He placed it gently on the bed and sat next to it. It would be much more useful, he thought, if he knew how to work it.
Suddenly, a silvery, miniature Dumbledore rose out of the Pensieve and began to revolve. Its hand was shriveled; this memory must have been of him as he had most recently appeared.
"Hello, Harry," the Dumbledore said. Harry jumped back. "Oh, do not be alarmed; I knew I would need to pass this on to you one day, but I never thought to take the time to tell you how to use it"
Either Dumbledore's memory of himself could use Legilmency, or.
"I am currently looking in a mirror," Dumbledore continued, "and I would first like to state that if I knew my hair had gotten this bad I'd have asked Professor Sprout to prune it ages ago"
It was Dumbledore all right.
"But let us leave aside matters of personal hygiene, and turn to the Pensieve. You know how to enter one, I assume.
Harry vividly remembered accidentally falling through the ceiling of the Wizingamot, and smiled a little.
"The incantation to exit the Pensieve can be said aloud or done silently; as you know, I prefer to cast my spells sans sound"
Dumbledore's description was concise and useful, and he left pauses in his speech for Harry to practice. He couldn't quite get the hang of doing the incantation ("Ex Revisance") properly without speaking, but it seemed to work when he did it aloud.
Dumbledore concluded by saying, "There are a few visions that I particularly want you to see; they have been sifted to the top for your convenience. Why did I not show them to you before? Well, mainly, I did not possess them until quite recently, and when I got a hold of them, we had other...projects that we needed to work on"
Harry supposed Dumbledore was referring to when he'd extracted that Horcrux memory from Slughorn.
"I hope that you find the next set of memories enlightening...mainly because they were so difficult to procure that I wish them to be appreciated! They were most difficult of all the memories you have seen for me to find, and I must say, they came as a bit of a shock. But they make sense, as you will see, and if you look closely, you might even see my source.
"And so, Harry, I say farewell"
With that, the revolving Dumbledore sank back into his own memory pool.
"Who are you?" Draco asked shakily.
The creature--woman?--raised an eyebrow, and did not answer.
"Are you an...an Animagus"
She laughed, and Draco shuddered. It was almost as bad as hearing his Master laugh.
"I nothing you could comprehend," she said cryptically.
"What are you doing here? What do you want with me"
"I am the Dark Lord's closest confidante," she replied, "and I have vouched for you"
Draco swallowed, his throat dry. He managed, however, to say boldly, "So"
A faint smile appeared on the woman's lips. "I'm sure you know by now that everyone has an ulterior motive to doing anything for anyone else"
Draco's heart beat sped and he trembled. "What do you want from me"
"Oh, nothing too elaborate," she said slyly. "Just kill Severus Snape"
The memory in which Harry found himself was of that same dingy bedroom in the orphanage that young Tom Riddle was forced to call home.
The Tom in this memory must have been about fourteen. He was engrossed in a large tome that was bound in something that resembled dragon hide; the cover read, in faded gold letters, "The Purest of the Pure: the Superlative Sorcerers of Our Age"
Riddle seemed frustrated with something, and Harry wondered what it might be; then he remembered that he thought his father the wizard, and must be angry at his inability to locate him in any wizarding genealogy. Sure enough, other books similar to the one he held were piled on the floor around him, all tossed there as though by exasperated hands.
Suddenly, music began to sound; loud music with a dancing beat. Riddle's head snapped up irritably; his eyes shone with rage. He tossed the book aside and pulled out his wand.
Harry watched, appalled, as Riddle strode to the window and took aim. Harry ran up behind him and looked out; just next to the orphanage was a cobblestone alley, and across the alley was a tall building in which, Harry assumed, were several flats. The window towards which Riddle aimed was rather above the level of his own window; merry light shone through it, and a record player was displayed prominently in its sill.
Riddle had no time to curse the machine to pieces before a figure strode into view. It was a girl, perhaps eleven or twelve, with a button nose, a sprinkling of freckles, and a sweet smile. She was dancing to the music; her neat bun was losing its grasp on bits of hair as she bounced about the room.
Riddle froze. Then his wand hand whipped out of sight.
The girl caught sight of her neighbor on one of her trips past the window and stopped. She pulled the needle off the record and the music stopped.
"Hello!" she called. "What's your name"
Riddle shook himself slightly. "I'm Tim Riddle," he replied. "Who are you"
"Freya Faber"
Riddle raised an eyebrow. Harry hadn't the faintest idea why.
Freya blushed. "My father's an archeologist. He was working on a site in Norway when I was born"
Riddle seemed somewhat interested. He leaned forward. "Where did he work before coming here"
"Well, a few weeks ago, we were in Egypt," she said. "Father was trying to restore a tomb that grave-robbers had hit"
"Why'd you come here"
"Well, I think it was prompted by my asking my mother what roses smell like"
Riddle gave her another raised eyebrow.
"I was reading Shakespeare, you see, and we hadn't any roses where we were. I'd been there since I was two, and I suppose I'd just forgotten. Well, mum went into a towering rage, and told father that she'd put up with this extended holiday long enough. He was to return home to London and teach again, or she would take me and leave without him"
"Did he go"
"Yes, but it was a very near thing"
"Did he bring back any relics? Perhaps, ones that were cursed"
Harry suddenly saw the nasty direction in which this was heading.
Freya giggled. "You don't believe in curses, do you"
Riddle's smile was not pleasant. "You didn't answer my question"
"Yes, he's brought a few things. And everything in the tomb was supposedly cursed, but no one from the party's been hurt yet, so it can't have been a very good curse.
"What does your father have of the artifacts"
"Let's see...uhm...the pharaoh's staff, a jug of olive oil...he's going to send them to the British Museum as soon as he's finished his notes"
"How long will that be"
"A week maybe"
"May I have a look at them before he sends them"
She smiled. "Father loves it when people show interest in his work. Mum and I are a bit bored with it, frankly. Why don't you come 'round tomorrow at tea time? Mum makes wonderful scones"
Riddle looked eager. Harry didn't think it was at the prospect of scones. "I'll be there"
The memory ended there, so Harry cast his spell and exited.
The thing that most puzzled him was that he truly could not find any source to this memory. Voldemort wouldn't have given it to Dumbledore, and Freya didn't know what had gone on in Riddle's room before their conversation. So whose memory was it?