Chapter 32: The Wards Don't Lie

On the last night of the summer term, nobody had to stand a watch, and Harry went up to the Boundary Gallery anyway.

He found the door unlatched.

He did not try it.

He went in, and the lamp was already lit.

Draconia was sitting at the table with her feet on a chair and a bottle of Georgina's father's cider between her knees.

"You're late," she said.

"The watch ended in March."

"I know. I put it in the minutes myself." She held out a glass. "Sit. I want to see how it looks."

He sat.

The table was bare.

The gold ring that had been the cradle lay in the middle of it, flat and smooth.

It glowed very softly, the way a coal glows when nobody is poking it.

Outside the window the ridge was lit from stone to stone.

They had not put a hand to a wand in three months.

"It's been two years," said Harry.

"It has been twenty-one months and nine days."

"You counted."

"I count everything, Peverell. It is my chief fault." She clinked her glass against his. "Drink."

He drank.

It was very sweet and very strong.

They sat for a while in the glow with the window open and the sea moving below.

The noise of the village came up the hill in snatches.

Somebody in the inn was singing.

It sounded like Vivienne, and Georgina had plainly given up on stopping her.

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