CHAPTER 4 – THE STUDY
Sirius stood up in a
leap and told the kids, "You'll witness it: Sheeba, give me your engagement
ring," in a mockingly solemn tone, he knelt and said, "Sheeba Amapoulos, will
you marry me?"
"Of course I will, you
nitwit, or else I wouldn't have awaited for you for fourteen years."
"Okay, do you believe
that soon I will clear my name?" now, Sirius's tone was serious. Carefully,
Sheeba took off her gloves and touched lightly his hands. As an answer, she
threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
"I guess it's a yes,"
said an annoyed Ron.
Sirius reassumed his
serious tone Harry was already used to, "I'd be glad if you forebode what's
going to happen with him."
Sheeba stepped forward
and touched delicately Harry's face. Harry closed his eyes. His godmother's
hands wrapped his face. They were soft and strangely cold. Nothing happened.
Sheeba was quiet. Harry opened his eyes and fell across her unreadable eyes
staring at his scar.
"Harry," she said,
"there's a problem. You're under a Confusion Spell."
"And this means
exactly that…?"
"That I can tell you
very little about your future."
"And what can you
see?"
"Only you and the Dark
Lord."
"Fighting?"
"No, not fighting.
Falling."
"Where?"
"I don't know, a chasm
maybe."
"When?"
"I can't tell exactly.
It may be soon."
"And… will I die?"
"I don't know."
Silence fell heavily
over everybody at the room. All the agreeable atmosphere of moments before
dissipate. Harry smirked and took his godmother's hand slowly off from his
face. "Sheeba, don't get annoyed, it's not the first time my perspectives
aren't good ones. At least you don't know if I'm going to die or not, what
makes me start from scratch… all I can do now is being careful with high
places."
"Harry," Sirius laid a
hand on Harry's shoulder, "Don't be worried. You know I'll always keep an eye
on you. If you fall in a chasm, I swear I'll reach you, no matter what, even if
it's the last thing I do."
"I know Sirius, I know
you… Sheeba, would you mind if from now on I acted like Viviane Lake? I think I
don't want to know anything else about my future. You won't be upset, will
you?"
"Not at all, Harry, I
don't mind those things. I just want to know who did this to you."
"Why?"
"Because I can bet it
was somebody from Hogwarts," a cold glow flashed in Sheeba's eyes, "And I sure
will find out who it was."
After the frustration
Sheeba's prediction caused, nobody else at the room felt much enlivened, except
for Smiley, who was waling around offering the contents of a tray full of
exotic foods. Everybody was not enlivened enough, so the tray was left
untouched.
Until an unquiet
Sirius said, "Sheeba, we need to do something today. I'm going to London
tomorrow to meet Moony, and the more we progress today, the more we'll be able to protect him. We can talk to
Dumbledore; I can go as a dog."
"Sirius, Dumbledore
isn't at Hogwarts," Sheeba said.
"What do you mean by
'he's not at Hogwarts'?" Ron was suspicious, "He would never leave Hogwarts in
the middle of a school year!"
"Today, he needed to
go out, and he'll just be back in about two days."
"How can you know it
without touching him?" Hermione asked in her usual inquisitive air.
Sheeba stood up and
took her want out of her robes. Approaching a wall, she said, "I'll show you,"
she touched the wall with her wand, "Doorperson, wake up!"
A door sprung up on
the wall. It was a wooded door with a huge face chiseled in its center. The
face was deep asleep, snoring. Sheeba touched its nose with her wand and it
opened its somnolent eyes, twinkling. Then, it seemed to be getting scared and
said, in a solid German accent, "Frau Sheepa! Good morning! Be welcomed to your
Study! Who are these people?" the face seemed suspicious, "Ma'am knows the
rules…"
"They're my guests,
Doorperson! How many times do I have to tell you…"
"To suspect the other
people, not you ma'am., I know, but they are the others!"
"I'm her fiancé! Are
you going to argue with me?" Sirius had a threatening look on his face.
"Okay," the wooded
face sighed, "What is the use of German technology if they don't respect the
rules…" it continued grouching when they stepped through the door.
"German technology!"
Sheeba said as she entered the completely dark room, "It's a second-handed
door. Okay, then. Blaze!"
"Yes, Miss Amapoulos?"
a hoarse voice asked in the dark.
"Light!"
"Ambient or study
light?"
"Study light."
Instantly, the room
was completely illuminated. On the contrary of what Harry was thinking, it was
not a narrow room, but a huge hall that resembled a laboratory. On the walls,
the shelves reached the ceiling, full of every shapes vials, in which there was
every kind of common objects. Every vial had a label with a name written.
"Thank you, Blaze," as
Sheeba said this, one of the ceiling's lamps flashed repeatedly, "These are my
files. Each vial contains an object that belonged to the person whose name's
written on the label. The last time I counted, there was over twenty thousand
vials."
"And how did you get
these things?" Ron asked suspiciously as he looked at a blood stained knife
inside a vial.
"Some of them are the
result of ten years of work at the Muggle police, as this knife you're looking
at. It belonged to a psychopathic murderer. I keep it here in case he tries to
run away from jail. Other things are sent to me by disappeared wizards'
relatives for me to find them. I do it as a freelance job. I also have objects
from wizards who want to be monitored and others, I simply stole from people I
needed to monitor."
Hermione cast her a
glance as if Sheeba had already said any atrocity. Then, Harry understood the
presence of a vial that contained a serpent ring and a label that had the
inscription: Severus Snape.
"Albus Dumbledore!"
said Sheeba and immediately, a vial containing a long red and gold quill
(phoenix's feather, thought Harry) flied from one of the shelves, laying gently
on her hand. Sheeba opened it and took out the object. She walked towards a
craftsman bench where there was a stone that Harry instantly recognized: a
Pensieve.
"Where is Albus
Dumbledore?" Sheeba asked, and at the same moment, the Pensieve showed shook
itself and showed a room with an enormous round table which Dumbledore was
seating at, along with many other wizards, in a conference. Among them, Harry
could see the Auror Mad-Eye Moody and, to his great surprise, his ex-teacher, Professor
Remus Lupin.
Sheeba went on, "Where
is he going after this?" the Pensieve showed Dumbledore entering the Ministry
of Magic's building, "And where is he going the day after next?" the Pensieve
shook itself again and showed Dumbledore at his office, talking to somebody. He
looked very serious and was explaining that he did not want that person to
leave the school for absolutely anything in the world. The person he was
talking to did not become visible. In his/her place, there was a blot, and when
he/she talked to Dumbledore, one could not listen to his/her voice. When the
Headmaster talked to this person by what would be his/her name, his voice
simply vanished.
"The other person at
Dumbledore's office is under the Confusion Spell," Sheeba said seriously,
"That's why he or she isn't appearing in the Pensieve."
"So it must be Harry!"
exclaimed a triumphant Ron Weasley.
"In two days, I know
I'll be in trouble," Harry looked very disheartened.
"Not necessarily,
Harry," Sirius looked straight at his
godson, "Don't you think this person can be also the one who cast this
Confusion Spell on you?"
"Or even another
person. With me around, many parents may have put this Spell on their
children…"
"Isn't it Dark Magic?"
asked a startled Hermione.
"No. Actually, it's
even a way of protection to some people. It's simply the way some wizards find
to have more privacy. There's no big deal in not wanting to know the future."
"But whoever cast this
spell at me," said Harry, "isn't thinking about keeping my privacy. Absolutely
not."
"Listen," said Sirius
seriously, "It's time for you to go back to Hogwarts. I'm going to London
tomorrow, but Sheeba will be here. I assure you she's going to find a way to
discover who cast this spell at you. I just want you all to keep calm and to be
away from trouble, okay?"
"You aren't exactly
the best person to give this kind of advice," Sheeba laughed before Sirius's
startled face.
To be continued…