            Hermione stared at the scrap of parchment in her hand as she sat alone in the kitchen, nursing a coffee. This would be her foremost question to answer, once she returned to her daily researching. All of her previous questions—of the tangibility of the Edge, of how to get there without dying, of where the Veil led to—had to come after. This one felt excruciatingly simple, yet the farthest from her grasp. She still saw Sirius in her dreams, but they were always her dreams. He was a visitor. She was desperate to give him a turn at playing host.