Surpassing Danger
Chapter 8: The Mysterious Ripping Noise (Year 6)
By Anne B. Walsh
I disclaim Peeves's song, Ron's final line, and the original idea behind the chapter title.
"I'm Hen-e-ry the Eighth, I am,
"Hen-e-ry the Eighth, I am, I am,
"I got married to the widow next door,
"She'd been married seven times before,
"And every one was an Hen-e-ry, Hen-e-ry,
"She wouldn't have a Willie or a Sam, no Sam,
"I'm her eighth old man, I'm Hen-e-ry,
"Hen-e-ry the Eighth I am!"
"Remind me again why you handed Peeves new material, Drake?" Ron asked as the poltergeist circled the ceiling of the Great Hall, cackling. "I missed the part where it made sense."
Draco shrugged. "We wouldn't have known about the Vanishing Cabinet except for him. It could've been a serious breach of Hogwarts defenses, and instead it's an extra entrance to you-know-what." He glanced at the floor significantly. "Why not make him happy for a little while?"
"Because making him happy is going to drive all the rest of us mad?" said Ginny testily over Peeves' bellowed, "Next verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse! I'M HEN-E-RY THE EIGHTH, I AM, HEN-E-RY THE EIGHTH, I AM, I AM!"
"I've lost my appetite," said Hermione, pushing her plate away, just as the usual deluge of morning post soared into the Great Hall on owl wings. Peeves, intent on his song, didn't see them coming, and his declaration of his new wife's status as seven times a widow was cut off abruptly when a barn owl collided with his face.
"I might have a way to get it back for you." Harry lowered his hand into his lap and made the small twisting motion which produced his wand. "It's a spell of the Prince's I've been wanting to try, and Peeves ought to qualify as a test subject if anyone does."
"Didn't Professor Black say 'non-living'?" Neville objected.
"She did, but poltergeists aren't really alive. They're…" Harry stopped. "What are they?" he asked Hermione.
Hermione sighed. Someday I won't be here to tell you all the answers you never pay attention to in class, Harry… "Anthropomorphic manifestations of extreme emotional disturbances within a confined location," she recited.
"Oh, I see." Neville peered up at Peeves, who was spitting feathers and cursewords at an equally rapid rate. "They're born out of lots of really strong feelings bouncing around a small space and they look human because that's who had the feelings."
"Isn't that what I just said?"
"Neville's translating for those of us who don't read textbooks for fun." Ginny refilled her goblet of pumpkin juice and waggled the pitcher in Hermione's direction. "Want some? And Harry, if you're going to work that spell, you'd better hurry. Peeves is getting ready to start singing again."
"Yes, please," Hermione said, pushing her goblet towards Ginny but watching Harry. His eyes narrowed, his lips moved silently, and an almost-invisible bead of light streaked from the tip of his wand, Ron turning his head to track it but no one else seeming to be aware that it even existed—it impacted Peeves just as the poltergeist sent a last feather spinning into a candle flame and sucked in a breath to continue singing—
The sound which emerged from Peeves's mouth was wordless, garbled, and rather less melodious than usual, which Hermione hadn't thought was possible. Burbling furiously, like a train underwater, he spun three times in midair and vanished to general applause from the tables below.
"Nicely done, Harry," said Luna, handing her own goblet to Ginny for a refill. "Was it supposed to do that?"
"I don't know. What did it do?"
"His tongue was stuck." Luna pointed to the roof of her mouth. "Up here."
"Then yes, it was supposed to do that." Harry grinned. "Three for three. Go Prince."
"What were the other two?" Hermione asked, pulling her plate back towards herself. "Or no, one of them was Muffliato, that you showed us the other day, wasn't it?"
Harry nodded. "And the last one's just a Toenail-Growing Hex," he said, helping himself to another sausage. "Nothing earth-shattering, but funny. Speaking of earth-shattering, we're nearly through to Hagrid's Place, aren't we? One more day, maybe two, and we'll have that one finished."
Meghan paused in the middle of piling her scrambled eggs and bacon onto a piece of toast. "I miss Hagrid," she said quietly. "There are days I think if I just slip out there to his house and wait, he'll come walking out of the Forest and scoop me up and put me in the rafters like he always used to do. I know he wouldn't want me to cry over him, but…" She swallowed. "Some days I can't help it."
"But that's why we're working so hard on our project, isn't it?" Hermione reached across the table to squeeze Meghan's hand. "So there won't be as many people to cry over."
"It doesn't make the ones who already went away come back, though." Meghan sniffled once, then squared her shoulders. "Which is why we have to be strong and carry on. So we don't disappoint them and make their… their deaths a waste." The word seemed to cost her a pang even to say. "It doesn't stop the hurting, but someday it might help with it."
"It does help." Neville slid an arm around Meghan. "And so does knowing that we will avenge them." Somehow his voice wrapped around the words, so melodramatic on their own, and made them a statement of fact roughly equivalent to his declaring that wands were made of wood. "Did I give you that status update last night, Harry? I can't remember now."
"You may have, but give it to me again. I was head over ears in McGonagall's essay and I don't think I heard a word you said."
Stifling her familiar irritation at her brothers and their haphazard approach to schoolwork, Hermione turned her attention back to Neville's statement. It was bothering her on two separate levels, and she knew she would have to deal with both before her mind would give her any peace.
There's the obvious one, which is that we shouldn't be thinking in terms of vengeance or payback. Even when the other side deserves it so richly. The more we mimic them, the more we become like them, until finally we're doing as awful of things as they are and trying to justify it by our cause…
But then again, this is our Captain speaking. She smiled a bit as she took a drink of her juice. He's the most level-headed of any of the boys, the least likely to go out and wreak havoc for any reason, even after his dad died. Or maybe especially after his dad died. He may talk about "avenging", but I'd bet my cauldron what he means is winning the war, not any kind of personal revenge.
Because he knows that's the way his dad would have wanted it.
With that question settled, at least until the next time it cropped up, Hermione could turn her attention to the other level of uncertainty Neville's words had awakened. Halloween was less than three weeks away, and she and Ron still hadn't decided who they were going as.
I suppose we could always go separately, but everyone else is doing pairs, and so will most of the school if I'm hearing the gossip correctly. The witch and the knight from The Fountain of Fair Fortune, Babbity Rabbity and her Cackling Stump—we'll have to watch out for branches and roots on the dance floor—and I'm positive I saw some Hufflepuff third years playing wand, quill, parchment to decide who was going to be the gnome and who was going to be the jarvey. But all the rest of the Pride are going as Muggle things, because of how close we've always lived to the Muggle world. So what am I trying to remember that's a Muggle thing with two people, a man and a woman, that Neville would have reminded me of by saying that we're going to—
She sucked in a breath as the answer popped into her mind.
"All right, Neenie?" Ron said, looking at her in concern.
"Yes. I'm perfect." Hermione couldn't stop herself from grinning. "Better than perfect. I can't explain right now," she added hastily as the bell rang to signal the end of breakfast, "but remind me on our study period? I should have it all sorted in my head by then."
I wonder if Professor Burbage would have any pictures I could borrow?
Much to Hermione's satisfaction, Professor Burbage did indeed have pictures, and was quite happy to give her a copy of one of them to take back to the Gryffindor common room with her after lunch. With the younger three girls still in classes, Harry and Neville with their heads together over a floor plan of Sanctuary, and Draco going over a passage in his Transfiguration text line by line, she and Ron had the moment to themselves. She worked the small spell which would render the black and white picture something Ron could see by causing the darker areas to glow with warmth, then handed him the parchment. "What do you think?" she asked.
Ron sat very still, peering closely at the picture. "You mean it?" he asked after a long moment. "You want to wear—"
"I don't see any harm in it. It is Halloween, after all." Hermione smiled. "A time to wear things which have absolutely no connection to the person one normally is."
"Hermione, I…" Ron shook his head. "I think I love you."
"Only discovering this now?" Draco inquired, looking up from his textbook.
"More than ever," finished Ron smoothly.
"Nice save," said Draco in admiration.
"He is a Keeper, after all." Hermione squeezed Ron's hand. "And I'm going to be keeping him. Would you like to see what we're wearing for Halloween, Fox?"
"Sure, why not? It might give my brain a break from trying to understand this rubbish." Setting his Transfiguration book aside and accepting the picture from Ron, Draco took a casual look at it.
His second look was far less casual.
"You," he said finally. "Are wearing this."
"That's the plan." Hermione sat back, allowing the little smirk she could feel trembling on her lips to escape onto her face.
"In public." Draco shook the parchment in her general direction. "In front of the entire school."
"Is there some reason I shouldn't?"
Draco opened his mouth, then shut it again. "I hope I'm too smart to answer that question," he said, passing the picture back. "Just consider that I've already said all the proper threatening brotherly things. You know, Ron, the ones you'll be saying to Harry when you see how short Ginny's little red skirt is going to be."
"You really think Neenie couldn't take me all by herself?" Ron scooted down on the sofa and propped his feet on the low table in front of it. "Peel my skin right off me, she could…" He stopped, looking in confusion from one to the other of the twins as they both burst into laughter. "All right, what've I said this time?"
Sanctuary rang with the sound of cheerful voices, the chip-chip-chip of spells drilling away at stone providing a percussive counterpoint. Harry sat sideways on his Firebolt, high above the action, and let his eyes pick out the underlying order in the seeming chaos.
Three separate tunnels were being constructed to supplement the original one which led to the harbor cavern. One exited on the grounds of Hogwarts, inside Hagrid's Place; the second, for which they had received special permission from Professor Dumbledore, led to a small cave high in the hills above Hogsmeade; and the third should, if their calculations were correct, be breaking through shortly into a secret passage which had once opened behind a large mirror on the fourth floor.
And even if we can't clear the cave-in and make it a way into the castle again, we'll still have a way into Sanctuary without having to do all the digging ourselves. Harry sketched the three-dimensional map of tunnels and cave in the air in front of him with fire. Not to mention, it's one that the Death Eaters won't think to look at, because they "know", courtesy of Wormtail's checking on it back in our third year, that the cave-in blocked it off and it's no good anymore.
Dismissing his fiery drawing, he sent the Firebolt into a swift dive. And then there's the fourth entrance. Talk about sheer dumb luck—who could have guessed Fox and Starwing would find something so useful doing something as ordinary as hiding from Filch? And even sheerer, dumber luck that they found it before the Death Eaters did. The closeness of that call made him shiver. All it would've needed is a pair of Slytherins, the nasty sort, in that spot instead of our two, or some spoiled little pureblood brat hiding from his daddy in Borgin and Burkes and latching the door of the Cabinet on accident…
But it didn't happen, and now it won't. Touching down, he dismounted and shouldered the broom. The Pepper Pot has a new piece of furniture—Percy even said it gives the place ambiance, whatever that might mean—and we have a quick way for Muggles in London to get here. Or for us to get there, if things should ever go really wrong.
"Though if things go that wrong," he murmured, "Diagon Alley probably wouldn't be safe either. Nowhere would be."
"Thinking gloomy thoughts, are we?" Draco asked, emerging from the tunnel and brushing stone dust out of his hair.
"Just letting my mind wander."
"You shouldn't do that. It might not come back."
"Oh, is that what happened to you?" Harry snickered and dodged Draco's fist. "How's it look in there?"
"Really good. I think we may break through tonight, though we'll want to save human-sizing the hole for tomorrow. Everyone's tired, even the loo crew."
"The…" Harry shook his head. "Tell me you didn't call them that to their faces."
"Why are you always telling me to lie to you?" Draco wagged a finger at Harry. "I remember Padfoot telling us lying is wrong even if you don't."
"He was telling us lying is wrong because we were all denying taking his stash of Honeydukes Special Reserve. And we weren't lying—Letha ate it. That time, anyway." Harry stopped, frowning. "How did we get here?"
"I never keep track of our conversations anymore. It's too confusing even for my genius mind." Draco stooped and ran his hand across the verdant surface of the grass. "But if you're going to push me, I'd say it started when I mentioned what I call that lot over there." His thumb indicated a large group, comprised of mostly witches, whose House badges covered the majority of the rainbow among them, darting in and out of several rooms cut into one side of Sanctuary and calling overlapping commands and suggestions to one another. "They, by the way, think it's funny. Some of them have even picked it up for themselves."
"You have all the luck with girls," Harry said without rancor. "If I tried saying that, they'd hex me so hard I'd have to miss the Halloween party and the first Quidditch match. You say it and they giggle and clap their hands and start using it on their own. What's your secret?"
"Don't I wish I knew." The laughter drained out of Draco's expression as they came level with a blocked passageway near the original entrance tunnel. "Maybe then I could figure out what's going on with…"
"Amanda?" Harry swore mentally at Draco's jerky nod. "Thought you were going to try and forget about that."
"Yeah." Draco snorted. "Operative word 'try'." He sat down on a bit of loose rock, staring at the piled boulders which filled the archway. "I don't know, Harry. I just don't know. Alex says she's not evil, I trust him, and she doesn't come off as evil, does she? Just… sad. And confused. There's something in her future that scares her, something she wishes she could get away from, but she doesn't think she can." He smiled wanly. "I know how that feels."
Harry nodded, not knowing what he could say. The one person with a destiny worse than mine—mine is at least "kill or be killed", which may not be the best choice in the world but it is a choice. Fox hasn't even got that. No arguments, no appeals, nothing. Just… the end.
He glanced upward. I know I was looking for things to make me feel better about my having to fight Voldemort, but that wasn't what I had in mind.
No answer rang in his head, but he hadn't really expected one. For all this was a place the Founders had made, he and his yearmates were reshaping it to their own ends, and any ancient ghosts or memories which might remain had surely gone into hiding by now.
A glint of red hair, a different shade than Ginny's sleek mane or Ron's disordered mop, caught his eye.
Always assuming they're not wearing flesh and walking among us.
"We need testers," Amanda Smythe declared, stopping in front of them and pointing at them with her two forefingers. "You're elected."
"Oh, we are, are we?" Draco got to his feet. "And just what have we been elected to do?"
"Help us stress-test the plumbing." Amanda rocked back and forth on her toes, smiling. "You have to flush the toilets continuously for five minutes."
"I don't know." Harry looked worriedly at Draco. "Do you think we'll be up to the excitement? You know Madam Pomfrey said we weren't supposed to do anything too stimulating."
"We'll probably survive it," Draco decided after a moment's thought. "Lead on, O Lady of the Loo."
Amanda curtsied deeply, grinning, and turned to lead the way.
"Not bad, Potter," said Snape, picking himself up off the floor. "Utterly lacking in subtlety or technique, but effective."
Harry nodded curtly, his astonishment that Snape was complimenting him blunted by the feeling that his brain was bruised all over. His Occlumency lessons grew more difficult each week, as Snape put more and more power behind his Legilimency, slipping around the back of Harry's defenses or through holes he'd barely known were there. Objectively, Harry agreed this was a good thing, that making his mind more invulnerable to Voldemort could only be to his advantage. Subjectively, he would have traded several pages out of the Half-Blood Prince's book for so much as a single day's rest from his grueling schedule.
"Again." Snape raised his wand. "Legilimens!"
Instead of the glass maze or the shield of fire, Harry found his mental self holding a familiar, closely-written-over textbook. With a shrug, he flung it at the onrushing invader. Letha did say it might have dangerous spells in it—maybe I'll get lucky and one of them will take effect—
The invader froze as the book dropped neatly into his hands, and Harry, his Quidditch reflexes now awake and aware, seized the moment. With a wrench, their positions were reversed, Harry flying forward through a tunnel of memories, Snape reaching after him with a snarl to pull him out—Harry glimpsed, in the moment before Snape's intangible hand closed around the hem of his robes and yanked, a dark boy in an odd selection of clothing peering from the shelter of a bush at two girls about his own age riding on swings, the older with yellow hair and the younger, finer-boned one with red—
Harry stumbled back and crashed painfully into a desk. Across from him, Snape was leaning on another one, breathing hard. The scent on the air was unmistakable to anyone with a predatory Animagus. As incomprehensible as Harry found it, Snape was afraid.
But what of? All I saw was him as a kid, looking at a couple of girls. That's not wrong, not unless he was going to hurt them, and I don't think he was. Especially not the little red-haired one. I wish I could have got their scent, but it was Snape's memory so there'd only be the smells he remembered, and human noses aren't much good…
"Enough," Snape said, turning away. "We will resume on Saturday."
"Yes, Professor." Harry hoisted his bag onto his shoulder and hurried towards the door, hoping to get into the corridor before Snape could change his mind.
"Potter," Snape's voice stopped him with his hand on the doorknob.
Damn. "Yes, sir?" Harry said resignedly, turning back.
"The… item." Snape had his usual control back now, though hints of shock and surprise still eddied through his scent. "Your defense, this last time. What was it?"
"Just one of my textbooks, Professor." Harry crossed his fingers behind his back, the childishness of the gesture making him smile. "I was thinking about how much homework I still have to do before the weekend."
"Homework." Snape snorted. "I suppose you might succeed in boring the Dark Lord out of your mind, if all else fails."
Harry attempted not to snicker and was mostly successful. "I'll keep it in reserve, sir," he said. "Same time on Saturday?"
Snape nodded and made a flicking motion with two fingers, sending Harry on his way.
"Snape was afraid?" Ginny turned a page in her Charms text. "What did you do, think about a bottle of shampoo?"
"Not quite." Harry held up the Half-Blood Prince's book. "It started with this. I'm not sure he was afraid of it, but it did surprise him."
"I would be a little surprised if someone threw a book at me," said Luna, writing down an answer for her Herbology homework and returning to her rendering of what the Sanctuary "theater" area should look like. "But then, I'm not a Librago."
Harry and Ginny looked at each other, then each laid a fist on a flat palm and pounded one, two, three. Ginny's thumb against her first two fingers, holding her quill, beat Harry's flattened hand, for parchment, so Harry asked the question. "What's a Librago?"
"It's a nasty little insect with a sting, which lives in libraries and stings people when they try to read books." Luna dipped her quill again. "The only way to chase it off is to throw a book at it, because it hates books and will run away from one." She paused, holding her quill above the inkwell. "I'm not quite sure why it lives in libraries if it hates books so much, but then, people don't always make sense either."
"You said a mouthful," said Ginny. "So Snape was surprised, or startled, either that you threw a book at him or that you threw this particular book at him. We can't be sure. But then you got into his head, you saw a memory of his, and that, that made him afraid. Why would he be afraid of your seeing a memory?"
"I don't know, but he's really afraid I'll see some of them." Harry described Snape's actions with Dumbledore's Pensieve, which Snape had repeated before every Occlumency lesson to date. "This can't be anything quite that bad, but he still didn't want me seeing it. I wonder why not?"
"Did you know the girls?" asked Luna, finishing the shading on a section of seats and switching her attention back to Herbology.
"I don't know." Harry opened the Prince's book and flipped back and forth through the pages. "Maybe. They'd be grown-up by now, wouldn't they, if they were the same age as Snape?"
"Define 'grown-up'," Ginny muttered. "But yes, they would be. So two women, about the same age as your parents, Harry, one blonde and one ginger… anything else about them?"
Harry paused in the middle of turning a page. "The blonde one was older," he said. "Not by a lot, a couple years, maybe, but older. The ginger was prettier, though. She reminded me of someone." He made a face as Ginny fluttered her eyelashes. "Not you. I don't think it's someone I've ever met at all, but I've seen their picture…"
Belatedly, he finished turning the page, and looked down to see what gems of wisdom the Prince had recorded here.
"Harry?" said Ginny worriedly when he did not speak for several moments.
Harry looked up. "I have to go," he said, and slid off the sofa, headed for the portrait hole.
He needed to ask Professor Black a very important question.
Aletha was grading papers in her office when someone knocked on the door. "Come in," she called without looking up. "Is it an emergency or can it wait five minutes?"
"It can wait, Professor," said a voice she knew well. "I'm sorry to bother you, but—"
"Sit." Aletha pointed at one of her desk chairs, into which Harry obediently sank. "Let me finish this section, and then you can tell me what's so important you've come all the way down here to find me."
Coming up on curfew, too. But if there were anything truly wrong, he would've told me that…
While still writing, she lifted her eyes enough to get a good look at Harry's face. He seemed… disturbed, she decided finally. Whatever was on his mind, it was troubling, but not horrifying.
Of course, knowing Harry, that could mean anything from Severus taking undeserved points off Gryffindor to his having managed to get himself into enough trouble to be banned from either the Halloween party, the first Quidditch match, or both.
Her final three essays marked, Aletha set the scrolls aside and folded her hands on her desk.
"Did Snape know my mum?" Harry asked bluntly. "When they were young, I mean, before Hogwarts. Were they already friends when they got to school?"
"Yes." Aletha nodded. "As I understand it, they grew up in the same general area, and Severus was actually how Lily first found out about magic, before her Hogwarts letter. They remained friends for several years at school, until Severus got too deeply entangled with the Death Eaters and they, shall we say, discouraged his friendship with a Muggleborn."
"Why didn't anybody ever tell me?" Harry sounded honestly bewildered.
"I suppose it never occurred to us you would want to be told. We weren't concealing it from you, if that's what you mean." Aletha looked him over again. "How have you found it out now?"
"Saw a memory of his in Occlumency lessons. He was spying on her and another girl, my Aunt Petunia, I guess. Though she wouldn't have been very interesting to him, since she's just a Muggle." Harry's tone dripped scorn. "I'm surprised he bothered making friends with Mum. Don't most purebloods think Muggles and Muggleborns are just about equally bad?"
"Most of them in fact consider Muggleborns worse, for 'aping their betters' rather than 'knowing their place'." Aletha smiled, acknowledging the irony in her quoting of such words. "But you seem to be laboring under a delusion, Harry. Unless I'm completely misremembering what I heard in my school days, Severus Snape is no pureblood."
"News to me." Harry began to crack his knuckles. "What is he, then? Half?"
"I believe so, yes." Aletha twined her own fingers together, sorting through memories. "Obviously, you are not to repeat this, but the story which went around was that his father, a Muggle, felt his wife had somehow tricked him by not revealing that she was a witch before they were married."
"That doesn't have to go wrong." Harry finished with his right hand and started on his left. "Seamus Finnegan's parents were just like that, and all that came out of it was a load of funny stories."
"It depends on the people involved, as I'm sure you know. And judging by the results, I would say it went quite badly wrong."
"Anything that results in Snape counts as going badly wrong," said Harry darkly. "Except Neville's boggart." He straightened in his seat, struck by a thought. "I wonder if he'd still see Snape now? Or would it be—" He winced. "Never mind, I know what it would be. His dad."
"Most likely, yes." Aletha got up and came around her desk to pull her other guest chair closer to Harry's and sit down by his side. "You've all come such a long way since the most frightening thing in the world was a sarcastic teacher, haven't you?"
"Further than we could have dreamed. And we've got even further still to go." Harry sighed. "I just wish I could see the end of the road. Or at least a couple of landmarks along the way."
"Isn't that what your spell-breaking year is for? Giving you landmarks, letting you celebrate, striking a blow at Voldemort without him ever knowing it?" Absently, Aletha brushed two fingers along her cheek, then squeezed Harry's hand with hers. "I know it's hard, Greeneyes, but remember you're not alone. Pack together."
"Pack forever," Harry murmured, returning the squeeze. "I should get back to the Tower before I miss curfew."
"I'll walk you back." Aletha got to her feet. "Less chance of random detentions. We can't have our star Seeker missing the first match with Slytherin, now can we?"
"It wouldn't be a total disaster." Harry opened the door for her, his usual animation returning in full with the introduction of one of his favorite topics. "Ginny's my reserve and she's already proved she can handle it, but that isn't to say I wouldn't rather be playing than watching, or stuck at the castle dusting all Snape's books with a quill or something…"
After giving Harry a quick good night hug down the hall from the Fat Lady, Aletha opted to take the scenic route back to her office. She had only one more section of essays to mark, and the students weren't expecting them back until Friday.
Not to mention, it will do me good to stretch my legs. I feel… She pondered terms and discarded "itchy" and "restless" before settling on "unsettled". And a good walk is just the thing to settle me back down.
She made it past three flights of stairs before she began to hear the mysterious ripping noise.
"So what did she say?" Luna asked as Harry flopped back onto the sofa beside Ginny.
"Yes." Harry turned over the Half-Blood Prince's book to the page he'd left it open to. "Snape knew my mum. And whoever the Half-Blood Prince is, he must have known her too." He held out the book so the girls could see it. "Look familiar?"
Ginny leaned forward to get a better look. "'Compliments of LC'," she read from the first line on the page. "It's—oh, Harry, it's the slug potion!"
"It isn't quite the same as the slug potion we know," Luna commented, reading over Ginny's shoulder. "She must have made changes after she told the Prince about it."
"He made some of his own." Harry pointed to a column of notes beside the directions. "This version looks like it would be smoother, but thicker. More like the stuff you get with Fred and George's Mucinno spell. And unless I'm reading this part wrong, he managed to get the smell part to the point where the person it's on doesn't smell anything, but everyone around them…"
"That's awful," Ginny declared. Then her face turned wicked. "So when are we brewing it?"
"After the first Quidditch match?"
"Works for me."
Aletha followed her ears to a classroom which should, at this hour, have been dark and empty. Instead, lines of light showed above and below the closed door, and the mysterious ripping noise emerged from within every few seconds, punctuating the murmur of two voices, one high and the other low.
Let's see here. What, and whom, have I found?
She outlined a square on the door with her wand and murmured a Peephole Spell, turning the wood within the square transparent.
Ron and Hermione, in the classroom, with… Aletha frowned, staring at the shining silver material in which Hermione was apparently encased. What is that?
As she watched, Ron picked up a thick roll of the stuff and ripped off another length, sticking it to the layers already covering Hermione's arm. "How's that?" he asked.
"Just right." Hermione flexed and twisted her arm, checking her range of motion. "How does it look?"
"I don't think I should answer that question." Ron moved up behind Hermione. "Not in words, anyway."
Aletha debated her next move for a moment, then removed the Peephole Spell and knocked firmly.
Better I catch them than someone else.
Hermione's strangled gasp mingled with Ron's low-voiced curse as Aletha opened the door. "Good evening," she said, stepping inside. "Shouldn't you two be in your common room at this hour?"
"You're right, we should," Hermione said instantly. "But we just needed some privacy to work on this, and we didn't think we'd be disturbing anyone here, Professor—"
"Disturbing's not the issue, and you know that. Though since you've brought the subject up…" Aletha motioned to her Pack-daughter's unconventional clothing. "What in the world, Hermione?"
"It's… well, it's…" Hermione stammered.
"It's this stuff," Ron finished, tossing the roll to Aletha. She caught it and squeezed, feeling a slight give in the layers and a sticky, gummy sensation along the edge. "Fred and George are going to start selling it soon. Stuck Tape, they're calling it. Half of their Universal Magical Toolkit."
Aletha looked down at what she was holding, then looked back up. "Stuck Tape," she said, with what she considered under the circumstances to be remarkable calm. "I see. And what might the other half be?"
"Well, the other half is why they're not selling it yet," said Hermione, sitting down on the edge of a desk. "Since this stuff sticks to everything, they thought they should pair it with a potion that makes everything slip and slide around. The problem is, they brewed it too well." She giggled. "If they spill even a drop of it on the outside of the bottles they're trying to sell it in, the bottles slip out of their hands as soon as they pick them up."
"I told them they should call it WizarDrop," Ron put in. "Just to let everyone know how much of it they need."
"That must be quite a potion." Aletha shook her head, impressed in spite of herself. "How many brewings did it take them to get it right, do you know?"
"Thirty-five or forty, I think." Ron shrugged. "They've been at it since before we came back to school, and they only just got it the other day. The Toolkits should be ready to go for Christmas, they said."
"Good for Fred and George. Now, to return to the question I actually asked you." Aletha gestured at Hermione's silver catsuit. "Why?"
"Er." Ron grinned sheepishly. "Because they're giving away free rolls of the stuff in their store and offering a hundred Galleons prize to the person, or people," he added at Hermione's hiss, "who do the most creative thing with it. So when Hermione showed me what she wants to go to the Halloween party as—"
"Yes, what are you going to the Halloween party as?" Aletha slid the roll of Stuck Tape onto her wrist like a thick silver bracelet. "It looks familiar, but I can't place it offhand."
Hermione laced her fingers together, pointing her two index fingers out like the barrel of a gun. Ron picked up an item which had been hidden by the desk he was standing behind, displayed it to Aletha, and clapped the shining silver bowler hat on his head. "Mrs. Peel," he intoned solemnly, "we're needed."
Aletha applauded slowly. "Well done. For that, you get a free pass back to Gryffindor Tower. But only this once," she cautioned. "Do the rest of your costume construction within bounds, please?"
"We will." Hermione reached around behind herself and undid a series of straps, peeling her silver shell away to reveal a T-shirt and leggings underneath it. "Thank you, Professor."
"You can thank me if you win that prize." Aletha smiled. "Five Galleons from each of you should do nicely."
Unseen by Harry and Ginny, who were earnestly discussing the best use for the Prince's modified slug potion, Luna Looked piercingly at the Prince's book, then smiled to herself and returned to her homework.
I knew the Half-Blood Prince wasn't a stranger. I just didn't know he was so very nearby.
On her way back down to her office, Aletha paused as a familiar sound met her ear.
Is that—
Turning the corner, she all but ran over Severus Snape. "I beg your pardon," she said, stepping hastily back.
Snape hushed her with one hand. "Have you heard…" He trailed off, scowling as though unable to come up with words to describe the sensation, then brightened as it occurred again. "That. What is that… that…"
"Mysterious ripping noise?" Aletha suggested, keeping her face straight with an effort.
"Yes." Snape looked around as though hoping for some visual clue to accompany the sound. "I have been hearing it in this vicinity for nearly twenty minutes, but I cannot find where it is coming from."
Aletha turned her head to look into the classroom beside her. "I'm sure I don't know," she said with deliberation. "But if it should happen to be students, and if those students are somewhere they shouldn't be, even for a very innocent reason, I'm sure they will not press their luck any further than they already have." She turned back to Snape and smiled. "Good night, Severus."
"Good night." Snape watched her go suspiciously, then stuck his head into the classroom she had examined, no doubt giving every corner a searching look.
But, of course, he won't see anything. Aletha rolled a tiny bit of Stuck Tape between her fingers as she descended the stairs. Because he does not happen to be an Heir of the Hogwarts Founders, which both students in that room are.
I wonder what they're sticking together for the Halloween party? It looked like some kind of rolling chair for Neville, and another bodysuit for Meghan…
And next chapter, we shall find out!
Ladies and gentlemen, I have fantastic news. As of yesterday, Tuesday, June 12, 2012, A Widow in Waiting, an original historical fantasy romance by Anne B. Walsh, is available for purchase!
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If anyone is wondering, Ron and Hermione are going to the Halloween party as John Steed and Emma Peel of the 1960's British TV comedy The Avengers. Thanks, as always, for reading, and please don't forget to review, visit the Facebook page, and go check out A Widow in Waiting!