SIX
Mysteries and Memories
***
I flapped around the castle, trying to think in my tiny bat brain. I decided that if any kind of rescue was going to be attempted, it would be near the bathroom where Ginny disappeared. I flew there. No one was outside. I changed. "Hello?" I called. I opened the door. A face popped up in front of mine. I could see the far wall through the lenses of its glasses. I nearly screamed. I told myself it was just a ghost, just like the Fat Friar. I knew him.
"Hello!" the face said, in a sort of tone that was cheerful and mournful at the same time.
"Excuse me," I said, "But do you happen to have seen Harry Potter in here tonight?"
"It's always about him, isn't it?" she shrieked in my face. Then she pouted. "He went down there, if you must know," she whined, and pointed to a large hole in the wall, where a sink had once been.
"Thank you!" I said, and I changed again and darted down the tunnel.
I heard her behind me, crying, "Nobody ever tells me what's going on!"
I hovered over Harry, Ron, and Professor Lockhart, flying a little way at a time and then hanging from the high, mucky ceiling. I saw something ahead of them, and was frightened for an instant, but I could hear at once that it was hollow. They were afraid of it for a minute, thinking it was the giant beastly snake they were looking for, but they realized it was only its skin. Then, as they approached it, there was a scuffle. Lockhart grabbed Ron's wand, and yelled, "Say good-bye to your memories! Obliviate!"
There was a bang, and what I saw next nearly made me fall off the ceiling. It was supposed to have been a memory charm, but Ginny's told me about that wand. You can never really be sure what it's going to do. Ron and the professor were lying on the floor, looking dazed. Harry had been at the center of the whatever-it-was that had blasted out of Ron's wand. It hadn't exactly been a memory charm. It was more or less an explosion of magical energy. His hand had been transfigured into a lobster. His hair had become neon yellow, and was waving like seaweed. His neck was covered in green spots that had tiny faces and were whistling "Yellow Submarine."
I had to help. This couldn't be part of Harry's destiny. He couldn't fight the monster of the chamber like that, and if Harry couldn't save Ginny, no one could!
As I flapped down, Ron looked up and saw me. I couldn't hide it from him. As I changed back into human form, he watched, probably not sure whether what he was seeing was a by-product of whatever his wand had done to them. I ignored him and walked straight to Harry. Then Ron saw him too, and yelled. He got up shakily and came over to us. "Harry! Harry!" he said. "Are you all right?"
First I did what I knew I could do. A lobster was a fairly simple creature, and I knew, from studying Animagi, how to return a human hand to its normal shape. I wove the spell, and it worked! I breathed a sigh of relief. Next I turned to his hair. The effect was a strange one, but I tried a simple disenchantment, and it settled down. Then the thing I was dreading. I had never encountered anything like whistling boils before. I tried the same disenchantment, and at least they stopped singing, but then they all glared at me.
Professor Lockhart was now starting to come to. He was very confused, and yelled, "What's going on? Where am I?" He looked around nervously but muzzily, and saw me. "Miss, uh, Wilmington, what's going on here?" He seemed to remember where he was, and said, "What are you doing down here? This is not business for first-year students."
He was still looking around worriedly at the large snakeskin and the state of his robes. I ignored him, and turned around, but then realized I needed help. I asked him, "What do you know about big green boils that glare at you?"
He seemed to see Harry for the first time. "Oh dear," he said, "How nasty. Well, we'll just go upstairs where it's safe, and get this whole messy business sorted out."
Ron looked up from Harry, and his eyes flashed. "YOU BIG, STUPID GIT!" he yelled. "All we're trying to do is save my sister Ginny, and you tried to put a memory spell on us! I'll kill you!"
I ran between them and held Ron back, putting my wand point in his face for emphasis. "First, we help Harry," I said firmly. I turned my wand on the professor. "Do you know anything about the dark arts that can help us?" I asked. He looked sheepish. "I've been listening, you know. I know perfectly well you're a fraud."
"Well," he said tentatively, "it does sort of look like Welsh dragon pox. I had that when I was young. It gets cleared right up by asparagus, but I wouldn't eat it until the whistling nearly drove me mad."
"Ah! Thank you!" I said. "That's perfect!"
"But where are we going to get asparagus?" asked Ron.
"Oh, that's the easy part," I said, and I pointed my wand at some loose stones nearby, and they became slimy boiled asparagus sprouts on a blue dish. Ron looked on in amazement.
Harry had woken up while we were arguing, and was looking balefully at the floppy vegetables. "Huh? What's happening? Why do I have to eat asparagus?"
Just then one of the spots started whistling again, and Ron told him, "Don't ask. Just eat it. She's the only one here who knows what's going on. - Wait a minute!" Now that Harry was no longer in immediate danger, he was suddenly curious again. He turned to me with a questioning look. "How do you know what's going on, anyway? And who are you? And how did you get in here? And did you - were you - was that you flying around?"
Harry, having determinedly swallowed his asparagus, and seeing the green spots start to disappear, turned to me as well. "Yes, who are you, and what on earth is he talking about?"
"Wait," said Ron, "Aren't you Serena? That Hufflepuff that Ginny hangs around with?" He turned to Harry. "I saw a bat, and then it turned into Serena, and then she turned the lobster back into your hand..."
"Are you sure you're all right, Ron?" said Harry, but he was still looking at me. "You do seem to know what's going on, Serena. What is happening?"
"You're not a - a vampire, are you?" said Ron with wide eyes, realizing what he had seen.
"No," I told them, "I'm not. I'm just an Animagus. I learned to turn into a bat. But that's not important. I'm just here to help save Ginny. This creep was trying to stop you, and I'm going to do something about it." I pointed my wand at him, and said, "Professor Lockhart, I can see now that you are not just a fraud, a braggart, and utterly selfish, but you would endanger the lives of others for these reasons. You need to be stopped."
Lockhart knew that if this ever got out, he'd be a laughingstock. He couldn't let that happen! All he'd worked for, gone, like that! All because of this little twerp! He couldn't stand it if everyone knew he was a fraud! And even worse - that he'd attacked Harry Potter! And even worse - that the one thing he knew he could do, the memory charm, had failed him!
"Miss Wellington," he said to the wand point aimed at him, "Please! You can't let this happen to me! I'm Gilderoy Lockhart! The world needs me!" He looked desperately at her.
I looked him in the face, and tried to decide what would be just. "No one will find out about what happened down here today," I said, "If you teach me your memory charm."
"But, but..." he said haltingly, "It's not that simple, you know. I've spent years perfecting it...."
"You saw me turn into a bat," I said. "Trust me. I'm a fast learner."
"But why erase my memory?"
"I think it's the only way justice can be done," I said. "It would hurt people to know what you are, but you hurt people by being that way. You need to stop interfering with what Harry needs to do." I glared at him. "And I want to do to you what I have seen you try to do to my friends."
"No! You can't!" he yelled desperately, and he took something out of his robes, pulling his hand back to throw it.
"Expelliarmus," I cried, waving my wand; but I had never done the spell before, I'd only watched it demonstrated at the dueling club. My first try was pathetic, and the little bottle of grey hazy potion fell very short of my hand. It dropped nearly in front of Lockhart, where he had dropped Ron's wand when it exploded. The bottle shattered, and the grey potion sprayed out, mostly on the professor. Harry and Ron got a little on them too. But where the magical substance touched the distressed unicorn tail hair in the broken wand, it once more produced unpredictable results. The floor shook. I fell backwards into the pile of basilisk skin. I could see Harry and Ron running in opposite directions as rocks started to fall from the ceiling. One hit my head, and the tunnel went even blacker.
When I woke up, at first I just heard voices. Ron's voice; I heard him say, "Ginny!" and then later, "The Memory Charm backfired." When things got less fuzzy, I opened my eyes to see them all being carried by a large red bird. I rubbed my eyes, and wondered what that potion had done to me. The bird was just disappearing up the pipe. I checked myself over, and I seemed to be fine. There must have been a bird. Indeed, I realized the only way to get out of this horrible place was to fly, and I was happy to have my wings ready. I was confused, but the first thing I had to do was find Ginny and see if she was really all right. I flew up the pipe, but as I reached the top, I saw the entrance to the chamber slide closed. I realized I would have to find another way out.
Shrieking and fluttering through the maze that was the plumbing of Hogwarts castle, I looked for an opening big enough for me to squeeze through. After I had got thoroughly frustrated, I spotted a large drain, and shot out of it, right into Filch's face. It was the drain in one of his supply closets. He screamed, "Bats! They're everywhere! Get away from me, you filthy thing!" He hurriedly opened the door, and I escaped.
As I flew through the corridors, I listened carefully for the voices I wanted to hear. Most of the students must still have been in their dormitories. It was very quiet. Then I heard them! In Professor McGonagall's office, Harry and Ron were telling the story of what happened in the Chamber. I settled myself above the doorway to listen. Just then, Ginny walked out, looking right as ever. I nearly fell off my perch with excitement. Her parents were taking her to the hospital wing. As he held the door open for them, Professor Dumbledore saw me hanging above the door. A twinkle came into his eye to see that I, too, had come out of this adventure unharmed. "You know, Minerva," he said, "I think all this merits a good feast. Might I ask you to go and alert the kitchens?"
As she left, and Dumbledore sat down to talk with Harry and Ron, I heard Ron say again, "He tried to do a memory charm and the wand backfired." So Lockhart's memory was completely blank, and Ron didn't remember anything between the two times the wand exploded. Harry seemed to agree with this story. The potion must have been another memory eraser. That doesn't surprise me. All Gilderoy Lockhart has ever done is dazzle and confuse. No real work, and no real magic.
As Ron left the office to see Ginny, I couldn't help myself. I had to go see her too. Everything was going to work out. It was time to celebrate!
The feast was amazing. I've never seen anything like it. Everyone was happy, and all of the tension of the past year was being let out. No one was going to bed tonight. But I was exhausted. Turning into a bat repeatedly can do that to you. As I sat in the corner watching the celebration, Professor Dumbledore came up to me.
"Serena. I received a certain owl from you during the events of the day. You told me you were going to try to save Ginny. And yet you do not seem to factor into the stories told by those in the chamber. I wonder if you succeeded in helping them."
"Sir, I'd rather not say, for Ginny's sake. I don't want her to know how much I was involved."
"Ah, the loyalty of a true Hufflepuff. Just be careful, Serena, that you do not take the justice of the world into your own hands too often. There will be some situations that you cannot see the answer to, that you cannot fix."
"All right, sir, I'll remember."
Mysteries and Memories
***
I flapped around the castle, trying to think in my tiny bat brain. I decided that if any kind of rescue was going to be attempted, it would be near the bathroom where Ginny disappeared. I flew there. No one was outside. I changed. "Hello?" I called. I opened the door. A face popped up in front of mine. I could see the far wall through the lenses of its glasses. I nearly screamed. I told myself it was just a ghost, just like the Fat Friar. I knew him.
"Hello!" the face said, in a sort of tone that was cheerful and mournful at the same time.
"Excuse me," I said, "But do you happen to have seen Harry Potter in here tonight?"
"It's always about him, isn't it?" she shrieked in my face. Then she pouted. "He went down there, if you must know," she whined, and pointed to a large hole in the wall, where a sink had once been.
"Thank you!" I said, and I changed again and darted down the tunnel.
I heard her behind me, crying, "Nobody ever tells me what's going on!"
I hovered over Harry, Ron, and Professor Lockhart, flying a little way at a time and then hanging from the high, mucky ceiling. I saw something ahead of them, and was frightened for an instant, but I could hear at once that it was hollow. They were afraid of it for a minute, thinking it was the giant beastly snake they were looking for, but they realized it was only its skin. Then, as they approached it, there was a scuffle. Lockhart grabbed Ron's wand, and yelled, "Say good-bye to your memories! Obliviate!"
There was a bang, and what I saw next nearly made me fall off the ceiling. It was supposed to have been a memory charm, but Ginny's told me about that wand. You can never really be sure what it's going to do. Ron and the professor were lying on the floor, looking dazed. Harry had been at the center of the whatever-it-was that had blasted out of Ron's wand. It hadn't exactly been a memory charm. It was more or less an explosion of magical energy. His hand had been transfigured into a lobster. His hair had become neon yellow, and was waving like seaweed. His neck was covered in green spots that had tiny faces and were whistling "Yellow Submarine."
I had to help. This couldn't be part of Harry's destiny. He couldn't fight the monster of the chamber like that, and if Harry couldn't save Ginny, no one could!
As I flapped down, Ron looked up and saw me. I couldn't hide it from him. As I changed back into human form, he watched, probably not sure whether what he was seeing was a by-product of whatever his wand had done to them. I ignored him and walked straight to Harry. Then Ron saw him too, and yelled. He got up shakily and came over to us. "Harry! Harry!" he said. "Are you all right?"
First I did what I knew I could do. A lobster was a fairly simple creature, and I knew, from studying Animagi, how to return a human hand to its normal shape. I wove the spell, and it worked! I breathed a sigh of relief. Next I turned to his hair. The effect was a strange one, but I tried a simple disenchantment, and it settled down. Then the thing I was dreading. I had never encountered anything like whistling boils before. I tried the same disenchantment, and at least they stopped singing, but then they all glared at me.
Professor Lockhart was now starting to come to. He was very confused, and yelled, "What's going on? Where am I?" He looked around nervously but muzzily, and saw me. "Miss, uh, Wilmington, what's going on here?" He seemed to remember where he was, and said, "What are you doing down here? This is not business for first-year students."
He was still looking around worriedly at the large snakeskin and the state of his robes. I ignored him, and turned around, but then realized I needed help. I asked him, "What do you know about big green boils that glare at you?"
He seemed to see Harry for the first time. "Oh dear," he said, "How nasty. Well, we'll just go upstairs where it's safe, and get this whole messy business sorted out."
Ron looked up from Harry, and his eyes flashed. "YOU BIG, STUPID GIT!" he yelled. "All we're trying to do is save my sister Ginny, and you tried to put a memory spell on us! I'll kill you!"
I ran between them and held Ron back, putting my wand point in his face for emphasis. "First, we help Harry," I said firmly. I turned my wand on the professor. "Do you know anything about the dark arts that can help us?" I asked. He looked sheepish. "I've been listening, you know. I know perfectly well you're a fraud."
"Well," he said tentatively, "it does sort of look like Welsh dragon pox. I had that when I was young. It gets cleared right up by asparagus, but I wouldn't eat it until the whistling nearly drove me mad."
"Ah! Thank you!" I said. "That's perfect!"
"But where are we going to get asparagus?" asked Ron.
"Oh, that's the easy part," I said, and I pointed my wand at some loose stones nearby, and they became slimy boiled asparagus sprouts on a blue dish. Ron looked on in amazement.
Harry had woken up while we were arguing, and was looking balefully at the floppy vegetables. "Huh? What's happening? Why do I have to eat asparagus?"
Just then one of the spots started whistling again, and Ron told him, "Don't ask. Just eat it. She's the only one here who knows what's going on. - Wait a minute!" Now that Harry was no longer in immediate danger, he was suddenly curious again. He turned to me with a questioning look. "How do you know what's going on, anyway? And who are you? And how did you get in here? And did you - were you - was that you flying around?"
Harry, having determinedly swallowed his asparagus, and seeing the green spots start to disappear, turned to me as well. "Yes, who are you, and what on earth is he talking about?"
"Wait," said Ron, "Aren't you Serena? That Hufflepuff that Ginny hangs around with?" He turned to Harry. "I saw a bat, and then it turned into Serena, and then she turned the lobster back into your hand..."
"Are you sure you're all right, Ron?" said Harry, but he was still looking at me. "You do seem to know what's going on, Serena. What is happening?"
"You're not a - a vampire, are you?" said Ron with wide eyes, realizing what he had seen.
"No," I told them, "I'm not. I'm just an Animagus. I learned to turn into a bat. But that's not important. I'm just here to help save Ginny. This creep was trying to stop you, and I'm going to do something about it." I pointed my wand at him, and said, "Professor Lockhart, I can see now that you are not just a fraud, a braggart, and utterly selfish, but you would endanger the lives of others for these reasons. You need to be stopped."
Lockhart knew that if this ever got out, he'd be a laughingstock. He couldn't let that happen! All he'd worked for, gone, like that! All because of this little twerp! He couldn't stand it if everyone knew he was a fraud! And even worse - that he'd attacked Harry Potter! And even worse - that the one thing he knew he could do, the memory charm, had failed him!
"Miss Wellington," he said to the wand point aimed at him, "Please! You can't let this happen to me! I'm Gilderoy Lockhart! The world needs me!" He looked desperately at her.
I looked him in the face, and tried to decide what would be just. "No one will find out about what happened down here today," I said, "If you teach me your memory charm."
"But, but..." he said haltingly, "It's not that simple, you know. I've spent years perfecting it...."
"You saw me turn into a bat," I said. "Trust me. I'm a fast learner."
"But why erase my memory?"
"I think it's the only way justice can be done," I said. "It would hurt people to know what you are, but you hurt people by being that way. You need to stop interfering with what Harry needs to do." I glared at him. "And I want to do to you what I have seen you try to do to my friends."
"No! You can't!" he yelled desperately, and he took something out of his robes, pulling his hand back to throw it.
"Expelliarmus," I cried, waving my wand; but I had never done the spell before, I'd only watched it demonstrated at the dueling club. My first try was pathetic, and the little bottle of grey hazy potion fell very short of my hand. It dropped nearly in front of Lockhart, where he had dropped Ron's wand when it exploded. The bottle shattered, and the grey potion sprayed out, mostly on the professor. Harry and Ron got a little on them too. But where the magical substance touched the distressed unicorn tail hair in the broken wand, it once more produced unpredictable results. The floor shook. I fell backwards into the pile of basilisk skin. I could see Harry and Ron running in opposite directions as rocks started to fall from the ceiling. One hit my head, and the tunnel went even blacker.
When I woke up, at first I just heard voices. Ron's voice; I heard him say, "Ginny!" and then later, "The Memory Charm backfired." When things got less fuzzy, I opened my eyes to see them all being carried by a large red bird. I rubbed my eyes, and wondered what that potion had done to me. The bird was just disappearing up the pipe. I checked myself over, and I seemed to be fine. There must have been a bird. Indeed, I realized the only way to get out of this horrible place was to fly, and I was happy to have my wings ready. I was confused, but the first thing I had to do was find Ginny and see if she was really all right. I flew up the pipe, but as I reached the top, I saw the entrance to the chamber slide closed. I realized I would have to find another way out.
Shrieking and fluttering through the maze that was the plumbing of Hogwarts castle, I looked for an opening big enough for me to squeeze through. After I had got thoroughly frustrated, I spotted a large drain, and shot out of it, right into Filch's face. It was the drain in one of his supply closets. He screamed, "Bats! They're everywhere! Get away from me, you filthy thing!" He hurriedly opened the door, and I escaped.
As I flew through the corridors, I listened carefully for the voices I wanted to hear. Most of the students must still have been in their dormitories. It was very quiet. Then I heard them! In Professor McGonagall's office, Harry and Ron were telling the story of what happened in the Chamber. I settled myself above the doorway to listen. Just then, Ginny walked out, looking right as ever. I nearly fell off my perch with excitement. Her parents were taking her to the hospital wing. As he held the door open for them, Professor Dumbledore saw me hanging above the door. A twinkle came into his eye to see that I, too, had come out of this adventure unharmed. "You know, Minerva," he said, "I think all this merits a good feast. Might I ask you to go and alert the kitchens?"
As she left, and Dumbledore sat down to talk with Harry and Ron, I heard Ron say again, "He tried to do a memory charm and the wand backfired." So Lockhart's memory was completely blank, and Ron didn't remember anything between the two times the wand exploded. Harry seemed to agree with this story. The potion must have been another memory eraser. That doesn't surprise me. All Gilderoy Lockhart has ever done is dazzle and confuse. No real work, and no real magic.
As Ron left the office to see Ginny, I couldn't help myself. I had to go see her too. Everything was going to work out. It was time to celebrate!
The feast was amazing. I've never seen anything like it. Everyone was happy, and all of the tension of the past year was being let out. No one was going to bed tonight. But I was exhausted. Turning into a bat repeatedly can do that to you. As I sat in the corner watching the celebration, Professor Dumbledore came up to me.
"Serena. I received a certain owl from you during the events of the day. You told me you were going to try to save Ginny. And yet you do not seem to factor into the stories told by those in the chamber. I wonder if you succeeded in helping them."
"Sir, I'd rather not say, for Ginny's sake. I don't want her to know how much I was involved."
"Ah, the loyalty of a true Hufflepuff. Just be careful, Serena, that you do not take the justice of the world into your own hands too often. There will be some situations that you cannot see the answer to, that you cannot fix."
"All right, sir, I'll remember."