"Good evening, sir," said Chris, walking into the headmaster's office.
"Ah, good evening, Christina. Sit down," said Dumbledore, smiling. "I am sorry for calling you like this but, you see, I wanted our eting to be unknown by anyone other than and you."
"I understand Professor," said Chris sitting down on a chair in front of the desk. "Everything alright, sir?"
The circular office looked just as it always did; the delicate silver instrunts stood on spindle-legged tables, puffing smoke and whirring; portraits of previous headmasters and headmistresses dozed in their fras, and Dumbledore's magnificent phoenix, Fawkes, stood on his perch behind the door. Chris looked at the Phoenix with a smile and he flew to her and sat on the desk. Chris stroked his feathers slightly.
"Well, for now, it is but I don't know how long," sighed Dumbledore.
Chris looked up at Dumbledore.
"I think you have guessed that I didn't bring Professor Slughorn here, without any reason," said Dumbledore. "And I think you have wondered why Harry is the one getting special lessons with ?"
"Yes, sir," Chris nodded. "Er — sir, are they connected?"
"Yes, they are. I took Harry to et Horace and wanted him to know that I am especially close to Harry," said Dumbledore. "I know that the news of Harry's private lessons with had reached Horace too. Honestly, I wanted that."
"So that Professor Slughorn wants to collect Harry?" Chris asked.
"Yes, indeed," nodded Dumbledore. "I want Harry to be close with Horace but I want you to be in Horace's favourites too."
"?"
"Christina, Horace Slughorn has an important piece of information — information that can help us to understand — the mystery of Voldemort. But he was too reluctant to give it to ." Dumbledore got to his feet and walked around the desk, past Chris, who turned in her seat to watch Dumbledore bending over the cabinet beside the door. When Dumbledore straightened up, he was holding a familiar shallow stone basin etched with odd markings around its rim. He placed the Pensieve on the desk in front of Chris. "I will show you the mory he had given , then you will tell what's wrong with it."
Dumbledore took from an inside pocket a crystal phial and poured it in the Pensive and touch his wand to the liquid.
"After you Christina."
Chris nodded and bent forward, took a deep breath, and plunged her face into the silvery substance. She felt her feet leave the office floor; she was falling, falling through whirling darkness and then, quite suddenly, she landed right in front of a man she recognized at once.
It was a much younger Horace Slughorn. This Slughorn had thick, shiny, straw-coloured hair quite disconcerting; it looked as though he had had his head thatched, though there was already a shiny Galleon-sized bald patch on his crown. His moustache, less massive than it was these days, was gingery-blond. He was not quite as rotund as the Slughorn Chris knew, though the golden buttons on his richly embroidered waistcoat were taking a fair amount of strain. His little feet resting upon a velvet pouffe, he was sitting well back in a comfortable winged armchair, one hand grasping a small glass of wine, the other searching through a box of crystallized pineapple.
Chris looked around as Dumbledore appeared beside him and saw that they were standing in Slughorn's office. Half a dozen boys were sitting around Slughorn, all on harder or lower seats than his, and all in their mid-teens.
"Sir, is it true that Professor rrythought is retiring?" asked the familiar and most handso boy among them. He also looked most relaxed of all the boys.
"Tom, Tom, if I knew I couldn't tell you," said Slughorn, wagging a reproving, sugar-covered finger at the boy, though ruining the effect slightly by winking. "I must say, I'd like to know where you get your information, boy, more knowledgeable than half the staff, you are."
With a jolt, Chris realized who it was.
"Tom? Tom Riddle?"
"Yes," nodded Dumbledore.
Chris still surprised looked back at the handso face of Riddle and found him smiling; the other boys laughed and cast him admiring looks.
"What with your uncanny ability to know things you shouldn't, and your careful flattery of the people who matter — thank you for the pineapple, by the way, you're quite right, it is my favourite —"
As several of the boys tittered, sothing very odd happened. The whole room was suddenly filled with a thick white fog, so that Chris could see nothing but the face of Dumbledore. Then Slughorn's voice rang out through the mist, unnaturally loudly, "You'll go wrong, boy, mark my words."
The fog cleared as suddenly as it had appeared and yet nobody made any allusion to it, nor did anybody looks as though anything unusual had just happened. Chris looked around as a small golden clock standing upon Slughorn's desk chid eleven o'clock.
"Good gracious, is it that ti already?" said Slughorn. "You'd better get going, boys, or we'll all be in trouble. Lestrange, I want your essay by tomorrow or it's detention. Sa goes for you, Avery."
Slughorn pulled himself out of his armchair and carried his empty glass over to his desk as the boys filed out.
Voldemort, however, stayed behind. Chris could tell he had dawdled deliberately, wanting to be last in the room with Slughorn.
"Look sharp, Tom," said Slughorn, turning around and finding him still present. "You don't want to be caught out of bed out of hours, and you a prefect . . ."
"Sir, I wanted to ask you sothing."
"Ask away, then, m'boy, ask away. . . ."
"Sir, I wondered what you know about . . . about Horcruxes?"
And it happened all over again: The dense fog filled the room so that Chris could not see Slughorn or Voldemort at all; only Dumbledore, smiling serenely beside her. Then Slughorn's voice bood out again, just as it had done before.
"I don't know anything about Horcruxes and I wouldn't tell you if I did! Now get out of here at once and don't let catch you ntioning them again!"
"Well, that's that," said Dumbledore placidly beside Chris. "Ti to go."
And Chris' feet left the floor to fall, seconds later, back onto the rug in front of Dumbledore's desk.
"So?" Dumbledore looked at Chris expectantly.
"The mory was foggy, literally. Slughorn — Professor Slughorn's voice wasn't normal that ti. No one in the mory — not even Riddle looked that much offended after hearing Slughorn's first unnatural outburst, — and you said he wasn't very eager to give you this mory in the first place," Chris was talking to the Pensive. "So he modified his mory before giving it to you?"
Chris looked up at Dumbledore, who smiled down at her.
"Yes," said Dumbledore reseating himself behind his desk. "He tampered with his mory before giving it to ."
"But why? Is he helping Riddle?" said Chris shocked.
"No. I think, he is ashad of what he rembers," said Dumbledore. "He has tried to rework the mory to show himself in a better light, obliterating those parts which he does not wish to see. It is, as you will have noticed, very crudely done, and that is all to the good, for it shows that the true mory is still there beneath the alterations."
"And?"
"And I want you to get it, Christina," said Dumbledore looking absolute serious. "As I think, you have understood, Horace is capable of lots of things, so the original mory can be only achieved if he hands the mory willingly. I could ask Harry to do that but if he becos Horace's favourite and asks for the mory he will understand it was my trick but if you trick him to give that mory —"
"He won't think it's you," finished Chris. "Because he thinks you are close to Harry but not . But Professor, wouldn't he able to put two and two together?"
"Knowing Horace, yes he will but," Dumbledore smiled, a twinkle in his eye, "I think you will manage, won't you Christina?"
Chris grinned feeling amazed.
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To be continued. . .
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