– Chapter Five –
Troubling LettersThe sunlight steaming gently through the Gryffindor girls' dormitory awoke Leanne from her sleep. She sat up, looked around with bleary eyes and, with a large grin, remembered where she was: Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. The fresh books, equipment and wand that she had recently purchased from Diagon Alley for use at Hogwarts lay at the foot of her four-poster bed.
Leanne quickly bounded out of bed, feeling excited and elated. She was the only one still in the common room, she quickly realised after glancing over the other four beds; everyone else must have gone down for breakfast. The only sounds came from Rabnott, who was purring contently on her owner's bed, which had been hastily made. Hermione Granger's bed, however, had been made perfectly and all of her clothes were piled neatly in her open trunk, which also seemed to have far more books than Leanne's did.
Leanne quickly got changed into her robes and headed down the stairs into the Gryffindor common room. It was relatively empty apart from a few fifth years, who were talking in a corner, and two excitable girls out of Leanne's year, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who had already appeared to have become good friends. They giggled and looked at Leanne as she passed them on the way to the portrait of the Fat Lady that led out onto the seventh floor corridor.
The castle was very intimidating; though she had come this way the previous night, she had been following Percy Weasley at the time, and her senses had been clouded by her overwhelming sense of excitement, which still hadn't faded fully. Trying to get down to the Great Hall, Leanne soon discovered, was harder than it first appeared. Some staircases had the annoying habit of moving around, which meant that you ended up somewhere different every time you went up or down them. Leanne must have gone up and down the same staircase at least seven times before he reached the desired corridor, and many passing students gave her funny looks as they passed by. Even worse than the moving staircases was the resident poltergeist, Peeves. He seemed pleasant at first, but after he had directed Leanne into the office of Argus Filch, the caretaker (who seemed less than pleased with Leanne's unannounced arrival), she realised that Peeves was probably quite mischievous, a theory that was soon proved when the troublesome poltergeist tried to topple a suit of armour onto Leanne as she passed by.
When she finally arrived at the Great Hall, slightly bruised from his encounter with Peeves and the suit of armour, she found that most of the other students were halfway through their breakfast. She scanned the Gryffindor table and quickly spotted Frieda, who was waving her wand and trying to turn a sugar bowl into something else, with little success.
'Hi,' Leanne greeted as she dropped down onto the bench next to Frieda and helped herself to a nearby plate of bacon. 'How did you manage to get down here so fast? I got lost about eight times.'
'Me too!' Frieda exclaimed, sounding rather proud of this fact as she finished off her porridge. 'I wandered into a cupboard and got locked in there for about twenty minutes until Professor McGonagall let me out. Speaking of McGonagall…'
Leanne looked up and saw that Professor McGonagall, the head of Gryffindor house, was walking down the Gryffindor table handing everyone their timetables. Leanne looked eagerly at hers once she'd received it; there was a plethora of subjects that looked as though they were exclusive to magic school, judging from their names, which included Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Charms and Transfiguration amongst others. Frieda was looking at hers with less enthusiasm, Leanne soon noticed, though it was probably because she came from a large wizarding family and was no longer excited by such things.
Leanne memorised the subject that she had first after breakfast (Transfiguration), put the timetable in her robes and focused on finishing her bacon, looking around the table as she did so. Many students had open letters nearby, and some were reading newspapers, the Daily Prophet. Frieda had gone back to trying magic spells, this time joined by Dean Thomas and Lavender Brown, though the most she managed to do with her wand was knock the sugar bowl over Hermione Granger's newspaper, who looked most annoyed and glared at Frieda for several moments until she decided it was best to put his wand back into her robes.
'I've got Transfiguration first thing as well,' Frieda said as she compared their timetables after breakfast was over, and they found themselves being pushed out of the Great Hall by the huge surge of students. 'In fact, we've got exactly the same lessons. Excellent!' She paused and looked around. 'Erm…I don't supposed you know where Transfiguration is, do you?'
Leanne didn't know, but a passing Nearly Headless Nick was happy to point them in the right direction. It didn't stop them from getting lost, however and by the time Leanne and Frieda had reached Transfiguration, the lesson had already been going on for several minutes, though they didn't seem to have missed much since half the class still wasn't there. Leanne had an image of them trying to navigate the corridors with a prowling Argus Filch and a cackling Peeves following them. Indeed, the fact that Dean Thomas was panting and smelled slightly of singed clothing seemed to suggest that he had had a run-in with the resident poltergeist on the way here. Leanne expected to be reprimanded by Professor McGonagall, who happened to be the Transfiguration teacher, but she was understanding and barely even batted an eye when Neville staggered in ten minutes later, claiming that Trevor had tried to make a bid for freedom out of one of the castle windows.
'Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts,' Professor McGonagall explained when the entire class had found their seats and pulled out their textbooks. 'Anyone messing around in my class will not return. I hope I make myself clear. Now, who can tell me what the study of Transfiguration is about?'
Though a few hands rose lazily into the air, Hermione Granger's hand shot up like a rocket, narrowly missing Leanne's right ear.
'Miss Granger?' Professor McGonagall asked.
'Transfiguration is a study of magic that enables one to change the appearance and form of an object into a completely different one,' Hermione declared in her most authoritive voice and Leanne had an inkling that she had memorised the definition word for word from one of the textbooks.
However, Professor McGonagall seemed impressed. 'Well done,' she said with a rare smile that just didn't seem right on her usual stern-looking face. 'Take five points to Gryffindor.'
Hermione didn't stop there though and proceeded to answer Professor McGonagall's next four questions, each time raising a hand so fast that after the third question, nobody bothered to compete with her; on the fourth question, she raised her hand so fast that she actually hit Leanne in the side of the face and was too busy answering McGonagall's question (about Switching Spells) to bother apologising. After each successful answer, Ron Weasley, who was sitting a few seats down from Hermione, sniggered quietly to Harry Potter.
Professor McGonagall then turned herself into a cat and back and transfigured some of the desks into farmyard animals. This came as a bit of a surprise to Leanne, who had been leaning on the table with her elbow when it suddenly transformed into a pig and sent her books tumbling to the floor. After she had picked them up and the pig had been turned back into a desk, Leanne, along with the rest of the class, seemed extremely excited to get started on their own, but were disappointed to learn that they wouldn't be using such powerful spells for a long time and were given matches to turn into needles. It was much harder than it appeared, and although Neville managed to accidentally strike his match, and set himself on fire, nobody apart from Hermione had managed to change their match at the end of the lesson, and even she had only managed to make it go silver.
Their next lesson, Leanne soon discovered after consulting his timetable again, was Herbology, which took place in the greenhouses in the grounds. This was a much easier class to get to, and a short trip later, Leanne, Frieda and the rest of the class were standing inside one of the greenhouses in front of a large bench in the middle of the room and wearing gloves. Their teacher was Professor Sprout, the dumpy witch with flyaway hair and dirty fingernails, who set them into pairs, though only after Hermione had answered another substantial amount of questions (this time, Leanne made sure to position herself as far away from Hermione as she could so as not to get whacked in the face again).
'Grab your Fanged Geraniums and put them into the plant pots,' Professor Sprout was saying, showing the class how to do so. 'Now, they can give you a nasty bite, so make sure you're wearing your gloves.'
The Fanged Geraniums were certainly feisty little plants, and even Hermione had trouble containing them. Naturally, Leanne and Frieda were even more worse off, though they could tell that other people were having difficulty as well; Ron Weasley had somehow misplaced his and was searching under the bench for it, whilst Harry Potter's decided to give him a sharp bite on the hand when he removed his glove for a split second to wipe his brow. Surprisingly, Neville, who seemed the forgetful type and completely hopeless at Transfiguration, seemed to have taken a shine to Herbology and managed to plant his Fanged Geranium relatively quickly, only knocking over a minimal amount of dragon dung compost.
At the end of the class, everyone trudged back to the castle, much dirtier and sweatier than they had been when they had entered the greenhouse. There was just enough time to wash before lunch began before heading down to the Great Hall for the second time that day to refill their already empty stomachs.
'Phew, who knew that magic would be so tiring?' Leanne said as they tucked into their dinner. She had simply assumed that magic was a case of waving a wand and saying the right incantations, though she obviously couldn't have been farther from the truth.
However, despite all the hard work that they had already done that day, Hermione Granger seemed to have decided that more was in order; even as she ate her roast chicken, she was reading A History of Magic, which was propped up against the salt shaker, perhaps in preparation of their next lesson, which was History of Magic. Leanne caught Frieda's eye, who had also been looking over at Hermione in disbelief, and shook her head.
History of Magic turned out to be an extremely boring endeavour. It was the only class taught by a ghost, Professor Binns, and the lecture on goblin riots would have actually been moderately interesting if it hadn't been for Professor Binns' immensely droning and monotonous voice. Easily the most interesting thing that happened during the lesson was Binns' arrival and exit through the blackboard, and even Hermione didn't seem her usual, textbook-reciting person during the lesson. Leanne and Frieda found it hard to keep their eyelids open, whilst both Seamus Finnigan and a boy from Hufflepuff called Justin Finch-Fletchley nodded off completely, the latter of whom fell off his chair in his slumber.
The last lesson of the day was Charms, which was much more exciting than History of Magic. At least they were allowed to use wands in this lesson, and their teacher, Professor Flitwick, a tiny wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk, taught them how to use the Alohomora charm, which caused locks to open. Everyone was given a small box with a lock on it and the aim was to try and unlock it before the end of the lesson. Given the simplicity of the spell, it was met with relative success and even Neville managed to open his box (though, of course, Hermione completed the task phenomenally quick). Leanne was quite proud when her box finally unlocked for it was the first spell he had managed to do at Hogwarts.
No homework had been set that day, which was just as well, for Leanne was quite tired, what with all the traipsing they had done, and the fact that Professor Sprout had asked them to round up the last few Fanged Geraniums at the end of the Herbology lesson hadn't helped matters, though it had increased the number of cuts and bites on Leanne's hands. Both Leanne and Frieda got an early night's sleep and woke especially early, meaning they were amongst the first to arrive for breakfast.
Halfway through his cereal, Leanne was surprised by the sudden sound of flapping wings, and looking up, she saw hundreds of owls streaming into the Great Hall, circling the four tables until they found their masters, often dropping letters or parcels, though their aim could have been better, Leanne observed; parcels and letters were landing everywhere, including in cereal bowls, which forced Leanne to cover hers up whenever the shadow of an owl passed over her. Leanne half-hoped that she would receive a letter from her mother, but it wasn't to be. It wasn't that her mother didn't care, of course, it was probably because she wasn't used to sending letters and post by owl. With a grin, Leanne imagined her mother trying to tie a letter to an owl's foot and it flapping madly in her face.
'What's that?' Leanne asked, noticing that Frieda had received a letter from a beautiful snowy owl.
'Just a letter from mum and dad,' Frieda replied after opening it and glancing through it. 'Asking how my first day was and how I'm getting on. I suppose I'd better write to them back…'
She took out a quill and started writing on the back of the letter. Hermione, who was sitting across the table, had received the Daily Prophet from a small owl from the post office and had already immersed herself in its pages, despite the fact that she had not yet paid the postal owl, who was pecking at her fork to get some attention. Leanne looked across the table at the front cover of the paper; a headline proclaimed that investigations were continuing into a break-in at Gringotts bank, and the moving picture on the front showed an irritated looking goblin, but Hermione placed the newspaper down to finally pay the owl before Leanne could read on.
Leanne consulted her timetable after breakfast – it seemed like she had another busy day ahead of her. First off was double Defence Against the Dark Arts, followed by another lesson of Charms after lunch, a free period, and then Astronomy at night. As she and Frieda headed upstairs into a mostly empty corridor, she spotted a small shadow whipping across the corridor and out of sight.
'Did you see that?' Leanne cried, pointing to the space where she had seen the shadow, but Frieda, who had been busy talking about Exploding Snap, which she wanted to play afterwards, had looked too late.
'See what?' she asked, peering around.
'I saw a shadow running along the corridor,' Leanne explained, pointing, though it had long gone now, 'just like the shadow that I saw the other day on the way up to the Gryffindor common room. It looked like a small creatures or something.'
'Well I can't see anything, and I doubt Dumbledore would let creatures wander around Hogwarts,' Frieda said, shrugging.
Leanne once again tried to think what on earth it could be, eventually deciding that maybe she had imagined it, and they soon found a small crowd of students that was on its way to the Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson. Defence Against the Dark Arts was good in itself (they learned how to defend themselves against various nasty magical creatures, including how to placate a bowtruckle), but the fact that Quirrell's stammer made his every sentence seem twice as long caused the lesson to advance at quite a slow pace.
After Charms, during which they had perfected the Alohomora charm and had moved on to the Fixing Charm (which, in Neville's case, seemed to involve more breaking than fixing), Leanne, Frieda and the rest of the Gryffindors headed back to the common room for a few hours of rest and relaxation before Astronomy that night. Luckily, the older years were still in their classes, and Leanne and Frieda were able to find some empty chairs and claim them.
'Have you seen that girl who was rude to us on the train yet?' Frieda asked as they indulged in a game of Exploding Snap. 'What was her name? Pansy Parkinson, wasn't it?'
'Yeah,' said Leanne. 'She was sorted into Slytherin, which isn't really surprising, so I haven't really had the chance to see her. I guess I'll see her on Friday, we have Potions with the Slytherins then.'
Friday came much quicker than expected. Though Leanne enjoyed most of her subjects, both History of Magic and Astronomy were painfully boring, and it hadn't helped that Astronomy had taken place at night, which meant that everyone's eyelids had been heavier than usual, and Leanne had been so afraid that she might fall off the tower if she fell asleep that she had Frieda hit her with her telescope whenever her eyes started to glaze over. Luckily, they only had each subject once a week.
The other lessons, though interesting, hadn't been exactly easy, and although Leanne had known that she was a witch for a few months now, she didn't have much of a head start, and even Frieda, who had grown up in a large wizarding family, didn't know what she was doing half of the time. Luckily, the teachers were patient, and mistakes were allowed to be made, which was just as well, since they were extremely frequent, especially in Neville Longbottom's case, who had forced the class to evacuate the room during one particularly disastrous Charms lesson, during which he accidentally caused his table to bounce around the room, ricocheting off the walls.
Friday was the first day that neither Leanne nor Frieda got lost on the way to the Great Hall, and Leanne was surprised to see her owl, Silverstone, waiting for he as she sat down. He had a letter in his beak, and Leanne careful extracted it and tore it open excitedly to see what it contained.
Dear Leanne,
I hope you are settling in well. I'm sorry that I haven't had chance to write to you up until now, but I've been busy and I got confused about how to send letters by owl (I think the owl ate the first letter that I wrote). Anyway, I'm sorted now, and I have to admit that it's better than heading down to the post box to send a letter, though I still haven't got used to the fact that your owl keeps bringing dead mice into the house…
Now, I don't know if you've heard (and I don't suppose you will have because Roger tells me that Hogwarts doesn't have televisions or radios), but we were robbed the other day (Leanne blinked and read that part twice, shocked). I don't know how they managed to do it, but they managed to get inside without breaking any windows and doors, and they certainly messed up your dad's old study. They were obviously looking for something and I don't know if they managed to find what they were looking for, but I think that that old stone basin that was there has gone. I haven't a clue what it does, but I suppose it was something important or magical or they wouldn't have bothered taking it. Seems a bit strange, though; nothing else was taken, and there are more expensive-looking items in the study. I've sent the same letter to Roger, so I hope it reaches you both – your owl seems more interested in catching mice than delivering letters.
Love from mum
(Tessa Davies)
'What's wrong?' Frieda asked as Leanne looked up in shock.
'My house, it was robbed,' Leanne replied, looking over the letter again. 'Says somebody managed to get into the house without any sign of entry and they stole something from my dad's study. I guess whoever did this was a wizard, since my dad was too, and he kept loads of magical things locked away in there.'
'Sounds like they Apparated in,' Frieda mused, taking a bite out of her toast. 'What was stolen?'
'Er…' Leanne consulted the letter again. 'My mum says an old stone basin. Doesn't seem very magical to me.'
'An old stone basin?' Frieda repeated, having stopped chewing and staring at Leanne with a surprised expression on her face. 'That sounds like it's a pensieve, and if it is, then it's a very magical item indeed.'
'A pensieve?' Leanne echoed, not familiar with the word.
'Yeah, it's like a bowl where you can place memories that you might want to keep in case you forget them in your head,' Frieda explained. 'Except it's not just a memory, it's the actual reality of what happened at the time, not just your perception of what happened. I don't know what anyone would want with a pensieve unless it had certain memories that they wanted to look at,' she added with a frown. 'Do you know if you're dad's pensieve was full or empty?'
'I don't know,' Leanne replied truthfully, wondering how a bowl could be full of memories. 'When my dad died, I was only a baby, and my mum kept all of his magical possessions in his old study. I've never been in there and my mum only goes in every few months to make sure it's clean. If there are any memories in there, they must be old ones.'
'Perhaps the person who stole them knew your dad,' Frieda suggested. 'Perhaps he had some enemies that you don't know about…'
Frieda stopped talking and looked at something behind Leanne. She turned around and saw Roger standing there, holding what looked like an identical letter to the one Leanne had received. 'Did you hear what happened at home?' he asked. 'We got robbed.'
Leanne nodded and held up her own letter. 'Yeah, Frieda says that what was stolen may have been a pensieve judging from the description,' she said, indicating to Frieda, who nodded with a mouthful of cereal. 'You know, perhaps someone who knew dad a long time ago wanted to look at a specific memory or something.'
'I thought that too,' Roger agreed, 'but I don't know why they just broke in. They could have just asked mum to see the pensieve instead of Apparating in and wrecking his study. Unless, of course, they had a grudge against dad, or they were rivals. I just wrote back to mum, telling her what it was and if dad had any enemies when he was younger – ' he held up the said letter ' – and I was hoping I could use Silverstone to send it back.'
'Yeah, sure,' Leanne said, indicating that Silverstone was all his, but he was flapping around the table, sending feather flying into the butter and generally causing much annoyance for the other students.
'Thanks.' Roger managed to grab Silverstone and tied the letter onto his feet with a piece of string. 'Take that to mum,' he ordered the owl afterwards, and it flapped its wings (startling Lavender Brown) and took off towards the open window near the ceiling of the Great Hall.
Roger returned to the Ravenclaw table and the bell sounded shortly afterwards, indicating that the first lesson was about to begin, which, for Leanne and Frieda, was Potions with Professor Snape. Leanne forced herself to stop thinking about the robbery and followed Frieda as they headed down to the dungeons, where the Potions lesson took place. Everyone waited outside until Snape opened the door and told them, non-too politely, to enter the dungeon and stand behind a cauldron.
Leanne and Frieda did so, locating cauldrons that were next to each other, whilst Snape, who had pale, sallow skin, black eyes and shoulder-length, greasy hair, walked briskly to the front of the class and took the register. As he did so, Leanne looked around at the dark, dank room, which was complete with dripping water in a corner and various jars of pickled animal parts that resided on shelves that ran around the room.
'Ah yes,' Snape said softly, stopping at a point on the register. 'Harry Potter – our new celebrity.'
Everyone looked around to stare at Harry, who was standing beside Ron Weasley. Both of them were looking at Professor Snape apprehensively. A few students on an opposite table sniggered; Frieda nudged Leanne and nodded towards them. They were from Slytherin, Leanne noticed, and were led by the tall, pale boy called Draco Malfoy. Pansy Parkinson was standing next to him, jeering at both Harry and Leanne with her ugly, pug-like face. Leanne glared back as Professor Snape started talking about 'the subtle science of exact art of potion-making', as he put it, and seemed to ignore the mutterings of Malfoy and the other Slytherins, even though they were right under his nose.
Indeed, the notion that Professor Snape was biased towards Slytherins and despised Gryffindors seemed to gain more evidence as the lesson continued. Snape asked Harry Potter questions that, judging from nearly everyone's faces, were harder than handling Fanged Geraniums without gloves on, and deducted a point from Gryffindor when Harry calmly pointed out that Hermione seemed to have the answers that Snape required; indeed, Hermione was so eager to answer Snape's last question ('What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?) that she actually stood up, her arm outstretched.
The fact that Snape gave Draco Malfoy five house points for taking out his ingredients first (which was untrue, for Hermione had brought out her ingredients at the start of the lesson) didn't help matters and set them all into pairs to create a simple potions for curing boils. Well, it was described as simple, but both Leanne and Frieda were having immense difficulty in not only reading Snape's scrawling handwriting on the blackboard, but also following the instructions.
'Is it supposed to be purple?' Frieda asked fretfully, as she added more porcupine quills in the hope that it would turn the right colour.
'No, but it's also not supposed to be bright yellow,' Leanne replied, pointing to her own lucid and bubbling potion.
Snape stalked around the room, occasionally looking into everyone's cauldrons. He usually had only praise to give to the Slytherins and even congratulated Crabbe and Goyle on their potions, which looked worse than Neville's green, misty concoction. He passed along the Gryffindors without comment (though he did criticise Harry's potion), instead just jeering at what they had brewed, and even looked at Hermione's potion, which was undoubtedly the best in the class, with dissatisfaction. He was just telling the class how Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs, (whilst Pansy Parkinson sneered at Leanne from behind his back) when there was a loud hissing and Neville vanished behind a cloud of green smoke. His potion had obviously gone awry; his cauldron had somehow nearly melted away, and his concoction was seeping out over the floor, causing everyone to leap out of the way. Leanne almost laughed out loud when Pansy screamed and almost leapt into her own cauldron to escape from the green liquid that was now spreading around the room, though she quickly stopped when Pansy cast her a glowering and rather menacing look.
'Idiot boy!' Snape snarled at Neville, who had been thoroughly drenched in his own potion, and now had boils appearing up and down his body as Snape cleared the mess with a wave of his wand. 'I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?'
A small whimpering noise from Neville indicated that Snape had been correct in his assumption.
'Take him to the hospital wing,' Snape snapped at Seamus, who had been working with Neville. Then, as the two of them left the dungeon, he rounded on Harry, who had been working nearby. 'You – Potter – why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Though he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor.'
Leanne thought this was highly unfair, and Harry seemed to think so too; he seemed like he was about to open his mouth and say something, but Ron muttered something to him across the cauldron and he remained quiet. Snape smiled evilly and returned to the front of the class. The Slytherins were looking extremely smug with themselves.
'I don't believe him!' Leanne moaned quietly to Frieda as they added dried nettles. 'How can he be so biased towards his own house like that? I mean, McGonagall deducts points from Gryffindor…'
Then, right on cue, Snape awarded Pansy Parkinson a point for doing seemingly nothing, and Leanne fumed, cutting up more nettles rather too violently, which soon attracted the attention of Snape, who quickly reprimanded her. She felt that she was lucky that she hadn't lost Gryffindor any more house points, and an hour later, as they left the dungeon, Leanne found out that every Gryffindor seemed to think the same way about Snape. Harry and Ron looked furious as they headed to their next lesson, and even Hermione, who seemed to like most teachers, thought that Snape had been highly unfair to them.
Leanne was just about to launch into another rant about how horrid Snape had been when Roger came bustling along the corridor towards her, a letter held tight in his hands.
'Hey Roger, what's going – ?' Leanne asked as he approached.
'I found this in my newspaper this morning,' he said, holding the letter up and sounding quite breathless as if he had ran here. 'It's addressed to you. It don't know who it's from.'
'In your newspaper?' Leanne asked curiously, taking the letter and looked at it. The front of the envelope simply said: To Miss Leanne Davies. The handwriting looked unfamiliar.
'Open it now, I want to know why it was in my newspaper and why it wasn't delivered directly to you,' Roger said, but someone suddenly called his name from across the corridor. 'Uh…hang on!' he called to them before turning back to Leanne. 'Okay, I need to go but find me later on and tell me what the letter says, alright?'
He vanished into the crowd and Leanne quickly found a quiet place in the entrance hall to open the letter, following by an intrigued-looking Frieda. Leanne opened the letter and they bent in to read what it said:
Dear Leanne,
I know you do not know me, but I wish to speak to you alone. Do not worry, I don't mean to any harm and I will not be present in a form that is capable of harming you. Please be alone in the Gryffindor common room at midnight on Monday night.
From a friend
'A friend?' Frieda asked sceptically once she'd finished reading. 'It doesn't sound like a friend if you don't know who they are. 'Please be alone'?' she added after rereading the letter. 'Sounds a bit ominous to me. I'd show that letter to a teacher.'
'Who do you suppose it could be from?' Leanne wondered, turning over the letter and trying to find a clue to the writer's identity, but found nothing. 'And how do they know my name?'
'A stalker?' Frieda suggested, rather unhelpfully. 'They also know what house you're in – look, Gryffindor common room. They're probably following your every movement. I'd seriously show that to someone else if I were you. Anyone could have written it.'
'Yeah, but I want to find out who did write it,' Leanne protested, after another examination of the letter and its envelope brought now new evidence to light. She was definitely intrigued now. She had always been the curious type, and a mysterious letter from an anonymous writer had only sparked her curiosity levels even further.
'At least show it to your brother,' Frieda pressed.
'No, he'll only interfere and call mum and then she'll get worried,' Leanne tried to explained as they headed towards the Great Hall for lunch. 'You can stay up with me. I know it says to come alone, but if we put a chair in a corner and you hide behind it, then you can listen to what's being said without being seen. That way, if whoever this person is means trouble, you can…oh, I don't know, throw a book at him.'
Hermione, who happened to pass at that precise moment, looked scandalised at the prospect of a book being thrown at someone, probably not because it was quite a mean thing to do, but because she didn't think that books were to be treated in that manner.
Frieda reluctantly agreed and Leanne ate lunch with an excited heart. She couldn't wait until Monday and find out who this mysterious person was, though Frieda was still wary. Roger came over shortly after, asking what the letter had been about, and Frieda nodded her head in agreement (a little too much for Leanne's liking) when Leanne said it had been from the post office, asking if she wanted to subscribe to the Daily Prophet. Seeing as the letter had been in Roger's newspaper, it seemed like a relatively good lie, and Roger soon left, though looking slightly suspicious after Leanne said that Silverstone had ate it. This wasn't far from the truth, however, as the owl had indeed managed to get hold of the letter, shredded it with her beak and later regurgitated it over Leanne's dinner.
'Hey, you don't think it had anything to do with the robbery, do you?' Frieda asked as she removed Silverstone's presence from her cutlery. 'Perhaps he's the guy that robbed you. You know, the person who took the pensieve.'
'Why would he want to speak to me?' Leanne asked, looking at the remnants of the letter in puzzlement.
'I don't know, which is why I think you should be extremely careful,' Frieda warned reprovingly.
Leanne was silent was a short while. Could it be possible that the person who had stolen the pensieve from her father's study somehow needed her for it to work? Maybe they thought that Leanne had some memories or something that they wanted to extract. That was highly improbably, Leanne thought to herself. She had been an extremely young baby when her father had died, and she had absolutely no recollection of him whatsoever. She was still excited about the prospect of meeting this mysterious writer, but she decided to take heed to Frieda's words and approach the situation very carefully indeed.