Emma Potter

113: Pensieve

The door of the office opened. 

Hello, Potters," said Moody. "Come in, then."

 Harry and I walked inside. We had been inside Dumbledore's office once before; it was a very beautiful, circular room, lined with pictures of previous headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts, all of whom were fast asleep, their chests rising and falling gently.

 Cornelius Fudge was standing beside Dumbledore's desk, wearing his usual pinstriped cloak and holding his lime-green bowler hat. 

"Harry! Emma!" said Fudge jovially, moving forward. "How are you?"

 "Fine," we lied. 

"We were just talking about the night when Mr. Crouch turned up on the grounds," said Fudge. "It was you who found him, was it not Harry?"

 "Yes," said Harry. Then, maybe feeling it was pointless to pretend that we hadn't overheard what they had been saying, he added, "I didn't see Madame Maxime anywhere, though, and she'd have a job hiding, wouldn't she?"

 Dumbledore smiled at Harry behind Fudge's back, his eyes twinkling. 

"Yes, well," said Fudge, looking embarrassed, "we're about to go for a short walk on the grounds, Harry, Emma, if you'll excuse us . . . perhaps if you just go back to your class —"

"we wanted to talk to you, Professor,"I said quickly, looking at Dumbledore, who gave m a swift, searching look."Wait here for me, Harry,Emma" he said. "Our examination of the grounds will not take long."

They trooped out in silence past us and closed the door. After a minute or so, I heard the clunks of Moody's wooden leg growing fainter in the corridor below. we looked around.

"Hello, Fawkes," I said.

Fawkes, Professor Dumbledore's phoenix, was standing on his golden perch beside the door. The size of a swan, with magnificent scarlet-and-gold plumage, he swished his long tail and blinked benignly at Harry and me.

Harry and I sat down on chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk. For,several minutes, we sat and watched the old headmasters and headmistresses snoozing in their frames, thinking about what we had just heard, and running our fingers over our scar. It had stopped hurting now.

I felt much calmer, somehow, now that I was in Dumbledore's office, knowing we would shortly be telling him about the dream. I looked up at the walls behind the desk. The patched and ragged Sorting Hat was standing on a shelf. A glass case next to it held a magnificent silver sword with large rubies set into the hilt, which i recognized as the one Harry himself had pulled out of theSorting Hat in his second year. The sword had once belonged toGodric Gryffindor, founder of Harry's House. We noticed a patch of silvery light, dancing andshimmering on the glass case. 

We looked around for the source ofthe light and saw a sliver of silver-white shining brightly fromwithin a black cabinet behind us, whose door had not beenclosed properly. Harry hesitated, glanced at Fawkes, I had already begun walking, he then got up,walked across the office, and pulled open the cabinet door. 

A shallow stone basin lay there, with odd carvings around theedge: runes and symbols that I did not recognize. The silverylight was coming from the basin's contents, which were like nothing I had ever seen before. He could not tell whether the substance was liquid or gas. It was a bright, whitish silver, and it wasmoving ceaselessly; the surface of it became ruffled like water beneath wind, and then, like clouds, separated and swirled smoothly.It looked like light made liquid — or like wind made solid — I couldn't make up my mind.

 I wanted to touch it, to find out what it felt like, but nearlyfour years' experience of the magical world told me that sticking my hand into a bowl full of some unknown substance was a verystupid thing to do. I therefore pulled my wand out of the insideof his robes, cast a nervous look around the office, looked back atthe contents of the basin, and prodded them.