Dumbledore leaned over his desk, and looked at McGonagall, dressed in a lilac dressing gown and her stylish green witch hat.
"I believe, Minerva, that for a long time you have wondered how I have known so much about the goings on in the school."
"Albus -"
"And I also know that you are not the only one to have wondered. In fact, I have it on the best of authorities that one member of staff stoutly claimed for years that I could transform myself into kidney beans, in this way managing to see and hear everything going on at the tables while also being completely safe, since nobody likes and could therefore never bear to eat kidney beans."
"Well, actually -"
"In fact, Minerva, this would have been a good notion, since it is a little known fact that house elves have a way of keeping food fresh so that the very same kidney beans lying on the table every day are in fact the very same kidney beans that were there five centuries ago."
"What?"
"They are, in a way, part of Hogwart's historical heritage, particularly as I have it on good authority that Rowena Ravenclaw on one occasion actually spat one bean back into the bowl, and it still remains there to this very day."
"That is quite -"
"Amazing, yes I know, my dear Minerva. Still, my mind is wandering."
"As usual," muttered McGonagall.
"You wished to know how I know everything that goes on in the school."
"I actually wanted to sleep," continued McGonagall, sotto voice.
"And the answer is: that I don't."
"What?"
"I don't know but there is somebody in this school who makes it their business to know everything that goes on. In fact, the business has been in their family for generations, and for generations children of this particular family have been trained for the job by practising in Hogwarts, while, of course, making frequent reports to the headmaster of the time."
There was a moment of dramatic silence.
"Perhaps we should give the giant squid a mate. Sometimes it seems rather lone -"
"Albus! This… spy, you were mentioning."
"Oh yes, oh yes, quite. I was forgetting. And the name of the spy, is…"
Luna Lovegood sat in the library knitting a blue and brown scarf. Contrary to usual opinion, she did actually sometimes display house feeling, but in her own particular way.
This sometimes broadcast itself in the things that she ate for breakfast. Blueberries and brown bread were not an unusual combination for her morning repast. Once she had even gone so far as to accidentally transform the robes of the Slytherins into her house colours.
As she walked towards the door, she quietly noted that Isaac Wembley was staring helplessly at his hands which he had turned a vivid orange. By the time she had closed the door neatly behind her, his hands were their normal colour.