The summer is pleasantly warm. The sun is often hidden behind clouds, but when it shows it's golden face it sheds light and warmth. It's as close to a perfect summer as we're going to get in rainy Scotland.

It's one of the hottest days of the summer. The sky is clear and blue, not a single cloud to block the sun. It blazes down on the ground, sending nearly everyone seeking the refuge of their houses.

Nearly everyone. If it were any hotter, I have no doubt that I would be somewhere inside a cool house. As it is, I'm sitting under a tree, in the shade provided by its branches. My friend Nola is sitting next to me.

The tree is between our houses. It's always been a popular spot for us to hang out. Once we wanted to build a tree house in its highest branches, but that never happened. My older brother Jacob offered to build one when he came home from school. That was right before he disappeared.

"So, how was your new school?" Nola asks, shaking me from my thoughts.

"Fine. Sorry I didn't write much. I was really busy," I say. It's true, but it's not the only reason I rarely wrote to Nola.

"What was it like? Just a normal school?" Nola asks.

"How would I know? It's the first time I've been to school." No, Hogwarts isn't normal, not by Nola's standards. It's a big part of the reason for my lack of letters. I struggled to find something to write when I had to keep so much a secret.

"I always wondered why your parents insisted on homeschooling you," Nola says. "You could have gone to school with me."

I shrug. "I don't know," I lie. It's customary for magical children to be homeschooled, to hide their magic. Most times, they aren't even allowed to have contact with Muggles. My friendship with Nola is a rare thing.

"Did you make any friends there?" Nola asks. I hear sadness in her voice. Does she think I've replaced her?

"Yeah. I think you'd like them." I try to think of what to say, how to tell her about my friends without saying anything I shouldn't. "Especially Rowan. She really loves to read. Her parents own a tree farm."

"I know. You wrote me at Christmas. Is Rowan your new best friend?" The sadness is still clear in Nola's voice.

"My best school friend. No one can replace you." I thought this would reassure her, but instead she only looks more upset.

"We're going camping this weekend." Nola changes the subject, her expression changing to a smile. She got braces sometime during the year. "Want to come?"

"I have to ask my parents, but I'm sure they'll say yes." I've gone camping with Nola several times before, since the summer we were seven.

"All right. You know what to bring." She suddenly points up at the sky, where single puffy white cloud has appeared. "Look, a mouse!"

I look up as well. It really does resemble a mouse. I lie on the ground, and Nola lies next to me. We point to every cloud that appears, describing its shape. In between talking about clouds, we finish catching up on everything that's happened in the past few months. I choose my words carefully. I tell Nola all I can, but I'm more aware than ever of how much is left unsaid, and the secrets will always divide us.

The next day, I help Nola set up our tent while her parents set up theirs. We unroll our sleeping bags and leave the rest of our stuff next to them. Hanging from a tree nearby is a large tire. It's suspended by three chains so that it hangs parallel to the ground. The two of us sit on opposite sides with our legs in the middle. We use our feet to push off the ground and spin, before lifting our feet, causing the tire to start spinning in the opposite direction.

When it starts to get dark, we gather around the campfire, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows on sticks.

I finish the last bite of my s'more. Delicious. Nola swallows the last chunk of hers. "You ready for a ghost story?"

"Of course. You learn any good ones this year?"

Nola smiles mysteriously. "You'll have to wait and see."

She leans back, settling comfortably onto the log we're sharing. "Once, there was a small town near a woods like this one, only much smaller. Legends in that town spoke of a monster that hid in the woods. Legend said that it lured its prey by imitating a crying child. Because of this, everyone in town avoided the woods.

"Two boys, brothers, did not believe in the legend. They split up to explore the little woods, hoping to prove once and for all that the fear of the townsfolk was for nothing.

"At five that evening, one brother returned home. The other did not. A search the next day revealed that the boy had fallen into a hole and gotten stuck, breaking his arm in the process. No one could tell what had killed him.

"As the townsfolk mourned the young boy, they realized that many of them had heard him crying for help during the night. All of them avoided the sound, fearing the monster in the woods."

A shiver runs down my spine as I imagine the little boy, alone, helpless, crying, and being ignored by a town so afraid that they left a young boy to die rather than confront the monster he might be. "That one was good," I say. Nola loves telling ghost stories, so it's become our tradition to tell them every time we go camping.

Nola smiles. "Thanks. I learned a lot of good ones this year."

It's getting late, so we crawl into our tent. Nola falls asleep almost immediately. I lie awake for a while longer, listening to the rhythmic sound of her breathing. How long can our friendship last now that I'm going to Hogwarts? Now that the secret part of my life has gotten so much bigger? I don't want to lose my first friend, but I don't know how to keep her from slipping away.

Finally, I fall asleep. Despite my troubled thoughts, I do not dream.

The next morning, I return home to an empty house and a stack of letters on the kitchen counter. The top one is from Mum, explaining that she ran out to get some groceries, and Dad went to the gym.

The other letters must be from my friends. I open the second letter, smiling as I recognize Rowan's handwriting.

Celena,

I finally translated the message we found last year. I was having trouble decoding it until I discovered an old book on ciphers that had fallen behind our couch.

The runes used to write this message are ancient, dating back to the founding of Hogwarts. The message simply says, "The ice knight stands guard past the vanished stairs".

I would have written to you sooner, but I took some time to compile a list of staircases in Hogwarts that no longer seem to exist. At first there was an overwhelming number, but after checking the dates of the last time each staircase was seen, I reduced the list to two likely candidates.

One was inside the Gryffindor common room. That one will be difficult to investigate, but perhaps Ben will be willing to help us.

The other one was in a small wing behind the library. This is where we should concentrate our investigations.

I will be in Diagon Alley on August 13th. Meet me in front of Flourish and Blotts at nine-thirty.

Rowan.

I find a piece of parchment and a quill and scribble a quick letter of acknowledgment. I send it off with our family's owl, a Barn Owl named Willa.

Underneath is a letter from Ben, a reply to the one I sent him a week ago. As a Muggleborn, he doesn't have an owl of his own, so he had to use mine. Ben is nervous, afraid of many things, but not birds.

I finally managed to convince my parents to let me get an owl of my own, his letter says. When are you going to Diagon Alley? I need your help finding the right one.

I write to him my plan to meet Rowan on August twelfth, wishing that I hadn't sent Willa off so soon. I'll have to wait until she gets back from the Khannas farm.

The next letter is brief. It contains a picture of Penny with Ethan Parkin. I smile, happy that Penny got to meet her hero. This is the first letter I've gotten from her. As the most popular girl in our year, she had a lot of other people to write to, and one owl can only carry so many letters.

I hesitate, wondering if Penny will have time to respond if I write to her again. Finally, I simply tell her when Rowan and I will be in Diagon Alley. She can meet us there, or not.

The last letter is from Alana. Like Ben, she's Muggleborn, but she already has her own owl. She's attending a pottery camp this summer. Wait until you see what I've made. When are you going to Diagon Alley? I'll meet you there, her letter says.

I scribble a reply on yet another scrap of parchment. Rowan and I are meeting on August thirteenth. We'll be in front of Flourish and Blotts at nine-thirty. I can't wait to see what you've made.

I put down my quill, happy to have finished. I'm glad for any contact with my friends, of course, but I never know how to start a letter. "Dear" seems too formal, "hi" too strange, just a name too direct.

The days until August twelfth crawl past. Ben and Alana agree to meet us. Penny apologizes, writing that she's already agreed to meet some of her other friends that day. It's what I expected. We'll see her during the year, whenever she has time.

Finally, the day I've been waiting for arrives. Mum gives me an amused look as I try to get her to hurry up.

"The world won't end if you're a few minutes late, you know," she says, finishing the last bite of her breakfast. She worked late last night, and so she woke up late as well. It's already nine-twenty.

I roll my eyes. "Come on."

"I'm coming," Mum sighs, collecting her things. Finally, finally, she steps into the fireplace, disappearing into the green flames.

I make a face as I step out of the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron. I met Rowan last year when we were both feeling nauseous after traveling by Floo powder. Today, though, I resist the urge to sit down. I grab Mum's arm and drag her away before she can get drawn into a lengthy conversation. I would find my friends on my own, but Mum insisted on meeting them.

Rowan, Ben, and Alana are already in front of Flourish and Blotts, along with their parents, who evidently had the same idea as Mum. Rowan's seven-year-old brother Finch is also there, playing with a blob of bright blue slime.

"That's his new obsession," Rowan whispers. "No more sour ice cream, thankfully."

I introduce myself to Ben and Alana's parents, glad that my name doesn't cause a reaction. They only know as me as a friend of their child, not the little sister of Jacob Serantos.

"Ben's told us a lot about you," Mr. Copper says, giving me a firm handshake. "We're happy he made such good friends at school."

I sneak a glance at Ben, wondering if he had any friends at his Muggle school. Based on how everyone else in our year treats him, it doesn't seem likely.

The four of us slip away, leaving our parents chatting outside. Our first stop is, of course, Flourish and Blotts, because we're standing right in front of it, and because three of us are Ravenclaws.

Once we've gotten all of our supplies, we stop at Eeylop's Owl Emporium to find Ben an owl.

"Mum said I have to get one that's small, and not super crazy. And it has to be young, because she doesn't want to end up getting attached only for it to die right away," Ben says. His mum doesn't like birds, which is why it took him so long to get permission to have one.

"That's quite the list," I say, looking around for an owl that fits the requirements.

In the end, it's Rowan who spots the perfect owl, a Pygmy Owl named Primrose. The card on her cage says that she's a year old, and timid. Ben falls in love with her instantly and promises to give her lots of treats and do everything he can to make her feel relaxed.

At Alana's insistence, our last stop is Fortescue's. I'm dying to discuss Rowan's research, but first, Alana has gifts for us.

"I made these at camp. This one's yours," she says, handing Rowan a small parcel that turns out to be a clay book, painted blue. The cover has a capital R on it for Rowan.

For Ben, there's a little owl that has a shocking resemblance to Primrose. "I knew your mum would make you get something small, so I figured it would either be an Elf Owl or a Pygmy Owl," Alana says with a shrug.

My package contains a four-leaf clover, a symbol of good luck. "You need it, with all the trouble you get into," Alana says.

"Thanks, Alana." I tuck the little clover into one of my bags, on top of a new set of potions ingredients. "Speaking of getting into trouble, Rowan figured out what that message in the room last year said."

"'The ice knight stands guard past the vanished stairs," Rowan recites. She explains the rest of her research to Brn and Alana, pulling out a map with the locations of the staircases circled. I look at it with interest. Is one of them the location of the first Cursed Vault?

"I'll look for this one," Ben says, pointing to the Gryffindor common room on the map. "It might be a while before I get a chance, though. The common room only empties out during Quidditch matches."

"That's fine," I assure him. "We need more time to plan, anyways."

"I'll research spells that are used to reveal hidden things, and see if we can learn any of them," Rowan offers.

"We need warmer clothing," Alana says, thinking practically. "Remember how cold that room was? I bet the vault will be even colder."

Just the memory of the frozen room is enough to make me shiver. "Sweaters, and hats, and gloves, and scarves."

I shiver again, lost in the memories of last year. Suddenly piercing cold shoots through me, sending bolts of pain through my body. My breath comes in ragged gasps. I hear a concerned voice say my name, but they might as well be a thousand miles away.

Gray fog clouds my vision, obscuring my friends. Slowly, it clears a little, but instead of a table with four bowls of ice cream, I see strange images. A staircase with golden light glowing around the corner... a corridor lined with suits of armor... another staircase, this one covered in ice, or perhaps made from it... a giant knight in front of a door blocked with a massive snowflake... something shifting and indistinct that makes me vaguely uneasy... a giant spider... a dragon in front of a painting of a sunrise... a room with a golden pillar in the center...

The room fades into the fog, which finally clears. I realize that I'm clutching my head, and lower my hands. My bowl is shattered on the ground. I must have knocked it off the table.

My friends are staring at me with concern. Rowan's expression melts into one of relief when she sees that I've opened my eyes. "Celena! Are you all right?"

"I saw things," I pant, struggling to recall the images before they fade away like the fog they came from. "In my mind. They flashed by so quickly!"

"What did you see?" Rowan asks urgently, quill in hand. She flips the map over and looks at me expectantly.

"I think it was... suits of armor... a staircase... there was a giant spider and a dragon... and there were rooms with an odd glowing pillar in them... oh, and a knight surrounded by ice!" There's something I'm forgetting, I know there is.

"This is the second vision you've had," Rowan says. "What do you think it means?"

"I don't-"

I'm cut off by a voice inside my head. It's oddly familiar, yet I'm certain I've never heard it before. "The ice is only the beginning."

I repeat what the voice said. Rowan looks thoughtful. "So maybe you saw inside the vaults," she suggests. "I wonder if this vision comes to anyone who searches for them?"

Did my brother see what I saw? Were visions like this what made people think he was insane?

I rub my arms, but I can't chase away the cold that lingers from my vision. I may have left that icy room, but when is it going to leave me?