*
Author's Note: the characters of the Harry Potter novels are the property
of their creator, J.K. Rowling, and are used here without her knowledge
or permission. All other characters property of the author, with the exceptions
of Becca Morgan and her parents, who are themselves. November 2001. 35,000
words.
*
For Becca, with love.
*
Chapter Four – Turtle Teacher
Classes began the following morning,
and the moment Harry awoke, he knew it wasn't going to be the best of days.
First, he couldn't find his books. They had been in the trunk, packed away
still in their wrappers from Flourish & Blotts, but when he opened
the trunk, they were gone.
Unwilling to believe it, he tore
everything out. Clothes, Series II trading cards, and leftover candy went
flying in all directions. The case of quills and ink that Hermione had
given him for his birthday was still there, and the scrapbook from Sirius,
but every textbook was gone.
"Come on, Harry, you'll miss breakfast,"
Neville said, his hair still wet around the edges from his morning dunk
that passed for a washing.
"My books!" Harry exclaimed, waving
at the now-empty trunk.
"Where?"
"Nowhere! That's what's the matter!"
By now, this had attracted the
attention of the other boys. Ron peered over Harry's shoulder.
"They're gone, all right."
Harry looked fiercely at each
of them to see if they were in on some prank. But he saw only innocent
confusion in their eyes.
"I can't show up in class without
my books," he said. "What's first?"
"Potions," Ron said sourly. "With
Slytherin."
"Oh, no," Harry groaned. "Snape
will kill me. And it would just have to be in front of Slytherin, wouldn't
it?"
"What could have happened to your
books?" Neville wondered. "I'm always losing mine, which is why Gran bought
me this satchel." He held up a truly awful tartan bookbag with brass clasps
shaped like faces. No sooner had his hand closed around the handle than
the faces animated.
"Don't forget your books!" they
screeched like raspy hinges.
"They were here!" said Harry sharply.
"I didn't lose them. Someone must have …"
He stopped, remembering the park.
His unseen adversary must have struck again, somewhere between Diagon Alley
and Hogwarts.
Ron knew just what he was thinking.
"Kind of a funny way to strike out at you, though, isn't it?"
"Isn't it?" Harry grabbed his
other school supplies. "I'll lose points for not having my books, and how
am I supposed to do my homework?"
"Here, I know!" said Seamus brightly.
"Ravenclaw doesn't have Potions until this afternoon, double with Hufflepuff.
Borrow a book, and you can switch at lunch."
"That might work," Harry said.
"But I'd more like to have mine back, and know who took them."
From below came the sounds of other Gryffindors stampeding out of the
secret door. Feeling very unsettled without his books, Harry tagged along
with Ron at the rear of the line.
They came to the Great Hall for
breakfast, seeing that Becca and Hermione were already there. They both
seemed in good spirits, and both noticed Harry's downcast expression at
once. The revelation that he'd lost his books – "Not lost!" Harry protested
uselessly – horrified Hermione.
"You simply have to take better
care of your things, Harry."
"I didn't lose them," he said
for what felt like the hundredth time. His appetite was gone, his stomach
a shrunken sack. Every time he thought of the long flight of narrow steps
to the dungeon, and Snape's response when he heard, it got even smaller,
until it was a miserable little knot. He pushed eggs and toast around his
plate, nibbling.
"So tell the teacher," Becca said.
She was eating a bowl of cereal, not porridge but crunchy colored rings
in milk, and one look at the kippers had made her wrinkle her nose. Quicksilver,
on the other hand, found fish a perfectly acceptable dish for breakfast.
"Tell Professor McGonagall."
"Oh, he couldn't," said Ron. "She'd
rip him to pieces."
"Better than getting ripped to
pieces by every teacher," Becca said reasonably. "At least once she was
done, she'd probably give you a note."
Harry looked at Professor McGonagall,
stirring her tea and nodding as she listened to Professor Dumbledore. "Worth
a try, I guess."
Conversation waned as owls swept
in with the morning post. Letters and parcels rained down into the students'
hands. As usual, Neville received a large box of everything he'd forgotten.
Ron's copy of the Daily Prophet fell smack into Harry's uneaten
eggs, with the headline reading: "Aversion Spell Baffles Muggles." He snatched
it up.
"Listen to this! It says the Ministry
analyzed the spell and it was a short-term, set up just that day. It must
have been there to stop me, I just know it!"
He and his friends pored over
the rest of the article, but the Ministry didn't have any suspects and
were officially writing it off as an accident, although it would be kept
in the active file.
"Accident," scoffed Hermione.
"It says they're still investigating,"
Ron said defensively.
When the meal was done, Harry
gathered his nerve and approached. "Professor? Could I have a word, just
for a minute?"
"With the first class of the new
term about to begin?" she inquired. "Whatever could be so important, Potter?"
"My books … they're gone."
This brought her to a halt.
"I had them in my trunk," Harry
rushed on, "but now they're gone."
"I wouldn't have expected carelessness
of you, Potter."
"It wasn't him," came a voice,
as Becca Morgan stepped up.
McGonagall's trademark glare,
turned to its lowest wattage, fixed on the American girl. "Is that so,
Miss Morgan?"
Becca was undaunted. Guts like
that, Harry thought, it was no wonder she'd been Sorted into Gryffindor.
"I think someone's got it in for Harry. And me, too."
"What?" Harry turned to her in
astonishment.
"I got this." She held up an envelope
that had been delivered by owl. A plain piece of paper was inside, written
on with bold black ink. It read: Stay away from DADA if you know what's
good for you. Tell Potter too. Or else.
"Stay away from DADA?" Harry read.
"But why?"
Professor McGonagall was not amused.
"We don't take kindly to pranks at Hogwarts, Miss Morgan."
"It's not a prank!"
"I'm well aware that in your pre-testing
before Professor Dumbledore agreed to this exchange student business, the
subject that gave you the most difficulty was Defense Against the Dark
Arts. But trying to duck out of a class and avoid something that's going
to challenge you is not the way we do things here. I don't know what you
were taught in your American schools, but at Hogwarts, we face our challenges
bravely, and if we fail, we do so with good graces."
With that, she passed them in
a swirl of emerald-green robes, and Becca stared after her, open-mouthed.
"I … she thinks … I didn't! Okay, maybe the Defense Against the Dark Arts
test was hard, but I'm not trying to get out of it!"
"I believe you," said Harry. "Someone
wants to keep us both out of that class."
"But why? I never even knew who
you were until last night." On her arm, Quicksilver hissed, upset, his
tail lashing like a whip.
"Maybe we can find out this afternoon."
"What's this afternoon?"
"Divination," Harry said.
They hurried down to Potions,
where Snape took a point from Gryffindor for each of them for being late,
and another five for Harry not being prepared. He knew it was just Snape
being heartless, but if each of his teachers did that, he could put their
House into the negatives by suppertime.
After that, the Potions lesson
went downhill. Neville had some trouble crushing his springworms, since
every time he pressed one down to crush it, his spoon would slip and the
springworm would bound high into the air. One sailed up and over and slithered
down the back of Hermione's robe, and her resulting squeal made Ron jerk,
spilling his nearly completed potion onto Dean Thomas, who promptly became
as insubstantial as any ghost and sank through the floor.
His panicked, muffled, ghostly
yells for help drifted up to them, and Snape finally had to take a potion
himself to go fetch him back. Later, shaking, Dean told them that Filch
wasn't lying about how they used to give detention in a torture chamber.
He'd seen it, he said, skeletons on the rack or hanging from manacles,
still in the rags of moldering robes.
The day could only improve after
that. Professor Flitwick didn't mind the absence of Harry's book, since
the Charms teacher primarily used them for standing on. Professor McGonagall,
still tight-lipped over what she believed was Harry's carelessness and
Becca's prank, mellowed somewhat when the two of them were first to successfully
Transfigure their chairs into small, prancing horses. They even outmatched
Hermione at that one, when her horse still had a cushion in place of a
saddle.
The last class of the day was
Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Harry could tell Becca was as nervous
as he was. They hesitated at the door.
"I guess we don't know what's
good for us," Becca said. "What do you think it meant by 'or else'?"
Harry shook his head and shrugged.
With no other choice, they went in and took their seats. Professor Winterwind
was already there. His smile kept flickering on and off like a broken neon
sign. He had a box on his desk, and once everyone was settled, reached
into it and brought out a turtle.
A ripple of disappointment crossed
the room. This was Defense Against the Dark Arts, of course, and in previous
years they'd learned about some really frightening, dangerous things. A
turtle … that was even worse than the time Gilderoy Lockhart had sprung
a bunch of pixies on them.
"No, no, no," Winterwind said
when someone voiced this opinion. "The turtle is our lesson. Our role model.
Watch what happens when he's threatened."
He put the turtle, which was about
the size of a tea saucer, on the desk and clapped his hands smartly right
in front of its nose. The turtle reacted instantly, tucking its head and
limbs into its glossy green shell.
"You see?" asked Winterwind.
The students glanced around at
each other, unsure what to say.
"The turtle," Winterwind said
in exasperation, "uses his shell to shield himself from any danger. No
matter the threat, his response is the same. He draws in and hides. Watch."
The little green animal had emerged
cautiously, but when Winterwind held a wizard photo of a crocodile in front
of it, the poor thing once more retreated.
More glances were exchanged. They
understood his point, but no one knew what to do with it.
"The turtle will be our example,"
he said. "I'm going to teach you the Great Ward. Does anyone know what
the Great Ward is?"
Hermione, who had been looking
bored beyond belief, suddenly sat up straight with her eyes dancing. Her
hand shot into the air.
"Miss … um …" he paused and consulted
a seating chart. "Granger."
"A Great Ward is a blocking spell
impervious to any sort of magical energy. It takes the form of a visible
sphere surrounding the caster or the subject."
"Very good. Now, the key to casting
a Great Ward isn't in the strength, but the speed with which it's done.
A Ward that comes up too late is of no good to anyone --"
Her hand was still up.
"Yes, Miss Granger?"
"Um … pardon me, Professor, but
shouldn't we learn the Lesser Ward first?"
Winterwind smiled feebly and laughed
a shaky, tittering laugh. "Ha-ah-ha, what's this, you mean you haven't?"
"No," said the class.
"Oh, oh dear, that is a complication."
He chewed on the ball of his thumb, his eyes darting around as if seeking
escape. He laughed again. "Hah-hee-ha, but really, looking around, I see
such an intelligent, advanced class, I think we can skip that and get right
to the good stuff, don't you? I think you can handle it, don't you agree?"
Hermione frowned, but the rest
were loudly assuring Professor Winterwind that they were indeed ready to
tackle the harder spell. He seemed incredibly relieved to hear it, and
proceeded to instruct them in the basic casting motions of the Great Ward.
It consisted of clenching one's fist in just the right way, which Winterwind
said was critical. He moved among them, evaluating and correcting their
fist clenching.
Harry spent the entire class in
an agony of expectation, sure that something hideous was going to happen
at any minute. Nothing did. By the time the final bell of the day rang,
he had demonstrated to Winterwind's satisfaction that he could clench his
fist properly – better than Ron, who kept holding his as if aching to pop
Draco Malfoy in the eye, or Neville, who kept putting his thumb on the
inside, or Lavender, who Seamus teased made fists like a girl. Lavender,
unamused, showed him that she could use her fist to perfectly good measure,
whether made like a girl or not. Seamus, his nose bleeding, had to hurry
off to see Madame Pomfrey before dinner.
"How'd you like that?" Ron asked
when they were at the table. "A turtle. That's going to be his whole idea
of defense, you know. Duck and cover. We'll spend the whole term practicing
that spell, see if I'm wrong."
"I don't think you are," said
Hermione. "Reginald Winterwind is famous for his Great Ward. That's well
and good, but we shouldn't be jumping ahead like that. And what about Counterspells?
Better to Counter a Dark spell than just deflect it and let it go bouncing
off who knows where."
"What are you talking about?"
asked Harry.
"Watch," said Becca.
She took a bowl that had one last
crescent roll in it, removed the roll, and flipped the bowl upside down
before it could magically refill. Munching on the crescent roll, she asked
Neville to pass the olives. He gave her the dish and she plucked one out,
holding it up.
"It's an olive," said Ron.
"No, it's a Dark spell," said
Becca. "And the bowl is you, with your Great Ward up."
"That'd be a pain," he said, tapping
on the bowl. "I couldn't see a thing."
"Which is one of the problems
with the Great Ward," said Hermione. "Once you're inside, you're cut off.
Can't see, can't hear, can't anything, until it drops."
Becca rolled the olive between
her thumb and forefinger. "Okay, here comes the big bad Dark wizard with
a curse. Ready, Ron?"
"Ready."
She threw the olive at the bowl
hard as she could. It struck the bowl, bounced off, and hit Harry on the
chin. He recoiled as it fell into his lap and from there to the floor.
Quicksilver darted after it, proving how he got his name as he was a blurry
silver streak. He reappeared a second later, chewing.
"Well, but I'm safe, right?" asked
Ron.
"Yeah," Becca said. "But what
about Harry?"
"I'm a goner." He took a bite
of bread.
"Noooo, Harry," came the doleful
tones of Professor Trelawney from behind him.
He nearly fell out of his seat
trying to spin around and back away all at the same time. The Divination
teacher was right there – a trick that usually belonged to Snape – and
she was brimming with tears as she looked at him. Harry tried to swallow
the wad of bread that had stuck in his throat. At first it wouldn't go
down and he thought that this was it, the death she'd been waiting for,
he was going to choke on a piece of bread here in the Great Hall and she
wanted to get a ringside seat as he turned blue. Then he gulped it down.
"Sorry, Professor?"
"You poor, dear thing," she said
sorrowfully. "You've glimpsed something of the dark times ahead, haven't
you? I wasn't going to say anything, since I know what a terrible burden
foreknowledge can be – oh! how I know it! – but as you're already aware,
I thought it might help for you to know."
"Know what?" Ron asked, for which
Harry could have cheerfully kicked him.
"Pain! Misery! Suffering!" moaned
Professor Trelawney.
"Perfect," said Harry. "How am
I going to die this time?"
"No, my poor Harry, you don't
understand. It's not you that will be stricken. It's you --" she looked
from him to Becca, "—and you, poor girl, who will bring the suffering
on another!" Here, she was about to break down completely, tears welling
in her eyes. "I tried to warn her! I tried to do the right thing, but sometimes
the future is set and cannot be changed. Oh, alas!"
By now, half the room was watching,
and Professor McGonagall was hurrying their way in hopes of quelling a
further outburst. But Trelawney, with a huge watery sigh, wheeled and dashed
off in a jangle of gypsy beads.
"What was that all about?" asked
Becca. "Is she for real?"
"Yeah," said Harry thoughtfully.
"But she usually overreacts."
"She looked pretty serious this
time," Ron said.
"It's all so silly, though," Hermione
said. "Don't listen to her. If you did, Harry, you would have been dead
six times by now."
"Right," Harry said, though the
nagging doubt remained
**
Continued in Chapter Five -- Open House
2001 / Christine Morgan / http://www.christine-morgan.org
/ christine@sabledrake.com |