"Gingerbread house with a pretzel fence," Draco said at the entrance to Dumbledore's office.
Ginny stood one step in front of Draco as the stone stairs moaned and twisted up to the second floor entrance of Dumbledore's office; once at the second floor, Ginny gave a light knock to the old, heavy wooden door. The door opened and there stood Professor Dumbledore with his normal smile and devilishly twinkling eyes.
"Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, how lovely of you to join us," he said while ushering them in with a sweep of his hand.
"Good Morning Professor Dumbledore…," Ginny said as she walked past him into the office.
"Morning…," Draco said as he followed Ginny into the room.
Ginny did a quick visual sweep of the room and noticed that the room was already quite full.
Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall sat directly next to Dumbledore's desk. Harry, Hermione and Ron were sitting on the large leather sofa on the far wall. An extremely pale man, with coal colored hair, was sitting on the leather love seat. He was dressed all in black and was wearing dark UV blocking, aviator style sunglasses. He gave a nod at Ginny's glance.
He looks like Professor Snape, Ginny thought. Sitting beside the man on the love seat was Charlie Weasley. Ginny was in shock. Charlie had been unable to attend Bill's funeral much to her and her families' disappointment. Her dad had told the family that he was away from Romania on business and unable to be contacted.
Ginny gave a slight squeal. She ran over to him, which gave him just enough time to stand up, and threw her arms around his neck. She hugged him tightly and he returned the enthusiastic embrace.
Draco walked up behind the hugging siblings and waited for them to part. When they did, he held out his hand to Charlie and they good naturedly shook hands.
Dumbledore, shortly there after, asked them to sit down in the leather wingback chairs directly in front of his massive desk. They took their seats and the meeting began.
"We have reason to believe that Merlin has returned. Based on information from Mr. Snape here," Dumbledore gestured towards the man on the love seat, "we know that an incredibly large magical surge occurred when and where Bill Weasley was attacked. I sent Professors Snape and McGonagall to Northern Scotland the next day to ask questions. Not many people saw anything. One gentleman remembered Bill leaving with a lady who is a regular of the bar. He said that everything seemed normal when they left. What we don't have is a timeframe from when they left to the attack on Bill. Mr. Snape, would you be so kind as to pick up here?"
Mr. Snape pulled a rolled parchment from the inside breast pocket of his ankle length coat. He untied the leather cord and the parchment unrolled. It was at least four feet in length. He cleared his throat and began.
"Certainly, Headmaster Dumbledore…after speaking with several of the locals in the town, I broadened my search. We know, that in open areas such as this area is, many people travel miles to visit the next town. I spoke to several people and they mentioned seeing a very exotic sports car that night…a very rare sports car. I found that it belongs to a Miss Amberlin Mossuri. I, of course, immediately did a thorough search on her. She is a young Countess from Italy. Her father and mother were recently killed in a hunting accident in Africa. On a safari trip no less, apparently it was a violent and bloody death…Anyway, once she came into her inheritance, she fired the entire staff in all of their Italian villas and moved to a castle in Northern Scotland. She has been there ever since. She is the only human there. She keeps company with three House Elves. She only leaves the castle on Friday nights. And then, she only goes to the bar, has a few drinks and then returns to the castle. Miss Mossuri is a tall, willowy blonde with blue eyes. She is an extremely educated woman and runs her own trust with her father's blessing. She graduated from Oxford with a Doctorate in Macro Economics. She dabbles in all types of commodities. As best as anyone can tell, she is worth just over three billion dollars mostly because of good business deals and decisions that she made. When I showed the picture to the bartender at the pub, he assured me that she was the one that left with Bill Weasley that night. Just before Apparating for this meeting, I tried to meet with Miss Mossuri, but was denied. That is all I have, sir."
Dumbledore nodded and thanked Mr. Snape for all of his hard work.
Dumbledore looked to Charlie and said, "Charlie…"
Charlie stood up and removed his wand from the inside his robes. Once it was in his right (and wand) hand, he dug into the pocket of his jeans with his left hand. He pulled out what looked to be some kind of token made of metal. He tapped the end of his wand to the token four times and said, "Reverto."
The token transformed into about 20 index cards. Charlie quickly flipped through them and began,
"To be honest, I do not have much more than Austerus. I do know that Miss Mossuri has no other immediate family. She seems to have absolutely no outside contact. There are no muggle communication devices in the castle at all; at least according to the bloke I spoke to that works in the Muggle Relations Department."
"That is quite odd…," Dumbledore said while scratching his beard.
"Albus why would that be odd? Most magical households do not have any muggle communication devices…," Professor McGonagall sagely said.
"You are correct, Minerva. However, there is more to tell. Charlie was called in for a reason. Please forgive my interruption. Please continue, my dear boy."
Charlie gave him a smile and continued, "Yes, I was definitely called in for a reason."
Charlie reached into his pocket again and this time recovered a normal looking shilling. He repeated the same wand actions and words as before and in his hand was a small, copper pyramid that looked to be very well used. There were ding marks all over the copper surface and even some tarnish.
He handed the pyramid to Professor Dumbledore; who laid it on the center of his desk. Dumbledore withdrew his wand from within the sleeve of his robe and placed the tip to the top of the copper pyramid.
"Edisserto…," Dumbledore said.
The pyramid's three sides bent open and lowered themselves to the table. In the center of the pyramid was a black orb. The orb levitated to about a half a meter off the table and the side closed to complete the pyramid again. Then, the orb lowered slowly and perched itself on the tip of the pyramid. The black orb began emitting pulses of light. The light flew to the end of Dumbledore's wand and began turning it all the colors of the rainbow. This continued for several minutes. Once the orb was finished emitting pulses of light it was absorbed by the copper pyramid. Dumbledore took his flashing wand and turned it towards the fireplace.
He aimed above the stone mantle and said again, "Edisserto…"
This time, his wand began emitting flashes of light onto the light colored stone. However, this time it was clear that the flashes were colliding together to create an image. After a mere ten seconds, a face began to form. After another thirty seconds, the image was complete. Pictured on the stone wall was the head shot of an incredibly beautiful blonde woman with the coldest blue eyes any of them had ever seen. Her features could have been easily pulled directly from an ancient Greek Goddess Statue.
Dumbledore tapped his wand on his desk and the image began morphing into an active picture. Currently, the woman from the headshot was sleeping in a huge four poster bed draped in white baroque lace.
"This is like Muggle security systems!" Hermione exclaimed.
"What?" Ron and Draco asked simultaneously.
"A security system is what muggles use to catch people doing elicit things. This must be the wizard's version. Isn't that correct, Professor Dumbledore?"
"Right as usual, Miss Granger," he responded with a wink.
"So, that means we have a way to keep an eye on the daily habits of this woman!" Hermione remarked.
"Bloody brilliant that is…," Ron said.
'Thank you for that wonderful insight Mr. Weasley." Professor McGonagall said in her typical stern voice. This earned a few chuckles from the people in the room.
"Professor Dumbledore, if I may, I have a couple of questions." Ginny asked.
"Please, Mrs. Malfoy, ask your questions."
"Does anyone else think it is odd that she is still sleeping at 11 in the morning? And, why is that room so dark? Why is there not any sunlight anywhere?"
"Those are very astute questions, Mrs. Malfoy." Professor Snape responded and all heads turned to gape at the Professor in shock; then he finished his comment, "Mr. Malfoy must be rubbing off on you."
Draco and Ginny smirked at Professor Snape. He returned the smirk.
After that touching moment between the Slytherin Head of House, his prize student and his wife, Mr. Snape cleared his throat and began, "Mrs. Malfoy, your reasoning capabilities seem to be quite remarkable. Why don't you tell us what you think about the questions you asked?"
Ginny looked around the room. Each person did seem to be waiting to hear what she had to say, so she said, "I think she is a vampire and nothing you have found out about her denies that. She is sleeping in the middle of the day. There is no sunlight in the room. She is known to only come out at night. Do we, by chance, know if there have been any other deaths on one of her nights out?"
"Very bright, Mrs. Malfoy," Mr. Snape affirmed, "Very bright indeed. This is why we have set up the hidden monitoring system; we need to be able to, without a doubt, tie the deaths to her leaving the castle. So, we sit and we wait. She moves. We move. Until then, we wait."
When he stopped speaking, he gave Ginny, Draco and Professor Dumbledore a very meaningful glance.
"Is it possible she is in league with Merlin?" Draco asked.
"Very possible…," Dumbledore assured him, "As Mr. Snape has said, we wait for her to make her next move. So, that we cannot miss anything, I have charmed the monitoring system to follow her around under an invisibility charm and a tracking charm. I have also created a link between the monitoring system and these muggle looking watches. Each one of us here will be given one and should anything major occur; the watches will tighten on your arm and begin warming until you either arrive in this office or wherever I am. Should I be away from Hogwarts, you will automatically be sent to me. The watch will act as the port key. Is there anything else?"
Everyone in the room shook their heads in a negative manner.
Dumbledore nodded and said, "Very well then, you are all free to leave after you have received your muggle watch and put it on."
Harry, Hermione and Ron got their watches and told Ginny and Draco that they would wait for them outside. Ginny and Draco nodded.
Charlie got his watch, put it on, said goodbye to Ginny with a bear hug and gave Draco a hearty slap on the back. He stuck his head out the door and said a goodbye to Harry, Hermione and Ron. He walked back to the fireplace and flooed to Diagon Alley.
McGonagall received her watch next, put it on and left the room with a stiff nod.
Professor Snape and Mr. Snape received their watches and put them on. They motioned for Ginny and Draco to do the same.
When they got to the side table they were sitting on, Ginny and Draco noticed that there were only two left and that they were very different. One was bright pink and had a blond girl on it and some words that said 'Barbie." The other was grey and had a robot on it. The words 'Transformers…more than meets the eye' was written across the band. Draco handed the pink one to Ginny and put the grey one on.
"Where does he find this stuff?" Draco leaned over and whispered into Ginny's left ear.
"I think this might be muggle stuff. I think it is kind of cute." Ginny whispered back.
"Oh really? How about the next time you smoke some wacky weed, you share?" he whispered back.
Ginny giggled and smacked him the back of his head. "You can be so goofy!"
Draco chuckled and dodged Ginny's hand.
Professor Snape cleared his throat and caught their attention. He and Mr. Snape were watching them intently.
"Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, may we speak to you a moment?"
"Of course, Professor Snape," Draco responded.
"Very well, follow me," with that said, he turned, his black robes billowing around him. Mr. Snape turned and his coal black robes did the same.
Ginny turned to Draco and asked a silent question with the arching of an eyebrow. Draco just shrugged and began following his Head of House. Not having any other choice, Ginny did the same.
A/N: I do NOT own any rights to Barbie or Transformers. Please forgive me; I simply could not resist! :)