Chapter 10

LION

"What's keeping Professor McGonagall?" Hermione muttered.

Harry looked up from his Temporal Transfiguration notes and shrugged. "I saw her come into the Great Hall at breakfast, but she left immediately with Hagrid."

He glanced around the bright, airy classroom. Despite the professor's absence, nobody was making a racket. He could hear whispered dares to cast a witty retort spell on her chalk or transform her chair into a porcupine. Nobody did. When the Weasley twins had pulled these pranks three-and-half years before, McGonagall had given them kudos for ingenuity and three evenings scrubbing bathrooms for cheekiness. At the time, Harry had been recovering in the hospital from his bout with Quirrell-Voldemort. The twins had sent him a toilet seat that sang Get Well Soon, but Madame Pomfrey had said it was too unsanitary and chucked it out.

But the challenge that sparked the most whispers was how to open the magically sealed Test Chest taunting them from the center of her vast oak desk. Whoever accomplished that feat would become a Hogwarts legend. Even George and Fred had never managed it.

"The later she comes, the better," Ron mumbled, running his finger down the scroll of notes Hermione had copied for him two weeks before.

Harry dragged his attention back to his own. Sometimes he wondered how Hermione had talked Ron and him into taking Professor McGonagall's most impenetrable course. Temporal paradoxes, divergent sequences, and asynchronous chronological intercepts were bewildering concepts, to say the least. Then he'd remember the Time-Turner McGonagall had entrusted to Hermione their third year—the wondrous hourglass that had allowed them to return an hour and save Buckbeak from death and Sirius from a fate worse than death. If not for the magic of temporal transfiguration, the Dementors would have sucked out his godfather's soul. He just wished he'd prepared better for today's test. But would he have given up the hours he'd spent the last week researching Wudang Shen in the library with Cho? No way.

Hermione pursed her lips. "If you don't already understand chronosynclastic infundibuli, five minutes of cramming won't help. Didn't you read the text?"

"You mean Vonnegut?" Ron whispered. "I've been too busy working out chess moves. And McGonagall knows it. I finally beat her in the staff room last night."

Harry straightened his glasses. "The staff room? Were they—? Again—?"

Glancing sidelong, Ron nodded.

Hermione's schoolmistress scowl melted into conspiratorial interest. "Do you think she's—?"

Ron lowered his eyes to his notes. "Spying."

Harry gazed thoughtfully at the foggy November vista visible through the four arched windows at the rear of McGonagall's classroom. All five evenings that Ron had played chess in the staff room over the past two weeks, he'd observed Snape and Daine huddling in the corner, immersed in conversation. After the first session, Ron had constructed a miniature Fourier Analytical Earhorn in Magical Metalwork—able to focus on any chosen conversation up to a half mile away. After his second chess match, he'd returned to Gryffindor with the curious news that the ex-Death Eater was divulging his entire Voldemort experience to his American colleague.

Harry knew one thing. If Ron was able to listen in on Snape and Daine while beating their housemistress at chess, Gryffindor's chances of trouncing Slytherin in the chess tournament were exceptionally high. "Did he say anything—?" he whispered.

Ron shook his head. "Still nothing I hadn't already read in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts. But it certainly is different hearing it told by someone saying I and me."

Hermione sighed. "The horse's mouth. That has to be interesting. Maybe Professor Dumbledore should let Professor Snape teach—"

The door whooshed open behind them. Professor McGonagall strode in, clapping her hands twice for attention. "Everybody, eyes front." Bustling up the aisle, she pointed her wand at the Test Chest and spoke beneath her breath. The lid popped off, releasing twenty parchments to fan across the room. By the time she faced the class, essay questions lay before each pupil. Reaching into her robes, she pulled out a watch she'd previously shown the class—an advanced Time-Turner that could send a large spatial area into the future or the past, not just individuals the way Hermione's hourglass had done.

"Don't worry about having less time," McGonagall said. "As a practical demonstration of the discipline we're studying, I'm turning back the clock for the entire room by fifteen minutes. Ready. Begin."

The only clue that the room was shifting back in time was a momentary shimmer—much less disconcerting than the flying, rushing sensation Harry had felt with Hermione's Time-Turner. When he bent his head to read McGonagall's first question, he wished he'd gone back three days to mull over the assigned chapters in The Horological Web a few more times.

"If you return to the past," item one read, "do you create a new thread of reality? Provide three reasoned arguments on both sides of the issue."

In his experience, Harry had discovered himself in the same version of the same event twice. In his first run-through, he'd seen himself across the lake but hadn't realized it; in his second, he'd looked back at himself. But there were other possibilities. In some nth dimension, did Harry mourn the loss of his godfather? In another, had Harry's parents never died? Was there a place where Draco always saved the day and Harry watched, sick with envy? Was there even some alternate universe where Harry called Voldemort dad? Was there a place where Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts was completely different from what he was experiencing now? And was one of those time threads the true, the authorized version, while his predicaments were just a pale imitation? He had 45 minutes to write about it.

Three-quarters of an hour later, trudging out of class, Ron leaned close to Harry. "You know those words she whispers when she's pointing her wand at the Test Chest? They're Speak friend and enter."

Turning his head, Harry saw Ron grinning smugly. His red-haired pal scratched his finger in his right ear and pulled out what looked like a tiny silver conch shell.

Unexpectedly, McGonagall called out, "Potter."

Ron shoved his Fourier Analytical Earhorn into a deep pocket.

Swallowing hard, Harry faced their housemistress.

"Meet me in the entry hall tomorrow morning at six."

Detention? For a moment Harry stared at his housemistress, wracking his brain for what out-of-line stunt he'd pulled now—or, at least, what out-of-line stunt she'd discovered. Almost as an afterthought, he answered, "Yes, professor."

Thursday morning, Harry showed up in the entry hall ten minutes before six. Professor McGonagall was already there. He braced himself for a lecture on whatever he'd done to disappoint her. If he'd been seen sneaking into Moaning Myrtle's lavatory after midnight, he didn't know how he'd explain.

Instead, his housemistress grinned. "It's coming this morning. Hagrid told me."

"Oh, the lion." Harry blew out his breath in relief. He wasn't on detention. He was going to meet the Gryffindor symbol he'd help lead around during the St. Mungo's Spirit of Giving Fete.

"Lion?" McGonagall's smile broadened. "You'll see."

They waited in silence until two more Gryffindors staggered down the stairs, yawning and straightening their robes. Seventh-year Alicia bit her lip when she saw McGonagall tapping her foot. Second-year Natalie mumbled, "Sorry we weren't early."

Turning, McGonagall pulled back the oak bar on the tall double doors and pushed them open. Harry and his housemates trooped after her into the chill, gray dawn. His breath rose white before him—as white as the mist shrouding the Forbidden Forest that encircled Hogwarts.

"Get going!" Alicia muttered as she closed the doors behind them.

Seeing his housemistress already starting down the stairs, Harry sped up. At fifteen, he'd finally attained McGonagall's height, but her determined stride was still hard to match. He hurried between the marble dragons—one sedate, one threatening—and descended the broad steps two at a time.

"I can't wait to see the look on Severus's face," their housemistress murmured as they hustled along the gravel path.

Harry exchanged a puzzled frown with Natalie.

Alicia shrugged. "I don't have time for house rivalry. Not when I have so much work on preparing for my N.E.W.T.s."

Harry nodded. The three of them had signed up to be wranglers in September. Now that it was November, adding the duty of tending the Gryffindor mascot to their load of schoolwork didn't seem so appealing.

"Won't Hagrid be doing the day-to-day stuff like feeding and grooming?" Natalie whispered. "We'll just have to practice getting him to roar."

His headmistress's excitement made Harry certain something was going on she had yet to explain.

Author's Note: Please review! Thanks.