Dumbledore's response showed great tact.
The old man liked that sort of feeling.
So LeMay smiled, and the smile looked especially smug on his aged face.
"I bought these from an alchemist in the fifteenth century. He said they were fragments of the 'Mirror of Eternity,' capable of reflecting the past and the future. Of course, I didn't believe him, but I bought them anyway. For over six hundred years, I've been studying these fragments, trying to uncover their secret." He paused, took out a shard of glass no bigger than a fingernail from the box, and raised it before his eyes.
The shard flickered with an eerie light in the firelight—sometimes gold, sometimes silver, sometimes completely transparent, as though it did not exist at all.
"Guess what I discovered?"
Dumbledore watched him and waited.
LeMay put the shard back into the box, closed the lid, and returned it to the corner.
"Nothing."
His voice was calm and composed. "They're just ordinary pieces of glass, enchanted with a simple color-changing spell to make them seem magical. That alchemist swindled me."
Dumbledore froze for a moment, then laughed. "You were swindled?"
LeMay shrugged, the gesture looking somewhat comical on his stooped frame. "Who hasn't been swindled? After living for more than six hundred years, I've been swindled far more times than you could imagine."
He walked over to the fireplace, picked up the poker, and stirred the logs. The flames danced, illuminating his old, wrinkled face. "But every time I was deceived, I learned something." His voice remained calm and composed. "I studied that alchemist's color-changing spell for a hundred years, then improved it and used it elsewhere. Now, I taught all the best color-changing spells in Europe."
Dumbledore looked at him, complicated emotions churning in those deep blue eyes. He