The Enemy of my Enemy

The Pact

"Why are you grinning?"

"What?" Harry asked.

"You're grinning, why?"

"Oh! Nothing," said Harry, shaking his head.

Teddie eyed him closely and then shrugged. She turned to the stone gargoyle, barricading Dumbledore's office. "Toffee Eclairs," she said, watching as it jumped aside.

The spiral staircase behind the gargoyle moved upwards, and Harry and Teddie climbed it until they stopped outside of Dumbledore's office door.

Harry knocked.

"Enter," called Dumbledore.

Teddie squeaked as the door was wrenched open and she found herself face-to-face with Professor Trelawney.

"Aha!" Trelawney cried. "So this is the reason I am to be thrown unceremoniously from your office, Dumbledore!"

"My dear, Sybil," said Dumbledore in a slightly exasperated voice, "there is no question of throwing you unceremoniously from anywhere, but Harry does have an appointment, and I really don't think there is any more to be said -"

"Very well," said Professor Trelawney, in a deeply wounded voice. "If you will not banish the usurping nag, so be it. . . perhaps I shall find a school where my talents are better appreciated. . . "

She pushed past Harry and Teddie, disappearing down the spiral staircase; they heard her stumble halfway down, possibly tripping over one of her trailing shawls.

"Please close the door and sit down," said Dumbledore, sounding rather tired.

The pair obeyed.

Teddie eyed Dumbledore as she took her usual seat behind his desk. "Are you okay, Professor?" she asked. "You don't look so good."

"I'm very well, thank you, Teddie," said Dumbledore, offering a soft smile.

The Pensieve lay in the centre of the desk, as did two more tiny crystal bottles full of swirling memories.

"Professor Trelawney still isn't happy Firenze is teaching, then?" Harry asked.

"No," said Dumbledore, "Divination is turning out to be much more trouble than I could have foreseen, never having studied the subject myself. I cannot ask Firenze to return to the forest, where he is now an outcast, nor can I ask Sybil Trelawney to leave. Between ourselves, she has no idea of the danger she would be in outside the castle. She does not know-and I think it would be unwise to enlighten her-that she made the prophecy about you and Voldemort, you see."

"S.P.T," said Teddie. "They were the initials on the Prophecy last year. S.P.T., refers to Professor Trelawney?"

Dumbledore nodded. "It does indeed, but, never mind my staffing problems. We have much more important matters to discuss. Firstly— have you managed the task I set you at the end of our previous lesson?"

"Ah," said Harry. "Well, I asked Professor Slughorn about it at the end of Potions, sir, but, er, he wouldn't give it to me."

There was a little silence.

"I see," said Dumbledore. "And you feel that you have exerted your very best efforts in this matter, do you? That you have exercised all of your considerable ingenuity? That you have left no depth of cunning unplumbed in your quest to retrieve the memory?"

"Well," Harry stalled. "Well. . . the day Ron swallowed love potion by mistake I took him to Professor Slughorn. I thought maybe if I got Professor Slughorn in a good enough mood -"

"And did that work?" asked Dumbledore.

"Well, no, sir, because Ron got poisoned -"

"- which, naturally, made you forget all about trying to retrieve the memory; I would have expected nothing else, while your best friend was in danger. Once it became clear that Mr. Weasley was going to make a full recovery, however, I would have hoped that you returned to the task I set you. I thought I made it clear to you how very important that memory is. Indeed, I did my best to impress upon you that it is the most crucial memory of all and that we will be wasting our time without it."