Chapter 10
Madam Hardbroom had her own ideas about who might have sabotaged Norman's potion; and she had Amos Leroy, Venilia Cornfoot, Avice Crawford and Tom Smith into her office.
"You four sat closest to Norman Whytely" she said "You girls were behind him, Mr Smith to his right, Mr Leroy to his left. I wonder if any of you can throw any light upon the despicable act of lying by silence; for failing to own up is an implied lie."
"It wasn't me, Madam Hardbroom!" said Tom, indignantly "Norm's a friend of mine! And I don't know enough to have done it for a joke 'cos you know I'm not much cop, even though it was dead funny!"
Constance Hardbroom fixed him with a steely gaze.
"I'm so glad you found it funny" she said with heavy irony "Personally the thought of an explosion in class and potential injury to any of the children in the vicinity of it is NOT something I find amusing. Pray continue to exercise your lack of knowledge in my class to avoid such hilarity. I am constrained to believe you; you and Mr Whytely have, after all, been working together for long enough. Miss Cornfoot, Miss Crawford have YOU anything to say?"
"We don't sneak people up, Professor Hardbroom" said Avice "But I can vouch for Venilia"
"And I for Avice" said Venilia. "I wish I'd thought of it because the look on Norman's face was priceless but I assure you I should have owned up before he received your ire."
Hardbroom nodded.
"I adjure you to also restrain any creativity of the kind in my class" she said dryly. "I swear the pranks of juniors gives me more grey hairs every year."
Her hair was thick and black and glossy still.
"It WAS salamander blood wasn't it?" asked Venila "By the colour it went….."
Madam Hardbroom sniffed.
"Yes Miss Cornfoot it was and a relatively harmless thing to use under the circumstances….which is not at issue but the dishonesty. You girls and Mr Smith may withdraw."
They rose thankfully to depart.
"I didn't do it" said Leroy instantly "Someone must have dropped it in while passing."
Hardbroom eyed him with distaste.
"I dislike liars almost more than anything else" she said. "Nobody was moving about the room. Give me your bag."
"Why? It's nothing to do with me!" Leroy sounded panicked.
Connie Hardbroom fished through his bag for the small vial that he had not yet got rid of; and used Scarpin's Revellaspell to test its previous contents.
"Salamander blood" she said. "You are quite despicable! Now you are a proven liar and saboteur did you care to explain why you chose to enact this farce in my class? More entertaining it may have been than the turgid caterwaulings of the opera that pay your school fees – though Merlin knows why anyone would PAY to go to such when one could always listen to a pair of tom cats in an alley for free – it is not the prank that is at issue but your failure to do the proper thing and put your name to it. Pray WHY choose an inoffensive child like Mr Whytely for your foolish prank?"
Leroy caved in.
"I wanted him shown up because he's a stupid git and he made me look a fool getting me up early for that childish club he belongs to" he said sulkily.
Hardbroom raised an eyebrow.
"Made you look a fool? You mean, I suspect, didn't tell them to applaud your narcissistic person. No you would not fit into the MSHG; it is a training ground for the likes of aurors and quaestors, fighters against evil and leaders. It would not suit a vain little boy who is all squeak and no substance. If you persevered and learned to see something outside your own little world the MSHG would be the making of you; but I somehow doubt there is enough of you to make anything with. If you DO have a spark of spirit you'll proceed to prove me wrong; but the sneer you are so insolent as to fail to conceal tells me what you think. Very well; for the prank you can return tonight and clean cauldrons; for the lie, six hundred repetitions of 'Honesty is the best policy' in your best handwriting. Now get out; you disgust me."
Leroy fled.
Leroy's unpleasantness was rather given a back seat when ministry inspectors arrived at precisely the same time as a group of inspectors from OFFSTED.
The OFFSTED inspectors were rather taken aback by the – to them – strangely dressed and weird Ministry officials. In fact the Ministry men, especially the friendly and well-meaning one, managed to, in Lydia's words completely freak out the OFFSTED crew.
Finding Zabini and Crabbe hung up in a coat cupboard had also been a little unnerving and Dumbledore had to do some serious confundments before the muggles could be sent on their way convinced that the school was still well up to standard.
The SAS had been responsible for the condition of the bullying racists and beyond stupefying them had used no magic on their persons.
Broom handles through coat sleeves had prevented either boy from reaching for either his wand or any means to release themselves with arms held out full stretch and coathangers glued into the back of the coat with the permanent sticking charm enabled the coats to hang up quite adequately with their furious burdens inside.
The Society Against Slavery planned to release them after a time of reflection on their avowed view that goblins should be enslaved like house elves and that someone should renew the self-punishment curse and put it too into goblins.
Actually the nature of the punishing of the two boys was not that far from the sort of hazing that the OFFSTED people knew went on at some Public Schools; and Dumbledore had only needed to murmur that bullies who let themselves be jumped by a profligacy of smaller ones probably deserved all they got. That the school policy on bullying was to encourage smaller ones to band together against bigger ones and enact their own retribution as 'training for life' whilst keeping a close eye on it and a hand to stop such overflowing into counter bullying met an enthusiastic response from one of the muggles who admitted to having been bullied at school.
The ministry officials didn't turn a hair.
It was an unfortunate co-incidence; but such things happened.
And the Ministry inspectorate had a free rein; for as Dumbledore said all at Hogwarts was open and above board.
Naturally all the officials left with the addition of the fluorescent fart jinx on them; and there were subdued giggles over the jolly one expressing the opinion that they appeared to have escaped scot free without the usual japes and jinxes that tended to be played on visiting dignitaries, and wondering what was wrong with children of today that this should be so.
It may be recorded that when he discovered the jinx – his wife told him – he was much relieved that the children of Hogwarts were as mischievous as ever and unimpaired in the aftermath of Voldemort's death.
Meanwhile the mischievous and unimpaired children of Hogwarts were in the run up to Valentine's day with the usual trips to Hogsmeade for sweeties to exchange more or less anonymously for those old enough to follow this particular annual mating ritual; or in the case of Lionel and his ladies, Mary-Anne, Melody and Arjelan the quiet enjoyment of a shared box of chocolate cauldrons and a few stolen kisses and gropes in the privacy of a Slytherin box room, the members of other houses giving little respect to their trespassing and their privacy assured by a series of sophisticated jinxes on the door of a repellimg kind.
The Belle Marauders were far too young for that sort of thing on the whole, though Bella had sent Assim Khan a valentine card with a soppy looking kitten on it that she had added a speech bubble to saying 'when I grow up I want to be a tiger' as a desirable add to the cushion embroidered with the words 'love is warm and cuddly'.
She was entirely unaware that the words inside 'and happiness is a warm pussy' had any questionable meaning; and fortunately Assim realised this and gave a rueful grin.
She had chosen it purely because it was feline; and that was sweet.
Valentine's day being a Saturday, and most older and interesting people being otherwise occupied – even Lydia was snogging Leo Black-Weasley – the Belle Marauders contented themselves with a few surreptitious hexes that might make more for gasps of horror than of sexual gratification when their recipients stopped eating each others' faces and gazed upon that beloved visage sporting a variety of boils, tentacles and black furry antennae. They wandered down to the potions dungeon to see if they could be of use to find – to their horror – Connie Hardbroom in tears.
Naturally they leaped on her and hugged her ruthlessly and kissed her and made cocoa.
It seemed the proper sort of thing to do; and Connie sniffed hard and tried to make out that nothing was amiss.
"Great Aunt Connie" said Mimi sternly from the privileged position of being Severus Snape's step daughter "THAT's an awful porky and you don't like people who tell porkies."
Connie sniffed hard.
"Hoist by my own prejudices" she said dryly. "It is foolish to cry over something so childish and – and silly."
"Spill" said Bella.
Connie wavered; then handed Bella a piece of parchment.
"It was pushed under the door" said she.
Bella read it out in a cold little voice.
"I am a troll, to speak precisely
And you and I could do quite nicely
The hate in others you inspire
Fills my foul heart with cruel desire
Your trap-like mouth and flinty eyes
Leave me filled with lovelorn sighs
Your voice like nails upon a board
Sends shivers up my spinal cord!
Miss Hardbroom I love you à la folle
- Signed, your most adoring troll."
Bella frowned.
"Well!" said Drusillina "That's not very nice at all!"
"She's learning understatement from the Snapes" said Isabel.
"Who could write such a nasty and cruel thing?" wondered Maud.
"Did you recognise the writing Auntie Connie?" asked Mimi.
"She'd have a job" said Bella coldly "It's written in block capitals and it's been gone over several times to hide any characteristic flourishes. It's horridly clever."
"Silly, isn't it?" said Connie.
"Nasty I call it" said Bella "And obviously someone who has a down on you. Who's been in trouble lately?"
"Oh the usual suspects" said Connie "And THAT I should not discuss with pupils either. Not the ones I should normally have thought clever enough to compose it, Mad Lockhart and Chad Fenwick; not that they would do anything so….. unkind. If they wrote such a poem it would be clever, witty and gently satirical."
Bella nodded.
"Marauders do NOT do cruel" she said. "They might write a skit about a troll falling in love with you and making a flaming nuisance of himself attracted by the smell of the evil er, concatenations your pupils brewed and mistaking it for your natural scent; but that'd be a joke on those of us that make evil concatenations not on you. Sort of….'Miss Hardbroom banished with a spell the cauldron full of evil smell; and yet the troll (who was not bright) thought it a smell of rare delight' or something."
This raised a smile from Miss Hardbroom.
"A more salubrious piece of poetry if not so well crafted" she said.
"All right" said Bella seriously "Let's get to work. Whoever it is knows you'd recognise the hand writing. Which I guess actually makes all Hogwarts suspect but it's a start; maybe this person has recently done lines. Who's done lines for our Connie recently?"
"Half the first, you, and a selection of the fourth I should think if we all run true to form" said Mimi "I'll go and pester people to find out if need be."
"Well it's a wideish suspect base again including me" said Bella. "I wouldn't write that Connie, and I hope you believe me."
"Bellatrix Black I doubt if you could manage to get block capitals even that legible nor could you manage so literary a style; your own ineptitude exonerates you" said Connie dryly.
"Thanks; I think" said Bella.
"There's an accurate use of French at the end" said Mimi "There's the new boy Lycos Rafe and Achille Crouch-Villeneuve"
"Lycos hasn't been in trouble with me yet" said Connie "He's a perfectly adequate potioneer, obedient, doesn't dream and keeps his mischief to his own time, which habits could be well emulated by others."
They grinned at her unrepentantly.
Bella had got bored brewing the hair raising potion and had turned her rats' tails purple before adding them and had consequently had purple wild hair for a day or two until the extended life of the potion wore off. Bella had personally liked the effect but Connie had set her lines about devoting the time she wasted from her studies to the adornment of her person.
"Achille's a fair bet" said Drusillina "Poetry is kind of the province of Ravenclaw isn't it, at least poetry that scans and rhymes, unless it's too clever poetry but only the sixth generally do poetry that doesn't sound like poetry at all."
"That's a point" said Bella "Reckon we should pester one of the Mad Marauders about what Achille's gotten into trouble over with Connie if Connie won't tell us. And if any other Ravenclaw has got into trouble. Mind you, there might be others who would use 'à la folle' correctly; I know how to. So does Mimi. And I bet Mad and Chad do. Shouldn't think any first years do; in the second Emerald might have if you lot had trotted about more on the continent than you did before Connie stole you and brought you here. Leroy? Well he's supposed to travel the world isn't he, singing like a dementer on felix felicis."
"You don't KNOW he's that bad" said Drusillina.
"Oh don't I? We were waiting to go in to a pantomime at Christmas and he was singing nearby in his own Christmas concert, and believe me it made me wish I had a corporeal patronus!" said Bella "Sounded like he had a pair of nutcrackers on his privates and a stick up ….er, somewhere nasty" she amended for Connie's consumption.
"I suppose if it all the child can do successfully at least he can make a living from it, whatever one's personal opinion of the sound" said Connie.
"My mum likes it" said Maud mournfully.
"Your mother and I very rarely had coincident opinions about anything" said Connie tartly.
"Anyway, song critics we ain't so let's move on to other possible suspects" said Bella crisply "Because I know Connie might not talk out about who's been in trouble but she WILL to clear those that haven't."
"You know me too well" said Connie ruefully.
"In the third…. Well Ming Chang's clever enough but he's also brilliant at potions and not a git" said Bella. "Munin Corbin? Especially in combination with his twin Hugin?"
"They have not been in real trouble" said Connie "Bar a ticking off to be more careful; that covered several in that form."
"Scratch the third then" said Bella "I really think we are looking at Ravenclaw after all….tempting as it might be to suspect Crabbe and Zabini ….hang on, ZABINI has the brains AND his mother trots halfway round the world…."
"The fourth's brains are all in Mad, Chad and Leo" said Maud "The other Ravenclaw boys are nonentities and the Slytherin are sort of stupid."
"Alas how true" said Bella "The fifth has another Corbin but he's so boring I don't think using even dodgy satire would occur to him he has the imagination of a turnip and that's because he hired it to help with lessons."
"And the clever ones in that year are MSHG and somehow I can't see….." said Isabel.
"Victor Crabbe in Slytherin" said Mimi "I don't like him. He doesn't cause any TROUBLE but I just don't like him… he's sort of a charming type and I can't help wondering how like Tom Riddle he might be. I don't LIKE charming types."
"What about Lionel Dell?" asked Bella diverted "He's pretty charming"
"No he isn't" contradicted Mimi "He has charm; that's different. His charm is his honesty. His smile starts in his eyes and escapes to his mouth. Victor's stays on his lips like it's glued there."
"That's a nice way of putting it" said Bella. "I say, Achille is lower sixth can we REALLY suspect anyone that elderly of being so – so….."
"Being elderly doesn't stop them being nasty" said Isabel "Look how he tried to force Erica to go to the ball with him last year and told her he planned to marry her whether she wanted to or not! I can't see any of the UPPER sixth doing it because apart from Jackman they have dignity written all over them but I bet Jackman wouldn't 'cos he'd be too scared of getting caught and he knows he's likely to get sacked if he gets in any more trouble. He might not fear Madam Hardbroom as much as he did Professor Snape but he's dead scared of Lionel Dell. And besides, it's not Madam Hardbroom he's sore at, it's Arjeela for letting him beat her up and steal her thief-proof sweeties. And he wouldn't anyway 'cos Lydia promised him if anyone hurt Arjeela she'd blame him and having 'thief' on his forehead for a year or two would be the least of his worries because she'd remove his boils by splinching him. He believed her too, reckon" she added.
"Just as well; I doubt she was bluffing" said Bella. "Right who do we have; Achille Crouch-Villeneuve; Victor Crabbe; Darryl Zabini; and Amos Leroy. I'd almost discard the singing snurge only he's kinda pedantic and sounds older than what he really is please don't wince at my grammar Connie, I know it's bad but it sort of works and it IS Saturday."
"The day of the week should make no difference in the application of correct English usage, but when has logic been a part of the makeup of twelve year old children?" murmured Connie.
They beamed at her.
"S'pose you made like it was just funny and wrote a poem back and sent to each of them and saw who looked baffled and who looked pissed?" said Bella "Starting, I dunno, 'alas o troll your feelings cruel do not erotic urges fuel' or – or something. We could get the Mad Marauders on it, well Chad anyway because Mad's seeing if he can't get enough hickeys on Mei to use for arithmancy counters."
"I don't really want to know that" murmured Connie. "Pass it off as nothing and with good humour rather than letting the horrid child who wrote it know I was upset? There is something in that, but on the other hand to ignore it has more dignity."
"I think we kinda have to involve the bigger ones to find out who did it" said Mimi "And they'll be mad too 'cos we don't like our special people being got at. You can ignore it as properly dignified, Auntie Connie, but we'll deal with it unofficially. It's not something that can be let to PASS."
"If you find out I should like to know who; not because I relish feeling despite for the culprit but to clear the innocent so I don't look on all of them askance" said Connie.
"On it" said Bella.
They all kissed her again and went flying coltishly off, leaving Connie feeling moved and a lot happier. They could be such sweet children and accepted punishment with philosophy and without malice.
Which as Bella had probably been set more lines by her than most was rather touching.
The concept of paying for your fun was deeply embedded in the tenets of Marauding.
Chad, Leo, Lydia and Polly – Leo and Lydia having given up romance for the superior charms of cake from the kitchen elves – took the matter very seriously.
"I know how to do this" said Lydia "Watch, mes enfants and learn."
"You don't HAVE to sound like Jade just because you're the oldest Snape in the school" said Bella critically. Lydia grinned.
"Sometimes the temptation is overwhelming" she said, folding the paper as a flapping bird origami. "Right, I am charming it to find the writer. You can do it for bodily fluids – like sweat – or skin fragments too, but Connie's held it and you lot have pored over it with your grubby hands so the writer is more likely to find it"
"It's awfully clever" said Bella.
"David Fraser developed it" said Lydia "To find a wand-writer of filth; using a school wand. David wiped enough residual sweat and skin fragments off the wand onto a piece of paper that he sent looking to catch the guilty party. Then Draco and Harry used it to catch the creep who sent the cursed necklace to Dimsie Burke; and only two great seekers like them could have done it. If I was you I'd tie it to a string so it can't get away from you."
Bella heaved out a tangle of string from her pocket; she took the Girl Guiding aspects of the MSHG very seriously and their handbook – once Myrtle Carmichael's and an austerity wartime copy – bade them to always be prepared, and string was one of the things recommended to carry at all times.
There were a few more preparations to be made first.
The paper bird was released and set off.
It was no big surprise that it headed for Ravenclaw tower.
"Scratch Victor Crabbe and Darryl Zabini" said Bella.
They were brought up short at the door with its eagle head knocker.
"Knock then" said Mimi.
Bella knocked.
The soft sweet voice that issued from the beak of the eagle head knocker asked,
"if speech is silver and silence is golden what is then the more valuable?"
"Wise man once say, speech impart knowledge but man who chatter in sleep get biff on hooter from friends" said Bella.
There was a long offended silence.
"The sentiment is accurate enough but it might have been a little more elegantly expressed" said the knocker waspishly; and the door opened reluctantly.
The bird headed unerringly for Amos Leroy.
"Right, you creep" said Bella "We've got a bone to pick with a certain troll with unduly amorous tendencies expressed with all the – the cacaceous scatology to be expected of one whose mind rises occasionally to the gutter wherein it wallows in the detritus of its betters."
"Gosh, that was almost worthy of dad!" said Mimi awed.
"Thank you" said Bella "So Leroy; we knew you were one of four it had to be and this little bird just told us who it was."
"What are you Slytherin and Gryffindor kids doing in our common room?" demanded Venilia Cornfoot.
"Enacting punishment on Leroy for sending nasty valentines with intent to cause trouble" said Mimi "He just caused trouble; his."
"Are you certain he's guilty?" asked Venilia.
"It had to be one of four who had the ability, motive and knowledge of French" said Drusillina "And Lydia enchanted the offending valentine to fly home to daddy and roost. It's settled down there; seems conclusive to me."
"Nice enchantment" said Venilia "Lydia is most awfully good, isn't she? I say, can you take him away to punish him, we don't want to listen."
"Pleasure" said Bella, enacting the prefect curse effortlessly "We thought we might take him down to the potions dungeon and boil him down for lard. He hasn't got much" she surveyed the boy critically "But there might be a little."
Amos Leroy squealed in terror.
"PuhLEASE! He goes right through my head when he sings like that" said Venilia.
The Belle Marauders tied Amos Leroy to a chair.
"We have a poem for you to read" said Bella "'Cos we intercepted yours and thought it most awful cheek; and then when you've read it you'll know what's going to happen. Read it; out loud."
Trembling, the boy read,
"Alas O troll your feelings cruel
Do not erotic feelings fuel
Your nasty words do not endear
Let my contempt for you be clear
To cure your lusts and manners ill
You shall this curing potion swill
So go forth troll and sin no more
And stay polite for evermore"
He eyed the large dark bottle Mimi was carrying with trepidation.
"What's in it?" he demanded.
"Anti love potion, cough medicine and one or two of our own additions" said Bella who had spent some time concocting the awful beverage before they set out to find the bird.
"How much?" asked Leroy.
Bella smiled.
"All of it" she said.
Leroy had smelled it by this time and gagged.
"Are you insane?"
"Our punishment – or we report you for nastiness and attempted bullying" said Bella "Anonymous letters are a form of bullying whoever you send them to. And it's most awfully frowned on. Darling golden haired angel boy doesn't want to be expelled for writing nasty letters does he?"
Leroy went pale.
That would RUIN his image; and the awful Black girl was related to the Malfoys and she would be certain to spread the story!
Somehow he gulped down the pint of Severus' punishment potion that he kept for inveterate gigglers and those he accused of hysteria. It had a generous dose of laxative in it too.
"Don't stray too far from the loo" warned Bella
"You wretches, you've poisoned me!" Leroy gasped.
They giggled.
"No; but it's a tempting idea" said Bella "If I was you I'd stay out of trouble or we might just decide to. Here, let me untie you; you should just make it to the boys' loo on the ground floor."
Leroy rose, hesitated as if about to say more; went pale and fled.
He was rather busily occupied off and on for the rest of the weekend and was still pale and flatulent on Monday.
If, as Mimi said, anyone could tell the difference.
Honour was satisfied; and they reported to Connie that Amos Leroy had been duly punished for his contumely and would not be any further trouble at all unless of course he begged mummy dearest to take him away in which case good riddance to bad rubbish.
"What did you do?" demanded Connie.
"We swiped the punishment cough medicine for gigglers" said Mimi "And er, spiced it up a bit."
"It smells like all the old socks that ever were discarded were used to brew it" giggled Drusillina
"And then some" added Maud
"And we sort of threatened to poison him worse if he didn't behave" said Isabel.
"We wouldn't but he believed us anyway" said Maud.
"You are dreadful children…I should not permit it" said Connie.
"Connie, it was us doing him nasty or you having to take anonymous letter writing of a filthy nature to the head" said Bella "Marauders know how to take care of the staff and keep them from having to do official stuff if a problem can be neutralised unofficially. We gave him the choice; us or Professor Dumbeldore. He chose us so he can't really complain."
Connie nodded relieved.
"If you gave him that choice then fair enough; I shouldn't like to think you were bullying anyone."
"Huh, he's the bully and the coward to hurt you Auntie Connie" said Mimi "And if he starts with you, what's to stop him doing it to vulnerable little kids if he thinks it's a good successful way of hurting?"
Connie was struck by that.
"I take the point" she said "Horrid children!"
They beamed at her.