Paragraph 5 - 70 : Floo !

They were in the reserve of The Three Broomsticks. Faustia addressed the three friends :

I suggest that, one by one, each of you climbs the stairs, opens the trapdoor, and looks at what is in the inn

None of the three friends were at this point in a state of mind to ask why Faustia had made this request. Sigismond was first to react, and to do his part. Eleanor and Judith had expected this would last a few seconds, but Sigismond was apparently befuddled by what he could see, and was looking around, at the inside of the inn. He finally went down, and told the two girls, in a dull voice :

That is clearly something to see

Eleanor went next, and she behaved very much like Sigismond. When she closed the trapdoor and directed her steps towards the basement, she told Judith

This is not The Three Broomsticks

Judith took the last turn, now more puzzled than sad. The same sequence of actions unfolded : Judith looked around a long time. When they all were back at the bottom of the stairs, Faustia explained :

When you were running towards the real Three Broomsticks, at the beginning of March, to take cover from your two attackers who worked for Mr. Hexler, I was there. Some students were slowing them down. You broke into The Three Broomsticks, and, at the last moment, I made The Three Broomsticks Disapparate in some nondescript street in the vicinity of Diagon Alley, before creating, within the same second, a copy of The Three Broomsticks. But the rules of magic still apply, even for Non-Dogmés : one can't conjure food or alcohol. I had caused the alcohol to Disapparate away to Diagon Alley, and in the copy at Hogsmeade, the bottles were now empty. That's why Madam Rosmerta thought you had been behind the loss of her store of alcohol. When Sigismond carved on the bottom of a box the portraits of the aggressors, it was after I had transferred The Three Broomsticks with the four of you near Diagon Alley, thus he was engraving the box here, close to Diagon Alley, not the box in Hogsmeade, that was a copy. When Eleanor allowed Ann, Judith and Sigismond to Apparate in The Three Broomsticks, she wanted to arrive in the version of the tavern in which Sigismond had affixed the portraits. Therefore, the four of you came here, for the second time, without noticing that you were in the Diagon Alley complex, not in Hogsmeade. I came back to the new Three Broomsticks, here, and installed a mirror, that would allow me to spy on what was happening in the reserve of the copied inn. Apparently, the wizard who owned the building considered the appearance of a full tavern, with its valuable store of alcohol, as a blessing, and he changed the Three Broomsticks into a new inn, with a different décor, so as to prevent people from understanding that they were in a copy of The Three Broomsticks. Then I saw that you had come to the new Three Broomsticks, and I told Adelaide about it. That's when Adelaide came up with the idea of the object into which one can put their personality. The copy of The Three Broomsticks would work as an in-between place : Hexler, who is a socialite, would come to the new Three Broomsticks, and you would come to its reserve. When you were back in the reserve, with your camera, Adelaide was here. She of course didn't say a word about Non-Dogmés, nor about the fact that I was the person who would hand the object over to Hexler. Because Hexler is a former Hufflepuff, and I also belong to this House. So, Hexler knew he could trust me when I left a note telling him that, if he really wanted to get rid of you, he would just have to put his personality in the object, visible to him only, that was waiting for him in the new Three Broomsticks. By the way, its current name is 'Floo !'

Faustia finished here her speech, and let the new perspective sink in on the three friends. They then Disapparated back to the extremity of the lake, from which they walked once again towards the castle.