─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
'Harry!! Wake up!!' Sara shook her brother's shoulders until the boy's eyes flung open and he growled in frustration.
'What?'
'There!' she pointed out of the window; at that precise moment, the street-lamp outside the window went out. Harry pressed his nose against the window instead and squinted down at the pavement. A tall figure in a long, billowing cloak was walking up the garden path.
'Oh Harry, Dumbledore's here! And you haven't packed!' the redheaded cried in alarm and began shoving Harry's things in his trunk, the boy soon joining her.
Even as they lobbed a set of robes, two spellbooks, and a packet of crisps across the room, the doorbell rang. Downstairs in the living room his Uncle Vernon shouted, 'Who the blazes is calling at this lime of night?'
Sara froze with a brass telescope in her hands. They had completely forgotten to warn the Dursleys that Dumbledore might be coming. Harry clambered over the trunk and wrenched open their bedroom door in time for them to hear a deep voice say, 'Good evening. You must be Mr. Dursley. I daresay the twins have told you I would be coming for them?'
'Sh-,' Sara began, and followed Harry quickly in the hall and downstairs.
There in the doorway stood a tall, thin man with waist-length silver hair and beard. Half-moon spectacles were perched on his crooked nose, and he was wearing a long black traveling cloak and a pointed hat.
Vernon Dursley, whose mustache was quite as bushy as Dumbledore's, though black, and who was wearing a puce dressing gown, was staring at the visitor as though he could not believe his tiny eyes.
'Judging by your look of stunned disbelief, neither Sara, nor Harry did not warn you that I was coming,' said Dumbledore pleasantly. 'However, let us assume that you have invited me warmly into your house. It is unwise to linger overlong on doorsteps in these troubled times.'
He stepped smartly over the threshold and closed the front door behind him.
'It is a long time since my last visit,' said Dumbledore, peering down his crooked nose at Uncle Vernon. 'I must say, your agapanthus are flourishing.'
Sara raised a brow in amusement and stifled the chuckle that was threatening to come out.
'Ah, good evening Sara, Harry," said Dumbledore, looking up at him through his half-moon glasses with a most satisfied expression. 'Excellent, excellent.'
These words seemed to rouse Uncle Vernon. It was clear that as far as he was concerned, any man who could look at Harry or Sara and say 'excellent' was a man with whom he could never see eye to eye.
'So,' the old man began, eyeing the pair of trousers that were in Harry's hands. 'You haven't packed yet?'
'I did sir, but Harry—' Sara started.
'He was doubtful that I would come up, oh well then,' Dumbledore said and with a swish of his hand, the telescope that Sara held an the pair of trousers flew upstairs and the redhead heard how the trunk packed itself. Then there was a silent pop! and Sara was sure their trunks and Hedwig's cage were sent to the Weasleys.
'Now we must go, shall we?' the professor said softly and opened the door, leading the twins outside.
They set off down Privet street together. Sara regretted the fact that she had not taken a cloak with her, as the cold air of the summer night was getting through her thin grey shirt and black jeans.
'Keep your wand at the ready, Harry, Sara,' Dumbledore said brightly.
'But I thought we are not allowed to use magic outside school, sir?' the redheaded replied, even if she held her wand tightly in her right hand.
'If there is an attack,' said Dumbledore, 'I give you permission to use any counterjinx or curse that might occur to you. However, I do not think you need worry about being attacked tonight.'
'Why not, sir?' Harry asked with interest.
"You are with me," said Dumbledore simply. 'This will do.'
They came to an abrupt halt at the end of Privet Drive.
'You have not, of course, passed your Apparition Test,' he said.
'No,' said Sara.
'I thought you had to be seventeen?' Harry continued.
'You do,' said Dumbledore. "So you will need to hold on to my arm very tightly. My left, if you don't mind - as you have noticed, my wand arm is a little fragile at the moment, you Sara hold Harry's arm and do not let go of it.'
She obeyed, grabbing Harry's left hand and holding on it tightly.
'Very good,' said Dumbledore. 'Well, here we go.'
The next thing Sara knew, everything went black; she was being pressed very hard from all directions; she could not breathe, there were iron bands tightening around her chest; her eyeballs were being forced back into her head; her eardrums were being pushed deeper into her skull and then --
Sara gulped great lungfuls of cold night air and opened her streaming eyes. They were now standing in what appeared to be a deserted village square, in the center of which stood an old war memorial and a few benches. Her comprehension catching up with her senses, Sara realized that she had just Apparated for the first time in her life.
'Are you all right?' asked Dumbledore, looking down at them solicitously. 'The sensation does take some getting used to.'
The twins nodded and Dumbledore smiled, drew his traveling cloak a little more lightly around his neck, and said, 'This way.'
They set off at a brisk pace, past an empty inn and a few houses. According to a clock on a nearby church, it was almost midnight.
They turned a corner, passing a telephone box and a bus shelter. Sara looked sideways at Dumbledore again.
'Professor?'
'Sara?'
'Er - where exactly are we?'
'This, dear Sara, is the charming village of Budleigh Babberton.'
'And what are we doing here?' Harry asked.
'Ah yes, of course, I haven't told you,' said Dumbledore. 'Well, I have lost count of the number of times I have said this in recent years, but we are, once again, one member of staff short. We are here to persuade an old colleague of mine to come out of retirement and return to Hogwarts.'
'How can we help with that, sir?'
'Oh, I think we'll find a use for you,' said Dumbledore vaguely. 'Left here.'
They were nearing a small, neat stone house set in its own garden. Sara collapsed into Harry as he too walked into a frozen Dumbledore.
'Oh dear. Oh dear, dear, dear.'
Sara followed his gaze up the carefully tended front path and felt her heart sink. The front door was hanging off its hinges.
Dumbledore glanced up and down the street. It seemed quite deserted.
'Wand out and follow me,' he said quietly.
He opened the gate and walked swiftly and silently up the garden path, Harry and Sara at his heels, then pushed the front door very slowly, his wand raised and at the ready.
'Lumos.'
Dumbledore's wand tip ignited, casting its light up a narrow hallway. To the left, another door stood open. Holding his illuminated wand aloft, Dumbledore walked into the sitting room with the twins right behind him.
A scene of total devastation met their eyes. A grandfather clock lay splintered at their feet, its face cracked, its pendulum lying a little farther away like a dropped sword. A piano was on its side, its keys strewn across the floor. The wreckage of a fallen chandelier flittered nearby. Cushions lay deflated, feathers oozing from slashes in their sides; fragments of glass and china lay like powder over everything.
'Not pretty, is it?' Dumbledore said heavily. 'Yes, something horrible has happened here.'
Dumbledore moved carefully into the middle of the room, scrutinizing the wreckage at his feet. Sara followed, gazing around, half-scared of what she might see hidden behind the wreck of the piano or the overturned sofa, but there was no sign of a body.
'Maybe there was a fight and - and they dragged him off, Professor?' Harry suggested.
'I don't think so,' said Dumbledore quietly, peering behind an overstuffed armchair lying on its side.
'You mean he's - ?' Sara whispered.
'Still here somewhere? Yes.'
And without warning, Dumbledore swooped, plunging the tip of his wand into the seat of the overstuffed armchair, which yelled, 'Ouch!'
'Good evening, Horace,' said Dumbledore, straightening up again.
Sara's eyes grew wide. Where a split second before there had been an armchair, there now crouched an enormously fat, bald, old man who was massaging his lower belly and squinting up at Dumbledore with an aggrieved and watery eye.
'Would you like my assistance clearing up?' asked Dumbledore politely.
'Please,' said the other.
They stood back to back, the tall thin wizard and the short round one, and waved their wands in one identical sweeping motion.
The room was cleared, the furniture was back in its place and the piano was no longer broken.
'Lily?' the wizard called Horace asked and his eyes grew wide when he caught a sight of Sara.
'Not Lily, Horace, but her daughter Sara and her son, Harry,' Dumbledore responded softly. 'Sara, Harry, this is an old Friend and colleague of mine, Horace Slughorn.'
Slughorn turned on Dumbledore, his expression shrewd. 'So that's how you thought you'd persuade me, is it? Well, the answer's no, Albus.'
After some conversation Dumbledore asked for the bathroom and with a sight, Slughorn remained with Sara and Harry.
'Lily Evans,' he began. 'One of the brightest I ever taught. Vivacious, you know. Charming girl. I used to tell her she ought to have been in my House. Very cheeky answers I used to get back too.'
Sara smiled and as Slughorn went on with his rambling about old students, she kept thinking about her parents.
Dumbledore reentered the room and Slughorn jumped as though he had forgotten he was in the house.
'Oh, there you are, Albus,' he said. 'You've been a very long lime. Upset stomach?'
'No, I was merely reading the Muggle magazines,'said Dumbledore. 'I do love knitting patterns. Well, Harry, Sara, we have trespassed upon Horace's hospitality quite long enough; I think it is time for us to leave.'
Slughorn sinned taken aback. 'You're leaving?'
'Yes, indeed. I think I know a lost cause when I see one.'
'Lost. . .?'
But as they arrived at the front door when there was a shout from behind them.
'All right, all right, I'll do it!'
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───