Clouds so thick they would never lift shrouded the ceiling of the Great Hall, and from them fell the phantom of a cold, pattering rain, vanishing somewhere along the way down.
"Earlier today, someone broke into my office and removed a document of the utmost secrecy.
"Should that document leak, it would do grave damage to the British wizarding world. For that reason, the staff will now search the castle, including the common rooms of all four Houses and the quarters of our exchange delegation. I ask for your patience, and for your cooperation. It will not take long—"
Professor Watson's voice rolled back and forth through the Great Hall and it drowned out the noisy murmuring of the young wizards like a wave smoothing sand.
The whispering did not stop completely. It sank into a restless hum. Every eye in the room followed him.
After asking the prefects and the Head Boy and Head Girl to keep order in the hall, Bryan turned and climbed the stairs from the entrance hall to the floor above.
He went up slowly, one step at a time, with his hands in his, all the way back to his office.
Minerva and Severus had both gone to direct the search. Only Dumbledore and four young wizards remained in his office, waiting for the result.
"I'm afraid this will take some time—"
After serving hot tea to everyone in the office, Bryan stoked the fire until the flames leapt higher and the corners of the room lost their chill. Then he walked over to the bookcase and took a box of treats from a drawer.
"Cookies, anyone? Sugar is excellent for the nerves, I find. Better than any potion Severus could brew—"
Bryan asked it with a warm, welcoming smile, as though this were an ordinary evening and the four of them had simply dropped in to chat.
"Bryan, you read my mind—"
Dumbledore beamed, and his blue eyes twinkled.
"I was in the middle of an apple pie when your Patronus came. Oh, it was delicious—"
Harry and Hermione watched as Professor Dumbledore picked carefully through the box Professor Watson held out, weighing each biscuit as though it were a rare specimen, then took several cookies and clasped them in his palm like a boy with sweets.
"Come along, now, no one is going to grade you on manners. Take one—"
Professor Watson then carried the box over to the four young wizards on the sofa, holding it out to each.
Never mind tonight. Harry had hardly eaten anything all day, and the smell of butter and sugar made his stomach turn over with a hollow ache.
But he didn't have Professor Dumbledore's appetite, not now, with Ron lying feverish in a bed somewhere below. Out of politeness he took a single cookie, a token gesture, and then drew his hand back and let it rest on his knee.
"Thank you, Professor," Hermione murmured, taking one, and Pansy followed with a small, stiff nod, her eyes sliding away. Malfoy, though—
Though he bore the heaviest suspicion of anyone just now, he looked as if he had quite an appetite. He helped himself to a good many cookies, one after another, clutching them in his hand as though afraid someone might take them away.
"Thanks, Professor—these are good—"
Draco mumbled it with his head down.
Professor Watson smiled, his meaning incomprehensible, then turned and walked away to chat with Professor Dumbledore about a paper in the latest issue of Transfiguration Today.
"I confess the author's argument on partial Vanishment didn't convince me, Albus," Bryan said lightly, settling by the fire.
"Nor me, Bryan. A very thin argument. But the footnotes! Splendid footnotes—"
Every passing second was agony.
Harry, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Hermione, strained his ears for any sound from outside the office. The silence between the two professors' murmured talk seemed to stretch tighter and tighter, like a bowstring.
He desperately hoped that any moment now someone would burst in and announce loudly that under Malfoy's bed they had found the staff Malfoy had stolen, along with his own dagger and Hermione's Felix Felicis… oh, and the spare wand Malfoy had prepared in advance for all of this!
Unlike Harry, Hermione narrowed her eyes slightly, and fixed them on Professor Watson and Professor Dumbledore as they warmed themselves by the fire. She watched their backs and her brown eyes were tinged with puzzlement.
Every now and then, Hermione also stole a glance at Malfoy and Parkinson.
Unlike the brazenly confident air they had shown in Professor Snape's office a short while ago, Hermione could faintly sense that Malfoy and Parkinson had grown a little nervous.
What were they nervous about?
Without a doubt, it was the search now under way in the castle that had unsettled Malfoy and Parkinson. They hadn't anticipated that Professor Watson, just to recover the staff, would order the entire school searched.
Hermione turned her attention back to the backs of Hogwarts' headmaster and deputy headmaster.
And her puzzlement over Professor Watson and Professor Dumbledore stemmed from this very thing. They knew that if the staff fell into the hands of Cliodna, You-Know-Who would immediately gain another "formidable helper." Surely that was a danger worth losing sleep over.
And yet Professor Watson and Professor Dumbledore hadn't shown the slightest worry?
"Ahem—Professor Watson—"
Keeping a question bottled up was never a good habit. After a moment's hesitation, Hermione set her cookie down on the tea table and cleared her throat.
All eyes immediately fell on Hermione.
"Yes, Hermione?"
Bryan turned from the fire, and his tone was gentle.
"Have you thought of something we should look into?"
"Oh, no, sir, it isn't that—"
Hermione shook her head and bit her lower lip lightly a few times, gathering her nerve.
"I only wanted to ask… do you really think the staff will be found?"
Draco secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Granger was different from Potter and Weasley. Her mind had always worked well, and so she had gone to the quiet, sensible question and not the shouting one.
"That is something I can only answer when the search is over, Hermione—"
Bryan said it kindly, and with perfect flatness.
"Yes, of course, Professor. Only, it's just that…"
Hermione studied the two professors carefully, a flash of shrewdness in her gaze, and ventured on:
"It's only that neither you nor Professor Dumbledore seems … er, I mean you don't seem very worried that staff leaving Hogwarts…. I thought you believed it was sure to be found…"
"Ah, a long life has taught me one useful thing, Miss Granger—"
Professor Dumbledore chuckled, and his voice sounded weathered with age.
"Worrying about what has not yet happened is the surest way to spoil the hour one is actually living in. And I do so dislike spoiling an hour—"
But events made the words of Professor Dumbledore, in whom Harry had such deep trust, sound a little ridiculous.
The door banged open, and the first to walk in were Professor Snape and Professor Slughorn. Slughorn's walrus moustache drooped, his waistcoat was creased, and a smear of dust had settled across his shoulder.
"Severus and I have turned the Slytherin common room and every last dormitory upside down, Albus, Bryan—"
Slughorn said, looking at the two of them anxiously, mopping his brow with a silk handkerchief.
"And we found nothing. Not a thing!"
Harry's face went livid.
"Mr. Potter appears to doubt our thoroughness—"
Professor Snape had seized on the change in Harry's expression at a glance. He looked at Harry with a mocking smile, lip curled, his black eyes gleaming.
"Perhaps he would care to inspect the Slytherin dormitories personally. In case the staff is hiding behind a wardrobe, awaiting his arrival."
Harry shot to his feet and, with a look that did not yield an inch, told Snape that this was exactly what he wanted!
"I'm certain Harry doesn't mean that, Severus—"
Bryan said calmly,
"Rather than that, would you and Horace send the Slytherins in the Great Hall back to bed? In weather this cold, if those children spent a night on those benches, Poppy would have her hands full tomorrow—"
Harry could only sink back down onto the sofa, deflated.
Soon, Professor Flitwick, Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout came in one after another.
Flitwick, perched on the very edge of a chair too tall for him, squeaked out his report. Professor Sprout, her hat askew and her boots caked with mud from the greenhouses, shook her head grimly.
"Not a leaf out of place, I'm afraid. Nothing in the greenhouses, Albus—"
"Nothing in the Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff dormitories, either, Headmaster," Flitwick squeaked. "I had the ghosts check the walls!"
"Nothing in Gryffindor Tower," Professor McGonagall said stiffly.
They brought the same answer as Severus and Horace.
Last of all, Filch limped in, wheezing, with Mrs Norris slinking behind his ankles, and reported in a hoarse, aggrieved voice that he had checked the castle's trophy room, the broom shed, the Owlery and many other places, but had found nothing.
"Not a scrap, Professor Watson. Not so much as a stray feather! I've looked in every cupboard I know, and I know them all!"
Harry no longer showed any reaction at all; he had already expected this. Something heavy had settled in his chest, and he sat very still.
Malfoy and Parkinson, for their part, let out a soft breath, as if celebrating that the suspicion hanging over them had finally been cleared.
"Well then—"
Having dismissed Filch, Bryan glanced at the sky outside, deep as ink, and said to the silent students, gently:
"It's very late, and you have all had a long day. Go and get some rest. When Ron and Lavender wake tomorrow, perhaps they will be able to tell us something that helps—"
The four rose from the sofa and walked silently out of Professor Watson's office, one behind another, with no one willing to be the one to speak.
After a stretch of walking, they came into a long corridor with openwork arches along both sides. Between the stone tracery the night lay open, black and wet.
A fine, pattering drizzle was still sprinkling over the whole world, and the chill of early winter sliced, slipping through the arches and into their robes.
Harry suddenly stopped.
Malfoy, who had been striding ahead, as though sensing it, stopped too and turned to look at Harry.
"Harry—"
Hermione was certain Harry was about to explode with rage. She caught hold of his sleeve and shook her head gently.
But to Hermione's surprise, although his face was somewhat pale, Harry did not fly into a rage.
In the dim wind and rain, green eyes and grey eyes each reflected the other's expressionless face.
"You've really disappointed me, Malfoy—"
After a long silence, Harry said softly.
"I thought… I thought Professor Watson might have changed you a little. I thought you'd be at least slightly better than your Death Eater father. It turns out I overestimated you—"
The wind, which had been light and offhand, suddenly turned vicious. A gale surged in through the arches like a tidal wave and tousled the young's hair.
"Draco!"
Pansy cried out and instinctively reached out a hand, but Draco had already burst forward like a roaring horse and, in an instant, stood before Harry.
"You don't understand anything, Potter!"
Draco roared, his face flushed, and his grey eyes were brimming with glistening tears.
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