(4) Something About Hermione

It was right after breakfast that Professor McGonagall entered the Headmaster's office.

She was pleasantly surprised to see Doris Crockford seated to one side of the desk. The elderly witch, whose age no one knew with any certainty, held an unlit corncob pipe, smiling between crinkled curtains of white hair.

"Doris! So nice to see you again. It has been too long."

"My sentiments as well, Minerva."

Dumbledore set a hand-mirror down on his desk and stood with his back to the broad window, through which students could be seen ambling leisurely toward the Quidditch stadium.

"Doris has uncovered more information on what does appear to be the Doppleganger Curse," he said, as if the subject was somewhat amusing to him. But McGonagall wasn't fooled by his demeanor. It was his way of dealing with a most troublesome problem.

"Oh? Well, I'm not surprised, Albus. No one knows more about the necromancer's art than Doris. What does this new information involve?"

"Have a seat, Minerva. Our brief talk at breakfast, about your niece's sleepwalking last night, suggests that her experience might have been more than a stroll through dreamland."

McGonagall arched her brows. "You think so? But that would mean that Miss Granger has magicked a replica of the Common Room in some alternate dimension!"

Dumbledore stroked his beard a moment, glancing at Doris.

"We are stymied by a lack of knowledge about the motive," he said gravely, "and who it is that would benefit from the curse. We have only the knowledge that a dark animate spell is prowling through the school like an invisible and virtually undetectable fog. A necromantic spell."

He looked at McGonagall sitting across from Crockford, her nervous hands in her lap, fingers twisting, and said:

"My conclusion, that the spell is the doppleganger effect, is not certain to be correct. We are taking the necessary precautions, checking our facial image in mirrors at frequent intervals to see if the features are slightly blurred. If one of us were to notice such a thing, then, as Doris assures us, this would indicate that one's life force has been made to form a double of oneself, a double under the control of the necromancer, whoever that may be."

"Yes, Albus. And when I went to the Common Room this morning before breakfast, to remind the students about our regulations concerning visits to Hogsmeade, I made a point of looking very closely indeed at Miss Granger. I was quite close. I saw no sign of blurring in her features. Allow me to believe that Giselle's experience last night was just a sleepwalker's dream!"

Dumbledore nodded sympathetically, and said, "That brings us around to the new information. Doris, if you would be so kind as to explain?"

A sharp rap on the door seemed to energize the Headmaster. "Come in, Severus."

Snape entered. He gave a curt bow of the head to Crockford and McGonagall as he approached the desk.

"Excuse the intrusion, Headmaster, but you wish me to inform you immediately of any further details in my examination of the thread I took from Miss McGonagall's bookbag."

"Ah! Yes, Severus, do tell."

Snape placed a long black fiber on the desk blotter. "The bookbag is made of a very rare weave. The fur of black cats and vampire bats. Such material is not used or sold at Madame Malkin's, but is quite likely to be purchased in Knockturn Alley. I would say at Callus Soles. It sells the sort of fabrics favored by dark arts practitioners. With your leave, Headmaster, I could investigate the establishment. Today, if you like. I might be able to discover who it is that has recently purchased this weave."

Dumbledore gave his consent. "Use whatever spells or hexes needed, whether legal or not. I shall take full responsibility."

Snape nodded briefly, turned, and left the room without a glance at either witch. The door closed firmly.

McGonagall leaned forward so as to fix her intense eyes on Crockford. "Doris. About this new information."

"It concerns the Green Star," she replied, pointing her pipe at the ceiling for emphasis. "It has long been known that its peculiar properties enhance the talents of the Slytherin type of personality, for one night only. Salazar, we know, was born on a green star night, and four other exceptionally talented dark wizards over the centuries were born on such a night as well, notably the grandfather of Grindelwald, Master Elgar, as he was called."

Crockford snorted through her nose and settled back in her chair. "Talented he was, old rascally Elgar, but try as he might he could not get me to teach him the spells of the Devil's Quarter. I outwitted him there, I did. But I digress. It is his great granddaughter I battled with on Tuesday last, by the shores of Loch Ness, under the Gibbous moon. She too seeks the highest of the necromantic spells. A Slytherin alumnus she is."

"And this new information--?" McGonagall prodded her.

"I had the crone dangling above the loch, as the sea monster was coming, rippling the water with its high arching neck. I says to her, 'Tell me how the Doppleganger Curse can be dispelled, or ol' Nessie will be having a late night snack.' That put the fear of Merlin into her, aye! She says that any good dispersion spell can get rid of it, which is true enough. But then she says that when the waxing moon is in its last phase leading to a green star night, the curse is all but undetectable and can not be dispelled by any means. Only after the green star is vanguished by the rising sun can the curse be ended."

McGonagall sat back and slapped her hands down on her knees. "If that's true, then a person afflicted by the curse will not have blurred features. Have we no way of determining who might have been cursed at the school?"

Dumbledore turned to gaze out the window. "Only, perhaps, if the double is encountered by a sleepwalker," he said in a tired voice. "We still have no clue about the necromancer and his or her motive, except that the weaver of the bookbag was a blond-haired woman, according to Severus."

Crockford twiddled her pipe at Dumbledore. "Albus, didn't I say to you earlier that a double, a doppleganger, created during the final phase of the moon on the days before a green star night, must have a sufficiently Slytherin nature? If Hermione Granger has a double, then it must be that she has a propensity for Slytherin types. This might help you to discover a motive."

McGonagall was skeptical. "Miss Granger, a secret liking for Slytherin? But the Sorting Hat was very quick to place her in Gryffindor!"

Dumbledore turned from the window. "Mistakes have been made before. Minerva, may I burden you with a tedious job? Would you get the Registrar's file on Miss Granger and go to the Ministry of Magic's Department of Genealogy? We must learn all we can about her family and her ancestors."