Their arrival in Hogsmeade made Harry's heart clench in his chest as he looked up toward the high mountain where Hogswarts sat, the tower where Dumbledore had fallen a dark finger against an otherwise blue sky. The sound of Mrs. Weasley herding the two young Americans into a carriage as the other Weasleys talked among themselves faded in to the background as Harry involuntarily relived that night briefly in his mind.

Again, thinking of the people he had lost made his stomach clench like a fist in his body.

He would never again step through those gates, never again know the security of being a student housed within its walls, and the thought made his anger bubble inside of him.

He was staring up at the castle while the Weasleys talked amongst themselves as they magicked the baggage toward a coach that sat patiently waiting for them beside the station when the dark swathed figure brushed past him on the platform, startling him with the whisper of a cloak.

Jumping slightly and turning to spy the end of the cloak turn the corner of the station; he was surprised to find that the rage inside of him had quieted, gone back down the long hole inside of himself where he had tried to bury his emotions for so long.

"Ready Harry?" Mr. Weasley's face popped in to his line of vision, a sad smile that did not reach the eyes fixed to his lips.

"Yeah." Harry replied, turning to follow Mr. Weasley to the coach where Ron, Percy George and Hermione waited – Mrs. Weasley, Ginny and the two American students having gone on a coach ahead of them.

Waiting until they were all settled side by side in the cozy interior of the thestral coach, Harry turned toward Mr. Weasley.

"Mr. Weasley, did you see that cloaked person that walked past me in the station?"

He felt the interested eyes of Ron and Hermione fix on Mr. Weasley along with his. "Bit hot to be wearing those robes and more then a little odd to be here in them, especially considering how many of the Death Eaters wore them."

Perhaps pulled by the weight of their combined gazes, Mr. Weasley gave a sigh before turning toward him.

"Yes Harry, I did see the figure."

"Do you know who it is?"

"I suspect someone coming to pay their last respects to the fallen." Mr. Weasley replied.

"Who would wear robes that look so much like a death eater?" Ron asked the question before Harry could.

"Someone who wouldn't want to be recognized Ron." Mr. Weasley replied cryptically, turning his head toward the window again.

Harry was left to stew in his own suppositions until they arrived in Hogsmeade and the Three Broomsticks.

Stepping down from the coach, Harry spied the cloaked figure again, moving very quickly down the road toward the Hog's Head Inn. Knowing that the place was a haven for the less reputable of witches and wizards as well as Aberforth Dumbledore's home, he nudged Ron in the ribs and jerked his head in the direction of the figure with a raised brow.

Ron followed the figure's progress, his eyes full of the suspicion Harry felt as Mrs. Weasley began to shout orders at the group.

"Right." She said above the noise of the foot traffic that passed close by, the little village nearly bursting with people who had come to attend the memorial. "Ron and Harry, you'll be sharing a room with Percy and George. Ginny and Hermione, you two will be put in

together."

"What about the two new students?" Ron asked the very question that popped in Harry's head.

"They are staying with friends of Devin's mother." Mrs. Weasley replied, her eyes a little tight around the edges. "Don't you worry about them."

Mr Weasley came up to Harry before Harry could press the issue with Mrs. Weasley, his face tight with strain.

"I know you are curious about the figure Harry, but let it rest for the time being." He councilled, his face lined with worry. "There are people who mourn the losses as much as any of us and have a right to be here anonymously, whether you think so or not – so please don't do anything rash."

Harry opened his mouth to argue when he felt Hermione's foot against his, cautioning him to silence.

Watching Mr and Mrs Weasley as they disappeared in to the dark doorway of the Three Broomsticks, he felt the rage bubble to life again in his belly.

"Don't do this, don't do that." He muttered angrily, ignoring the sharp look from Hermione. "When will they realize I'm not a child anymore? When will they stop giving me orders?"

"Probably never." Ron replied glumly as his mother called for him to help with the baggage.

"I've written down the riddle." Hermione said later that evening in the room Ron and Harry were sharing with George and Percy. "As much of it as I can remember." She corrected herself as she unrolled the parchment she had produced after George and Percy had gone down to the taproom below.

Mind wandering as Hermione sat at the lone table in the room and Ron lounged on the narrow bed opposite him, Harry stood at the window, looking down at the stores below and the people who walked the narrow, winding streets of Hogsmeade. In the distance, he could make out the Shrieking Shack on the hill, as quiet and lonely looking as Hosgwarts had seemed earlier.

"The Hero will come from the West," Hermione read aloud. "Obviously, it has to be America. There is nothing else West of us, and too, we saw that big car outside the station – remember Harry?" She said to the room in general not expecting Harry to reply as she tapped her chin with a quill produced from her beaded bag. "Not to mention Devin and Ann. Strange that we would get exchange students after so long."

"Unless they mean Wales." She muttered to herself with a barely suppressed moan. "What do you think?" She asked, making Harry turn toward her slightly and give her a shrug.

Returning it, Hermione scribbled beside the line on the sheaf of parchment as Ron tore open a chocolate frog and bit off the head.

"I suppose we'll have to keep an eye out at the Memorial tomorrow for anyone wearing a sign that reads: American." Ron said around his mouthful of chocolate frog. "Unless you want to try talking to every single person there." He chuckled to himself. "Excuse me, but would you mind saying 'Hogwarts'?" He chuckled, obviously remembering the way the accent the two young teen girls had spoken with.

"Weary, but infamous from the Quest," Hermione frowned, ignoring Ron and re-reading the line quietly, her eyes skimming over it several times before giving a sigh of frustration. "I simply don't know what that line means, but we can come back to it."

Though he knew he should be listening, Harry glanced out the window again as the sun fell below the horizon, washing the picturesque village below in soft darkness, candles flickering to life in windows as the gas lamps along the street lit.

"Tall and noble they will be," Hermione said aloud, pausing again to tap the quill against her cheek in thought.

"That's obvious, isn't it?" Ron asked, swallowing his bite of chocolate. "They'll be tall and probably have Dumbledore's nose."

Harry chuckled at the stern look Hermione shot at Ron before turning back to the window, his eye being pulled once more to the Shrieking Shack as he remembered Sirius and the first time he had met his godfather.

Hermione continued. "Brave and familiar, you will agree." She paused, frowning at the parchment as if it would give her the answer she sought. "Do we know of anyone tall and brave?"

"Not Harry, he's still a runt." Ron said with a smile at his best friend who was more interested in the faint movement of shadow at the base of the hill below the shack then acknowledging Ron's comment.

"Daring to journey where no wizard will dare," Hermione read aloud behind Harry as he strained his eyes, finally making out a cloaked figure climbing the hill.

"Well, what wizard hasn't this past year? We've all done things we wouldn't have dared normally, haven't we?" Ron replied.

"where they have seen death and returned it's glare," Hermione continued, not noticing Harry's disinterest. "That bit could very well be Harry."

Harry watched the dark figure's progress, not noticing he had been holding his breath until the figure disappeared into the shadows of the rickety porch. Only when he could detect no more movement did he blink and hear what Hermione had been saying.

"Honestly Harry, I haven't found out anything of this riddle other then the Wanderer's Realm." Hermione's voice held an edge of frustration as she spoke, making Harry turn away from the window in spite of his curiosity about the hooded figure.

"Well, what is it?" Ron asked, rolling off of the bed and onto his feet.

"The Wanderer's Realm is where the souls of people who have died during an act of bravery go." She replied, tapping the quill against her chin again as she considered the words on the parchment before her.

Harry glanced back toward the window and the dark silhouette of the shack in the near distance. He itched to extract himself from the room and see what the cloaked figure was doing in there.

"How do you know that?" Ron asked, sitting on a trunk near the table as Harry sidled closer to his own trunk, plucking the invisibility cloak from the closed top where he had unpacked it.

"It's in Secret Settings in the Sorcery World and Mystical Meanderings." Hermione replied casually, still studying her parchment "Really nothing substantial since none of the places mentioned or catalogued have been thoroughly explored by anyone in the wizarding world." She shrugged, eyes still slipping over the words before her. "The places are only theory, though it is interesting to hear one of them mentioned by the Sorting Hat."

"Of course." Ron replied, exchanging a smirk of amusement over her bowed head with Harry as he hastily shoved the cloak inside his shirt.

"Listen, if you two don't mind, I think I'm just going to have a walk about the village." Harry blurted out, making Hermione's head lift from the parchment as Ron looked at him.

"All right Harry?" Ron asked, red brows creased in concern.

"Yeah." Harry mumbled, looking away from their eyes, guilty for not letting them in on what he had seen. "Just feeling a bit stuffy in here." He replied, slipping out the door quickly to avoid any other possible questions.

Safely in the corridor of the rooms above the Three Broomsticks, Harry slipped the cloak over his head, pausing for a moment outside the door to be certain neither Ron nor Hermione were going to follow him.

Satisfied when he heard the low hum of Ron's voice and Hermione going on again about the Sorting Hat's riddle, he slipped down the stairs, through the crowded taproom and out the tavern door to the street below.

Deciding to keep the cloak over his head and avoid any possible delays, he slipped quietly down the street, neatly avoiding wizards and witches that were window shopping and speaking in low tones to each other along the road until he finally stood at the gate of the Shrieking Shack.

One hand on the rickety gate as he looked up in to the dark windows, he was assailed by memories of Sirius and Lupin, but resolutely gripped the gate and swung it open on squeaky hinges.

Flinching a little as the gate swung shut, he turned his eyes toward the shack, pausing to make sure then cloaked figure had not heard the cry of the rusty hinges. When no one appeared, he stole quietly up the walk until he came to the bottom step leading to the darkened porch overhang. Turning toward one of the broken windows along the front of the dilapidated house, he peered in through it to find the cloaked figure, dark hair falling in thick spirals and curls down the curve of a feminine back as the slender shoulders shook in grief.

Gathering his courage, he strained his ears, barely making out a soft whimper and sob accompanied by muffled weeping from within.

Startled at the mournful sound, he backed away from the steps - certain he had been creeping up on a family member of one of the fallen who had wished to mourn in solitude.

Feeling his heart twist again in his chest, he backed further down the garden path, toward the gate again before slipping past it and out into the street once more, the sounds of the heart rending pain he had unexpectedly heard making his own losses more acute then they had been before he had stolen away from Ron and Hermione.

"Harry?" Ron's face was very near his as Harry's eyes opened and he fought to focus them on the red hair and freckles that hovered in front of him. "Get up!" Ron whispered, the urgency in his voice spurring Harry to stumble from the bed amidst Percy and George's snores.

"What? What's happened?" Harry whispered back, pushing his glasses on to his nose as Ron moved to the window.

"Lookit that." Ron said, pointing out the window toward the Hog's Head Inn.

Joining Ron at the window, Harry looked down to where Ron was pointing, instantly spotting the exotic looking bird perched on the sill of one of the upper windows, impatiently tapping at the grimy glass with its beak.

The soft click-click of the magnificently colored bird's beak could be clearly heard through the shut window of their bedroom.

"That's what woke me." Ron whispered as they watched the window swing open and a slender, pale arm stretch out for the bird to climb onto. "I was having this weird dream about a clock – you know, like those ones in the ministry?"

Harry nodded, remembering the clocks Ron referred to vividly. It brought to mind one of the prophecies which had smashed to bits in the ministry during their first battle with the Death Eaters. The ghostly male voice seemed to echo in his brain: at the solstice will come a new….

Harry wished he could have heard the remainder of what was said, but it was drowned out by a young woman's voice from another broken prophecy.

"Ron, what's the date today?" Harry asked, still hearing the echoing voice of the old man.

"June 21st." Ron said, looking quizzically at Harry. "Why d'you ask?"

Harry shook his head, still staring at the window where the pale arm disappeared. "It's probably nothing, but I remember a prophecy that we broke in the ministry that night, something about something new coming at the solstice."

"That would be today mate. The summer solstice." Ron replied, watching Harry carefully. "Did you hear what was coming at the solstice?"

Harry shook his head in the negative as they both looked down at the still sleeping street below.

"Oi." Ron whispered, his eyes still locked to the street below them. "What are they doing out?"

Harry followed Ron's gaze, spying the two Americans in their navy blue robes, though the dark haired one had a bright red headband pulling her hair from her face as she trudged sleepily along behind the blonde who carried a flat oblong board under each arm.

"I don't know." Harry replied as Devin dropped the two boards on the cobblestone street beneath them, ignoring something Ann was saying as she waved her hand and stepped up on one of the flat pieces of wood before turning and gesturing for Ann to do the same.

Harry and Ron watched as the two girls stood on the boards, their arms out for balance as they slowly rose in the air – Devin's two feet off the ground as Ann's hovered a few inches.

Fascinated, Harry let out a breath of surprise as she recognized Devin's foot come off the board just beside it and with a furious shove, she was sailing down the street, Ann following at a much more sedate pace.

"What the bloody hell is that?" Ron asked, his mouth open in awe as the two cloaked figures disappeared around the corner and out of their sight.

"Skateboards." Harry said with a smile.

"Skate boards?" Ron echoed in a whisper, his brows together in confusion. "What is a skateboard?"

Harry grinned, his whole outlook a little lighter with the familiar Muggle item that had been magicked. "It's a Muggle thing, there's a sport associated with it."

"Like Quidditch?" Ron asked, still confused.

Harry slowly shook his head in the negative. "No. More like tricks and such."

"Tricks?" Ron echoed, looking out the window as if expecting the two to reappear and make explanations for the items they were using.

"I just hope the Ministry doesn't find out they magicked those boards." Harry said with a wan smile, wishing he had one for himself.

Ron shrugged, still confused, but not caring much at that point. "So there is something coming at the Solstice." He asked, returning to the original subject and forgetting the skateboards.

"Yeah." Harry replied, still watching out the window.

"Well, let's hope it's nothing to do with spiders, eh?" Ron replied with a grin as Percy let out a snuffling snort, signaling his coming awake.

Hurriedly, Ron pulled the curtain shut again as he and Harry scrambled back to their beds, pretending to be coming awake as well.

"Morning." Percy mumbled to the other two as he rose in the bed, scratching at his head and yawning.

"Good morning." Harry replied as Ron let go of a jaw popping yawn. "Sleep well?"

Percy shook his head, climbing out of the bed to stretch. "No actually, I had this dream about a monstrous sized ticking clock." He mumbled, shuffling his way toward the bathroom as George slowly came awake.

"Sounds horrible." Giving Harry a grin and a wink, Ron began to pull on his clothes.

"It was." Percy's muffled response came from the other side of the door. "I kept dreaming I was late for work."