Disclaimer * See chapter one.

"O my beloved, lingering in the gardens, how wonderful that your companions can listen to your voice. Let me hear it, too!" (Song of Songs 8:13)

      Harry had never been more relieved to see King's Cross, yet at the same time he was dreading getting off the Hogwart's Express.  It was finally here:  Hogwarts was behind him now, perhaps for the last time.  He had promised Dumbledore that he would return to the Dursleys and remain there until his seventeenth birthday, and so he had a month of torture ahead of him and then a long hard search, one in which he really didn't know where to start.

      He didn't see Ginny again until after he got off the train, and then he wasn't quite sure how to act.  He was carrying his trunk off the train and shoved past her, trying to remain expressionless, acting as if he were ignoring her or she were beneath his notice entirely.  He set the trunk down on a waiting trolley, his chest tight to see her so heartbroken.  Ginny for her part ran past him and into her parents waiting arms.

      "What's wrong dear?" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed.  Nott was nearby with Crabbe and Goyle--having apparently taken Malfoy's post as ringleader--clearly listening intently.

      "Harry broke up with me!" Ginny wept loudly.  Crabbe and Goyle exchanged greedy looks.  Mr. Weasley looked to Harry, obviously greatly surprised:

      "Is this true?" he asked.

      "Yeah," said Harry flippantly.  "Come on," he told Ron and Hermione, who both looked torn about leaving Ginny so bereft.  He led the way towards the barrier, feeling so awful that he did not really care who he ran into or cut off on the way.  The Dursleys were waiting on the other side, clearly upset to be kept waiting, but even more incensed to find that they were going to be receiving visitors.  Harry had sent a letter ahead, but the Dursleys clearly had either not read it or chose to hope that it was all a big joke.  Harry performed the obligatory introductions, and the Dursleys led the way back to the car.

      Harry found it highly destracting to notice several kiosks and shops that were clearly displaying jewelry along the way.  He suddenly had a strange desire to browse their wares, but of course there wasn't time.  Ginny probably wouldn't have accepted any jewelry from him at the moment, and he knew that they couldn't properly become engaged, but just the same Harry felt an overwhelming desire to find just the item that would let the whole world know how much he cared for her.

      When they reached the car Uncle Vernon opened the boot for them without a word, then turned to see Harry's expression.  The compartment was already filled overflowing with bags of clothing, video games, and CDs, all clearly intended for Dudley.  Uncle Vernon was clearly tickled pink, but Harry just turned to Hermione, who surreptitiously cast an Enlarging Spell on the interior of the compartment.  Ron and Harry started loading up the trunks.  She then moved forward to the back seat of the car and did the same, causing Dudley to yelp and jump out of the car.

      "Dad, that girl just did..."

      "Not another word!" Uncle Vernon said threateningly.  Ron and Hermione were already sliding into the back seat and waiting for everyone to get into the car.  Uncle Vernon turned to Harry, clearly enraged:  "What do you expect us to do with these freaks, Boy?"

      "I expect you to give them room and board for a few weeks just as Ron's family has done for me in the past."

      "And how do you expect me to pay for it?" he asked.  "You're going to ruin the vacation we had planned for August."  The insinuation that the Dursleys couldn't put up two people for four weeks while the Weasleys had somehow managed to put him up countless times--despite the fact that they were not well off--enraged Harry:

      "Perhaps you should have thought of that before you bought Dudley a new wardrobe and entertainment collection," Harry said shortly.  He climbed into the car.

        Aunt Petunia was glaring down her nose at Hermione, whose efforts at polite conversation were being rebuffed, then turned away from her, nose upturned, as Uncle Vernon climbed into the car. No one said another word until after they reached Privet Drive.
 
 
 

* * * * * * *
 
 
 
      The summer holidays were not pleasant, but then, Harry hadn't exactly expected them to be.  The Dursleys largely ignored Harry and his guests and they for the most part did the same.  Harry and Ron and Hermione did whatever they could to amuse themselves and stay out of the house, which, to be quite honest, everyone felt was for the best.

      One morning Harry received an invitation to come over "with friends" to Mrs. Figg's for afternoon tea.  As they had little else to do but spend another riveting day lying around at the playpark, doing nothing, they gladly accepted.  They strolled over to her home at the appropriate time, not sure what they would find when they arrived.  She greeted them soberly, then left them in the front room while she retrieved the tea and biscuits.

      Several cats took an instant liking to Ron and were insistant for attention.  Hermione had her nose stuck into a book she had brought along entitled Simple Cooking and Cleaning Charms by Catherine Crisp (but charmed to appear to be Betty Crocker's Homemaker Guide).  Harry found a photo album on the corner table that he had never seen before.  As Mrs. Figg had always been keen to show him pictures before he found this odd, but he felt perfectly comfortable picking it up and perusing its pages.

      The pictures were very old.  They revealed three children--two boys and a girl--whom Harry could only assume must be Mrs. Figg and her siblings.  The girl was constantly carrying cats around.  One of her brothers seemed to enjoy making mud pies with her.  The other brother--who appeared to be older than Mrs. Figg but younger than their other sibling--seemed to enjoy reading quite a bit and always had a pair of spectacles perched on his nose.  Harry felt a curious prickling while gazing at this boy, as if he ought to recognize him.  The boy for his part seemed to enjoy peering back out at him and winking periodically.

      It wasn't until he had gotten a third of a way through the images, to a time where both of the brothers were wearing glasses and must have been at Hogwarts for several years, before Harry suddenly realized who he was looking at.  A sharp intake of air (his only outword sign of surprise) caused Hermione to look at him curiously, and she peered over his shoulder at the picture in question, one in which all three of the teens were standing together.

      The brother on Mrs. Figg's right was holding up an award, looking extremely pleased, and he passed it over to her.  She shined the plaque with her sleeve pleasantly, and then passed it off to the recipient of the award, gazing up at him proudly.  The brother on her left was wearing a Head Boy badge and had on a new pair of spectacles that were shaped like small crescent moons.  He held aloft the plaque for all to see, and Harry could just make out what it said:  "Awarded to Albus Dumbledore upon his Achievement of Discovering the Twelve Uses of Dragon's Blood".  Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as if he had a secret to tell, and his hat was tilted jauntily on the top of his head.

      The real Mrs. Figg chose this moment to enter the room and dropped the tea tray with a crash.  Hermione pulled out her wand to repair the broken pieces and clean up the mess while Mrs. Figg sank into one of her overstuffed armchairs.  Ron managed to disentangle himself from the cats for long enough to start some more tea, while Mrs. Figg wiped tears from her eyes.

      "We were all so close, you see," she noted quietly.  "I did not hesitate at all when he asked me to move here, to watch over you from afar.  I had just lost my Ned and had nowhere to go, see?"  Harry turned the page to find pictures of a Muggle wedding at which Dumbledore was escorting a beautiful young woman with honey blonde hair.  In every picture they stood very close; he whispered into her ear in one, his arm around her waist, her smile opened in a silent laugh at the secret joke they had shared.

      On the next page there were pictures of a later event, a Christmas tree clearly displayed in the background, the beautiful woman no longer looking wonderfully slender as before.  Dumbledore's arm was still about her waist, but this time his hand was cupped protectively over the new curve of his wife's stomach.  She was obviously pregnant, though not yet very far along, he judged.  As the tree was covered with cat decorations he guessed that it had been taken in Mrs. Figg's former home.

      Hermione's eyes grew wide in surprise as she took the album from him.  She began to quickly flip through the pages.  Harry's chest felt curiously tight as he noticed that not one of the pages Hermione was madly turning through contained a picture of the woman with golden hair.  All subsequent pages that revealed Professor Dumbledore showed him to be standing alone, at Hogwarts, at the Ministry, with Nicholas Flamel and the Sorcerer's Stone, in each one his nose now clearly crooked as if it had been broken.

      When Hermione reached the end she opened the album to one page in particular, one that she had saved the place of with the intent to come back.  A folded up newspaper clipping fell out, and Harry picked it up off the floor, opening it with trembling fingers, to reveal the last picture of the beautiful woman.  She was dancing alone, her hair swinging around her, her body full with child, looking at whoever had taken the picture with the utmost affection, presumably Dumbledore.  It felt wrong to look at the picture, as if he were invading the Headmaster's privacy, and a hard lump formed in Harry's throat even before he began to read:  Beatrix Honey (Engelbreit) Dumbledore and her unborn child perish mysteriously in their home... but he could not bring himself to read any further.  The page Hermione had opened the album to held a large newspaper clipping with the headline:  "Albus Dumbledore defeats Julian Grindelwald".

      Harry found that it was all he could do not to cry.  Dumbledore had loved someone very deeply, had obviously been changed for the better because he knew her, and then he had lost her to an evil that only he could rid the world of.  This was why he had broken up with Ginny, because he knew he could not bear to lose her.  It would be better to be apart forever by choice--with her safe and happy with someone else if need be--than to lose her forever to Voldemort.  He gazed at the picture of Beatrix for a very long time, until Hermione gently pried his fingers away and set to reading it herself.

      There was a sputter in the fireplace and, in a burst of green flames, Remus Lupin suddenly appeared and stepped into the room.

      "Hello, Harry," Moony said gravely.  "Mrs. Figg, Hermione, Ron."  He started brushing the ash off of his ragged clothes.  Ron set down the tea tray and was about to pour when Dobby appeared with a crack.

      "Dobby will do the serving for Mrs. Arabella, yes," the elf took the teapot from him.  Moony sat down in a armchair that matched Mrs. Figg's--save for the variations in tears where her cats had sharpened their claws--and took a long drink of his tea, draining it all away.  Dobby was quick to give him a refill.  Ron seated himself beside Hermione.  Remus sighed:

      "Dumbledore left nearly everything to you, Harry," he told him, removing a piece of parchment from a pocket inside his jacket.  Harry took the parchment from Remus, his eyes widening at the list:  a great deal of Dumbledore's belongings had been transfered to a vault in Gringotts upon his death.  He found the names of books listed, gadgets that he didn't know by name (though perhaps by sight), and the Pensieve, just to name a few of the items.  Harry passed the list to Hermione; Ron peered over her shoulder, crunching noisily on a biscuit.

      "Master Dumblydore was great and generous wizard," Dobby said quietly, tears welling up in his eyes.  "Winky is too humbled to offer you her continued services, but I will be so bold as to offer to work for Master Harry Potter for less if he is wanting it."  Harry turned to Dobby, surprised; it had never occured to him that he and Winky had worked for Dumbledore rather than the school.  He wondered if Dobby had informed the headmaster of the tasks Harry had set him to the year before.

      "No, Dobby, I will pay you just as much as Dumbledore did," he said firmly, "more if you'll let me."  Fresh tears filled Dobby's eyes.

      "Master Harry is too generous for Dobby," the elf claimed, and he quickly set himself tidying up a bit, his cheeks pink.

      "I'm sure you'll also find that you'll be coming into a great deal of money in a couple of weeks," Moony noted.  Harry looked to him in surprise:

      "What do you mean?"

      "The vault that you have been using was only for your school things," Moony replied.  "As soon as you come of age the vault will be closed and consolidated with your parents' vault."  Harry struggled to digest this new information:  more money?  What on earth was he to do with it?  He supposed it would come in handy for traveling wherever he needed to go in order to find the Horcruxes and defeat Voldemort.  "Is there anything you need, Harry?  You seem rather preoccupied."

      "Yes," he tried to cover.  "I need to buy some clothes that fit and get some of these books that will help me figure out how to defeat Voldemort."  While all this was perfectly true it wasn't precisely the reason he wanted an outing.

      Harry was finding it more and more impossible to not think about Ginny and the possibility of proposing to her; he missed her terribly, could think of little but her at times, and couldn't imagine how she felt.  While he wasn't entirely sure that he would get through this alive, he still thought that he needed to make sure that she and her parents understood his intentions.  He wanted to leave her with some promise that--if he survived--he'd be coming back.  To this end he found that he very much wanted to find the perfect ring for Ginny.  "What's happening to the Order?" he continued.

      "Nothing at the moment, I'm afraid," Remus said.  "Most of us are sticking with the assignments that Dumbledore gave us, but without a leader the group won't be very effective."  Hermione cleared her throat:

      "Wouldn't Dumbledore--I mean, wouldn't it stand to reason--that he'd want Harry to lead the Order?"  Harry stood and stolled over to the window, gazing out at but not seeing the perfectly trimmed lawns that sat in front of every house on the street.

      "I don't even know how to find what I need to defeat Voldemort," he said stiffly.  "How am I supposed to lead a bunch of witches and wizards who are much more able than me?"  Not for the first time, Harry wished Dumbledore would have taken the time to tell him more and teach him more.  He felt grossly ill equiped.  But he brushed aside these mutinous thoughts as Moony stood and put a hand on his shoulder:

      "I think you'll be surprised to find that all of us feel just as helpless as you do."  Moony slipped a small bag made of ancient red velvet into his hand:  "Whenever you're ready, Harry."

      Remus left shortly after that.  He promised that he and "Nymphadora" would return in a week and take them to Surrey for Muggle clothes.  Similarly, the plan was for him to arrive the night of Harry's birthday and take them to Diagon Alley before escorting them to the Weasleys.  At the moment it just felt like more to wait for, an eternity away.  Most things felt that way to Harry these days.
 
 
 

* * * * * * *
 
 
 
      Though Harry had found that he couldn't open the pouch that Moony had given him he soon took to carrying it everywhere.  He didn't know why, but it seemed important.

      True to his word, Remus and Tonks had arrived at Mrs. Figg's a week later and escorted him with Ron and Hermione to Surrey.  Shopping with two women--even two girls who were largely uninterested about such things compared to the rest of their species--proved to be highly unnerving.  Even worse was when he couldn't help stopping in front of a jewelry store and hesitantly gazing in the window.  Hermione and Tonks got very serious and looked at all the wares quite longingly.  Moony and Ron both turned red and became quite keen to be anywhere else.  By the end of the day the group was heavily laden down with packages full of clothes that fit Harry perfectly.  He was absolutely exhausted.

      Harry's next order of business was cleaning out his trunk.  Simply put, the container was a mess, and as he fully intended to never return to the Dursleys when he left he needed to do a much needed inventory.  The first things he tossed out were Dudley's hand-me-downs.  Next he stuffed his Hogwarts robes in an old duffel that was ripped and lying in the bottom of the wardrobe:  he might as well donate them to the second-hand shop on Diagon Alley.  He seriously considered chucking his cauldron set and old textbooks as well, but finally decided against it, not at all certain that he'd never need them.  As it was, Harry found that he had so much stuff that he was forced to beg Hermione to cast an Enlargement Charm on his trunk just to get it to close.

      The next week passed with excruciating slowness.  Harry was quick to get out the maps he had bought while in Surrey and plan out the route from the Burrow to Godric's Hollow.  After that he had nothing to do and actually found himself reading Hermione's cookbook and giving in to Ron's repeated requests for a partner at chess.  He dreamt about Ginny almost every night now and was resolved to go into Baubles and Bells, a jewelry store he had noticed on Diagon Alley but never taken the time to go into.

      July 30th finally came and went, and as the clock turned midnight Harry looked to Ron with glee.  Ron started stuffing the rest of his belongings in his trunk, and Harry gave the room one last once over.  He was certainly not going to miss this place.  He repaired his floorboard--no one else would need it, would they?--and levitated his trunk, strolling downstairs with purpose.  Hermione was already sitting downstairs reading Catherine Crisp's sequel, Intermediate Cooking and Cleaning Charms - Help for the Newlyweds.  Ron turned red when he saw this and went back upstairs to the guest room to retrieve her trunk.

      The Dursleys had gone to bed hours ago without saying a word of good night or goodbye.  This was just as well as Harry had absolutely nothing pleasant to say to them.  He grinned at Ron as he reached the bottom of the stairs, then opened the front door and stepped out into the night, a free man at last.
 
 
 

* * * * * * *
 
 
 
      In the early morning light Diagon Alley looked much more forelorn than Harry had remembered.  Pedestrians were few and far between, and many of the shops were closed that hadn't been before (Baubles and Bells was one of them, disappointingly enough).  Tom the Bartender was eager to help them with anything they wanted or needed... probably because they were just about the only guests he had staying above the Leaky Cauldron.  The group's next stop was Gringotts.  Bill was there waiting for them, seemingly oblivious of the glares he was getting from a passing witch and her frightened daughter.  Harry thought Bill looked a lot better than had had anticipated and tried not to stare.

      "Got your new keys, Harry?" Bill asked cheerfully, a bounce in his step.  "I imagine you'll want to visit your vaults."  Harry looked to Moony, confused, and Lupin sighed:

      "You did bring the pouch, didn't you Harry?"  Harry pulled the small red bag our of his pocket:

      "Of course I did, but," his mouth fell open.  The pouch was now emblazoned with a lion embroidered in gold thread.  As he watched the pouch opened itself revealing two vault keys, both large and gold and far more intricately designed than any normal key.  One was engraved with the number 713, the other 7.  He passed them both over to Bill, who quickly escorted them through security.

      Vault number 713 looked the same as Harry had remembered it on the outside but when it was opened it now had a whole lot of stuff on the inside and seemed a lot bigger.  The vault was crammed full with only a narrow pathway to navigate through the myriad of items.  Hermione perused some of the titles in a huge stack of books that went all the way to the ceiling.  Ron gaped at a hamper that was filled overflowing with fluffy socks.  Moony gazed glumly at a telescope.  Bill grinned at the tables from the Headmaster's office which were there, still filled overflowing with all the silver instruments, which were now depressingly silent.  Harry's eyes fell on the space on one table where he had seen Slytherin's ring:  it was now occupied by the pensieve, a box, and plain book.  He took these items at once, certain that Dumbledore had set them there in particular so he would notice them.  The items fit into his pouch nicely as the inside had an Expanding Charm while the outside's shape and dimensions remained constant.

      Hermione--who was still in awe at the number of books now available to him--looked at him with longing in her eyes, and he nodded solemnly.  A moment later she had Ron loaded down with a stack of books and had an armful herself.  Harry took the time to pick a few titles out for himself:  The Hogwarts Four:  a Quadbiography, Felicitous Phoenix:  Caring for and Understanding Your Unexpected Companion, and a black book with a barely readable title of Slice and Splice:  Tools to Immortality were all close at hand.

      As the group climbed back into the cart Harry stopped with longing by Fawkes' perch, which was situated just by the door.  On the basin beneath he was surprised to find two plain gold rings that blended in with the metal so well that he almost missed them.  He picked one up, curious:  it flashed in the light as he held it forth, a thin line of deep red weaving itself around the ring, returning to itself after it had circumnavigated the band, glowing as if it held fire within.  He slid the rings into his pocket, hoping to examine them more closely sometime soon when he could be alone.

      Vault 7 took a long time to get to and was farther beneath Gringotts than Harry thought he had ever been.  At last they arrived and Harry climbed out of the cart nervously.  The door into the vault was wooden, looked plain and unassuming, and had the number seven crudely carved into the stonework above.  The goblin unlocked the door without a word and Harry led the way into the vault.  Harry's mouth fell open:  the room was huge.  To his left was a stone slab set waist high upon which was arranged more gold galleons than Harry had ever seen before in his life.  Next to the slab was a beautifully carved antique table that held a few spare sickles and knuts.  Beyond that was enough furniture to fill several houses, and behind the furniture he thought he could make out the glint of another huge stack of even more galleons stacked to the ceiling.  Harry felt quite guilty, as this vault seemed almost as large as a Quidditch pitch and he knew that the Weasley vault was quite a lot smaller.

      Harry pulled out the pouch and started scooping galleons into it.  It had magically provided another empty pocket for the task and now enlarged itself, causing the bottom to be covered and adjusting to hold a huge piles of galleons while the bag still weighed nearly nothing.  He barely made a dent in the pile, but he was fairly certain that there was no way he could ever spend the amount of money he had taken within a year.  He started strolling between the pieces of furniture, in awe of the craftmanship displayed by most of the pieces.

      Harry stopped before a small jewelry box that was set on a table and opened its lid.  A tune started to play that seemed vaguely familliar.  Inside the box was a small collection of earrings and necklaces that were lovely but fairly plain and one beautiful gold ring that was set with several tiny diamonds cut in the shape of a flower.

      "That ring's been in your family for hundreds of years, Harry," Moony said soberly.  "Your Dad gave it to Lily when he asked her to marry him."  There was the sound of a drawer slamming shut and Hermione let out a sqeal:  she stuck her fingers in her mouth.

      "Guess you're not supposed to touch," Ron grinned, gesturing at an ornately carved wooden jewelry safe that was was nearly as tall as him.

      "And those, if I'm not mistaken, are the family jewels," Moony opened one of the offending drawers to reveal a single necklace set with too many gems to count that had matching earrings, cufflinks, and tiepin.  He slid it shut again and the group moved on, leaving Harry alone as he closed the small jewelry box and surreptitiously started to slip the beautiful ring into what he soon realized was yet another pocket of the pouch, a pocket that wasn't empty.

      Harry reached inside and pulled out yet another ring.  What it reminded him of the most was a Muggle class ring such as the one Dudley had been showing off all summer.  It was set with a large square ruby.  Harry knew that on either side of Dudley's ring were panels of black that contained a boater and knobbly stick under his name on one side, boxing gloves and the name of Smelting's mascot on the other, but this ring's sides were empty.  Around the stone was etched some words that appeared to be in Latin but Harry found he couldn't quite make them out.  He put the ring back in the pouch, side by side with the ring he wanted to give Ginny and the rings that has been in Dumbledore's vault.

      Harry hurried to follow the group as they passed a huge four-poster, a nursery set complete with a toy broom, and another set of books that sent Hermione scrambling.  There was an old Nimbus that must have been Harry's dad's that he and Ron enjoyed holding very much.  There was a wardrobe full of men's dress robes that were just his size and also an identical wardrobe with a set of women's dress robes that Harry very much would have liked to have seen Ginny in.  Harry selected a men's robe for himself that he thought would be comfortable in the summer heat and closed the other wardrobe sadly.  Next he scanned the photos in serveral albums, one ratty one containing pics of the Marauders at school, and some leatherbound ones that were full of pictures of his ancestors.  The fact that his family had left him all of this was more than a bit awe inspiring.
 
 
 

* * * * * * *
 
 
 
      Lunch at the Leaky Cauldron (after dropping some of their finds off in their rooms) was very sober.  Harry didn't feel much like eating but forced down some soup and a sandwich.  Hermione's nose was already in one of the books but Harry knew there was no way he was letting his own tomes out of his sight or off his person nor would he be reading them in public anytime soon.  Ron kept glancing at Harry enviously.

      The trip to Gringotts had taken a lot longer than Harry had anticipated, but thankfully the trip to Madame Malkin's wouldn't take as long now that he only had to get everyday robes (and not very many, at that).  It was decided to put off Flourish and Blotts until the next day... after they took their Apparition tests.

      That night Harry sat staring at the rings he had found.  The first two, Dumbledore's rings, no longer revealed their flaming design but stayed just as plain as ever.  They rather looked like wedding bands, in fact he discerned that this was probably their purpose.  The third ring, his mother's, seemed to glow with its own light.  He desperately wanted to give Ginny the beautiful ring, to be able to give her all of the beautiful things that were in his vault, that had belonged to his mother.  The last ring bore no new secrets than the last time any more than any of the others had.

      The next morning dawned hot and muggy.  The trio were sweating quite a bit as they made their way to the Ministry of Magic for Harry and Ron to take their Apparition tests, though that might have been the nerves more than anything as the Underground was quite cool.  Harry stared at the fountain as they entered the Ministry:  the statues hadn't been replaced yet, leaving the pool empty.  Half an hour later everyone left the Ministry in considerably higher spirits than upon their arrival.

      "I thought I'd left my ear behind for a second, but it turned out all right in the end," Ron said proudly, gazing at his license with pride.  Hermione sniffed loudly:

      "I rather thought your test would be harder than that," she said loftily.  "They didn't even ask you to Apparate Floor-to-Floor or Side-by-Side or Side-Along..."  Harry chose not to get in the middle of the heated discussion that was starting and didn't mention that he still prefered traveling by broom... flying with Ginny in particular.

      Flourish and Blotts was rather empty.  Harry headed straight for the Defense Against the Dark Arts section but wasn't surprised to not find anything on Horcruxes.  He still bought a stack of books on defense:  just because he wasn't going back to school didn't mean that he should stop studying.  Hermione apparently was still taking her studies far more seriously, for though she bought Crisp's Advanced Cooking and Cleaning Charms - What Every Homemaker Should Know she also picked up all the seventh-year books for the classes she had taken at Hogwarts:  "No reason to fall behind now, is there?  I hope they'll let me take my N.E.W.T.s at the end of the year if I keep up my studies."

      After the bookstore they went to visit the twins.  While there wasn't quite the rush as last time, the store was still not lacking for customers.

      "Got a new line in the defense wear," George exclaimed upon escorting Harry into the back.

      "It was Mad-Eye who gave us the idea," Fred finished, presenting an assortment of holsters to keep your wand concealed but close at hand.  "Some of these are just for the arm or waist, but this one, it'll adjust to fit just about anyhere."  Harry picked out several of the deluxe versions with the invisibility charm, all in a red leather, for himself, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny.  Harry was saddened yet reassured by the fact that the back room of the shop seemed to have been expounded upon a lot more heavily than the front, though Harry did notice a new display for "Party Confetti of Every Variety".  They left all too soon, not as heavily loaded down with objects of merriment as Harry might have expected or liked, but he was strengthened by the Twins resillience and wisdom none the less.

      Harry paused at the entrance to Knockturn Alley.  No one said anything as he walked to where Borgin & Burkes stood, but they didn't follow him, either.  He hadn't gone far before he realized that the shop was boarded up.  He quickly returned to the company of his friends.

      "They got raided by the Ministry after the attack, Harry," Ron said.

      "They won't be selling anything to anyone anymore," Hermione agreed.  "The Prophet said that most of the merchandise was confiscated and destroyed."  As Harry had been too distracted to read the Prophet or any of the correspondence Ron had received this summer, both of these facts were news to him.  He was silently kicking himself now--he should have been more concerned about the state of the world during his sabatacle--and promised himself that he would drill Hermione for pertinent news as soon as it was convenient.

      "It's more likely they're trying to figure out how all of it works in the Department of Mysteries," Ron returned.  "Dad said there was some dangerous stuff in there."

      "What about the Wardrobe?" Harry asked.

      "Scrimgeour had it moved to his office," Ron said.  "I guess he wants to keep a tight rein on McGonagall."

      "Like that's going to happen," Harry returned.  "I'd like to see her staring him down as if he were a first-year who'd just been caught out after hours."  Ron laughed with Harry knowingly.
 
 
 

Chapter Three - Disturbing Dream, Dreadful Day

Lumos Nox ~ source ~ rogue.fire.angel@gmail.com
550 since 03 - 29 - 06 ~ fic completed 08 - 15 - 05 ~ final edit 11 - 11 - 06