Harry Potters Twin Book Four

Discovering Neville's Secret

The door of the office opened.

"Hello, Potter and Potter," said Moody. "Come in, then."

Harry and I glanced at eachother briefly and walked inside nervously. I've been inside Dumbledore's office before; it was a very beautiful, circular room, lined with pictures of previous headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts, all of whom were fast asleep, their chests rising and falling gently.

Cornelius Fudge was standing beside Dumbledore's desk, wearing his usual pinstriped cloak and holding his lime-green bowler hat.

"Nixie! Harry!" said Fudge jovially, moving forward. "How are you?"

"Fine," Harry said, but I was almost sure that he was lying.

"I'm okay," I lied.

"We were just talking about the night when Mr. Crouch turned up on the grounds," said Fudge. "It was you who found him, was it not, Harry?"

"Yes," said Harry. Then, feeling it was pointless to pretend that he hadn't overheard what they had been saying, he added, "I didn't see Madame Maxime anywhere, though, and she'd have a job hiding, wouldn't she?"

Dumbledore smiled at Harry behind Fudge's back, his eyes twinkling.

"Yes, well," said Fudge, looking embarrassed, "we're about to go for a short walk on the grounds, Harry, if you'll excuse us… perhaps if you just go back to your class -"

"We wanted to talk to you. Professor," Harry said quickly, looking at Dumbledore, who gave him a swift, searching look.

"Wait here for me, Harry, Nixie," he said. "Our examination of the grounds will not take long."

They trooped out in silence past us and closed the door. After a minute or so, I heard the clunks of Moody's wooden leg growing fainter in the corridor below. I looked around.

"Hello, Fawkes," he said.

Fawkes, Professor Dumbledore's phoenix, was standing on his golden perch beside the door. The size of a swan, with magnificent scarlet-and-gold plumage, he swished his long tail and blinked benignly at Harry.

As Harry sat down in a chair in front of Dumbledore's desk I started to examine the Gryffindor Sword hanging on the wall. It had been that very sword that stabbed the giant Basilisk, and that was what brought me back to life. The memory still scarred me, but I couldn't help but be completely proud of myself; I mean, it didn't kill me, so the experiance made me stronger.

I ran my hand absently through my scar. It didn't hurt anymore. My mind went back to the stiffling room of Divination and I silently wondered what the students there were thinking now. They probably thought that Harry and I were freaks, but I didn't cringe at the thought, I was used to that.

I smirked. My popularity went off and on, it seemed. Sometimes the whole school hated me, but then I would do something so brilliant that I was the center of attention. Take my name entering the Goblet of Fire for example; everyone hated me, but then I did the first task and everyone waved 'hi' to me in the corridors, practically begging for a 'hi' back.

From the corner of my eyes, I noticed a patch of silver light, dancing and shimmering on the glass case. I looked around for the source of the light and saw a sliver of silver-white shining brightly from within a black cabinet behind Harry, whose door had not been closed properly. I hesitated, glanced at Fawkes, then got up, walked across the office, and pulled open the cabinet door.

A shallow stone basin lay there, with odd carvings around the edge: runes and symbols that I did not recognize. The silvery light was coming from the basin's contents, which were like nothing I had ever seen before. I could not tell whether the substance was liquid or gas. It was a bright, whitish silver, and it was moving ceaselessly; the surface of it became ruffled like water beneath wind, and then, like clouds, separated and swirled smoothly. It looked like light made liquid - or like wind made solid - I couldn't make up his mind.