13. A private investigation

Harry pushed firmly on his front door and stepped out into the sunlight. It was a little too bright and warm for autumn. As he reached the end of his garden path he looked back for a moment. The red brick façade of his house rose up smartly before him, its windows sombre and impassive and its tall chimney reaching into the sky. After a few moments he turned back and opened the gate onto the street. He was halfway down the road when the door of a parked car swung open in front of him. He was already reaching for his wand when a familiar voice emanated from inside the car:

'Bit edgy, aren't you?'

Harry looked down at the car. It was a gleaming black Ford Granada, probably from the 1980s. It reminded him of detective shows he had been allowed to watch from time to time as a child at the Dursleys. A collector's item, some would call it. But for its current owner it didn't have associations like that. It was just a smart-looking muggle car. Its owner was frequently beeped at on the roads by car enthusiasts and on one occasion had been invited to take part in a car rally. He slid down into the passenger seat, the old leatherette squeaky beneath him.

'What would you do if someone in a black car suddenly throws open the door right in front of you?'

Ron Weasley glowered at him from the driver's seat.

'Expecting to be arrested, were you?'

Harry grinned and shook Ron's hand.

'Seriously, Ron, what is this about? Don't you do knocking on people's front doors? Have you done something to annoy Ginny?'

'It's nothing like that. I just wanted a private chat with you.'

'A private chat? You're not exactly incognito in this car, are you?'

'What's wrong with my car?'

'Nothing at all, it's an absolute gem of a car. But it does stand out a bit.'

'That's why I parked down the road.'

Harry shrugged.

'How's Hermione?' he said after a moment's thought. The night-time conversation with her had left him with a feeling of unease.

'Better,' was the extent of Ron's reply, which Harry responded to with an equally terse 'good'.

Ron started up the engine and the car glided smoothly away from the curb. He prided himself on his driving skills, which were unassisted by magic. Magic had, on the other hand, been used extensively to bring the car back to life after he had acquired it from a scrap metal dealer.

'Anyway, this is a good place for a talk: nice and private. And driving clears my mind.'

'What is on your mind?' said Harry, as the car passed down the high street.

'Open the glove compartment,' said Ron, not taking his eyes off the road.

Harry obeyed. Rammed inside the glove compartment was a file. He took out the file and looked quizzically at Ron. Ron nodded and returned his eyes to the road.

'Now I really feel like I'm in a detective show,' muttered Harry, opening the file. Ron made no reply. The title of the document was not all that promising.

'Internal audit, Muggle Relations, 1993,' Harry read, not managing to summon up much enthusiasm.

'Page 16,' said Ron breezily.

Harry turned to page 16.

'During the reference period, the threat posed by the activities of so-called witchfinders has been shown to be insubstantial.

Recommendation: that Isaac Edwards' service contract on the investigation of para-magical activities be terminated.'

'A few pages on, you'll find a memo,' continued Ron in the same tone.

Harry leafed through the report until he came to a separate document, entitled 'Memorandum of the Chamber of Wands'. The document dated from 1995.

' I. Edwards, para-magical investigator, presented evidence that so-called witchfinders were harassing genuine wizards and seeking ways to penetrate magical sites like Diagon Alley. On the basis of the evidence presented, the Chamber of Wands has decided to suspend the proposed termination of the contract and instead to extend the mandate for para-magical activities.'

'It's happened before?' Harry remarked.

'Possibly,' said Ron. 'Or this is the story that Isaac Edwards puts about to justify keeping his contract. And another thing: take a look at the signature at the bottom,' he added laconically.

Harry looked down the document. It was signed, 'Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic and Chairman of the Chamber of Wands.'

'What's this all about?' he said finally, looking up from the page. The car was on a slip road, apparently leading onto a motorway.

'Hey, where are we going?' he added, looking around him with a slightly bewildered air.

'You'll see in a little bit,' said Ron mysteriously. 'Thought I'd do Hermione the courtesy of looking into this witchfinder business.'

This is new.

'Has Hermione seen this?'

Ron coughed.

'I imagine she's read everything there is to know about witchfinders.'

'I suppose that means no.'

'I'm not checking up on her,' Ron retorted. 'I'm trying to understand all this for myself. It's much better if I understand it myself rather than have her explain it all to me.'

Harry began to turn over pages in the file, but without really looking at them.

'And what do these documents tell us?'

'Two things: first, if Isaac Edwards doesn't talk up the threat of witchfinders, he's likely to lose his contract with the Ministry. Second, Isaac Edwards was saved from the chop by none other than Cornelius Fudge.'

Harry looked at the signature of Cornelius Fudge. The man did not inspire any particularly fond memories.

'And what have you concluded?' said Harry.

'I haven't concluded anything,' replied Ron. 'Not on the basis of those documents. They're just pieces of evidence. May or may not be conclusive.'

Harry glanced out of the window. His dealings with Isaac Edwards had been very limited, but he rather admired the man's dour eccentricity. And he was Hermione's main ally against the witchfinders. Still, what Ron had unearthed left a slightly bad taste in his mouth.

'Keep looking,' said Ron, and Harry turned over the page. The next document was much more recent, dating from three years earlier. It was an extract from something called the Register of returned wands, issued by the Magical Objects Repository.

'Look for the section entitled Wands returned voluntarily,' said Ron.

Harry leafed through the document until he found the relevant section.

'Look down the list of names,' said Ron.

Harry glanced down the list, which recorded the name of the wizard who had voluntarily surrendered his or her wand, the date, and the reason.

'Any names you recognise?' said Ron.

'Not really,' said Harry as he looked down the list, 'but I see you've put an asterisk next to some of them: Charlie Skelton … Poppy Bailey … Chloe Goodwin (née Beaumont)… Nathan Warren … '

'That's right,' said Ron. 'Do you know who they are?'

'Charlie Skelton I know,' said Harry. 'Not the others though.'

'They're all names of people that witchfinder liaison has fingered as working for this Mr Morley. Hermione told me their names herself. Those are just the names I remembered. There are probably more on that list.'

'Right,' said Harry.

'Do you see the problem?' said Ron.

Harry looked at the names.

'That these people are all recorded as having handed in their wands,' replied Harry.

'Exactly,' said Ron. 'Why would they voluntarily give up their wands, why didn't they just keep hold of them? No one was going to catch them and take away their wands. So how could they all be wielding wands again, doing magic for the Witchfinder?'

'I don't know,' said Harry. 'Maybe they just got new wands?'

Like from that dodgy wand dealer.

'From where?' said Ron. 'They could buy one in a wand shop, but only if your old one was broken and can't be mended, and anyway there would be a record of it. Or they could take it off another wizard in a duel or something, but you can bet the first thing a wizard would do if someone took their wand off them would be to report it. '

'They could take it off a dead wizard,' said Harry.

'Have you heard of many reports of wizards being murdered?' said Ron.

Harry shook his head. The Auror Office had less work than it used to. Which in that respect was a good thing.

'Murdered, no. Very few cases. But disappeared, yes, there are plenty of wizards who just disappear. Those cases are still open.'

Ron frowned.

'Fair enough,' he replied. 'Maybe the people on that list have got new wands and are using magic to serve muggles who want to expose all wizards, but it's a little bit odd, don't you think? Why go to the trouble of giving up your wand just to get another one that's not yours in the first place?'

'I see your point,' said Harry.

'And another thing,' said Ron. 'Why would wizards work for muggles to expose us? What's in it for them really? Hermione hasn't come up with a good reason. She said maybe they're wizards who have a grudge against other wizards. Maybe some do, but why work for a witchfinder? If these muggles hate wizards as much as Hermione or Isaac Edwards think, why would these traitor wizards get any better treatment from them?'

'That's probably true,' said Harry. 'But maybe they've cut a deal with the witchfinders. Maybe they've been promised something once they succeed in exposing us.'

'Maybe,' Ron replied. 'But let's say they expose us. What then?'

'Ah, who knows?'

'Exactly. And who's to say that it would really be that bad?'

You haven't met them. I definitely don't have a good feeling about what they would want to do with us.

The car turned off the motorway. They passed under a flyover, before turning onto a typical, edge of town trading estate road lined with warehouses, garden centres, kitchen showrooms and some drive-in fast food restaurants. Their surroundings didn't seem like the sort of place for Auror work.

'Where are we now?' said Harry, looking around. 'Are we stopping off for a burger or something?'

'You'll see,' said Ron in a business-like tone. The road turned to the left, passing behind a large discount clothing store. The road ended at what looked like the gates to a cemetery. On the right of the gates was the crematorium, a low brick building with a chimney. Ron parked the car just along the street from the cemetery gates. He looked keenly through the windscreen.

'Are we waiting for someone?' Harry asked.

'Oh, just the witchfinder,' said Ron blithely, checking the time on the dashboard clock.

'What?' Harry exclaimed. 'How do you know he's coming here?'

'Hermione had it written down on a piece of paper. Mr Morley, Kennetford Cemetery, every Saturday, 11 o'clock.'

'You went through her things?'

'No,' Ron retorted. 'She had it pinned to the noticeboard in her room.'

'You should be getting overtime for this,' Harry muttered. 'Witchfinder liaison could do with extra staff, so I heard.'

'They didn't want my help. That Argenta Coyle just sat there smirking at me the whole time. Didn't give me any information at all. Pretty much accused me of being more interested in checking up on Hermione than in the movements of this Mr Morley. I could try talking to Demelza, but I don't think they let her do much.'

'Hang on,' said Harry, grabbing Ron by the arm. 'That's him, isn't it?'

'You should know better than me,' Ron replied. 'You've seen him, haven't you?'

'Yeah, I've seen him.'

Mr Morley climbed out of the driver's seat of a black Mercedes and began to stride towards the cemetery gates. A tall, handsome man with blonde, tousled hair got out of the passenger seat, glanced around him, then followed Morley inside.

'That's Skelton,' said Harry, squinting through the windscreen. He remembered him from Montparnasse cemetery. 'Don't you recognise him from the Gryffindor common room?

'Now you come to mention it...' Ron replied.

'They always have a wizard with them,' Harry remarked.

'I don't know, do they?' Ron asked.

He remembered Hermione telling him the night they had slept above Armin's shop.

Ron opened the door and began to get out.

'What, are we just going to follow them in there?' said Harry. 'Don't you think they'll see us? We're not exactly unknowns in the wizarding world.'

Ron shot him a sidelong glance.

'You're right. But say these people are plotting the downfall of all wizards. That means they'll be expecting to be followed. Only the Ministry is hardly going to send the most famous wizard in the country to do their undercover work.'

'Nicely reasoned,' said Harry. 'Hermione has had an influence on you after all.'

Ron scowled.

'I thought of that on my own! Why does Hermione get the credit if I say anything clever?'

'Sorry. You're right. It's a subtle piece of thinking. Let's hope it's right.'

'That's just it,' grumbled Ron. 'She thinks I lack subtlety.'

Harry decided to drop the matter.

'Let's go then,' he said instead. 'Otherwise we'll never find them in there. But it's best we stay out of sight.'

'Ok,' Ron grumbled.

They got out of the car and passed in through the gates. The main avenue of the cemetery stretched out in front of them. Mr Morley and his companion were some way ahead. About halfway down the avenue they turned off to the left. Harry and Ron followed at a safe distance.

'No magic,' Harry hissed to Ron.

'Why not?'

'Because Skelton's job must be to keep an eye out for people like us, particularly anyone doing magic nearby.'

That was another theory that Hermione had imparted to him that night in London.

They took a turning to the right and stopped in front of a substantial family vault that largely shielded them from sight. In the distance they could make out Mr Morley standing solemnly and looking down at a gravestone. Charlie Skelton stood a few metres away from him, respectfully looking in another direction. Mr Morley crouched down so that he was close to the gravestone. Then he put his hand on the top of the marble headstone. He seemed to say a few words, but they were far too far away to make them out. Finally he stood up again, ran his hand through his wiry hair then looked around him rather bleakly. He seemed for a moment to look in their direction, but his stare seemed to pass through and beyond them. Then he walked briskly away, for a time moving in their direction. All this time, Ron and Harry were busy reading the names on the mausoleum, hidden from view. Mr Morley and his companion turned back onto the main avenue and passed out back through the gates. After a couple of minutes Ron and Harry emerged onto the main avenue themselves.

'Did you see which grave he visited?' Ron asked.

'I did,' Harry replied. 'But I wonder, what if Skelton cast a detection charm over the area by the grave, just in case he had a hunch they were followed.'

'Do you reckon he saw us?'

'I don't think so, but I suppose he's a professional when it comes to surveillance.'

'I didn't see him cast any charm,' Ron murmured. 'Though I suppose he could hide it easy enough.'

Harry scratched the back of his neck.

'I reckon we could still read the name on the headstone from the next row back. What do you think?'

'If you think it's a good idea,' Ron concurred.

They made their way quickly towards the area of the grave, glancing back down the main avenue in case Mr Morley or Charlie Skelton had come back. But there was no sign of anyone. Deliberately they passed the row that Mr Morley had visited and took the following one instead. As he spotted the headstone they were looking for, Harry stopped so that they were standing just diagonally of the grave plot. The inscription read:

Camelia Isabelle Morley

1969-1996

'She was a relative,' Harry said in a low voice.

'Wife or sister, what do you reckon?' said Ron.

'I don't know. Could be either,' Harry replied. 'I bet this has got something to do with why he doesn't like wizards.'

'What, do you reckon she was killed by a Death Eater or something?'

'1996? It's not impossible I suppose, but that was around the time when the Death Eaters were laying low. But that might not be the reason at all.'

'Still,' said Ron, 'the bloke can't be a complete and utter lunatic if he comes and visits his sister's or wife's grave every week.'

'It's a nice gesture, I agree,' said Harry. 'But if he holds wizards responsible for her death, imagine what sort of a grudge he has against us.'

Still, he had to admit that seeing this side of Mr Morley had slightly improved his opinion of him.

'I seem to remember that Charlie Skelton being a bit of a tosser,' said Ron as they reached the car. 'I didn't think Gryffindor accepted people like him.'

'What about McLaggen?' Harry replied. 'He's hardly a good advert for Gryffindor either.'

'McLaggen,' Ron snorted. 'I'd forgotten about him.'

Harry took one last glance around: the black Mercedes was gone.

'There's something else I want to show you,' said Ron as they got into the car. 'It's back at the house.'

'Your house?' said Harry.

'No, Malfoy Manor. Of course my house.'

'Won't Hermione be there?'

Ron looked slightly sheepish.

'Probably she will, but she'll be up in her office. I doubt we'll even see her.'

Harry nodded and put his seat belt on. I'm not sure this is a good idea.

Ron and Hermione's house was further into the country than Harry and Ginny's, so Ron was required to speed up the journey through the use of some magically operated machinery he had acquired from the people who ran the Knight Bus. Before long they were on the familiar country lanes around Chase End. The village was scattered along a lane that twisted left and right several times before they reached Ron's house, which was set much further back from the road, behind a tall hedge. Ron turned off the road and rolled his car slowly down the driveway before parking in front of his garage. As they got out of the car Harry looked up at the house. Hermione's office was located above the garage. There was no light on, but the afternoon was bright and warm. Ron opened the garage door.

'We're going straight in this way?' said Harry.

'Yeah,' replied Ron. 'What I want to show you is in here anyway.'

They stepped inside and Ron turned on the light with a switch of his wand. Ron's garage looked rather similar to his father's workshop at the Burrow, cluttered with all manner of muggle artefacts. Ron went over to his workbench and opened a small drawer beneath the work surface. He pulled out another document, but this one was visibly older, its cardboard file faded and scuffed.

'This one's about the Seeing Circle, or the Circle of Sie, or whatever other names it might be known as.'

Ron handed Harry the file. The first thing he noticed when he opened it was the date: the file was thirty years old. Its title read: An investigation into muggle quasi-magic. The report detailed all manner of occult activities from around the world, labelling them as 'hoaxes', 'folk religions', 'shamanism' and 'cults'. Towards the end of the report was a section on 'The Seeing Circle'. The text covered no more than about half a page.

'The Seeing Circle is the most recent manifestation of a form of mind control thought to date back several thousand years and which originated, as far as anyone can tell, in Anatolia during the Kingdom of Urartu.

It's thought that the mind control techniques in question were first written down in a work entitled 'The Testament of Sie', also known as 'The Circle of Sie', 'The Seven-pointed Circle', 'The Empty Book', 'The Path' and 'The Priest's Confession'. The original text is lost, and the earliest known version is in an early version of Armenian. The work has been translated into several languages over the centuries and millennia, but has been little read and is little known, largely due to the obscure and difficult nature of the techniques it describes.

The Seeing Circle was also the name of a group of stage conjurers and illusionists established in the 1930s. Mastery of the technique of the Circle of Sie, from which they took their name, enabled its members to perform acts of telekinesis and telepathy that could not otherwise be explained by any of the usual tricks of stage magic.

In the case of the Seeing Circle, stage magic was a cover for a series of robberies, kidnaps and even murders committed by its members. The members of the group were arrested in 1934 after one of them denounced them to the muggle authorities. There have been no other documented uses of the techniques described in 'The Testament of Sie' since that time.

Classification: initially shamanistic, but adopted to profane purposes.

Level of threat: low'

Harry looked up from the page. Ron was watching him closely.

'What do you think?' he said at last.

'You seem to be building up a fairly solid case that Hermione's overreacting,' replied Harry. He wasn't sure if his remark came out as serious or flippant, but he thought he saw a smile flicker over Ron's lips.

'You think it's solid, do you?' came the response.

'I don't know,' said Harry. 'Like you said, this is all circumstantial. But it's just enough to create doubts.'

'Doubts, exactly,' was Ron's laconic reply. Harry looked at him, trying to decipher his expression. He couldn't.

'On the other hand,' he continued. 'The Seven-Pointed Circle has been used to pretty deadly effect in the past: murder, kidnapping.'

'That's true, replied Ron, 'but against muggles, not against wizards.'

'Do you think wizards would fare any better?' said Harry.

'I don't know, but there's a lot of what ifs in all this,' said Ron. 'Two years this has been going on, two years Hermione's been obsessed by it, and nothing's happened. You know that Kingsley told the muggle relations people to look into it.'

'I remember,' Harry replied.

'And you know they found pretty much nothing.'

Harry recalled what had happened two years earlier quite clearly: when Ministry investigators visited the flat in East London that Hermione and Caius had been taken to, the headquarters of MIR were no longer there. Charlie Skelton had apparently gone abroad and Chloe Goodwin was living a quiet suburban life married to a muggle. An incognito investigator who tracked down Stephen Morley and interviewed him had reported back that he was a harmless crank. The French equivalent of the Ministry of Magic had sent an official letter stating that it had no links with the League of Witchfinders. And there was no trace of Lillian Herrick.

'I know the details,' said Harry. 'But was Mortimer Knott the best person to investigate the case? He's never struck me as being someone who takes muggles seriously.'

'Who else could Kingsley send? Knott's the one in charge of muggle relations. He could have asked old Isaac Edwards to do the investigation. But he didn't. Which probably shows how seriously they took Hermione's allegations to begin with.'

'You mean, they thought it was too serious to give the case to Isaac Edwards?'

'Exactly. And in any case, we know what Edwards would have said anyway. They needed to send someone who wasn't biased.'

'Even so,' said Harry, 'if this had been an Auror case, it would have been done differently.'

Ron scratched his chin.

'Yeah, well some parts of the Ministry are run better than others.'

They both fell silent. It was Ron who spoke first.

'Honest opinion, Harry,' he began. 'What should I do?'

'About Morley?' said Harry.

'About Hermione.'

Harry dropped his gaze somewhat.

'I don't know,' he replied, 'I'm not really the best person to ask.'

Ron frowned slightly.

'I understand that,' he said with a sigh. 'But still …'

'Well,' Harry began, 'how much would it cost you to humour her?'

Ron's expression darkened.

'What do you think I've been doing for the past two years? What you mean is, you think she's right.'

'I didn't say that,' retorted Harry. 'I understand what you mean: we've looked for signs that something is happening, signs like there were when Voldemort was on the rise.'

'And found nothing,' added Ron. 'Believe me, I wish we had found something, I really do. Not that I hope that a major attack on wizards is being planned, but for Hermione's sake, I mean. There are witchfinders who go on shouting about witchcraft as they always have, but they're all on the other side of the wall. And this Lillian Herrick is invisible, or to everyone except Hermione. People are talking about her at the Ministry, Harry. You know they are.'

Harry nodded. The friendlier comments suggested that she had suffered a burn-out. The less friendly ones suspected her of being a Citadel supporter, or even a member. Some suggested that her paranoia was ordering on mental illness.

'I don't know how many times I've defended her,' Ron continued. 'And she's not doing me any favours. Plus she's a complete misery to be around. When she's even around, that is. What's she doing? She's even driven you away, of all people.'

Harry glanced around the room.

'I wouldn't say she's driven me away,' he began. 'It's true that she's isolated herself … from most people really. But then again, Lilian Herrick's threats seemed pretty convincing, at least they did two years ago.'

'Two years ago, you said it yourself,' said Ron. 'You've been able to get on with your life, with Ministry business. Hermione's completely obsessed.'

Harry looked hard at Ron. I hate doing this.

'But if you've been threatened,' he began, running his hand through his hair with a twitchy sort of gesture, 'even if years go by, how can you ever know whether the threat is going to come true or not? Can you ever really put it out of your mind?'

Suddenly they heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

'Someone's coming,' said Ron, who with a deft swish of his wand shifted a pair of cricket pads from a shelf onto the table so that they covered the papers.

Unnerved by Ron's sudden movement, Harry started towards the door, only to find a wand pointing at his face.

'Oh it's you!' said Hermione in a startled voice, lowering her wand and staring at Harry. Harry returned the look, saying nothing. Hermione's gaze turned to Ron, who was standing alongside the workbench with his hands in his pockets.

'What are you doing?' she asked in a low voice. Tiredness was etched into her face.

'I was getting Harry to go over the rules of cricket,' said Ron in an attempt at nonchalance.

Hermione's eyes shifted back to Harry for a moment, and looked at him with a questioning expression. Then she looked back at Ron.

'I could have told you the rules of cricket,' she replied.

'Well, I thought you were probably busy,' said Ron, with an undertone of sarcasm. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she said nothing.

'There's something suspect going on here,' she announced finally, in the same neutral tone.

Harry looked vacantly at Ron, who looked back at him with a slightly apologetic air.

'What would you say?' he began, suddenly addressing Hermione, 'if I told you that Harry had just been trying to convince me to join Mr Morley's crusade against wizards?'

She looked at him quizzically as she processed the information.

'Well first of all I'd wonder why you were so eager to rat on a friend.' she replied evenly. 'After that I'd probably have to kill the pair of you.'

Harry couldn't resist smiling. Ron seemed a little less amused.

'Charming,' he replied.

'I didn't hear you come in,' she said in a more neutral tone.

'Yeah, well Harry and I went for a drive,' said Ron. Harry nodded in confirmation.

'Did you go anywhere interesting?'

'Nowhere in particular,' replied Ron. 'A little excursion, that's all. Just a bit of fun.' The stress in the sentence seemed to fall on the last word. Hermione glanced at Harry, as if to see if he had anything to add. All Harry could do was to look back at her with a serious expression. She looked back at Ron.

'That sounds nice,' she said finally, without much conviction.

'I'm going to get something to drink,' Ron announced suddenly. 'Do you want anything?'

Hermione looked slightly surprised.

'No thanks,' she replied.

'Harry?'

'I'll have a beer please,' said Harry. His reply came out too loudly.

'Good answer,' said Ron, who slunk off to the kitchen.

Harry and Hermione stood in silence in the garage, each rooted to the spot.

'Are things always so tense around here?' he said instead, almost catching himself by surprise.

'I don't know what you mean,' she said in a voice of mock sweetness.

'I'm sure Ron means well,' he replied.

'I know he means well. He just doesn't take me seriously.'

He considered for a moment whether or not to tell Hermione about Ron's research. There was probably nothing in what he had uncovered that would be new to her or sway her thinking, but he couldn't think of anything else.

'Maybe Ron takes you more seriously than you think.'

She looked quizzically at him.

'What do you mean?'

'Maybe it wouldn't take much for you to get him on your side.'

At that moment the kitchen door slammed, and Ron's footsteps could be heard in the corridor approaching the garage. She jumped slightly and looked over her shoulder.

'There's a fundamental flaw there,' she said, looking back at Harry. 'Ron finds it hard to admit I'm right, and I find it equally hard to admit that he's right.'

Ron was fumbling with the garage door and noisily dropped a can of beer on the floor.

'I have to ask you something,' Hermione said quickly. 'Did we speak the other night?'

'Yes,' Harry replied.

Ron could be heard cursing to himself behind the door.

'Thank goodness,' said Hermione. 'I was worried that…'

The door started to open.

'Are you sure you're …' he began.

'Please don't ask me if I'm alright,' she replied, lowering her voice to a taut murmur. 'I can't bear to have people ask me that anymore.'

Ron walked in, two cans of beer in his arms, putting an end to the conversation. He found Hermione and Harry frowning at each other slightly across the table.