They step off the stone staircase at the top, and Professor McGonagall knocks on the door. It opens silently and they enter. Professor McGonagall tells Harry and Polaris to wait and leave them there, alone.
Harry looks around. One thing was certain: of all the teachers' offices Harry has visited so far this year, Dumbledore's is by far the most interesting. If he wasn't scared out of his wits that he is about to be thrown out of school, he would be very pleased to have a chance to look around it.
It is a large and beautiful circular room, full of funny little noises. A number of curious silver instruments stand on spindle-legged tables, whirring and emitting little puffs of smoke. The walls are covered with portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses, all of whom are snoozing gently in their frames. There is also an enormous, claw-footed desk, and, sitting on a shelf behind it, a shabby, tattered wizard's hat - the Sorting Hat.
Harry hesitates. He casts a wary eye around the sleeping witches and wizards on the walls. Surely it can't hurt if I take the hat down and try it on again? Just to see...just to make sure it put me in the right House -
He walks quietly around the desk, lifts the hat from its shelf, and lowers it slowly onto his head. It is much too large and slips down over his eyes, just as it did the last time he'd put it on. Harry stares at the black inside of the hat, waiting. Then a small voice says in his ear, "Bee in your bonnet, Harry Potter?"
"Er, yes," Harry mutters. "Er - sorry to bother you - I wanted to ask -"
"You've been wondering whether I put you in the right House," says the hat smartly. "Yes...you were particularly difficult to place. But I stand by what I said before" - Harry's heart leapt - "you would have done well in Slytherin -"
Harry's stomach plummets. He grabs the point of the hat and pulls it off. It hangs limply in his hand, grubby and faded. Harry pushes it back onto its shelf, feeling sick.
"You're wrong," he says aloud to the still and silent hat. It doesn't move. Harry backs away, watching it. Then a strange, gagging noise behind him makes him wheel around.
Standing on a golden perch behind the door is a decrepit-looking bird that resembles a half-plucked turkey. Polaris is stoking the bird lovingly. Harry stares at them and the bird looks balefully back, making its gagging noise again. Harry thinks it looks very ill. Its eyes are dull and, even as Harry watches, a couple more feathers fall out of its tail.
"It's okay, buddy. You'll be alright" says Polaris, seeing the feathers. He then looks up at Harry's worried face "Harry, don't worry, you aren't an heir of Slytherin. I did some research into your family and it turns out that you are a direct descendant of Godric Gryffindor."
Harry is surprised, he is about to ask Polaris where he got this information, when the bird bursts into flames.
Harry yells in shock and backs away into the desk. He looks feverishly around in case there was a glass of water somewhere but can't see one; the bird, meanwhile, has become a fireball; it gives one loud shriek and next second there is nothing but a smouldering pile of ash on the floor.
The office door opens, Dumbledore comes in, looking very sombre.
"Professor," Harry gasps. "Your bird - I couldn't do anything - he just caught fire -"
To Harry's astonishment, Dumbledore smiles.
"About time, too," he says. "He's been looking dreadful for days; I've been telling him to get a move on."
YOU ARE READING
The Mysterious Heir
Fanfiction2 Years before Harry Potter is born, Voldemort conceives a son to take his place if he died before he reached immortality. After he is born, Voldemort enchants him to be more powerful than himself. This is the story of Polaris Cygnus Lestrange, The...
