Chapter 454 - 5: Teaming Up with Him

Chapter 454: Chapter 5: Teaming Up with Him

The Hogwarts headmaster’s office was on the eighth floor of the castle, and this was where McGonagall had brought Yimi.

She had been gone for quite a long time. Apparently, she had done more than deal with the twins’ prank; she had also made a trip to Hogwarts’ headmaster, Dumbledore, about Yimi’s situation. Hence the present summons.

A stone gargoyle stood outside the office. Just like each House common room, it required the correct password before it would move aside. The wall behind it would then split in two, revealing a slowly rising spiral staircase.

Inside was a circular room filled with faint little noises. A number of interesting silver instruments sat on the desks, while portraits of former headmasters hung on the walls, dozing as vividly as the portraits in the corridors.

On a tall gilded perch behind the door stood a bird that had lost quite a few feathers. That was the target Yimi was staring up at now.

Fawkes the phoenix lowered his head and looked at the child. Everything about her gave him an oddly friendly feeling, yet he very much disliked the look in her eyes.

After hesitating, he settled for affectionately rubbing his beak against the hand Yimi had reached toward him.

Yimi did nothing. Back in the Holy Grail world, she had promised the red-haired boy that she would stop hitting birds.

Flying cats did not count as birds. They counted as cats.

"How very unusual. Fawkes likes you." An elderly man with half-moon spectacles, a slightly crooked nose, and a long beard stood behind Yimi holding a small box.

"If you come back after a while, you may even get to see a phoenix reborn from the ashes. Fawkes’ original feathers are extraordinarily beautiful." He lowered the little box toward her. "Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. Would you like one?"

The box was full of jelly beans, and Yimi unceremoniously took one and popped it into her mouth.

Dumbledore blinked. "What flavor did you get?"

"Strawberry," Yimi answered honestly.

She turned toward the old cat on the other side of the office who had brought her a book and asked Dumbledore, "Can I take one, for her too?"

"Oh, of course, provided Professor McGonagall herself is willing." Dumbledore and McGonagall were on very good terms; he was simply using her professional title in front of others.

He watched Yimi take another bean and run over to give it to Professor McGonagall. The deputy headmistress seemed to be moved by something and covered her mouth with one hand.

Dumbledore, meanwhile, chose one for himself in the same color Yimi had just picked.

"Rubber. Well, I have never cared for this flavor." Dumbledore closed the box. After Yimi came running back with McGonagall’s permission, he placed it in her palm as a greeting gift.

"Are you, the headmaster?" Yimi asked on her own initiative.

"Yes," Dumbledore answered.

"Then are all the teachers, your biological children?" Yimi looked at him curiously.

Dumbledore seemed to chuckle. "I would say we are merely friends—or perhaps employer and employees."

"Then are you also, a cat-person?" Yimi asked again.

"I think I would rather like to experience that feeling someday." Dumbledore did not give the little cat another chance to take the initiative with the questions. "Professor McGonagall told me that a possibly less-than-friendly gentleman or lady sent you here and even taught you... magic?"

Yimi shook her head. "The one who taught me magic, was someone else."

"Oh." Dumbledore looked slightly surprised. "Since you have mentioned another person, I take it that his existence is something I am allowed to know about?"

"His name is Riddle," Yimi said.

The first page of the diary had, after all, been inscribed with the letters "T. M. Riddle."

Much of the easygoing look vanished from Dumbledore’s face. "Which Riddle?"

Yimi handed him the diary.

Dumbledore adjusted his spectacles, because the writing on it had already become quite blurred.

"Riddle?" McGonagall went pale and put a hand on Yimi’s shoulder. "That person called the ’System’ is a Death Eater! They actually taught a seven- or eight-year-old child to become an Animagus! And ’he’ has returned..."

"I don’t believe he has, Minerva." Under the disapproving expression of one former headmaster in a portrait, Dumbledore opened the diary. Casually opening a book of unknown origin was an extremely dangerous thing to do.

He examined the bite missing from it for a while longer, wondering whether the child had once been controlled and had somehow broken free of that control by sheer accident.

* * *

Then the diary was confiscated.

Yimi did not particularly mind. The diary no longer held any value for her anyway, and the flat-nosed old man had even given her a whole box of fruit-flavored jelly beans.

Yes, an entire box of fruit-flavored beans. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans came in as many as seven hundred flavors, including such delights as vomit and earwax. When they were all mixed together, what you got was entirely down to luck.

At the same time, because Yimi’s usual explanation made her sound like a pitiful homeless child, she also acquired a place to live. Behind a hidden door in the wall of a second-floor study was McGonagall’s residence. McGonagall seemed remarkably fond of this child of suspicious origins.

McGonagall had once owned a house in Hogsmeade—the village outside Hogwarts populated entirely by witches and wizards. But after her husband died unexpectedly from a Venomous Tentacula bite, she could no longer bear living alone in the cottage and moved back here.

Yimi looked around at the place, which did not seem nearly as grand as Dumbledore’s office, then tipped up her little face and asked, "Is this, the deputy headmistress’s office?"

"This is where I live, dear."

"Oh." The little cat walked around once, surveying the place where she might be staying for quite a long time.

"All right. I remember that just a little while ago you were a poor thing starving half to death. Let’s go have the house-elves in the kitchen make you something to eat. They will be delighted to do it."

"Food." Yimi nodded solemnly. For some reason, she once again thought of the spicy strips she had seen in Tom’s memories.

She could not get them out of her head.

McGonagall led her outside. The kitchens were beside the Hufflepuff common room, and in fact a considerable number of students had no idea where they were.

It was only natural to run into students in the corridors outside class time, and just as reasonable to encounter other professors. McGonagall maintained friendly relations with most of the staff.

"Aha, Minerva! I had no idea you had a granddaughter." The Defence Against the Dark Arts professor who had only been hired this term, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, greeted McGonagall while carrying a huge stack of books.

He just happened to be one of the colleagues McGonagall was not particularly close to. At hearing him call her by her first name, the muscles in McGonagall’s face seemed to stiffen, though she still gave him a polite nod.

"Oh, you noticed too. My fans have been sending so many passionate letters lately that I have decided to give away one hundred personally signed sets of my books." Lockhart hefted the huge stack of autobiographical works in his arms, nearly losing his balance in the process.

McGonagall’s lips twitched, but she ultimately restrained herself from saying anything.

"Books? Did you write those books?" Yimi stepped forward with great interest.

"Why, yes! I see our little princess has noticed. Go on, can you tell me my name?" Lockhart shifted his body so that the towering stack of autobiographies would not block his handsome face.

Yimi only looked blank, but he was not embarrassed. He put the books down, selected one, opened the cover, signed it with practiced ease, and handed it to her.

"Well, I should have known. You’re much too young to follow the headlines, and that is perfectly normal. Call it one of the perks of being colleagues. I mean, sooner or later she will reach the age when she is interested in the firsthand adventures of Lockhart, won’t she? Everything in this book is a true account of my adventures. There is no need to be frightened on my behalf while you read. After all, the hero of those stories is standing safe and sound before you right now."

Yimi glanced at the cover. It showed a photograph of Lockhart—and the photograph even moved. The title was Holidays with Hags.

Lockhart gave her a playful wink, then picked up another book, Magical Me, and placed it in Yimi’s hands.

"Oh, right—I forgot that Holidays with Hags isn’t really suitable for small children. To make up for it, I’ll make an exception and give you this extra volume. But you mustn’t tell my other fans. You know how frightening jealousy can be. It would hardly be good for someone so young to attract that sort of attention, would it?"

Yimi glanced at the title, then looked up at the remaining books in Lockhart’s arms.

Their titles mentioned vampires, werewolves, ghouls, trolls, and all sorts of other things. Yimi only recognized vampires, but that did not stop the clever little cat from guessing that the rest were strange creatures too.

This person had run into an awful lot of things.

The kitty tipped up her face. "Then do you know, how to find a snake?"

"For me, that is the most basic of basics, my girl." Lockhart gathered the stack of autobiographies back into his arms and walked past McGonagall.

He even added a word of praise. "I can tell she is a child with tremendous potential. One day she may become every bit as exceptional as I am. You know, all a child needs in order to grow is the right spark."

Watching Lockhart walk away humming a jaunty tune, McGonagall pressed a hand to her forehead. When she looked down at Yimi again, the girl had already opened the werewolf book and was reading with great interest.

"Is he, the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor?" After barely flipping through two pages, Yimi tipped up her little face toward McGonagall again.

He could write books, and he was the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Yimi had a good idea: team up with Lockhart to look for the spicy strips, and learn about the Main Quest along the way.