Chapter Twelve
Unanswered Questions
The old Hermione resurfaced and with great force, much to Harry and Ron's disliking. The O. W. L.s, Ordinary Wizarding Levels, the major tests that all fifth-years took, were coming up at the end of the year, and Hermione was suddenly determined not to let a silly thing like dating Ron get in the way of getting at least twelve proper O. W. L.s by the end of the year.
She had scouted out a particular armchair in a corner of the common room and could be seen there for nearly the rest of the whole winter holiday, frantically reviewing notes she had been saving since the beginning of her stay at Hogwarts - Ron and Harry could see the color-coding she had once employed over all her pages. She even admitted to them at one hurried dinner that she wished she had her time-turner back to fit in more studying.
Harry and Ron were a little more lax about preparing for the O. W. L.s, especially over the holiday, but they would at least comfort Hermione by reading A History of Magic over in her corner. Harry promised not to tell Hermione about the Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle he found wedged between the pages of Ron's textbooks.
It was on the last day of the holiday, the day before Llewellyn and Rosalind arrived from the States, that Harry didn't bother to pretend to study goblin rebellions in front of Hermione. Instead, he looked through his photo album - given to him by Hagrid at the end of his first year.
There were his parents, waving and smiling up at him in black and white. Harry looked at pictures of the wedding, of the happy couple, of himself as a baby...all the pictures so contented, nothing even hinting to the horrible deaths that awaited them.
And yet, he could see it in his mind, with color and sound, too...replaying over and over again....
Almost before he knew what he was doing, Harry found himself climbing up the stairs to the dormitory.
He blinked.
What was he going up there for? His school things, for some more studying? Yes, that sounded correct. He absentmindedly picked his bag up and re- joined Ron and Hermione back in the common room. Shuffling through his collection of supplies, he hit upon The Handbook of Modern Dark Magic.
Hermione looked up for a second at the black book he had in his hand. "Oh, Harry, I have to look up some hexes, can I have it when you're done?"
Harry didn't hear her. He was looking at the three-headed snake warily. Was it his imagination, or did the middle head just move?
Oh, so you're back again.
Harry looked up at Hermione and Ron, Hermione involved in some goblin revolution, and Ron stifling a laugh at his comic book. They didn't seem to be paying him any attention, and the common room was empty otherwise.
"Yes," whispered Harry back in Parseltongue.
What is it you want?
"I want to see my parents."
Now Harry knew that he wasn't imagining it...all three heads were smiling in a wicked sort of way. He felt the floor disappear beneath his feet and the three headed snake pry through his mind, painfully this time, to dredge up the memory of that night fourteen years previous....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first thing Ron and Hermione noticed was the hissing, which they first assumed was just Harry reciting some important fact to himself to memorize. When they saw his eyes roll up in the back of his head and his body crumple to the ground, however, they knew something was terribly wrong.
They leapt over the piles of books in front of them and looked down helplessly at Harry, who seemed to be in the state of a strange dream. His eyes rocketed back and forth from behind his eyelids, and his mouth worked, as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't figure out how to properly move his throat. Hermione and Ron looked at each other desperately and then back down at their friend, who now looked as if he was having a spasm and might be in danger of hurting himself.
"Oh no, oh no, my mother was telling me about this," said Hermione anxiously and in a strangely high voice. She stepped from foot to foot and then kneeled down next to Harry. "If someone's unconscious, you have to...have to...um...support the head, I think?"
Just as she was about to hold up Harry's head, he stopped shaking. He froze quicker and straighter than if he had the Full-Body Bind placed on him. Only his face showed any movement; an mixed expression of hatred and fear played on his features, and his eyes moved more slowly; as if he was watching someone move across a room in slow motion. Hermione and Ron could do nothing but watch as his eyes stopped moving, and they could almost see a flash of green light come from his face.
Then, without warning, Harry's face became a mask of horrendous pain, and his terrified onlookers almost heard a sickening tear as his scar opened again and blood spurted out, mingling into the red Gryffindor carpet.
Hermione was about to hyperventilate, and Ron hadn't been as scared as bad since they had gone into the valley of the gigantic spiders during their second year. To their immense relief, Harry's face and body relaxed, and he woke from his frenzy.
"Oh, hi guys!" he greeted rather brightly, the unnoticed book still in hand.
"Parseltongue," mumbled Ron, and saw the book. He took it from Harry's hand with a little tugging. "What do you still have this for?"
Harry blinked a few times and said, rather nervously, but in English, "Well, Visilio hasn't told us to bring them back yet, right?"
Hermione and Ron shared another glance, and then looked back at Harry, who was now sitting up on the floor.
"What did you see?" asked Hermione solemnly.
"I saw my parents."
"What!?" Ron looked at him critically.
"Harry, say this again," requested Hermione. "Who did you see?"
"My mum. My dad. I saw them." Harry nodded, and looked down at the carpet. His voice was barely a mumble. "Just before they died."
Ron gulped. He was venturing into a dark, deep part of Harry he wasn't sure he wanted to know existed.
"But why?" asked Ron. "Why did you suddenly collapse in the common room and then see your mum and dad?"
"The book," Harry replied, slow and somber, and pointing to the Handbook Ron held. "That book and that snake on the cover are just... just...." He trailed off, with a glazed look in his eyes. "Evil," he whispered, completing the thought.
Ron looked at Harry. His scar was still bleeding, although not very freely, and his eyes were watery, like he was trying not to cry.
The three of them stared at the carpet for a long time, deep in thought.
"I want to see them again," said Harry, firmly and intently.
Ron stared at him like he had grown another head.
"Harry, look, that book is evil! You just said it yourself! Remember the Dementors last year? You faintly heard your parents and almost got your soul sucked out. Tell me, do you think seeing your parents will be safe?
Harry gulped. His friend was right. Still looking down at the carpet and ignoring the trail of blood going down his temple, he said, very quietly and dead seriously, "Ron, Hermione...I don't ever want to see that book again. Throw it in the lake, or better yet, the fire. Give to to Fred and George and let them blow it into pieces. I think if that book exists, I'm going to be tempted to use it and relive that night." He looked up at Hermione and Ron.
"Well...I don't think it would be a good idea to destroy a school book," answered Hermione, who obviously was mortified by even the thought of dog- earing pages in a school book.
"Should we just return it to the Restricted Section?" suggested Ron.
"We still need it for studying for the final exam," countered Hermione, and both Harry and Ron knew they couldn't pry a needed school book from her cold, dead fingers.
"Tell you what, I'll keep it hidden in the girl's dormitory. Hopefully you'll be decent enough not to go there. And I'll give you my Defense Against the Dark Arts notes, I've copied nearly the whole book," she added, grinning.
"Sounds like a plan," responded Harry, one hand on his forehead. "I think I better go to the bathroom and clean myself up."
Hermione and Harry went towards the dormitories, and Ron sat himself behind the wall of books. "I'll just...keep on studying," he called after them. Chuckling, he got out Flying With The Cannons and lost himself in Quidditch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"This is the sign that you saw drawn on the wall?" Patursa asked, pointing to a drawing of the Dark Mark. He and the four students were in his office, crowded around a book entitled European Wizardry of the Twenty-First Century on his desk. Both Llewellyn and Draco nodded. "Strange...very strange...."
Patursa continued reading that particular page. "It was the insignia of the Death Eaters, as you told the others," he said, talking mostly to Draco. "I don't know what it was doing on the wall. I'd have to see how it was placed there. If it's a crude charcoal sketch, then someone's probably just playing a nasty trick on the school. If it's been placed there by a spell, then...." He took a deep breath and gazed for a moment out his window, which looked out over the Atlantic ocean. "There might be some activity or interest in the Dark Arts at Columbia, which makes me terrified."
"Well, who would be responsible for finding that out?" replied Draco. "Who's the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?"
"I suppose...that would be myself. I teach something called Wizardry Living Skills, which involves Dark Arts defensive skills, living undetected among Muggles, and magizoology."
"What are you going to do, Professor?" Tim looked down at the book warily.
"I don't know." Patursa shook his head and thought for a while. At length, he said, "Llewellyn, Draco, who is the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts? Maybe I should get in touch with him or her, see if they could offer us some advice."
"Matt Visilio teaches it," answered Llewellyn. Patursa jumped at the name, and then looked at Llewellyn incredulously.
"Matt? Matt...Matt Visilio?" he asked excitedly. "Not that New York Nogtails nut?"
"That's him," replied Llewellyn, a little cautiously.
"I haven't seen him for nearly ten years! That crazy old dog!" Patursa laughed and looked estatic. "We went to a wizard school in New York City - we were best buds - we graduated together eight years ago. That was the last I saw him." He lost his focus for a moment, letting his mind slide back to fond memories of earlier years, with half a smile on his face.
"What happened?" asked Llewellyn, curious.
"He...he wanted to play for the Nogtails. Whatever Matt is now, it's nothing compared to the obsession he had then with Quodpot 2000. He was a fantastic Quoddie, let me tell you...but I kept persuading him to study something, keep something as a backup - after all, you can't play sports for all your life. As I was taking courses on teaching, I tried to nudge him into a similar career. We just sort of drifted apart because of our differences after that.... I'm glad, but also very surprised to hear he took my advice." He drummed absentmindedly on his desk.
"I'm still concerned with that Dark Mark insignia on the wall," he contined after a while. "And all this talk about the Dark Lord in the U.S...to tell you the truth, guys, I'm frightened. I think that the smartest thing for us, as in everyone here and the wizards and witches of the world, is to set up a international search for the new Dark Arts activity, beginning with Matt and myself."
"But don't we sort of already have that?" asked Rosalind. "The International Confederacy of Wizardy, I mean. I know they're involved with domestic and foreign affairs, such as international law and trade, and events such as last year's Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament in Europe. I'd think that they would want to be the basis of a multinational search for Vol-You-Know-Who."
Patursa looked at her with a huge smile. "You're right! And when you're right, you're right. Good thing we had a genius like you in here to think of that."
The rest of the students looked slightly put out. "Oh, I'm just kidding, honestly, you guys!" He laughed and then looked back to her. "Actually, Rosalind, that's a very good idea, but I still think that the ultimate first step would be for us two professors to get in touch." Reaching into his desk, he brought out a wooden box that held a quantity of what looked like pale blue sand and tossed it into his fireplace. "If you'll excuse me." He faced the blue flames. "Defence Against the Dark Arts Office, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"
Patursa stepped in and disappeared.
"Oh," said Llewellyn, looking thoughtfully into the fire after he was gone. "You have to be more specific than just the school name."
The four students doused the flames after they were sure the Patursa had gotten through the other side to prevent ashwinders from forming. Of course, only Llewellyn and Rosalind actually knew what an ashwinder was, the former having a bad memory of a burn from ashwinder eggs, and the latter simply reading too much for her own good.
Rosalind looked into the last of the flames to die down, knowing that she, Draco, and Llewellyn would be going through them to travel to Hogwarts the next day. "You know," Rosalind said, "it's pretty strange that I'm going to a foreign school the semester I take the O. W. L.s. It's like - 'Travel to exotic locations, meet brand new people, try different cultures, and take major exams that will influence the rest of your life!'"
The four laughed and left the room, but only one of them didn't have his or her mind on Europe.
Unanswered Questions
The old Hermione resurfaced and with great force, much to Harry and Ron's disliking. The O. W. L.s, Ordinary Wizarding Levels, the major tests that all fifth-years took, were coming up at the end of the year, and Hermione was suddenly determined not to let a silly thing like dating Ron get in the way of getting at least twelve proper O. W. L.s by the end of the year.
She had scouted out a particular armchair in a corner of the common room and could be seen there for nearly the rest of the whole winter holiday, frantically reviewing notes she had been saving since the beginning of her stay at Hogwarts - Ron and Harry could see the color-coding she had once employed over all her pages. She even admitted to them at one hurried dinner that she wished she had her time-turner back to fit in more studying.
Harry and Ron were a little more lax about preparing for the O. W. L.s, especially over the holiday, but they would at least comfort Hermione by reading A History of Magic over in her corner. Harry promised not to tell Hermione about the Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle he found wedged between the pages of Ron's textbooks.
It was on the last day of the holiday, the day before Llewellyn and Rosalind arrived from the States, that Harry didn't bother to pretend to study goblin rebellions in front of Hermione. Instead, he looked through his photo album - given to him by Hagrid at the end of his first year.
There were his parents, waving and smiling up at him in black and white. Harry looked at pictures of the wedding, of the happy couple, of himself as a baby...all the pictures so contented, nothing even hinting to the horrible deaths that awaited them.
And yet, he could see it in his mind, with color and sound, too...replaying over and over again....
Almost before he knew what he was doing, Harry found himself climbing up the stairs to the dormitory.
He blinked.
What was he going up there for? His school things, for some more studying? Yes, that sounded correct. He absentmindedly picked his bag up and re- joined Ron and Hermione back in the common room. Shuffling through his collection of supplies, he hit upon The Handbook of Modern Dark Magic.
Hermione looked up for a second at the black book he had in his hand. "Oh, Harry, I have to look up some hexes, can I have it when you're done?"
Harry didn't hear her. He was looking at the three-headed snake warily. Was it his imagination, or did the middle head just move?
Oh, so you're back again.
Harry looked up at Hermione and Ron, Hermione involved in some goblin revolution, and Ron stifling a laugh at his comic book. They didn't seem to be paying him any attention, and the common room was empty otherwise.
"Yes," whispered Harry back in Parseltongue.
What is it you want?
"I want to see my parents."
Now Harry knew that he wasn't imagining it...all three heads were smiling in a wicked sort of way. He felt the floor disappear beneath his feet and the three headed snake pry through his mind, painfully this time, to dredge up the memory of that night fourteen years previous....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first thing Ron and Hermione noticed was the hissing, which they first assumed was just Harry reciting some important fact to himself to memorize. When they saw his eyes roll up in the back of his head and his body crumple to the ground, however, they knew something was terribly wrong.
They leapt over the piles of books in front of them and looked down helplessly at Harry, who seemed to be in the state of a strange dream. His eyes rocketed back and forth from behind his eyelids, and his mouth worked, as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't figure out how to properly move his throat. Hermione and Ron looked at each other desperately and then back down at their friend, who now looked as if he was having a spasm and might be in danger of hurting himself.
"Oh no, oh no, my mother was telling me about this," said Hermione anxiously and in a strangely high voice. She stepped from foot to foot and then kneeled down next to Harry. "If someone's unconscious, you have to...have to...um...support the head, I think?"
Just as she was about to hold up Harry's head, he stopped shaking. He froze quicker and straighter than if he had the Full-Body Bind placed on him. Only his face showed any movement; an mixed expression of hatred and fear played on his features, and his eyes moved more slowly; as if he was watching someone move across a room in slow motion. Hermione and Ron could do nothing but watch as his eyes stopped moving, and they could almost see a flash of green light come from his face.
Then, without warning, Harry's face became a mask of horrendous pain, and his terrified onlookers almost heard a sickening tear as his scar opened again and blood spurted out, mingling into the red Gryffindor carpet.
Hermione was about to hyperventilate, and Ron hadn't been as scared as bad since they had gone into the valley of the gigantic spiders during their second year. To their immense relief, Harry's face and body relaxed, and he woke from his frenzy.
"Oh, hi guys!" he greeted rather brightly, the unnoticed book still in hand.
"Parseltongue," mumbled Ron, and saw the book. He took it from Harry's hand with a little tugging. "What do you still have this for?"
Harry blinked a few times and said, rather nervously, but in English, "Well, Visilio hasn't told us to bring them back yet, right?"
Hermione and Ron shared another glance, and then looked back at Harry, who was now sitting up on the floor.
"What did you see?" asked Hermione solemnly.
"I saw my parents."
"What!?" Ron looked at him critically.
"Harry, say this again," requested Hermione. "Who did you see?"
"My mum. My dad. I saw them." Harry nodded, and looked down at the carpet. His voice was barely a mumble. "Just before they died."
Ron gulped. He was venturing into a dark, deep part of Harry he wasn't sure he wanted to know existed.
"But why?" asked Ron. "Why did you suddenly collapse in the common room and then see your mum and dad?"
"The book," Harry replied, slow and somber, and pointing to the Handbook Ron held. "That book and that snake on the cover are just... just...." He trailed off, with a glazed look in his eyes. "Evil," he whispered, completing the thought.
Ron looked at Harry. His scar was still bleeding, although not very freely, and his eyes were watery, like he was trying not to cry.
The three of them stared at the carpet for a long time, deep in thought.
"I want to see them again," said Harry, firmly and intently.
Ron stared at him like he had grown another head.
"Harry, look, that book is evil! You just said it yourself! Remember the Dementors last year? You faintly heard your parents and almost got your soul sucked out. Tell me, do you think seeing your parents will be safe?
Harry gulped. His friend was right. Still looking down at the carpet and ignoring the trail of blood going down his temple, he said, very quietly and dead seriously, "Ron, Hermione...I don't ever want to see that book again. Throw it in the lake, or better yet, the fire. Give to to Fred and George and let them blow it into pieces. I think if that book exists, I'm going to be tempted to use it and relive that night." He looked up at Hermione and Ron.
"Well...I don't think it would be a good idea to destroy a school book," answered Hermione, who obviously was mortified by even the thought of dog- earing pages in a school book.
"Should we just return it to the Restricted Section?" suggested Ron.
"We still need it for studying for the final exam," countered Hermione, and both Harry and Ron knew they couldn't pry a needed school book from her cold, dead fingers.
"Tell you what, I'll keep it hidden in the girl's dormitory. Hopefully you'll be decent enough not to go there. And I'll give you my Defense Against the Dark Arts notes, I've copied nearly the whole book," she added, grinning.
"Sounds like a plan," responded Harry, one hand on his forehead. "I think I better go to the bathroom and clean myself up."
Hermione and Harry went towards the dormitories, and Ron sat himself behind the wall of books. "I'll just...keep on studying," he called after them. Chuckling, he got out Flying With The Cannons and lost himself in Quidditch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"This is the sign that you saw drawn on the wall?" Patursa asked, pointing to a drawing of the Dark Mark. He and the four students were in his office, crowded around a book entitled European Wizardry of the Twenty-First Century on his desk. Both Llewellyn and Draco nodded. "Strange...very strange...."
Patursa continued reading that particular page. "It was the insignia of the Death Eaters, as you told the others," he said, talking mostly to Draco. "I don't know what it was doing on the wall. I'd have to see how it was placed there. If it's a crude charcoal sketch, then someone's probably just playing a nasty trick on the school. If it's been placed there by a spell, then...." He took a deep breath and gazed for a moment out his window, which looked out over the Atlantic ocean. "There might be some activity or interest in the Dark Arts at Columbia, which makes me terrified."
"Well, who would be responsible for finding that out?" replied Draco. "Who's the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?"
"I suppose...that would be myself. I teach something called Wizardry Living Skills, which involves Dark Arts defensive skills, living undetected among Muggles, and magizoology."
"What are you going to do, Professor?" Tim looked down at the book warily.
"I don't know." Patursa shook his head and thought for a while. At length, he said, "Llewellyn, Draco, who is the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts? Maybe I should get in touch with him or her, see if they could offer us some advice."
"Matt Visilio teaches it," answered Llewellyn. Patursa jumped at the name, and then looked at Llewellyn incredulously.
"Matt? Matt...Matt Visilio?" he asked excitedly. "Not that New York Nogtails nut?"
"That's him," replied Llewellyn, a little cautiously.
"I haven't seen him for nearly ten years! That crazy old dog!" Patursa laughed and looked estatic. "We went to a wizard school in New York City - we were best buds - we graduated together eight years ago. That was the last I saw him." He lost his focus for a moment, letting his mind slide back to fond memories of earlier years, with half a smile on his face.
"What happened?" asked Llewellyn, curious.
"He...he wanted to play for the Nogtails. Whatever Matt is now, it's nothing compared to the obsession he had then with Quodpot 2000. He was a fantastic Quoddie, let me tell you...but I kept persuading him to study something, keep something as a backup - after all, you can't play sports for all your life. As I was taking courses on teaching, I tried to nudge him into a similar career. We just sort of drifted apart because of our differences after that.... I'm glad, but also very surprised to hear he took my advice." He drummed absentmindedly on his desk.
"I'm still concerned with that Dark Mark insignia on the wall," he contined after a while. "And all this talk about the Dark Lord in the U.S...to tell you the truth, guys, I'm frightened. I think that the smartest thing for us, as in everyone here and the wizards and witches of the world, is to set up a international search for the new Dark Arts activity, beginning with Matt and myself."
"But don't we sort of already have that?" asked Rosalind. "The International Confederacy of Wizardy, I mean. I know they're involved with domestic and foreign affairs, such as international law and trade, and events such as last year's Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament in Europe. I'd think that they would want to be the basis of a multinational search for Vol-You-Know-Who."
Patursa looked at her with a huge smile. "You're right! And when you're right, you're right. Good thing we had a genius like you in here to think of that."
The rest of the students looked slightly put out. "Oh, I'm just kidding, honestly, you guys!" He laughed and then looked back to her. "Actually, Rosalind, that's a very good idea, but I still think that the ultimate first step would be for us two professors to get in touch." Reaching into his desk, he brought out a wooden box that held a quantity of what looked like pale blue sand and tossed it into his fireplace. "If you'll excuse me." He faced the blue flames. "Defence Against the Dark Arts Office, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"
Patursa stepped in and disappeared.
"Oh," said Llewellyn, looking thoughtfully into the fire after he was gone. "You have to be more specific than just the school name."
The four students doused the flames after they were sure the Patursa had gotten through the other side to prevent ashwinders from forming. Of course, only Llewellyn and Rosalind actually knew what an ashwinder was, the former having a bad memory of a burn from ashwinder eggs, and the latter simply reading too much for her own good.
Rosalind looked into the last of the flames to die down, knowing that she, Draco, and Llewellyn would be going through them to travel to Hogwarts the next day. "You know," Rosalind said, "it's pretty strange that I'm going to a foreign school the semester I take the O. W. L.s. It's like - 'Travel to exotic locations, meet brand new people, try different cultures, and take major exams that will influence the rest of your life!'"
The four laughed and left the room, but only one of them didn't have his or her mind on Europe.