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Unsurprisingly, Harry was summoned to Professor McGonagall's office the next morning. After telling the water gargoyle the password (Animagus) and driving up the stairs, he found himself in a room that had not changed in the slightest since his last visit, apart from the new portrait that hung next to Dumbledore's. Severus Snape looked at him with the same intense dislike he had always shown in his lifetime, before he hastily pretended to be as asleep like the other deceased headmasters of Hogwarts.

"Please close the door, Potter," Professor McGonagall said dryly. "And then sit down."

Harry nodded obediently, closed the door and sat down. McGonagall, he noticed, looked as sharp as her predecessor had always done, who was pretending to be fast asleep behind her back.

"It was Malfoy and Nott," Harry said, before she could say anything. "I wondered why Nott has behaved so calmly since the attack."

"They weren't, Potter," Professor McGonagall said sharply.

Harry frowned. "Because...?"

"Because Mr Malfoy has not left the hospital wing since the lightning strike and because Mr Nott sat a row in front of Professor Slughorn during the game."

Harry scratched his scar. "They might have bewitched someone, like Malfoy then-"

- "No, Potter," McGonagall sighed annoyed. "Professor Dawlish and I have checked their wands, and no one has used the Imperius curse lately."

"They might have used another wand," Harry said stubbornly.

"They might," the Headmistress growled. "But how do you want to prove that, Potter?"

Harry bit his tongue and thought about it. "Either way, they must have bewitched a Gryffindor," he said slowly. "Someone else would have noticed it otherwise, or they have used polyjuice potion..."

"Of course we can't rule out the possibility," McGonagall said. "But for now, all we can do is pay attention to the other Gryffindors. Whether someone is behaving strangely, if someone wasn't at the game..."

She stared at him. "The Elder Wand is well hidden, I hope, Potter?"

"Yes, Professor," Harry said confidently. 'It's completely out of the question that someone will find it.'

"Well," McGonagall sighed. "You can go, Potter. And remember that your essay on paramorphosis is due on Tuesday."

"It must have been Malfoy and Nott," Ron growled as Harry told the others about his conversation with Professor McGonagall.

Hermione frowned. "I don't think Malfoy has anything to do with it," she said. "I think he learned his lesson."

"Whoever it was, he knew exactly where to look," Ginny said. "Some Gryffindor must have helped him, whether voluntarily or forced."

"Then let's find out who did," Ron said, clapping his hands. "What?" he added, as Hermione frowned. "For two veteran aurors like Harry and me, this case is far too easy."

It turned out that Ron was wrong. They spent Sunday questioning all the Gryffindors, from completely intimidated first-years to a wildly chatting Romilda Vane to Parvati and Lavender, and nothing came out of it. Parvati and Lavender had watched the game together with Neville and Hermione, Seamus had commented on it and Dean, Ron and Harry had played themselves. Despite the terrible rain, which made it hard to see your neighbour, every single Gryffindor had an alibi. The only one who had not been at the game was Tommy Ackerley, who had been lying in the hospital wing with dragonpox, under the watchful eyes of Madam Pomfrey. So it seemed that, however Malfoy and Nott had done it, they had done it without using a Gryffindor, so Harry resorted to his tried-and-tested tactics and took the Marauder's Map with him everywhere to check their movements. No matter what Hermione thought, he, Harry, didn't trust Malfoy's change of heart as far as he could spit. However, even after a week of careful monitoring, in which he checked the map under his table in every lesson he did not have with Malfoy and Nott, he could not find anything unusual, because Malfoy did the same thing every day: eat in the Great hall, lessons, a visit to his Quidditch team in the hospital wing (Astoria Greengrass and Graham Pritchard were still not allowed to get up) and then he lunged around with Goyle and others in the Slytherin common room. Nott behaved no less inconspicuously, apart from the fact that he had to go to the toilet conspicuously often. In the end, Ron and Harry's investigations led to nothing, leaving them with no choice but to go through school with increased vigilance.

Despite increased vigilance, everyday school life presented them with new problems, this time it was Charms' turn. Professor Flitwick gave each of them a badly painted puppet to let them rehearse a dance. While Hermione's puppet, as you might expect, swirled around after the first double lesson as if she had never done anything else, the whole thing looked much worse for Ron and Harry: all Harry had achieved so far was that his puppet hopped on the spot until it was out of breath, which according to Professor Flitwick did qualify as 'dancing', while Ron's puppet was just scurrying around bored. So they both sat by the fire in the common room one afternoon, while Hermione relaxedly wrote a long letter to Krum, which did not necessarily promote Ron's concentration. Eventually it came as it had to come: his puppet made a wild jump into the middle of the fire, so that Ron had to rush to extinguish the fire in time.

"Why did we come back again?" he asked Harry with sorrow after he pulled the smoking, traumatized puppet out of the fireplace.

"You're moving your wand too much," Hermione said as she rolled up the letter. "Sometimes, less is more."

- "What obviously does not apply to your letter," Ron muttered, giving the parchment a dark look.

Hermione frowned. "Is there anything we should talk about?"

"Ron's jealousy," said Ginny, who had just come in.

"I'm not jealous," Ron growled.

"Good," Hermione said contentedly, sealing the letter. "Then you'll lend me Pigwidgeon so I can send it to Viktor, right?"

- "Do you want to keep watching them, or do you want to visit Hagrid?", Ginny asked Harry with a grin.

"Didn't you just have Care of Magical Creatures?", Harry asked confused.

"I did," Ginny said. "You have to see that."

When the three followed Ginny out of the castle gate into the early evening (Ron and Hermione had decided to continue their struggle while walking - meanwhile it was about Ron refusing to send Pigwidgeon on such a long journey), they immediately saw what Ginny had meant: next to Hagrid's hut lay a pile of tree trunks three times as high as the hut.

"So he's actually building a hut for Grawp," Hermine said, needlessly.

Grawp himself was busy with Hagrid processing the tree trunks into smaller sections, but was apparently unfamiliar with the function of a saw, as Hagrid desperately tried to explain to him what he had to do.

"With a circular saw, you'd be faster, Hagrid," Hermine said when they arrived and successfully fended off Fang's tongue.

"'lo, you four," Hagrid said, wiping the sweat off his forehead. "Circular saw?"

"Muggels use them to saw wood," Harry said. "Um, that's much less strenuous and a lot faster, Hagrid."

- "We're all righ', don't worry you lot," Hagrid said, waving his wheel-cap-sized hand. "But a break wouldn't be bad, don't you want a cup of tea?"

"Can I ask you something, Hagrid?", Hermione said as they watched him bring the tea pot to the hearth.

"'Course, Hermione."

She bit her lips. "You know, I always wondered why you didn't get a new wand when it was proven you were innocent. I mean, just because it would make things easier for you."

Harry looked at Hagrid curiously. He had never thought about it, but Hermione was, of course, right: after proving that Hagrid had not been responsible for opening the Chamber of Secrets, there was nothing left to prohibit him from doing so. He could even have resumed his magical training.

"That's a good question, Hermione," Hagrid muttered, sitting down with them. "You know, Dumbledore even offered teaching me something at the time. Great man, Dumbledore. But I told him , 'No, sir, I'm fine' - and that's just it, Hermione. You know, I'm just used to doing things without magic - obviously it takes a bit longer, but I've always done it that way, and I like to do it that way. Sure," he added with a grin. "With a couple of things, um, I'm also helping out a little bit, but I'm doing most of it on my own."

He pointed to something in the corner that looked like a half-finished circus tent.

"That, for example. These are winter things for Grawpy, which I make in the evening, you know. It's a nice pastime."

- "Looks better than Hermione's elf hats," Ron hissed into Harry's ear.

It was another long visit to Hagrid, so it was already dark when they made their way back to the castle. Back in the common room, they were surprised to find that Dean and Seamus were sitting by the fire together, which was unusual for several reasons: on the one hand, Dean was wandering around with Luna until the curfew dawned, and on the other hand, Lavender Brown had her arm around Dean's shoulders.

"What's going on?" asked Ginny asked Parvati, who worked on her essay for McGonagall. Parvati took a compassionate look over to Dean.

"Luna and he have stopped seeing each other," she whispered.

"Really?" asked Harry, surprised. "Why?"

Parvati shrugged. 'She said he just can't understand her.'

They sat down in a few vacant armchairs, a little away from the others.

"I thought Dean and Luna were doing well?" asked Hermine, surprised.

Ginny sighed softly. "She told me it wasn't the way she imagined it to be."

The next weekend offered Dean plenty of distraction from his love grief, as Slytherin played against Hufflepuff, which they watched with the whole team to study their next two opponents. Malfoy, Harry noted at the welcome, had broken with all traditions and actually included two girls in the team, the two hunters Greengrass and Davis, who played well with Vaisey.

"They're pretty good," Ginny muttered after Greengrass conquered the quaffel from Zacharias Smith again. Harry nodded, his eyes pinned to Malfoy, who was spinning his rounds high in the air on his new Firebolt, while the Hufflepuff seeker Summerby sat motionless in the air and slowly turned on the spot. In the end, it was an unexpectedly high victory for the Slytherins, which extended Harry's already fairly full list of things to worry about.

When the seventh-years wanted to go to breakfast on Monday morning, they found a bright red poster on the wall in the common room, which provided something to talk about:

PROFESSIONAL ADVERTISING

All seventh-years will be expected in the Great Hall next Saturday at 2 p.m. to participate in this event. Representatives of potential employers will give you an insight into their activities and inform you about required NEWT results.

Unsurprisingly, this announcement provided a lot of discussions. No matter where Harry looked during the week, he saw classmates discussing possible careers, making plans, and trying to convince their friends to follow the same path. As for his own, his plan was clear: he wanted to go back to the Auror Office, at least until the last Death Eaters were caught, just like Ron. As for the time after that... well, if he liked the job, he would just stay there, and if not...

"All the doors are open to you, Harry," Ernie Macmillan assured him in Herbology as they both stuffed a stranglehold on a water tomato.

"Honestly, you're the chosen one, who wouldn't want you?"

Ginny saw it similarly, although she urged him to pursue a Quidditch career.

Hermione, on the other hand, spent most of the week scrolling through dozens of flyers and brochures from various departments, annoying everyone with nervous questions about whether her grades would be good enough.

When they finally arrived at the Great Hall on Saturday, they discovered that the tables had been replaced by a multitude of smaller tables, with broadly grinning to visibly bored representatives of various employers. The spectrum was spread from representatives of all thirteen professional Quidditch teams (Appleby Arrows, Ballycastle Bats, Caerphilly Catapults, Chudley Cannons, Falmouth Falcons, Holyhead Harpies, Kenmare Kestrels, Montrose Magpies, Pride of Portree, Puddlemere United, Tutshill Tornados, Wigtown Wanderers, Wimbourne Wasps) to a delegation of grim-looking Gringotts goblins, to representatives of the various Ministry departments, including Savage. Harry and Ron looked at each other briefly and then hurriedly walked over to him, while the other seventh-years looked around inconclusively.

"Hi boys," Savage said, shaking their hands. "Nothing new," he added softly before they could ask.

"What about Zeas?", Harry asked.

"Her suspension has been lifted," Savage said. "Apparently Nott's death was just an accident - he dodged her stunner, stumbled, dropped down these stairs at the Hog's Head and broke his neck in the process."

Ron scratched his nose. "I see."

"All the evidence suggests that," Savage said emphatically. "And now you're dispersed, I have to work."

They went on while Savage faced the zealous questions of Seamus and Dean, running right into Oliver Wood's arms.

"Harry!", his former Quidditch captain said, grinning broadly. "Just the man I was looking for!"

"Hey, Oliver," Harry said, shaking his hand.

"Don't watch the others, Harry," Wood said, waving to the representatives of the other teams. "We are urgently looking for a new seeker, and the team is on the rise - we have some really good people."

- "Let's go to the Cannons, Harry," Ron pressed quietly as Wood continued his talk about the virtues of Puddlemere United.

"Sorry, Oliver," Harry choked him off, "but I've already decided to become an auror."

- "Auror?!"

The representative of the Tutshill Tornados, who had sneaked in unnoticed, looked horrified. "So much risk for so little money! No, Potter, you should come to us - the money you would earn! Just your participation in the jersey sales, you can't imagine-"

"I can," Harry said succinctly. "Excuse me, but I really have no interest. See you, Oliver," he added, leaving the visibly disappointed Quidditch representatives behind. Ron, he noted, had strolled over to the Chudley Cannons booth, and so he rushed over to Hermione, who was talking to Amanda Tudgeberry.

"... We offer a very high entry salary and rapid promotion opportunities, Miss Granger, and the minister passed a law that ensures muggle-borns are no longer being disadvantaged only last week. I would love to have someone with your skills in my office - Good morning, Mr Potter."

"Madam Tudgeberry," Harry said with a nod.

"I'd rather supervise magical creatures," Hermione said with a ruffled forehead. "In particular, the house elf legislation urgently needs to be revised-"

- "Even in this case, I would encourage you to apply to me, the new guidelines-"

Harry hurriedly walked on, past Seamus and Dean, who were still chatting animatedly with Savage, past Neville, who was talking to a healer from St Mungo's about medicinal plants, and also past Malfoy and Nott, who had a chat with Bill Weasley about a curse-breaker career at Gringotts. Professor McGonagall caught him at the door.

"Do you want to go already, Potter?"

Harry shrugged. "I know what I want to do, Professor."

She frowned. "Listening to something else can never hurt."

- "Um, I also have to take care of my homework..."

McGonagall sighed loudly and chased him out.