Chapter 8: Huge Surprise

The four – Ginny, Hermione, Harry, and Ron – sat comfortably with Hagrid, drinking late afternoon tea and trying to avoid eating Hagrid's rock cakes as discreetly as possible.

Sitting in his chair and holding a big cup of tea, Harry thought back about the last hours how they had searched the Trophy Room from top to bottom with the Sneakoscope together with Neville and Luna, how they had knocked and listened in to every corner with the Extendable Ears, and Hermione had rubbed her Revealer over all of the surfaces until it had shrunk only to half of its size. For a moment their hearts and breaths had almost stopped as Harry's Sneakoscope had begun to whistle when Harry went past the Riddle's Honor Award, but after investigating it with all the spells known to Hermione and Harry using the Parseltounge, it still had remained only the solid piece of metal with just an inscription. They were disappointed to conclude that the Sneakoscope had just likely detected the fraudulent way in which the prize was obtained. The following search hadn't succeeded even in such a tiny excitement, and when Ron was starting to get especially grumpy, because as he said they were just wasting their time here, Harry announced that it was time to end the search, and everyone agreed with him, and they all decided to take a rest. For starter it might be good enough – one of the Hogwarts rooms had been searched through; they had almost a whole year to search the other rooms. If that Diadem was located here, then it has to be somewhere.

"Well, my dear children, hows yer first two days?" Hagrid asked, smiling, when everyone had finally grabbed at least one rock cake.

"It was alright. Though, we've only had a few first lessons," Ginny objected.

"That's nice. Now, and how do yer feel back again at Hogwarts?" Hagrid inquired again. Having spent several hours in searching for the Diadem, they felt more like disappointed than tired – the first guess, which had seemed very plausible, was wrong. As a result, now they didn't have wits to do much talking, and they had already agreed before that they shouldn't mention even a single word of this to Hagrid.

"Great, I feel like at home again," Harry replied with a smile – and it was absolutely true. Whatever was the situation here he had always felt like at home at Hogwarts.

"I'm so happy to hear yer feelin' good, Harry. Yer've endured so much then at least now yer can finally be happy," the giant said, smiling benevolently at the young man as he cast a glance at Ginny.

"Yes, now the times are incomparably better, and people around us are much happier," Hermione confirmed.

"But tell us what did you do all summer, Hagrid?" Harry asked.

"Oh! I got loads of work," Hagrid said as he waved his huge hand. "Yer may have noticed that there're some patches all over the places in Hogwarts, so I had to get the materials here. I took logs from the Forbidden Forest, then McGonagall transfigured them in the right places so there're no holes an' the school is safe."

They nodded as they affirmed having seen such patches here and there at Hogwarts; including the ceiling of the Great Hall, the railing at the Entrance Hall and some walls of the fourth and fifth floors.

"Had to work until late at night. So now them pesky whatacrows are roamin' in the Forest; they made that creepy feelin' when I had to go after those logs," Hagrid said as he shook his head.

"Whatacrows?" Ron wondered. "What are they?"

Hagrid smiled. "They are somethin' like crows."

"What are they doing then?" Ron asked again.

Hagrid's smile spread wider. "It looks like we've got one of those fer us, too."

"What? Where?" Ron didn't understand, why Hagrid had started to smile at his questions, as he looked around warily – in the hut, there was everything as usual as the old hunting dog, Fang, was lying on the giant's bed, of course, after he had slobbered them from head to toe so that Hermione had to use a cleaning spell.

"Ron, you just began your last questions with 'what'," Hermione explained, "The whatacrows are like ordinary crows except they tend to shout out 'What? What?" during the daytime, but at night they softly whisper to each other." Ron's ears turned red.

"You are right, Hermione. You said everythin' correctly as usual," Hagrid praised the girl. "But that feelin' is creepy as hell when you happen to be in the woods at night, where it's full with them whatacrows. Just imagine that it's already dark and a bit scary, and then the whole Forest begins to whisper. Yer feel exactly like the dead is watchin' yer." The giant shook his head and drank a big sip of tea out of his teacup which was more like a small bucket.

They all shivered unintentionally. "I read that the whatacrows typically dwell in the places of the battles where many people had fallen – like ordinary crows do. Due to their talking and whispering there have been originated the legends and stories of whispering forests being obsessed with the souls of dead warriors," Hermione told them a piece of information from her vast knowledge.

"Yeah, those whispers are quite terrible. Listen, what happened with me – one night I could no longer stand it anymore and I went to scare them away," Hagrid began. "I had already driven them well away, but it happened to me that I had gone rather deep into the Forest."

All four young people were all ears, for as far as their experience showed, being deep in the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night never ended well. "Hagrid, what happened? Isn't the Forest full with spiders now?" Ginny exclaimed fearfully.

"That's right. So I slowly go out when I hear somethin' like a click. I just ignore it and go out of the woods. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, they encircled me. I look around – at the front, at the back, there's spiders everywhere. Can yeh believe it, these are tellin' me that this is their Forest now and I'm not allowed to enter it anymore," Hagrid continued, grinning.

"And what happened next?" Harry asked, frightened of his friend's safety and perhaps also of his sanity.

"I told them that such bugs aren't goin' to tell me what to do. Naturally, them got angry and began to rise to their legs and clack their pincers." As Hagrid told about his adventures, Ron's face started to turn green – he still had great fear of the spiders, especially from those gigantic ones who could devour a whole human.

"I tell them – what's going to be then, do I really have to take my crossbow and have to knock down a few of yer from yer legs? These are actually beginning to get closer to me. I take my crossbow, drop a few of them dead, but them are swarmin' around me like a black cloud. Who knows how the hell them could be breedin' themselves so fast."

"And how did you get away?" Hermione asked worriedly.

"Well, then I dropped another row of them dead, but them were already gettin' very close to me; then I was lucky that those stargazers, centaurs, were passin' by. Them shoot a half of that spider crowd, and then those cowards of spiders took flight and was gone in a blink of an eye. Just think of it; they wanted to take over all the Forest just for themselves," Hagrid finally said, sounding incredulous. "At least now I and them centaurs brought everythin' in order there, so there's safe again."

"Safe?!" Ron asked in an unusually high-pitched voice.

"Well, yeah; everythin' is clear fer me in the woods. I could say that I'm more afraid of the school castle now," Hagrid objected.

"Please, don't scare us, Hagrid. What's so dangerous at Hogwarts now?" Ginny asked.

"Well, it's not true that it isn't safe at Hogwarts – Hogwarts is always safe. At least more or less," Hagrid added as soon as he saw Ginny's face twisted with doubts because the girl obviously didn't think that the last school year and especially the end of it could be called safe.

"In short, it was like that. We were repairin' the hall on the ground floor, where Firenze has his classroom. It was late evenin' when it's gettin' dark. I had gone after the logs to the Forbidden Forest, and now I carried them inside the castle, and then in the hallway, there suddenly somebody comes closer to me. I look at him – he definitely isn't McGonagall – he's got such a long, black cloak with a hood. I stop in my place and call over to him fer what he's lookin' fer here. He's not answerin' anythin'. I start to get scared, and he's also slowly comin' closer; I see his long, white hand. I firmly ask again, who is he; but he's ignorin' me. Then he lifts his eyes and I see him – oh God, oh blimey, I wish the Manticore would swallow me up – he has red eyes with narrow pupils, I'm wet with sweat all over my back, all logs fall out of my hands; I see You-Know-Who was risen from his grave," Hagrid's voice faded into a quiet whisper, as he apparently seemed to be afraid of these memories.

"Voldemort; right here at Hogwarts? It can't be!" Harry exclaimed, feeling as a whole bunch of ants with their ice cold legs would have travelled down his spine, and he almost started to shake with fear. If Hagrid had already seen him and he was well alive in his own body…

"It wasn't that bad," the giant reassured his guests, smiling at them benevolently, but the young people just widened their eyes in horror. "Fortunately, McGonagall had come to see where I got stuck with them logs, and she cast the Riddikulus and my Boggart vanished. It turned out it was just a foolish Boggart, but I was standin' there and shakin' from fear, because I really thought he's risen from his grave. But then McGonagall reminded me correctly that yer, Harry, defeated him fer good, and we don't have to be afraid of him anymore. McGonagall will be a good Headmistress fer us, as I'm sayin' to yer." Hagrid smiled at Harry, full with kindness and happiness. "Just don't tell anyone about this, alright? That I was so scared of one little Boggart."

"No, no, of course not, Hagrid," all of them said instantly.

So they discussed a few more things about Hogwarts until they had drunk their tea and it was time for dinner. They said a sincere farewell to Hagrid as they filled their pockets with his rock cakes, and they started to go back to the castle in a stroll. The sun was already floating just above the treetops, indicating that the autumn was slowly approaching with its dark evenings, but at the moment everything was calm and the air still smelled like summer.

"Did you think the same?" Ron asked as they went back to the castle.

"That Hagrid did really see Voldemort?" Harry asked back and, when Ron nodded, he added, "Yes, that was my first thought, too. But it was scary anyway."

"At least they have dealt with that Boggart," Ginny concluded.

"Only, I don't believe that all the Boggarts are banished from Hogwarts. I don't think that was the only one, because the Boggarts usually occur in places where there had been intense and strong emotions. I suppose after the Battle, they were everywhere all over this place," Hermione told her opinion. "Maybe now, all those remaining Boggarts have crawled somewhere in the dark or in the Dungeons."

Ron chuckled suddenly.

"What's up with you, Ron?" Ginny asked.

"I just imagined Malfoy peeing in his pants when one such a Boggart is coming right at him on his way to his Common Room," he explained with an evil laugh.

The rest of the friends also grinned. "You could be very well right, Ron. The bad thing is just that the Boggart would like to scare anyone, not just Malfoy," Hermione objected as they had already reached the huge double door. Upon entering the Entrance Hall, there was a loud chattering coming from the Great Hall – the dinner had already begun.

At dinner, they each ate a portion of a lamb stew and discussed whether the Boggarts could haunt people in their dreams, although without getting to any specific conclusion, and then Harry, Ron, and Ginny had returned to the Gryffindor Common Room, whereas Hermione had headed straight to the library this time. She excused herself that she had no desire to know the current version of their feats in the talks of the first-years.

Harry had been hoping to think about what else to do in the Trophy Room – they had tested a lot of things, but if they were really dealing with Voldemort, he might have actually come up with some extraordinary cunning thing, so they couldn't already jump to the conclusion that they had investigated and tested everything. There had to be some more things to try out. Back then there at the cave, Dumbledore could trace magic, perhaps Hermione knew something similar? And what if there was made some special arrangements or tasks for gaining the Diadem, which you couldn't just simply guess or think out? But on the other hand, they had been looking for the Diadem for only two days; they have to try searching for it also tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. If then there wouldn't be any more ideas, then maybe they have to move on.

Luckily, the first-years were now swarming around the sixth-year girls, so the friends could sit quite peacefully without being disturbed.

"I wonder when did that Terry get so smart?" Ron asked as he glanced around, seemingly making sure that Hermione really isn't sitting next to him. "I suppose Hermione wouldn't like to admit it, but I don't think this is going to be easy for us to deal with her, when there's someone who gets his marks as good as she."

"However, you must take into account that Hermione has missed one academic year, and if Terry had already learned all this stuff, it's just a repetition to him, and there was no shortage of books in the Room of Requirement as well," Ginny said wisely.

"Besides, Terry was pretty good at Potions before, but on one thing you could be right, Ron, that Hermione might have a hard time when someone is surpassing her in the academic achievement," Harry concluded, sounding rather gloomy.

"Well, let her struggle for a bit. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad after all, if she ever makes any concessions to someone," Ron thought out loud. "I just hope it doesn't mean that she's going to think only about that Terry." Harry and Ginny laughed, but Ron remained as serious as he was before.

"Stop it, Ron. Hermione really does love you; you don't have to worry about her," Harry reassured his friend.

"That's right – she wouldn't be together with you, when you're such a grump, if she didn't love you," sister teased him, winking.

"Well, that was when we lived all together in the Burrow. But there's full of guys, and she's Hermione. What if she does find someone more interesting than me?" Ron expressed his fears. This time, Ginny was looking at her brother rather gently.

"It just means that you always have to be the most interesting, Ron. If you'll be less grumpy about all the nonsense and will more love her, why should you be afraid to lose Hermione? She's a serious girl and she doesn't chase after every handsome or interesting face."

"You mean that I'm ugly?" Ron asked in shock, widening his dark blue eyes. Ginny chuckled.

"If you're going to wear your shirt like this, when it hangs out of your pants, it does look pretty ugly," his sister pointed out, prickling with her finger in his stomach where the unbuttoned robe of the Hogwarts uniform was open and there could be seen a wrinkled piece of a white shirt slipping out from his pants. Feeling annoyed, Ron closed his robes putting one side far over the other as he didn't reply anything to her.

Neville approached them and mentioned that he's got one more idea of how to search for the Diadem – perhaps they could use the Locator Spell. Luna had reminded him that Flitwick had wanted to teach them this spell in the previous school year. Such a spell may be able to locate the Diadem. Surely, the idea wasn't bad, but none of them knew how exactly it has to be cast. So now Ron, Neville, Harry, and Ginny decided to go to the library to find Hermione and ask her opinion about this spell.

As they entered the library, they soon found the girl they were looking for, deeply reading a book.

"Oh, hello!" she greeted back her friends. "Did you also have a feeling to come to the library, too?"

"We actually came here to find you," Ron said.

"Neville has an idea how to find the Diadem," Harry added as all of them sat down on their chairs next to Hermione.

"Luna advised me that we should search for the Diadem with the Locator Spell," Neville explained, feeling slightly shy. They were ones of a very few visitors of the library, so they had to speak with special caution.

"The Locator Spell. Ah, actually your idea is really good. The Locator Spell or the Searching Spell could be more suitable for finding people, but maybe the Diadem is so special that we may be able to find it using this spell," Hermione confirmed. Ginny offered to go look up for the books on the Locator Spell, but Ron wanted to know what Hermione was doing here in the library.

"Oh, I was just reading here about the extract brewing," Hermione replied as she stretched out her arms over her head. Meanwhile, Ron glanced knowingly at Harry. "I've looked through several books until now, but I still don't understand how Terry could have known that the extract had to be periodically cooled during the extraction process. Here, in the Potion Mixing for N.E.W.T. Students, which is about seventy years old, is even said that to gain the better intensity of the extract it is advised to stir once in the opposite direction after every seven times to add more Fire element, but I find it nowhere, nowhere at all, that the extract should be cooled periodically," Hermione was lecturing them in her research.

"He must have read it in one of the books of the Room of Requirement," Neville reassured her.

She just murmured, "I suppose."

Ginny had also returned shortly, carrying three books she had found after her quick search, and she put the books on the table in front of Hermione with the titles The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 7, Lost Thing is not the End of the World, and Book of Spells and Charms. Hermione gathered her bushy hair behind her head and took the textbook required for Charms.

"So, the Locator Spell, the Locator Spell," she muttered under her breath as she looked through the table of contents. "Ah, page 325." The moment she opened the page she was searching for, Hermione quickly read through the information in the book, silently moving her lips.

"But let's do this tomorrow, alright? I haven't really tried this spell yet, and I'm suspecting that the Locator Spell requires a very intense concentration on it," Hermione explained as she rubbed her eyes.

"I wonder what could be written in these books?" Harry said, opening the second book, and then spoke after studying it for a while. "No, this probably would be no use for us. There's said that it's easy to find missing things, if they had previously been charmed with the Tracer Spell. That's impossible for us to do now," Harry concluded, flipping pages to see what's there more in this book, but then closed it. Ron, too, hadn't found anything useful in the Book of Spells and Charms.

Anyway, they had a new plan for tomorrow's search. All they had to do was to get a good sleep at night and then they could try out their new idea at the very morning.

So they carried on with their plan. When they had eaten breakfast and flipped through the pages of a morning newspaper, where wasn't anything more important than some complaints of Diagon Alley shopkeepers about the unfair aid payments of the Ministry for the prevention of the consequences of the You-Know-Who terroristic regime, the friends rushed up to the Trophy Room after they had escorted Hermione to her Arithmancy class. They could now start afresh the search. However, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Neville, and Luna were just standing in the middle of the Room, looking at each other without knowing what to do.

"So, what else should we inspect?" Luna simply asked.

"We've inspected carefully all the panels of the wall, every last one of the awards, and we have also prickled even the narrowest gaps in the floor," Ron summed up.

"And both you and Harry had tried to speak all over here in Parseltongue," Neville added.

"Then it seems to me that there's only ceiling left unchecked," Ginny joked. They all had agreed that they'll let Hermione test the Locator Spell.

Harry laughed at first, but then his eyes widened, because Ginny was actually right – they really hadn't inspected the ceiling. They had just to figure a way how to get closer to it.

After a moment, when they had discussed this matter, they conjured a chair, and Harry climbed up on it, so the others with the Levitation Charm lifted him up in the air as he stood on the solid wooden furniture. Hanging in the air, Harry touched every beam and board and spoke in Parseltongue, but so far didn't find anything. About forty minutes later, Hermione entered the Trophy Room, saying hello to everyone.

At that moment, Ron got distracted by her, so the chair tilted a bit and Harry almost fell to the ground.

"Hey, be more careful, mate!" Harry exclaimed.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Ron apologized, turning pink, and he and Ginny lowered Harry safely down, and then Harry vanished the chair.

"Hi, Hermione," he replied back to her greeting.

"It looks like there's nothing on the ceiling either, but we've still got to try the Locator Spell," Harry didn't lose his optimism. It was odd – the more they searched and the more hopeless everything started to seem, the more he wanted to dig through it again and again. Maybe it was because he wanted to be one hundred percent sure that the Diadem truly isn't located here, or maybe he was punishing himself with this struggle that somehow seemed to be strangely pleasant.

"You were flying near the ceiling on a chair?" Hermione said incredulously and half-amused. "I would just have used the Knocking Spell or the Revelio Charm, they both work form a distance."

"Harry just wanted to be closer to it all," Luna said with a smile.

"Maybe let's get started with that Locator Spell?" Harry asked.

"Of course, I'll try to recite the correct incantation right away," Hermione agreed as she took out her wand. She put it on her palm and just looked at it for a moment. Nothing happened.

"I suppose the nonverbal version of this spell isn't going to work," she said dissatisfied. Then she began to whisper softly under her breath, and this time her wand moved. All of them held their breaths and looked at her wand, but it was oscillating in a very wide range, then pointing to the North, then after a short moment it showed West, then – South, then – it completely turned around a full circle. There couldn't be distinguished a specific direction of the wand movements, besides as Hermione tried to follow any direction the wand shifted from its own weight, beginning to rotate in full circles on her palm. They tried this searching method everywhere in the Trophy Room, at various heights along the wall, everywhere near the floor, but nowhere did the wand point to a clear direction. Going down for the lunch, Hermione told them that there could be several explanations for this behavior of her wand.

"First, we have to take into account that we haven't mastered the Locator Spell in our Charms classes, so it's possible that I'm not casting it correctly."

"Yeah, right, and I'm a bat," Ginny objected right away with a smile. "Hermione, please come up with something more credible."

Hermione also smiled at her friend's firm conviction. "Secondly, maybe the magic of Hogwarts itself is interfering with the Locator Spell. Technically, the spell is pretty complicated. Thirdly, if the Diadem is somewhere very far away from here, we won't be able to detect the exact direction due to the Hogwarts own magic," Hermione explained.

"At the beginning, your wand was pointing to somewhere there, right?" Harry said as he showed a wide circle from South through West to North. Hermione confirmed that it's true with a nod. "But what if it's really far, far away? That is, we know the Diadem is hidden at Hogwarts, but we actually don't know if it is hidden in the very castle. What if it's hidden in the lake or in the Forbidden Forest?" Harry was suddenly becoming aware of other possibilities where the Diadem could actually be, if Voldemort had tried to hide it with a great care.

"I would like to suggest that we need to wait for the Charms lesson by Flitwick and ask him more about the Locator Spell. Harry, those things you just said, they sound even very plausible, and in that case we may be searching for that Diadem forever, but if we could use the Locator Spell, we would at least get to learn the vaguest knowledge of a place, where we should be starting our inspection from," Hermione explained.

"However, the guess that You-Know-Who saw the Diadem as a trophy sounds the most plausible version to me," Ron stated, "At least since we haven't mastered other techniques or thought about anything else yet."

"Hermione, you said something about the Knocking Spell, maybe we could search the ceiling with it?" Luna suggested.

"That's right," Harry agreed. "We could try it after the Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson."

"Alright, we don't know if there still isn't anything left in the Trophy Room," Neville agreed. "And what do we have for the lunch today?" the young man asked as they all entered the Great Hall and took their seats at their respective tables.

After the lunch, they went along with other seventh-years to the well-known classroom on the third floor, where they had always attended the lessons of Defence Against the Dark Arts. On their way, Neville told some things what Harry could put only as a pure horror. Last year, there wasn't Defence what Carrow had taught them, but it was actually the very Dark Arts. So they were introduced with a lot of things, but the best they got to know the Cruciatus Curse. Of course, it was none other than Neville, who had repeatedly writhed in pain on the floor due to his disobedience.

"Meh, those Slytherins, like Pansy or that Malfoy, Nott, or Zabini, you know, their elite, they didn't know how to cast it properly or maybe they didn't want to. I could barely feel a tickle by their curses. Only those Malfoy trolls were a bit more skillful to my surprise. However, when Carrow unleashed his curse, though, then I had a feeling like being torn in two pieces. But then after, I gathered myself and got up and looked straight at him as nothing had happened, and I saw him boiling with anger. Naturally, I had to clench on that floor, even up to five times until I could barely stand on my feet afterwards, but the look on their faces when someone was not obeying them was worth every moment of the agony."

Ginny shuddered involuntarily. "Neville, please don't remind me that. It was so terrible when you back then came back still to the Gryffindor Tower being half-alive. It took a while for me and Ritchie to get you to full consciousness again."

Harry didn't like to hear it either. He and Hermione, and also Ron at the beginning of their tour in the woods, had been aimlessly sleeping in the tent and growling at each other, while the people at Hogwarts, including his beloved Ginny had been fighting day by day with the evil that had been dwelled in here and had protected each other as well as the youngest first-years who had been very little in their numbers – just over thirty in all the Houses together, half of which had been sorted in Slytherin. But considering the remaining sixteen non-Slytherins, they had to keep their eyes peeled for them; especially often they had to protect the Hufflepuffs. About that – respect to Ernie, he had countless times saved the little Hufflepuffs from many hours of painful suffering. Such people are beasts, not human – and they are postulating to be better than others? In Harry's point of view, even the most common house elf is a nobler creature than someone who can relish in the torment of a weak, innocent child. As they entered the classroom, they all sat down behind the long benches in a long line. Luna and Hannah and Ernie also joined in their group, sitting next to them.

There had come also others from Harry's and Ginny's years as well. As he glanced around, Harry saw that students of Ginny's year seem to be surprisingly several, because, unlike Potions or Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts was chosen by practically all of the N.E.W.T. students. So he began to wonder why all the rest of them aren't already here because the class was going to start just after a short moment. Suddenly Harry realized the reason of it – and he just wanted to bang his forehead into the wall – he was such an idiot! Why they aren't already here? Because they are dead, not late! Most of them have been resting in peace in their graves and feeding worms for four months. Like the poor Creevey. And the other half of the group of Ginny's former friends – only Ginny and Ritchie had survived; as well, students of Ginny's year of the other Houses had suffered great losses. Because it was the very first part of the Battle when also Fred died, in which had fell the most of Hogwarts students – they were full of courage, but they hadn't experienced actual battles, so, of course, the Death Eaters had killed them like cutting the grass.

"Good day, N.E.W.T. students!" there spoke a slightly hoarse voice to the class, pulling Harry out from his sullen thoughts. On the day of the Battle, he had seen those fallen fifty, but now, with so many obvious gaps in the crowd of the living, he saw it very clearly that so many had fallen in the Battle due to him; only because of him, because Harry wasn't able to find that damn Diadem on time… And he not only hadn't been able to find it on time, but it was very likely he hadn't found the right Diadem at all, so he actually hadn't even done his job, and the fallen schoolmates had lost their lives for nothing…

In response, Harry heard the murmurs of students all around him as they greeted back the professor, who had clad in simple dark blue robes.

"For the starter, I'm going to introduce myself – I'm John Dawlish, the current Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts and the Auror of Ministry," the older wizard said, sounding rather strict. "I'm not going to deny that I'm here not only to teach you, but also to protect you in case if there will arise such a need. Though, let's hope that nothing like that is going to happen," the Auror finally added after a short moment. As he looked over all the N.E.W.T. students, he asked, "Could you, please, raise your hand those, who have participated in the Battle of Hogwarts?"

In the classroom, most of the students raised their hands, only those were very few in the far corner where the Slytherins had sat down.

"Look at it, that ferret has raised his hand," Ron groaned as soon as he had noticed Malfoy's hand in the air, "He claims that he had participated in the Battle, phe – if standing in the way and making shit moves counts as the participating in the Battle."

"But he was on the battlefield and didn't fight us afterwards," Harry objected.

"So, very good," the professor said, so Ron didn't get a chance retort back, "I see the most of you already know what a battle is. Unfortunately. And even more sorry I am for those companions who had fallen as heroes in the Battle four months ago," Dawlish said, finally making a sad sigh.

After a short moment of silence, he said again, "And now, could you please raise your hands those who are now enjoying the joy of the victory."

Although, Harry knew and even felt it that he had done an almost impossible thing in the fight against Voldemort, and so many people, the fighters of good side as well as the Death Eaters, had died in this battle in order to make everyone's lives become much better as it was practically half a year ago, Harry still couldn't bring himself feel like a winner. Not even mentioning the recent suspicions that he actually hadn't won anything at all, but perhaps he had only managed to provide a brief respite and peace, which could have been utterly deceptive. Pondering, he looked around, but only few ones had shyly raised their arms in the air – some Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs he didn't know well. The Slytherins sat with their eyes on their tables all as one, but the Griffindors, Rawenclaws, and Hufflepuffs from his year mourned over their lost schoolmates.

"And, behold," continued the professor after a pause, "now you know what a war is." The mood in the classroom had become utterly sorrowful and grave. For some unexplainable reason, sadness seemed to spread all around, seeping in everyone and as Dawlish spoke again even those few hands in the air were immediately lowered. "In a war, even after the victory, the joy is short-lived; it comes and it passes, but in the end remains only the pain because it is impossible to achieve victory without a sacrifice or loss. And right now, I can express my condolences that you had to sacrifice your beautiful days of your youth for something so dark and gloomy. To be honest, it is rare for any person to endure such suffering in their whole life that each of you has endured over the last year. Here, most of you have lost someone close to you – a mother, a father, a dear classmate or a friend."

Harry felt tears welling in his eyes, thinking back first about Hedwig, then – Moody, Dobby… And also Fred… And the Lupin family… They all had deserved a long, beautiful life. And the Lupins should have seen little Teddy growing up…

He looked up at the ceiling, hoping his tears wouldn't start falling down his cheeks – it was the first lesson in front of a professional Auror, and he would already cry as a little child – it was hardly the best impression he wanted to make. As he tried to dry his tears with his fingertips secretly, Harry noticed Hannah crying uncontrollably as she tried to wipe her tears with her sleeve of her robes, until Ernie conjured a fine lace handkerchief out of thin air and handed it to her.

"That is how a war looks like; it always brings pain and misery. And that's why there are we, the Aurors, to do the possible and impossible in our power to spare such pain and hardship to anyone in the world, both wizards and Muggles. Is there anyone who considers engaging his or her future with the career as an Auror?" Dawlish asked after his monologue.

Harry immediately raised his hand, and Ron followed him right after, and there were about dozen more hands raised in the air in the classroom.

"That's great, that's great," Dawlish said and his grim face now was softened with a little smile. "It looks like for the next academic year, to the Auror training there will apply as many students as for the last ten years taken together. Ah, and Mr. Potter has also raised his hand. I had already thought that you would have seen enough of the pain and blood for the rest of your life, but, of course, I am glad that you're feeling like joining in the Aurors," the professor added, for a brief moment making a wide smile.

Harry just nodded and slowly lowered his hand.

"Anyway, those who are serious about becoming an Auror should be aware that such events are going to happen, maybe not exactly every day, but with the pain and loss you'll have to deal on a regular basis and definitely more often than you would like. You have an advantage in this regard – you have gained more than enough insight into what is going on during a wizarding battle and the dangers you must face while there isn't occurring active collisions. I hope that none of you here have those great dreams that when you'll train yourself into an Auror, you'll end up having the glory as a superhero, gaining a fame and fortune. I have had to meet such young lads in the training courses, and unfortunately, when they had to face with a real struggle and its downsides, those dreamy poor guys broke like sticks. So keep in mind that you should only become an Auror if you truly feel like it is your calling, because you have to keep in mind that you'll have to deal with the loss, the pain, and, above all, the failure that could wait for you behind every corner. That's why this job requires not only a tremendous amount of knowledge, skills, and good physical condition, but you have to have a strong mind. In addition, wizards tend to be even very eccentric, so an Auror can never know what kind of mind-blowing surprises or even horrors he may face in a seemingly simple task. And that's why the very first lesson for the Aurors or anyone who comes across Dark Arts or anything unusual at all is… Maybe there is someone who can tell me this already?" the professor asked strictly.

Harry heard in his mind a well-known but long unheard, harsh voice. "Constant vigilance!" he immediately announced it to the class, expressing it at the same time as Ron.

"It's correct," Dawlish praised them. "And you would be Ron Weasley, right?"

Ron nodded, murmuring approvingly.

"Exactly, nothing is more important than constant, unwavering vigilance. Because the enemy never sleeps. He, too, is constantly attentive and able to use magic, so the Auror must be awake and in his best form," the teacher explained.

"But you don't have much to worry about," Dawlish added when the class had become silent and grave. "This year, our task is not to confront the dark wizards, but only the exams of the N.E.W.T.s at the end of this academic year."

Next the professor told his students that in his lessons first he is going to introduce them briefly with a theory and then it's going to be followed by extensive practical training to master the skills of the performing curses and counter-curses, defensive charms – active and passive, as well as knowledge of dark creatures, conjuring of Patronuses, and at the end of the year – if there will be enough time for that – the use of potions for purposes of protection or revealing a malevolence.

"Taking into account the plan of the school year, you'll have to work hard. And since you're seventh year students, you'll mainly have to study the theory by yourselves. I'm going to expect you to come to my classes being already prepared so that we can devote enough time for practice," Dawlish said. "So, for the next lesson, you should read about the different types of curses. Then we'll start with the performing of curses. It would be great if you would try to remember the simplest curses of the previous school years. Then for now, we could finish our first lesson. Does anyone have any questions?" the professor asked at the end.

Of course, there were questions, but they weren't about how to perform the Leg-Locker or the Treasure-Guarding Curse. The questions were, for example, about whether the underground werewolves were caught – asked a girl from Ginny's year. Dawlish replied that there's a progress with this case and they had already got enough clues where the werewolves are dwelling, they just need to get through the protection of their headquarter building.

"And is there Rowle captured?" wanted to know Lisa, a Ravenclaw girl from Harry's year who was a good Quidditch player.

"We're working on it, too; we know with whom Rowle is staying together, it's only a matter of time before he'll be captured together with Lestrange, just like the Selwyns were caught," Dawlish confirmed.

"And how about the Lestrange?" Ron asked bitterly next to Harry.

"Lestrange, though, is still free, but as I just said we have traced Rowle and we know he's staying with Lestrange. I think once we have got tied up all the henchmen of Lestrange, we'll be able to get to him too, and your mother could feel safe again," Dawlish said, smiling sympathetically.

There sounded a few more questions about other Death Eaters who haven't been captured yet, until a bell rang and announced the end of the lesson.

As Harry walked out of the classroom, Neville shook his head next to him, "Grrr, this was such a gloomy and terribly sad lesson. But in the end, at least I realized that I don't want to fight the darkness for all my life. I'd rather do something happier, like herbology. But I truly respect you, Harry, for choosing to continue with all that. What would we do without you?" Neville smiled sadly at him.

Harry felt as if a ball would have struck in his neck that blocked all the words so he couldn't get any sound over his lips.

"The lesson is over. What are we going to do with the Trophy Room? Are we going back there?" Hermione asked, drawing out Harry from his sad thoughts.

"I think we should try the Knocking Spell you suggested. Did you want to do something else?" Harry asked her.

"My homework has starting to build up in a huge pile. I haven't done with Potions yet, I still have to repeat for Transfiguration, then this morning in Arithmancy we were told to calculate our course of life until Christmas, and now Dawlish wants us to read the theory about various types of curses, and tomorrow I have to go to the meeting with McGonagall," Hermione told her long list of her work to be done. Harry could understand her – of course, she wanted to be the best in the academic meaning and, unfortunately, there just wasn't enough time for everything.

"Look, you've actually helped me a lot. I think we'll be able to deal with the Knocking Spell without you," Harry reassured his friend.

"Really, you could manage without me? I really should start preparing for next week's classes," Hermione seemed to be a little pleased, but then suddenly a thought came into her mind. "Actually, you should also start thinking about when you are going to do your homework."

"We still have Saturday and Sunday left for that," Ron reassured her.

"Then I'll go to the library. If you think of something else where you need me, then you know where to find me," she stated, winking to her friends. Neville and Luna also decided to accompany Hermione this time, so the three of them turned down in an adjacent hallway, but Ron, Harry, and Ginny continued their way to the Trophy Room.

Four hours later, after knocking on the ceiling and all other surfaces, they met Hermione and Neville again at the dinner table.

"Did you manage to find anything?" Neville asked.

"Completely nothing," Ron replied bleakly.

"We only made some noise," Harry stated as he put a pile of mashed potatoes on his plate.

"Oh, right, as we came here Nearly Headless Nick already asked us what we were doing all the time in that Trophy Room," Hermione said.

"And what did you answer?" Ron asked, and only then put a huge mouthful of stewed carrots in his mouth. Hermione smiled to herself – at last she had managed to stop Ron eating and talking at the same time. Or at least he didn't allow himself to do that in her presence.

"We said we were going to admire Harry's statue," she said with a soft laugh. Though, Harry didn't find it funny at all. He just ate his food which tonight also tasted great. Maybe the delicious food really was Kreacher's merit; maybe he should visit his servant in the kitchen soon?

As the conversation continued, the girl told them what she had accomplished to do in the library and advised her friends to start doing their homework as well. After the dinner, the five of them started on their way up to the Gryffindor Tower in order to pick up some parchment and stationery needed for their homework doing.

As they were discussing whether there has been left anything more untried in the Trophy Room, on their way in the first floor, they turned in their usual path behind the tapestry that led up to the stairs. Thinking about the trophies, Neville suddenly stumbled.

"Damn, it's that joke step again! I'm getting stuck in it all the time," Neville said angrily as Ginny and Harry managed to grab him by his hand, since they was walking next to him.

"Such a tiny mouse hole, but there's enough place for a foot to get stuck," Ginny agreed.

Suddenly Harry was hit by a thought. "If there's enough space for a foot, maybe there's enough room for something else?"

Ron and Hermione, also seeming a little excited, looked at Harry, then at the so-called joke step.

"But was Voldemort such a prankster to hide his precious piece of soul under a step of the stairs? You know, everyone would be stomping it with their feet," Hermione said, skeptically, rushing over to the strange disappearing step.

"But it would be stupid not to inspect it," Ron objected, joining the others as well.

"Lumos," Harry said and tried to look under the step, but it didn't let the light through, so he couldn't see anything under it, and it looked just any ordinary stair step.

"Actually, who needs such a disappearing step here?" Ron asked grimly.

Harry tried to put the shining wand inside the step, and that was easy because there was a void and free room underneath, but he couldn't see anything there. Then, Harry tried to put his hand in there and feel the area. While he was doing it, a few moments later the girls asked him whether there's something in there.

"I can't really understand what's there. It seems there's like a stone floor underneath and then there's something like a step going down, but there's just an emptiness as I try to touch it further," Harry replied, sweated, as he pulled out his hand from the hole – the cobwebs had stuck all over the palm, and he quickly shook and rubbed them off his hands.

"So the Diadem wasn't under there," Hermione concluded.

"But what if there's something else in that void?" Ginny asked, thoughtfully.

"Just how we'll be able to access it?" Neville pondered.

"Alright, let's try to figure out what might be hidden there," Hermione said determinedly as she pulled up her sleeves.

At that moment, the tapestry was shifted aside, and a bunch of younger Gryffindors wanted to climb up the stairs. They greeted the young people in the middle of the stairs shyly and hurried up the stairs further on their way.

"Just do it fast, Hermione. The time after dinner perhaps is not the best to stay and do magic here for a long time," Ginny urged her friend.

"Yes, of course," she replied and then tried her favorite charm Alohomora. Nothing happened. "Opengates!" Also, no reaction. Similarly, Revelio and Flipendo didn't succeed. Harry, feeling intrigued, tried the counter-spell for Disillusionment Charm, but that too was to no avail. Neither did help Accio Diadem. Soon a bunch of students came again, going their way leisurely to the Gryffindor Tower on the seventh floor.

The five of them didn't want to attract too much attention so they left the step be, whispering to each other as they went along with their schoolmates from younger years to the Common Room of their House.

"Harry, but what exactly did you felt there when you touched the space under the step?" Ginny asked him softly.

"That's the thing. I don't really understand it myself. It seemed that I couldn't reach the other end, but maybe it wasn't very far away. And most likely Hermione's right that Voldemort wouldn't want his soul to be constantly stepped on," Harry replied in a half whisper as he shrugged.