Chapter Three

Chapter Three.

Alastor Moody stood across from the decrepit house and watched the Healers levitate Sigmund Norwood's body out of the front door and free from the anti-Apparition Charms. With a series of pops, they disappeared, leaving sombre Aurors to assess the scene of Norwood's death. Some of them were young enough to feel outrage at the death of a hero; however, one who remembered him loitered on the front step, illuminated by the torches flickering in the large porch. Moody waited until the last of the eager Aurors scurried into the house before detaching himself from the shadows and limping across the dark courtyard.

A bent wizard with scars as deep and terrible as his own met his eye and nodded a respectful greeting. Moody hobbled up the stone steps and settled himself next to the other wizard in the storm porch. His shoulder scraped against the stone bricks, dislodging ancient cocoons and the desiccated insect remains of a spider's feast. His companion deftly flicked his wand, and a thin wall of light shimmered in front of them, sealing the alcove off from the rest of the building. It distorted the outside view as if they were standing behind a gentle waterfall.

"Can't be too careful," griped the old man. "These whippersnappers were taught that old Sigmund was a great defender, a good man doing what was necessary to overcome a terrible evil. We o' course know better, but I can't say that the myth doesn't have its uses; his untimely demise will remind all o' 'em that even the so-called great and good can be surprised by their past catching up to 'em." His tone was light and bland, but Moody had known Onesiphorus Smith since their days as Auror trainees and knew that as his temper shortened, the more conversational he became.

A young Auror bounded out of the door; ignoring the old men, he quickly Disapparated.

"See that! Eh, Alastor?" Smith snorted contemptuously. "Don't train 'em right these days. Here's a pretty powerful Privacy Charm right under their noses, and they don't even think to check it out. Assumptions!"

Onesiphorus was tall, but injury and age had bent his back, giving him the appearance of a veteran vulture, and just like that carrion eater, he could smell a kill a mile away.

"Just like the assumption that it's suspicious that, after twenty years, Norwood's name should crop up in general conversation and then within forty-eight hours we should find ourselves here, attending the scene o' his murder."

He sucked thoughtfully on his front teeth and slowly shook his head. "Terrible tragedy. I thought I'd come and show my respects...see if I could help in any way." His face twisted into a sneer as he spoke, indicating the shallow depth of both his grief and respect.

"Now," he said cheerfully, "I dare say that the first thing to do in such circumstances is determine if the victim had any enemies; in this case, o' course, you'd be spoilt for choice. Next, it'd be wise to place some o' 'em at the scene at right about the time o' the crime. O' course, some of his enemies were pretty canny and would have thought o' that, and perhaps someone coming here just for a chat, you know, to catch up on old times, would make a pretty good distraction for Aurors still wet behind the ears." Smith sniffed disapprovingly, as if deceit was worse than murder. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a ball of fluff consisting of wiry grey hairs and stiff, black fibres.

Moody stared at them and then slowly lifted his arm to gently pluck the evidence from his friend's arthritic fingers.

"It seems to me that the visitor don't deserve the aggravation whilst a murdering piece of shite is free to gloat about his success." The old Auror leant forwards, and Moody found himself momentarily caught in an intense, green gaze. "Seems to me that someone needs to be more careful."

There was the mildest hint of concern in Smith's voice, and Moody wondered what had been unleashed in his quest for a lost witch. He nodded, gratified that his friend knew and trusted him well enough to pick up the planted evidence.

"Not more'n three hours after you say you want to go over the Ophelia Black case, and Scrimgeour comes into the office asking for all information centring on the case to be transferred to another Auror. I, o' course, asks why and gets the Glare o' Messy Death for my pains and a swift reassignment to monitoring Muggle-borns at home, in case the little cherubs should start levitating aunts or something." He flashed Moody a grin and then sighed softly. "I gets to me office and hears that there's been an incident here involving Norwood. Well, me mind gets to thinking, and I come to take a look, and the first thing I find here is something o' yours. So, it struck me that someone's getting a bit bothered by the renewed interest in the old case."

He glanced back through the charm at the young Aurors. "I'm allowed to stay here, keeping an eye on things, because I managed to convince the Auror in charge," he grimaced once again, as if chewing something distasteful, "that I was a close personal friend of Sigmund's and wanted to help...played the doddery old Auror desperate for some glory routine. So, on the face of it, I'd suggest you keep your head down for a while."

"Bit difficult at the moment." While his natural eye studied his friend, the other one rotated and focused on the bustling, yet incredibly unproductive, activity within the house. He cringed as the inexperienced Aurors cast spells, smothering the echoes of previously cast magic and trampling over potential sources of physical evidence, thus ruining the scene of the crime. These things needed subtlety and a gentle touch, and the in-situ Aurors possessed neither. He shifted his grip on the head of his walking stick and thoughtfully rolled the fibres between his thumb and forefinger. Smith was right; these incompetent Aurors would destroy all evidence save for a few magically-insensitive hairs and black cotton and, infused with righteous wrath at the death of a hero, seek him out. He felt a chill grip the back of his neck; someone was keen enough to watch him and smart enough to use him.

"Something I can help yer with?" Smith smiled wryly at his expression. "Come on, old man; I may have been out of action for fifteen years, but I was still quick enough to pull yer out of the shit before yer even smelt it."

Moody still held the proof of his friend's loyalty and quick wits in his fingers and nodded appreciatively. "You could do some rummagin' around and find out who recommended the files to be transferred and to whom."

"Do we have any leads?"

He glanced at the strands of grey hair catching the torchlight and frowned. "Yeah, check out anyone who has links to Death Eaters."

Smith nodded and glanced through the charm to see two Aurors saunter out of the house; one of them used his wand tip to scratch his scalp. Moody stiffened and pointed towards the offender. "Stupid boy!"

"Yes," agreed Smith, "elementary wand safety just isn't appreciated anymore. So," he said, smirking, "how is your left buttock cheek these days?"

Smith had been a fixture within the Magical Law Enforcement offices since many of the current senior officers were juniors, and since many of them had thought of him as a harmless relic, they now hardly thought of him at all. He could go anywhere, unnoticed and unchallenged, and to him it was better than any Disillusionment Charm or Invisibility Blanket. He had strolled down to the archives, and the Auror on duty, supposedly protecting the vaunted vaults, had released the wards unquestioningly. The guard was more content to grumble about how his superiors had once again passed over him for promotion and wholeheartedly agreeing that he was being wasted, watching over a pile of dusty and mouldering scrolls. The only attention he gave to his role was to dutifully print Smith's name in a large, tatty, leather-bound ledger before directing him graciously towards the archive.

The torches embedded in the mottled stone architrave flickered to life as the doors boomed shut behind Smith. The warm, twisting light made shadows leap over the rows of shelving that ascended and extended beyond his ability to see. To his left, a circular table of highly polished wood glistened like gold in the light, and a simple, dark, leather wing-back chair with clawed feet was angled invitingly. There were no windows, harking back to the early days when the archive was simply a room to store scrolls, and the written words had to be protected from the leeching light. Only the ends of each rack were illuminated by the flickering pre-emptive torches, but they gave enough light to imprint upon the observer the sheer cavernous nature of the room. It took his breath away each and every time.

The archive was elegantly designed and simple to use: depending upon the search criteria, the archive would present information alphabetically, chronologically or, if there was doubt, then keywords could be used. He stepped forward and casually noted that the two shelves nearest to him contained material pertaining to the latter part of the fifteen hundreds.

"Nineteen-eighty-two," he whispered respectfully. Some people felt compelled to shout, to fill the vastness of the room, but he knew that this place heard the quiet scuttling of spiders. The shelves vibrated slightly; he could feel it through the soles of his boots, and they ponderously began to slide to the left. He had groaned with futile impatience when, as a young Auror, his mentor had dragged him down here, and he had seen the shelves begin their slow march. His mentor, a grizzled and scarred Auror by the name of Jenkins, had chuckled indulgently and counted down from five, his eyes twinkling with not unkind mirth. As Jenkins silently mouthed 'one', it seemed as if the room exhaled sharply and the shelves suddenly blurred past. He likened it to the dizzying thrill he had relished when as a child he had pressed his face to the window of the Knight Bus and watched the night whiz frantically by.

Four hundred years whipped by, and with a grind of wood against stone, the shelving slowed, quivered and then stopped. The silver plate flashed golden in the torchlight, and without needing to check, he descended into the gloom between the looming stacks. No torchlight lit his way, but he had been here countless times, and he knew that light would explode like blossoms from an unseen, hovering bud. Sure enough, as he stepped from the edges of firelight, and before his foot fell into shadow, an eye-stinging light flared, bathing him and the shelves in silver light. He waited for his eyes to adjust and then stepped past the column for 1980 to its neighbouring column, barely a half a foot wide with an engraved plate bearing the year 1981...the year of Ophelia's death. When his finger brushed over the metal plaque, the rather diffuse light from the gently bobbing orb focused on the column. Underneath each niche, glowing figures appeared on the dark wood, indicating that each slot represented one day of that fateful year. He gripped the base of a niche and pushed down hard. With a soft sound, the entire illuminated section of shelving slipped freely downwards, the records of one second past midnight on 1st January 1981 disappearing into the stone floor. He repeated the motion several times until glittering numbers informed him that he had reached the required niche for his day...2nd September.

The archive had always fascinated him, the way that magic would distort space so that each row held a decade, each column held a year and each niche a day. A day's worth of opened investigations, of Ministerial debates meticulously recorded by fluttering charmed quills. A day's worth of court cases and criminal records, printed news in every Wizarding publication, and the births, deaths and marriages of every witch and wizard. The Wizarding world, from the tedious to the notorious, was stored here, trapped on vellum or paper and tied in ribbons; a wondrous gift for the curious. Of course, only scrolls that were over five years old and no longer active were stored here. The scrolls not archived were held by the relevant department of the Ministry with ferocious tenacity. However, in the archive, where secrets had long been betrayed or disclosed, the scrolls from all Ministry departments were laid to rest together and, for the most part, forgotten.

"Ophelia Black; inquest reference AM five-one-three, seven-four-two." He felt the niche vibrate, and with a faint sound of paper scratching against wood, a thick scroll popped into being. He gently removed it and untied the black ribbon from around its middle, taking a firmer hold as the restrained paper relaxed with a rasping sigh. He gripped the curling edges and unrolled it further, his eyes catching words such as 'tragedy' and 'accident'. The report was crisp in its description of the chaos and confusion facing the Aurors when they Apparated into the Muggle train station and concise in its recording of the actions taken. Moody had always been very particular and precise. According to the scroll, the investigation had been open for three days before, with an ineligible scrawl confirming the exactitude and finality of the investigation, Moody had rolled the scroll, and Ophelia was dead. He let go of the base and let the scroll curl up.

"Ophelia Black. All." Once again, the niche trembled as the archive searched its own deep recesses and spewed forth six scrolls, each one tied with a differently hued ribbon, each one from a different department within the Ministry. Somehow, and he suspected some subtle intelligence at work, the archive knew to restrict its search to the same Ophelia Black that he had originally identified, rather than trawl through its entirety; its response was always rapid and relevant. At a glance, he saw a slender scroll wrapped with a ribbon of richest twilight; golden ribbon shimmered on two other scrolls, a thicker scroll curled within bonds of emerald green, and a thin scroll sported a tie of sapphire blue. The last one lurked in shadow, marked with an ominously black ribbon.

"Follow!" he commanded, and the scrolls levitated in clumsy obedience.

As he stepped from between the racks, the dazzling light blinked off, and the torches began to burn once more. Smith walked stiffly towards the table and the comfort of the leather chair with the scrolls dipping and swaying precariously in the air behind him. He sat himself down, and the scrolls fluttered onto the table. Another feature of the archive that both astounded and comforted him was the absolute privacy it afforded its patrons. The same magic that existed within Time Turners resided in the very stone of this room; each visitor or group had their own private slice of time to walk the shelves and read the archives, and as such, no scroll was ever unavailable. On leaving, to maintain normal time lines, the magic merely determined the length of time in the room and added it to the time you entered. The archive was no means to twist time for personal gain; if you were in it for an hour, then an hour it would be.

He slid the scrolls closer and selected one with a golden ribbon. It unfurled between his fingers to reveal an application and acceptance for guardianship. After the death of Capella Black, her brother, Alphard Black, had petitioned to be Ophelia's legal guardian. Social nurses had investigated the petition and determined that he and his wife, Elladora, were both financially and emotionally prepared to care for a four-year-old orphan, and the request was freely granted. The scroll contained the limited personal information of the young child: her age, four, and magical status, witch, the name of her mother, Capella Black, and the fact that the father was unknown. The child had been placed with Muggle Social Services after the police had been called by a concerned neighbour and discovered the daughter, exhausted and cuddling the cold corpse of her mother. Ministry officials had smoothed the way for the child to be placed with her aunt and uncle, and so she had been sucked into a world that her mother had abandoned. The second golden scroll, as expected, was the transfer of guardianship from the deceased couple to Madam Andromeda Tonks.

With a soft sigh, he allowed the scroll to curl in on itself and reached for another, avoiding the thin scroll with its purple band. The emerald green ribbon fluttered from his fingers, and he pulled open the scroll. The first article to be written about her in the Daily Prophet centred on her rescue from the Muggle world following the suspicious death of her mother in Cumbria. The Daily Prophet placed such heavy emphasis on the Ministry's decision to investigate that many readers had been convinced of some insidious plot by Muggles to hunt down solitary wizards. To quell anti-Muggle sentiments, the law enforcement officers had decided to publish the results of the investigation: Capella Black had died from the Killing Curse; no Muggle could have been responsible. Hushed whispers abounded that You-Know-Who had done it, and stifled rumours sputtered that it had been a suicide. Other articles delved into the alleged dark history of Capella and spewed out unproven opinions and unanswerable accusations. Smith sniffed and huffed in disgust at the calumny at its most tantalising and most cruel without prospect of rebuttal or response. Other articles followed her and reported when she settled with the Blacks, the obituaries of her guardians, Narcissa Black's marriage, and, of course, her own death. His eyes flicked over the text, and he resolved himself to ask for a copy to peruse at his leisure later.

The sapphire blue scroll was the last will and testament of Elladora Demeter Black, and Ophelia's name appeared on a codicil bequeathing her the contents of vault 759, deep in the bowels of Gringotts bank.

The penultimate scroll sprung open upon its release and rocked slowly on its curve, the exposed ink glistening like blood in the firelight. He knew what it was without smoothing the paper flat; he'd seen that deep shade of purple on many scrolls, sometimes well before he thought was right. He used his fingertips to pin the scroll flat and peered down his crooked nose at the elegant copperplate disguising the harsh missive: a death certificate. Death was determined and pronounced to have occurred at nineteen minutes past eight on the evening of 2nd September 1981. The cause of death was severe burns due to her involvement in the train accident and deemed accidental. Smith let go and the paper curled up. He focused on the last scroll, an Auror investigation involving a death, and suspected that it regarded Capella Black's.

The Aurors sent to the scene had been as thorough as possible, given that police, doctors and neighbours had trudged through the terrace house in Hampton Place. There had been no signs of a struggle, no broken furniture, nor the tell-tale traces of wildly cast magic clinging to the walls and bed linen. There had been no signs of forced entry, no broken glass or split, wooden window frames, and no isolated footprints on the burgundy carpet of an Apparating trespasser.

The Muggle coroners had been forced to reach an open verdict until wizards had Obliviated them and explained that the unfortunate woman had a congenital heart weakness and had died suddenly and peacefully in her sleep. The slim, tapered piece of polished hawthorn that had fallen from limp fingers and rolled under the metal framed bed had been eliminated from their records as easily as from their minds. The Aurors had forced the wand to regurgitate its most recent spells, and from its belly it had spewed green light. The Aurors had studied the gathered evidence from police files and their own findings and sadly concluded that she had cast the Killing Curse upon herself. The Auror reports and the summary were all that documented the life and death of an unremarkable witch from a notorious family. Ophelia had been prised from her mother's eternal embrace by a neighbour and collected four days later by her aunt and uncle.

He may not have acquired, through experience and natural predisposition, the level of cynicism and paranoia cultivated by Alastor Moody, but he had what he called 'feelings'. These unquantifiable and indescribable sensations had, more often than not, panned out into solid truths, and even Moody had once learnt to trust them. Smith's feelings were currently fluttering in his stomach and crawling up his spine. Even the most in-depth and finicky of investigations yielded loose ends or threw up unanswered questions, and yet this collection of scrolls neatly and comprehensively tied everything up. In a time when people craved simplicity, the incomplete reports were accepted and the unasked questions dismissed; Capella Black had committed suicide, and Ophelia Black had died in a train wreck. It was not unheard of for a wizard to end their lives with the Killing Curse, and it certainly raised no doubts as to the sincerity of the desire to die, but he could not find one good reason as to why Capella would kill herself with no provision or thought for her daughter. As to Ophelia's apparent death, he could not accept that Moody had somehow fumbled the investigation. The man was too pedantic to make simple errors; besides, forensic evidence would have been gathered and tested in one of the Ministry labs to determine the identities of the badly burnt corpses. The probability of two procedures delivering similarly erroneous results were far too infinitesimal to bother calculating and far too worrisome to ponder.

He made copies of the scrolls with a simple Duplication Charm, and after reducing them, he shoved the copies into his breast pocket and Banished the originals back to their niche. The doors opened silently as he moved to leave, and in the hallway he caught an eerie glimpse of dozens of blurred figures comprised of smoke walking back and forth and through each other before he was returned to real time. The hallway was gloomy and deserted. The dour-faced Auror was still hunched over his Daily Prophet and adopting the pained expression particular to those people attempting crossword puzzles slightly out of their grasp. Smith coughed delicately. The guard huffed impatiently, slowly lowered the paper and twisted in his seat to grab the thick, tattered ledger nestled under the counter. He slid the book towards Smith, who obligingly signed his name in the out column while his eyes darted surreptitiously over the page, noting the names of recent users.

"All done then?" the guard queried apathetically before picking up his abandoned newspaper and returning to agonise over Two Down.

Smith bade the engrossed guard a stiff farewell and hobbled back along the dreary corridor. He needed a place to think and a place to plan his next move.

Minerva blew over the surface of her chamomile tea and looked out of the arched and criss-crossed leaded window. Summer was rapidly slipping into autumn, and in the highlands, the decline was far more noticeable. Although the sky was a vivid blue and the early morning sun felt strong as it pierced the slim window, she could see trees twisting in a strong, bitter wind and the distant peaks that were coated with early snow. She shivered and took a sip of tea, glad that she was tucked in her office with a roaring fire and a thick shawl. Perhaps later, when the morning chill had passed, she would take a stroll by the lake to sit beneath the large beech tree and watch the sunlight filter through the autumn-tinted leaves. She had sat there once as a student, so full of promise and dreams, her life opening out before her, so dazzled by choices that it had stolen her breath. It would be nice to try to capture that energy and vigour, that undaunted expectation that life would unfurl as it should.

Her office window overlooked the inner courtyard where students would congregate, protected by the tall, grey stone of the school, and chatter like raucous birds. It was in this enclosed area that Madam Hooch introduced the first years to flying, and from this window that she had witnessed Harry Potter's breathtaking skills on a broom. She exhaled softly at the memory and shuddered; the echo of her horror at watching his plummeting dive still had the power to accelerate her heart and make her skin tingle.

She glanced at the complex Arithmancy clock charmed to the wall, its numerous golden hands rotating and jerking around the mother-of-pearl face with its concentric arrangement of runes, alchemical and astronomical symbols. At her request, Dumbledore had charmed a clock face onto the contraption in pale oyster pink, and to avoid entanglement in the workings of the clock, the numbers had been spelled to change colour to indicate the hour and the minute. It was a beautiful clock of glittering metals on a smooth pearlescent face, ensconced in a rich mahogany wooden frame. She often watched the intricate hands move in precise and delicate detail, but as their meaning eluded her, it was just a wonderful gadget, which whirred and ticked in a soothing rhythm. The numbers eight and three glowed, blue and red respectively; quarter past eight.

Without the students to fill the day and steal the time, the days seemed to drag...now more so than ever. Sighing gently, she turned to her desk and the piles of parchment and envelopes; in anticipation, the quill quivered to attention and dipped itself eagerly into the pot of green ink. It was not difficult to find some task to help pass the time and occupy her mind, and now, as she was forced to wait, she craved that distraction. The names of potential students blurred before her eyes, and several letters had been reduced to ash as her mind drifted to the stone corridors within the Ministry of Magic. The quill scratched across the rough paper, and her fingernails beat a tattoo against the table; would Harry be outside the Improper use of Magic Office? Would he have the same intense agitation swirling in his stomach and playing havoc with his heart and chest? She knew that Dumbledore would be there, and she had no doubt that Harry would derive comfort and strength from his presence. A part of her was confident that the accusations against Harry would be swiftly dropped, and the boy allowed to return to Hogwarts. But a deeper part quailed and shivered.

She remembered with painful clarity how the Dementor had swooped down upon the potion-addled Barty Crouch Jr., and how the boy had gained enough wits to scream and struggle as the mouth descended upon his own. She had turned away and had seen the rapt attention etched on Fudge's pale face. A man who could allow such an atrocity and watch it so eagerly could plot and put in motion any number of foul machinations. Her insides clenched, and she bit down on her lower lip as fear coiled up her spine; a fear that had grown recently in strength, fed by the firm assurances of Harry and the cold body of Cedric Diggory. The letter crumpled in her desperate grip; Dumbledore had that very night declared his intentions openly to Fudge, who, no doubt, had twisted the Headmaster's words into the ramblings of a seditious madman. Since then, Dumbledore's power had been leeched from him, and his character and reputation torn to shreds within the pages of the Daily Prophet. The man himself had taken it sanguinely enough, but she had trembled with anger and anxiety. A corner began to dig painfully into her hand, and with a curse that would have distressed her students, she flung the crumpled parchment to the floor. She stared at the slowly unfurling paper while her mind narrowed down to one thought consuming truth...He was back!

The quiet pop of an elf appearing roused her from her dreadful daydreaming, and relying on a combination of pragmatism and pride, she straightened her spine and smiled at the pensive elf.

"Yes, Nimni?"

"You asked Nimni to tell you when the Headmaster is back." The house-elf squeaked in barely hidden trepidation as the bearers of ill news often do. "The Headmaster is back now, Professor McGonagall."

"Back?" she demanded sharply, her eyes focusing on the clock and blind to the elf shrinking back. "It's ten to nine. He should be leaving!"

Oblivious to the splatter of green ink across the table and the dislodged stationery fluttering to the floor, she stepped around the desk, past the cowering elf, and stormed out of her office. The anger sustained her down two flights of stairs and along the stone corridor, the sound of her rapid footfalls echoing through the deserted hallways an ominous herald of her wrath. The anger drained from her as she stood before the stone griffin, and dread settled heavily in her stomach, sapping her strength. She placed a hand on the stone architrave and waited until she had caught her breath and ordered her thoughts. At her password, the griffin spun aside to reveal the stone steps. She promptly ascended, and once again she found herself hesitating, her hand hovering an inch from the dark, wooden door. She rapped on it and the door opened smoothly. Inside, papers littered the desk and pooled on the floor, and a lantern burned, despite the light streaming in through the windows. She paused to listen and caught the faint sounds of running water from the upper level of the Headmaster's office. She glanced around, noting the stale, untouched sandwich and the silver pot of coffee Charmed to stay hot and issuing steam from its slender spout. A rumpled cloak was draped over the back of his chair, and his night cap rested on the seat. She Banished the curling sandwich and countered the charmed coffee pot before the contents boiled away. She hung up the travelling cloak and spelled the papers into neat piles.

"He's been working all night," drawled a sleepy voice. "That boy will be the death of him."

She turned quickly to see Phineas Nigellus slipping into his painted chair and twisting to plump up the cushions behind him before settling back down. Many of the portraits were empty now that the school was closed, but those few that were occupied mumbled their disapproval, flashing darks looks at the notorious wizard. Smirking back at the ruffled portraits, he stuffed his hands into the sleeves of his deep green robes, snuggled himself into the softness of the chair and closed his eyes.

"Ah, Minerva."

Her head snapped round so quickly that her glasses slipped down her nose, and she fixed the Headmaster with a perplexed stare. She noted with concern the shadows under his eyes and his rounded shoulders.

"What's happened? Were you excluded from the hearing?"

"No, Minerva. Nothing so obviously obstructive." Dumbledore gripped the wooden handrail and slowly moved down the curved stairs, his midnight blue robes shimmering in the sunlight. He glanced around his tidied office and wrinkled his nose at the smell of burnt coffee. "Minister Fudge decided that it was in the best public interests to rouse the full court and, therefore, felt obliged to alter the time and setting for the trial."

"He what?" Minerva stumbled towards the nearest chair, clutching the fabric above her frantic heart, and tried to divine from the lines on the Headmaster's face the mysteries of Fudge's motives. "Harry faced the Wizengamot!" Her horror intensified, and she felt the room spin as she fought for breath.

"Have no fear, Minerva," he spoke swiftly, concerned at her sudden pallor and rapid breathing. He quickly moved forward to place a hand on her elbow to ease her down onto the chair. "I was alerted of the alteration, albeit almost too late, and was able to appear as Harry's defence. The Wizengamot voted in favour of dropping the charges, and Harry was released. As Phineas has returned, I expect that Harry is safe at Grimmauld Place and enjoying the exuberant company of his friends."

She sighed as the crushing weight evaporated, and feeling giddy with relief, she slumped in the chair. "Sweet Merlin!"

"Indeed."

Apprehension sliced through the fog of sheer relief, and she felt her spine stiffen at the inflection in his voice. His voice lacked fervour and energy, hinting that worse lay ahead. She studied Dumbledore more closely and noticed that the lines on his face were more deeply etched and his skin dull and grey. Phineas' mild chastisement of Dumbledore's pains took on a deeper meaning.

"When did you last sleep?"

She thought she caught a flash of irritation in his eyes, but whatever she saw was quickly replaced with a fondness that plucked at her heart. "The mirror was quite effusive on my behalf as well...almost to the point where I felt forced to threaten it with a Silencing Charm before I dared to trim my moustache." His smile slipped, and he quickly glanced away from Minerva's piercing gaze. "He has attacked me with little effect and, therefore, has turned his attention to the only other with the power to sway public opinion. I could not afford to rest when such a threat loomed over Harry."

She thought to argue, but thought better of it; she herself had had her fair share of sleepless nights and had suffered them as she thought right...silently and without interference.

"Minister Fudge's attempts to undermine me by stripping me of my positions within the Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards were not unexpected. He clings to power solely because no threat exists powerful enough to cause wizards to rethink their current policies. He has, over the years, diverted monies from those departments necessary to maintain a defence against such insurgents and has used it to make his office comfortable." Scorn dripped from every word and his face twisted in disgust. "His position, achieved due to the euphoria after defeating a terrible Dark Lord, cannot stand the wrath of a disillusioned and terrified population. He will be forced to stand down to make way for another Barty Crouch Sr. He is, therefore, weaving a complex tapestry of lies and deceptions to turn our warnings into the deranged ramblings of an old man and a mad boy. He will discover that it will rapidly become his shroud." He was breathing hard, and his eyes blazed such as they had the night he confronted Fudge in the infirmary and first gave the Minister his dire warnings. "We are fortunate," he continued more calmly, "that he lacks any imagination and was therefore forced to use the Ministry to try to upset matters further."

"Lacks imagination! The man sent Dementors to attack a boy, Albus."

"I'm not so sure that he did." He smiled as he watched her face darken and her lungs expand, ready to unleash a verbal volley. "He seemed quite agitated about the presence of Dementors in Little Whinging, more so than due to my presence at the hearing, which, in itself, must have put quite a crimp in his morning." Minerva expelled the held air and sagged as the weight of another unseen enemy bore down. "I fear that others are at work in our downfall."

"Well, at least Harry stays in school; here he is safe." She frowned and scowled. "Well, safer at least."

He chuckled and settled back in the chair, content that for the time being he could risk relaxing. "I doubt that Cornelius will leave us alone quite so readily; rumours abound that should we fail to find a replacement teacher for the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts, the Ministry will appoint one for us."

She looked horrified as she grappled with the concept. "They will appoint one for us!" she repeated incredulously. "A Ministry-approved teacher! Here at Hogwarts! Someone to scurry back to Fudge, you mean," she added darkly.

"We still have two weeks to find a replacement, but I can predict with some accuracy that our endeavours will prove fruitless; therefore, I think our time will be better spent warning the faculty of the Ministry's impending beneficence."