‘Goyle's mum'll be really pleased, though,

‘Goyle's mum'll be really pleased, though,’ said Ron, who had come to investigate the source of the commotion. ‘He's loads better-looking now ... anyway, Harry, the food trolley's just stopped if you want anything ...’

Harry thanked the others and accompanied Ron back to their compartment, where he bought a large pile of cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties. Hermione was reading the Daily Prophet again, Ginny was doing a quiz in The Quibbler and Neville was stroking his Mimbulus mimbletonia, which had grown a great deal over the year and now made odd crooning noises when touched.

Harry and Ron whiled away most of the journey playing wizard chess while Hermione read out snippets from the Prophet.It was now full of articles about how to repel dementors, attempts by the Ministry to track down Death Eaters and hysterical letters claiming that the writer had seen Lord Voldemort walking past their house that very morning ...

‘It hasn't really started yet,’ sighed Hermione gloomily, folding up the newspaper again. ‘But it won't be long now ...’

‘Hey, Harry,’ said Ron softly, nodding towards the glass window on to the corridor.

Harry looked around. Cho was passing, accompanied by Marietta Edgecombe, who was wearing a balaclava. His and Cho's eyes met for a moment. Cho blushed and kept walking. Harry looked back down at the chessboard just in time to see one of his pawns chased off its square by Ron's knight.

‘What's—er— going on with you and her, anyway?’ Ron asked quietly.

‘Nothing,’ said Harry truthfully.

‘I—er—heard she's going out with someone else now,’ said Hermione tentatively.

Harry was surprised to find that this information did not hurt at all. Wanting to impress Cho seemed to belong to a past that was no longer quite connected with him; so much of what he had wanted before Sirius's death felt that way these days ... the week that had elapsed since he had last seen Sirius seemed to have lasted much, much longer; it stretched across two universes, the one with Sirius in it, and the one without.

‘You're well out of it, mate,’ said Ron forcefully. ‘I mean, she's quite good-looking and all that, but you want someone a bit more cheerful.’

‘She's probably cheerful enough with someone else,’ said Harry, shrugging.

‘Who's she with now, anyway?’ Ron asked Hermione, but it was Ginny who answered.

‘Michael Corner,’ she said.

‘Michael—but— ’ said Ron, craning around in his seat to state at her. ‘But you were going out with him!’

‘Not any more,’ said Ginny resolutely. ‘He didn't like Gryffindor beating Ravenclaw at Quidditch, and got really sulky, so I ditched him and he ran off to comfort Cho instead.’ She scratched her nose absently with the end of her quill, turned The Quibbler upside-down and began marking her answers. Ron looked highly delighted.

‘Well, I always thought he was a bit of an idiot,’ he said, prodding his queen forwards towards Harry's quivering castle. ‘Good for you. Just choose someone—better—next time.’

He cast Harry an oddly furtive look as he said it.

‘Well, I've chosen Dean Thomas, would you say he's better?’ asked Ginny vaguely.

‘WHAT?’ shouted Ron, upending the chessboard. Crookshanks went plunging after the pieces and Hedwig and Pigwidgeon twittered and hooted angrily from overhead.

As the train slowed down in the approach to King's Cross, Harry thought he had never wanted to leave it less. He even wondered fleetingly what would happen if he simply refused to get off, but remained stubbornly sitting there until the first of September, when it would take him back to Hogwarts. When it finally puffed to a standstill, however, he lifted down Hedwig's cage and prepared to drag his trunk from the train as usual.

When the ticket inspector signalled to Harry, Ron and Hermione that it was safe to walk through the magical barrier between platforms nine and ten, however, he found a surprise awaiting him on the other side: a group of people standing there to greet him who he had not expected at all.