(2) What Did Harry Do?

"Right," said Harry, and pulled the invisibility cloak off them. "We're in luck. Nobody lurking around."

"And the streetlamp isn't working," Hermione added, pleased. She handed out their broomsticks there on the dark corner of the street.

"The Knight Bus should be coming right along shortly, if it's on time," she continued. "Hopefully we'll be at Grimaldee Hall within the hour, before Giselle's class lets out. Ron, do you know that your broom straws are terribly bent?"

"It flies all right," he said distractedly.

"Well, it wasn't reacting at all good during two-on-two quidditch at the Burrows last month."

"That was Ginny's fault, flying too close behind. Look--! I think I see the bus coming."

It was there before he finished speaking, a BANG and a swirl of dust off the curb.

"Hurry up, you three," shouted the old wizard at the wheel, "we're running late! Never mind the fare, take a seat and be quick about it!"

Harry led the way up the steps of the panting bus. "Grimaldee Hall, outside Godric's Hollow," he said to the driver.

"Fifteen minutes maybe. Hurry, sit down, we're off!"

No sooner had Harry, Ron, and Hermione plopped down on a ragged couch behind the driver's seat when their legs swung up from the force of acceleration, their ears ringing from the explosive noise.

"Glasgow Station!" and a screeching halt. A portly wizard in a snappy white suit and cape, and four elderly witches with cobwebs on their crooked black hats, shuffled slowly off the bus as the driver fidgeted. "Mind your step. Watch the door. We're off!"

BANG.

Hermione sighed, sitting up and adjusting her Gryffindor scarf. She pulled out a small leather book from her back pocket.

"This was Sirius' grandfather's charm lexicon," she was saying in a loud whisper as Harry and Ron leaned in for a closer look. "It's a list of his favorite spells for overcoming various difficulties. I found it under a bed in one of the guest rooms yesterday when I was cleaning the third-floor chambers. It was covered in rubble."

Ron grunted. "Anything we can manage? We're still in Intermediate Charms, you know."

"Well, this one here--" she turned a moldy yellowed page "-- is similar to a cross-through spell that Gee told me about last term. She was taught it the summer before by her Aunt Minerva. It allows access through magic barriers, like enchanted doors and windows, and through force-fields. It IS quite an advanced spell. But Gee and I are pretty good at cross-through charms, so I think I can cast it all right, if we encounter a barrier around the school tower."

"Don't lose that book, Hermione," said Harry. "We'll probably be needing it more than once." He winced, a hand to his forehead.

"Your scar again, mate?" said Ron. "I don't have a very good feeling about this."

Hermione closed the book. "Well, something has to be done, but I haven't a good feeling about this either. If the tower is too well guarded with spells or, dare I say, Dementors or something worse, we will just have to go to Sirius and explain the situation."

"Grimaldee Hall!" yelled the driver, slamming on the brakes.

Giselle stepped into the narrow passage as the rusty iron door shut loudly behind her. Ahead was the spiral stairway that led to the upper chambers, its stone treads cracked and splintered in places where the light from torch stubs shone on them. It was deathly quiet as usual.

She hurried down the passage, careful not to look at the stern portraits on the walls that stared at her disapprovingly. "It's that nervous timid one," a portrait remarked of her, "late as always. She needs a good slapping."

'They're not as insulting tonight,' Giselle thought, going quickly up the curving stairs, clutching the rolled-up scroll on which she had written her homework.

She could hear the muted whispers of her Charms classmates as they crossed the landing above. She passed the second floor arch and then the third. The low tolling of the class bell echoed over her when suddenly she stopped, just down from the fourth floor landing, and turned to look in puzzlement at the stone-block wall of the stairwell.

It seemed to be judging her. But how could that be? She thought it must be her imagination, stirred up by the stress of classwork in such an unnerving atmosphere.

Instinctively Giselle extended a hand and touched the wall. She felt what seemed to be a tweed cloth, like that of a coat, but wasn't she touching the rough stone block, just the bare wall and nothing else?

She jerked her hand back. The sound of the bell was fading. She ran up to the landing and entered the Charms classroom out of breath just as Professor Elgar entered the room from his office doorway.

"AB...solute silence," he said to the class.

Even the torches along the high walls seemed to quieten, their flames hushed and barely fluttering.

Ringgold Elgar's deep-set amber eyes shone with that strange dark light as he watched Giselle walk as quickly and as quietly as she could to her desk in the second row from the front.

Her desk top was covered in rocks and chunks of brick. She stood gawking at the mess. Everyone sat perfectly still, as silent as humanly possible.

"MISS... McGonagall," said Elgar, "you will sit with Mr Roundhouse this evening. And there WILL... be no talking."

Giselle glanced at the teacher as she went over to Roger's desk in the corner by a draped window. She didn't think she would ever get used to Elgar's appearance, his great height, his waxen white skin, his thin angular face, glossy grey hair cut square at his jawline, and those eyes lambent with a dull throbbing fire. She sat down shoulder to shoulder with Roger, feeling the cold eyes of the teacher slide off her.

Roger acted as if a fly had landed next to him. He knew better than to show any interest in his desk mate while Elgar was in the classroom. They all knew that it was not permissable to acknowledge anyone except the teacher. That had been their first lesson. It had not required a second one.

Of course Giselle understood why Roger had to treat her as though she wasn't there. That was not so terribly bad, because she could sense his fondness for her and his excitement at having her so close to him. She felt the same toward him. It was going to be a very tolerable two hours tonight, she thought.

"MIS... ter Cork, and Miss Boother, you will see that every student has a rock or piece of brick. MEAN...while, class, you will open your pamphlet to page eight and read the description of this evening's lesson."

Harry turned and gestured to Ron and Hermione. They stepped out from behind a gnarly oak tree and joined him at the gap in a stone fence softly lit by the moon.

They knelt down together.

"Right," said Harry. "I didn't detect any protection spells, but my Revealo charm isn't exactly fool-proof. Anyway, I think we should first fly on our brooms around the school tower, getting closer to it little by little, just to be sure. Gee's classroom is on the top floor, east side, which is straight across from us. With luck we can hover next to a window without being seen. We shouldn't need my cloak. The windows on this side have drapes over them."

Hermione had her book out. "Lumos," she said, shining her light on the smudged pages as she feverishly turned them. "Here it is! The Verily View spell. If I touch the window pane with my wand I'll have a view of the classroom in my mind's eye. But I have to memorize the canto. It has more syllables than a machine-gun going off."

"A what?" said Ron.

"Never mind. Give me a minute to learn it."

"Take your time," Harry said. "We have to wait for that cloud to cover the moon. Too bright out there. I say, that's a grim looking place. Worse than Snape's dungeon. Glad I'm not wasting my summer there."

Just as the cloud began to dim the moonlight, Ron said excitedly, "Somebody's coming up to the tower door. A man, I think. He's going in--"

The light from the passage illuminated the tall black-clad figure as it stepped inside. The door groaned shut.

"Speaking of Snape, bloody hell, that was him!"

"Might have been," said Harry. "Did sort of look like him."

Hermione, who had been repeating the complicated canto, put the book away and peered over the fence. "But what would Professor Snape be doing here? Do you really think it was him?"

"I'm pretty sure," Ron said. "And he'd feel right at home in a place like this, wouldn't he?"

"I suppose he would," Hermione agreed. She picked up her broom. "We'll, it's not going to get any darker. Better be moving before I forget the canto. We've about forty-five minutes before Gee's class is over."

In the narrow passage Severus Snape stood looking at the portrait of an old bald wizard seated in a plush chair filling a pipe.

"Heinrich Flaxseed," said Snape in his low droll voice. "Attend to me, if you would be so kind."

"Eh? Who are you, good sir?"

"The potions master of Hogwarts, and a fellow Slytherin alumnus. I received a message the other day from Ringgold Elgar, requesting that I confirm the validity of a certain artefact he has taken possession of. Inform him of my arrival, if you will."

Flaxseed sighed, set aside his pipe, and rising from his chair as if it took every ounce of his strength, he went off behind a curtain in the dusty background of the painting.

Snape went over to a portrait in a gilded frame that hung near the foot of the spiral stairway.

"Ah, Severus," smiled the plump witch standing on a scaffold in a Paris scene, circa 1785. "My great-great-great granddaughter has told me what an exceptional student you were in her N.E.W.T. potions class."

"Undoubtedly," Snape replied. "Has she arrived here safely?"

"Who? My great-great--"

"Giselle McGonagall."

"Oh," said the condemned witch, frowning. "Have you any reason to expect an endangerment, and fear she might fall victim to it, as I have done to mine?"

Snape turned to the stairwell. "I expect many things, Cosima," he said, walking off. "But I fear nothing."

Giselle took the piece of stone from Gladys Boother and sat there holding it as though it were a wad of cloth. It was the strangest and most unexpected feeling.

She looked at Roger. He had a chunk of brick and seemed not the slightest bit surprised by it.

"PAY... attention, class," said Elgar, standing near Roger and Giselle's desk. "If you have understood what you read of this exercise in your pamphlet, you will KNOW...the purpose of the Identification charm. Close your hand over your sample. YOU are to identify the person who has some relevance to it, an IN...tuitive identification. Practice the canto before attempting the charm."

But Giselle did not need to practice the canto, nor even intone it. It was what she had sensed in the wall of the stairwell. She turned to Roger and whispered, "It's your mother!"

Though she saw well enough the startled look in his eyes, he quickly put a finger to his lips.

They had flown around the tower several times at the second and third floor level when Harry signaled that they should now go higher and closer in.

In the distance they could see the street lamps of Godric's Hollow, the town cemetary where they would be meeting the Knight Bus in an hour and a half. The land about Grimaldee Hall was wooded with oaks, and the hills that nearly encircled it were glinting from the stray moonbeams on granite outcrops. It was a deceptively pleasing view, marred only by the reality of the jagged black tower.

As he swept past the fourth storey windows Harry felt as if his gut was being wrenched up into his throat. In the next moment he was rolling on the flat roof of the tower.

He got groggily to his knees. He grabbed his broom, thinking to fly away before some guard spotted him or a defensive spell took effect. But the Firebolt felt as dead as a fallen tree branch. Its magical energy was gone.

"Harry, what happened?" said Hermione as she landed beside him and dismounted, Ron right behind her. "Are you hurt?"

"No I'm fine, just a bit boggled. Don't know what happened. Some sort of catch spell." He was on his feet now and holding out his broom. "It won't fly. Energy's drained out of it. And my wand, it's nothing more than a stick!"

"Bloody hell."

"But my broom's all right, Harry, and my wand too. So are Ron's. I don't like this. I don't like it at all. This spell effect is only affecting YOU, as if you were expected!"

"Looks that way," Harry said. He pointed his wand at a hatch that gave access to the tower roof from inside. "See, it won't obey my directive to open the hatch. You try it, Hermione."

"Oh, Harry, I think we should leave. You can ride behind me. I'm lighter than Ron. My broom can carry the both of us."

Ron stared down at the hatch. "Maybe your broom and wand will be all right once we get out of here," he remarked. "But why not have a quick look before we go? Just see what's down there. You know, a defensive spell like this, that caught Harry, might be dispelled now that it's been set off. Harry just happened to trigger it. It could've caught any one of us if we'd been in Harry's place."

Hermione flopped her arms. "Have your quick look then, but let's not hang around a second longer than we need to."

"Let me borrow the wand of one of you two," Harry said. "I want to see if I can still cast spells."

"Take mine, mate. We don't want Hermione to be without her wand if trouble comes around. She's the best spellcaster among us."

"Good thinking," said Harry, taking Ron's proffered wand as Hermione fidgeted.

"Just a quick look, Harry," she said.

His confidence was such that the mere thought of spelling the hatch open had the meter-square lid rising up at once. He knelt down and saw a ladder descending to the floor of a small room cluttered with text books and assorted paraphanalia stacked on two rows of tables and several wooden chairs. The lighting was from a standing lamp near a closed round-top door. There were no windows.

Harry adjusted his glasses and leaned forward over the opening. "My God," he whispered in surprise. "No, I have to go down there to make sure it's what I think it is."

Ron knelt beside him. "WHAT is what you think it is?"

"Wait here. I'll just be a sec."

Hermione stamped a foot. "Harry!" she hissed.

But he was already going down the cold metal ladder.

What had excited Harry's interest was lying on a gold-embroidered cloth that covered a stack of books that teetered on a chair to one side of the ladder. The object should have been set in a special place, given its significance, but almost every inch of the room was burdened with stuff. There was no available space for a shrine.

Harry hesitated to touch it. He stood for a minute listening to the vague sound of voices that came from beyond the quaint door. But the lure of the object on the ceremonial cloth was too much. He picked it up, shuddering from a rush of memories.

It was Tom Riddle's diary.

It felt like his broom, like his wand, drained of life. The hole in the diary from the basilisk's fang was still crusty with blood.

The voices grew louder.

Harry clamped the diary under an arm and hurried up the ladder.

(1) What Did Harry Do?

The summer thunderstorm broke, a cascade of warm rain blown by a southerly wind, streaking the front parlour windows of 12 Grimauld Place.

Hermione came into the parlour with a gratified smile and a book.

"Let me guess," said Ron, turning from a window where he and Harry were watching a pair of cloaked Death Eaters seeking shelter across the street. "You found out about the name of the school."

"Yes, and my hunch was correct," said Hermione, plopping down in an armchair near the dreary window. She patted the book on her lap. "History of the Black family, volume seven. Grimaldee Hall was named after Grimauld Place, by Sirius' great-great grandfather, Nebulus Picard Black, who founded the school in Nineteen Eleven."

Harry looked over at her. "Did he teach there?"

"Only for the first two terms," she said, her eyes lighting up. "He went to Brussels afterwards and organized a potions guild. They called themselves The Fortifiers. They were rumored to be blood drinkers."

Ron made a face. "What? Vampires?"

"No. Vampires are immortal, and Nebulus died a natural death in Nineteen Forty-Five. The same year that Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald. I think... well, I can't be positive, but I think his 'natural death' was not what it seemed. I think it was caused by the conflict between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, that Nebulus Black was at the wrong place at the wrong time. The book denies that he was a blood drinker and it pooh-poohs the idea that he and the Fortifiers were aligned with Grindelwald's aims. But of course, the author was writing for the wizarding public, not just for the Black family, and she probably didn't want to confirm the rumors."

"She?" said Harry. "Who's the author?"

"Gecky Scamander, Newt's cousin. She died in Nineteen Eighty, shortly after finishing this book."

Ron grinned. "Did she die a 'natural death' too?"

"No, not at all! And that's one of the reasons why I think the Fortifiers were indeed blood drinkers, seeking immortality without having to become vampires. I'm guessing that Grindelwald had the same idea."

"Well? HOW'D she die?" said Ron.

Hermione closed the book and stared out the window at the pattering rain.

"Her body was found drained of blood. And that's particularly interesting because her records at St Mungo's show that she had a very rare blood type. W--AB positive."

Harry leaned against the window sill, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "What's the 'W' stand for?"

"It means 'What is it?' There's a mysterious element in this rare type that nobody's been able to explain. It's not the element that makes a person a wizard or witch. It's something else, but we don't know what it does."

"Somebody probably knows what it does, or what it means," said Harry, "because someone drained her blood out. There must've been a reason for that."

"Maybe it was a bunch of vampires who sucked her dry," Ron suggested.

"No, it couldn't have been that," Hermione said. "The 'W' is toxic to vampires."

Harry stood up and pulled a scrap of paper from his jeans pocket. "Do you know what the Wizengamut concluded about Gecky Scamander's death?" he asked.

"It's unsolved. Of course, the Fortifiers were suspected at first, but the guild disbanded in the Nineteen Sixties, and none of the former members could be found."

Ron knudged Harry. "Is that another note from Giselle?" he asked.

"Yeah. Her owl came to the bathroom window last night while I was brushing my teeth. She wants to know if my scar's been hurting lately."

Hermione sat up straight. "I should think that's to be expected, now that Voldemort's back."

Ron fidgeted. "I wish you wouldn't say the name," he grumbled.

"Oh Ron, get over it. Harry, HAS your scar been bothering you?"

He folded the note into a tiny square. "Every night between nine o'clock and eleven," he said. "That's the time of Giselle's Charms class at Grimaldee Hall. Remember her first note? She was surprised to find out that the one class she takes there isn't nine to eleven in the morning, but in the evening. And now she knows why. The Charms professor is this bloke named Ringgold Elgar, and-- speaking of blood drinkers-- it's no secret that he's a vampire. He sleeps during the day."

Hermione shook her head in sympathy with Gee's unfortunate circumstances. "I suppose she's talked about this to her Aunt Minerva. I'm sure Professor McGonagall can take her out of the school if need be, unless, you know, Mrs Roundhouse can prevent it. She's the Assistant Minister of Magic and we all know she dislikes Giselle. I just can't understand why she's put her son Roger in Grimaldee, in the same class as Gee's. It just doesn't make sense."

Harry nodded. "That's why Giselle wants us to help her to get through this ordeal. No, she says she hasn't told her Auntie about her fears. She goes home each night after class. That makes her feel a little better. She's trying to cope, and thinks we can figure out what Ringgold Elgar is up to."

Hermione got up from the chair and went over to Harry. "What does she mean? Does Gee believe that this Elgar person is out to get her?"

"Not her," Harry said. "He's out to get me."

"What??" said Ron and Hermione at once.

"She's intuiting all this," Harry explained. "She's sensed that my scar's been hurting. It's like she feels it herself. She really believes that Elgar will be using her to get at me. And Roger agrees with her. He even thinks his mother might be involved."

"Bloody hell," said Ron. "But how can we help? You know what Mum and Sirius and the others think about Grimaldee. Just a lot of disgruntled kids having their summer ruined by being forced to go to a spooky school."

"Anyway, we're stuck here until September First, and that's three weeks away," Hermione said. "And Ron's right. Everyone here has weightier things on their mind than bored students at a summer school. But, Harry. I do trust Gee's intuition. If she senses something terribly bad, then there IS something bad going on. I just don't see how we can help. Grimaldee Hall is several miles from Godric's Hollow. We're stuck here. There's no way to get there."

Harry grinned at her.

"What? Have you an idea?" asked Ron.

"The Knight Bus. I saw it stop just up the street, at the corner, the other night. We could use my invisibility cloak on our way to the corner. And we could be back here before morning."

Hermione smiled wryly. "I suppose. But wouldn't the people here know we were missing?"

"Not if we used a Deception spell, Hermione. We're allowed to use magic here, right? We've been cleaning the place up with spells. One more wouldn't be noticed."

Ron laughed. "We're all going mental. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to give your a plan a shot."

Harry turned back around to the window, his breath fogging the pane. "I can't just sit here and do nothing," he said tensely. "If Elgar wants to get at me, I'd like to know the reason. And I can't help thinking that the reason has something to do with Voldemort."

Professor McGonagall and her 15-year-old niece came out to the porch of their thatched-roof cottage in Topper Smack as the late summer sun was setting.

"Here's the portkey for Grimaldee Hall," said Auntie, handing Giselle a muggle ballpoint pen. "And this is the one for coming home tonight at eleven-thirty," she added, giving Gee a pawn chess piece. "Have you your homework papers and the quill your cousin Marsha sent you?"

"Yes, I've everything."

"Your robe needs a wee bit of dry cleaning, but we'll take care of that in the morning. You've only a minute. See you later tonight, dear."

They kissed each other on the cheek.

Giselle walked out to the edge of the lawn and stood by the white picket gate, watching for the pen to start glowing. It was such a dreadful feeling having to flush herself (as she thought of it) to the darkly grim tower. But the pawn in the side pocket of her drab grey robe, the itchy woolen robe that all the students wore, was a consolation. Two hours of Charms class in a dank, torch-lit chamber high in the tower would not last forever, though it would certainly seem so. And then there was the happy feeling of going home to look forward to.

The pen glowed. Holding her breath, Giselle closed her hand over it.

The vertigo lasted only a few seconds. As usual, she stumbled in her dizziness as the lights of Godric's Hollow blinked in the distance.

The sky was a dull greenish glow along the rocky hills. And standing before them was the ghastly basalt-and-iron tower, rising like a limbless tree, thick and gnarly, its vertical row of windows shining like the pits of hell. Giselle couldn't see it any other way. Nothing about it was pleasant or indifferent. From the bottom to the top it was coldly unwelcoming.

As she began her slow walk up the gravel path to the rusty iron door she saw a tall lean figure in the topmost window, and sensed it gazing down at her.

She had a brief vision of Harry grimacing.

She put a hand to her forehead.

Story Art

(epilogue) The Goblin Fair

Harry stood between compartments on the Hogwarts Express, gazing out an exit door window, watching the hills of the Scottish Highlands receding in the distance of an early June day.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

He turned and saw Giselle looking at him sympathetically from the passage, her hands full of treats from the cart.

"I'm fine," he said.

"I'm so sorry about Cedric. I know how close you two became during the Tri-Wizard Tournament. I wish... I wish there'd never been one."

Harry sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I guess we could've done without it. I don't expect there will ever be another one."

Then he looked at Giselle steadfastly. "Cedric won't have died in vain," he said. "Not if I can help it."

"It's true then? You-Know-Who is back? Dumbledore was not just trying to make Cedric into a hero?"

"No, it's true. And it's going to be a long summer. Living with the Dursleys, I can't expect to learn much of what's going on. I would rather be at the Burrows; well, rather be just about anywhere other than the Dursleys, but Dumbledore thinks it's best if I stay in the muggle world. I'm better protected there, he says."

Giselle remembered how Dumbledore protected her from the wrath of Armando, disarming and binding him, just in the nick of time.

"And speaking of long summers," Harry said, "is it true you'll be attending Grimaldee Hall next month?"

Giselle sagged. "Unfortunately, yes, through mid August. But Aunt Minerva has arranged for me to take just one course. The Charms course. From nine to eleven, and I can go home everyday after class. So maybe it won't be too awfully horrible."

"Will you be visiting the Weasleys then, before Fifth Year starts?"

"I hope to," she said, smiling wistfully at the thought of Charlie being there during her stay. She saw that Harry was thinking the same thing, except that his thoughts were on Ginny.

He stepped toward her. "Shall we join Ron and Hermione, and see how much money they'll pay for some treats?"

Giselle laughed. "Right!" she said, shaking the goodies bag.

The train pulled into Platform Nine and Three-Quarters at ten o'clock that night.

The goodbyes had all been said, and for Giselle there was the annual mix of joy and sorrow at watching the parents of her friends, and their little brothers and sisters, greeting them with hugs and kisses, while she stood alone on the crowded, boisterous platform, waiting for Heathcliffe, Auntie's squib servant, to arrive and take her trunk to the alley behind King's Cross where they would use a portkey for the journey home to Topper Smack village.

"Gee!" It was Roger, his Slyherin robe over an arm, wheeling his small trunk behind him. A short grey-haired wizard with a monocle in one hand watched him with a studied disapproval.

"Goodbye again," he said, coming up to her. "I suppose I'll be seeing you at Grimaldee now and then. Mum doesn't want me hanging around the estate this summer. Don't know why, and I'm past caring. Oh, and that new antidote Madame Pomfrey gave me has done wonders. Can you tell?"

They both laughed.

"Ripping," Giselle said, and they laughed again.

"Roger, my boy," the greying wizard said preemptorily. "Your social life can wait. Come, that's a good chap."

Roger smiled into Giselle's eyes and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, quite close to a corner of her lips.

"See you soon!" he called back as he trundled off. "Enjoy your vacation!"

When he had disappeared among the crowd, Giselle touched her cheek lightly with her fingertips.

(conclusion) The Goblin Fair

When Giselle woke on Wednesday morning she thought it was Tuesday.

"Get a move on!" said her alarm clock. "Katie's still at St Mungo's, and that means you'll be a starting Chaser today. Practice begins right after breakfast, or have you forgotten?"

Giselle sat up. "Today? But isn't it Tuesday?"

"I only know the time, not the day! But it's been over twenty-four hours since yesterday morning, and that means it's Wednesday."

Bea laughed, pulling a bath towel from her wardrobe. "Silly, of course it is. Gee, up up up! Deidre is already downstairs with her fancy new broom."

"But... what happened to Tuesday? Was I sleepwalking all of yesterday?"

"You might as well have," Lori said, getting into her shower slippers. "Your body was in class but your mind was in the clouds somewhere. You lost us five points with all your daydreaming."

Giselle was stunned. She pressed her hands to her cheeks.

Cass came out from the shower room drying her hair with her wand. "What time did you get in last night, Gee?" she asked.

"Eleven fifty-five, post meridian," said the clock.

"But... wasn't that... a dream?"

Deidre stuck her head in from the door. "I've got your Meteor, Giselle. I'm having Felix polish and brush it. Why are you still in bed? The goblins have been marching around outside since dawn, singing fight songs and gesturing rudely at the castle. We'll be sitting together at breakfast, the All-Star team, and talking strategies. Come on, look sharp!"

It was while taking a shower under the rain cloud in her stall that Giselle remembered all that had happened the day before. It came in a rush of emotions and a flash of images. It was as though she had suppressed the memories, and when reaching for her towel, the one with the gothic G on it, she understood why.

Roger's frightful mother, that's why! Giselle shivered as she dried herself off in the wisps of steam. She let the memories come flooding back. It happened at afternoon break. She had been talking gobstones with Bea and Parvati outside on the columned porch when a chill draft came over her. Somehow she found herself walking across the lawn toward the Whomping Willow, where Esther Roundhouse stood looking at her fiercely.

"Stop right there and listen to me!" the woman said through her bared teeth. "The only reason you haven't been suspended for your brazen wanderings last night is because of the special pleading of your Aunt. But don't for a moment think you'll be so fortunate next time! Oh, you think you'll be going to summer camp in Ireland, romping on the beach and flirting with the boys, but I've news for you! You'll be spending your summer in Grimaldee Hall, yes, Grimaldee Hall! A summer school for delinquent incorrigible brats like you! Think Professor Snape is a bit of a ghoul, do you? Wait til you meet the Grimaldee faculty and then you'll know just how terribly ghoulish a professor can be!"

Giselle tossed her damp towel in the hamper and started to get dressed, hoping this would clear her mind of that awful Mrs Roundhouse.

There was another suppressed memory struggling to come out, and to forestall it Giselle turned her thoughts to dinner last night. Roger sat at the Slytherin table, once again morose and withdrawn. Her heart ached to see him so down, and to see the smirks on the faces of Draco and Pansy.

She buckled her shoes and stood up, her cheeks paling as the suppressed memory bloomed in her head like a noxious plant. 'I shouldn't have thought about dinner!' No, she shouldn't have, because it was at dinner that her bizzare and scary adventure began, the events that made her late for bed.

It began with a pair of butterfly messages that came flitting toward the Hufflepuff table. Giselle wasn't sure which teacher had sent them. Her Auntie was talking to Dumbledore, whose expression was very solemn. Snape had got up and was straightening his black tunic, his eyes lingering on the Slytherins.

Then the two messages parted company. One passed over Giselle's head. She turned and watched it fluttering in front of Harry. He snatched at it, but it swerved away toward Ron, who made a grab for it and missed. Hermione laughed, but in the next moment she was sitting up, surprised as the message settled on the back of her right hand. She opened it, smiling wonderingly at her friends.

Giselle felt something pecking on her own right hand. Turning back around she saw it was the other message, unfolding itself impatiently.

'You and Miss Granger are to meet me at Hagrid's hut in twenty minutes. Don't dawdle over dessert.'

"What's it about?" Bea asked. The desserts were popping up all along the table.

"From my Auntie," Giselle said and dug her spoon into a Chocolate Sundae. Her reply meant that it was family business and no further questions should be asked.

Bea shrugged. "Well then, I won't inquire, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's about that threat of sending you to Grimaldee Hall for the summer."

"What a nightmare!" said Deidre, hoping her exclamation might prompt a response from Giselle.

Gee was halfway through her sundae.

"A friend of mine's sister had to go to Grimaldee once," Felix said. He paused for effect. "And it was awful beyond words."

Lori shook her head. "Gee shan't go," she announced firmly. "Can you imagine Professor McGonagall allowing her niece to be sent to such a terrible place? I heard Pansy Parkinson talking about it last year in Potions class, when Snape had stepped out for a sec. Her father used to teach there, a class called 'Inquisition History and Practices.' No, I'm sure the threat from the Assistant Minister of Magic was just meant to put a scare into Gee, so she wouldn't... you know, wouldn't keep traipsing around the castle at night in her see-through slip," and Lori burst out laughing.

Giselle wasn't amused. She was remembering asking Auntie about 'the threat' after sixth period, in the Charms corridor.

"We'll discuss it after the tournament," Auntie had said, shooing away a group of loitering students. "I want you to focus on the match with the goblin team tomorrow. No classes for the All-Stars, and it does look like you'll be one of the starting Chasers. Cedric Diggory will be going with his father to the Ministry in the morning, some festive award ceremony for the Hufflepuff alumni. So Harry Potter will be Seeker. You'll want to practice hard with him on the decoy maneuver."

"Yes," Giselle had said, her heart lifting. "We practiced it last weekend. I think I did all right in decoying the opponent's Seeker away from the snitch "

"See that you do as well tomorrow afternoon. Oh, and by the way, Gee, I had a nice long chat with Professor Frumlow the other night. I asked him about the Marvolo Curse. The poor man was quite shaken, but though he says he felt the curse's influence, he did not harm Isabel Channing, your grandmother. And I believe him."

"But that's not what he admitted to Krimson Johan," Giselle said meekly.

"I'm sure you must've misunderstood," Auntie replied quickly. "Now, best you get freshened up for dinner. I'll be seeing you afterwards."

Giselle remembered the walk down the sloping lawn with Hermione. The sun had set and there was a breeze coming up, full of the smells of the forest; the treetops a silhouette against the streak of fading twilight. They saw that the Fair rides and vendor booths had been packed away. It was just the circle of caravan house wagons now. The Fair was over. The goblin Quidditch team was having a practice session outside the stadium.

As they approached the level stretch that led to the groundskeeper's domain a goblin flew over to them on his broomstick.

"You better not be spying on our practice!" he screeched. "You better just keep your noses where they belong!"

Hermione waved a disdainful hand. "Oh go away," she said to him, and linked her arm in Giselle's.

"Over here!" called Hagrid, standing by the woodpile. He gestured with his folded pink umbrella. Fang wagged his tail and drooled as the two girls came up to Hagrid with expectant smiles and a nervous curiosity.

"Are we going into the forest?" asked Hermione.

"Aye, that we are. You two stay close to me and Fang."

"But what's the reason?" asked Giselle. "Is my Aunt Minerva there?"

"She and the old necromancer, Doris Crockford, and Professor Snape. Someone else, too, but I don't know her name. Come on, then. Light your wands."

It was not a long trek, but it involved a lot of ducking under low-hanging branches, the crossing of shallow muddy streams, and untangling oneself from bramble bushes. "A Centaur trail," Hagrid explained. "They always pick the worst way of going places."

Up ahead in the ranks of pines was a glow of eerie light. "That be them. Watch your step now, there's a mess of ground vines here. Don't wanna be tripped."

Giselle shone her wand-light between two fir trunks. She recognized her Auntie standing in a clearing next to Crockford. Across from them stood Snape, and beside him, apparently in a deep trance, was 'Madame Moonbeam,' her beige Celtic gown luffing in the breeze.

Hagrid stepped out into the clearing. Fang crouched behind Giselle and Hermione, whimpering.

"I've brought em, safe 'n sound," Hagrid said to the conclave, motioning for the girls to join them.

Giselle got the full impact of the smell coming from the curlicues of steam that rose from a vase-like cauldron behind Crockford, and it made her wrinkle her nose. Hermione covered her mouth and coughed. The clearing was alight with a bluish grey vapor. Warm droplets fell from the branches overhead.

Giselle was mildly surprised to see a black bird on Caprice's shoulder, a gossamer thread around its neck that looped down to Snape's wand hand. Was this the bird she had seen in Snape's private workroom the other day? She sensed it was.

Auntie had her hands clasped at her waist, her eyes exceptionally stern as she nodded to Giselle. She then spoke to Hermione.

"You've been invited as a courtesy, Miss Granger, seeing as how you have had a hand in this endeavor and have comported yourself well. What you will experience here is not to be revealed to anyone outside this circle, until you are given permission. Understood?"

"Yes, Professor," Hermione whispered. "But may I ask what this is about?"

Snape addressed her. "The event will explain itself," he said. "I dare say an unusual and perhaps unnerving event, but you have nothing to fear except... fear itself."

He looked across at Crockford. "Is the brew ready for its application?"

"Precisely," Crockford said. She lifted her wand and turned to the narrow, one-meter high cauldron burbling softly.

It was a peculiar wand flourish, one Giselle had never seen before, and the canto was sung in a low aeolian tone that sent shivers down her spine. (Both she and Hermione stepped back against the fidgety Hagrid as Fang scurried off down the trail.)

The steam whirled swiftly, growing denser, hotter, then suddenly colder until it became like a fountain of ice crystals. The bluish light turned a ghastly green color, shot with streaks of a misty orange.

Snape shook the gossamer thead. The black bird hopped down to the pine-needled ground, ruffling its wings; the feathers sparkling until they became a dully shimmering red.

The bird was pecking and scratching at the ground. As a dark spot appeared beneath its tail, Snape jerked back on the thread. The red raven squawked. It fluttered messily up to the entranced woman's shoulder, where it hunched down, opening and closing its beak in silent spasms.

"Out of the way," Caprice said in a toneless voice, staring off into space.

"We have found the portal to Queen Isa's chamber in the pyramid," Snape said, "as expected. Let us proceed."

Doris Crockford stepped to one side of the groaning cauldron, crouching down, and began a series of incantations. Her wand swerved rhythmically, like a maestro's.

The icy column broke apart. Shards of hard frost spun in the air. Each grew in size, taking the shape of a ghostly figure. Slowly features appeared until several distinct persons stood in midair, moaning, hissing, calling out in echoing voices that were hardly distinguishable from the sound of the wind in the trees.

Giselle pressed her side against a tense Hermione.

Auntie turned to Snape. "Do you recognize any of these five apparitions, Severus?"

"They are victims of the Dark Lord," he replied stoically. "They are the ones he murdered in the process of creating his horcruxes. But there should be six. One is missing."

"Not seven?" remarked Crockford with a sly glint in her eyes.

Snape frowned. "The seventh is purely speculative. And in any case, the supposed victim's identity is not to be revealed in the present company." He glanced at Hermione.

The five frosty ghosts dove into the black hole in the ground.

A geyser of crystals erupted out of it, dissolving in the vaprous air. The red raven attempted to fly away, but was held by the gossamer thread. 

The stiff form of Caprice tilted backward in defiance of gravity, her blank eyes staring at the canopy of leaves dripping bluish droplets on her face.

The earth trembled. A loud grainy noise announced the rising up of the stone sarcophagus.

"What in blazes," muttered Hagrid, a protective hand on Giselle's and Hermione's shoulders.

The ancient casket floated just above the ground as Crockford feverishly intoned a dark canto.

A pale transparent arm extended up through the lid of the sarcophagus, the fingers of the hand stretching themselves out as though searching for something; demanding the return of something.

Snape slashed the air with his wand, inches from Caprice's face.

She raised her arm. From the thumb of her lilting hand the golden scarab ring worked its way loose and hung suspended in the air, quivering.

Giselle saw her Auntie's eyes glow with intense satisfaction.

"That's it!" said Auntie, drawing her wand just in time to arrest the ring's flight.

"Stasis! Now hear me, and obey me forsooth! Be thou the one to guide the warmest heart to the very truth!"

In a streak of yellow the scarab ring flew off into the treetops and vanished.

"How is one to follow it?" wondered Crockford, as the ghostly arm of Queen Isa sank back into the sarcophagus.

"There is a thing yet to be discovered," said Aunty.

"Something related to the idea of fidelity," said Snape. "The ring is concerned with matrimony, the faithfulness of which was broken by the daughter of Queen Isa."

"The scroll?" asked Hermione. "Is it about the scroll in the pyramid chamber that told of the faithless princess?"

Snape considered. "Indirectly," he said, and looked thoughtfully at the closed eyes of Caprice Eff.

*
Giselle came into the Great Hall that Wednesday morning like a fly that had escaped from a spider's web. She had shaken off the effects of yesterday's memories and now breathed deep of the breakfast aromas that greeted her.

She smiled at the starting players and back-ups for the All-Stars. They were seated at a large oval table in a corner, by the statue of the first chef to work at Hogwarts, Phil Yerplate the Great.

Giselle was about to join them, hefting her newly polished Meteor 500, when suddenly Hermione grabbed her arm and pulled her over to the far end of the Gryffindor table.

"I think I've figured it out," Hermione said excitedly. "The ring, and the Marvolo Curse, they're about the evils that destroy a marriage! Look, your parents were, of course, married, but an evil was coming between them, and I think it was this fascination with horcruxes. The fortune teller, Caprice, or Madame Moonbeam, was married to Minnex, until an evil came between THEM. Her scarab ring is somehow connected to the unfaithful princess! I think the fortune teller herself is an evil, and that what came between her and her husband was... " Hermione lowered her voice. "Was Professor Snape. I sensed it strongly when I saw them standing together last night."

She glanced over at the faculty board. But it was all right. Snape was absent.

This was the last thing Giselle wanted to think about. She shrugged and said helplessly, "But we still don't know what happened to my parents."

Hermione sighed. "True. But we're getting closer. That ring. The scarab ring. It's supposed to guide 'the warmest heart to the very truth.' We must just be hopeful."

"But the ring disappeared, Hermione. Maybe it's gone back to where it came."

"Gee!" shouted Oliver Wood. "Join in! It's time to get serious!"

Giselle crossed the shiny floorboards... feeling someone staring at her. She looked over at the Slytherin table.

Elenor Womblatt turned back around to her plate of stuffed pimentos. Across from her Krimson was absent-mindedly cutting his omelette into ever smaller pieces.

The goblin Kroft jumped down off a broad window sill, onto the damp grass and hurried down the slope to the Black Lake.

In the low rays of the rising sun the shadow of the Durmstrang ship reached the far bank, where a stand of juniper trees concealed the presence of Boogum.

He glared down at the panting goblin and said, "Is he there?"

"Yes," said Kroft, "eating his breakfast with the other teachers."

Boogum was more frightened than astonished. "But I slew him! I cast the killing curse on him! You're sure it's Professor Snape you saw?"

"Positive! Now my fee, if you don't object to being honest."

Boogum stood motionless, his mouth open in a soundless groan of fear and despair. "I was tricked. And I myself must have been the one who killed Minnex. God forbid that Caprice should find out who the killer is."

He snarled at the restless Kroft, and after a moment he tossed him a galleon. "If you're mistaken, and I don't make it out of here, I'll see to it that you'll not have time to spend your money."

Kroft pocketed the coin. He turned away with a wicked grin and started off for the fairgrounds.

Boogum strode for the school gates, his breath hissing through his teeth. He was preparing himself to apparate the moment he stepped past the winged-boar columns.

He didn't quite reach them.

"Halt," said a familiar voice.

Boogum staggered back, feeling for his magic dagger, but too late. He dropped his hand from the empty sheath and said fatalistically, "You have me, Snape."

"But not where I want you," said the grim potions master. He held his wand threateningly.

"Don't kill me!"

"No? But there is a condition on which I may spare your life. Agreed?"

"Anything!"

"Give a message to Lord Voldemort for me. You might find his lackey, Pettigrew, at the Riddle House. In any case find him and deliver this message. 'I remain loyal to our Dark Lord, and think it best that I continue on the Hogwarts faculty so as to be his eyes and ears at the school.' Boogum, you don't want me to be disappointed in you."

"You will not be! But tell me you won't let Caprice Eff learn the identity of Minnex's slayer!"

Snape lowered his wand. "Can one prevent a fortune teller from learning the truth? I can only assure you that if you deliver my message I will not speak of your guilt to Caprice."

Boogum hesitated, his face taut and sweaty, then fled through the gates.

Soon after the lunch hour the crowds began to fill the Quidditch stadium. There were dignataries from the Ministry, Hogsmeade residents, professional Quidditch scouts and their families, the Durmstrang and Beauxbaton players and fellows, Hogwarts students and faculty, and in the pavilions at either end of the pitch, the goblin team (Fair Flyers) and the All-Stars.

"Good afternoon, Mr Swiddle," said Caprice.

Clement Swiddle, in the open bleachers beside the Hufflepuff bleacher tower, lifted his sunglasses and smiled up at the lovely bobbed-hair brunette. "It is my great pleasure, Madame Moonbeam," he said. "Will you honor me with your company?" And he patted the empty seat next to him.

Caprice sat down and crossed her legs. She was holding a soda cup and a small bag of peanuts. "I'm wondering if you remember the reading I gave you during the Fair?"

She eyed the staff he had set between his seat and the wooden rail, opposite her.

"Quite," he replied. "One of the two will return, you predicted. Yes... 'One of the two will return.' And I must say, I haven't solved the riddle."

She smiled at the word 'riddle.'

"It isn't so difficult, is it, Mr Swiddle? Didn't you have two staves? And evidently one has returned to you."

He frowned pensively. "Two staves? You must be thinking of Professor Frumlow."

It was Caprice's turn to frown. "Upton has two staves?"

"Yes, and they each have a raven-heart core compatible with the other's. I work for the Experimental Charms Department, you see, and my hope is to create a double-hearted staff that is compatible with itself."

"So, that explains why you snuck two staves into Ollivander's shop," Caprice remarked brightly, sipping her soda. "Would you care for some peanuts?"

"Eh, what's this about sneaking staves into Ollivander's? Oh I say, you are quick on the uptake. But Ollivander was quite aware of it. Part of my experiments, you see."

"And one of the two has found its way back to you. Which one, may I ask?"

"Need a clairvoyant ask? Can't you guess?"

"Need a clairvoyant guess? Really, Mr Swiddle, you underestimate me. The staves were a banyon wood and an ashwood. And that one there--? The African banyon wood?"

"Decidedly," Swiddle said.

"And what has become of the ashwood staff?" asked Caprice while gazing over at the faculty box, intrigued to see Esther Roundhouse sitting next to Dumbledore.

"Perhaps YOU can tell ME," Swiddle replied with a wry smile. "Just when I had determined that its carven sigils enhanced its compatibility properties, it turns up missing."

Caprice glanced down at her ringless thumb. "Sigils? Of what sort?"

"Numibian, I'm thinking. But I'm not sure."

"Not Egyptian? Not similar to the scarab beetle?" Caprice looked at him with raised brows.

"Oh you DO surprise me, Madame Moonbeam. Yes, not unlike the scarab beetle, now that you mention it."

A trumpet fanfare swept over the stadium. Madame Hooch was flying out to the center of the pitch, quaffle in hand, the crowds applauding.

"Have you placed a wager on the outcome, Mr Swiddle?"

Clement Swiddle wasn't sure what the Eff woman was referring to. He took hold of the banyon staff and gave it a squeeze. "I leave outcomes up to the Fates," he said.

Caprice opened her bag of peanuts. She was staring at Snape as he sought a seat in the faculty box. She smiled. He had been rough with her, but not unjustifiably. Besides, better to be subjected to him, she thought, than to be ignored.

In their pavilion tent the Hogwarts All-Stars shouldered into their black and grey jerseys.

Oliver Wood stood at the tent flap, gazing across at the goblin team hovering at the far end of the pitch, their orange uniforms gleaming in the sun of a clear day.

He was not entirely satisfied with his team's roster, having doubts about the accuracy of Thomas Bluntquill's bludger shots, but impressed with his strength. Fred Weasley could be counted on to whack the opponent's quaffle carrier pretty much at will, but his shots lacked the degree of power that Tom could generate. The Chasers, Roger Roundhouse, Irma Wormhole, and Giselle, were as fine a combination as he had ever coached. If they played their best today, the All-Stars were sure to talley up a good deal of quaffle scores. And though Cedric would have been Oliver's choice for Seeker with his longer reach and greater experience, Harry was arguably the swiftest and most agile Seeker among the house teams.

Madame Hooch blew her whistle.

"We're on, mates," Oliver said. "The best of luck to us all! Let's show em what Hogwarts is made of!"

Giselle was determined to put all things behind her except the Quidditch match. At that moment nothing else mattered.

She mounted her Meteor and flew off with Roger and Irma to either side of her. Bluntquill and Fred cruised above them, bats in hand, four bludgers circling them.

And high over them all was Harry, his silver cape flapping, his attention on Zink, the goblin Seeker. They circled one another warily while far below Hooch tossed up the quaffle to the roar of the spectators.

Giselle darted forward and upward, crushed in the onslaught of Chasers fighting for possession of the quaffle. It was the most violent quaffle-grab she had ever been in. It knocked her spinning wildly in a downward arc.

She pulled back on her broom handle, a knee scraping the grass, and sped after the biggest of the goblin Chasers: Holo, a female with hairy ears, who had got the  quaffle and was zigzagging toward the goal hoops where Oliver swung back and forth, waving an arm.

"I'll take the right-hand side, Gee!" yelled Roger, zooming alongside her. She immediately swept to her left and accelerated. She felt like her hair had been yanked as a bludger grazed her head. Ducking, she angled over to Holo. Roger had bumped the goblin girl hard, and now it was Giselle's turn to ram her.

They collided, bruising each other's arms. Holo grabbed Gee's broom for just a moment, released it, and then angled straight up as the goal hoops seemed to rush toward them. Giselle could only scrunch down. There was no time to swerve away from the mid-size hoop, and right through it she went.

A shout of disbelief rose from the crowd.

Giselle turned and flew back to the pitch, wondering at the reaction of the now laughing spectators. The goblin team was celebrating.

"Giselle McGonagall of Hufflepuff scores for the Fair Flyers!" announced Lee Jordan.

Giselle blanched. The awful truth struck her like a slap. Holo had shoved the quaffle in the tail straws of the Meteor. Burning with embarrassment, Giselle dislodged the quaffle and held it out.

"I'll take it," said Irma, seizing the quaffle and positioning herself in front of a disheartened Oliver.

"Don't feel bad, Gee," Roger said to her, clapping her on the back. "You couldn't know the goblins play dirty. Come on, let's get those points back!"

This was easier said than done. The goblin Chasers were ferocious defenders, and when they weren't slamming into Irma, and then into Roger when he took a hand-off, the goblin Beaters were there to pound the quaffle carrier mercilessly and with pinpoint accuracy.

So strident were their skills that Thomas Bluntquill was knocked out of the game with a broken jaw. Pomfrey tended him as Felix flew in to take his place, only to get the wind bashed out of him a minute later.

After half an hour the score was 80 to zero in favor of the Fair Flyers, and Oliver was putting all his hope on Harry.

The snitch appeared three times during that half hour. The first time was so brief that Giselle didn't notice it. It zipped around the Ravenclaw Tower bleachers before Harry and Zink could get within ten meters of it, and then it vanished somewhere in the shadows.

The second time it flashed past Giselle as she was carrying the quaffle between Roger and Irma, who deflected two bludgers at a high cost; their arms and shoulders bruised.

She saw the snitch spiralling up toward the Slytherin bleacher tower, but with a goblin Chaser punching at her broom she could not help Harry in the slightest, but had to do a barrel roll to get free of the aggressive goblin. She ended up in a direct line with the center hoop.

The goblin Keeper spat at her; a jet of spittle that stung her cheek like acid. No foul, since Hooch didn't see it. But it outraged Gee so much that she banged Holo out of the way, did a reckless somersault over the  Keeper, swerved back around, and side-armed the quaffle through the smallest hoop.

"Ripping!"

"All-Stars score! Eighty to ten, Fair Flyers advantage."

At the snitch's third appearance Giselle had just bumped the goblin quaffle carrier out of bounds, where he caught a foot in the awning of a snack cart, tipping it over, to the delight of a flock of hungry pidgeons.

"Snitch up!" she heard Irma call out.

Gee flew at a steep angle, keeping her eyes in the opposite direction from where the snitch was loitering, yelling at Harry loud enough for Zink to hear her and to see her pointing madly toward the faculty box. But Zink didn't fall for it. He followed Harry. The snitch waited til the last possible moment before flashing away in a long swooping arc. And that was that.

Try as she might, Giselle could not distract Zink. She even tried blowing kisses at him. Nothing worked. He seemed to have eyes all around his head.

It was when the score was a depressing 130 to 40 that the snitch made its fateful fourth appearance.

"Help Harry!" said Fred to Giselle, "I'll cover you," and sent a bludger at Zink.

She flew up under Harry and tried to stay with him as he chased after the snitch. Whenever Zink drew too close she would block his progress, which often got her poked in the ribs with the angry goblin's broom handle. And though Fred and Felix kept the goblin Beaters dodging shots, they managed to get in a few of their own, striking Giselle twice, painfully in the back.

The second strike dazed her. She lost altitude.

The crowd was roaring. Gee could not orient herself. She caught glimpses of the snitch, just ahead of the outstretched hands of Harry and Zink; glimpses of the Chasers crashing their way from one end of the pitch to the other; but she was too dizzy to take effective action.

That was changed in an instant.

"Harry Potter with the snitch--" Giselle's broom was punched out from under her just as she was about to celebrate. She swayed wildly for a second, then grabbed hold of... her ashwood staff!

For a puzzling moment she thought that the golden snitch was shining before her eyes. But it wasn't that.

The scarab ring was on the end of her staff, her flying staff that was taking her at great speed over the stadium and toward the castle!

Giselle at first just held on as the staff swept low over the lawns, out over the lake, and back around toward the bridge that connected the east and west sides of the castle. Her mind was a frozen blank. Then, as she was carried along between the east towers, dangerously close to striking the walls and roofs, she came to her senses and drew her holly wood wand.

She sang out every spell she could think of that would slow the staff and put it under her control. But with each garbled canto and wild flourish the scarab ring blazed as if in anger, dissipating the spell effects.

The staff rose up over the Astronomy tower at such a steep angle that Giselle had to wrap her arms tightly around it to keep from sliding off.

The height was making her dizzy. She closed her eyes. The wind blew loudly in her ears. She felt a sudden drop, smelled the pungent odor of a courtyard garden, heard the shout of a gardener, the laughter of a student. And when at last she opened her eyes in response to a warmer, mustier wind, she found herself flying swiftly down the long corridor that led to the iron-studded door.

"Stasis!" she gasped, flourishing her wand.

She tumbled head over heels and came to a skidding halt at the foot of the door.

The ashwood staff lay on the floor next to her. She sat up, breathless and aching all over, and reached for the staff.

The ring was gone.

"There! You see, Armando, I am the one you should trust, your Uncle Upton. Here, hold the ring, and let's see what Miss Womblatt and Mr Johan have to say about that!"

Giselle pressed an ear to the door. Her heart was pounding, and she was so frightened she could not stand up. She was drained of strength. When she touched the staff she felt the warm pleasant sensation, yet this was little comfort. But her intuition was telling her that she had been guided to 'the very truth.' She was where she was meant to be. Surely it would end well.

"By rights the scarab ring belongs to my Father," said the voice of Elenor. "He was the one who found it, through his exploration of the secret rooms in the Sphinx. Give it to me!"

"Your father," said Armando in a sneering tone, "got his hands on the ring by double-crossing my Uncle Upton. He then gave it to a Slytherin girl, Caprice Eff, thinking she would turn her affections to him and get him in good with the Scottish Effs. But it's Snape she wanted. So he matched Caprice up with Minnex, who convinced her that Snape was hopelessly in love with Lily Evans. It worked, but not to his liking. When your father realized his mistake in trusting Caprice, he passed on 'rumors' of a horcrux and invited the post-grad Snape to join him on an expedition to Egypt, hoping he could play off Snape and Caprice against each other, and come out on top, getting hold of the ring AND the horcrux. But he failed. Minnex fooled them all."

Professor Frumlow said, as his springs squeaked forlornly. "No, he didn't fool them all, Armando. He didn't fool Odin McGonagall. Odin and his wife, Bella..." There was a catch in his voice. Sighing, he continued. "Odin and Bella believed that the horcrux was the work of Voldemort's spirit, through proxies, of which the chief one was Minnex. And they were correct to believe so. Hexaba killed Samson Studmann, for use in creating the horcrux, killed him while she was possessed by Voldemort. When Odin and Bella got wind of this and were planning to have Hexaba and her mother arrested, Voldemort influenced Minnex to plan the death of the McGonagalls--"

"Liar!" shouted Krimson.

"Don't you call my uncle a liar, you mudblood!"

"Your uncle IS lying," said Elenor heatedly. "It wasn't Minnex who killed the McGonagalls. Oh, well yes, he did plan to do so, at the urging of Caprice and YOU, Armando. But it was Professor Frumlow who killed them. And I know why he did! He wanted his own horcrux, didn't you, sir! Don't lie to us!"

A growl and the loud clanging of springs. "You insufferable interferers! Armando--! Stop them!"

"Expelliarmus!" intoned the young man.

"Ahh," moaned Elenor. "Don't harm us! We won't reveal your secret, we promise!"

"We'll make an Unbreakable Vow," offered the nervous Krimson.

"Wait--!" said Professor Frumlow. "There's a bird in the bush!"

Giselle struggled to her feet, tears drenching her face, but she was not quick enough.

The door swung open, creaking and crackling. Giselle was pulled into the classroom, stumbling to her knees. To her left Elenor and Krimson clung to each other, staring at her in astonishment. At the front of the room Armando stood gaping at her in surprise and amusement. Professor Frumlow held his two staves at arm's length, his mouth open in a deep breath.

It was then that a powerful intuition galvanized Giselle. She flourished her wand.

"Enlargo PROXimus!"

It seemed that Frumlow and the table behind him came hurling toward her. She set down her wand and held out both hands.

Her fingers seized the two staves. The sensation reminded her of what she felt in Frumlow's private study on the night she had sleepwalked.

At the front of the classroom she saw him snatch Armando's wand, his face contorted in rage.

"Avada kedavra!" cried Professor Frumlow, pointing the wand at her.

Grimacing in horror, Giselle held the twin staves close together in front of her.

In seeming slow-motion the beam of harsh green light reached for her. It struck the staves and immediately retreated back toward the professor.

"NO-O-O!" he wailed. And in the next moment he was falling backward, striking the table and crumpling to the floor, his legs bouncing and squeaking; his nephew stepping back in shock and disbelief.

From the two staves in Giselle's trembling hands the ghosts of two hearts rose up, forming the man and woman they had animated in life and now infused in death.

Odin and Bella grasped each other's hands. In the glow of their love they vanished, while above them spun the scarab ring, its gold turning to rust.

There was one love it could not destroy. And in its failure it passed away into the nothingness it deserved.

(22) The Goblin Fair

On their way down the corridor from the Headmaster's office, Hermione said, "I need some air."

She pulled up on the rusty latch of a tall mullioned window. The lower half swung open with many squeaks and a puff of mildewy dust.

"Mr Filch should clean the windows once in a while," she remarked, and, laying a forearm on the sill, she gestured to Giselle to join her in gazing out into the night and at Gryffindor Tower looming close by, its upper floor ablaze with light.

"Isn't it beautiful," said Giselle. "How nice to have a dorm in such a lovely place."

"Don't you like being in the basement? You do have a charming view of the lawns and the forest from your Common Room windows."

"It has its advantages, I suppose. We're near the kitchens and the Entrance Hall."

"And you haven't miles of stairs to climb, like WE do," Hermione added with a soft laugh. "Why not spend the night with us? We're just around the corner from the tower, and one flight of stairs down from it. One of my dorm mates has gone home for some sort of family meeting, an inheritance squabble, I think. You can sleep in her bed tonight. Besides, Ron will be in a better mood if you're there in our Common Room. You know how frumpy he's been lately, ever since Viktor took me to the Fair."

Giselle felt squeezed between Charlie and Roger. A slight faintness came over her. Seeing this, Hermione thought Giselle was dwelling on the mystery of her parents' disappearance, and suddenly the import of her and Giselle's experience that night struck her as ultimately unsatisfactory.

What had they uncovered that was not already known? Professor Snape had tricked the goblin into killing Minnex, who was believed to be responsible for Giselle's parents' fate, but nothing was certain. Yes, there was a horcrux, but it had not been found. Instead, they came away with just their wands.

Something had been left behind, but either she could not remember what it was, or simply didn't care. She had a very strange, sort of 'missing' feeling about it.

"What's wrong?" asked Giselle. "If it's Ron you care for, then why not excuse yourself from Viktor Krum's affections?"

Hermione smiled. "Is that what's bothering you?" The smile faded. "I thought you were dismayed at not finding out more about your mum and dad."

Giselle turned from the window and leaned back against the wall. "I sensed more about them than I was willing to tell," she said, and looked apologetically at Hermione, who nodded and said, "Same here."

"They were involved in the horcrux thing, and they didn't want Faerie Ministries or Fudge to know about it," Giselle continued. "That young man bossing around the locals, I just know he's Professor Frumlow's nephew."

Hermione was intrigued. "Really? I do remember he was called Armando, and I wondered if he was related to Armando Dippet, the former headmaster, but of course that's silly. So, he's Professor Frumlow's nephew! How weird."

"The two poles he ran off with," Giselle said, a hand to her mouth. "I kept thinking of the two staves that Professor Frumlow uses."

Hermione gasped. "Huh--! Do you think? You did mention to Snape about Frumlow... bothering... your grandmother when she was a student here. But I've such a hard time imagining the springy professor being caught up in this. Wait...! It was in his classroom that you and I had that vision about the pyramids and heard the voice of that young man, Armando, talking about Voldemort. Oh, I'm sure it was his voice, it MUST have been."

Giselle turned and crossed her arms on the window sill. A breeze was stirring her hair, bringing with it the smells of the night; the tar of the Durmstrang ship on the lake, the crisp smell of woodsmoke from Hagrid's hut, the cinnamony aroma drifting over from the Beauxbaton house carriage. These did not erase from her memory the dank smell of the pyramid passages, the odor of great age, of ancient death. She looked over at Gryffindor Tower. How old, how austere, how mysterious it was, those steps that the Four Founders had taken, up the stairs of the towers, each Founder having their own plans and desires...

"Salazar Slytherin," Giselle whispered, glancing at Hermione. "Why was Roger sorted into Slytherin house? Don't you think he has some little part in all this?"

Hermione turned her head away, as though caught thinking something that she oughtn't. "Oh...  now that you mention it. I had that strong feeling about Krimson Johan being connected in some way with the Marvolo Curse, and, well, I felt that Roger was with him, you know, sort of like... helping him. But I didn't want to upset you, so I kept quiet about him. Everyone knows he likes you. I just supposed you were fond of him, without losing your fondness for Ron's brother, Charlie."

"Helping him? Roger helping Johan?" Giselle bit her lip, a surge of anger going through her that immediately made her feel guilty. She remembered what Johan had said to her on the Tunnel of Love ride, that Roger had gone to see the gypsy fortune-teller, 'Madame Moonbeam.' And wasn't she the Eff woman, the wife of Minnex?

No, she thought, the WIDOW of Minnex. She put her hands to her face and sighed.

"I don't think I'll ever know all that's happened," she said.

Hermione laid a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe it's best if some things stay hidden. Come on, it's after curfew. You ARE staying the night with us?"

Giselle thought of Roger and the comfortable Hufflepuff Common Room, so settled and predictable compared to Gryffindor's.

"Yes, I'd like that," she said.

The Fat Lady made them wait while she spooned sugar into her coffee cup and selected a cookie from a confectioner's box. "Oh, are you wanting in? I assumed you were going to wander around all night. And who is this bashful thing with you?"

"She's the daughter of the man who decides which paintings will stay and which ones will be thrown out," Hermione said casually.

The portrait swung inward. "Watch your step, dears. Have a good evening."

The table where Harry, Ron, Seamus, and Neville were sitting was messy with textbooks and papers, quills and inkbottles, but you would never guess they were doing their homework. A bishop chess piece was kicking the toy statuette of Viktor Krum around the table, a better entertainment than charting backwards comets for Astronomy class.

When Ron saw Hermione and Giselle crossing the room, stopping here and there to answer a friend, he hurriedly stashed the Krum toy in his pocket, wincing as it bit his thumb.

Harry grinned at Giselle. "Did they boot you out of Hufflepuff?"

"I've been banned for life, but I'm just going to ignore it. Isn't that what Gryffindors do, ignore the rules?" She winked at him.

"Only when nobody's looking," Ron said. "Pull up a chair and do our homework for us."

"Ho ho," said Hermione. "We're going to relax by the fire and have some hot chocolate with marshmallows. We've been rather busy, you know, not like you four, goofing off all evening."

Seamus turned around in his chair to look up at her. "What's all this about looking into a bowl of water and watching memories? How daft is Dumbledore, anyway? Did you win any house points for us?"

"Yes, we did. Ten points each for our houses. And you guys could win us a point or two if you'd do your homework like you're supposed to."

They held out their papers and quills for her to take, but Hermione tut-tutted and went off to the refreshment counter with Giselle.

Aunt Minerva came in at 11:30 to announce Lights-Out. By then there were only a few students in the Common Room. She saw her niece sitting on the rug by the smouldering fire, leaning back against a sofa, a cup in hand, saying something to a sleepy Neville, who was putting away a packet of seeds and nodding wistfully.

"Off to your beds," said Aunty. "Giselle, I suggest you Accio your sleepwalking medicine if you intend to spend the night here."

But in the fuss over getting ready for bed, Giselle forgot about taking her medicine. She lay awake an hour or so talking to Hermione and Parvati, whose canopied beds were to either side of hers. By then she was yawning more often than talking, and talking more often than thinking. And then, in the moonlight through the east windows that shone on her bed curtain, blinking and yawning more often than anything, as silence took over and the clocks lulled them to sleep.

Mrs Norris raised her head, her whiskers quivering. What was that coming down the marble staircase? A human, no doubt, by the smell of it.

She jumped down off the pedastel by the dungeon entrance and, extending her front legs, her rump arching up, she stretched. Should she inform her master that a student was out of bed? No, the pity, he would not want to be awakened in the middle of the night.

Mrs Norris slunk into the shadows cast by torches flanking the south corridor that led to that long passageway where she had caught a mouse the other day.

Here came the student. Mrs Norris recognized the scent of McGonagall's niece, that prissy wallflower who Argus would say was little better than a squib.

The cat growled under its breath as the girl walked by.

There was no one in the dark classroom to see Giselle sleepwalk through the big iron-studded door, just the stars in the moon-hazed night outside the high windows, and they merely twinkled.

She walked in the slow, graceful fashion peculiar to sleepwalkers, her filmy white nightgown seemingly made of smoke, her hair catching what few winks the stars gave her.

She came to Frumlow's office door off the front of the classroom. Here she stood still for a minute, appearing to be completely indifferent to the banyon-wood staff floating up to her. Then she turned her head to look at it, her face expressionless.

She was not surprised by the staff's presence. Hers and Hermione's had been left behind in the burial chamber, in the past, and both girls had quite forgotten about them. Not even Dumbledore remarked about their absence. But now here was Hermione's staff. Giselle felt that it was a gift from the past, given to her by someone's memory, or spirit.

She gripped it, and with no reaction at all to the cool pleasant feeling caressing her arm, she walked through the office door.

"Your opinion, Severus?"

Snape sat staring at the burning logs in the fireplace. "The victim whose life energy formed the essence of the horcrux was Samson Studmann."

"I thought you would say so," remarked Dumbledore, linking his hands in his lap. "Studmann was slain by Hexaba, or so we all believe. And if it's true that the horcrux is a product of Tom Riddle's enhanced ghost, and meant to secure his future resurrection, then he used Hexaba as a proxy. In short, he possessed her."

"As he later possessed Quirrel," said Snape. He stared across at the pensive Headmaster. "Armando Frumlow insisted that Voldemort was dead and therefore not an active player in the horcrux scheme. This might be in compliance with the demands of Esther Roundhouse, if indeed she is the ringleader. Armando mentioned that Minnex, in league with Caprice Eff and Hexaba's snake charming mother, was to bring the McGonagalls to an end of some sort. It doesn't appear that Odin and Isabel McGonagall were killed for the purpose of the horcrux, but for some other reason; perhaps just to silence them. I've no doubt that Minnex was their killer."

Dumbledore nodded. "We agree, then, that the horcrux, wherever it has been hidden, is for the sake of Voldemort. But what is its appearance? What is the object? Was Miss Granger or Giselle able to offer any insights?"

"Indirectly," Snape replied. "They sensed something about the sarcophagus. I believe that the two empty boxes on its lid held the material essence of the horcrux at one time. Young Frumlow commented that the boxes had 'served their purpose.' Evidently an additional piece of the victim was required: Studmann's eyes."

Dumbledore nodded again, but with less conviction. "Two boxes, two eyes. How unique this horcrux is, a container of some sort that holds not only a split-off of Riddle's soul, but also selected body parts from his victim. Why this need for a material essence?"

"Perhaps a proof against mere spiritual resurrection, when a bodily resurrection is desired."

Giselle stood in the middle of Professor Frumlow's office, the staff held away from her side. It gave her a gentle tug, as though not to wake her, but prompting her to walk across to the partially open door of the living quarters.

Giselle entered a Victorian-style room, her eyes half closed, and letting go of Hermione's staff she walked over to a pair of bookshelves. Here she glanced at the bedchamber doorway and saw that the bed was occupied. A single small candle burned on a bedside stand. Then she turned her sleepy attention to the space between the bookshelves.

Slowly, deliberately, and with no apparent emotion, she placed her hands on the professor's twin staves that leaned against a curtained window.

She was immediately awake.

The shock of finding herself in these unfamiliar surroundings drew a cry from her. She stepped back from the staves, wringing her hands, moaning in gasps.

"Who's there--? Answer me!"

Giselle ran to the office door. She fumbled with the latch. Thankfully the door was not secured shut by a spell. She flung it open and hurried out into the classroom, bumping into school desks and bench seats as she headed pell-mell for the iron-studded door.

It was bolted shut on the inside, but the seconds it took her to throw back the iron bolt had her trembling and whimpering. She could hear the creaky spronging noises of Professor Frumlow going into his office. In another second--!

Giselle jerked the heavy door open so vigorously that her chin was cut by the iron plate that covered the door edge. She ran as fast as she could down the passageway, fearing the whiteness of her nightgown would be visible to her persuer in the dense darkness.

She hoped he would not chase after her and that he had not identified her. For a reason she couldn't have explained she feared him terribly. That her Aunt Minerva was Deputy Headmistress and could smooth away any trouble did not lessen her fear.

Would Professor Frumlow use a hex on her that would drag her screaming back to him? The idea further terrified her. Magic was not to be used against a student except in a class demonstration. But rules were not likely to discourage a desperate man.

Giselle ran down the adjoining corridors in a weaving stagger, out of breath, her side aching, until at least she came to the Entrance Hall.

At the basement steps she stopped to listen. Was he coming? She strained her ears. No sound of springs creaking. Relieved, she went down the steps in a normal manner, trying to catch her breath and to calm her thundering heart.

She tapped the designated barrel five times. It opened, and into the carpeted tunnel she went, feeling much better. She was thinking that she had made too big a deal of her predicament. After all, she could not be held responsible for her sleepwalking, and her panic was understandable.

By the time she entered the vacant Hufflepuff Common Room she had convinced herself that no trouble would come from her unconscious faux pas.

Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light. The Common Room was not as vacant as she had thought.

She stood aghast. Her overriding emotion was one of extreme despair. 'I must look a dreadful mess!'

But Roger, seated in an armchair staring at her, did not think so. He saw an alluring Giselle damp with sweat and looking like a wild thing.

His mother was not amused.

Esther Roundhouse, seated with her back to the hutch's door, had seen the bemused and titillated look on her son's face. She stood and turned to face the reason for it.

"Who is that? Is that Giselle McGonagall? Look at you! What do you mean, cavorting through the castle in your nightie? No, I'll have no excuses, young lady! Get to your dorm room and don't be surprised when you're given a suspension, you wanton twit. Don't stand there like a street strumpet! Get to your room!"

Roger watched the mortified Giselle hurry up the steps to the girls dorm. He let out his breath, his hands shaking.

"I'll have more to say to you tomorrow," his mother announced in a flustered tone. When he looked up at her he could clearly see the probing spirit of her eyes drilling into him.

"Pack your trunk in the morning, after third period," she continued. "My mind is made up, and there's nothing your father can say or do to change it. You're transferring back to Slytherin. It's where you were sorted, and it's where you will stay."

(21) The Goblin Fair

"Sir," said Giselle urgently.

Snape turned and looked back at her. "Have you sensed something?" he asked. He sounded skeptical.

They had been going down a broad passage and came to a chamber thoroughly ransacked by tomb robbers centuries ago. In the light of their wands lay bits and pieces of dusty artefacts on a floor covered in the remains of a reed carpet.

Giselle nodded, glancing over at Hermione, whose eyes were gleaming with the same spark of intuitive emotion.

"Yes, here, I think," Giselle said, leaning her ashwood staff toward a low stone shelf.

Snape directed his wandlight on it. Among the smattering of debris was a yellowed scroll, so fragile with age that it seemed to be crumbling even as they looked at it.

Snape flourished his wand.

"Instructions for the embalmers of a princess of the Ramses dynasty," he said. "I don't see the relevance. What have you intuited?" he asked Giselle.

"It's about someone I know," she said.

Hermione lightly touched the scroll with her staff. "Not someone we know personally," she said, "but someone we've heard about. And this princess... she was accused of infidelity to the prince. It's something to do with a sexual taboo."

Giselle gasped, a hand to her blushing cheek. "The Marvolo Curse!"

Hermione drew a deep breath and looked at Snape. "Exactly! My head is full of Slytherin images, sir. And I'm getting a very strong feeling about a Slytherin student."

"The Marvolo who attended Hogwarts over sixty years ago," suggested Snape.

"Pardon me sir, but no. Well, not him exactly. It's Krimson Johan, a seventh year Slytherin student."

Snape arched a brow. "A muggle-born eager to prove himself worthy of greatness," he remarked, "but sadly overestimating his worth. And as for the Marvolo Curse, we have no substantial evidence."

Giselle steeled herself. "Sir, my grandmother was accosted by a victim of the Marvolo Curse when she was a Gryffindor student, in the same year as my Aunt Minerva."

Snape had turned to continue on, but paused to inquire of her, "And who was the cursed one?"

"Professor Frumlow, sir. I heard him confess it to Krimson Johan, in the east gardens."

Hermione turned enlarged eyes upon Giselle.

Snape made no reply. His expression was impassive. "We shall keep all this in mind," he said. "We are approaching the burial chamber of Queen Isa. We might be viewing myself and others, perhaps only ghostly glimpses at certain moments, depending on the time of our arrival. Intuit what you can of it. And you needn't be distracted by any images of my past predicament," he added sternly. "Come."

Dumbledore finished writing his note. Folding it, he turned to Doris and said in a firm voice, "Esther Roundhouse will obey my summons promptly, or she will not live to regret it."

He extended the note to Fawkes, who clasped it in his beak. "Try the residence first," he said to the phoenix, "at Red Slippers Lane, number fifteen, Spellbroke Abby. If that fails you, the Ministry Annex at Cheapside."

Fawkes was gone in a flash.

"Doris, will you be kind enough to go down to the gates and welcome Esther when she appears? If any persons accompany her, they are to be discouraged."

Doris cackled a laugh. "With pleasure, Albus."

Dumbledore faced the Pensieve, resting his hands on the rim. "Meanwhile," he said with a trace of anxiety, "I shall see what can be done to rescue our missing people from the cruel past."

Caprice stood outside her caravan wagon, hugging her cloak about her and looking fiercely down at the goblin grovelling at her feet.

"What did you find out, Kroft?"

"The Boss was taken by Severus Snape, seen by three of my fellows, spellbound they swear, taken to the professor's quarters."

Caprice felt a thrill in her heart. Severus, abducting Jon? For what reason? Could it be only about the incident at the pyramids, or was there still a flame for her burning in his breast?

She sighed, shaking her head. Don't be such a fool, she told herself. But still she thrilled to the possibility...

"What else?" she demanded.

"Mistress, have mercy, but I've nothing else to report, though I risked life and limb to learn all I could!"

Caprice looked over at the vendor booths, at the sparse crowd ambling along the fairy-lighted thoroughfare.

"Tell Boogum I will see him now," she said calmly. And Kroft was quick to do her bidding, his cap blown off by the speed of his churning legs.

Not a minute later a tall mountain goblin in black and silver leather came up to Caprice without a sign of diffidence. He stood with a magic carpet rolled under one arm and a hand on his sheathed dagger.

"You remember my instructions, Boogum?"

"Yea, Mistress Minnex."

"Do not dare call me that!"

Boogum smiled. After a moment he gave a curt nod. "As you wish, my lady."

"Go, then. Determine what happened to the horcrux, discern its whereabouts, and you will be rewarded beyond your greediest dreams."

He contemplated that, and this time his smile was sincere.

Professor McGonagall stacked the graded papers neatly in her satchel, and with a nervous sigh leaned back in her desk chair, drumming the armrests with her fingers. Her mind was on her niece. How was it going? Let there be no mishaps! And anyway, what harm could come from dwelling in a memory?

She stood and smoothed her gown of dark emerald, her brows knitted in thoughts that had been nagging at her all day and had grown even more insistent at dinner. Was it because Upton had seated himself next to her at the faculty board and was so cloyingly nostalgic? He spoke of only the good times, the best of times. Not a hint about... about what Gee had overheard. Upton, a victim of the mythical curse? Laying hands on Isabel--? The absurdity! But just suppose--?

Professor McGonagall made up her mind. She went out to the fifth floor corridor, saying to the groups of students, "Curfew in thirty minutes," and, as she descended the stairways to the ground floor, "you would all prosper if you spent as much time on your homework as you do gallivanting about."

She went down the long gloomy passage to the iron-studded door.

"Quietus portalis," she intoned. The door opened silently.

She crossed the classroom without the slightest sound, pausing once to look back at the storage closets that were making a soft tapping noise. She smiled. The staves, wanting out.

At the office door she hesitated, listening. She imagined she could hear the sprong and squeak of Upton's knees, and pictured him rising up to snatch a book from a high shelf, coming back down for a series of bounces in place, swaying to keep his balance.

She was remembering how it happened. It was during their sixth year. Upton had apparently misunderstood Professor Kettleburn's cautions during Care of Magical Creatures class, and carelessly turned his back on the scythe-beaked flamingo.

A wonder he didn't bleed to death before Kettleburn, quite familiar with such a loss of limbs, was able to staunch the flow with a clamping spell. And it had not been a very good example of it, with Upton's severed knees held tight by huge false teeth.

Professor McGonagall knocked on the door.

"Eh--? Is that you, Mrs--"

"It's Minerva."

"Oh! Now there's a delight. Come in," and the door swung open.

Snape held up a cautionary hand. Giselle and Hermione peeked under his arm.

The burial chamber of Queen Isa was too vast for the three wandlights to illuminate more than a central sarcophagus and ranks of clay miniatures depicting charioteers and swordsmen. Snape remedied the poor visibility with a moonglo charm.

A hazy white orb now hung suspended just below the frescoed ceiling, shedding a dim but adequate light throughout the chamber.

"Sir," said Hermione, "I don't sense anyone else here, but... there's something about the stone casket."

Giselle sensed it also. She and Hermione looked instinctively into each other's eyes, as though they could better understand what each  was feeling in the depths of their shared thoughts.

They followed Snape to the sarcophagus. All around them, on the walls and on tamarisk-wood shelves, were gold and bejewelled items flashing and rippling in the glow of the orb. But it was the sarcophagus, guarded by the miniatures, that held their attention.

On the dusty carven lid were two small boxes, open and empty.

Snape shone his wandlight on the image of a two-breasted raven carved in the stone of the lid, the image flanked by the two boxes.

"All is as it was ten years ago," he said. "We are too late to witness what occured here between Minnex and myself. But that is not my concern at the present time. I expect a visitor, soon. I have taken pains to ensure it. You two will retreat to the doorway when he arrives, and shield yourselves. Do not engage him except in self defense. He is to be left to me."

Hermione squeezed Giselle's hand and said, "Professor, won't you explain what occured? Oughtn't we to know? Isn't this Minnex person the Fair's manager? Isn't that what Headmaster Dumbledore told us?"

Before Snape could reply there came from down the passageway a tapping of staves.

The two girls held their breath, pressed together shoulder to shoulder, staring wide-eyed at Snape. He did not seem surprised or alarmed.

A young man's voice said, "Voldemort has nothing to do with this, haven't I made that clear? He's dead, you dunderheads, haven't you realized that yet? This was not his doing. He was just the idea behind it. Weren't you there when Hexaba's mother explained it all? Do you think Caprice disagrees? No, of course she doesn't, it's her goblin mate who has set this up. And when he's through with them, they'll be at the heart of it." A pause, then: "That's a pun, you numbskulls."

A short grunting laugh. The tapping was becoming louder, along with the scuffling sound of feet. Snape drew the nervous students to a corner and held a finger to his lips. They sensed his Misdirection spell enveloping the three of them.

The orb vanished. A gloom descended. Into the shadows, a torch in hand, came the young man and two hooded wizards with staves, followed by two turbaned men carrying a body on a litter of canvas attached to parallel poles. The young man held the torch over his head to better illuminate the sarcophagus.

"Here, Armando?" said one of the litter bearers.

"Of course, yes, on the casket. Move those boxes out of the way. They've served their purpose. El Jinn, remove the poles. Give them to me. Hurry! We haven't much time."

The young man held the two poles in one hand, swishing the torch around as he looked about the chamber. The wizards muttered to one another in a skeptical manner.

"Minnex says he managed to shake off Snape by summoning a tomb robber's corpse, a tall goblin fellow, animated by hell's own devils," said the young man, sweating in his tweed suit. "What a fix Snape was in! Can you imagine? But that'll teach him to keep his nose out of our business. Come on, gouge the eyes out of Studmann and be quick about it! He won't complain. Hexaba ended all his worries well enough."

Horrified, Giselle saw the turbaned men leaning over the dead body on the litter that lay on the sarcophagus, their elbows moving up and down as they wielded their knives.

"Done," said the one called El Jinn.

"Out of the way then. Dump the body in the corner."

Two things happened at once.

Snape was the first to feel the psychic undulations, the first to recognize the physical vibrations that immediately followed. He was the first to react when the two helpers dragged the body of Studmann to the very corner where he, Hermione, and Giselle, stood; the girls raising their wands in a wave of anxiety. He flicked his own wand of flexible yew, stunning the two men and causing the staves of the wizards to twist out of their hands and stick to the ceiling. As one the pair of rogue warlocks fled the chamber.

Armando Frumlow had staggered back from the sarcophagus, dropping the poles and drawing his wand with a shout of dismay and exacerbation. "What the devil is this?" he cried out.

He saw the two men fall over backwards just as the throbbing entity at the casket became visible. It had broken into the past. It was a mountain goblin in black and silver leather, its ensorcelled dagger pointing at Snape.

"Severus!" said Armando. "How--"

Hermione's spell sparked away from Armando's quick counter spell, one of a dark red hue that had her colliding with Giselle.

For that first moment Armando was not aware that Snape was battling what he, the ambitious young man, had not yet seen. He was crouched down, duelling against teen witches with a snarling smile on his face, and with questions in his squinting eyes. He was both troubled and amused by the actions of who he assumed to be Hogwarts students, their wands flicking a little clumsily in their frenzy of emotion, their cantos voiced in shrill tones as they hopped about, bumping into each other as often as not. In his confusion over their presence here, he grew angry, vengeful, and the light of his spells began to move toward the green shade of the spectrum.

Giselle couldn't stop herself from trying to hide behind Hermione, for the Gryffindor girl was much the better at duelling and in much greater control of her fears. And so Giselle found herself casting spells in spurts, then ducking back behind the wand-swishing, fast-chanting Hermione, cringing as she sensed the spells evaporating in the heated hexes from the young man. She could see the effects of the hexes playing out around her, barely deflected by Hermione, blurred pictures of monsters and mayhem, ocean waves and landslides, a whirl of chaos, one after the other. She knew what would happen to her if one of those hexes seized her; their images told the story.

Out of the corner of his eye Snape watched Armando Frumlow. The potions master had his main focus on catching Boogum's killing curses in a vortex spun from his yew wand; catching and winding up the energies, weaving them into a spell so much deadlier than Boogum could conjure. The goblin was becoming taut and awkward from a growing panic. He was badly outclassed. He did not try to delude himself into thinking otherwise.

What could he do to usher himself back to the time and place from whence he came? He dare not risk asking Snape for mercy. He saw no generosity in Snape's cold eyes as the humming vortex sucked up the chain of spells. Something terrible was building. Something was coming that had Boogum's knees shaking at the thought of it.

Then his chance came.

Armando had tossed the flaming torch at the girls, had snatched up two poles and a bloodied pouch from amongst the stunned men, who were now rolling over, gasping, their hands fumbling at their robe pockets. And now Armando was rushing out of the chamber; Hermione, kicking away the torch, casting a spell that bound the groggy men tightly in their robes, like straightjackets.

Snape flung the vortex out into the passageway in hopes of stopping Armando's escape. There was a flash of bright green light shot with purple. But still the running feet of the young man was heard, fading with the distance.

Boogum could hardly believe his luck. The carelessness of Snape astounded him, bringing the disturbing thought that Snape was setting a trap for him. But he could not let this opportunity pass. He swung his magic dagger with all his strength and shouted, "Avada Kedavra!"

Snape pressed a hand to his chest, his face turning a pale green, the dark gleam of his eyes extinguished like blown-out candles.

He collapsed to the floor, lying lifeless beside the discarded boxes, the body of Studmann, and the strewn figurines of charioteers.

"My God I did it," whispered Boogum, but in the next moment, as Giselle and Hermione sagged to their knees in shock, he felt a familiar psychic force pulling at him. That which had held him in the past had now released him. He did not struggle against it. He grimaced, shutting his eyes, and was gone like a stone sinking in deep water.

"Stop crying," Hermione said.

There was something in her voice, something full of relief and a strange joy, that dried Giselle's eyes. She followed Hermione's gaze and saw that it wasn't Professor Snape lying in death on the cold dusty floor of Queen Isa's burial chamber.

It was Jon Minnex.

Dumbledore turned from his office window. The Sorting Hat, on a shelf next to it, scrunched down as if embarrassed at something.

The Headmaster paid no mind to this, but watched as Esther Roundhouse let herself in, alone, closing the door with exaggerated care. She stood there looking at Dumbledore with an innocent expression. Her smile was tentative. Her long lashes fluttered in the manner of one thinking dreamy thoughts.

"Thank you for coming so promptly, Madame Assistant Minister," said Dumbledore. "I assume that Doris Crockford is sending your entourage in the opposite direction."

The woman in the chic witch's gown of red silk and black lace lowered her smile slightly. "Yes, and I wonder at the lack of protocol," she said.

She glanced at the Pensieve on the stool in front of the desk. Then she took off her satin gloves and looked over at the drinks on a sideboard near the fireplace; at the black leather armchairs, the lampstands burdened with Transfiguration Today magazines.

"I am to assume then," she said, "that this is a social occasion, since my aids have not been invited."

Dumbledore had gone to the sideboard. "I seem to recall that your drink of preference is gin and tonic, on the rocks. Here you are," he said, handing her the cut crystal glass.

She took it mechanically, her eyes steadfast on his face. "You are forecasting inclement weather," she said. "I myself seem to recall that you're fond of metaphors and prefer not to be blunt."

Dumbledore motioned for her to be seated in one of the armchairs. When she did so he sat across from her and made a toasting gesture with his glass of rum and cola.

"Here's to blunt speaking," he said in a genial tone. "You cast a hex on the Pensieve bowl, Mrs Roundhouse. It was meant to trap the observers in the actual past. You succeeded, up to a point. And I know why you did it. You, like Cornelius, our esteemed Minister, wish to cover up any sign or hint that Voldemort is gathering strength, and that his return is imminent. You and Cornelius believe that the rumored horcrux in the Cheops pyramid was made by Voldemort through a proxy. But unlike Cornelius, you wish to cover up this evidence not to spare the wizarding public from a terrible scare, but because you desire Voldemort's return. You hope to make it seem that his imminent return is poppycock, so that Voldemort's path to resurrection will go smoothly."

Esther looked scandalized. She made a face of surprised confusion and uttered a mirthless laugh. "Albus, really. You ARE in need of a vacation. I deny any such act and you may examine my wand if that will lay your suspicions to rest. Yes, of course Cornelius and I are keen to put these rumors to bed. Why upset the wizarding world for no good reason? But I must ask..." She took a sip of her gin. "I must ask why you are so irrationally suspicious of me?"

Dumbledore was not the least fazed by her reaction. "You were destined to be sorted into Slytherin house, twenty four years ago, but this would not serve your purpose. And so you cast an immanent charm, an Emotive Deception charm upon yourself. The Sorting Hat saw you as Gryffindor material."

Esther grunted a sour laugh. "How absurd, Albus. I was an eleven year old plebian witch. How could I have cast such a high level charm upon myself? You can't be serious!"

"I am as serious as Isolde Carrow, a Slytherin seventh year back then, who assisted in your introductory lesson during the summer before your first year. If you like, I can recount the many connections that the Carrows have with the LeStrange and Wassala families, with the Scottish Effs, and the unhealthy interest that your husband, Randolph, has with the dark arts."

Esther set down her glass and dried her hand with a paper doilie. Her expression had become somber and smouldering. "My family is nine generations of Gryffindors. That is on the record. Look it up."

"And all nine have produced a total of eighteen condemned murderers. Two per generation. That's a tad higher than average. Every family has their bad apples."

Esther stood up. "So that's your evidence, is it? Every generation has a couple of misfits and therefore I must be a bad apple. That is laughable, Mr Headmaster. Good evening to you."

She strode to the door. It opened as she reached it. Severus Snape stepped aside to let her through. Their eyes met. Dumbledore saw the irony on Snape's face as Esther Roundhouse stared up at him, struggling to keep her composure.

"Leaving so soon?" he asked.

"I am not in the mood to be insulted," Esther replied through her bared teeth.

Snape watched her going down the spiral staircase, around behind the stone gryffin, then closed the office door. To Dumbledore he said, "Now might be a good time to end our students' little adventure."

"Indeed," said Dumbledore. He went to the Pensieve and picked it up carefully as Snape stepped back.

He flung the contents onto the floor.

There was a splash of light, the smell of steam in the air. Three figures appeared.

Hermione and Giselle got up off their knees and stood gasping in relief and heartfelt gratitude. But the body of Minnex, lying at the foot of the phoenix perch, was entirely indifferent.

"Who killed him?" Dumbledore inquired of Snape.

"One of Caprice Eff's henchman. A mountain goblin ostensibly employed at the Fair. I'm sure he has made tracks elsewhere."

"See what you can do to locate him, Severus, but don't be too hard on Caprice. I intend to give her a bit more rope to play with, at least until after the Quidditch All-Star tournament."

"And the Assistant Minister of Magic?"

Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully.

"Regarding her," he said, "we shall have to be very clever."

Then he turned to Giselle and Hermione, beaming at them. "Twenty merit points for both of you, and ten points each for Hufflepuff and Gryffindor."

Snape frowned.