Eagle Eyes: The Quest for Rowena
By Raquel
Chapter Two: The Utterly Strange Letters
"Minister Fudge?"
Fudge looked up. His thinning hair was in total disarray from the many times he'd run his fat fingers through it. "Yes, Troy?" he asked urgently.
Troy cleared his throat. He was a stooped young man with long brown hair and soft brown eyes in a round face. In contrast to the rest of his body, his fingers were like skewers as he pointed to a sheaf of parchment. "We've pinpointed the discrepancy."
Fudge flipped over his chair as he stood and rushed across the room. "Have you figured out where she is?"
"Well, sort of," Troy said guiltily. "One of the lawbreakers sent back to 945 and brought back in 1915 was a woman named Pallas Warren. She er.dallied with one of the local men while she was there. Since she was brought forward from 945, she was.er.pregnant when they brought her back to the present day. The child she bore eight months later was the grandmother of Rowena Ravenclaw, misplaced into the 1900's."
"So.you're saying." Fudge said slowly. He'd never been good with the time- travel part of the Ministry. It gave him a headache.
"The great-granddaughter of Pallas Warren is Rowena Ravenclaw. All the records from the time Hogwarts was founded show it. The problem is that by removing her great-grandmother and grandmother from 945, we've created a sort of glitch in the way things ought to work. As of this moment, Rowena Ravenclaw is in the present day. We've got to find her and sent her back to her own time."
"Well, that shouldn't be too hard." Fudge smiled encouragingly. He felt the smile slide off his face as Troy shook his head.
"Rowena was the name she took when she was seventeen," Troy said. "We've got no idea what she was named before then."
Fudge bit his lip. "Well, if Hogwarts is still there, then Rowena must have gotten back."
"Yes, but we've got to look for her. Quickly. If we don't find her by the end of the summer, we're in trouble. Rowena Ravenclaw was exactly sixteen when she started work on Hogwarts, and we've got to give her all sorts of special training if she's to succeed."
"I'll put everyone I can spare on it."
~
Much to Harry's surprise, Pallas rung the doorbell the next morning. He had gotten the impression that they'd not hit it off too well the previous day. Pallas' face was decorated with a shock of bruises more colorful than the previous day, but her long hair was neater and her eyes a little less accusatory. A Stonewall High hockey jersey was tucked into her tattered jeans and her blonde hair was pushed behind her ears. She really was very pretty.
Harry was a little taken aback when she smacked him smartly in the face.
"You utter bastard," she began without so much as a hello, "why the bloody hell didn't you tell me?" Pallas stamped her foot and swiped a handful of blonde waves behind her ears. "You just wait until I've run off home and have the bloody police at my door before you say, 'Oh, by the way, I'm currently being hunted'!"
Harry blinked, running a hand over his smarting cheekbone. "Always a pleasure to see you too."
"Don't I know it," Pallas replied. "Look, are the police after you? Or are they after some other Harry Potter? And why on earth don't the police know where you live?"
"Since I'm attending St. Whatsis, shouldn't they have my number on speed- dial?" Harry asked sarcastically.
Pallas frowned. "Now that I think of it, they did say that they'd tried to reach you, but the jackass didn't say how. He was a bit of a jerk, and he had the ugliest hat I've seen since Professor Pinksley retired." She shifted her weight uncomfortably. "Mind letting me in? People are staring."
Harry moved aside, and she moved inside, whistling at how clean the living room was. "I bet you could cut sushi on this carpet," she remarked. "And I'm sorry about smacking you. I've had a bit of a stressful morning. Could you tell me what this is?"
He'd been about to make a smart remark, but it flew out of his mind as Pallas handed him a thick parchment envelope bearing the distinctive seal of the Ministry of Magic. "How did you get that?" Harry glanced up at her, trying to see what her expression was behind her mask of purple bruises. "Have you read it?"
"The post. It's for me, and I've read it, but I haven't got a clue what these people are talking about." Pallas wiggled her long fingers as if she were playing an invisible keyboard. "I thought it was joke mail, but I'm not so sure. It's just so weird, you know? And you've got to be one of the weirdest people I know, so it made sense to bring it to you."
"Er.right." He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and instead scanned the letter. "What's this about?"
"I'm not, you know," Pallas said coldly.
"What?"
"Mad."
"I didn't say you were."
"Yes, but it does seem like you wanted to say it."
Harry didn't answer. He was reading the letter again, more slowly this time.
Ministry of Magic July 17, 1996
PALLAS LEANDER
You may not realize this, but it's possible that you should be living in the year 989. Terribly sorry about the suddenness of our message, but it's important that you report to the Department of Mysteries by August 2. If you are not there by August 2, you will be brought there. Again, terribly sorry about the suddenness, but it'll be for the best once we get you back where you belong.
You see, your real name is Rowena. Rowena Ravenclaw, of course, and, well, you shouldn't be here right now. In fact, you should have died about 900 years ago. Like we said, just get to the Ministry of Magic by August 2 and we'll work it all out. Once more, we are really very sorry about this, but by August 3 we've got to send you to the 900's to live in the Dark Ages. Not that we really want to, but it's for your own good.
THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
"This is weird," he said slowly. Pallas snorted derisively. Harry looked up at her. "Is your proper name Rowena Ravenclaw?"
Pallas frowned. "Well, my proper name is Rowena Pallas Leander-Warren. But I've always been called Pallas, after my great-grandmother. It's a daft name, Rowena." She bent down to inspect one of the dust-free framed pictures of Dudley, this one looking like a large bald potbellied pig on a tricycle. Her long blonde hair hid the expression on her face, which Harry regretted somewhat. It was quite a treat to have someone else in Number 4 who had nearly the same opinion as Dudley as he did.
"Well that's all right then. Are you a witch?"
For the second time in two days he was pinned by the full intensity of Pallas's icy glare. Her pupils expanded until they nearly touched the black rims of her blue eyes. Harry flinched. It was quite as bad as staring down a hippogriff. "What," she said coldly, "do you mean by that?"
"I mean can you do magic? And stop looking at me like that, it's quite frightening."
Pallas looked down at her long thin fingers, her hair once more hiding the expression on her face. "Mum's not a witch, so I can't be," she said quietly. "But I've got a mad aunt who killed herself a few years past, and she was a witch. I went to her funeral, and it was weird, people popping in and out all over the place. And I'm not sure, but my Gran had a broom in her closet that could sweep floors by itself. She might have been. But I've not seen her since I was very small, so I dunno."
"I thought you might be, because the Ministry of Magic generally doesn't send letters to Muggles. You know, non-wizards."
"Actually, I don't know, because I am a-a Muggle." Pallas made a face at the unfamiliarity of the word.
Harry began to pace. "But if the letter was supposed to be sent to you, then you've got to be a witch. Rowena Ravenclaw was a witch."
"You know, it's really starting to bother me how you automatically assume that I know what the bloody hell you're talking about," Pallas told him lightly, standing on tiptoe to examine the brightly polished trophy that was prominently displayed on the mantel. "Did he win this or did his dear daddy buy it for him?"
"Won it. Don't ask Uncle Vernon about it. He'll never shut up." Harry glanced down at the letter once more, as though wishing that the words could explain to him what was going on. "I've got to ask someone about this." He turned to go up the stairs.
Pallas caught him by the wrist. "Who?"
"No one special," Harry said simply, hoping that it would satisfy her.
"Who?" she asked again. The older boy had to suppress a groan. Apparently Pallas was one of those people who are never happy unless they know everything about a situation. He thought about lying but Pallas was watching him closely.
"I don't know yet," he said quickly, and then rushed up the stairs. Pallas pounded after him, her hair swinging as she followed him into his room.
Abruptly Harry saw it as Pallas did: scrolls of parchment protruding from his school bag, two broken quills and a heap of crumpled essays erupting from the trash can, and a four-foot tall stack of texts with names like The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Five, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi and Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them. Hedwig was perched inside her cage and made a polite hooting noise at Harry as he entered.
Pallas jumped a foot, unfortunately onto another owl that had been pecking around among the scattered items of Harry's Broom Repair Kit. The second owl screeched and took off, Pallas screamed and clasped her hands over her head, and Harry frantically jumped up to catch the letter the new owl was holding. She tripped over his Firebolt, which was hovering a foot off the ground, just as Harry seized the letter from the unfamiliar owl. With a thump that sounded far too loud to come from Pallas's slight frame, she fell into his school cauldron. There was a sucking noise and she vanished into it.
Harry gasped and looked down into the cauldron, which recently had been brimful with about two liters of potion, now held Pallas with room to spare. She blinked up at him, her mouth set in the same unreadable way as when she'd told him to pull his head out of his ass. "What's going on?" she asked in a small voice. It was suddenly very clear that she was, after all, only twelve and a Muggle to boot.
"Well, you're in my cauldron," Harry said, offering her a hand out. "And this is my room."
She clambered up, brushing some unidentifiable white powder off her jeans and jersey. "It looks a bit smaller from out here," she said to herself, bending down to inspect the cauldron. Harry would have liked to examine this new and previously unknown aspect of his cauldron, but the letter was beginning to shake urgently in his hands.
He opened it and started as a frankly mad old face jumped out at him. It was startlingly realistic and drawn in ink like the rough copy of a cartoon. "HEEERE'S WALDO!" the face screamed, the furry white eyebrows jumping over two eyes that pointed different directions. "And you must be.VLAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! Vlad the Impaler, sticks people on stick and sticks sticks into people and generally is just a sticky guy to play BAR-TABLE EUCHRE!" The man seemed to be mad or possibly deaf, the volume of his voice was altering rapidly from maniac shout to a nearly inaudible snicker.
Pallas bent further over the cauldron, her hair over her face, but Harry strongly suspected she was laughing.
"Where is she? Wherewherewherewherewhere WEREWOLVES! YOU KNOW I honestly think that she's gone over to the other side-there's nothing for it but HEY THERE'S GRAPEFRUIT FOR LUNCH TODAY AND I DON'T HAVE A SPOON!" The face vanished, leaving an ink-spattered message from Ron:
"Real sorry about that, Harry, but the only parchment I can get a hold of in St. Mungos has already been used as a sort of behavior monitor for the more serious residents and when I stole some I must have gotten the maddest one of them all. Anyway, I overheard something while I was in here, and it's got to do with you. Hermione says I've got to tell you why we're here first, so my big news will have to wait.
"Percy's gotten hurt. He won't tell us anything, mostly because he's being weird and shaking and stuff. He's been getting Shock Spells but I really don't see a difference. Mum and Dad are really worried about him, which I think is a little rich considering he's treated us like"-here there was a scribble over whatever word Ron had written-"for the past year.
"Anyway, apparently Fudge is looking for Rowena Ravenclaw! There's this whole time thing that I don't understand (ask Hermione if you dare) but she's here and now and should be there and then. It's funny because they can't seem to find her, and Fudge is going spare. He's been to St. Mungos at least five times in the past two days. Though she's not admitting it, I think Mum enjoys watching him sweat for once.
"Loony Lovegood's here too: apparently her father's promised that if she does an article on the conditions in St. Mungos he'll publish it for her. I really don't think Luna's quite cut out to be a reporter, because she's been here about an hour and all the staff avoids her already. She could give Rita a run for her money if this holds her attention long enough-but I doubt it will.
"Luck with the Muggles, Ron."
Harry put down the letter. Pallas was experimentally tossing things into his cauldron to see just how much it could hold: she had gotten most of his spell books and the contents of the trashcan inside with ease and was now lobbing Owl Treats into the mouth of the cauldron. "What's so funny?" she asked, dumping the rest of the Owl Treats in. "I bet you could pack the Tower of London in here and it wouldn't bust."
"I don't think the spell can go that far," Harry replied. "The letter's from one of my friends, Ron. He was just telling me-"
"The owl brought the letter?" Pallas asked curiously. "Like the Owl Post?"
"Yes," Harry said with surprise. "How do you know-"
"My mad aunt. She always sent us utterly strange letters by owl." Pallas overturned the cauldron with ease, allowing the ten or so spell-books and various paper wads and Owl Treats to fall to the floor. "This thing is really cool." She climbed inside once again. "I wonder how big this gets. What it this pot thing called again?"
"It's a cauldron," Harry said absently, turning the letter over and over in his hand. "Do you think that you're Rowena Ravenclaw?"
"Well, I don't know who Rowena Ravenclaw is," Pallas replied, her voice echoing from inside the cauldron. "So that's a bit of a hard question to answer." She popped her head out, her wavy blonde hair looking much more like when he had first met her. "Well, since I'm not a witch and have never heard of Hogwarts or magic or cauldrons that hold whatever you like, I'd have to say no." With a heave she rolled out of the cauldron and began inspecting the books. "And my mum definitely is NOT a witch. She's so lazy that I know she'd use magic if she could."
With a sinking feeling Harry realized that he was breaking at least three of the Muggle Secrecy Acts by just having Pallas in his room. In fact, telling her about Rowena Ravenclaw and Hogwarts was about the most serious breach of the Code of International Secrecy that he could think of. "Er.really, you shouldn't be in here. It's kind of against the law." Pallas snorted and flipped open Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. "No, seriously. I think that the Ministry might have made a mistake sending you that letter and if they realize that you're not a witch then you'll get your memory erased."
That got Pallas's attention. Her pupils expanded, and Harry once more got the feeling that he was staring down a particularly vicious hippogriff. "They're going to do what? They better not. Isn't that against the law?" She pushed a handful of waves out of her eyes and winced as she brushed one of the more violently colored bruises on her face.
"Not when it comes to Muggles," Harry replied, trying to avoid her gaze. "Some wizards aren't too fond of Muggles."
"Well that's dumb," Pallas said defiantly. "I'm scared shitless by the whole idea of someone coming to my house and running off with my memories, and they're worried about us?"
"There are quite a lot more of you," he said, trying to be fair. He ducked down to peer under his bed, determined to find some parchment. This whole situation was getting out of hand far too fast: he really needed to write to someone. A list of possible people came to mind, capped by Albus Dumbledore and involving everyone from Minerva McGonagall to his best friend Ron Weasley. If Harry had had a choice, he would have written off to Sirius right away, but Sirius had died weeks ago. Sorrow, like a punch to the stomach, made Harry's gut clench.
"Well I can't think much of your Ministry if they're telling us normal people that we're witches when we aren't, and especially if they're afraid of us when they've got bloody wands," Pallas said practically. "Do these things really exist?" she asked, pointing at a diagram of a Puffskein. "And do they seriously eat your bogeys while you sleep?"
Harry tore off the bottom of a botched essay and pulled out a quill and ink. He paused with his quill poised over the parchment. "I dunno. My friend Ron had one once but it died."
"How did it die?" she asked curiously, flipping to the next page. Her eyes flashed back and forth almost as fast as Hermione's. "They look pretty well padded to me. What's a Beater?"
He didn't answer. Instead he began his letter.
Dear Remus,
Author's Note-Chapter two and still no reviews. I question the sanity of little-known yet prolific authors. How do they stand it? Well, I'm just going to keep posting until my brain bleeds dry. So fin chapter two.
By Raquel
Chapter Two: The Utterly Strange Letters
"Minister Fudge?"
Fudge looked up. His thinning hair was in total disarray from the many times he'd run his fat fingers through it. "Yes, Troy?" he asked urgently.
Troy cleared his throat. He was a stooped young man with long brown hair and soft brown eyes in a round face. In contrast to the rest of his body, his fingers were like skewers as he pointed to a sheaf of parchment. "We've pinpointed the discrepancy."
Fudge flipped over his chair as he stood and rushed across the room. "Have you figured out where she is?"
"Well, sort of," Troy said guiltily. "One of the lawbreakers sent back to 945 and brought back in 1915 was a woman named Pallas Warren. She er.dallied with one of the local men while she was there. Since she was brought forward from 945, she was.er.pregnant when they brought her back to the present day. The child she bore eight months later was the grandmother of Rowena Ravenclaw, misplaced into the 1900's."
"So.you're saying." Fudge said slowly. He'd never been good with the time- travel part of the Ministry. It gave him a headache.
"The great-granddaughter of Pallas Warren is Rowena Ravenclaw. All the records from the time Hogwarts was founded show it. The problem is that by removing her great-grandmother and grandmother from 945, we've created a sort of glitch in the way things ought to work. As of this moment, Rowena Ravenclaw is in the present day. We've got to find her and sent her back to her own time."
"Well, that shouldn't be too hard." Fudge smiled encouragingly. He felt the smile slide off his face as Troy shook his head.
"Rowena was the name she took when she was seventeen," Troy said. "We've got no idea what she was named before then."
Fudge bit his lip. "Well, if Hogwarts is still there, then Rowena must have gotten back."
"Yes, but we've got to look for her. Quickly. If we don't find her by the end of the summer, we're in trouble. Rowena Ravenclaw was exactly sixteen when she started work on Hogwarts, and we've got to give her all sorts of special training if she's to succeed."
"I'll put everyone I can spare on it."
~
Much to Harry's surprise, Pallas rung the doorbell the next morning. He had gotten the impression that they'd not hit it off too well the previous day. Pallas' face was decorated with a shock of bruises more colorful than the previous day, but her long hair was neater and her eyes a little less accusatory. A Stonewall High hockey jersey was tucked into her tattered jeans and her blonde hair was pushed behind her ears. She really was very pretty.
Harry was a little taken aback when she smacked him smartly in the face.
"You utter bastard," she began without so much as a hello, "why the bloody hell didn't you tell me?" Pallas stamped her foot and swiped a handful of blonde waves behind her ears. "You just wait until I've run off home and have the bloody police at my door before you say, 'Oh, by the way, I'm currently being hunted'!"
Harry blinked, running a hand over his smarting cheekbone. "Always a pleasure to see you too."
"Don't I know it," Pallas replied. "Look, are the police after you? Or are they after some other Harry Potter? And why on earth don't the police know where you live?"
"Since I'm attending St. Whatsis, shouldn't they have my number on speed- dial?" Harry asked sarcastically.
Pallas frowned. "Now that I think of it, they did say that they'd tried to reach you, but the jackass didn't say how. He was a bit of a jerk, and he had the ugliest hat I've seen since Professor Pinksley retired." She shifted her weight uncomfortably. "Mind letting me in? People are staring."
Harry moved aside, and she moved inside, whistling at how clean the living room was. "I bet you could cut sushi on this carpet," she remarked. "And I'm sorry about smacking you. I've had a bit of a stressful morning. Could you tell me what this is?"
He'd been about to make a smart remark, but it flew out of his mind as Pallas handed him a thick parchment envelope bearing the distinctive seal of the Ministry of Magic. "How did you get that?" Harry glanced up at her, trying to see what her expression was behind her mask of purple bruises. "Have you read it?"
"The post. It's for me, and I've read it, but I haven't got a clue what these people are talking about." Pallas wiggled her long fingers as if she were playing an invisible keyboard. "I thought it was joke mail, but I'm not so sure. It's just so weird, you know? And you've got to be one of the weirdest people I know, so it made sense to bring it to you."
"Er.right." He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and instead scanned the letter. "What's this about?"
"I'm not, you know," Pallas said coldly.
"What?"
"Mad."
"I didn't say you were."
"Yes, but it does seem like you wanted to say it."
Harry didn't answer. He was reading the letter again, more slowly this time.
Ministry of Magic July 17, 1996
PALLAS LEANDER
You may not realize this, but it's possible that you should be living in the year 989. Terribly sorry about the suddenness of our message, but it's important that you report to the Department of Mysteries by August 2. If you are not there by August 2, you will be brought there. Again, terribly sorry about the suddenness, but it'll be for the best once we get you back where you belong.
You see, your real name is Rowena. Rowena Ravenclaw, of course, and, well, you shouldn't be here right now. In fact, you should have died about 900 years ago. Like we said, just get to the Ministry of Magic by August 2 and we'll work it all out. Once more, we are really very sorry about this, but by August 3 we've got to send you to the 900's to live in the Dark Ages. Not that we really want to, but it's for your own good.
THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
"This is weird," he said slowly. Pallas snorted derisively. Harry looked up at her. "Is your proper name Rowena Ravenclaw?"
Pallas frowned. "Well, my proper name is Rowena Pallas Leander-Warren. But I've always been called Pallas, after my great-grandmother. It's a daft name, Rowena." She bent down to inspect one of the dust-free framed pictures of Dudley, this one looking like a large bald potbellied pig on a tricycle. Her long blonde hair hid the expression on her face, which Harry regretted somewhat. It was quite a treat to have someone else in Number 4 who had nearly the same opinion as Dudley as he did.
"Well that's all right then. Are you a witch?"
For the second time in two days he was pinned by the full intensity of Pallas's icy glare. Her pupils expanded until they nearly touched the black rims of her blue eyes. Harry flinched. It was quite as bad as staring down a hippogriff. "What," she said coldly, "do you mean by that?"
"I mean can you do magic? And stop looking at me like that, it's quite frightening."
Pallas looked down at her long thin fingers, her hair once more hiding the expression on her face. "Mum's not a witch, so I can't be," she said quietly. "But I've got a mad aunt who killed herself a few years past, and she was a witch. I went to her funeral, and it was weird, people popping in and out all over the place. And I'm not sure, but my Gran had a broom in her closet that could sweep floors by itself. She might have been. But I've not seen her since I was very small, so I dunno."
"I thought you might be, because the Ministry of Magic generally doesn't send letters to Muggles. You know, non-wizards."
"Actually, I don't know, because I am a-a Muggle." Pallas made a face at the unfamiliarity of the word.
Harry began to pace. "But if the letter was supposed to be sent to you, then you've got to be a witch. Rowena Ravenclaw was a witch."
"You know, it's really starting to bother me how you automatically assume that I know what the bloody hell you're talking about," Pallas told him lightly, standing on tiptoe to examine the brightly polished trophy that was prominently displayed on the mantel. "Did he win this or did his dear daddy buy it for him?"
"Won it. Don't ask Uncle Vernon about it. He'll never shut up." Harry glanced down at the letter once more, as though wishing that the words could explain to him what was going on. "I've got to ask someone about this." He turned to go up the stairs.
Pallas caught him by the wrist. "Who?"
"No one special," Harry said simply, hoping that it would satisfy her.
"Who?" she asked again. The older boy had to suppress a groan. Apparently Pallas was one of those people who are never happy unless they know everything about a situation. He thought about lying but Pallas was watching him closely.
"I don't know yet," he said quickly, and then rushed up the stairs. Pallas pounded after him, her hair swinging as she followed him into his room.
Abruptly Harry saw it as Pallas did: scrolls of parchment protruding from his school bag, two broken quills and a heap of crumpled essays erupting from the trash can, and a four-foot tall stack of texts with names like The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Five, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi and Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them. Hedwig was perched inside her cage and made a polite hooting noise at Harry as he entered.
Pallas jumped a foot, unfortunately onto another owl that had been pecking around among the scattered items of Harry's Broom Repair Kit. The second owl screeched and took off, Pallas screamed and clasped her hands over her head, and Harry frantically jumped up to catch the letter the new owl was holding. She tripped over his Firebolt, which was hovering a foot off the ground, just as Harry seized the letter from the unfamiliar owl. With a thump that sounded far too loud to come from Pallas's slight frame, she fell into his school cauldron. There was a sucking noise and she vanished into it.
Harry gasped and looked down into the cauldron, which recently had been brimful with about two liters of potion, now held Pallas with room to spare. She blinked up at him, her mouth set in the same unreadable way as when she'd told him to pull his head out of his ass. "What's going on?" she asked in a small voice. It was suddenly very clear that she was, after all, only twelve and a Muggle to boot.
"Well, you're in my cauldron," Harry said, offering her a hand out. "And this is my room."
She clambered up, brushing some unidentifiable white powder off her jeans and jersey. "It looks a bit smaller from out here," she said to herself, bending down to inspect the cauldron. Harry would have liked to examine this new and previously unknown aspect of his cauldron, but the letter was beginning to shake urgently in his hands.
He opened it and started as a frankly mad old face jumped out at him. It was startlingly realistic and drawn in ink like the rough copy of a cartoon. "HEEERE'S WALDO!" the face screamed, the furry white eyebrows jumping over two eyes that pointed different directions. "And you must be.VLAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! Vlad the Impaler, sticks people on stick and sticks sticks into people and generally is just a sticky guy to play BAR-TABLE EUCHRE!" The man seemed to be mad or possibly deaf, the volume of his voice was altering rapidly from maniac shout to a nearly inaudible snicker.
Pallas bent further over the cauldron, her hair over her face, but Harry strongly suspected she was laughing.
"Where is she? Wherewherewherewherewhere WEREWOLVES! YOU KNOW I honestly think that she's gone over to the other side-there's nothing for it but HEY THERE'S GRAPEFRUIT FOR LUNCH TODAY AND I DON'T HAVE A SPOON!" The face vanished, leaving an ink-spattered message from Ron:
"Real sorry about that, Harry, but the only parchment I can get a hold of in St. Mungos has already been used as a sort of behavior monitor for the more serious residents and when I stole some I must have gotten the maddest one of them all. Anyway, I overheard something while I was in here, and it's got to do with you. Hermione says I've got to tell you why we're here first, so my big news will have to wait.
"Percy's gotten hurt. He won't tell us anything, mostly because he's being weird and shaking and stuff. He's been getting Shock Spells but I really don't see a difference. Mum and Dad are really worried about him, which I think is a little rich considering he's treated us like"-here there was a scribble over whatever word Ron had written-"for the past year.
"Anyway, apparently Fudge is looking for Rowena Ravenclaw! There's this whole time thing that I don't understand (ask Hermione if you dare) but she's here and now and should be there and then. It's funny because they can't seem to find her, and Fudge is going spare. He's been to St. Mungos at least five times in the past two days. Though she's not admitting it, I think Mum enjoys watching him sweat for once.
"Loony Lovegood's here too: apparently her father's promised that if she does an article on the conditions in St. Mungos he'll publish it for her. I really don't think Luna's quite cut out to be a reporter, because she's been here about an hour and all the staff avoids her already. She could give Rita a run for her money if this holds her attention long enough-but I doubt it will.
"Luck with the Muggles, Ron."
Harry put down the letter. Pallas was experimentally tossing things into his cauldron to see just how much it could hold: she had gotten most of his spell books and the contents of the trashcan inside with ease and was now lobbing Owl Treats into the mouth of the cauldron. "What's so funny?" she asked, dumping the rest of the Owl Treats in. "I bet you could pack the Tower of London in here and it wouldn't bust."
"I don't think the spell can go that far," Harry replied. "The letter's from one of my friends, Ron. He was just telling me-"
"The owl brought the letter?" Pallas asked curiously. "Like the Owl Post?"
"Yes," Harry said with surprise. "How do you know-"
"My mad aunt. She always sent us utterly strange letters by owl." Pallas overturned the cauldron with ease, allowing the ten or so spell-books and various paper wads and Owl Treats to fall to the floor. "This thing is really cool." She climbed inside once again. "I wonder how big this gets. What it this pot thing called again?"
"It's a cauldron," Harry said absently, turning the letter over and over in his hand. "Do you think that you're Rowena Ravenclaw?"
"Well, I don't know who Rowena Ravenclaw is," Pallas replied, her voice echoing from inside the cauldron. "So that's a bit of a hard question to answer." She popped her head out, her wavy blonde hair looking much more like when he had first met her. "Well, since I'm not a witch and have never heard of Hogwarts or magic or cauldrons that hold whatever you like, I'd have to say no." With a heave she rolled out of the cauldron and began inspecting the books. "And my mum definitely is NOT a witch. She's so lazy that I know she'd use magic if she could."
With a sinking feeling Harry realized that he was breaking at least three of the Muggle Secrecy Acts by just having Pallas in his room. In fact, telling her about Rowena Ravenclaw and Hogwarts was about the most serious breach of the Code of International Secrecy that he could think of. "Er.really, you shouldn't be in here. It's kind of against the law." Pallas snorted and flipped open Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. "No, seriously. I think that the Ministry might have made a mistake sending you that letter and if they realize that you're not a witch then you'll get your memory erased."
That got Pallas's attention. Her pupils expanded, and Harry once more got the feeling that he was staring down a particularly vicious hippogriff. "They're going to do what? They better not. Isn't that against the law?" She pushed a handful of waves out of her eyes and winced as she brushed one of the more violently colored bruises on her face.
"Not when it comes to Muggles," Harry replied, trying to avoid her gaze. "Some wizards aren't too fond of Muggles."
"Well that's dumb," Pallas said defiantly. "I'm scared shitless by the whole idea of someone coming to my house and running off with my memories, and they're worried about us?"
"There are quite a lot more of you," he said, trying to be fair. He ducked down to peer under his bed, determined to find some parchment. This whole situation was getting out of hand far too fast: he really needed to write to someone. A list of possible people came to mind, capped by Albus Dumbledore and involving everyone from Minerva McGonagall to his best friend Ron Weasley. If Harry had had a choice, he would have written off to Sirius right away, but Sirius had died weeks ago. Sorrow, like a punch to the stomach, made Harry's gut clench.
"Well I can't think much of your Ministry if they're telling us normal people that we're witches when we aren't, and especially if they're afraid of us when they've got bloody wands," Pallas said practically. "Do these things really exist?" she asked, pointing at a diagram of a Puffskein. "And do they seriously eat your bogeys while you sleep?"
Harry tore off the bottom of a botched essay and pulled out a quill and ink. He paused with his quill poised over the parchment. "I dunno. My friend Ron had one once but it died."
"How did it die?" she asked curiously, flipping to the next page. Her eyes flashed back and forth almost as fast as Hermione's. "They look pretty well padded to me. What's a Beater?"
He didn't answer. Instead he began his letter.
Dear Remus,
Author's Note-Chapter two and still no reviews. I question the sanity of little-known yet prolific authors. How do they stand it? Well, I'm just going to keep posting until my brain bleeds dry. So fin chapter two.