Harry had been braced to hear it, but it was a blow nevertheless.
Fear enveloped him, seeming to crawl over his skin, throbbing in his chest, clogging his throat.
A chill that had nothing to do with the iced champagne was stealing through Harry's chest.
His heart leapt at the thought of sneaking through the trees to Hagrid's hut.
His heart was racing as if he had been sprinting and had just cleared an enormous obstacle.
Thinking that it could hardly make him feel any worse than he already did, Harry began to read.
An electric current seemed to course through Harry, jangling his every nerve as he stood rooted to the spot.
His fury at Dumbledore broke over him now like lava, scorching him inside, wiping out every other feeling.
Harry was visited by a desire to seize it and throttle him.
He no longer burned with that weird, obsessive longing. Loss and fear had snuffed it out: He had been slapped awake again.
With every step he took numbness seemed to steal over his brain......
Harry could not stand lying there with nothing but bitter thoughts for company. Desperate for something to do, for distraction, he sliped out of his sleeping bag, picked up his wand, and crept out of the room.
Harry felt overwhelmed, astonished, delighted.
A mixture of gratitude and shame welled up in Harry.
Hermione's arm curved to the floor, her fingers inches from Ron's. Harry wondered whether they had fallened asleep holding hands. The idea made him feel strangely lonely.
Relif broke across her face, all tension drained from it.
He looked down at the wand and was visited by a brutal urge to snap it, to slice it in half with Gryfindor's sword, which was propped against the wall beside him.
Though the walk through the dark forest with the doe had seemed lengthy, with Ron by his side, the journey back seemed to take a surprisingly short time.
Barely two months into their great new friendship, Dumbledore and Grindelwald parted, never see each other again until they met for their legendary duel.
The minutes stretched into what might as well have been years.
A stillness had settled over over the scene.
Barely a day passed without one or two people arriving in......
He seemed set on course to become just as reckless a godfather Teddy Lupin as Sirius Black had been to him.
There was silence in the room, except for the distant rushing of the sea.
Hearing familar, friendly voices was an extraordinary tonic.
It was like waking from a long sleep.
These frequent forays into wizarding territory brought them within occasional sight of Snatchers.
Harry's belief in and longing for the Hallows comsumed him so much that he felt quite isolated from other two and their obsession with the Horcruxes.
The idea of Dealthly Hallows had taken possesion of him, and he could not rest while agaitating thoughts whirled through his mind.
All his excitement, all his hope and happiness were extinguished at a stoke.
He was running the invisiblity through his fingers, the cloth supple as water, light as air.
