When Hermione received a note from Headmaster Dumbledore calling her to his office immediately, she was surprised. He had just come back after one of his long absences, and hadn't had a lesson with Harry in a long time. On her way there, she thought of a hundred different theories, but her musings were cut short by the croak of an ugly gargoyle.
"Well? Are you going in or not?"
"Oh!" exclaimed Hermione, "I'm sorry for making you wait." (Although, she thought, what else does a gargoyle have to do?) "cockroach clusters!" The gargoyle slid aside to reveal a long, spiral staircase. After a long climb, Hermione finally reached the door to the Headmaster's office, and clutching a stitch in her side, knocked.
"Come in!" called a voice.
Opening the heavy door, Hermione saw a large, circular room, the shelves of which were filled spindly silver instruments, some puffing colored smoke and whirring, and the use of which she longed to know. There lay the sorting hat, and there was the pensive which she recognized from Harry's description and from her reading. Many books sat on the shelves, some fat and edged with silver, others bejeweled and bound in cloth of gold. There were tomes in a locked glass cabinet, covered in scaly leather of a poisonous green color. A magnificent phoenix with brilliant scarlet and gold plumage was sitting on a silver perch and crooning softly, his tail waving like a living flame, and many portraits of the past Headmasters and mistresses of Hogwarts covered the wall, all of whom suspiciously seemed to be asleep and loudly snoring.
Dumbledore was sitting at a cluttered, heavy-looking mahogany desk, and was holding a strange, carved stone in the shape of an hourglass with his uninjured hand. A shining, ruby embedded sword in a crystal case hung behind him, the enormous stones glowing with a brilliant fire.
"Hello Sir" said Hermione, "You wanted to see me?"
"Yes, Miss Granger," he answered "please sit down, we have much to discuss."
Hemione nervously sat in the leather armchair in front of his desk, and noticed how tired Dumbledore looked. The usually sprightly old man was sitting bent in his chair, and the amount of wrinkles on his face seemed to have doubled. Hermione tried to avert her gaze from his dead, blackened hand which, she thought, must have been hit with a powerful curse. To avoid looking at it, her eyes fell on the object in front of him. It was black and shining, two triangular pyramids, and there was a sign on it, a line inside of a circle scratched on one of its triangular faces.
"Are you wondering what this is?" asked Dumbledore.
"Yes, professor. Is it a horcrux?"
"No," said Dumbledore "but perhaps it isn't that different. It is what I want to discuss with you."
Hermione raised her head in surprise. What could this object possibly be? And why did Dumbledore want to talk to her about it?
Dumbledore's light, sparkling blue eyes shone with an unnatural light in his old, wizened face.