"Me? I'm new here, I don't know anything about —"

"It's okay, just follow me." Roberts grabbed Harry's arm and pulled him along. "They made a rule a few days ago that we have to walk in pairs when we leave the base. . . . It's stupid, really, like this Dumbledore's Army thing is some kind of threat when we're only a few days away from finishing them off."

Roberts laughed out, and Harry forced the corners of his mouth up and pretended to smile. Still, there were advantages to traveling with a high-ranking commander — the soldiers walking in groups through the courtyard saluted at the sight of Roberts and walked past them without paying much attention to Harry. Harry tried to take in as much of the layout of the factory as he could, turning his head as Roberts took out his smartphone and did something with it, then pulled out the glass bottle of Polyjuice he kept in his pocket and took another sip. Grimacing at the horrible taste and shuddering his body, he could see why the fake Moody had been so weird in his fourth year at Hogwarts.

"Where are we going anyway?" said Harry, reluctantly following Roberts out of the facility as they crossed the courtyard and came to a gate in the middle of a barbed wire fence. It was a shame to have to leave so soon after all the trouble he'd gone through to get in.

"We're going to find Eisenbein," said Roberts, pulling a pair of yellow sunglasses out of the front pocket of his shirt and putting them on. The words made Harry feel like someone had dropped a stone inside him.

"Do we really have to go looking for him in person?" asked Harry desperately. "Isn't there another way to contact him?"

"Well said. I don't think he'll answer, but we can try . . . "

Roberts raised his left arm to check his wrist, and for a moment Harry thought he was going to press down hard on the Death Mark on his arm like the Death Eaters of old. But instead, Roberts looked at the watch on his wrist and fiddled with it. It wasn't a normal watch, but a special one with a tiny touch screen, like a small smartphone.

"The world has changed for the better, hasn't it?" Roberts smirked, noticing Harry's interest. "Back in the day, Death Eaters had to tattoo their wrists to stay in touch! They couldn't send messages, they couldn't contact anyone but their master, and they still had to carve ugly snakes into their skin to do that simple thing. . . " Roberts laughed out loud, and Harry joined in, pretending to be amused. "But we're different, we're much smarter! That's why we use smartwatches — they're specially designed, like the rest of our equipment, so they won't break under magic."

Harry kept looking at Roberts's smartwatch, hoping to avoid the worst-case scenario of having to confront Eisenbein face-to-face. But it didn't look like his message had been answered yet.

"I wasn't really expecting much," Roberts said as he checked his unresponsive watch. "He doesn't respond at times like this. . . . It's nothing to worry about, Eisenbein is tougher than anyone alive. Who would dare attack him?"

Harry remembered how he had faced Eisenbein three times a few months ago and lost each time, and felt bitter. They walked in silence for a while, following a narrow, winding dirt road that led down a hill overlooking the peaceful landscape of the village of Mould-on-the-Wold. Except for the pointed spire of the lone church, the buildings stood still and tall, their orange, blue, or red roofs blending together in harmony. But in this seemingly peaceful town, a secret plot was afoot to bring down an entire world — his world, and the world of his parents before him. . . . And he was now on his way to meet the man who had set it all in motion, his stomach twisting with nervousness at the thought.

Harry glanced over at Roberts to distract himself and suddenly realized he'd heard his last name before. The vivid images soon gave way to the flames of blazing tents staining the darkened ground orange, the masked Death Eaters in their black robes, and the poor Muggle family being lynched as they floated helplessly in the air and spun around in circles. It was then that Harry realized who Jimmy Roberts really was.

"Mr. Roberts," Harry said carefully, "wasn't your father a campsite manager?" Seeing Roberts's eyes flash suspiciously from behind his yellow glasses, he quickly added, "Oh, a relative of mine worked at the Ministry, and I heard the name Roberts when we were talking about the Quidditch World Cup."

"Ah, is that so?" laughed Roberts. Fortunately, the suspicion was gone, and it was as if he'd been waiting for someone to recognize his past self.

"Yes, that ruddy Quidditch — that silly sport with stupid rules and a ridiculous name ruined my life, though I suppose I'm what I am today because of it."

"What exactly happened to you?" asked Harry, his eyes widening with curiosity. It couldn't hurt to get more information about the high ranking Dawn Breakers.

" It was 1994 — until then my family had been living happily with my dad who ran a campsite in Dartmoor. . . . We weren't rich, of course, but we were close to beautiful nature and we never starved. But then the World Cup came along and they showed up." Roberts's smile quickly turned to anger. "Wizards," he said, "dressed in funny outfits, showed up on the field, and every time my father saw them coming out of nowhere, they wiped out his memory. He developed dementia early for his age, and I'm pretty sure it was caused by magic. Well, sometimes it's better to forget." Roberts kicked a stone in the street hard enough to send it flying into the grass. "The night the World Cup ended, my family was attacked. Death Eaters burst into the cottage we lived in out of nowhere, grabbed my parents, my sister and me, and threw us in the air, spinning us around and taunting us. Do you know why? Because we were Muggles! For the crime of being born normal and living in ignorance, my family was hurled into the sky to suffer and be mocked. . . . I was just a little kid then!"

Roberts shoved his clenched fists into his jeans pockets. Harry, who had witnessed the horrific sight of Mr. Roberts and his family being lynched, knew his anger was justified. The image of the little boy spinning like a top, sixty feet off the ground, his head flopping limply from side to side like a broken doll, flashed before his eyes. In a way, the Dawn Breakers who now posed the greatest threat to Harry's world had been created by the Wizarding world itself. . . .

"So what happened after that? Didn't the wizards erase your memories?" Harry asked, careful not to offend Roberts.

Roberts bit his lip as he recalled the painful memory, then finally said, "They tried. The rest of my family had forgotten what happened that night, but not me. I vaguely remember the Ministry bastards casting some kind of spell on me, but whatever it was, it didn't work on me, and that was the beginning of my misery . . . "

Roberts kicked another large stone and tilted his head to look up at the sky. Behind his yellow glasses, Harry could see water glistening in his eyes.

"Since the events of that night, I have come to realize the truth of this world: that the secret societies rule it from behind the scenes, with powerful sorcery. I wish I hadn't known, but I did, and I couldn't live normally because of it. . . . Could that clownish politician on TV also be under the control of magic? Could the mysterious murders in the newspaper have been committed by a Dark wizard? What about the bridge that snapped in two without warning — was that also the work of a wizard?" Roberts threw back his head and laughed out loud, his hackles rising and falling with each short burst of laughter, like a dog barking. "Guess what I found out later? That all my suspicions were right — that everything I just told you was done by wizards!"

"But you could never prove it because no one would have believed you," said Harry bitterly. Even he, who had been the most famous wizard in England since the age of one, had once not believed in the existence of magic. You didn't have to be clever to know that an average person living only in the Muggle world could have easily believed it.

"Yes, everyone thought I was mad. . . After that horrible night, this is what the world always looked like to me: A world full of puppets, with giggling wizard bastards moving random strings. Just like me and my family were dragged out of the night and left to float around, controlled by their magic . . . " Roberts clenched his fists until his knuckles were white. Lost in his memories, he seemed to pay no attention to Harry. "So I tried to find proof that no one could deny, so I could tell the world the truth that only I knew. Ever since I was a kid, I'd been studying computers and information technology, and whenever I had a free moment, I'd hack into surveillance cameras everywhere, trying to catch the wizards around us. And a few times I almost succeeded. . . . But whatever they did, all the footage was erased hours later, and the witnesses had spotty memories. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find any evidence, and I was about to give up in frustration. Until I met him . . . "

"Eisenbein, you mean," said Harry quietly. Jimmy Roberts must have been one of the subjects of Eisenbein's job offer, for he had been in hiding for a long time, observing the Wizarding world and the events around it.

"Yes. Eisenbein came to me one day, and it was before he had the body he has now, so he was just a little voice whispering in my ear, but it was enough. He told me the truth about the world I so desperately wanted to see, and he asked me to help him with my knowledge and skills. To create a new world — a world where we Muggles rule and the wizards who looked down on us are locked away in factories and bred like cattle. . . . Ha! Who is whose puppet now?"

Roberts laughed maniacally. By now they were well down the hill and into the center of Mould-on-the-Wold, and the few passersby they encountered looked at them suspiciously.

"Ever since I met Eisenbein, I've been leading the Manipulation Troop, using the IT experts and Muggle-born wizards under my command to overthrow the Wizarding world. . . . I'm the one who took advantage of the Ministry's sloppy exchange rates to rob its vault with such ease, and I'm the one who manipulated the members of the Wizengamot at their trial by using the Imperius Curse to acquit Markus Dolohov. I'm the one who sent the drones over Dumbledore's Army to make sure they didn't follow us. I'm no longer the puppet I once was. . . . Now I've become a Puppeteer myself, and I'm playing those despicable wizards like puppets!"

Now Harry understood why Roberts called himself a Puppeteer. . . . And who was responsible for the bitter conflicts and divisions in the Wizarding world that had plagued him and his friends for the past year. He felt pathetic that he had been unaware of this conspiracy for so long and that he had been, as Roberts had said, his puppet. It was a good thing they had Faraday on their side, who, like Roberts, was well versed in Muggle technology, which made up for some of their mistakes.

They walked in silence along the stream for a while. It was a path Harry recognized from Pete's memory, the one the boy had walked with his two friends after work at the factory. The creek, once polluted and floating with oil, had been cleaned up and now ran clear. Harry had a feeling he knew where they were going. . . . As he suspected, they passed an abandoned ballroom, then walked down an alley and finally came to a wide square that opened up in all directions.

Harry looked carefully at the changes in the landscape that had become so familiar from Pete's memories. Much of the square had been taken over by newly built brick houses, and what had once been a row of luxurious mansions — including the one the Dumbledores had once inhabited — had been replaced by five stories of peeling, dilapidated apartments. Beneath the apartments was a small, sandy playground, a ramshackle set of rusty horizontal bars, swings, seesaws, and other basic playing equipment. Nevertheless, a girl and two boys who looked no more than ten years old were giggling and playing happily on the seesaws.

"There he is — let's go," said Roberts. Only then did Harry turn to see where they were going. The huge willow tree that had stood there so long ago was still there. In fact, over the years, its trunk had grown thicker and the leaves that hung from it had grown lush, giving it a sturdy contrast to the decaying square. And someone in a cloak was leaning against the thick wooden trunk. Eisenbein's characteristic steel legs were folded up and hidden beneath the hem of his dark cloak, so that his silent figure in the shade of the tree was almost like a shadow, and if you didn't look closely, you would pass him by.

When Harry came along with Roberts, Eisenbein showed no sign of notice and just stared with his smoky face in a certain direction. When Harry turned to see where he was looking, the three children were on the playground. The girl was now giggling as the boys hung upside down from two different bars, their faces red and grimacing. Despite their filthy appearance and shabby clothes, they seemed genuinely amused.

"When I came back here after a hundred years, this neighborhood hadn't changed much," muttered Eisenbein. "A failing economy, poor families, and neglected children. Maybe the world itself hasn't changed at all. . . . Only we can change that."

"Of course, Eisenbein. And you wanted to know the names of those three children — I hacked into the social services and got some information." Roberts pointed in turn to a pale girl with black hair in a ponytail, a fat boy with dark skin and curly hair, and a lanky boy with oily brown hair wearing an oversized shirt that didn't fit him. "Their names are Emily, Muhammad, and Theo, respectively. They live in that rental house over there, and it looks like their parents are at work or out of the house all day and can't take care of them properly."

"Typical," said Eisenbein. "They'll get help from us when the time comes, like all the other outcasts. And this is —"

Only then did Harry realize that the blurred face was looking back at him and he cleared his throat. "My name is William Wimbles."

"Mr. Wimbles is a new recruit to our troop," said Roberts. Harry stiffened at the thought of Eisenbein staring at him longer than necessary, but finally he looked back at Roberts.

"What brings you here, Roberts? I'm sure I've told you before, do not disturb me when I'm here."

"Yes, I remember that, sir. It's just that our Healer just told me that Kowalski is going to die soon, and I thought you might want to see the poor boy off on his deathbed?"

"That's right . . . what a pity," said Eisenbein bitterly as he stood up. Steam issued from the steel legs under his cloak, accompanied by the sound of turning cogs. "Time to go, then."

No one spoke on the way back. Harry wondered how the Muggles on the street would react to Eisenbein's unusual appearance, so he checked every time he saw a passerby, but no one looked in their direction; some kind of enchantment must have been cast. It felt somewhat surreal to walk down the street in silence with his nemesis, the cause of all his suffering, but Harry did his best to play the part of the young recruit to fit in with William Wimbles. Fortunately, they made it up the hill and back to the factory without incident. Harry took another inconspicuous sip of Polyjuice as Eisenbein led the way through the front door.

"Here he is, Boss," Roberts said, leading them to a long white tent. Harry considered using the opening to sneak out, but Roberts gestured for him to follow and he was forced to step inside. The inside of the tent was lit by the sunlight streaming through the canopy from above, but the fetid smell of rotting flesh and the sounds of the moaning sick gave it an indelible air of death. They passed a few patients with relatively minor injuries, casts on their legs or arms, or bandages on their heads, and approached a bed at the far end covered by a white curtain.

As they passed the curtain, the man and woman who had come earlier and were sitting by the bed stood up. One was Robby Leach, her half-gray black hair wrapped in a net, and the other was Colonel Fubster, dressed in a black military uniform with a machine strapped to his back that twitched like a scorpion's tail. When Leach recognized who was coming, she bowed slightly to Eisenbein, and Fubster saluted. As Fubster's scorpion-tailed machine flashed red and clicked menacingly at Harry, who had followed Eisenbein, he turned quickly to see who was lying in the hospital bed. The man was in a terrible state, half of his body blackened, starting with his right hand, which was as black and misshapen as a burnt matchstick. Every time he struggled to exhale, he made a dementor-like grunting sound.

Harry recognized the man as Kowalski, a man who had fallen under a powerful curse when, while robbing the treasures of the lowest levels of Gringotts, he tampered with the door of a vault once used by the Lestrange family. But whereas he had looked fit and healthy then, his half-blackened face was now shriveled and wrinkled beyond recognition, and his slightly gaping mouth emitted a boiling sound of phlegm. Eisenbein pulled up a chair beside the bed and sat down.

"Kowalski. How are you?"

Kowalski looked up at the visitor, slowly opening his one good eye.

"Boss, you're here . . . " Kowalski said in a hoarse whisper. "I heard the doctors say earlier that I'm — I'm dying . . . that I wouldn't make it through the day." Kowalski began to sob, his skinny shoulders heaving, tears escaping from his left eye. "I-I don't want to die! I'm still young, I have so many things I want to do. . . . And I've only just begun to use magic —"

Kowalski's sobs grew louder. His whole body shook, as if his dying body was refusing to accept its inevitable fate. And Eisenbein's face, which seemed to be shrouded in a haze as he watched, was as unreadable as ever. Harry suddenly remembered that Albus Dumbledore's hands had been blackened in his last days by the same powerful curse of Voldemort that had made Kowalski this way. The sight of the cursed man's miserable condition made him think that Dumbledore had been wise to prepare for his own death in advance. Eisenbein watched the sick man until his violent sobs subsided. When Kowalski finally stopped heaving and collapsed exhausted, Eisenbein leaned closer.

"Kowalski. Your great-grandfather was an American, right?"

"That's right, Boss. He was a Muggle who ended up marrying a witch. . . . But I was born a Squib, maybe by his blood." Kowalski began to sob again, overcome with emotion. "I've been lonely and miserable all these years, and when I finally saw the light. . . . Now I could use magic and . . . "

Eisenbein again waited patiently until the sobs and painful murmurs of the sick man had ceased, and said, "Kowalski. Do you remember when we first built this factory? There was a boggart in the outhouse, attracted by the young wizards we had locked up here. You saw it and came running to me in a panic, remember?"

"Oh, y-yes," Kowalski stammered, "I was alone in the dark building, and suddenly this monster appeared! I-It turned into m-my worst fear . . . "

"Can you tell me what it was?"

"I-It was an o-owl. . . ." Kowalski closed his eyes and shivered. "It had a bunch of letters on its feet. They were my cousin's Hogwarts acceptance letters!" Kowalski's one good eye filled with tears again and fell onto the pillow, which had turned yellow from the ooze of his wounds. "But none of them were mine . . . because I was a worthless Squib . . . because I could never go to Hogwarts!"

Eisenbein waited until the sobbing had subsided before asking, "Then what happened when I went back with you? Remember what happened to the boggart?"

"I-It just d-disappeared with a bang, just like that . . . when you didn't do anything!" Kowalski struggled to open his better eye and looked up at Eisenbein with respect. "Now I understand why, it's because you're not afraid of anything, right?"

"Wrong, that's not why the boggart disappeared," said Eisenbein quietly. "It changed into the form I'm most afraid of and that's why it disappeared, do you get it?"

"No, I don't." Fubster, Leach, and Roberts exchanged glances with each other, as did Kowalski, unable to grasp what he was saying. But Eisenbein didn't seem interested in anything other than talking to the dying man.

"Nothingness, the state of nonbeing, emptiness. . . . That's what I fear most, and that's what boggart became," said Eisenbein. "In other words, what I fear most is that what I and my comrades are trying to accomplish with our lives will come to nothing, that we will have accomplished nothing. . . "

Kowalski nodded with difficulty as he listened to the words. Slowly, Eisenbein reached out his silver hand and took Kowalski's hand as it lay limp on the bed.

"Everyone dies," said Eisenbein, "and trying to deny it is just a waste of life! We all come empty-handed and go empty-handed, without exception, and nothing can stop that. . . . But while we're alive, we can do so many worthwhile things with these two hands. We can make the world more beautiful for those who come after us! We can make the golden sun rise with these hands, and the world bathed in its bright, warm light will be a whole new place. . . . A world where everyone can be a wizard, a world where no one has to suffer what I or you have suffered!"

"I-In that . . . w-world, sir . . . " Kowalski struggled to say each word, each one followed by a grunt. Still, in the face of death, his expression was no longer sad, but peaceful. "W-Will . . . there be . . . a l-letter f-for me? Will there . . . b-be an . . . o-owl f-for . . . me?

Before the answer could be given, Kowalski's head fell to the side, and the light in the one eye he hadn't closed went out. The smile on his half-blackened, twisted mouth hardened into a rigid line, and yet Eisenbein still held the dead man's hand as though he hadn't noticed.

"When the time comes, Mr. Kowalski. When the young sun of our creation rises and bathes the new world in gold. . . " Eisenbein leaned closer to Kowalski's motionless head, still holding his hand. "Then the whole world will be Hogwarts!"

"Sir," said Fubster hesitantly. "I think he's gone."

"I know, Colonel," Eisenbein said, looking into the dead man's calm face, "and it's the most trivial thing that ever happened to him."

Harry, who had watched Kowalski's demise with rapt attention, realized that it had been quite some time since he had drunk the Polyjuice. Determined to get away while the four Dawn Breakers were still huddled around the bedside, he slowly slipped behind the curtain and made his way to the outside of the tent. He had been in the factory much longer than he had planned. . . . It was a relief that he hadn't been discovered yet, but he couldn't stay that lucky forever. It seemed wise to call it a day and return tomorrow to search the place.

"Wimbles, stop for a moment." A voice from behind him made Harry freeze, and as he slowly turned he saw the cloaked figure of Eisenbein coming toward him through the awning. "I was told you are new to this place — let me show you something special. . . . Come with me to the secret facility."

Harry's heart beat fast. Silently, he followed Eisenbein across the courtyard. Sure enough, they were heading for an outbuilding with a huge red-painted door that was securely locked. Harry's mind raced faster than his feet, speculating on what might be inside. Could there be a powerful new weapon? Or kidnapped Slytherin children? If not, it could be hiding the gold and silver treasures stolen from Gringotts. . . . Either way, with security this tight, it had to contain something important.

Normally, he would have felt intimidated by such an imposing structure made of tin and secured by chains, but now that he was intensely curious to see what was inside, a pleasant excitement filled his body, like unwrapping a Christmas present. When they finally reached the outhouse, Eisenbein pulled out his wand and swung it at the chains. With a snap, the chains broke free, writhing like a living snake, moving from side to side until the massive red door hissed and slid open to reveal a darkened interior. . . .

Harry squinted to see more of it. The next moment, however, there was a clanking sound and suddenly the whole scene before him was gone. Not only had the nearby building vanished, but now he found himself standing outside the barbed wire fence that marked the boundary of the Wizarding Factory, and the latch on the entrance was securely locked with a rattling chain. And there, facing Harry from within the fence, was Eisenbein, pointing his wand at him.

"How did the Confundus Charm work for you? You've probably only seen it done on others, never on yourself, Wimbles. . . . Or should I call you by another name? Revelio!"

A cold sensation spread from the affected area where the spell had hit him, and at the same time, Harry grew taller and his clear vision blurred while his field of view narrowed. Soon Harry was back to his normal self.

"Harry, do you remember the day of Bill and Fleur's wedding? You were disguised as cousin Barny of the Weasleys, using Polyjuice Potion. . . " said Eisenbein, eyeing Harry closely. "But Luna Lovegood recognized you right away from just your expression, and now I see what she meant. . . . No matter how you disguise yourself as someone else, you can't hide your unique expression."

Harry's initial embarrassment gradually gave way to anger and humiliation at Eisenbein. And as he belatedly recalled that he had been caught and thrown out on the first day of his infiltration into the Factory, he felt an overwhelming sense of guilt toward his friends. They had put their trust in him, and it would prove to be another disappointment.

"What are you going to do now, Eisenbein?" said Harry coldly, staring at his enemy behind the barbed wire. "Going to kill me? If so, go ahead. I'm not afraid in the least."

"Oh, Harry — why should I? There was nothing in what you saw today that you shouldn't have seen. . . . In fact, I'm glad you did," said Eisenbein quietly. "Perhaps you also studied the memories you stole from me, and now you understand why I am doing this."

"No, I don't understand!" snapped Harry. "You tortured Ariana to make her bleed, and you didn't stop there, now you've kidnapped hundreds of children and turned them into cattle for their blood!"

"And yet you do understand me, Harry," said Eisenbein softly. "For you too were once in the position of suffering, in that narrow, filthy, spider-infested cupboard under the stairs. It was magic that saved you then, and now every child will be saved in the same way. . . . I don't care about the sacrifices required."

"But I do!" cried Harry. "It's my friends and family you want to sacrifice!"

"Is that why you came here? To save them from their fate — so carelessly, so unprepared?" Eisenbein shook his head. "You're not doing this for them, Harry. It must have been frustrating being trapped helplessly in the manor, and since you're not a wizard anymore, being reckless must have seemed a lot more bearable."

"You know nothing, don't pretend you do!" shouted Harry, although deep down he had the uncomfortable feeling that Eisenbein had seen through the truth.

"Remember what Hermione said about your godfather? She said that Sirius had become reckless . . . cooped up in his dreary house, unable to be of any use to the people he cared about, just like you are now," Eisenbein went on, ignoring Harry's protests. His calm voice betrayed no emotion, nor did his face behind the hood, like a settled mist. "Sirius wanted to feel involved, so when the opportunity to fight came along, he stepped up to the plate, and well, it didn't end well, as we both know. You'd better pull yourself together, Harry, if you don't want to follow your godfather's path."

With that, Eisenbein turned away. The hem of his dark cloak fluttered in the breeze blowing up the hill, and the metallic sound of his footsteps echoed as his steel legs hit the hard cement floor. At first, Harry just watched him walk away, but then a fierce anger welled up inside him. It was Eisenbein who had killed Hagrid and left him in this state, powerless to save anyone, and now he had the nerve to pretend to care about his safety, which was simply intolerable.

"Eisenbein! This won't end well for you!" cried Harry. "It doesn't take a wizard to know that, and you're going to get what you deserve for what you've done!"

The words stopped Eisenbein in his tracks, and the metallic footsteps stopped with him, and the surroundings suddenly fell into complete silence. He slowly turned back to face Harry.

"My end, Harry? Do you really think I still care about that?" said Eisenbein quietly. "Once upon a time, when I had a body, I thought that a few words of apology could undo the sins I had committed, but I learned at great cost that this was an illusion. I have done and will continue to do terrible things, and there is nothing I can do to atone for them, and I am well aware of that fact. I do not need you to remind me of that."

"Then why do you keep doing it?" said Harry through clenched teeth. "Why do you keep making innocent people bleed, why the hell?"

"I'll borrow a line Hermione told you a long time ago . . . call it a saving-people-thing, shall we?" said Eisenbein, looking Harry straight in the face. "I've already thought of my own punishments, for the terrible things I've done and will do. But the world will be a brighter, happier place than it has ever been, because my sacrifice will save all my kind!"

"Do not dare, to apply, the word 'sacrifice,' to such an evil deed," said Harry through clenched teeth. "You will never succeed, and I will stop you from destroying my world at any cost."

"And do you have the power to do that? Sometimes you have to have a look at yourself," said Eisenbein mockingly. "When I wandered the world without a body, watching helplessly as things happened, it was a time of such reflection for me. . . . You'll soon have a time like that." Eisenbein lifted his smoldering face to the bright sun that had just broken through the clouds. "When the new dawn comes, Harry, when the old world you so desperately want to preserve is shattered and the world of my dreams is here, I will give you back your Cloak of Invisibility. Then you will live as I have, hidden, watching this strange new world. . . . Completely helpless, unable to do anything. . . "

Eisenbein took one last look at Harry and turned away. Harry could do nothing but watch as his figure grew smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared behind a building. But unlike before, a small fire had been rekindled in his chest that had been cold for a long time, and he felt a fierce determination to fight his enemy. No matter what Eisenbein said, now was not the time to watch; now was the time to fight, and Harry, being what he had become, was ready to fight.