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Chapter Six—Secret Meetings

"This is the place that Curtis is supposed to meet us?"

Golden curled his neck into half a heart shape and bobbed his head up and down. Harry looked around, a bit nervous. They were close enough to Ravenclaw Tower that someone could run into them if they were patrolling, like a prefect, or coming back from the library.

But a minute later, Medwyn's peacock came hurrying into sight, his tail drooping and his neck bowed. Harry felt a stab of pity. He glanced at Golden. "What did he want to tell us that he didn't want his wizard to overhear?"

Golden spoke softly to Curtis, flicking his tail and gesturing back and forth with his head. A few of the things he said were in Parseltongue, but not many. Harry glanced up sharply when he heard something down the corridor.

The sound didn't repeat, though. Harry turned back to Curtis and Golden when Golden hissed softly at him.

"He says that his wizard's family is researching using their familiars as vessels."

Harry blinked. "Vessels for what?"

"Curtis doesn't know. Medwyn always hides the books when he comes near. He doesn't want Curtis and the rest reading over his shoulder. Curtis only heard the word 'vessels' a few times. He doesn't even know for sure if it's negative."

"It sounds negative to me," Harry said firmly. "It sounds kind of like some of the things I heard about people using their familiars as tools."

Golden lowered his head so that he could flick his tongue out and gently touch Curtis's clawed feet. The peacock stopped dancing up and down, and relaxed a little. "It sounds negative to me as well. But once again we have only a suspicion and not much to go on. Perhaps we could search for the word 'vessels' in books in the library."

Harry nodded. Then he turned around because there was another noise from down the corridor. This time, it sounded like someone was almost running towards them. Curtis leaped up and fluttered down towards the dungeons.

"Golden? Can you hide me, like you did before?"

Harry spoke almost instinctively in Parseltongue, and he heard Golden's delighted hiss as he wrapped himself around Harry's legs. "Yes. Hold still and try to think sneaky thoughts."

"Like what?"

"Shadows. Breezes. Mice."

Harry closed his eyes and thought as hard as he could of breezes, and the way they would blow through your hair, and sometimes you didn't notice them until it was too late and the breeze was past, and the shadows in corridors in Hogwarts that no one ever walked—

Magic rose up around them, sparkling white through Harry's eyelids. It was the same magic Golden had used to hide them when they were walking through the school from the Hufflepuff common room to Ravenclaw Tower. Harry felt as though someone was sparking things through his body, playing him like a keyboard Dudley had once had.

"It is done."

Harry opened his eyes confidently. He knew that no one would hear their Parseltongue or their English as long as the magic was wrapped around them, either. It felt like standing in the middle of a cool block of mist that moved with them.

The person running up the corridor was a black-haired Ravenclaw girl with a long-legged copper dog trotting behind her. She muttered something as she rushed past Harry that sounded impolite. Well, if her familiar couldn't keep her invisible, Harry supposed that she was kind of entitled to be upset.

"Why is your magic so different from other familiars'?" Harry asked quietly as they came down the last set of stairs. "Is it really just your color?"

Golden was quiet himself, but Harry didn't think he was going to refuse to say anything. He was just thinking about the best way to explain it. And he did it, once they were back in the Hufflepuff common room and sitting in front of the fire.

"The magic that sends us to wizards—that isn't the right word, but let's say it is for right now—knows what they need. We become the kind of animal and the color that's right for their life." Golden lifted his head so that Harry was looking into his face. "But we also help our wizards learn magic because of the way we grow up with them. I think a lot of the other wizards who grew up in this world have their magic limited by their imagination."

Harry frowned at him. "That doesn't make sense."

"They know that their parents need their wands to cast spells, so they think they do, too. The more intense ways of working with familiars aren't visible to everyone, and they only happen for some adults as they grow up. But you grew up in the Muggle world. You didn't know everything that was possible or impossible. So you and I did magic that was instinctive and what you needed at the time."

Harry nodded, thinking about the time Golden had turned his uncle's car into a donkey to prevent Harry from being hit. "So everyone could learn to do magic like ours if they just thought about it and believed it was possible?"

"It would need time and training, or untraining. But yes, they might be able to."

Harry sighed. "So I suppose that's something else we have to do, in addition to finding out how to help Songleaper and stop Voldemort and upend the hierarchy."

"We can work on it more in the morning." Golden reared up enough that he could nudge Harry's hand. "For now, go to bed so that you don't fall asleep in the chair in front of the fire like last time."

"Thank you for coming to see me, Mr. Medwyn."

"I hope that I can help you, Headmistress, and then return to the Ministry. Honestly, I can't spare that much time away from it with my familiar missing."

Minerva studied Logan Medwyn carefully as he sat in the chair across from her. He was a slim man with a heavy jaw that he looked as if he thrust out in front of him often. He had flat blue eyes, and Minerva could see from the bristling fur on Malkin's back that her familiar didn't care for him. She soothed Malkin to stillness next to her and drew out a sheet of Albus's notes, trying to ignore how strange it was to talk to someone who didn't have an animal sitting next to him.

"I discovered some notes left behind by the former Headmaster when I took over this office," Minerva said, and laid out the notes that detailed Medwyn and his jackrabbit. "Can I ask you to look over them? These mention your name."

"What? And Songleaper's?" Medwyn leaned forwards. "That's ridiculous! I certainly never had a private conversation with the Headmaster that would warrant this kind of extensive note-taking. I barely even got into trouble as a student!"

"I don't think Albus took notes just on students that he had private conversations with. He seemed to take an intense interest in almost everyone who came through Hogwarts. Can you tell me if the last line is true?"

Medwyn turned the paper and then barked derisive laughter. "Certainly not, Headmistress! The Hat never considered me for any House but Slytherin. For the Headmaster to say that I didn't seem like I belonged there…it's ridiculous."

Minerva nodded. "I suspect that perhaps some of this was Albus getting more senile in his old age."

"He would have to be, to use spreading magic on people to try and control them."

The conversation with Medwyn didn't last much longer after that. He had no valuable insights to offer, and he also didn't seem like the sort of evil incarnate that Minerva thought a wizard would have to be to make his familiar leave him. She stood up to escort him to the door out of the office, frowning to herself.

Medwyn bent double before they'd gone far, coughing so hard that Minerva cast a diagnostic spell without thought. If he had some kind of disease, she wanted to know so that she might prevent it from spreading to the students.

But the charm didn't show the congestion in the lungs or chest that Minerva had expected from the sounds he was making. Instead, it made shiny strands of light appear, wrapping his back and hands like an insect's carapace. Minerva stared.

"What did you do to me?" Medwyn was backing away from her, his eyes narrowed and his hands raised defensively. He dug in his pocket for his wand.

"A diagnostic charm. I thought you were sick."

"I'm not!" Medwyn flicked his wand, and the gleaming blue-black strands disappeared. "And I'll thank you to not try anything like that on me in the future." He gave her a sharp glance and disappeared down the stairs.

Minerva sent Malkin to escort the man, just so he wouldn't "accidentally" wander into a place he wasn't supposed to be, and then turned towards the corner where Songleaper had concealed himself. The jackrabbit leaped out and stared at her desperately.

"That has something to do with why you're so desperate to leave him, doesn't it? But nothing to do with exam results?"

Songleaper bobbed his head, then shook it. Minerva felt her eyes narrow. "It has to do with both?"

Songleaper sat up and stamped down with one of his hind feet. Minerva looked at him thoughtfully. That was the most animated he had been since she had met him, and Harry and Severus had described him as quiet and docile.

"Is there any way that you can tell me what has happened?" she asked quietly. "Or perhaps I can begin to guess?'

Songleaper hesitated only once, long enough to make Minerva think he was going to retreat back into the corner where he had hidden, but then he sat up with his paws clasped in front of him and looked at her intently. Minerva asked, "Does it have to do with the Forbidden Arts?"

His ears flopped fiercely as he nodded again. Minerva winced. "Why—no, that's no good, not if I can only ask you yes or no questions. All right. Would I find an answer to what kind of Forbidden Arts your wizard performed in books?"

Songleaper turned and jumped onto her desk. For a moment, as he hurried across towards the shelves, Minerva thought he might actually point out of one of Albus's books, and held her breath. But instead, he halted and stomped his foot down again.

On top of the ledger full of Albus's notes that she had shown to Medwyn.

Minerva stared at it, then back at Songleaper. "But I've been all through there," she said, feeling stupid and annoyed at the same time. The door opened behind her and Malkin strolled through, and Minerva reached down to stroke his fur. "There's no mention of the Forbidden Arts, except that sometimes Albus thought someone was using them. There's no mention of that with Medwyn."

Songleaper turned around and stomped on the ledger again and again. Minerva shook her head. "I'll read it, but there's no mention of any reaction to the diagnostic charm like your wizard had, either."

Songleaper seemed to think he had done all that was necessary. He leaped off the desk and into a corner, where he started to groom his ears.

Malkin gave a light growl. Yesterday, that would still have intimidated Songleaper, who was, after all, a prey animal. Now he twitched his whiskers forwards and looked as if he would like to come out of the corner and kick Malkin.

"Peace," Minerva said sharply, feeling oddly as if she was mediating between Gryffindor students.

Songleaper went back to combing his ears. Malkin chose to turn and groom one of his hind legs in response, as if to demonstrate his complete superiority to a mere tin jackrabbit.

Minerva spent the next ten minutes rattling the ledger Albus had left, turning it around, casting spells on it, prying under the pages, and otherwise trying to make sure that she hadn't missed something that Albus had left hidden in the book. But in the end, she had to sit down in front of her desk and admit the far more likely possibility that Songleaper was saying the notes Albus had left behind were similar in some ways to the spells that Medwyn must have performed.

She couldn't see how.

I need a new perspective, Minerva decided, and began to write down things that she wanted Severus, Quirinus, and—perhaps—Amelia Bones to look into.