From the Author: Sorry it took so long. I just spent the past few hours re-reading all of my chapters and fixing things here and there. Most of them were grammar issues, typos, and the way things were worded, so re-reading most likely isn't necessary, except if you want to see a couple of the ways I made the dialog more slightly more British (I'm American, if you couldn't tell), since the accent will matter a little later (cough.. oh excuse me...). Anyway, enjoy the next chapter!

Chapter 10 – An Odd Occurrence

"Thank you, Professor McGonagall"

McGonagall gave a stern, but sincere, smile, "Your welcome, Mr. Deveret."

The student turned and walked out of the office and down the spiral stone escalator. McGonagall leaned back in her chair and heaved a sigh. Being headmistress was extremely hard, though not nearly as hard as it was when Harry's mortal enemy was still alive. She got up from her chair and went over to the cabinet where the stone basin full of silvery liquid air sat. She released some thoughts into the bowl, clearing her head and easing her mind. As she looked down at the swirling memories, she saw, swirling between this year's sorting and the intense Battle of Hogwarts, the memory of James Potter lying in the hospital bed.

She turned and saw Albus Dumbledore waking in his frame, as if he sensed that she wanted to talk.

"A girl Dementor?" she said, to which Dumbledore smiled.

"Ah, yes. The musing of two eleven year olds," Dumbledore said airily.

"But that's all it is," McGonagall replied, "Never in all my years of school, all my years of travels, and all my years of teaching have I ever heard of this 'Girl Dementor'."

"Yes, I see," Dumbledore replied, "So that means that it couldn't exist?"

"Uh…" McGonagall started, but she knew Dumbledore had more to say, and she fell silent.

"I'm disappointed, Minerva. You mean to tell me that you haven't learned from the incident with the Sorcerer's Stone, the discovery of the Chamber of Secrets, and Arthur Weasley's attack from the snake?"

McGonagall turned to the pensive and stood above it, looking into it. As she twirled her wand in the pensive, each of these things that Dumbledore mentioned floated to the surface of the swirling silver substance. She looked back at Dumbledore.

"But these things had the possibility of happening," she said to those misty blue eyes staring back from the painting, "Never have I heard of a Dementor with a gender. Dementors don't have feelings and they don't mate. They couldn't possibly have a child!"

"And who says that it is a Dementor?"

McGonagall paused, looking absentmindedly at the floor beneath Dumbledore. She licked her lips before forming the words on her mouth.

"A mutation?"

She looked at the old face as it formed the hint of a smile and nodded slowly. McGonagall turned to face the doorway of her office. The sun shining through the window behind her desk cast shadows on the rug from all the small spindly instruments that sat on the tables by the door. She turned back to the stone basin, thinking, watching the memories float about in the pool of silver thought. Then, without speaking a word, she turned and walked swiftly through the doorway. As she stood on the spiral steps, now moving downwards steadily, she crouched and transformed.

As the steps slowed to a stop, a tabby cat with strange square markings around its eyes moved off the steps and stopped right in front of the stone gargoyle as it jumped back into place. The cat stretched its legs a little and then sat down, flicking its tail left and right. A few students moved around the corner of the corridor and walked by.

"Look at the cat!"

"Aw, it looks cute! I wanna pet it!"

"No, we need to get to class! I'm sure it'll be around later! McGonagall would surely dock points if she saw us walking around between classes."

The students hurried away, the cat looking after them sternly. Well at least one of them owns half a brain, McGonagall thought.

The cat started walking along the corridor, heading in the direction of the Atrium. It had been a few years ago that McGonagall started transforming when she wanted to pace the hallways, looking for miscreants. She had always had the desire to be omniscient about the school, and since she started prowling the halls in her cat form, she has been, to a certain extent. And the best part of it was that none of the students knew she could turn into a cat and none suspected her cat when they saw it (this was greatly helped by the fact that Mrs. Norris had died and Filch retired, unable to cope with the loss of the foul cat).

As the cat reached the Atrium, it jumped up on the railing of the balcony and sat down, scanning the large expanse for any student. It was not surprised to see a couple Slytheren students walking about, and less still to see Peeves flying over to them and whacking them on the head with a couple of candlesticks, sending them running down a radial hallway. What it was surprised to see, so much so that it nearly slipped off the railing, was James Potter.

What?! But James is in no fit state to return! He had lost his magical ability, somehow, and now can't even open a door with a muggle alarm on it!

But there he was, walking across the Atrium floor, heading to the stairs with a couple of books under his arm.

At that moment, a floating walkway, one of the five that floated aimlessly around the Atrium, stopped near the cat. The cat jumped down and trotted over to where the walkway had stopped and the balcony's railing had magically dropped out of sight. It trotted over the walkway, stopped halfway, and poked its head through the railings to continue to stare at the anomaly that was James Potter, starting his way up the vast marble stairway.

The walkway shuddered slightly now as it shortened, the railings on either end of it hopping back into place. It lowered now, down a floor, then another, and moved forward towards the grand staircase. It turned, creeping around the chain that held one of the three chandeliers, and repositioned itself at a spot on the fifth floor, stretching again to connect one side of the wrap-around balcony to the other, the balcony's railing jumping down out of sight. The cat had to switch to the other side of the walkway now, but when it got there, it had lost sight of James. It looked around frantically for the boy, but it could not find him. It trotted off the walkway now and down a radial hall, which had several large open windows on one side which looked out onto the lake . The cat continued to trot at a fast pace down around a corner. It stopped outside a large door, which was open to a teacher's office. Inside, a professor sat behind a large wooden desk, facing a student who was sitting opposite him.

"But, Professor Spartz, sir, can't I try the test again?"

"Finnigan," the professor said, "you must revise and practice before you sit it again. Just sitting it again will not make you any better. You must practice!"

"But sir, if you could…?"

The cat jumped up on the second chair in his office. Both the professor and the boy turned to see it sit down on the chair, looking avidly at the professor.

"Who's cat is that?" the Finnigan boy asked.

"I'm not sure," The professor lied, "So, Mr. Finnigan, if you could go to your common room now and practice, it would be much appreciated. If you do well enough, you might be able to sit it again, might…" He added after seeing little Finnigan's elated look. "Now off you go!"

The boy jumped down off the chair and left the office, Professor Spartz following him to the door and closing it behind him.

"You know, Minerva, you never make my job easier by these rude little interruptions you always like to make," He said, turning around the see a human Professor McGonagall in the seat where the cat was minutes ago.

"That's the duty of being Deputy Headmaster, Remus," she said, "After all, you volunteered to be Deputy Headmaster after Flitwick turned the job down."

"I wouldn't want to be headmaster either if I was shorter than all of my students."

McGonagall's thin mouth drew up a small smile, "That's what books are for; thick ones are especially nice."

Professor Spartz sat down heavily in his seat. "What seems to be the problem today?"

"Are you familiar with the Potter's boy, James?" McGonagall started.

"Of course, he attended my classes before he had to leave for medical reasons."

"Are you aware of the medical reasons?"

Spartz raised an eyebrow, "No, why?"

"He had to leave Hogwarts because he lost his magical abilities," she replied calmly.

"Minerva, that's impossible."

"That is what I thought," she said, "Until I received a letter from the Potters telling me that when they left the castle with him a few weeks ago, he cried and stated that all he saw of Hogwarts were a few ruins and a sign…"

"…'Danger, Keep Out'…" Spartz finished for her, recognizing the charm which was cast to keep muggles from seeing the magnificent school and its inhabitants. "Are you sure he didn't just fake it?"

McGonagall lowered her glasses, "Not only is it unlikely that any member of the Potter family will ever read a book such as Hogwarts, A History, especially with Hermione Weasley around, the Potters assure me that James had sounded quite sincere when he screamed bloody murder at out gates and was crying for weeks afterwards, a hard feat to pull off if you were faking it. They also tell me he has set off Muggle Warning spells, fallen off broomsticks, and has not done a single magical thing since he left. I assure you, Remus, he was not faking it."

Spartz sat back up straight in his seat, adjusted himself, and said, "So he has lost all his powers and turned, essentially, into a muggle. Quite strange, I must say, but why bring him up now?"

McGonagall inclined her head, "I just saw him."

"You… you what?"

"I just saw him walking through the Atrium."

"Then he must have gotten better; his magic must have returned."

"No, it hasn't," McGonagall said simply, "Mr. Potter has recently sent an owl telling me that James's magic has not returned and he had found a means of being happy, for the moment."

"…a means of being happy?"

"Yes," McGonagall said, but did not elaborate.

"So James is at home… and James has returned here?"

"So it seems…"

Professor Spartz leaned forward on his hands, thinking deeply. A knock came at the door suddenly and Spartz looked at McGonagall, who waved him in the direction of the door. Spartz got up, went to the door, and opened it slightly to find Albus Potter staring at him.

"Albus!" Spartz said, alerting McGonagall, who was about to transform, "What can I do for you this fine morning?"

"Well I wanted to ask you about a particular spell…" He began when McGonagall came to the door, pushing Spartz out of the way.

"Potter?"

"Professor McGonagall?!"

"Potter, come in here," McGonagall said as she grabbed the boy by the arm and led him inside. Professor Spartz, stunned and confused, blinked at McGonagall before closing the door. McGonagall set Albus down in a chair and then pointed her wand at the door and muttered, "Muffilito".

"Professor? What—?"

"No time right now, Potter," McGonagall said as she approached the boy and kneeled in front of him, "Right now I need you to look me directly in the eye. Professor Spartz, please find some chocolate and do not interrupt me."

Albus looked at Professor Spartz's quizzical look before letting his green eyes rest on McGonagall's beady eyes. McGonagall removed her wand from her robes and said, "Legillimans"

Albus was suddenly seeing himself, as if he were there now, staring out the window at his brother while he showed his dad the new spells he learned at his first year in Hogwarts. Then he was in the kitchen, reading his letter from Hogwarts saying that he had been accepted. He was suddenly in Diagon Ally, lugging a bunch of books up onto the counter of Flourish and Blotts and turning to see his mom bring in a barn owl just for him. He was then in front of old Ollivander as he handed him yet another wand and immediately took it back and tossed it into a pile. He was now on the Hogwarts Express, watching his dad get smaller and smaller, his hand still raised in farewell.

Suddenly he was in the woods, looking up at the boney figure raising a limp James up to its mouth. He heard himself scream again, but the scream was being drowned out by something, fading from his ears and the vision was fading from view.

Albus was suddenly awake in a cold sweat. He was collapsed on the chair without any memory of getting there. McGonagall was still before him, but her attention was on something else. A silvery strand of something was floating in front of her and she was playing with it with her wand. She then conjured a bottle and captured the silver strand inside. Albus stared, incredulously, as the strand split into two identical copies inside the bottle. McGonagall then put her wand inside the bottle and extracted one of the silver strands. She swished the strand around, examining it, before she put her wand tip with the strand to Albus's temple. The strand seemed to wiggle itself into his head and he suddenly remembered the horror of the night when James lost his powers.

Albus looked up at the headmistress as she stoppered the bottle. "P-P-Professor…" Albus asked, shaking, "Wha… what did you… do?"

McGonagall looked down through her glasses at Albus. "Thank you, Mr. Potter," she said in a business-like tone, "Now I can finally figure out what this 'Girl Dementor' is about." She got to her feet, snatched the chocolate that Professor Spartz was holding in his hands, gave it to Albus ("Eat up, it'll make you feel better"), and turned and left the room, leaving behind a pair of very bewildered people.