A light rain had passed over the Highlands in the late afternoon, and when it had gone, Hogwarts bade farewell to the long desolation of late autumn and passed formally into the bitter cold of winter.
The last wet leaves had been stripped from the trees overnight; the lake lay under a skin of black glass and each morning now the grass on the lawns crunched underfoot like sugar, and every breath hung before one's face in a small white cloud.
Thin moonlight, brimming with a reddish flush, leapt over the distant ridges to hang from the branches of the Whomping Willow, and shone down upon the frozen earth. Yet it could not thin the darkness that shrouded the mountains and their countless valleys.
And the castle, standing like a torch high on the cliff's edge, gave off light and warmth enough only for itself.
Even though it was neither holiday nor festival, Friday's dinner was always livelier than any other of the week.
The first week's work was done; the weekend lay ahead like an unopened gift and the whole Great Hall seemed to hum with relief. Students and staff traded opinions on how best to spend the next two days, in loud, cheerful voices, as they enjoyed the sumptuous spread.
At the Gryffindor table, Hermione glanced up from the heavy tome propped open across her knees and pressed two fingers to the aching spot between her eyebrows.
Truth be told, ever since the new school year began, she had once again felt keenly how short of time she was.
Setting aside the fact that, now that they were in fifth year, every student faced the all-important O.W.L. exams, her duties as a prefect also demanded that she do her part to keep order at Hogwarts.
And on top of everything else, there was the matter of Professor Watson, who, so accustomed to playing the hands-off sort of boss, had calmly passed practically everything to do with the "Society for the Promotion of the Rights of Intelligent Magical Beings," which was to say the exchange delegation, straight into her hands.
Add all of that together, and she was several times more exhausted than any other student in the school.
So, when she noticed that Harry, sitting beside her, was neither eating his dinner properly nor using the dinner hour for study, as she was, but staring darkly across the Great Hall at the Slytherin table with a scowl, her tone which though she had meant it to be soothing, could not help but sharpen with impatience.
"You can starve yourself to death if you like, Harry, and glare until your eyes fall out, but it won't get Malfoy sent to Avalon Prison. Or thrown out of Hogwarts either!"
"What— Oh!"
Harry jerked as if a pin had been stuck in him, and when he met Hermione's expressionless face, completely calm and blank, every instinct he possessed told him that this was the most dangerous face she owned. He gave an instinctive shudder and hastily pulled his gaze back across the Hall.
Harry took up his cup of steaming pumpkin juice and sipped it without tasting it, and let his eyes slide off, sideways and up, toward the staff table.
Professor Watson, who had already left the school, could not of course be expected back so soon. But he was not the only one gone from the long table. At its far end, Hagrid's enormous chair was also empty.
"Where's Hagrid?"
Harry frowned and asked, turning his head.
He had only meant it idly and never expected Hermione to have an answer. But to his surprise, she actually did.
"There's a full moon tonight, Harry."
Harry was taken aback. For a moment he only stared at her, and then he turned his head to look out through the tall windows at the black world beyond the castle, where the swollen red moon was heaving itself up over the edge of the Forest.
Out there in the dark, a small oil lamp had left Hagrid's hut and was wandering slowly along the edge of the Forbidden Forest. It went some distance, paused, bobbed, and hung quite. And then it vanished, as though a great hand had cupped itself over the flame.
Harry raised an eyebrow, thought about it for a moment, and then looked away, since there was no use brooding over what he could not see.
After more than a decade of silence, it seemed, the Shrieking Shack was once again serving its old purpose.
"It's nearly time, Hermione, Ginny. Shall we go?"
Luna had come round from the back of the Hall with a light, bouncing tread, away from the Ravenclaw table, her radish earrings were swinging at every step and her silvery-blonde hair floating about her like dandelion fluff.
She spoke to Hermione with a bright smile, as though they had arranged to meet for a picnic by the lake.
Ginny, who had been sitting a few places down from Harry, was on her feet at once, and Hermione hurriedly scooped the quills, ink and parchment from across her lap and swept the whole tumbling lot into her bag.
"What are you lot up to?"
Ron, who had been regaling Colin with the full tale of the study trip, waving a chicken drumstick about like a conductor's baton, but now he broke off in the middle of a gesture and turned to look, studying Hermione with curiosity.
"We're going to the library to sort through what we've gotten out of all our exchanges with the exchange delegation so far, and then to give Roya and the others some tutoring—"
It was Luna who answered. She tilted her head, that odd smile was still hanging at the corner of her mouth, and said to Ron,
"Would you like to come along, Ron?"
"Oh. Er, no, I don't think so."
Ron immediately ducked his head back.
Harry, for his part, had no intention of tagging along either. It was only that—
He watched Hermione bustling about, stuffing her books into her bag with sharp, harassed movements, and the words he had been about to say died in his throat.
Judging from her mood just now, if he dared to bring up his idea of staking out Malfoy in the Great Hall tonight, she was guaranteed to explode like a Filibuster firework.
"And I've got things to do as well, Harry," said Ron, when dinner was finally over.
He shrugged, looking a little helpless, one hand creeping up to the prefect's badge on his chest, as though he wasn't sure it was still there.
"Patrol. The whole castle, floor by floor, all night."
Now that the first flush of excitement at becoming a prefect had faded, for Ron the post had turned into a dull and thankless chore of cold corridors, sleeping portraits and first-years in the wrong places at the wrong hours.
"All right, then."
Harry nodded. He had been on the point of telling Ron to keep an eye on anything unusual in the castle, and to watch whether Malfoy came out of the Slytherin dungeon.
But the thought of how, only a few days ago, Ron and his girlfriend had both landed in the hospital wing over this was enough to seal his lips again.
If Ron were hurt a second time because of him, Harry knew he would carry the guilt of it for the rest of his life.
Tonight the Gryffindor common room was no different from any other Friday night.
It was a warm, round, shabby, comfortable place, smelling of woodsmoke and old books and spilled butterbeer, with squashy armchairs in scarlet and a fire roaring in the hearth, and about it the students had arranged themselves in clusters.
Most of them were racing through their homework so as to be free for a pleasant weekend and now and again someone would be groaning aloud in despair over a Transfiguration problem.
Harry was among them.
A head so full of tangled thoughts was no good at all for coursework that demanded any use of the brain, but he took out the essay Professor Trelawney had set and, with his mind miles away, started composing his own death for the coming month on the parchment.
After more than two years of this, of hangings, drownings, falls from great heights and encounters with every kind of dire misfortune that he could invent, such predictions no longer amused Professor Trelawney in the least. He needed something special, something with a bit of flair.
How about being killed in a duel?
Professor Trelawney would surely love that, and might even praise his courage.
And then which curse should he die under… the Killing Curse?
Oh, no. That would be taking the joke much too far.
Harry propped his chin on his fist and chewed his quill. The fire beside him gave out its warmth across the whole room like a hot spring, soaking into his shoulders and the back of his neck, and slowly his eyelids grew heavier, and the words on the parchment began, very gently, to swim.
The hour hand on the wall clock had crept past nine, and the deeper the night grew, the livelier the common room became.
Off to one side, Neville was sweeping his wand through a series of sword-fighting moves, lunging and parrying at some invisible opponent with his face red and shining, and his dashing, enthusiastic flourishes drew bursts of cheering from Seamus and Dean, who clapped and stamped their feet in approval.
Fred and George, arms slung about each other's shoulders, slipped out of the portrait hole with their broomsticks without a sound, grinning. They had always been used to operating by night.
"I don't remember promising you anything, kid—"
Harry, who had been dozing off over his parchment in a half-dream, was jolted wide awake by Ron's voice beside him.
It was indeed Ron. He had apparently just come back from his night patrol rounds and hadn't had time to wake Harry yet.
In front of him stood a small boy who couldn't have been in anything more than his first or second year, with a few red pimples scattered across his face, arguing some point with Ron in a high, aggrieved voice.
"What's going on?"
Harry yawned and rubbed his bleary, sleep-heavy eyes with the back of his hand.
Of late, two matters had been nagging at him so badly that he could hardly eat or sleep: Professor Watson's missing staff, and whether Sirius, as the Secret-Keeper for Remus and his family, might become Voldemort's target.
The two worries circled each other in his mind like a pair of restless dogs, and gave him no peace.
"This little brat—"
Ron glared down at the small boy in front of him, his freckled face was red with anger.
"He was playing with a Fanged Frisbee in the common room earlier, so I took it off him. Now he wants it back, and I've already handed the blasted thing over to Filch!"
"But—"
Chazel bit his lip and looked up at Ron, looking deeply wronged.
"You promised me afterwards that you'd give it back! You did!"
"Oh, rubbish!"
Ron glared down at him.
"When did I ever promise I'd give it back? Listen, kid, I'll only say this one more time: I handed that Frisbee to Filch, and if you carry on making a fuss, I'll go to Professor McGonagall and she can give you detention. Got it?"
Harry, who had been listening for a few exchanges, twitched the corner of his mouth and asked offhandedly,
"When did all this happen, anyway?"
"It was right when you all were away on that study trip to Avalon Prison, the— Oh!"
Ron's eyes suddenly flew wide, and he stared blankly at Harry, and what met his gaze was a face just as stiff!
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