Dumbledore's eyebrows do gymnastics for the third time tonight. "The lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw. If it can indeed be cleansed, it would be a wonderful find. The historical and magical significance are both immense." He removes an oddly stiff and shiny white cloth from one of his many concealed pockets and wraps the diadem in it without touching it; the cloth seals itself into a cocoon and is returned to a different pocket. "Nonetheless, it may turn out that the best we can do is destroy it--and even that may prove difficult. Though as Harry so effectively demonstrated earlier tonight, a goblin-made sword that has drunk of a basilisk's venom is a potent weapon indeed."

"Good skill. I hope my having been sent here means it's the sort of thing a divine caster can help with."

"I hope so as well. Between that and occlumency lessons, I expect we'll be seeing a lot of each other for the next few months. Fortunately it's almost the end of term, so I'm about to be down to two and a half jobs. Perhaps tomorrow after lunch?"

"Sure. I have to spend an hour in prayer every day starting at dawn to prepare my spells, but other than that my schedule is completely open--I don't sleep."

"An enviable ability, though perhaps not entirely so; I find I do some of my best thinking in my sleep. Do you eat? I hope you do, as there's about to be a feast in the great hall."

"I do!" The Acts are very clear that it's a good idea to eat every now and then, especially when there are new friends to eat with.

"Excellent. One more thing before we go downstairs, then: do you know what my letter might have meant when it told me to 'stop eating the anomaly's brain'?"

Blink blink. "No. . . . Maybe stop eating brains entirely, just to be on the safe side?"

"I have never eaten anything resembling a brain, with the possible exception of one suspiciously flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean."

"Yeah, I've got nothing, then. I've heard Nefreti Clepati is incomprehensible like that."

On their way through the spatially implausible corridors, they are interrupted by a different well-dressed Evil blond man.

"I seem to recall you were no longer employed here."

"Funny thing, that. The board of governors heard about the missing girl and decided to offer me the job back. They said some very strange things about it, too. Why, some of them seemed to believe they had been threatened into voting against me in the first place."

"And were you indeed the man for the job? Can the students rest easy tonight knowing that the culprit has been caught?"

"They can. It was the same person as last time, acting through a certain cursed diary. Which I last saw mister Potter taking as a souvenir while he thought I wasn't looking, and so I am quite surprised to see that it is currently in your pocket."

Lucius's eye twitches. "That child is nothing but trouble."

Smirk.

Dramatic cloak-swooshing turn. Exit stage left.

A few more implausible corridors later, Dumbledore is presiding over the feast from the high table and Samora has plonked herself next to Harry and Ron on the principle of "act like you're supposed to be there and see if anyone objects".

Nobody objects! She gets briefly questioned by Ron's brother Percy, but Dumbledore knowing she's here and being okay with it satisfies him.

"Ron and Harry told me about you and I have so many questions!"

"This is Hermione Granger, she's the one who figured out about the basilisk and then got petrified. 'mione, remember to let Samora eat anything between questions."

"I'd be happy to trade information about our worlds! So far it seems like the biggest difference between them is that the gods are active on mine."

“What kind of active? Do they do anything other than giving people magic?”

“Most of the time no, but the Lawful ones and a bunch of the Neutral ones have holy books, and there are occasional one-off miracles, like Heaven putting up a barrier around a dangerous planar rift, or gods sending people visions. And some divine magic involves the god doing something specific, like the Commune spell lets you ask them yes or no questions.”

“And all of this is common knowledge? What's a planar rift?”