The door of the office opened.
"Hello, Potter, Melissa," said Moody. "Come in, then."
We walked inside. I had never been inside Dumbledore's office 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.
Fudge was standing beside Dumbledore's desk, wearing his usual pinstriped cloak and holding his lime-green bowler hat.
"Harry!" said Fudge jovially, moving forward. "How are you?"
"Fine," Harry 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?"
"Yes," said Harry. Then 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, Melissa, 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 him 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," he said.
Fawkes was Professor Dumbledore's phoenix, and 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 me.
We sat down in a chair in front of Dumbledore's desk. For several minutes, we sat and watched the old headmasters and headmistresses snoozing in their frames, running my fingers over my scar. It had stopped hurting now.
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 recognised and explained 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 our House.
I looked around for the source of a light, which was hurting my eyes, and saw a sliver of silver-white shining brightly from within a black cabinet behind him, whose door had not been closed properly. I hesitated, glanced at Fawkes, then got up, walked across the office, and pulled open the cabinet door.
"Melissa?" Harry hissed at me. "What are you doing?"
"Just looking." I replied.
A shallow stone basin lay there, with odd carvings around the edge: runes and symbols that I did not recognise. The silvery light was coming from the basin's contents, which were like nothing I had ever seen before. I 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 - I couldn't make up my mind.
I wanted to touch it, to find out what it felt like, but sticking my hand into a bowl full of some unknown substance was a very stupid thing to do. Therefore I pulled my wand out of the inside of my coat, cast a nervous look around the office and at Harry, looked back at the contents of the basin, and prodded them.
The surface of the silvery stuff inside the basin began to swirl very fast.
"Melissa." Harry said rushing over to the basin with me.
We bent closer, our heads right inside the cabinet. The silvery substance had become transparent; it looked like glass. We looked down into it expecting to see the stone bottom of the basin - and saw instead an enormous room below the surface of the mysterious substance, a room into which I seemed to be looking through a circular window in the ceiling.
The room was dimly lit; I thought it might even be underground, for there were no windows, merely torches in brackets such as the ones that illuminated the walls of Hogwarts. Lowering my face so that my nose was a mere inch away from the glassy substance, I saw that rows and rows of witches and wizards were seated around every wall on what seemed to be benches rising in levels. An empty chair stood in the very center of the room. There was something about the chair that gave me an ominous feeling. Chains encircled the arms of it, as though its occupants were usually tied to it.
Where was this place? It surely wasn't Hogwarts; I had never seen a room like that here in the castle. Moreover, the crowd in the mysterious room at the bottom of the basin was comprised of adults, even I knew there were not nearly that many teachers at Hogwarts.
They seemed to be waiting for something; even though I could only see the tops of their hats, all of their faces seemed to be pointing in one direction, and none of them were talking to one another.
The basin being circular, and the room was obversely square, I could not make out what was going on in the corners of it. We leaned even closer, tilting our heads, trying to see...
The tip of our noses touched the strange substance into which he was staring.
Dumbledore's office gave an almighty lurch - I was thrown forward and pitched headfirst into the substance inside the basin -But my head did not hit the stone bottom. I was falling through something icy-cold and black; it was like being sucked into a dark whirlpool -And suddenly, I found myself sitting on a bench at the end of the room inside the basin, a bench raised high above the others right next to Harry. I looked up at the high stone ceiling, expecting to see the circular window through which I had just been staring, but there was nothing there but dark, solid stone.
Breathing hard and fast. I looked around me. Not one of the witches and wizards in the room (and there were at least two hundred of them) was looking at us. Not one of them seemed to have noticed that two fourteen-year-olds had just dropped from the ceiling into their midst. I turned to the wizard next to me on the bench and uttered a loud cry of surprise that reverberated around the silent room.
We were sitting right next to Albus Dumbledore.
"Professor!" Harry said in a kind of strangled whisper. "I'm sorry - we didn't mean to - Melissa was just looking at that basin in your cabinet - I - where are we?" But Dumbledore didn't move or speak. He ignored Harry completely. Like every other wizard on the benches, he was staring into the far corner of the room, where there was a door.
I gazed, nonplussed, at Dumbledore, then around at the silently watchful crowd, then back at Dumbledore. And then it dawned on me. . . .
I raised my hand, hesitated, and then waved it energetically in from of Dumbledore's face. Dumbledore did not blink, look around at me, or indeed move at all. And that settled the matter.
"Dumbledore wouldn't ignore us like that. We're inside a memory, and this was not the present-day Dumbledore. Yet it couldn't be that long ago . . . Dumbledore is silver-haired, just like the present-day Dumbledore. But what was this place? What were all these wizards waiting for?" Harry said thinking aloud to me.
I looked around more carefully. The room, as I had suspected when observing it from above, was almost certainly underground - more of a dungeon than a room.
There was a bleak and forbidding air about the place; there were no pictures on the walls, no decorations at all; just these serried rows of benches, rising in levels all around the room, all positioned so that they had a clear view of that chair with the chains on its arms.
Before we could reach any conclusions about the place in which they were, we heard footsteps. The door in the corner of the dungeon opened and three people entered - or at least one man, flanked by two dementors.
My insides went cold. The dementors - tall, hooded creatures whose faces were concealed - were gliding slowly toward the chair in the center of the room, each grasping one of the man's arms with their dead and rotten-looking hands. The man between them looked as though he was about to faint, and Harry explained how he couldn't blame him... the the dementors could not touch us inside a memory, but he explained their power only too well.
The watching crowd recoiled slightly as the dementors placed the man in the chained chair and glided back out of the room. The door swung shut behind them.
I looked down at the man now sitting in the chair and saw that it was Karkaroff. I gasped and grabbed Harrys hand.
Unlike Dumbledore, Karkaroff looked much younger; his hair and goatee were black. He was not dressed in sleek furs, but in thin and ragged robes. He was shaking. Even as we watched, the chains on the arms of the chair glowed suddenly gold and snaked their way up Karkaroff's arms, binding him there.
"Igor Karkaroff," said a curt voice to Harry's left. We looked around and saw Mr. Crouch standing up in the middle of the bench beside him. Crouch's hair was dark, his face was much less lined, he looked fit and alert. "You have been brought from Azkaban to present evidence to the Ministry of Magic. You have given us to understand that you have important information for us."
Karkaroff straightened himself as best he could, tightly bound to the chair.
"I have, sir," he said, and although his voice was very scared, I could still hear the familiar unctuous note in it. "I wish to be of use to the Ministry. I wish to help. I - I know that the Ministry is trying to - to round up the last of the Dark Lords supporters. I am eager to assist in any way I can..."
There was a murmur around the benches. Some of the wizards and witches were surveying Karkaroff with interest, others with pronounced mistrust. Then I heard, quite distinctly, from Dumbledores other side, a familiar, growling voice saying, "Filth."
I leaned forward so that he could see past Dumbledore. Mad-Eye Moody was sitting there - except that there was a very noticeable difference in his appearance. He did not have his magical eye, but two normal ones. Both were looking down upon Karkaroff, and both were narrowed in intense dislike.
"Crouch is going to let him out," Moody breathed quietly to Dumbledore. "He's done a deal with him. Took me six months to track him down, and Crouch is going to let him go if he's got enough new names. Let's hear his information, I say, and throw him straight back to the dementors."
Dumbledore made a small noise of dissent through his long, crooked nose.
"Ah, I was forgetting... you don't like the dementors, do you, Albus?" said Moody with a sardonic smile.
"No," said Dumbledore calmly, "I'm afraid I don't. I have long felt the Ministry is wrong to ally itself with such creatures."
"But for filth like this..." Moody said softly.
"You say you have names for us, Karkaroff," said Mr. Crouch. "Let us hear them, please."
"You must understand," said Karkaroff hurriedly, "that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named operated always in the greatest secrecy... He preferred that we - I mean to say, his supporters - and I regret now, very deeply, that I ever counted myself among them -"
"Get on with it," sneered Moody.
"- we never knew the names of every one of our fellows - He alone knew exactly who we all were -"
"Which was a wise move, wasn't it, as it prevented someone like you, Karkaroff, from turning all of them in," muttered Moody.
"Yet you say you have some names for us?" said Mr. Crouch.
"I - I do," said Karkaroff breathlessly. "And these were important supporters, mark you. People I saw with my own eyes doing his bidding. I give this information as a sign that I fully and totally renounce him, and am filled with a remorse so deep I can barely -"
"These names are?" said Mr. Crouch sharply.
Karkaroff drew a deep breath.
"There was Antonin Dolohov," he said. "I - I saw him torture countless Muggles and - and non-supporters of the Dark Lord."
"And helped him do it," murmured Moody.
"We have already apprehended Dolohov," said Crouch. "He was caught shortly after yourself."
"Indeed?" said Karkaroff, his eyes widening. "I - I am delighted to hear it!"
But he didn't look it. I could tell that this news had come as a real blow to him. One of his names was worthless.
"Any others?" said Crouch coldly.
"Why, yes ... there was Rosier," said Karkaroff hurriedly. "Evan Rosier."
"Rosier is dead," said Crouch. "He was caught shortly after you were too. He preferred to fight rather than come quietly and was killed in the struggle."
"Took a bit of me with him, though," whispered Moody to my right. I looked around at him once more, and saw him indicating the large chunk out of his nose to Dumbledore.
"No - no more than Rosier deserved!" said Karkaroff, a real note of panic in his voice now. I could see that he was starting to worry that none of his information would be of any use to the Ministry. Karkaroff's eyes darted toward the door in the corner, behind which the dementors undoubtedly still stood, waiting.
"Any more?" said Crouch.
"Yes!" said Karkaroff. "There was Travers - he helped murder the McKinnons! Mulciber -he specialized in the Imperius Curse, forced countless people to do horrific things! Rookwood, who was a spy, and passed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named useful information from inside the Ministry itself!"
I could tell that, this time, Karkaroff had struck gold. The watching crowd was all murmuring together.
"Rookwood?" said Mr. Crouch, nodding to a witch sitting in front of him, who began scribbling upon her piece of parchment. "Augustus Rookwood of the Department of Mysteries?"
"The very same," said Karkaroff eagerly. "I believe he used a network of well-placed wizards, both inside the Ministry and out, to collect information -"
"But Travers and Mulciber we have," said Mr. Crouch. "Very well, Karkaroff, if that is all, you will be returned to Azkaban while we decide -"
"Not yet!" cried Karkaroff, looking quite desperate. "Wait, I have more!"
I could see him sweating in the torchlight, his white skin contrasting strongly with the black of his hair and beard.
"Snape!" he shouted. "Severus Snape!"
"Snape has been cleared by this council," said Crouch disdainfully. "He has been vouched for by Albus Dumbledore."
"No!" shouted Karkaroff, straining at the chains that bound him to the chair. "I assure you! Severus Snape is a Death Eater!"
Dumbledore had gotten to his feet.
"I have given evidence already on this matter," he said calmly. "Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he rejoined our side before Lord Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk. He is now no more a Death Eater than I am."
I turned to look at Mad-Eye Moody. He was wearing a look of deep skepticism behind Dumbledore's back.
"Very well, Karkaroff," Crouch said coldly, "you have been of assistance. I shall review your case. You will return to Azkaban in the meantime..."
Mr. Crouch's voice faded. I looked around; the dungeon was dissolving as though it were made of smoke; everything was fading; I could see only my own body and Harrys - all else was swirling darkness. . . .
And then, the dungeon returned. we were sitting in a different seat, still on the highest bench, but now to the left side of Mr. Crouch. The atmosphere seemed quite different: relaxed, even cheerful. The witches and wizards all around the walls were talking to one another, almost as though they were at some sort of sporting event. I noticed a witch halfway up the rows of benches opposite. She had short blonde hair, was wearing magenta robes, and was sucking the end of an acid-green quill. It was, unmistakably, a younger Rita Skeeter. I looked around; Dumbledore was sitting beside us again, wearing different robes. Mr. Crouch looked more tired and somehow fiercer, gaunter... I understood. It was a different memory, a different day... a different trial.
The door in the corner opened, and Ludo Bagman walked into the room.
This was not, however, a Ludo Bagman gone to seed, but a Ludo Bagman who was clearly at the height of his Quidditch-playing fitness. His nose wasn't broken now; he was tall and lean and muscular. Bagman looked nervous as he sat down in the chained chair, but it did not bind him there as it had bound Karkaroff, and Bagman, perhaps taking heart from this, glanced around at the watching crowd, waved at a couple of them, and managed a small smile.
"Ludo Bagman, you have been brought here in front of the Council of Magical Law to answer charges relating to the activities of the Death Eaters," said Mr. Crouch. "We have heard the evidence against you, and are about to reach our verdict. Do you have anything to add to your testimony before we pronounce judgment?"
I couldn't believe my ears. Ludo Bagman, a Death Eater?
"Only," said Bagman, smiling awkwardly, "well - I know I've been a bit of an idiot -"
One or two wizards and witches in the surrounding seats smiled indulgently. Mr. Crouch did not appear to share their feelings. He was staring down at Ludo Bagman with an expression of the utmost severity and dislike.
"You never spoke a truer word, boy," someone muttered dryly to Dumbledore behind me.
I looked around and saw Moody sitting there again. "If I didn't know he'd always been dim, I'd have said some of those Bludgers had permanently affected his brain. ..."
"Ludovic Bagman, you were caught passing information to Lord Voldemort's supporters," said Mr. Crouch. "For this, I suggest a term of imprisonment in Azkaban lasting no less than -"
But there was an angry outcry from the surrounding benches. Several of the witches and wizards around the walls stood up, shaking their heads, and even their fists, at Mr. Crouch.
"But I've told you, I had no idea!" Bagman called earnestly over the crowd's babble, his round blue eyes widening. "None at all! Old Rookwood was a friend of my dad's . . . never crossed my mind he was in with You-Know-Who! I thought I was collecting information for our side! And Rookwood kept talking about getting me a job in the Ministry later on ... once my Quidditch days are over, you know ... I mean, I can't keep getting hit by Bludgers for the rest of my life, can I?"
There were titters from the crowd.
"It will be put to the vote," said Mr. Crouch coldly. He turned to the right-hand side of the dungeon. "The jury will please raise their hands . . . those in favor of imprisonment..."
I looked toward the right-hand side of the dungeon. Not one person raised their hand. Many of the witches and wizards around the walls began to clap. One of the witches on the jury stood up.
"Yes?" barked Crouch.
"We'd just like to congratulate Mr. Bagman on his splendid performance for England in the Quidditch match against Turkey last Saturday," the witch said breathlessly.
Mr. Crouch looked furious. The dungeon was ringing with applause now. Bagman got to his feet and bowed, beaming.
"Despicable," Mr. Crouch spat at Dumbledore, sitting down as Bagman walked out of the dungeon. "Rookwood get him a job indeed. . . . The day Ludo Bagman joins us will be a sad day indeed for the Ministry. . . ."
And the dungeon dissolved again. When it had returned, I looked around. Me, Harry and Dumbledore were still sitting beside Mr. Crouch, but the atmosphere could not have been more different. There was total silence, broken only by the dry sobs of a frail, wispy-looking witch in the seat next to Mr. Crouch. She was clutching a handkerchief to her mouth with trembling hands.
I looked up at Crouch and saw that he looked gaunter and grayer than ever before. A nerve was twitching in his temple.
"Bring them in," he said, and his voice echoed through the silent dungeon.
The door in the corner opened yet again. Six dementors entered this time, flanking a group of four people. I saw the people in the crowd turn to look up at Mr. Crouch.
A few of them whispered to one another.
The dementors placed each of the four people in the four chairs with chained arms that now stood on the dungeon floor. There was a thickset man who stared blankly up at Crouch; a thinner and more nervous-looking man, whose eyes were darting around the crowd; a woman with thick, shining dark hair and heavily hooded eyes, who was sitting in the chained chair as though it were a throne; and a boy in his late teens, who looked nothing short of petrified. He was shivering, his straw-colored hair all over his face, his freckled skin milk-white. The wispy little witch beside Crouch began to rock backward and forward in her seat, whimpering into her handkerchief.
Crouch stood up. He looked down upon the four in front of him, and there was pure hatred in his face.
"You have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law," he said clearly, "so that we may pass judgment on you, for a crime so heinous -"
"Father," said the boy with the straw-colored hair. "Father. . .please . . ."
"- that we have rarely heard the like of it within this court," said Crouch, speaking more loudly, drowning out his son's voice.
"We have heard the evidence against you. The four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror - Frank Longbottom - and subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named -"
"Father, I didn't!" shrieked the boy in chains below. "I didn't, I swear it. Father, don't send me back to the dementors -"
"You are further accused," bellowed Mr. Crouch, "of using the Cruciatus Curse on Frank Longbottom's wife, when he would not give you information. You planned to restore He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to power, and to resume the lives of violence you presumably led while he was strong. I now ask the jury -"
"Mother!" screamed the boy below, and the wispy little witch beside Crouch began to sob, rocking backward and forward. "Mother, stop him. Mother, I didn't do it, it wasn't me!"
"I now ask the jury," shouted Mr. Crouch, "to raise their hands if they believe, as I do, that these crimes deserve a life sentence in Azkaban!"
In unison, the witches and wizards along the right-hand side of the dungeon raised their hands. The crowd around the walls began to clap as it had for Bagman, their faces full of savage triumph. The boy began to scream.
"No! Mother, no! I didn't do it, I didn't do it, I didn't know! Don't send me there, don't let him!"
The dementors were gliding back into the room. The boys' three companions rose quietly from their seats; the woman with the heavy-lidded eyes looked up at Crouch and called, "The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!"
But the boy was trying to fight off the dementors, even though I could see their cold, draining power starting to affect him. The crowd was jeering, some of them on their feet, as the woman swept out of the dungeon, and the boy continued to struggle.
"I'm your son!" he screamed up at Crouch. "I'm your son!"
"You are no son of mine!" bellowed Mr. Crouch, his eyes bulging suddenly. "I have no son!"
The wispy witch beside him gave a great gasp and slumped in her seat. She had fainted.
Crouch appeared not to have noticed.
"Take them away!" Crouch roared at the dementors, spit flying from his mouth. "Take them away, and may they rot there!"
"Father! Father, I wasn't involved! No! No! Father, please!"
"I think. Melissa and Harry, it is time to return to my office," said a quiet voice in our ears.
I started. Then looked around. I looked on my other side.
There was an Albus Dumbledore sitting on Harrys right, watching Crouch's son being dragged away by the dementors - and there was an Albus Dumbledore on my left, looking right at us.
"Come," said the Dumbledore on his left, and he put his hand under my elbow and Harry grabbed my shoulder. I felt myself rising into the air; the dungeon dissolved around me; for a moment, all was blackness, and then I felt as though I had done a slow-motion somersault, suddenly landing flat on my feet, in what seemed like the dazzling light of Dumbledore's sunlit office. The stone basin was shimmering in the cabinet in front of him, and Albus Dumbledore was standing beside us.
"Professor," I gasped, "I know I shouldn't've - I didn't mean - the cabinet door was sort of open and -"
"I quite understand," said Dumbledore. He lifted the basin, carried it over to his desk, placed it upon the polished top, and sat down in the chair behind it. He motioned for us to sit down opposite him.
Harry did so, staring at the stone basin while I slowly sat down feeling uncomfortable. The contents had returned to their original, silvery-white state, swirling and rippling beneath his gaze.
"What is it?" Harry asked shakily.
"This? It is called a Pensieve," said Dumbledore. "I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind."
"Er," I said, not truthfully able to say that I had ever felt anything of the sort.
"At these times," said Dumbledore, indicating the stone basin, "I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form."
"You mean . . . that stuff's your thoughts?" Harry said, staring at the swirling white substance in the basin.
"Certainly," said Dumbledore. "Let me show you."
Dumbledore drew his wand out of the inside of his robes and placed the tip into his own silvery hair, near his temple. When he took the wand away, hair seemed to be clinging to it - but then I saw that it was in fact a glistening strand of the same strange silvery-white substance that filled the Pensieve. Dumbledore added this fresh thought to the basin, and saw my own face swimming around the surface of the bowl. Dumbledore placed his long hands on either side of the Pensieve and swirled it, rather as a gold prospector would pan for fragments of gold.... and my own face change smoothly into Snape's, who opened his mouth and spoke to the ceiling, his voice echoing slightly.
"It's coming back . . . Karkaroff's too . . . stronger and clearer than ever..."
"A connection I could have made without assistance," Dumbledore sighed, "but never mind."
He peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles at Harry and I, we were gaping at Snape's face, which was continuing to swirl around the bowl. "I was using the Pensieve when Mr. Fudge arrived for our meeting and put it away rather hastily. Undoubtedly I did not fasten the cabinet door properly. Naturally, it would have attracted your attention."
"I'm sorry," I mumbled.
Dumbledore shook his head. "Curiosity is not a sin," he said. "But we should exercise caution with our curiosity. . . yes, indeed ..."
Frowning slightly, he prodded the thoughts within the basin with the tip of his wand.
Instantly, a figure rose out of it, a plump, scowling girl of about sixteen, who began to revolve slowly, with her feet still in the basin. She took no notice whatsoever of Harry or Professor Dumbledore but I felt she was looking right through me. When she spoke, her voice echoed as Snape's had done, as though it were coming from the depths of the stone basin. "He put a hex on me, Professor Dumbledore, and I was only teasing him, sir, I only said I'd seen him kissing Florence behind the greenhouses last Thursday. . . ."
"But why. Bertha," said Dumbledore sadly, looking up at the now silently revolving girl, "why did you have to follow him in the first place?"
"Bertha?" Harry whispered, looking up at her. "Is that - was that Bertha Jorkins?"
"Yes," said Dumbledore, prodding the thoughts in the basin again; Bertha sank back into them, and they became silvery and opaque once more. "That was Bertha as I remember her at school."
"So, Melissa, Harry," said Dumbledore quietly. "Before you got lost in my thoughts, you wanted to tell me something."
"Yes," said Harry. "Professor - I was in Divination just now, and - er - I fell asleep."
He hesitated here, wondering if a reprimand was coming, but Dumbledore merely said, "Quite understandable. Continue."
"Well, I had a dream," said Harry. "A dream about Lord Voldemort. He was torturing Wormtail . . . you know who Wormtail-"
"I do know," said Dumbledore promptly. "Please continue."
"Voldemort got a letter from an owl. He said something like, Wormtail's blunder had been repaired. He said someone was dead. Then he said, Wormtail wouldn't be fed to the snake - there was a snake beside his chair. He said - he said he'd be feeding me to it, instead. Then he did the Cruciatus Curse on Wormtail - and my scar hurt," Harry said. "It woke me up, it hurt so badly."
Dumbledore merely looked at him.
"Er - that's all," said Harry.
"I see," said Dumbledore quietly. "I see. Now, has your scar hurt at any other time this year, excepting the time it woke you up over the summer?"
"No, I - how did you know it woke me up over the summer?" said Harry, astonished.
"You are not Sirius's only correspondent," said Dumbledore. "I have also been in contact with him ever since he left Hogwarts last year. It was I who suggested the mountainside cave as the safest place for him to stay."
Dumbledore got up and began walking up and down behind his desk. Every now and then, he placed his wand tip to his temple, removed another shining silver thought, and added it to the Pensieve. The thoughts inside began to swirl so fast that I couldn't make out anything clearly: It was merely a blur of colour.
"Why did I see it? I fell asleep but didn't wake up screaming." I said shutting my eyes for a few seconds. But I was given no answer.
"Professor?" Harry said quietly, after a couple of minutes.
Dumbledore stopped pacing and looked at Harry.
"My apologies," he said quietly. He sat back down at his desk.
"D'you - d'you know why my scar's hurting me?"
Dumbledore looked very intently at Harry for a moment, and then said, "I have a theory, no more than that. ... It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lord Voldemort is near you, and when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred."
"But. . . why and what has it got to do with Melissa?"
"Because you and he are connected by the curse that failed," said Dumbledore. "That is no ordinary scar. Melissa I couldn't possibly say, it's like she doesn't exist."
"So you think . . . that dream . . . did it really happen?"
"It is possible," said Dumbledore. "I would say - probable. Did you see Voldemort?"
"No," said Harry. "Just the back of his chair. But - there wouldn't have been anything to see, would there? I mean, he hasn't got a body, has he? But. . . but then how could he have held the wand?" Harry said slowly.
"How indeed?" muttered Dumbledore. "How indeed . . ."
Neither Dumbledore nor Harry spoke for a while, I wasn't speaking much anyway, trying to get the dream out of my head. Dumbledore was gazing across the room, and, every now and then, placing his wand tip to his temple and adding another shining silver thought to the seething mass within the Pensieve.
"Professor," Harry said at last, "do you think he's getting stronger?"
"Voldemort?" said Dumbledore, looking at Harry over the Pensieve. It was the characteristic, piercing look Dumbledore had given him on other occasions, and always made me feel as though Dumbledore were seeing right through me in a way that even Moody's magical eye could not. "Once again. Harry, I can only give you my suspicions."
Dumbledore sighed again, and he looked older, and wearier, than ever.
"The years of Voldemort's ascent to power," he said, "were marked with disappearances. Bertha Jorkins has vanished without a trace in the place where Voldemort was certainly known to be last. Mr. Crouch too has disappeared . . . within these very grounds. And there was a third disappearance, one which the Ministry, I regret to say, do not consider of any importance, for it concerns a Muggle. His name was Frank Bryce, he lived in the village where Voldemort's father grew up, and he has not been seen since last August. You see, I read the Muggle newspapers, unlike most of my Ministry friends."
Dumbledore looked very seriously at me.
"These disappearances seem to me to be linked. The Ministry disagrees - as you may have heard, while waiting outside my office."
Harry and I nodded. Silence fell between us again, Dumbledore extracting thoughts every now and then. I felt as though he ought to go, but Harrys curiosity held us in our chairs.
"Professor?" he said again.
"Yes, Harry?" said Dumbledore.
"Er . . . could I ask you about. . . that court thing I was in ... in the Pensieve?"
"You could," said Dumbledore heavily. "I attended it many times, but some trials come back to me more clearly than others ... particularly now. ..."
"You know - you know the trial you found me in? The one with Crouch's son? Well....were they talking about Neville's parents?"
Dumbledore gave Harry a very sharp look. "Has Neville never told you why he has been brought up by his grandmother?" he said.
Harry shook his head do did I.
"Yes, they were talking about Nevilles parents," said Dumbledore. "His father, Frank, was an Auror just like Professor Moody. He and his wife were tortured for information about Voldemort's whereabouts after he lost his powers, as you heard."
"So they're dead?" I said quietly.
"No," said Dumbledore, his voice full of a bitterness I had never heard there before. "They are insane. They are both in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I believe Neville visits them, with his grandmother, during the holidays. They do not recognise him."
I sat there, horror-struck. How could something like this happen and to someone so sweet and kind. . .
"The Longbottoms were very popular," said Dumbledore. "The attacks on them came after Voldemort's fall from power, just when everyone thought they were safe. Those attacks caused a wave of fury such as I have never known. The Ministry was under great pressure to catch those who had done it. Unfortunately, the Longbottoms' evidence was - given their condition - none too reliable."
"Then Mr. Crouch's son might not have been involved?" I asked slowly.
Dumbledore shook his head.
"As to that, I have no idea."
We sat in silence once more, watching the contents of the Pensieve swirl. There were two more questions I was burning to ask . . . but they concerned the guilt of living people. . . .
"Um," I said, "Mr. Bagman . .."
"... has never been accused of any Dark activity since," said Dumbledore calmly.
"Right," I say hastily, staring at the contents of the Pensieve again, which were swirling more slowly now that Dumbledore had stopped adding thoughts. "And ... Um ..."
But the Pensieve seemed to be asking the question for me.
Snape's face was swimming on the surface again. Dumbledore glanced down into it, and then up at me.
"No more has Professor Snape," he said.
"What made you think he'd really stopped supporting Voldemort, Professor?" Harry said making me squeak a little.
Dumbledore held Harrys gaze for a few seconds, and then said, "That, Harry, is a matter between Professor Snape and myself."
We all knew that the interview was over; Dumbledore did not look angry, yet there was a finality in his tone that told us it was time to go. Harry stood up, and so did Dumbledore and myself.
"Harry, Melissa," he said as Harry reached the door as I was walking slowly hoping to ask Dumbledore a few questions that I couldn't ask in front of Harry. "Please do not speak about Neville's parents to anybody else. He has the right to let people know, when he is ready."
"Yes, Professor," said Harry, turning to go.
"And-"
Harry looked back. Dumbledore was standing over the Pensieve, his face lit from beneath by its silvery spots of light, looking older than ever. He stared at Harry for a moment, and then said, "Good luck with the third task."
"Thank you Sir." Harry said before shutting the door, when I heard his footsteps no longer I sat back down.
"Melissa, I suppose you have a few questions not suitable for Harry's ears." I nod. "I will try and answer them for you."
"Well... do I have Dark Magic in me? Crouch said I did and... I would be used as a weapon! Is this true?" I managed to stutter.
"Melissa. You have magic that excels all of us. With proper training you'll get it under control and your lessons with Professor Moody..."
"So thats a yes? My magic is dark? Why don't you just say it straight to my face?!" I shout at him making everything around me shake a little.
"Melissa, I must ask you to calm down. This is very strong and powerful magic, tampered with and it could destroy us all." Dumbledore said calmly, this made me so angry! He could he be so calm about all of this?
"How dare you?" I hiss at him, but it doesn't feel like I'm saying all this. "You sit there all calm, like everything's going to be okay! How dare you? You can't tell me to calm down when I've just learnt I'm a weapon! You can't dare do that! You don't have the right!" I felt the world go cold and start to hear nothing. But then I sat down. Everything just went blank to me. I then looked up to Dumbledore. "Whats happening to me?" I beg.
"Melissa. You need to control your dark magic, but I cannot tell you the answers yet. Someday you will realise everything and then, and only then, I will tell you everything. Good luck with your task Melissa."