The spectacles were exactly where Harry had seen them before. Pointing them out to Ginny, he cast his eyes about the other shelves, wondering if each object Old Bones had collected held such a dark provenance. Part of him still didn't want to believe any of this. How could Old Bones, that part of him whispered, be evil? He's been teaching at Hogwarts so long, wouldn't he have been caught by now? When he voiced these thoughts out loud, Sirius looked over him with an expression that could only be read as pity.

"It's partly why," Sirius said quietly, "everyone was – is – so terrified. We can't trust anyone. Anyone can be working at the – at his command."

"You told me once that the world isn't divided into good guys and Death Eaters," said Harry. "Couldn't Old Bones be… just his own brand of evil? And not tangled up in Riddle?"

"I don't know," Sirius said, now annoyed, scowling at the parchment as though it had offended him personally. "It makes sense from what Ginny told me, what tipped you off to him in the first place, was that he had Myrtle Warren's glasses here in his rooms–"

"They're right there," said Harry, pointing.

"-and we know Myrtle was one of his first known victims," Sirius finished. "Wouldn't you assume there was some sort of collusion?"

"I don't know," said Harry. He hadn't told them exactly what Edgar Bones had told him. "I just…"

Ginny slipped her hand into his, squeezing his palm.

"You're wanting to believe the best of him, then?" Sirius asked, voice light, but eyes somehow hard. "Why?"

"Because…" Harry did not want to continue that thought. "I don't know," he said, relenting. "Maybe I just don't want to believe it." That was certainly true. "Riddle is beyond the normal amount of evil… Nevermind."

"You're hoping we're not breaking into the rooms of someone with him in his pocket?"

Harry grinned back at Sirius, letting his shoulders relax. "I'd anticipate more traps, in any case." It had been so easy when Dumbledore had led the way to the Chamber of Secrets; he'd been able to see through Riddle's more elaborate magic. Glancing around Old Bones's office, Harry hoped that there weren't similar traps. A cold wind blew against his neck.

"Well, that's another thing we can look for," offered Ginny.

A few minutes found them on their knees, searching through the cabinets under the windows – none of which held anything more interesting than a few books, when Harry sat back on his heels and called over to the desk, which Sirius had offered to search.

"Anything over there, Sirius?" Harry asked.

"Nothing," Sirius said with disgust, waving a rather official bit of parchment about that featured the words Last Will and Testament so prominently that Harry could read it across the room. "It seems he's been working on his will… he's leaving quite a bit of what he has to Borgin&Burke's." There was a frown in his voice. "That's odd."

"Why's that? He doesn't have kids, does he? Maybe he's making it easier on his heirs," said Ginny, quite reasonably. "He's cutting out the middleman and just sending it straight on to Knockturn Alley."

"I'm not sure," said Sirius, absently, still reading the parchment. "It's as though he has two separate estates. Everything in this room he's leaving to Hogwarts, but…"

Harry looked at Ginny and shrugged.

"And this line… the WA goes to him who comes for it…"

"I don't know," said Harry, slightly impatient. "But I think we should find him."

"You're right," said Sirius, tucking the will into his robes. "You're right. Let's keep looking."

Harry turned his attention to the task. Then, a few minutes later:

"Well, that was weird," said Harry, perplexed, reaching into the cabinet and feeling around for the candle stump that had jostled onto the bottom of it. It was gone. It hadn't rolled over into a dim corner, it was just gone. "Ginny, c'mon and look at this."

Sirius followed her over, peering over her shoulder.

"There was a candle stump that fell from that shelf"-Harry pointed–"to the bottom and just disappeared. It's entirely gone."

Ginny made a humming sound from the back of her throat. "That is weird."

"That," Sirius said slowly, "is a Vanishing Cabinet."

"A–"

"Two cabinets that are twins of each other can be charmed so that travel between them is possible," said Sirius, frowning, running his hand over the ornately carved face of it. "I'm certain of it… that would get around Hogwarts's Anti-Apparition wards… Old Bones"-at this nickname, Sirius made a face–"would have been able to travel back and forth freely without alerting anyone. They're almost untraceable."

"How do you know what it is, then?" asked Ginny, curious.

Sirius flashed her a grin. "I've spent half the year trotting about in the wizarding underbelly. Everyone wants one of these. I've seen enough drawings. Anyway," he said briskly, making Harry's eyebrows raise of their own volition. "There's only one way to find out where it goes… who wants to do the honors? Harry, I figured you'd want to go first."

Harry felt Ginny's eyes on him. "Of course," he said easily.

Sirius signaled them to silence.

"Let's go," he said.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHP

Traveling between one Vanishing Cabinet and its twin was like no other sort of magical travel that Harry had experienced: It wasn't disorienting or painful, nor did he think himself spinning like a top. There was no jerking sensation in his navel. Instead, he felt he was on a long, gently sloped slide at a park. It was pure dark, however, and Harry kept his lit wand in his hand as the wind streaming by rustled his hair. After a minute, it was over, and he found himself gently deposited in a cluttered room.

He stood, brushing himself off for no real reason, and was just in time to catch Ginny up in his arms as she slid out. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to hug her, wrapping his arms around her; she squeezed him hard, sighing against him. Neither one of them spoke, not until Sirius slid into view, stood, and cast Muffliato.

"No one ever knew of this place," he muttered to himself, reiterating what his own memory had said. Everyone had thought Old Bones's whole life was wrapped up in Hogwarts and its students. None of them had ever guessed the truth.

And no one would guess it by peering about this room, Harry decided. There were no obvious dark artifacts in here. It was cluttered with the detritus of a seer: crystal balls sat on every surface, and there was a burlap sack of them next to the fireplace; a deck of tarot cards was splayed out on the coffee table, already dealt out; yarrow sticks were stuffed in a stein sitting on the mantle. The only odd thing was the window, which looked out over nothing but a field of white. Harry touched it, his breath fogging up the window. There was an odd tingle beneath his fingertips.

The feeling lingered, and Harry shook his hand out, grimacing. "Ward," he muttered at Ginny's questioning look.

"I hear something," muttered Sirius, from where he stood at the half-open door that presumably led to the rest of the house. "Someone," he corrected. "I think… I think that's Narcissa – Narcissa Black."

Harry and Ginny were drawn to the door at once. Ginny's hair threatened to swing in front of the small opening. Harry held it back, gathering the long strands in his hands, holding her hair as securely as a ponytail holder. But, even straining, they could hardly hear the low voices. "Where are the extendable ears where we need them?"

"Fred and George are still figuring out nappies," said Ginny.

Sirius twitched his wand. Suddenly, the muffled voices were clear enough they might have been just on the other side of the door.

"I know you are ill." Narcissa Malfoy was standing somewhere in the house, speaking presumably to Old Bones. Harry's stomach tightened. Why should she be here unless Old Bones really was working for Voldemort? "And I am sorry to ask for a meeting–"

"-I need to save my strength." Old Bones said, querulous. "I have a generous… friend… but his resources are running dry."

"I want to hear this," mouthed Ginny.

Narcissa's voice was nasal – Harry supposed because she habitually had an expression of having just smelled fresh dung – and sophisticated. But it was the plea in her voice that made him narrow his eyes. Across from him, Sirius leaned against the wall, arms folded, gray eyes distant. He, too, listened intently, head bent toward the sliver of air between door and wall.

"If you could tell me… I know you are the most renowned Seer of anyone's acquaintance," Narcissa said respectfully.

"And what," asked Old Bones, "will you trade for this information? The future doesn't come for free, girl." There was an odd combination of contempt and fondness in the old man's voice. "Will you get me a new friend, when my own has run dry?"

Friend? Harry mouthed to Ginny.

"I am certain my husband will do anything to help," Narcissa said. There was a rustling sound, like layers and layers of robes moving across the floor.

"You don't need to kneel at my bedside," said Old Bones. "I did come here – at personal cost! – travel between here and Hogwarts is not without its own peril for one as frail as I – to help you. It is time you told me. What sort of fortune do you want me to cast for you? Do you wish to look into the eyes of your firstborn child? I can show you that in the fire, the waters, or the mirror–"

"It's actually a mirror that I had questions about," interrupted Narcissa, in a way that still managed to be beseeching, as though she interrupted in order to not waste a single second of the time left to him. But it was her words that confused Harry more. "I was – there was a party, months and months ago now, and there was a mirror there that was purported to be a great marvel–"

"-and yet wasn't," finished Old Bones. "I was there as well."

"I have heard," Narcissa said in a voice low enough Harry strained to hear it, "that you might know what sort of enchantment that Grindelwald might have laid upon it to make it… less than it was rumored to be."

"Grindelwald." This was said with startling intensity, with the strength of a much younger, much healthier wizard. "Grindelwald." Harry might have expected that people use hushed, fearful tones when speaking of a dark wizard considered to be Voldemort's predecessor in power and evil. There were atrocities that Grindelwald had committed that were shocking even to Harry, who'd seen the worst of Voldemort.

But Old Bones mentioned him with affection and even love.

"So that's the way it lies," muttered Sirius.

"He would have made that mirror into something far more powerful than what it was," said Grindelwald. "The Knights of Walpurgis were intelligent witches and wizards, with curiosities aligned with Grindelwald's. I myself own a pair of spectacles that can see the manner of someone's death, days and months and perhaps even years before it happens. But in every way, Grindelwald made those objects he tinkered with better than they were."

"The Dark Lord–"

"-is similar," Old Bones conceded. "I don't insult him, girl."

Harry felt, suddenly, that he did not know this man. If they were to open the door and find someone else who happened to have Old Bones's voice, he wouldn't be surprised. He'd never heard Old Bones speak like this, so lovingly of Grindelwald and the Dark Arts, and so imperiously with anyone. He'd always been the most affable of professors…

"But their aims are ever so slightly different," said Old Bones. "Not in terms of practical matters: They both would see a world where wizards don't have to skulk in the shadows, where the Muggles breed like puffskeins and ruin our planet with their cities of filth. Their aims are admirable, of course. I supported – support both – as much as I am able. But they are different men on a more personal level. The Dark Lord would devour death – his followers are rather aptly named, don't you think? But Grindelwald sought to conquer it."

"But–"

"He enchanted the Mirror to show the enemy of all. The Dark Lord was looking to meet Dumbledore on the battlefield, but due to Grindelwald's enchantment, it was only ever going to show the Dark Lord nothing. The Dark Lord," Old Bones said with great pride, "has already devoured that enemy. Of course it would show him nothing."

"It wasn't empty."

"I do beg your pardon," said Old Bones. "I was there. I saw it – I knew it would reveal nothing, and I was right!"

"But I saw–"

"You are mistaken." Just as when he spoke of Grindelwald, Old Bones suddenly sounded much stronger. "Now, girl, you've overstayed your allotted amount of minutes. I've got to meet my healer. You're just lucky I needed to come here today, to see my friend…"

"Old Bones," Narcissa begged, "please just listen–"

"Goodbye," said Old Bones. Moments later, there was a muffled grunt and the sound of something being flung into a wall. Harry supposed it was Narcissa, for there was a pained gasp, a scrabbling sound, and the sound of her leaving by the opposite door.

After, there was only quiet.

"Hall's safe," said Sirius out of the corner of his mouth.

They walked down it on silent feet. From down the hall – and with the charm Sirius had on them that allowed them to hear beyond the normal limits of their senses – faint shuffling sounds could be heard, like a pillow being plumped, a body shifting on blankets, and an old man's sigh of "steady now, old friend, don't tip me over". But as they passed a closed door, Harry heard something else: a soft moan of pain, and a clicking sound.

Pausing, he reached for the door, only to draw back. There was blood upon the handle.

"Wait," he breathed out.

"That's blood–"

Harry didn't wait for Ginny to finish, just reached out and opened the door. Only after he touched the cool, crusty knob did he hope, ruefully, that it hadn't been cursed somehow. But it was too late for that worry: the door opened without incident, sliding open silently on well-oiled hinges.

Ginny swore loudly at what was revealed.

The missing Simon Burke lay reclined upon a thin, blood-crusted blanket, his head propped up by a pillow in a similar state. He was naked but for a pillowcase over his groin. But this attempt to preserve his modesty seemed grotesque mockery in light of what was done to his torso. The skin of his belly was sliced open and spread outward, bits of flesh coming to points like bats wings, held in place by magic. The organs of his midsection were revealed, the protective layers of flesh and muscle pulled back. The intestines nestled like snakes, the liver was dark and large, though there appeared to be great chunks cut out of it.

"God," breathed Harry. The stench was overpowering, and he covered his nose with his robes.

Ginny was already kneeling.

"That's Simon Burke," said Harry, horror welling inside him. Unbelievably, considering the condition of his body, Simon Burke's chest rose up and down. The man was alive. "Old Bones had him?"

"It appears so," Sirius said lightly. "This must be the friend he mentioned to Narcissa." He leaned over. "So he's been keeping himself alive while using bits of Burke's healthy organs."

"Who would do such a thing?" Ginny whispered. With her wand, she siphoned off the blood and yellowish liquid from the pillow and the blankets, leaving them spotless. "Why would anyone do this? Is staying alive worth this?"

"You will find, Miss Peverell," said a bored voice from the open doorway, "that people will do a great many things in order to survive."

And there was Old Bones, reclining on his flying carpet, which had been piled up with pillows and blankets that were in a far better state than that which he'd allowed Simon Burke. His face was pale but his eyes were bright, gleaming with a malice Harry recognized. His wild, dandelion hair stood outward in every direction, but his wand was held laxly in his grip, resting against the mound of blankets.

"What have you done?" Harry asked. "Why?" his voice cracked. "We heard you talking… you loved Grindelwald, I suppose, but he's in Nurmengard and he isn't coming out–"

"Quiet," Old Bones snapped, hand twitching. "I loved Grindelwald for the love of his cause."

"A true believer," said Sirius, crossing his arms.

Ginny was mumbling every healing spell she knew under her breath. Simon Burke looked no worse than he had moments ago, but the incision in his belly was not knitting itself back together. Harry swallowed bile at the sight of the man's exposed liver–

"How long," seethed Sirius.

Harry's neck popped as he looked up. Old Bones – faded and withered to the point he appeared rather grasshopper-like – appeared nearly tranquil.

"I had a feeling," said Old Bones, pointing at Sirius with a shaking finger, "that you would at last arrive today. I've been waiting."

"How long," Sirius demanded, still more loudly.

"I wanted to meet you, you see," said Old Bones, reclining in his chair, eyes half-closed, appearing more on the verge of death even than Simon Burke. "I've had glimpses – glimmers – of you even before I saw you at Nurmengard–"

"Saw him? You were there?"

"Of course I wasn't there," said Old Bones, flicking Harry a cold glance. There was no warmth left in him; Harry wondered if any of it had been real. "I keep a close eye on my lord Grindelwald, of course." Harry caught Ginny's eye over Simon Burke's cut body. Old Bones spoke of Grindelwald as though of a lover; he offered the syllables up like a caress. "I never gave up, you see, that we would find a path out of Nurmengard for him. I suppose…"

"Keep going," said Sirius.

"You stole from him," said Old Bones. "But you were quite rudely interrupted before you got what you wanted, weren't you?" His eyes never wavered from Sirius's face. "Of course, I knew what you were looking for. Haven't I just said that I saw glimpses of you? I saw enough to know… you seek out the Walpurgian Grimoire, that elusive – it is hard to find, isn't it? – book that lays out the plans of the Knights of Walpurgis, and documents every artifact created by one of their own." A laugh wheezed out of him. "Thank Merlin for librarians, those dried up old husks."

"What," Sirius bit out, "is your point?"

"I have a copy."

A cold breeze blew through the room at those words. Something large and malevolent brushed by Harry, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. Standing, leaving Ginny to tend to the body of Simon Burke, which may or may not still be breathing, Harry had his wand in his hand and his eyes trained on Sirius Black. When Harry had first met his godfather, the man – just out of Azkaban for crimes he hadn't committed – had been nearly deranged…

Pressing his fingers to his temple, Harry grimaced at the sudden pain in his head. Those memories seemed so cloudy now.

"I might have misheard you," said Sirius, whose calm mask made Harry's stomach twist. "Did you say that you have a copy of that almanac?"

"The Walpurgian Grimoire," corrected Old Bones. "Indeed."

"And what," said Sirius, "do I need to do for you in order to get it?"

"It will be yours freely," said Old Bones. "A gift."

Nothing comes free, thought Harry.

"Very little is truly a gift," said Sirius, almost to himself, touching his head in a way that made Harry wonder if Sirius, too, suffered from brief, slashing headaches. "Even the most benign things are never really gifts."

"I have seen you with it." There was an echoing quality to Old Bones's voice, almost like he were dead already, speaking as a ghost. "And since I have seen you with it, I know you must have it. I won't stand in your way." Then, arm shaking, he raised it to point at a spot directly behind Harry and Ginny and the near-dead Simon Burke. "It's just over there, on that shelf. I set it out for you. I knew you were coming today, that's why I got rid of that wretched girl."

For a moment, there was a look of such longing on Sirius's face that Harry looked away, uncomfortable, head pounding, feeling quite as though he'd walked in on Sirius naked. But the look was fleeting, by the time Harry turned around again, Sirius was striding around them, footsteps falling heavily, the dragonhide boots clattering against the wood. There was only one book on the shelf, given pride of place, and Sirius took it, back turned toward Harry.

"This is it," Sirius said in wonder.

"Harry," Ginny whispered urgently, "press your hands just here, would you? I think it's finally working."

Harry obeyed, attention still riveted.

"Now," said Old Bones, "I do have a question for you."

"Ah," said Sirius, "so it wasn't truly a gift after all."

"It's just a question," Old Bones protested.

"Information is valuable," said Sirius, impatient. "What is it, old man?"

Old Bones smiled then. Except, on his shrunken, cadaverous face, there was nothing of happiness in it. His hand fumbled with his shirt, pushing up the sleeve, slowly, shakily. "My question is this: What will you tell the Dark Lord–"

"Sirius, look out!"

"-when he asks what, precisely, you wish the grimoire for?"

The sleeve pushed upward, revealing a seething red tattoo on his left forearm. Scrambling to his feet, Harry pointed his wand – Old Bones must not be allowed to touch that mark, not be allowed to summon Voldemort here, not where Ginny was, not with Simon Burke dying in front of them–

But Sirius was faster. Like a snake striking, Sirius hissed out a hateful word – sectumsempra – and blood arced out. All the air was sucked out of the room; none of them breathed – none of them said another word as Old Bones severed arm flip-flopped and fell away, the Dark Mark branded upon it now useless.

"Sirius," Harry repeated, horror welling up inside him.

Sirius ignored him, eyes fixed on the old man in the bed. The look of triumph on his face increased Harry's horror. "You'll not be able to betray any of us ever again," he said coolly, though his gray eyes gleamed. "You're finished." Casting Harry a smirk, he said, "Tell him, Harry. No one messes us about."

"How could you?" Harry asked. This was to Sirius, not to Old Bones.

The triumph faltered. "What do you mean, how could I?" Sirius asked, incredulous. "He was about to bring him here. I had to do it."

"Not like that." Harry had to force this out.

They both cast a glance at Old Bones, who had now gone whiter than a sheet, clutching the stump of his arm. Sluggish, yellowish red blood oozed between his fingertips.

Incredibly, or so it seemed to Harry, Sirius was now opening the grimoire, flipping its pages, ignoring the damage his own wand had done to the old man dying on the bed.

"Sirius," said Harry. "You…" His thoughts were swirling. He could not believe what had just happened, and would not be surprised if it had turned out to be an illusion of some kind. "There were so many other things you could have done."

"It's what he said it was, at least," Sirius said dispassionately, ignoring Harry. "It's got everything in here. Yes, yes. Harry, we can–"

"No," said Harry. "No, I don't want anything to do with that."

Shocked, Sirius looked up at him. "What do you mean, Harry, this is what we've been looking for."

Wordless, Harry pointed at Old Bones.

"Harry." Sirius tried one more time. "This is exactly what we've needed for almost two years. We finally have what we've wanted." His hand stretched toward Harry. He is living under a dark star, Dorcas Meadowes had said. She'd foreseen this moment. Transfixed, Harry stared at his godfather's hand. There had been a time when Harry would have thought nothing of clasping it. "Harry… come on. We have what we've wanted."

"I didn't want it," Harry said, wand still fixed on his godfather. Old Bones's arm, its Dark Mark blackened, lay between them. "Not like this. Sirius… how could you?"

Sirius reared back. "Maybe," he suggested, "I'm tired of betrayal." His head jerked toward Old Bones, slowly bleeding out on the bed, no Ginny to minister over him; she was busy keeping Simon Burke alive. "How many young people did he corrupt?" Something terrible flashed in his eyes then. "How many futures did he coax into darkness? Harry… it's very well possible that his actions led to what happened to your parents."

"How is that possible?" Harry scoffed. Behind him, Ginny was floating Simon Burke away, back to the Vanishing Cabinet, as silently and as unobtrusively as she could.

"The person who betrayed your parents–"

"-we're not even sure who that was, if it was anyone at all–"

"-very well could have been placed," finished Sirius.

Harry scoffed again, temples throbbing. "I don't believe you," he said. "Sirius. Dad wouldn't have wanted you to do this – to become someone like this – on his account. My mum wouldn't have either. You're obsessed with a shadow. We don't know who betrayed them. We don't even know if someone did betray them. Voldemort could have–"

"Harry!" shouted Ginny. "The name is cursed!"

Harry turned slightly so that his own body was between her and his godfather. His lips were tight; the corners around them were white and they shook.

"Of course you would believe that," said Sirius, almost to himself.

"It's the truth," Harry said fiercely.

"No," said Sirius, "it isn't."

There was a small sound from outside: the creak of a gate, perhaps. Whatever it was reminded Harry, immediately and terribly, of running from the Inferi outside the mountain cave where they had first hidden in 1977. The name was cursed.

"You'd better go," Sirius suggested, as lightly as though their relationship had not just been severed along with Old Bones's arm. "I'm not sure I want to discover what he would send to the house of a servant who spoke his name."

"Harry," said Ginny, voice muffled by thick wood, "he's right. Let's go… I've done all I can for Simon."

"Hurry along," Sirius said coldly, turning his shoulder to Harry, "I've a few questions I'd like to ask our old professor here…"

Harry started toward him, but Sirius snarled a word. Vines erupted from nowhere, wrapping around Harry with the tenacity of the Devil's Snare. "Sirius, stop!" he managed to shout. The vines were dragging him as he fought, futilely, against them. "Stop! I told you, Dad wouldn't have wanted you to–"

"Your dad isn't here," said Sirius, with a finality that made Harry's stomach plunge to new depths. "Your dad isn't here, and that's sort of the whole point." There was no hand reaching out toward him now. The divide was too big. Sectumsempra still echoed between them.

It always would.

And then the Vanishing Cabinet was right behind him, and Harry was crammed in with Ginny and Simon – the door was slamming – and they were sliding away from Sirius and Old Bones, back to Hogwarts, back to Dumbledore, and back to safety.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHP

It was Ginny who took care of the details after they were returned to Old Bones's private rooms. Fawkes was waiting for them, flapping about, looking more bewildered than imperious. It was Ginny who asked him, gently but firmly, if he would mind fetching Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey. Simon needed a Healer, someone far more capable than she. Dimly, Harry thought that she had been quite capable enough: Harry certainly didn't think he could have kept Simon alive through all of that.

Both Professor Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey came at a run. Harry registered few details: the look of shock on Dumbledore's face, Madame Pomfrey's quick intervention, Harry's own scratchy voice telling them that it had been Ginny to save the poor man, and Ginny's firm rebuttal that they needed to see Professor Dumbledore, privately, now, if he pleased. Harry nearly smiled at the look of shock on Madame Pomfrey's face. Ginny was giving Dumbledore orders, and quite spectacularly, it seemed.

Before they were swept away, Harry took the time to pull a pair of ugly spectacles off the shelf and pocket them.

"I've spoken with Edgar Bones, so I have some small idea of what this is about," Dumbledore murmured along the way.

"Whatever you're guessing, you're right," said Ginny. "Old Bones was a traitor… he was working first for Grindelwald, then for him. We found that out… Harry found that out…" Horror rose in her voice. "He was using Simon to keep himself alive."

Harry let her be the one to tell the tale; he felt too numb to take charge, not even doing so when she stumbled over some of the details: his reluctant talks with Moaning Myrtle, recognizing the spectacles in Old Bones's office, prying the story out of Edgar Bones… he let her tell all of it, while he watched – again and again – as Sol Black severed Old Bones's arm with a blast of dark magic.

Sectumsempra, Harry heard, again and again.

"We brought Sirius with us," said Ginny.

"Sol," Harry interrupted for the first time. It came out far too harsh. He cleared his throat, saying: "Sorry. But he's Sol Black now. I don't," Harry said in disbelief, "even recognize him." Every time he relived the scene in his imagination, the flare of red he'd thought he'd seen in Sol Black's eyes grew until it was unmistakable.

Dumbledore floated a mug toward him.

Ginny continued the story.

The hot chocolate was cradled in Harry's hands. He stared down into the milky liquid, fighting the pain behind his eyes. The only thing that seemed real was the warmth of Ginny's hand on his arm, tethering him here, in Dumbledore's office, while he grappled with his loss. Oh, Sirius Black was not dead. But he might as well have been; he might have died the moment his wand flashed out – faster than Harry might have thought possible – and severed Old Bones's arm above the elbow.

Then the same hand that had done such a thing had been extended to Harry. There they had met, just as Dorcas Meadowes had foretold… Sirius had been standing in darkness. But it wasn't Sirius, was it? Not anymore. Sirius, Harry's godfather, was Sol Black now.

"It just… it endures, doesn't it? It was Ginny's voice that broke the terrible silence. Even Dumbledore had seemed staggered by their tale, Simon Burke's condition, and the twin revelations that Old Bones had been laboring for darkness this whole while, and that Sirius was gone. Simply gone.

"What endures, Miss Peverell?" Dumbledore asked gently.

Ginny gestured.

Harry forced himself to take a sip of the hot chocolate. Lukewarm, it slithered down his throat.

"It all happened so long ago," Ginny said, baffled. "Grindelwald was so long ago, and yet… Old Bones still practically worshiped him. It must have been fifty years ago – or, wait, no, it wasn't quite that long ago–"

"Just for us," murmured Harry, speaking for the first time in quite a while.

"But still," insisted Ginny. "Old Bones lived a whole generation after Grindelwald was locked up in Nurmengard. You'd think he would have gotten over it by now… given up… but instead, he starts helping Riddle." Color had flooded her cheeks. "He had another chance to come to his senses, but he was still – he was – he never got over it."

Harry took her hand. "Look at the Death Eaters," he said.

"A lot of them went on their way," said Ginny. "Kept their heads down. Maybe they wouldn't have searched out the next dark wizard and flung themselves into their service."

"And a lot of them never did," Harry pointed out, though he saw what she meant. "Old Bones was like a Bellatrix Lestrange… like a Barty Crouch."

"I beg your pardon," interrupted Dumbledore, gaze sharpening on Harry. It was sharp enough to cut. "What did you just say?"

Harry looked at him. He'd forgotten how much they still kept from Dumbledore. Once, far in the future, Harry had sat in this office, forced to tell the story of how Barty Crouch Jr. had taken on the disguise of Alastor Moody, and manipulated Harry all year so he could present him to Voldemort. The thought of telling Dumbledore that entire story once more made a pain throb deep in his head. "I… it… can we wait for that story? I'll tell you, but–"

"Not tonight," Ginny said firmly.

"Barty Crouch," Dumbledore murmured, gaze moving to the window, where he seemed to contemplate the deepening twilight for a long moment. Abruptly, he shook himself and his head. "To answer your question, some people – not everyone – but some find themselves caught following a star, and there they remain on that path the whole of the rest of their lives. It is a dark gravity that pulls at them, keeping them bound. I fear that Old Bones is one of these – of course he is."

"Did you never suspect?" Harry asked, pleading.

"Not once," Dumbledore said promptly. "Perhaps I ought to have… perhaps I ought to have done a survey of all of Tom Riddle's former professors. But the two never seemed unduly close." His brow drew together. "Were you not here, I do believe he would have died peacefully without anyone suspecting his secrets."

"That's what Sol Black said," Harry muttered.

"He would've gotten away with it, then. Well, I'm glad," Ginny said firmly, "that we were here."

"I think it's strange that Riddle took Divination in the first place," Harry said, annoyed. "Wouldn't he have thought it… I dunno… a little soft."

"Riddle gathered knowledge," said Dumbledore. "He enjoyed it. He always took more classes than anyone else in his year. I think he might have preferred to take a different course, but there was a conflict with Alchemy and… I do forget… and his choices in elective studies were ultimately between Divination and Muggle Studies."

Ginny made a face that surely echoed the expression on Harry's.

"That'll do it," she muttered.

Despite the time, Harry found himself tired enough he ached from it. He suspected this would be a topic they would cover time and again over the next days and weeks and months. All he wanted, at that moment, was to find his bed and fall into it. Dumbledore did not seem inclined to want to question them any longer – and why would he need to? Harry had already offered him his memories. And so it was not too much longer that they were near Gryffindor Tower, then they were in it, and Harry was standing, bewildered, in the middle of his room.

The mirror was laying on his bed where Harry had left it; he'd flung it down after alerting Sirius – Sol – to what he thought Old Bones was up to.

Harry sat at the edge of his bed, taking the mirror in his hands, spinning it over and over, watching his own reflection appear and disappear again and again. His frown seemed to grow. There had been a time when Harry had thought of Sol Black with the affection he might have reserved for his father.

"Reducto," said Harry.

The mirror shattered outward; the strength of his spell was such that the fragments splintered and turned to powder, falling onto the floor in a tidy pile. It was another quickly uttered spell that made even that disappear.

Sol Black would never contact Harry through use of those two-way mirrors again.