Disc: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
STILL ALIVE
10
The Ravenclaw boys had saved a seat for Quin, of course. That left one remaining empty desk right at the front, and Beth resigned herself to sitting at it alone. To her surprise however, Quin sat next to her.
There wasn't any time to say anything about it because Professor McGonagall started outlining the task pretty much at once, and Quin appeared to be listening intently while taking notes with an expensive-looking self-inking quill, so she pulled some crumpled parchment from her bag and struggled to keep up.
They were supposed to turn sparrows into budgies. The explanation took about half an hour – it was somewhat delicate work, after all. No one, least of all Professor McGonagall, wanted exploded sparrow bits all over the place. Eventually though, the Professor handed out the caged sparrows, and the room slowly filled with soft chatter as they worked.
"Your friends are disappointed," Beth muttered to Quin, without looking at him. Quin glanced over his shoulder at the Ravenclaw boys, who were concentrating furiously on their sparrows as if they were still trying to look as though they hadn't been snubbed by some too-clever-for-his-own-good Gryffindor.
"Oh them," he said offhandedly. "They're not so much friends. They're horribly dull."
"I thought you said you liked smart people," Beth replied, watching her sparrow try to work out why it couldn't fly further than eight inches in any direction.
"No, I said I didn't like stupid people. Besides, why shouldn't I sit with you? I partner you in Potions, don't I?"
"We have potions with the Slytherins," Beth pointed out. "You hardly have much choice."
"Look, I'm sitting here with you because I want to. Don't get your knickers all in a twist about it."
Beth was about to answer him with a suitably scathing remark about his knickers, but she could feel McGonagall looking at her from half across the room, so she returned her attention to her sparrow, who was now fluttering around its small cage agitatedly.
After five completely unsuccessful tries she threw down her wand and thumped her fists on her thighs in frustration. "This is stupid," she hissed to herself. Quin heard.
"What's the matter?" he asked. She could see that he hadn't even tried to magic his sparrow yet – because he knew he could do it on the first try and he didn't want to appear a swot. The fact that he always did this in nearly every class made him look like even more of a swot, never mind whether or not he noticed. "I thought you were good at Transfiguration."
"What are you, my stalker now?" Beth sighed. "If you must know, I'm fine with things like matchboxes and teacups and bananas, but not living things."
"Bananas are living things," Quin pointed out.
She glared. "Fine, but they can't think. They don't care whether they're bananas or not. And I can't helping thinking, what if they poor thing doesn't want to be a budgie? What if he's perfectly happy being a sparrow?" She sounded perfectly ridiculous but he had asked.
"What are you talking about?" he said, which she'd been expecting, but what she hadn't been expecting was for him then to say: "Budgies are way better than sparrows!"
"What?"
"Well, they're much better looking, for a start. And you could make him a particularly handsome budgie so all the lady budgies like him better than all the real budgies, and he could lord it over all the ugly old sparrows who always picked on him for having fluffy feathers and high-pitched cheep."
Beth could not conceal a giggle. "You're mad," she told him.
"But I haven't a point, don't I? Go on, try it again."
"What if I mess up and he ends up half-sparrow, half-budgie? All the birds will make fun of him then."
"You won't mess it up," Quin assured her. "I'll do it with you, okay? Ready?"
She picked up her wand and focussed on the poor sparrow, who had stopped fluttering around and was now staring up at her interestedly. "Ready," she said, feeling oddly sure of herself.
"After three," Quin whispered. "One, two, three –"
They both said the incantation and flicked their wands upwards in near-perfect unison. Beth grinned in delight to find that she was no longer looking at a sparrow, but a bright yellow-and-green budgie with a long blue tail and a very surprised expression on its beak.
"Chrrp!" it warbled, then looked immensely please with itself. An answering "chrrp!" came from Beth's right, where Quin was now looking proudly at his own, now remarkably more colourful bird.
"He's beautiful," Beth congratulated him.
"She's a she," Quin corrected her with a wink.
"How do you know?"
"Well done, Miss Green, Mr. Weasley," said McGonagall's voice from behind them, before Quin could answer. "Very impressive, both of you. Twenty points to Gryffindor."
At this, Beth could not resist a glance back at the Ravenclaw boys, who were looking very angry indeed.
"Poor things," said Beth, as she and Quin put away their notes, preparing to leave early. "They miss you."
"No they don't," Quin scoffed. "I bet they're glad to be shot of me. They're just mad that I helped you get points."
"Are they shot of you?" Beth asked.
"Well," said Quin with a shrug. "I thought maybe, since we're sharing all these secrets and all, maybe I'll just hang out with you for a bit. If it's okay."
Beth watched her budgie admire his plumage as well as he could. "You know what?" she said. "You're all right, Quinton Weasley."
"Thanks, Bee," he said, grinning. "You're quite all right yourself."
oO0Oo
"I don't feel well."
"You're awake?"
"I think so."
"You're probably all right, then."
"Seriously, I can't move my head."
"Oh. Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"It might go away after a while."
"Has this ever happened to you?"
"Er, maybe. I can't remember."
"Hell. You've been in here a bloody long time, haven't you?"
"Must have been."
"You know, when we were in school, I would have laughed my head off if I knew this would happen to you."
"Well, you were sort of horrible."
"Still am."
"Are you fishing for compliments?"
"No. Stating the truth. Ow."
"Can you move now?"
"Barely."
"Draco?"
"Ow. Yes?"
"… What am I going to do? About… you know. About Lestrange?"
"…Not think about it?"
"Bloody hell. She should have killed me first."
"Hey, I'm with you. Is this what you've been brooding about for weeks?"
"What do you think?"
"It might not have been, you know, planned."
"Don't be naïve. Voldemort had in on this. We might think he just lets the two of them get on with it, but someone has to talk to those bloody snakes so they bite when they're told. They don't speak English."
"This is somewhat more serious than the snakes, though."
"That's what I'm saying."
"I so can't come up with a solution right now. My head's banging."
"What happened?"
"I think I bumped it on the floor. I don't remember anyone doing anything specific to it."
"Oh, well thanks for getting me all worried for nothing."
"Never mind. I had two years in here before they kill me, and it can't be that much yet because it feels like five, so it can only be one and a half."
"Don't talk like that."
"Why not? We both know it's going to happen. I just accepted it a long time ago, that's all."
oO0Oo
"We've got fifteen minutes before lunch, still," said Quin when they finally stood outside the classroom. "Let's go see your Mr. Jenson."
Beth, despite her earlier admittance that Quin Weasley might not be so bad after all, still wasn't sure how comfortable she was with the idea of taking Quin to see Mark. Mark might get the wrong idea, he might think she was showcasing him for all her friends, he might not even want to see her, let alone this boy he'd never met. A nasty voice in the back of her mind reminded her of Quin's inane talent for charming almost everyone into liking him in about ten minutes, but she warned him anyway.
"If he doesn't want me there, I'll leave," he reasoned. "I'm not a snoop."
Of course you're not, Beth wanted to say, but didn't, because he wasn't really being mean, just stupid. "Fine," she said instead. "I don't suppose you have another shortcut down to the second floor?"
He shook his head. "Lazy."
"I am not. I just hate walking. Especially up and down stairs. Not as much as running, though. What about the thing we used to get up here? Can we use it to get down?"
Quin seemed to think about it for a moment, before he beckoned and led her back to the portrait from behind which they'd emerged not an hour earlier. "Open it," he said.
"Excuse me?" said the portrait, looking very disapprovingly down at them.
"I wasn't talking to you," said Quin.
Beth stuck her fingers behind the frame and tried to tug it away from the wall. When she felt that she'd spent enough energy on an apparently pointless task, she gave up. "It's stuck on."
"You can't get in except through the mirror," Quin explained. "It goes anywhere in the castle, but there's only that one way in. Well, there's supposed to be two entrances, but I've never found the other one. I think it'll be something stupid – I mean, the mirror's pretty obvious, isn't it? Hunking great mirror on a dead end? But I think it's one of those things where you can't find it unless you already know where it is."
Beth thought about that. "How did you find the mirror then?" she asked.
Quin shrugged. "Someone told me."
"Who?"
"One of my cousins. I don't which. They all tell me stuff, I dunno."
To Beth's disappointment, they started to walk towards the stairs. "How many cousins do you have?" she asked, to take her mind off it.
"Twenty-six," he said. "Mostly second cousins, though."
"Wow."
"Yeah. I'm lucky to be the only Weasley at Hogwarts – there's usually at least two – actually, now I think about it, it was probably Fred or George that told me about the mirror. They run the joke shop on Diagon Ally, you know?"
"Isn't that shut down?"
"Yeah, because of the war. I don't know much about it, though."
"Oh."
It took a good seven minutes to reach the second floor and another two to walk all the way along to the Gryffindor Room where Mr. Jenson lived.
"Okay," said Beth, putting one hand on the handle. "Ready?"
Quin nodded. He finally looked a bit nervous, which made Beth feel in control for the first time since she'd magicked her sparrow. Taking a deep breath, she slowly opened the door.
oO0Oo
Harry opened the door to Mark Jenson's house with a sinking heart. The hallway was dark and lined with cobwebs, the pictures on the walls completely obscured by dust. A shiver ran up his spine. The man standing beside him made a disgusted noise. "Are you sure you're all right to stay here tonight, Mr. Jenson?" he asked.
Harry wasn't too clear on what the man's job was – he seemed to be some kind of estate agent. "Yes, thank you," Harry said.
"Very well," said the man, as if to say rather you than me. "You will check in with the hospital tomorrow, won't you?" You don't look well."
I don't feel well, he thought. He waited until the man had walked back up the overgrown path to the gate and Disapparated before he turned back into the house and shut the door.
He felt he owned it to Mr. Jenson to at least save some of the things in the house, especially since he'd taken on the poor man's identity without asking. He supposed he wasn't much better than Barty Crouch in that respect.
That might have to wait, however. First the whole place needed cleaning, and for that he'd need a wand, or at least some hired help. He needed money. He tried to think what would have happened to his money – or rather, to all his things. He'd had a will, hadn't he? Yes, Dumbledore had helped him write it as soon as he turned seventeen – 'just in case'. That had been a fun afternoon. What had he written in it?
There were things he knew he had forgotten. Saying goodbye to Ron at the rock-fall could not have been the end of what had happened in the Chamber of Secrets. He vaguely recalled getting some kind of award for what had happened…
He strained his mind. Darkness flooded in on all sides as it always did when he tried to remember the things Ynys Addoed had stolen from him. The things Lestrange had stolen from him.
Come on, he whispered inwardly. You're in the light, now. Remember.
He remembered Hedwig.
He stumbled, and found himself suddenly kneeling on the dusty wooden floor of the hall. Hedwig.
The memories of her resurfaced one by one, slicing into his brain like dull knives. He clapped his hands to his ears as if he could slow the tide, but it didn't work – he'd begged for these memories as he sat in the dark, waiting for them to return, and now they assaulted him with all their fury.
He cried out.
oO0Oo
At first glance, the Gryffindor room appeared to be empty, even unused. The bed was perfectly made, the curtains were pulled shut over the window, there were no clothes or possessions in sight. It was dark and creepy, and Beth had a tickly feeling on the back of her neck.
"Where is he?" Quin asked loudly.
"Shh," Beth hissed. "He's not here, let's go."
Quin didn't move. "He can't still be with those Aurors, can he?" he said. "That was ages ago."
Suddenly, Beth saw something. A silvery flicker caught her eye, and she was sure she'd caught a glimpse of movement from behind the bed.
"Hello?" she called, cautiously. "Mr. Je – er, Mark?"
"Fraid not," said a voice, making both of them jump. A ghost walked out from behind the post, arms folded across his chest.
It wasn't like any ghost Beth had ever seen. He was quite young – or at least, had been when he died – perhaps in his early twenties. He was wearing an open Muggle shirt and trousers, both sporting several holes and tears. His boots looked well-made, and intact. The buttons glinted.
His hair was streaked with the same silvery substance that permanently stained the Bloody Baron, and some of it made rivulets down his arms and between his fingers. But the way he stood, and the way he stared at them defiantly, made him seem as though he was the sort of ghost who wasn't supposed to be dead. It was very hard to get her head around this concept.
"What are you staring at?" asked the ghost.
"You," said Quin. "Who are you?"
"Who are you?" the ghost retorted.
"I'm Quinton Weasley and this is Beth Green," Quin answered, ignoring Beth's elbow digging into his side.
"A Weasley," the ghost sneered. "I should have known. You're not Ron Weasley's brother or son or anything like that, are you?"
"Ron's my second cousin," Quin replied, just as haughtily. "My father's Xavier Weasley, you know, he owns Xavier Quills. Who's yours?"
The ghost looked slightly taken-aback by this, but recovered quickly. "Nice try," he said, raising one eyebrow. He looked at Beth. "You were here before."
"Yes," said Beth, before Quin could get even more pompous. "Do you know where Mr. Jenson is, sir?"
"No idea," said the ghost, looking suddenly annoyed. "I'll catch up with him before long if he goes too far, though. Nice of him to tell me he was going to be gone for hours."
"Why did he leave?"
"He said he was going flying. It seemed like a pretty stupid idea to me, but he never listens to me."
"You know him?" Beth asked.
"Of course. I'd like to have seen him get here without me, put it that way."
"But how did he get out?" she cried in desperation.
The ghost laughed. "Out the door, I think. Why?"
"But it was locked!" Beth argued, before her heart sank suddenly into her stomach. "Oh no! I didn't lock it again last night after I left!"
"Well done, Miss Green," the ghost mocked her, sounding so much like Professor Snape that Beth shuddered.
"Leave her alone," Quin snapped. "You still haven't told us who you are, anyway."
"Probably because you're both do-gooder Gryffindors who poke their noses into things that are none of their business," said the ghost, coldly. He turned his head to look out of the window. "Where is he?"
"Maybe he is still with those Aurors," Quin said to Beth.
"What?" said the ghost.
"Let's go," said Quin, grabbing Beth's arm.
"Wait!" the ghost yelled after them. "What about Aurors?"
"Why should we tell you?" sniffed Quin. "We're just do-gooder Gryffindors, right?"
The ghost sighed. "Fine," he said. "I take it back."
"No," said Quin. "Tell us who you are."
The ghost rolled his eyes. "I'm Harry Potter."
Silence.
"No you're not," said Quin.
"Your look-out if you don't believe me," shrugged the ghost. "Your information now, if you please."
Quin glared. "We saw Mr. Jenson in the Entrance Hall with three Aurors, ok? Maybe an hour ago. That's it. Now tell us the truth."
"Sorry," said the ghost. "Got another appointment." He grinned, gave them a flippant three-fingered salute, and whooshed upwards and through the ceiling. The two students stared after him.
"Let's get out of here," said Quin.
oO0Oo
7. Making Budgies – I Like Birds - Eels