(14) The Goblin Fair

Giselle was the first one to come through the stadium easeway when the trumpet blast alerted everyone that the school All-Star Quidditch try outs were about to begin.

Deidre and Felix followed her out to the grassy pitch. Here Madame Hooch and her assistant, Lee Jordan, waited with clipboards in hand.

"Hurry up!" said Hooch in a magnified voice that could be heard in the highest bleacher seats. "We've lots to do! Those who wish to try out for the Seeker position, gather round the Snitch box. Those for Beaters and Keepers, over there by the First Aid tent. Chaser hopefuls, over here with me. We're starting with the Chaser positions. Three slots, and a back-up slot in case a Chaser gets knocked out. Hurry up! Durmstrang and Beauxbaton are wanting to use the pitch, so let's not dilly dally."

Giselle saw Harry heading to the crowd of candidates at the Snitch box. He had some pretty stiff competition for Seeker position. But so did she in the Chaser positions. She was glad that her Hufflepuff Chaser team mates had opted out and were up in the bleachers rooting for her and for Deidre (Keeper) and Felix (Beater).

There was a good dozen Chaser hopefuls, including Olga Bluntquill, a grim-looking redheaded Ravenclaw known for her aggressive play. And Sammy Slamm, whose name said it all. And-- my God, she thought, there's Roger!

He trotted up with his broomstick over a shoulder, his handsome face set with intense determination.

A chill came over Giselle. She had clean forgotten that although Roger had played Beater on the junior league Dover Windmills, his preferred position was Chaser. She tried to stop staring at him, but no matter where she turned her head, her eyes swiveled round to find him.

Lee Jordan divided the twelve hopefuls into six pairs. Probably because Giselle was standing next to Olga, she was paired with her. Roger was paired with Katie Bell.

He spoke to Katie in his charming manner, and this was encouraging to Giselle. She had been fretting over the frightful thought that the antidote given to him had only appeared to be effective. But here he was, exhibiting his social graces as if he had just stepped off the Hogwarts Express.

"Lee, take three pairs with you to the west-end goal hoops," Hooch was saying, glancing at her wristwatch, "and I'll take the others to the east end. Mount your brooms, all!"

Giselle smiled wistfully. Roger and Katie would be going with her to the east-end goal hoops.

Giselle mounted her Meteor 500. How wonderful to be flying again, and not to have to worry about getting dizzy, as was so often the case when she played Seeker, soaring miles above the pitch after a snitch that seemed always to be getting her dizzy on purpose. Will I EVER get over my fear of heights? she asked herself as she flew over the Seeker hopefuls. Harry waved to her and gave her a thumbs-up.

She saw Hermione and Viktor in the bleachers. Ron sat a few rows up from them, eating popcorn as if he wanted to kill it before swallowing it.

Harry's encouraging gesture reminded Giselle of their very first flying lesson, three long years ago. They stood together with the school brooms on the grass in front of them.

"You are to be AT ONE with your broomstick," Madame Hooch had said with great emphasis. "It is not the broom that flies you, but YOU who fly the broom."

When Hermione said, "Up," her broom merely turned over, and Ron got smacked on the forehead by his broom handle. But when Giselle and Harry said, "Up!" their broomsticks rose up at once and seemed to seek out their hand. They had smiled with happy surprise at each other. She said to Harry, "We were BORN to fly!"

Now she was happy to see that her Meteor was responding nicely. She did a quick rise and dip, a diagonal shift to left and right, as she followed Hooch to the sand pit area that surrounded the three goal posts with their different size hoops.

They hovered in front of Hooch, who held a quaffle and was explaining the procedure.

"A pair will fly around each other in broad figure-eights. When I blow ONCE on my whistle, whoever has the quaffle will either hand-off or pass it to the other, depending on how close you are to your partner. When I blow my whistle TWICE, whoever has the quaffle will attempt a shot at a goal hoop. Do not fly in close to the hoops. Make your shot immediately upon hearing the signal. Understood? Then let's get started. Mr Roundhouse and Miss Bell will go first."

Giselle and the others drew back from the sand-pit area, hovering together, as Roger and Katie flew swiftly at, and away, from each other, Roger with the quaffle.

At the single whistles they passed off the quaffle without a fumble. It was like they had been practicing together for years. At the double whistles, Katie made five of her seven attempts, and Roger, amazingly, made all seven of his shots, each one through the smallest hoop. No wonder he had played for the Windmills!

That settles it, Giselle thought. Roger and Katie have made the team, for sure. She glanced over at Olga. The girl was glaring at the hoops, as though daring them to disappoint her.

"Miss McGonagall and Miss Bluntquill!" Hooch tossed Giselle the quaffle.

And she dropped it.

Not a good start!

She swept down and scooped it up. In the same rounded motion she flew toward the advancing Olga. They swerved well away from each other, but with each return Olga zoomed in closer, until she was nearly colliding with Giselle.

She's trying to unseat me! thought Giselle angrily.

A single whistle blow. This occurred as Giselle was circling back around. She made a lofting overhand toss to Olga. It was a good one, and Olga could not pretend that it wasn't. She caught it two-handedly, as was the custom, frowning at Giselle in a menacing way.

More close calls as they swept past each other.

Another single whistle. Olga was just then coming up upon Giselle. With a nasty grin she shoved the quaffle as hard as she could into Giselle's midriff, nearly punching the air out of her.

Well! If that's how she wants it! And when the next single whistle blew, Giselle threw the quaffle like a javelin. It hit Olga square in the face. Somehow the girl managed to hang on to it, though she almost struck the sand pit before she could right herself.

Hmm, thought Madame Hooch.

She blew twice on her whistle when Miss McGonagall had the quaffle.

Giselle made a quick turn and flung the quaffle in a sidearm motion, despairingly. She was quite a ways from the hoops. The largest one was her best hope, of course, and watching the ball arching toward it she saw that her aim was terribly off.

The quaffle bounced off the top of the largest hoop's rim, hit the hoop to the left of it, twirling on the bottom of the rim, and as nice as you please fell through the hoop for a score.

"Ripping!" laughed Roger.

Olga didn't fare so well. Her first shot landed somewhere in the bushes behind the goal posts. Her next two shots were easy ones and went through the large middle hoop. (Had a Keeper been there, both shots would certainly have been blocked, Hooch thought.) Olga missed her last four attempts.

But Giselle made four of her seven shots. Not too bad for a newcomer at the Chaser position.

"Mr Fritzgerald and Miss Abbott!"

They did all right, but Giselle was confident that she, Roger, and Katie would make the scrimmage team for the next trial.

And her guess was spot on.

For the scrimmage, two teams of selected hopefuls contested each other, just as in a real game.

Deidre would be competing with Gryffindor's Keeper, Oliver Wood. Felix's chief rivals were the Slytherin team's Beaters, and he was not looking too happy about it.

Hooch read out the names of those who had made the two scrimmage teams. "Chasers for the Grey Jersey team are Giselle McGonagall, Roger Roundhouse, and Katie Bell. Grey Jersey Keeper is Deidre Fleetwood, and the Beaters are Felix Franklin and Bruce Warring. Seeker for the Grey is Harry Potter. All those I've named will please get a grey jersey from Mr Jordan."

Giselle could feel Olga's eyes boring into her like drill bits when she accepted the jersey from Lee.

"The Black Jersey team is as follows: Chasers are Calico Jacks, Irma Wormhole, and Susan Abbott. Keeper is Oliver Wood. Beaters are Lori Lansdale and Fred Weasley. Seeker is Cedric Diggory. You will be wearing the black jerseys. Everyone suit up and meet me in the center of the pitch. And make it quick! I see that Headmaster Karkaroff is becoming quite impatient."

When the Grey team was suited, Katie called Giselle and Roger over to her. "I think we'd better go with the Hi-Lo formation when we have the quaffle," she advised strenuously. "The Black team's Chasers are a brutal lot, except for maybe Susan. But that Calico Jacks is a Cossack on a broom! The usual Revolving Circle formation would get busted to pieces by him and Irma. So, what do you think? Do we go with the Hi-Lo?"

"Sounds good to me," Roger said. "I'll take the high position over the  quaffle carrier." He looked at Giselle. "Are you okay with the low position, Gee, when Katie or I have the quaffle?"

Her first effort in answering him sounded like someone trying to yodel across the Swiss Alps. Blushing, she stammered out, "Y-yes, that'll be fine," and looked around as though she wasn't the least ruffled by anything in the world.

When Hooch released the quaffle five minutes later, the crowded bleachers saw Calico snatch up the quaffle and go tearing toward the west-end goal posts.

The Grey Chasers could not penetrate the Black team's Wedge formation until Roger bumped a speeding bludger with his broom. It careened off Calico's head. The snarling Gryffindor boy lost his hold on the quaffle just as he was about to take a shot. Deidre was there to kick the quaffle out to Katie.

Katie dipped beneath the knot of players and skimmed along the grass until she was at mid-field.

Here she glanced back. Giselle and Roger were racing hip-to-hip ahead of the pursuing Black Chasers.

Katie soared up to a height of fifty feet; Giselle coming in under her as Roger climbed well above her.

They were overtaken moments later by Irma and Calico.

Giselle was rammed in the side by Irma; the Slytherin girl's barking laugh inadvertently warning Katie.

She tossed the quaffle up to Roger. He went into a dive toward the east-end sand pit, a bludger whacked by Fred striking his right foot, another zipping past his quaffle-arm.

He looked to his left and saw Giselle get even with Irma by cutting across her and knocking a knee against lrma's broom handle.

With a shouted curse, Irma over-corrected her flight and did a series of wild somersaults between two goal posts. This distracted Oliver Wood for a split-second, just time enough for Roger to send the quaffle through the middle hoop.

Madame Hooch was impressed. She raised a brow at Lee.

The snitch came into play when the Grey and Black Chasers were crashing into one another during a frenzied fight for the loose quaffle.

"Snitch up!" yelled Lori to Fred. "Get after Harry! I'll watch the quaffle!"

Roger punched the ball from under Susan's arm as the snitch flitted past just beneath him. Giselle was there to catch the quaffle, but she had to pull back on her broom as Harry and Cedric banged shoulders not an inch from her nose. They went twisting down together in a maple-leaf roll, the snitch escaping them and whirling straight up, higher and higher; Giselle with a clear patch of air ahead of her. Off she went as fast as she could go, the wind of her flight watering her squinting eyes.

Lori's bludger smashed into Gee's broom straws. This caused the Meteor to dip and shake. Giselle flung the quaffle to Katie and used both hands to wrench the broom handle up, and not a second too soon. As it was, the ground blurring by just below her ripped away her left shoe.

The shoe reached the goal posts at the same time Katie did. She feigned a shot, drawing Wood away from the middle hoop. But she knew that he would circle back to it in a flash. When he did she threw the quaffle at the smaller hoop. Unfortunately Lori's next bludger grazed it just enough to send it into the bushes.

For the Chasers there was a moment of idleness. Giselle looked up, shading her eyes from the sun, watching Grey Harry and Black Cedric manuevering around each other as they trailed after the wafting snitch. It was doing its lazy drift thing.

Come on, Harry, Giselle thought, fake him out!

"Quaffle in!" yelled Felix, waving his bat.

Giselle saw the quaffle bouncing onto the pitch from the sideline. Rushing toward it, she was wary of Lori and Fred setting up their bludgers for a good knocking. Calico, Irma, and Susan were gaining on her quickly. They were all rising in altitude as the quaffle spun higher.

It looked to Giselle like a collision course was in the making. She increased her speed, worried that she might not be able to angle over to catch the ball at the rate she was flying.

Then Roger and Katie came down like a pair of hawks to cut off the Black Chasers. "Go for it, Gee!" shouted Roger.

She had an open field now. But as she  captured the quaffle one-handed, leaning over precariously, Irma slipped past Katie and came like a cannonball up behind her, out for revenge.

Giselle felt the broom handle glance off her ribs. She was almost pulled off her broom as her jersey caught the handle and tore loose.

That hurt! Ohhhh that hurt!

A bludger missed her by a hair. This galvanized her. She rocketed off, slanting upward and to her left, guessing which position Oliver would take as she approached him like a bat out of hell.

He was swinging back and forth, both arms raised, his eyes blazing.

It doesn't look good, Giselle thought. Wood was swinging now like a metronome, a blur of motion. She was thinking of going over and around the hoops in hopes of Roger or Katie being ready for a pass and shot. Then a stroke of luck.

Wood had to dodge a misplaced bludger that Lori had too hastily batted toward Giselle. There! The middle hoop! She raised the quaffle, certain of her aim.

"Black team with the snitch!" came the booming voice of Lee Jordan.

Giselle groaned, coasting up to the hoop. She let the quaffle fall to the sand.

"I say, no big deal, that."

Roger came up beside her on his Nimbus. "Great job, Gee. I think you're in."

"Gather round everyone!" said Madame Hooch, waving them in with her clipboard.

Roger flew alongside Giselle, to the sideline in front of the Gryffindor bleachers. Hermione was standing, stretching, and saying something to Viktor. Ron was coming down to console Harry. Cedric was having a laugh with Cho. The bubble had burst and reality was back. Giselle always felt that way after a game. And today was no different; except that Roger had a hand on her shoulder, caressing it.

"Tonight at dinner I will announce the All-Star team line-up," Hooch was saying as the Durmstrang hopefuls came into the stadium. "Thanks to all participants. And good luck to you."

Giselle, out of habit, started to join Bea and the others loitering at the easeway. But a tingling sensation stopped her. She looked at Roger. He had stepped back from her and was coming to a decision, apparently. Her shoulder was still remembering his caress.

"There's an outdoor cafe at the Fair," he said to her. "May I buy you a cold one? A morsel or two? My treat, of course."

Giselle did not risk opening her mouth. She nodded, smiling.

"Ripping!"

(13) The Goblin Fair

They had just gotten off the Big Dipper roller coaster: Giselle, Bea, Deidre, Felix (who kept reminding them that he was Dee's date), Herman and Heloise (who did not stop holding hands even during the wildest part of the ride), Harry with his new Firebolt, and Ron (pretending to have a great time, while glancing around for a glimpse of Hermione and Krum, which, whenever he saw them, made it that much harder to pretend).

"The muggles are SO lucky," remarked Bea, "getting to go on these carnival rides all the time."

They were passing along the game booths, subconsciously trailing after Lori, Justin, Roscoe, and Cass, who were heading straight for the Tunnel of Love.

"What's that pinging noise?" wondered Heloise.

"The shooting gallery," Harry said.

"What's that? Are they popping corn?"

"Air rifles. They're shooting pellets at cardboard ducks."

The crowds were making a hubbub with all the talking and laughing, but Heloise did hear the gallery proprietor (a tall goblin) say to Luna, "No, Missy, it's THIS end here, with the little round hole, that is aimed at the ducks. (PING!) Watch it! I ain't a frickin duck!"

"Shall we try that huge wheel thing with the hanging seats on it?" Giselle suggested.

"It's called a Ferris Wheel," said Deidre. "Look! There's that Tunnel of, uh, tunnel thing. It says here--" she waved her Fair brochure-- "that it operates four times during the day and twice at night."

Bea said, "Why don't they leave it open all the time? I want some of that pink sticky stuff." She pointed to a glass-topped cart next to the Bearded Lady exhibit. "Little kids are eating it, so it must be good."

"Cotton candy," said Harry, trying to distract Ron from the sight of Krum presenting Hermione with a frosty mug of butterbeer.

"The reason," said Deidre, reading the brochure to Bea, "is to alert the patrons that when the 'red hot' firework goes off, the adult women and girls who wish to go on the ride are to form two lines on the lake-side of the Tunnel of, um, you know, and the adult men and boys form two lines on the field-side of it. You see, we're not supposed to know who is sitting next to us during the ride, which is quite dark. We don't find out who it is until near the end. Then we scream and run away."

Although no one had explicitly said they wanted to go on the Tunnel of Love ride, they all turned toward it with the precision of a marching band when the firework went off with a smoky bang.

Giselle read the sign as they passed under it:

BLIND DATE Tunnel of Love.
Adults 1 sickle. Children 3 knuts.

"Are we children?" said Bea, shashaying like a model on a fashion runway.

"Doesn't matter," Felix said, "Hogwarts students get a discount."

As they approached the start of the long winding red-canvas tunnel, they saw another sign.

STUDENTS MUST BE 17 YEARS OLD TO GET IN THE ADULT LINE.

"Well that's just dicky," Deidre said. "I'll probably get stuck with a five year-old boy."

"Surely a boy THAT young won't be interested in tunnels of love," Herman said.

Bea laughed. "You don't know my little cousin Roddy. He's already chasing hens."

On this field side male adults and teens were forming lines, cat-calling to the females going around to the lake side.

"Well, darling," Felix said to a smirking Deidre, "here's where we part company. Don't get fresh with the bloke sitting next to you unless it's me."

"Oh you won't be able to pry me off him with a crow bar."

Giselle, asking herself why she was going along with this frightful idea, went with Bea and Lori around to the ticket booth on the lake side. They paid their 4 knuts and got self-consciously in line.

Deidre soon joined them. Then came a number of Hogwarts girls, not least of all Hermione and Katie Bell, followed by some younger girls from Hogsmeade whose parents were saying things to them like, "Use your proto-wands if you have to!"

Giselle was quite amazed. Was love such a trivial thing? All during her wait she thought how nice it would be if Charlie could be sitting next to her on the ride. But when it came time for her to climb into a ride car, in the pitch dark, thoughts of Roger flooded her mind.

Then something inside her warned her off. Stepping back out, she said to a grinning Deidre, "You go ahead of me. I'm in no hurry."

"Oh you chicken!"

Deidre climbed in, vanishing in the dark. Just as the rattling sound of her car moving down the tunnel reached the girls in line, Giselle heard Deidre laugh out a "Hi there, Dracula!"

Who had she got? No it wouldn't be Roger. No it wouldn't be. Giselle hadn't seen him anywhere on the fairgrounds.

"Next up!' shouted the ride attendant, a squat goblin wearing a beanie hat and suspenders. "Watch yer step. Stay in the car. No magic unless yer life depends on it."

Giselle gulped. Climbing into the car was one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life.

She sat as far over from the other side of the car as she could get, pressing herself against the metal and fingering the wand in her jeans pocket. It was now totally dark. She heard the attendant on the boys side say gruffly, "I know my business, young man. Get in."

Giselle felt the car shake a bit as the boy got in beside her. The car at once began to move forward, rattling over the tracks. She could only smell the axel grease and the moldy canvas. Nothing else. There was a cool draft in her face, and with it came faint voices from somewhere up ahead in the pitch blackness. Deidre and her 'blind date.'

After half a minute she heard the car behind them start up. That would be Hermione or perhaps Katie.

Giselle was breathing so heavily that she was glad of the noise. It wasn't so embarrassing not talking to the mystery boy with the car rattling and the tracks making frequent sharp turns to her left. This did tend to throw her a little toward the boy. Twice she bumped him rather hard. Her  whispered "Sorry!" was lost in the noise.

Was he talking to her and she just couldn't hear him? Was he?

"Hullo!" she said above the rattling, just to see if he could hear her.

"Hullo," he answered back.

Her heart sank. It wasn't Roger's voice. The car jerked hard to her right. The boy's weight pushed against her. "Sorry," she said for him.

"Are you all right?" he asked. His voice was a monotone. There was no emotion in it.

"I'm okay."

"What's your name? Mine's Krimson Johan. Slytherin, seventh year."

"Giselle. Hufflepuff. Um..."

Giselle's thoughts whirled like a roll of index cards. Johan. Slytherin. Seventh year. There was a nagging familiarity to the name, but she couldn't place him. There was no significance to him aside from the fact that he was sitting very close to her on a Tunnel of Love ride, which was now speeding up and swerving to left and right every few seconds, throwing them against each other with increasing force.

"McGonagall?" Krimson asked.

"Yes?"

They were bouncing back and forth, colliding shoulders and hips.

"Rough ride. So you're Giselle McGonagall. You know Roger Roundhouse."

It was a statement of fact. Giselle was unnerved by it. If she could only get off this ride!

And then the car slowed. It was getting lighter. Up ahead Giselle could see Deidre's car. She couldn't tell who the boy was.

She looked up, to her right, and just then a glow of sunlight through holes in the canvas wall showed Krimson Johan in all his stoic indifference to her, his pale hazel eyes observing her as if she were an insect pinned to a nature board.

"Roger asked me about you, not fifteen minutes ago," he said, and as he said it Giselle remembered seeing him in the corridors and library with Elenore.

"Roger was off for the fortune teller's, this Madame Moonbeam person. You should check it out. Well, I guess this is over with," he observed as the car rattled to a halt outside.

Giselle was in a daze. Superimposed over her mental image of Roger peering into a crystal ball was the sight of Deidre getting out of her car with Felix. With Felix. How strange. Had Felix somehow inspired Giselle to step back and let Deidre go ahead of her?

Coming out of her daze, Giselle clambered out of the car and walked over to where Deidre and Felix were waiting for the others. It dawned on her then that the Slytherin seventh year who had brewed the lust potion for Elenore was this Krimson fellow.

So! Had HE been the one to inspire her to balk at getting in before Deidre? And what for? To tell her that Roger had asked about her? Why should Krimson want to bother with it? Why, because... because the antidote hadn't really worked?

When Minnex left the caravan house wagon to meet with Hooch, Caprice fondled the dagger as an idea began to evolve in her heated mind.

Yes, it would work. It was perhaps the only solution.

She put the blade to her lips and inhaled deeply.

Krimson had watched Minnex crossing the field to the Quidditch stadium. He gradually realized that the 'pulling' feeling was happening again. But this time he knew without doubt who was doing it.

He had always suspected who it was, thanks to Pansy Parkinson. Her family was in good with the Third Faction, the self-styled negotiators between the Loyalist Death Eaters and the supporters of Lucius Malfoy, that slippery snake who was so careful to hide his true intentions so that he could find refuge in whichever side gained the upper hand.

Krimson smiled tautly. The pull was getting stronger. It was getting very strong. He let it guide him to the caravan wagon of Madame Moonbeam.

"Get in," said Caprice, pulling at the sleeve of his denim jacket. He stepped into the dim stuffy room. She shut the door and said to him urgently, "I've no time to go into details. We can chat later. Now you are to stand there and brace yourself. You will feel a heavy weight on you, but you're a strong boy and you can handle the weight."

She went to the rear area, into the candlelight and shadows.

Krimson was pleasantly surprised. Caprice Eff was trusting him. She was in good, too, with the Stalwart Group, and here she was trusting him to help her in something important. Despite his trouble at school over the lust potion, she was putting her faith in him.

Well, he thought in a flash of inspiration, hadn't he been doing her will all along? Hadn't the pull sensation occurred just before each of his little schemes since his fifth year, when he uncovered the truth about the Marvolo Curse?

Suddenly his knees buckled. He nearly fell. It took a mighty effort to regain his equilibrium, to lift the heavy weight that had come invisibly upon him.

"I'm proud of you, Johan," Caprice said, coming up to him. "Follow me out to the edge of the forest. I'll be casting a Misdirection spell around us. We won't be noticed by any but the most accomplished wizards or witches, and there aren't many of those at a goblin fair. Come!"

They were in fact noticed by an accomplished witch. Professor Charity Burbage had come out from the Handicrafts wagon with a new tote bag. She was curious to see the gypsy fortune teller walking alongside Krimson Johan toward the forest where it encroached upon the north shore of the lake.

No one else paid them any attention. A group of students had gone right past them, on their way to the Tunnel of Love, it looked like, with Bea Swiddle getting some cotton candy stuck in her hair, and Minerva's niece trying to dissolve it with her wand.

Burbage watched the gypsy and the student going off into the shade of the forest, the boy walking awkwardly; stumbling a little, and then they were gone.

Burbage made a mental note to pass this along to Albus.

"This is far enough," said Caprice.

Krimson almost tripped into the fresh grave in the pine-needled ground at his feet. As he lurched back a step, the weight fell off him. He heard a thud in the hole.

"What is--" he began, then squinted at the body that was being covered slowly by a trickle of dirt and stones. "Who is this?"

"An enemy spy! But she won't be doing any spying anymore. My little smoke ring did its job."

Krimson stared at Caprice questioningly. She patted his shoulder.

"I will put in a good word for you to Hardmore Womblatt," she said.

For Krimson Johan, the dark forest became a garden with singing birds and dancing sunlight.

"Thanks," he said. And he meant it.

(12) The Goblin Fair

Late that night the door to Dumbledore's office made a soft warbling sound. It opened slowly, silently.

A black wand with red stripes appeared in the gap between the door's edge and the door frame. The wand was held by a black leather glove.

At first the wand swept back and forth as though surveying the office. Then it pointed toward the phoenix perch near the foot of the stairs. There was no sign of Fawkes. Was the bird upstairs where Dumbledore had his private quarters?

The wand was swung in a swift circle.

An image of a bedchamber hung in the air. It was blurry, but the Headmaster could be seen in bed, apparently asleep. The scene shifted slightly. On a window sill sat Fawkes. Its head was under a wing. It, too, was asleep.

An exhale full of the release of tension caused the image of the bedchamber to vanish.

Now the wand pointed to a shelf below hardwood cabinets. It was directly across from Dumbledore's desk. On the shelf was what the person to whom the wand and glove belonged was hoping to find.

Another exhale; this one full of satisfaction.

The wand was throbbing, writhing, bloating up. And then, given a shake, it squirted a clear liquid that arched up and fell into the Pensieve bowl on the shelf.

The wand in the black glove withdrew. The door slowly, silently, closed.

There was a festive atmosphere in the Great Hall at breakfast that Saturday morning.

Quite a few students had their broomsticks with them. Deidre was using hers to sweep the owl feathers off her end of the table. (The windows closed as the last of the post owls flew out.)

Professor McGonagall, from her seat at the faculty board, could look down over her plate of omelettes and see her niece chatting gaily with her friends. And what an appetite Giselle had! She had worked through a stack of pancakes and was now eating strawberries dipped in whipped cream.

"Well, Pomona," said McGonagall to her table mate, "it does look like your house has not said a peep to Giselle about her sleepwalking episode last night. I commend their obedience to you."

Professor Sprout beamed. "Aren't they just adorable! And our new member, Mr Roundhouse, couldn't have been more of a gentleman. He was so gentle to Gee, trying to wake her without alarming her. He's an excellent addition to our house."

"Hmm," said McGonagall, casting a sharp glance at Roger at the Hufflepuff table. She was still wondering what to make of it: Giselle walking into the boys dorm! Did the girl have an unconscious desire to switch her affections from Charlie to Roger? And was this preferable? Was the boy thoroughly free of the potion's effect? Was Gee under some devious influence?

McGonagall glanced at Dumbledore, who was conversing with Snape. Was the Headmaster's lenient decision a wise one? Thirty days detention for Johan and Womblatt, ten demerits each, and 50 points from Slytherin house.

McGonagall noticed that the two miscreant students were sitting at opposite ends of the Slytherin table. Elenore was stabbing her slice of cantaloupe, scowling in thought, her face all but hidden by her curtains of shaggy hair. Krimson was gesturing at his broom, holding court with Draco while sitting quite close to Millicent Bulstrode, whom he seemed to favor over that seventh year girl, VeraTeedius.

McGonagall could not help feeling that a second chance for Johan and Womblatt was altogether too generous.

Giselle watched Viktor Krum squiggle his way between the crowded tables to say something to Hermione. Something about waiting for her outside. Hermione nodded. Ron sat woodenly, staring at his food as if it had no business being on his plate. Harry, ever the one to cheer Ron up, remarked about his broom maintenance kit, nodding at Ron's Shooting Star 7.

This had Giselle reaching for her Meteor. She had decided not to try out for the All-Star Seeker position, but to go for a Chaser slot on the team. The broom handle felt good in her hand, encouraging her. And with Roger now in Hufflepuff, they could try out together.

Yes... together. Why did this interest her so much? The look Roger had given her last night had been a wee bit too... forward.

And yet she felt fairly at ease with him sitting just a couple places from her, where she could hear him talking with Felix and Cedric. Why this change in her? She dare not dwell on it.

She picked up her grape juice cup and remembered her summer holiday with Charlie.

Caprice stood on the top step to her caravan house wagon, shaking out her gypsy skirt and watching the crowds of Hogsmeade residents ambling toward the fairgrounds as the last of the fireworks exploded in the air.

The Goblin Fair was officially open.

"What lies in your future?" she called out. "Come get your fortune told!"

She didn't much care if anyone responded. But when a rather dumpy woman came toward her, wearing a sloppy flower-print dress and a black and gold macrame scarf around her head, Caprice smiled. This might be fun, she thought.

"I do think I'll take you up on that offer," the woman said, jangling her beaded purse. "How much will it cost me?" She looked at the name scrawled on the side of the house wagon. "Madame Moonbeam?"

"Ten sickles. But for you, I'll make it seven. Come in and let's see what your fate has in store for you." Caprice opened the door and went in. A whiff of incense drifted out.

Hexaba climbed the steps, curious about what the illusion made her look like. Pretty? Or something less? Perhaps she'd catch a glimpse of herself in a mirror. What would she see? Her real appearance, or a stranger?

There wasn't much light in the stuffy interior. The windows were covered in heavy black drapes with a design of stars and quarter moons. At the back was an oval table. In the center of it was a large crystal ball flanked by little bowls of nasturtiums. To either side of the table was a lampstand holding three candles, and a box of smouldering myrrh.

"Do be seated, Mrs--?"

"Daphne Kindle," said Hexaba. Was it just her imagination, or was her body really being squeezed by the armrests of the narrow chair?

"Daphne," Caprice repeated and sat at the table across from her customer. "Um, seven sickles, then."

Hexaba fished out the coins and set them to one side of a flower bowl.

"There is a particular thing I'd like to know," she said, "if that isn't asking too much?"

"Not at all," said Caprice, mildly interested. "Is it about someone you know?"

"Yes, a dear friend and her husband. They were the victims of foul play, it is believed by some, several years back. At Stonehenge. They worked for the Lost And Found department in the Ministry."

Caprice thought that over. It rang a bell somewhere in the back of her mind.

"May I lay a finger on your wand, Daphne?"

Hexaba hesitated. But it would not do to express any doubts about 'Madame Moonbeam.' She took the sandalwood wand from her purse and placed it on the table, where it was reflected in the crystal ball.

Caprice pressed an index finger on the wand. She immediately caught her breath.

"A Sphinx-hair core," she said.

"Yes. Is that a problem?"

"No. But I should wear my circlet. It's a replica of the one worn by Cleopatra's soothsayer. It should help to clarify the images in the ball."

Hexaba cringed. She sensed trouble. Had her reference to a 'dear friend and her husband' been too suggestive of Isabel and Odin McGonagall? She stared intently at Caprice's face, looking for any sign of the woman's knowledge of the couple's misfortune.

Caprice had taken the gold circlet from a stool beside the table and was fitting it down over her forehead. It had a rearing serpent's head, an asp, on the front above an etched heiroglyphic.

Hexaba calmed herself. Yes, it was a little too convenient having the circlet at hand's reach, but after all, Caprice had always been fascinated by Egyptian artefacts.

This was Hexaba's last conscious thought before the golden asp struck, biting her on the shoulder.

Caprice watched the dumpy woman collapse, slipping out of the chair, sprawling on the rug.

She picked up the sandalwood wand. It was trying to express something. She stood and leaned over the unconscious body, touching the swollen face with the wand.

Something was wrong. What was it? The wand disliked something about Daphne Kindle. Why was that?

Caprice tapped the wand on the woman's bracelets, on the gimcrack necklsce, on a ring, and lastly on the headscarf.

Ah!

Caprice used the wand to prise off the scarf. She jumped back, amazed and angry.

It was a beautiful woman she was glaring down at, a beauty marred by the purplish swellings on the face, neck, and bare shoulder.

The door opened and Jon Minnex came in. "Caprice!"

"Back here! Come and see!"

"I have just learned that Upton Frumlow is on the school faculty. This may seriously complicate our-- Here, who is this?" He stood beside Caprice looking at the victim as though such happenings were commonplace.

"Are you blind? It's Hexaba, the daughter of Wadia Wassala! The step-sister of Narcissa Malfoy! Someone sent her to spy on me! Snape or Dumbledore!"

"Or Frumlow," said Minnex, gritting his teeth. "Look, the swelling is going down. Either your circlet was in need of more poison, or she took precautions before coming here."

"It's all because of your neurotic need for revenge against Snape!"

Minnex shook his head. "It's about the horcrux, and the McGonagalls. Why else would Dumbledore bring Frumlow to the school? He knows that Frumlow's nephew was working with Odin. He knows more than we can guess."

Caprice pressed a weary hand to her face. "What are we to do? We have put ourselves in a quandary, all because of your--"

"Shut up!"

Minnex paced the dark narrow room, muttering obscenities. "Dumbledore, or whoever sent Hexaba, will wonder about her absence if we keep her here. We have to get rid of her."

"She's wanted for the murder of Samson Studmann, have you forgotten?"

"What are you suggesting, that we call in the Aurors? No, we'll get rid of her on the sly. Think! Think! Think of something!"

"Give me time!"

Minnex drew his dagger. "Use this," he said in a calm, quiet tone, dropping the ensorcelled blade on the table. "I have to meet with the flying teacher, Hooch, about the Quidditch tournament. I don't want to see Hexaba here when I come back."

(11) The Goblin Fair

It was after 7 pm when Giselle and Hermione left Snape's office and were going up the dungeon stairwell.

Hermione was tremendously excited.

"I can hardly wait til Monday evening!" she was saying in a bubbly voice to the more subdued Giselle. "Just imagine! Exploring the pyramids and their enviorns, looking for clues about a mystery that itself has to be discovered by our snooping around! Weird and scary, in a way, but perfectly safe because we'll be inside a memory!"

"But... whose memory?" wondered Giselle. "Professor Dumbledore didn't tell us whose memory we'll be walking around in. All we know is that it's someone who was investigating the horbox thing--"

"HorCRUX," Hermione said as they reached the Entrance Hall. "Recall what Dumbledore said about it. An object that holds the split-off spirit of a person who has murdered someone, a split-off that will keep the murderer spiritually alive if he or she happens to get killed. A horcrux allows for one's ghost to become completely alive again, if certain magic rituals can be performed. And that's what we'll be trying to find out about: what the object is, who the victim was, and who the murderer is.  But the horcrux is just a rumor. Dumbledore and Snape want us to determine if there really is a horcrux hidden away in one of the pyramids, and if not, then what was the motivation behind the disappearance of..." Hermione squeezed Giselle's hand.

"I'm so sorry, Gee, about your parents," she said. "Here I've been gassing on and on about it, as if it were a game we'll be playing."

Giselle stood looking back down the stairwell. She was oblivious to the chatter, the tinkle, and the aromas coming from the Great Hall.

"It's all right," she said. "It's hard to miss something you never really had. I spent more time with Aunt Minerva when I was wee little, than with my parents. They were always going off on some long assignment somewhere. It's this dependence on our intuition that worries me, you know. We can't find anything that isn't in the memory already. We have to see things that the memory veils from the mind of the person who experienced them."

"Very true," mused Hermione. "But we can turn to Madame Crockford for advice. So then, you know her personally?"

"She's been a friend of the family since long before I was born."

Hermione put a hand on Giselle's shoulder. "Well, Crockford should be very helpful," she said, "seeing as how Dumbledore has chosen her to assist us. Come, let's get to dinner before Ron eats up everything."

They crossed the Hall. Hermione hurried off to the Gryffindor table, but Giselle stood by the doorway staring at Roger.

He was at the Slytherin table. Was he all right now? Would he be moving into Hufflepuff tonight? How was she to face him in the Common Room? One couldn't just forget about the 'incident.' It might be awfully awkward. But then, Roger was so charming when he was his normal self. And now that he was to transfer out of Slytherin, he ought to be happy and satisfied, and perhaps apologetic to her in his easy manner.

As she stared at him, he turned his head and looked directly at her.

Giselle stepped back and around, her right side pressed against the cold stone wall so that she faced the marble staircase, her eyes wide and her lips trembling. That look he gave her!

"Gee," said Auntie, coming down the staircase, pulling on her gloves. She was dressed for travelling; the ostrich-feather black hat, her hooded cape. "I'm off to visit Doris," she explained. "Are you feeling well? Was it the meeting with Professor Snape that has troubled you?"

Giselle shook her head. She stepped away from the wall. "Has Roger been cured?" she asked in a whisper.

"Speak up, dear."

"Has Roger been cured?"

"Madame Pomfrey says the antidote was apparently quite effective. He immediately snapped out of that leering attitude. Why? Has something happened?"

"I... was just wondering. Will he be transferring to Hufflepuff tonight?"

"Yes," said Auntie, straightening Giselle's bangs and flicking some lint off her robe collar. "Have you an appetite?"

"Not really. Mayn't I have a wee bite of snacks in the Common Room?"

Auntie searched her niece's face. "You are not being entirely straight forward with me. But I haven't time to go into it. Doris is waiting dinner for me at her Loch Ness cottage. See that you eat properly, Gee. I'll be back later tonight."

Giselle nodded, her fleeting smile a woeful one, though she had tried to make it a bright one. "Bye, Auntie."

Giselle ran down the basement stairs and along the corridor, past the Kitchen door to the stacks of barrels that, when opened, gave access to the Hufflepuff Common Room.

She was alone there, as she had hoped. The Helga mannequin eyed her as she, Giselle, went to the snack counter and picked through the various packages and fruit bowls.

She winced as the mannequin spoke.

"Food for the tummy
is necessary
but food for thought
is very very....

Good."

Giselle sighed. She selected a bag of pretzels and a peach, a bottle of Mount Doom spring water, and went up the steps to her dorm room where she could sit in her cushioned chair and watch the sun set.

An hour later the Hufflepuffs came streaming into their Common Room.

It was Friday evening and only the most studious among them gave any thought to homework. The crowd broke up into the usual groups and mingled in their usual places, gossiping and chatting in the usual manner, some setting up games, some rearranging furniture or starting a nice little blaze in the fireplace; all the usual sorts of things.

But one thing was unusual. They were surprised by a transfer from Slytherin, carrying a folded scholar's robe over one arm that exposed the Hufflepuff badger patch, a handome fourth year boy smiling around at them and getting a good looking-over from the girls.

"I say, it's ripping to be in Hufflepuff," the boy said. "Roger's my name. Roger Roundhouse."

"I'm Head Boy," said Cedric, making his way through the crowd to where Roger stood grinning happily.

"Cedric ol' chap! My honor entirely!"

"We weren't informed about this," Cedric said in a pleased way. "Professor Sprout's our Head of House, I suppose you know, Roge, and she hasn't clued us in. Great to have you! Let me introduce you to the Head Girl, and to our more exceptional members," he added, winking at those who had laughed.

Roger shook hands all around. There were some remarks about the inconsistency of the Sorting Hat, about how a Hufflepuff named Heston Elgar Jr years ago had suddenly been transferred to Slytherin where he excelled. But most of the comments were questions about what the Slytherin Common Room was like. Was it true that it was haunted by the ghost of a cannibal from London's West End? Were the rumors true that said the secret entrance was opened by pronouncing a curse on the honor of Godric, Rowena, and Helga?

"Absolutely!" said Roger, laughing. "But I'm done with all that. I say, where's the boys dorm?"

"Follow me, Roge," Cedric said. "We have a spare bed in the fourth year section, I believe. Don't we, Felix?"

"Right next to mine. The wardrobe closet doesn't shut all the way, though. We prop a chair up against it."

"Ripping!"

Cedric came back down the steps a few minutes later to find the Common Room back to its usual chaos. He said to the Head Girl, "Shall we go hunt up Sprout and see what the story is about the transfer?"

Willamina hoped this was a pick-up line. She tossed back her curls. "Why not? I have to stop by the library anyway."

Deidre was setting up a Parcheesi board on a table near the crackling fireplace. "Where's Gee?" she wondered. "Wasn't at dinner, was she? I didn't see her."

"With her aunt someplace is me guess," said Herman, letting go of Heloise's hand long enough to stack the cards and pour out the dice.

"She's been acting kind of strange today," said Cass. "Ever since first period. I think it has to do with..." She grinned slyly at the others. "With the transfer."

"Ho!" said Deidre. "Pick a token, everybody."

"Why do you think so, Cassandra?" asked Lori, frowning. "All she can think about is Charlie Weasley."

"That's right," said Heloise. She snatched a token from Herman. "I want that one. I ALWAYS use that one. It's lucky for me."

"I was just getting ready to give it to you."

"Yes, give it to her, Herm," said Deidre. "She wants it."

Heloise snorted a laugh. "Don't let Sprout hear you talking like that."

Lori was looking frumpy. She randomly picked a token and seemed not to know what to do with it.

"Hey look!" said Roscoe, pointing to the steps to the girls dorm. "It's Giselle! Ha! Is she sleepwalking?"

"Oh my God!" said Deidre. Then sitting up straight she flapped her hands. "Don't wake her! No! It's bad luck to wake a sleepwalker!"

Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared with mixed fascination at Giselle coming slowly down the steps. She was staring ahead with glazed eyes, her arms motionless at her sides. Her steps were infinitely graceful. She walked perfectly erect, like a Finishing School girl balancing books on her head for practice.

They made way for her as she crossed the room toward the boys dorm steps. Some were giggling behind their hands, but most were beginning to look amazed and a few looked scandalized.

She went up the steps, slowly, a tread at a time.

"She can't go in," said Lori quietly. "She won't be able to open the door."

Giselle passed through the door as if it wasn't there.

"It's a bleedin ghost!" gasped Justin.

"No, no, it isn't," said Bea. She had been curled up on the short sofa looking at her photo album. Now she stood up. "It's what sleepwalkers can do. Well, the magic ones, anyway. They can pass through solid things."

Felix bit his lip. "Suppose she was on an upper floor and walked through the wall or closed window? What then? Wouldn't she fall?"

"No, they can't hurt themselves. She'd just keep walking, in the air."

The room was filling with talk about how outrageous it was that Gee had sleepwalked into the boys dorm.

"If Cedric was here he'd go fetch her out," said Justin. "Oughtn't we go get her?"

"NO!" shouted Deidre. "You'd wake her! It's bad luck! Do you wanna risk losing all our house points? And tomorrow are the All-Star Quidditch try outs! The last thing we need is bad luck!"

Roger propped a chair against his wardrobe closet. Then he turned and stared in surprise at the girl standing before him.

"Gee, is that-- Why, I say, it's you!"

He looked her over, amused and titillated. "What, has someone put you in a trance? Is this a joke? How ripping. I shall enjoy being in Hufflepuff. I had no idea..."

She was not blinking. Her expression remained tranquilly indifferent as he touched her hair, her cheek, and walked around her admiring everything about her.

He looked at his wand lying on the bed covers. Then he looked at the door.

He picked up the wand, and with a good deal of double-mindedness he raised it, aiming it at the door's lock.

He seemed to think better of what had inflammed his mind. He tossed the wand back on his bed. Now he acted depressed, and then as if he were angry at himself for a lack of determination. There were monents of puzzlement in his eyes. But he shook his head to clear the doubts away.

He leaned in close to Giselle, smelling the fragrance of her hair.

"I say, shall we get better acquainted?" he breathed into her ear.

The door swung open.

"Mr Roundhouse," said Professor Sprout in disbelief. Then she nodded to herself. "I see you're trying to gently wake her up. But better that I take her to her dorm."

"Yes, absolutely," Roger agreed. "I didn't know what else to do but wake her and hope she wouldn't be too embarrassed."

Sprout waved her wand.

Giselle turned and walked toward the open door with just the slightest hint of disappointment.

(10) The Goblin Fair

In her fifth period Transfiguration class, Hermione made a face of revulsion at the cast-iron cup on her desk, a cup filled with stagnant water. Its surface was fouled with green pond scum, its smell mixing with the other detestable smells coming from all twenty-one cups in the classroom.

"Without further ado," said Professor McGonagall, wrinkling her nose, "let's transmorph your cups of dirty water into bottles of French or California wine. Once again, class, the flourish is a crosswise pattern and the canto is on high C, nicely drawn out. Begin!" And turning her head she coughed into a hanky.

Hermione held her wand like a maestro for a moment, running the canto through her mind. Then, with a fluid slash and a lilting "Aqua metamorpheum," she touched the cup with the wand's tip.

A brief glow. The outline of a tall-necked bottle formed quickly, going from opaque to a glittering clarity. But-- where was the wine? Then suddenly it appeared, the slightly off-white color of a dry wine.

All around her were exclamations of success, and a few disappointments; a popping cork; a crashing noise that had Professor McGonagall shaking her head. "Mr Longbottom, get that sticky mess cleaned up. Miss Wallace, did that cork hit you in the eye? Off to Madame Pomfrey to have it examined. Mr Potter, that looks more like a pitcher than a bottle, but a nice reddish purple color. And... Mr Weasley, what is that thing swimming in your wine? Ah, Miss Granger, a delightful bouquet, a Napa Valley vintage I would guess."

When Professor McGonagall had finished evaluating the results, she went back to the front of the classroom and clapped her hands for attention.

"Remember that you are to take your bottles of wine to your next Potions class. Professor Snape will be teaching you the uses of wine in medicinal elixirs. And I DO expect," she added, giving the students a very stern look, "that there will be some wine left in your bottles when your Potions class comes round. There's the bell! Class dismissed. Miss Granger, stay behind a wee moment."

Hermione had started off with Harry and Ron, but turned back with her brows raised.

Ron said to Harry as they went up the aisle, "Is Teach going to have a glass of wine with Hermione?"

"Dunno. What's up next? Is it Hagrid's?"

Ron groaned. "Yeah, and it's bound to be those bloody Nose-Peckers everyone's been talking about."

Their voices faded away in the corridor.

"Yes, Professor?"

"You're excused from sixth period, Miss Granger. You are to report to Professor Snape in his office. The Headmaster will be there, and Giselle."

Hermione's first thought was that she wouldn't have to fuss with Hagrid's nauseating birds.

"Is this about the portrait paintings, ma'am? I had thought that the problem was all cleared up."

"No, it's something else entirely," said Professor McGonagall. Her voice had a maudlin sort of burr to it that intrigued Hermione. "Run along now."

Snape said curtly, "You have five minutes before the bell, class. Clean your stations. Make sure any spilled ingredients are swept up and placed in their proper containers. Label and sign your potion samples and place them in the student cabinets. Do not neglect to dry your cauldrons thoroughly before hanging them up. Mr Filch has been complaining about water on the floor, and you don't want to lose house points."

He looked directly at Giselle.

It was coming. His talk with her. She got busy cleaning her table and took pains in drying her cauldron with the most absorbent rag she could find.

The bell! She shouldered her book bag and stood glancing repeatedly at Snape as her friends, heading for the door, called out to her.

"My office," Snape said above the patter of footsteps. With bated breath she followed him around behind his desk and through the archway that gave access to the roomy office; black leather armchairs, the glowing remnants of a fire in the hearth, tall silver candlesticks with flames like blazing diamonds.

The stone walls were lined with rows of ancient books, their colored bindings muted by the dimness of the lighting; all but one: the volume Dumbledore was reading in a chair by the fire-irons, a hanging lantern shining above his embroidered cap.

"There she is," he said amiably, closing the book.

The Headmaster seemed to be looking at something behind her. Giselle turned and saw Hermione coming in past Snape as he stood with a hand on the archway door. He closed it firmly.

"Pardon our elaborate secrecy," said Dumbledore, motioning for Giselle and Hermione to be seated in the two armchairs that faced him across a braid rug. "This concerns a private experiment, you see. It will test your intuitive abilities."

When Hermione left the Transfiguration classroom she passed Krimson Johan and Elenore Womblatt in the corridor. She recognized them but thought little of it. Her mind was on the upcoming meeting in Snape's office. She merely gave them a nod and went on down the staircase that she hoped would not decide to change direction.

"Come, come," said Professor McGonagall impatiently as Krimson and Elenore stood hesitant in the doorway. She went to her desk and stood behind it, looking very sternly indeed at the two Slytherins coming up the aisle with distraught faces.

When they stood before her, struggling to express a certain defiance that would salve their egos, McGonagall said, "I am aware of the trouble you have caused for Mr Roundhouse, and the method you have used. Your actions are totally unacceptable and it is almost certain that you, Mr Johan and Miss Womblatt, will be expelled from Hogwarts."

The two faces hardened in a sort of angry despondency. The two said nothing, but in their eyes one could see the gears of thought turning.

"You will be summoned to the Headmaster's office this evening after the dinner hour," McGonagall continued. "You will wait for the summons in your Common Room. You will not go to dinner. Kitchen elves will send you something to eat. And you two had better be on your best behavior if there is to be any hope of maintaining your enrollment in the school. That is all," she ended stiffly, as the sound of her sixth period students came to her from the staircase.

Krimson and Elenore verily marched out of the room, threading their way through the group of fourth year Ravenclaws.

They did not go to the Slytherin Common Room.

All down the many stairways to the Entrance Hall, Krimson spoke of what the near future might bring: expulsion from Hogwarts, disgrace to their families, tutoring from itinerant teachers in stuffy parlours and open fields, a life of being looked down upon by Ministry officials whose office walls boasted pictures and awards from their Hogwarts houses.

When Elenore turned toward the dungeon stairwell, Krimson grabbed her arm, escorting her to the Hall's great doors. "Let's get some air," he said. And she noticed the strangely hopeful look in his squinting eyes. "There's something pulling on me," he hissed as they came out onto the porch.

"Maybe it's Dumbledore, summoning us early," suggested Elenore doubtfully.

"No, he doesn't do it that way, the old curmudgeon. It's... something else. I've felt it before. Ever since Christmas break I've felt it, off and on."

He was staring at the fairgrounds. "Let's have a look around the Fair. It's all set up."

"But Madane Hooch might see us. She's out there with her babies." Elenore meant the first years taking their flying lessons.

"Look here," Krimson said, turning to glare at her with a burst of anger and desperation. "What does it matter whether Hooch sees us or not? All the teachers except Snape have a bias against Slytherins. We're going to be expelled. What difference does it make if Hooch gets miffed at us for fooling around in sixth period?"

Elenore smiled sourly. "It might make a difference to Daddy. I thought you wanted to impress him?"

Krimson barked a laugh. "Do you think I was born yesterday? I know who's behind your game with Roundhouse. It's your father, Mr Hardmore Womblatt, and his Stalwart Group. Look here, El, Roundhouse will be given an antidote to the lust potion. Pomfrey will think everything's fine. Roundhouse will appear to be his normal piffle-headed self. But unbeknownst to Pomfrey and all the other starched robes, the Marvolo Curse will grow ever stronger on Roundhouse. It's what your father hopes will happen. Oh, sure, he thinks like YOU do, that the curse is probably a myth, like the gremlin superstition in Ravenclaw. But I've discovered otherwise. Didn't I tell you? I've got evidence, and it's to Hardmore Womblatt I'll be giving it."

Elenore flopped her arms in exasperation. "You keep talking about this 'evidence.' I haven't seen any evidence! The Marvolo Curse is said to make a boy into this so-called 'Serpent of Sexuality' who wraps himself around a girl and sucks the life out of her, turns her into a sort of zombie. Nobody's ever seen such a thing. Okay, it might be true, and Daddy thinks that it would be very useful to him if it IS true and he can control the person who's been cursed by it. But--"

"It's not just boys," Krimson said. "Girls could also be cursed. And... and that's what I feel now and then. The thing pulling on me. I feel there's a woman behind it."

He walked an aimless circle, kicking at the clumps of grass. "The evidence," he muttered. "It's the ace up my sleeve. I'll show it to nobody but your father. He's my only hope now, if we're expelled from Hogwarts."

Caprice sat on the steps of her gypsy caravan wagon smoking a hookah.

She could see the two Slytherin students on the lawn near the castle porch. But she couldn't hear them. She sensed, however, something of what was on their minds, and it made her smile.

A squat goblin came toward her. He took off his cap and eyed her warily as he approached. She was a very comely lass, her bobbed black hair stirring in the breeze, her necklaces of metallic charms tinkling drowsily.

He was afraid of her. All the workers were. They kept as far from her as they could, and when encountering her unexpectedly they doffed their caps and bowed. Caprice was not the sort of woman to oggle at or treat lightly. In some ways she was even more intimidating than the boss, Minnex.

"Mrs Minnex," said the goblin differentially.

"Don't you call me that!" she said, offended. "I am an Eff, of the Scottish Effs, and you had better remember that!"

The goblin bowed hastily. "Assuredly I will, ma'am."

"What brings your carcass here?"

"The Boss sent me to tell you that he wants to see you on some matter."

"Then tell him to pick himself off his lazy ass and come here."

The goblin paled, his long ears drooping down to his bony shoulders. "Madame Eff, I daren't say such a thing to the Boss!"

Caprice blew a smoke ring.

The goblin had been well informed about Caprice's magic. As the smoke ring began to come down over his head he jumped back, trembling, and cried out, "You needn't strangle me, Gracious One! I'll go straightaway and tell the Boss!"

She laughed to see him scurry across the field to the office wagon.

(9) The Goblin Fair

As it turned out, whether to tell Auntie about the startling behavior of Roger Roundhouse was taken out of Giselle's hands.

Coming down the marble staircase after third period she saw Auntie standing by the doorway to the Great Hall, her hands folded at her waist, her face looking anxious as students passed her hesitantly. They were not sure if they had done something wrong and were about to be scolded. But she waved them through impatiently.

Giselle emerged from the crowd of hungry Hufflepuffs and smiled weakly at Aunt Minerva.

"Come with me to the teachers lounge, Gee. I've a wee bit of talk for you before lunch." Auntie smiled at her, but it was a rather sad one, her eyes a little misty.

Giselle's expression was much the same. She followed Auntie into the lounge off the Entrance Hall, blinking at the bright light from the tall elegant windows. Auntie gestured at the padded bench in the alcove.

Giselle sat down in her prim manner, hands in her lap, facing her Auntie. Through the mullioned window between the alcove shelves she could see the fairgrounds, the last minute to-do of the goblins, and, surprising her, the goblin Quidditch team flying their shiny orange brooms down from over the stadium walls, swerving steeply toward the line of canvas game booths, the pennants luffing in the breeze.

Auntie put a hand consolingly on Giselle's stockinged knee.

"Was there... an incident... between you and Roger Roundhouse during first period?" she asked.

"Oh..." Giselle fluttered her fingers.

"Was he a tad forward with you?"

This made Giselle breathe a laugh that got caught in her aching throat. She didn't know what to say.

"He tried to kiss me!" she blurted out.

Auntie looked thoughtful. Obviously she already knew about the 'incident.' She withdrew her hand and smoothed out her long purple skirt. "That would not be too surprising, considering your attractiveness and Roger's hormonal activity, if it were only a romantic infatuation. But... I'm afraid it's more than that."

Giselle blanched. "Oh?"

"You musn't let this bother you too much, or you'll be sleepwalking all over creation," Auntie said with a degree of sternness. "Professor Flitwick overheard a seventh year Slytherin boy boasting to a house mate about brewing a particular potion, which was done as a favor for a Slytherin sixth year girl."

"Oh...  was it Elenore Womblatt?"

Auntie smiled despite herself. "I see your intuition is showing its prowess. Well, yes, then, the favor was done for Miss Womblatt."

"A love potion? For Elenore? Then why was Roger so... forward... with me and not with Elenore? She's awfully fond of him and she says it's her he likes."

Auntie frowned. "Apparently I should be asking YOU for answers. But no, it is not the usual sort of love potion. It's a very aggressive, rather lustful type. I'll be discussing this with Professor Snape after lunch. You have Potions for fifth period? Yes. Well then, Gee, Professor Snape will want to have you stay a wee bit after class. Don't worry about being late for Transfiguration."

Giselle nodded, always a little nervous about the prospect of answering to Snape.

"What's to be done for Roger?" she asked. "It isn't his fault. He won't be expelled, will he?"

"No. But the boy and girl responsible might be packing their trunks in short order. It depends on the circumstances, of course. We'll want to find out what"s behind this silly business. And by the way, yesterday Roger asked to be transferred to Hufflepuff."

"Ah--! DID he?"

"I see it doesn't frighten you," Auntie observed with a crooked grin. "He was to move into Hufflepuff this evening. But I might have to delay the move. I'll see what Severus thinks," she added as an aside to herself.

During lunch Giselle stayed busy nibbling on a cheese stick and watching how the Beauxbaton girls levitated their forks and spoons while they wrote something in big blue notebooks. She forced herself to ignore that feeling of being stared at.

After fourth period Muggle Studies, coming away with confidence that she would do well in Monday's quiz about electric can-openers, flush toilets, and how to work a stick shift, she had to face the thought of the after-class meeting with Snape.

Virtually none of her friends' comments made it into her head. The crowds of students made no impression on her, aside from a jostle and an "Excuse me," here and there.

Every step down the six staircases and seven corridors had her more and more nervous. By the time she and the mix of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were going down the dungeon passage to the Potions classroom, she was breathing like she had run a race.

Professor Snape did not have a class to teach for fourth period. This gave him time to reflect on what Minerva had told him about the suspected lust potion and what might be done to prevent another such occurance. He had listened with his usual dispassionate attitude, as if nothing outside his personal endeavors were of any importance.

But now, in the quiet of the deserted classroom, he sat at his desk reading the latest decision of the Ministry regarding the potion syllabus and the accessibility of ingredients. In truth, the situation Minerva discussed did indeed interest him. And the Ministry paper had a direct bearing on his own private situation.

'Pursuant to the Freedom of Stupid Opinions Act of 1707, potion recipes not on the syllabus may not be lawfully removed from the school library, but be accessible to the inquiring student. However, the ingredients needed for such untaught brews should be kept under lock and key. In particular, love potions should be covertly restricted by keeping the ingredients difficult to obtain. The more aggressive 'love' brews-- those that incite lust and encourage violence-- should have their recipes in the Restricted Section of the library and their ingredients as inaccessible as possible. As regards transfiguring potions...'

Snape left off reading. Dumbledore had let himself into the classroom.

"Headmaster?" Snape said, rising.

Dumbledore came slowly up the center aisle between the tables, their neatly arranged utensils and magic burners reflecting the torchlight. "There is nothing more tranquil, more poignant, than an empty classroom in the middle of the day," he remarked, patting a table in the front row.

"Nor as desireable," Snape added.

Dumbledore smiled. "How like you to say so, Severus. You were not born to be a teacher, but rather an explorer of magical possibilities. My presence here has something to do with that."

He spoke in solemn tones now. "Jon Minnex intends to settle accounts with you. I've no doubts about that, and neither do you, I'm sure. Although the Inquest committee appeared not to give much value to your testimony against Minnex regarding the disappearance of the McGonagalls, it did cast a dark cloud over him. It prompted his resignation from the Auror department. But this intended vengeance against you is not what weighs on me. Nor is the lust potion prank that Minerva informed me of. In the bigger picture, these two things don't rise to a high significance. Minerva can deal with the prank, and you, Severus, can deal with Minnex."

Snape tapped his desk with his fingertips, his jaw muscles flexing. "You wish to know my decision concerning my memory of the horcrux investigation in Egypt, and the Pensieve application to it."

"Yes, the involvement of Minerva's niece and Miss Hermione Granger in treading through the memory."

"And Doris Crockford's involvement?"

"In a more subdued sense, yes. I don't want her involvement to interfere with the intuitive process of Giselle and Miss Granger. Doris will keep a certain psychic distance from the two students. She'll be there to answer any questions they might have."

The two wizards stared at each other for a long moment. In a corner a clock ticked languidly. On the demonstration table by the blackboard a cauldron bubbled softly, whispering little wraiths of steam.

"In respect of Professor McGonagall, I grant you your wish, Headmaster "

Dumbledore sighed through a sympathetic smile.

"Thank you, Severus."

He went over to the demonstration table and sniffed at the cauldron.

"Essence of the optic chameleon," he mused. "An hallucinatory potion. I won't ask what for."

Snape walked up to him, and taking up a curved-handled spoon he stirred the potion counter-clockwise, twice.

"It concerns my plan to rid the wizarding world of a disagreeable half-goblin," he said.

"Are you aware, Severus, that the estranged wife of Jon Minnex is an employee of the Fair?"

Snape did not conceal his surprise. "Caprice is here?"

"Acting the part of a gypsy fortune teller. I've arranged for Hexaba to visit her, in disguise, tomorrow morning when the Fair opens."

A double surprise for the potions master. "I presume she is cooperating out of fear that you will imprison her in Azkaban if she doesn't acquiesce?"

"And her fear is justified. Severus, you know that Narcissa and Bellatrix are Hexaba's step-sisters; that Constantine LeStrange is their common father, but that Hexaba's mother was not Constantine's wife, but an Egyptian snake charmer?"

Snape smiled his grim smile. "I heard of it a few years ago during one of Narcissa's more talkative moods," he said. "Mr LeStrange was never fond of Lucius Malfoy, until Hexaba changed his mind with a little surreptitious magic of the darker sort. She tried the same thing on me, but I had been forewarned."

Dumbledore nodded. "Remain so," he advised. "Hexaba will cooperate until she finds some way to turn the tables on me, or believes she has found a way. You are the obvious choice for any planned connivance of hers. She believes you remain loyal to Voldemort's Death Eaters, which she opposes in favor of Lucius' faction. However, she also believes that you are fond of her, and that you have an ulterior motive for your expressed fondness. Don't disabuse her of this belief. We want her to see you as a possible unintentional ally."

"As you say," Snape replied, and took the cauldron off the low flames.

The bell for fifth period rang as the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students jostled their way into the cavernous dungeon classroom.

The first thing you did was set your book bag on your table, then go to the back wall where rows of cauldrons hung on pegs, looking for the one with your name on it. In Giselle's case, this was "G. McG." Then you carried it over to the utensils sideboard, dropped the different sized spoons in your cauldron, and filled a large beaker with water from the sinks. If you needed any of the standard ingredients, any that were not in your table drawer or in the small boxes along the table shelf, you got them from the supply cabinets, putting them in one of the little gunny sacks that were piled on three stools under the cabinets. You had only a couple minutes to do all this before Professor Snape got up from his desk and stood by the lectern. By that time you had better be seated at your table or you might lose house points.

Giselle had dropped her cauldron and had to pick up the spoons and wrapped-up herbs scattered around the feet of students who were as desperate as she was to get back to their tables. Her fingers were stepped on more than once, and just as she reached her table, which she shared with Bea and Lori, Luna grabbed her robe sleeve and pulled her across the aisle to the Ravenclaw side, almost causing her to drop her cauldron again.

"I want to tell you--" Luna said, helping to situate things on her table and urging Giselle to sit down beside her. "About what I saw in first period Herbology. We were picking mushrooms near the forest and naturally I wanted to see how your class was doing with the Humming Nose-Peckers, so I wandered over toward Hagrid's hut."

Here Luna stopped to take a breath. Giselle noticed Snape putting away some papers in his desk pidgeonholes, preparatory to standing up. Hurry Luna!

"It was extremely smelly by that time," Luna went on. "And then--! Was that the boy we met on the train? That polite boy, the son of the Assistant Minister? The boy we were so surprised about when he was sorted into Slytherin? Was that the boy you were kissing?"

Giselle shook her head vigorously. "No no! HE was kissing ME!"

The room had become deathly quiet a moment before she spoke, and absolutely everyone heard her say it.

She put a hand to her burning cheek. She just wanted to go someplace and die.

Snape stood by the demonstration table, an open textbook balanced on a palm.

"Although we are all intensely curious about your love life, Miss McGonagall, we do have a lesson to attend to."

He swept the class with a stern look. "Turn to page three hundred and ninety... three."

(8) The Goblin Fair

Elenore watched the laughing exodus from the Care of Magical Creatures class, her cruel smile unaffected by the bad smell lingering in the air. She was further amused by the antics of Hagrid, gathering up the wayward hummers with a swish of his folded pink umbrella, a scarf over his nose and mouth.

Elenore had planned to start the trouble herself. But providence stepped in and provided Pansy. So much the better. The chaos around Draco's sometime girlfriend had given Roger the cover he needed to sneak up on Gee. How splendidly it had all worked out.

And there was a good twenty minutes remaining in the period. Time to meet with Krimson Johan in the library, as he and Elenore had planned. He had Study Hall, where now they could have a real proper talk about their ambitions.

Giselle reached the porch of the castle out of breath and still numb from shock. Whatever had possessed Roger? What was done to her was just unthinkable in a nice boy like Roger. Was it--? Was it a Slytherin house influence that had finally got to him?

Bea and the others were with her now, gasping their laughs and suggesting that they wait out the rest of the period in their Common Room. Giselle was all for it. A glance back saw Roger coming up the slope, several of his house mates trailing behind him; including Elenore, striding along with a smirk on her half-curtained face.

In the Hufflepuff Common Room Giselle went straight to her favorite armchair. It was next to a mannequin wearing a formal gown that had belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. It usually said things like, "A clean room is a clean mind," or "A minute of toil is worth a month of idleness." But this morning the mannequin rocked on its heels, just a bit, and said, "Easier to trust an enemy to do what is expected of an enemy, than to trust a friend to do what is expected of a friend."

Giselle was annoyed. This made her feel guilty, but nevertheless she got up and went to the short sofa by the fireplace, where she dug around in her bag for her class schedule while the girls gossipped and the boys talked about tall dagger-equipped goblins.

Did she have anymore classes that day with Slytherin? She ran her eyes down the list. No, thank heavens. Three classes with Gryffindor and two with Ravenclaw. She leaned back on the squashy cushion and let her breath out.

As fate would have it, her Transfiguration class was the last one of the day. Could she possibly manage to have a quick word with Auntie during lunch? She couldn't send a butterfly note to the faculty board (airborne messages, that is), since that was frowned upon. True, though, that Dumbledore was away, and Auntie would probably tolerant a note, under the circumstances.

But... was blabbing on Roger the right thing to do? Obviously he was not himself. Even so, something had to be done. She was afraid of him now. Of course... well, yes, she still found him attractive and all that... but if something really serious had caused his misbehavior, then she ought to bring it to Auntie's attention.

Oughtn't I? She drew her fingers through her hair, staring sightlessly at the mannequin. It was looking askance at a loose button on its left sleeve.

"It was Millicent who knocked Pansy's nose guard off," Lori was saying, "I suppose an accident."

"Will there be duels at the Fair?" wondered Roscoe.

"Let's hope," said Cedric, sharpening a quill.

At a table in a corner of the library, protected from eavesdroppers by a sound barrier spell, Elenore pretended to be ticking off the questions to a quiz in her Advanced Charms textbook as Madame Pince slinked by.

"Don't let her see your lips moving," Krimson warned her. He leaned toward her, his arms crossed on the books he had selected just for show. He was an angular boy with spiked blond hair and a long pointed nose. He reminded Elenore of a hound on the scent of someone.

"Answer me, El," he said, insistent. "In just two months I'll be a post graduate. Have you talked to your father about me? Have you told him how much I've helped you in your lessons? Does he know I brewed the lust potion for your little project, and that without my assistance you would not've been able to pull off that orchid and monkshood stunt in the greenhouse? Have you? You know why I ask, surely. I want an apprenticeship in his Stalwart Group. He only accepts Slytherin alumni. There can't be many applicants. And I'm top in my class at Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Yes, yes, yes," Elenore said with a bored air, twiddling her quill. "You'll be getting an invitation from Daddy in the owl post in June, before the graduation ceremony. He told me to tell you. Now, you answer ME," she continued in Krimson's own houndish manner, "are you quite certain that the inducement hex you instilled in the lust potion will continue to have Roger going after Gee McGonagall, come hell or high water? Everything will just fall to pieces if he doesn't. There will be more of what he did to her in first period, yeah?"

Krimson put a finger across his lips, and just in time to shut Elenore's mouth before Madame Pince could retrace her steps, suspicious of them, no doubt. She crept by their table with her beady eyes crawling over their faces.

Krimson watched her pass without appearing to, then he nodded to Elenore.

"It's just beginning," he whispered. "The hex connects him, spiritually you might say, with the curse that Horatio Marvolo put on our Common Room when he was a student here, eighty years ago. And you can tell your father that, too. It should impress him that I discovered the curse all by myself in my fifth year."

Elenore smiled, just a little skeptical about the Marvolo Curse. It was thought to be a tall tale, one of those make-believe stories that crop up in all the house common rooms. But Krimson seemed convinced that the curse was real.

'Time will tell,' Elenore said to herself.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" shouted Professor Moody, shaking a fist.

Hermione, sitting behind a trembling Giselle, felt a familiar tingle as she watched Moody's magic eye swivel every which way in his appraisal of the class. Her intuition was telling her that he was considering which students needed to up their game if they were to effectively counter the dark art spells. She knew that Moody had picked Ron, and Neville, Felix, and, oh yes, Giselle, for special attention. But, curiously, the bizarre eye seemed to zoom in most intensely on Harry.

Why so? Was it just because of Harry's history, his lightning scar, that piqued Moody's interest? No, she thought. It was something more than that. But she didn't know what, exactly.

"What can you do," Moody was saying in his coarse growl, "if you suspect that your opponent's wand has been empowered to resist the Expelliarmus? Eh? Well I shall tell you. You would use the 'Nottingham Twist.' It was developed by Geoffrey the Giff, who for a season was the court magician for King Richard the Third. The spell involves tieing your opponent's arms behind his back, in a square knot."

A worried murmur rose from the class.

"Don't be alarmed," Moody said. "The Nottingham Twist renders the bones of the arms rubbery for the duration of the effect. There is no pain. Now, on your feet! Stand beside your desks, wands out. Beginning with the student in the front seat of each row, turn and face the student behind you. Every other student will thus turn to face the one behind. Procede."

A nervous Giselle stood and turned to face Hermione, who gave her a smile of encouragement.

"The flourish is a simple hexagram," Moody said, sitting on the edge of his desk. "You ought to be well acquainted with it. The canto, 'Nottingham Convolutus,' is intoned in the Ionian mode, on the third interval. Practice it!"

Giselle had totally forgotten the mode. She listened to Hermione sing it, her voice soaring over the stuttering, warbling efforts of most of the other students. Ron, especially, croaked like a frog, causing Harry to laugh his way through the syllables.

Giselle quickly got the hang of it. She might have been a bit off key, but her ear told her she was close enough. She took a deep breath. Tie Hermione's arms in a square knot! But it was Hermione who was to go first.

When Moody was satisfied that the class was ready, more or less, he said, "Those facing toward the front of the class will be first to cast the spell. CONCENTRATE, and cast at the high point of inspiration."

Hermione was all business now. She whipped her wand through the flourish's pattern while intoning, "Nottingham Convolutus!"

Giselle had closed her eyes. Her arms seemed to flap like downy wings for just a second. Then there was a feeling of tightness, arching her back and bringing her chin up.

"Very good, Miss Granger, a nice snug knot, square as they come," Moody said as he walked past. "No, no, Mr Weasley, a slip knot is entirely unacceptable. Mr Potter can easily free his arms, as he shall now demonstrate."

Giselle saw Harry's face turning a bright red. "Um, I'm afraid I can't, Professor. My arms aren't exactly rubbery."

"Sorry," said Ron. "Does it... hurt?"

"Only a little," Harry said, struggling manfully as Moody examined the other results. "Actually, more than a little."

"Disspell!" Moody barked a few minutes later. All the tied arms swung free; their bones gradually reverting back to their natural solidity.

"Those facing the back of the classroom will now have a chance to get their revenge."

Giselle was never fond of casting defensive spells on her fellow students, and this was no exception. But as she hesitated, and Hermione fidgeted, she saw in her memory the intense eyes of Roger and his hands reaching for her shoulders.

Flourishing her wand swiftly, she cried out, "Nottingham Convolutus!"

"OH!" And Hermione's arms jerked behind her as she staggered back against Seamus, who was just then casting the spell on Lavender Brown.

Lavender's long hair shot straight up, lifting her high off the floor as the auburn tresses tied themselves to a loop of an iron chandelier.

"Oh my God!" said Seamus, jumping up and trying to grab Lavender's kicking feet.

"Desist there, Mr Finnegan," said Moody calmly. "Not an uncommon error." He freed Lavender with a casual flick of his knobby oak wand, bringing her down softly.

Meanwhile Hermione turned around to show Giselle the spell's handiwork.

"A granny knot, it looks like," Hermione said, "but a tight one!"

"Better than mine," Harry said with a shrug.

"You can say that again," Ron quipped, seated on the floor with his legs tied behind his head.

(7) The Goblin Fair

The young russet-haired beauty in the torn black gown had her back to the door of Number 17 Spinner's End.

She was rummaging through the drawer of a roll-top desk in the sitting room, a room with walls covered in loaded bookshelves. She didn't hear the door open, nor did she notice the long shadow slipping across the rug from the morning sunlight that cast it.

But her instincts warned her that something undesirable was coming up behind her.

Gripping her wand, she turned, and immediately fell back against the desk, her eyes wide with shock and despair.

She was speechless. How had he found her, when all the best Aurors were clueless of her whereabouts?

"One may delight in uninvited guests to one's house," said Dumbledore affably, "but not when one is absent from one's home. May I ask what you're doing in Severus Snape's residence, Hexaba?"

She started to answer, but her throat was constricted. She was overwhelmed with a dread that deadened her tongue and froze her limbs.

"Never mind that, for now," Dumbledore said, coming a step closer. "Relax. I'm not going to harm you. I have questions and a proposal."

Hexaba shook off her paralyzing fear and gasped, "Don't send me to Azkaban, I beg you! I beg you!"

He noted the wet pleading look in her eyes. "I would never send anyone to Azkaban," he said. "I did not even send Grindelwald there. Cooperate with me, Hexaba, and your freedom will extend a bit further into the future."

He held out his hand, palm up. "Your wand."

She hesitated. Could she possibly--? No! Much too risky.

She held the wand between thumb and forefinger, dropping it on the palm.

Dumbledore smiled. He weighed the wand and ran his wrist along its length. "Sandalwood. Sphinx-hair core. Formerly the possession of a Hufflepuff student, Beatrice Swiddle. You stole it from her several months ago. It has transferred its loyalty to you, and I believe I know why. You have a stronger relation to the core's nature than does Miss Swiddle."

Hexaba stood up straight and sighed. She felt a little less nervous now. A 'proposal,' Dumbledore had said. He wanted her to do something for him. This was a ray of hope for her. Somehow she might be able to escape him, at some point. Yes, cooperate. Don't be obstinate. Play along with him.

"My mother was an Egyptian. She belonged to the Snake Charmer's Guild, in Cairo."

"And she was a graduate," said Dumbledore, "of the Al-Jinn School of Magic in the reconstructed palace of King Tut. A fascinating place. It would repay a visit, I'm sure. Currently your mother is in England. For what purpose I don't know." He looked at Hexaba inquiringly.

Taking the hint, she said forthrightly, "Mother doesn't confide in me. But I'm aware that she has a lover, a staff writer for the Daily Prophet. I forget his name. Kenneth somebody."

"Ah," said Dumbledore. "The only real connection Miss Swiddle has with the Sphinx-hair core is through her father, Clement. He has been experimenting with staves, attempting to apply two or more hearts from separate red ravens. Miss Swiddle spent her early childhood in Ethiopia and Egypt. Professor Binns says that Miss 'Diddle,' as he calls her, has written an excellent essay on ancient Egyptian magic."

He held the wand out to her. This surprised her. It also worried her. Had he charmed it in some way that would force her obedience to him?

Grasping it, she at once knew what he had done. An Annulment spell. The wand would be useless for the next twenty-four hours. She sighed through her nose, eyeing him narrowly, but with a smile.

"What is this proposal you spoke of?" she asked.

He glanced at the rows and rows of books, at the reading lamp beside a stuffed armchair.

"You are familiar with the former Caprice Eff?" he ventured.

Hexaba frowned. "Somewhat, I suppose. Through my mother, when we lived in a flat upstairs in the Leaky Cauldron. I didn't care for Caprice. She was seeing this stuck-up freak, a half-goblin." Then Hexaba sucked in a deep breath, alarmed. "Is this about Minnex, an Auror? He became one, didn't he? I'm certain he did. Is he after me?"

Dumbledore took hold of a book that floated up to him from a shelf. "Minnex resigned after the Inquest into the disappearance of Odin McGonagall and his wife, Isabel," he said, leafing through the book. "Minnex has since become the manager and co-owner of the Goblin Fair, which opens tomorrow at Hogwarts. But about Caprice," he said spritely, closing the book and looking steadily at the curious Hexaba. "She married Minnex after it became obvious to her that Severus favored Lily Evans, even after Lily became Mrs Potter."

"So, this is about Caprice, not Minnex?"

Dumbledore smiled. "Yes. It's about Caprice. We'll leave Minnex to the tender mercies of Severus."

He drew a red and black macrame scarf from a robe pocket and gave it to Hexaba. She puzzled over it.

"The scarf serves two purposes," Dumbledore said, patting the book. "It is a portkey that will take you to the gates of Hogwarts at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. And when you wrap it around your head, after arriving at the school, it will hide your identity. No one but myself will be able to recognize you."

"But... what of Mad-Eye Moody? He's on the faculty this term, I heard. Won't his crazy magic eye see right through my disquise?"

"Oh, possibly. But I'll send him off on an errand this weekend, to London, let's say, so we won't have to worry about it."

Hexaba bit worryingly on her lower lip. "Caprice is at the Fair?"

"Playing the part of a gypsy crystal-ball gazer," Dumbledore replied. "I want you to visit her and have your fortune told."

Hexaba was taken aback. "What on earth for?"

"Just a pretense. I suspect that she was the one who encouraged, and arranged, for Peter Pettigrew to betray the Potters. She wanted revenge against Lily for stealing Severus' heart away from her. Use your wits to lead her into a conversation that will reveal whether or not my suspicion is correct. I have faith in your cleverness, Hexaba. For should you fail, your liberty will be in jeopardy."

At breakfast that Friday morning Giselle stirred her porridge like it was the contents of a cauldron. She was smiling at the letter the owl post had brought her a few minutes earlier. From Charlie. He had been sent to the south coast of France to investigate the sighting of a sea monster that had frightened off a vacationing family of Muggles from America.

"I left my schedule in my dorm," said Felix. "What's our first period class?"

"Hagrid's," Cass said, sitting a little sideways on her bench so that by leaning over just a trifle she could accidentally bump Harry's shoulder at the Gryffindor table.

"Hagrid's?" said Deidre, slumping in feigned despair. "I heard from Luna yesterday about the lesson. The Humming Nose-Pecker. It tries to pull out hair from your nose, to build its nest with."

Lori pretended to gag. "That's totally disgusting. Why ever do we have to learn about silly things like that?"

"It's magic bird month," Bea explained, adding chunks of brown sugar to her oatmeal. "Where's the buttered toast? Why is it I always have to hunt for the buttered toast?"

"Roscoe's hogging the whole tray," Lori said, then shouted, "ROSCOE!"

He knew what she meant. Grumbling, he shoved the tray along, propelled by others who didn't miss a bite or pause in their talk.

Giselle took a slice, tore it up, and dropped the pieces in her porridge. She had been ignoring the feeling that someone behind her at the Slytherin table was staring at her. But now, putting down her spoon, she glanced back.

She had never seen Roger look at her like that.

"Miss Fleetwood," Felix said to Deidre, mimicking Krum, "may I have the honor of escorting you to the Goblin Fair tomorrow?"

The girls breathed a mocking laugh; all but Giselle.

"The honor will be all mine, Mr Franklin," Deidre replied like a dowager queen.

"Splendid. I shall come fetch you tomorrow after breakfast."

"Don't bother, just whistle and I'll come running."

Giselle folded the letter and put it in her robe's inside pocket.

He's still staring at me, she thought, a tingle going up her spine.

Aunt Minerva came down from the faculty board, and with hardly a glance at her niece she went over to the Slytherin table and handed Roger a sealed envelope.

Hmm, thought Giselle.

"Welcome, Hufflepuff and Slytherin!" boomed Hagrid. "Lovely day. Form a line and put on the wire-mesh nose guards lyin on the grass, there. Great lesson I got for ye today."

To one side of the hut was a large screened-in cage. A number of brightly colored birds were clattering around in the cage and chirping impatiently.

Giselle set down her book bag and picked up the nose guard. She did not have a good feeling about this, nor did anyone else. But of course that was normal for Care of Magical Creatures class.

"Nasty," remarked Lori, fitting the mask over her nose and tightening the rubber strap. "How do I look?" she asked Giselle.

"Like a koala bear."

"So do you! But it's not a honeycomb we're getting," she added, frowning at Hagrid as he unlatched the cage. He was briefly describing the habits of the Nose-Pecker, its valiant attempts to pluck nose hair from its targets.

The students groaned.

"Everyone ready? Got those nose guards on snug? Now just stand still. The beaks can't get through the wire mesh none. I want you to look close at the change of color on the Humming Nose-Pecker's face when it gets frustrated. Turns a flamin red, it does. But don't swat at it! It flies away by firing off a spout of gas that don't smell too good, I can tell you. Grown men have been known to faint at the smell of it. Alright, then. Enjoy!"

He swung the cage door wide open and stepped aside.

One of the odd colorful things zoomed right up to Giselle and began furiously pecking at her mask. She couldn't help stepping back. The urge to swat at it was almost irresistible.

"OUCH!" cried Pansy, whose mask had somehow slipped down to her chin. She cupped a hand over her nose and swatted wildly at the feathered red-faced assailant.

"No not that!" roared Hagrid.

Everyone downwind from Pansy was coughing and waving their hands, which only made the situation worse. A cloud of horrendous stink spread in the breeze as a flock of frightened hummers swarmed overhead.

Giselle retreated backwards, her nose guard flung away and her hands covering her face; fingers spread to watch the melee.

She bumped into a boy behind her.

His arms encircled her waist and hugged her firmly.

"I say, I've got you! We're all right here, I think. The birds are heading away from us."

Roger wasn't letting go of her. His hands were quickly becoming very friendly. She was blushing hotly and trying to untangle herself from him without seeming offended or ungrateful.

"Thank you, I'm fine," she kept saying, forcing a laugh that turned  into a cough as the wind changed direction.

"Oh ripping!" said Roger in a disgruntled tone. "This way, Gee, I've got you!"

It must've been something like faerie feet magic, for suddenly Giselle found herself with her back against the rear wall of the hut, shocked and panting. Roger stood facing her, gripping her shoulders tightly, painfully. "I can't wait any longer," he said.

Just as his open mouth touched hers, a swarm of Nose-Peckers screeched by.

Giselle thought she was going to be sick. She dodged away from the doubled-over Roger and ran stumbling across the lumpy grass to her book bag. (Draco was hopping, coughing mad. "My father will hear about this!") She snatched up the bag and staggered her way up the slope, her mind stuck on the image of Roger's intense eyes.

"Gee's got the right idea!" yelled Bea.

And she, Lori, Deidre, and Felix went running up the slope, laughing hysterically.