"How does this keep happening?" Madam Pomfrey asked, her voice quivering with fear.

"It seems as though the Chamber of Secrets has indeed been opened again," Dumbledore said thoughtfully, his perpetual calm spreading through the room as he spoke.

"Is it a student?" one of the warlocks asked, straightening his hat which had bent over.

"It must be," Dumbledore answered.

"What do we do?"

"We ponder," Dumbledore answered and gathered his long robes as he stepped around the stretcher. Realizing that they would get no more from the wise wizard, the warlocks shuffled out of the hospital wing, their eyes downcast. He paused at the doorway, letting all the warlocks pass him, his silver half moon spectacles winking in the bright moonlight and with a smile and a flick of his wand, the hospital wing was once more in semi darkness, each shadow long and haunting.

James stood up quietly, his ears once more taut, listening for a sound. With a parting glance at Lily, he took his leave, lithely sneaking out of the hospital wing and trooping into his bed just as the clock on his little nightstand struck three. Three hours with you will never be enough, James thought as folded his invisibility cloak and lay on his covers. Suddenly, almost like a creeping fog, the ache began to grow once more, and with a sigh James felt his fatigue crash over him like the ocean thirsting for its revenged as it quenched the sailor's only hopes with a mighty sweep. And just like that, with the sun coming up on the horizon and casting a warm pink glow over the black lake, James drifted off to sleep.