Now that they'd already done a term on them, the optional classes started to get a bit more involved in the same way that the core classes had done two years ago.

It was a bit tiring, but it was also really interesting, and on the whole Harry felt very satisfied with his choices of subjects. Divination sounded like it was kind of repetitive, because it was always about how half the class was doomed, though Harry was a bit interested when it turned out that one of the predictions the teacher had made in her first classes had come true – something upsetting had happened to Lavender Brown's pet rabbit over the Christmas Holidays.

Hermione thought that the original prediction had been so vague that Professor Trelawney didn't really win any points for it, because – as she pointed out – if you were expecting it then any day could have something upsetting in it. Harry could sort of agree with that, because in the Darine Codex and the Mrin Codex and so on things were much more specific.

The prophecy which had him in it was pretty specific, as well, though. So maybe that meant it was more likely to be true?

Harry wasn't sure. He wasn't a student of Divination, after all.

Muggle Studies was the other subject that Harry wasn't doing, but he was sort of doing some of it anyway because he and Dean were helping Ron and Neville keep up with the things that they didn't fully understand straight off. It was especially fun to hear about how Ron had taken the battery powered radio into the class and demonstrated it, which had apparently made Professor Burbage scratch her head a lot about how that could possibly be happening.

"All right, class," Professor Babbling said, in the second Runes lesson of the new term. "Today we're going to be looking into runic interactions, and why it's so fiddly to get runes just right."

She chalked a sentence on the board in English – I cut grass – and then the same sentence again in Norse, using the Runic alphabet.

"Because this is a doing statement, it's the sort of thing that you might find on a runic object," she explained. "But who can see the problem with this?"

Hermione's hand went up first, and Professor Babbling called on her.

"It's because all the runic letters have a meaning as well, Professor," she said. "So they're affecting one another. In the word Gras, the Gifu rune means partnership, and the Raido rune means journey, so it has that affect as well."

"Very good," Professor Babbling nodded. "This is one of the reasons why using runes to create a complicated magical effect is so involved. Before you even begin carving the runes, you need to work out all the possible interpretations of what you're doing."

She chalked the Hagalaz rune onto the board, separate from the others.

"This rune is often found on weapons," she explained. "This is because it has the effect of making a weapon better by itself – it makes the material stronger and lets it stay sharper, for example. The effect you get from a single rune is at least consistent and doesn't involve this much working out."

Harry wrote that down.

"Let's go back to the words that we started with," the Runes professor went on. "First we have Ek, which is the person who is doing the action. That's Ehwaz and Kenaz. What do those mean?"

This time she called on Ernie, who answered that Ehwaz was the symbol for horse or friendship and that Kenaz was for character or personality.

"Good," Professor Babbling said, then took out another piece of chalk and drew a line underneath each rune. The one under Ehwaz came out brown, and the one under Kenaz came out red. "The other thing is that these runes consist of one Earth rune and one Fire rune. They're a rotational pair."

Half the class groaned, because elementally positioned runes were a whole other conversation which was even more complicated. It wasn't always the same rule in every case, either…

Ron put up his hand, and when he was called on he asked whether that was why a lot of the Runic objects they'd seen so far had a sort of disjointed collection of letters.

"Indeed!" Professor Babbling agreed, sounding much pleased. "And this is one of the tricks used to make a less complex runic effect, which is to avoid grouping the runes together into words which might modify them further. Just these two letters here inscribed together would – if both used for a Runic effect – give good luck to close friends, because the friendship is moving upwards into an expression of personality."

She smiled pleasantly. "Now, let's move on to the next word, hoggva. This one's got six runes, so it's even more complicated. What do you think the first two will do?"

Harry tried, and said that the Hagalaz rune was about hail and about war, and was an Ice rune, while the Othila rune was about property and the homeland, and was an Earth rune.

Professor Babbling nodded, and Harry frowned. "But… if this is meant to be used to cut grass, then that combination is going to make it harder to cut, isn't it? Because the Othila rune is about making connections stronger, not making them weaker."

"That's one effect it has," Professor Babbling told him. "But that's inverted by the next rune, Gifu, because it's following an Earth rune with an Air rune. I'm afraid it was a trick question, Mr. Potter. But I hope it gives you some idea of just how hard it can be to work out how these runic systems work!"

Harry nodded, and tried another suggestion. "Would the Ice and the Earth natures mean that you're going from something hard to something associated with growing things?"

"And with winter becoming spring," Professor Babbling confirmed. "Yes, that has an effect as well..."

By the end of the lesson Harry's head was spinning a bit. It was all very interesting, though, and made more interesting by their homework.

They had to write a simple sentence in English, then in Runic Norse, and then write two feet of parchment on how the runes interacted with one another. Professor Babbling told them specifically that they were not to do something so simple that they'd run out of things to say in two feet, but if they reached the end of two feet before running out of things to say that was fine and they could stop there.

With how cold it still was outside, Professor Kettleburn's focus for their lessons over January was specifically on the care of magical creatures – on looking into how a wizard could ensure that the magical creatures he was looking after would stay healthy even in bad weather.

For some of them, that wasn't actually very difficult. Augureys actually preferred rain – it was the only time they went flying around – though they had trouble with snow, while the Jobberknoll had to be looked after more carefully because they didn't cry out when they were in distress or otherwise uncomfortable. That meant checking on them at least once a day and heating up their homes with a Warming Charm if they looked cold, or making sure they weren't damp from rain leaking in.

More surprising was when the subject of study was a highly amused June. As Professor Kettleburn pointed out, the class was care of magical Creatures and not Beasts, so June gave everyone a pleasant talk on how it was different in winter as opposed to summer for the Wargs of the Forbidden Forest.

It was something Harry had already heard, but it was new to most of the class, and he could see how people like Lavender or even Draco were really thinking – perhaps for the first time – about the idea of having trouble finding food.

"It's been better the last year or so," June added, bobbing her head. "If we're in serious trouble then I could go into town to ask for help. Some of the others are learning English as well to do the same thing, but we're not exactly rich."

"Ah, of course," Professor Kettleburn said. "So perhaps we could say that the way to take care of these particular magical creatures is just to be good neighbours? And to invite them around to dinner if they're hungry."

"More or less," June agreed. "I'm looking forward to being able to multiply food, too."

"What about taking care of your fur?" the professor went on. "Is there anything special there?"

"Well, there is, but we do it," June told him. "I suppose if you had a single Warg who didn't have any other nearby Wargs to visit, they might appreciate some help."

She paused, and her tongue lolled out for a moment. "Though I've been trying not to get too used to hot showers and shampoo."

"So answer me this," Daphne said, as they were carefully measuring out some porcupine quills during a Potions lesson.

Harry made an encouraging noise, not wanting to point out that Daphne hadn't actually asked the question in the first place, and Daphne went on. "What exactly is in all those Muggle books you keep reading? Everyone's seen you reading them at meals."

"Oh, well, all sorts of things really," Harry replied.

He stopped for a bit as they split the quills into four unequal portions – in portions of one, one, two and four so they could double the dose of quills three times throughout the brewing process – then started crushing eggshells. That was a long task, so he had the time to talk.

"It's usually fantasy books," he told her. "Which is… well, Muggles don't know the truth about magic, so they have to guess, and the ideas they come up with can be fun. And they often make it be set in another world completely instead of just somewhere on this world."

"I don't really see the appeal," Daphne admitted. "What's the one you're reading at the moment?"

"It's actually the fifth book in a series called the Wheel of Time," Harry told her. "It's kind of… based on the idea that there's two kinds of magic, one for men and one for women. And the main character's sort of… the only person who can sort things out so the kind of magic for men doesn't drive everyone mad, and beat the Dark One."

"...so he's basically you?" Daphne asked, with an expression that looked like a smirk was asking for permission to deploy. "I can see why you'd like that."

"Well, he's not a dragon," Harry replied. "It's actually kind of odd, because he's called a dragon but he's not a dragon. Or he's not a dragon yet."

He put more eggshells into the pestle, and kept grinding. "I don't really know how it's going to end, but I'm interested to see where it goes. Maybe he will turn into a dragon at some point."

"Is that part of why you started reading them?" Daphne said.

"You have to remember that I grew up with a Muggle family," Harry replied. "And really the only books I could read in the first place were Muggle books – and it's the fantasy books which tend to have dragons on the cover."

He stopped for a moment, thinking. "I know Muggles also do books about what if technology did things differently, though, so you could sort of think of it like that."

They were done with the eggshells, though, so next was a much more fiddly bit which involved plucking the petals and seeds from a sunflower. That was hard enough they both had to concentrate instead of being able to talk, and the conversation sort of faded away from there.

At the end of one of his Arithmancy classes, Harry packed up his things like everyone else – they'd been doing cartesian coordinates, so there was a lot of graph paper to pack up – but stayed behind as everyone else filed out of the room.

"Mr. Potter?" Professor Vector asked, seeing him still there. "Is something wrong?"

"I wanted to ask if something was okay, Professor," he explained. "I asked in a shop in Fort William whether they had any calculators for secondary school students, and I got this one."

It wasn't a very expensive one – there'd been some really complicated looking ones available – but importantly it had a solar panel. Harry wasn't sure how easy it would be to keep up a supply of batteries for lots of students (he'd already had to get some new ones for his Game Boy, and he didn't play the Link game all that much) but the solar one seemed like a good choice because it would keep recharging the calculator all the time.

"Well, well," Professor Vector said, as Harry demonstrated – turning it on, then doing a couple of simple calculations, and pointing out how the shell on it showed some more complicated modes you could do with it. "I've never had a chance to use one of these. What was it you were wondering?"

"I'm surprised you're not more surprised, Professor," Harry admitted.

"I've heard from Professor Burbage about what you and your friends have been doing," the Arithmancy teacher explained.

That made sense, and Harry nodded his understanding before starting to explain. He was wondering if it'd be allowed to use the calculator for doing homework, or at least to check his homework to make sure he'd got something right, and whether that would be unfair.

"Hmm," Professor Vector said. "I can't see a reason you wouldn't be allowed, Mr. Potter, but it might not be a very good idea because you might get too used to it. It'd be a bad idea to get used to having it, because I'm sure it won't be allowed on any of your exams!"

That was a good point, and Harry said so.

"My pleasure, Mr. Potter," she said. "And well done to you for asking."

Harry thought it was sort of a pity that he couldn't ask anyone who was in Muggle secondary school about how they handled things like calculators, because it was something he was interested in now – it wasn't like calculators were banned in the places where maths was done, was it? He did get the idea that maybe you were supposed to learn how to do things without relying on the calculator, like how you were supposed to learn how to cast spells without relying on a spellbook, but you didn't have to learn how to do spells without a wand.

At least until NEWT year.

Then he remembered that Dean's sisters were all Muggles, and though the oldest – Emily – was only in Year Six at the moment she would be going to a Muggle secondary school next year. So he'd find out eventually.

That was just sort of a side thought, though, and the calculator was only really relevant to Arithmancy and perhaps the Muggle Studies his friends were doing. It didn't help with Charms, or Transfiguration, and it would have to be a very unusual situation for a calculator to help with Care of Magical Creatures.

"Oh, yeah," Ron said, when Harry voiced that thought. "Maybe if you had to stun a Flobberworm?"

"Why would you want to stun a Flobberworm?" Dean asked. "Have you seen those things? They just… kind of flobber at you."

He shrugged. "They're easy to take care of, though, so there's that."

"I don't think you can stun a Flobberworm," Hermione said, thinking about it, and pulled out her unabridged Fantastic Beasts. "I'm not sure they have enough of a mind to notice."

"That would be an unusual experiment," Neville voiced. "Which one's translation, again?"

"You mean Xenographia?" Harry replied, then saw Neville was doing Arithmancy. "Oh, I think that's… moving things from one place to another."

"Okay, so if I translate this down by three and right by two..." Neville mused, and started scribbling on some scrap parchment. "All the coordinates move by the same amount?"

"That's right," Hermione agreed absently. "Everything moves by the same amount in translation… and yes, it looks like you can't stun a Flobberworm. Or if you can, there's no difference anyone can notice."

"So that's for a very different reason to why you can't stun a dragon," Ron sniggered, then looked at his homework. "I think I've done the Runes stuff… Nev, do you mind if I get started on the Muggle Studies?"

"Go ahead," Neville replied. "I've got some Enlargement to do."

"Seems funny to be doing that with numbers, when you could just have a spell do it," Ron said idly.

"I actually think that might be why," Harry frowned. "The spell probably uses that maths, or something."

He shrugged his wings. "We've not got to that bit yet."

"What I want to see is when we get to making things in Runes," Ron replied. "Though, yeah, making spells in Arithmancy sounds fun too."

"I was wondering about that," Neville said, putting his quill down so it didn't dribble on the parchment. "About making things in Runes, and about how complicated you said it was."

"Don't remind me," Ron groaned. "At least with spells you can come up with them through guesswork. If you put random runes on something I don't know what would happen."

"I was wondering if you could actually make Sting," Neville explained.

"My mum listens to him," Dean interjected.

"...what?" Neville asked, completely thrown.

"I'll show you later, don't worry," Dean told him. "Wonder if I can get a Walkman for my birthday this year?"

"You mean the sword, Sting?" Hermione checked. "That's an interesting one. I can't remember if the words on it were added later or not. You know, Sting is my name, I am the spider's bane."

"Spider's bane?" Ron repeated. "Now I'm interested."

"Is this going to be what gets you to read the Lord of the Rings at last?" Harry said, ears perking up a little. "Everyone else has."

"Yeah, all right, maybe," Ron allowed. "What does this Sting sword do?"

"Well, it lights up when orcs are nearby," Harry began to count off. "And it's quite small, more of a dagger really, but Bilbo's quite small as well so he uses it like a sword. But it's good at cutting through spiders and spider webs and stuff, which is why Bilbo named it Sting – it was stinging the spiders, and they weren't used to it."

"The words must have come later, then," Hermione said, nodding. "Otherwise it'd be odd for him to call it Sting when it already said that it was called Sting."

"Doesn't it hurt Shelob, later on?" Neville checked, and Harry nodded.

Ron blinked. "Who's Shelob?"

"You'll see," Harry told him, not really wanting to put Ron off reading the books entirely.

Dean started doodling on some of the scrap parchment lying on the table. "Could you actually do that, with runes? Make a sword that was good against spiders?"

Hermione frowned, thinking about it. She began to say something, then stopped and thought harder.

"Maybe?" she said, eventually. "You'd have to be able to inscribe 'spider', and we haven't got to that sort of thing yet. I don't even know if you could do the same thing by writing 'insect'."

"Spiders aren't insects, though," Dean said. "I know that much, but maybe magic doesn't?"

He held up the parchment, which now had a little sketch of a sword on it. It wasn't straight-edged like the classical image of a sword, but had a little kind of leaf-shaped curl to it.

"Nice," Ron summarized.

"How did we go from homework to that?" Hermione asked, shaking her head with a huff. "And why do we keep doing it?"

"It's fun?" Harry suggested. "And we do finish on time anyway."

"I think that's one of the school rules, now," Ron suggested. "Hermione made sure it was."

"How could I possibly change the school rules, Ron?" Hermione asked. "Honestly."

"I wouldn't put it past you," Neville shrugged.

Dean hummed. "Perhaps we should do Charms? That's one we all have, so we're more likely to stay on topic."

"Good idea," Harry agreed. "There was that essay about the body bind, wasn't there?"

He tilted his head. "I wonder how that would work on my wings, if it worked at all."

The weather was still in a distinctly unsettled state, with snow and sleet and howling wind alternating with lulls often full of thick mist, but that was more or less what Scottish weather was like in Harry's experience by now.

Importantly, it didn't affect the Astronomy Tower. That was kind of fortunate, because the winter was the best time for Astronomy in Scotland (though some of Harry's classmates grumbled a bit about how that meant they had to stand on a high tower in cold weather, with the result that Professor Sinistra usually spent the first five to ten minutes of class handing out Warming Charms).

In this case, they were doing a study of nebulas, because it was only in the middle of winter that you could see the constellation Orion nice and clearly and that had the best nebula.

"A nebula is a cloud of gas, in space," Professor Sinistra explained, as they all pointed their telescopes at it. "Why might it be visible to us?"

Ron was one of the first to put his hands up, and said that it was because it was lit up by all the stars inside it.

"Very good, Mr. Weasley," the Astronomy teacher told him. "Yes, because the Orion Nebula is a star forming nebula. That means there's a lot of energy inside it, and the stars energize the gas – that means the whole of the cloud glows, but the stars are why it glows."

Harry wondered if she was going to mention the thing about street lamps he'd read in a Muggle book on the subject, but she just moved on. "Can anyone think of the other possibilities?"

This time it was Su Li who was called on, and she suggested that maybe you could have a nebula which wasn't forming stars but which was near stars.

"Correct, Miss Li," Professor Sinistra agreed. "That is called a reflection nebula, because we can see it from the light reflecting off it. They're usually not as bright in colour, because the gas inside the nebula is not glowing by itself. Please turn your telescopes to the star Rigel – still in Orion – and then down and to the left a little… there should be a faint blue smear."

Harry could see it okay, but it sounded like most of the class had trouble.

"That's all right, a reflection nebula can be quite dim," Professor Sinistra assured them. "Muggles call this one the Witch Head nebula, but I'm not at all sure why. Now, before we look at a brighter nebula, what is the third possibility?"

It happened to be Draco Malfoy who answered. "One that doesn't get lit up at all. We can only see it because it blocks something."

"Correct," Professor Sinistra agreed.

She went on to give an example, before directing them to look at some other nebulae, and Harry wondered how much Draco had learned astronomy because his name was astronomical.

Or maybe he just found it interesting. Harry certainly did, especially when Professor Sinistra told them that one of the nebulas they'd been looking at was a hundred times further away than the others and that if it were only a thousand light years away it'd cast visible shadows.

Though she did say that if it were only a thousand light years away they'd have been about that close to a supernova, which sounded both interesting and mildly unhealthy (or at least startling).

As January turned into February, it was time for the second Gryffindor Quidditch match of the season – this time against the Ravenclaw team.

There was some light misty drizzle coming down as they headed out to the stands, so Harry provided his wings as umbrellas, but by the time they actually got there Hermione was annoyed enough that she cast the Impervius spell on her clothes and hat.

That went down well enough that she was asked to demonstrate it for some of the other third- and fourth-year Gryffindors (it didn't have any special wand movements, but the pronunciation had the stress on the second syllable) though Harry didn't need to learn it because he'd already done so to keep his books safe in the rain.

By the time the team was actually heading out to the pitch, everyone in that part of the stands was mostly set up so they wouldn't get nearly as damp as they otherwise should – and everyone had cast it on themselves, which was something Harry could see Neville being quietly proud of.

It made him smile, and the good feeling stayed fizzing away as he watched the game begin.

Ron was still reserve Keeper rather than the actual official Keeper, but Fred, George and Ginny were in the team, so it was almost half Weasley and next year it'd almost certainly be more than half Weasley. That made supporting it feel a little strange, if anything.

If the rain was heavier it would have made it a bit hard to see how the game was going, but instead it just made it so that everyone was a bit damp and annoyed and that anyone flying quickly would end up soaking wet. That actually did seem to affect how everyone played, with things being a bit slower moving than normal and with quite a lot of flying at a sort of sideways angle.

Despite that, or maybe even because of that, the game was full of good tactical play and formations were more important than speed. Both Ginny and Cho were constantly flying interference for their Chasers or even their Beaters as the scores slowly went up, and it was two hours in when the Snitch was finally caught (by Ginny, who barely beat out Cho in a corkscrew dive).

Everyone cheered, which was nice.

"So here's what I don't really get about that," Dean said, about half an hour later when they were all back inside and celebrating. "Why do we even have Quidditch games when it's raining?"

"Don't Muggle sports happen on rainy days?" Neville asked.

"Well, yeah, but there's a lot more Muggle sports games," Dean replied, shrugging. "And they have to be scheduled and stuff so they can go out on the radio or TV or stuff."

He nodded towards Harry. "Thanks for letting me listen to that most recent Irons game, by the way."

"That's okay," Harry replied, because it only really seemed natural to let a friend listen to the radio Sirius had got if his friend wanted to listen to it.

"But anyway, my point is," Dean resumed, "West Ham plays forty-two games over the course of the season, and some of the year is the off season. So they have to squeeze in about two games a week just to make it work. But the Gryffindor Quidditch team plays three games a year – and the pitch is only used for a game six times. So why not just go on a day with good weather?"

"I reckon I know why," Ron contributed. "It's because games can last for days, remember? Any professional Quidditch player might need to play through crap weather because it turns crap over the course of the game, so there's no point waiting for a perfect day."

Dean thought visibly about that.

"Good point," he admitted. "I hadn't thought of that."

"It's really different from cricket," Harry added, this time for the benefit of Ron and Neville. "With that one, they stop playing if it starts raining and they start again only when it stops and the light's good."

"Blimey, can you imagine?" Ron boggled. "Some places it rains so much a Quidditch match might last all year!"

"Some cricket games last five days even in good weather," Hermione said. "So it wouldn't exactly be completely out there."

On the first Sunday in February, Harry alighted atop a hill to the north of Fort William and checked his list.

Fred and George had found something out about Percy which meant they wanted some basic Muggle supplies, and after securing a promise that the prank they were planning wasn't at all malicious Harry had thought about it and decided that it wouldn't be a problem to oblige them on that one.

Then there were a couple of books to take back to the library, a couple of other books to get out from the library – sequels to the ones he was taking back, in fact – and a new sketchbook for Dean. Harry himself needed a refill for his camera, and when it was all added up this was going to be quite a shopping trip. And that was before seeing if the bookshops had anything new.

Harry had to admit that he was still undecided what sort of place he wanted to live after he left school. Living somewhere with people who could actually see he was a dragon would be nice, but it would be hard to live without a big bookshop within easy range.

Maybe there was somewhere near London he could compromise.

Shrugging, he put the list away again and spread his wings. It took only a few steps forwards for him to enter the current of air blowing up the side of the hill, and his wings filled with a leathery boom before tugging him upwards.

One more step forwards, and Harry's paws left the grass.

It wasn't the most efficient way to take off, but it was very pleasant and Harry liked to do it whenever he got the chance.

Supplies for Fred and George? Check. (Harry wasn't really sure what they needed all those rose petals for, but check.)

Dean's sketchbook? Check. New books? Check.

Books returned to the library? Also check.

Harry had been all ready to go back to Hogwarts, but then he'd run into a book in the local second hand bookshop which had really caught his attention.

It was an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons book, which had originally been part of a boxed set by the looks of it, and it was about a way of joining together lots of the worlds from different D&D settings – Krynn, Faerun, all sorts of places.

And you got from one place to another by flying a magical ship that could go into space, and to another world, and then come down to land there.

It was a fascinating idea, and Harry ended up sitting there reading it for more than half an hour before he finally remembered that this was a bookshop and he could just buy the book to take back to Hogwarts.

"I wondered if you were going to read the whole thing, lad," the shopkeeper chuckled, as Harry handed it to him along with two other interesting books and the money to pay for them all. "Branching out a bit? I don't think I've seen you get a book like this before."

He rang them up, and pushed them back across the counter.

"I did get some for my birthday a while ago, but I hadn't seen one like this until now," Harry replied, taking the books and putting them in his backpack – which had been charmed impervious to rain a long time ago.

Which, now he looked outside, was a good thing because the weather looked like it was going to start tipping it down any minute now. The sky was black and gloomy, with clouds visibly moving, and there was a translucent sheet of rain already falling off in the distance.

"You'll want to hurry home, lad," the shopkeeper said, following his gaze. "You've got your raincoat?"

"No," Harry admitted, which was close enough.

"Extra quick, then," he was told. "Chop chop!"

Harry went bounding out the door, turning right and right again to get into a side street – just to make it less awkward – then jumped and took off with one powerful downbeat.

A gust of wind battered him sideways a little, but fortunately Fort William didn't have any tall buildings for him to hit.

Unfortunately for Harry, the truly bad weather had turned out to be north of the town – right where he was going.

Winds gusted and clawed at him, and rain was coming down in sheets – driven by the wind into slaps of water that made him wince and blink to clear his vision. He'd long since put his glasses in his bag, not wanting to lose them, but even without them getting spattered with rain he could still barely see anything.

He tried climbing into the clouds, rising as high as he could to see if he could break through into clear air, but it seemed like he had to go an awfully long way and if the clouds went that high he probably wouldn't see anything anyway. So he went back down, circling (or trying to circle) so he wouldn't accidentally dive straight into the ground – which would be quite embarrassing.

It was about an hour after leaving Fort William that Harry finally got back down to the level where he could at least see some sign of the ground, and that sign was trees – first a tall, lightning-scarred fir, then more following the form of the land, and finally Harry slipped between the branches of two of the trees to come to a soggy halt in some bushes.

Shaking twigs out of his sodden robes and twisting his wings a little so they formed an umbrella over his head, Harry wondered what he was going to do now.

He'd been completely turned around by the storm even before trying to climb into clear air, and if he tried to guess where Hogwarts was now he'd probably end up over the sea or something. That compass Ron had got him might have helped if he'd remembered to bring it, but… well, it was off in Hogwarts.

Harry wasn't sure if he was close enough to Hogwarts that magic spells would be allowed, but even if he was then he didn't actually know any spells that would help. If he knew how to cast the Patronus and make it carry messages it would let him let everyone know he was safe, but that wasn't going to work because he didn't know that.

It was a bit of a mess, really.

Still, at least he hadn't knocked over a tree or something.

AN:

I've been asked to space these out slightly so that it's easier to tell which one's the most recent; accordingly, the next chapter of this pair is to be posted tomorrow.

Also, oh dear.

Hope the runic stuff seems interesting.