Until three days before the end of the term, Ron and Hermione were finally allowed to leave the hospital wing and officially begin their leisurely time after the exams ("Are you kidding me? The grade reports are probably almost sent home already!"). Professor McGonagall also recovered smoothly and returned to Hogwarts, receiving a warm welcome from the Gryffindors. Of course, the farewell ceremony prepared for Umbridge was even warmer. I guess Umbridge originally wanted to leave Hogwarts quietly when no one was paying attention, but Peeves spotted her dragging her suitcase on the way. It seized the last opportunity to carry out the instructions of the Weasley twins, happily hitting her alternately with a walking stick and a sock filled with chalk, and also snatching away her hat and suitcase and suspending them in mid-air. Many students jeered while watching her run awkwardly, covering her head where sparse hair had just grown out. They let out satisfied laughter when she almost fell into the remaining small patch of swamp (Professor Flitwick had deliberately left a bit as a souvenir, saying that this was also remarkable magic). Although Professor Dumbledore had just resumed his position as headmaster and announced the reinstatement of the prefect system, neither the heads of each house nor the prefects from other houses except Slytherin, who had put on their badges again, seemed very eager to reprimand everyone for making a lot of noise in the corridor. Ron almost laughed so hard that he got a cramp in his side, and Hermione gave him a disapproving look.
The hourglasses that recorded the scores of each house no longer had gems only for Slytherin. The first thing Professor McGonagall did when she came back was to award points to all the students who had participated in reminding everyone that the Dark Lord had returned. Taurus said, "I've never earned so many points for Gryffindor in one go. Maybe I've deducted that many in one go before." According to Neville, Draco had tried to cause him trouble a few times, but it was obvious that Neville was no longer the third-year student who had clumsily fallen into the mud and couldn't even use Scourgify properly. In his words, "If you had seen the Disarming Charm and Shield Charm I cast on him, you would definitely be proud of D.A."
"You seem to have completely stopped caring about things related to the Malfoy family," Hermione said after observing my expression for a while after Neville went back to the dormitory. "I know I shouldn't be happy about this kind of thing... but I'm really quite glad."
"I can't completely stop caring about things related to him. It's like I've realized that it seems impossible for me to get back all the things related to me from him, and it's also very difficult for me to throw away all the things related to him that I have here. If I did that, there would be nothing in my childhood worth remembering," I thought of the dress robes that were still hanging at the very back of the wardrobe when I was packing my luggage. They were still brand new and showed no signs of ever having been worn. "But I've realized that everyone needs to take responsibility for their own choices, and taking responsibility means having to bear the consequences... And to be honest, his father never liked me. I don't need to feel sorry for him being sent to prison for working for the Dark Lord."
"What about you and Harry?" Hermione looked at the boys who had already packed up and were ready to go downstairs to the end-of-term dinner. "Are you still going to maintain the current situation?"
"The current situation... doesn't seem so bad," I said, awkwardly avoiding Hermione's gaze. I remembered that she had always hoped that I could have a talk with Harry. "I just don't think it's a good time! There are so many more important things to consider... He has even more things on his mind than we do. You've also said that he must be hiding something important from us, and this thing might even be related to the Dark Lord."
"I was just asking casually," she patted me on the shoulder. "This is a private matter between you two."
The journey home on the Hogwarts Express was much calmer compared to the whole turbulent school year before. Many members of D.A. enthusiastically came into our carriage to greet us as they passed by. We listened to them chatting animatedly and suggesting what activities we could carry out in the next school year. Although Harry kept emphasizing to them that there probably wouldn't be another teacher next semester who wouldn't allow us to use our wands in class, they still seemed to miss the time of secretly practicing Defense Against the Dark Arts in the Room of Requirement this year.
"I heard that you broke up with that Michael Corner?" Ron asked Ginny, who was doing the quiz in The Quibbler, with unusual excitement.
"Yeah, because he kept pulling a long face all day and chattering on about how Gryffindor only beat Ravenclaw in the Quidditch match by luck, so I dumped him," Ginny rolled her eyes. "And then he went to comfort Cho Chang right away. I have to say that sometimes your judgment of people is quite reliable."
"Cho Chang?" I asked in confusion. "Wasn't she Cedric's girlfriend?"
"They seem to have broken up, or had an argument and haven't made up yet," Ginny said vaguely. "It seems that none of you are interested in gossip. This matter has been spreading quite widely. Before, Cho Chang's friend informed on Cedric, which made Umbridge directly remove him from the position of the male student council president. Mr. Diggory thought that his son's future in the Ministry of Magic was also ruined, and then he sent Cho Chang a letter with a not-so-nice tone—some people also said that this didn't happen, and it was just a regular peaceful breakup during the graduation season. It's not strange, like they'll be working far apart, or have different life plans, every year during graduation..."
"Find someone better next time," Ron puffed up with pride immediately when he heard Ginny praise his ability to judge people. "Consider this as a lesson."
"Exactly. I've chosen Dean Thomas. Don't you think he's better?" Ginny said absently as she turned the page of The Quibbler. The few of us tacitly covered our ears to block out Ron's furious roar that was about to come the next second.
King's Cross Station was still crowded with parents coming to pick up the students, but they were no longer chatting leisurely about the awful weather in London as they used to. The adults' faces were clearly filled with anxiety and panic, and they couldn't wait to take their children home quickly—to a place that seemed safe for the time being.
Mrs. Potter's eyes welled up with tears when she saw Neville. She hugged him tightly and stroked his hair. Neville, on the other hand, seemed much calmer. He reached out and patted Mrs. Potter on the back, telling her that everything was okay.
"Your father couldn't come. He's really too busy!" Mrs. Potter then remembered that her son was still standing beside her. She also pulled him over and ruffled his hair casually, wiped the corners of her eyes and said to Harry, "Those people in the Ministry of Magic, when they have nothing to do, they just pour buckets of dirty water on us. Now they're acting as if nothing ever happened—"
"Fiona," Mrs. Black pursed her lips and reminded her. "There might be reporters mixed in around here. You need to think about James when you speak now." "I know, I know, but I really don't want to... forget it, let's not talk about this. Let's go home quickly!" Mrs. Potter took Harry's arm and nodded politely at me and my mother.
"Mom will send you home and then go back to work," Mom reached out and smoothed my stray hairs. She had been forcefully transferred back to the Auror office by Mr. Potter the first moment. "Come on, say goodbye to your friends, and let's go home."
When writing this volume, due to the fact that it was being serialized, I received a lot of reader letters forwarded to me by the publisher. Many people thought that my description of the Ministry of Magic's interference in Hogwarts back then was a serious criticism, and they used this to argue that there might be some problems in my marriage with my husband, who is an important official in the Ministry of Magic. So I was using old stories to tempt readers to have a negative view of the Ministry of Magic, in order to gain the upper hand in public opinion when it came to the division of property in case of a future divorce. In response to this, my husband said that the imagination of these readers is really amazing. He said that he hopes that the letters with this kind of view had better not be anonymous, so that he can introduce the names of the letter writers to Luna Lovegood, the editor-in-chief of The Quibbler, to solve the problem of the shortage of special columnists there.
Sometimes I think about the significance of writing down these old stories. When I write up to here, I find that I may not just be simply following the publisher's suggestion to write "some things that everyone has always been concerned about but haven't been clearly explained" while recuperating. It's also not like what some critics said, "to warn everyone not to forget the pain of the war." To be honest, the survivors of the war want to get rid of the past and start a new life more than anyone else. We have already spent too much time going through those pains, and we don't want the people born in the new era to continue to bear those pains for us. But I hope, just from my personal perspective, I hope to tell you that the numbers written in A History of Modern Magic are not just test points that need to be memorized, and the names engraved on the monuments are not just rows and rows of cold engravings. They really existed in this world. At that time, they were not heroes, but the most ordinary people with joys, sorrows, anger, and pleasures. They should have had a life with some ups and downs like everyone else now. I don't want you to make speculations about them in a way that attracts attention, and I don't want you to deify their sacrifices with flowery but impractical writing. I just hope that you can understand that they were once fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, lovers, brothers, and old friends. Like all the people living in the peaceful era now, they once looked forward to and hoped for the future, but their futures came to an abrupt end.
As for the issues of the next volume's serialization and the publication of the single-volume book that everyone is concerned about, at the request of the publisher, I would like to clarify here that the publication rights of this series of books have not been authorized to any third-party publishers. Any advertisements with content such as "collector's edition" and "signed edition" are suspected of false promotion. The revision of the single-volume book is still being communicated with the publisher. It is expected that the first batch of copies will arrive at Flourish & Blotts this Christmas. The next volume should still be serialized. As for when it will start, my husband said that he wants to take the whole family on a vacation first. I hope everyone can understand that we also need some family time. And I hope that everyone will stop sending him letters like "Is your wife's emotional entanglement in the past bothering you?" (I also don't understand why everyone seems to be more interested in my emotional life in the past than in the things that happened later). He said that he will reply here collectively. Of course, he was bothered before, but he finally chose to respect everything that has happened.
Well, see you in the next volume.