Chapter 50: Memories
"Sirius, we've been over this a hundred times."
Ariadne and Sirius were seated around a rough wooden table in the old punishment dungeon, surrounded by Yaxley and his masked Death Eater cronies. Except, they weren't actually there. They were ghostly apparitions reliving Ariadne's memory of infiltrating the meeting that night for what to Ariadne felt like the hundredth time.
Sirius didn't answer. They had reached the moment of the blood oath, where Ariadne realized she could not participate and her disguise would be revealed, because the body projection she was controlling wasn't corporeal.
Watching the witch they called Skullfeather look directly into Ariadne's (albeit, in the form of Clarice's) eyes and call her half-blood still sent a chill down Ariadne's spine, no matter how many times they replayed the memory. There was something so sinister about that witch's falsely sweet, soft manner. Ariadne knew it was merely a cover for a very dangerous person. For some reason, only during this replay did the image of the witch in a mask stir something in Ariadne's memory.
"Of course!" Ariadne smacked her forehead in frustration that she hadn't made this obvious connection before. "Sirius, I think that's the same witch who threatened me and disappeared during the Halloween masquerade!"
"Shh, Ariadne, this is my favorite part," hushed Sirius, apparently unmoved by this revelation.
They were watching the body double illusion of Clarice fade from her seat and vanish. The memory then shifted to the Room of Requirement, where Ariadne fell backwards from the mirror into Sirius's arms.
Ariadne looked over at Sirius with a mixture of disdain and disgust. "Black, please tell me haven't been sat here for an hour rewatching a traumatic memory from my life just so you can relieve me falling into your arms."
Sirius returned her look with a devilish smirk. "No, that's just been an incidental perk. I was hoping these replays would jog something in your memory and help you recognize some of these goons, and I was right."
Annoying as it was for Sirius to be correct, Ariadne couldn't argue. The memory over, they left the Pensieve like liquids sucked up through a vacuum, only to return to the very same Room of Requirement they had left in the memory, complete with James and Remus lounging on comfortable armchairs near the fire and the floating, shimmering basin at the center of the room.
"Do you think this means she's the only true Death Eater who's entered the castle from outside?" asked Ariadne.
"I think it's very likely. The fact that she's the only non-student to have shown up at the masquerade, their only real move so far, and at this meeting, seems to indicate there isn't another. Because Yaxley and the others could use all the help they could get," he added derisively. "Most likely Voldemort doesn't see it necessary to assign more than one precious Death Eater to the task of turning Hogwarts school into a dark wizard factory."
The wheels were turning in Ariadne's sharp mind. "Because the potential for dark magic already exists here, it just needs to be tapped."
Sirius turned to her with serious eyes, the glint of humor or snark in them gone. "Exactly. Between the students who have been fully brainwashed by their blood fanatic parents, like Yaxley, and those who crave power and glory, and those who are simply young and impressionable enough to be swayed, he doesn't think it'll take much to turn the tide at all."
A thousand thoughts were swirling in Ariadne's mind. But she focused on the two most pressing. "That witch from outside the castle, she looked straight at me and called me half-blood. If she knows who I really am, why am I not dead already?"
"She knows you're not pureblood, but she thinks you're a different half-blood. She's mistaken you for someone else."
"Who?" asked Remus in genuine puzzlement.
"An equal," said Sirius by way of explanation.
Ariadne understood immediately, based on Sirius's previous comments that Yaxley's gang, and the Death Eaters themselves, wouldn't believe that mere students were capable of pulling off their stunt.
"She thinks whoever infiltrated the meeting isn't a student, either. Another outsider to the castle, like her, but on the light side, not the dark."
"Very good, Morrigan," said Sirius, his eyes glimmering with appreciation for how quickly she was connecting the dots.
"Sirius, I think you already know what my next question is going to be," said Ariadne, now pacing the room as though she could get her feet to catch up to the speed of her thoughts.
Sirius stood still but was running his fingers through his hair. "Did they know about the ruse from the beginning." It was more a statement than a question.
"Exactly. Because then this plan they discussed…"
"…was planted for us to hear. At best, a false flag. At worst, a trap."
Sirius and Ariadne both stopped moving and looked at each other anxiously.
"I think I can answer that," said James's voice from his armchair, where he was casually perusing the latest Which Broomstick.
Ariadne, Sirius and Remus all stared at him.
James looked up, apparently unaware of the surprise his statement had generated. "It was a real plan, of course. No way in hell that idiot Florian Clarke could believably fake it through that whole meeting."
….
"Well, will they change the plan now that they know they've been infiltrated?" asked Ariadne. "I mean, that would be the first thing I'd do."
"No. On the contrary, I think they'll be far too preoccupied with other priorities. Moreover, the plan was communicated in code, precisely for that reason—in case it was overheard by unfriendly ears," answered Sirius.
" 'Other priorities?' You mean Clarke and Clarice's side mission to take us out of the game," guessed Ariadne.
"That, and figuring out how another witch or wizard who's not a Death Eater has been getting into the castle, and who sent them."
"A lot's riding on this guess that the Death Eaters are convinced we're receiving help from outside," said Ariadne, frowning.
"I don't need to guess," said Sirius in his blithe, overconfident way. "You watched the memory as many times as I did, Morrigan. Did you hear the way they talked about us 'interfering Gryffindor children'? It has not once crossed their minds that our conspiracy is fully homegrown. To Yaxley and this witch, this Skullfeather, we're no more than an irritating distraction to be rid of."
"Even if they've changed the plan, decoding the original message could still yield useful information," added Remus.
Sirius and Ariadne both looked at him in way that said, "Yes, you're right" without verbalizing it. Then they put their quick minds to work, both pacing the length of the room in opposite directions, their paths crossing in front of James's armchair by the fireplace. The Room of Requirement seemed to grow to accommodate their strides.
"Seek your reflection in the perfect square when the first snow falls," murmured Sirius aloud. Ariadne repeated the words to herself silently.
"Well, first snow, that seems pretty obvious," interjected James. "That'll be any day now."
Sirius nodded to acknowledge James's contribution, still walking back and forth.
"Reflection…the Black Lake?" suggested Remus.
"Maybe the creature is a sea monster!" added James excitedly.
Ariadne pondered this. "Not a terrible guess, but they did specifically say it was being hidden in the dark forest."
Sirius nodded again, brow furrowing as they continued to pace back and forth. "What else produces reflections, besides the lake?" he asked almost rhetorically.
"Mirrors," answered Ariadne, thinking of the one she had used to control the body double.
Sirius nodded in agreement. "Magical mirrors abound in the wizarding world…at Hogwarts too. Mirrors that double things, mirrors that show you visions, mirrors for communicating with others…"
"Then how do we even know where to start? It could be any mirror in the castle. There must be a hundred," Ariadne responded.
Sirius gestured at her to keep talking.
"Obviously, there's the mirror we used for the doubling enchantment, but that was just a mirror you stole from the boys' dormitories that we bewitched ourselves," Ariadne continued.
"Stole from the Ravenclaw boys' dormitory, actually," commented James, back to reading his magazine. "That wanker Wilkens needs to be stopped from curling that awful goatee."
Ariadne decided to let this pass despite the many concerns it raised about how and why James had gotten into the Ravenclaw dormitories. "Right, but there are other, far older mirrors in Hogwarts that already contain their own enchantments. For example, the mirror to the right of the portrait of Francis the Flatterer on the sixth floor shows you around the last four corners you've turned."
"The mirror next to the Charms classroom was bewitched to always show you smiling," added Sirius, pacing and now stroking his chin.
"There's the one next to the statue of the one-eyed witch that insults you," contributed James.
"There's the mirror on the back wall of the door to the fifth floor girls' bathroom that can transport you downstairs," continued Ariadne. "Then there are mirrors only known to legend… the Mirror of Erised. The Cursed Mirror of the Bloody Baron. The Infinity Mirror…"
Sirius again waved his hand to encourage her to keep talking.
Ariadne put her hands on her hips. "Black, you must've set a record now for longest time you've allowed me to speak without interrupting. Are you actually enjoying my lecture?"
At this, Sirius stopped walking. He had stopped, in fact, right in front of the Pensieve and was gazing in at the silvery swirl of Ariadne's memories.
"Morrigan, say that again."
"Say what, exactly?"
"Just the last five words you spoke."
Ariadne wondered if this was some strange kink of his, but complied. "About you enjoying my lecture?"
Sirius turned around to face her. "Reflections. You can see your reflection in any glass, given the right lighting conditions, not just a mirror. What else in Hogwarts is made of glass?"
Ariadne's reply was instinctive, unthinking. "The greenhouses."
"Perfect square."
Ariadne was transported back to their previous day's chat in the greenhouse after Herbology. It must have been where Sirius's mind was at, too. "Well, the panes of glass in the greenhouse are squares, but I hardly think that's enough…" she trailed off as her mind began to follow the same course of thinking as Sirius's.
"The greenhouses are arranged in a square," she said, locking eyes with Sirius.
At this, James objected. "No, they're not. They're just lined up, row after row."
Sirius turned to him. "From the ground, it appears that way, yes," he answered briskly. "But from an aerial perspective, looking down from above, they actually form a perfect square, equal on all sides."
"In fact," continued Ariadne, as if she was merely picking up where Sirius left off, "all of Hogwarts is arranged in squares."
James looked as baffled as if he'd been told that a ghost was replacing him as Gryffindor Seeker.
"The composition of the castle appears random, as if all the towers and passages just sprung up next to each other. But in fact, the castle is built on a pattern of infinitely repeating, ever smaller squares," explained Ariadne.
"A fractal pattern," added Sirius, as if this would help clarify things to James at all.
"It's thought to be a configuration that strengthens any protective spells added to the castle and magically fortifies it," Ariadne concluded. "And the greenhouses…"
"Are part of that pattern of squares," finished Sirius.
"So the monster…is going to be brought from the dark forest into the greenhouses at the first snowfall," said Ariadne in a hushed voice.
Sirius looked directly at her and nodded. "And we need to stop that before it happens."
