Richard's fears were allayed the following morning when an owl arrived from the Dellingers. Vivian, recognizing Daedalus' family owl, snatched it out of the air and practically wrestled the letter out of its talons. "Send Dell's letters to me from now on," she ordered the astounded owl, who flapped away, terrified, as soon as she released it.
"Well?" Richard breathed.
Vivian broke into a tentative smile. "They wish him a happy Christmas and say that they understand. Rich, we might actually get away with this!" She threw her arms around his neck, and Richard, blushing through a rather confused smile, awkwardly hugged her back. Beth looked away.
Uther had practically begged for the chance to play Daedalus for the first day. At breakfast he let out a story that he was feeling ill, so that he could skip all his own classes to go to Dell's. Beth and Vivian caught him on the way out of the Great Hall.
"Fifty minutes," Beth said, pressing a canteen full of Polyjuice into his hand. "You have to drink it every fifty minutes. Better make it forty-five, to be safe."
"Here's his schedule," said Vivian. "I can't be with you all day." She looked tired and drawn.
Uther grinned disarmingly. "You won't even be able to tell the difference."
"You'd better hope not," said Vivian severely.
Then the bell rang to start classes. Uther took off down the hall and ducked into a boy's bathroom. Beth and Vivian stayed around just long enough to see that it was Daedalus who came out; then, giving each other a worried look, they dispersed to class.
Beth and the others had Transfiguration with McGonagall.
"This," said Bruce, "is the last place I want to be right now."
Beth grunted her agreement.
Professor McGonagall started in on the lecture, but it was hard to concentrate.
Beth stared out the window. Somewhere in this building, Uther was doing his best Daedalus impression. Could it possibly be working?
The whole lecture was starting to sound like one long drone. Beth's eyelids started to fall, and it was hard to keep her eyes focused. Surely Professor McGonagall wouldn't mind if she laid her head down just for a second ... she could take notes sideways ... with her eyes closed ...
"Would you care to rejoin us, Miss Parson?"
Beth jerked in her chair and struggled to sit up. Professor McGonagall loomed over her, arms folded, an unamused expression on her thin face.
"Sorry ..." Beth mumbled, still not clear-headed. "I was paying attention ..."
"Really?" McGonagall's eyebrows went up. "Then perhaps you'd care to remind us all what was just being said?"
Completely ashamed, Beth kept her head down and said nothing.
McGonagall nodded as if all of her suspicions had been confirmed. "Ordinarily, I would issue a detention for this sort of behavior. However ... since your break begins this afternoon ..." Beth looked up at her, hoping beyond hope. "I shall let your transgression slide. For now," she finished severely.
McGonagall went back to the front of the class. "I was describing what you will need to know for the Transfiguration aspect of your O.W.L.s, a mere eighteen months away. I need not remind you that the O.W.L.s are rigorous and can affect your future greatly. They are almost as important as staying awake in class," she added, and Beth flushed brilliantly while the class laughed.
Beth tried hard to pay attention as McGonagall talked about the various sections of the test, how it would be graded, and what you were allowed to use on it (wands were legal, but magic mirrors forbidden). Her brain kept slipping off, though, and when the bell finally rang to change classes, she looked down at her notes and realized they were barely legible.
Her next two classes were no better, although she had woken up enough to take down notes coherently. Whether or not she knew what they had said was a different story. After they were finally over, she bolted to the Great Hall.
The S.S.A. didn't usually eat together, but there they were, a mass of anxious faces and worried looks. Not a single one was even touching their food. Beth joined them anxiously.
"Is he back yet?"
Wordlessly, Richard shook his head no.
From the doorway, Uther Montague sauntered into the Great Hall. He ruffled Draco's hair, patted Marcus Flint on the shoulder, and plopped down in his seat between Vivian and Richard. He put his feet up on the table.
Richard swallowed hard. "How -- how did it go?"
Uther grabbed an apple from a bowl on the table and took a big bite. He considered the question as he chewed. Then he swallowed, raised his eyebrow, and said, "Without a hitch."
From the wild whooping and cheers, everyone else in the Hall figured someone was really excited about Christmas break.
They sat around at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall for a long time after everyone else had cleared out to the Hogsmeade Station. The Hall was eerily silent. Even the students who would be staying for Christmas break had gone back to their common rooms. All in all, there would be fewer than thirty of them.
Vivian let out a sigh suddenly and lay her head in her arms. "I can't believe we got away with it."
"Got away with what?" someone drawled curiously.
She looked up in annoyance. Draco Malfoy and his two thuggish friends had joined their group. Beth threw an exasperated look at Richard, who shrugged tiredly.
"Got away with that last Potions test," Vivian lied.
Draco, sensing her irritation, nodded sympathetically. "Potions is a beast. Good thing Snape likes us, eh?" He turned to Beth suddenly. "That reminds me. I've been needing some help on this swelling solution we're working on. They told me to come ask you."
Beth gaped at him. "I'm not doing any more potions until after Christmas," she said emphatically. "Not a drop."
A kind of confused sneer came over Draco's face, as if he was astounded to be refused something but not sure what to do about it. He eventually must have decided to be casual. "All right then, I guess you'll see me December 26th," he said, forcing a little laugh. "Mother wanted me home over break, but I wanted to get some work done."
Vivian snorted. "No one ever gets work done over break," she said.
Uther laughed lightly. "Right, it's one of the great myths of this place. Say, Draco, since we're both here, want to challenge the Ravenclaws to a scrimmage match later this week? Those two can play Beater." He pointed to Crabbe and Goyle. "I'll bet we can scrounge up a couple more Catchers and a Keeper. What do you say?"
Draco's face lit up. "We're up for it any time you are!"
"Sounds great. Run back to the common room and see if anyone's game, will you?"
And astoundingly, the arrogant boy did just that.
"They're so malleable when they're twelve," said Uther.
Vivian smiled for what must have been the first time since Friday. "Montague Pest Control. Good work, Uther. Maybe with him out of the way, we can get some real work done."
Uther smirked at the ceiling. "Nobody ever gets work done over break."
"Usually it's not exactly as important," said Vivian.
They spent the afternoon in the common room, drawing up a schedule that said when everyone could play the part of Daedalus. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were covered by Richard, Evan, and Herne at different times; Uther, Mervin and Bruce could pose as him Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Riggs -- who as prefect already had enough on his plate -- as an alternate. Richard had decreed that the girls only had to fill in if it was an emergency. "After all," he reasoned, "it's weird enough to turn into someone else -- let alone another gender."
Vivian spent a lot of time with the boys over Christmas break, demonstrating Daedalus' habits and describing his personality. She also insisted that they read over his class notes. "It's one thing to not raise your hand in class, but you're bound to get called on," she warned. "Dell's no idiot, especially in Transfiguration. You'd just better hope McGonagall doesn't ask him to demonstrate anything."
Mervin, who was scheduled to play Daedalus for Transfiguration, looked terrified.
Even Christmas Dinner wasn't as merry as Beth had hoped. The thought of Daedalus lying on the sofa in the Vase Room hung over them all. Luckily, the others who had stayed were merry enough to cover for everyone else. A handful of upperclassmen were also at Hogwarts for break, as well as Draco, his two buddies, and Blaise Zabini. Beth paid a lot of attention to Blaise during the feast; shadowing her was likely to be the only thing she accomplished in these few weeks.
After the Christmas tea, they carried their presents back to the common room and sat around the fire. Vivian went off by herself, presumably to study for the N.E.W.T.s., but Beth didn't think she looked like she ought to be studying anything but her pillow. The common room was empty enough that there was space in front of the fire, so Beth and Richard grabbed a pair of chairs and dragged them over. Blaise Zabini joined them. She looked a little down, so Beth said so.
"No," Blaise sighed. "I'm fine. Wish I was home, that's all."
"Where's home?" Beth asked politely.
"Stratford-on-Avon. My house'll be covered with lights -- Mum's got these strings of glowing acorns, hangs them all around -- and we'll have had an enormous goose, walnut trimmings." She smiled wanly.
Beth laughed. "My dad's going to be cooking for himself this year. That means baked beans out of a can and maybe toast, if he can find the toaster."
Blaise looked curious. "A toaster? Your dad's a Muggle then?"
"Yeah," Beth admitted.
It was Rich's turn to look curious. "I didn't know that," he said, with some surprise.
Beth grinned apologetically. "Well -- things being what they are -- I don't exactly let it get around."
The door to the common room opened and Draco Malfoy came in, Crabbe and Goyle close behind him. The two boys were gazing around with their mouths open, looking, if possible, more clueless than usual.
Beth stifled a giggle. "They look like they've never seen the common room before."
Blaise didn't bother to hide her laugh. "They haven't been in here for a few hours; they'll have forgotten what it looks like by now."
Richard watched them as they went back to the boys' dormitory. "Vincent's not as dense as he looks, right, Blaise?"
"Not really." Blaise shook her head. "I mean he's thick all right, easy to make fun of. But he comes from a good family, and really, his grades are all right. He's not going to fail out. Besides -- he's a Slytherin. That means he has some kind of ambition, doesn't it? He wouldn't let himself amount to nothing."
Richard thought about it, then nodded. "I've been trying to figure out what that secret ambition is all year -- sort of a hobby of mine," he added hastily, at Blaise's curious look.
"Maybe it's to set a record in the hundred-meter dash," said Beth, as Crabbe and Goyle came barreling out of the boys' side of the dorm and crashed through the common room, only to charge out the door. They looked panicked -- no, they looked more than that, they looked different.
"Odd," said Blaise with a smile. "Just then, Greg looked a little like Potter."
Richard's mouth dropped open. "Yeah," he said, in a strangled sort of voice. "Odd." He gave Beth a very meaningful look. "Say, Beth, there was that thing I wanted to show you -- don't mind if we dash out for a moment, do you, Blaise? We'll be back in a jiff."
"Uh -- not at all," said Blaise, a little startled. "See you later then."
Richard got up and practically pulled Beth to her feet. "See you," Beth managed to blurt, before Richard had grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the common room.
"What's that all about?" she demanded as soon as they were in the hall, wrenching herself free from his grip.
"Goyle looked like Potter? I know it's been hard to remember -- you've been busy and all -- but Potter's got Polyjuice potion too! And I'd bet my wand that's what they were just up to. Come on, let's see if we can catch them and confirm it."
He led her through the corridors to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. The halls were eerily empty, deprived of the bustling students and anxious teachers that usually crammed together in a thick, slow-moving mob. "Hush," he said suddenly, and flattened against a wall. There was the sound of footsteps and talking, growing fainter. Beth peeked around the corner and was just able to see two boys leading away a girl between them.
"Potter, Granger, and Weasley," she said. "But what's Granger got on her head?"
Richard was already hurrying around the corner. Beth followed him into the bathroom. The Polyjuice bubbled over the last toilet, and three soiled goblets proved that it had definitely been used, and recently, too. There was also a strange sound: giggles.
"Myrtle?" Beth called warily. "Is that you?"
Moaning Myrtle swooped into sight, but far from her usual weepy demeanor, she was grinning from ear to ear. "It's terrible," she said, in a voice full of delight. "The Gryffindor girl. She's got -- she's got -- whiskers!"
"Whiskers?"
"And a tail!" Myrtle broke into ghostly laughter. "Half turned herself into a cat! Ooh, when the rest of the students find out!"
"Don't tell anyone," ordered Beth. "They'll find out that she had this potion, and we don't want it known that the stuff's even in the castle."
Myrtle's face fell. "Can I tell the other ghosts, then?"
"Oh, fine," said Beth, waving her hand. "Just don't tell how she managed to do it."
And somehow, it worked. The story about Granger's mishap got around, all right -- when everyone started coming back for break, they were instantly regaled with the story of how the know-it-all second year had grown herself cat ears -- but no one seemed to know how exactly she had done it. To Beth's great relief, no one seemed to care.
"There are a hundred ways she could have done it," Rich said reassuringly, on the way back to the common room. "Botched transformation, maybe, or tried some kind of switch-a-roo that went off badly. Could have been pranked with a candy from Zonko's for all anyone knows. The important part," he said, and here he covered a grin, "is that the whole school knows she's got black hair all over her face."
The day after Christmas, Beth woke to a case of the winter blues. Christmas itself had been all right; there was enough going on to keep her from missing her father too much. Now, the excitement and bustle had died down, and homesickness settled in. She picked around her food at lunch and couldn't bring herself to do much that afternoon. She sat in an armchair by the fire, staring into the leaping flames.
"All right, Beth?"
Beth looked up. Riggs was there, and he looked more concerned than she had ever seen him. She sighed.
"I'm fine. I just miss my dad, I guess. It's my first Christmas without him." She tried not to sound lonely, but that made her feel worse.
Riggs smiled comfortingly, and Beth suddenly saw why he'd been made a prefect. "You're not the only one," he said, in a voice that was somehow less fussy than usual. "Want to see the mirror?"
"Mirror?"
"Magic mirror. It'll show you anybody you want to see. We keep it for the firsties who get homesick." Riggs stood up. "Come on, I'll show you where it is."
Beth followed him out of the common room and down the hall. Riggs stopped in front of a big potted plant and snapped, "Key lime pie." The plant rustled; its leaves bent to one side, revealing a small doorway. Riggs bent down and opened it, motioning for Beth to follow him, and they went inside.
The room behind the potted plant was round and low, with a lot of cozy cushions and long, overstuffed sofas. Penny Clearwater, the Ravenclaw prefect, was sitting on one of them, talking to the oldest Weasley. They broke off their conversation as Riggs and Beth came in and sat there silently, shooting hard looks at the Slytherins suddenly in their midst.
Riggs stiffened. "Back this way," he said crisply, sounding more like his usual stuffy self.
"Where is this?" asked Beth, as Riggs led her around the room and into one corner.
"Prefect's lounge. Don't give out the password, the others will hang me." He looked bitter. "I'm surprised they even let the Slytherin prefect have the password. Can't trust the snakes, you know."
"Uh -- where's the mirror?" Beth asked, mostly because she was alarmed at Riggs's malevolent tone.
Riggs shook his head, as if he were shaking off a bad mood. "Right here on the wall," he said, gesturing to the stones behind them. He sounded normal again. "Just say the name. If you get somebody wrong, say it again with an address or something attached. It's not very smart. Doesn't even carry sound."
The magic mirror was about two feet high and oval, with an unremarkable wooden frame. Beth stood in front of it uncertainly. "William Parson," she stammered, feeling a little silly at talking to a piece of glass.
But the mirror didn't seem to think it was silly at all; in fact, the glass began to fog up into a milky swirl. It whirled around and around, and just as Beth thought she was going to be sick from looking at it, the whirling slowed and the fog cleared up until the picture was clear again.
Instead of her own image, Beth saw her kitchen, with her father sitting at one end, hunched over a plate of food. He wasn't eating; his lips were moving, but there was no sound, so she had no idea what he could be saying, or why.
"Who's he talking to?" she asked impatiently, to herself, and remarkably the mirror panned out so that she could see the whole kitchen table now, and a man at the other end. This man was younger than her father, still no younger than fifty or sixty years old, but hale and healthy, with a thick build and thinning blonde hair. He looked vaguely familiar.
"That's really odd," said Beth quietly. "He never has visitors." She looked closer at the two of them. Whatever they were discussing, it must have been serious; they wore very similar expressions, but it was hard to interpret what they meant. Now the stranger was talking, nodding his head reluctantly, looking up at Mr. Parson every once in a while.
The silent conversation went on for several minutes while Beth watched, enthralled. Soon both men in the mirror stood up and shook hands over the table; then, with hardly a glance back, the stranger left and Mr. Parson started to collect the empty dishes.
"Done?"
Beth jumped. She'd forgotten that Riggs was standing right behind her. She turned around. "Yeah -- yeah, I'm done. Thanks. That ... helps."
Riggs smiled a little bit, something he did rarely these days. "That's what it's here for. Have a good day."
"You too." Beth turned to wave as she left the prefects' lounge. Riggs didn't wave back; he was glaring at Penny Clearwater and the Weasley, who had resumed conversation as if he wasn't even there.
It wasn't long before Christmas break was over and the students started coming back. Melissa didn't show up that evening (Beth guessed that she had gone off with Galen), so she spent the night reading. The book was about a young boy who had an invisibility cloak, a magic map, and a friend who was a small creature with large ears who spoke in a high-pitched voice with bad grammar. The book was Goblins in the Castle by Bruce Coville.
Tomorrow, she thought, is when the fun really begins. Tomorrow they would start using the Polyjuice on a regular basis, and Daedalus -- at least some form of him -- would come back to Hogwarts.