Melissa burst into the bedroom, flushed wildly. "Harry Potter and his friends are breaking into the forbidden corridor!" she blurted. "They actually body-bound the Longbottom kid. I think they're going to steal the Stone!"
"How would you know?" Beth demanded.
"I was in their common room when it happened," said Melissa, and went on quickly over Beth's astonished sputters. "Doesn't matter, we have to act fast -- you should have seen the look on their faces! Like they were going off to war!"
"What were you doing in their common room?" Beth finally managed.
"Come on!" Melissa grabbed Beth's arm and forcibly dragged her down the stairs and into the hallway until Beth snapped that she could walk fine on her own. Walking wasn't good enough for Melissa, though; she ran all the way to the library, with Beth in baffled tow.
"There's Richard." Melissa pointed at a corner table where Richard sat buried in a paperback. She practically sprinted to his table, and with an anxious glance to see if anyone was close enough to hear, bent down and whispered in his ear.
Richard's eyes grew wide. "Right now?" he murmured.
Melissa nodded.
Pursing his lips, Richard slowly closed the book and rose to his feet. "Follow me," he ordered in a very collected tone. They left the library in a huddle, Melissa practically hopping up and down, Richard at a measured pace.
As soon as they were a few yards down the hallway, Richard grabbed his hair with both fists and sank against a wall. "Gah! Those stupid firsties have been out of control all year! I don't believe them!" He took a breath and beat his head against the wall a few times, to clear his brain. "Okay. Riggs and Uther are taking their O.W.L.s. Vivian and Daedalus have a rising-senior class meeting, and Jerome's with the firsties that don't go looking for painful death. That leaves us, Bruce and Mervin."
"Bruce is with the Quidditch team," Beth reported dismally.
"All right then. We're going to Dumbledore. Beth, go find Mervin and meet back in the Great Hall in a few minutes. If he takes care of it, all right, and if he needs help, we'll be there."
Beth nodded dumbly. The two of them bolted down the corridor to Dumbledore's office. She turned and sprinted back to the common room.
It was so late at night that the common room was nearly empty. Beth darted around frantically.
"Looking for someone?"
It was Evan Wilkes, the slim second-year boy with dark hair. "Mervin Fletcher. Seen him?" Beth asked in a rush.
He put his hands in his pockets. "No. Want me to go check the dorms?"
"Yeah. Go. Third-year," she added for clarity. Evan turned around and strolled up the stairs to the boys' chambers, while Beth pranced around in front of the fireplace biting her nails. He returned in a few minutes.
"He's on the way."
Mervin came down the stairs yawning, his hair a curly mess. "What'cha want?" he slurred sleepily, as he approached Beth.
"Tell you soon. Thanks, Evan!" she cried, grabbing him just as Melissa had done and wrenching him out into the hall. When they were alone, she quickly summed up what was happening. They rushed through the halls of Hogwarts, skidding into the Great Hall just as Richard and Melissa came from the other side, panting.
"He's out," Melissa reported. "At the Ministry."
"McGonagall told us," Richard added hastily. "We couldn't trust her with the information, they're from her house, and she doesn't believe Slytherins no matter what."
"So what now?"
"I'm thinking!" Richard spat, and leaned against the wall for a few seconds. "Dumbledore has to know, right now. Those firsties could be dead in minutes." He bit his lip. "We're going to London then."
"What?"
"We can find Dumbledore at the Ministry. At least we have to try." He rubbed his temples hard. "Mel, go keep a watch on the corridor but don't go in -- we don't need you dead too. Mervin, cover for us, say we're out walking or something. Beth, you're coming with me."
"Why her?" Mervin complained.
"Because you can't follow directions!" Richard almost screamed. "Go on, get started, and if you see the others, tell them what's happening. We might need to be out in full force!" He took off down the hall. Beth followed.
They wound through the maze of corridors, ducking wayward students as they went. Richard screeched to a halt in front of a statue of an ugly one-eyed hag. "Good old Edna," he murmured. "No one coming? Dissendium." He tapped the hag's hump with his wand and a gaping passage opened up. He scrambled inside, urging Beth ahead. The hump closed up and they were encased in blackness.
"Lumos." Both wands lit up with cool blue flame. "Where are we?" Beth asked.
"Under the castle, come on, there's no time!" Richard started down the damp corridor, nearly tripping over the cobwebbed skeleton of a cat.
"This goes to London?" said Beth, running to keep up.
"We're hours from London," Richard hissed, keeping his voice low. "This goes to Hogsmeade, comes out in the candy store. From there we can take the Floo and be in London in seconds."
"They'll never let us on the Floo, we haven't got any money with us!"
"Good thing Honeydukes has one in their basement then."
At the end of the hall was a rotting wooden door. Richard put his ear to it and listened for several seconds; then he opened it a crack and peered out for a few more moments. "Clear," he muttered, and they slipped through the narrow opening.
The basement of Honeyduke's smelled, if anything, better than the store itself. Sacks of sugar and cocoa sat around the base of shelves stuffed with jars of ingredients. (Beth thought sickly of the cockroach cluster.) It was dim and warm, and above them they could hear a low buzz of customers.
Richard ducked around a shelf and crept behind a propped-up baking board. There was a room behind the storeroom, not a large one, but cozy, with a round woven rug and a gentle fire going in the fireplace. They snuck up to the fire. Beth thought for sure that any minute, someone would come bursting through the door and denounce them as trespassers, which they were, or thieves, which they were about to be. Richard snagged a handful of Floo powder from a dish above the fire. "Keep your arms in and follow me. Dippet Street, London," he whispered clearly, and tossed in the powder in. He stepped into the fire. Beth had to stoop under the low mantlepiece to follow him.
As before, entrances and exist zoomed past Beth's vision. Everything was green-tinted, and rushing toward her, fast, faster than she could think ... she lost sight of Richard ... everything was spinning around her ...
WHAM! Beth's elbow bounced off a projecting corner and threw her to her knees. She felt a strong pull on one arm; she was jerked to her feet and hurled to one side.
Everything slowed down considerably. Beth stood shakily and looked around. She was plainly in a city; the buildings rose high and close on every side, and people cluttered the sidewalks. On the other hand, it was like no city she had ever seen. The streets were paved in cobblestone, and instead of cars, wizards and witches zoomed through the town on broomsticks, hippogriffs, and the occasional dilapidated carpet. Richard hovered nearby, looking frantic. "I told you to keep your arms in! Falling down in the Floo -- you could be in Morocco by now!"
"Well, it's not as if I use it all the time," she began crossly, but Richard was already edging down the sidewalk. Beth rolled her eyes and started walking toward him; Richard broke into a sprint. Beth followed.
"To the right," Richard called, swinging into an alley. Beth followed him around the corner and through the dimly-lit alleyway. The alley came to a sudden end in a broad, bustling plaza covered with green grass and packed with people of all nationalities. The centerpiece of the open space seemed to be a stadium-sized building with columns the whole way around and a great stone staircase leading to a pair of elaborate doors. The sky was vast and dark above the courtyard.
"This is in London?" Beth gasped.
"Of course it's in London!" Richard barked. "Didn't I tell you we were going to London? That's the Ministry building, and I'll bet my wand that Dumbledore's in there right now -- wasting time!" He grabbed her wrist and started to worm through the crowd, pulling Beth after him.
Beth craned her neck to see over the many tall hats of the people in the courtyard -- probably ministry workers, she guessed. They would never find Dumbledore in this crowd, not with this many people swarming in every direction at once and each looking as distinguished as the next. In fact, at the top of the stone staircase was a round man in pinstriped robes, talking with an old man that looked just like Dumbledore himself. Uncannily like him ...
"Richard, it's him, he's on the stairs!" Beth blurted, tugging on Richard's arm. The other boy ground to a halt and looked up at the pair frantically, while bustling people swarmed around them.
"That's him, and he's talking to Minister Fudge! We'll never get to see him!" Richard ran his hands through his hair and turned from side to side wildly. "There must be a way." He took a deep breath. "Beth, duck."
"What?"
"Now!" cried Richard. He flung his arm in the air and shot a beacon of green sparks into the sky. Beth crouched on the ground and put her hands over her head. Then to her horror, she head Richard bellow: "LONG LIVE LORD VOLDEMORT!"
Someone screamed. Suddenly, the sounds of a thirty-gun salute filled the air as dozens of Stupefy spells rocketed through the plaza. Richard, caught in the full impact zone, lurched to one side and collapsed on the ground near Beth, stone-cold unconscious.
Beth took her hands off her head, afraid to rise. All around her, people were starting to gather, and as they saw Richard's silent form, they began to exclaim to one another excitedly. In front of them, the crowds parted, and Minister Fudge loomed into view, followed by Dumbledore. The headmaster had such a look of intensity and alertness on his face that Beth shuddered as she scrambled to her feet.
"What is the meaning of this?" huffed Fudge, but Beth interrupted:
"Professor Dumbledore, he was trying to get your attention -- you have to get back to Hogwarts, right now --"
At their feet, Richard let out a moan.
"Cornelius, these are my students," Dumbledore said firmly, coming to the center of the circle that had surrounded around Richard. "I can handle this personally." He gripped Beth's shoulder and steered her away from the crowd. As soon as they were clear from the worst of the mob, Beth tried again.
"Listen, Professor, the Stone -- the Sorcerer's Stone -- you have to go right away -- there's someone in the third-floor corridor -- we think they're trying to steal the Stone!" she finished in a rush.
"Who is it?" demanded Dumbledore.
"First years! One of them's Harry Potter, and then the little Weasley and that girl they're always with --"
Dumbledore straightened, eyes ablaze. He spun to face Fudge, who was bent over and peering through his spectacles at Richard's still form. "Cornelius, I'm needed at the school. Take these two into your custody. I'll send someone after them shortly." While Beth watched in amazement, Dumbledore strode away from the thick of the crowd.
Then, he vanished before her eyes.