The Ransom of Albus Dumbledore

This story comes out of a most intriguing writing challenge on The Sugar Quill: Hermione's Inferno. Thanks for the inspiration, guys!

Tip...tip...tip.... Her feet trotted along automatically, as her thick-heeled shoes beat out a vibrant tattoo on the narrow, wooden stairway. After six years at Hogwarts, the route from the library to the Great Hall did not need Hermione's conscious attention, and that was a good thing, for she had much to think about.

She considered her friend Harry, courageous Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived--who lived on and on, although he had put himself in harm's way so many times, trying to defeat the dark wizard Voldemort. Voldemort had killed his parents, and badly wanted to kill him. Harry had quit Hogwarts for good and was planning to head out for a final assault on that supreme villain. It was Harry's prophesied fate to be the only person in the entire Magicosm who had a chance of destroying him and scattering his minions.

Hermione would be with him, if she had anything to say about it, guarding his flank, armed with logic and reams of magical knowledge. She felt a bit short on courage in this role, but she knew at Harry's other side would be his best friend, Ron, and this thought raised her spirits her somewhat.

She thought about Ron Weasley--The Boy Who Loved--who loved her, not Lavender Brown, the girl he had snogged almost non-stop their entire sixth year. Hermione cared for him too; she knew that now. But it had taken the assassination of their Headmaster, the great Albus Dumbledore, to finally strip her soul of its petty jealousy, to make her recognize Ron's worth.

From the moment they first met, she'd written him off as an air-headed bumbler. She had cut him dead the first day she met him and continued to ignore his ideas throughout the years she knew him. She had been entirely deaf to his wicked sense of humor and blind to his talent for strategizing. She wondered now how she--for all her vaunted intelligence--had failed all that time to recognize the value of his calmness, his patience, his steadfast loyalty.

She was a different person now, she hoped. Dumbledore's death had changed her, had shocked her into realizing that time was precious, and that one should not waste it nursing wounded pride and an erudite self-image. Within herself, she forgave Ron his trysts with the amorous and clinging Lavender, though she couldn't quite bring herself to tell him so--yet. She consoled herself with the thought that their mindless groping was a kind of experiment, a needed first foray into the world of sexual intimacy--for Ron at least. He was such an innocent.

And she was touched at how it had enhanced his emotional range. During the funeral, he held her with practiced ease, smoothed her tousled hair with a gentle hand, kissed her eyes to stop the tears. She could ignore his comforting presence no longer. Ronald Weasley would be a priority on her list of studies from now on.

The least she could do for him, the very least, was to make sure that he got back those oddments he'd left behind, that she'd gathered up from his room a few days before--a pack of assorted Dung Bombs and the twins' leftover Aging Potion among them. Then she'd tell him that she cared for him as more than just a friend. But right now, duty called--and her growling tummy.

~*~

She turned the corner and dashed down wider stone steps towards the main floor.

Tip...tip...tip...

Hermione.

Tip...tip...tip...tip...tip...

Herrrrrmiiione...

She turned her head to glance at the wall as she flew down the great marble staircase. Were the portraits talking to her again? They had all wanted to hear details of the Death Eaters' invasion and Dumbledore's death back when she'd had no stomach for recounting those horrific events. But now all those painted faces seemed wooden or bored or even asleep, although it was nearly noon. Perhaps they had gone into shock as the rape of Hogwarts penetrated their collective conscious. She could hardly sleep herself for the nightmares those memories generated.

One dream in particular haunted her. It was Ron, writhing on the ground, in the throes of a Cruciatus curse, moaning "Hermiiione , help me. Make it stop, make it--aaaah!" That scene itself was difficult enough to look at, even in sleep: the boy she was only just coming to care for wracked with muscular spasms, his body arced backwards, tense and quivering, like a drawn bow.

But then Ron's face would change suddenly into Dumbledore's. It reminded her of Harry's description of the Headmaster's death the night the Death Eaters invaded the school. She would watch as the aged professor, feeble and transfixed with fear, inched slowly backwards, wormlike, to cringe against a wall. In her dream, she too stood unable to move, as if immobilized herself by that Body-Bind the Headmaster had placed on Harry. But it was not Professor Snape approaching Dumbledore with wand raised to administer the Death Curse that made Albus Dumbledore cower like that. No, in her dream, grotesque gray shapes like zombies advanced on the once invincible Headmaster of Hogwarts, craning and clutching at him, giggling and grimacing, drooling and jerking...

She shook off the hated memory which had actually caused her to stop in her tracks.

Tip...tip...tip...

She must get to the dining room, have a quick lunch, and get back to the library. Ron and Harry had agreed that she should stay behind at Hogwarts to find out all she could about Dark Magic, anything that might help them in their quest to rid the world of Voldemort and his evil network.

Hermione!

Mid-flight, she risked a glance to her left once again. This time she thought she saw a blur of a figure racing along next to her in a group photo of humorless wizards in purple paisley robes. But the photo was pressed behind glass, so the figure was likely just her own reflection. Without further thought, she leaped off the final step and crossed the hallway. Her place was set at the end of the Gryffindor table--the only one in the whole room. All her schoolmates had gone on home, and most of the staff too.

She remembered the mob scene after Dumbledore's funeral: students wanting to pay their last respects, collapsing in grief, weeping openly on each other's shoulders or standing tearless and numb in line waiting to caress the chalk-white bier, to lay a flower or other small memento on it, to whisper final words of thanks, regret, confession, with their parents trying to cut it short, to pull them away from this suddenly dangerous place, the one refuge they had thought safe from the Death Eaters' predations. There had been few at the leaving banquet that night, all of them--even the remaining Slytherins--red-eyed and sniffling, listening to Headmistress McGonagall's halting words of comfort. She had stopped short of saying the school would close, but Hermione knew the words were in her mind.

And now she sat alone in the big room, attended only by an all-consuming sense of purpose. She whispered to her plate: "Salad of greens, please, and consommé and some biscuits--and a small gillywater."

The food did not immediately appear, as it used to. The house elves in the kitchen below her were still mourning their employer, and their magic had become rather hit-or-miss. The low point had come when she'd ordered liver and onions on Saturday night and got instead a dozen golf balls and two well-used leather uppers. Dobby, her favorite elf and Harry's good friend, did what he could to console the other elves. But most of them had never had such a benevolent master before, and his loss left them bewildered and aimless. So their services--which Hermione was just as happy to do without, since she felt the oppression of their voluntary servitude more than most--were a bit erratic at present.

Now the meal appeared, complete and correct, and she dove into her salad. She was that hungry. The morning's research had had promising results. There were some jinxes and hexes and evil-detection spells that would be useful if they ran into any of the Dark Lord's minions in their quest to defeat Voldemort himself. She had promised to meet Harry and Ron at Bill and Fleur's wedding. There they would make their final plans and she could tutor them on any additional spells she thought would be useful. None of them would be coming back to Hogwarts for their final year, so it was just as well that she was spending a little extra time here, the place that had made a competent witch of her. It would be hard to leave.

After lunch she had to meet with Professor McGonagall. She would never have been allowed to just stay on indefinitely at the school without certain of the staff becoming suspicious of her intentions. So she'd volunteered to help the new Headmistress to clean up Dumbledore's office. It had been left in some disarray after the attack--though not by the Death Eaters themselves. After Aurors had rousted the last of the invaders, members of the Ministry of Magic, led by Minister Scrimgeour, had arrived and somehow foiled Dumbledore's safeguards, passed the gargoyle unscathed, and pounded up the spiral staircase to his office. They ransacked the place, looking for clues to Dumbledore's plans to eliminate the Dark Lord, but McGonagall, with Professors Sprout and Flitwick at her back, had driven them off before they discovered anything of importance. And Harry, who knew exactly what those plans were, had refused to cooperate, declaring himself Dumbledore's man and no "poster-child," as he called it, for the regime of the morally bankrupt Scrimgeour.

She started on her soup, which had a comforting steam of chicken and vegetable flavor rising above it. But as she bent over it, spoon poised, she gave a cry of terror. There was a face in the broth, staring up at her, like a reflection, but it was decidedly not her own.

Hermione, it said, quite plainly, the same voice she had heard on the stairway.

She dropped the spoon into the bowl with a clatter, spilling consomme all over the placemat.

Ouch-ch-ch-ch, said the face, quivering in the standing waves set up by the splash.

"Who are you?"

Look closely.

She peered into the bowl. As the agitation subsided, the face of a haggard, lank-haired man came clear. Sirius Black, Harry's godfather! Her heart leapt at the discovery. But she must be dreaming. Sirius was long dead, killed by his cousin, Bellatrix in a struggle with the Death Eaters at the Ministry the previous year. Hermione felt a brief spasm in her chest at the memory of his loss and winced. It reminded her of the grievous injury she'd sustained herself during the battle.

His face was likewise screwed up, as if in pain.

"Sirius, what--? Oh, I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?"

Not at all. It was only the noise. Silver on china makes a rather sinus-clearing reverberation, even in the ectoplasmic ether.

"But what are you doing here? Should I try to owl Harry? He's gone home--I mean to the Dursleys--"

No, it's not a good idea for him, or anyone else, to know about this.

"Is it something to do with Voldemort?"

In a way, yes. But it's more to do with Dumbledore.

"The Headmaster?"

He's trapped, Hermione.

"What? You mean he's not dead after all?"

Oh, he's dead all right. I'd better explain. But it's a long story, and this isn't the best place.

"I only have a few minutes to eat. Then I have to go to Dumbledore's--I mean McGonagall's office."

That's perfect!

"Why? Do you want to meet me there?"

Oh, no. Those stuffy old Heads would never let me share their picture frames. But while you're there, you can retrieve something--something very important. It's a kind of list.

"What?"

I can't go into it now, but there is a list of things Dumbledore left unfinished when he died. And it's important that it shouldn't be destroyed or found by the wrong people. Do you think you can get it for me?

"Do you know where it is?"

No, but I'm betting that one of the old Heads will. Is there a mirror or a sparsely occupied picture frame in your bedroom?

"Yes, Lavender Brown left her wall mirror behind when her parents came to get her."

Hermione thought back to that day. She couldn't hate Ron's first girlfriend, not any more. The poor girl had barely had time to pack the essentials with her mother sobbing and wringing her hands and her father looking all the while at his wristwatch. Lavender had missed the funeral altogether, and, wet-eyed, had given Hermione a small bouquet of dried flowers to lay on the Headmaster's tomb for her.

Good, said Sirius. Wall mirror, Sixth year girls' dorm, Gryffindor Tower, say at five? And bring that list. And before she could object he disappeared down into the sediment at the bottom of the bowl.

~*~

"Blubber," Hermione said confidently. The stone gargoyle moved aside and she stepped onto the spiraling staircase. Professor McGonagall had likely been meditating on her predecessor's sense of humor to come up with this series of passwords. Last week's had been "Nitwit."

She entered the Headmaster's--no, Headmistress's--office, which certainly needed tidying. Drawers had been opened, books strewn about, some of the more delicate magical devices on display smashed way beyond anything a simple Reparo could fix. She decided she would look for the list Sirius wanted while she followed Professor McGonagall's own itinerary, making piles of things to Scourgify, Repair, replace, file, store or Vanish.

She started with Fawkes the Phoenix's perch. It had not been touched by the marauding band of Aurors, so it just needed to be Levitated to the door for the house-elves to remove. She put a little tag on it with the instruction the Headmistress requested: Please store in the Come and Go Room This was the house-elves' name for the Room of Requirement.

Hermione had a sudden pang of guilt. It was in that hidden room that Draco Malfoy had manufactured a portal to let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. All that year, Harry had been sure that Draco was plotting some evil, but he had been unable to convince her or Ron, or even Dumbledore himself, of the danger. Now they would be forced to hunt down Voldemort themselves, without the Headmaster's guidance, at least partly because she had pooh-poohed her friend's instincts.

She shook off her malaise. There was no use crying over spilled potion. It was like lamenting all the times she'd treated Ron badly. It didn't do anyone any good. I'm not going to think about Harry, she chided herself, Or Ron. I have a job to do. She started putting away the books that Scrimgeour's bullies had dumped onto the floor, but she ran into trouble immediately trying to figure out what shelves to put them on. The ones that were still in place seemed to be in no particular order. They weren't alphabetized by author or title. They weren't grouped by topic either. Transfiguration tomes were mixed in with bowling manuals and recipe collections. There's a pattern here--there's got to be, she thought. But she couldn't see it.

It reminded her of one time when she was playing wizard chess with Harry. Ron had come up behind her and breathed into her hair: "Don't you see it Hermione? He's going to fork your queen." And she had seen it, as soon as he gave her the hint. She hadn't thanked him of course. She had been uncomfortably conscious of his sudden closeness and simultaneously irritated at realizing once again that he was infinitely better than her at this so cerebral game. But why shouldn't he be? Why shouldn't he have something he excels in? Why do I feel I always have to be the best in everything?

"Trying to figure out his system?" It was Professor McGonagall at the door.

It took Hermione an embarrassed moment to realize that it was Dumbledore she was talking about.

"Don't bother," the headmistress continued, striding to the desk. "Last week he had his favorites at eye level, the boring-but-necessary books on the bottom shelves, and the impressive-looking-but-useless ones up top. The week before that he arranged them by color. And before that, by the year he acquired them." She surveyed the shelves with her quirky smile, fondly, as if she saw her old, dear friend there once more, squinting at a particularly intriguing title. "Just put them up anywhere for now. We'll be sending quite a few to the library upstairs according to the dictates of his will, though what the students will do with a book on twin-needle crocheting, I do not know."

She swung a small satchel up onto the desk. "Bag of Holding," she said. "For the items going to his brother, including some of those." She gestured at the delicate magical devices on display.

Hermione was surprised and looked it.

"We needn't worry about their size. They'll fit all right."

But it wasn't the satchel's capacity that took Hermione aback. She knew a Bag of Holding had almost infinite space inside, but she never expected that Dumbledore would give some of his most valuable and sensitive equipment to his brother, Aberforth, who she had heard was an irresponsible type, and quite possibly illiterate.

Professor McGonagall, for all her mistrust of Divination, seemed to have read her student's mind. "For much of his life, Aberforth Dumbledore was an adventurer--a treasure-hunter if you will. In his travels, he discovered and brought back many of the artefacts you see here. They were actually on permanent loan to Alb--to his brother." She gave a little grunt, as if speaking his name winded her.

She loved him very much, and not just as a colleague, Hermione thought in wonderment. How do such things come about? When do friends come to realize they are more than 'friends'? Have we--Ron and I-- started to turn towards each other in that way? Or is it just the circumstances--Dumbledore's death and Harry's predicament binding us to each other?

Teacher and student, they cleaned the room together. Hermione tried to keep her thoughts in the here-and-now, not wanting to wander to the there-and-then, where that freckley, loose-limbed red-head with the lazy smile lodged. She found some distraction in amazement at how much the Bag of Holding could absorb.

And then there was the Pensieve. "Help me with this, will you, dear?" Professor McGonagall had opened a closet and Hermione could see a sparkling white light flowing out of it. "Do you know what it is?"

Hermione nodded. Harry had told her about the device that allowed Dumbledore to eavesdrop on other people's memories. And there it was, the large stone basin on a pedestal, filled with a silver liquid, mercury-like, but light and motile. What would Ron's musings look like if they could be captured like this? Would there be any thoughts of her? Would they be as fond as McGonagall's thoughts of her martyred colleague? Or would they hold bemusement? Or even--accusation?

"What nonsense," she muttered under her breath. Minerva McGonagall gave her a look. "Oh, no, Professor, sorry. I was thinking of something else."

"Quite. I think if I do an Enlarging Spell on the Bag's mouth, while you Levitate the Pensieve, we should be able to get it inside quite easily."

Hermione performed her part of the spell with bated breath. She really was with child to know more about the workings of this magnificent device, but she waited until it had disappeared safely into the Bag before she asked: "Wherever did he find it?"

"I've no idea. Those two never got along well, but they shared an absorbing interest in --some things." Professor McGonagall tutted and started Banishing other items out the office door. She apparently had no interest in pursuing the subject of Aberforth, so her student bowed her head and went back to work.

They bundled up papers meant for Order of the Phoenix Headquarters, filed away school records that Scrimgeour's minions had scattered about, and packed mementoes for storage or shipment. Hermione, concentrating now on her promise to Sirius, worried that Professor McGonagall would find Dumbledore's list before she did, and that she'd have to try and put something over on this redoubtable woman. She thought she could bring herself to say, "Oh, Professor, I think that's mine," if it were somewhere on the floor, but what if it was discovered inside a drawer or something?

She took what chances she could to sneak sidelong glances at her Transfiguration teacher. Professor McGonagall looked older now, and her movements were not precise and commanding as she remembered in her classes, but hesitant, even meandering at times. Perhaps it would not be so difficult to fool her now. It was actually a rather sad thought that this hardy Scot, pre-eminent in the field of Transfiguration, could be failing physically or in spirit.

Fortunately, about an hour into their chores, the Headmistress excused herself. "I have to go to a meeting now," she said, picking up the documents meant for the Order of the Phoenix. "I'm going to put your name in for full membership, if you don't mind."

Hermione gasped with pleasure. "Oh, yes, please."

"And Harry's too, of course, when he comes of age."

"Erm--what about Ron?"

"Ron? Do you mean Ronald Weasley?"

"Yes--yes, of course."

"Is he interested?"

"Oh, very. And he is of age, as of March first."

"Hmmph...I heard he failed his Apparition Test."

"Well, yes, but only by an eyebrow." She giggled, remembering the absurdity of Ron's missing out on his Apparition license because he had left behind a few curly red hairs.

Professor McGonagall was not amused. "So long as he knows it's not just some lark."

"Oh, I'm sure he doesn't...."

"I'll be frank with you, Miss Granger. I disagreed with the Headmaster when he chose Weasley for prefect. I understood that he wanted to give Potter a breather. But Dean Thomas would have been much the better choice to my way of thinking. And I have to tell you that Ronald's behavior this year did little to win me over. He was a rather reluctant disciplinarian if I do say so. And a bit overly distracted by his dalliances, if you take my meaning."

Hermione blushed at her teacher's Victorian euphemism for Ron and Lavender's carryings-on. The Professor scanned her with a beady eye. "Admit it: you did most of the work this year--didn't you?" Without waiting for a reply, she shouldered her bag and took a bit of Floo Powder from a flowered chamber pot on the mantel.

This unprovoked and marginally unprofessional outburst left Hermione stunned as she watched her teacher disappear in the fireplace. She wanted to shout, "What gives you the right to judge him like that?" Wait--why didn't you defend him when you had the chance? Hermione chided herself. Oh--you stupid fool, it's because you just can't resist a compliment, can you? And it is an honor, I'm sure, being named to the order o young-- She slumped down onto the big chair behind the desk and tried to argue away her guilt. It's true I had to remind Ron to do his patrolling a few times, and he did want to use his power of office to get back at the Slytherins, but he sacrificed just as much time as I did, and he didn't ask for much help with his homework--nothing like as much as he used to--and he had all those Quidditch practices and the pressure...he stuck with being a Keeper, even when he felt down about it. No one appreciates his analytical mind, his resiliency, the way he cares about his family and his faithfulness to his friends. Well, yes, there was Lavender...but he didn't know--I mean, really know--how I felt about it. Discouraged and guilt-ridden, she returned to her work.

She had finished most of McGonagall's chores, so she was left to opening drawers and looking under things for the list. She did this as unobtrusively as she could because she knew that the old Heads were sitting above her in their portraits on the walls. Dumbledore's was up there too. She had gotten a good long look at it when she first came in. He was sleeping--still. Harry had had occasion to visit the office the day after his death. He was sleeping then, and no one since had reported him opening his eyes.

Now a new worry assailed her. What if the Aurors had found the list already? Sirius had said it was important that it not fall into the wrong hands. Did he even know Scrimgeour had broken into the office?

Somewhere overhead, a voice cleared itself and spoke. "Looking for something, Miss Granger?"

Hermione turned about. Former headmaster Armando Dippet was on his feet looking down at her from his portrait behind Dumbledore's desk. "Uh, Headmaster, how are you?" she called up to him. "I--erm--I'm just cleaning up a bit--for the Headmistress--"

"A job you finished some time ago." A new voice, sharp with accusation came from behind her. She whirled around and recognized Dilys Derwent, whose picture she'd seen once enshrined at St. Mungo's Hospital.

Hermione blushed. She admired Headmistress Derwent greatly. She had distinguished herself in Wizard-dom not only as Head of Hogwarts, but before that as a Healer at St. Mungo's.

Healer Derwent continued, "You're looking for something, aren't you? What is it?"

"I can't tell you. Sirius--I mean--I promised someone--"

"Someone named Sirius," prompted Dilys.

"Surely not Sirius Black," opined Armando Dippet, who had settled himself back in his chair. "I hear he passed over last year."

"Not precisely," said a third voice. It belonged to a clever-looking wizard with a pointed beard and robes of Slytherin green. Hermione recognized Phineas Nigellus, Sirius's great-great-grandfather. "My dear, young, reckless offspring died, but he has not yet been allowed into the Beyond."

"What?" said Hermione in spite of herself. "Did he decide to stay on after all--as a ghost?" That would make Harry very happy. He missed his godfather terribly.

"And perhaps organize a few practical jokes with Peeves the Poltergeist or sneak a peek up a few witches' robes while he's at it?" Phineas Nigellus chuckled nastily. "It would be like him. But no, he was too eager to pass over to the Other Side and be with his--er--friends who preceded him. But I have it from Lord Death himself that Sirius Black died before his time, and you know what that means."

"No, I don't."

"My dear girl, I thought you were up on these things, your Muggle antecedents notwithstanding. Have you never read The Magicosmical Book of the Dead?"

Hermione shook her head.

"You should. I had a hand in writing the eighty-fifth revision. Quite good, if I do say so."

"Get on with it, Phineas," said Dilys, with an exasperated sigh. "Tell the girl why this person--your great-great-grand-whatever--cannot pass over into the Beyond, like the rest of us have. We all know you're just dying to."

"Well then, I will." He stood up and cleared his throat. "As I said, Sirius Black died too soon--by about a year. It was written in Death's appointment book that he was to pass over this summer after being garrotted with a hacksaw blade in a pick-up game of Troll Blood Ball."

Hermione remembered back to the day of Sirius's death. She had not herself witnessed it, having been felled earlier in the battle by a Death Eater's curse, but had heard about it later. His cousin, the evil Bellatrix Lestrange, had hit him with a curse, though not a lethal one. The momentum of his fall had, however, propelled him through a mysterious Veil covering an ancient stone arch in the center of the Ministry's Death Chamber, from which, it was said, no one could ever return once they passed through.

"So what does that mean?" she asked.

"He has to wait until it is his proper time. The Grim Reaper is very firm on that point."

"You mean he's an insufferable nit-picker," grumbled Dilys Derwent.

"Hush, Dilys," cautioned Armando Dippet, "you never know who might be listening."

"You mean Old Scythe-Swinger? What's he going to do, kill me?" She laughed harshly. "Anyway, he's much too busy to come to Hogwarts right now as long as Voldemort is on the loose."

"I think I see," said Hermione, who had been pondering Phineas Nigellus's last statement. "You're saying Sirius is dead, but he can't pass over yet, but somehow he can still appear to the living as a reflection, like in a bowl of soup."

"Is that how he came to you? How like him," said his great-great grandfather. "Always thinking about his stomach, that one. But actually that isn't the only way. His spirit can inhabit things--animate them--I mean corpses and such--"

"--but only so long as they won't be missed, Phineas," put in Dippet, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"I don't understand," said Hermione.

"Yes, yes, Armando. But the important point is that Lord Death can give him a body to walk around in--one that's no longer in use, but not too decayed, of course. One must be--er--presentable and not too odiferous, if you take my meaning."

Armando Dippet came back at him, "But he can't give him one of a person that's being prepared for burial, for example. You understand, young lady. It would naturally upset the Muggles if the body of a loved one sat right up the coffin and walked out during the viewing."

Hermione felt a bit of pique as she pondered these revelations. "Hold on. If Sirius Black could just put on a body like a coat from his closet, how come he hasn't come to visit us before this?"

"How do you know he hasn't?"

"Well, I mean, no one has come up to Harry this year and said, 'Excuse me, sonny, I know I don't look like him, but I'm really your godfather in the body of this eighty-year-old woman.'"

"Well, there's the trouble you see," said Phineas, "Most humans have relatives who care about them. They all get embalmed and viewed and buried in a trice. Mostly it's only animal bodies that are conveniently available for possession. You know, road kill and such."

"You mean Sirius may have come to us as a dog or a cat?"

"...or a hare or a toad or a squash bug...so long as their corpses were--er--serviceable."

"Hermione had a horrible thought. "You don't suppose--I mean--what if he was a fly and one of us--erm--swatted him?"

"Oh it wouldn't hurt him--much--but it is a tad inconvenient. He has to wait a while, you know--between avatars."

"Oh, right. Well that does help me to understand a little better. I mean if he were a dog, communication would be a bit difficult, wouldn't it? I mean I don't know of any spells that would let you understand dog language."

"Well, under certain circumstances, he can communicate with you telepathically, as I'm sure he did when he appeared to you in the reflection."

"Is that what he was doing? I understand now. It sounded like he was inside my head. But wait a minute. If he was able to appear to me in my soup all this time, why did he wait until now to do it?"

"Actually he shouldn't be able to. It's the House Elves' fault that he can."

"What?"

"They're so distracted, they've let the protective spells lapse."

"You mean there are protective spells even on our food?"

"Only the reflective surfaces: soups and gravies and the occasional glazed ham."

Yes," said Dilys, "and the mirrors, windows, toilets, the lake, standing pools of water. They all need to be spirit-blocked."

"I don't understand."

For the first time, Headmaster Dippet entered the conversation. "My dear young lady, we don't allow just any homeless spirit to inhabit our castle. Those so-called 'reflective surfaces' are the primary way mischievous, wandering efreets and succubi make their way into ancient castles and ruins."

Hermione still looked bewildered, so he explained: "Mirrors and such are connected to the spirit world, though tenuously, you see. Sometimes, when a suitable opportunity arises, a particularly needy or energetic spirit can make the leap."

Hermione frowned at this. She had never heard of such a thing, and she'd read Hogwarts: a History from cover to cover at least a dozen times.

"Yes," said Phineas. "How do you think Peeves the Poltergeist got in here? You don't think he was invited, do you? No, it happened the last time there was a lapse in security."

"When was that?"

"If you must know, it was back in 'fifty-six when the Dark Lord visited Hogwarts and applied for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

"He did? What happened?"

"Dumbledore turned him down, of course. So, out of spite, he cast a spell on the position so that no one could hold it for more than one year. That required him to fool with the Space-Time continuum, and briefly opened a portal to a rather--ahem--unstable dimension, and in slipped our favorite little nuisance."

"Enough of this idle talk," said Dilys Derwent. "I want to know what it is you're looking for, young lady."

"Erm--it's a list."

"On parchment?"

"I suppose so, but we've cleaned everything up, and I've looked through his desk and his cupboards. I just can't find it anywhere."

"I take it that it's important."

"Sirius thinks it is. It's a list of things Professor Dumbledore needed to do."

"Oh, that sort. He was always making those. And we all know what he does with them."

"What?" Hermione asked, trying to keep any kind of emotion--excitement or trepidation--out of her voice.

Phineas Nigellus rolled his eyes. "He transforms them--usually into candy wrappers--and sticks them to the bottom of the wastebasket."

"Why would he do that?"

"He says--er--said that way they couldn't possibly be misplaced."

Hermione gave the portraits an odd look, but she went to the wastebasket and looked inside.

"Not there--underneath."

And indeed there was a Fizzing Whizbee wrapper stuck onto the underside of the basket with a piece of what looked like Drooble's Best Blowing Gum--cherry flavor. Hermione tapped it with her wand, saying "Reveal yourself," and it turned into a piece of parchment.

"This must be it," she said, scanning the graceful script. Thank you all."

Without further explanation or a hint of apology, she hurried off to meet Sirius Black.