𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐅𝐔𝐄𝐋 ; h.potter

twenty-six ; the pensieve

The knowledge that I was related to Godric Gryffindor, and that I couldn't tell anybody (besides Harry, who was there when I found out) had been weighing down on me since the very day we had rescued Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets. I had so many questions, but every time I had ever wanted to see if Dumbledore had any answers, I got the feeling that he didn't want me to ask. That confused me a great deal — why wouldn't he want me to know about my own heritage? And why couldn't I talk to my own family about it? I could trust them.

"Hey, Rory," Harry said, snapping me out of my thoughts. "D'you see that?"

I followed his line of sight towards a sliver of silvery light shining brightly from within a black cabinet behind us. How I hadn't noticed it, I wasn't sure, but what I did know was that the cabinet door hadn't been closed properly.

"Yeah, I see it," I said, tilting my head to get a better look. "I wonder what it is?"

No sooner had the words left my mouth than Harry had stood up from his chair, walked across the office, and pulled the cabinet door open.

"Harry, what are you doing?" I said disapprovingly, getting up to follow him. "You really shouldn't —"

"Wait, just look," Harry said as I approached.

A shallow stone basin lay inside the cabinet, with odd carvings around the edge; runes and symbols I did not recognise. The silvery light was coming from the basin's contents, which I had never seen anything like before. I couldn't distinguish whether the substance was a liquid or gas. It was a bright, whitish silver that was continually moving; the surface of it became ruffled and wavy like water beneath wind. As we watched it, the substance separated and swirled smoothly, like clouds. It was like light that was being made liquid — or maybe like wind made solid.

Some childlike curiosity in me really wanted to touch it, to find out what it felt like, but sticking your hand in an unknown magical substance was never a good idea. Harry and I looked at each other inquisitively, before Harry pulled his wand out of his robes, and prodded the contents of the basin with it. To both of our shock, the surface of the silvery stuff began to swirl very fast.

Both of us bent closer to get a better look. The silvery stuff had become transparent, so that it looked like glass. When we looked down into it, I expected to see the stone bottom of the basin, not into an enormous room below the surface. We seemed to be looking through a circular window in the ceiling.

The room below the surface was dimly lit, like it was underground; there were no windows, merely torches in brackets, similar to the ones that lined the walls of Hogwarts. I leaned in even closer to the glassy substance to see rows and rows of witches and wizards sitting around every wall on what seemed to be benches rising in levels. There was an empty chair standing in the very centre of the room. Something about it was very ominous. Chains encircled the arms of it, as though its occupants were usually tied to it.

What could this place be? Surely it wasn't Hogwarts; I had never seen a room like that here in the castle (though I hadn't known all those secret passages had existed, either). But there were too many adults in the room for it to be at the school. They all seemed to be waiting for something, facing in one direction and not speaking to one another.

Since the basin was circular, and the room square, I couldn't quite see what was going on in the corners of it. I moved even closer, tilting my head again, trying to see. The tip of my nose touched the strange substance inside the basin.

Dumbledore's office gave a sudden, almighty lurch — Harry and I were thrown forwards and pitched head first into the glassy substance —

But our heads did not hit the stone bottom. Instead, we were falling through something icy cold and black —