16. Restitution of the wand

'Their train will have left by now,' said Caius, pointing up at the illuminated clock across the water.

'I know,' replied Hermione.

They were back on the South Bank, the river in front of them and the concrete battlements of Queen Elizabeth Hall at their backs.

Tobias Destrument had let them go soon after the new vow wizard had been released. The pale witch, who was indeed Destrument's sister, had been impressed by Serena's interrogation of him, going so far as to ask if she wanted to join them. But Serena had refused, saying she just wanted to be left alone, and they had left, Hermione half-promising, half-threatening to write a report for work on everything she had seen that evening.

They had apparated together to the front step of Serena's mother's house, where she had decided to spend the night in case her house was under surveillance by witchfinders. Hermione had left Isaac Edwards' business card with Serena - he would be only too pleased to help her - and then she and Caius had set off again.

'So do you think this is going to work?' Hermione asked.

The only way to catch up with Harry and Ilaria was to apparate onto their train. Apparating onto a moving object was not straightforward, let alone one moving so fast.

'It's the same principle as for something stationary, only you have to concentrate a bit differently,' Caius replied. 'Think about the distance the train would cover in about seven seconds and imagine the train's actually that long. It gives you a larger area to grab onto.'

Hermione frowned.

'Do we have to know exactly at what time it left the station and how fast it's been travelling?'

'No, none of that. It's just about visualising a fast-moving object and anticipating where it's going. It's a technique all good seekers use.'

Hermione frowned again.

'Yes, but I was never any good at quidditch. And unless I'm missing something, a seeker's not usually fifty miles away from the golden snitch during the game.'

Caius smiled and held out his hand.

'Trust me,' he said. Recalling Harry's praise for Caius's skills as a seeker, Hermione stuck out her hand to take his.

They heard the roar of the train before they could see it, and even from inside the apparation the speed at which it was moving was terrifying. They seemed to bump against the outside of the window and for an instant it seemed as if the train had outrun them, but the next moment they were inside, pinned against a luggage rack between carriages. Caius twisted his head round at Hermione and grinned at her.

'150 points to Slytherin.'

'Very funny,' Hermione replied. 'But maybe that wasn't so impressive after all: a train is a bit bigger than a golden snitch.'

She shifted her position to lean out of the luggage rack, squinting through the tinted plexiglass into the carriages in front and behind.

'I don't think anyone saw us,' she added. Fortunately the nearest seats were all pointed in the opposite direction.

'I suppose we should try and find them, just to check they are actually on this train,' remarked Caius.

'Ok,' said Hermione, 'but we can hardly just go strolling into each carriage until we find them.'

'It would be quite funny, just to see the look on Ilaria's face,' replied Caius, 'but you're right, it's probably not the best idea. So I suppose we need disguises.'

'I suppose so,' said Hermione.

Since a major change in appearance would require a kind of magic that couldn't be done on the spot in a moving railway carriage, they had to rely on low-level charms. Hermione straightened her hair and dyed it black, added large, thick-rimmed glasses and adjusted her nose until it looked rather like Pansy Parkinson's. The addition of spectacles and a change in hair colour were fairly easily achieved, but the hair straightening and the change in nose involved more complex charms. Caius also added glasses, opting for oval, steel-rimmed frames, dyed his hair grey and added a pepperpot beard. For his final flourish he made his hairline recede rather alarmingly. Hermione couldn't help but laugh as he admired himself in the window, a mock-serious expression on his face.

'Is that what you'll look like in 25 years?' she asked.

'Wouldn't you like to know,' he replied with a wink.

They made their way through the train in opposite directions. It was Caius who located Harry and Ilaria two carriages away. He summoned Hermione by calling her on the rather ancient mobile phone that she had acquired for him for the purpose of the mission. Although he claimed not to approve of them, he seemed to know how to use one fairly well. By the time they had settled down on folding seats between carriages to wait out the rest of the journey, the train was making its way swiftly across the farmland of northern France, which was all but invisible in the enveloping darkness outside the train window.

'It's a bit disconcerting sitting here with you in that disguise,' Hermione murmured to Caius over the train's white noise.

'That's no way to speak to your elders,' came the reply.

Hermione shook her head but smiled in spite of herself.

'I haven't done a very good job of watching your back so far,' he said rather mournfully, after a few more moments of noisy silence. 'Sorry about that.'

'Don't worry,' said Hermione. 'We're only just getting started. You'll get another chance later.'

It was late evening when they arrived at the Gare du Nord. As expected, Henoc Lutumba was waiting for Ilaria on the concourse. Hermione and Caius lingered in the shadows of the platform and watched as he embraced Ilaria warmly and shook Harry by the hand, his brow furrowed with concern. As far as they could make out, meeting Henoc didn't seem to have any immediate impact on Harry.

Outside the station, Henoc, Ilaria and Harry got into a car with tinted windows and diplomatic licence plates. For a few moments after the car had pulled away, Hermione and Caius stood on the pavement, breathing in the cool night air. Hermione muttered a tracing charm under her breath, trying not to draw attention to herself. Then they walked straight down the avenue that led away from the station, disapparating out of the first alleyway they came across.

The chauffeur-driven car that had picked them up made rapid progress through the night-time streets of Paris. Throughout the journey the chauffeur kept up an animated conversation with Henoc, at times directing the odd question or remark in French at the passengers in the back seat. Ilaria's French seemed to be good enough to provide him with acceptable responses. They crossed the Ile de la Cité and passed onto the Left Bank, where the streets were still thronged with revellers and tourists. They passed the gates of the Jardin de Luxembourg and continued past Port Royal until they reached Place Denfert-Rochereau, which the car exited at excessive speed onto the Rue Froidevaux before pulling up in front of an impressive Parisian building.

'Here we are,' said Henoc, gesturing for them to get out of the car. They stepped out onto the street and looked around them.

'We're on the fourth floor,' he continued, pointing up to an elaborate bay window jutting out above them. A sharp breeze had started to blow, causing dead leaves to dance around their feet and scatter over the tarmac.

They ascended in silence to the fourth floor in an ancient, but recently renovated elevator. Henoc opened the tall oak door and ushered them into the hall of the apartment, switching on the lights. Inside the apartment was a pungent smell of dust and furniture polish. It was elegantly decorated, with high ceilings, but sparsely furnished. Their room was in the same smart but sombre decor. The shutters were open, and an orange glare from the streetlights pervaded the room. Ilaria dropped her bag and wandered the apartment, making complimentary noises as she looked around. Then she opened the window and leaned out into the street, beckoning them to join her. When they looked to the left they could make out a tall, shimmering skyscraper. Beneath them was a mass of greenery enclosed behind stone walls, crisscrossed by myriad avenues jostling with what looked like miniature stone houses.

'Is that a cemetery down there?' he asked.

The accommodation that Caius had arranged for them was located to the rear of a seedy cabaret bar on a narrow side street off the Rue de Gaieté, in a hotel that from the outside seemed utterly derelict. The paint was peeling off the ancient, narrow building and the windows in the upper floors were boarded up. An ancient, faded sign on the wall read 'Pelletier' in barely legible letters. Before Hermione could say anything, Caius whipped out his wand and muttered an enchantment. In an instant the building cast off its dilapidated exterior: the dark, boarded-up windows were lit at once, a fresh pastel pink paint job covered the walls and a flashing neon sign appeared over the door. They ascended a short flight of steps up to a glass door. A brass plaque by the side of the door read: 'Recommended by the Wandering Wizard travel guides'.

The receptionist recited the terms and conditions of the establishment in an accented, sleep-heavy voice, which concluded with a less than convincing: 'Welcome to the Hotel Pelletier. Enjoy your stay'. With a languid wave of his wand, two door keys in the form of miniature wands floated off the shelf behind him and onto the reception desk. 'Third floor' were his last words to Hermione and Caius as he pointed them vaguely in the direction of the stairs.

They ascended the narrow and dimly lit staircase. Their rooms were opposite one another on the third floor landing.

Once they were out on the streets of Paris, they dropped the disguises.

'As long as we keep a reasonable distance from them we shouldn't need them,' was Hermione's reasoning.

'Ok, but how long are we going to tail them for anyway?' asked Caius, pulling his coat tighter around him. The day was colder than they had expected, the sky a pale grey colour.

'I don't know,' Hermione replied. She really didn't.

A pattern soon became clear to them as they followed Harry and Ilaria through the streets. They would enter a guidebook district of the city, like the Ile de la Cité, the Sorbonne and Cluny, Rivoli or St Germain, take no more than a brief glimpse of the main sights then wander off into smaller surrounding streets, eventually resting and sheltering from the cold in a backstreet café. Sitting in the same café was mainly to be avoided, but it was usually possible to find another one nearby. Hermione and Caius took it in turns to cast faint tracing charms in case they lost sight of them, keeping them deliberately weak so that Ilaria couldn't pick up on their presence.

Mid-afternoon, they were sitting in the back of a café a couple of streets back from the Musée d'Orsay, sipping on what was probably one cup of coffee too many, when Harry and Ilaria actually walked in, evidently having changed their minds about where to stop for a drink. Hermione watched in frozen silence as they picked out a table close to the terrace, Ilaria sliding into the seat next to Harry. She ordered the drinks, and she seemed to be doing most of the talking. Although their voices were out of earshot, Hermione could clearly see Ilaria's hand gestures, her bangles sliding about on her wrists in response to the movement of her hands. She could see the polka dot sleeve of her blouse protrude past the end of her cardigan whenever she touched him on the arm or reached into the small maroon leather bag she kept on the table in front of her. Sometimes she would laugh at a remark of his, and sometimes he would laugh at something she said, reaching out for her hand and clasping it in his. They would turn to kiss each other often, their silhouettes blurring as their lips came together. At this point Hermione would look away.

Exhaustion crept up on her as late afternoon blurred into early evening. When Caius suggested they go back to the hotel, she numbly agreed, casting a final, slightly stronger tracing charm as they watched Harry and Ilaria wait for a bus, holding each other tightly as they leaned against the side of the bus stop.

She stretched out on her hotel bed, pulling the duvet half over her, enough to start to chase the chill out of her body, and she quickly fell into a torpor.

The sound of gentle but insistent knocking on the door pulled her up out of the shallow, dark hole she had slipped into.

'If you just want to sleep that's ok,' came Caius's voice through the door.

'No, I have to wake up,' she mumbled in reply. 'Come back in a few minutes, all right?'

'Ok,' he said, a little brighter. She stumbled across the room, whose dimensions were annoyingly cramped, and went to douse her face with cold water in the bathroom.

'So do you think they saw us?' she asked, her legs sprawled on the floor, her back propped against the end of the bed. By they she really meant she.

'I don't think so,' Caius replied, also sitting on the carpet, his back against the brightly wallpapered wall. They were in the part of the room where the floor was widest, passing between them a bottle of iced tea Hermione had bought in a convenience store jammed full of tourists.

'You don't think there was an element of display in how she was behaving?'

He seemed to grimace slightly in reply.

'If she really saw us, wouldn't she just make an excuse for them to leave then try to disappear? Or even come over and tell us to get lost.'

Hermione took a swig of the iced tea then handed him the bottle.

'Your first idea is plausible. I can't see her doing the second.'

She prised a piece of lint out of the carpet. You know her better than I do. Maybe it wasn't deliberate. I suppose that's how she really feels about him.

'So how come you were in Slytherin anyway?' she asked, jerking her head up to look across at him.

A guarded sort of a smile slipped out onto his face.

'I suppose I should take that as a compliment. If only it wasn't also an insult to Slytherin.'

She smiled reluctantly.

'You know what I mean. When I was at Hogwarts, I'd have been amazed to find out there was anyone in Slytherin who didn't hate me.'

'Well, being a muggle-born member of Gryffindor and best friends with Harry Potter, you never stood much of a chance.'

She looked down, sighed, then looked up again.

'That makes you all the more of an oddity. So again, how come you're in Slytherin?'

He paused to consider his answer.

'It's sort of a family tradition,' he began.

'Like the Malfoys.'

'And the Weasleys. And goodness knows how many other families. There are Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff dynasties too, as I'm sure you know.'

She nodded,

'Yes, I know.'

'And when I was 11, just like Harry, there was one house I didn't want to be sorted into. I don't have to tell you which one.'

'I didn't realise he'd told you that.'

He shrugged.

'When he told me I knew we'd reached a point where we'd put the old prejudices behind us.'

'You sort of did that when you stayed to fight at Hogwarts.'

'Yeah, but it doesn't mean that I set aside the tradition of my house.'

'You still call it your house?'

'Of course.'

'What did you have against Gryffindor, by the way?'

Caius grinned.

'No offence, but I always thought of you as being a bit full of yourselves.'

'Full of ourselves?' said Hermione. 'Surely your loyalty to the tradition of your house doesn't blind you to who your fellow Slytherins were?'

'Yeah, of course Slytherin people are full of themselves, but in a different way. We're outsiders because of our bad reputation, which is for the most part justified of course.'

'Outsiders?' Hermione sniffed. 'How can you call people like the Malfoys outsiders?'

'Even them. They're outsiders because no one likes them. And being disliked, that's what keeps us hungry. We almost have to be bad. If we didn't, we'd just sort of wither away.'

'Is that right?'

'It is. Gryffindor, on the other hand, I found to be too self-righteous, too obviously the headmaster's favourite. So I never liked them.'

'And what about now?' Hermione asked.

'I still prefer the grey and silver. I'm still never going to support Gryffindor in quidditch.'

'I see,' said Hermione, handing the two-thirds empty bottle back to Caius. 'By the way, is it true that Draco Malfoy crashed his broom into the River Avon the night Slytherin won the Quidditch Trophy?'

Caius laughed.

'Yes, totally true. Saw it with my own eyes. He was racing old Marcus Flint over and under the bridges in Bath. Probably not a good idea to get on a broom when you're completely rat-arsed (we all were admittedly), but he made a pretty good job of it, the halfway decent seeker that he is. He was probably going to win too, but he got too cocky going under the Pulteney Bridge and took an early bath.'

'What a shame,' Hermione remarked. She got up and went to the dresser on the other end of the room.''Do you want something else to drink?'

'Got anything stronger than ice tea?'

She glanced at him over her shoulder.

'No. Only normal tea. Will that do?'

'Go for it.'

Now's the time to ask him more about Ilaria, she thought as she made the tea. But when she returned to where he was sitting, she found she couldn't face speaking about her.

'How did you manage to get on with people like Malfoy?'

'I had to earn their respect. It's not easy being a first year in Slytherin, particularly when the likes of Crabbe and Goyle are in the next dormitory.'

'It sounds like a miserable life.'

'It wasn't that bad. I made friends like Ilaria and Henoc there.'

Here's my chance. She looked down into her tea as she sipped it. Caius raised his mug to his lips self-consciously, as if he was expecting the question, or inviting it. I've spent the whole day looking at her, looking at her playing at being Harry's doe-eyed, dutiful girlfriend. I've had enough of her, at least for today.

They sat in silence for a few moments.

'So will it be more of the same tomorrow?' he asked.

'I suppose it'll have to be,' she replied after a brief pause. She smiled at him, her gaze quickly drifting away to a distant point.

The next day was a little warmer, and for a while pale, hazy sunshine brightened the morning. The itinerary passed through Beaubourg and into the Marais, where Ilaria and Harry met again with Henoc. After eating lunch together, the three of them went on to the Bastille before bending back towards the banks of the Seine, the day growing more overcast and more clammy. Their pace was slowing. Ilaria leaned more and more on Harry's arm, seemingly more out of tiredness than anything else. In the depths of the afternoon, as Caius and Hermione lingered in a small public square, they saw Ilaria walking out of the bar across the street, descend the steps to the Seine embankment and disapparate when she was out of sight of any passers-by. They briefly debated whether one of them should try and track Ilaria, before deciding that it would be better to stick to Harry.

He stayed on in the bar with Henoc for a while after Ilaria had gone back to the apartment. He had offered to come with her, but she insisted she was ok on her own.

'I just need a little rest,' she said. 'Then I'll be fine again.' At Henoc's suggestion, they went on to a different bar on the Ile Saint-Louis, but Henoc was soon called away by a telephone call from his family, which then triggered an urgent errand.

Having no desire to stay in the bar on his own, he finished his drink and wandered out into the street. He followed the island's narrow main street, running into the full stream of tourists where the street opened back onto the Seine. He had no destination in mind other than escaping the crowd. He didn't want to go back the way he came, so he crossed on the footbridge to the Ile de la Cité. He skirted round Notre Dame, hemmed in by crowds on all sides till he passed the Pont Neuf.

He stood on the bridge and looked down at the very tip of the island, which lay below him, close to the level of the water. A tiny garden was laid out there, down by the water's edge. It looks peaceful down there. The thought sounded rather mournful in his head, a little pathetic almost. Once he was down the steps, it was the water that drew his attention. He walked slowly and listlessly until he came across a solitary bench at the end of the island. With his back to the noise and crowds, he sat and looked out into the murky waters of the river. He hunched over, pulling the collar of his coat up to shelter his neck from the cold blowing up off the water, grimacing slightly at what felt like an itch inside his brain. It didn't hurt, but the sensation was strong enough to drive away any other thought. It was as if something was rubbing insistently at a long, closed-over scar.

After a time, his eye was caught by a ripple in the water just at the point where the concrete shore entered the river. He watched intently as a long, thin worm-like creature emerged from the water and made its way cautiously onto dry land. Quickly its long, green body crossed the path and disappeared into a muddy flowerbed. A faint rustling could be heard for a few instants, then silence. He looked down into the flowerbed, feeling no fear, only a burning curiosity. Silently he called out to the creature. After a few instants, it raised its head cautiously from behind a rose bush. He stretched out his hand and slowly it crawled out of the flowerbed and coiled itself around his outstretched arm. Its body was damp against his skin and smelt of earth and polluted water. He ran his finger down its length and it lowered its head against the back of his hand, like it was a cat or something. It turned its head slightly and looked at him with one eye.

'Hungry,' it said.

'How can I help you?' he asked.

'Hungry,' it repeated.

'What do you eat normally?'

'Rats and mice and cockroaches and slimy things that swim in the river.'

'Do you live in the river?'

'In the river, on the land, in waters underground.'

'Come with me,' he commanded the creature. He stood up suddenly and it slid off his arm.

'Must stay hidden,' it replied, looking up at him from the flowerbed. He looked around, his heart beating hard.

'Follow me, but underground,' he said finally.

'Hungry,' was all its reply, but it crawled deliberately across the path and through the grate of a storm drain. He took off quickly through the garden, ascended the steps back onto the bridge, and once again crossed the island. He could feel the creature following his route underground. He guided himself through the streets by instinct, certain that a route had been laid out for him.

He left the island and made for the Left Bank, where his progress was hindered yet again by swarms of tourists. As he listened out for movements in the sewers below, he could hear other voices that had added themselves to that of the first snake. He stood still in the open space in front of St Michael's Fountain, the din of the tourists bombarding his senses on the surface, while the hissing voices of countless snakes from below grew ever louder and more insistent. After nearly being hit by a taxi, he stepped off the boulevard onto a pedestrian street to his left, where the crowds were even worse. The noise in his head and all around him was becoming unbearable. The street before him began to irritate him intensely, appearing to him as a noisy obstacle to whatever it was he was seeking. He could almost feel the serpents clamouring for his attention, swaying at the touch of his hands. This is no illusion. He could hear his own voice clear inside his head. His own voice. He could almost put a name to it. The name that had got lost. This is not madness, it's magic. And it was the most natural thing possible. He spoke out loud, raising his hands at his sides, as if he was about to deliver a sermon on the street.

'Magic is the truth.'

He raised his hand and dismissed the serpents. Within a few moments they reached the surface and began to emerge from drains and gutters and the cracks between buildings. The water snake was coming to him, up through a pipe and then out through a nozzle in the fountain, swaying through the water then gliding over the side.

He stood calmly in the middle of the street as pandemonium began to break out around him, looking on almost mesmerised as tourists ran in all directions, fleeing the plague of snakes that had suddenly descended on the Left Bank.

'Feed,' he said.

It felt as if a cavity had opened up in his brain. Thoughts were flowing freely, where before everything had been static; first they seemed like random words, but then they started to come together and form into incantations, spoken in the blood.

Hermione looked on in horror as Harry stood impassively in the midst of the chaos, snakes crawling around him, seemingly entranced by him. She looked across at Caius. He bowed his head slightly, pulling her gaze down to where his wand protruded from his sleeve into the palm of his hand. He shot her a questioning look.

'How can we do it without being seen?' she said.

'The snakes are on the ground,' he replied in a low voice. 'People are too busy running away to notice.'

She nodded. They had to do something. They started walking forward, pushing through the crowd moving mostly in the other direction. Caius struck first, stunning a snake that was rearing up dangerously at an Indian family. Hermione followed suit, doing the same to a snake crawling just a foot behind a middle-aged American woman. They weaved through the crowd, always keeping their wands concealed in their hands. They soon lost count of how many snakes they had stunned.

'We get him out of sight then disapparate,' said Caius tersely, all of a sudden back at her side. Harry was not far away from them, wandering aimlessly along the street. Ok, let's do that.

By now the emergency services had arrived and were trying to calm the frightened crowd. Hermione noticed that around the margins were what looked like plainclothes policemen, scanning the debacle in front of them and whispering tersely to one another. 'Who do you think they are?' she started to say. The next instant she heard Caius shout 'Hermione!' She turned but didn't see anything at first. Then a scorching sensation appeared in the air, just next to her leg. She looked down to see a brown snake flop to the ground and shrivel away to dust. It had been in the process of climbing onto her foot. She looked up and saw Caius, who nodded quickly at her.

'You ok?'

'Fine.'

She looked again for the plainclothes police she had seen before. Caius had seen them too. He quickly pointed one out to her. With a rush of fear she saw the man point at Harry and whisper something to his colleague. Then the two men started walking towards him, pushing their way through the crowd. Caius cast a discreet spell from where his wand was concealed half up his sleeve. The spell exploded with a loud crack just above the men's heads, engulfing them and those nearest to them in thick smoke. Hermione and Caius ran for Harry, vaporising any snakes they found in their path. They reached Harry and each grabbed an arm. He looked around at Hermione with glazed eyes, and repeated to her, in a rapturous voice:

'Magic is the truth.'

'I know it is,' she replied. 'Now let's get out of here!'

It was too risky to disapparate in the middle of a crowd of people, so they sought out a back alley from where they could make their escape. Harry offered no resistance, but seemed in no hurry to exit the scene, impeding their attempts to escape. By now the smokescreen had cleared, and their pursuers were gaining on them. The crowds were finally thinning out, and they were in sight of a narrow side street when one of the men got a hand to Caius and pulled him back sharply. Caius fell backwards, losing his grip on Harry's left arm.

'Keep going!' he shouted to Hermione, who looked back for a second, still clutching Harry's other arm. They turned onto the side street, Hermione still pulling a dazed Harry after her. But as they reached the relative quiet of the street, Hermione felt rough hands grab hold of her, pulling her away from Harry into the shadows of the alley.

'Harry!' she shouted at him. She hadn't stopped to think whether he would recognise his name, but even if she had, there was no way she was going to call him James Black. He looked on with the same glazed expression as she struggled with the dark-suited man who had grabbed her, seemingly not understanding what was happening. Then Hermione's attacker wrenched something out of her jacket, and it fell to the ground, rolling in his direction. His eyes alighted on the object and his gaze cleared. Slowly he kneeled down and picked up the object, turning it over in his hand for a few moments.

'This is my wand,' he said to himself. Then he stood up and spoke clearly, his voice echoing off the walls of the alleyway:

'Stupefy.'

Hermione's attacker was thrown against the wall, pulling her down in his wake. Harry came towards her, reaching out his hand to help her up.

'Are you ok?'

'I'm fine, thanks,' she replied as she pulled herself to her feet.

'You had my wand,' he said, in a rather off-hand manner. She scrutinised his expression. He doesn't know me. Even if he's remembered he can do magic he still doesn't know me.

'I was keeping it until I could give it back to you.'

'Why did you have it?' He doesn't even remember we met in St Bride's churchyard.

'It's a long story.'

At that moment another dark-suited man came striding into the alleyway. Harry turned to face him.

'Drop your wands and come with me,' said the man.

Harry looked at the man but didn't lower his wand.

'It's me you want, not her. She didn't do anything.'

'We saw her and the other one stunning the snakes. Anyway, you're all wizards, you're all targets. You must be pretty stupid, to do such a thing right in the middle of Paris.'

'Wizards?' said Harry. 'Yes, I suppose I must be.'

'And soon you will be out of business. The Witchfinder will be here very soon.'

'The Witchfinder!' exclaimed Hermione.

'No one's, putting me out of business,' replied Harry, raising his wand, 'I'm just getting started. Stupefy.'

He walked out of the alleyway, glancing down every few moments at the wand in his hand, his heart pounding. He gripped it harder, squeezing it like an old friend. Then he remembered the girl in the alleyway. She was keeping it for me. He started to turn and go back, but then stopped. He considered going back and asking her why she had it, but as he looked again at the wand, it didn't seem to matter. All that mattered was that the wand was his, and it had come back to him. The girl would be all right: he had dealt with those men. Now he had things to find out; in fact, he had everything to find out. Outside the alley the crowds had calmed down and dispersed. He walked back at a determined pace towards the busy intersection. He felt exhilarated, but at the same time frustrated at all the time lost in ignorance of his power. He gripped his wand in his hand, shielding it from view of passers-by, and the power it wielded coursed through his body.