Chapter 11: The Book of Names
"Hello 'Mione," Ron said distractedly as the distinct thump of Hermione's heavy schoolbag landing on the bench vibrated through the wood.
"Anything wrong?" Harry asked, noticing her slightly troubled expression. Ron looked up from his lunch.
"We did our first practical transformation today, and I -" she paused. /I had feathers./
"Oh." Ron and Harry said in unison.
"What?" Hermione asked, looking at them in surprise. "I haven't even told you yet!"
"Um, is this about what Malfoy said about your animagus being a bird?" Harry said hurriedly, wary of Hermione's suspicious expression. "Because he's just a stupid git."
"Yeah," Ron agreed. "I mean even if you sprouted feathers -"
Harry stepped on his foot under the table.
"Assuming that that was what you were trying to tell us." Ron finished, mumbling into his pie.
Harry pretended to discover a sudden interest in his meal as well and Ron squirmed, neither wanting to look up for fear of seeing that glimmer of hurt in her eyes. It was the worst part of their Seer training - not being able to tell Hermione anything about it.
"Anyway," Hermione said briskly, continuing as if nothing had happened. "I bumped into McGuffin in the hallway, and he said there'll be a prefect's meeting tonight after dinner."
"Oh no," Ron groaned and mumbled something about needing to sleep.
"It's only one o'clock," Hermione said a little curtly. "Surely whatever it is you both do for the Defence Project isn't that tiring."
"She pushed us quite hard with the, er, dueling today." Harry lied. It felt even worse lying to her than ignoring her questions.
The truth was, Professor Figgs and Arabella had spent the better part of the morning getting them to try to hear each others thoughts. They'd had very little progress because they'd been trying too hard (according to Arabella, that much concentration was cluttering up their minds) but the moment they'd stepped out of class they'd realised to their chagrin that they had no problem skimming the surface of everybody else's thoughts (quite ironic, really), and neither had any idea how to shut it off other than by concentrating on avoiding eye contact with everyone without seeming rude. And if Harry's own headache was anything to go by, neither of them would be much inclined to be paying attention to the prefects' meeting this evening.
.
It was most unfortunate that McGuffin also had one of those voices that although could not quite match Professor Binn's sleepy drone, had a way of making Harry lose interest all the same. At the moment he was going on about the details of patrol for the next Hogsmeade weekend.
Harry gave a massive yawn before he could stifle it.
"Potter." McGuffin barked acidly. "I'm sorry you find these proceedings so uninteresting."
Before Harry could apologise, Ron stood up from his seat with such force that his chair almost flew backwards, turning red in the face.
"Don't you talk to Harry like that!" he roared. McGuffin stepped back in alarm at Ron's murderous expression.
"Ron! What is the matter with you?!" Hermione asked, her shocked expression reflected by all others around the table. Ron continued to fume as if he hadn't heard her.
"Cool it," Harry hissed, grabbing Ron's wand hand. "Sorry, the both of us are really tired today." Harry told McGuffin.
"Oh look," Malfoy proclaimed in a stage whisper, smirking nastily. "Potty and Weasel are holding hands. Isn't that just absolutely sweet?"
"Shut up!" Ron turned around so that his wand was now pointed at Malfoy. Malfoy's smile faltered a little.
"That will be enough, Weasley," McGuffin said firmly, recovering himself somewhat. "Do us a favour, Potter, and get him back to the common room before he does something he regrets."
"Congratulations, Potter," Malfoy drawled hatefully as Harry turned to leave with a still slightly crazed Ron. "Looks like your insanity is catching." The Slytherin prefects snickered.
"One more word from you, Malfoy, and I'll throw you out of this meeting myself." Cho said evenly. Malfoy glared at her, but kept his silence.
"She thinks she's so great," Malfoy sneered quietly to another Slytherin prefect the moment Cho's back was turned. "Probably gave her the post because her boyfriend got himself killed."
Cho flinched like she had been slapped in the face. Then there was a loud bang, and Malfoy flew across the room, still in his chair. With an annoyed crack, the chair tipped it's occupant on the floor and began to wobble back to the table.
Malfoy's face contorted with rage as he picked himself up, but when he opened his mouth, all that came out was a series of rodent squeaks... ferret squeaks.
"Weasley!" McGuffin thundered. "Get out of this room!"
Fighting a hysterical urge to giggle at the horrified expression on Malfoy's face, Harry grabbed Ron and dragged him out of the room.
.
"Did you see Malfoy's face?" Ron choked, his freckled face red from laughing so hard. "I've been itching to do that ever since Fred taught me the spell." He turned to look at Harry and the mirth on his face died.
"Okay, what's up with you?" Harry asked quietly.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Ron mumbled.
"You've acting very oddly all term - shouting at Hermione and me, getting all worked up for no reason..."
"I don't know, Harry, I really don't," Ron said glumly slumping against the stone of the passageway. "You reckon McGuffin might suspend me from prefect duty?"
"What happened back there?"
"I don't know," Ron frowned, running his fingers through his head of fiery hair. "Suddenly everything just got really intense and my head felt like it was going to¡ explode or something. And then I just get really mad at everything."
"How long has this been going on?"
"Since the school let out I guess," Ron replied gloomily. "At first I thought it was just something the twins had slipped in my food for a joke. Would be just like them, you know, to sneak some sneezewort or something onto my plate."
"Why didn't you tell Hermione then? You know her, she'd probably drag out a dozen books from the library and tell you how to deal with it in about five seconds."
"Or she might make me go to Madam Pomfrey, who'll decide I've lost my mind and send me to St. Mungo's forever."
"Ron -"
"No, Harry, I don't want her to worry," Ron said. "I promise I'll... I'll go to Madam Pomfrey myself if it happens again." His face paled, the pessimistic certainty that he'd truly gone mad all over his face.
And Harry, who knew the futility of arguing with Ron when he was in a stubborn mood like that, gave in. For the moment, at any rate.
---
"How's Ron?"
"Not trying to kill McGuffin, if that's what you're asking," Hermione sighed. "Has he said anything at all about why he's been behaving so strangely?"
"He was just tired, that's all."
"Just tired." Hermione snorted incredulously. "What a way to get suspended from prefect duties."
/I know something's up,/ Harry heard Hermione think. /And I hate it when you leave me out of it like that./
Harry forced himself to maintain eye contact with Hermione, as if he hadn't heard her at all.
"Did you want to say something, Hermione?" Harry asked out loud, pretending to look politely puzzled. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Nothing. I didn't say anything," Hermione snapped in disgust. "Let's go down to Professor McGonagall's office, or we'll be late."
/I know you can hear me, Harry. I know you can./
.
"Come in."
"Good evening, Professor."
"I'm sorry to call for you both at such a short notice, but there has been a sudden meeting for the Heads of House. Professor Snape has something to say about Mr. Weasley's outburst last night, I'm sure," McGonagall sighed, her lips pursed tightly together. "I will need the both of you to watch the Book of Names for me in my absence." She indicated a large book that rested, open, on a small stand in the corner of the room.
"The Book of Names? Isn't that the book that magically records the birth of every magical child in Britain and records the location of each magical being?"
"That is correct, Miss Granger," McGonagall agreed, smiling. "I should have known that if any student in this school had read 'Hogwarts: A History' it would have been you."
Hermione beamed and Harry resisted the urge to smile and roll his eyes.
"Of course the book is quite capable of doing its job on its own. I don't expect much to happen tonight, but just in case..."
"Don't worry, Professor, we'll keep watch."
"If the quill starts coughing, a common unblotting spell will do the trick," McGonagall advised, and the office door clicked shut behind her.
.
An awkward silence followed Professor McGonagall's departure. Hermione, who was still fuming and did not want to talk to Harry just yet, pulled out one of the books she had gotten on animagus transformations from her book bag (she had of course finished all her homework long ago). Harry, having not thought of bringing his half-finished Charms essay, went to McGonagall's bookshelf, curiously perusing titles such as 'Skin and Bones: The Art of Animal Transfiguration' and 'Tionndaidh Buileach'[1] - all sounding quite as stern and proper as their Transfiguration professor. Across the room, the self-writing quill hummed contentedly in its little inkpot by the Book of Names, the only sound in the otherwise silent room.
Harry was flipping through 'Great Transfigurations of the Century' when the quill began scratching energetically on an open page.
"William McDogal," it scribbled on a blank page. "January 25th, 1996, 9 1/10 o'clock."
It was rather untidy sort of handwriting, and the quill had written all over the margin.
"It's in green," Harry observed. "Does that mean he's going to be in Slytherin?"
"Then there wouldn't be a need for a Sorting Hat now, would there?" Hermione pointed out, not looking up from her book.
"Oh. Right."
Gingerly making sure that the green ink had dried, Harry began flipping through the rest of the book. The pages were old and yellowed, but the book seemed to have been lovingly preserved. The bindings creaked a little as he flipped past page after page of messy scribbles - boys' names in green, girls' names in purple.
"Fred Weasley," he saw on one page. "April 1st, 1977, 1 13¨M30 o'clock." And just below it, "George Weasley, April 1st, 1977, 1 9/20 o'clock."
Well that explains a lot, Harry snorted. He paused as another scribbling caught his eye.
"Draco Malfoy, August 2nd, 1979, Midnight."
"Hey! Malfoy's younger than me and Ron!"
Hermione rolled her eyes and stashed her book back into her bag.
"Honestly, Harry," she said. "You and Ron and prefects, you really should try to set a better example for the younger Gryffindors."
"Says she who was all in a fury about 'stinking Slytherins' last year," Harry teased.
.
A flash of blue caught his eye, and he paused to read the writing.
"Mister Firenze, The Forbidden Forest, The Clearing beyond the Fork," Harry read.
"This must be how they address our Hogwarts letters," Hermione said.
"Does this track everything then?" Harry asked slowly.
"Well... I suppose so."
"Hermione, could I have a piece of parchment?" She acquiesced with a look of puzzlement as he placed the blank piece of parchment on an open page of the book. Harry swallowed, heart pounding in anticipation.
"The Chalice of Morgan Le Fay." He told the quill clearly.
The quill hovered above the parchment, trembling ever so slightly, but didn't move otherwise.
"It was worth a try," Harry shrugged at Hermione, slightly disappointed. "I suppose the book doesn't track non-living obj-"
Hermione grabbed Harry's arm.
"Look!"
The quill had started scribbling furiously over the parchment in shiny blue ink:
The Forbidden Forest
Aragog's Lair
The Hollow in the Largest Fallen Oak
The quill paused, then settled back in its inkpot again, humming softly.
---
Hermione had given Harry a don't-you-dare look all the way back from McGonagall's office, hissing loudly about all the reasons why he shouldn't go off alone into the Forbidden Forest to retrieve the Chalice. Harry scowled inwardly. Of course he wasn't going to go off alone into the Forest - he was going to bring Ron.
But Ron was fast asleep by the time they returned to Gryffindor Tower and resisted all of Harry's attempts to wake him (Harry suspected he should not have mentioned the Chalice was in Aragog's Lair until Ron had actually woken up and it was too late to pretend he was sleeping).
The glowing dial of his watch told him it was nearly two o'clock in the morning when he finally gave up pretending to sleep and wandered down to the common room with his father's invisibility cloak under his arm. The fire in the fireplace had dwindled down to a spluttering semi-darkness by then, but even in the dim light Harry noticed a pair of pale green dots that seemed to be floating in the air. Kera was staring at the dying embers, her eyes eerily unfocused. They had taken on an almost reptilian glint.
"Kera?" Harry ventured. "What are you doing?"
She did not seem to have heard him. Harry frowned, not liking her vacant expression one bit. He closed his eyes, envisioning the smoke from the sputtering fireplace twisting serpentine like so many ephemeral gray snakes.
"What is it?" Harry managed with effort, the hissing and spitting of Parseltongue that always seemed to be emitted by someone else making even the hairs at the back of his own neck stand up in the silence of the common room.
"Uipinn,"[2] she breathed, as if in a trance.
"What?" Harry had the sudden immense impulse to shake her out of her unnervingly blank expression, and in a moment he would have grabbed her.
The portrait door swung open with a bang, the Fat Lady hissing indignantly. Harry looked up in surprise - the tall black-clad figure making his way through the cubby-hole was none other than the potions master himself. The sallow-faced man did not seem pleased to find Kera was not alone, and the dour look on his face soured further as he took in the cheery warmth of the red carpets, tapestries and plush squishy chairs of the Gryffindor Common Room.
Harry hurriedly stuffed the invisibility cloak under a cushion.
"Why are you still up, Potter?" Before Harry could even manage an answer, Snape shoved him none too gently out his way and added, "Five points from Gryffindor."
"And what are you doing in the Gryffindor Common Room?" Harry replied hotly.
"Any more of your impudence and that will be ten points," Snape warned.
He put an arm around Kera and led her towards the door. She followed without protest, more like a large marionette than a living girl.
"Will she be alright?"
Snape turned, presumable to take off a few more points, then caught the worry on Harry's face.
"Potter," he said as he tapped the door open impatiently. "It would do well for you to bear in mind that Kera is less human than she looks."
And then he left with his charge into the dark passageway, leaving Harry with one more thing to puzzle on.
.
.
.
[A/N: translations are as follows:
1) 'The Complete Change'
2) "Treasure."
McGuffin was mentioned in Chapter 5 as the new Headboy. Sneezewort was mentioned in Harry's Potions or Herbology textbook (in Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 18) as a common ingredient in Befuddlement Draughts by producing hot-headedness (bet you Kreacher slipped some into Sirius's food).]