Chapter 34

The Penseive

KIARA

The door of the office opened.

"Hello, Pride-Lander," said Grumpy. "Come in, then."

I walked inside. I had been inside Crighton's office once before this point; it was a very beautiful, circular room, lined with portraits of previous Headmasters and mistresses of Dragon Mort, all of whom were fast asleep, their chests rising and falling gently.

Cornelia Sweets was standing beside Crighton's desk, wearing her usual pinstriped cloak.

"Kiara!" said Sweets jovially, moving forwards. "How are you?"

"Fine," I lied.

"We were just talking about the night when Mrs Clutch turned up in the grounds," said Sweets. "It was you who found her, was it not?"

"Yes," I said. Then, felling it was pointless to pretend that I hadn't overheard what they had been saying, I added, "I didn't see Monsieur Legrand anywhere, though, and he'd have a job hiding, wouldn't he?"

Crighton smiled behind Sweets' back, her eyes twinkling and her lips stretched tightly, as though it was the first time she had smiled in a long time - which wasn't surprising, seeing as her eyes were just as red as I had seen them at the Yule Ball.

"Yes, well," said Sweets, looking embarrassed, "we're about to go for a short walk in the grounds, Kiara, if you'll excuse us ... perhaps if you just go back to your class - "

"I wanted to talk to you, Professor," I said quickly, looking at Crighton, who gave me a swift, searching look.

"Wait here for me, Kiara," she said. "Our examination of the grounds will not take long."

They trooped out in silence past me, and closed the door. After a minute or so, I heard the clunks of Grumpy's wooden leg growing fainter in the corridor below. I looked around.

"Hello, Kenna," I said.

Kenna, Professor Crighton's phoenix, was standing on her golden perch beside the door. the size of a swan, with magnificent scarlet and gold plumage, she swished her long tail and blinked benignly at me.

I sat down in a chair in front of Crighton's desk. For several minutes, I sat and watched the old Headmasters and mistresses snoozing in their frames, thinking about what I had just heard, and running my fingers over my scar. It had stopped hurting now.

I felt much calmer, somehow, sitting there in Crighton's office, knowing I would shortly be telling her about the dream. I looked up at the walls behind the desk. The patched and battered old Sorting Chest was standing on a shelf. A glass case next to it held a magnificent silver sword, with large rubies set into the hilt, which I recognised as the one I myself had pulled out of the Sorting Chest in my second year. The sword had once belonged to Louisa Lion-Heart, founder of my house. I was gazing at it, remembering how it had come to my aid when I had thought all hope was lost, when I noticed a patch of silvery light, dancing and shimmering on the glass case. I looked around for the source of light, and saw a sliver of silver-white shining brightly from within a black cabinet behind me, whose door had not been closed properly. I hesitated, glanced at Kenna, then got up, walked across the office, and I pulled the cabinet door open.

A shallow stone basin lay there, with odd carvings around the edge; runes and symbols that I still do not recognise. The silvery light was coming from the basin's contents, which were like nothing I had ever seen before. I could not tell whether the substance was liquid or gas. It was a bright, whitish silver, and it was moving ceaselessly; the surface of it became ruffled like water beneath wind, and then, like clouds separated and swirled smoothly. It looked like light made liquid - or like wind made solid - I couldn't make up my mind.

I wanted to touch it, to find out what it felt like, but nearly four years' experience of the magical world told me that sticking my hand into a bowl of some unknown substance was a very stupid thing to do. I therefore pulled my wand out of the inside of my robes, cast a nervous glance around the office, looked back at the contents of the basin, and prodded them. The surface of the silvery stuff inside the basin began to swirl very fast.

I bent closer, my head right inside the cabinet. The silvery substance had become transparent; it looked like glass. I looked down into it, expecting to see the stone bottom of the basin - and saw instead an enormous room below the surface of the mysterious substance, a room into which I seemed to be looking through a circular window in the ceiling.

The room was dimly lit; I thought it might even be underground, for there were no windows, merely torches in brackets, such as the ones that illuminated the walls of Dragon Mort. Lowering my face so that my nose was a mere inch away from the glassy substance, I saw that rows and rows of witches and wizards were sat around every wall on what seemed to be benches rising in levels. An empty chair stood in the very centre of the room. There was something about the chair that gave me an ominous feeling. Chains encircled the arms of it, as though its occupants were usually tied to it.

I wondered where this place was, for it certainly wasn't Dragon Mort; I had never seen a room like that in the castle. Moreover, the crowd in the mysterious room at the bottom of the basin was composed of adults, and I knew there were not nearly that many teachers at Dragon Mort. They seemed, I thought, to be waiting for something; even though I could only see the tops of their pointed hats, they all seemed to be facing in one direction, and nobody was talking to anybody else.

The basin being circular, and the room I was observing square, I could not make out what was going on in the corner of it. I leant even closer, tilting my head, trying to see ...

The tip of my nose touched the strange substance into which I was staring.

Crighton's office gave an almighty lurch - I was thrown forwards and pitched headfirst into the substance inside the basin -

But my head did not hit the stone bottom. I was falling through something icy cold and black; it was like being sucked into a dark whirlpool -

And suddenly, I found myself sitting on a bench at the end of the room inside the basin, a bench raised high above the others. I looked up at the high stone ceiling, expecting to see the circular window through which I had just been staring, but there was nothing there but dark, solid stone.

Breathing hard and fast, I looked around me. Not one of the witches and wizards in the room (and there were at least two hundred of them) was looking at me. Not one of them seemed to have noticed that a fourteen-year-old girl had just dropped from the ceiling into their midst. I turned to the witch next to me on the bench, and uttered a loud cry of surprise that reverberated around the silent room.

I was sitting right next to Susan Crighton.

"Professor!" I said, in kind of strangled whisper. "I'm sorry - I didn't mean to - I was just looking at that basin in your cabinet - I - where are we?"

But Crighton didn't move or speak. She ignored me completely. Like every other wizard on the benches, she was staring into the far corner of the room, where there was a door.

I gazed, nonplussed, at Crighton, then around at the silently watchful crowd, then back at Crighton. And then it dawned on me ...

Once before, I had found myself somewhere that nobody could see or hear me. That time, I had fallen through a page in an enchanted diary, right into somebody else's memory ... and unless I was very much mistaken, something of the sort had happened again ...

I raised my right hand, hesitated, and then waved it energetically in front of Crighton's face. Crighton did not blink, look around at me, or indeed move at all. And that, in my opinion, settled the matter. Crighton would never ignore me like that. I was inside a memory, and this was not the present-day Crighton. Yet it couldn't have been that long ago ... the Crighton who was sitting next to me had a bit more of the caramel in her hair than the silver, which had crept in a few places. But what was the place we were in? And what were all these wizards waiting for?

I looked around more carefully. The room, as I had suspected when observing it from above, was almost certainly underground - more of a dungeon than a room, I thought. There was a bleak and forbidding air about the place; there were no pictures on the walls, no decorations at all; just these serried rows of benches rising in levels all around the room, all positioned so that they had a clear view of that chair with the chains on its arms.

Before I could reach any conclusions about the place in which we were in, I heard footsteps. The door in the corner of the dungeon opened, and three people entered it - or at least, one woman, flanked by two Dementors (and I knew they were Dementors and not Stingers because they didn't have wings which made a droning, buzzing noise, they didn't have spines sticking out of their backs, and they didn't have a large, ugly, terrifyingly, blood-red, always moving eye in the middle of its hood).

My insides went cold. The Dementors, tall, hooded creatures whose faces were covered, were gliding slowly towards the chair in the centre of the room, each grasping one of the woman's arms with their dead and rotten-looking hands. The woman between them looked as though she was going to faint, and I couldn't blame her ... I knew well enough from the Stingers that the Dementors could not touch me inside a memory, but the Dementors power was the same as the Stingers power, which I remembered only too well. The watching crowd recoiled slightly as the Dementors placed the woman in the chained chair and glided back out of the room. The door swung shut behind them.

I looked down at the woman now sitting in the chair, and saw that it was Kula.

Unlike Crighton, Kula looked much younger; her hair was black. She was not dressed in her sleek furs, but in thin and ragged robes. she was shaking. Even as I watched, the chains on the arms of the chair glowed suddenly gold, and snaked their way up her arms, binding her there.

"Ifu Kula," said a curt voice to my left. I looked around, and saw Mrs Clutch standing up in the middle of the bench beside me. Clutch's hair was dark, her face was much less lined, and she looked fit and alert. "You have been brought from Azkaban to give evidence to the Ministry of Magic. You have given us to understand that you have important information for us."

Kula straightened herself as best she could, tightly bound to the chair.

"I have, ma'am," she said, and although her voice was very scared, I could still hear the familiar unctuous note in it. "I wish to be of use to the Ministry. I wish to help. I - I know that the Ministry is trying to - to round up the last of the Scarlet Lady's supporters. I am eager to assist in any way I can ..."

There was a murmur around the benches. Some of the witches and wizards were surveying Kula with interest, others with pronounced mistrust. Then I heard, quite distinctly, from Crighton's other side, a familiar, growling voice saying, "Filth."

I leant forwards so that I could see past Crighton. Crazy-Head Grumpy was sitting there - though there was a very noticeable difference in her appearance. She did not have her four magical eyes on her forehead, but just her two normal ones. Both were looking down upon Kula, and both were narrowed in intense dislike.

"Clutch is going to let her out," Grumpy breathed quietly to Crighton. "She's done a deal with her. Took me six months to track her down, and Clutch is going to let her go if she's got enough new names. Let's hear her information, I say, and throw her straight back to the Dementors."

Crighton made a small noise of dissent through her small, crooked nose.

"Ah, I was forgetting ... you don't like the Dementors, do you, Susan?" said Grumpy, with a sardonic smile.

"No," said Crighton calmly, "I'm afraid I don't. I have long felt the Ministry is wrong to ally itself with such creatures."

"But for filth like this ..." Grumpy said softly.

"You say you have names for us, Kula," said Mrs Clutch. "Let us hear them, please."

"You must understand," said Kula hurriedly, that She Who Must Not Be Named operated always in the greatest secrecy ... she preferred that we - I mean to say, her supporters - and I regret now, very deeply, that I ever counted myself among them - "

"Get on with it," sneered Grumpy.

" - we never knew the names of every one of our fellows - she alone knew exactly who we all were - "

"Which was a wise move, wasn't it, as it prevented someone like you, Kula, turning all of them in," muttered Grumpy.

"You say you have some names for us?" said Mrs Clutch.

"I - I do," said Kula breathlessly. "And these were important supporters, mark you. People I saw with my own eyes doing her bidding. I give this information as a sign that I fully and totally renounce her, and am filled with a remorse so deep I can barely - "

"These names are?" said Mrs Clutch sharply.

Kula took a deep breath.

"There was Antonia Dali," she said. "I - I saw her torture countless Muggles and - and non-supporters of the Scarlet Lady."

"And helped her do it," murmured Grumpy.

"We have already apprehended Dali," said Clutch. "She was caught shortly after yourself."

"Indeed?" said Kula, her eyes widening. "I - I am delighted to hear it!"

But she didn't look it. I could tell that this news came as a real blow to her. One of her names was worthless.

"Any others?" said Clutch coldly.

"Why, yes ... there was Rothenberg," said Kula hurriedly. "Evannah Rothenberg."

"Rothenberg is dead," said Clutch. "She was caught shortly after you were, too. She preferred to fight rather than coming quietly, and was killed in the struggle."

"Took a bit of me with her, though," said Grumpy to my right. I looked around at her once more, and saw her indicating a large chunk out of her nose to Crighton.

"No - no more than Rothenberg deserved!" said Kula, a real note of panic in her voice now. I could see that she was starting to worry that none of her information would be of any use to the Ministry. Kula's eyes darted towards the door in the corner, behind which the Dementors undoubtedly still stood, waiting.

"Any more?" said Clutch.

"Yes!" said Kula. "There was Thorn - she helped murder the McConnells! Murgia - she specialised in the Imperius Curse, forced countless of people to do horrible things! Roscoe, who was a spy, and passed She Who Must Not Be Named useful information from inside the Ministry itself!"

I could tell that this time, Kula had struck gold. The watching crowd were all murmuring together.

"Roscoe?" said Mrs Clutch, nodding to a wizard sitting in front of her, who began scribbling upon his piece of parchment. "Augusta Roscoe of the Department of Mysteries?"

"The very same," said Kula eagerly. "I believe she used a network of well-placed wizards, both inside the Ministry and out, to collect information - "

"But Thorn and Murgia, we have," said Mrs Clutch. "Very well, Kula, if that is all, you will be returned to Azkaban while we decide - "

"Not yet!" cried Kula, looking quite desperate. "Wait, I have more!"

I could see her sweating in the torchlight, her white skin contrasting strongly with her black hair.

"Triphorm!" she shouted. "Tiana Triphorm!"

"Triphorm has been cleared by this council," said Clutch coldly. "She has been vouched for by Susan Crighton."

"No!" shouted Kula, straining at the chains which bound her to the chair. "I assure you! Tiana Triphorm is a Love Destroyer!"

Crighton got to her feet. "I have given evidence already on this matter," she said calmly. "Tiana Triphorm was indeed a Love Destroyer. However, she rejoined our side before Lady Zira's downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk. She is now no more a Love Destroyer than I am."

I turned to look at Crazy-Head Grumpy. She was wearing a look of deep scepticism behind Crighton's back.

"Very well, Kula," Clutch said coldly, "you have been of assistance. I shall review your case. You will return to Azkaban in the meantime ..."

Mrs Clutch's voice fade. I looked around; the dungeon was dissolving as though it was made of smoke; everything was fading, I could see only my own body, all else was swirling darkness ...

And then, the dungeon returned. I was sitting in a different seat; still on the highest bench, but this time to the left side of Mrs Clutch. The atmosphere seemed quite different; relaxed, even cheerful. The witches and wizards all around the walls were talking to each other, almost as though they were at some sort of sporting event. A wizard halfway up the rows of benches opposite caught my eye. He had short blond hair, was wearing magenta robes, and was sucking the end of an acid-green quill. It was, unmistakeably, a younger Peter Meter. I looked around; Crighton was sitting beside me again, wearing different robes. Mrs Clutch looked tireder and somehow fiercer, gaunter ... I understood. It was a different memory, a different day ... a different trial.

The door in the corner opened, and Lynn Baxter walked into the room.

This was not, however, a Lynn Baxter gone to seed, but a Lynn Baxter who was clearly at the height of her Quidditch-playing fitness. Her nose wasn't broken now; she was tall, lean and muscly. Baxter looked nervous as she sat down in the chained chair, but it did not bind her there, as it had bound Kula, and Baxter, perhaps taking heart from this, glanced around at the watching crowd, waved at a couple of them, and managed a small smile.

"Lynn Baxter, you have been brought here in front of the Council of Magical Law to answer charges relating to the activities of the Love Destroyers," said Mrs Clutch. "We have heard the evidence against you, and are about to reach our verdict. do you have anything to add to your testimony before we pronounce judgement?"

I couldn't believe my ears. Lynn Baxter, a Love Destroyer?

"Only," said Baxter, smiling awkwardly, "well - I know I've been a bit of an idiot - "

One or two of the witches and wizards in the surrounding seat smiled indulgently. Mrs Clutch did not appear to share those feelings. She was staring down at Lynn Baxter with an expression of the utmost severity and dislike.

"You never spoke a truer word, girl," someone muttered drily to Crighton behind me. I looked around, and saw Grumpy sitting there again. "If I didn't know she'd always been dim, I'd have said some of those Bludgers had permanently affected her brain ..."

"Lynnette Baxter, you were caught passing information to Lady Zira's supporters," said Mrs Clutch. "For this, I suggest a term of imprisonment in Azkaban lasting no less than - "

But there was an angry outcry from the surrounding benches. Several of the witches and wizards around the walls stood up, shaking their heads, and even their fists, at Mrs Clutch.

"But I've told you, I had no idea!" Baxter called earnestly over the crowd's babble, her round blue eyes widening. "None at all! Old Roscoe was a friend of my mum's ... never crossed my mind she was in with She-You-Know! I thought I was collecting information for our side! And Roscoe kept talking about getting me a job in the Ministry later on ... once my Quidditch days are over, you know ... I mean, I can't keep getting hit by Bludgers for the rest of my life, can I?"

There were titters from the crowd.

"It will be put to the vote," said Mrs Clutch coldly. She turned to the right-hand side of the dungeon. "The jury will please raise their hands ... those in favour of imprisonment ..."

I looked towards the right-hand side of the dungeon. Not one person raised their hand. Many of the witches and wizards around the walls began to clap. One of the wizards on the jury stood up.

"Yes?" barked Clutch.

"We'd just like to congratulate Miss Baxter on her splendid performance for England in the Quuidditch match against Belgium on Saturday," the wizard said breathlessly.

Mrs Clutch looked furious. The dungeon was ringing with applause now. Baxter got to her feet and curtseyed, beaming.

"Despicable," Mrs Clutch spat at Crighton, sitting down as Baxter walked out of the dungeon. "Roscoe get her a job indeed ... the day Lynn Baxter joins us will be a very sad day for the Ministry ..."

And the dungeon dissolved again. When it had returned, I looked around. Crighton and I were still sitting beside Mrs Clutch, but the atmosphere could not have been more different. there was total silence, broken only by the loud, shaky breaths of a wispy, frail-looking wizard in the seat next to Mrs Clutch. He was clutching a handkerchief to his mouth with trembling hands. I looked up at Clutch, and saw that she looked gaunter, and greyer than ever before. A nerve was twitching in her temple.

"Bring them in," she said, and her voice echoed through the silent dungeon.

The door in the corner opened yet again. Six Dementors entered this time, flanking a group of three people. I saw the people in the crowd turn to look up at Mrs Clutch. A few of them whispered to each other.

The Dementors placed each of the three people in the three chairs with chained arms which now stood on the dungeon floor. There was a thickset woman who stared blankly up at Clutch, a thinner, more nervous-looking man, whose eyes were darting around the crowd, and a girl in her late teens, who looked nothing short of petrified. She was shivering, her straw-coloured hair was all over her face, her freckled skin milk-white. The wispy little wizard beside Clutch began to hyperventilate, whimpering and tearing much of his tissue as he did so.

Clutch stood up. She looked down upon the three in front of her, and there was pure hatred in her face.

"You have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law," she said clearly, "so that we may pass judgement on you, for a crime so heinous - "

"Mother," said the girl with straw-coloured hair. "Mother ... please ..."

" - that we have rarely heard the like of it within this court," said Clutch, speaking more loudly, drowning out her daughter's voice. "We have heard the evidence against you. The three of you - even though there are supposed to be four, but rest assured we shall find her - stand accused of capturing an Auror - Fiona Bore - and subjecting her to the Cruciatus Curse, believing her to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled mistress, She Who Must Not Be Named - "

"Mother, I didn't!" shrieked the girl in chains below. "I didn't, I swear it, Mother, don't send me back to the Dementors - "

"You are further accused," bellowed Mrs Clutch, "of using the Cruciatus Curse on Fiona Bore's husband, when she would not give you information. You planned to restore She Who Must Not Be Named to power, and to resume the lives of violence you presumably led while she was strong. I now ask the jury - "

"Father!" the girl screamed below, and the wispy little wizard beside Clutch began to rock backwards and forwards, tearing his tissue harder. "Father, stop her, Father, I didn't do it, it wasn't me!"

"I now ask the jury," shouted Mrs Clutch, "to raise their hands if they believe, as I do, that these crimes deserve a life sentence in Azkaban."

In unison, the witches and wizards along the right-hand side of the dungeon raised their hands. the crowd around the walls began to clap as it had for Baxter, their faces full of savage triumph.

"No! Father, no! I didn't do it, I didn't do it, I didn't know! Don't send me there, don't let her!"

The Dementors were gliding back into the room. The girl's two companions rose quietly from their seats; the nervous-looking man looked up at Clutch and called, in a surprisingly strong, clear voice, "Katalina asked me to pass on a message to you, Clutch: the Scarlet Lady will return! Throw us in Azkaban, we will wait! She will rise again and will come for us, she will reward us beyond any of her other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find her!"

But the girl was trying to fight the Dementors off, even though I could see their cold, draining power start to affect her. The crowd were jeering, some of them on their feet, as the man swept out of the dungeon, and the girl continued to struggle.

"I'm your daughter!" she screamed up at Clutch. "I'm your daughter!"

"You are no daughter of mine!" bellowed Clutch, her eyes bulging suddenly. "I have no daughter!"

The wispy wizard beside her gave a gasp, and slumped in his seat. He had fainted. Clutch appeared not to have noticed.

"Take them away!" Clutch roared at the Dementors, spit flying from her mouth. "Take them away, and may they rot there!"

"Mother! Mother, I wasn't involved! No! No! Mother, please!"

"I think, Kiara, it is time to return to my office," said a quiet voice in my ear.

I started. I looked around. Then I looked on my other side.

There was a Susan Crighton sitting on my right, watching Clutch's daughter being dragged away by the Dementors - and there was a Susan Crighton on my left, looking right at me.

"Come," said the Crighton on my left, and she put her hand under my elbow. I felt myself rising into the air; the dungeon dissolved around me; for a moment, all was blackness, and then I felt as though I had done a slow-motion somersault, suddenly landing flat on my feet, in what seemed like the dazzling light of Crighton's sunlit office. The stone basin was shimmering in the cabinet in front of me, and Susan Crighton was standing beside me.

"Professor," I gasped, "I know I shouldn't've - I didn't mean - the cabinet door was sort of open and - "

"I quite understand," said Crighton. She lifted the basin, carried it over to her desk, placed it upon the polished top, and sat down in the chair behind it. She motioned for me to sit down opposite her.

I did so, staring at the stone basin. The contents had returned to their original, silvery white state, swirling and rippling beneath my gaze.

"What is it?" I asked shakily. "And how come Sian never told me about it?"

A flicker of pain flashed across Crighton's eyes at the mention of Sian's name, which vanished quickly, as she took a deep breath and said, "This is called a Pensieve, Kiara, and Sian never told you about it because I asked her not to say anything about it to you. I'm sorry for keeping this from you, Kiara, but I do not wish to divulge all of my secrets to you, until I have to."

I nodded slowly, then said, "Why do you use it, ma'am?"

"I use it, Kiara," said Crighton, "because I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind."

"Er," was all I said, for I couldn't truthfully say that I had ever felt anything of the sort (although, since writing this and looking back through my important memories, I'm starting to understand what Crighton meant).

"At these times," said Crighton, indicating the stone basin, "I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form."

"You mean ... that stuff's your thoughts?" I said, staring at the swirling white substance in the basin.

"Certainly," said Crighton. "Let me show you."

Crighton drew her wand out of the inside of her robes, and placed the tip into her own silvery hair, streaked with caramel, near her temple. When she took the wand away, hair seemed to be clinging to it - but then I saw that it was in fact a glistening strand of the same strange, silvery white substance that filled the Pensieve. Crighton added this fresh thought to the basin, and, astonishingly, I saw my own face swimming around the surface of the bowl.

Crighton placed her long hands on either side of the Pensieve and swirled it, rather as a gold prospector would swirl for fragments of gold ... and I saw my own face change smoothly into Triphorm's, who opened her mouth, and spoke to the ceiling, her voice echoing slightly. "It's coming back ... Kula's too ... stronger and clearer than ever ..."

"A connection I could have made without assistance," Crighton sighed, "but never mind." She peered at me, as I gasped at Triphorm's face, which was continuing to swirl around the bowl. "I was using the Pensieve when Mrs Sweets arrived for our meeting, and put it away rather hastily. Undoubtedly I did not fasten the cabinet door properly. Naturally, it would have attracted your attention."

"I'm sorry," I mumbled.

Crighton shook her head.

"Curiosity is not a sin," she said. "But we should exercise caution with our curiosity ... yes, indeed ..."

Frowning slightly, she prodded the thoughts within the basin with the tip of her wand. Instantly, a figure rose out of it, a plump, scowling boy of around sixteen, who began to revolve slowly, with his feet still in the basin. He took no notice whatsoever of Professor Crighton or myself. When he spoke, his voice echoed as Triphorm's had done, as though it was coming from the depths of the stone basin: "She put a hex on me, Professor Crighton, and I was only teasing her, ma'am, I only said I'd seen her kissing Freddie behind the greenhouse last Thursday ..."

"But why, Bernard," said Crighton sadly, looking up at the now silently revolving boy, "why did you have to follow her in the first place?"

"Bernard?" I whispered, looking up at him. "Is that - was that Bernard Jenkins?"

"Yes," said Crighton, prodding the thoughts in the basin again; Bernard sank back into them, and they became silvery and opaque once more. "That was Bernard as I remember him at school."

The silvery light from the Pensieve illuminated Crighton's face, and it struck me suddenly how very old she looked. I knew, of course, that Crighton was getting on in years, but somehow I had never really thought of Crighton as an old woman.

"So, Kiara," said Crighton quietly. "Before you got lost in my thoughts, you wanted to tell me something."

"Yes," I said. "Professor - I was in Divination just now, and - er - I fell asleep."

I hesitated here, wondering if a reprimand was coming, but Crighton merely said, "Quite understandable. Continue."

"Well, I had a dream," I said. "A dream about Zira. She was torturing Wormy, as his wife looked on ... you know who Wormy and his wife - "

"I do know," said Crighton, promptly. "Please continue."

"Zira's got a letter from an owl. She said something like, Wormy's blunder had been repaired. She said someone was dead. Then she said, Wormy wouldn't be fed to the snake - there was a snake beside her chair. She said - she said she'd be feeding me to it instead. Wormy's wife then spoke up, and said something like, she would let Zira kill her husband, for she would do his job for Zira, but Zira wants both of them alive for something. Then she told Wormy's wife to get out of the way, and Zira did the Cruciatus Curse on Wormy - and my scar hurt," I said. "It woke me up, it hurt so badly."

Crighton merely looked at me.

"Er - that's all," I said.

"I see," said Crighton quietly. "I see. Now, has your scar hurt at any other time this year, excepting the time it woke you up over the summer - and discovering an important piece of information concerning Bernard Jenkins from that dream since you've been here?"

"No, I - how did you know about what I know about Bernard Jenkins?" I said, astonished.

"You are not the only one who is in correspondence with your parents," said Crighton. "I have also been in contact with them ever since they left Dragon Mort last year. It was I who suggested the mountain-side cave as the safest place for them to stay."

Crighton got up and began walking up and down behind her desk. Every now and then, she placed her wand tip to her temple, removed another shining silver thought, and added it to the Pensieve. The thoughts inside began to swirl so fast that I couldn't make out anything clearly; it was merely a blur of colours.

"Professor?" I said quietly, after a couple of minutes.

Crighton stopped pacing, and looked at me.

"My apologies," she said quietly. She sat back down at her desk.

"D'you - d'you know why my scar's hurting me?"

Crighton looked very intently at me for a moment, and then said, "I have a theory, no more than that ... It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lady Zira is near you, and when she is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred."

"But ... why?"

"Because you and she are connected by the curse that failed," said Crighton. "That is no ordinary scar."

"So you think ... that dream ... did it really happen?"

"It is possible," said Crighton. "I would say - probable. Kiara - did you see Zira?"

"No," I said. "Just the back of her chair. But - there wouldn't have been anything to see, would there? I mean, she hasn't got a body, has she? But ... but then how could she have held the wand?" I said slowly.

"How indeed?" muttered Crighton. "How indeed ..."

Neither of us spoke for a while. Crighton was gazing across the room, every now and then placing her wand tip to her temple, and adding another shining, silver thought to the seething mass within the Pensieve.

"Professor," I said at last, "do you think she's getting stronger?"

"Zira?" said Crighton, looking at me over the Pensieve. It was the characteristic, piercing look Crighton had given me on other occasions, and always made me feel as though Crighton was seeing right through me, in a way that even Grumpy's magical eyes never could. "Once again, Kiara, I can only give you my suspicions."

Crighton sighed again, and she looked older, and wearier, than ever.

"The years of Zira's ascent to power," she said, "were marked with disappearances, which were kept from the public because of Lord Voldemort, which I only know about because, of course, I am the one person that Zira most fears, and because the Ministry had the decency to let me know what was happening. Getting back to disappearances, though, Bernard Jenkins had vanished without a trace in the place where Zira was certainly known to be last. Mrs Clutch, too, has disappeared ... within these very grounds. And there was a third disappearance, one which the Ministry, I regret to say, does not consider of any importance. Her name was Aisha Ancarra, who lived in the village where Zira's mother grew up, and she has not been seen since last August. You see, I read the Muggle newspapers, unlike most of my Ministry friends."

Crighton looked very seriously at me. "These disappearances seem to me to be linked. The Ministry disagrees - as you may have heard, while waiting outside my office."

I nodded. Silence fell between us again, Crighton extracting her thoughts every now and then. I felt as though I ought to go, but my curiosity held me in my chair.

"Professor?" I said again.

"Yes, Kiara?" said Crighton.

"Er ... could I ask you about ... that court thing I was in ... in the Pensieve?"

"You could," said Crighton heavily. "I attended it many times, but some trials come back to me more clearly than others ... particularly now ..."

"You know - you know the trial you found me in? The one with Clutch's daughter? Well ... were they talking about Nikita's parents?"

Crighton gave me a sharp look.

"Has Nikita never told you why she has been brought up by her grandfather?" she said.

I shook my head, wondering, as I did so, how I could have failed to ask Nikita this, in almost four years of knowing her.

"Yes, they were talking about Nikita's parents," said Crighton. "Her mother, Fiona, was an Auror just like Professor Grumpy. She and her husband were tortured for information about Zira's whereabouts after she lost her powers, as you heard."

"So they're dead?" I said quietly.

"No," said Crighton, her voice full of a bitterness I had never heard there before, "they are insane. They are both in St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I believe Nikita visits them, with her grandfather, during the holidays. They do not recognise her."

I sat there, horror-struck. I had never known ... never, in four years, had I bothered to find out ...

"The Bores were very popular," said Crighton. "The attacks on them came after Zira's fall from power, just when everyone thought they were safe. These attacks caused a wave of fury such as I have never known. The Ministry was under great pressure to catch those who had done it. Unfortunately, the Bores' evidence was - given their condition - none too reliable."

"Then Mrs Clutch's daughter might not have been involved?" I said slowly.

Crighton shook her head. "As to that, I have no idea."

"Ma'am, the man who spoke to Mrs Clutch at the end of the trial, who was he?" I asked.

"He was a Mr Rakto Liu, Kiara. Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's just that he knew the woman ... Katalina I believe he called her, who escaped. Hoe did she escape, exactly?" I said, wanting to make sense of this. "And how did she get captured?"

Another flicker of pain mixed with fear flashed across Crighton's eyes, as she took a deep breath, and said, "Well Kiara, Katalina Outsider (as is her name now) put up a good fight with the Aurors, and escaped them before they could catch her. Where she fled to, I do not know; but what I do know is that she was captured a few years later, after the attack she did on that poor ... little ... girl ... an attack she had apparently been planning for a while, for she laughed about it during her trial ..." And then, to my surprise, Crighton put her head in her hands and burst into tears. "Oh, my p-poor, d-d-darling Sian ..."

I let Crighton cry for a while, astonished at what I had just heard. After Crighton's tears had subsided, I said, "Sian? What does Sian have to do with anything? And what happened to her, exactly?"

Crighton dried her eyes quickly, raised her head and said, "Listen, Kiara ... Sian, my husband, the rest of my children and I agreed that, until Sian was comfortable with telling everyone about her past, we would keep it secret. So please don't pester her, my husband, my other children or myself, until she is ready to tell. All right?"

I looked at Crighton for a time, thinking ... Yes, I was curious, but Sian was my friend - well, practically my sister - and seeing as her mother was Headmistress of the school, and that I have a lot of respect for her family, I couldn't say no, so I nodded.

Crighton smiled gratefully. "Thank you, Kiara."

I then sat in silence once more, watching the contents of the Pensieve swirl. There were two more questions I was burning to ask ... but they concerned the guilt of living people ...

"Er," I said, "Miss Baxter ..."

" ... has never been accused of any Dark activity since," said Crighton calmly.

"Right," I said hastily, staring at the contents of the Pensieve again, which were swirling more slowly now that Crighton had stopped adding thoughts. "And ... er ..."

But the Pensieve seemed to be asking my question for me. Triohorm's face was swimming on the surface again. Crighton glanced down into it, and then up at me.

"No more has Professor Triphorm," she said.

I looked into Crighton's emerald-green eyes, and the thing that I really wanted to know spilled out of my mouth before I could stop it. "What made you think she'd really stopped supporting Zira, Professor?"

Crighton held my gaze for a few seconds, and then said, "That, Kiara, is a matter between Professor Triphorm and myself." (I eventually knew the answer to that question, but I'm afraid you'll know that in my seventh book - and boy, it came as a shock to me, but we'll get there.)

I knew that the interview was over; Crighton did not look angry, yet there was a finality in her tone that told me it was time to go.

"Kiara," she said, as I stood up. "Please do not speak about Nikita's parents to anybody else. She has the right to let people know when she is ready."

"Yes, Professor," I said, turning to go.

"Oh, and Kiara?" I looked back at Crighton as I reached the door. "I'm glad that you have not told anyone (the Ministry in particular) about what you know about Bernard Jenkins. The less people know about this, the better."

"Well, it wasn't for publicity purposes, Professor," I said to her. "I just don't want people to think I'm crazy. Plus, seeing as this is Zira we're talking about, if people found out I would share a connection with her, and think that she was behind Bernard Jenkins' death, not only would it freak a lot of people out, but it would also make matters a whole lot worse."

"Not only do I agree with you, Kiara, but I am still grateful to you for not telling anyone besides the people you trust the most."

I smiled at Crighton and turned to leave, but I was once again interrupted by Crighton.

"And - "

I looked back.

Crighton was standing over the Pensieve, her face lit from beneath by its silvery spots of light, looking older than ever. She stared at me for a moment, and then said, "Good luck with the third task."