Chapter 17: Searching

The next several lessons Dawn and Willow taught were about Red Caps and kappas. And every night Willow and Dawn tutored Harry not only with the collapsible sword Giles had given him but also with the boggart.

On Halloween morning, Dawn and Willow went down to breakfast so they could meet Harry, Ron and Hermione for the trip into Hogsmeade. After breakfast they passed Filch, who stood just inside the front doors and was checking off names against a long list. They headed for Hogsmeade. They had a wonderful day. Dawn and Willow bought the group lunch at the Three Broomsticks. They went to Dervish and Banges, the wizarding equipment shop, Zonko's Joke Shop, and many places besides.

Dawn shook her head as they walked back towards the school. "About two hundred owls, all sitting on shelves, all color-coded depending on how fast you want your letter to get there! How ridiculous can you be?"

"Well it does make sense, baby," Willow said. "It is a post office after all. They would want to make it easy on themselves and their customers who are sending mail."

"Well I like this fudge," Ron said. They had gotten free samples of some new kind of fudge. "Do you think that really was an ogre we saw at the Three Broomsticks?"

"I doubt it," Dawn said. "If it was anything it was like Hagrid, half human half ogre. I doubt they would let a full blooded ogre into the place."

As they reached the entrance hall and crossed into the Great Hall. It had been decorated with hundreds and hundreds of candle-filled pumpkins, a cloud of fluttering live bats, and many flaming orange streamers, which were swimming lazily across the stormy ceiling like brilliant water snakes.

The food was delicious; they all were full to bursting with Honeydukes sweets, but somehow managed second helpings of everything.

The feast finished with an entertainment provided by the Hogwarts ghosts. They popped out of the walls and tables to do a bit of formation gliding; Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, had a great success with a reenactment of his own botched beheading.

Dawn and Willow accompanied, on their way to their own suite, Harry, Ron, and Hermione toward the Gryffindor Tower, but when they reached the corridor that ended with the portrait of the Fat Lady, they found it jammed with students.

"Why isn't anyone going in?" said Ron curiously.

And that was when Dawn gasped out as Willow, Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at her.

"The Fat Lady is gone. Her portrait torn up.

"Let me through, please," came Percy's voice, and he came bustling importantly through the crowd. "What's the holdup here? You can't all have forgotten the password—excuse me, I'm Head Boy—"

"Mr. Weasley," Willow said.

"Professor," Percy replied.

Willow looked at Dawn who nodded and then she opened a portal as Percy and Dawn pushed their way to the front of the group.

A moment later, Willow and Dumbledore stepped out of portal to stand next to Percy and Dawn.

Dawn had been right the Fat Lady had vanished from her portrait, which had been slashed so viciously that strips of canvas littered the floor; great chunks of it had been torn away completely.

Dumbledore took one quick look at the ruined painting and turned, his eyes somber.

"We need to find her," said Dumbledore. "Professor Rosenberg, please go to Mr. Filch at once and tell him to search every painting in the castle for the Fat Lady."

"You'll be lucky!" said a cackling voice.

It was Peeves the Poltergeist, bobbing over the crowd and looking delighted.

"What do you mean, Peeves?" said Dumbledore calmly, and Peeves's grin faded a little. He didn't dare taunt Dumbledore. Instead he adopted an oily voice that was no better than his cackle.

"Ashamed, Your Headship, sir. Doesn't want to be seen. She's a horrible mess. Saw her running through the landscape up on the fourth floor, sir, dodging between the trees. Crying something dreadful," he said happily. "Poor thing," he added unconvincingly.

"Did she say who did it?" said Dumbledore quietly.

"Oh yes, Professorhead," said Peeves, with the air of one cradling a large bombshell in his arms. "He got very angry when she wouldn't let him in, you see." Peeves flipped over and grinned at Dumbledore from between his own legs. "Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black."

Dumbledore then sent all the Gryffindors back to the Great Hall, where they were joined ten minutes later by the students from Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, who all looked extremely confused.

"The teachers and I need to conduct a thorough search of the castle," Dumbledore told them as Professors McGonagall and Flitwick closed all doors into the hall. "I'm afraid that, for your own safety, you will have to spend the night here. I want the prefects to stand guard over the entrances to the hall and I am leaving the Professors Rosenberg, Rosenberg-Summers and the Head Boy and Girl in charge. Any disturbance should be reported to me immediately," he added to Dawn, Willow and Percy. "Send word with one of the ghosts. Dawn, Willow, whatever you two do, do not open a portal. If he is in the castle he could get into this room that way."

Professor Dumbledore paused, about to leave the hall, and said, "Oh, yes, you'll be needing…"

One casual wave of his wand and the long tables flew to the edges of the hall and stood themselves against the walls; another wave, and the floor was covered with hundreds of squashy purple sleeping bags.

"Sleep well," said Professor Dumbledore, closing the door behind him.

The hall immediately began to buzz excitedly; the Gryffindors were telling the rest of the school what had just happened.

"Everyone into their sleeping bags!" shouted Percy. "Come on, now, no more talking! Lights out in ten minutes!"

As Willow and Dawn patrolled the Great Hall they heard snatches of conversation. They stopped for a moment when they heard Ron, Harry and Hermione talking.

"Do you think Black's still in the castle?" Hermione whispered anxiously.

"Dumbledore obviously thinks he might be," said Ron.

"It's very lucky he picked tonight, you know," said Hermione as they climbed fully dressed into their sleeping bags and propped themselves on their elbows to talk. "The one night we weren't in the tower…"

"I reckon he's lost track of time, being on the run," said Ron. "Didn't realize it was Halloween. Otherwise he'd have come bursting in here."

Hermione shuddered.

"It will be alright," Dawn whispered to the trio. "The memory is fleeting. But I know this much, everything turns out alright in the end."

All around them, people were asking one another the same question: "How did he get in?"

"Maybe he knows how to Apparate," said a Ravenclaw a few feet away. "Just appear out of thin air, you know."

"Disguised himself, probably," said a Hufflepuff fifth year.

"He could've flown in," suggested Dean Thomas.

"Honestly, am I the only person who's ever bothered to read Hogwarts, A History?" said Hermione crossly to Harry and Ron.

"Probably," said Ron. "Why?"

It was Willow who answered instead of Hermione. "There are wards surrounding the castle. You cannot apparate into or out of Hogwarts. If you use a portkey, it won't bring you inside the grounds from outside. The only reason Dawn and I can portal is because the magic of the Key is for older and for more powerful than that of the wards. It was after all created to open the doorway between dimensions."

"Also," Hermione added. "I'd like to see the disguise that could fool those dementors. They're guarding every single entrance to the grounds. They'd have seen him fly in too. And Filch knows all the secret passages, they'll have them covered …"

"The lights are going out now!" Percy shouted. "I want everyone in their sleeping bags and no more talking!"

Dawn and Willow rolled their eyes.

The candles all went out at once. The only light now came from the silvery ghosts, who were drifting about talking seriously to the prefects, and the enchanted ceiling, which, like the sky outside, was scattered with stars.

Once every hour, a teacher would reappear in the hall to check in with Willow and Dawn that everything was quiet. Around three in the morning, when many students had finally fallen asleep, Dumbledore came in.

Dawn and Willow made their way to his side.

"Any sign of him, Albus?" asked Willow in a whisper.

"No. All well here?"

"As Buffy would say," Dawn said, "Peachy with a side of keen."

Dumbledore laughed. "Quite an interesting way your sister has of talking and quite a wonderful sense of humor. Good. There's no point moving them all now. I've found a temporary guardian for the Gryffindor portrait hole. We'll move them back in tomorrow."

"And the Fat Lady?" Dawn asked.

"How much did you see?" Dumbledore asked. When Willow had gotten him she had mentioned that Dawn had a vision.

"Her portrait torn up, she missing. I also saw the knight that you got to replace her temporarily. We're going to have to also make sure Neville doesn't write down the passwords. He loses it and Sirius Black finds it and gains entrance to the Gryffindor tower."

"Quite right," Dumbledore said. "Right now the Fat Lady is hiding in a map of Argyllshire on the second floor. Apparently she refused to let Black in without the password, so he attacked. She's still very distressed, but once she's calmed down, I'll have Mr. Filch restore her."

Behind them the door of the hall creaked open again, and Snape walked up to them.

"Headmaster? The whole of the third floor has been searched. He's not there. And Filch has done the dungeons; nothing there either."

"What about the Astronomy tower? Professor Trelawney's room? The Owlery?" Dumbledore asked.

"All searched…"

"Very well, Severus. I didn't really expect Black to linger."

"Have you any theory as to how he got in, Professor?" asked Snape.

"Many, Severus, each of them as unlikely as the next."

"You remember the conversation we had, Headmaster, just before—ah—the start of term?" said Snape.

"Conversation?" Willow asked.

"Later, Willow," said Dumbledore. "I do, Severus."

"It seems—almost impossible—that Black could have entered the school without inside help. I did express my concerns when you appointed—"

Dawn and Willow realized what Dumbledore and Snape were talking about—Remus Lupin.

"They knew each other didn't they?" Willow asked. "They were both Lily's friends!"

"Yes, Willow," Dumbledore said. "That said though I do not believe he or anyone else would have helped Black enter." His tone made it so clear that the subject was closed that Snape didn't reply. "I must go down to the dementors. I said I would inform them when our search was complete. Dawn, Willow if you please."

Dawn nodded and opened a portal as Dumbledore stepped through.