All in all, it was a productive session, and Harry was starting to think the long term advantages of the Baron as head of house might outweigh the downsides. The ghost was old fashioned and very big on the idea of feudal loyalty, in a way that their first choice, Lord Slughorn's nephew, Horace Slughorn, was less likely to be.
Once they'd ploughed through the administrative issues, the Baron floated up from the desk. "My lord," he intoned, his chains clanking and chinking as they passed through the woodwork. "Was there anything… else?"
Harry nodded. "Yes, Baron. I have recently been in contact with a young ghost seeking a more populated home. I wish to bring her under my protection and host her in the castle."
The baron went silent for a moment before answering. "That is not my power alone to grant. The ghosts council is separate from the living, and not bound to their will. You would have to plead your case to them."
Harry nodded. "And you could set up a meeting with the council and act as my advocate?"
The baron bowed low, passing slightly through the desk again. "Of course, my lord."
One week passed and soon Hermione was once more in the empty classroom, this time practically bouncing with energy. Last week's lesson had gone well. Amazingly well in fact. She'd hit every point she'd wanted and Harry had been pleased. This week's lesson was going to be even better.
She was expecting her students any moment, and now that Padma had satisfied herself that Hermione wasn't going to try and trap her fellow muggleborns in an intricate web of deception and lies, she could bring out the big guns. She'd been looking forward to this lesson for months.
Five minutes later, Sophie, Justin, and Kevin were all in attendance.
"Where is Dean?" asked Justin.
Kevin shrugged. "Dunno."
Just then, Dean barged into the room. "Sorry. Sorry. John is getting more difficult to shake off. I think he suspects something is going on."
Justin shook his head. "I didn't even know you and him were that close."
Dean sighed, exasperated. "We're not! But he treats all of Gryffindor like his own personal fiefdom, and everyone lets him!" Hermione tapped her wand on the table. "Are we all ready then?" They all nodded.
"But,"—Sophie looked around—"where's Elizabeth? I liked her."
Hermione took out a small trunk from her pocket and held it up. "She's in here, but we wont be talking with her much today." Sophie, Dean, Justin, and Kevin all stared. "Inside that matchbox?" asked Justin.
Hermione smiled, put the trunk on the ground and tapped it with her wand.
The others gasped as the trunk expanded into its full sized version.
She opened the lid and climbed in eliciting yet more gasps. As her body passed through the opening, she craned her neck behind and upwards to look at the group, now looming over her. "C'mon." She said, her voice excited. "No time to waste."
The trunk wasn't the one Harry had bought for her ninth birthday. This one was cheaper, spartan and empty, but for one familiar portrait on the wall, a cupboard off to a side, and a very special object on a plinth in the centre of the room. "Wow!" Sophie looked around the space as though it was a palace.
"Magic is insane," whispered Justin.
Kevin and Dean just stared in shock.
"You know," started Portrait Elizabeth from her frame, "The trunk walls are really far less interesting than what's in the trunk's middle."
The four muggleborns turned to eye the object Elizabeth pointed out.
"A porcelain bowl?" asked Justin.
Hermione snorted while waving her wand over the cupboard's door. "That, is a pensieve." "What's that then?" asked Kevin.
The cupboard door opened and Hermione carefully picked out a selection of tiny bottles filled with silvery liquid. "A pensieve is a magical artefact used to watch another's memories without resorting to high-level legilimency."
She turned and stepped to the pensieve. "What I have here are memories from the Greengrass memory library." She turned to them with a look of awe and reverence on her face. "You've no idea how privileged we are to have been entrusted with these."
"Quite right!" Portrait Elizabeth called from behind her. "Some of those memories are over a thousand years old, and no one not a Greengrass has ever seen them." She sniffed. "Be thankful Lord Slytherin is as convincing as he is." Hermione lined up all but one of the bottles on a nearby shelf, popped open the remainder, and poured the contents into the pensieve.
Sophie fiddled with the cuff of her robes. "Err… what exactly do we have to do?"
Hermione put the empty bottle down. "Just touch the liquid — even a finger will do and you'll be pulled into the memory. This one is the oldest. It's nearly 1,500 years old. Ready?"
They all nodded, slowly.
"Then go for it."
Justin, Sophie, Dean, and Kevin all touched the liquid, and moments later vanished from the trunk.
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