AN: Chapters slowing down as I have writers block still. Don't want to risk updating everything and make it so I can't edit previous chapters, but I also don't want to leave you all without updates.

Someone asked me about Harry's age, and while I will be going back and adding it to chapter one, I will also just say it here. Harry is 16 and Luna is 14-15.

Harry realized that he had been sitting in the same position for some time. He climbed stiffly to his feet, terribly tired.

The huge black cat moved silently through the trees to join them. "Hello," he piped in a warm, friendly voice. "The King says I'm to walk you to the Lodge." Harry jumped and gasped, feeling abruptly that he did have weak nerves, but Luna yelped in delight.

"Oh, Neville!" she cried. "You clever cat! You can talk!"

The large feline sat down. "Well," he said in an abashed tone, "I'm not really a regular cat." He turned his round eyes with their huge black pupils on Harry. "Are you ready to leave now?" he trebled politely.

Harry swung his arms, hesitating. It was still nighttime, or at any rate very early morning. He hated to leave the safety of the tree circle.

"I don't know, Luna," he said cautiously to his sister. "Maybe we should stay here until the sun comes up."

"You don't need to worry," Neville assured him earnestly. "I just look like a big cat, but I can protect you with magic. The King wouldn't have made me your escort if he didn't think I could handle the job." Harry detected a note of bewilderment in this last statement.

"Yes, well," he demurred, trying not to think about the extreme peculiarity of debating courses of action with a giant cat. "I'm not questioning your ability to protect us from ordinary dangers. I'm more afraid of your King than of anything else out there."

"Oh, you didn't hear him say he was going back to the Hill?" said the cat. Harry had a swift mental image of Tom sitting on some rough-hewn rock throne, maybe with spears crossed over it, presiding over a drunken revel of hooting goblin warriors.

"But what if he didn't really mean it?" he asked warily.

There was a tiny silence. The huge cat's pupils contracted in surprise, the round golden eyes full on him.

"You think the King lied?" Neville asked horrified.

Startled, Harry opened his mouth to answer and then shut it again. He thought of his goblin tormenter as his own private nemesis to rail against and loathe, almost like a monster he had invented himself. The idea of his having an outside existence, a reputation, and loyal friends had simply never occurred to him. He felt very peculiar.

"I—I—well, why don't you lead?" he stammered apologetically, and then fell into an embarrassed silence as they walked away from the old oak trees.

Luna walked beside the huge cat, admiring his thick black fur. "I had a cat where we lived before," she chattered, "a big ragdoll one. He was wonderfully fluffy, like a soft winter blanket. I miss him terribly. He had green eyes. I hope he's happy with the cook. She always gave him butter because she said it was good for a cat's coat. Is it? Could you always talk? Do all goblin cats talk?"

"I think butter's good for everybody," Neville avowed seriously. "I have a cat, too, a white one with blue eyes. She spits at me when I try to talk to her in cat. Cats can't really talk, at least I can't understand them when they do, except when they say things like 'feed me' or 'get away.' Some of the real cat goblins act like they can understand more. Oh!" he said as Luna tripped on a tree root. "I forgot you can't see well. Here"—and rearing back on his hind legs, he made a motion with his right paw. Harry was amazed to see a small silver orb appear in the air. It cast its faint radiance like a captive moonbeam on the shadowed path around them.

"Oh, Neville, you can do it, too!" Luna cried, enchanted with the reappearance of her favorite trick. The cat reared back on his hind legs again and gently batted the shining globe from one paw to the other, clearly enjoying the attention. The light threw silver ripples down his thick, sleek coat as it bobbed back and forth in the air.

"That's elf magic," he said proudly. "The King taught me how to do it, and nobody in the whole kingdom can do it but me and the King. Isn't it pretty? It's a little moon. Of course, it's not good for much when the moon's just a sliver because it's a sliver, too, and you don't get anything at all when the moon is new. That's how elf magic generally is. It's pretty to look at, but it doesn't really get you anywhere. I know lots. Do you want to see some more?"

At Luna's enthusiastic confirmation, he winked out the globe, and black shadow swallowed up the path. "I did that because this looks better in the dark," he explained. The huge cat held out his paws and swiftly tapped the path before them, shrilling out a few words of command. Nothing happened for a second. Then a soft glow emanated from the ground at Neville's feet as a tiny silver plant broke through the earth. Gracefully unwinding and arching through the air, it grew rapidly into a bush with shining silver leaves. Buds formed at the ends of its delicate branches and blossomed into a mass of shimmering golden lilies. The leaves rustled musically in the night breeze, and as the lilies swayed to and fro they tinkled like a collecton of tiny bells. Harry and Luna stared open mouthed, completely captivated by the plant's beauty.

"That's my best one yet," piped the cat. "The King says I do it even better than he does, but they don't always turn out this good. It must be because the moon's close to full. Elf magic generally strengthens with the moon. That's sort of silly if you think about it because you can't really count on the moon." The cat waved his paw through the unearthly apparition, and the glorious plant disintegrated into a sparkly snowfall. In a few seconds, its shining particles vanished with a quiet whisper, and they were in darkness again. The cat relit his tiny moon and started down the path, the silver globe bobbing along just above his right shoulder.

"I can do more than elf magic, of course," he added, padding along. "I'm good at goblin magic, too. It's lots more practical, like if you need to fight somebody or open a locked door. But I can't do any dwarf magic. Dwarf magic depends on stones, and they can tell if you're not dwarf. I'm not dwarf at all. The King can do some even though he doesn't look dwarf. Molly does dwarf magic a lot, and the real dwarves do it without even thinking. It's how they carry their loads and do their building and making. They're such little people, but they can do more with stone and metal than any giant ever could. They can just make the earth do anything." Harry remembered Molly bolting them to the ground, sticking them into place as if they had grown roots.

"Couldn't you teach me how to do a little magic?" Luna begged as she trotted to keep up with the cat. Neville laid his ears back a little.

"I don't think so," he said apologetically, "not if you're just human. Humans don't have any real magic. Molly says they don't need it. They live just like cattle, chewing up the land and raising herds of babies. Everybody knows they're God's favorites; they already get everything their own way. The only thing humans do that is sort of like magic, is make a goblin more human looking and make it easier for any offspring to breed. Elf magic could do the same but also much more. Elves and goblins got their magic from the First Fathers, and dwarves say they're related to rocks, so they just know how to ask rocks to behave. Molly says there's some humans who talk with the demons and get them to do things, but she says that's not magic, that's stupid, because demons always make sure they get paid better than they work."

The trees began to thin as they came within sight of the Lodge. All its windows were dark. Neville immediately put out the little moon.

"I'll be right here if you need me," he told them. "I'm glad it's not raining anymore. I have to look just like a regular cat all the time when I'm outside. We're not allowed to attract attention. Humans would think it was funny if they saw a dry cat sitting in the rain."

As he thanked the cat politely, Harry felt his head beginning to hurt. He was a little overwhelmed by all the help he had received that night from goblins. There was something deeply wrong in these unnatural monsters rallying around him, if only because the most urgent help he needed was some means to escape them. It made it very hard for him to decide how to battle them when they kept rushing to his aid. It was beginning to make him feel rather ridiculous.

Luna was feeling no such qualms. Tonight was without question the most thrilling evening she had ever had. Of course, she could understand Harry's outraged feelings about being a potential forced marriage—after all, who wanted to be married?—but goblin life obviously had its advantages. Pets, for instance. Even Neville was allowed to have a cat, and for heaven's sake, he was one himself! And he could work magic, too. Luna felt a pang of envy. All she could do was embroidery. A lot of good that would do her if she ever had to open a locked door. Nor could she imagine people standing around marveling at a display of needlework.

Considering her lack of magical abilities, Luna decided it was a good thing that the Lodge doors were never locked. Harry and Luna slipped inside and tiptoed up the stairs. Harry felt like lying down on his bed without even changing clothes, he was so tired, but instead he involved Luna in a whispered council of war. Luna told him what had happened while Harry was unconscious, and Harry told her about the goblin King's decision to bring things to a swift conclusion.

"This is it, Luna, I know it," he said urgently. "This is my last chance, and we have to make it work. We haven't tried to escape on foot. We might make it."

Luna thought about this for a second. Then she sighed, thinking of her soft bed.

"All right. Where are we going to go?" she asked gloomily.

Harry shot her a swift look of gratitude. "I don't know yet. We'll just go as far away as we can. Maybe we can get off goblin land in one day if we start early."

Luna looked extremely skeptical. "We can't even walk as far as Hollow Lake in one day," she pointed out, "and Tom said he stole his wife by the lakeshore."

Harry shivered at the thought of the poor mad bride. "We'll go the other direction, away from the Hill, and we won't bring anything but a picnic basket so we can avoid attracting attention. Go tidy up, Luna, and put on a clean dress. We can't walk down a country road with blood and dirt all down our fronts. But don't light a candle, or Neville will call the others. And don't wake up the aunts!"

Luna slipped out, and Harry changed quickly, wadding up the old clothes and stuffing it under his bed. Then he put on clean pants and picked out his other pair of shoes. He remembered losing one of his favorite pair in the woods. This was the second shirt in a week, too, that he had destroyed in midnight scrambles. He surveyed the meager choices left in his wardrobe and sent bitter thoughts in Tom's direction. Then he splashed water into his washbowl and washed the blood out of his hair. By the light of the setting moon, he surveyed his scarred forehead in the mirror. His earlier inspections proved true as he looked at the lightning bolt permanently etched in his skin.

Luna tiptoed back in, carrying her shoes. She made a face when she saw Harry.

"Why are you wearing that nasty grey thing?" she wanted to know. "It's way too big, and makes you look like you're wearing an old flour sack."

Harry felt that this was just the sort of comment calculated to undo his resolve. "I have far more serious things to consider than my appearance," he declared a little tragically. "I'm really beyond those sorts of petty concerns right now."

"That's good," said Luna. Then she brightened. "I know. If Tom sees you looking like that, maybe he'll change his mind." Harry didn't see any reason to honor this with a reply. He grabbed his shoes and headed down to the kitchen. He pulled out a small wicker basket and piled some provisions into it.

"Let's go," he whispered. "It's already dawn. We'll leave by the front door. If Neville's still where he said he would be, we can keep the house between us."

In a few minutes, they were hurrying down the gravel track through a rustling, dewy meadow, the forested hills to their backs now and the fields before them. Somewhere on these fields, Harry remembered with a sinking heart, the goblins had kept watch around their bonfire. He wondered just how far their magical kingdom extended.

The exhausted siblings stumbled along the pebbly track, stepping on their long shadows as the red sun rose over the Hill behind them. Harry's shoes were cracked at the toes, and his feet began to ache. He tried to turn over the events of the night in his mind, but it all began to run together and change. He was arguing with Tom. He was yelling at Tom, and Tom was laughing. Molly came and looked at his palm, telling Harry to be careful. "I see danger in this hand," she said, her brown eyes huge, "from someone very close to you."

Someone very close. Harry came out of his doze with a start. He heard the clopping of horses' hooves coming along fast behind them. Swiftly he grabbed the sagging Luna by the arm and glanced around for cover. There was none to be had. They were in the middle of a mowed field with not so much as a rock wall in reach. Harry's heart pounded as he whirled to face his enemy. What right, he thought furiously, did Riddle have to be out during the day?

The dogcart bowled into sight over a slight ridge. The old mare stopped a few feet from them and dropped her head, blowing heavily. Dolores Umbridge climbed down from the seat, her toad like face brick red with anger.

"Mister Potter," she remarked heatedly, "you are quite beyond our ability to handle."

She drove the siblings to the Hall in silence. Luna fell asleep on the way.

"Come with me, Mister Potter," she ordered, leaving the cart at the door. Harry climbed down and looked back at his sleeping sister, a lump in his throat. I've lost my last chance to escape, he thought. I won't see Luna again, and now I can't even say good-bye.

His guardian led him down the hall to one of the bedrooms. "I'm leaving you in here," she told him. "Ring if you need anything." Harry stared aghast at the elegant bedroom. It was on the ground floor, facing the dense forest of the Hill, and it opened out onto the shaded terrace via a pair of double doors. Almost the whole wall by the terrace was window, covered with lacy curtains.

"How long will I be staying here?" he demanded anxiously. His guardian paused in the doorway.

"I don't exactly know," she said ponderously. "I feel you are now a danger to yourself and to your sister. You'll have to stay in here until we can decide what to do about you. Padma and Parvati cannot deal with you at the Lodge."

Harry could just imagine a whole army of monsters assembling in the woods outside those double doors. At twilight they would come bursting in and haul him away, their weird goblin chieftain in the lead.

"Mrs. Umbridge," he begged, "please don't leave me in this room! At least put me on the second floor or in a room that doesn't face the forest. There must be bedrooms that are safer than this."

"Safer from goblins?" Dolores Umbridge asked sardonically, and Harry knew that the argument was over. He heard her lock the door as she left.

Exhausted and frustrated, Harry flung himself down on the bed to think. Ever since he had asked for his guardian's help, things had gotten worse and worse. She had practically accused him of insanity in front of his aunts, she had instructed them to throw him out of the house after dark, and now she had locked him up in a room perfect for goblin attack. Short of delivering him tied up to the goblins' front door, Harry couldn't think of anything worse she could do. Of course, he concluded miserably, she would say that she just wanted him to face his fears. He was pretty sure that was exactly what he would be doing once twilight came again.

Harry devoted some time to escaping, but the large, opulent room thwarted his attempts. He could find no way to pry open either windows or doors. The windows were nailed shut, and they held many small diamonds of glass cemented together by lead strips. He wasn't sure he could batter his way out with a chair even if he could risk the noise. The doors onto the terrace fastened together with a heavy bolt that slid between them, and the key was gone from the lock. Yet he knew that his solid prison posed not the least problem for the goblin King. Even his magical cat knew how to open locked doors.

The day passed very slowly. Harry tried hard not to think about what twilight would bring. Restless and lonely, he wandered about and studied the various diversions the room had to offer. Outside was a beautiful day. He stood for a long time at the window, watching the sun dapple the terrace. It's my last chance to see sunlight, he thought miserably. My very last chance.

When his guardian brought lunch, Harry refused to speak to her. He was finished giving her ideas on how to make him face his fears. If she was too well educated to believe in goblins, he wasn't going to change her mind. Tired out from worry and all the late nights, he lay down on the bed and fell into a doze. When he awoke, the room was filled with the shadows of twilight. Harry jumped up in a panic. What was it he had said to Molly? Handed over like a sack of potatoes. He couldn't bear it. He had to do something, he just had to!

How would the goblins attack him? They wouldn't hesitate to invade the house if they could do so undetected. They would doubtless make sure that he was unable to raise an alarm, and the easiest way to do that was to make sure that he was asleep. The King seemed to control sleep with a magical ease. Harry doubted he would even wake up until he was underground.

How could he raise an alarm if he were asleep? Harry looked about for inspiration. A large crystal lamp stood on a table by the hall door. If he could pull the lamp down as he was being taken out, it would make a substantial crash.

Harry quickly went to work. His light was going fast, and the shadows beneath the trees were getting thicker and blacker. He hastily ripped some long strips of cloth from his too large shirt that had so offended Luna's taste. It made a cloth rope about six feet long. He tied one end tightly around the base of the crystal lamp, then dropped the improvised rope over the side of the table and pulled it underneath. He brought a pillow from the bed and lay down next to the hall door. Then he tied the other end of his cloth lifeline to his ankle. Now if he moved away from his spot by his end of the table, the lamp would be tugged off its resting place and crash to the floor a few feet away.

Harry huddled in a furious pitch of suspense for the attack. He was as far as he could be from those ominous double doors, and he felt well rested and alert. Maybe he could raise the alarm before the doors were even open. When they came, he thought excitedly, they would find him ready to meet them.

Go to sleep, Harry. And that was that. One minute he was wide awake, waiting for the first hint of trouble. The next minute he was locked in a profound slumber. The doors swung open to let in the quiet sounds of the deepening twilight, but Harry slept on, trapped in a dreamless darkness beyond any possibility of action.

A loud knocking sounded on the door right above his head.

"Mister Potter," said Dolores Umbridge through the door, "a visitor has just arrived and is anxious to meet you. I'll give you a few minutes, and then I'd like you to join us."

Harry opened his eyes and stared straight into the glowing red eyes of the goblin King. Tom crouched over him in the dusky gloom. He already had his arms around Harry, about to lift him from the floor. Tom froze, glancing toward the door as Harry's guardian delivered her message. Harry tensed to shout, but Tom absently laid a finger across his lips, and Harry found himself unable to make a sound. As he twisted his head from side to side, trying to find his voice, he saw the goblin grin in amusement. Harry glared up at him frantically and jerked his foot as hard as he could, yanking the lamp to the floor just beyond them. It hit the stone with a terrific smash, spraying Tom's back with crystal shards. He turned, startled, to locate the source of the sound.

"Mister Potter, what are you doing?" Dolores Umbridge called through the door. "What's happening in there?" But Harry was still unable to yell for help. Tom tightened his grip on him. This is when he drags me away, Harry thought feverishly. In another second, he'll have me unconscious, and I'll wake up underground. Harry struck at him as hard as he could, clawing and fighting to break free.

"Mister Potter, answer me. What's going on?"

Tom had a number of solutions at his disposal, but it is hard to think or work magic while under attack. Harry raked his nails across Tom's head. When Tom grabbed the offending hand, Harry twisted and got an elbow into Tom's chest. He threw out an arm and banged the door. As Tom raised his hand to touch Harry's forehead, he sank his teeth as hard as he could into Tom's thumb.

"That's it, Mister Potter. I'm coming in there."

Tom pushed Harry away and sprang to his feet. Harry scrambled to sit up and banged into the door, throwing his head back to look at him. The goblin's face was twisted in a snarl of fury, his sharp teeth were bared, and his eyes blazed in the twilit room with an unnatural brightness. He raised his arms in front of him, the spidery fingers pointing out rigidly, dark drops clinging to his bleeding thumb. Harry ducked his head instinctively, bracing for the lightning, or worse, that would follow. He felt the hall door push against him, but he couldn't move for terror. The enraged goblin flicked out his hands, the fingers pointing away from him, and moved them apart in a slow, deliberate circle of the room. Pictures sprang from the walls. Knickknacks and vases leapt from the furniture. Bookshelves overturned. The wastebasket upended. The room was filled with the sound of smashing, splintering, and crashing, and the air was filled with flying debris. Tom glared down at Harry, his pallid face haughty, as Harry cringed and shielded his eyes from the exploding fragments. Then Tom spun on his heel and walked rapidly from the room. As he passed through the open doors, he made a casual gesture. The doors slammed shut behind him with an unearthly force, and the glass from the whole expanse of window fractured and fell in.

Harry staggered to his feet and watched him disappear into the shadow of the trees as the hall door swung open behind him. Dazed, he looked around at the wreckage. Twisted picture frames and powdered ceramic covered the floor. Books cascaded out of broken shelves, and bits of window glass spangled the Oriental rug.

"Extraordinary!" he heard a voice murmur behind him. Harry turned to find two people standing in the doorway, staring at the scene before them with open mouths. His guardian, her toad face bloodless, clutched the door frame with both stubby hands. As his gaze fell on them, she made an attempt to push herself upright.

"Mister Potter," she said, her voice unsteady, "meet Dr. Kingsley Shacklebolt, head of the Westcross Asylum."

Harry turned around again and looked out at the black forest, delighted and amazed. He had faced the goblin King alone and had beaten him! He had been set out like bait in a trap with no friends, no weapon, and no magic, and he was still standing free in the moonlight while Tom headed back to his horrible caves. He wanted to whoop and shriek, to yell insults into the darkening night. Instead, he calmly turned around and faced the two adults.

"There's been some kind of explosion," he said, studying the doctor with cool curiosity. "Look, the windows blew in. Do the rooms next to this one have broken windows, too?"

Dolores Umbridge didn't seem to have heard the question. She had wandered a few steps into the room and was staring around in shock. Harry felt a smug amusement. If his pompous guardian found a little thing like this so upsetting, he could just imagine the look on her face if she saw the goblin King himself.

"I don't think we know," said the doctor briskly. "Mrs. Umbridge, why don't we check the other rooms for damage?" His guardian glanced around distractedly and followed the doctor out. As soon as they left, Harry bent and untied the knot from his ankle. He was just standing up and surveying the ripped cloth when Mrs. Figg appeared in the doorway.

"What happened?" she gasped. Harry attempted to tie the cloth around his waist.

"I don't know, Mrs. Figg," he said calmly. "Some kind of explosion. The adults were just checking on things."

The housekeeper's face sagged. She turned frightened eyes on Harry.

"It's them, isn't it, that did it?" she whispered darkly.

Harry patted the torn cloth into place and strolled past the housekeeper into the lighted hall.

"I really don't know what you're talking about," he replied.

Later, sitting in the study, he sipped his tea and surveyed his new combatants with serene assurance. He had just defeated a goblin with his own bare hands. The head doctor of a lunatic asylum couldn't possibly frighten him now.

Actually, Dr. Shacklebolt didn't look very frightening. He didn't look as if he would want to be. A fit, dark-skinned man of around forty, he had an agreeable, fatherly face and seemed interested in everything. Harry would have loved to tell him about his fight with Tom. Dr. Shacklebolt would have found Tom fascinating. But he had no desire to be locked up in an insane asylum, so the truth would have to wait until he was alone with Luna.

"The other rooms weren't damaged in the slightest," Dr. Shacklebolt was saying. "Have you any idea what might have caused it, Mister Potter?"

"None at all," Harry answered readily. "I went to the door to respond to your knock. Then there was a devastating crash, and I hid my face and tumbled to the floor. Could it have been a prank, do you think? One of the stable boys playing with gunpowder or coal dust? I hope no one blew a hand off!"

Harry's guardian stared at him. "I don't know," she said unsteadily. "I'd rather not discuss it now. Mister Potter, I've been to see Dr. Shacklebolt about you, and he very much wanted to meet you. He's interested in your goblin visitor."

"Oh, do you study goblins?" Harry asked.

"I'm afraid I don't know much about them," admitted the doctor with a smile.

"Then we'd better call Mrs. Figg," Harry suggested. "She can tell all sorts of wonderful tales about them. Did you know that her grandparents actually believed goblins existed? Elves, too. Isn't that charming?" He smiled at the adults. They stared back, a little nonplussed.

"Now, wait just a minute, Mister Potter," said Dolores Umbridge with a frown. "I just heard a story from your sister this afternoon stuffed chock-full of goblins. The goblin King was coming to drag you away."

Harry fixed his guardian with a surprised stare. "And you believed her?" he asked in astonishment. The doctor turned his interested eyes from him to Umbridge, whose pale cheeks flushed a bright pink.

"Mister Potter," Dolores said sweetly, "you yourself said you were in terrible danger, and you begged me to send you away. You said the goblins were coming to drag you off, just like Adele Umbridge in the story."

Harry shrugged. He wished that Tom were there to see him. If lying was for humans, then by all means, let him lie.

"But I never thought you'd believe it," he said artlessly. "I thought adults knew that goblins couldn't exist."

His guardian rose from her chair and began pacing the floor. "What about that strange creature you saw the night of the storm? What about your hysterical dash through the door? Padma and Parvati practically had to revive you."

"I certainly didn't invent that," Harry assured them. He turned to Dr. Shacklebolt. "My sister Luna and I got lost in a stormy night, and we stumbled onto a camp of Gypsies. An old woman told my fortune for me, and a Gypsy guided us home. He told us all kinds of terrible stories as we walked through the night, and he was entirely muffled in a black cloak and hood. When we arrived at the house, he pulled back the hood so I could see his face. Now, Aunt Padma says that if I saw him during the day, I would have thought he looked strange, but after that frightening walk and all those stories, I was terrified. It seems funny now. In fact," he added bitterly, "I know he enjoyed scaring me into fits." He smiled at Dr. Shacklebolt, who chuckled. His guardian looked thunderstruck.

"But what about the nightmares?" she demanded angrily, pacing before the fireplace. "What about staying out all night? What about running away from home?"

"I can't deny the nightmares," Harry answered. He turned to the doctor. "I know they worried my poor great-aunts. They're quite unused to the trials of parenthood. All three of my guardians are new to children, you know. And it's true that we were away from home late last night. My aunts and Mrs. Umbridge decided it would be good for my nerves to walk from one house to the other in the dark. Of course, we protested quite vehemently. You have to remember the shocking Gypsy we'd met just a couple of nights before. He could have been roaming the woods. And as a matter of fact, we were chased."

"By goblins," suggested Umbridge, looking over her charge meaningfully.

"No!" insisted Harry, frowning at her as if she were a slow pupil. "We were chased by a couple of hum- I mean, farm boys, out for a moonlight ride. They must have been playing a joke on us. Maybe they knew you and the aunts were going to send us out on a ghost walk." He looked at his guardian, and Dr. Shacklebolt did as well. Suddenly and inexplicably, Dolores Umbridge's blush deepened to a dull, unhealthy red.

"We lost them at the tree circle," continued Harry, "and we rested there to catch our breath. It was so beautiful and peaceful there under the moon and stars." He paused, remembering the unholy purple lightning and whipping winds. "I'm afraid we just fell asleep. When we woke up, it was so late that we went back to the Lodge because it was closer, and the aunts were already in bed. But I don't know why you thought we tried to run away. We were just heading out to the meadow with a picnic basket."

Dr. Shacklebolt turned to Harry's guardian. "They had only a picnic basket?" he asked. "No clothes, no belongings?"

Dolores Umbridge looked as if Harry had personally insulted her. "Mister Potter, I warn you," she said, gasping with rage. "I know you're lying, and you know it, too. You know you believe in goblins, and you know you aren't rational about them!" She glared at Dr. Shacklebolt. "He isn't! He isn't rational! He's insane!"

Harry stared at the toad like woman in complete amazement. He had never seen her so angry before. She'd been worried that he was making a break with reality, but she didn't seem at all pleased that he'd rejoined it. He fell silent, unwilling to embarrass her with any more lies. Dr. Shacklebolt looked from the enraged woman to the astonished young man, and his gaze turned thoughtful.

"Mrs. Umbridge," he said soothingly, "I'm very glad you've asked me to come tonight, and I'm enjoying the conversation immensely, but I think it would help my examination of your ward if we had a few moments alone."

Dolores Umbridge subsided and left the room. Dr. Shacklebolt turned his kind eyes on Harry.

"Mister Potter," he said thoughtfully, "your story does make a certain sense, but Mrs. Umbridge mentioned other factors that are hard to explain as high spirits and pretend games: poor sleep, loss of appetite, and a feeling of being watched. In spite of your cheerfulness, you do appear rather thin and pale. I can see that your guardian would be a little difficult to confide in." He chose his words with care. "Is there anything that you would like to tell me about? Anything that's been troubling you?"

Harry squirmed a little. It was one thing to lie to Umbridge, whom he disliked. It was quite another thing to lie to this friendly, likable man. But he was a doctor who worked with insane patients. If he told him about Tom, he would decide that his asylum was the best place for Harry to be.

"You know I lost my parents a few months ago," he began.

"Of course," Dr. Shacklebolt said gently. "It must have been a terrible shock, and yet they tell me that when you first came here, you were doing very well. Your problems didn't start until later."

"Did my guardian tell you that she's not really related to me?" he asked sadly. "I am the result of an adoption several generations back. We supplanted Mrs. Umbridge's side of the family, and she's quite bitter about it." He sighed. "She probably didn't think it was important when she told me that story, but my nightmares and poor appetite started then. It hurt to find out that I have no real family left, and that an adoption like that of my sister had caused such bitterness in the past."

Dr. Shacklebolt leaned back and nodded gravely. "I was afraid of something like this," he said. "It explains a great deal. Mister Potter, I don't think you need to worry about insanity. You seem to be facing your problems very well. I can't help feeling disappointed, though," he added, smiling ruefully. "When I saw the wreckage in that bedroom tonight, I really thought I was on to something."

"What do you mean?" asked Harry.

"I help people who are insane," he declared, "but I do look for special cases. You see, there's so much about the mind that we don't understand. Sometimes, in great stress, people do things that are well beyond their physical powers, and sometimes insane people do them, too. It's as if, not knowing what reality is supposed to be, they can go beyond those limits that we accept for ourselves."

"Do you mean they can work magic?" Harry wanted to know.

"Well," chuckled Dr. Shacklebolt, "I suppose you could call it that. I would say that they can do the extraordinary and inexplicable because they accept it as part of their world. For instance, we have a woman in the asylum who thinks she's a rabbit. I have had specialists study how far she can jump. It's amazing to watch. Another patient thinks she's two completely different people. She crushed her foot one day, and we found her walking around on this badly damaged foot normally and without the least sign of pain. Why? Because she claimed that the other of her two selves had broken her foot. The person she was at the moment was perfectly well."

Harry smiled. "So when you saw all the broken glass and torn-up furniture, you thought that I had done it," he said. Dr. Shacklebolt nodded. "I'm sorry to disappoint you. I didn't do it, and I don't think I could do it, either."

Several hours later, Harry snuggled down comfortably in bed. Yes, he was still at the Hall, and yes, his indignant guardian had locked him in again. He was once more in a ground-floor bedroom with double doors leading onto the terrace. The designers of the Hall's fashionable newer wing hadn't exhibited much creativity from one room to the next. But he and Dr. Shacklebolt had talked until early in the morning, and a new day was not far off. He had vanquished two different enemies on two very different fields of battle. Neither one was gone for good, but that was a problem for tomorrow. Today had been simply glorious, and he would take care of tomorrow when it came.

A knock at the door roused him in the late morning, and Dolores Umbridge entered the room. But this was not the pompous woman he had infuriated the night before. Her eyes were large and grave, and her manner was uncertain.

"Mister Potter, I'm terribly sorry," she said hesitantly. "I realize now that I should have believed you. You said you were in danger, but I never dreamed it might be real." Harry sat up, alarmed.

"I'm afraid it's your sister," she explained awkwardly. "Luna has completely vanished."