but, the hogwarts grounds had never looked more inviting than when elara had to stay indoors. for the next few days she spent all of her free time either in the library with harry, hermione and ron, looking up hexes, or else in empty classrooms, which they sneaked into to practice. harry was concentrating on the stunning spell, which he had never used before. the trouble was that practicing it involved certain sacrifices on ron's, elara's and hermione's part.

"can't we kidnap mrs. norris?" ron suggested on monday lunchtime as he lay flat on his back in the middle of their charms classroom, having just been stunned and reawoken by harry for the fifth time in a row. "let's stun her for a bit. or you could use dobby, harry, i bet he'd do anything to help you. i'm not complaining or anything" — he got gingerly to his feet, rubbing his backside — "but i'm aching all over. . . ."

"well, you keep missing the cushions, don't you!" said hermione impatiently, rearranging the pile of cushions they had used for the banishing spell, which flitwick had left in a cabinet.

"just try fall backward!"

"once you're stunned, you can't aim too well!" said ron angrily. "why don't either of you take a turn?"

"well, i think harry's got it now, anyway," said hermione hastily. "and we don't have to worry about disarming, because he's been able to do that for ages. . . . i think we ought to start on some of these hexes this evening."

she looked down the list they had made in the library.

"i like the look of this one," she said, "this impediment curse. should slow down anything that's trying to attack you, harry. we'll start with that one."

the bell rang. they hastily shoved the cushions back into flitwick's cupboard and slipped out of the classroom.

"see you at dinner!" said hermione, and she set off for arithmancy, while harry, ron, and elara headed toward north tower, and divination. broad strips of dazzling gold sunlight fell across the corridor from the high windows. the sky outside was so brightly blue it looked as though it had been enameled.

"it's going to be boiling in trelawney's room, she never puts out that fire," said ron as they started up the staircase toward the silver ladder and the trapdoor.

he was quite right. the dimly lit room was swelteringly hot. the fumes from the perfumed fire were heavier than ever. elara'd head swam as she made her way over to one of the curtained windows. while professor trelawney was looking the other way, disentangling her shawl from a lamp, she opened it an inch or so and settled back in a chintz armchair, so that a soft breeze played across her face. it was extremely comfortable.

"my dears," said professor trelawney, sitting down in her winged armchair in front of the class and peering around at them all with her strangely enlarged eyes, "we have almost finished our work on planetary divination. today, however, will be an excellent opportunity to examine the effects of mars, for he is placed most interestingly at the present time. if you will all look this way, i will dim the lights. . . ."

she waved her wand and the lamps went out. the fire was the only source of light now. professor trelawney bent down and lifted, from under her chair, a miniature model of the solar system, contained within a glass dome. it was a beautiful thing; each of the moons glimmered in place around the nine planets and the fiery sun, all of them hanging in thin air beneath the glass. elara, who usually held a certain contempt for divination, was entranced as professor trelawney pointed out the fascinating angle mars was making to neptune.

elara was pulled out of her fascinated stupor when something quite heavy hit the floor. harry had fallen out of his chair. his eyes were squeezed shut, and he was clutching his scar. the class stared at him. lavender shrieked when harry began rolling around.

ron and elara immedietaly sprung to his side. ron was adamant on shaking him awake. elara refused, as if this was anything like her night terrors, shaking harry awake would end badly. the most they could do was keep him out of harm's way.

the episode went on for a minute or two. finally, when harry's muttering died down, elara decided it was time to get him awake.

"i'm so sorry, harry," muttered elara, raising her hand. she brought it down across his face, and thankfully, harry's eyes sprung open.

one hand was clutching his scar, and one hand was clutching the side of his face. his eyes were watering.

"you all right?" said ron, looking terrified.

"of course he isn't!" said professor trelawney, looking thoroughly excited. her great eyes loomed over harry, gazing at him. "what was it, potter? a premonition? an apparition? what did you see?"

"nothing," harry said. he sat up. he was shaking. he kept looking around, gazing at the shadows behind him.

something told elara this wasn't 'nothing'.

"you were clutching your scar!" said professor trelawney. "you were rolling on the floor, clutching your scar! come now, potter, i have experience in these matters!"

harry looked up at her. it took almost all of elara not to glare at professor trelawney.

"i need to go to the hospital wing, i think," harry said. "bad headache."

"my dear, you were undoubtedly stimulated by the extraordinary clairvoyant vibrations of my room!" said professor trelawney "if you leave now, you may lose the opportunity to see further than you have ever —"

"i don't want to see anything except a headache cure," said harry.

"i'll go with him," said elara, fearing what harry may have seen. "i have experience with stuff like this."

"yes, yes, lestrange. your aura is great, you shall be able to let harry see around you," professor trelawney said excitedly.

harry stood up. the class backed away. they all looked unnerved.

"see you later," harry muttered to ron, and he picked up his bag and headed for the trapdoor. elara swung her bag over her shoulder and begun to follow after.

when they reached the bottom of the stepladder, however, elara stopped.

"you need to tell me exactly what you saw," she said authoritatively.

"how -- ?"

"you're many things harry, but a great liar isn't one of them."

harry sighed and begun explaining that he had seen wormtail, voldemort, and nagini. voldemort was angry at wormtail for a mistake, but not incredibly angry, as the person they were trying to kill had been killed. still, voldemort tortured wormtail with the cruciates curse.

elara blanched.

"you okay?"

"harry, you have to come with me. right now."

"but, dumbledore -- "

"he'll need to see this, too."

elara grabbed harry's hand and begun tugging him towards the gryffindor tower. after knocking over a couple first-years accidentally, they arrived at the fat lady's portrait. elara shouted the password. the portrait swung open begrudgingly.

she dragged him towards the girl's dormitory staircase.

"woah, i can't go up there," harry dug his heels into the ground, preventing elara from dragging him further.

"yes, you can," said elara, as she took out her wand and tapped a deformed-looking stone three times. another pair of narrower stairs emerged from the wall. "alright, up you go."

elara set off on the normal stairs, while harry used the newer ones. elara pushed open the door into her room. she immediately began digging around in her bedside table, her trunk, and a few other bags that were lying around. harry stood, looking around the room in amazement.

"so, this entire time, ron and i could've come up here?"

"well, only a handful of people know about it, but yes," said elara, plunging back into her trunk. she resurfaced holding her journal. "yes! here it is."

as she moved back towards harry, elara began vehemently flipping through the pages. she continued to do so as they went back down the stairs and out the common room. as they were heading towards dumbledore's office, elara made a noise of triumph and gave the journal to harry.

they had walked right past the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to dumbledore's office without noticing. elara blinked, looked around, realized what she had done, and retraced her steps, stopping in front of it. then she remembered that neither of them knew the password.

"sherbet lemon?" elara tried tentatively.

the gargoyle did not move.

"okay," said harry, staring at it, "pear drop. er — licorice wand."

"fizzing whizbee. drooble's best blowing gum."

"bertie bott's every flavor beans . . . oh no, he doesn't like them, does he? . . . oh just open, can't you?" harry said angrily. "we really need to see him, it's urgent!"

the gargoyle remained immovable. harry kicked it, but that achieved nothing.

"chocolate frog!" elara yelled angrily.

"sugar quill!"

"cockroach cluster!"

the gargoyle sprang to life and jumped aside.

elara blinked. "cockroach cluster?" she said, amazed. "i was only joking. . . ."

they hurried through the gap in the walls and stepped onto the foot of a spiral stone staircase, which moved slowly upward as the doors closed behind them, taking them up to a polished oak door with a brass door knocker.

they could hear voices from inside the office. they stepped off the moving staircase and hesitated, listening.

"dumbledore, i'm afraid i don't see the connection, don't see it at all!" it was the voice of the minister of magic, cornelius fudge. "ludo says bertha's perfectly capable of getting herself lost. i agree we would have expected to have found her by now, but all the same, we've no evidence of foul play, dumbledore, none at all. as for her disappearance being linked with barty crouch's!"

"and what do you thinks happened to barty crouch, minister?" said moody's growling voice.

"i see two possibilities, alastor," said fudge. "either crouch has finally cracked — more than likely, i'm sure you'll agree, given his personal history — lost his mind, and gone wandering off somewhere —"

"he wandered extremely quickly, if that is the case, cornelius," said dumbledore calmly.

"or else — well . . ." fudge sounded embarrassed. "well, i'll reserve judgment until after i've seen the place where he was found, but you say it was just past the beauxbatons carriage? dumbledore, you know what that woman is?"

"i consider her to be a very able headmistress — and an excellent dancer," said dumbledore quietly.

"dumbledore, come!" said fudge angrily. "don't you think you might be prejudiced in her favor because of hagrid? they don't all turn out harmless — if, indeed, you can call hagrid harmless, with that monster fixation he's got —"

"i no more suspect madame maxime than hagrid," said dumbledore, just as calmly. "i think it possible that it is you who are prejudiced, cornelius."

"can we wrap up this discussion?" growled moody.

"yes, yes, let's go down to the grounds, then," said fudge impatiently.

"no, it's not that," said moody, "it's just that potter and lestrange want a word with you, dumbledore. they're just outside the door."

the door of the office opened.

"hello, potter," said moody. "come in, then."

harry and elara walked inside. she had been inside dumbledore's office a handful of times 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.

"harry, elara!" said fudge jovially, moving forward. "how are you?"

"fine," they said together.

"we were just talking about the night when mr. crouch turned up on the grounds," said fudge. "it was you who found him, harry, was it not?"

"yes," said harry. then, after a short pause, he added, "i didn't see madame maxime anywhere, though, and she'd have a job hiding, wouldn't she?"

elara had to stifle a snort. 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," elara said quickly, looking at dumbledore, who gave her a swift, searching look.

"wait here for me," he said. "our examination of the grounds will not take long."

they trooped out in silence past him and closed the door. after a minute or so, elara heard the clunks of moody's wooden leg growing fainter in the corridor below. she looked around.

"hello, fawkes," harry 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.

harry sat down in a chair in front of dumbledore's desk. elara moved to look at fawkes. she always liked him. fawkes chirped as elara ran two fingers down his back, stroking him gently.

for several minutes, she pet fawkes. he was a brilliant bird. she felt much calmer, somehow, now that she was in dumbledore's office, knowing she and harry would shortly be telling him about the dream and its connection to elara's own dream just weeks before. elara looked up at the walls behind the desk. the patched and ragged sorting hat was standing on a shelf. a glass case next to it held a magnificent silver sword with large rubies set into the hilt, which elara didn't recognize. she was gazing at it, wondering how dumbledore obtained such a beautiful item, when she noticed a patch of silvery light, dancing and shimmering on the glass case. she looked around for the source of the light and saw a sliver of silver-white shining brightly from within a black cabinet behind her, whose door had not been closed properly.

elara hesitated, glanced at harry, which confirmed he'd seen the light too, they 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 elara did not recognize. the silvery light was coming from the basin's contents, which were like nothing elara had ever seen before. she could not tell whether the sub-stance 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 — elara couldn't make up her mind.

"what is it?" harry asked quietly.

"i dunno," said elara. "but its beautiful."

she wanted to touch it, to find out what it felt like, but nearly fourteen years' experience of the magical world told her that sticking her hand into a bowl full of some unknown substance was a very stupid thing to do. she therefore pulled her wand out of the inside of her robes, cast a nervous look at harry, looked back at the contents of the basin, and prodded them.

the surface of the silvery stuff inside the basin began to swirl very fast.

"woah," harry and elara breathed out together.

they bent closer, their heads right inside the cabinet. the silvery substance had become transparent; it looked like glass. they looked down into it, expecting to see the stone bottom of the basin — and saw instead an enormous room below the surface of the mysterious substance, a room into which they seemed to be looking through a circular window in the ceiling.

the room was dimly lit; elara thought it might even be underground, for there were no windows, merely torches in brackets such as the ones that illuminated the walls of hogwarts. lowering her face so that her nose was a mere inch away from the glassy substance, elara saw that rows and rows of witches and wizards were seated around every wall on what seemed to be benches rising in levels. an empty chair stood in the very center of the room. there was something about the chair that gave elara an ominous feeling. chains encircled the arms of it, as though its occupants were usually tied to it.

"what the hell?" elara whispered.

she and harry shared a look. this place surely wasn't hogwarts; she had never seen a room like that here in the castle. moreover, the crowd in the mysterious room at the bottom of the basin was comprised of adults, and elara knew there were not nearly that many teachers at hogwarts. they seemed, she thought, to be waiting for something; even though she could only see the tops of their hats, all of their faces seemed to be pointing in one direction, and none of them were talking to one another.

the basin being circular, and the room they were observing square, they could not make out what was going on in the corners of it. they looked at each other again. they leaned even closer, tilting their heads, trying to see . . .

the tip of elara's nose touched the strange substance into which she was staring.

dumbledore's office gave an almighty lurch — elara was thrown forward and pitched headfirst into the substance inside the basin —

but her head did not hit the stone bottom. she was falling through something icy-cold and black; it was like being sucked into a dark whirlpool —