When Harry woke up the next day, his scar had a slight twinge to it. He's happy, Harry thought, I'll have to tell Dumbledore. He sat up in his bed, pulled back the purple covers, and walked to his chest to put on a tee shirt before walking across the hall to the kitchen. Hermione and Ron we already inside, attempting to make breakfast. Ron was standing over the coffee pot, amused by all the buttons (there were three of them, Harry noticed.) Hermione was by the stove, cursing every time her bacon popped. It was not hard for Harry imagine that it hurt, since she was only wearing red plaid pajama pants and a two-sizes-too-small shirt. "Allright, you two, out, out, out. Go read a book or play chess or something. I'll make breakfast," said Harry, "before either of you get hurt…too much," he said, grinning at Hermione.
Harry finished the bacon and made a pot of coffee. About twenty minutes after kicking his friends out, Harry walked out of the kitchen carrying a silver tray piled high with toast, bacon, and eggs as he levitated three cups of coffee behind him. He walked down the hallway, and into the living room (as they had decided to call it last night), and found Ron and Hermione playing chess. Hermione was on the white side, urging her knight into position. "Knight to G6" she said. "Belay that," said Harry, quickly spotting Ron's bishop. "Thanks," said Hermione, gesturing the bishop and grabbing her coffee. Harry plopped onto the couch, added some cream to his mug and sighed.
"Fanks, Hawwy," said Ron around a mouthful of bacon.
"You're welcome," he said, making an egg-and-bacon sandwich. "So, what're we doing today?"
"We need to get our wands and staves back," said Hermione. They finished breakfast, got dressed, and walked out of their wing. They traveled through tapestries, down staircases, past portraits, and finally found themselves in front of the gargoyle protecting Dumbledore's office. "Atkins," said Hermione.
"What is 'Atkins?'" Ron asked, "They don't sell it at Honeyduke's, do they?" Hermione explained the concept of dieting on their way up the revolving staircase.
"Ah, you three," said Dumbledore. He was standing outside his doors, about to walk down. "Here you are. I forgot to mention it last night, but Mister Olivander has added a place where you can store your wand in your staff. You can remove it and cast simple spells when you need to, but you can't do anything very powerful. Levitating charms may even be a stretch, depending on your abilities," he said, handing the wands and staves to their owners. "Samantha tells me that she was able to show you your entire dormitory, excluding the training grounds. I suggest you explore them today. You may find them quite interesting. Now, I've got to go, there's an Order meeting in London, and I really must be present at this one," he said, walking down the staircase and out of the passage.
"WAIT, PROFESSOR!" yelled Harry. "I've got to tell you something," the old man turned around, "I woke up this morning, and my scar twitched. I could tell that Voldemort was happy."
"Thank you, Harry. I will relay that information to the Order," said Dumbledore. He walked down the hallway and out of sight.
"Well," said Ron, "shall we go check out that training area?" They walked back to their dormitory and through the remaining door in the hallway. When the three entered the room, they were in awe.
The sight that greeted them in the training center was amazing. An endless sky of blue stretched before them and hills surrounded the door, which stood freely in the field. To one side of the door stood three racks of weapons. They were covered with swords, daggers, shields, pikes, bows, sai, and, Harry noticed, katana. To the left of the door there was a range for practicing archery, and a random assortment of dummies. There was a small medical ward, and a blocked-off area where Hermione could practice scrying.
"This is wonderful!" said Hermione. "Ron…have you ever fought with a sword?"
"Never…but I'll try it," he said. Ron and Hermione walked to the weapons racks. Ron picked a small buckler and a pistol-grip dueling sword. Hermione picked up a small greatsword. They moved to the small area with the dummies, and magically dulled their swords before dueling. Harry sat by and watched. When one of them got tired, he would take his or her place using the Gryffindor shortsword and his staff in his left hand.
They continued this way for some weeks, practicing dueling, both of the Muggle and wizard variety. Ron worked on creating spells, and Hermione became quite good at scrying. Harry could cast a shield that would protect him from most of Ron's attacks, and Hermione could, if she so chose, watch all of this from wherever she wished, as when she decided to become invisible, Harry and Ron had no idea where she was. On the fourth day of training, she had found a spell that would cover her footprints.
All was going well. That is, until September 1st came around…
AN: Yeah, yeah, it's late. Sue me. Hey, have you all heard – the sixth book's going to be called "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" – JK confirmed it on her website (www.jkrowling.com) yesterday. HBP isn't Voldy or Harry, though.