(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.