Hello, everyone, here I am again. If the last chapter was perhaps a bit slow and without action, this one will make up for it, I hope. Also, as you'll se, it lays the foundation for the future AU development, which will only fully develop in the sequel that I hope to start on soon.

Question to the attentive reader: Where is the centaur's remark about the planets taken from?

Chapter 22 Gabie's Gambols

March 1st, 1995

It's Monday, and normal lessons begin again. I've been worrying about Gabie. She is too young to join me in my lessons, and I'm afraid she'll get bored. But she laughed at me when I told her about it.

"Don't worry," she said with that sweet smile of hers. "I'll be fine. It's a lot better than being at home, I can tell you. So let's just enjoy it while it lasts."

She's right, of course. Strange that Maman hasn't said anything about wanting her to come back.

So I went to Maxime and asked her if she could help me get a couple of books that might be suitable for Gabie. It's a good thing she is such a great reader at her age.

Maxime was actually quite touched when I told her, something I've hardly ever seen her, and very nicely came up with a couple of stories about famous magical persons from all ages, from Medea to - and it gave me some shock, - Harry Potter.

Gabie squealed with delight when I pointed this out to her, and buried herself in it right away.

+++

It seems the teachers want to make up for the time lost with the Second Task, and have piled a lot of homework on us. Luckily, Gabie has not complained about being bored or lonely, so I guess it's all right. But she keeps talking about Harry all the time; she has read everything about him that she has been able to find, and I fear she'll pester him with questions after dinner. It's a piece of luck she's too young for me to be jealous of her...

+++

Sure enough, after dinner she immediately ran up to Harry, almost bursting with questions. She quite forgot that she couldn't talk to him without me interpreting for her, and started babbling at him in French.

"Hey, wait a minute!" he laughed. "I'm no good at French, you know, hopeless, even." He looked around, and caught my eye. "Hey, Fleur, won't you come over? We're having some communications problems here."

I felt myself blush like a stupid schoolgirl (well, I guess I AM a schoolgirl, and as for stupid, - well, I just don't know) and went over to him and his friends.

We spent the next half hour or so with Gabie asking Harry a million questions, more or less from the day he was born until yesterday, and I was amazed at the patience with which he answered her. I'm quite sure if anybody else, - anybody his own age, that is, - had badgered him like this, he'd have lost patience long ago. After all, I know how touchy he can be when it comes to the The-Boy-Who-Lived part. But he answered even the silliest question she could think of, and I felt my heart going out to him for treating her so kindly. He did not even sound condescending in his answers, like teenagers tend to be when talking to small children, just friendly and patient, with a smile on his lips, and in those amazing eyes of his.

There were several things I had not known. What astonished me most was his account of his early childhood with his muggle relatives. I just can't believe how they treated him all those ten years. After his parents had been murdered by Vous-savez-qui, he was brought up by them, as they were the only relatives he had, and apparently there is some sort of security charm connected with them and their house; he doesn't know much about this himself, but this is what seems to be at the bottom of it. Those horrible muggles treated him worse than an animal, kept him in a cupboard under the stairs until his eleventh birthday, and never gave him so much as a hug! I find it almost impossible to imagine! (Though, come to think of it, when I try to remember when I got my last hug from my own mother...) It made me want to hold and comfort him, hearing about those years he spent in that awful family, always given to understand he was unwanted, a nuisance, and a freak.

Considering this perfectly miserable setting, I was surprised to hear the light-hearted joking tones in which he described how he finally got his Hogwarts letter. And it was really a funny story - how his uncle and aunt tried to run from the letters, and how they were finally caught up by Hagrid (the Hogwarts gamekeeper, who is so very similar to Maxime in many ways). I can really appreciate his feelings about the magical world, and that he considers it to be his real home. And I almost cried when he told us how the Weasleys were the first real family for him that he had ever known. The most astonishing thing about it all was, though, how he managed to tell us all this without ever sounding as bitter as I would have expected him to be.

"They can't help it, I suppose," he said, after telling us how he'd been locked in that cupboard under the stairs for hours, just because his hair had grown back over night after they had had it cut at the muggle barber's. "They are horrified by anything even remotely different from their own small world..."

All during this, and it was quite exhausting to keep interpreting it; I noticed how Hermione was becoming more and more restless, shooting sideways glances at Ron all the time. Ron, on the other hand, was unusually quiet, as if harbouring a secret grudge. Now I think he is the kind of person that can get easily annoyed at just about anything, so I don't expect there is anything serious in it, but it was strange in a way. I also noticed how Hermione kept watching him anxiously, and how she seemed to get more impatient the longer Gabie's interrogation of Harry lasted.

Sensing all this, I finally said, "I'm afraid it's getting late, we'd better get back to the carriage." And although Gabie no doubt would have carried on for hours, I could get her to agree.

"Harry is great," Gabie muttered sleepily when I tucked her in. "You're a lucky girl, Fleur."

She was fast asleep at once, so I did not comment on that remark.

Hermione's relief was almost tangible when we said our goodnights, I wonder why.

March 2nd, 1995

The mystery of Ron's and Hermione's behaviour has been cleared up. When I went up to the library in the afternoon to see if I could find something more reliable and unbiased about Veela descendants, I came across Hermione (not really surprising), and asked her quite bluntly what had been the matter.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking embarrassed. "Of course you noticed. It was only - well, it was Ron's birthday, and we had prepared a surprise party for him in the common room. So we pretended to have forgotten, and that's why he looked so frustrated. And I was afraid if Harry and your sister were going on like that the others would get bored and leave. So that's why."

"I see," I said, trying to sound indifferent although it hurt to feel excluded. But of course I can understand her; after all the examples of Ron's susceptibility to the Veela charm, or perhaps pretty girls in general (I remember how he looked at Hermione at the Ball, and there was absolutely no Veela charm about her), the last thing she wanted was the chance of something like that happening at a party she had organised.

For that reason, I did not mention Ron's birthday when I met him and Harry at dinner, and made a point of staying with Cho and Cedric. This evening, Gabie's fascination with Harry had already cooled down, and she was happy enough to play Exploding Snap with us.

March 3rd, 1995

Another quiet and happy day, and still no owl from Maman for Gabie to return home. Well, she is happy enough here, and as far as we are concerned, she might just as well stay until the third task.

March 5th, 1995

It's Friday already, and I can hardly believe it that it's already been ten days since the task. Still no news from home, thankfully.

In the evening, Cho showed me a magazine called Witch Weekly, the leading tabloid of Britain. (Funny how the name means exactly the same as Semaine Sorciere, but they are probably run by the same international corporation.)

"Look," she said, grinning at me widely. "There's nothing these journalists will stop at."

The article she pointed out to me is about Harry, and was written - of course - by that awful Skeeter woman. It's entitled Harry Potter's secret heartache and accuses Hermione of  "toying with the affections" of Harry and Viktor Krum. And, not enough, it also insinuates she might be using love potions for this purpose.

"It's a marvel they haven't made her a Veela," I laughed, handing the paper back. "How absurd! I wonder how she's taking it."

But apparently Hermione considered the whole thing as a huge joke, and when I asked her after dinner, she just laughed. "Well, I know it's plain rubbish, so why should I care? Let them write whatever they want in their miserable rag. What do I care?"

Harry, however, seemed preoccupied and deep in thought. He just said hello rather absentmindedly to Gabie and me, and disappeared from the Hall immediately after dinner. I wonder what can be the matter with him.

I'm pleased to note that there is still no trace of the Veela charm returning.

March 6th, 1995

Today is another Hogsmeade Saturday for the Hogwarts students, and I'll go and take Gabie there again. I expect today the place will be a lot livelier than last Sunday. I expect Harry and his friends will be there too, but I didn't like to ask, as Harry still shows this strange behaviour, as if he was deeply worried and exhilarated about it at the same time. I feel sad, to be honest, that he won't tell me anything about it, but then I keep telling myself there is no real reason why he should. He doesn't know me, really, and if it is an important secret as it obviously is, there would be no sense at all in telling me.

+++

Indeed, we saw the three of them walking down the road towards the village ahead of us, and I was surprised to see Harry lugging a huge backpack along that was obviously very heavy. Also, I could not deny there was something almost furtive about them, as they kept looking around them all along the path. Then however, they disappeared in the clothes shop - Gladrags (I always feel that the second part is a very true description of their goods), and we lost sight of them. Gabie wanted to go in there, too, but I had a feeling that Harry would not have been too happy seeing us, so I persuaded to have another tea (not even Gabie with her strange taste for the English breakfast likes the kind of "coffee" they are making there) and cake at the small tea shop off the main road. There we found Cho and Cedric at one of the tables, and spent some time chatting with them. But somehow I had a feeling they would prefer to be alone, and so we didn't stay long.

When we left and returned to the High Street, we directly ran into Harry and his friends; they were accompanied by a large shaggy black dog that seemed to be especially attached to Harry, as it was constantly gambolling around him, jumping up at him, and trying to lick his face.

"Hello," Harry said when he saw us emerge from the side street. He was trying to sound cheerful and easygoing, but I could tell quite clearly that he was not as light-hearted as he tried to appear. I noticed that his backpack, which had been so very heavy before, was now apparently empty.

The dog stopped, looked at us, and then came trotting over and started sniffing at us. I was not sure what to do for a moment, it was a very big dog, after all, its head not much lower than Gabie's, but it kept wagging its tail, and had a generally friendly air about it.

"This is old Snuffles," Harry said, and I was glad to see his happy grin as he said it. "We're good friends, aren't we, Snuffles, old boy?" And as if he had understood every word, the dog returned to him, doing his best to push him over.

"I never knew..." I started. "I mean, where did you get him? Is he yours?"

"Oh, you might as well say that I am his," Harry laughed, "or that he got me..."

"You see, Harry was kind of adopted by Snuffles," Hermione chimed in, and again I had the weird feeling from the way the dog was wagging his tail that he understood exactly what everyone was talking about. "We met him in the street some weeks ago, and since then he always finds us when we are here. He must be a stray, I don't think he belongs to anybody..."

"This seems to be likely," I told her. "He isn't a well-fed dog, to say the least, and look at the state of his fur - sorry," I added hastily to the dog, who had given a low growl at this description. "But he's a strange dog," I continued. "He seems to understand everything I say - does he have any magical qualities?"

"None that we know of," she said, perhaps a bit too hurriedly, and I didn't miss the quick glance she shot Harry, either. "He's just a normal dog, nothing special about him at all."

If I had been in doubt before, I was absolutely convinced now. There is something about that dog, and Harry and his friends are not going to let anyone in on the secret. However I knew better than to pursue the subject any further. At any rate, he seemed to be a friendly dog; he was jumping round Gabie, barking at her, and she was enjoying herself greatly.

On our way back, we stopped for some butterbeers at The Three Broomsticks. The place was quite full, mostly with Hogwarts students. The noise, however, died down almost completely, to be replaced by a dull murmur. Probably for the first time ever, people's eyes were not on me on entering a room; everyone was staring at Hermione, and soon the volume of the murmurs increased. It was probably unfair, but I enjoyed it immensely not to be the centre of attention for once.

"The article!" Ron whispered to her fiercely. "I warned you not to annoy that old hag!"

"So what?" she replied, holding her head high. "Let them stare all they want, I don't - "

"Ah, the mudblood and her followers!" The pale blond boy that I had observed in the pub earlier was approaching, a nasty leer in his face. "Testing a new love potion on half-breeds, are you?" He shot Gabie and me a spiteful look.

"Shut up, Malfoy," snarled Harry, before I had even quite understood that "half-breed" was meant for me and my sister. "We know you are a rotten customer, and I don't even mind any more. But you might at least keep a civil tongue towards our foreign guests."

While talking, he reached into his robes for his wand, and I saw Ron and Hermione had theirs ready, too. A warm and happy feeling rose inside me, as I heard Harry say this.

"Quarter-breed, if you must know," I addressed the blond boy, putting on my haughtiest manner, the icicles in my voice almost tangible. "And looking at YOU-" I prolonged the word, - "I'd not bet much on YOU being so pure-blood as you seem to think."

He seemed to go even paler than he was, tried to say something but then turned to leave. Looking at the back of his retreating head, I could not resist.

"Caput florealis!" I muttered, and was satisfied to see flowers of different sorts and colours sprout from his head.

The others started laughing; the Malfoy guy looked back at us furiously, but at a loss concerning the reason of our merriment.

"That's the beauty of this charm," I told them. "You don't feel anything on your head at all, so unless someone points it out to you, you won't have a clue what's happened."

"What did you mean, him not being so pure-blood as he thinks?" Hermione inquired. "There's hardly a wizarding family prouder of their blood-line than the Malfoys."

"Just look at him," I told them. "That hair, almost silver - doesn't it remind you of something, or someone for that matter?"

"You don't mean- " Hermione's eyes were wide, "he. he's part Veela himself?"

"I may be wrong, of course, but remember his reaction. I'm pretty sure there's something - how's that phrase? - fishy about him. I did seem to hit a nerve with him. Anyway, he needn't even be part Veela, in fact he's perhaps too pale for that, although you never know. But I'm quite sure Mr Draco Malfoy is not as pure-blood as he wants everyone to believe."

"But how come nobody ever thought of it? I mean, everyone knows they are one of the oldest pure-blood families of Britain, go back a thousand years or more!"

"I can't tell you, but money and power can do a lot of things, you know. I take it they are wealthy?"

"Stinking rich," grumbled Ron, and Harry added, "And mean like hell."

"So threats and bribes could have worked easily enough," Hermione mused. "If we could only find out if there's really anything in this."

"Ah, just forget it," Harry told her. "He's not worth it, really."

+++

At dinner, I tried to watch Malfoy, but the Slytherin table is too far off, and he was constantly in the company of those two thug-like guys who seem to be something like bodyguards for him, so I could not really notice anything special about his behaviour.

Back in the carriage, Margaux told Iphigenie and me about her date with another Hogwarts student, but I only half listened to her, the afternoons events were too strong on my mind. I wonder if I'll find out more about Harry's secret.

March 8th, 1995

Another week of school has started. In spite of having to spend much time on her own while I'm doing schoolwork, Gabie is still happy to stay with me and we avoid the question of when she has to go back.

+++

At dinner, Cho told me that at breakfast something nasty had happened.

"Remember that article?" she began. "Well, people actually believe it, this morning Hermione got some hate mail, calling her names, and saying how horrible she was.  But one of them was not as harmless, it contained bubotuber pus, and she had to spend all morning in the hospital wing, getting her hands seen to."

And indeed, when I looked over to the Gryffindor table, I saw that her hands were heavily bandaged. I do hope she'll be careful with her mail in the next few days.

I tried to find out something about the strange dog from Cho, but she has never seen him in the village. But she also thinks it is possible that there is something special about him.

March 10th, 1995

Gabie got lost and found again! But I'm just too exhausted to write anything now, it will have to wait until tomorrow.

March 11th, 1995

I should have been warned, but of course I had completely forgotten how Gabie's eyes had lit up when I had told her about there being unicorns in the Forbidden Forest.

After lunch, Iphigenie, Margaux and I left her in our room, where she was busy playing with several models of magical creatures that Maxime had given to her, and went to the common room, where we had to attend another deadly boring class of Histoire de Magique. When, after the lesson, we returned to our room to deposit our books, Gabie was not there. We did not think anything of it at first, and went through the dormitories of the others, looking for her, but nobody had seen her.

"I suppose she'll be playing outside," Margaux said, "It's a fine day."

So we went outside, and around the carriage, but she was nowhere to be seen. I was more annoyed than worried at this.

"She'll have seen something that caught her attention, and gone over for a closer look," I said to my friends. "I'll have something to say to her when we find her!"

"She's so interested in magical creatures, isn't she?" practical minded Iphigenie said. "So perhaps she's somewhere near the gamekeeper's place? He's supposed to have several interesting specimen."

We wandered over to the gamekeeper's hut and I knocked.

Loud barking inside - from the sound of it it had to be an enormous dog. But I grabbed my wand tighter and knocked again.

The door opened and the huge figure of Hagrid, the gamekeeper, appeared. And I had been right, that dog WAS huge, too, like his master.

Hagrid IS intimidating to look at, and I could see my two friends shrink back. But I knew from Harry that he is really a very friendly person, so I asked right away if he had seen my sister anywhere.

"Aye," he said, and I had a hard time understanding the dialect he speaks. "Must be over there, with the nifflers."

And he pointed rather vaguely towards an enclosure a short distance away.

I had no idea what nifflers were, but I went over to the enclosure, my friends trailing after me. The enclosure contained several small animals that looked more or less like overgrown moles and were quite pretty to look at, but there was no sign of  my sister.

Dusk was beginning to set, and in the slowly fading light the dark edge of the forbidden forest was gradually taking on a menacing look. I started to feel uneasy.

"What do we do now?" Margaux asked uncertainly.

I stood musing for some time. Suddenly I remembered something my grandmother had told me when I had been given my wand with her hair in it: With the help of a spell, it would always lead me to a person with Veela blood.

"Wait!" I told her, groping for my wand in my robes. "This will help us find her! Relocare!"

The tip of my wand started to glow silvery white, and I felt a distinct pull. It wasn't a great surprise any more, although still not a welcome revelation, that the pull was towards the forest.

"She's in the forest," I told my friends, rather unnecessarily. "Listen, I can't expect you to go in there with me-"

"Rubbish!" Iphigenie said at once, "Of course we'll go with you - won't we?"

Margaux nodded grimly. "Just see if you can stop me."

"But we should tell someone first," the ever practical Iphigenie said. "Why not just yell over at what's-his-name-"

"Hagrid. Yes, that's a clever idea. He's still there in front of his hut." And I shouted as loud as I could to catch his attention and pointed towards the forest. I couldn't tell if he'd understood, but I was anxious to find Gabie before dark, and so I turned and walked towards the forest, my two friends behind me, all of us with our wands ready.

Looking back now, I see it was a stupid thing to do, it would have been much more sensible to get help, especially someone who knew the forest,  but I was too worried to think clearly, and this must have clouded the others' judgement, too.

Anyway, my wand kept pulling me along, and soon we were marching along a narrow path between the high trees. The light was rapidly fading now, and the space between the huge trunks was already absolutely black. Strange sounds were all around us, voices of unseen creatures, the creaking of twigs and rustling of leaves.

It was quite impossible, perhaps because of the magic of the forest, to judge any time or distance that we covered, but at any rate it was soon completely dark, with just the light of the moon slightly relieving the blackness of our path. The weak glow of our wands only made the darkness of the trees more impenetrable.

Suddenly there was a new sound in the darkness ahead of us. We stopped and stood still to listen.

"It's human voices," Iphigenie whispered.

"Must be riders - I think I hear the sound of hooves," Margaux added. "Strange, riders in a dense forest like this?"

"Whatever, keep your wands ready and let's go on!" I said, trying to steady my voice.

Behind a bend in the path we suddenly found ourselves in a large clearing that had a grassy ground, in contrast to the mossy and sandy path. And in that clearing there were -

"Centaurs!" I exclaimed, forgetting to keep my voice down.

Centaurs, about ten of them, apparently engaged with watching the skies. Of course my exclamation had been heard, and they turned towards us.

Of course we had learned about centaurs at school, and of course I knew they are a wise and proud people that can be very fierce when annoyed, but it's always a very different thing to find yourself eye to eye with a creature you know only from books and images. They looked intimidating, to say the least, and they did not seem exactly pleased at the interruption.

"What are you doing in our forest, humans?" the one nearest to us asked in a very deep and angry sounding voice. The white moonlight gave him an unreal appearance, the reflection in his eyes added to his severe expression.

"Excusez-moi" I began, but found myself interrupted by the centaur.

"I see," he said, and I thought his voice was less unfriendly, "you are not a full human, though these others are - What is your business in our forest at this time of night?"

"I'm trying to find my sister," I finally managed to say. "She has disappeared, and she is only a small girl and." I found it hard to keep my tears back.

"We do not welcome humans into our forest," he replied, and I already thought he had not heard me, but then he continued: "Humans are as arrogant as they are ignorant, but we protect the foals of all creatures. Come with me-"

He turned and walked away from us. Something in his voice made me follow him automatically. When Margaux and Iphigenie started moving, though, the centaur turned his head:

"Keep back, humans, just the Veela."

So I walked after him, through the group of centaurs, who parted to let me pass. At the far end of the clearing, at last, there was Gabie! She was lying in the grass, curled up like a cat, fast asleep. I rushed over to her and folded her in my arms, all the anxiety finally falling from me.

"Gabie! You naughty girl! What- how - oh, I have got you back! Are you all right?"

"Mmmm" she muttered sleepily, reaching out for me without opening her eyes. I picked her up, and only now I saw the shining black stone hanging from her neck on a fine gold chain. I took it from her and turned to the centaur.

"What's this? Is it yours?" I showed the ornament to him.

His face was inscrutable.

"Jupiter aligns with Mars." It was the last thing I had expected.

"What?"

His gaze, which had been on the sky, returned and focused on me again.

"You have found what you came for, now go back!"

There was such finality in his voice that I obeyed without further delay and went back to my two friends who had been standing rooted to the spot, waiting for me.

"I've got her," I told them before they could start asking any questions. "Let's get away!" I was speaking in whispers quite involuntarily. They were completely dumbfounded, but they understood that it wasn't wise to stay any longer. So we turned back, Margaux now leading the way, with me last, carrying Gabie in my arms, still fast asleep.

Carrying her like this was not a good idea, I soon grew very tired and had to call a halt.

"I can't go on like this," I said, panting. "She's getting too heavy."

But it was impossible to wake her so that she could walk by herself. Obviously, there was a charm of some kind on her. Thankfully, Iphigenie came up with the Mobilicorpus spell, which helped us to float her along with us.

Of course we were getting tired and, being on our way out of the forest, we did not expect anything dangerous any more.

It was a mistake.

Luckily, the noise, the ferocious howling and the sound of a large creature rushing through the undergrowth warned us just in time. We had just huddled together, our wands pointing out into the darkness, when it was upon us: a snarling, yelping creature with yellow eyes and blinding white fangs that seemed to shine with a light of their own - a werewolf!

"Stupefy!" It was a lucky coincidence all three of us had been thinking of the same spell, so its combined force hit the creature full blast. Any normal animal would have been stunned immediately and for hours on end.

Not so the werewolf. The spell did hurl it through the air and throw it back some twenty metres, and it even lay there for a second or two, but it immediately sprang up and renewed its attack with increased fury.

"Wingardium leviosa!" When I asked her later what made her say it, Margaux couldn't explain, it did seem a stupid thing, one of the simplest beginner's charm to use on a creature like that, but it worked; the werewolf was suspended in mid-air, legs flailing helplessly.

But werewolves are powerful magical creatures, and the effect did not last long. Soon the beast was back on the ground, its fury only heightened.

But just as it was collecting itself for another attack, there was a sudden white light and a loud voice boomed:

"Reticulum argenteum!"

Out of nowhere, a silver net appeared, enmeshing the werewolf, which could not move any more after a few seconds, though it kept on snarling and howling all the time.

The first person I noticed when I was able to focus again was the enormous figure of Hagrid, the gamekeeper, who was now walking over to the werewolf. He was making low growling noises deep in his throat, and it seemed as if he was trying to talk to the beast, trying to soothe it. (It still seems to be a perfectly stupid thing to do.) Behind Hagrid, - and it was the surprise of my life, - there was Madame Maxime! Her face was very white as she motioned for us to come over to her.

"Incroyable!" she said, her voice trembling. "How dare you - oh, I'm so glad we've been in time!"

"Madame-" I started, but she stopped me. "Don't say anything. We'll take about this tomorrow, and you will have a lot of explaining to do, believe me!" But in spite of the severity of her words, her voice sounded soft.

She marched us back out of the forest and to our carriage silently, and Hagrid followed behind us, carrying the captured werewolf. During all the commotion Gabie had never woken up, it was now perfectly clear she must be under a spell.

As soon as we arrived at the carriage, Madame Maxime ordered us to go straight to bed.

"But what about my sister?" I asked timidly. "She's still not woken up."

"We'll see about this tomorrow," she said sternly, and I noticed she had her voice completely under control again. "I expect the spell will have worn off until then, anyway. I'll see all four of you in my office right after breakfast."

+++

True enough, in the morning Gabie was awake and lively as if nothing extraordinary had happened. I refrained from asking her any questions, as I imagined Madame Maxime would do this soon enough. After breakfast, which I did not really enjoy, we went over to what she calls her office.

"Sit," she told us curtly. "Now I want to know exactly what happened last night. You'll start." She pointed at Gabie, who looked at her in alarm.

"I - I" she stammered. Madame frowned at her for a moment, then said in a softer tone: "Come on, I won't eat you. But it's more important than you can imagine that you tell me what happened."

Gabie pulled herself together visibly, and began:

"I was so bored, and so I went over to the hut, you see, and there were these cute little animals, all fluffy and furry, and I wanted to play with them and so I took one out to pat it, and then it ran away, and I went after it, and - oh it sounds silly, but it was always waiting for me and only ran off again when I had almost reached it, and so I found myself in the forest in that clearing. And - then I must have fallen asleep," she finished helplessly.

"And you re4ally think the niffler was waiting for you, was LURING you into the forest? Yes? When you reached that clearing, what did it do?"

Gabie thought hard.

"It's all so very hazy in my mind," she said slowly. "I believe it started digging, and - oh I can't remember, perhaps it was only a dream..."

"How did you find her?" Abruptly, Maxime turned to me. "How did you know where to go?"

So I explained about my grandmother's hair in my wand, and she seemed quite impressed and even made a note on a piece of parchment.

"Interesting," she said, more to herself, and then continued: "Tell me exactly where and how you came upon her."

I recounted last night's events and told her about the centaurs. When I mentioned the ornament, she interrupted.

"Where is it?" She said so sharply that I nearly jumped. "Let me see."

After showing the chain and the stone to the centaur, I had put it in my pocket and had completely forgotten about it until now. I started fumbling in my pockets, and after some search finally found it. I was surprised when I looked at it in daylight. What seemed black is really a deep blue interspersed with golden sparks that seem to glitter and move below the surface of the stone. It looks very much like a moonstone, but it is far more beautiful and absolutely lovely to look at. I handed it to her and she took it carefully.

"Can the niffler have dug this thing up?" she asked Gabie, whose eyes were wide with astonishment.

"I don't know. I think I remember something gold, but I'm not sure..."

"All right, never mind. Listen: I will have to talk about this to Dumbledore, it's his forest, after all. I'll keep this thing to show to him, and ask his opinion. There may be nothing in all this, of course, and I do hope there isn't; but there are some signs we dare not ignore... You'll get the stone back soon, in fact it may be vital for you to have it... Tell me," she addressed me again, "did you hear the centaurs say anything about the stars they were watching?"

"Wait- the one I talked to - he said - Jupiter aligns with Mars - yes, I believe that's what it was. But I have no idea what he meant."

"But he did not mention anything about the moon being in some house?"

"No, I'm sure he didn't."

"Good." I think there was relief in her voice. "You may go to your lessons now. As no accident has occurred, you will not be punished, but of course I'll have to tell your parents about this. And I must insist that you don't tell anybody about all this unless you are given leave to do so. And to make sure you don't- Tacete!" She waved her wand at us. "now you won't be able to talk about it to anyone, not even among yourselves. No questions-" she said sternly when she saw I was about to speak. "You will be told whatever you'll have to know in due course. But for the moment it's better if you know as little as possible. It might just burden your minds unnecessarily. And you-" she said to Gabie, "stay near the carriage, and under no circumstances go near that forest again. Understood?"

With these words, we were finally dismissed. We are all completely mystified, of course. Her words had quite a sinister sound to them, and we have no idea whatsoever what's going on. I do hope she'll tell us more soon. It's a good thing her spell does not include WRITING about the events, and I guess I just could- But no, that would be asking for trouble more than it's worth.