The Hospital Wing was empty except for Judith Shaw, still floating unconscious over her bed. For a boy insisting to spend all his day here the day before, her brother was nowhere to be seen, and Harry had to wonder why.
He checked on Judith's progress, aware of Snape's eyes following his every movement. Being scrutinised while working was something he had long got used to in the hospital, but the dark stare on him made his pulse speed up. Finished, he straddled the wooden visitor chair, leaving Snape with the one he had transfigured into a cushy armchair the night before.
Snape, ungrateful sod, regarded the striped velvet upholstery as if it was a timed dungbomb. "Did you bring it all the way for a prank?"
"What?" Harry frowned. "Oh, you must recognise the original from Grimmauld Place. Ron found it when we were clearing the attic and decided to sit down and rest."
"How you two survived until now with that attitude is a complete mystery to me."
"Hermione said the same thing."
"You are fortunate this particular piece of furniture is not designed with maiming in mind, unlike many artefacts in that house of yours."
"You should've seen Ron's face when the tentacles appeared and started doing their thing." Harry snickered. "He said that chair cured his arachnophobia only to replace it with something far more horrific."
The corner of Snape's mouth twitched, and Harry followed the movement with his eyes, wondering about the circumstances under which he had learned about the chair. The scenes Harry's mind conjured were rather intriguing, although Snape would probably hex him hard should he look into his mind right now.
Scrubbing his mind clean just in case, he continued, "So I would transfigure a random chair to look like it now and then, when Ron least expected it. And before you ask, it was a deserved payback."
"I'm sure."
"After so much practice, any chair I transfigure turns out like that if I'm not actively concentrating on something else. But it's actually pretty comfy. And safe to sit on, no tentacles."
Snape glared at the offending chair before sitting on it. Harry was probably imagining things, but he seemed almost disappointed when it did absolutely nothing.
"You seem remarkably unaffected but the earlier revelation," Snape said.
Harry sighed, pushing his glasses further up his nose. He was just trying not to think about it for a little bit longer, ignoring the leaden feeling that had settled in his stomach when Snape had told him about the goblets. "These things just keep happening to me." The murder attempts had stopped being remotely surprising around his fourth year, really. "It's a wonder I haven't thought about it myself. I guess I got too used to having a peaceful life. It's been seven years since the last murder attempt, if you don't count little Timmy setting my robe on fire with accidental magic when I didn't give him a Chocolate Frog last week."
"It's not a matter to take lightly," Snape said, annoyed. An odd emotion flickered across his face, which Harry was surprised to recognise as concern. He had been perfectly willing to throw quips earlier himself, and Harry felt warmth in his chest at the thought that his life being in danger changed things for Snape.
He was not unaware of his own mortality, regardless of what Hermione might have accused him on occasion, but even she had to agree back during their Horcrux hunt that laughing it off was better than living in a state of constant panic. It had not been a viable option then, and it was not now. Even if it was not the healthiest approach.
"Don't worry about me," said Harry. "I'm not that easy to kill."
"I'm not worried in the slightest. I just don't want many years of efforts to keep you alive go to waste."
Harry grinned. "Right."
"Especially with this appalling attitude of yours. Reckless as always!"
Harry's smile died on his lips as his eyes landed on the dark screen hiding the body of Zacharias Smith. "And now another person is dead because of me."
"You are not responsible for Smith's death."
"I know that. But if I really was the true target—"
"Are you still not done playing the martyr? Whoever decided to put that poison on the goblet shoulders all the blame. And we need to find out exactly who it was with all possible despatch."
"We?" Harry asked, smiling despite himself at the pronoun.
"You, of course, are welcome to sit back and not get into trouble for once, but I realise that this is an unreasonable expectation."
"Do you have any suspects?"
Snape seemed to choose his words carefully. "I've never seen Wood before in the castle. His insistence on leaving it by any means doesn't inspire much confidence either."
"Wouldn't acting like that be too conspicuous if he actually had anything to do with the murder?"
"You are giving too much credit to that Quidditch-obsessed nitwit."
"Oliver isn't stupid, just… single-minded. And anyway, why would he want me dead?"
"I admit the theory would sound more credible if Smith were the target. Still, you never know. Didn't the Prophet report you stealing his fiancé five years ago?"
"Keeping tabs on me?" Harry asked with a wry smile.
"Please. If I knew of a way to avoid the gossip in the staffroom, believe me, I would. So far, even murder hasn't stopped it."
"Well, the papers got it wrong, as always. I was dating her brother at the time."
Snape looked at him oddly.
"What?" Harry asked. The idea that Snape might be homophobic left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. "Did the staffroom miss all the articles about my sexuality?" There had been a deluge of them after he broke off the engagement with Ginny. The Prophet had been dragging her name through the dirt, so Harry had had to come out to the general public much earlier than he had been ready for. Despite that, the papers insisted to pair him with every woman in sight, from Hermione to Adrian's sister.
"No, it didn't. Sinistra would insist on reading every single one of them aloud, and no detail was missed, no matter how small. Believe me, those were excruciating three months to live through."
"I wouldn't know. I never read anything they write about me anymore; those articles are only good for kindling." Hermione's summaries and Ron's ribbing were quite enough. "So what's the matter, then?"
"I'm simply surprised you would date a man like Pucey."
"Why? There's nothing wrong with Adrian." He was the reason that relationship didn't work, with his twenty four hour shifts and war flashbacks. Adrian accused Harry of not letting him in. It had been unfair to Adrian, but how could he possibly understand what Harry had been through?
"As a student, you would find him being a Slytherin reason enough."
"I'm not my fifteen-year-old self. Although if I'd so much as talked to one decent Slytherin as a student, I'd probably have changed my mind about your house earlier. Erm, no offence. But you have to agree, we didn't have the best relationship then."
"Then?" Snape's thin lips twisted.
"Well, we're doing better now, aren't we?" Harry asked, suddenly awkward.
"Seems to be so." Snape looked at him with an unidentifiable expression that made his palms sweat as if he was a student again, although Harry was sure the reason was quite different now.
A quiet, vaguely-familiar female voice from Poppy's office broke the spell. It asked something, only to be answered by another, male one.
Harry scrambled to his feet, drawing his wand without conscious thought. Had somebody got into the office while he had been away? To his knowledge, it should have been empty.
And empty it was. The voices came from the frames on the walls: a large painting with bookshelves behind Poppy's desk that, in Harry's memory, always lacked an inhabitant, and a darkened portrait of a wizard surrounded by skulls of different size and shape. His starched white collar looked like a plate serving his head, and the fact that he was invariably asleep every time Harry laid his eyes on him did not help that impression.
"Healer Potter." Dilys Dervent, whose portraits he remembered from the Headmaster's office and at the reception at St. Mungo's, gave him a motherly smile and turned to leave the gilded frame.
Harry watched her with, absentmindedly imagining the deluge of people the hospital dealt with each holiday and cowardly wishing the snowstorm would last until after Christmas and spare him the worst shift, when sudden thought came to him. "Madam Dervent?" he called.
"Yes?" She stopped and looked at him questioningly.
"Can you travel to your portrait at the hospital?"
"Perhaps, perhaps not. I don't fancy trying it out with the magical storm around the castle and be stuck in-between."
"In-between?"
She made a vague gesture, obviously unwilling to elaborate. The portraits were usually eager to chat and gossip about each other, but some secrets were closely guarded from the living. Harry knew better than to ask them about the limits of the space inside the painting, their animation and whether Walburga Black had been this mad of a harridan when alive.
"Did he wake up?" Snape asked from Harry's side, startling him. Harry had not heard him come over at all. No wonder the man was so good at prowling the corridors in search of rulebreakers.
Dilys Dervent shook her impressive 18th-century wig. "Yes, not that it did much good. Told us death made bigger holes in his memory than in his brother's doughnuts. And those, I quote, are more hole than a doughnut."
Snape scoffed. "Somehow, I'm not surprised at this non-answer."
With a nod, she stepped out of the frame.
There was a snore from the opposite wall. The ancient wizard had fallen asleep again, cradling a bird-like skull.
"What was she talking about?" Harry asked.
Snape considered Harry for a moment before answering. "I asked Minerva if Albus had given her a vial of Gertrude's Kiss."
"Did he?"
"No. She was rather appalled at the whole idea. Much more than you were, I must say."
Harry shrugged. His glasses had long ago lost that rose tint where the ex-Headmaster was concerned. "So you asked Dumbledore's portrait?"
"He was sleeping—or feigning sleep. Minerva's ire is not a thing to trifle with. I'd very much like to know how she managed to wake him up. I never succeeded during my time in that office unless he himself wished to talk." A frown marred Snape's brow. The year when he was the Headmaster was at the bottom of the list of things he wanted to talk about, Harry supposed.
"Not that it made much difference," he said.
"No, it didn't."
"But wait, why did Dervent even come here at all?"
"Minerva must be worried about you."
"Worried about… Did you tell her about the goblet as well?"
"Of course. She had to be informed of the gravity of the situation."
"You had no right!" Harry fumed. "And she already knows the gravity of the situation; Smith is dead."
"I had every right. This is the kind of information the Headmistress should be aware of," Snape said, his jaw set.
"So McGonagall is going to use her portrait spy network to track my every move now?"
"To make sure I haven't stabbed you in the back yet." McGonagall's suspicion, whether real or only in Snape's mind, must have hurt him deeply.
"Does she really think you had anything to do with this?"
"She says she does not."
Harry was saved from saying some meaningless platitude Snape would not in any way appreciate by a sudden idea. "Portraits!"
"What?" Snape looked at him in confusion.
"They could have seen the murderer going to the Great Hall! Or murderers, because based on what Filch heard, it's just as likely that there are two of them." He recounted what the caretaker had heard before dawn.
Snape listened to him without interruption, with an intent expression reserved for Dumbledore or McGonagall back in the day. Harry realised it was the gravity of information that warranted such attention rather than his own person, but it pleased him to be on receiving end of it all the same.
"It's a possibility," Snape said finally, having doubtlessly committed every tiny detail to his memory. "Of course, any halfway competent criminal would use the Disillusionment Charm or otherwise disguise themselves."
"Well, not every criminal is half-way competent. Although there is a problem." Harry's eagerness dimmed a bit. "The portraits had a bridge night yesterday."
"Fascinating."
"Do you think it means the murderers knew about it?"
"I think avoiding portraits is easier than building a murder attempt around them. Especially if you were the real target."
"We still don't know that for sure," Harry said with more confidence than he felt. "Smith may also have some mortal enemies. I don't want to be as arrogant as you always say I am and claim them all for myself."
"Let's test your theory, Miss Marple," Snape said, striding to the exit.
"Hey! Why do I have to be an old lady?"
They stood side by side, waiting for the moving staircase to bring them to the third floor, where the inhabitants of the frames were flocking. A shiver of excitement from chasing a mystery in these halls ran through him. He turned to Snape to shoot him an impulsive grin, only to find the other man looking at him with an unfamiliar, thoughtful expression. Caught staring, Snape scowled half-heartedly.
The portraits were once again agitated. Their atmosphere was not that different from the night before, as their whispers and stares betrayed excitement and curiosity. A half dozen painted witches and wizards jostled one another in a painting of a severe woman in a bonnet and plain black dress, looking incongruous on a bright red pouffe against the backdrop of yellow curtains.
Harry cleared his throat. "Um, hello. We wanted to ask you if you portraits saw anyone today between five and six in the morning."
"Us portraits? How rude! Who are you to question us?" The woman huffed down her aquiline nose at him. With her long face and dark eyes, she looked very much like an older, female version of Snape, and Harry wondered if she was one of his ancestors.
"Please answer, Antonia," Snape said.
"All the portraits from the Grand Staircase had been in the Tapestry Corridor for our monthly bridge night and did not return to their frames until dawn."
Well, it was worth asking, Harry thought disappointedly.
"However," she continued, and Harry perked up. "I was returning to my own portrait in the Trophy Room—much more distinguished than this one, I must notice—"
"I graciously offered you my seat, and that's what I get in return?" A man in golden puffy pants and stockings sputtered.
"You have to agree, it's a little too... Gryffindor," a pockmarked man leaning on the frame said, looking around.
"Nothing wrong with that, and young Harry Potter here should agree!"
Although Harry did, he dearly wished they would get to the point.
"As I was saying," the woman glared at the interruption. "I decided to return early, as gambling never held much allure for me—"
"Ha! You just lost six times in a row, Prince!" the owner of the portrait said, confirming Harry's suspicions.
"Do you want to hear the story or not?"
"Get to the point." Judging by his voice, Snape was one remark away from a mighty snap.
"No need to get tetchy," she said. "I will recount everything in due time."
"Please do."
"It was the early morn, and I was just going through the second-floor paintings, thinking about the wheel of fortune and its fickle nature, as I saw a man rushing downstairs."
"A man? Did you recognise him?"
"Patience, young man. No, I didn't recognise him, although I'll admit I didn't have a good look at him."
"Was he tall or short? Age? Hair colour? Any distinctive features?" Snape demanded.
"In his late sixties, maybe early seventies, grey hair. It was hard for me to judge his height from up there, but I believe he wasn't overly tall or short. I suppose he looked average."
Harry looked at Snape questioningly. "One of the new teachers?"
"The only other addition to the staff is the Muggle Studies professor, and it's a woman in her fifties." Snape shook his head before turning to the painting. "Thank you for your assistance, Antonia. Did anyone else see anything suspicious?"
The other people in the painting shook their heads.
"Not that we heard of," a woman from the neighbouring portrait said.
"Violet left soon after Antonia, didn't she?" said a goateed man on the other side. "Maybe she can share some gos—information when we finally find her."
"Keep your ears open."
"Will do, Former Headmaster Snape!"
Snape winced at the title but let it slide with a grim nod.
"A grey-haired man in his late sixties?" Harry mused as they went back down to the first floor. "Maybe even older."
After a certain point, it was hard to tell how old a wizard or witch actually were. Griselda Marchbanks was almost two hundred, which did not stop her from chasing down a Healer after he called her an old crone to his colleague and transfiguring them both into parakeets.
"Not to mention, it can be merely a disguise."
"So you don't have any ideas on who it could be?"
"Not at the moment, no."
"Excuse me, Healer Potter, Professor Snape?" David Shaw jumped down from the windowsill in the corridor near the Hospital Wing. He rocked on the heels of his trainers, looking anxiously from under his fringe. "I just heard you talking about an old man—I didn't mean to eavesdrop!"
"Get to the point, Mr. Shaw," said Snape. "Did you see a man like that?"
"Yeah. I was in the library yesterday evening—Professor Babbling let me!—and there he was, in the Dragon Section. I thought you knew about him, I mean, Oliver Wood is here—"
"How did he look like?" Snape cut off David's blabbering.
"He was with his back to me, so I didn't see his face. Skinny; short grey hair; red jumper with reindeer. Maybe around your height. He was looking at the Dragon Directory."
"You could see the book he was reading?" Harry asked.
"I know for sure it was that book, because it breathes fire when you open it. There's probably a trick to open it, like with that other monster book we used to have for the Care of Magical Creatures, but I didn't know it. Singed my eyebrows off, and it took ages for them to grow back again." David shuffled from foot to foot. "So, um, yes. It was definitely that book."
Snape sighed in exasperation. "When exactly did it happen?"
"I'm not sure, close to curfew?" The boy flushed, even more embarrassed than before.
"How close?"
"Half past eleven, maybe?"
"The curfew for the upper years is ten o'clock, Mr. Shaw."
"I'm sorry, Professor Snape. I was staying late doing my Potions homework."
Harry stifled a smile. Had he been so blatantly unconvincing as a student?
Were David to belong to any other house, Snape would be doling harsh punishments right now. But since he was dealing with his Slytherin, he made do with a dark glare. "I'm letting it slide this once, but no nightly escapades in the future. Should I see you wandering about, you'll find yourself occupied with dirty cauldrons and flobberworms in no time. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Professor Snape." David suddenly found his trainers very fascinating.
"With the murderer in the castle, I want to be aware of your whereabouts at all times."
"I'm mostly here and in our Common Room anyway."
"You can avoid the Hospital Wing for the next few days as well."
"I can protect people under my charge!" Harry turned to Snape, incensed. Did he still think of Harry as kid, heedless of danger?
"It's unwise to tempt fate." Snape sent him a death stare for questioning him in front of his student.
"Do you think whoever offed Smith will attack Healer Potter next?" asked David.
Harry made a face at Snape in warning.
"We still don't know who, as you so aptly put, 'offed' Professor Smith and why," Snape said smoothly. "Which means we should exercise the utmost caution."
A house-elf with a Hogwarts crest on his toga appeared in front of them with a pop. "Lunch is served in the staffroom, Professor Snape and Harry Potter sir!"
"Mr. Shaw will have lunch with us there, Dippy."
The elf bowed and disappeared.
Harry thought about Kreacher, who would definitely have a remark or two of his own that he would try and conceal under passive-aggressive subservience. He wondered if he could call Kreacher and ask him for the Marauder's Map but discarded the idea. House-elf magic was strong, but it was still likely dangerous for them to apparate through magical snowstorms, and if Kreacher heard Harry, he would certainly try. The old grumbler had got fond of Harry over the years, and so had Harry if he was honest. He certainly did not want Kreacher to be stuck in that in-between Dilys Dervent had hinted upon earlier.
The table in the middle of the staffroom was expanded to host all the remaining staff, with McGonagall at the head. She eyed Oliver with undisguised disapproval as he entered, cutting in before Harry and Snape. Since the time Harry met him earlier, Oliver had gotten exponentially dirtier: his jumper now was an unidentified shade of muddy brown, and his Quidditch-style trousers were stained all the way down to his trainers. Alicia, already halfway through her bowl of soup, flicked her wand impatiently to clean the worst of the dirt from Oliver's face and hands, embarrassment clear on her face.
"Those boulders are heavy as—incredibly heavy, but I feel like I'm getting somewhere."
"Boulders?" McGonagall frowned.
"He's digging through the passage in the Defence Corridor," Snape said with a hint of irony.
McGonagall's lips twitched. "In that case, good luck with your endeavour, Mr. Wood."
Oliver flopped on the chair next to Alicia, and David hurried to sit next to him, looking like he was going to burst with excitement.
"Hello, Mr. Wood," he said, aiming for nonchalance. He did not keep it for long. "You probably get that all the time, but it's so great you were chosen as a Keeper for England! Puddlemere is the best, and that Starfish defence of yours against the Wasps' Chasers was unbelievable!"
Wood brightened up at the compliment, eyes flashing with the same excitement that Harry remembered from his school years each time someone brought up Quidditch in his vicinity. "I usually would not recommend attempting the Starfish without Sticking, but desperate times call for desperate measures."
"And it paid off! You managed to protect the goalposts even against Hawkshead Attacking Formation!" David was unreservedly gushing now.
"I hope you're not going to attempt anything like that in the upcoming matches, Mr. Shaw," Snape said from his place. "As much as I wish for Slytherin to win the House Cup, I want to see you live to your graduation even more."
"Are you a Keeper too, lad?" Oliver asked. "If you're thinking about a professional career, you have to start working on your signature moves now. Of course," he added hastily at the glares of all the teachers at the table, "Better leave the most dangerous manoeuvres to the professionals."
"Without question," said McGonagall.
"Unless you're Harry Potter, that is. I remember that Wronski Feint you did against Chang, and you didn't even know what the Wronski Feint was!"
David turned to look at Harry sitting at his other side, looking more interested than ever before. "You did that as a student?"
"He sure did!" Oliver said. "It's a pity you didn't continue with Quidditch professionally, Harry." Just like Smith, Oliver lamented Harry's career choice almost every time they met, but unlike Smith, who brought up the Aurors to needle Harry, it came from a place of genuine regret.
Professor Babbling came into the staffroom with the two Gryffindor girls, looking around curiously.
"Come, Calliope, Emily, don't be shy. In these trying times we all have to stay together."
Snape frowned at them, even though he was the one to bring David along.
"The girls were eager to explore, so I thought it would be better for me to keep my eye on them, isn't it right, my dears?"
Both looked down, contrite. Harry suspected they were more than just eager and already attempted some investigating. Harry at their age would.
"Gryffindor," Snape muttered. He appeared to be having similar thoughts.
As two more sets of silverware appeared, Babbling sat the girls down. "Oh goodness, look at that! Everyone is here!"
Everyone except Filch, but if not for their earlier their talk, Harry would never have noticed his absence either. He could not bring himself to feel too guilty about that—he still thought of Filch with distaste even if he pitied him—but now understood the caretaker's resentment better.
"Not everyone, Bathsheda," said Snape. "Some new information came to my attention just now. It seems that we are not alone in the castle."
"Oh?" Flitwick, who was sitting on a stack of books, put away his fork.
In a dry voice, Snape described the man his ancestor's portrait had spotted. Several sharp breaths were drawn around the table.
Flitwick almost toppled from his perch. "Who might that be?" he asked. "I haven't seen anyone like that in Hogwarts since poor Marcellus disappeared in the Bermudas."
"What if it was just a disguise someone here used?" Alicia said with a telling glance at Snape.
The girls eyed everyone with undisguised interest and then shared a private look.
"I've seen this man too!" David said. "Yesterday evening, in the library."
"Why were you even in the library, Mr. Shaw?" McGonagall asked sharply. "It is closed to the students while Madam Pince is absent."
"I gave him my permission, Minerva," said Babbling.
"You should have consulted me first, Bathsheda."
Babbling frowned at McGonagall but said nothing, noticing that the students were following every word closely. "See?" she turned to them instead. "With a stranger lurking in the castle, you must stay in your dorm at all times."
"Professor Snape already told me that," David grumbled.
"The teachers should search the castle, Minerva," said Flitwick.
"I agree," said Snape. "Although if somebody wishes to stay undetected, Hogwarts provides plenty of hiding places."
"I heard there was once a rat man living in Gryffindor Tower for many years," David said. "An animal by day, and a human by night."
One of the girls—Emily, Harry remembered her name—squeaked.
"What a preposterous story," said Babbling.
"Absolutely preposterous." Alicia nodded. "I've heard a lot of legends in my days, but it must be the silliest. We've found your gerbil for the fourth time this year, isn't that right, Emily? And that rodent is a true escape artist. Do you think we'd somehow miss a full grown person there?"
Oliver grinned. "In the end of our seventh year, N.E.W.T.s finally made my friend snap, and he had a full manic episode, telling me that his former rat was actually a person, some guy everybody thought long dead. Later he denied ever saying that. But now that I think about that, once in our fourth year, I dreamed of a strange man rummaging through Percy's trunk, and the next day, Percy couldn't find his mother's fudge. Accused me of eating it, the prat, when I know I didn't do it."
"Oliver!" Alicia exclaimed. "Don't fuel the silly rumours."
"But what if this man's still there?" said Emily. "My hair clips keep going missing!"
"There is no man living in Gryffindor Tower," Snape said. "Least of all interested in stealing your hair clips, Miss Chang."
The girl cowed under his glare.
"But how do you know, Professor? You don't ever come to our Tower." Emily's friend, Calliope, asked. She blushed, but looked defiantly at Snape, proving herself worthy of the house of the bold.
"There was once a rat animagus hiding in our Tower, so that's how the rumours must have started," Harry said before Snape could intimidate the girls even further. "But he was… dealt with long ago."
"It wasn't really Percy's rat, was it?" Oliver asked, worried.
Harry suddenly found his shepherd's pie fascinating.
"Surely it can't be true?" Babbling looked from Harry to McGonagall questioningly.
"I'm afraid that unfortunate episode did take place," the Headmistress conceded. "The security has been tightened since."
Harry wondered what exactly tightening the security entailed, since the Head Healer was fond of saying the very same thing after any major incident in St. Mungo's. Usually that meant bringing the receptionist on duty to tears.
"But… This man was living in our room?" Oliver put away his spoon, looking rather green. "Why would he do that?"
"Not for the reason you are imagining now, Wood, lay your worries to rest," Snape said. "He was simply a Death Eater feigning his death after selling his friends to the Dark Lord and killing twelve Muggles in one explosion."
"Severus!" McGonagall exclaimed. "This is not a topic suitable for the dinner table."
"Why, I'm learning so much right now," Flitwick said. "Despite being Heads of our respective Houses, Pomona and I were always left out of the lion's share of events in the castle during your years here, Harry."
"Those were the turbulent years, but the past should be laid to rest," said McGonagall.
Privately, Harry disagreed. However painful it was to dredge the past up, burying it was a recipe for repeating the same old mistakes, as Hermione loved to say. But it really was not the conversation to have right now.
"Peter Pettigrew is dead and is not going to haunt Gryffindor Tower, as a rat or a human," he said. "Let's focus on the person hiding inside the castle right now."
"I'll devote this evening to meditation and seek to identify this person through my third-eye chakra," Trelawney said in her misty voice.
"You do that, Sybill," said McGonagall.
"There might be a malefactor lurking around, and I'm trying to be helpful. Although I agree with dear Alicia, and it's likely a clever disguise of someone known to us"—Trelawney's eyes landed at Snape—"it's unwise to disregard the danger. Your attitude surprises me, Minerva."
"I will not stand for perpetuating panic and blaming each other," McGonagall said sharply. "I'm going to look into the matter myself. The ghosts will be put on alert. Mr. Shaw, Miss Fawley and Miss Chang, you should stay in your dorms at all times unless accompanied by a member of the staff. If anybody sees this man, I want it reported to me immediately." She flattened the napkin on her lap deliberately. "This shall do for now. From now on and until the end of this meal, I don't want to hear of any strangers supposedly hiding in the castle."
Reluctantly, everybody turned their attention to their food. Oliver, still looking shaken after the rat revelation, embarked on an overly cheerful explanation of a Keeper tactic he had employed last year to David. Flitwick told Trelawney about his recent dream: a Christmas bauble opening to reveal another one, transparent, inside, and Trelawney nodded along, listening intently. Both threw occasional curious glances at Harry, who covertly watched McGonagall. Despite her insistence to have an unbothered meal, she seemed to have no interest in her stew, picking at it with a faraway expression.
