"Lions love honey lemon tea."
She spoke the password to the Gargoyle Statue on the third floor. It turned around and hopped aside, while the wall behind it rumbled open, revealing a spiraling staircase leading straight up to the eighth floor of the side tower.
At the same time, every torch in the stairwell lit up. Their flames swayed as though beckoning her to hurry upstairs.
At the end of the spiral staircase stood a gleaming Oak Door. A Gryphon-shaped Brass Door Knocker hung upon it, still shining brightly even after a thousand years.
Hermione straightened her robes, knocked, and pushed the door open. Inside was a spacious, beautiful circular room, a duplex by Muggle standards, divided into upper and lower levels. The upper balcony held a globe and an Astronomical Telescope, and Dumbledore's bedroom was there as well.
The lower level was the main reception room and office. There was an enormous principal's desk with clawed legs, its surface cluttered with sweets, books, and scrolls of every kind.
On a shelf behind the desk sat the dirty Sorting Hat, which had gone another year without being cleaned. Beside it, the Sword of Gryffindor rested inside a glass case. Across from the case, the Pensieve stood in a black cabinet, while Fawkes the Phoenix perched on a tall gilded dead branch.
All sorts of comical little noises constantly came from the room's many corners. Portraits of former male and female principals covered the walls. A circle of sofas surrounded the fireplace in one corner, where many strange silver instruments sat upon a slender-legged tea table, spinning and puffing out little streams of smoke.
Hermione suspected they were the magical equivalent of humidifiers. Her family was doing reasonably well financially, so her father had bought one that summer too, saying the