The stone archway behind the Leaky Cauldron may have been the beginning of his venture into the magical world, but it was here at Ollivanders that his journey had truly begun. Harry could vividly remember the ever-growing amount of unsuitable wands on the spindly chair, while a gleeful Mr. Ollivander kept looking around for the best fit, muttering about tricky customers. He remembered feeling a sudden warmth as soon as he held his trusted holly wand for the first time. In its own way, the bright gold and red sparks had made magic seem more real than all of Diagon Alley and its amazing sights.

Now, his wand was dead. Gone, feeling no different from a regular stick of wood.

And he had come full circle. Right back to the place where it all began.

"Don't worry," he heard Sirius whisper, his godfather's fingers comfortably gripping his left shoulder. Harry would be lying if he said the gesture didn't make him feel at least a tad more reassured.

For two long seconds.

"But what if it goes wrong again?"

"You know what they say. Second time's the charm."

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Oh come on," his godfather tried, "people lose wands all the time. Every witch or wizard has lost their wand at some point, whether it's from a potion explosion or a spell gone wrong. Back in my day, hit-wizards always had a spare wand holstered to them, in case something went wrong."

"But that was because of damage, Sirius. How many of their wands just up and died?"

For once, Sirius looked tongue-tied.

"Look," his godfather tried again, "it was an unexplainable act of magic. A fluke. Exceptions don't prove the rules, Harry. They exist despite them."

It was a good argument, save for one single fact.

His life was one giant exception.

"Now come on, there's no point dawdling outside. Let's get your new wand."

Harry gave a passing glance to the single wand that lay on the purple cushion, in the dusty window they strode past. The sound of a tinkling bell immediately welcomed them. The towering columns of wand boxes reinforced the feeling of being in an old and dusty library-esque setting— though now that he noticed it, the boxes were of varying sizes, and the towering structures were asymmetrical at best and outright impossible at worst.

Magic seemed the likely culprit.

"Good afternoon," a calm, serene voice surprised him. Harry turned towards his right, just in time to see a familiar old man walking to the counter. His eyes shone in the darkness of the shop, and for the first time, Harry noticed the flecks of silver in what were otherwise deep golden-brown orbs.

But that wasn't the strangest part.

There was a wild sheen to the flecks, a semi-metallic refraction of sorts. He would've called it a trick of the light, if there was any light in that corner in the first place. The flecks synchronously faded for a moment, and then reappeared once more.

Inhuman.

Harry blinked, resisting the urge to stagger back as he wondered how he'd come up with that deduction of all things. Sure, something about the strange, chatty, nigh-omniscient wandmaker had always seemed more magical than everything else. But never before— not even back then, during the Wand-Weighing Ceremony —had he ever entertained such a fantastical idea.

And yet, some strange instinct told him he wasn't completely off the mark.

He glanced at the window, towards the signboard.

Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.

"You're just seeing phantoms, Potter," he muttered to himself.

"I didn't think I'd be seeing you so soon again, Mr. Potter." The wandmaker moved in closer, his unblinking eyes never leaving his face, as if the man was carefully studying each of his facial features. "But I have heard the news. Felt the changes. A very sad thing it is, to have one's dear wand perish in front of their own eyes."

Harry stared at him blankly.

Ollivander stared back, his eyes unblinking.

Why doesn't he blink?

Sirius cleared his throat.

"Ah, Sirius Black. Oak, dragon heartstring, fourteen and a half inches. Reasonably springy."

"Right as always."

It was then that Harry decided to speak. "I— Professor McGonagall told me that wands don't die and such."

"But I didn't say die, did I?" Ollivander answered. "I said perish. Often, the reason we have synonyms is to emphasize the subtle differences between two similar things."

Harry patiently waited for the man to continue.

"You are no longer the innocent, starry-eyed child who walked in here with Hagrid to meet your first wand. No, you have grown and changed. You have learned, loved, lost. You have known success and failure, regret and betrayal. And…" the man trailed, looming over him, mere inches away from his face, "you shall yet perish or master Death."

Harry gulped, and Ollivander took the moment to glance sharply towards Sirius. "I dare say another phoenix wand will not suit him any longer."

Something in him drowned a little. Harry loved his old wand. Holly wood with a phoenix feather. Eleven inches. Nice and supple. It was the twin to Voldemort's own, from what he'd been told. And most importantly, its feather had come from Fawkes, the phoenix who'd saved his life back in the Chamber of Secrets.

The fact that he'd no longer be using a wand made from his feathers left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Why is that?" Harry asked softly. Something told him he wouldn't like the answer.

"Like the cycle of destruction and rebirth, phoenixes are part of the world's order. They work best in the hands of people best suited for creation or destruction, sometimes both. People who become heralds of change. And nothing represents change better than a phoenix."

"But Harry had a phoenix wand before this," Sirius objected.

"He did, and now it has perished. An anomaly in wandlore, as great and significant as seeing a phoenix cut off from the cycle of rebirth. But you see, anomalies are interesting in their own way. They bring out an obstruction to the path of eternal change. They alter the rules, sometimes even writing their own. And there is one creature that represents anomalies better than all others."

Ollivander's eyes met Harry's.

Inhuman met anomaly.

"A dragon," Harry whispered. Hagrid was a good teacher, but Harry himself had done extensive research on dragons in his spare time. Symbolism had always driven Hermione crazy due to its ambiguity— he remembered listening to her ranting about it in the library a while back.

"Looks like someone pays attention in Magical Creatures," Sirius teased.

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Dragons indeed," Ollivander confirmed. "Most people tend to paint dragons as an image of strength, but a dragon's true essence is domination. Mutation. Rule-breaker. Anomaly. Its versatility is what allows dragon heartstring wands to be so suitable for a majority of witches and wizards, but seeing someone represent its function as an anomaly... Rare would be an understatement."

And just like that, Harry felt a sensation of whiplash as he was reminded of his first visit to the quaint wand shop. To the exact moment when Ollivander had talked about the connection between his first wand and the other wand, the one that had given him his famous lightning-shaped scar.

"How rare?" Sirius asked.

"Well," the wandmaker replied merrily, "I have only met two such instances before this. The first was Albus Dumbledore himself. Cherry and dragon heartstring. From a Ukrainian Ironbelly, if we are being precise."

"And the other?" Harry nervously asked.

Ollivander's eyes flickered to Sirius's face for a moment. "Bellatrix Black."

Sirius opened his mouth, but no words managed to escape.

Harry silently wondered who this Bellatrix person was, to elicit that kind of reaction from his godfather. He briefly remembered Sirius talking about his cousin Bella back in Dumbledore's office and wondered if they were the same person. Given the way his godfather had become deathly still, he assumed he was on the right track.

Later, he told himself.

"Ahem!" Ollivander cleared his throat. "Shall we get started?"

"That went well."

Sirius shot him an incredulous look. "Well? Well? What part of that went well for you?"

"The part where I got a new wand?"

Sirius looked like he'd just bitten into a bad egg. "Harry, it doesn't take a lot to coerce a wand to obey you after you've defeated its wielder. That doesn't make it a perfect fit."

Harry gave him his practiced fake smile. The nifty little thing allowed him to get past Hermione's questioning more than once in the past.

Apparently, it didn't fool Sirius one bit.

"Premier wandmaker my arse," he grumbled. "He couldn't even get you a proper wand."

Harry wanted to disagree. Ollivander had told him that any wand would work for him, so long as the core was a dragon heartstring. There were very few elements and natures that dragon-types were incompatible with, which was why dragon heartstrings were the most common wand cores out there. Just pick the heartstring of the right dragon, and you got yourself a compatible wand.

His own situation, as the wandmaker had told him, was a bit different. As unique as every dragon could be, all of them were perfect representations of anomalies, and as such, any wand with a dragon heartstring core would work for Harry.

The man had selected ebony as the wand wood due to its representation of protection by power, something that resonated well with Harry's own history as the Boy-Who-Lived.

Twelve and a third inches.

Unbending.

It was a good wand. Just as good as his Holly and Phoenix wand, in fact. But it wasn't the perfect fit for him.

No wand, Ollivander had stressed, would ever be the perfect fit for him.

He pulled out his new wand from his robes. It felt new and different and had a wild thrum about it, as if promising him great things so long as he believed in it. And all it asked from him in return was to let go of his old wand.

"I have a wand, Sirius," Harry repeated stubbornly, "and that's all there's to it. What were you talking to Ollivander about?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Sirius asked.

"Don't play coy," Harry retorted. "You sent me to Twilfitt and Tattings and stayed back with Ollivander. Now spill."

Sirius looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "Nothing important, really. Just asked him about what caused your wand to… y'know, die."

"Perish," Harry automatically corrected.

"Same thing," Sirius muttered under his breath.

"Anyway, what are we gonna do now?" Harry asked, reminding the older man that they were still in Diagon Alley. More specifically, sitting in the Leaky Cauldron.

Sipping butterbeer.

After that crazy talk with Professor Dumbledore, Harry had been allowed to pack his belongings— that Sirius had sent somewhere —before transfiguring his school robes into something a bit more… traditional, allowing him to blend easily with the crowd. Then, the two of them had decided to go shopping.

He'd been shopping before, primarily buying groceries for Aunt Petunia and Vernon. After joining Hogwarts, he'd also gone to Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade with Ron and Hermione. But this…

This wasn't shopping. This was… he didn't even know what to call it.

For someone like him who had literally grown up living on scraps, it was a culture shock to see Sirius embodying the ideal of 'prodigal son' to a tee. Whatever caught Harry's attention, Sirius bought it. If Harry so much as looked at something twice, he bought it. Hell, there was stuff that he'd never need in his entire life, but just a random question out of morbid curiosity and it was now his.

If this was how Lucius Malfoy raised Draco, Harry could almost sympathize with how the fellow turned out. No wonder he thought his father could solve everything.

And now, it was his turn.

After a spending spree that lasted over four hours, Harry and Sirius left the alley, with Sirius's wallet feeling a lot lighter. Apparently, the House of Black was an Ancient family like the Malfoys— older, if he understood correctly. And with that came old money.

Enough to make his very significant vault look like pocket change.

"Well, you see," Sirius looked a little embarrassed, "I have a home. In London. A big townhouse actually."

"Where I'd be living?" Harry's heart skipped a beat.

"Yeah. Well, living and then some."

"What do you mean?" he asked. "I mean, I can clean and cook the meals, but you'll have to give me some time to get used to London if you want me doing groceries and—"

He paused, seeing the blank look on his godfather's face.

"What?"

"Clean and do meals?" Sirius all but exploded. "You're my godson, Harry, not a bloody elf!"

"Don't let Hermione hear you say that," he warned, instinctively looking around for his bushy-haired friend. He didn't understand why Sirius reacted like that. He'd worked for the Dursleys his entire life, and even made his own bed and kept things in order at Hogwarts. Thanks to the school elves, he never had to deal with cooking or laundry, but that was because his parents paid all his tuition in advance.

Or something like that. Hagrid hadn't exactly been clear about it, just that his name had been registered at Hogwarts after his birth.

But what about muggleborns like Hermione? Surely her parents would have to agree to send her to the school and such. And the living arrangements for an entire year in a distant school in Scotland in addition to her personal expenses weren't exactly cheap.

Come to think of it, he'd never really bothered asking about such expenses.

Probably because Uncle Vernon never liked to discuss the subject of money during meals and the habit just stuck. Not that he had any meals with them in the first place. And the grumpy, bloated whale of a man constantly made it a point to remind him how much of a burden he was on their finances.

Some things, he just never discussed. Not even with his best friends.

"Hey Sirius," he found himself asking, "how much is Hogwarts's tuition?"

"Huh?

"How much is Hogwarts's tuition?"

"One hundred and thirty-three galleons per year, so that makes it roughly around…"

"Nine hundred and thirty-one galleons," Harry calculated in his head. "That's a lot."

"Not really," Sirius replied, shrugging. "My father once showed me the amount of money Hogwarts spends on a single student, and the annual tuition doesn't cover even half of it."

"Then... why?" Harry asked. It made no sense for Hogwarts to spend more than they earned. Unless… An errant thought popped into his head.

"The Board of Governors pays for it?"

Sirius chuckled. "Nope."

"The Ministry of Magic?"

Sirius shook his head.

Harry arched an eyebrow. He was running out of options.

"The Wizengamot?"

"I was wondering when you'd say that," Sirius smiled. "But no. The Board of Governors make substantial donations, but it's actually Hogwarts that provides for most of it."

Harry blinked. "Alright, you've lost me," he admitted.

"Not a fan of History of Magic, are we?"

"Have you seen Binns?"

Sirius snorted. "Point taken. But seriously—"

Harry rolled his eyes at the obvious pun.

"—That subject gets loads more interesting in your OWL year and above."

"Sure," he replied, with all the sincerity that statement deserved.

Sirius grinned knowingly at him. "Tell me, Harry. Do you know who the most paid professor at Hogwarts is?"

"Umm… Professor Dumbledore?"

"Nope. Pomona Sprout. Double the Headmaster's salary, actually."

"Huh? Why?"

"Put that thing between your ears to use and tell me."

Harry did. And there was only one answer that seemed remotely plausible. "The greenhouses?"

His godfather beamed. "Exactly. Hogwarts boasts one of the largest greenhouse plantations in all of Magical Europe, not to mention it's also the largest supplier of mandragora, shrivel figs, and bubotuber. In fact, Hogwarts has a freeholding license in the ICW as a business enterprise."

"This is all going over my head."

The Black scion laughed. "It means the ICW registers Hogwarts as a business."

"Not as a school?"

"Nope."

"But—"

"Have you ever wondered why you have four Herbology sessions every week, Harry? That's more than Transfiguration and DADA, right?"

Harry opened his mouth but then quietly shut it.

"It's 'cause Pomona Sprout uses the students' aid to keep the greenhouses fully running. And it's not just that. Every single thing at Hogwarts— from the contract with the mermen in the Black Lake to the centaur herd in the forest —all of that exists for a reason, and it's not always just magic and camaraderie."

"Okay, that all sounds very interesting, and I promise to look up 'camaraderie' in the dictionary later. But what's that got to do with less tuition?"

"Simple," Sirius smiled. "When you're a student, you work for Hogwarts as an apprentice. Standard contracts. Back in the early days, apprentices did all the housework for their masters. People like you and me, who have their tuition paid for by wealthy parents, aren't really expected to do anything, which is why most purebloods drop Herbology right after OWLs. For muggleborns, it stays on as a compulsory subject with extra work."

Harry suddenly became very conscious of the money pouch in his pocket, the one that held a thousand galleons of prize money. The Minister had declared him as the Winner by default, since both Krum and Delacour had been incapacitated and Cedric was, well, dead.

Frankly, Harry had a sneaking suspicion that the money was just another arrow in the Minister's quiver to paint him as Cedric's murderer.

Which he wasn't. Unexplainable magic be damned.

Still. He had known he was loaded, especially with the recent information about the Order of Merlin business. A single galleon had been enough to purchase the entire contents of the trolley cart back in his first year. In all his time in the Wizarding World, he'd come to spend roughly sixty galleons and change.

Compared to that, a thousand galleons was more money than he knew what to do with.

"Some other time," Harry muttered under his breath, shaking his head. All this talk about finances was making his mind foggy. Why didn't Hogwarts ever teach anything about it, like a class or something? Maybe he'd ask Sirius later.

Ask Sirius.

The very thought felt nice, in a strange way. Was this what it felt like to have a parent? To be able to go to someone and ask them when he didn't know something. To ask for food when he was hungry without ducking frying pains aimed at his head?

"—Harry."

His godfather's words jolted him out of his thoughts. "Uh, sorry, I was just—"

"Nonsense," Sirius waved it away. "Anyway, why are you wondering about all this now?"

"Uhm, well, I do have to pay you back and—"

The words died in his throat as Sirius gripped his shoulder.

Tightly.

"Harry," the man replied, his tone as serious as he'd ever seen, "I'm not Petunia Dursley, I'm your godfather. That means I stand in place of your parents to take care of you, to give you a home to call your own, to protect you from all the harm that comes your way. If I hadn't been so stupid back then, you'd have grown up with me, as your mum and dad would've wanted."

His voice broke a little.

"But what's past is past, let's focus on the present. My house is your house, and you have as much right to it as I do. Never forget, you're Harry James Potter, heir of House Potter, and if I have any say in it, a son of House Black. More than that, if I have my way."

"What do you—"

"More on that later," Sirius glibly replied, finishing off the last of his butterbeer and getting up from his chair. "It's getting late. Let's get moving."

After his sentimental words, Harry couldn't find it in his heart to deny his godfather.

Softly, his lips twitched into a lopsided grin. "Okay."

Ron wasn't the brightest of the bunch. Nor was he the strongest, or most adventurous, or most inventive. He wasn't a born bureaucrat like Percy, or doggedly determined like Ginny. If anything, he'd taken after his father, Arthur, and like him, he understood that he wasn't smart.

The thing was, when you weren't smart, you learned to pay attention. As he himself did. And from his limited amounts of knowledge, insight, and experience, Ron Weasley knew two things for certain.

First, no matter what anyone else said, Harry Potter was not a dark wizard.

And second, Harry Potter was not Albus Dumbledore.

The two statements weren't exactly unconnected either— they simply combined to form a single thought. One that was enough to tell him that the rumors about Harry killing fourteen people was utter tripe.

Ron knew the kind of person his best mate was. A bit too well, to be honest. Harry was humble, easy-going, and regardless of Ron's own accusations against him, he didn't actually go tooting his own horn all the time. The truth was, Harry Potter cared for the few friends he had, and could never stand seeing someone else in trouble without jumping in to save them, no matter what.

Like the Dark Lord, Harry was a parselmouth. Ron remembered shivering alone in the middle of the night, thinking back to the supernaturally spooky tone in which his friend hissed to talk to those snakes. He remembered feeling a sense of awe, jealousy and, not that he'd ever admit it, fear when watching his best mate cast curses and hexes like there was no tomorrow. There was this madness in his eyes whenever he got excited. Say what you would, but the boy of fourteen already had several deaths to his name before the Triwizard fiasco even started.

Quirinus Quirrell.

The memory of Tom Riddle.

Slytherin's Basilisk.

Not to mention the cool, cold-hearted way in which he'd sentenced Scabb— Pettigrew, to be sent to Azkaban for Sirius Black's crimes. Ron had a sneaking suspicion that if Harry actually decided to go Dark, the wizarding world would be in some real trouble.

But no. Harry wasn't a dark wizard. Nor was he Albus Dumbledore.

Which was why it baffled him that the newspapers painted him one way or the other, sometimes both at once.

Ever since the night of the Third Task, things had gone barmy. Dumbledore had appeared out of nowhere, carrying an unconscious Harry Potter in his arms. Beside him, a large, blackened log of wood— its sides slowly being chipped away —had appeared just as suddenly. It took him, and the rest of the crowd, several moments to realize that it wasn't actually charred wood.

It was a pile of bodies.

Dead bodies.

Dead, decaying, rotten-to-the-husk-and-falling-apart— those kinds of bodies.

Ron had immediately thrown up at the macabre sight.

"Ron! Don't just keep staring at the Daily Prophet like that. People'll think you've gone mental," Ginny chastised from the other side of the table.

Wha—

It took a while for him to realize he'd randomly paused during one of his favorite activities. Lunch.

"Ron."

"What?" he mumbled, stabbing his fork into a cubed potato with more force than necessary.

"You're not being yourself."

He eyed her as she popped a green Bertie-Botts bean into her mouth. An annoyed part of him hoped it was booger-flavored.

"'M fine," he waved off, trying to talk and chew at the same time. "Just thinking 'bout 'Arry!"

"Great," Ginny groaned. "Do you have to sound like that French tart?"

Ron blinked. "Who?"

"Fleur Delacour. Little Miss Perfect from Beauxbatons. Remember her?"

As if someone could forget a bird like her. He'd even gotten a kiss— on the cheek, though that was still more than he'd hoped for —from her. Even though he really had nothing to do with saving her little sister from the lake.

Ron's hand moved on its own accord, rubbing his right cheek as he ignored the way his sister rolled her eyes and muttered something uncouth under her breath.

"What about her?"

"Nothing."

He eyed Ginny again, as she continued to serve herself food from the veritable buffet in front of them. Ginny was, in Ron's eyes, one of those strange things in life best left unexplained. By Merlin, the girl could eat, but she somehow still remained as skinny and athletic as ever.

Must be all that Quidditch practice.

And of course, thinking of Quidditch made him think about his best mate again. The journey home on the Hogwarts Express felt weird this year. For one, Harry hadn't been there. On top of that, half the Slytherins chose to Floo back home from Hogsmeade instead of taking the Express.

Hell, even Malfoy had been absent.

And wasn't that just alarming?

An entire journey on the Hogwarts Express without Malfoy and his goons strutting down the aisle, trying to show them their place. It was practically a perversion of the natural order.

And yet, that was exactly what had happened.

Like he said, things became barmy.

Ronald Weasley wasn't smart, but he did know how to listen. And listen he did. Just the previous night, he'd overheard his parents talking about the return of You-Know-Who. Usually, it was him, Harry, and Hermione who would be in the midst of these kinds of things, but Harry had been comatose since the night of the Third Task. For all he knew, his best mate could still be in Hogwarts.

He doubted the Headmaster would be addled enough to send a comatose boy back to his horrible muggle relatives. What would he say? 'Here's your nephew, all fit and fine! He's comatose now, but I'm sure he'll wake up in a few days. Care for a lemon drop?'

Ron sniggered at the thought.

"Weirdo," he heard Ginny mutter from the other side of the dining table.

"Bugger off!"

Ron watched his sister as she made a weird, mocking face and stood up to leave, leaving him alone to his musings. It had already been a week since he'd seen or heard from Harry. He hoped everything was alright.

"What the hell happened to you, mate?" he whispered to the now-empty room. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Welcome to my neighborhood."

Sirius's exuberant declaration was answered by a blank stare from his godson, and a pair of crows that flew away cawing, obviously disturbed by his sudden and loud voice.

Harry looked around. Given the Dursley's obsession with cleaning and normalcy, he'd never actually been to any place that could be described as cluttered. Say what you will about Petunia Dursley, but the woman had been a cleaning freak and did her best to impart the same values to him. Of course, her method of instruction— a frying pan to the head —left a lot to be desired.

The neighborhood seemed to be stuck in a state of metamorphosis. Several buildings were undergoing renovation, while others stood half-finished. He could see dozens of sites with tarp, drywall and lumber all around. And in the middle of it all was a large box of grime and corroded rock, sticking out like a sore thumb. Knowing wizards, he had little doubt exactly which of these buildings belonged to his godfather.

"That," he pointed a finger at the clusterfuck of smog, dust and grime in the center, "is your home?"

He'd phrased it as a neutral statement, but he hoped the older man would notice the incredulity in his tone.

"Yup. Number 12, Grimmauld Place."

"Oh, it's grim and old alright," Harry deadpanned.

"I know she's a little dusty," Sirius replied, his grin nostalgic, "but she's the one. Other than the sixth year summer, which I spent at the Potters with your dad, this has been my home since I was little."

"That's not dusty," Harry scrunched his nose. "That's a big bag of diseases just waiting to explode. Have you seen this thing? How can—" he looked around at the other houses. "How has nobody done anything about it?"

Sirius chuckled. "That's because of the Mind Fog around it."

"The what now?"

"Mind Fog," Sirius repeated. "It's a ward, or rather, a curse on a ward. I'm not all that clear on the details. Point is, anyone but a guest of this building will find it extremely difficult to remember anything about this place, even if they're standing right in front of it."

Harry tried to bend his mind around that little tidbit. "So it's kind of like a giant notice-me-not charm?"

"Sort of," his godfather laughed, "A notice-me-not charm can be dispelled with a strong enough Finite, or if the caster is not paying attention or weakened. This? This is a curse, forever active as long as the wardstone— which is inside the house by the way —stays intact."

Harry blinked.

"Don't worry about the details," Sirius chortled, still staring at the building. "It's a bit of a wreck on the inside too, but between the three of us, we can get some house cleaning done and make it livable again."

Harry bobbed his head. Cleaning was one thing he had a lot of experience with. Besides, at this point in life, getting to clean might be the one normal thing he'd do in a wizarding house—

"Wait, three of us?" he suddenly asked, alarmed.

"I invited Remus to live with us too."

Harry smiled at that. Not only was Professor Lupin his favorite DADA teacher so far, but he owed a lot to the older man for teaching him the Patronus Charm. Besides, any friend of Sirius was a friend of his.

Still, he had one question still buzzing around in his mind.

"Sirius," he asked, "I'm not a guest. So how can I see and remember this place?"

"That's right, you aren't a guest," Sirius grinned. "You're family. And family is always welcome."

At that moment, Harry felt his heart lurch just a little.