"Minerva, what brings you here at such a late hour?"
Dumbledore drew a deep breath that made his silver beard shimmer in the candlelight. He needed to deal with the only 'outsider' present in this increasingly complicated evening—his most capable assistant and Hogwarts' Deputy Headmistress: Minerva McGonagall.
If she couldn't provide a sufficient reason for her presence here, Dumbledore would definitely make sure she understood the consequences of barging into the Headmaster's office in the dead of night (even if he had personally given her the password.)
Professor McGonagall stood frozen in the doorway. Her face had gone peculiarly slack, eyes turned wide behind her square spectacles. Ariana's previous statement had struck her like a Stunning Spell to the solar plexus.
After several seconds, she visibly shook herself, the way a cat might after an unexpected dousing, and hurriedly gathered her wits to explain her midnight intrusion.
"It's like this—Just moments ago, a new name suddenly appeared in the Book of Admittance."
Dumbledore's shoulders relaxed.
"Isn't that perfectly normal? The more names in the Book of Admittance, doesn't that simply mean the magical community is flourishing? That magic continues its eternal dance through new generations?"
"If only it were that simple."
Professor McGonagall's lips pressed into a thin line. Her expression grew complicated as she glanced at Dumbledore, then flicked her gaze toward Tom, who sat behind him. She drew a breath and said.
"The problem is—" she paused, as if saying it aloud would make it more real, "that person's birth year is listed as 1885."
"That's just—" Dumbledore began automatically, then stopped as if he'd walked straight into an invisible wall. His hand, raised in a dismissive gesture, froze mid-air. "Wait. Eighteen eighty-five?!"
Now it was Dumbledore's turn to be dumbfounded. 1885? Wouldn't that make them roughly the same age as him?!
Which meant a witch or wizard born in the waning years of the nineteenth century, someone who had lived through the Grindelwald wars, through the rise of Voldemort, through nearly a century and a half of magical Britain's history... had only now been accepted by the Book of Admittance.
Only now been granted permission to enter Hogwarts as a student.
How was that even possible!
"You're absolutely certain you didn't misread?" Even as he asked, Dumbledore knew it was a foolish question. "Not a young witch or wizard born in 1985, but actually 1885?"
"I'm certain. It's definitely 1885."
McGonagall's tone carried the absolute conviction of someone who had checked, double-checked, and then checked again before climbing all those rotating staircases to disturb her Headmaster.
If this situation hadn't been so bizarrely unprecedented, she wouldn't have rushed to the Headmaster's office while the castle slept, much less overheard that earlier conversation that nearly got her 'silenced' for knowing too much.
'(´･_･`) Though who is this girl?'
McGonagall's thoughts wandered as she studied Ariana hovering behind Dumbledore. 'I don't recall seeing her around Hogwarts, yet somehow her face gives me this strange sense of familiarity... Those eyes...'
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't quite connect this ethereal young woman to Dumbledore.
"Minerva—" Dumbledore's voice cut through her reverie. "What is this person's name? I intend to pay them a personal visit to discover what could possibly cause a centenarian to suddenly awaken magical abilities after all this time."
Even setting aside such an extraordinarily unusual circumstance and it was perhaps unprecedented in the thousand-year history of Hogwarts—the person's age alone dictated that he make the visit personally.
"Dumbledore..."
McGonagall's voice had a peculiar tone, but because this torrent of events had occurred so suddenly, Dumbledore failed to grasp the alternative possibility hidden in her words, assuming instead she was merely being considerate of Tom and Ariana's presence.
"Don't worry, Minerva." He gestured reassuringly toward them both. "They're both trustworthy. You may speak freely."
"No—"
McGonagall shook her head sharply. She raised her voice slightly.
"The new name that appeared in the Book of Admittance is Dumbledore. Ariana Dumbledore."
The silence that followed was so blank that the guttering of candle flames sounded like roaring fires.
"Ariana?!"
"MEOW?!"
"Me?!"
Three voices rang out simultaneously in perfect noise of shock.
Everyone except McGonagall had fallen into various states of stunned incredulity. Dumbledore and Tom's gazes especially snapped toward Ariana in unison, as if pulled by the same invisible thread of disbelief.
"Um, brother—" Ariana's voice wavered. "There must be some mistake! I'm not even human!"
To emphasize her point, she rose slowly into the air, her form becoming even more transparent as she ascended. The candlelight passed through her completely now, casting no shadow on the stone wall behind her.
Though she appeared almost indistinguishable from the living in most aspects, she was undeniably a ghost. A genuine, authentic spirit.
"This... perhaps it's not entirely impossible? (・–・)"
Dumbledore's eyes had drifted to Tom whose jaw had actually detached—literally separated from his skull in a way that defied every law of anatomy and possibly several laws of magic as well and now dangled somewhere near his chest, connected by what appeared to be a thin stream of... cartoon physics?
Dumbledore blinked hard, wondering if someone had slipped Firewhisky into his evening tea.
Since they'd already admitted a cat as a wizard, allowing a ghost to enter Hogwarts as a student didn't seem quite so impossible anymore. The threshold of the absurd had already been thoroughly crossed.
'Wait a moment—what did I just see?'
The thought struck Dumbledore like delayed lightning. He'd witnessed something impossible even by magical standards. But before he could observe more carefully, Tom had already somehow reattached his jaw with a clicking sound.
The cat sat there looking perfectly normal, well, as normal as a cat who could speak and cast spells could look, grooming one paw with an air of nonchalance that screamed 'nothing unusual happened here.'
A mere ghost student? Tom's inner monologue practically exuded smug superiority. Compared to him—a genuine cat student, that was hardly anything remarkable!
"Hold on, Albus—"
McGonagall's voice had climbed half an octave.
"Are you telling me this Miss Ariana is actually your sister—your deceased sister—and that she passed away over a century ago? Moreover, she was already fourteen years old when she died?
Merlin's beard! Has the world gone completely mad!"
Professor McGonagall's composure finally shattered like a glass under a Reductor Curse. Everything happening before her was pushing her mental processing far beyond its designed capacity. If her mind were one of those delicate silver instruments on Dumbledore's desk, she'd be spinning out of control.
As Deputy Headmistress, as an elderly Scottish witch who had seen more than her share of impossibilities, she could accept a cat enrolling as a student. It was unprecedented, certainly, but magic was nothing if not flexible in its manifestations.
But allowing a ghost to enter Hogwarts for formal magical education...
"Headmaster—" She'd shifted to his title now. "Have you truly considered the consequences? If we set this precedent, what about the other ghosts?"
"Let's not even discuss the others for now—what about Myrtle?" McGonagall's voice gained momentum. "Tell me, with this example established, do we permit Myrtle to return to Ravenclaw as a student? Or do we keep her confined to the second-floor toilets as she is now?"
Her imagination was already spiraling through the chaos.
Nearly Headless Nick demanding to sit his O.W.L.s again after five hundred years. The Fat Friar wanting to retake Herbology. The Bloody Baron terrorizing first-years in actual classes rather than just corridors. And Peeves—Merlin help them all if Peeves decided he qualified as a student.
Just imagining the various chaotic scenarios this might trigger made McGonagall's vision swim with the devastation of it all. Was the burden of being Deputy Headmistress perhaps becoming a bit too heavy?
"I apologize, Minerva—"
Dumbledore's voice had softened.
"But I still hope you'll give Ariana this opportunity. Not only because she's my sister, but more importantly, because she has never experienced what it's like to study and live alongside peers her own age."
He'd noticed earlier, when McGonagall had first mentioned her name appearing in the Book of Admittance, that flicker of longing that had sparked in Ariana's eyes.
She wanted to make friends. She yearned to understand this magical world that had been simultaneously her heritage and her prison.
That yearning was the primary reason behind his decision, weighing far heavier than brotherly love, though that pulled at him too.
"Back then—" His voice grew distant, haunted by memories over a century old yet fresh as morning wounds.
"Because of her Obscurus, she had no choice but to remain at home, completely isolated from the outside world. Now that the Book of Admittance has granted her this opportunity, I truly hope she can meet more friends. That she can interact with others her own 'age.'"
He smiled sadly at that last word.
"Merlin's beard—" McGonagall's voice had gone faint, breathy with fresh horror. "What did you just say? She's also an Obscurial?!"
The word seemed to suck warmth from the room.
An Obscurus. The most dangerous, unpredictable form of dark magic known to wizardkind, one that had destroyed entire streets, killed dozens in minutes of unrestrained rage.
She felt as though she might faint at any moment. Her hand found the back of a chair and gripped it hard enough.
If it were merely a ghost girl seeking education, that would be one thing, however unprecedented. After all, Hogwarts already had ghost colleagues. Professor Binns had been teaching History of Magic for decades despite being deceased, so one more ghost student wouldn't be impossible.
But now Dumbledore was calmly informing her that this ghost girl was also an Obscurial? That she carried within her one of the most catastrophically dangerous magical phenomena ever documented?
If McGonagall didn't know Dumbledore's character and habits so well, if she hadn't worked beside him for decades, she would genuinely suspect that recent article in The Quibbler about 'Dumbledore's Senile Dementia' might actually contain some truth.
"After becoming a ghost, she should have freed herself from the Obscurus..."
"No, Headmaster. The Obscurus still resides within her."
Dumbledore had been about to defend his sister when the portrait of Madam Murgatroyd, who'd been silently observing from the sidelines, suddenly spoke.
"I discovered in the portrait world that the Obscurus within her was on the verge of erupting when she first arrived." Madam Murgatroyd's knitting needles had gone still.
"Though I don't understand why it's been suppressed this time. You cannot and lack the ability to suppress it forever."
Dumbledore fell silent.
As a brother, he desperately wanted to fulfill his sister's wish. But as Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as the guardian of nearly a thousand young witches and wizards whose parents trusted him with their children's lives, he couldn't bring a dangerous Obscurial into the school.
This situation differed from Remus Lupin's case, different from any other dangerous student he'd ever admitted. The werewolf threat, though severe was at least predictable. As long as they kept careful watch during the full moon, all could be managed.
But an Obscurus...
No one could predict when that darkness might erupt.
'Perhaps I could ask Newt for assistance?'
The thought flickered through Dumbledore's mind like a Patronus offering hope in darkness.
He gazed at his dejected sister, watching her drift slowly down until her translucent feet nearly touched the carpet.
'And this special young wizard—Newt would surely find him fascinating...'
(When you say Obscurus, do you mean that dark, shadowy thing inside Ariana? If that's what you're talking about, perhaps I have a way to deal with it!)
Sensing the shift in everyone's mood, Tom pondered for a moment before speaking up.
With two people present who understood cat language, there was no need for him to resort to using the whiteboard. He could simply communicate directly.