She stood in a dark, dimly lit room. Her hands were long, bony white. Before her, a man in black robes was kneeling.

"I was wrongly informed," Megan said in a cold, low voice full of contained fury. It was barely a whisper but it sent tremors of terror through the man.

"Oh, I beg for your mercy, Great Lord," the man stammered, trembling on the floor. "I was confident my intelligence was accurate..."

"I do not hold you responsible, Rookwood." Megan said in her same, low cold voice, if anything crueler. "Are you sure of your information this time?"

"Yes, sir, quite sure," he agreed, nodding desperately. "I used to work for the Department..."

"Avery claimed to me Bode could have removed it..."

"Oh, it's quite impossible, my Lord, or he would not have tried so much to resist Lucius Malfoy's Imperius Curse..."

"Stand up." Megan ordered sharply.

Rookwood jumped nervously to his feet.

"My... My Lord?"

"You have done well, Rookwood," she said softly. "I have wasted months in fruitless scheming, but no matter. I shall need your help, and any information you can give."

"Yes, my Lord, anything, my Lord..." he said.

"You may go. Send forth Avery."

Rookwood left the room. Megan turned to the old, dirty mirror on her right. Her face was white, her long hair had gone, and her eyes were blacker than the night, her nose two slits....

"NO!"

She woke up with a gasp, but in her agitation, she fell over and got entangled in the hangings. Thrashing around madly, it took a moment for her to realise where she was.

"Calm down, Megan! How d'you expect me to get you out if you keep kicking around?!" Came Hermione's voice.

Megan suddenly found herself looking at Hermione who had pulled the curtains back. She stared at her, flat out, her scar burning.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked, helping her up. "What happened?"

"... I... think I... Voldemort was furious..."

"Megan, you aren't supposed to have those dreams any more–"

"Look, I don't exactly choose to keep having them." she said testily. "I'd much rather not, trust me."

"... What did you see? Another attack?"

"No," Megan said. "But Voldemort was furious, and Rookwood's going to help him fix something..."

"D'you mean you saw You-Know-Who?"

"... I was him." She said, glancing at her hands to check they weren't long and white. To her great relief, they were her own. "He was with Rookwood, one of the escapees... he was saying Bode couldn't remove something that Voldemort wanted... he was under the Imperius Curse... I think Malfoy's father had put it on him."

Hermione watched her carefully.

"Removing something... that's got to be –"

"The weapon," Megan nodded.

"You're saying that... you were in his head?"

She couldn't bring herself to mention her reflection over the summer, but she nodded. Hermione thought for a moment.

"You have to tell –"

"Hermione, if I had been any good at Occlumency, I wouldn't have seen it. I'm supposed to have learned how to shut my mind. That's what they want. It'll just give Snape another excuse to be unpleasant."

They told the others everything the next morning at break.

"So that's why they killed him," Cedric said slowly. "Bode. There must be some sort of defence system down there, wherever the weapon is. Spells, and things. Like the Philosopher's stone. The article said he was acting funny and couldn't speak. The shock of finding the weapon must have lifted the Imperius Curse and they couldn't risk him getting better and blabbing. And Lucius Malfoy's in the Ministry all the time, isn't he, so it would have been easy for him to put Bode under the spell!"

"Malfoy was around the day of my hearing," Megan said thoughtfully. "In the Department of Mysteries corridor. Mr Weasley reckoned he was trying to sneak in and hear my verdict. Of course, Fudge will have told him everything."

"... Sturgis." Hermione whispered.

"What?"

"Sturgis Podmore was arrested for trying to get through a door!" Hermione reminded them. "Lucius Malfoy must have gotten to him too! He must have done it the day of your hearing, Megan. Moody said Podmore'd borrowed his Invisibility Cloak. What if Malfoy found him there, and cast the Imperius Curse? Then, when Podmore had the chance, he tried to get the weapon, got caught instead of Malfoy and sent to Azkaban!"

Harry looked at Megan.

"So now Rookwood has told Voldemort how to get the weapon?"

"I don't know, exactly, but that's what it sounded like." Megan said. "But I doubt he'll go himself. Rookwood used to work at the Ministry, so it's more likely Voldemort will send him."

It was another unpleasant week. Hagrid could still be sacked, which made her less focused and ended her with a "P" in Potions. She also kept thinking about her dream with Rookwood and being Voldemort... She wished she could tell Sirius about it, but it was out of the question, so she shunted it to a corner of her mind. Which, unfortunately, wasn't the safe haven it had once been.

"Get up, Potter."

She had fallen off her chair in Occlumency. It had been two weeks since she had had the dream, and she had been forced to relive unpleasant memories, some of which she didn't even remember, of her youth. Snape was standing there, eyeing her with the same, if not even more loathing than before. She glanced at him angrily.

"What was that last memory?" Snape demanded as she got back into the chair. "The one with a man in the dark?"

"It's nothing..." Megan said, glancing away. "Just... a dream I had."

"A dream?" Snape said coldly. "You know why you are here? Why I am giving my evenings for this job?"

"Yes." she said calmly.

"Remind me."

"To learn Occlumency." she said.

"Correct. And I would have expected a little progress after two months, even from you. How many other dreams of the sort have you had?"

"Just that one." she lied.

"Perhaps they make you feel special? Important, even?" Snape said, lips curled.

"No, they don't," she said coldly, her hands tensing in irritation.

"That is fortunate, for you are neither. Again. Legilimens!"

The Dementors were swarming around her. But this time, she could see Snape. Visualising some sort of barrier, she concentrated on it. And then, slowly, Snape became clearer and clearer, the Dementors and the lake fading. She sat panting a few seconds.

"Hm. It seems as though you have improved a little after all." he said. "Again! On three: One... Two... Legilimens!"

She had not had time to prepare herself, and found herself hurtling down the corridor once more, past the stone walls, and the plain black door grew ever larger. She was going so fast she felt sure she was going to hit it... but as she came up to it, it flew open! Megan found herself in a circular room with doors all around, all black. But which to take...?

"Potter!"

She was back in the dungeon, gasping for breath.

"Explain," he snarled furiously.

"... I don't know what happened..." she said.

"I do. You are not working hard enough, you are lazy and sloppy! I can see you're not going to make any more effort tonight, so you may leave."

Megan said nothing as she gathered her bag and marched out.