"We have to figure a few things out," said Trent, "and they are quite urgent, I am afraid."

"Mrmphkay," Eiram said, wondering if there were a spell to keep her eyes open.

"First of all, we need to explain what our Headmaster, who died at the end of last term and whose funeral was quite public, is doing alive and well and still Headmastering. We never quite figured that one out--and you of all people would be expected to know."

"Moreover," said her father's portrait, "Harry will most certainly persist in attempts to engage you in discussion about both my resurrection and what he would see as my posthumous failure to reestablish my own relationship with him."

"He can be a hypersensitive little prat when the turn takes him," added Moody. "As a rule, when his presence isn't required soon enough to suit his impatient teenage self, whether by the Order of the Phoenix or by the Headmaster, he immediately assumes he has been unjustly disregarded and takes offense. Touchy boy, really; must be hell on poor Weasley and Granger to be best friends with him."

"And he will surely expect that, so long as I am alive," the portrait said, "I should seek him out myself both to clarify the fact of my non-deadness and to continue our efforts to find and destroy Voldemort's Horcruxes."

"But of course Potter would realize quickly enough that I am not Albus," said Moody, "so I must avoid direct contact with him."

"Why," Eiram began, then paused to sort out what she was asking, then forgot what she had wanted to know, then turned her gaze to one of the contraptions filling the office--one that happened to be set on a table in a direction away from the eyes of the two men and a portrait that were boring into her, then began to wonder what on earth the contraption was for and why it wasn't weirder-looking. It appeared to be a punchbowl, which didn't really qualify as a contraption. However she doubted it was anything so harmless; nothing in this room was strictly decorative. "That thing is important, isn't it?" she asked, in an attempt to finish some question, anyway, and nodded at the punchbowl.

Merlin knows we've all been using a lot of that Pensieve lately, but how on earth would you know it without being told?

"I didn't," she answered, turning to Trent. "A Pensieve?"

"My daughter is a Legilemens," said the portrait, smiling proudly. "Most excellent."

"A what?"

"You read somebody's mind," said Moody. "Probably Trent's, since I was still thinking about what a pain in the arse Harry's been."

"Come again?" she asked.

"I didn't speak aloud," said Trent. "But you heard me anyway. Legilemency. Twiggy's instantaneous and completely inexplicable attraction after catching a random glimpse of you in a sea of fishnet and black eyeliner at the Astoria--and picking you out again when you were squashed in the middle of a lot of big, bald German men at Columbiahalle becomes more than a happy accident. He too is a Legilemens. He must have been subconsciously drawn by recognition."

"By the same token, however," said the portrait, "we might conclude that my girl is also a natural Occlumens, as Twiggy did not, in fact, recognize Eiram, and only discovered her identity through quite mundane means."

"Well it's a good thing he was drawn enough to seek her out," Moody said, "since you died without telling us how to find her, and you didn't leave that memory in the Pensieve."

"Of course I didn't," said the portrait.

"Occlumens?" asked Eiram.

"You can prevent your own thoughts from being heard by a Legilemens," said Trent. "It's Twiggy's extraordinary Occlumency that permits him to serve as a double agent; yours must be at least equal to his, which is an incredible stroke of good fortune in light of the circumstances."

"Indeed," the portrait said. "Between both Voldemort and Harry, Eiram will have great need to Occlude."

For no special reason, this reminded Eiram of what she had meant to ask before she had been distracted by the Pensieve. "Why," she began again, "are we pretending you are alive at all, when it seems to be creating so many problems?"

"Well," said Trent, "mainly it's because the Second Author (who is really the First Author, because this was actually her idea and she started it, too) did not know that the Other Author had a post-HBP time-frame in mind--it's not like either of them had any idea where this was going the day it all started. But in any case, it works out pretty conveniently for everyone, because it was a great blow to Voldemort's confidence to learn that his nemesis was still alive, and also it was a considered decision of the Order to have Harry remain at Hogwarts for seventh year after all, rather than strike out in search of Horcruxes without any real guidance. Hermione's newfound twittiness renders her incapable of providing the wise and mature perspective she would have, had she remained in character. But without Albus' presence here, there would have been no reason to expect Harry to return to school."

"Furthermore," said the portrait, "so long as Harry, and therefore Ron and, particularly, the new Hermione, have returned, we were confronted with the difficulty inherent in having a Headmaster with whom Hermione is obsessed."

"So we generated the fiction that I am Albus and that Trent is my personal assistant, which allows him to remain behind the scenes and out of her reach most of the time," said Moody.

"Yet we were afraid to underestimate Hermione's ability to stalk," said Trent, "but the Hobbit has proven a worthy diversion."

"However," the portrait said, "our resolution for the Hermione problem leaves us with the problem, as you observed, of Harry."

"So what do I tell him when he starts asking me about you?" Eiram asked.

The two men and the portrait responded with an array of expressions suggesting that this was, indeed, a conundrum.

"I think," said Moody, after a few moments, "you should just tell him it's none of his damn business."

"That's probably the best solution," Trent agreed.

"It is, in effect, what I always did when he asked questions I did not feel were ready for answers," said the portrait. "Couched in somewhat more delicate terms, however."

"All right, then," said Eiram. "Please, I really need to get a little sleep before my next class."

"I'm afraid we have some other problems to discuss as well," said Trent.

Eiram thought she might start weeping.