So, I'm back in the headmasters office, again, and I've only been here, like what, two days? 'Cept this time Dumbles isn't here to welcome me. Moreover, we were getting along so well. What a shame.

Ummm, what am I supposed to do besides sit here all alone with a talking hat and a phoenix?

Oh.

A talking hat.

Sometimes I amaze even myself with my intelligence. I put on the hat, wincing as I did so, remembering the last time.

I was waiting for you to put me on. Why did you waste so much time dilly-dallying around? Dumbledore isn't able to be here but I will be asking you a few questions in his place.

Well you could have said something.

I'm a HAT. Like incapable of talking aloud.

Oh. Well, then how do you sing the yearly song thingy?

Special and very complicated spell which I do not even know.

Oh.

Back to business, the headmaster is quite aware that it is a lot to ask of someone on the er… Can this be counted as a second meeting since Dumbledore himself is not here? Oh I don't know, he was hoping to elicit more information about the incidents that are yet to come. That if you are up to it.

There is something unsettling about having a mind reading hat tell you it doesn't know everything. This may have been the main reason I told it all I could. In fact, I asked it later why it didn't just know everything as soon I put it on and it, well, the hat told me that it could only see an idea of your personality. And your most current thought, of course. Perhaps it showed me all this as way of making up to me for having to go through all details of deaths and heartaches of people from this world that I've grown so attached to. Seven days I might have been here for but they were the longest days I've ever lived, loved, laughed, and cried.

When I look into someone's mind, I see a room or a building of some sorts. Really just an area. Here, close your eyes and think about a place where you could store all your memories, hopes and dream. In other words, yourself.

Hmm…

The ends of the place (I call it place because I can think of no better word) faded into shadows and the hat stayed an invisible, immaterial but obvious presence beside me. I started to wander towards one of the lighted paths that led away from this place. The hat called to me.

Don't bother I've tried wandering down any combination of paths and they all head back here.

"Oh, I wasn't going to," I hastily corrected it, "I'm just curious."

So am I, to be frank. You would think that after years of practice, no mind would stump me but, I'm afraid, yours is a maze. It's empty but I can see you are not heartless because the light that shines down on me gives me a feeling of such warmth.

"But it's so simple," I laugh, and if unoccupied space could look perplexed, it did. "Look up."

Above us, a sky of stars twinkled, constellation filling it from corner to corner.

And Sirius, the Dog Star, shined brightest of all.

***

"You were gone again." An accusatory voice assailed my ears.

"Only for a short time, Si." I smile.

Two other boys crash through the common room portrait.

"Ree, you're back."

"Yes I am."

James pushes his hair from his eyes. "Hey look, I was walking down the 2nd floor corridor by the Ancient Runes classrooms and I thought of this wicked prank."

And so, intense planning of mischief began interrupted only by a loud exclamation of "brilliant!" which caught the attention of the lovely miss Lily Evans as she entered the common room.

I stifle a laugh as we scurry like mad to hide the diagrams and lists and then hear James berated by Lily for his 'foolish shenanigans' fit of a five year old. Oddly enough, I'm surprised when he erupts into a volcanic argument with her. Right, I remind myself, this is only first year. They both hate each other at the moment. I suppose I'm still thinking back to my past conversation with the hat, in which I remember his love for her and hers for him.

Past and Future.

I feel as if I can never fit in with the present.

---

Short.

Too short.

I will never again write a chapter this short. Don't worry.

The main idea of this chapter is basically the author just covering up all the things she should have explained.

I shall call it…

The Answering Chapter

Dun dun duh

Song= All We Are by One Republic