Chapter 3 – Returning Home

The last two weeks of the holidays flew by. Harry got used to being in Sirius´ house and thinking about him and could now remember the good times they shared without feeling too much pain and grief. Remus´ few, quiet comments and words of encouragement helped a lot with that as well as enjoying the company of his two best friends, playing chess with Ron and giving in to Hermione´s urgings to do some studying. In truth he didn´t mind to read some -as they had no homework this summer because everyone would take different courses in the new year, he was only studying his Defence books- but Ron seemed to especially like teasing her until she would smack him over the head with one of her books.

Harry had a fleeting suspicion that she enjoyed their little fights as well when he saw her grinning into her parchment after Ron had given in with lots of exaggerated sighs one day.

With the familiar Hogwart´s letter they had gotten this year another parchment, where all the courses they could take were listed. Students were only allowed into a NEWT level course if they had the marks required by the teacher, for example McGonagall only accepted students with an E or above, but apparently there were teachers with a lot lower expectations. So Ron could choose Astronomy despite his Poor´ there. But the greatest surprise was that both he and Harry could elect Potions, although they had only an Acceptable´and Snape required an Outstanding´. Harry wondered if this was McGonagall´s doing.

They were advised to choose six courses, more or less only with the approval of their Head of House. Harry settled on Defence, Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology. Ron chose nearly the same ones, he only had Divination instead of Herbology. Hermione, of course, could not decide on merely six courses and after owling McGonagall she took all of Harry´s courses except Herbology but Ancient Runes, Arithmancy and History as well.

"Mental, she is, you´d think she would have learnt something after third year!" Ron had confided to Harry, "and why she would choose History of all things… it´s nearly as useless as Divination!"

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They didn´t go to Diagon Alley, as Harry was not exactly allowed to leave the house and Ron and Hermione decided to stay with him. So Mrs Weasley got their books and some other things they needed, while they kept up with their work inside Grimmauld Place. Since last summer most of the dirt had been cleaned away, this summer they worked on sorting through all the things that were stored in the unused rooms and on throwing the more disgusting and useless ones out. Remus was in charge of the Great Dewasting´ as Ron had dubbed it, and often had to use his defence skills because the objects were spelled with dark and dangerous curses.

One particular nasty job had been the heads of the house-elves, and Hermione had left that to the boys after her face had gotten a sickly green colour. Instead she had gone to continue clearing out the attic, where Harry and Ron found her an hour later covered in dust and leafing through a trunk of heavy old books written in what seemed to be Runic.

"Hey Hermione! You were supposed to do some work up here! Not sneaking out to have lots of fun!"

"Oh, but this is fantastic! These books must be hundreds of years old! It seems no one has looked at them in years, apparently the Blacks weren´t interested in them, or forgot they were here. I really wish I had more time, it will take ages to translate enough to even find out what they are about!"

From then on there was considerably less help from Hermione and she could often be found with her nose buried in parchments and dusty tomes until deep into the night.

The only thing Ron and Harry couldn´t get rid of was the portrait of Sirius´ mother, but otherwise Grimmauld Place looked much more inviting and like a real home at the end of the holidays.

The whole time there was not a single sign from Voldemort, it almost seemed that his appearance at the Ministry had been just a bad dream, and Fudge was claiming in the Daily Prophet that it was his government that kept the Dark Lord at bay. Harry felt more and more uneasy with the continuing silence –last year Voldemort had lied low because he was building up his ranks again and devising a plot to get the prophecy. What was he planning this time? There hadn´t been another order meeting so Harry hadn´t seen Dumbledore again, and other order members were not likely to answer his questions about the order´s information about Death eater´s plans.

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Finally it was September the 1st , and with the usual chaos everyone was getting ready for the trip back to Hogwarts. Ron was stuffing his robes into his trunk at the last minute and was searching for his boots under the bed and Harry could have sworn he had already packed the socks he spotted near the cupboard. But in a worse mood than anyone was Hermione. She was dragging two trunks downstairs.

"What are you doing, Hermione? Did you buy too much schoolbooks to get them into one trunk, eh?"

"Oh, shut up, Ron! I asked Professor Lupin if I could take those books from the attic with me, so I could do some more translation and research in my free time. Unlike some people I enjoy doing something useful with my time!" she snapped and let one of her trunks drop on his foot.

"Oi, look out where you place that thing! And what do you think you´ll find in there? The Book of Knowledge or what? The Blacks probably forgot the whole lot for a reason. Maybe they are all about household and cleaning spells –they certainly didn´t place much value on that!"

Before Hermione could give an angry reply Harry interrupted quickly: "The Book of Knowledge? What´s that?"

"It´s just a wizards´ myth, it´s said that all knowledge of the world is written down in it, or something like that. When Ginny was younger and asked Mum questions like why some people are good and others bad and Mum didn´t have the time to answer or thought Ginny was still too young, she would say: That´s only written in the Book of Knowledge´."

"Really, " Hermione bristled, "you two should do some more reading! The Book of Knowledge was written by an Arabian philosopher named Anwar Najib, who claimed to have discovered and drunk from the Fountain of Knowledge in the desert, and then wrote down everything he knew! This Book was then called the Book of Knowledge, though there are different accounts as to what exactly was written in it. Najib went mad shortly after he had finished the book, he said that man was not cut out for complete knowledge and burned himself together with his book."

"Yeah, man is not cut out for complete knowledge´, think I like that guy…"

"So this Book of Knowledge doesn´t exist any more at all?" Harry cut in before Hermione could even open her mouth. What was keeping those Ministry cars for so long?

"That´s not sure. Apparently Najib had an assistant who copied the book without his knowledge and then made several more copies. But they are all said to be lost over time –after all Najib lived about 5000 years ago- and all accounts and sources are very vague. It´s not even completely sure if Najib had an assistant at all."

"Just like I said, it´s all a myth! I mean really, this Najib guy wrote a book about knowledge, and then he didn´t know that his assistant copied the whole thing?"

Harry gave up, he really couldn´t think of any more questions and apparently his two friends were determined to get into yet another argument no matter how hard he tried to avoid it. So when the Ministry cars, that Mr Weasley had organised for them, finally arrived and brought them to the station he was listening resignedly to their bickering and only hoped they wouldn´t carry on like this for the whole year.

Mrs Weasley had stayed behind at Grimmauld Place and some order members who had accompanied them stayed out of sight, so there was nobody to say goodbye to on the platform and they went directly on the train and looked for a compartment. The saw Ginny sharing one with Dean and greeted her but as Seamus, Parvati and Lavender stayed in there as well there wasn´t enough space for the three of them. At last Harry found an empty one at the back of the train and was silently glad that Ron and Hermione had to go to the prefect meeting because Ron was constantly growling about Ginny being in the same compartment as Dean and Hermione was similarly constantly scolding him for it.

Just as the train pulled out of the station the compartment door opened and Neville stumbled in.

"Hello, Harry, are those seats already taken? There is no empty compartment on the train."

"Hi Neville! No, it´s only Ron and Hermione in here with me, of course you can have a seat! How was your summer?"

Harry helped the other boy push his luggage out of the way while Neville told him about his holidays. He seemed a little more confident and had studied hard this summer to be ready for NEWT level classes.

"I´m taking Herbology, of course, and Defence –it´s only thanks to you I got into that course- and Care of Magical Creatures and I somehow passed Charms. And then I had to take History and Divination because we need six classes and I didn´t pass Transfiguration or Astronomy. Thankfully I don´t have Potions any more! No more Snape! I just hope I can keep up with classes, the NEWTs must be horrible."

At that point the door slid open again and Luna lazily skipped in, her radish earrings skipping in tact with her. She gave them a bright smile and flopped down opposite of Harry. Staring into his face she said casually: "So you found your way out of the room."

"Er,… did I?"

"Yes, you did." She giggled. "That room with the archway in it of course! I knew you would find your way out during the holidays."

With that she took an edition of the Quibbler out of her bag and vanished behind it. Harry was about to ask what she had meant when he realised that she held the newspaper with the left side up and decided against it. Instead he exchanged a blank look with Neville.

After a brief silence Neville searched through his bag as well and said: "Look here, I got a new wand! Eleven inches, oak, with unicorn hair. Gran wasn´t even too furious about me breaking Dad´s old one! She said maybe I was at last following his footsteps. We went to Ollivanders, he´s really creepy, isn´t he?"

Harry smiled weakly, he felt again terribly guilty for taking his friends to the Ministry with him. "I´m really sorry about your Dad´s wand, Neville, and for putting you all into danger."

"It´s okay, Harry, really, I´m hoping that I´m better at magic with my own wand anyway."

"Oh, but we wanted to go there, didn´t we? Or did you control our minds with a Will-bender, like the Ministry does with the people that don´t support them?" Luna seemed to honestly consider that for a moment, but then she shook her head once, which sent the wand behind her ear flying, "no, I think they were only invented during the summer. And of course, I would never have gotten the chance to see if they were breeding Gobbledyflewps at the Ministry."

"Eh, and did you see any …eh, Gobbledyflewps?" Neville asked.

"No, but a chance is better than nothing." She concentrated again on the Quibbler, at the same time absentmindedly kicking her wand on the floor, making it fly up, and catching it without looking.

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At lunch Harry went out of the compartment, buying some cakes and sweets from the old witch with the trolley. He met a few DA members there who greeted him and assured him that they still had the galleons from last year. He even got a stiff compliment from Zacharias Smith from Hufflepuff about his teaching style, who then asked bluntly what had happened at the Ministry. Harry winced and hesitated, and the other students shuffled back a little, but Zacharias didn´t back off. Swallowing he manged to answer that he couldn´t speak about it here, but he knew if he indeed continued with the DA he would have to answer sooner or later.

Bringing his purchases in and sharing them with Neville and Luna, Harry wondered what Dumbledore had told the school at the end of term feast last year about their trip to the Ministry and what he could tell the DA. And where should the DA head this year? Should they too take a more active role in the fight against Voldemort´s followers, or simply learn new spells? Should they take in new members, or keep it as small as it was now with the seventh years left? He decided that they would hold a meeting where he would bring up these questions and let all the members discuss and vote about it.

Finally Ron and Hermione came back from the prefect meeting. "Give me some of that chocolate frogs, Harry, will you? I´m absolutely starved. That new Headboy from Hufflepuff is as bad as Ernie Macmillan, I swear, I never thought anyone could make a speech about security measures that pompous and boring!"

Hermione looked ready to argue with Ron about his lack of interest in security but the long meeting seemed to have worn her down as well. "Well, summed up we sixth year prefects have to accompany all Hogsmeade visits and are responsible for security there. We also have to guard all bigger events, like Quidditch matches, and watch out for anything unusual." Catching Harry´s alarmed look at Ron, she added: "For all playing prefects there will be someone else appointed, something like a deputy prefect."

"Yeah," Ron mumbled between biting in his chocolate frog, "and how exactly are we going to protect everyone, when Malfoy is a sixth year prefect as well, and will tell his father and every other Death Eater available about any security measures we might take? Why he´s still a prefect I don´t know, after last year and that cow´s Inquisitorial Squad. – Speaking of the devil…" Ron looked at the window in the compartment door.

Harry turned around and and saw he was right. The door opened and Malfoy stood there, surprisingly without Crabbe and Goyle this time. Malfoy looked as pale and slick as usual but under his eyes were circles and they were burning with hatred. "Potter, you´re going to pay for what you did to my father. I´m going to make you pay, and you will regret you ever tangled with my family. You´re as good as dead. Enjoy your trip to school, with the Dark Lord back, it´ll be the last time you make it, and I will make sure of that."

"Can´t you think of something more original than that, Malfoy? All those death threats, it´s getting a bit boring after a while, don´t you think?" Harry said, although he felt quite unsettled by the maniacal gleam in Malfoy´s eyes.

Malfoy didn´t seem to hear him but stared at him silently for a moment longer, then turned around and left, quietly closing the door after him.

"Well, that was odd." Ron stated, "He didn´t insult us once, and he never even tried to reach his wand."

Neville shuddered. "I think it was scary, did you see his look? I think I like it more when he insults and curses someone."

"I think I agree with you, Neville." Hermione looked worried. "This was more …controlled, more serious than before. He almost sounded as if he had become a Death Eater already over the summer. His father going to Azkaban must have really driven him over the edge. I think you should be very careful, Harry."

Harry was silent. They were right, this had clearly gone further than beating each other at Quidditch and house rivalries or even trying to get the other one expelled… Malfoy really wished him dead.

For the rest of the journey they kept the conversation on lighter topics, with Ron, Neville and Harry playing some games of Exploding Snap, and Hermione trying to talk politely to Luna, who was watching Ron. Unnerved by her eerie stare Ron lost most of the time and was relieved when they finally came to a halt.

Over the bustling students on the platform they could make out the broad, tall figure of Hagrid, who waved at them, but didn´t have the time to talk with them because at that moment there was a shriek and one of the first years lost his balance and dropped into the lake.

"Come on, we better get into a carriage, seems like Hagrid has enough to do right now."

Harry left a little reluctantly, he wished he could at least have greeted the friendly giant. Then the sight of the Thestrals whisked those thoughts away. They were supposed to bring bad luck, and hadn´t they brought him to his godfather´s death? Seeing their lowered, sad heads, they seemed to blame themselves, too. He shook his head, he couldn´t very well blame the Thestrals for the outcome, as they were only a means of getting there in the first place.

Neville was shuffling nervously beside him, throwing him a look and quickly averting it again. With a start Harry realised that Neville was looking at the Thestrals, that he could see them now, too… of course he had seen Sirius die… Neville didn´t say a word, and Harry didn´t mention it either but he felt a strange sort of bond between them as they watched the winged horses.

"They do like you, you know," came a dreamy voice from behind them, "you are a bit like them." Luna brushed past them into the carriage where Ron and Hermione were already waiting; and Neville and Harry followed her.

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Entering the castle Harry forgot momentarily all his worries, the familiar sight of the hall greeted him, the laughter and excited talking invited him in, the Gryffindor table welcomed him back. Hogwarts was a safe haven, now more than ever, and he was returning home.

The students quieted as Professor McGonagall entered with the first years and placed the old Sorting Hat on its stool. It waited until there was complete silence, then the brim opened and it sang:

A thousand years or so before,

when Hogwarts was still young,

the Founders set up shields to insure

the school standing strong.

# # #

But the final touch of their plan,

the completion of their masterpiece,

they could not obtain,

they could not achieve.

# # #

Neither bright Ravenclaw with all her cleverness,

nor hardworking Hufflepuff with loyal cooperation.

Neither brave Gryffindor with all his courageousness,

nor cunning Slytherin with lots of determination.

# # #

They couldn´t reach the goal they set,

for t´was in trust and unity they lacked.

# # #

Now again, I fear, dark times are brewing

and I feel the rift amongst us growing.

# # #

I must decide where you´re to send

but you should heed my call:

For united you will stand,

Divided you shall fall.

There was unsure clapping and worried murmuring, this was the second time the Sorting Hat had issued a warning. Like last year it warned them to unite or Hogwarts would fall. Harry wondered if the hat could see the future, and if they really should make some efforts to unite with the Slytherins. But how should they find out whom to trust? Maybe they would try to befriend some future Death Eater, -all the time assuming a Slytherin would even want to associate with them!

Ron whispered angrily: "Look at Malfoy! Seems he´s very pleased with the song! When I look at him I know why I don´t want to unite!"

"But that´s exactly what he wants! He only needs to keep up the distrust, the rift amongst the houses, we need to change that if we want to remain standing." Hermione muttered absentmindedly. "That was the same as last year, it´s the first part that I don´t like. There was something the founders couldn´t finish? Something with the wards? Does that mean there is a hole in the wards and shields that are protecting Hogwarts?"

McGonagall gave them a disapproving frown and Harry realised the Sorting already had begun. He clapped mechanically for every new Gryffindor, but his mind was on what Hermione had said. Hogwarts was his home, he could not imagine what it would be like with the castle destroyed. All the students… Hogwarts needed to be safe. He could not, he would not let Hogwarts fall. He swore to himself that he would not let Voldemort take the school, not as long as he was still living and able to hold a wand.

"Wheeler, Paul" – Harry snapped back to the present. Wheeler? The last of the first years was about to be sorted, he was dripping wet and shivering. Apparently he was the one that had stumbled into the lake. Frightened and pale, he looked as if he would start to cry any moment, Harry thought as the small boy sat on the stool. The hat took a long time to decide while the students in the hall got more and more impatient and hungry. After over a minute the hat shouted: "Gryffindor!"

Harry watched the boy sit down at the Gryffindor table, and a slow grin spread over his face. The brother of Dudley´s girlfriend, the son of the Wheelers, that his Aunt and Uncle got along so well with, was a wizard. Boy, were his relatives in for a nasty surprise, when they found out!

Dumbledore stood up at the headtable: "Welcome to our new students, and welcome back to our older ones! Since all announcements I have to make can wait until you have a full stomach, please help yourself!" and with a wave of his hand food appeared on the tables.

Of course Ron was the first to help himself to a nearly spilling over plate of food but Harry scanned the teacher´s table. Who was going to be the new DADA teacher? There were two new faces. One of them was a thin old man, sitting next to Flitwick, and although he was a head taller than the tiny Charms teacher he seemed too nervous and shy to talk and only nodded to Flit wick´s enthusiastic gesturing. Harry thought he looked like a little, frightened mouse and sincerely hoped he wouldn´t be the Defence professor. He probably would die of shock if he faced so much as a Bowtruckle.

The other man Harry didn´t know sat on Dumbledore´s left side, not talking with anyone. He was somehow featureless and apparently indifferent to his surroundings. Of an average height, as far as Harry could see, with an average face he blended into the background

"What do you think who´s the Liaison Officer?" Hermione asked at his side. "Snape´s glaring at the little one, so I guess he´ll be the Defence teacher."

Hermione was right, Snape was glaring disdainfully at the thin man, who dropped his fork in reaction. Harry also couldn´t imagine the mouselike one working for the Ministry, at least not in a position where Fudge wanted to show that the Ministry was in control. Great, so they would have yet another useless Defence teacher, maybe he should set a date for the next DA meeting at once. Why couldn´t Dumbledore find any suitable teacher for that subject, especially now? He certainly should have had a lot of practise over the last years.

Finally the tables cleared and Dumbledore stood up again. "So, I fear, now you´re forced to listen to an old man´s drivel. First, I´d like to announce that the Ministry has kindly revoked all Educational Decrees from last year-" - loud cheering broke out – "and all decisions concerning dismissing Professors or banning students-" here his eyes twinkled in Harry´s direction –"have been cancelled."

"Yeah, Harry, mate, you´re back on the team!" Ron yelled and slapped him on the back.

While Harry wiped the mashed-potato-rests from his nose where Ron had knocked him into his plate, Dumbledore continued. "Next, I´m glad to tell you that Professor Snape has agreed to vacate his position as Potions teacher and accepted to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts instead." Snape remained sitting and sneered down at everyone, while the Slytherin table clapped loudly. However they were not loud enough to drown out the less then pleased murmurs in the rest of the hall. Harry and Ron exchanged a look and groaned.

"For him, Professor Sanfter will take over Potions." The little man stood up too quickly and knocked over his glass, smiled nervously and sat down just as quickly. "And finally I´d like to welcome Mr Rookwood, our Liaison Officer, from the Ministry, who will be working with your teachers on the security of Hogwarts." Rookwood just nodded curtly when his name was mentioned. "With the public return of Voldemort-" a shudder went through the hall- "there will be a few new security measures, that you might notice. Please listen to the Prefects and staff in case of an emergency and show them the respect they deserve."

Dumbledore watched the students a moment silently, most of them showing anxiousness or open fear. "I cannot give you absolute security, but I can tell you that I will do everything that is in my power to prevent any of you getting harmed. And I do believe that you´re safer at Hogwarts than anywhere else. – On a lighter note, Mr Filch wants me to announce that there are now over five hundred items on his list of forbidden things, including everything that two students who recently left this school have invented, and that anyone carrying one of those items with them will be severely punished. And now I believe it´s time for you to get to your dormitories, so you´re nice and fresh for your classes tomorrow."

Over the shuffling of students standing up Harry saw Justin Finch-Fletchley gesturing desperately to gain his attention and mouthing: "DA! Start DA again!". Susan Bones next to him was nodding forcefully. Harry took the galleon out of his pocket, tapped it with his wand and set the date for Wednesday the following week. He saw Justin and Susan grin and give him a thumps up, they had obviously felt their galleons grow hot.

The new fifth year prefects were rounding up the first years and Harry noticed that Ginny had made Prefect this year. He made a mental note to congratulate her later. Together with Ron and Hermione he made his way out of the great hall, taking some short cuts, so they would arrive sooner at the common room than the first years. "Snape!" Ron groaned, "We should have expected it when we got into Potions!"

"Well," Hermione countered, "actually he might not be that bad. We need some teacher who knows what he´s talking about. Maybe he is a little unfair –okay, okay, he is unfair- and he will expect a lot but we might learn something at last, and that´s the main thing!"

Harry thought of his concerns about the nervous Professor Sanfter and had to agree at least a bit with Hermione. He told his friends that he had set up a DA meeting the next week, and that they would discuss and decide then if and how they would continue.

Ron seemed more satisfied after hearing this, "Good, Harry, and in the meantime I´ll take comfort in the fact that he won´t last longer than a year anyway." and knocked on the wooden frame of the portrait of the fat lady.

"Centaur´s pride" Hermione said and the portrait swung open.

"Wait!" Neville came running behind them, "I don´t yet know the password!"

They waited until he reached them, then entered together the empty common room and sat down in their favourite chairs by the fire. Soon the rest of the students arrived and the room was crowded. The small Paul Wheeler trudged in at last; his face a mask of defiance but his eyes watery he stumbled up to his dormitory.

Harry managed to grab Ginny after that long enough to congratulate her for becoming Prefect before Dean came over, put an arm around her shoulders and gave him a dark look. Ginny blushed, mumbled a thanks and excused them quickly.

Returning to the fire Harry told Neville, Hermione and Ron about his Cousin´s girlfriend and that her little brother was in Gryffindor. Ron snorted at the thought of the Dursleys finding out that their precious son was going out with the sister of a freak´, and Harry had to explain his relatives´ view on magic to Neville. They then talked a little longer about Dumbledore´s announcements.

Hermione angrily snapped her fingers. "I can´t remember! Rookwood. I´m sure I´ve heard the name before. I already thought so when I read the article."

"You´ll remember again, you just need to give it a rest." Ron said, "You always remember, you´re not the smartest witch of Hogwarts for nothing!"

Also she kept on frowning Ron´s comment seemed to soothe her a bit. Neville asked with a glance at Harry: "The Sorting Hat, it said again we should unite this year. It´s pretty adamant that we must get along with the Slytherins. So what do you think, will you let Slytherins join the DA?"

Harry thought that it would make sense, but there was again the same problem of whom to trust. So he told Neville too that they would discuss all these questions in the first DA meeting, and then voiced something that had worried him since Hermione had pointed it out earlier. "What about the thing the founders couldn´t complete? You really think that there´s a hole in the wards? Isn´t there something about that in Hogwarts: A History´, Hermione?"

"No, I don´t think I´ve ever read anything about that. But the hat must have thought it important or it wouldn´t mention it in a Sorting."

Ron screwed up his face in thought. "Maybe it wanted to emphasise the unity part. There was something else about why they couldn´t do it, about unity, wasn´t there?"

"They couldn´t reach the goal they set, for t´was in trust and unity they lacked." Neville blushed. "I can remember things better when they are rhymed."

"Whatever it is, I don´t know if it was a good idea to tell everybody that there´s a hole in the wards."

When his friends went to bed Harry remained sitting by the fire and thought about Ron´s last statement. Would Voldemort hear about the hat´s song? Would he try to figure it out and use that missing piece, whatever it was? And hadn´t he, Harry, sworn to himself just this evening that he would not let Hogwarts fall?

So many things had happened that day that Harry felt his mind reeling. With the new year he wanted to make a new beginning, he wanted to start a fresh sheet after his godfather´s death. Live would go on, and he would try and learn from his mistakes. He would make his own decisions, take control of his live, he would try not to act too rashly any more and keep his temper. Be more sensible, listen to advice, learn whatever might help him, keep his friends safe, accept help, … and he would not let Sirius´ sacrifice be in vain, -for him, for his parents, for Cedric, he would not let Voldemort win, and he would somehow make sure that Hogwarts would remain standing when the prophecy was fulfilled.

Standing in the empty common room and looking out of the window onto the quiet lake and the stars above it Harry felt a new resolve welling up inside him. He was ready to face another year.