Looking for Trouble
"And did you kill a basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office?" demanded Terry Boot. "That's what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year…" –Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, page 342
A/N: None of it mine. Title from the Remus Lupins song of the same name.
Chapter 1: In Dumbledore's Office
Terry takes a deep breath before knocking on the door before him, a door carved with odd symbols and starbursts. He's told the gargoyle the password (gumdrops) downstairs and now there is nothing between him and Dumbledore—between him and punishment and possible expelling—except this door.
Terry can feel his heat beating rapidly, trying its hardest to rap its way out of his chest. Dumbledore is kind and he may not hold by too many conventions, but surely he will protest to this.
There is no answer. "Professor Dumbledore?" Terry calls, but no sound emenates from behind the closed door.
He pokes his head around the door, then sidles the rest of the way in. His mouth drops open. Terry has been in enough teachers' offices—Flitwick's, Sprout's, and McGonagall's nearly every week, to talk about that extra-credit Transfiguration project he's working on this year—but none of them look anything like this.
Everywhere is dark wood and golden light. Tiny silver contraptions thrum when he approaches them, but that's nothing like the wonder Terry feels when he turns around and sees the golden perch swaying slightly, a gigantic red bird asleep on it, its head tucked beneath a wing. It seems to be the source of all the glowing light, or maybe it's just that it gathers all the light to itself.
Terry jumps when he hears a cough behind him and turns again, expecting to see Dumbledore, but there's no one there. Someone harrumphs again, and Terry's eyes fix on a portrait of a grumpy looking wizard slumped in a chair, his full mustache drooping past his chin.
"And just what do you think you're doing, sonny boy?" the portrait asks.
"I—nothing," Terry stutters, "I've been sent to see Dumbledore, and I thought he, he would be here."
"Well, clearly you thought wrong. And you thought you'd look your fill while you were here, did you?" the wizard asks, poking a finger Terry's direction.
"I—yes. Is there something wrong with that?"
The wizard stops short, mouth open and finger still pointing. He looks around at his fellow portraits, but they all appear to be asleep, though a few shrug their shoulders or raise an eyebrow at him.
"Oh, I suppose not," he grumbles, and then changes tack entirely. "Say, did you see this yet?" His finger points to his right, and Terry's eyes follow it to a glass case standing in the corner by Dumbledore's desk, a shining, ruby-encrusted sword inside.
"Bloody hell," he says, unable to stop himself. "Where did Dumbledore get that?"
"That Harry Potter pulled it right out of the Sorting Hat, he did," says the mustached wizard, now looking almost proud. "Right before he killed the basilisk with it."
"Bloody hell," Terry says again, and then, "Cool."
The wizard nods eagerly, and has opened his mouth to speak again when the door opens and Dumbledore walks in in a sweep of robes. "Ah, Mr. Boot," he says. "So sorry to have kept you waiting. The house elves put a simply delicious treacle in the staffroom this afternoon, which I had no choice but to stop and sample."
Terry nods, unsure what to say. His mouth has gone dry. Here in Dumbledore's office, among the gadgets and the awe, he has almost forgotten why he is here in the first place.
But as Dumbledore sits behind his desk and folds his hands, it all comes rushing back.
"Do take a seat, Terry," Dumbledore gestures to the chair before his desk. "Now, I understand from Mr. Filch that you and Mr. Malfoy were involved in a…situation?"
Terry tries to swallow, but his throat seems to have folded over on itself. It had been considerably more than a situation. He feels his cheeks heat as he says, "Yes, sir. That's true."