Packing on the thirty-first.
The trunk had seven compartments, which was one more than the standard models came with, the additional space installed by a trunk-modifier in Knockturn Alley two years ago on a quiet Tuesday in the spring of second year. He had been systematic about what went where since then, and the system had not required significant revision — only additions as his inventory had grown.
First compartment: the wardrobe. School robes, enchanted and pressed. The basilisk hide vest and bracers and boots folded flat at the bottom where they would sit under the robes each day — the armour that was not visible as armour. Casual wear in its organised arrangement. The deep red flying jacket he had bought in Muggle London in July, which had no magical properties and was correct for that reason.
Second compartment: his potions kit. The copper cauldrons, nested. The sorted ingredients, labelled in his own system by category and freshness date. The six Pugh memory vials in their velvet case, the three Knockturn vials alongside. The small moleskin notebook where he kept his experimental brewing notes, currently forty pages used.
Third: his duelling equipment. The wand case. Two practice wands in different wood combinations he used for switching drills. The notes from his August practice sessions with the duelling dummy — the calibration tool folded flat beside them. The target-system components.
Fourth: the pensieve in its stabilising base, and the memory vials in their labelled sequence alongside — fifty-three now, up from forty at the start of the summer, the additions from the Uagadou sessions and the Moody duelling set and the EDA championship finals and the unnamed 1944 combat memory that he had watched four times and intended to watch again. The large tent, compressed to the size of a rolled newspaper, sitting at the base of the compartment. His field potions kit, the emergency version. The Snitch-carved figure from Kiggundu, wrapped carefully in the cloth it had arrived in.
Fifth: reference material. His Black library research notes. The Arithmancy and Ancient Runes extensions. The Argentinian transfiguration text and the spatial compression theory volume. Three letters he intended to answer when he had time — one from Neville about the Herbology reading, one from the Four Emblems acknowledging his custom-order request, one from Dumbledore that he had read carefully three times and placed here without responding, because the response required thought he had not yet finished.
Sixth: personal. The album, shelf copy, in its cloth cover. His mother's soda bread wrapped in waxed paper for the train. The perceptual focus instrument in its velvet case, sitting beside the brass compass from Uganda. The locked items from the earlier years — the basilisk fang and the sealed venom vial, the survey text Bill had found for him in the Cairo magical district, the scarab amulets and the ward stones, the small jar of desert sand and the phoenix ash — in the inner section where they had lived since third year and where they would stay. A small photograph he'd developed that morning — the garden table the evening of the feast, the light exactly right — slotted into the front of the album for when he decided where it belonged.
Seventh: his notebooks. The dark-covered rituals notebook. The pocket notebook he carried everywhere. Three new ones from Muggle London, blank. His Gobbledegook study materials, progressing. The expanded pouch specifications he had worked through over the year, fully annotated.
He closed each compartment in sequence. Turned the lock twice. The trunk reduced to the size of a hardback book and sat on the floor beside his bed, light enough to carry in one hand.
The expanded pouch was at his waist, where it had been since June — the cord threaded through his belt, the weight of it negligible, its presence so constant that its absence would have been the thing he noticed. He had stopped thinking of it as something he wore and started thinking of it as something he simply was, which was the correct relationship to have with the things you needed always to have.
Inside: the Nimbus, compressed. The Invisibility Cloak, folded small. His Gringotts key on its ring. A coin reserve in mixed denominations — he would replace this eventually with a proper Mokeskin pouch once he found one correctly made, but for now this was sufficient. Everything necessary for thirty seconds and nothing else.
It was not part of the packing. It did not go in the trunk. It was just where it was, as it had been all summer, as it would be on the train and in the castle and through whatever the year brought.