Living without Danger
Chapter 30: This IS Normal (Year 2)
By Anne B. Walsh
Chapter 30: This IS Normal
Aletha marked the last of the parchments in her stack with a nine out of ten and set it on the other side of her desk, then checked her watch. It was almost four o’clock. There were no more classes today, and she wouldn’t be expected anywhere for at least two hours.
She pulled out a spare piece of parchment, dipped her quill, and scribbled a note.
Out for a while, back by dinner. AFB
There was already a fire going in her grate. It was a simple matter to add Floo powder and step in.
"The Marauders’ Den!"
xXxXx
"How do women in normal families stand it?" asked Aletha a few minutes later, taking out teacups.
"Stand what?" Danger turned from filling the teakettle.
"Being the only mother their children have. It’s exhausting."
"Well, other women have a number of advantages." Danger came over with the kettle in her hands and poured the already boiling water over the teabags. "Number one, most of them are used to it. Number two, most of them have some space between their children, rather than three all the same age and one desperately trying to be. And number three, most of them don’t have to deal with things like their children’s friends dying and their schoolmates getting Petrified, at least not all at once."
Aletha laughed. She loved working at Hogwarts, but she did miss the easy camaraderie of the Den, where everything was a joke except their love for one another.
I can always pop home for a little while. Like this.
"You know you can always call on us if you get worn out," said Danger, echoing Aletha’s thoughts. "Come home for a bit, just to rest up. Hogwarts strikes me as a very busy place. Always something happening, or someone wanting to make something happen. You need a rest from that sometimes."
Aletha blew on her tea. "I might be taking you up on that more often now," she said. "Things are starting to heat up. You heard about the Hufflepuff boy and Nearly Headless Nick?"
"We heard. That’s bizarre, that it could happen even to a ghost. And no one has any idea what it could be?"
"None. There’s been some talk, but so far it’s only talk, thank heaven, about Albus being suspended."
"Oh, please." Danger snorted. "Sure, the school’s having troubles, so let’s take away their best defense. Wouldn’t it be smarter just to close the place? Not that I’m in favor of that, mind you," she added hastily, "but wouldn’t that be a better idea?"
Aletha sighed. "That’s also been brought up."
"Damn."
The two women sat in silence.
"And then, of course, there’s the talk about Harry being the Heir of Slytherin," said Aletha finally.
"Which he could still be," said Danger, cradling her teacup in her hands. "We just don’t know. And it is a valid question. How else could he be a Parselmouth?"
"It could have something to do with Voldemort," said Aletha. "But damned if I know what."
"Am I allowed to register a guess, or is this ladies’ tea only?" asked Remus from the doorway.
"Oh, if you must, I suppose," said Danger, sounding bored.
"Hello, Letha, good to see you." Remus clasped her hand briefly, then tugged on a tendril of her hair. Aletha slapped his hand away playfully.
"Should I be worried here?" asked Danger, her mouth stern but her eyes lively.
"Simply being brotherly, my only love."
"If that’s brotherly, what’s romantic?"
Remus came around the table. "This." He lifted Danger from her chair, sat down in it himself, pulled her onto his lap, and demonstrated romantic. Aletha looked at an interesting shadow on the ceiling and sipped her tea, smiling to herself.
About some things, it seems, our cubs will never have to worry. Such as their parents losing interest in one another.
Just out of curiosity, she kept track of the time on her watch. "Thirty-three seconds," she said when she could see both their faces again.
"Oh, is that all?" Danger looked disappointed. "We must be out of practice. We used to be able to keep it up for a solid minute."
"You’re fantasizing again, dear," said Remus gently. "I distinctly remember a ninety-second session or two."
Aletha nearly snorted tea across the table. "You’re horrible," she said when she could speak again.
"I’ve made a lifelong study of it." Remus gave a little bow. "Weren’t you talking about something else when I came in?"
"Yes, but it’s not interesting," said Danger.
"On the contrary, I think it is. It was Harry, and how he speaks Parseltongue."
Aletha nodded. "And whether or not that means he’s the Heir of Slytherin."
"It might mean that he’s descended from Slytherin," said Danger, "but I’m as sure as I am of my own name that he’s not opening any Chamber of Secrets and attacking people. That has to be someone else. Someone wanting to pin it on him, maybe."
"But then why would they go to the trouble to kill his snake first?" Remus frowned. "That doesn’t make sense."
"Maybe that was meant as a warning," said Aletha. "But we stopped it from being one, since we kept Siss’ death quiet. I still don’t think anyone knows about it except us, Albus, Minerva, Snape, and Percy Weasley."
"So they started out wanting to warn him, then decided to try to pin it on him?" Danger shook her head. "Who makes plans that complicated?"
"Not complicated," said Remus. "Just changing with the times. Adapting. Flexible. But we’re off topic again."
"No, we’re not," Danger contradicted. "We’re perfectly on the topic we’re talking about. We’re just not on the one you want to talk about."
"And thus, we’re off topic."
"Because you say we are."
"Now you’re starting to understand it."
Danger shook her head. "Men."
"And who else are you including in that?"
Danger smacked Remus on the shoulder.
"Thanks, I needed that. What I was going to say was, Harry’s scar hurt him last year, when he was near Voldemort. What if the scar connects them in some way?"
Aletha thought about that for a moment. "If that’s true," she said finally, "then Harry gets his Parseltongue from Voldemort, who is an Heir of Slytherin, most likely. So that would mean Harry probably isn’t. Or at least that he doesn’t have to be."
"I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear that," said Remus, smiling.
xXxXx
Aletha arrived in the Great Hall for dinner feeling refreshed.
"You look happy," said Sirius, passing down a tureen of soup. "Been having some fun this afternoon?"
"Yes. A great deal."
"Where were you?"
"Home."
"Back at the Den?"
"No, in my other secret home that I don’t tell you about. Yes, back at the Den."
Sirius groaned, dropping his spoon into his bowl. "You have to tell me when you’re going to do that, Letha."
Aletha stared at him, offended. "Since when do I have to report my movements to you, Sirius Black? I’m fully able to take care of myself, you know."
"That wasn’t what I meant!"
"Then you’d better explain what you did mean right away."
Sirius put on his best puppy-dog eyes. "I meant I wanted to go with you."
Aletha laughed, her anger gone. "Poor Sirius, left all alone at Hogwarts with just the mean nasty old Potions Master for company."
"No, I mean it. I’d like to pop home and see Remus and Danger, but Moony’d tease me if I went alone. If I tag along with you, I can claim you made me come."
Aletha shook her head. "Your matter-of-factness never ceases to amaze me. Shall we go for tea tomorrow, then?"
"Oh, if you insist," said Sirius in a long-suffering tone.
xXxXx
"Out of the way, there," barked a voice. "Move aside. The wizard’s in a hurry."
"Way for His Royal Evilness," added another voice, almost identical to the first. "Clear a path for the one and only Heir of Slytherin!"
Harry glared at Fred and George, who were parting the crowd in the hall with grand, sweeping gestures. "Just wait until summer," he said. "You’re going to regret this."
But he really didn’t mind Fred and George messing about in the halls. It meant that they, at least, thought the idea of his being the Heir of Slytherin was completely insane.
It was an attitude he appreciated more and more as term went on and more people seemed to be considering it seriously. The whispering as he passed, instead of dying down, seemed to get worse. Peeves, of course, wasn’t helping. He was still singing "Oh, Potter, you rotter," and he had invented a dance routine to go with it. Harry was relatively safe in classes, but in the hallways in between times he was fair game.
Percy Weasley was occasionally helpful — he’d had more practice at getting rid of Peeves — but more often not, as he tried to overawe Fred and George with his status as a prefect.
You’d think he’d have figured out by now it doesn’t work, thought Harry one day, as Percy bellowed at George for pretending to ward Harry off with a braided string of garlic. And maybe I should tell him I don’t mind them. But he’d probably just say something like, "It’s not about if you mind, Harry, they’re messing with the way everything is supposed to go, and I’m a prefect, so I have to tell them off."
"Percy?"
"Yes?" Percy turned to Harry. George tipped him a wink, tossed a handful of garlic skin into the air over Percy’s head, stuck it there with his wand, and fled.
"I don’t really mind them when they do that. They’re just having fun."
"It doesn’t matter if you mind them, Harry," explained Percy a tad huffily. "They’re disrupting the normal process of the school day, and it’s my job as a school prefect to keep everything running as smoothly as possible in these troubled times."
"All right." Well, I was close.
Percy turned to walk away, and the papery garlic skin in the air above him came unstuck and showered down around him, startling him into a yelp.
"Sorry, I’m late," said Harry quickly, and ran in the opposite direction before Percy could see that he was laughing.
xXxXx
A few days before the start of February, Meghan was declared fully well again, and fit to return to her duties in the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey put her to light work at first, such as dusting the Petrified people. Meghan did this gravely and politely, though she admitted privately that her fingers itched to see if she could un-Petrify them herself.
"You’re not to try it," said Aletha firmly. "Your powers are for emergencies only, and this is not an emergency. They’re in no danger of dying, and we know precisely how to revive them. If you can’t keep your hands to yourself, we can find other places for you to work in the castle."
Meghan assured her mother she’d be good. "Can I use it for little things?" she asked. "Just to see what I can do with it?"
"Why don’t you wait a few days," said Aletha. "I got an owl from Andy this morning. She’ll be here on Thursday to watch you work."
"But I have to practice, then," objected Meghan, keeping her face straight. "So I’ll look good."
"The point of this is not to look good, you silly mooncalf!" Aletha pulled her daughter closer to her on the couch and tickled her mercilessly.
"Hey, hey, hey, break it up," said Sirius, coming into the room. "Give me a chance." He sat down between his women and tickled both of them, one with each hand. He soon regretted this, as they ganged up on him.
"What is the point, then?" asked Meghan when they were recovering their breath afterwards.
"The point of what?" asked Sirius.
"Andy’s coming to watch her heal," explained Aletha. "The point, silly Pearl, is for a trained Healer to see you working and figure out, if she can, what you do and what would and wouldn’t be safe for you."
xXxXx
"To be completely honest, if she can save someone’s life, I don’t see what wouldn’t be safe for her," said Andy over tea, Meghan safely out of the room. "I understand it required a long recovery time, but so would any hard work. She can certainly do small things without too much strain on herself."
At Andromeda’s request, Meghan had healed all the small injuries that came into the hospital wing over the course of a morning. These had included two scraped knees, a badly bruised arm, several burns, and a broken nose.
"It shouldn’t overtax her, not with what she’s already shown herself capable of," she explained. "And since you already know it takes her a couple of months to recover fully from a truly major healing, it would be nice to know how long it will take for her to get over healing little injuries like these."
The house-elves, who were treating Meghan like royalty these days, had kept her supplied with spiced heated pumpkin juice, and delivered a large lunch to the hospital wing almost as soon as Andy called a halt to the experiment. Meghan had eaten ravenously, then climbed into Sirius’ lap and fallen asleep. He’d held her for a little while as Andromeda and Aletha talked business, then laid her on one of the hospital wing beds, told Madam Pomfrey she was there, and left with the two women for the privacy of the Defense teachers’ office.
"Question," said Sirius now. "What do you think about Meghan using this power as if it were an everyday thing? Could she overtire herself, just using it in little dribs and drabs this way, until she got into serious trouble and we didn’t notice?"
Andy tapped her fingers on the table. "It’s possible," she said slowly, "but I think unlikely at this point. She has a wise body — you saw how she would stop and drink when she needed it, and eat and sleep when she needed that."
"But there’s another side to the problem," said Aletha. "She’s just a little girl. Should she be routinely using a power that no one else in recorded history has demonstrated in over a thousand years?"
Andy shrugged. "She’s got to get used to it at some point," she said, "but I don’t think it’s the best of ideas for her to be showing it off and tossing it around. That’s a perfect way for her to start thinking she can do anything, and the last thing she needs is a swelled head. And she might be more likely than usual to get one, if it runs in families."
"That’s not fair," protested Sirius. "Letha’s never been one to get puffed up."
The women exchanged a tolerant look. "If she can use it without anyone realizing, I’d say she should be clear to," said Andromeda. "But only on small things, and put a limit on it. Two or three per day, perhaps, and she has to have a drink in between and a snack and a nap afterwards."
"Poppy would be glad to make sure she does that," said Aletha. "And she should also be good at disguising what’s really happened. I take it you agree this should stay secret for a while."
"Oh, most certainly." Andy chuckled. "Your family gives me all my most interesting cases. A werewolf who isn’t really a werewolf, except that he still changes at full moons, and now a blood Heir of Rowena Ravenclaw. Nice work covering up how she saved Harry, by the way. However did you get Poppy to agree to say she’d made a mistake?"
Sirius grinned. "She was so relieved that Harry wasn’t actually going to die that I think she would have agreed to anything. And so far, no one’s made the connection between Harry’s recovery and Meghan’s illness."
"We said she’d picked up a nasty bug that was resistant to common potions," said Aletha, "and we were inclined to let her recover on her own rather than dose her up. Having the holidays so close helped as well, and of course, there’s her not being a student, so she doesn’t have classes and regular duties. People do notice if she’s not around, but they just assume she’s off doing something else, something she likes better."
"Then they obviously don’t know her very well," said Andromeda. "I have a feeling there’s nowhere she likes being better than that hospital wing."
Anyone who didn’t know Aletha as well as he did, Sirius thought, would never have been able to tell that her smile was just the least bit forced. Something was on her mind.
He shrugged. He wasn’t a prying man. If she wanted to talk, she knew where he was. He wouldn’t interfere unless things started going out of control, like they had last year after Halloween.
What is it with Halloween, anyway? Does everything bad happen then? First James and Lily, then that troll, now Harry’s snake...
Andy’s laughter brought him back to the present. There was no need to be superstitious, he told himself. Plenty of bad things happened on days that weren’t Halloween, and plenty of good things happened on the day itself.
"So I’d say, let her use it in small ways, and keep an eye on her," said Andromeda as she prepared to leave. "And I wouldn’t say this for most other children her age, but trust her judgment. Not completely, of course, but in some respects. She’s likely to have an instinct for which cases need her and which ones would do better with potions and such."
Aletha smiled, accepting the compliment for Meghan. "Thank you so much, Andy," she said, embracing the other woman. "It’s been such a help to have you around."
"Anytime you need me, just firecall," said Andromeda. "See you around, ugly cousin." She slapped Sirius on the shoulder before departing through the fireplace.
xXxXx
"Harry, wait up!"
Harry turned at the shout. Ginny came trotting up to him, panting a little. "Merlin, you walk fast," she said, holding out a quill. "You dropped this."
"Thanks." Harry took it. "Where are you headed?"
"Back to the Tower. You?"
"Same. Walk with me?"
"Sure."
They walked down the hall together. Harry noticed Ginny was still breathing hard. "Let me take that," he said, lifting her schoolbag from her shoulder. "It looks heavy."
"Thanks." Ginny blushed a little. "It’s just that I have Transfiguration and Charms both today, and those are the biggest books we have. I miss Colin in Charms. We used to sit next to each other, did you know?"
Harry shook his head. "I hate Herbology, though," he said. "The Hufflepuffs all keep huddling together and whispering whenever I come in."
"People are so stupid," said Ginny as they came to a staircase. "If they’d just open their eyes, they’d see you can’t possibly be the Heir of Slytherin."
"Thanks," said Harry, thinking hard of ice water as he felt the heat of a flush on his own cheeks. "Listen, Ginny, are you doing anything tonight?"
Ginny stumbled and fell. Harry bent to help her up, but she waved him away, and stood after a moment on her own, her face now very red indeed. "No, I don’t think so," she said quietly without looking at him. "Why?"
"It’s Padfoot’s birthday today. We’re going to have a party down in the kitchens and make fun of him until he starts hexing us. I was just wondering if you wanted to come."
"A birthday party for Professor Black?" Ginny’s smile, as she finally turned to look at Harry, was exceedingly bright and cheerful. "I’d love to come. When is it?"
"It starts at seven. We’re all meeting in the Great Hall after dinner to walk down together. Will I see you there?"
"I wouldn’t miss it." Ginny’s smile wavered a little but remained in place.
"Oh-ho-HO!" bellowed a familiar voice from above them. Harry and Ginny looked up to see Peeves floating there, leering down. "Potty lurves the little Weaslette, does he? Watch out, widdle girly, or he’ll attack you and make you all bloody — like this!"
Harry saw just in time what Peeves was about to do, and leapt in front of Ginny to catch the inkwell himself. The added weight of Ginny’s bag made him bobble the catch, and red ink spilled over his robes and into the bags. He swore.
"Potty-mouth Potter," cackled Peeves in satisfaction, and rocketed away, screeching, "Potty has a Valentine! Widdle Weaslette is Potty’s Valentine!"
Harry felt his face go as red as the ink. He’d completely forgotten what else Padfoot’s birthday meant.
But everyone knows what Peeves says is rubbish anyway...
I hope...
"I’m sorry about your bag," he said, turning around, determined not to react to what Peeves was trying to do.
"It’s all right. We can fix it." Ginny drew her wand, her face carefully neutral as she looked only at Harry’s chest. "Scourgify." The ink on Harry’s robes vanished. "Spread the books out," she instructed. "It’s easier if I can see what I’m doing."
Harry opened her bag and his and began pulling out one ink-soaked book after another, putting them in piles of more and less inky. The last book out of Ginny’s bag wasn’t inky at all, so he set it off by itself. "This one didn’t get it," he said, showing her the small, black book. "It must have been at the bottom."
"But the bag’s all covered with it — look." Ginny showed him where the ink had run down the sides of her bag, pooling inside at the bottom and dripping onto the carpet. "It should have been more inky at the bottom, not less."
Harry shook his head. "Strange."
Ginny nodded and began casting Cleaning Charms, first on the two bags, then on the piles of books. As she dealt with the puddle on the carpet, Harry noticed something odd. There were tiny specks of red off to one side, as if something had tracked through the ink and left footprints. But what could leave footprints that small?
Ginny looked where he was looking. "What is that?"
"I don’t know." Harry traced an imaginary path with his finger. If the thing had kept going the direction it had been going, it would have gone...
He looked up on the wall, and there, sure enough, was a large and magnificent spider, scurrying along as though possessed. It still had traces of ink visible on it.
"Can you catch it?" said Ginny quietly in his ear. "I don’t know if the ink’s poisonous to it or not, but I don’t want it to die if it is."
Harry cupped his hands around the spider, which froze in place. Ginny removed the ink from it, Harry let it go, and they both watched it run along the wall and out of sight.
Suddenly Harry remembered something. He checked his watch and swore again. "Ginny, I’m sorry, I just remembered, I have Quidditch practice — I have to run — see you in the Great Hall at six-fifty?"
"Of course."
Harry scooped his books into his bag and ran for the Tower.
xXxXx
Padfoot’s birthday party was a great success. Moony and Danger came from home to celebrate with them, the house-elves provided a splendid cake and plenty of other good things to eat, and the Pride did, indeed, manage to tease Padfoot into hexing them. He gave Ron a splendid pair of donkey ears and Harry a lion’s mane, and threatened to leave them on all night and make the boys go to class that way in the morning unless they apologized.
"We’re very sorry, Professor Black," said Ron earnestly.
Harry nodded hard. "We didn’t mean to say that you couldn’t cast a spell to save your life."
"They meant you couldn’t cast a spell to save anyone’s life," called Draco from across the room, where he was playing Gobstones with Luna, Neville, Meghan, and two or three house-elves.
"Well, maybe not to save a life," said Padfoot lazily, "but I was reckoned a fair target shooter in my day." A flick of his wand removed ears and mane from Ron and Harry and conferred them both on Draco.
Luna reached over and stroked the ears. "Will you roar so loudly that you fright the ladies?" she asked.
Draco blushed and didn’t answer.
Ginny excused herself early, pleading a headache, and thanked Meghan for her offer to heal it, but said she’d rather go and rest instead. Meghan pouted for a little while, until Hermione, with the ease of long practice, tricked her sister out of her bad mood by asking her silly questions until she laughed.
At one point Harry found himself alone with Danger, and decided to ask her what he had intended to ask Letha. "Do you know what my mum’s middle name was?"
Danger frowned. "Not off the top of my head... wait a moment." She closed her eyes, as if she was thinking hard, but Harry knew she was probably asking Moony. "Cecilia," she said. "Lily Cecilia."
"Thanks."
"Why did you ask?"
"Found an old picture with their initials on it, and I just wondered."
"All right. Be polite with it, now that you know. Names have a lot of power." Danger opened her eyes and looked directly at him. She knew he loved to watch her eyes change, from the blue-brown swirl they were when she and Moony were in full contact, so mingled that no one could tell what color they had originally been, back to her usual frank brown, with just the occasional tinge of blue, which might have been totally natural and normal, except that it wasn’t.
Just like everything else around here.
Harry grinned. He rather liked not being normal. Normal, in his opinion, was highly overrated.
It was in a good mood that he said good night to Padfoot at the portrait hole and climbed through, the rest of the Pride behind him, Draco de-maned and de-eared because he’d asked politely, or rather begged, Harry thought with a snicker.
Ginny was sitting by herself off to one side, eyes fixed on the entrance, obviously waiting for them. She beckoned them over as soon as she saw them.
"What’s wrong?" asked Ron, seeing the troubled expression on her face.
"Not here." Ginny looked around. "Somewhere else." Her eyes landed on the fireplace.
One by one they slid down the stone slide, until they were all established in the red bedroom. "Is something wrong, Ginny?" asked Draco as he climbed off the bed. "You look upset."
Ginny led the way into the main room, where she produced a small, black book from her pocket. It was the diary she’d found in Myrtle’s bathroom, and, Harry realized suddenly, the book that hadn’t gotten soaked by the ink Peeves had thrown at her.
"You remember this?" she asked.
Everyone nodded.
"It’s magical. It has a boy’s memories in it. His name was Tom Riddle. And he was at Hogwarts the last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened."
"The last time?" said two or three people at once.
"That’s right!" said Neville suddenly. "Professor Dumbledore said — that night I went out, the night Colin was attacked — he said the Chamber had been opened once more. That means it was opened before!"
"Fifty years ago," said Ginny. "Several people were attacked. A girl died. And Tom Riddle caught the person who was doing it. They gave him a Special Award for Services to the School."
"He deserved it," said Harry. "Did he tell you who it was?"
Ginny looked at her hands. "Yes."
"Tell us," urged Hermione. "Please."
"You won’t like it."
"Just tell us!" said Ron impatiently.
"Hagrid."
There was a long silence.
Draco gave a forced little laugh. "That’s funny," he said. "That’s really funny. Hagrid, the Heir of Slytherin. Come on, who was it?"
"That’s who it was, Draco. I’m not lying."
"But that doesn’t make sense," said Meghan, voicing what everyone was thinking. "Hagrid wouldn’t attack people. He’s nice."
"There’s supposed to be a monster in the Chamber," said Luna. "And Hagrid likes monsters. He had a three-headed dog, and he’d like to have a dragon."
"And he might have let the monster out," said Ron. He imitated Hagrid’s voice. "‘Jus’ ter let him stretch his legs a bit.’ And then it might have gotten away from him..."
"But more than one person was attacked," said Hermione. "He wouldn’t have taken it out again, if it got away from him the first time, would he?"
"He might’ve," argued Ron. "He might’ve thought the first time was just a fluke."
"Oh, come on, Ron, even Hagrid’s not that stupid!"
"Are you calling me stupid?"
Harry tuned out Ron and Hermione’s argument, as well as the conversation about monsters, which had turned into a discussion of what sort of monster might be in the Chamber, that it could Petrify people. Luna kept coming out with odd suggestions, which Draco politely found reasons to deny, while Neville and Meghan debated about whether it might not be a vegetable monster which produced some sort of poison that only the Heir could safely use. Harry really didn’t care, so long as someone found a way to stop it before it actually killed someone.
Ginny looked miserable, Harry noticed. He knew she liked Hagrid almost as much as the cubs of the Pack did, but he had never really thought about it until now. "How do you work the diary?" he asked conversationally.
Ginny gave him a small smile. "Come on, I’ll show you." She got up and opened the door into the library, where she uncorked an inkpot on the desk and dipped a quill. "This is why it didn’t get any ink on it," she explained. "It soaks it up. And then Tom writes back using it."
She began to write on the first page. Harry read over her shoulder.
"Hello, Tom. It’s Ginny again. I’ve brought someone to meet you."
Ginny lifted the quill away. The letters gleamed on the page for a moment, then faded into the paper as if they’d never been there. Harry stared as the ink came oozing back to the surface, forming first letters, then words, in a very precise, old-fashioned handwriting.
"Hello, Ginny. Hello, Ginny’s friend. My name is Tom Riddle."
Harry took the quill Ginny held out to him and dipped it himself. "Hello, Tom," he scribbled down. "My name is Harry Potter."
Riddle’s response came up quickly. "I’m very pleased to meet you, Harry. I’ve heard a great deal about you."
Ginny blushed. Harry refrained from looking at her. "Are you sure of what you told Ginny about the Chamber of Secrets?" he asked Riddle instead.
"Positive. I can show you the same way I showed her, if you like. I can take you inside my memory to let you see the night I caught the culprit."
Harry glanced at Ginny, who nodded. "It doesn’t hurt," she said. "It’s like being a ghost, almost. You get to watch everything, but no one can see or hear you."
Harry dipped his quill again. "All right."
xXxXx
Harry’s heart was pounding when he returned to the main room of the Den. Everyone looked up at him. He nodded slowly. "Hagrid," he said.
Hermione made a sound that could only be described as a yowl. Draco twisted a pillow between his hands, with a look that made Harry grateful it wasn’t somebody’s neck.
"He’s wrong," said Meghan. "He has to be wrong."
Harry sighed. "Pearl, I saw it. Hagrid was trying to smuggle the monster out of the castle. But it got away. It must have run back into the Chamber."
"You’re wrong," said Meghan fiercely. "You and that stupid book." She pointed at it, in Ginny’s hands. "Hagrid wouldn’t put people in danger. Go and ask him. He’ll tell you he never."
"Pearl, he’d say that whether or not he really did," said Draco unhappily.
Meghan bared her teeth briefly. "You’re all stupid. Believing some dumb book over Hagrid. He’s our friend. He helped us catch Wormtail. I’m not talking to any of you." She stomped into the red bedroom and slammed the door.
"I’ll go after her," said Neville quickly.
"Don’t worry too much," advised Draco. "She gets like this sometimes. She’ll get over it."
Neville nodded and slipped into the red bedroom.
xXxXx
The doors of the Hogwarts Den blocked sound fairly well, and the remaining six warriors of the Pride were all talking. If two people who had supposedly left the Den actually did not, but remained in one of the rooms and had a quiet, intense talk, the six were unlikely to notice.
They did notice, however, that Meghan kept her opinions a bit more to herself than she usually did during the debates which emerged over the next months, most of which, funnily enough, centered around something Meghan had brought up. Should they, or should they not, go and ask Hagrid if Tom Riddle’s story were true?
Ron and Draco, for once, were on the same side about something. They both insisted that Hagrid would maintain his innocence whether or not the story were true. Hermione, in the face of all opposition, declared that Hagrid was their friend and would tell them the truth because he wouldn’t want them to be hurt, but she wouldn’t say what she thought the truth was.
"It’s all too complicated," she said one evening with a sigh, falling into an armchair. "I don’t know who to believe." They had checked out Riddle’s story that he’d received a Special Award for Services to the School. His golden shield was indeed in the trophy room, though they’d had to search a bit, as it was hidden inside a cabinet in the corner, along with a Medal for Magical Merit and a list of Head Boys with dates around the year printed on the diary, both of which featured Riddle’s name in prominent places. This had swayed Ron a bit towards believing in Hagrid’s innocence, since it seemed to plant Riddle firmly in the "Percy" category, personality-wise.
Luna, like Meghan and Neville, kept her opinions to herself, and Harry simply didn’t know what to think. He wanted to believe that Hagrid would never do something like that, but he had seen the memory, had seen the younger Hagrid tackle Riddle as the huge monster escaped down the passage. He found himself looking at Ginny a lot as the discussions went around and around in the evenings, and finding understanding in her brown eyes. She, too, had seen it. She knew what was going on in his mind.
"Look, why don’t we put it off until after vacation?" he suggested one night, half in desperation — they’d been talking this to death for nearly a month and a half, and they were no closer to a solution than they had been before. "No one’s going to get attacked if the castle’s half empty. And no one’s been attacked since January. So why don’t we just wait?"
It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it would do. Everyone agreed to wait and see.
xXxXx
The cubs went home for Easter, and brought lists of classes with them. It was time to choose new subjects for third year.
"None of you need Muggle Studies," said Danger surely. "Not with the way we’ve been living."
"Oh, but it would be so interesting!" objected Hermione. "Looking at Muggles the way wizards do, from the outside instead of the inside..."
"I’m not forbidding it, but you only have room for three subjects at most, Neenie love." Danger caught her sister’s hand as Hermione aimed a half-hearted slap at her. "I wouldn’t. I’m bigger, and I hit back. Besides, we’re in den, remember? Nobody here but just us Marauders."
Hermione settled for a growl before crossing off Muggle Studies on her sheet.
"Don’t take Divination, either," said Padfoot. "I’ve met the teacher. You wouldn’t care for it at all."
"What’s he like?" asked Draco.
"She, it’s a she, her name’s Sibyll Trelawney. She’s..." Padfoot frowned, trying to come up with words to describe her.
"Flaky," said Letha flatly, coming up behind him.
"That’ll do." Padfoot turned back to the cubs. "She wears enough shawls and ugly jewelry to outfit a brigade of grandmothers," he said. "And she’s convinced she knows everything, and goes about predicting disaster. Oh yes, and she doesn’t think much of books."
Hermione made a noise of disapproval and buried her nose in the course list again. "What exactly do you study in Ancient Runes?" she asked.
"Ancient Runes," quipped Padfoot.
"Har har," said Moony, pulling his chair closer to Hermione’s. "It’s like those puzzles you love, Hermione. The ones where you have to match the picture with the word. Runes are ancient forms of writing, and you learn to translate them, and figure out both what they say and what they don’t."
"What they don’t?" repeated Harry.
"The way a thing’s said, the way it’s phrased, can be almost as important as the words themselves," explained Moony. "Like saying, ‘Oh, you look nice today.’ The emphasis on the last word turns it from a compliment into an insult, as if you’re saying the person doesn’t usually look nice."
Draco looked interested at this, and put a small dot of ink next to Ancient Runes on his sheet.
"What’s Arithmancy?" asked Harry.
"Now there’s something you might care for," said Letha. "The study of the magical properties of numbers. Maths and magic rolled into one."
Harry nodded. He’d always liked maths. "What numbers have magical properties?" he asked.
"Well, all numbers do, really," said Letha, sitting down. "But certain ones have more. Seven, twelve, and thirteen are the most commonly used magical numbers, since they’re the smallest. I mean, it’s hard to get six hundred sixteen of anything together, no matter how powerful it would make you."
Harry laughed at the image that conjured up, and marked Arithmancy as a possible on his own sheet.
"Oh, yes, and I’d definitely recommend Care of Magical Creatures," said Letha to all three of them with a smile. "I think you’ll like the professor."
"Kettleburn?" Moony shrugged. "He’s all right, I suppose, but I never really warmed up to him. I don’t think he liked me much."
"Most teachers don’t care for students who know more than they do," confided Padfoot to the cubs behind his hand.
Moony pretended he hadn’t heard this.
"Mama Letha!" called Meghan’s voice from the potions room, where she was working on something. "Dadfoot! Come see what I did!"
Padfoot and Letha smiled at each other and got up, arms going around one another’s waists. Harry caught Draco’s eye and made a gagging face. Draco nodded. It was nice to know their Pack-parents liked each other, but did they have to get mushy right in front of everyone?
"How’s Quidditch going, boys?" asked Moony, giving them the "stop messing around" look.
"Fair enough," said Harry. "Wood’s working us pretty hard, but he’s confident we can beat Hufflepuff. They haven’t changed the team much since last year, and that was the match where I took the speed record."
"Ron and I are off for this one," said Draco. "Wood says he might put us in for the last match. But he wants us in the locker room with the team, I guess in case someone gets Petrified last-minute..."
"No one’s going to get Petrified," said Hermione wearily. "Not unless they’re stupid and go places they shouldn’t. Colin was out of bed late when he shouldn’t have been, Justin left his dorm when he shouldn’t have..."
"Why not?" challenged Harry. "Because that idiot Ernie Macmillan told him not to?"
"Ernie Macmillan isn’t an idiot, Harry!"
"Oh really? He sure acts like one! ‘Caught in the act! Harry Potter did this!’" Harry mimicked Ernie’s overdramatic tones.
"He’s scared. As are we all."
"Do you want to blame me too, then?" demanded Harry.
"I’m not blaming anyone! I’m just saying I can understand where he’s coming from!"
"Where he’s coming from? Hermione, he thinks I’m a psychopathic killer!"
Hermione drew breath to retort to this, caught sight of the Pack-parents’ faces, and instead flounced out of the room after swatting over her inkwell onto Harry’s sheet of parchment.
Moony and Danger looked at each other, then lifted up their hands and pounded fists onto palms, one, two, three. Moony’s paper covered Danger’s rock, so it was Danger who went after Hermione, while Moony cleaned up the ink. "Don’t take Hermione too seriously right now," he said. "Come to think of it, don’t take yourselves too seriously. You’re all of you starting to grow up some, and that’s never easy."
Draco looked at Harry, excitement in his face, which Harry could fully understand. Were they going to get the talk? They’d discussed certain aspects of life with Ron and Neville at den-nights when the girls were doing other things, but they’d never yet had the full disclosure talk they knew they were due for at some point...
But it seemed they were to be disappointed today, as Moony showed no inclination to talk about anything but classes.
Oh, well, Harry signed under the table. There’s always next year.
xXxXx
Harry and Hermione still weren’t quite speaking when they returned to school after break, a fact Draco was careful to inform the rest of the Pride about, quietly. Both of them spent the train ride ignoring each other and talking with everyone else about their new subjects.
Neville and Ron had both chosen Divination and Care of Magical Creatures, and neither seemed inclined to change when Harry and Draco repeated what Padfoot had said about the teacher. "Doesn’t like books? That’s great," said Ron. "Then she won’t be setting massive essays, will she?"
The three cubs had also each chosen Care of Magical Creatures, and Harry and Hermione would be sharing Arithmancy, while Draco and Hermione went into Ancient Runes together. Hermione, for some reason, had also checked off Muggle Studies on her list.
"But you won’t have time for it," objected Ron. "You’ll be double-booked."
"I’ll work something out, I’m sure," said Hermione frostily, and opened a book with such force that no one liked to point out she was reading it upside down.
Once they were all settled back into the Tower, they were about to go outside when Percy Weasley stopped them. "I would like to point out," he said pompously, "that just because there hasn’t been an attack in several months, doesn’t mean there couldn’t be one again. You’re still not to go wandering off, understand?"
"Yes, sir," muttered Draco.
"We understand," said Harry for the group, thrusting his heel backwards slightly to contact Draco’s shin.
They meandered out to the courtyard and sat in the late afternoon sun, enjoying the unusual warmth of the day.
Ginny broke the silence. "We really ought to go see Hagrid," she said.
"We did say we would after the holidays," said Luna. "And it’s after the holidays now."
"But I thought we weren’t supposed to ‘go wandering off,’" said Ron, doing a creditable impression of Percy’s voice. "How are we going to get down there without anyone seeing us? The Cloak can’t cover us all."
Neville, who had been lying on the stone seat, sat up. "I... I might have an idea," he said hesitantly. "I’m not sure if it will work, though..."
"What is it?" asked Draco, turning to face him.
Neville looked back at Meghan, who nodded eagerly. Clearly she knew what he was about to say or do. "It’s something I found out by accident. I have to see if it works again." He closed his eyes and began muttering something. Harry listened, and found his mind suddenly wandering to other things. How nice and blue the sky was, and what the clouds looked like... what was likely to be for dinner...
No, I’m supposed to be watching Neville. He forced his eyes back to Neville, and stared. His friend was gone.
"Where’d he go?" asked Hermione, a bit shrilly.
Meghan giggled. "He’s right there." She pointed to a spot where Neville had surely been standing a moment before, but just as surely, he wasn’t there now...
Or was he? Harry squinted, and suddenly found himself looking at the top of Gryffindor Tower and thinking about how much fun it might be to ride his broomstick off it, dive nearly to the grass and swoop upwards again...
"Meghan, he’s not there," said Ginny.
"Yes, he is," said Luna, looking steadily at the spot Meghan had pointed to. "But he’s made himself hard to see. He’s telling everyone that he isn’t there, and they believe him."
"Neville?" Hermione got up and approached the place where Neville had been, dubiously. "Are you really there?"
"Here I am," said Neville’s voice, and just like that, there he was, a little red in the face, but grinning. "I found it out by accident the night I saw Colin Creevey after he was Petrified. I was afraid I was going to get caught, so I said, ‘You can’t see me, I’m not here, you can’t see me, you don’t notice me...’"
As Neville said it, it came true. Harry barely noticed it happening. One second Neville was there, and the next, there was a spot Harry’s eyes simply refused to look at.
"Wicked," said Ron, obviously intrigued. "Can you do it for all of us?"
"I think so." Neville reappeared again. "I’ve never tried it... let me see if it’ll just work on Meghan..."
Within a few seconds, Meghan was gone, as if she had never been perched on the broad stone seat that encircled the courtyard.
"It works," said Draco, looking impressed.
"Come on, then," said Harry, getting up. "Whisper us all invisible and let’s go."
xXxXx
"Why does he have his curtains pulled?" asked Hermione as they got close enough to Hagrid’s house to see this detail.
"Don’t know. And look, his chimney’s smoking. He must have a fire going." Draco frowned. "But it’s been so warm. I hope he’s not ill..."
Harry knocked at the door.
"Who is it?" called Hagrid’s voice, sounding rather startled.
"It’s us," called Harry back.
"Be there in a moment!"
Over the loud noises that followed, Harry whispered to Neville, "Let Hagrid see us, nobody else."
Neville nodded and began to mutter. "Hagrid can see us, we can see us, nobody else can see us. Nobody else can see us, nobody else notices us, we’re not important to them..."
The door swung open. "Well, hello there," said Hagrid, beaming down at them. "Come in, come in, bin wonderin’ when yeh’d come down an’ say hello again."
The Pride trailed into Hagrid’s hut, loosening their collars as they came. Fang’s hackles rose, and he began to growl at them menacingly.
"What’s wrong with him?" asked Ron.
Neville flushed slightly and muttered something, and Fang’s demeanor changed at once. He charged at them, barking happily.
"Neville forgot to let Fang see us too," said Harry under his breath, fending the boarhound off. "But he could still smell us, so he knew something was wrong."
He looked at Hagrid, always so friendly and so good to them, and felt a wave of uncertainty. Hagrid would surely never have killed anyone...
"It’s hot in here," complained Meghan. "Why do you have the fire going, Hagrid?"
"Well, I was feelin’ a bit cold," said Hagrid quickly, setting teacups on the table. "Gettin’ older, yeh know, my joints startin’ t’get stiff..."
But Harry had a feeling this wasn’t true at all.
He’s lying, whispered an internal voice. If he’d lie to you, why couldn’t he have lied to other people? Maybe everything about him is a lie, maybe he’s really mean and cruel and he did open the Chamber of Secrets... maybe he’s opening it again...
To avoid this line of thought, Harry looked around the cabin, seeking something, anything, with which to open conversation. Then his eyes fell on the fireplace, and he stared.
"Hagrid... what’s that?"