November 15. Clear skies. A cold snap was coming, and the decorations in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade were already laying the groundwork for Christmas. Warm robes and hats had replaced light traveling clothes.
Brian's experiments were progressing steadily. Judging by the trend, he had probably advanced from forty percent to sixty percent during this period. Undeniably, however, that entire twenty-percent increase had happened today alone-of course, he had not been idle over the preceding days. It was just-a bottleneck, my friend. This was a real, unpredictable world.
Sometimes, working away with your head down really was less useful than banging that head against something.
In front of the Pensieve, Brian tapped his quill a few times against the clean pages-Book was at work, and these were pages he had borrowed from him in advance. Losing a few pages was probably about as serious for Book as losing a few hairs? Anyway, that was not important. What mattered was that he needed to write. Brian took a deep breath and concentrated, holding it. After a few seconds of meditation, he exhaled again. Right. He had no idea where to start.
Brian simply let himself go and scribbled something down.
"(A cartoon bucket) Before I settle down to write something properly, I always have no idea where to begin,
"so I've decided to start with some recent developments. Consider it a massage for my brain-let me think. (Added a smiley face to the bucket.) Ah, let's start with how things have been at Hogwarts. (Added a pair of ears to the bucket, then crossed them out because they looked strange.)
"Voldemort has been behaving himself much more lately, and Hogwarts could be described as peaceful. Interestingly, Umbridge's ghost has been completely brought to heel by Peeves. This sounds unbelievable, but her damaged