dropped into the basin. He stirred it with his wand and stepped back as a ghostly figure arose from the shimmering pool of thoughts and repeated the words Harry had heard only once before but still remembered verbatim.

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born as the seventh month dies, born to those who have thrice defied him. And he will have a power the Dark Lord knows not, and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal. And neither shall live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…

They continued staring at the pensieve even as the figure of Sybil Trelawney disappeared and the room was quiet once again. Harry looked over at Ron and Hermione.

"So, what do you make of it?" he asked, his voice touched with sarcasm.

"I suppose you are sure it's referring to Harry," she said, addressing the Headmaster.

Dumbledore nodded. "There was another candidate—another boy born the same day as Harry to parents also in the Order of the Phoenix. However, Voldemort himself marked Harry as his equal, as the prophecy states."

"How long have you known, Harry?" asked Hermione. Her voice was very soft, and quivered slightly. Don't cry, thought Harry. Please don't cry…

"Nearly two months," he answered. "When I got back here after Sirius…." He didn't complete the thought. His voice trailed off into silence and he looked down to examine his arm.

"He just told you two months ago!" Ron's unexpected outburst was directed at Professor Dumbledore. "He's known all his life that you're fated to go up against Vol…Voldemort and he just now bothered to tell you!" He turned from Harry to the headmaster, who was standing very straight and still in the same position he'd taken up when he stepped back from the pensieve. "Didn't you trust him? Didn't you trust us? Don't you think he's wondered his whole life?" He stood up suddenly. This was not the Ron he knew. This was a different Ron. An older Ron.

Dumbledore did not move.

"I have already apologized to Harry and explained both my mistakes and my weaknesses. I was wrong to have withheld this information for so long. I simply could not force myself to tell him, what with all that he had to endure." He smiled very sadly but did not make a move to leave the room.

"It's OK, Ron," said Harry. Ron's outburst had somehow meant a great deal to him. Ron understood. If no one else did, Ron did. He allowed the smallest glint of happiness to fill his heart.

"No it's not OK, Harry!" shouted Ron. He stood up and faced his friend. "It's not fair! It's never been fair!" He whirled around to face the headmaster again. "First he loses his parents then almost gets killed by bloody Voldemort then he has to live his whole life with those…those…" he almost spat out the word "Muggles! And when he finally finds some family HE gets taken away too! It's not OK and it's not fair!" Ron pounded his fist into the wall then kicked the door frame, turning back to face the Headmaster, who was standing very still and gazing steadily at him. "And now . . . .now you tell him that he has to kill Voldemort or die trying! Well he's not going to do it alone. Maybe that's the bloody power that old fraud was talking about—having friends who care about him!" He pummeled the wall again with his fist, then leaned his head against the wall and let out a sound that was half sob, half strangled moan. Harry looked from Ron to Hermione, who looked both horrified and angry, to Ginny was looking at Ron as if he was an escaped gorilla from the London Zoo, to Professor Dumbledore who had a look in his eye that Harry could not quite determine but that looked surprisingly like….triumph.

"It's not his fault, Ron," said Harry. Somehow, sometime over the past weeks, he'd reconciled his anger and was fast moving toward acceptance. "He didn't make the prophecy and he's only tried to keep me alive all these years. He's done everything he could. I've already destroyed his office—let's not destroy the rest of the castle too."

Professor Dumdledore rested his hands on the pensieve. As he picked up the heavy bowl, Harry for the first time noticed the glove he wore over one hand.

"I am calling a special meeting of the Order tonight," he said. "We will be meeting at Order Headquarters and will be discussing Harry's vision and how to protect both him and Hogwarts. I have arranged dinner for you in the faculty lounge at 6." Without another word, he turned and left the room.

Harry watched the door close and then said to his friends. "Why is Dumbledore wearing one glove?"