Chapter 10

Halloween arrived before thought of skis might be considered and Remus was chanting daily in the hopes of enjoying the party instead of feeling too ill to join in as the moon waxed. Sirius proceeded to hassle Severus until Severus sighed and undertook a frivolous bit of research, and proceeded to inscribe runes with muggle felt pen on Sirius' bare posterior, which turned any farts which broke the circle into insubstantial gurning pumpkin masks. Sirius was well pleased with this work of 'art' and proceeded to eat indigestible food to make large and lurid ones. Severus rolled his eyes. It had been a tricky bit of work, though, and had required shaping and colouring disciplines and he had resorted to a bit of brute force dissection of the formulae of charms as well as runes, and it was all a learning experience. When he understood arithmancy as well as runes, life would become a lot easier because all things would be possible.

"Why don't more people use runes and arithmancy if all things are possible?" asked James, as Severus sounded off about this when he had James a captive audience demanding that his bottom should be embellished too.

"Because most people are lazy gits like you and Siri who like the idea of doing things with runes, but don't have the self discipline to stick to it," said Severus.

"Oh. There is that, I suppose," said James. "There must be enough people with stickability and brains though to do more."

"That's why new spells get invented," said Severus. "But you need vision as well as brains and hard work to get really good spells going. Or a combination of vision and Siri's scatological sense of humour and ideas too wild to be practical to anyone who isn't a genius."

"Go on, stop being modest, tell us how good you really are," said James.

"Your farts will tell you that," said Severus.

An angry and bitter Lucius Malfoy found that the excitement of the party atmosphere left him less well guarded than usual.

Let them celebrate their Halloween, and leave me to do what I can about Samhain, he thought. The black library of Malfoy Manor was quite as extensive as that of Prince Hall, and Lucius less scrupulous about obeying the dictats of his father over which books he might and might not read. And Lucius had a pen friend in Durmstrang, who explained that part of their advanced Dark Arts class involved summoning dementors. This suited Lucius just fine, since he did not feel able to control a summoning of the full Wild Hunt, but dementors were some of the Unseelie who were easier to control than the higher fae of that dark realm, and Lucius felt quite capable of raising and controlling a couple of them. Especially on Samhain, where his own high fae blood would tell, for this was the night when traditionally masks were worn and turnip lanterns lit to confuse the fae folk as they waxed strong in the physical world, looking for young humans to steal, or bodies to possess, to give them more physical substance. Lucius was well aware of the extra wards which were placed about Malfoy Manor, and stiffened until he was over the age of seven when he was no longer fair game for the veela blood that gave the Malfoy family their sharp, fine features, pale hair, slight build and an aura of charisma which was the echo of the glamour of the all-female veeli.

He found himself a quiet classroom, the holiday being on a Sunday and hence no classes at all being held, and began the ritual.

The Marauders were sticking close to Remus, who might not be totally vulnerable for another two days, but he was still under par. Severus was holding forth.

"And it's all very well to demand that I make a spell of it, you starry-eyed sky-dog you, but there's a huge gap between making effects work with runes and turning them into a formula that any oik can use for the twiddling of his wand."

"Did anyone ever fit a 'cease effect' button when they enchanted your mouth?" asked James, lazily. Severus glared at him.

"You're no better than Sirius, you haven't a clue about the work that goes into spell crafting."

"Nope. That's why we leave it to you."

"And then get cross with me when I can't produce a spell which is beyond me when you don't even understand the complexities of what I'm doing," he said. "Hell, I might as well tell you two to go and play on the Chuddleigh Cannons and pull out a win over the Wimborne Wasps, and it'll occur to you that you don't have the experience or skills yet to even get drafted onto the team never mind be its main stars. Yet."

"Oh, why didn't you put it in nice easy terms like that before?" asked Sirius.

Severus sighed and shook his head.

"You two really are the end at times," he said. "I … what?" suddenly he was cold, his lecturing no use, nothing was of any use. He was six years old, being made to watch the horribly brutal fights of Cassius Clay, or Mohammed Ali as he had become, and his father was telling him it was about time he learned such manly arts. 'Ali would teach you to be a man', he said, and that was so frightening that Severus had used accidental magic to short out all the electricity, closing down the television, and then he was being beaten by his father so hard he had wet himself. Severus curled up in a ball, hardly aware that all his friends were doing likewise.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" the words rang out, and the terror lifted. Severus found he was clinging to a sobbing Lily, and James to Petunia. Other juniors were in no better state.

Fabian Prewett had his wand out and a silvery cockerel was chasing the shadowy beings which had invaded the room out of the window. And then Madam McGonagall had burst in and was casting the same spell, her pearlescent cat joining the cockerel to drive the creatures away.

Severus found his voice first.

"Prewett, you saved us! Madam McGonagall, what was that? They made us, well, me anyway, relive my worst moment! And how did you defeat them, you and Prewett?"

"They are ca'd dementors, Mr. Prince, and they are evil creatures frae ither places," said McGonagall. "The spell is called a Patronus, a protection, cast by drawing on good memories to defeat the evil of the bad. It has ither uses forebye. When ye are in the sixth, ye'll be learning how to cast it the noo."

The Marauders exchanged looks.

They had no intention of waiting until they were in the sixth.

"How did dementors get into the castle, Min … Madam McGonagall?" asked Fabian Prewett. "Gideon got you immediately, of course, and he's checking the rest of the tower."

"I have no idea, but I'm off tae talk to the headmaster," said Madam McGonagall, deciding not to reprove one of the younger members of the Order of the Phoenix for almost using her name.

The headmaster had another headache on his hands since he was dealing with a sobbing Iphianassa Goyle, whose disgraceful detention with Professor Povey had been interrupted by Kelsey Brocklehurst, a Ravenclaw prefect, who had managed to prevent the DADA professor from committing rape on the fourth year Slytherin girl.

"I do….don't know why I threw a dung bomb at him or where it came from," sobbed Iphianassa, "And then he said I must have a detention and he would spank me, and … and I want my mummy!"

This was something Dumbledore did not want to oblige the child with until she had been persuaded that it was better to discuss it with Madam Pomfrey than with her mother. The curse on the position of DADA teacher had never been this embarrassing before.

And he needed to know how many more girls were going to come forward, and planned to question Povey under veritaserum. The distraction of dementors in his school was just too much.

He sent Minerva to round up the rest of the staff to check the boundaries and returned to his questioning.

It turned out that Povey had been in the habit of giving detentions to young girls in which he spanked and fondled, and then confunded. This event was just something that had got out of hand for being unexpected; so that was at least something that could be hushed up. If the girls did not remember anything they would not have any problems, right? He reassured himself. Povey had been careful not to touch girls of prominent families at least. No likely fallout from the Noble and Ancient family Black. And no connection to dementors.

It may be said that Lucius was discovered sitting in apparent resigned obedience in the detention classroom 'waiting for Professor Povey', who was his escort of the afternoon. Nobody knew that Lucius had obtained dung bombs from Zonkos mail order, specifically to cause a diversion, or that he had managed to confund Iphianassa because he was already aware of Povey's predilections and had been blackmailing the DADA professor all term.

Dumbledore gave Iphianassa a pep talk in which he adjured her not to bring the school into disrepute for one bad apple, a man sent over the edge by overwork who was not going to do it again because he was going to go on a rest cure. Iphianassa was cowed into silence, but Dumbledore had made the mistake of not telling Kelsey Brocklehurst to keep silence, and as a result, the name 'Pervy Povey' was all about the school by the time of the feast. Dumbledore however was unaware of this and congratulated himself on managing to contain a scandal. And … and he might blame the dementors on the DADA teacher who could have summoned them for a demonstration to a student, and lost control of them because he was having a nervous breakdown. And if the Marauders were of the opinion that if Povey had managed to summon dementors at the same time as he was perving Iphianassa, as James put it, then doubtless it was only because Lucius Malfoy had put him up to it, and had made the unfortunate middle schooler into a distraction.

"Or a reward for good behaviour if she owed Malfoy something or he had something on her," suggested Severus.

This was held to be as likely as anything by his confederates. They alone in the school suspected Lucius Malfoy of being behind the dementors one way or another; though it has to be said that Narcissa Black was wondering hard herself.

She waylaid the two Marauding girls.

"Well met, Miss Evans, Miss Evans," she said.

Lily curtseyed beautifully, Petunia a little more awkwardly, largely because it made her feel silly.

"Well met, Miss Black," said Lily.

Narcissa cleared her throat.

"I understand Gryffindor tower came under attack from dementors," she said.

"Yes," said Lily.

"No other houses suffered this," said Narcissa. "I happen to know that Lucius Malfoy has boasted of being able to raise dementors. And his, er, babysitter of the time was supposed to be Professor Povey who was … distracted."

"It's a pity you're so elderly or you'd be a real asset to the Marauders," said Petunia.

Narcissa blinked. Being referred to as 'elderly' by babes in the first when she was a fifth year and a prefect was no real big deal, but no Slytherin would put it that way.

"Uh, what are Marauders?" she asked.

"Us," said Petunia. "Your cousin Sirius, James, Sev, Remus, Peter and us too. We stand against bullies and death eaters."

"Oh!" said Narcissa. "I … I do owe you something of a debt. I wrote to my parents and managed to make it sound as if Lucius was … not too tightly wrapped. I don't think he is, actually, to be honest," she admitted with more candour than she would have used towards any Slytherin.

"He's barking," said Petunia. "Unfortunately he's barking, and powerful and nasty, and the combination isn't good."

"We don't like him," said Lily, demurely. "Would your parents make you marry him? Because of his family?"

"It's like this, kiddie," said Narcissa. "My oldest sister, Bellatrix, is betrothed to Rodolphus Lestrange, currently head of games in Slytherin house. She's some years older than him, but it's the family that matters and a Lestrange boy was promised to her when she was born. My next sister, Andromeda, was similarly promised to Lucius Malfoy. However, she refused to honour the betrothal and ran off with … with a muggleborn student, one Ted Tonks. She's been expunged from the family tree."

Lily and Petunia exchanged glances.

"Well, I don't suppose our parents would ever disown us even if we married someone they hated," said Lily. "Even Tiberius Prince has taken Sev's mum home since she wants to leave her husband she was disowned over."

"The Black family is very traditional," said Narcissa, trying to sound haughty and succeeding in sounding scared. "And the betrothal may be honoured with the next daughter as they hadn't got around to finding me anyone."

"But not if he's barking?" said Petunia.

"This is what I'm hoping," said Narcissa. "And I'm convinced he confunded the Goyle girl to provide a distraction for him. He has no scruples at all, and I'm … I'm afraid of him."

"Right," said Lily. "I think we'd better make you an honorary Marauder, and we'll keep an eye out for you if you keep an eye on him for us."

"It sounds a fair deal," said Narcissa. "I'm beginning to think that Andi and Sirius weren't as crazy as I thought at first for opting out of Slytherin. Malfoy has his spies at every level and mostly they are just ready and gagging to go off to serve Voldemort. And I know some things about Voldemort that most of them don't, because the Lestrange boys' father was at Hogwarts with him, and you cannot accuse Rodolphus and Rabastan of being the sharpest sticks in the bundle. Lord Voldemort is no more than one Tom Riddle, who was a half-blood orphan. And I know no wizarding family called Riddle, so he's probably also a bastard. So much for the pure bloods who follow him!"

"Well, that's interesting," said Lily. "I expect they don't really care so long as they can grab power, but it's worth bearing in mind. We Marauders aren't terribly interested in blood status, just in fighting bullies."

"And at that I wonder if you might be purer in your motives," said Narcissa, bitterly. "Good day to you."

"Good day, Miss Black," they chorused.