Replay

Replay

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter Seven

The Right Stuff

Harry stalled, his brain working furiously to come up with--absolutely nothing. "Erm--" He had no clue what to say to Miss Harrison.

She glared at him, incredulous, evidently forgetting that she was not wearing a dressing gown over the man's shirt she slept in, which only reached to mid-thigh. Harry looked down at her legs, remembering what he had seen in Snape's mind when he'd inadvertently stumbled into his brain, then swiftly raised his eyes to hers again.

"I--I can explain. But--but wouldn't you like to put on a dressing gown?" he said despite the lump in his throat, which was making it very hard to speak. His last words had come out rather squeaky-sounding. Think think think, Potter, he demanded of his brain, as though it wasn't part of him. Come up with SOMETHING.

She eyed him suspiciously, her arms crossed on her chest. "You want to get me to leave the room again, do you? I don't think so." Glancing down, she noticed the Invisibility Cloak "What's this?" She picked it up, gasping at the way it felt in her hands. She let it flow between her fingers and then from one hand to the other. Harry started to feel almost hypnotised by her movements, remembering how fascinated he'd been when he'd first received it.

But before he could open his mouth to speak, she looked him in the eye and said shrewdly, "You're not like the rest of us, are you Harry?" He swallowed, but the lump just wouldn't go away. Miss Harrison wasn't stupid. She could put two and two together.

Harry took a deep breath and finally answered. "No. I'm not like--like most other people," he stammered, his heart sinking into his stomach. He didn't have any choice, did he? She had worked it out for herself. How could the Ministry blame him if a Muggle had simply used her head? He didn't get the impression that she was likely to run to the newspapers about it. He trusted Miss Harrison. She'd always been quite sensible and--

"I knew it!" she crowed, pointing at him. "I knew you weren't from this planet!"

He groaned. "Yes, yes, you've figured out that I'm a--a WHAT?" he said, belatedly realising what she'd said.

Yes, she can put two and two together, he thought. But she evidently thinks that the answer is twenty-two.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Albus Dumbledore tapped the tips of his fingers together and looked thoughtfully at Fred and George Weasley.

"I understand that as part of your product line you have a little something called--Skiving Snackboxes."

Fred and George looked uncomfortably at each other, shifting in their chairs.

"Er, you see, Professor," Fred began, swallowing.

"The word ‘skiving' is just meant in a sort of joking way," George continued.

"We're not trying to encourage anyone to skive off lessons--"

"Oh, no!" George agreed with wide-eyed innocence. "We'd never do that--"

Dumbledore chuckled, his blue eyes twinkling at them. "Now, now, the pair of you are no longer Hogwarts students. I am not enquiring after your snackboxes because I wish to punish you. I have heard, however, of a particular item that induces nosebleeds in anyone who ingests it...."

"Oh, that would be our Nosebleed Nougats," Fred said proudly, straightening up. "Took us a while--"

"--and quite a lot of our own blood spilled--" George chimed in.

"--and a few other people's--"

"--to perfect the antidote--"

"--but they work brilliantly now," Fred finished. "The antidote actually makes the bleeding stop."

"Instead of making it worse," George assured the headmaster, nodding.

Dumbledore also nodded. "Yes, yes, that sounds like quite a good bit of magic there. How much would it cost, do you think, to order a number of special Nosebleed Nougats--without the antidote?"

Fred and George looked at each other uncertainly. "You don't want the antidote?"

Dumbledore looked calmly at the twins. "That's right. Just the nosebleed part," he said pleasantly. "And I also understand that you have some very interesting hats that make it appear that a person's head has, well, disappeared."

The twins lost their self-consciousness and began talking--finishing each other's sentences again--about the hats, the nougats, about Extendable Ears and other items. Dumbledore continued to nod and smile, taking notes on a piece of parchment.

When they had described everything they sold, Dumbledore drew a line under a column of figures, waved his hand over the column and surveyed the result. "Now then, by my calculations, and according to the prices you quoted, the cost of this order would be two-hundred forty-nine Galleons, ten Sickles and five Knuts." He smiled up at them. "However--let us just say two-hundred fifty Galleons for simplicity's sake, shall we?"

Fred and George looked at each other, eyes like saucers.

George finally choked out, "We shall," when Fred put his elbow in his ribs.

"You--you mean--you want all of our Skiving Snackboxes?" Fred said, making sure he hadn't misunderstood.

"And the Headless Hats?" George added.

"And you want us to make twenty more Extendable Ears? Is that individual ears or pairs?"

"Pairs. And yes, I do," Dumbledore told them. "Plus the other items we discussed, the Fainting Fancies, and so on." He smiled at them both, enjoying their shocked expressions. "I'd like the lot."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"I just knew you were an alien!" Miss Harrison continued to move the Cloak through her fingers, as though she'd forgotten she was doing it. Harry gawped at her, unable to speak for a moment; he was surprised that a supposedly sensible adult would suggest that he was an alien. He was now starting to wonder whether she was in the habit of reading one of the Muggle equivalents of The Quibbler. It wasn't as though there was a shortage of rags to choose from.

"I'm--I'm a what? No--" he started to say. A moment later he mentally cursed himself for this. Bugger. An alien! That would have been a perfect cover story. But now he'd said ‘no'....

"You're not? But--but what about this?" She brandished the Cloak at him. "And--and those strange things you did when you were younger... And why are you in my bloody house?" she finally asked, starting to grow rather pink. "Where've you been since--since your house--?"

Harry took heart from the fact that she still seemed reluctant to accuse him of having blown up his own house. He looked sheepishly at her and stammered, "I've--I've been here, in your house." It was the truth. "Mrs Figg, next door, used to baby-sit me when I was younger--"

"Yes, I know, I know," she said impatiently, having gone back to compulsively caressing the Cloak.

"--and I had thought to go to her for help after I saw the news report that my house had been attacked--" It was easier to tell the truth than to come up with a wild story for an explanation, but he still wasn't certain what to say when he came to the end of the things that sounded normal, which was to say, non-alien and non-magical.

"News report! Aha! I told Pip you hadn't blown up your own house--" she started to say triumphantly, pointing at him with the Cloak.

"--but there were already these--these people there who I really didn't want to see, so I ducked into your garage--"

He trailed off, still uncertain about how he was going to explain his being a wizard. She seemed to have become addicted to touching the Invisibility Cloak and before he could stop her she had swung it over her shoulders, as though she wanted to admire the way it looked. Her eyes grew wide as she looked down and realized that she was looking through her body clear down to the carpet. She screamed for a moment, then stopped short, continuing to stare down at where she should have been.

"What--what is this thing, Harry? And if you're not an alien--what are you? And where did you get this, from NASA or something?"

He stared at her, thinking of the films he'd been watching. That's it! It was perfect. Absolutely bloody perfect. He tried not to look elated and instead contorted his face into a mask of disappointment.

"Oh, damn, you guessed it!" he groaned, watching her expression carefully. She stared when he said this.

"I--I what?"

Harry sighed and nodded at where her body should have been. "That's an Invisibility Cloak. Very top secret, you know. Most of the others don't have them, but I inherited that from my dad. That's how I've been able to hide in your house without your seeing me. I've been keeping watch on Mrs Figg's house, waiting for the coast to be clear."

"Hiding? In my house? In this?" The truth suddenly dawned on her and she ripped it off and threw it at him. "You were pretending to be my dad's ghost, weren't you? Bloody hell! How--how dare you?" she demanded, growing quite red in the face. He winced.

"Listen, I'm really sorry about that, I am. But I very stupidly flushed the toilet yesterday morning, and then you got all excited when you saw the marks my wet trainers were making on the carpet.... I didn't know what else to do," he finished feebly.

She sat in a chair, putting her head in her hands. "God, I feel so stupid," she said through her fingers. "Dad's ghost. Dad's ghost! Oh my god...."

Harry didn't comment on her belief in ghosts actually being a little less stupid than her deciding that he was an alien. Is that why she defended me to Soberley? he thought. How very strange. He had come to the conclusion, once and for all, that it was absolutely impossible to predict what adults were thinking, even Snape, who evidently was rather fond of Miss Harrison's legs.

He shook himself, trying to get Snape out of his brain again, remembering bits and pieces of the two years that Matilda Harrison had been his teacher. He would never have imagined that she thought she was teaching a boy from another planet. Even witches and wizards aren't that barmy, he thought; well, apart from Luna Lovegood....

What he didn't know was whether she was barmy enough to believe the tale he was spinning in his mind, a tale that just might make it possible for her to feel she could trust him and make it unnecessary for him to break the secrecy statute and risk being called up before the Wizengamot again. (Since Dumbledore had been restored as the chief wizard on the court, Harry very much doubted he would be able to speak on his behalf during yet another hearing.)

Miss Harrison was scrutinising him carefully, having picked up the Invisibility Cloak again, running it through her fingers once more. She sat down, eyeing him suspiciously. "What did you mean Most of the others don't have them? Most of the other what?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Fred looked like he might be short of breath. "Yes, sir, Professor. When do you want it all?"

"Oh, as soon as possible, as soon as possible. You needn't bring it all way up here, however, simply deliver it all to Headquarters."

"Headquarters?" George frowned. "We live there."

"Yes, I know," Dumbledore said, smiling. "I believe your products could be very useful to the Order."

Fred perked up at that. "The Order! So--are we the official suppliers to the Order of the Phoenix, then?"

"Yes, you could say that. Except that you can't," he added, suddenly quite stern. "So don't get any ideas about putting that in an advertisement for the Daily Prophet...."

Fred looked rather disappointed, as though that was exactly what he'd been hoping to do. "Oh, well," he sighed.

"But you could consider yourselves to be junior members of the Order," Dumbledore said, smiling again. "Which means that you wouldn't attend all meetings, but you might be summoned to give advice concerning which of your products would be most helpful in--certain situations...."

"We're there!" George said immediately, grinning.

Dumbledore chuckled again. "I know that the pair of you have been dying to attend an Order meeting for the last year. Well, you shall soon have your chance. Your mother will contact you when your presence is required." He smiled. "I assume that means that she'll shout up the stairs. In the meantime," he said, opening a drawer in his desk and taking out a small heavy-looking chest, "I believe that this should cover fifty percent of my order, the remainder to be paid upon delivery."

He opened the small metal casket and the gold coins within shone brightly in the morning sunshine streaming in through the windows. Fred and George swallowed; they'd seen a thousand Galleons when Harry had given them his Triwizard winnings, but they'd put it into Gringotts for safekeeping and had been drawing it out, bit by bit, to start the shop and get premises, until there was almost nothing left. They'd been doing well for a new business, but they didn't have a lot of gold to spare for heaping in piles and admiring. This was the single biggest order they'd received.

"There is, however, a caveat," Dumbledore said, making them frown. "A catch," he explained. "I wish to know about all of your customers. Each and every person who comes into your shop, even if it is just to browse. I strongly suspect that I will not prove to be the only one who can find other uses for these items besides practical jokes and skiving off lessons."

He closed the chest, fastened the clasp and then gave it to Fred, who handled it as though it were bone china.

"And now I am afraid you shall have to excuse me. I have a number of meetings to get through this morning. I do appreciate your coming to tell me about your product line." He lowered his voice. "I know that your mother didn't approve," he said quietly, as though Molly Weasley might be able to hear them, "but I don't think continuing on at school is for everyone. You had over six years of a magical education, you're of-age and you have a way to support yourselves. Many who complete seven years here cannot immediately make a living, nor do they have any idea of what they want to do with their lives. I hope your parents are proud of you. I know I am. How many O.W.L.s you get is not really the measure of a wizard, now is it?" he added, his eyes twinkling again.

They grinned at him. "No, professor," Fred agreed. "And we'll try to get all of this made as soon as possible," he promised.

"Yeah. We, erm, don't actually have a lot of what you're asking for," George admitted nervously, looking over the list.

"If you should need to buy more materials, that advance should help, but do let me know if you need more."

Fred nodded vigorously. "Oh, we will, Professor, we will."

Dumbledore stood. "Very good. Do have a good day. And thank you again."

As they left, George called over his shoulder, "No, Professor, thank you!" before following his brother down the stairs. Both of them were practically dancing with glee.

Dumbledore sighed and sat, nodding at Fawkes. The red and gold bird rose into the air and disappeared suddenly. When Fawkes reappeared he was alone, but carrying a note.

I'd feel more comfortable using Floo. I know it's being watched, but I'm in disguise, so I don't think it's a security risk.

Dumbledore waved his hand at the cold fireplace, making flames spring into life there. A moment later they turned deep green and soon after that, the figure of Remus Lupin was emerging from the fire. However, a moment later, his appearance changed drastically as the potion wore off. He continued brushing down his robes and shaking soot from his long red ponytail as though nothing had happened.

"Good morning, Mr. Weasley. How are you today?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry clamped his mouth shut, as though he didn't want to tell her the "truth." After a minute, though, he sighed and threw up his hands. "I'm going to have to tell you, aren't I?" he sighed in resignation.

"Please," Miss Harrison said, crossing her arms, giving him the gimlet eye he remembered from when she was his teacher.

"Well--let's start with my school," Harry said. "I don't go to St Brutus's."

"Well, I never thought that sounded right," Miss Harrison said, shaking her head. "And it would explain why the headmaster there had never heard of you. So where do you go to school?"

"It's--it's not in this country." That was true, in a way, since Hogwarts was in Scotland. He was not, however, going to tell her that he went to school in Scotland. "It's in Greenland," he finally said, swallowing, looking around furtively, as though the room might be bugged. "And it's not a normal school," he added.

"What kind of school is it?" she whispered, looking less suspicious by the moment. She already believes me, he thought, trying not to look too cheerful. She wants to believe.

"Well, first off, I couldn't believe you guessed where the Cloak came from," he said, nodding at it.

"I thought you were going to tell me about your school first thing. NASA? Why on earth would your dad have something from NASA?" She dropped her jaw. "Was he--he wasn't an astronaut, surely?" she said frowning, looking a little doubtful now. "I mean--it would have been in the news years ago..."

"Oh, no, not an astronaut, no," he said choosing his words carefully. "See, NASA doesn't just make things for--for astronauts. A lot of things created at NASA are used by the Americans for their agents, and for agents from other friendly countries...."

"Agents!" she exclaimed. "So your dad was--"

"And my mum, too. Yeah." He swallowed. "They were spies. That's why they were killed."

He let Miss Harrison absorb this bit of information. (He'd really only twisted the truth a little bit, in his view.) Watching her face carefully, he looked for any signs of her having decided that he was the world's biggest liar. (He certainly felt like he was.)

"So," she prompted him, "this school you go to in Greenland--"

He thought as quickly as he could. "Well, erm, kids around the world in certain countries get--get tested when they're rather young, and if they show certain talents, they get to go to this school for--well, for future spies. And some of us just end up going automatically, like me, because my mum and dad were both spies, so it's assumed that I might have inherited some of what made them good at their jobs."

She raised an eyebrow. "I hope you turn out to be better than they were at their jobs, since they got killed." The moment she said this she looked horrified. "Oh, Harry! I'm sorry. I--I didn't mean to imply that it was their fault--"

He grimaced. "It's all right. They were killed because they were betrayed. Someone they trusted completely turned on them and led their worst enemy--the enemy of most of the civilised world, for that matter, even though most people don't know it--right to them. But--but while she was dying, my mum did something to protect me, and when he tried to kill me too, even though I was just a baby, somehow it all backfired on him and he was hurt very badly and had to go into hiding for a long time, to try to get his strength back." The words were rushing out of him now, because he was able to talk about this without mentioning magic at all. He sighed. "Well, he's got his strength back now and he's more than a bit upset that he lost all of those years because of me. I'm pretty sure it was his people who blew up my house while I was out; they were coming after me. And now the Mug--er, the police think I did it, even though I was two towns away, and my own people may also think I'm to blame, since they all know how much I hate my relatives, which means I may be facing an inquiry. I could even get kicked out of school, if I can't prove I didn't do it...." He swallowed the lump in his throat for what seemed the millionth time. He'd wanted to leave Hogwarts last year, when Umbridge was there. Now the idea of leaving it....

"Oh, Harry!" she cried, horror-struck. "How dreadful! Is that who you're avoiding next door? Some of ‘your' people?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Mrs Figg's place is sort of a safe house. She's a retired agent herself. One of the best in her day," he added, warming to the yarn he was spinning.

She stood and paced, still grasping the Cloak. "Mrs Figg?" She stared at him, incredulous; he shrugged and nodded. She shook her head, resuming her pacing. "I just can't--I can't believe our government would be so irresponsible as to let children work as spies...."

Harry bristled instinctively, remembering every time during the previous year when he was reminded that he was too young to be in the Order proper. "I'm not a child," he said, unable to keep the resentment out of his voice.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Harry's just a kid. How can we just leave him there?"

"He is perfectly safe, Mr. Weasley. I have managed to pinpoint his exact location and I must say, he is showing very good instincts, considering that he is not a trained Auror. I have also placed some additional protections on the house. I do not want to push him just now, not after--after what he just went through with Sirius. I suspect that his little bout of escapism has to do more than a bit with how he feels about my having kept Sirius confined to Headquarters last year. I don't want to give him a reason to react impulsively again. He thinks that he has a certain amount of autonomy at the moment, and that is fine.

"Now then, your job is going to be convincing people at the Ministry to remove the Aurors from Little Whinging. It is my belief that they are what is preventing Harry from coming forward at this time. In the meantime, he is perfectly safe. Trust me."

"Even with all of those escaped Death Eaters on the loose?"

Dumbledore held up his hand. "I have people working on that, never fear. The situation is not as dire as one might suppose. You have your job cut out for you. Oh, and an excellent piece in the Prophet. Congratulations. Those Head Boy tendencies continue to shine through," Dumbledore added, smiling.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry bristled. "I'll be sixteen on the thirty-first. And technically, I'm not an agent yet. After I finish the next two years of school, there are three more years of intensive training to get through," he said, wondering whether he'd ever get to even finish his last two years of school, let alone train to be an Auror. "I can't help that this madman has targeted me. He blames me for what happened to him. What am I supposed to do?"

She looked contrite and sat on the couch. "Oh, god, I'm sorry, Harry. Of course it isn't your fault that someone killed your parents and is trying to kill you now. I just can't--I can't believe you're in training to be a spy. And I'm still not certain how that explains some of the really weird things you did when you were small...."

Harry had forgotten about that; the alien-lie would probably have applied to those incidents much better than the spy-in-training-lie. He wasn't sure, for instance, how he would explain having turned Mr. Axminster's toupee bright blue. (He suppressed a smile at the memory.) However, she might not remember that, since it was the year before he had her for a teacher the first time. He thought furiously, trying to come up with an escapade of his that didn't require a magical explanation....

"Well, erm, see, my mum and dad left me some prototypes, things that were still experimental, like the trainers I was wearing on the day I ended up on the roof of the school kitchens.... I'd been having fun the previous day, wearing them to get away from Dudley when he was bothering me, and I must have forgotten to put my regular trainers on for school that morning...."

She laughed. "I see. You don't know how livid Old Soberley was about that one," she said, leaning forward a little to speak to him in confidence. He blinked, distracted for a moment, and then forced his eyes up to her face again.

"Was she?" he asked, hoping she hadn't seen where he'd been looking. Can't she put some sodding clothes on? he wondered. He was finding it more and more difficult not to ogle her, especially since he now knew what she was hiding beneath the oversized man's shirt. And her long legs were not covered by the shirt....

"Oh, yes!" she said gleefully, clapping her hands. "She wanted to expel you, but your aunt and uncle said they'd sue if she did."

He frowned. "They were probably worried that they'd actually have to pay for me to go to school somewhere. I don't think they'd object to my being expelled on principle."

"Oh, I'm sure you're right. Why is it they treated you so badly, anyway?"

He sighed, remembering Uncle Vernon trying to kick him out the previous summer. "Well, they knew how my mum and dad died, didn't they? And that he'd probably come after me as soon as he could."

She nodded in understanding now. "They didn't think it was safe to have you around. I understand. I'm not saying I agree," she said quickly, seeing his face; "I just said I understand."

They sat in silence for a few minutes; Miss Harrison continued to play with the Cloak. She looked like she was thinking very hard. Harry hoped she wasn't thinking about any inconsistencies in his story. He didn't have anything else to work with other than the truth, and he could never tell her that.

"Anyway," he finally continued, "like they said on the news, my godfather was Sirius Black. He was being held because it was thought that he was the one who betrayed my parents. But it wasn't him. It was actually--" He couldn't very well tell her about Peter Pettigrew being an Animagus and hesitated for a moment. "It was actually one of the staff at our school. He'd been working there for years, in disguise, because after he betrayed my parents, he framed my godfather for the betrayal, faked his own death, and then framed my godfather for that. No one went after him since they thought he was already dead. And my godfather really did feel very guilty about my mum and dad dying, because he was the one who encouraged them to trust the rat who betrayed them. So when they came to take him away he was just laughing hysterically and didn't try to defend himself.... He cracked up a bit. More than a bit."

"Oh, that's dreadful. So your poor godfather went mad and was sent to prison? For something he didn't do?" Harry tried not to wince at the expression on her face; he knew he was manipulating her emotions, but he needed her to be firmly on his side.

Harry nodded. "That's right. Well, it's a special prison, actually. For agents. Top secret. When he accidentally found out from someone visiting the prison something that made him think the traitor was at our school he managed to escape. He wasn't really told about it; the visitor didn't know it himself, like everyone else he thought the rat was dead. Sirius worked it out. He was worried that the traitor was going to try to hurt me.

"At first Scotland Yard told everyone about my godfather's escape because the government still thought he was guilty--you never did hear what prison he escaped from, though, did you? And they told everyone he was really dangerous because--well, he never forgot all of the things he learned to be an agent, after all. That's why he was in that prison, which has very particular security measures. And since he was the first person to ever escape from that prison, they reckoned he was extra dangerous.

"After a while Scotland Yard were probably told that others were taking over the investigation, so I reckon they stopped looking for him. That's probably why they said ‘no comment.' They don't actually know anything. It's all very top-secret." Harry felt like the words were tumbling out of him; even though it wasn't the full truth, it felt good to tell someone the gist of what had happened.

"So did he keep the traitor from hurting you?" she said breathlessly, clearly caught up in the story.

Harry drew his lips into a line. "Well, yes and no. It turned out that wasn't the traitor's goal. He left the school and returned to his mas--er, boss. The man who killed my parents. He helped him to regain the rest of his strength. And then he made me think he was holding my godfather, and when I went off to try to rescue him--it turned out to be a lie. Which meant my godfather ended up trying to rescue me, and--" He choked, the emotions real, even though the story he was telling had nothing to do with magic.

"Harry?" she whispered, moving closer to him. She put her hand on his arm and he instinctively froze.

"He was killed," he said bluntly, hating the words. His heart felt like it was made of ice; it was like killing Sirius all over again to say those three words. "Because of me...." he added, trying not to cry. "It was my fault. I let myself be fooled...."

She looked helplessly at him; he had to keep talking or he would utterly fall apart. "When my uncle's sister came to visit, the conversation ended up coming round to why my godfather hadn't taken me after my parents had died, and I decided I'd had enough of the way she always put me down, and my parents, too. To shut her up, I told her that he couldn't have taken care of me as he was in prison at the time for mass murder. I, erm, sort of left out the part about his being innocent. And--and dead...."

Miss Harrison was smirking. "That was very bad, Harry," she said, looking like she was on the verge of laughing. Harry felt a little more cheerful now, too.

"I know it was bad," Harry admitted to her, trying not to grin too broadly. "But I couldn't resist. My aunt and uncle--and my cousin, too--know about my parents, and about where I'm really going to school, but his sister doesn't know the truth. She's the reason they first started telling people that I go to St Brutus's. I got fed up and decided that I had to get out of the house, away from her, for a bit. That's why I put on my Invisibility Cloak and took the bus to New Stokington. And you know the rest," he finished, breathing a sigh of relief and hoping she didn't look for, let alone find, any inconsistencies in his story.

"So," she said slowly, "your godfather. Was he--was he ever officially cleared before he died?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

While he waited for his next appointment to arrive, Dumbledore reached for the small instrument he kept handy for monitoring Harry. What he saw made him frown; Harry was sitting on a couch talking to a woman wearing a large shirt and not, evidently, much else.

He's been discovered.

Harry wasn't in danger, he knew, or the instrument would have been making loud whistling sounds while he was in his previous meeting. But this still wasn't good. Sighing deeply and hoping that Harry was not telling her that he was a wizard, Dumbledore stepped to his window, letting in a cool morning breeze when he opened it. He flicked his wand at the sky, releasing from the tip what appeared to be a very fast, very small, misty silver bird, which soon became lost in the ragged white clouds scudding overhead.

He closed the window again and sat down, tapping his fingers together thoughtfully. When a knock came at his study door, he said, "Come," rather absentmindedly. He did manage to look up and smile, however, when a tall dark wizard with a broody look about the eyes came striding into the room. If Harry had been there, he would have immediately recognised the figure of Rodolphus Lestrange.

"She knows," Dumbledore said immediately, before his visitor could even sit.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Was Sirius cleared before he died?

Harry swallowed and shook his head. "No. Not as such," he said quietly. "After serving over twelve years for something he didn't do...." His eyes were stinging again.

"That's--that's like my dad!" she whispered. Looking sheepish, she said, "I do hope you don't think I'm daft for that alien thing. You see, my dad insisted that he was once abducted by aliens...." Harry's jaw dropped open; he shut it abruptly with a snap as she continued. "See, he was driving in the country one day when a really bright green light came out of nowhere. That's all he remembered." Harry's eyes widened; it sounded like her dad had come into contact with magic! "He came to hours later," she continued, "sitting in his car by the side of the road. Doesn't remember how he got there."

Harry was more convinced than ever that magic was involved in the incident, both a crime that probably involved the Killing Curse and possibly also a memory charm placed on Mr Harrison, perhaps by someone from the Ministry of Magic.

She'd still been whispering, but now she cleared her throat and spoke normally again. "It wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't told anyone about it. But he was really excited and called a friend who had a friend in Fleet Street and the next thing we knew it was in all the papers. Then, when he was framed for breaking into a large manor house where he'd done some carpentry and other things, he ended up going to prison for a time, partly because no one believed a word he said. Even the judge asked my dad, ‘Oh, you couldn't have done it? What's your alibi? Abducted by Martians again, were we?' I read it in the papers, later. My mum saved them.

"I was pretty young, only six years old. When he was finally let out--I was eleven by then--Mum announced that she was leaving him. Well, my brother Jack and I felt that was rather unfair. After all, he'd just got out of prison for something he didn't do and his wife tells him she's divorcing him and taking the kids." Miss Harrison shook her head. "It split up the whole family. Mum emigrated to Australia and took my sister Audrey with her. Jack and I didn't want to go with her, though. Dad bought a very cheap house that needed a lot of work. We went to live with him."

She looked wistfully at the framed photo of her dad, now missing its glass because of Harry. "We worked so hard on that house. Dad said it was going to be our bread and butter. In less than two years he was able to sell it for four times what he'd paid. And then that was it--"

Harry frowned. "What was it?"

She shrugged. "That was our life. Buy a cheap house that was falling to bits, fix it up and sell it. Dad thought it was perfect; he didn't have to go out to work that way, he was always home when we returned from school. But--but sometimes I did wish I had a permanent home. Of course, the good thing about constantly moving on was that we always seemed to manage to move just as someone in the area discovered that my dad was that Jim Harrison, the nutter who'd been kidnapped by little green men."

She sighed. "It was always a bit dispiriting to work so hard and then never get to enjoy the fruits of our labor... I became quite good at carpentry, including furniture repair. Jack was more mechanical. Plumbing, electrical wiring, that was his thing. And Dad was a Jack-of-all-trades...."

"I hope you're not going to say he was master of none...." Harry ventured tentatively. She laughed and shook her head.

"Oh, no, Dad was quite good at a number of things. That was how my brother got his name, you know. Mum used to call him a Jack of all trades before he went to prison, so when Jack was born--he's the baby--Dad said to her, ‘Let's name him after me, then. That would be Jack.' His name's just Jack. Not John, nor anything else."

"I have my dad's name for a middle name. But my first name's just ‘Harry.'"

"I noticed that, on the register, when I was your teacher. Not Henry, or Harold. Just Harry."

She was looking at him very strangely; they'd been talking for some time and her knee was touching the side of his thigh. Suddenly she looked down at herself, as though realising for the first time that she could be dressed far more modestly. Her cheeks turned deep pink.

"Erm, I think I'll get dressed."

"Me too," he said reflexively, looking away from her.

"Oh? Did you bring extra clothes?"

He looked down at his undershirt and jeans; he'd been sitting on his T-shirt. "No, actually. While you were out yesterday I washed my clothes and took a shower. But I cleaned up after myself," he added quickly. "In the kitchen, too. I only ate some biscuits, bread and a few little tomatoes."

She clucked at him like Mrs Weasley. "You must be starving!" Then she eyed him shrewdly. "I knew there was something queer about the bathroom and kitchen. They looked far too clean when I came home yesterday. But I thought it would be mad for someone to break into my house to clean it. Well, unless it was my mum. That's exactly the sort of thing she'd do, but I'm fairly certain she's still in Melbourne." She gave a short laugh. "I'm glad I'm not out of my mind."

Harry bit his tongue to avoid commenting on that. She rose and walked to the stairs. "Well, I was going to go jogging, but I can do it some other time. I may have some jeans Jack left here the last time he stayed, and a shirt you can wear, so we can wash your things. You can use the shower after me. I'll try not to use up the hot water. And later, perhaps we can get you a few other things to wear."

Harry thanked her, then watched her go up the stairs with his heart in his throat. All in all, she'd taken it very well. He had invited himself into her home and she was behaving not only as though it was fine with her, but as though he was going to be staying for quite a while (and as though it was all her idea). He couldn't help feeling, however, while she was hanging on his every word, that she seemed a little lonely...

Harry leaned back on the couch and gave a sigh of relief. It was possible that he could have revealed his presence to her from the start, but it was rather late to do anything about that now. No, it had worked out fine. Harry couldn't believe his good fortune. He felt terrible about having to lie to her, but she'd accepted all of it without question.

The unexpected downside to this was, however, that he'd been forced to come to the unfortunate conclusion that Matilda Harrison was one of the stupidest people he'd ever met.

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