The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|113| More Secrets

Harry and I stood up and followed Professor McGonagall back down the ward. The corridors outside were deserted and the only sound was the distant phoenix song. It was several minutes before I became aware that we were not heading for Professor McGonagall's office, but for Dumbledore's, and another few seconds before I realized that of course, she had been deputy headmistress... Apparently she was now headmistress... so the room behind the gargoyle was now hers.

In silence, we ascended the moving spiral staircase and entered the circular office. I did not know what I had expected: That the room would be draped in black, perhaps, or even that Dumbledore's body might be lying there. In fact, it looked almost exactly as it had done when I was last in there for a lesson with Harry: the silver instruments whirring and puffing on their spindle-legged tables, Gryffindor's sword in its glass case gleaming in the moonlight, the Sorting Hat on a shelf behind the desk. But Fawkes's perch stood empty, he was still crying his lament to the grounds. And a new portrait had joined the ranks of the dead headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts: Dumbledore was slumbering in a golden frame over the desk, his half-moon spectacles perched upon his crooked nose, looking peaceful and untroubled.

After glancing once at this portrait, Professor McGonagall made an odd movement as though steeling herself, then rounded the desk to look at Harry and me, her face taut and lined.

"Harry," she said, "I would like to know what you and Professor Dumbledore were doing this evening when you left the school."

"I can't tell you that, Professor," said Harry. I had expected someone to ask the question and I knew Harry had his answer ready. It had been here, in this very room, that Dumbledore had told us that we were to confide the contents of our lessons to nobody but Ron and Hermione.

"Harry, it might be important," said Professor McGonagall.

"It is, Professor," I said, "very, but he didn't want us to tell anyone."

Professor McGonagall glared at me then to Harry. "Potter in the light of Professor Dumbledore's death, I think you must see that the situation has changed somewhat —"

"I don't think so," said Harry, shrugging. "Professor Dumbledore never told us to stop following his orders if he died."

"But —"

"There's one thing you should know before the Ministry gets here, though. Madam Rosmerta's under the Imperius Curse, she was helping Malfoy and the Death Eaters, that's how the necklace and the poisoned mead —"

"Rosmerta?" said Professor McGonagall incredulously, but before she could go on, there was a knock on the door behind them and Professors Sprout, Flitwick, and Slughorn traipsed into the room, followed by Hagrid, who was still weeping copiously, his huge frame trembling with grief.

"Snape!" ejaculated Slughorn, who looked the most shaken, pale and sweating. "Snape! I taught him! I thought I knew him!"

But before any of us could respond to this, a sharp voice spoke from high on the wall: A sallow-faced wizard with a short black fringe had just walked back into his empty canvas.

"Minerva, the Minister will be here within seconds, he has just Disapparated from the Ministry."

"Thank you, Everard," said Professor McGonagall, and she turned quickly to her teachers.

"I want to talk about what happens to Hogwarts before he gets here," she said quickly. "Personally, I am not convinced that the school should reopen next year. The death of the headmaster at the hands of one of our colleagues is a terrible stain upon Hogwarts's history. It is horrible."

"I am sure Dumbledore would have wanted the school to remain open," said Professor Sprout. "I feel that if a single pupil wants to come, then the school ought to remain open for that pupil."