"Stay here with me, Julie,"  Cinda said to Mum,  "I didn't wear the right shoes."

    I looked at Cinda's shoes and had to agree with her.  She was wearing four inch stiletto heels, and I'm not sure why.  She knows we get the tree every Christmas Eve.

    "I could transfigure those into sneakers, Cinda,"  Mum commented.

    Cinda looked appalled,  "My favorite heels?  I think not!"

"Um, is this an iPod?"  I asked.

    "Yes!"  Cinda said excitedly.  "All the teenagers have them now."

    "Er, ok,"  I continued to look at the box,  "These are for listening to music, right?"

    Cinda laughed,  "Yes."

"Oh Amy,"  Cinda shook her head as I poured myself a bowl of Cheerios,  "Can't you wear something a bit more, sophisticated?"

    "Would you rather I wear robes, Cinda?"  I grinned mischievously at her.

    "R-robes?"  Cinda visibly paled.  "No, I was thinking more along the lines of a skirt and blouse."

"If it doesn't turn out to be anything,"  I continued,  "Why in the name of Merlin are you and Mum so worried about it?"

    "Because of what might happen if it does turn out to be anything!"  Dad leaned forward and looked me in the eye,  "Now please drop it.  I assure you that you'll find out eventually if it turns out to be anything at all."

We didn't say much more on our way to my room.  It was odd because usually Olivia and I never run out of things to talk about.  My mind was racing as to how to tell Olivia I wasn't going to go back to school.  I couldn't put it off very long, but I had no idea how to bring it up.

I stared at her with my eyes wide open.  Was she insane?  Me helping with the party would be a one-way ticket to Mum's bad side for the remainder of time.  "Are.  You.  Mad?"

"What kind of laws?"  I asked quietly.

    Dad sighed,  "Awful laws.  The paper never elaborates on what kind of laws.  It just calls it 'stricter legislation' and people immediately think that's a good thing.  The fact is, that they aren't good laws."

"Figures,"  a large man wearing a horribly tacky Hawaiian T-shirt muttered,  "Always get in the line with the dodgy metal detector."

    "Is it going to take long to fix, mam?"  the large man's wife shouted.

    "I don't know,"  gum-chewing lady answered, not looking up from the machine.

"Well,"  Roberts clapped his hands together,  "I thought we'd start by a tour of the school and then we could talk in my office.  I would show you around the grounds as well, but there's a raging snowstorm out there, so we'll skip that."

    Mum looked relieved about this, but I kind of wanted to wander around in the snow.  I hadn't had a chance to do much with it yet.  I wanted to build snowmen and go sledding and all the other snow related stuff Uncle Jack had told me about.

Finally, the door to the restaurant opened and a very short man walked through.  He looked around nervously before resting his eyes on my family.  He walked over to us and I was able to look at him properly.

    He was older than Roberts and was kind of hunched over.  His few remaining hairs were grey.  He had a nervous look about him and his left eye kept twitching.  All in all he was a very odd looking man.

I paced around my awful bedroom wondering about what was going on at my house.  I wished more than ever that I was allowed to stay there over the full moon.  Would Lubar wait until morning to hunt down my dad?  Or would he show up as soon as Matt didn't appear at the Ministry center?  Or maybe he would just find Dad at work the next day.

Mum let go of Dad and stared at him.  "1,000?  That's ridiculous.  What do they think they're going to spend that on?"

    "Probably Gabishi's next campaign,"  Dad said bitterly.

"Amy,"  Mum began,  "Take your brother down to the pub and get a butterbeer or something.  We'll come get you once we're done talking about this."  Mum handed me a couple Galleons.  "Don't mention that article to him,"  she whispered.

    I had been hoping to listen in on what Mum and Dad said about the article, but I guess that wasn't going to happen.  I motioned for Matt to follow me and the two of us went back down into the nearly empty pub.

"I'm bored,"  I said.  "Why can't you finish that later?"

    "Because I want to get it back to Healer Sterling as soon as possible,"  Mum snapped,  "Now go find something to do."

    "There's nothing to do,"  I replied.

"Olivia's not allowed to visit me anymore, since her parents don't want her around Matt,"  I explained,  "And Mum and Dad won't let me visit her because her parents are prejudiced gits.  So we're never going to get to see each other again."

    Uncle Jack let out a low whistle.  "Wow.  That is tough."

    "Yeah, but I can't do anything about it,"  I muttered.

"Wait, wait,"  Richard held up his hand,  "What?"

    "A witch or wizard has Apparated into the house,"  I said slowly,  "They're downstairs.  We need to get out!"

    "Amy,"  Richard sighed,  "I'm sure there's a more likely explanation for this.  Why on earth would a witch or wizard Apparate into our house?"

"I just still can't believe I let that happen,"  Dad sighed,  "If I hadn't have left him alone in the living room, I could've stopped Lubar."

    "It's not your fault.  You shouldn't have to worry about leaving your son alone in your own living room.  No one could have predicted that."

Walking through the quiet house at that hour, I could almost pretend the past few months hadn't happened.  Almost.  The lack of furniture in a lot of the rooms and the empty places on the walls where the portraits had been told me otherwise.  The past few months had happened.  How many more times would I walk through the house at this hour?

Mari and Maddie soon grew bored of listening to our conversation and started running around the yard.  They stopped in front of Matt and noticed his crutches.

    "Can I try those?"  Mari asked. 

    "Sure,"  Matt shrugged. 

    Mari picked them up and bent low over them and began to awkwardly walk around the yard.  Despite the fact that Mari is only a few months older than Matt, she's a head taller than him and the crutches were much too small. 

It was a clear quiet night with hardly a hint of wind.  It was cool, but not cold.  The perfect night to sleep outside, I thought.  I realized that I hadn't snuck out of the house and slept in the yard in months.  Why was that?  I used to do it all the time.  This was my last chance.  I knew I wouldn't get any sleep inside, so why not?

  Dad led us all the way down the street and up the steps of a very large white building.  We walked through the door and into the foyer.  There was a long desk along either side of the room and numerous goblins behind them. 

Dad returned a few minutes later with shrunken furniture that had not been sold.  "So, this is it,"  he said quietly.

    "Yeah,"  I whispered,  "We're never coming back."

    "No, Amy, we're not,"  Dad replied,  "This part of our lives is over.  But we need to look forward, not back."

The room was about as dirty as the pub below.  The bedspread on the only bed looked to be older than the bloke who was running the place.  It was patched and frayed and missing some chunks of fabric.  There was no doubt in my mind that a goat had chewed on it.

"You should chop those lacewing flies into smaller pieces,"  Willinson announced and pointed to his own,  "Like mine."

    I glared at him.  "Mine are perfectly fine,"  I said shortly.

"What did you get on that werewolf essay?"  Monica, who had unfortunately picked the telescope next to me, asked.

    "100,"  I muttered.  Torro had given the essays back earlier.  It certainly had taken him long enough to grade them.

    "Figures,"  Monica muttered,  "Guess what I got."

"Why are you two so out of breath?"  I asked warily.

    "Erm, probably best you didn't know,"  Teddy muttered,  "So you can say you didn't know anything about it if you're asked."

    "We figured the library would be the best place to hide,"  Landon grinned,  "We'll blend in with all the academic types, like you."

I turned to see Samantha Meyers looking at me curiously.  "Oh, hi Samantha."

    "I had no idea you liked Quidditch,"  she said,  "Didn't you say you weren't a Quidditch person?"

    "Erm, I'm actually here to get my little brother a Christmas present,"  I told her.

"A year ago we were doing this in the bush behind your old house,"  Richard said as we began looking at trees,  "Things sure do change."
   
    "That they do,"  Dad mused,  "But change is good."

It was kind of exciting.  I was finding new parts of the castle!  I left the room and turned away from it.  The door disappeared.  I paced again and it returned.  Getting the door to materialize was so much fun that I did it over and over again until I was convinced that pacing in front of the wall three times was the way to get it to appear.

The House Elves left and Victoire and I waited near the door.

    “They just get you anything you want whenever you want?”  I asked.

    “Yeah,”  Victoire said,  “They love it when students come down here.”

There was then a very long list of the O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s that were required.  I turned to the last page of the pamphlet, which listed a bunch of famous healers.  One of the last names on the list hit me like a bludger to the stomach.

I counted every second in that ten minutes.  600 seconds went by.  Then I glanced out the window and saw the moon peeking out over the horizon.