Wish Upon A Star

Godric's Hollow

Ron wasn't mentioned after that day. Harry would pull out the Marauder's Map and stare at it. Or just stare at Ginny's dot on it.

Hermione took Phineas Nigellus' portrait out quite often, for Ashlyn liked conversing with him.

The old headmaster considered Ashlyn a stupid rebel with unrealistic ideals, and Ashlyn considered him a short-sighted, old fashioned fool. Although they had different views, Ashlyn somehow spoke more with Phineas than Harry or Hermione. Phineas had let it slip that he'd rather talk with Ashlyn than answer Harry's and Hermione's questions. They had even ended up on discussing the school policies.

The weather grew colder and colder. They did not remain in any one area too long, so rather than staying in the south of England, where a hard ground frost was the worst of their worries, they continued to meander up and down the country, braving a mountainside, where sleet pounded the tent; a wide, flat marsh, where the tent was flooded with chill water; and a tiny island in the middle of a Scottish loch, where snow half-buried the tent in the night.

They had already spotted Christmas trees twinkling from several sitting room windows.

Ashlyn went out with he Invisibility cloak and snuck into a supermarket, scrupulously dropping the money into an open till as she left, hoping it wouldn't be stolen.

After a meal of spaghetti Bolognese and tinned pears, Harry spoke.

 I've been thinking, and —"

"Harry, could you help me with something?" Hermione cut him off.

 She leaned forward and held out The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

"Look at that symbol," she said, pointing to the top of a page. 

"I never took Ancient Runes, Hermione."

"I know that, but it isn't a rune and it's not in the syllabary, either. All along I thought it was a picture of an eye, but I don't think it is! It's been inked in, look, somebody's drawn it there, it isn't really part of the book. Think, have you ever seen it before?"

"No . . . No, wait a moment." Harry looked closer. "Isn't it the same symbol Luna's dad was wearing round his neck?"

"Well, that's what I thought too!"

"Then it's Grindelwald's mark."

She stared at him, openmouthed.

"What?"

"Krum told me . . ."

He recounted the story that Viktor Krum had told him at the wedding.

Hermione looked astonished.

"Grindelwald's mark?"

She looked from Harry to the weird symbol and back again. "I've never heard that Grindelwald had a mark. There's no mention of it in anything I've ever read about him."

"Well, as I say, Krum reckoned that symbol was carved on a wall at Durmstrang, and Grindelwald put it there."

She fell back into the old armchair, frowning.

"That's very odd. If it's a symbol of Dark Magic, what's it doing in a book of children's stories?"

"Yeah, it is weird," said Harry. "And you'd think Scrimgeour would have recognized it. He was Minister, he ought to have been expert on Dark stuff."

"I know. . . . Perhaps he thought it was an eye, just like I did. All the other stories have little pictures over the titles."

Ashlyn sighed.