*
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 Nine – The Human Howler
The matriarch Mrs. Longbottom looked
no less impressive now than on the other occasions Harry had seen her.
Perhaps more so, because he'd never seen her in the full fury of a rage
before. He cringed. Becca, not even needing to be told who she was, did
likewise. They hunkered low in their chairs at the mostly-empty Gryffindor
table, wishing for spells that would make them invisible or able to slip
quietly from the room. Even the potion with which Dean Thomas had had a
mishap back at the start of the term would have been good.
"Why, Mrs. Longbottom," began
Dumbledore, rising from his seat. "A pleasure to --"
"I demand to know what you intend
to do about this fiasco," she said, acidly and without preamble.
"I presume you are referring to
Neville's unfortunate … accident," Dumbledore said.
A few of the students tittered,
Professor Winterwind hid his head in his hands, and Harry and Becca sank
lower, studiously avoiding every gaze except each other's.
"Accident?" she spat. "You call
this an accident? A shamefully flagrant piece of negligence! A malicious
prank!"
"There may have been negligence
involved," admitted Dumbledore while Winterwind seemed to be imitating
Harry and Becca and sliding lower and lower in his chair. "The door to
the room should have been properly shut and secure, I grant you that. However,
it was an easily-understandable mistake."
"Look at my grandson!" she barked,
fanning her hands. A shimmery wedge-shaped window of light appeared above
them, showing a slightly distorted but otherwise clear view of the hospital
wing and of a bed, in which lay something roughly the size of a newborn
baby but quite a bit greener, wartier, and slimier. "Your nurse, whom I
was led to believe was capable, informs me that this is the best she can
do."
Harry stared at the lumpy Neville-thing,
feeling sick.
"Madame Pomfrey is attending the
situation as best she can," Dumbledore said. "True, that is the best she
can do for now, but she assures me that Neville will gradually revert to
his fully human form within a matter of weeks."
"That isn't good enough," Mrs.
Longbottom said. Her eyes flashed like sparks struck from flint. "We happened
to be having a very important family gathering over the holidays, relatives
coming from all around the world, and this … this mess … is entirely
unacceptable! I will have something done, and promptly."
Professor McGonagall stood beside
Dumbledore. "Undoing a Transfiguration spell of this nature cannot be rushed,
Mrs. Longbottom. For Neville's sake, we must be patient."
Ignoring her with magnificent
disdain, Mrs. Longbottom advanced on the high table. Most of the rest of
the teachers watched her come with the same frozen fascination they might
have had if they'd seen a tidal wave or a tornado bearing down on them.
Snape was concealing a cynical half-smile behind his hand, sharing it only
with Ophidia Winterwind, who looked as though this was all being put on
as entertainment for her benefit. Hagrid's eyes widened above his great
shock of a beard, perhaps expecting the oncoming witch to draw her wand
and start sizzling lightning bolts around the Hall. Professor Trelawney's
habitual expression of sad foreknowledge was deeper than ever.
"I specifically requested Neville's
transfer to another House in hopes of avoiding just such an incident as
this," Mrs. Longbottom said sternly to Dumbledore. "How many times since
the term began have I written you, expressing my concern? Each time, you
brushed me aside, and now look! Look at what's happened! I told you that
if my grandson remained in Gryffindor, something terrible would happen.
I had it on good authority!"
"That's right," murmured Trelawney.
"I warned her myself. I had to. I knew it probably wouldn't help but had
to at least try."
"But you couldn't be bothered,"
Mrs. Longbottom said, with nary a break, as if the Divination teacher hadn't
spoken. "You told me to put no stock in predictions, and that disrupting
the balance of a school House was never undertaken lightly! Well, what
do you have to say now? If you put no stock in predictions, Headmaster,
then clearly you put little stock in the qualifications of your teachers.
A fact that has never been more apparent than with the recent string of
blunderers you've hired to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts! A competent
instructor never would have let this happen!"
Winterwind was shaking all over.
Madame Hooch, seated next to him, reached out to give him a consoling pat
on the shoulder and he jumped like he was being attacked.
"Now, Charlotte," said Dumbledore
placatingly, but got no further.
"Don't you 'now, Charlotte,' me,
Albus Dumbledore! You know me far too well for that!" She was right in
front of him now, only the table separating them, and wagging her finger
in his face.
Hagrid started to get up, and
she stopped him with such a look that the towering gamekeeper dropped meekly
into his chair. Harry was astounded. He'd known Hagrid for years and knew
that Hagrid loved nothing better than confronting the fiercest of monsters
face to face, never seeing the danger that was so apparent to everyone
else. When it came to a creature of this nature, though, he was as helpless
as any of the rest of them might have been in the clutches of the largest
spider in the Forbidden Forest.
"I hardly think this needs airing
in front of all the school," Professor McGonagall said.
Again, it was as if she wasn't
even present.
"What's been done? What's been
done, I ask you? Has the teacher been disciplined? What of the students
directly responsible for my grandson's condition?"
Here, Harry and Becca would have
given anything to be under the table, but half the people were looking
at them, everyone at the Slytherin table with unconcealed glee.
"Have they been sent home in disgrace?"
Mrs. Longbottom wasn't shouting, wasn't roaring, but her voice rang throughout
the Great Hall so strongly that it seemed to make the roofbeams shake.
Quicksilver, wanting no part of this, slipped away through the door to
the owlery although the drake was not terribly welcome by the feathery
messengers. "Are they in detention? Have they been restricted to their
dormitories to think on their actions?"
Dumbledore opened his mouth and
Mrs. Longbottom ran right over him. She whirled, the hem of her robe flaring
like a bell, and leveled that same accusing finger at the Gryffindor table.
"No!" she cried out. "There they
sit! Stuffing themselves on cookies and cider as if they haven't a care
in the world!"
As it happened, the food hadn't
even appeared yet and neither Harry nor Becca had much of an appetite.
But they both flinched as guiltily as if she'd caught them with their mouths
crammed full of sweets. Miraculously, everyone seated near them had managed
to slide, scootch, or inch away, so that they were alone at the middle
of a long expanse of table, and might as well have had a spotlight pinning
them in harsh brilliance.
"While Neville," she went on relentlessly,
"lies in his bed of pain, his every movement agony, able to eat nothing
but pureed flies and drink nothing but swampwater!"
"We didn't mean to!" The words
exploded out of Becca's mouth like kernels of Snapcorn, surprising her
as much as Harry. "It was an accident, it was!"
"How dare you speak to me without
permission!" Mrs. Longbottom drew herself up to her full height, which
was still nowhere near Hagrid's but because he was in his chair and she
was on her feet, made her look nineteen feet tall.
"But she speaks the truth," Dumbledore
said. "It was indeed an accident." Behind the gold frames of his half-moon
spectacles, his eyes were full of reassurance for them.
"I've had my objections to certain
ways in which this school has been being run for quite some time now, Dumbledore."
Her attention returned to him, but Harry thought he'd always feel her stare,
and would have rather been back in the Chamber of Secrets eye to eye with
the basilisk.
"Charlotte --"
"I've kept my peace until now
but it hasn't been easy, oh, no, it hasn't been easy at all! From Neville's
first year, he's been regaling us all with stories of the escapades of
young Harry Potter here. While I can't say I'm surprised that James and
Lily Potter's son would be a scamp and a rules-flouter, I am shocked that
you'd allow it to go on this long. Shocked! What's more, you've rewarded
it! I'll never forget Neville coming home at the end of that first year,
so puffed with pride he nearly floated, to tell me how he had secured
the House Cup for Gryffindor. When I asked him how, he told me, still proud
of it, that you, you, Albus Dumbledore, had personally awarded him ten
points for fighting!"
"That's not how it was!" This
time, it was Harry's turn to have the words burst out unexpectedly, and
to make matters worse, he jumped up from his chair. "That's not how it
was at all! Neville got those points for being brave! For being willing
to stand up to us when …" He faltered as he realized there was no way to
make this sound good.
"So I've been aware of this from
the beginning," Mrs. Longbottom said. "I've said nothing, hoping it would
get better, but it's only gotten worse. The Chamber of Secrets, consorting
with criminals from Azkaban … the list goes on and on. Believe me, I have
nothing but the highest regard for Mr. Potter's early deeds and for taking
a stand against the Dark Arts, but he simply is not aware that not everyone
is as well-protected as he is! That others, impressionable others, will
watch him and get the wrong ideas, trying to emulate him. Wanting to be
just like him, when most are simply not suited for such a life! It's directly
because of him that my grandson is in the state he's in. Whether this incident
was accidental or not, the climate of permissiveness surrounding Harry
Potter is what ultimately led to it."
Snape, to Harry's dismay, was
nodding as if he'd felt that way all along. Professor McGonagall was fuming
so visibly that no one would have been shocked to see smoke coming from
her nose and ears. Professor Trelawney had her head down and was either
crying or laughing. Professor Winterwind was slumped, defeated. Hagrid
was grumbling into his beard, probably wishing he had Fluffy or one of
his other pets here to sic on Mrs. Longbottom. Fang the boarhound would
have taken one look and fled in the opposite direction, whining with his
tail between his legs.
Professor Dumbledore arched his
eyebrows. "Perhaps you're right, Charlotte."
"Perhaps?"
"The circumstances of Mr. Potter's
various and heroic deeds have led to a certain attitude of understanding
not always extended to most students. However, I would hardly call it permissive."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't."
This was finally too much for
Hagrid. "Here, now, yeh can't go talking teh him like that! Nor talking
'bout Harry like that, either. Yeh're making him out ter be some hell-raiser
who don't care fer anything but what he can get away with, and that's not
right! Everthing he's done, he's done trying ter help someone and do what's
right, even if it's dangerous. Not fer his own glory, so get that right
out of yer head too! I've been at Hogwarts fer over fifty years and I've
seem them come and go, and I'm telling yeh that if more did emulate
Harry, there'd be a lot fewer Dark wizards in the world and that's a fact!"
Touched as he was by this vehemently
heartfelt speech on his behalf, Harry was mortified too. Couldn't he ever
be just Harry? He didn't feel all that special, never had. That
was what he liked best about Becca. Although by now she'd heard all the
stories many times, going back to his confrontation with Voldemort when
he'd been only a year old, she still acted like he was just Harry. So did
Ron and Hermione and most of his other friends, but they'd all needed quite
a while to get used to it.
"Enough, thank you, Hagrid," said
Dumbledore. "Charlotte, I do understand your reasons and your concerns.
I assure you, I would much rather that circumstances had given us a peaceful,
placid few years here at Hogwarts. But the world is neither peaceful nor
placid now, and I for one have been most grateful for the help of Harry
Potter, his friends, and indeed all of our students in seeking to protect
this school and those within it."
"Yet you allow reckless spell-flinging
and fail to punish the miscreants," she retorted. "You ignore legitimate
warnings. I will have satisfaction! Since I was unable to prevent this
myself, I insist that there be fitting consequences. And if you won't provide
them, I shall."
Harry gasped. "Unable to prevent
… it was you! You were the one who cast the Aversion spell at the
park!"
She spared him a steely, glittering
glance.
"And you took my books!" Harry
added. "I saw you that day at Diagon Alley! You were going into the supply
store where they were found, just as I was coming out of Flourish &
Blotts!"
"Is this true, Charlotte?" inquired
Dumbledore.
"Yes, it is." She didn't back
down or look ashamed in the least. "I would never stoop to harming a fellow
wizard, even a student, without more pressing cause than this, but I did
hope to discourage him. I hoped that if he stayed away from Hogwarts, or
was held back or otherwise hampered by the missing books, Neville would
be safe."
"This is highly irregular," scowled
Dumbledore, holding out a hand to halt the livid Professor McGonagall.
"Why didn't you approach me?"
"When those means failed, I did.
Letter after letter until the feathers were all but worn off the wings
of my poor owl." She held herself stiffly, chin high. "You know for yourself
what your response to all of those letters was. Finally, as a last resort,
I decided that the only way to help Neville would be to get him out of
Gryffindor entirely. For all the good that did, it turns out."
"But how did you know something
like this would happen?" blurted Harry, and knew as soon as the question
was out. He looked at Professor Trelawney. "You told her!"
"I did," she confirmed with a
heaving sigh that guttered the candles in front of her. "I foresaw it over
the summer holiday and though I knew it wouldn't change a thing, felt I
had to warn one of my dear friends."
"We play wizard bridge," Charlotte
Longbottom tossed out absently, as if irritated by being referred to as
anyone's 'dear friend.'
Dumbledore motioned for quiet,
which was hardly necessary as, except for a few whisperings and the occasional
snicker, the Hall was utterly still so as no one would miss a word. Even
the silvery, glowing forms of the various ghosts had drifted in, drawn
by the commotion.
"I'm sure," Dumbledore said, "that
the students involved are most deeply sorry for the part they played in
these unfortunate events and will tender their apologies to Neville personally."
Harry and Becca nodded so fervently
they were lucky their heads didn't come unhinged like that of Nearly Headless
Nick. Mrs. Longbottom was looking like she was about to go off on another
rant and say she didn't want them anywhere near the hospital wing, or around
Neville, ever again for the next hundred years, but she held her tongue
for a change.
"However, as it was an accident,"
Dumbledore continued firmly, "I hardly think detention is necessary. Nor
do I think that my contacting the Ministry of Magic in reference to that
Aversion spell is necessary. Unless, Charlotte, you feel otherwise?"
For a moment, Harry thought she
was going to tell him to do it, that she'd take on the Ministry of Magic
and claim she was only doing what she had to in defense of her family.
But she grudgingly inclined her head, allowing Dumbledore to go on.
"As for Neville, I'm terribly
sorry that he won't be able to join you for Christmas, but I promise you,
he will have the best possible care here and should be back to normal by
the start of classes. But I am going to request that you allow him to return
to Gryffindor. At a time like this, a young fellow needs the support of
his friends."
Mrs. Longbottom made a face like
she'd just bitten into a sour-milk flavor Bean. Before she could reply,
Professor Trelawney piped up with an amazingly hopeful lilt. "The worst
is
past," she said brightly.
"Very well," Mrs. Longbottom said.
"Neville may return to Gryffindor."
A cheer rose from the scattered
students at that table, quickly subdued as they caught themselves and realized
this was no time to be making a lot of noise.
"But!" she added, "if anything
else happens to him, anything for which these bad influence classmates
are responsible, I shall have no recourse but to withdraw Neville from
Hogwarts entirely."
Harry gaped. Things happened to
Neville all the time. He brought most of them on himself, but Harry was
sure that all the blame would be pointed at him instead of Neville from
now on. He would have protested, if he'd thought it would do any good.
All he could do by speaking up now, though, would be to make things worse.
"I understand," said Dumbledore
gravely. "Will that settle everything to your satisfaction, Charlotte?"
"Well …" she said thoughtfully.
"Wait," came a shrill voice. Professor
Winterwind coughed. "Wait. Please. I think it would help enormously, on
all accounts, if I resigned."
"It would be the least you could
do," said Mrs. Longbottom, sounding magnanimous.
"Here, now," Professor McGonagall
sputtered. "Resign? Reginald, why? We've all agreed it was an accident."
"But it could have been avoided,"
he said. He couldn't look any of them in the eye. "I am so very honored
by your trust in me, Professor Dumbledore. I only wish it had been warranted.
I'm not the wizard you've believed me to be. I've Warded some Dark spells,
I'm good at that, I'll admit … but what the students have been saying is
true. It's the only thing I know. And I don't even know how I know it!"
"Yer not making any sense, man,"
said Hagrid gruffly.
"I was a terrible student," Winterwind
said. "But somehow, I've always been able to Ward. It's more like a … like
a knack than anything I ever learned. Since it's all I really know,
with any confidence, it's all I could try to teach. And look what it's
done. These promising young witches and wizards deserve better. None of
this would have happened if I had been able to teach them Counterspells,
or other defenses. I've been misleading you all. I'm no professor. Please,
Headmaster Dumbledore, accept my resignation."
"I am distressed you feel this
way, Reginald," said Dumbledore. "Are you certain?"
"Yes, sir. Yes, I am."
Madame Hooch exhaled in a disbelieving
snort and said to Hagrid, in what was probably meant to be an undertone
but could be clearly heard, "Bad enough we lose one every year, but this
is the first time one's only made it to the halfway point!"
Winterwind flinched. "I hate to
leave you in the lurch, sir, midway through the term and all, but if I
stay, I'll just be doing more harm than good."
"I'm sure," broke in Ophidia Winterwind
with a slow smile at Professor Dumbledore, "that someone else on the faculty
would be willing to take over the DADA lessons for the rest of the year."
Snape sat up straight and brushed
his lank hair back from his sallow face. His look of hopeful innocence
would have been out of place enough even had he not been the head of Slytherin
House, from whence all the most notorious Dark witches and wizards sprung.
It was as if he was trying very hard to project the mental image of a golden
halo shining above him.
Dumbledore and the other members
of the faculty exchanged a long glance. Hagrid was shaking his head in
short, sharp jerks. Professor Flitwick fidgeted, as if he was afraid that
they might ask him to take on the additional duties. McGonagall,
whose antipathy toward Snape had grown stronger as the rivalry between
Slytherin and Gryffindor deepened with each passing year, took a breath
and then held it, probably holding back several words on the subject as
well. Madame Hooch rolled her eyes, mouthing, "somebody's got to do it!"
The others just looked back and forth, troubled.
"At the moment," said Dumbledore
at last, "I'm reluctant to burden any of our professors with such an addition
to their workload. Defense Against the Dark Arts is a highly challenging,
demanding class that would require the full-time attention of a teacher."
"Phiddie could do it," said Reginald
Winterwind all of a sudden. "She'd be right cracking at it, that she would!
Miles better than me! Not that that's saying much. But she would be really
good."
"Why, Reggie! That's so kind of
you to say," said Ophidia. "Really, it is. But, well … I'm hardly … oh,
I couldn't! I'd be so flattered even to be considered, of course …"
Snape's eyes had gone totally
black. He looked at her as if she'd planned this all along, to grab the
Defense Against the Dark Arts position right out from under him as cleverly
as Harry caught the golden Snitch.
"I remember you," Professor Flitwick
said. "Slytherin … Head Girl, too, weren't you?"
She dimpled at him, and the tiny
gnomish fellow nearly fell into his soup tureen, where he surely would
have drowned had it been full. "Yes, Professor."
The Slytherin table had fallen
under an expectant hush, all of them leaning forward eagerly.
"And Reggie had asked me
to come by a time or two as a guest speaker," she said, toying with a lock
of her ebony hair in a show of modesty that made Becca sniff scornfully.
Professor McGonagall now looked
as though she'd rather have Snape after all, but Dumbledore wasn't watching
the urgent signals she was waving at him. He studied Ophidia intently,
as she shifted sinuously under his gaze and lifted her red eyes, like pools
of dark blood, to him.
"I'll have to give this matter
a good deal of thought," Dumbledore said. "As a point of curiosity, however,
Miss Winterwind … if the position were offered, might you be interested?"
"I'd be delighted to help out,
Professor Dumbledore," she said demurely. "And I'd understand, of course,
that it would be a stopgap measure until you could find someone better-suited."
Harry's spirits had improved a
bit once he and Becca understood that they weren't going to be punished
for their role in Neville's misfortune after all. He'd even begun looking
forward to dinner, with a little wakening pang of hunger in his stomach.
Now, though, he felt like everything inside of him had been replaced with
solid ice.
"Well, then," said Dumbledore,
apparently pleased. He looked out at the students as if only now remembering
they were all still there. "We're a bit overdue for dinner, aren't we?
Charlotte, perhaps you'd like to join us for the feast?"
Mollified by Winterwind's humble
resignation, Mrs. Longbottom swept her robes around herself and took the
unoccupied chair that had appeared by magic at Dumbledore's side. Food
filled the platters, a reduced amount given the scant occupancy of the
Great Hall, but what it lacked in amount it made up for in quality. A splendid
banquet was laid out before them … and Harry could barely eat a bite.
**
Continued in Chapter Ten -- Night School
2001 / Christine Morgan / http://www.christine-morgan.org
/ christine@sabledrake.com |