The bell rang, and people gradually filed out of the classroom. The empty corridors were full of students. During the first week of the new term, almost everyone talked about how they had spent Christmas and New Year. The Christmas decorations had yet to be taken down, and for most people, winter was not yet over.
Molly loved giving her family hand-knitted sweaters, hats, and the like, but Bill apparently did not want to wear the new woolen gloves his mother had given him. Rumor had it that he thought they would affect his feel for holding a wand.
Percy, meanwhile, had given his hat to Scabbers as a nest. He had tied a string to it so he could sling it over his shoulder wherever he went. Filch's cat was always chasing after it, and the sensitive rat had sensed that something was wrong with the atmosphere at school as well, so it no longer wandered around Hogwarts.
Animals always noticed things humans found difficult to perceive before humans did, and then there was Paul. Though he was an extremely unsettling doll, he himself believed that happiness should be used to fight pain. As the atmosphere at school changed, he became even less willing to run wild all over the school.
Once everyone had gone to the Great Hall to eat, Pomona came to the bronze frog on the third floor and touched its head. A few seconds later, it opened its mouth. After a brief sensation of compression, she arrived at Sen Bakar's Tower. The painted Sen Bakar seemed startled at first, only relaxing when he saw that it was Pomona.
"Welcome back," Sen Bakar said.
"How are things?" Pomona asked.
"Please turn around," Sen Bakar said.
Pomona turned around. In the "sand table" representing Hogwarts Valley, the