𝐑𝐄𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒-ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕪 ℙ𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣❥

𝐆𝐎𝐅 𝟐𝟕

The door of the office opened.
"Hello, Potter,Black,"said Moody. "Come in, then."

Harry and Emily walked inside. Harry 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.

Emily walked in like it was her bedroom, she always told Harry storys on how she's always in there but Harry never believed her.

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

"Harry! Emily!" said Fudge jovially, moving forward. "How are you?" "Fine," Harry lied.
"Bullshit." Emily whispered under her breath noticing Dumbledore giving her a smile.

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

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

Dumbledore smiled at Emily once again 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, Emily, if you'll excuse us ... perhaps if you just go back to your class -"

"We wanted to talk to you. Professor," Harry said quickly, looking at Dumbledore, who gave him a swift, searching look.

"Wait here for me" he said. "Our examination of the grounds will not take long."

They trooped out in silence past them and closed the door. After a minute or so, Emily heard the clunks of Moody's wooden leg growing fainter in the corridor below. Harry looked around.
"Hello, Fawkes," he 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.

"Gosh I've missed this place." Emily said, chuckling to herself going in the draw beside her and grabbing a chocolate frog out.

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

He felt much calmer, somehow, now that he was in Dumbledore's office and with Emily, knowing he would shortly be telling him about the dream. Harry 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 Harry recognized as the one he himself had pulled out of the Sorting Hat in his second year.

The sword had once belonged to Godric Gryffindor, founder of Harry's House. He was gazing at it, remembering how it had come to his aid when he had thought all hope was lost, when he noticed a patch of silvery light, dancing and shimmering on the glass case. He looked around for the source of the light and saw a sliver of silver-white shining brightly from within a black cabinet behind him, whose door had not been closed properly. Harry just sat there staring, Emily put the wrapper in the bin and began walking towards it. She hadn't saw this before.

Harry stared at her before getting up, walked across the office, and pulled open the cabinet door.

A shallow stone basin lay there, with odd carvings around the edge: runes and symbols that both Emily and Harry did not recognize. The silvery light was coming from the basin's contents, which were like nothing they had ever seen before. They could not tell whether the substance was liquid or gas. It was a bright, whitish silver, and it was moving 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 - they couldn't make up there mind.