Chapter 21- The Pensive
The door of the office opened.
"Hello, Potter." The person Haiden now knew was an impostor said. "Come in, then." Haiden walked inside, knowing that if he didn't he would draw suspicion. He had never been in Dumbledore's office before, but it was a very beautiful, circular room, lined with pictures of previous headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts, all of whom were fast asleep, their chests rising and falling gently. Cornelius Fudge was standing beside Dumbledore's desk, wearing his usual pinstriped cloak and holding a lime-green bowler hat.
"Haiden!" Fudge said jovially, moving forward. "How are you?"
"I'm fine." Haiden lied.
"We were just talking about the night when Mr. Crouch turned up on the grounds." Fudge told him. "It was you who found him, was it not?"
"Yes." Haiden said, something telling him not to mention that Harry had been there as well. Then, knowing that it was pointless to pretend that he hadn't overheard what they had been saying, he added, "I didn't see Madame Maxime anywhere, thought, and she'd have a job hiding, wouldn't she?" Dumbledore smiled at Haiden behind Fudge's back, his eyes twinkling."
"Yes, well," Fudge said looking embarrassed, "we're about to go for a short walk on the grounds, Haiden, if you'll excuse us... perhaps if you just go back to your class-"
"I wanted to talk to you, Professor." Haiden said quickly, looking at Dumbledore, who game him a swift, searching look.
"Wait here for me, Haiden." He told him. "Our examination of the grounds will not take long." They trooped out in silence past him and closed the door. After a minute or so, Haiden heard the clunks of 'Moody's' wooden leg growing fainter in the corridor below. He looked around.
"Hello, Fawkes." Haiden said once he caught sight of the beautiful phoenix standing on his golden perch beside the door. "I never got to thank you for saving us." He told it sheepishly as the phoenix swished his long tail and blinked benignly at him.
Haiden sat down in a chair in front of Dumbledore's desk. For several minutes, he sat and watched the old headmaster and headmistresses snoozing in their frames, thinking about what he had just heard, and running his fingers over his scar. It had stopped hurting now.
He felt much calmer, somehow, now that he was in Dumbledore's office, knowing he would shortly be telling him about the dream. Haiden looked up at the walls behind the desk. The patched and ragged Sorting Hat was standing on a shelf. A Glass case next to it held a magnificent silver sword with large rubies set into the hilt, which Haiden recognized as the one Harry had forced him to pull out the Sorting Hat in their second year.
He was gazing at it, remembering everything that had caused Harry to fall into a coma, when he noticed a patch of silvery light, dancing and shimmering on the glass case. He looked around for the source of the light and saw a sliver of silver-white shining brightly from within a black cabinet behind him, whose door had not been closed properly. Haiden hesitated, glanced at Fawkes, then got up, walked across the office, and pulled open the cabinet door.
A shallow stone basin lay there, with odd carvings around the edge: runes and symbols that Haiden did not recognize. The silvery light was coming from the basin's contents, which were like nothing Haiden had ever seen before. He could not tell whether the substance was liquid or gas. It was 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 - Haiden couldn't make up his mind.
He wanted to touch it, to find out what it felt like, but nearly four years' experience of the magical world told him that sticking his hand into a bowl full of some unknown substance was a very stupid thing to do. He therefore puled his wand out of the inside of his robes, cast a nervous look 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.
Haiden bent closer, his head right inside the cabinet. The silvery substance had become transparent; it looked like glass. He 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 he seemed to be looking thought a circular window in the ceiling.
The room was dimly lit; he thought it might even be underground, for there were no windows, merely torches in brackets such as the ones that illuminated the walls of Hogwarts. Lowering his face so that his nose was a mere inch away from the glassy substance, Haiden saw that rows of witches and wizards were seated around every wall on what seemed to be benches rising in levels. An empty chair stood in the very center of the room. There was something about the chair gave Haiden an ominous feeling. Chains encircled the arms of it, as though its occupants were usually tied to it.
Where was this place? It surely wasn't Hogwarts; he had never seen a room like that here in the castle. Moreover, the crowd in the mysterious room at the bottom of the basin was comprised of adults, and Haiden knew there were not nearly that many teachers at Hogwarts. They seemed, he thought, to be waiting for something; even though he could only see the tops of their hats, all of their faces seemed to be pointing in one direction, and none of them were talking to one another.
The basin being circular, and the room he was observing square, Haiden could not make out what was going on in the corners of it. He leaned ever closer, tilting his head, trying to see...
The tip of his nose touched the strange substance into which he was staring.
Dumbledore's office gave an almighty lurch - Haiden was thrown forward and pitched headfirst into the substance inside the basin-
But his head did not hit the stone bottom. He was falling through something icy-cold and black; it was like being sucked into a dark whirlpool -
And suddenly, Haiden found himself sitting on a bench at the end of the room inside the basin, a bench raised high above the others. He looked up at the high stone ceiling, expecting to see the circular window through which head had just been staring, but there was nothing there but dark, solid stone.
Breathing hard and fast, Haiden looked around him. Not one of the witches and wizards in the room (and there were at least two hundred of them) was looking at him. Not one of them seemed to have noticed that a fourteen-year-old boy had just dropped from the ceiling into their midst. Haiden turned to the wizard next to him on the bench and uttered a loud cry of surprise that reverberated around the silent room. He was sitting right next to Albus Dumbledore.
"Professor!" Haiden said in a 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 Dumbledore didn't move or speak. He ignored Haiden completely. Like every other wizard on the benches, he was staring into the far corner of the room, where there was a door.
Haiden gazed, nonplussed, at Dumbledore, then around at the silently watchful crowd, then back at Dumbledore. And then it dawned on him...
Once before, Haiden had found himself somewhere that nobody could see or hear him. That time, he had fallen through a page in and enchanted, right into somebody else's memory. . . and unless he was very much mistaken, something of the sort had happened again...
Haiden raised his right hand, hesitated, and then waved it energetically in front of Dumbledore's face. Dumbledore did not blink, look around at him, or indeed move at all. And that, in Haiden's opinion, settled the matter. Dumbledore wouldn't ignore him like that. He was inside a memory, and this was not the present-day Dumbledore. Yet it couldn't be that long ago . . . the Dumbledore sitting next to him now was silver-hared, just like the present-day Dumbledore. But what was this place? What were all these wizards waiting for?
Haiden looked around more carefully. The room, as he had suspected from when observing it from above, was almost certainly underground - more of a dungeon than a room, he thought. There was a bleak and forbidding air about the place; there were no pictures on the walls, no decorations at all; just there 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 Haiden could reach any conclusions about the place in which they were, he heard footsteps. The door in the corner of the dungeon opened and three people entered - or at least one man, flanked by two dementors.
Haiden's insides went cold. The dementors - tall, hooded creatures whose faces were concealed - were gliding slowly toward the chair in the center of the room, each grasping one of the man's arms with their dead and rotten- looking hands. The man between them looked as though he was about to faint, and Haiden couldn't blame him . . . he knew the dementors could not touch him inside a memory, but he remembered their power only too well. The watching crowd recoiled slightly as the dementors placed the man in the chained chair and glided back out of the room. The door swung shut behind them.
Haiden looked down at the man now sitting in the chair and saw that it was Karkaroff. Unlike Dumbledore, Karkaroff looked much younger; his hair and goatee were black. He was not dressed in sleek furs, but in thin and ragged robes. He was shaking. Even as Haiden watched, the chains on the arms of the chair glowed suddenly gold and snaked their way up Karkaroff's arms, binding him there.
"Igor Karkaroff." A curt voice to Haiden's left said. Haiden looked around and saw Mr. Crouch standing up in the middle of the bench beside him. Crouch's hair was dark, his face was much less lined, he looked fit and alert. "You have been brought from Azkaban to present evidence to the Ministry of Magic. You have given us to understand that you have important information for us."
Karkaroff straightened himself as best as he could, tight bound to the chair. "I have, sir." He said, and although his voice was very scared, Haiden 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 Dark Lord's supporters. I am eager to assist in any way I can..."
There was a murmur around the benches. Some of the wizards and witches were surveying Karkaroff with interest, others with pronounced mistrust. Then Haiden heard, quite distinctly, from Dumbledore's other side, a familiar, growling voice saying, "Filth."
Haiden leaned forward so that he could see past Dumbledore. The real Mad-Eye Moody was sitting there- except that there was a very noticeable difference in his appearance. He did not have his magical eye, but two normal ones. Both were looking down upon Karkaroff, and both were narrowed in intense dislike.
"Crouch is going to let him out." Moody breathed quietly to Dumbledore. "He's done a deal with him. Took me six months to track him down, and Crouch is going to let him go if he's got enough new names. Let's hear his information, I say, and throw him straight back to the dementors." Dumbledore made a small noise of dissent through his long, crooked nose. "Ah, I was forgetting. . . you don't like the dementors, do you, Albus?" Moody said with a sardonic smile.
"No," Dumbledore said 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. . ." Moody said softly.
"You say you have names for us, Karkaroff." Mr. Crouch said. "Let us hear them, please."
"You must understand," Karkaroff said hurriedly, "that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named operated always in the greatest secrecy. . . . He preferred that we - I mean to say, his supporters - and I regret now, very deeply, that I ever counted myself among them-"
"Get on with it." Moody sneered.
"-we never knew the names of everyone of out fellows - He alone knew exactly who we all were-"
"Which was a wise move, wasn't it, as it prevented someone like you, Karkaroff, from turning all of them in." Moody muttered.
"Yet you say you have some names for us?" Mr. Crouch said.
"I-I do." Karkaroff said breathlessly. "And these were important supporters, mark you. People I saw with my own eyes doing his bidding. I give this information as a sign that I fully and totally renounce him, and am filled with remorse so deep I can barely-"
"The names are?" Mr. Crouch said sharply. Karkaroff drew a deep breath.
"There was Antonin Dolohov." He said. "I-I saw him torture countless Muggles and- and non-supporters of the Dark Lord."
"And helped him do it." Moody murmured.
"We have already apprehended Dolohov." Crouch said. "He was caught shortly after yourself."
"Indeed?" Karkaroff said, his eyes widening. "I-I am delighted to hear it!" But he didn't look it. Haiden could tell that this news had come as a real blow to him. One of his names was worthless.
"Any others?" Crouch asked coldly.
"Why yes... there was Rosier," Karkaroff said hurriedly. "Evan Rosier."
"Rosier is dead." Crouch said. "He was caught shortly after you were too. He preferred to fight rather than come quietly and was killed in the struggle."
"Took a bit of me with him, thought." Moody whispered to Haiden's right. Haiden looked around at him once more, and saw him indicating the large chunk out of his nose to Dumbledore.
"No - No more than Rosieer deserved!" Karkaroff said, a real not of panic in his voice now. Haiden could see that he was starting to worry that none of his information would be of any use to the Ministry. Karkaroff's eyes darted toward the door in the corner, behind which the dementors undoubtedly still stood, waiting.
"Any more?" Crouch asked.
"Yes!" Karkaroff said. "There was Travers- he helped murder McKinnons! Mclciber- he specialized in the Imperius Curse, forced countless people to do horrific things! Rookwood, who was a spy, and passed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named useful information from inside the Ministy itself!" Haiden could tell that, this time, Karkaroff had struck gold. The watching crowd was still murmuring together.
"Rookwood?" Mr. Crouch said, nodding to a witch sitting in front of him, who began scribbling upon her piece of parchment. "Augustus Rookwood of the Department of Mysteries?"
"The very same." Karkaroff said eagerly. "I believe he used a network of well-placed wizards, both inside the Ministry and out, to collect information-"
"But Travers and Mulciber we have," Mr. Crouch said. "Very well, Karkaroff, if that is all, you will be returned to Azkaban while we decide-"
"Not yet!" Karkaroff cried, looking quite desperate. "Wait, I have more!" Haiden could see him sweating in the torchlight, his white skin contrasting strongly with the black of his hair and beard. "Snape!" He shouted. "Severus Snape!"
"Snape has been cleared by this council." Crouch said disdainfully. "He has been vouched for by Albus Dumbledore."
"No!" Karkaroff shouted, straining at the chains that bound him to the chair. "I assure you! Severus Snape is a Death Eater!" Dumbledore had gotten to his feet.
"I have given evidence already on this matter." He said calmly. "Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he rejoined our side before Lord Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk. He is now no more a Death Eater than I am." Haiden turned to look at Mad-Eye Moody. He was wearing a look of deep skepticism behind Dumbledore's back.
"Very well, Karkaroff," Crouch said coldly, "you have been of assistance. I shall review you case. You will be returned to Azkaban in the meantime..."
Mr. Crouch's voice faded. Haiden looked around; the dungeon was dissolving as though it were made of smoke; everything was fading; he could only see his own body - all else was swirling darkness...
And then, the dungeon returned. Haiden was sitting in a different seat, still on the highest bench, but now to the left side of Mr. Crouch. The atmosphere seemed quite different: relaxed, even cheerful. The witches and wizards all around the walls were talking to one another, almost as though they were at some sort of sporting event. Haiden noticed a witch halfway up the rows of benches opposite. She had short blonde hair, was wearing magenta robes, and was sucking the end of and acid-green quill. It was, unmistakably, a younger Rita Skeeter. Haiden looked around; Dumbledore was sitting beside him again, wearing different robes. Mr. Crouch looked more tired and somehow fiercer, gaunter. . . . Haiden understood. It was a different memory, a different day. . . a different trial.
The door in the corner opened, and Ludo Bagman walked into the room. This was not, however, a Ludo Bagman gone to seed, but a Ludo Bagman who was clearly at the height of his Quidditch-playing fitness. His nose wasn't broken now; he was tall and lean and muscular. Bagman looked nervous as he sat down in the chained chair, but it did not bind him there as it had bound Karkaroff, and Bagman, perhaps taking heart of his, glanced around the watching crowd, waved at a couple of them, and managed a small smile.
"Ludo Bagman, you have been brought here in front of the Councle of Magical Law to answer charges relating to the activities of the Death Eaters." Mr. Crouch said. "We have heard the evidence against you, and are about to reach our verdict. Do you have anything to add to you testimony before we pronounce judgment?" Haiden couldn't believe his ears. Ludo Bagman, a Death Eather?
"Only," Bagman said, smiling awkwardly, "well - I know I've been a bit of an idiot-" One or two wizards and witches in the surrounding seats smiled indulgently. Mr. Crouch did not appear to share their feelings. He was staring down at Ludo Bagman with an expression of the utmost severity and dislike.
"You never spoke a truer word, boy." Someone muttered dryly to Dumbledore behind Haiden. He looked around and saw Moody sitting there again. "If I didn't know he'd always been dim, I'd have said some of those Bludgers had permanently affected his brain..."
"Ludovic Bagman, you were caught passing information to Lord Voldemort's supporter," Mr. Crouch said. "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 Mr. Crouch.
"But I've told you, I had no idea!" Bagman called earnestly over the crowd's babble, his round blue eyes widening. "None at all! Old Rookwood was a friend of my dad's . . . . Never crossed my mind he was in with You-Know-Who! I thought I was collecting information for our side! And Rookwood 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," Mr. Crouch said coldly. He turned to the right-hand side of the dungeon. "The jury will please raise their hands . . . those in favor of imprisonment . . ." Haiden looked toward 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 witches on the jury stood up. "Yes?" Crouch barked.
"We'd just like to congratulate Mr. Bagman on his splendid performance for England in the Quidditch match against Turky last Saturday." The witch said breathlessly. Mr. Crouch looked furious. The dungeon was ringing with applause now. Bagman got to his feet and bowed, beaming.
"Despicable." Mr. Crouch spat at Dumbledore, sitting down as Bagman walked out of the dungeon. "Rookwood get him a job indeed. . . . The day Ludo Bagman joins us will be a sad day indeed for the Ministry. . . ."
And the dungeon dissolved again. When it had returned, Haiden looked around. He and Dumbledore were still sitting beside Mr. Crouch, but the atmosphere could not have been more different. There was total silence, broken only but the dry sobs of a frail, wispy-looking witch in the seat next to Mr. Crouch. She was clutching a handkerchief to her mouth with trembling hands. Haiden looked up at Crouch and saw that he looked gaunter and grayer than ever before. A nerve was twitching in his temple.
"Bring them in." He said, and his voice echoed through the silent dungeon. The door in the corner opened yet again. Six dementors entered this time, flanking a group of four people. Haiden saw the people in the crowd turn to look up at Mr. Crouch. A few of them whispered to one another.
The dementors placed each of the four people in the four chairs with chained arms that now stood on the dungeon floor. There was a thickest man who stared blankly up at Crouch; a thinner and more nervous-looking man, whose eyes were darting around the crowd; a woman with thick, shinning dark hair and heavily hooded eyes, who was sitting in the chained chair as though it were a throne; and a boy in his late teens, who looked nothing the short of petrified. He was shivering, his straw-colored hair all over his face, his freckled skin milk-white. The wispy little witch beside Crouch began to rock backward and forward in her seat, whimpering into her handkerchief.
Crouch stood up. He looked down upon the four in front of him, and there was pure hatred in his face. "You have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law," he said clearly, "so that we may pass judgment on you, for a crime so heinous-"
"Father." The boy with the straw-colored hair. "Father . . . . please . . ."
"- that we have rarely heard the like of it within this court," Crouch said, speaking more loudly, drowning out his son's voice. "We have heard the evidence against you. The four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror - Frank Longbottom - and subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named -"
"Father, I didn't!" The boy shrieked. "I didn't, I swear it, Father, don't send me back to the dementors -"
"You are further accused," Mr. Crouch bellowed, "of using the Cruciatus Curse on Frank Longbottom's wife, when he would not give you information. You planned to restore He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to power, and to resume the lives of violence you presumably led while he was strong. I now ask the jury-"
"Mother!" The boy screamed, and the wispy little witch beside Crouch began to sob, rocking backward and forward. "Mother, stop him, mother, I didn't do it, it wasn't me!"
"I now ask the jury," Mr. Crouch shouted, "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 Bagman, their faces full of savage triumph. The boy began to scream.
"No! Mother, no! I didn't do it, I didn't do it, I didn't know! Don't send me there, don't let him!" The dementors were gliding back into the room.
The boy's three companions rose quietly from their seats; the woman with the heavy-lidded eyes looked up at Crouch and called, "The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!" But the boy was trying to fight off the dementors, even though Haiden could see their cold, draining power starting to affect him. The crowd was jeering, some of them on their feet, as the woman swept out of the dungeon, and the boy continued to struggle.
"I'm your son!" He screamed up at Crouch. "I'm your son!"
"You are no son of mine!" Mr. Crouch bellowed, his eyes bulging suddenly. "I have no son!" The wispy witch beside him gave a great gasp and slumped in her seat. She had fainted. Crouch appeared not to have noticed. "Take them away!" Crouch roared at the dementors, spit flying from his mouth. "Take them away, and may they rot there."
"Father! Father, I wasn't involved! No! No! Father, please!"
"I think, Haiden, it is time to return to my office." A quiet voice in Haiden's ear said. Haiden startled. He looked around. Then he looked on his other side. There was an Albus Dumbledore sitting on his right, watching Crouch's son being dragged away by the dementors - and there was an Albus Dumbledore on his left, looking right at him.
"Come." Dumbledore said on his left, and he put his hand under Haiden's elbow. Haiden felt himself rising into the air; the dungeon dissolved around him; for a moment, all was blackness, and then he felt as though he had done a slow-motion somersault, suddenly landing flat on his feet, in what seemed like the dazzling light of Dumbledore's sunlit office. The stone basin was shimmering in the cabinet in front of him, and Albus Dumbledore was standing beside him.
"Professor," Haiden gasped out, "I know I shouldn't've - I didn't mean - the cabinet door was sort of open and -"
"I quite understand." Dumbledore said. He lifted the basin, carried it over to his desk, placed it upon the polished top, and sat down in the chair behind it. He motioned for Haiden to sit down opposite hime. Haiden did so, staring at the stone basin. The contents had returned to their original, silvery-white state, swirling and rippling beneath his gaze.
"What is it?" Haiden asked shakily.
"This? It is called a Pensieve." Dumbledore said. "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." Haiden said, he couldn't truthfully say that he had ever felt anything of the sort.
"At these times," Dumbledore said, indicating the stone basin, "I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thought 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."
"Certainly." Dumbledore said. "Let me show you."
Dumbledore drew his wand out of the inside of his robes and placed the tip into his own silvery hair, near his temple. When he took the wand away, hair seemed to be clinging to it - but then Haiden saw that it was in fact a glistening strand of the same strange silver-white substance that filled the Pensive. Dumbledore added this fresh thought to the basin, and Haiden, astonished, saw his own face swimming around the surface of the bowl. Dumbledore placed his long hands on either side of the Pensieve and swirled it, rather as a gold prospector would pan for fragments of gold . . . and Haiden saw his own face change smoothly into Severus's, who opened his mouth and spoke to the ceiling, his voice echoing slightly.
"It's coming back . . . Karkaroff's too . . . stronger and clearer than ever . . ."
"A connection I could have made without assistance," Dumbledore sighed, "but never mind." He peered over the top half-moon spectacles at Haiden, who was gaping at Severus's face, which was continuing to swirl around the bowl. "I was using the Pensieve when Mr. Fudge 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." Haiden muttered knowing the lecture he would be receiving from Hermione when he told her what he had found out and how he had come across this information.
Dumbledore shook his head. "Curiosity is not a sin." He told Haiden. "But we should exercise caution with our curiosity . . . yes, indeed . . ."
Frowning slightly, he prodded the thoughts withing the basin with the tip of his wand. Instantly, a figure rose out of it, a plump, scowling girl of about sixteen, who began to revolve slowly, with her feet still in the basin. She took no notice whatsoever of Haiden or Professor Dumbledore. When she spoke, her voice echoed as Severus's had done, as though it were coming from the depths of the stone basin. "He put a hex on me, Professor Dumbledore, and I was only teasing him, sir. I only said I'd seen him kissing Florence behind the greenhouses last Thursday. . . ."
"But why, Bertha," Dumbledore said sadly, looking at the now silently revolving girl, "why did you have to follow him in the first place?"
"Bertha?" Haiden whispered, looking up at her. "Is that - was that Bertha Jorkins?"
"Yes." Dumbledore said, prodding the thoughts in the basin again; Bertha sank back into them, and they became silvery and opaque once more. "That was Bertha as I remember her at school." The silvery light from the Pensieve illuminated Dumbledore's face, and it struck Haiden suddenly how very old he was looking. He knew, of course, that Dumbledore was getting on in years, but somehow he never really thought of Dumbledore as an old man. "So, Haiden." Dumbledore said quietly. "Before you got lost in my thoughts, you wanted to tell me something."
"Yes." Haiden said suddenly remembering the real reason he had come here: his dream. "Professor - I was in Divination just now, and - er - I fell asleep."
He hesitated here, wondering if a reprimand was coming, but Dumbledore merely said, "Quite understandable. Continue."
"Well, I had a dream." Haiden said. "A dream about Lord Voldemort. He was torturing Wormtail . . . you know who Wormtail -"
"I do know." Dumbledore said promptly. "Please continue."
"Voldemort got a letter from an owl. He said something like, Wormtail's blunder had been repaired. He said someone was dead. Then he said, Wormtail wouldn't be fed to the snake - there was a snake beside his chair. He said - he said he'd be feeding Harry to it, instead. Then he did the Cruciatus Curse on Wormtail - and my scar hurt." Haiden said. "It woke me up, it hurt so badly." Dumbledore merely looked at him.
"Er - that's all." Haiden said.
"I see." Dumbledore said quietly. "I see. Now, has your scar hurt at any other time this year, excepting the time it woke you up over the summer?"
"Actually, Harry woke me up then, by stroking my scar. . . wait, how did you know about that?" Haiden asked, astonished. Had Harry told Dumbledore? No, even though Harry had told him to come to Dumbledore if his scar hurt again, Harry, himself, would not confide in Dumbledore like that. It was almost like Harry hated Dumbledore, and Haiden always wondered why.
"You are not Sirius's only correspondent." Dumbledore told him. "I have also been in contact with him ever since he left Hogwarts last year. It was I who suggested the mountainside cave as the safest place for him to stay." Dumbledore got up and began walking up and down behind his desk. Every now and then, he placed his wand tip to his temple, removed another shining silver thought. and added it to the Pensieve. The thoughts inside began to swirl so fast that Haiden couldn't make out anything clearly: It was merely a blur of color.
"Professor?" He asked quietly, after a couple of minutes. Dumbledore stopped pacing and looked at him.
"My apologies." Dumbledore said quietly. He sat back down at his desk.
D'you -d'you know why my scar's hurting me?" Haiden asked nervously. He wanted to know, yet at the same time he didn't.
Dumbledore looked very intently at Haiden for a moment, and then said. "I have a theory, no more than that . . . . It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lord Voldemort is near you, and when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred."
"But-but why?"
"Because you and he are connected by the curse that failed." Dumbledore told him. "That is no ordinary scar."
"So you think . . . that dream . . . did it really happen?"
"It is possible." Dumbledore said. "I would say - probable. Haiden - did you see Voldemort?"
"No." Haiden said, shaking his head. "Just the back of his chair. But - there wouldn't have been anything to see, would there? I mean, he hasn't got a body, has he? But . . . but then how could he have held the wand?" Haiden asked.
"How indeed?" Dumbledore muttered. "How indeed . . ." Neither Dumbledore nor Haiden spoke for a while. Dumbledore was gazing across the room, and, every now and then, placing his wand tip to his temple and adding another shining silver thought to the seething mass within the Pensieve.
"Professor," Haiden said at last, "do you think he's getting stronger?"
"Voldemort?" Dumbledore asked, looking at Haiden over the Pensieve. It was the characteristic, piercing look Dumbledore had given him on other occasions, and always made Haiden feel as though Dumbledore were seeing right through him in a way that even Moody's magical eye could not. "Once again, Haiden, I can only give you my suspicions." Dumbledore sighed again, and he looked older, and wearier, than ever. "The years of Voldemort's ascent to power," he said, "were marked with disappearance. Bertha Jorkins has vanished without a trace in the place where Voldemort was certainly known to be last. Mr. Crouch too has disappeared . . . within these very grounds.
"And there was a third disappearance, one which the Ministry, I regret to say, do not consider of any importance, for it concerns a Muggle. His name was Frank Bryce, he lived in the village where Voldemort's father grew up, and he has not been seen since last August. You see, I read the Muggle newspapers, unlike most of my Ministry friends." Dumbledore looked very seriously at Haiden. "These disappearance seem to me to be linked. The Ministry disagrees - as you may have heard, while waiting outside my office." Haiden nodded. Silence fell between them again, Dumbledore extracting thoughts every now and then. Harry felt as though he ought to go, but his curiosity held him in his chair.
"Professor?" He asked again.
"Yes, Haiden?" Dumbledore said.
"Er . . . could I ask you about . . . that court thing I was in . . . in the Pensieve?" Haiden asked.
"You could." Dumbledore said 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 Crouch's son? Well . . . were they talking about Neville's parents?" Dumbledore gave him a sharp look.
"Has Neville never told you why he has been brought up by his grandmother?" He asked. Haiden shook his head, wondering, as he did so, how he could have failed to ask Neville this, in almost four years of knowing him.
"Yes, they were talking about Neville's parents." Dumbledore said. "His father, Frank, was an Auror just like Professor Moody. He and his wife were tortured for information about Voldemort's whereabouts after he lost his powers, as you heard."
"So they're dead?" Haiden asked quietly.
"No." Dumbledore said, his voice full of a bitterness Haiden had never heard there before. "They are insane. They are both in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I believe Neville visits them, with his grandmother, during the holidays. They do not recognize him." Haiden sat there, horror-struck. He had never known . . . never, in four years, bothered to find out. "The Longbottoms were very popular," Dumbledore continued. "The attacks on them came after Voldemort's fall from power, just as everyone thought they were safe. Those 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 Longbottom's evidence was - given their condition - none too reliable."
"Then Mr. Crouch's son might not have been involved?" Haiden said slowly, his mind trying to figure out what the hell was going on at Hogwarts. Dumbledore shook his head.
"As to that, I have no idea." Haiden sat in silence once more, watching the contents of the Pensieve swirl. There were three more questions he was burning to ask . . . but two concerned the guilt of living people . . . and the other had nothing to do with the Pensieve.
"Er," he said, "Mr. Bagman . . ."
". . . has never been accused of any Dark activity since." Dumbledore told him calmly.
"Right," Haiden said hastily, staring at the contents of the Pensieve again, which were swirling more slowly now that Dumbledore had stopped adding thoughts. "And . . . er . . ." But the Pensieve seemed to be asking his question for him. Severus's face was swimming on the surface again. Dumbledore glanced down into it, and then up at Haiden.
"No more has Professor Snape." He told him and relief flashed through him. Haiden began fighting himself about asking the last question or not. Haiden looked into Dumbledore's light blue eyes, and the thing he really wanted to know spilled out of his mouth before he could stop it.
"Why does Harry hate you so much?"
Dumbledore held Haiden's gaze for a few seconds, and then said, "That, Haiden, is a matter between Harry and myself." Haiden froze at that. There had been an incident between Harry and Dumbledore? It couldn't have been Dumbledore not believing Harry about Moody, this hatred seemed to have started long before that. Haiden knew that the interview was now over, Dumbledore did not look angry, yet there was a finality in his tone that told Haiden it was time to go. He stood up, and so did Dumbledore.
"Haiden." He said as Haiden reached the door. "Please do not speak about Neville's parents to anybody else. He has the right to let people know, when he is ready."
"Yes, Professor." Haiden said, turning to go.
"And-" Harry looked back. Dumbledore was standing over the Pensieve, his face lit from beneath by its silvery spots of light, looking older than ever. He stared at Haiden for a moment, and then said, "Good luck with the third task."