The sky outside the window was changing rapidly from deep, velvety blue to cold, steely gray and then, slowly, to pink shot with gold.

“We teachers are rather good at magic, you know.”

“Dobby has no master. Dobby is a free elf!”

“Yeah,” said Ron, “and lucky Harry doesn’t lose his head in a crisis — ‘there’s …”

“But Ron was staring at Hermione as though suddenly seeing her in a whole new li…”