Albus placed a book before Pomona.
"What is this?" she asked.
"A 'prize' I obtained in Cairo when I was young," Albus said with a smile. "Merry Christmas."
"What am I supposed to be expecting?" She picked up the book and casually opened it, only to find that it was in French.
"Were you expecting me to give you a dress for the Yule Ball?" Albus looked at his starry robes. "If you don't mind."
"I liked the cloak you gave me last time." She smiled as she flipped through the book. "What is this book about?"
"The soul," Albus said. "Do you remember the diary Harry destroyed with a Basilisk fang in his second year?"
"I remember. What about it?" Pomona set the book down.
"Tom—I mean Voldemort—still retained the appearance of a sixteen-year-old then. He was very handsome," Albus said slowly. "But we all remember what he looked like when he possessed Quirrell."
She recalled that face in the Mirror of Erised, as though evil itself had taken form, and slowly nodded.
"I did not want to bring this up so close to Christmas, but I find this book's contents quite enlightening." Albus sank into his armchair. "Its author believed that the soul began alongside a body. Only with a body for the soul to use did the soul begin to exist, and that existing body was both the soul's territory and its instrument."
Pomona listened attentively.
"If a soul became multiple through some kind of relationship, it would exist in every known and unknown body—for instance, the diary and Professor Quirrell's body," Albus said slowly.
"A soul becoming multiple through some kind of relationship?" Pomona asked.
"You are familiar with the East. What is the Eastern understanding of ghosts?" Albus asked.
"But that is different from Riddle's