During the second Hogsmeade weekend they went as a group — Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, Luna and himself — with the easy organization of people who had done this before and knew each other's pace well enough to not need to negotiate it. Honeydukes first, because everything was better with chocolate. Scrivenshaft's because Hermione had a list and Ron wanted the dense blue-black ink he had run out of in the second week. The Three Broomsticks for lunch, which Madam Rosmerta produced with the efficiency of someone who had been feeding hungry students for thirty years and had strong feelings about portion size.
He photographed the walk down — the pale October light on the path, the beech trees at the edge of the grounds in the first color of autumn, Harry and Ginny walking slightly ahead in the specific way they walked when they were talking about something they didn't notice they were talking about with the ease of people who had found a frequency and stayed on it.
Neville, walking beside him, watched the same thing Ron was watching with the specific attention Neville gave things he had decided were worth understanding.
'That's been building since August,' Neville said.
'Since before that,' Ron said.
Neville nodded once, in the way he nodded when something confirmed a theory he had held quietly. 'Good,' he said. 'He needs something that's just for him.'
'Yes,' Ron said.
They walked the rest of the way in comfortable silence.
At the Three Broomsticks, over Butterbeers, Luna described in some detail her theory about the Dementors and their potential vulnerability to prolonged exposure to concentrated Dirigible Plum extract. Neville asked several genuine questions. Hermione maintained her policy of rigorous scepticism with visibly decreasing conviction. Harry said, 'Luna, how would you get enough plums,' and Luna said, pleasantly, 'You'd need an orchard,' and Harry considered this with complete seriousness, which was one of the things about Harry that Ron found consistently valuable.
He bought chocolate on the way back — the Honeydukes dark, which he had been doing comparative work on since third year, and a bag of something new that had arrived in a display near the door, a salted caramel variation that he was uncertain about and intended to evaluate properly. He gave two squares to Hermione without explaining why, because she would take them if they were simply offered and would decline if he asked.
She ate them both and said: 'What's in these?'
'Not sure yet,' he said. 'Tell me what you think.'
She considered it with the focused attention she gave things she was interested in. 'The salt is too early,' she said. 'It competes with the caramel instead of finishing it.'
'Yes,' he said. 'That's what I thought.'
She looked at him with the expression she had when she had been given something and was still working out what it was.
He looked at the path back to the castle.
The October light was doing the thing it did at this hour — gold and long, the kind that made everything it touched look briefly like something worth keeping.
He took a photograph of it. Not of anyone in it. Just the light on the path, and the castle at the end of it, and the specific quality of an afternoon that had been exactly what it needed to be.