"Bill," Harry began, settling onto the couch and politely dismissing Robby's offer of a butterbeer, "this morning, before we even came inside, Robby said you'd told him to let me and Hermione in, and to make tea the way we take it. How did you know it was just going to be the two of us?"
"It just made sense. I heard the noises last night, and I reckoned it was most likely Malfoy." Bill frowned. "What, you're not still on about me controlling the monsters, are you? I've told you, I don't have that kind of control over them."
Hermione leaned forward. "I think you do, though," she said earnestly. "You just don't know it."
"Hermione thinks they can access your subconscious once you've taken the test," Harry interrupted, hoping to stave off one of Hermione's endless explanations. "She went into the cave today, and based on the way things went in there, she thinks she has evidence that going into their territory gives them access to your thoughts."
Bill sighed. "Look, they're ghosts. They can't do that sort of thing."
"If they can unleash monsters, who says they can't do this?" Hermione spread her hands. "I don't think they really are ghosts, you see. They're more a sort of... leftover magic. The people who lived here originally probably created them as a sort of guard, something to keep anyone else from coming in and taking over, but... I don't know. Perhaps they lost control and the guards turned against them, or there was some kind of illness, or they just moved on - whatever it was, they didn't deactivate the guards before they went. Curse-breaking's your field of expertise - I'll bet you could get rid of them yourself, if you had the time to figure it out."
"Maybe." Bill leaned back in his seat. "You went into the cave, you said? So you must have taken the test. Did you pass it?"
She looked down. "I don't think so. I tried to make it into a fight, but I don't think that's what I was meant to do."
"It wasn't," Bill said, and his voice was suddenly deadly serious. "You need to leave, right away. How long will it take the two of you to pack up your camp?"
They looked at each other. "An hour?" Harry said eventually, shrugging his shoulders. "The tents are a mess, so it'll take us a while to stow everything away. Should we meet you back here when we're finished, then?"
"No, we'll come out to find you. Just make sure you have that Portkey ready for us by nightfall."
"Don't worry," Harry said solemnly. "I will."