Harry was outside of his house, scowling to himself as he poured energy back into his wards. Something had happened, and he didn't know what, and it was pissing him off.
The change in the wards is what had woken him up. The latent energy in them had simply been gone. Oh, all the preparation was there, all the physical objects he had placed to strengthen the wards, and the warning nodules he'd placed around the neighborhood to warn him of any potential threats were all present... just not energized.
That had only been one of the issues. What was worse, the people he knew were gone. Simply gone. Murphy, Phaedra, Molly, Sam, Dean, Jo, all of them. He'd tried phones, then their respective residences.
So, frustrated beyond belief, Harry had gone back to what was now his home, and began to re-arm the security system. The cold mantle of Winter was doing what it was meant to do, give him more power and more strength. It was making those layers of defenses even stronger than before, in less the time.