Crash!
The silence that had stretched across several seconds suddenly shattered. Harry had leapt up from his chair so violently that it toppled backwards and struck the flagstones.
"No suspicious person entered."
His voice came out hoarse and strange.
"The Fat Lady did not see Mr. Malfoy or Miss Parkinson come into the Gryffindor common room, Mr. Potter—"
Professor McGonagall was looking at him with worry, and the severe lines about her mouth had softened.
"And that is not all. She did not see a single student from outside Gryffindor come through that portrait hole today—"
Harry stumbled back a step. The firelight slid across his glasses and turned the lenses into two blank discs, and behind them his eyes had gone empty.
'What did that mean?'
His dormitory and Hermione's had both been ransacked, and the only way into Gryffindor Tower led past the Fat Lady's potrait. If no outsider had gone through it, then could it really have been Gryffindor's own students who had done it?!
Professor McGonagall's anxious gaze sent a jolt of alarm through him. It rested on him, and Harry understood.
She… was suspecting that whoever had taken their things was Ron and Lavender.
Oh, no. That couldn't be!
Professor McGonagall was strict but she had always stood on the side of fairness. She could not possibly be so absurd as to think that Ron and Lavender had robbed Harry's and Hermione's dormitories and then broken into Professor Watson's office, only to end up senseless on its floor and burning with fever for their trouble.
Then…
Harry's eyes went to Professor Dumbledore and Professor Watson. A possibility had begun to turn over slowly in his mind. From the way Professor McGonagall's lips had thinned, she had thought of it too.
"Bryan—"
She lowered her voice to a murmur.
"Is it possible that Mr. Weasley and Miss Brown were put under the Imperius Curse?"
Professor Watson's reaction disappointed Harry.
He had hoped for a sharp look. Instead, Bryan only tilted his head slightly. He said nothing at all.
"I don't think we need be puzzled over how Mr. Weasley and Miss Brown came to be in Bryan's office, Minerva—"
It was Professor Dumbledore who answered instead. He sat with both forearms resting along the armrests of his conjured chair, his fingers laced together.
"Once they wake tomorrow morning, all of this will come to light. What we ought to be most concerned about now is where that staff is at this moment."
For a while no one spoke. At last Professor McGonagall drew a long breath through her nose and nodded.
A little while later the door opened again, and Professor Snape swept in, his black robes snapping at his heels, with Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson walking ahead of him.
With eight people now squeezed into it, the office felt like the inside of a cupboard.
Snape shut the door, withdrew to stand off to one side near the tall potions cabinet, folded his arms, and said nothing. He had not the slightest intention of speaking up for his own students. He simply watched them, coldly.
Harry stared at Malfoy.
Under the sickly dungeon light Malfoy looked even paler than usual. All he could read in the look Malfoy sent his way was ice. There was no fear in it, no guilt, not even surprise, only a frozen, bored contempt, as if he had been dragged out of a pleasant evening to listen to a tiresome complaint.
It only stoked Harry's anger further.
No matter how Malfoy tried to cover it up, there was no other possibility. Malfoy had to have conspired with Parkinson to attack Ron and Lavender. Harry could see Ron again, as clearly as if the image were pressed against his eyes: the flushed face on the pillow.
Racked by his own guilt, he could scarcely hold back his fury. His right hand curled and uncurled at his side, and all he wanted in the world was to drive his fist into that expressionless face.
"Draco, Pansy?"
Professor Watson folded his hands on the desk and smiled at the two Slytherins as pleasantly as if he had invited them to tea. His calm voice held Harry's temper in check, for the moment.
"Did Professor Snape tell you what has happened?"
"Certainly, Professor Watson—"
In the dim office, the many gazes fixed on his face did not move Draco in the slightest. He nodded calmly and said,
"Potter's accusation against me comes from his prejudice against Slytherin. He can't produce any evidence at all that I had anything to do with the theft from your office."
The suffocating silence was broken by Harry's voice, dry with rage,
"Who else could it be but you, Malfoy!"
Even Professor McGonagall, hearing it, showed a flicker of resignation. She closed her eyes for an instant behind her square spectacles.
"Only you knew, Malfoy—"
Hermione hurried forward, glaring icily at Malfoy and Parkinson.
"Only you knew Harry had that dagger. He told you about it in Diagon Alley over the summer, didn't he?"
Pansy had already drawn breath to snap back at her. Without even glancing in her direction, Draco lifted two fingers from his side in a small, flat gesture, and she closed her mouth.
"So what?"
His lip curled in contempt.
"I'd wager you and Weasley knew Potter had that thing too, didn't you?"
His grey eyes slid toward Snape, as though checking for something then went on.
"As far as I know, Weasley was found in Professor Watson's office, and he and Brown just happen to be your and Potter's dorm-mates."
Harry could hardly believe it. Malfoy had the nerve to turn the accusation around on him!
"Then how do you explain going to Borgin and Burkes over the summer, trying to buy an alchemical blade that could break through magical defences, Malfoy?"
Hermione was seething too, and she demanded it aggressively.
None of the professors had known about this, Snape included. A ripple went through the little room and every professor in the office was stirred to some degree.
"Why I went to Borgin and Burkes has nothing to do with this—"
Malfoy seemed to have anticipated the question. He stared at Harry and Ron with detachment,
"Of course, if you're curious, I can tell you I only did it to get some more galleons out of my mother, because I spent far too much in Hogsmeade last year and Mother thought I ought to rein it in—"
"That's complete rubbish, Malfoy!"
Harry snapped angrily, but Malfoy merely twitched his lips in contempt.
"Mr. Malfoy—"
Professor McGonagall began, but she did not go on.
The school, of course, was not going to send an owl to Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy to ask whether they really had tightened their son's purse strings.
Malfoy's account irritated Professor McGonagall as well, and a muscle jumped in her jaw. She stepped forward and fixed Draco with the glare that had reduced generations of students to stammering.
"Tell us, please, where you were all day today."
Draco cast a sidelong glance at her, plainly unwilling to answer. But then his eyes met Professor Watson's.
Bryan, seated behind the desk, was watching him in silence with those deep, dark eyes, violet so dark in the dungeon gloom that they might have been black. Something in them made Draco press his lips together and lower his head.
"I spent most of the time in the Slytherin common room, but after breakfast Pansy and I went out for a walk—"
'A walk?'
Hermione's shoulders jolted.
"But it was raining outside."
"It's none of your business, Granger!"
Pansy said ferociously.
"Pansy and I walked along the lake for a while."
Draco went on as though no one had spoken.
"When we reached the Forbidden Forest, I suddenly wanted to visit Professor Rahansen's residence and ask him about meditation."
Meditation. Malfoy.
Harry very nearly choked.
"Pansy and I stayed with him for a little while, then went back to the Slytherin common room and stayed there until lunch. In the afternoon, Pansy and I likewise stayed in the common room. That's all—"
Draco finished with a cold, unperturbed expression, as though he had merely read out a timetable.
Hermione suddenly realized that this was in fact going to be very hard to settle, even if Ron and Lavender woke up tomorrow morning.
The two of them had been attacked, that much was beyond question, and she believed as Harry did that Malfoy must be behind it. But the fact that Malfoy and Parkinson dared to hold forth so boldly, here, in front of Dumbledore himself, could only mean that Ron and Lavender had not seen who had attacked them.
Without a witness, Malfoy's story would stand like a stone wall, and the only way to bring it down was to resort to some…
"Shall I go and fetch the Veritaserum, Headmaster Dumbledore?"
Snape had been silent for so long that his voice made Harry start. He drawled it from where he leaned against the potions cabinet, with such perfect indifference that it was impossible to tell whether he hoped to hear yes or no.
"You know we have no right to use that potion on students without authorization, Severus—"
Dumbledore said calmly.
"In that case—"
Bryan glanced at the indignant, unwilling Harry and Hermione, who clearly did not want to let the matter drop, and then, stroking his chin,
"Severus, did you examine Draco and Pansy? Had they taken any Felix Felicis?"
Harry, Hermione and Professor McGonagall all felt a jolt of alertness. A trace of Felix Felicis in either Slytherin would be worth more than any amount of accusation.
"Apart from Mr. Malfoy's recent overuse of pick-me-up potions, I see no sign that they have taken any other potion—"
Severus's thin lips twisted into a sneer, and he looked mockingly at Harry, whose face had gone from pink to white to livid in the span of a few seconds.
Bryan gave a slight nod. The firelight drifted across his face in bands of gold and shadow, so that his expression could not be read. He held out a hand toward Draco and Parkinson.
"Your wands. I need to examine the spells you have cast recently—"
Draco handed his over without a word. After a quick look at him, Pansy did the same.
Of course. The Replay Charm!
Harry's spirits rose again. He remembered it clearly. On the day Voldemort had returned, after they were back at school, Professor Watson had explained to Sirius and the others the real reason the spirits of the dead had emerged from the tip of Voldemort's wand.
And in that explanation, he had mentioned the Reverse-Spell Effect.
But the results of the examination disappointed Harry and Hermione once more.
Neither Malfoy's wand nor Parkinson's had cast a Stunning Spell at any point recently.
Even Harry, who had been most certain that Malfoy was behind everything, looked bewildered. Hermione wore the same uneasy, uncertain look. Neither of them could understand what on earth was going on!
Professor Watson and Professor Dumbledore exchanged a look, and then Professor Dumbledore rose from his chair.
"Minerva, Severus—"
Professor Dumbledore, his hands clasped before him, spoke calmly to the two Heads of House.
"Please have Filch close the castle gates. Also, please summon all the students to the Great Hall; we need all the staff to conduct a search of the castle—"
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