Megan had no idea where she was. She was standing in a shabby old wooden building. She’d never seen it before, and wondered what she was doing here. How had she gotten there anyway? The last time she’d checked, she was in the Divination classroom. And she maybe didn’t know where she was now, but she could tell for certain it wasn’t the Divination Tower. It was dimly lit but she could still make things out. The broken door, the dusty table and moth eaten curtains… In a corner to her left, was a tattered chair on which Ron was sitting, clutching his leg, which Megan now saw was bleeding. She wanted to move to his side, ask him what had happened, try and help somehow… but she couldn’t move and her voice seemed caught in her throat, like almost every other time she’d dreamed lately. But she hadn’t even fallen asleep… had she? And not being able to move or speak was getting tiresome. At least her head responded normally. She took in Ron more carefully. He looked like he was in pain, and his face was white. Hermione was near her, looking scared but determined, Harry and Cedric were beside her, the latter holding an arm out in front of her. What was going on? Why were they in this strange place? She couldn’t hear a sound, except for the thumping of her heart. And when she turned her head to look around I felt like it was happening in slow motion. And in front of her, with his back turned to her, was a tall man with long tangled brown hair, his arms outstretched… she thought she knew who it was but couldn’t remember for some reason. A little to their right, to her utter astonishment, was Lupin, looking at a small man dressed in old grey clothes, and a face like a rat and claw like nails.

She snapped back into reality and touched her temple with a gasp.

“Megan? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Harry asked, touching her arm.

“Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine… it’s just a headache.” She said. “It’s these ruddy fumes, they’re making me nauseous.”

She wasn’t sure they would believe her if she told them the man who was supposed to be after her was protecting her in a vision…

“Are you really okay?”

“Yes, I was just dizzy because of that smoke and heat,” she said.

She was especially trying to convince herself because whatever it was she had seen it didn’t make sense. It was nowhere she recognised, and if Sirius Black was after her, which they still hadn’t irrefutably proven yet, why would he try and protect her? And from who? She’d seen no one who’d threaten her. There was the tiny man, whom she didn’t know, but he hardly seemed that dangerous… the more things progressed, the more complex and incomprehensible they got… it was really getting tiresome. And she was reluctant to tell her friends about the vision because she reckoned they would take it as fear of Black and worry even more. The school was already nervous enough as it was regarding Black. But for some reason Megan couldn’t feel scared when she thought of him. She wasn’t sure why. She voiced the feeling to Cedric, that afternoon during a common study period they had.

“I don’t know for sure,” he said after thinking a moment. “But I suppose you aren’t that scared of Black because he’s not You-Know-Who.”

They were sitting on one of the stone benches in the Transfiguration courtyard. The weather was getting a little warmer.

“… Maybe. I don’t know.” She said. “Or maybe it’s because I can’t decide whether Black scares me or not.”

“Why not?”

“… Because… I don’t know, at lot of this doesn’t make sense. Maybe I just…want to give the benefit of the doubt or something because he was my parents’ best friend.”

“There are definitely some blanks in the story.” He agreed.

“Why are we the only ones to see that, d’you think?” Megan asked. “Most people just see him as a psychopath and don’t think twice about it.”

Cedric sighed.

“It’s easier to think a person’s mad and not look any further. Plus, why would they want to? Unless one knows him personally. I mean, you yourself only truly got into the matter after learning he was connected to you and your parents, didn’t you?”

That was admittedly true.

“I suppose you’re right…”

Cedric leaned against the wall. Megan sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Cedric asked.

“… Yes… it’s just this whole thing is giving me a headache. I hate knowing something’s off but not knowing how to figure out what… I can’t ask Lupin, he doesn’t like talking about it… and obviously my parents are not available…”

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out somehow.” Cedric said.

“… Yes… I just hope it won’t be too late.”

The Easter holidays were not relaxing. The third years had tons of homework, which no one was happy about.

“Why even have holidays at all? The exams are ages away, what’s the idea?” Seamus complained. “This is torture!”

“We’re moving further in our education, it’s bound to get harder.”

Hermione had even more work than anyone else because of the many extra classes she had. She had shadows under eyes and constantly seemed about to cry. Harry and Ron took over looking into Buckbeak’s defence to give Hermione a little bit of respite. Megan had to fit her homework around the extremely intensive training and endless tactics discussions with Wood.

“Now, here’s the situation: Slytherin are in the lead by two hundred points.” He said for the third time that week. “So to win, we have only one option: win by more than that. Now, to do that –“

“We know Oliver, Katie, Angelina and I score at least six times, and Megan catches the Snitch so we win by two hundred and ten,” Alicia said.

“Right,” Wood said approvingly. “So Megan, you mustn’t touch the Snitch until we are more than fifty points up. You hear? Fifty points up.”

“I know, Oliver, or we win the match but loose the cup.” She said. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to keep Malfoy away from the Snitch. He’ll be too focused on pestering me to think of anything else. We’re going to win that cup.”

All Gryffindor could think about was the match. Gryffindor hadn’t won the Quidditch Cup since Charlie Weasley, Ron’s older brother, had been Seeker in the team. But none of them, not even Wood, wanted to win as much as Megan. Between Malfoy’s sabotage attempt during the match against Ravenclaw, his continuous taunts about the effect of the Dementors on Megan and what he had done to Hagrid and Buckbeak, Megan was ready to fight to the death to win. No one had ever seen a match approach with such a tense atmosphere. Everyone wanted Slytherin to finally face defeat. And of course, Slytherin wanted the exact opposite. Megan especially was having a hell of a time just crossing a corridor. Slytherins kept trying to trip her up. The others were targeted as well, but Megan was the worse, because they all knew they wouldn’t be able to play if she was out of commission. One afternoon she was even shoved in the stairs and would have fallen if the twins, who had been passing nearby, hadn’t caught her. So from then on they became her bodyguards along with Harry and Ron, much to the Slytherins’ dismay.

The night before the match, no one could go about their usual occupations. None of them could concentrate, their thoughts too focused on the match. Even Hermione gave up her mount of books. The tension was almost smothering. Fred and George were coping with the pressure by being even louder than usual. Then, Fred said:

“Hey, Megan, play us some music!”

Megan looked up.

“Yeah, good idea, it’ll cheer us all up.” Ron said.

Megan thought for a few seconds.

“You know what, you’re right.”

She got up to her room and pulled out her guitar before heading down to the common room with it. She sat down and played a couple of chords to check it was in tune. She hadn’t had a chance to use it in a while. Then, she played a song she had written on one of her lonely days.As she played, she couldn’t help thinking of Cedric. They had a bond like that. Whenever one was in trouble the other would do everything to help them. It was true of all of her friends but it felt different with Cedric.And for a few moments, they were able to think about nothing but the music. Black, the match, the exams, all was put aside for a while.

After a while, people started going to bed, too wound up to do anything else. Megan sighed as she lay on her bed. She was too tense to sleep, thinking about everything that was going on, turning it round and round in her head without making any more sense out of it than she had been able to before. She couldn't help wondering what her parents would have said or done if they'd been in her shoes. She felt like standing at a crossroad with two different voices each pointing her in one direction, and neither giving much of an indication why. She sighed, and for the hundredth time, tried to sum up what she knew: First, Black had known her parents. That was incontrovertible. She had seen pictures and still remembered what the teachers had said. Second, Pettigrew had died and Black had supposedly killed him after he'd tried to avenge Megan's parents. But something about that sounded odd. For one, and she still had no answer, if they were so close, why had Black sold her parents to Voldemort? And there had been no mention of Pettigrew being as close to her parents as Black had been, so it seemed odd he'd risk his life to avenge them... Of course, they could have been close; but she couldn't see it. It would have been said when Black had been mentioned, she felt sure of that. But they might have been friends, from what she'd gathered. Lupin and Black had known her parents, and Lupin knew Pettigrew, so it was quite likely he had been friends with them all too. But what Fudge had said about Black's sanity was probably what bothered Megan most. She had been told the convicts all went mad, and she had no trouble believing that, having been in close contact with Dementors, which stood guard in Azaban. And yet, somehow, Blac had remained sane. How, she had no idea; but she couldn't help wonder. Would a guilty man, as bright as he was, be able to resist the pressure of the Dementors? Unless... unless he was innocent, and that certainty was the one thing that had prevented him from losing his mind... she sighed. She felt this was the key to it all, somehow. How he had kept his mental health. She turned over and looked out the window into the starlit sky. She couldn't help thinking that the stars sparkled in a way that reminded her of Cedric's eyes when he smiled or laughed.

Megan slept badly. She saw what had appeared to her in Divination. And then, it became the match that she lost. She imagined her team mates’ faces. The worse one was when she was flying through the air, chasing the Snitch, Malfoy hot on her tail. But just as she was about to catch it, she realised she didn’t have her broom, and fell through the air. She woke with a start, gasping and sweating. Then, she realised she hadn’t played yet, and would be okay. She lay back in bed and breathed slowly.

You’re under pressure, she told herself. That’s all.

Then, thirsty, she got up and poured herself some water from the silver jug by the window. She sat on the window seat and looked outside as she drank. The grounds were still and quiet. The moon was high above them. Nothing seemed to move. The conditions for tomorrow’s match were looking good. She was just putting her goblet down when something caught her eye. Something was moving down in the grounds. Megan got onto her knees to look out. It couldn’t be the Grim… not right before the match… She slowly looked around. Then, she saw it by the outskirts of the Forest. And it wasn’t the Grim…

“Crookshanks…?”

But looking on, Megan saw it wasn’t only Crookshanks… walking beside him was a large grey dog. Megan frowned in confusion. If Crookshanks could see it too, that meant the dog was not an omen of death at all… But if he could see it, what was a cat doing with a dog, its natural enemy? She glanced at Hermione, wondering whether to wake her up to make sure she wasn’t dreaming… but she was so tired, Megan didn’t have the heart to. When she glanced outside again, cat and dog had gone. She looked for them several minutes, but they didn’t reappear. She frowned and went back to bed.