 beside him.
"Professor," Harry gasped, "I know I shouldn't've - I didn't mean - the cabinet door
was sort of open and -"
"I quite understand," said Dumbledore. He lifted the basin, carried it over to his
desk, placed it upon the polished top, and sat down in the chair behind it. He
motioned for Harry to sit down opposite him.
Harry did so, staring at the stone basin. The contents had returned to their original,
silvery-white state, swirling and rippling beneath his gaze.
"What is it?" Harry asked shakily.
"This? It is called a Pensieve," said Dumbledore. "I sometimes find, and I am sure
you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories
crammed into my mind."
"Er," said Harry, who couldn't truthfully say that he had ever felt anything of the
sort.
"At these times," said Dumbledore, indicating the stone basin, "I use the Pensieve.
One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the
basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and
links, you understand, when they are in this form."
"You mean . . . that stuff's your thoughts?" Harry said, staring at the swirling white
substance in the basin.
"Certainly," said Dumbledore. "Let me show you."
Dumbledore drew his wand out of the inside of his robes and placed the tip into
his own silvery hair, near his temple. When he took the wand away, hair seemed to
be clinging to it - but then Harry saw that it was in fact a glistening strand of the
same strange silvery-white substance that filled the Pensieve. Dumbledore added
this fresh thought to the basin, and Harry, astonished, saw his own face swimming
around the surface of the bowl. Dumbledore placed his long hands on either side
of the Pensieve and swirled it, rather as a gold prospector would pan for fragments
of gold.... and Harry saw his own face change smoothly into Snape's, who opened
his mouth and spoke to the ceiling, his voice echoing slightly.
"It's coming back . . . Karkaroff's too . . . stronger and clearer than ever..."
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"A connection I could have made without assistance," Dumbledore sighed, "but
never mind." He peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles at Harry, who
was gaping at Snape's face, which was continuing to swirl around the bowl. "I was
using the Pensieve when Mr. Fudge arrived for our meeting and put it away rather
hastily. Undoubtedly I did not fasten the cabinet door properly. Naturally, it would
have attracted your attention."
"I'm sorry," Harry mumbled.
Dumbledore shook his head. "Curiosity is not a sin," he said. "But we should
exercise caution with our curiosity. . . yes, indeed ..."
Frowning slightly, he prodded the thoughts within the basin with the tip of his
wand. Instantly, a figure rose out of it, a plump, scowling girl of about sixteen,
who began to revolve slowly, with her feet still in the basin. She took no notice
whatsoever of Harry or Professor Dumbledore. When she spoke, her voice echoed
as Snape's had done, as though it were coming from the depths of the stone basin.
"He put a hex on me, Professor Dumbledore, and I
was only teasing him, sir, I only said I'd seen him kissing Florence behind the
greenhouses last Thursday. . . ."
"But why. Bertha," said Dumbledore sadly, looking up at the now silently
revolving girl, "why did you have to follow him in the first place?"
"Bertha?" Harry whispered, looking up at her. "Is that - was that Bertha Jorkins?"
"Yes," said Dumbledore, prodding the thoughts in the basin again; Bertha sank
back into them, and they became silvery and opaque once more. "That was Bertha
as I remember her at school."
The silvery light from the Pensieve illuminated Dumbledore's face, and it struck
Harry suddenly how very old he was looking. He knew, of course, that
Dumbledore was getting on in years, but somehow he never really thought of
Dumbledore as an old man.
"So, Harry," said Dumbledore quietly. "Before you got lost in my thoughts, you
wanted to tell me something."
"Yes," said Harry. "Professor - I was in Divination just now, and - er - I fell
asleep."
He hesitated here, wondering if a reprimand was coming, but Dumbledore merely
said, "Quite understandable. Continue."
"Well, I had a dream," said Harry. "A dream about Lord Voldemort. He was
torturing Wormtail . . . you know who Wormtail-"
"I do know," said Dumbledore promptly. "Please continue."
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"Voldemort got a letter from an owl. He said something like, Wormtail's blunder
had been repaired. He said someone was dead. Then he said, Wormtail wouldn't be
fed to the snake - there was a snake beside his chair. He said - he said he'd be
feeding me to it,
instead. Then he did the Cruciatus Curse on Wormtail - and my scar hurt," Harry
said. "It woke me up, it hurt so badly."
Dumbledore merely looked at him.
"Er - that's all," said Harry.
"I see," said Dumbledore quietly. "I see. Now, has your scar hurt at any other time
this year, excepting the time it woke you up over the summer?"
"No, I - how did you know it woke me up over the summer?" said Harry,
astonished.
"You are not Sirius's only correspondent," said Dumbledore. "I have also been in
contact with him ever since he left Hogwarts last year. It was I who suggested the
mountainside cave as the safest place for him to stay."
Dumbledore got up and began walking up and down behind his desk. Every now
and then, he placed his wand tip to his temple, removed another shining silver
thought, and added it to the Pensieve. The thoughts inside began to swirl so fast
that Harry couldn't make out anything clearly: It was merely a blur of color.
"Professor?" he said quietly, after a couple of minutes.
Dumbledore stopped pacing and looked at Harry.
"My apologies," he said quietly. He sat back down at his desk.
"D'you - d'you know why my scar's hurting me?"
Dumbledore looked very intently at Harry for a moment, and then said, "I have a
theory, no more than that. ... It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lord
Voldemort is near you, and when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of
hatred."
"But. . . why?"
"Because you and he are connected by the curse that failed," said Dumbledore.
"That is no ordinary scar."
"So you think . . . that dream . . . did it really happen?"
"It is possible," said Dumbledore. "I would say - probable. Harry - did you see
Voldemort?"
"No," said Harry. "Just the back of his chair. But - there wouldn't have been
389
anything to see, would there? I mean, he hasn't got a body, has he? But. . . but then
how could he have held the wand?" Harry said slowly.
"How indeed?" muttered Dumbledore. "How indeed . . ."
Neither Dumbledore nor Harry spoke for a while. Dumbledore was gazing across
the room, and, every now and then, placing his wand tip to his temple and adding
another shining silver thought to the seething mass within the Pensieve.
"Professor," Harry said at last, "do you think he's getting stronger?"
"Voldemort?" said Dumbledore, looking at Harry over the Pensieve. It was the
characteristic, piercing look Dumbledore had given him on other occasions, and
always made Harry feel as though Dumbledore were seeing right through him in a
way that even Moody's magical eye could not. "Once again. Harry, I can only give
you my suspicions."
Dumbledore sighed again, and he looked older, and wearier, than ever.
"The years of Voldemort's ascent to power," he said, "were marked with
disappearances. Bertha Jorkins has vanished without a trace in the place where
Voldemort was certainly known to be last. Mr. Crouch too has disappeared . . .
within these very grounds. And there was a third disappearance, one which the
Ministry, I regret to say, do not consider of any importance, for it concerns a
Muggle. His name was Frank Bryce, he lived in the village where Voldemort's
father grew up, and he has not been seen since last August. You see, I read the
Muggle newspapers, unlike most of my Ministry friends."
Dumbledore looked very seriously at Harry.
"These disappearances seem to me to be linked. The Ministry disagrees - as you
may have heard, while waiting outside my office."
Harry nodded. Silence fell between them again, Dumbledore extracting thoughts
every now and then. Harry felt as though he ought to go, but his curiosity held him
in his chair.
"Professor?" he said again.
"Yes, Harry?" said Dumbledore.
"Er . . . could I ask you about. . . that court thing I was in ... in the Pensieve?"
"You could," said Dumbledore heavily. "I attended it many times, but some trials
come back to me more clearly than others ... particularly now. ..."
"You know - you know the trial you found me in? The one with Crouch's son?
Well....were they talking about Neville's parents?"
Dumbledore gave Harry a very sharp look. " Has Neville never told you why he
has been brought up by his grandmother?" he said.
390
Harry shook his head, wondering, as he did so, how he could have failed to ask
Neville this, in almost four years of knowing him.
"Yes, they were talking about Nevilles parents," said Dumbledore. "His father,
Frank, was an Auror just like Professor Moody. He and his wife were tortured for
information about Voldemort's whereabouts after he lost his powers, as you
heard."
"So they're dead?" said Harry quietly.
"No," said Dumbledore, his voice full of a bitterness Harry had never heard there
before. "They are insane. They are both in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical
Maladies and Injuries. I believe Neville visits them, with his grandmother, during
the holidays. They do not recognize him."
Harry sat there, horror-struck. He had never known . . . never, in four years,
bothered to find out. . .
"The Longbottoms were very popular," said Dumbledore. "The attacks on them
came after Voldemort's fall from power, just when everyone thought they were
safe. Those attacks caused a wave of fury such as I have never known. The
Ministry was under great p