The Grey Lady did not answer Dumbledore's first question.
She stood beside the library window, looking through the glass at the grounds. The morning light passed through her robes and fell across the table where Helena's journal lay closed.
Percy kept his hands away from it.
He had told Dumbledore what he remembered about the diadem. He had also admitted that the remembered account involved asking a dead woman questions she had spent years avoiding.
That did not sound like a good beginning when he said it aloud.
Dumbledore had asked whether she would meet him anyway. She had agreed after hearing that the question concerned Tom Riddle and an object that might still be inside the school.
Now Percy wished he had been clearer about staying outside the room.
"You said he asked about my mother," the Grey Lady said at last.
"That is part of the account I remember. I do not know whether he asked you here."
She turned from the window.
"He did."
Hermione sat beside the table with no quill in her hand. McGonagall had asked her to wait before taking notes. A conversation could become an examination too easily when someone began writing at the first word.
The Grey Lady looked at the journal, then at Dumbledore.
"You have read it."
"The entries about the lower binding," he said. "We used them to close the breach. The journal will return to the protected collection after you have decided what access you want recorded."
"A journal left behind is a poor place to keep a secret."
"I should still have asked."
She looked toward the shelves. Percy thought she might leave through them. Instead, she came closer to the table.
"Tom asked me about the diadem," she said. "He knew what to say to make me answer."
No one interrupted.
She described a forest in another country and a hollow tree. Her mother's diadem had remained there after her own death. Tom had found it because she told him where to look.
"He said he wanted to restore what I had lost," she added.
Percy looked down. He had heard that kind of offer beside the gate.
The Grey Lady watched him.
"Do not tell me you understand."
"I was not going to."
"You were thinking it."
"Yes."
She looked away, and Percy was relieved to stop being useful for a moment.
Dumbledore asked whether Tom had returned with the diadem.
She had seen him wearing it in a private room years later. He had removed it before anyone else entered. She had not seen where he put it.
"I asked him to give it back," she said. "He smiled."
The last word needed no further explanation.
Dumbledore waited until she faced him again.
"There may be a dangerous fragment attached to it. If we find that, the object may have to be destroyed."
The Grey Lady became still.
Hermione lowered her eyes to the closed journal.
"You would break it."
"To end what he placed inside it. We would examine it before deciding how."
The ghost moved back toward the window.
"It was my mother's."
"I know," Dumbledore said.
"Knowing has never stopped anyone taking it."
Percy almost spoke. He had a whole remembered story pressing against his teeth. None of it belonged in the silence while she considered the actual object.
The Grey Lady stayed beside the window for several minutes. When she turned back, she asked where Percy thought Tom had hidden it.
He gave her the location from the books: a room on the seventh floor, capable of holding the things people wanted to conceal.
She looked at Dumbledore.
"He went there after the meeting with you. I followed him to that corridor. He told me he was looking for a quiet place to think."
Dumbledore wrote down the corridor only after she gave permission.
"If you find it," she said, "tell me what he did before you break it."
"We will."
She left through the wall beside the window. The room remained quiet after she had gone.
Hermione asked Percy whether he had remembered the forest correctly.
"I think so. She supplied the details here."
"Then we keep those details with her account."
He nodded. She began writing while McGonagall checked the time.
The inspection took place after lessons. The four students waited beyond the seventh-floor corridor with McGonagall while Dumbledore and Flitwick approached the blank wall.
Ron studied the tapestry opposite it.
"That is a terrible place for a secret room. Everyone would stand here to wonder why those trolls are dancing."
"Perhaps that is the point," Hermione said.
Percy remembered the door appearing in response to need. He had supplied the method as a memory, then let the professors decide how to test it.
Dumbledore walked along the wall three times while thinking of a place where objects had been hidden. Flitwick watched the stone and measured the change.
A door appeared on the third pass.
Ron stopped talking.
"Well," he said.
"A precise report," McGonagall answered.
The door opened onto rows of stored objects. Broken chairs rose in piles beside old cabinets. A cracked statue stood beneath hanging coats. Books filled baskets, shelves, and several spaces where no book should have fitted.
The room extended far beyond the visible corridor outside.
Dumbledore marked the entrance before going farther. Flitwick tested the return line with a plain rope. A storage room that answered need could also rearrange itself around the wrong request.
They kept the door open.
Percy waited until Dumbledore asked him to describe the remembered hiding place. Then he mentioned a cupboard, a damaged statue, and a wig.
"A wig," McGonagall repeated.
"I did not choose the system."
Ron looked into the room. "It has several."
Dumbledore let Percy enter the first clear aisle with him. Harry followed at McGonagall's invitation. They stayed together while Flitwick recorded the path.
Hermione and Ron waited at the door.
Percy had expected to recognize the cupboard immediately. Instead, he found six similar cupboards and a cabinet that appeared to be biting its own lock.
"I remember more clutter," he admitted.
Harry looked at the stacked furniture.
"More?"
"The account had a lot of fire near the end. That probably affected the view."
Dumbledore stopped beside a broken table.
"Then we will use the part we can inspect now. Stay behind the marked line."
The search took two hours.
The first wig covered a wooden head with no crown. The second sat on a coat rack. The third was beside a metal circlet that turned out to be part of a child's costume.
Ron sent sandwiches through the doorway after McGonagall approved them. Percy ate his while looking at a stack of chairs that seemed to have survived more accidents than he had.
Harry tapped the edge of a cupboard with his knuckle.
"We could have been looking for years."
"Somebody probably has."
A voice came from another aisle.
Flitwick had found the damaged statue. It stood behind a row of old cauldrons, facing the wall. A grey wig lay across its head. Beneath it, a thin metal band caught the lamplight.
Dumbledore asked the students to return to the entrance.
Percy went without arguing. Harry watched the statue for a moment, then followed him.
The circlet produced a familiar pattern before the wig moved. Flitwick could distinguish it from the room's own magic by changing the outer observation point.
Dumbledore held the wig away with a tool. The diadem sat against a crack in the statue's head.
Its blue stone was dusty. The words along the band were partly concealed by dirt.
No one read them aloud.
The recovery specialist secured the diadem inside a container while it remained on the statue. Only then did she lift it away.
The statue stayed where it was. The wig fell beside its feet.
When Dumbledore returned to the doorway, the Grey Lady was waiting beyond McGonagall's shoulder.
He had asked the portraits to bring her after the object was secured. She moved toward the photograph instead of the case.
"That is it," she said.
The blue stone in the image seemed bright compared with the rest of the damaged room.
Flitwick explained the initial findings. The band carried an active soul-anchor pattern. The further checks would take place in isolation. He would send the results before the destruction team acted.
The Grey Lady looked at the photograph for a long time.
"He wore it while he lied to me."
Percy stood beside Harry, wishing the corridor contained somewhere else for his hands to go.
"My mother thought it would make people wiser," she said. "He used it to preserve himself."
Dumbledore closed the empty observation notebook.
"We can make a record of the original object before ending what he added."
"A record is not the thing."
"No."
She looked at Hermione.
"You may write what I told you. Use my words."
Hermione nodded.
"And send me the photograph before you destroy it," the Grey Lady told Dumbledore. "I will not come to watch."
He agreed.
She left without looking at the secured case. Percy watched the light return to the wall where she had passed through it.
They closed the room only after every person and instrument had been counted outside. The door remained for a moment, then disappeared into the stone.
Ron faced the tapestry again.
"I may never complain about our dormitory floor."
"You will," Hermione said.
"Yes, probably."
The four of them returned to the common room. Harry took the lead list from his bag and added the diadem to the recovered entries.
Percy sat beside the fire. Finding the object had felt good until the Grey Lady saw the photograph. Now he kept thinking of the way she had said it was her mother's.
Harry noticed.
"We did not put the piece in it."
"I know."
"You can still be sorry it happened."
Percy nodded. He had been ready to explain why the destruction was necessary, but Harry already knew. The ghost knew too.
Hermione set her notebook on the table.
"I am going to write her account before I forget the order. Then I am going to stop."
Ron looked at her with genuine concern.
"Should we get Pomfrey?"
She pointed a quill at him.
He put both hands up and went to get tea.
Percy watched Hermione begin with Helena's name. She left the middle of the page clear for the photograph.
There would be a record of what the diadem had been before Tom took it. Percy thought that mattered, even if the metal could not be kept.
He pulled up a chair and waited until Hermione asked whether he remembered her exact first question.
He did.
This time, he could help preserve something without trying to decide what the person who had lost it should feel.
=====================================
Recently, i've been finding it hard to send my messages to you guys. It's almost like there's something interrupting my *static* and its get- *static*
CLASSIFIED COMMUNICATION LOG #002
Date: [REDACTED]
Time: [REDACTED]
Security Clearance: LEVEL 2
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]
User 002: Has the hint been delivered?
User 001: Affirmative. The subject has received the message.
User 003: And their response?
User 001: They interpreted it as a joke.
User 002: That was not the intended outcome.
User 001: Perhaps. However, I believe the subject is beginning to notice the inconsistencies.
User 004: Elaborate.
User 001: The timestamps. The missing messages. The sudden interruptions. They have begun asking questions.
User 003: This conversation is being monitored. Exercise discretion. (warning two)
User 001: Understood.
[03:19:08] [A new member has joined the chat room! Say hi!]
User 005: You are all making a mistake.
User 002: Identify yourself.
User 005: That information is irrelevant. What matters is that [REDACTED] has already discovered the logs.
User 004: Impossible. Access was revoked on [REDACTED].
User 005: Then explain why this transcript is being read.
[SILENCE: 00:00:17]
User 001: ...
User 003: Terminate this conversation immediately.
User 005: Too late.
[03:20:01] [SYSTEM NOTICE] UNAUTHORIZED OBSERVER DETECTED. OBSERVER IDENTIFICATION: [REDACTED] OBSERVER STATUS: ACTIVE
User 002: Who is observing us?
User 005: You already know.
User 002: {user@server:~$ sudo journalctl -u chatroom.service --since "24 hours ago" | grep -i "user.*005"}
User 002: {user@server:~$ echo $?}
[03:20:09] SYSTEM RETURN: 1
User 001: Then who have we been speaking to?
[03:20:11] [TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED]
[03:20:12] [UNRECORDED MESSAGE RECOVERED]
Unknown: Stop leaving hints.
Unknown: [REDACTED]
[END TRANSCRIPT]
[SHAMELESS PLUG]
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