Chapter 3: Aurorae and Starlight
When they woke up the next morning, Arvid was already in the kitchen area preparing breakfast, bacon, eggs and sautéed parboiled potatoes.
"You certainly do good breakfasts up here," said Luna, as she sat with Neville at the table, "Even in your tent."
"We're only going to have a light snack for lunch," said Arvid, "So we're having a big breakfast."
Luna tucked into her breakfast with relish. She felt that a good meal at the beginning of the day put her into a better mood.
After breakfast, the trio set out on their quest. They headed for the forest, and noted that at least four animal tracks led away from the peninsula on which they had camped.
"Keep your eyes open for unusual tracks," said Arvid, "And you ears open for unusual sounds, and move as silently as possible. We don't want to spook the beasts. Fortunately, the wind is blowing off shore, so they shouldn't pick up any scent from us."
The trio set off quietly into the forest. They carefully followed each of the eight tracks, looking for unusual signs. Neville was occasionally diverted from the search when he found an unfamiliar plant, but since he was looking down at the earth, he had the best chance of discovering strange footprints. Luna, meanwhile, was looking at the foliage at head height, looking for signs of it being bitten by the snorkack. After they had searched the first four forest tracks, somewhat fruitlessly, it was lunchtime. Rather than returning to the car, they decided to go to the top of a small hill and have their picnic lunch there. From this point, they could see the whole of the lake. The morning's clouds had cleared and it was a bright, sunny noontide.
"This is beautiful in a desolate sort of way." said Luna, "I like it. It seems so wild, and I love the big skies. They dominate the landscape."
"You wouldn't like it so much in Winter," said Arvid, "When the temperature is minus forty and there's several feet of snow. Oh, and the Sun doesn't even bother to rise from about the eleventh of December until the new year. Against that, the Sun doesn't set between the twenty eighth of May and the sixteenth of July. That's why they call this 'The Land of the Midnight Sun'."
"So you have nearly three weeks of complete darkness." said Neville.
"Not quite." said Arvid, "On the darkest day, we get a bit of twilight around when it should be midday. Even in Svalbard, North of Norway, for instance, it isn't completely dark at midday. You do get a short period of 'astronomical twilight' at that time. Up there, the Sun doesn't set from the 17 th of April until the 26th August, so they get over four months of midnight sun."
"So you won't see the stars or the Northern Lights in summer." said Luna.
"They say that the best time of year to see the lights is around the Vernal or Autumnal Equinoxes," said Arvid, "When the day and night are roughly equal."
After their picnic lunch, the trio retuned slowly back to the lakeside, looking all the time for signs of snorkack activity. During the afternoon, they explored the remaining four tracks and finally returned to their campsite at dusk.
"I think we'll spend another day here before moving to our last location." said Arvid, "What would you like for dinner?"
"What choice have we?" asked Neville.
"Since we had fish last night," said Arvid, "I think we should have reindeer steak tonight. I set it to defrost after breakfast, so it should be just ready for the barbecue. Oh, I didn't tell you there's a freezer compartment in the car. Anyway, I'll set the fishing gear up at lunchtime tomorrow and we'll have some more fish tomorrow night."
Once again, after they had eaten their dinner, Arvid, Neville and Luna settled down to watch another spectacular display of the Northern Lights for the next three hours. It wasn't as intense as the previous night, but the red lower edges of the display were still in evidence. Another restful night was followed by a cloudy dawn. Once again, Arvid was up before Neville and Luna preparing breakfast. On this morning, he had prepared omelettes with mushrooms, bacon and onion. They spent the day covering the same tracks as the previous day, noting any changes. This time, it was Luna who thought she had found a snorkack footprint. Once again, it was a false alarm, generated by coincident reindeer prints. The trio had their sandwich lunch back at the car so that Arvid could set up the angling set. The afternoon didn't produce any positive snorkack evidence, so they called it a day at that location. Once again, the fishing equipment had captured three large fish. After their long day exploring the animal tracks, the grilled fish with deep fried chips was welcome. The weather had cleared, so they were able to enjoy yet another spectacular auroral display.
"When we arrived," said Luna, "You said we would have a lot of starlight. You seem to have provided something even better. Something neither of us have seen before."
"Well," said Arvid, "I know I said we have plenty of starlight, but I wasn't expecting such an intense solar storm. Most times, we can expect several consecutive nights without the Northern Lights. Then you can really see the stars."
At dawn the next morning, Arvid dismantled the magical tent and packed it into the car. The trio would be having their breakfast at their final stop. Once the site had been tidied and all were in the car, Arvid rendered it invisible and took off. They flew to another, smaller lake, with plenty of clear areas on its shores. They would spend two days here before returning to Arvid's home near Kiruna.
Once they had arrived at the new location, Arvid lost no time in setting up the barbecue and a small hob. The previous evening, while preparing the chips, he had parboiled some potatoes, which he sautéed for breakfast. He served these up with barbecued reindeer sausages and fried eggs. The next part of the morning was spent setting up the tent. The weather had held and it was another clear sunny morning. Once the tent was set up, the last part of the morning was spent investigating a forest clearing just behind the closest trees to the lake. They found plenty of reindeer tracks, but no evidence of recent snorkack activity. Arvid had chosen this location because there were several similar clearings within a mile of the lake. Lunch comprised grilled lamb chops with chips and salad.
"I thought you'd like a change from reindeer." said Arvid, "Tonight, we'll have fish again. This lake has plenty of big, tasty ones."
After lunch, he set up the angling set on the bank of the lake. After this, the trio spent the rest of the afternoon exploring three more clearings. They did find a few more coincident reindeer footprints, two of which required further investigation. Unfortunately, they were just coincident reindeer prints. When they returned to the car, they found that the angling setup had caught seven fish.
"It looks as if Friday's breakfast is sorted." said Arvid, "It's caught seven big ones."
Arvid placed the four extra fish in the spare space in the cold compartment in the car and prepared to grill the other three. As usual, he allowed Luna to supervise the grilling while he went into the tent kitchen to prepare the vegetables, chips and carrots.
"I noticed that you didn't use the ice box for the fish." commented Neville.
"The other night," said Arvid, "There was no space. Now we've eaten some of the food, there's room for the fish. Incidentally, did you like this morning's potatoes?"
"I did." said Neville, "They were really nice."
"Would you like some more with your breakfast fish tomorrow?" asked Arvid.
"Certainly!" said Neville and Luna together.
The trio settled down to their fish dinner as it was getting dark, then settled down to watch the sky. The solar storm had passed, so the stars were more visible with a lot less auroral activity. Luna was able to remind Neville about the stars of the Summer Triangle and recollected the time, just after they had met when she had showed him some of the objects through the Hogwarts telescope.
"I seem to remember that you told me that the brightest star you can see isn't the most luminous star." said Neville.
"Well remembered." said Luna, "Can you remember which of the 'Summer Triangle' stars is the most powerful?"
"The one to the left of Vega." said Neville, "I think it's called Deneb."
"Well remembered again." said Luna, "It's a the most luminous of all the bright stars we can see from here."
As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, after extinguishing the lights needed to eat their dinner, the great arch of billions of stars that comprised the Milky Way became visible. Since there was no auroral activity this evening and no other sources of light within several miles, they had a perfect view of the night sky.
"Well," said Arvid, "I did promise you starlight, and here it is at last."
Luna sat back and enjoyed the display of stars for a while, before she said anything further. She was seeing the stars properly for the first time since leaving England. Up to now, they had either been clouded out or faced competition from aurorae.
"There's something I didn't mention when I last showed you this part of the sky." said Luna to Neville, "You see that square of stars to the left of the Summer Triangle?"
"Yes." said Neville.
"Although it's called 'The Great Square of Pegasus'," said Luna, "The top left star is not part of Pegasus. It's the brightest star in Andromeda."
"If you watch the stars carefully in the early evening or before dawn," said Arvid, you'll occasionally see what look like fourth or fifth magnitude stars moving slowly across the sky. They are not shooting stars. They are artificial satellites put into space by muggles. They are between ninety and two hundred and fifty miles up and catch the Sun long after it has set at ground level. There's one - near Cassiopeia - see it?"
"Yes," said Neville, "It's moving towards the pole."
The trio spent the next couple of hours enjoying the stars, and spotting the occasional passing satellite. While they were watching, a couple more satellites and six random shooting stars passed over them. The last one was exceptionally bright and left a glowing trail.
"Wow!" exclaimed Neville, "That was a bright one."
"I've always thought of shooting stars as a good omen." commented Luna, "They seem to herald good luck."
"That's something we'll need if we're going to find the snorkack on this expedition." Said Arvid.
"What's the plan for tomorrow?" asked Neville.
"We'll start with a fish breakfast," said Arvid, "Then we'll dismantle the tent and put it in the car. After that, we'll explore a couple more clearings before returning to my house for dinner."
"Why don't we strike the tent before breakfast?" asked Neville.
"Because I need the cooking facilities for breakfast." said Arvid.
By this time, the trio were beginning to feel sleepy. Luna was yawning and Neville was beginning to have difficulty keeping his eyes open. Three tired people took to their beds under canvas for the last time, having enjoyed a whole evening of uninterrupted starlight.
The next morning was cloudy but fairly mild. The trio enjoyed a substantial fish breakfast before dismantling the tent and packing it and the rest of the gear into the car. They donned rain gear for the last day's explorations as the weather looked threatening.
"Do you think that wet weather will give us a better chance this morning?" asked Neville.
"It'll make the ground softer," said Arvid, "So there'll be a better chance of finding footprints. Otherwise, no."
Once the car was packed, they set out on their final exploration. By the time they had investigated the first clearing, it was time for their lunch. Once again, Arvid found some comparatively high ground, so that they could see across the lake. This time, the view was somewhat depressing as grey clouds hung low over the forest. It had not started raining yet, but Arvid was sure rain was not far away. Fortunately the trio were able to finish their sandwiches with coffee before the first drops fell. Their exploration of the second clearing was carried out in cold driving rain. Nothing was found which would suggest snorkack activity. Later, in the afternoon, they returned to the car and flew at low altitude to the nearest road. Arvid could not fly high because of the low cloudbase. They had to keep below two hundred feet. Because they had to use a longer road route, the journey back to Arvid's home took over two hours instead of the forty-five minutes it would have taken to fly.
When they returned to the house, Neville and Luna found a hot shower and dry clothes very welcome after all the rain. The rest of the evening was spent discussing their unsuccessful search of the lakes of Northern Sweden for the crumple horned snorkack. They had found a few weak indications of activity, but nothing definitive enough for them to consider prolonging their stay. Afterwards, discussion turned to the subject of the route Neville and Luna would take to return to Britain. Since apparating was still hazardous, they decided to use the same route they had used to travel to Kiruna. Since they would be travelling for several days, Neville and Luna made the most of their last two nights in Northern Sweden. Since it was still cloudy, although the rain had stopped, there was no incentive to spend the evening looking at the night sky. The couple had an early night and slept deeply until dawn the next morning.