After learning from Professor McGonagall's scattered remarks that Ron and Lavender had not been too badly hurt, Harry and Hermione both breathed a little easier.
Only—
Looking at Ron on the hospital bed, his brows still faintly knitted even in sleep, as if some bad dream were chasing him, face pale beneath the freckles, Harry felt the veins in his forehead throb with rage.
Guilt and remorse battered the defences of his heart like ocean waves!
Harry ground his teeth until they creaked!
He should never have sent Ron and Lavender to tail Malfoy and Parkinson.
The idea had seemed so practical at the time.
Ron might be a sharp fellow, but next to Malfoy's cunning, he was still a notch behind. And Lavender had never even been part of the plan until the last moment. Harry had asked them to watch, and now they lay here, soaked, feverish and senseless, because he had asked.
Creak—
The ward door swung open. Madam Pomfrey stepped in, a tray of small stoppered bottles balanced in one hand, and the moment she noticed two more students standing at the foot of the beds, her face darkened like a sky before a storm.
"These two children need rest now, Headmaster. If there is something important you need to get to the bottom of, it can wait until they wake tomorrow morning!"
"I am as concerned for their health as you are, Poppy—"
Dumbledore said with faint, apologetic smile. "but there are some puzzles I'm afraid I must solve right now. I would not ask it of you, or of them, if it could possibly wait."
Puzzles.
Hermione bit her lower lip.
Professor Dumbledore was understating it terribly. Professor Watson's office at Hogwarts had been burgled, and the Dark Witch's staff had vanished without a trace. It was news that could have held the front page of the Daily Prophet for days!
"Albus Dumbledore, this is a hospital wing, not your study," Madam Pomfrey said, her voice dropping to a furious whisper. "I have a ward full of children coughing their lungs out, and two more in here who were found senseless on a floor!"
"And I am more grateful than I can say that they are in your hands, Poppy."
Professor Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey locked eyes in a silent stand-off for a few seconds.
Rain ticked against the window. A bottle clinked on the tray as the matron's grip tightened. Then Madam Pomfrey was the one to yield.
"In ten minutes, everyone must leave these two children's ward."
After giving Ron and Lavender their medicine, tipping each dose between their lips with gentle fingers, Madam Pomfrey swept a disapproving gaze over each person in turn, lingering longest on Harry and Hermione, and issued her instructions in a stiff voice before she left.
"Mr. Potter—"
The moment Madam Pomfrey stepped out of the ward and the door clicked shut, Professor McGonagall pressed him again, urgently. "You have ten minutes, as Madam Pomfrey says, and I would very much like to spend them on the truth."
"It was Malfoy!"
Harry's bitter words made Hermione's expression flicker. She opened her mouth, but after a lightning-quick moment of thought, she stayed silent.
True, what was done was done, and it was time to lay everything out. Any more secrecy now would only look like guilt.
"He also sneaked into Gryffindor's common room and stole a dagger from my dormitory. It was a Christmas present Sirius gave me last year, and it can open any lock protected by magic. Malfoy used it to open your office, Professor Watson!"
Harry had told them everything, and the words came out in a rush. He looked toward Professor Watson and Professor Dumbledore, who stood in the shadows beyond the lamplight, hoping for some reaction.
But to Harry's disappointment, both wore thoughtful expressions and said nothing. Dumbledore's fingers rested together. Bryan's head was tilted slightly, as if he were listening to something far away.
Professor McGonagall and Hermione, meanwhile, showed surprise to differing degrees. Hermione's was the quieter sort. She had known that Harry's dormitory had been robbed, though not what had been taken.
"Malfoy sneaked into the Gryffindor common room—could you be clearer about that, Mr. Potter?"
The anger on Professor McGonagall's face had eased somewhat, though it was now tangled up with confusion. She nudged her square black spectacles up her nose and demanded in a low voice,
"Gryffindor Tower has a portrait that guards it and a password that changes. A Slytherin boy cannot simply stroll in."
"Ever since Professor Watson's office was broken into last time, we've suspected it was Malfoy—"
Hermione drew a deep breath and, watching the professors' reactions as she went, spoke quickly.
"All this time we've been looking for evidence. We've never had any proof, Professor, that's why we never came to you… When we learned that Professor Watson would be leading us on the study trip and that Malfoy wasn't taking part, we suspected he might use the opportunity to strike."
Behind the calm faces of Professor Watson and Professor Dumbledore, their true thoughts remained unfathomable.
But Professor McGonagall, having heard this, frowned more deeply.
"Go on, Miss Granger—"
She said it in a tone that allowed no refusal.
"—Ron and Lavender weren't taking part in the study trip either, so we decided to have them keep watch on Malfoy today."
Under Professor McGonagall's stern gaze, Hermione flinched, her shoulders drew in. Then she steeled herself and went on, "After the study trip ended, we saw Malfoy and Parkinson in the Great Hall, but there was no sign of Ron and Lavender, so Harry and I went straight upstairs and found them… And then we discovered…"
Hermione drew several more breaths, each one slower than the last, and turned her eyes to Professor Watson.
"Harry's dormitory and mine had both been burgled… Harry lost the dagger Sirius gave him, and I lost my Felix Felicis!"
After a pause of a few seconds, Hermione added quietly, "I got the Felix Felicis in Professor Slughorn's class."
Hermione had lost her Felix Felicis?
Now it was Harry's turn to look shocked at what Hermione had lost. He turned his head so sharply that his glasses slid down his nose.
Within a single day, the quarters of one of Hogwarts' deputy heads and of two students had all been robbed, and what was taken seemed somehow connected.
Judging by Professor McGonagall's expression, her worry now outweighed her anger at the possibility that students of her own House were involved. Her lips moved as though she were counting something under her breath.
"You suspect… Mal—someone stole the dagger, and Miss Granger's Felix Felicis, and used those two things to open Bryan's office…"
By her tone, Professor McGonagall seemed to be asking Harry. But she was actually facing Bryan as she spoke, and her expression was doubtful.
"Hmm—"
Bryan thought for a few moments before he answered, his voice calm.
"I can't say, Minerva… After all, I've never seen the dagger Harry describes, so I don't know whether its power would be enough to break through the protections on my office. Those wards were not set lightly. Oh, but I will say—"
Bryan smiled.
"Using Felix Felicis is a stroke of genius, though… I mean, if the thief really did use both the dagger and the Felix Felicis—"
He left the sentence hanging, the faint amusement in it was unmistakable.
Professor McGonagall shot Professor Watson a disapproving glare. She simply could not understand it: something this serious, with potentially terrible consequences, had happened, and Bryan could still manage a smile.
"Bryan, with the greatest respect, a student's life may have been endangered tonight," she said stiffly. "Two of them are lying in front of you with fevers!"
"I assure you, Minerva, I haven't forgotten them for a moment."
"Mr. Potter, Miss Granger—"
Professor McGonagall turned her head back to the two students and asked gravely, "Whether it's the theft from Bryan's office or the things missing from your dormitories, we must get to the bottom of it… You've just offered your guesses, but I must ask: do you have any real evidence showing that Mr. Malfoy did all this?"
What more evidence did they need? The facts were right there in front of them!
Harry thought indignantly, and nearly said it aloud.
Hermione, by contrast, was more rational, and she put a restraining hand on Harry's arm.
Professor McGonagall's demand was fair. Everything they had just said rested on nothing but conjecture, however sure they were. A teacher could not act on certainty alone, and neither could a court.
Unless…
Hermione turned her face toward Ron and Lavender on their hospital beds.
Unless the two of them had seen the attacker's face with their own eyes.
"Harry—"
Just then, Professor Dumbledore spoke up calmly and unexpectedly, and everyone's eyes turned to him.
"That marvellous dagger Sirius gave you—did you ever mention it to anyone else?"
Harry was bewildered for a moment. Then his bright green eyes lit up.
"Malfoy knows!"
Harry blurted it out. "Over the summer I ran into Malfoy in Diagon Alley, and I mentioned it then!"
"I see."
Dumbledore nodded slowly, and something unreadable passed behind his half-moon spectacles.
Professor McGonagall's eyes flickered.
As far as she knew, Potter and Malfoy had never gotten along well, and a quarrel in Diagon Alley was nothing she would have been surprised to hear of.
But how had Potter come to tell him about the Christmas gift Sirius had given him? A boy did not usually boast to his worst enemy about the very thing he would least like stolen.
Professor McGonagall was about to ask when the ward door opened once more, and Madam Pomfrey's displeased face peered in through the gap. She said nothing, but she tapped one finger pointedly against her wrist, where a watch would have been.
"It seems we do need to have a word with Mr. Malfoy."
Professor McGonagall cut her question short and said instead, brisk and clear once more, "I'll go and ask the Fat Lady's portrait whether any suspicious persons got into the Gryffindor common room today. Portraits see a great deal, and she is the only one who would have seen who came and went.
Albus, Bryan, you may take Mr. Potter and Miss Granger ahead to Severus's office. We'll meet you there—"
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