Professor Sprout came into the Hufflepuff Common Room that evening at ten-thirty and tapped the air with her wand. It made a sound like a bronze gong.
The students stopped what they were doing, which was all manner of things, and turned to their Head of House attentively.
Sprout looked a thoughtful moment at Giselle. She was sitting cross-legged on the fireplace apron with a handful of gobstones, doing well, apparently, against her opponents Bea, Deidre, Cedric, Herman, and the Gryffindor girl, Parvati.
"Miss Patil," Sprout said, "it is half an hour til Lights-Out. You should be getting back to your house dorm."
"Yes, ma'am." Parvati gave Giselle a hug goodbye. She gathered up her books and went out as Sprout glanced about the room.
"Any other houses here? No? Well then, I've one announcement. There is a creature in the Forbidden Forest that is a recent addition and has not yet been identified. Tomorrow is Saturday and some of you may wish to go into town. Stay clear of the forest. Go in groups of at least four. Have your wands with you. Should a threat appear, you are to cast a collective shield spell and remain in place until help arrives. As you know, shield spells automatically alert the Headmaster. He will take appropriate action."
Mrs Dursley read the letter she had just finished, at her desk in the guest room that night.
'Dear Vernon,
I trust you have kept quiet about my whereabouts. You know what gossips the neighbors are. Is Dudley keeping to his diet at Smeltings? Is he keeping his grades up? Have you sold many drills lately?
'I hope to be home sometime next week. I have been asked to assist one of the teachers, the most absurd situation. Such craziness here! It's all I can do to keep my head on. Nonsense at every turn.
'There is one teacher in particular who is mad as a hatter. The potions master. Snide, arrogant, bullies the students, an altogether horrid man. And to think, Vernon, my demented sister actually WENT with this disagreeable lunatic! And I heard from this old wretched woman, who changes things into other things, that he still pines for Lily. There are even rumors that he played a part in her death. Yes, we have this ghoulish potions maniac to thank for Harry contaminating our house!
'Yesterday the Headmaster called me to his office in this drafty, dirty, nightmare of a castle. Imagine, this old man with a white beard longer than my arm, like some silly character out of a fairy tale. He says he hopes my experiences here will help me to be more sympathetic toward Harry. The cheek! I told him that I do not neglect my duties as Harry's guardian. And if he thinks--'
Petunia turned around in her chair and stared at the painting on the wall opposite. Again she had felt that someone was watching her. But the painting was of a plush velvet armchair in a quaint parlor. No one was ever seen in the chair, and yet...
Petunia got up and walked determinedly to the painting with the firm intention of taking it down and stowing it away in the wardrobe closet.
She reached both hands for the frame, and found herself gripping the armrests of the chair!
With a gasp of sheer astonishment she straightened up and gazed about the parlour. Her mind froze in shock. The impossibility of what happened had overwhelmed her. The painting, through which she had evidently fallen, was now a shuttered window.
"Petunia?"
A hand to her gaping mouth, she turned and stared bug-eyed at her sister standing in front of the parlour door, wearing a plain blue smock.
"Lily--!"
"Shhh, I don't want him to hear us. I can't stay long. I'm trying to find my way back..." Lily sighed, her expression a melancholy one touched with a poignant sorrow.
A strange composure came over Petunia. "Go back? But Lily, you can't ever go back. You... you died."
"Don't say that! I meant find my way back to the lovely room near the private study of Severus." She sighed again and rubbed her forehead as though to clear her thoughts. "He says he still loves me. He says that Harry's anger at me is due to the failed killing curse that Voldemort cast on him that horrible Halloween night. He says the curse is embedded in Harry's soul and can't be disspelled. There's... no hope. There's just Severus. And I can't seem to forgive him for going over to the Dark Side." Tears welled in her eyes.
None of this made any sense to Petunia. She stood there puzzled and feeling helpless. Fear was beginning to creep up her spine.
Seeing this, Lily went up to her and grasped her hands. "Don't be afraid. I'll show you out. He's coming to fetch me and I don't want him to see you here with me."
"Who--?"
"Sanguino of Toledo. He has some terrible plan to control the school, something about vampirism that is different from the usual sort. It's necromancy, a dark magic. And Lucius Malfoy is involved. It's awful, but what can I do? I must find my way back to Severus, I must!"
Lily glanced back at the door. "Sanguino is coming! Here--" She opened the shutters and pointed to steps that led down from the frame to the floor of the guest room. "Go, quickly! Cover the painting with cloth. Don't try to take it down. Petunia--" She gazed earnestly into her sister's eyes. "Have you forgiven me?"
"Forgiven you? For what?"
"For not being the sister I should have been. Ah--! He's in the hall! Go now!"
She gave Petunia a gentle push, prompting her down the steps.
When Mrs Dursley turned, she saw only the painting of a chair in a parlour. Nothing more than that.
Snape came out from the Restricted Section of the library later that night and stood pensively in the third floor corridor with the big moldy book on unlawful necromancy in one hand. With the other hand he was feeling the wall where a painting had hung.
Had Filch gathered up all the living portraits? Had he missed any? Snape had found no sign of Lily in any of the paintings stored now in the annex of the Trophy Room.
The painting in the Charms balcony that Miss McGonagall had seen was taken down by her Aunt Minerva that afternoon. But... strange how the wall areas where the paintings had been gave Snape the sense that there was a complex of caverns, a series of caves, within the walls. It was as if the magical dimensions of the painted scenes extended into the walls. If so, then rather that aiding the search for clues, the removal of the portraits made it more difficult, for now there was nothing to see.
Snape was grimly amused at the sight of Giselle in her nightgown sleepwalking up the corridor toward him. 'That girl needs to remember to take her medicine,' he thought, watching her going down the stairway to the second floor.
He followed her, intent not to wake her.
In the Entrance Hall she went straight to the great doors, languidly but with a subconscious purpose.
Snape was surprised to see her walk right through the door as if she were a ghost. He made a mental note to look into this odd phenomenon inherent in the sleepwalking state. Then, unlocking the doors, he went out to the porch to see Giselle going sure-footed down the sloping lawns toward the groundskeeper's hut.
Snape cast an Immanent Misdirection spell so that no one would notice his presence.
It was a breezy, humid night with a blurry quarter moon. In her white nightgown Giselle was easy to follow as she passed the hut and started into the forest.
Snape set the book on a woodpile next to the hut and drew his wand. He shortened the distance between himself and Giselle, keeping her well in view as he followed her between the huge gnarly boles of trees, around the clumps of bracken, over the mossy logs and across the little trickling streams.
They had walked about a half mile through the forest in a northeasterly direction when a low growling call from close by had Snape reaching out to grab Giselle by the arm. He swung her behind him as he faced the darkness from which the ominous sound had come.
Giselle woke up. She rolled onto her side, blinking her eyes and trying to make sense of what she felt and heard. What was all this dirt and sticks and crispy leaves doing in her bed? And was that Deidre snoring?
A roaring blast, and Giselle was wide awake to her horrifying predicament. She went scooting backwards until a fallen tree stopped her. A pair of gigantic feathered wings parted a copse of bushes, revealing a horned head at the end of a long scaly neck.
Giselle screamed.
Paralyzed with fear, she could only sit pressed against the tree trunk and watch the monster snap its jaws at something she couldn't see. The Roc was trying to fight off invisible assaults that had it screeching and tearing up tree limbs and brush with throbbing swings of its neck and fanged maw. What was it fighting? What was keeping it from lunging upon her?
Voices, behind her: "Hagrid! Your umbrella!"
"Right-O, Charlie!"
In monents came flashes of orange light that seemed to punch the fight out of the Roc. With one last cry it fell in a heap, lying in a clearing too small for it.
"Charlie!" gasped Giselle.
"My God!" he said, forcing his way through the brush to her. "What! Were you sleepwalking?"
She made an apologetic face. "I won't forget again," she promised in a breathless voice, faint from her ordeal.
Charlie shook his head, grinning. He turned and hollared at Hagrid. "The beast will be out cold for several hours. I'm taking Giselle back to the castle. See if you can talk the dragoneers into keeping watch here."
"Aye" Hagrid said, scowling reprovingly at Giselle as Charlie helped her up. "That medicine don't do you no good if you don't take it, lass. I'll head back to the caves, Charlie. The men'll still be there, probably."
Snape stood in the shadows, unmoving and silent. He was thinking that the caves in the forest might have some mysterious connection to the 'caves' in the castle walls. It was an idea worth pursuing.
He watched Charlie pick the girl up in his arms. She was blushing, embarrassed at being seen in her nightgown but not without a naughty thrill to go with the embarrassment.
When they were out of sight Snape held up his right arm to examine it in the soft rays of moonlight.
From the torn black sleeve fell droplets of blood.
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