Facing Danger
Chapter 18: It's Magic, You Know (Year 5)
By Anne B. Walsh
Chapter 18: It’s Magic, You Know
Dolores Jane Umbridge usually woke up feeling fresh and ready for the day, but on this November morning, she felt decidedly odd. Sticky, almost. As though some gooey, lumpy substance were covering her from head to toe. But that was absurd...
She opened her eyes and began to scream.
She and her bedroom were both coated in what appeared to be semi-liquefied slugs.
Umbridge floundered out of bed and screamed again as her feet sloshed in a puddle of the foul mess on the floor. Whimpering in horror, she waded to the door and threw it open.
Her office was worse than her bedroom. Gray slime soaked every visible surface, except the piece of parchment in the center of her desk. Which had not been there when she’d gone to bed.
Breathing shallowly through her mouth, Umbridge approached her desk.
The parchment was a letter, and a rather short one at that, though the handwriting was incongruously elaborate.
Dear Minister Fudge,
Your pet toad looked hungry, so I dropped it off some food. Baby food, since it seems to think we’re all babies.
Isn’t it time you left Hogwarts alone?
Sincerely,
A Concerned Student
xXxXx
"So what exactly happened to Umbridge today, Dumbledore?" Arthur Weasley asked over dinner. "I know something must have, because Percy said Fudge was in a towering rage—I’d imagine he’ll try again to hamstring you tomorrow, some new decree or other..."
"He cannot remove me as Headmaster without usurping the power of the Board of Governors, and I like to think that as long as I remain at Hogwarts, the staff and students will not give up," Dumbledore said, reaching up to give Fawkes a tidbit of the potatoes au gratin. "Besides, would I have had anything to do with the pranksters so bedeviling Dolores Umbridge? I, the somber old man with no concept of fun or laughter at all?"
Danger choked on a bite of carrot. Remus patted her back and raised an eyebrow at Dumbledore.
"If it wasn’t you, Albus, it was Minerva," Aletha said, setting aside her fork. "Not even Harry or the Weasley twins would go as far as whoever’s behind these pranks without some sort of official imprimatur."
"Really, Aletha, I would have thought better of you than to impugn Minerva’s good name in such a way," Dumbledore reproved lightly. "Can you honestly imagine my Deputy Headmistress allowing her students to play pranks?"
"In these circumstances, yes," Sirius said bluntly. "Because that’s the only way you’re going to get rid of Umbridge, is by hounding her out. Either that, or prove to Fudge he’s wrong about Voldemort."
Dumbledore sighed. "I only wish I knew how."
"Have you thought at all about Barty’s suggestion?" Moody asked, taking a swig from his hip flask. "I’ll admit it sounds foolhardy, but it may be the best chance we’ve got at luring him out in the open. Of course, that’s always assuming he doesn’t know it’s a lure..." His magical eye swung around the room, as though wondering which of those assembled might be reporting to Voldemort on the sly.
"Or that he knows," Dumbledore completed the sentence, "but believes himself able to defeat whatever we have planned."
"What am I missing?" Molly Weasley asked, refilling her glass with a flick of her wand. "What sort of lure are we talking about here?" She had no sooner finished speaking than her eyes widened with certainty. "No—you can’t mean—"
"Nothing’s decided, Molly," Remus said wearily. "And if we do go through with it, we’ll keep Ron and Ginny out of it if I have to sit on them myself."
"But that you’re even considering it—dear heavens, I knew things were bad, but I can’t believe they’re this bad! There must be some other way!"
"That’s what we keep saying," said Aletha, indicating herself and Danger. "But I’m starting to believe them, Molly. I don’t want to, but I am. If we don’t get Voldemort in the open, and soon, we’ll be in very deep trouble." She glanced at Sirius, who nodded. "He’s setting up to take a run at Azkaban."
"Dear God in heaven," Molly whispered, her hand seeking Arthur’s automatically.
"They’ll all be mad by now," growled Moody. "Or most of ‘em. Trouble is, they were mad to start with. Some of ‘em might even have enjoyed being with the dementors. Like calls to like."
"And Voldemort will have the dementors in the moment he can prove that he will give them more scope than the Ministry," said Dumbledore heavily. "Without the influence of the dementors, and with outside help, Azkaban is laughably easy to escape." A sudden smile touched his lips. "As two of our number know from experience."
"There are days I can’t believe I did that," Remus said, sharing a look with Sirius across the table. "Not that I ever regret it, but if I’d had any idea of the risks I was running, the danger I was getting myself into—"
Moody and Sirius guffawed, Aletha coughed into her napkin, and Danger slid under the table without even the pretense of a dropped fork as Remus turned a shade of red a Weasley would have envied. Arthur’s lips twitched, but Molly glared at him, and he stopped.
"I must come here for meals more often," Dumbledore remarked, giving Fawkes another tidbit. "I have obviously been missing fascinating conversations."
xXxXx
"You want to know about the Silver Sword?" Corona frowned. "I can tell you as much as I remember, but I always thought that was just a legend. A magical sword that chooses the best leader for the wizarding world in a time of crisis... it sounds too good to be true."
"Do you recall the drawbacks to the use of the Sword?" Dumbledore asked, nodding to Brian, who had agreed to monitor the DictaQuill taking notes on the session in return for being there. The young wizard tapped the Quill twice with his wand, and it sprang upright and awaited a voice.
"I..." Corona frowned. "Perhaps I had best just tell the story from the beginning, the way it was told to me."
"Perhaps." Dumbledore nodded calmly, concealing his pleasure that she had volunteered the full story rather than him having to ask for it. By his estimation, someone telling a story because they wanted to, rather than because it had been asked of them, was less likely to forget some crucial detail, accidental or not.
Corona closed her eyes. "This is the story of the Silver Sword," she began in a sing-songing tone, leaning forward as though trying to captivate an audience. "The Sword of the Great, as it was sometimes called. For this was no ordinary sword, oh, no! This sword had belonged to a great warrior once on a time, a great leader of wizardkind, and the tale went that only a leader as great as he could safely take hold of its hilt, on peril of his life. But since no wise man wished to risk himself in such a cause, the Sword lay gathering dust in the armory of the House of Beaufoi.
"But there came a time when war raged across all of Europe, and the isles of Britain were not immune. And as Muggles and the magical mixed more freely in this time than they do in our own, so the Muggle war had its counterpart in the magical world, for a Dark wizard saw the chaos and thought to use it to seize power over his own kind. And both wars raged fiercely for a time.
"At last, the leaders of wizardkind gathered together in secret. They must have a great general, they decided. One leader to bring them all together, one light to fight the coming darkness. And so it was decided that the Sword of the Great should be brought forth, and that each man in turn should try to take it up.
"But when the sword was unveiled, and the great name written on the blade was exposed, the hearts of the wizards quailed within them, and none would be first to put his hand to the hilt. Finally, an old man, who in better times sweetened lives by the buying and selling of honey, made a suggestion.
"‘My friends,’ he said, ‘we do not use magic for nothing. Why can we not use our magic to ask this sword to bestow itself upon any one of us who is worthy to carry it, and pledge that him we will follow, and so will all those who follow us?’
"The plan was voted a good one, and so it was done. Each leader signed his name to a pledge, giving his word and that of his descendants after him to follow the one who carried the Sword, and then together as one the leaders cast their spell. A long spell it was and difficult, for it had many particulars. The man it sought must be able to lead other men, but he must care for their lives. He must be both a great warrior and a great thinker. And he must have at least one child living, so that his line would not end if he were killed. All this and more the spell required, but at last it was finished, and the Sword awoke.
"The hilt of the Silver Sword shimmered with the gleam of Mars, the light of the ancient god of war. It arose from its place on the table and turned as though regarding those who had called to it. Great was the fear of the wizards there gathered that they had awakened something too powerful for them to control, that the Sword might turn upon them and slay them all for their presumption, and almost to a man they cowered back.
"Almost—but for four men. Those four, the Sword inspected gravely, for each was valiant in his own right. One was the Sword’s own keeper, the young head of the House of Beaufoi, who had proved his manhood by avenging his father’s death; the second came from the great swamps, and was known for his feats of strength and quiet bravery there; the third was a man of the West Lands, who crafted strange devices like a Muggle but had a genius for outwitting his enemy in battle; and the last was a craftsman and sculptor, a fine flyer and very strong in magic.
"Such were the choices of the Sword of the Great, and long did it hover about each man. At last, though, it laid itself in the hand of the man from the West, and he raised it above his head, and all those gathered acclaimed him as their leader. He took the other three who had been unafraid to be his lieutenants, and he brought strength back to the hearts of wizards and witches of good will, and they cast down the Dark One and his minions and laid bare his strongholds.
"And when the war was done, the man from the West touched the blade of his sword and smiled, and went alone into the North. And when he returned, his hands were empty, and so was his scabbard. His lieutenants asked him what he had done with the Sword of Decision—for so it was now called—but he only smiled. ‘I have laid it in a safe place and suitable,’ he said, ‘to come forth if ever again there is need for it. But I shall tell you three of that place, that the Sword may not be lost forever should my spell fail.’ And he gathered them to him secretly and told them of that place.
"But the House of Beaufoi is now no more, and the swamps have taken back what was theirs, and the young craftsman has returned to his beloved earth, and the children of the man from the West know not of their forefather’s great legacy. Much which was known is now forgotten, and the Sword of Decision is lost to us. Alas for our fate should an enemy ever again rise which threatens all of wizardkind..."
Corona trailed off and opened her eyes. "I remembered it," she said in wonder. "All of it, every word."
"We often remember our childhood stories in that way," Dumbledore agreed, glancing at Brian, whose nod confirmed that the DictaQuill had recorded Corona’s tale. "I thank you very much for being willing to recall this one for me."
"But what good will it do you?" Corona frowned. "Even if the story were true and the Sword of Decision real, that would mean it had been lost for hundreds of years. And how could you ever convince enough wizards to come together to recreate the spell that was cast on it?"
"Oh, there could be ways," Dumbledore said, accepting the scroll Brian held out to him. "There could very well be ways."
xXxXx
Upstairs, Tonks laid an awkward hand on Aletha’s gently curving belly. "Does it hurt?" she asked, looking up at the older woman. "I mean, not that I want to try it—not right now, I mean—but I was just wondering—"
Aletha set aside the desire to laugh. "It can hurt," she said truthfully. "There’s morning sickness, though I seem to have avoided that this time around. Some women have mood swings, or cravings for odd foods. So much extra weight can make your back ache, and of course the actual birth..." She shivered a little in memory. "At least this time, I won’t have to make do with Muggle medicines. Not that they aren’t effective in their own way, but they’re so draconian. With a good potion, I’ll be able to control how much pain I feel. I don’t want to cut it off entirely, because pain can actually be a feedback tool."
Tonks was nodding. "Exercise gives you the good pain," she said. "But if you slack even for a day or two, you get the bad kind, because you’re out of condition. And these muscles don’t get a lot of conditioning, so..." She winced.
"As if you’d never lifted anything heavier than a quill," Aletha supplied, "and suddenly you had to push a loaded cart for miles at a time. You’d make it, probably, but you’d be exhausted and hurting everywhere by the time you were done."
"Maybe I don’t want to try it after all," Tonks said, her face thoughtful as she rubbed her wedding ring. "But..."
"But?" Aletha prompted after a moment.
"But I don’t know. I know I don’t want kids until after this is all over—not that you’re wrong to have done it or anything," Tonks added hastily, "but I couldn’t handle it. Not my first time. And I’m not positive I want them even after it’s over. I mean, what would I do with a baby? I’m an Auror. I didn’t apprentice to learn to change diapers."
"But part of you does want children," Aletha finished, nodding. "Most women do. Some don’t, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But that desire runs very deep in most of us." She chuckled. "And that is a good thing, because the human race would never continue otherwise. Not with all the pain and the work involved, and that’s just the beginning. You spend years of your life on these ungrateful brats, and just when they finally start to get interesting, they leave!"
Tonks laughed too, but shakily, and it died away in a moment. "So it’s all right not to be sure?" she said. "I mean, I know it is, but I want to know—Merlin’s stones, I don’t know what I want to know anymore!"
"It is normal and perfectly fine not to be sure," Aletha reassured the younger woman, and felt a tiny throb of pain in the back of her heart. Oh, Andy, I wish you were here. You should be doing this for your daughter, not me—
But we do what we can for the ones who went on before. Whether that is to carry out their work or to help those they had to leave behind.
"So," Aletha said, breaking herself out of her reverie. "If you want to know all the gory details, I’m in a perfect position to tell them to you, having been through the process once and, proving that memory is imperfect, about to do it all again."
Tonks pulled herself up into a chair and leaned forward, her expression the epitome of hanging-on-every-word.
xXxXx
"I’m so happy about your new brother," Natalie said to Meghan at the DA meeting that Sunday evening. "Will he be a cub?" Long familiarity with Meghan’s stories about her family made the word sound natural in her mouth. "A part of a Pack and a Pride, like you are?"
"Of course. What else would he be?" Meghan levitated a target shaped like a battered old hat into the air and waved her wand in lazy arcs, making the hat bounce through the air.
"I don’t know." Natalie’s tongue stuck out the corner of her mouth as she concentrated. "I just thought... maybe..." She fired a stream of sparks at the hat, and it chimed as a few of them hit, scoring her a "soft" hit. "I thought maybe you wouldn’t be a Pack anymore. That you’d just be a family."
"I don’t know if we can," said Meghan thoughtfully, spinning the hat in a circle over Natalie’s head. "Mama and Dadfoot grew up in normal families—well, Mama did, Dadfoot’s family was stranger than ours—but they’re Pack now, bone and blood. And I haven’t ever been anything else than Pack. I wouldn’t know how to be ‘just a family’."
Natalie fired again and missed. "I’ve talked to Graham some," she said, glancing towards another corner of the room, where Harry was working with Graham one-on-one, coaching him through some of the earlier lessons the DA had learned. "He sees a lot, living there where Harry is. He says he never understood some of your stories before, but now he does."
Meghan giggled. "Do you ever see the Slytherins trying to figure out where he goes?" she asked, then jumped as the hat chimed loudly, signaling a solid or "hard" hit. "Hey!"
Natalie smiled, less shyly than she would have a month before. "You weren’t paying attention," she said. "We’re supposed to take advantage of that."
"Hmph." Meghan whirled the hat into a slashing three-dimensional pattern. "But do you? They’ve tried following him, but he just changes which way he’s going, and by the time they figure out where he’s going now, he’s gone. He never goes into any of the places that will let him back into the Den when they’re watching him, and by now, all they know is that he can get to wherever he’s going from two or three different places—and they knew that already!"
Natalie shot three times, scoring two soft hits. "Professor Umbridge wants to get him alone, you know," she said. "She thinks she could get him to say that Professor Dumbledore kidnapped him, to make everyone think You-Know-Who is back."
"Well, she isn’t going to," Meghan said staunchly. "The one time she tried taking him out of class—you remember that, the second day he was back?"
Natalie giggled. "First Peeves distracted her," she said, shooting as she talked, chimes punctuating her speech. "And while she was trying to get him to stop, Professor Dumbledore came by and saw Graham just standing in the hall, and took Graham up to his office, because Graham was out of class during class time."
"And when Professor Umbridge tried to find out where Graham was, all Professor Dumbledore would say was that he’d sent him back to where he ought to be," said Meghan in satisfaction, "and she couldn’t find him anywhere, and none of the other teachers would help her at all. And she didn’t know enough to look for Maya, or ask her any questions." She glanced over at the older girl, whose new watch sparkled on her wrist as she levitated a shoe-shaped target for another student to shoot at.
Natalie nodded. "And then Graham wasn’t in class for three days, but somehow he had all the homework done when he turned up again..."
"And since she can’t prove any of the teachers were doing anything wrong, she can’t do anything about this," Meghan finished, ending her charm so that the hat-target fell into her hand. "Ten soft hits and three hard," she read aloud off the back of the target. "That’s pretty good."
"But I can do better." Natalie took the target from Meghan, reset it, and levitated it herself. "Next time, I will."
Meghan rose on her tiptoes, took a deep breath, and let her wand merge with the target as it bobbed and wove elusively. I have to hit that, she told herself. Nothing else matters.
Her first stream of sparks slammed into the target’s upper right corner.
xXxXx
"Oh, I give up!" shouted Selena Moon, flinging her wand away from her as the target above her evaded her sparks yet again. "What good is it, anyway? We’re just kids! We can’t possibly do anything important!"
The entire room had gone silent. Harry straightened up slowly from where he’d been showing Graham the precise twisting movement for the Body-Bind, feeling eyes moving to him. I have to say something. I can’t just let that go.
But what do I say?
"We’re just kids," he repeated Selena’s words. "You’re right about that. Well, some of us are adults," he conceded with a nod to Fred and George, "but we’re not experienced, and we’re not fully trained. But I don’t think that means we can’t do anything important."
He took a few steps into the middle of the room, the attention of the DA trained on him. "Every wizard who ever held a wand started out just where we are," he said as he walked. "Students. Learners. And some of them were probably fumble-fingered nitwits who couldn’t hold their wands straight if their lives depended on it." That surprised a laugh out of a few people. "But they practiced. They trained. And they got better slowly."
Harry drew his wand and brought it to aim at one of the wall-mounted targets in the fast, fluid motion Padfoot had trained into him over the course of two summers and a school year. "I wasn’t born knowing how to do that," he said, lowering it again. "I didn’t just wake up one morning and know it. I had to learn it. And it took a long time."
He looked around the room, meeting gaze after gaze, blue, brown, hazel, gray. "We’re trying to learn a lot in a short time here. That means we’re not going to be very good at it at first. But we’re getting better. Think about it." He turned to Colin Creevey. "Colin, try and disarm me."
"Expelliarmus!" Colin shouted without hesitation, swinging his wand into line with Harry.
Harry brought his other hand up just in time to catch his wand before it went flying, and staggered back a step as the main force of the spell hit him. "Good shot," he said when he thought he could talk without croaking. "Could you have done that before the DA?"
Colin shook his head hard, his eyes wide as he realized he’d nearly disarmed Harry Potter.
"Elayne." Harry turned to the younger of the Slytherin girls, who paled as he called her name. "Show me an Orbis Block."
Elayne squared her shoulders and lifted her wand. "Oppiliorbis," she said softly but firmly, and the yellow disk appeared in midair.
"Auris Vellicare!" Harry announced, concentrating on making it a small spell, not too powerful, just enough to hit her block and bounce—
The beam of fuchsia light disappeared into the disk without a trace.
Huh. Guess she blocks better than I thought. No need to tell her that, though.
Elayne was staring open-mouthed at her own wand, and Harry pointed at her. "That’s what a Death Eater would do," he said. "He’d stare. He’d be amazed. Because in his mind, we’re just little kids. We can’t fight back. We’re helpless. When really—"
He spun around. "Expelliarmus!" he shouted at Selena.
She dodged and shot back at him. "Stupefy!"
"Oppiliorbis!" Harry staggered back two steps with the force of the Stunner hitting his block. "There, you see?" he said, looking straight at Selena. "You can do this. All of us can."
He turned, once more meeting each pair of eyes as he passed it. "We’re as strong as we let ourselves be. As strong as all of us together. And we’re not just kids. Not anymore. Kids sit around and let adults decide their future. We’re deciding our own future. We’re deciding to fight. And you know what that makes us?"
"Strong!" shouted Lindsey Jordan, murmurs of affirmation answering her.
"Wizards and witches!" called Heidi, the Hufflepuff fourth-year who always paired with Justin Finch-Fletchley. A small cheer greeted her answer.
"An army," said Luna.
The room went silent.
"An army," repeated Padma Patil, as though she were trying the words on for size. "Dumbledore’s Army. Isn’t that what we’re called?"
"That is what we’re called," said Danielle, the tall blonde Ravenclaw, nodding to her Housemate. "And I think it’s time we start acting like it."
She stepped into the middle of the room, bowed to Harry, and swept her wand up to salute position, her gripping hand just below and in front of her chin, the wand itself upright in front of her face. "I fight with you," she said.
Harry nodded his head in acknowledgement, and Danielle lowered her wand and stepped back into the crowd.
Ron walked out to where she had been and faced Harry. "I fight with you," he said, bringing his wand to salute. Harry nodded again, and Ron returned to his place.
One by one, few by few, the members of the DA stepped onto the open floor and saluted Harry. Not all of them, he noticed—Zacharias Smith and Michael Corner were standing in the back of the room together, muttering to each other, and Cho and her friend Marietta were whispering agitatedly together, Cho pointing at Harry, Marietta waving her arms around.
The sight of Cho off to one side, not ready to trust him, stung Harry a little, and he turned away from her blindly, nodding to Colleen Lamb. Colleen bowed her head briefly in return, then stepped aside to make room for the person behind her.
Harry felt his smile return, and he didn’t bother looking back at Cho as Ginny drew herself up proudly and saluted. "I fight with you," she said.
The index finger of her left hand wiggled back and forth, and Harry nearly choked.
In Pride hand-sign, that meant, Take what I just said two different ways.
xXxXx
"So, today in class, we’re going to be discussing some spells you might use in a fight," said Professor Alice Longbottom, leaning on the corner of her desk. "In the unlikely verging on impossible event that you might someday be attacked by another wizard."
Her class of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff fifth years, including the translucent one in the back row, sniggered.
"Who can tell me some of these spells?"
Hands went up like rockets. Alice pointed at the first one she’d seen. "Miss Granger-Lupin—just one, please, to start with."
"Protego, the Shield Charm," Hermione recited, looking very eager. "It deflects spells back at the caster, and stronger versions can even protect you against physical objects. But it only lasts a moment, so you have to cast it again and again."
"Good. It’s always important to know both the strengths and the weaknesses of any spell you cast. Mr. Finch-Fletchley, another one, please."
They had worked through the basic self-defense spells and had a short discussion about the merits and drawbacks of each approach, and Alice had her mouth open to start talking about offensive spells when Harry Potter’s ghostly form suddenly waved at her frantically from the back.
Alice closed her mouth on the words she’d been about to say. "Quills out, everyone," she ordered instead, and shook her head sharply at the sounds of disappointment, flicking her eyes towards the door. "Quills out, and I want a foot and a half on the discussion we’ve just finished," she repeated, pitching her voice to carry. Harry, in the back, wiped his brow dramatically, then thumbed his nose as Dolores Umbridge stepped through the door.
Alice kept talking, and silently crossed her fingers that Umbridge would simply go away. "What side did you choose in the discussion? Why do you like it? What are some of the best arguments of the other side, and why are they good? Write quietly for five minutes and I’ll let you discuss out loud."
"Oh, you had a discussion, dear?" Umbridge said with a small smile, bustling up the side of the classroom to join Alice—and to Alice’s private horror, Harry Potter followed close behind her, mimicking her every move. "What was it about?"
"Different methods of self-defense," Alice said shortly, keeping her words clipped so as not to burst out laughing. "Shields, blocks, dodging, tactical withdrawals."
"Lovely, lovely." Umbridge peered at the closest student in the front row, Alice’s own Neville, who slid an arm politely around his paper and kept scribbling. Harry, too, leaned over Neville’s desk, ‘accidentally’ overlapping his midsection with Umbridge’s head. "You followed the curriculum, I take it?"
"Of course," Alice lied without blinking an eye. The "Ministry-approved curriculum" for teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts reposed where it always did, in her second desk drawer, buried under as much other paperwork as she could find.
I can read that thing without cracking a smile—but this, I don’t think I can handle. Harry was now ducking back and forth through Umbridge, sticking an arm, a foot, a head through her before his entire self went through, and Alice had to look away before she lost her composure.
"Well, in that case, I see no reason to stay." Umbridge made for the door with more speed than dignity, shedding her invisible playmate about halfway out of the room. "Enjoy your lesson, boys and girls!"
Alice fixed Harry with the mother’s eye that served her so well for Neville, and Harry turned slowly to face her, trying an ingratiating grin.
Nice try, boyo, but you haven’t faced down classes of brand-new Auror apprentices so shiny they squeak. Alice flicked a finger in an almost invisible signal for the boy to go sit down, and Harry nodded and obeyed.
One of these days I’ll tell you how close you came to making me lose control in front of Dolores Umbridge.
But I think I’ll wait until I’m not your teacher anymore.
"Quills down," she said, and smiled at the sighs of relief. "Now, let’s talk about offensive spells, things you can legally use to stop another wizard from hurting you or someone else..."
xXxXx
"Draco, I need your help on this," Ginny said firmly. "Harry has to know!"
"It’ll only hurt him, Ginny. He can’t do anything about it and he knows that. It would be cruel to talk about Quidditch with him right now." Draco paced up and down the library a few times, his brow furrowed. "If we’re going to get Ron up to speed as our Keeper, we’ve got to do it ourselves."
"How? Wave our wands and say poof, there, it’s done?" Ginny snorted. "He has the skills. You know that and I know that. It’s just that he hasn’t played in long enough that he keeps thinking he doesn’t, and when he thinks it..."
"It becomes reality, I know." Draco picked up a book and flipped through the pages. Then again. Then again.
"What are you doing?" Ginny asked, looking up at him.
"Someone drew pictures on this book. Look at it." Draco turned the book so Ginny could see and riffled the pages. A little cat jumped into the air, again and again, trying to catch a butterfly.
"None of the pictures move," Ginny murmured. "Not on their own. But when you put them together fast enough..."
"It’s Muggle magic," said Draco, flipping the pages the other way to watch the cat jump in reverse. "Not everything comes through a wand. You need to be able to do other things too. Like cooking, or sculpting, or music—"
He froze for an instant. "I think," he said carefully, "that I’ve solved our problem. Maybe. Possibly."
"What?" Ginny demanded. "What is it?"
"No." Draco shook his head at her. "No, no, no. Not yet. I can’t tell anyone. Except—wait, Luna. I’ll need her help. ‘Scuse me—"
And he was gone, out the door into the main room.
Ginny blinked after him. "All right, then," she said. "I’ll just... stay here."
xXxXx
Maya Pritchard sat on the end of her bed, brushing her hair. She’d spent several nights recently sitting by a different bed, reassuring her cousin simply by her presence that he was safe and no longer trapped. She didn’t mind it in and of itself, but her vigils made for tired days for her, and she might not have tests this year, but that didn’t make the work any easier.
I think I need to get to bed early tonight. As early as I can and not look too silly...
A sudden, echoing crack made her jump and nearly drop her hairbrush.
"Kady is sorry, miss!" said the high, squeaky voice of a house-elf, and the creature scurried out from between the beds, bobbing a curtsey and holding out a slip of parchment. "Kady has a letter for miss!"
"Thank you," Maya said automatically, accepting the parchment. It was addressed to her in Graham’s handwriting, and despite herself, she flinched. Please, no—not another night—Graham, I love you dearly, but I doubt I can take another night awake—
She sighed deeply, then opened the letter.
Maya,
I am all right, but you may wish to come downstairs and observe what is about to happen. Meghan has told me about this custom, and I want you to see it too. It is called a den-night. Bring your nightclothes and anything you need to sleep. No one will see you coming down the stairs.
Graham
Maya blinked a few times at the parchment, then slipped it into her pocket and began gathering her things. If Graham said no one would see her, she believed him.
I don’t know how it could be done, but I believe him...
She believed him even more when she nearly ran into Alicia Spinnet on the stairs. She started an apology, but Alicia’s eyes slid right past her as though she weren’t there, and the seventh-year frowned, then shrugged and moved on.
As though I am—not invisible, but un-noticeable, perhaps.
She waved her watch at the spot on the wall she’d been shown, and felt the familiar thrill as the stone wall grated back, exposing the slide beyond. The trip was as swift and exhilarating as always, and she fell onto the bed beneath with a little whoop of pleasure.
Graham was waiting at the bedside, neatly dressed in dark blue pajamas, a match for her own light blue nightdress. "Thank you for coming, Maya," he said, hugging her. "I would have felt awkward without anyone here... ‘of my own’, I suppose you’d say."
"What do you mean?" Maya asked, brushing Graham’s hair out of his face. He needs this trimmed. His mother should have done it, but I suppose she was just too busy being thankful he was alive...
"Come and see." Graham waved to the door.
Maya stepped out into the main room of the place Harry Potter called the Den, and blinked in surprise. Eight people—Harry and his closest friends, she quickly realized—looked up at the opening of the door, and Harry himself got to his feet, hand out and a welcoming smile on his face. "Maya, glad you could make it."
Maya nodded, shaking Harry’s hand and trying to look around the octagonal room without making it clear that was what she was doing. The other times she’d been in this room, it had been large and bare with a hard wooden floor. It was still large and bare, but now the floor was cushioned, as soft as any mattress, and pillows and bedcovers lay in disorder about the lounging people, all of whom were wearing pajamas...
The word for what she had been invited to crashed into her mind, and she valiantly suppressed a giggle. This was obviously very important to Harry and his friends, and to Graham, and she would not let them see her laughing.
But she couldn’t help but find it funny that she was, apparently, a guest at a co-ed all-ages slumber party.
Draco Black coughed a little, and Maya quickly withdrew a few paces to where Graham was waiting for her by the wall. Her cousin was sitting down, knees to his chest and back to the stone, and Maya slid down the wall into the same position.
"Be welcome, all, to this den-night," Draco said with the cadence of a traditional proclamation. "We are Pride now. Pride together."
"Pride forever," the other seven chorused, low but in perfect unison. Maya felt a tiny shiver go through her.
Ginny Weasley sat up straight, her face suffused with pride. "Who will tell a story?" she said, her voice a triumphant fanfare. "Who will remind us what it means to be Pride?"
"I have one," said Neville Longbottom, and heads turned to face him. "Do you remember the time..."
"Meghan says they do this at least once a month," Graham murmured to Maya as Neville told his story. "More often, if there’s a special occasion. They always know that there’s a time and a place where they will all be together, or if they’re not, they can think about the ones who aren’t there." He shivered a little.
Maya slipped her arm around her cousin and pulled him close. "You just wanted me here so you wouldn’t have to sleep all alone again tonight," she teased, her fingers finding the ticklish spot just under his arm.
"Ack—no—no—Maya—stoppit!" Graham pushed her hand away and caught his breath, but his eyes still danced. "I know a story, if you don’t!"
"And what story do you know?"
"I know about the time you wanted to pet the turtle," Graham said smugly.
Maya bristled indignantly. "Just because I was three years old, and I had never seen a picture of a fire crab before—"
xXxXx
Two dens ran simultaneously, one beside the other, and each watched the other with some wariness but more recognition of a kindred thing. By the time Harry spoke the ending words and the lights dimmed in the room, the two had half-merged into one, Meghan moving her pillow and blankets out from the center of the Pride to sleep within arm’s reach of Graham.
Maya’s only, sleepy regret was that she had had no one else to trade stories with, no one connected specially and intimately with her.
Perhaps some other time...
xXxXx
Dolores Jane Umbridge normally invigorated herself by taking a deep breath of the fresh morning air, but on this November morning, her deep breath turned into a wheeze and frantic coughing.
Something in her rooms smelled truly foul, and she had a horrible suspicion it was herself. But when she tried to sit up, her nose came close to the walls, and she shoved herself away in horror. This made her tumble backwards out of bed onto the carpet, and a fresh wave of stink rose up around her.
Coughing and choking, she stumbled out into her office, but even there the stench continued. It seemed to only get worse everywhere she moved—it was as though everything in her quarters had been somehow contaminated!
The piece of parchment sitting innocently on her desk did nothing to improve her mood. Once again, it was a letter, done in the same beautiful handwriting as before.
Dear Professor Umbridge,
Living up to your initials, I see. Good luck finding someone who can stand you long enough to help you counter this.
Don’t you think it’s time you left Hogwarts?
Sincerely,
A Concerned Student
Umbridge crumpled the letter in her hand and ground her teeth. "I know who you are," she muttered to herself, "and I will have you in the end."
She sat down at her desk, ignoring the smell, and unlocked the top drawer, taking out the scroll on which she kept all her most important information.
Such as who was related to whom, in what way, in her world, which now included Hogwarts. And who owed her favors, and why.
She would have Harry Potter in her grasp, sooner or later. And then he would pay for every insult and slander she and dear Cornelius had endured.
And this scroll held the key to making that happen sooner, rather than later.
She perused the lines carefully, one stubby finger pointing out her place. Dear Harry was romantically interested in Miss Chang of Ravenclaw, and Miss Chang sets great store by the friendship of Miss Edgecombe—oh, but there may have been a falling out, as Miss Chang reacts badly to the mention of Mr. Potter’s name... and that links neatly back into the stories I’ve been hearing of an illegal student club...
Two possibilities there. Perhaps best to pursue only one, but perhaps both of them would bring better results...
She sighed in the pleasure of anticipation, then put away the scroll and took out another, this one dealing with the proper cleaning of things.
First things first. Make myself presentable once more.
After that... we shall see what we shall see, shall we not?
Okay, I can honestly say this won’t ever happen again. On Wednesday, I start an actual job, full-time work, and I won’t be able to stay up until all hours writing fanfic.
But it’s been fun, hasn’t it? Just like old times... don’t forget to review and let me know how I’m doing!