Chapter Eleven: The Guild of the Eagle

Midnight.

Cold moonlight on a cold floor.

The walls of the Entrance Hall flickered with shadow. Four seventh-year Slytherins stood pressed against the walls, displaying the pattern of stones on their chests, courtesy of Mervin's Disillusionment charm.

The hall was utterly silent. Beth could hear her own heart pounding in her ears; her own breathing seemed to be magnified so that she was aware of every rise and fall of her lungs. Beside her, Melissa crouched in the shadows, alert and tense. Where would the messenger come from? How would they arrive? Perhaps most importantly - when that door opened or that shadow crossed the floor, whom would they see?

They heard the unmistakable squeak of an opening door.

Beth tensed and backed farther against the wall. She couldn't tell where it had come from. Teacher, student, intruder? Friend or foe?

A soft scuffle of footsteps. Now their direction became clear: someone or something was coming down the Great Hall towards the Entrance Hall. Their cadence was measured, swift but unhurried, consistent and confident. Not the bandy-legged shuffle of Mr. Filch, Beth thought. At least that was something...

The door to the Great Hall opened and a hooded figure slipped through the crack.

Beth's heart pounded in her chest. Middle height, she saw, taking comfort from the act of noting details; slender, gender uncertain, dark hands clutching the black cloak, a vivacious, athletic walk, face still shadowed beneath its hood...

The figure stepped into the Entrance Hall, paused to glance around the walls, and started directly towards them.

Now that they had been seen, there was no use in hiding. Carefully, Melissa stepped forward, the others close behind. Beth felt a warm sensation sliding over her head as Mervin broke the Disillusionment charm.

The figure paused several yards from them and put its hands on its hips.

"Four of you, are there?"

The hood was pulled back to reveal the smiling brown face and frizzy hair of Kiesha Chambers.

Bruce gaped. "You-" he began, but his girlfriend crossed the room quickly and shushed him.

"Save the interrogation, we've got to get you into the tower before somebody spots us."

She took Bruce by the elbow and dragged him to the middle of the Entrance Hall. Bending down, she tapped the floor once with her wand, in the very center of the inlaid stone design. She stood and pointed down at the hub.

"After you, love."

Bruce took a careful look at her face; then, sighing, he stepped onto the stone.

There was a strong sucking sound. Bruce vanished.

"Next up!" said Kiesha cheerily.

Beth glanced at Melissa and Mervin, both looking as pale as she felt, and reluctantly stepped forward.

"Hands to your sides, then," Kiesha instructed. "There you are!"

Beth walked onto the stone inlay. As soon as her feet were both solidly within its borders, she felt a horrible tug at the top of her head, as if someone had grabbed her by the hair. This was followed by a strange upward pulling all around the skin of her face, and a whoosh from below her feet - then something took hold and she shot upward like a cork, slid through an immaterial ceiling, popped through a floor, lost her momentum and landed on her rump on a stretch of polished hardwood.

Something gripped her arm: Bruce, pulling her to her feet. "Out of the way," he murmured, "the rest'll be coming through."

As Beth watched, first Melissa, then Mervin, then finally Kiesha erupted from the floor and came back down; only the Ravenclaw landed on her feet. With the four of them together again, Beth at last raised her head and took a look around.

For a hidden chamber, Beth thought, unexpectedly nervous, this place sure is crowded.

At least half a dozen students were seated around the room; there were tables of the same kind they had in the library, individual desks and lavish armchairs everywhere. The ceiling was hung with unsupported chandeliers, filled with warm yellow candles. Most prominent, however, were the bookshelves lining the elegant room - not just every few feet, but from floor to ceiling on all four walls. Every one was stuffed with books.

"Come in," came a clipped, impatient girl's voice.

The cluster of them moved farther into the room. At one end stood a large, impressive wooden desk - much like the ones the teachers used, but more ornate, and the wood shone warmly. Behind it sat a very severe-faced girl of perhaps fifteen or sixteen; her blonde hair was pulled tightly away from her sharp features. She had a tall, athletic sort of build, but it was all at angles: a graceless, wiry strength.

The severe-looking girl cast a sharp glance at Kiesha. "Only four?"

Kiesha was unintimidated. "Only four, cap'n," she said, dislodging from the collection of Slytherins to flop into a high-backed chair.

"Very well," said the blonde girl, pursing her lips. She looked back to the Slytherins. "I assume you know who we are?"

Beth, for one, didn't have the foggiest idea, but Melissa spoke up. "You're the Ravenclaws, the secret society. Dumbledore told us about you."

At that, the blonde girl's mouth twitched into a very slight grin. "We are called the Guild of the Eagle. My name is Deirdre Nye. I serve as the Chairwoman."

"Wait," said Bruce, shaking his head irritably. "Chairwoman? The Guild of the Eagle? Are all of you in Ravenclaw?" He cast a reproachful glance at Kiesha, who blew him a kiss. "Who are you?"

"Corner, the Charter," said Deirdre.

A dark-haired boy got up from his armchair and went to one of the walls of shelves, where he withdrew a long, polished wooden box. He took it to the desk and set it down in front of the Chairwoman.

"You're welcome," he said to Deirdre, who was absorbed in carefully opening the box.

"Of course I am," said Deirdre distractedly. She reached into the box, ignoring Corner's huffy retreat, and extracted an ancient yellow scroll. It was easily twice as thick as her forearm. The handles were smooth wood with intricate gold inlays; the parchment looked thick and fibrous, with tiny cracks creeping in from the very edge.

Deirdre opened the scroll and spread it out before her on the desk. Beth expected her to read from it; instead, the blonde girl took out her wand and tapped it thrice, in the pattern of a triangle. "Lights," she said sharply, and the room was plunged in darkness.

Beth tensed. She heard Melissa clutch Bruce's arm behind her and suspected, from the sounds, that Mervin had done the same thing on Bruce's other side. Her hand went for her wand ... but before she could grasp it, the darkness was shattered with a column of bluish light that burst from the open scroll and shot upward to the ceiling.

In the center of the column sprung up the small figure of a woman, doll-sized, hardly more than a shadow. Her robes were strangely fashioned; her dark hair was long and unfettered. Rotating amid the light, she opened her mouth and a strong voice, low and assured, filled the room.

"To learn, to watch; to know, to plan; for wit and word, wiles and wonder; thus do I, Rowena Ravenclaw, charge this Guild always to seek knowledge, and to put it to its best end."

The words made a strange echo effect in Beth's ears. She listened closely; there seemed to be a second line of speech under the first.

"It's been translated," Melissa murmured in her ear. "A thousand years ago, of course she wouldn't speak modern English..."

The shadow of Rowena made a strange, ancient curtsey - far from being formal, there was a wildness in it that spoke of gnarled trees and empty moors. Then she raised a tiny wand and swept it upwards gracefully. The column of light, and the woman along with it, vanished.

"Lights."

The chandeliers flared to life. Deirdre rolled up the scroll and deposited it in its holder. "Corner, if you please."

Sighing, the dark-haired boy got up again and returned the box to its shelf.

"I never get tired of it," Kiesha was saying to the girl beside her.

"She's so pretty," the girl agreed, pushing a lock of shiny black hair behind her ear. Beth realized that she had seen her before: Cho Chang, Kiesha's teammate, the Ravenclaw Seeker. Cho glanced over at the clustered Slytherins and met Beth's eyes. There was a kind of sympathetic kinship in her face. Beth realized with a start that she had been dating Cedric Diggory at the time of his death ... if word had indeed gotten around about Richard, then Cho must think that the two of them were in the same position. She felt a sudden, painfully strong realization of what Cho had lost.

When Corner returned to his seat, Deirdre lifted a gavel from her desk and rapped once for order. "Have a seat," she ordered the Slytherins, and they dutifully complied: Beth and Melissa took a pair of leather seats, Mervin perched on a nearby end table, and Bruce was cheerfully yanked onto the arm of Kiesha's chair.

"Order," said Deirdre crisply. "For those of you who haven't guessed, and if you haven't I would heavily question your worthiness of membership, our guests tonight are representing the Society for Slytherin Advancement. The Headmaster mentioned to us that you might need our help," she said, nodding to Melissa, "and everything this year has indicated that he was right."

Melissa hesitated.

It was Bruce who finally spoke up. "Yes," he said firmly. "We were founded by the Dark Lord. He considers the organization his own. Now he's returned, and he wants us back."

The Ravenclaws were very quiet. Dumbledore, it seemed, hadn't warned them exactly what kind of trouble the Society might be in. Beth wondered if he knew.

Deirdre leaned forward. "So you believe Dumbledore."

Melissa opened her mouth to say something; then she closed it and cast a guilty look at Beth. "You-Know-Who is back," she said. "Trust us."

"Well." Deirdre sat back. "I must say, that answers most of our questions straight off."

"No meetings," a boy spoke up thoughtfully. He wore a prefects' badge and had a rather pronounced nose. "No new members."

"How did you know about the inductees?" Melissa countered quickly.

Deirdre looked down her nose imperiously. "We monitor the potato-distribution ceremony very closely," she said. "It allows us to identify you from the first day. But you've been very careful," Deirdre went on, watching them closely. "So much so, in fact, that we suspected that you knew that we were spying on you. Of course, your reaction to the messages proved otherwise. Why, then, were you acting like criminals under surveillance?"

The Society shifted, looked to Melissa. She was silent for a moment, deciding what to tell them, and finally said, "We are being spied on. Even now, we don't know if we're being watched."

Deirdre looked mildly surprised. "From within?"

"No, from the outside."

The Ravenclaw Chair's sharp face relaxed. "Oh. You're not."

Melissa narrowed her eyes. "Believe me, we are."

"No, you can't be. It's simply impossible." Deirdre gestured imperially towards the dark-haired boy. "Hand me the Hogwarts, A History, will you, Corner?"

Corner lifted his wand and jabbed it at the bookshelves on the back wall. "Accio Big Boring Book!" A massive leather-bound book, nearly as thick as it was tall, wriggled out of the shelves and zoomed into his chest, nearly knocking him backward off the chair. He lugged it over to Deirdre and dropped it on the desk with a thud.

"Obliged," said Deirdre crisply, already flipping to the index. "I expect it would be in the chapter about protective spells, but let's narrow it down ... page eight-seventy-four, here we are..."

She cleared her throat.

"'Like all magically constructed fortresses of the era, Hogwarts Castle was thoroughly protected from intrusion of all sorts, both physically and of the senses. No form of spycraft can penetrate the magical barriers surrounding the castle and grounds; enemies cannot peer inside or listen into the affairs of its denizens any more than they may enter. Only a direct mental communion is strong enough to pass through the defenses.'" She looked up dryly. "It goes on from there. Is that enough?"

It was enough. The Society was stunned, silent.

Beth felt her face grow hot. "He lied!" she blurted, torn between fury and helplessness.

Melissa made a noise of disgust. "Well, what would you expect? He wants us in his power."

The Ravenclaws exchanged uncertain glances.

"But if we can - if he can't-" Beth forced herself to swallow the words. If Hogwarts was safe, then all the precaution, all the worry had been wasted. They could have housed Richard in the Vase Room and mounted an attack against the Dark Lord from within these secure walls. If Hogwarts could not be breached ... Richard's elaborate plan had been for nothing.

Then again, the Vase Room had been robbed multiple times the previous year...

It was Bruce who cleared his throat and spoke for the group now. "This makes things different," he admitted. "We need to talk. But I want to know why you've been watching us so closely."

"Oh, we watch everyone," said Kiesha brightly. "Did you know the Hufflepuffs have study parties in the kitchens before big tests? The house-elves cater."

"Do they!" Mervin looked extremely jealous. "Lucky bums!"

"That doesn't answer my question," said Bruce, frowning, and Deirdre raised her eyebrows at his tone. "What do you want from us?"

Deirdre fixed him with a look that Madam Pince would have been proud of. "I beg your pardon?"

"What do you want?" Bruce repeated. "What do you have to gain from helping us? I mean, if it's to impress Dumbledore, fine. If it's just for something to do, fine. I just want to know why you would want to stick your necks out for an organization that has nothing to do with you, made up of people you don't know and don't even like. No offense," he added to Kiesha.

"Sod off," was his girlfriend's loving reply.

Beth expected Deirdre to demur. Instead, the blonde girl settled back in her seat like a judge and looked them all over.

"It's true that we would never have invited you here without Dumbledore's prodding," she said finally, "but our motive is not charity." She fiddled with some things on her desk, then began again. "The Society was designed for action; the Guild, merely information. We learn and examine. We do not apply. And while we have been very successful in keeping track of the many goings-on here at Hogwarts, our inroads with Slytherin have always been the weakest. We have not seen your common room for three hundred years. We do not know why the Baron's ghost wears bloody robes. And in all our centuries of study, we have never found the Chamber of Secrets. Your house has been the most vexing puzzle in the history of the Guild."

She looked up at them. "Surprising, isn't it? I always considered you the most similar to us. Wit and cunning, after all, are two branches of the same tree."

Beth glanced over at Melissa. The dark-haired girl was watching the Ravenclaw chair closely. The two presidents locked gazes for long moments. When Melissa finally spoke, it was in carefully measured words.

"I think our groups can help each other," she said slowly, "and I appreciate the offer. But there are only four of us here, not even half of our Hogwarts membership, and I won't make decisions for the others without hearing their thoughts. We need to talk this over first."

Deirdre inclined her head judiciously. "Very well. Kiesha will continue to be your contact; Bletchley can interact with her without causing any undue suspicion. Our next meeting will be this coming Tuesday. You have one week to decide whether or not you can trust us." She paused thoughtfully. "After all, it took us all summer to decide whether or not we could trust you."

"What made up your minds?" said Melissa warily.

Deirdre shrugged. "We felt lucky."

Well, thought Beth, trust had been extended on shakier grounds than that.

The Ravenclaw Chair made a sweeping gesture across the top of her desk, indicating the many papers and books along its surface. "Thank you very much for coming. Now, we have matters of our own to discuss, and you will no doubt want to speak among yourselves. Kiesha, please reopen the visitors' exit."

Sighing dramatically, Kiesha got up from her armchair and went back to the patch of floor they had entered by, tapping it as she had done below. The wood seemed to quiver slightly before it settled back into place like a disturbed bowl of gelatin.

The Slytherins got up and made their way across the room, fully aware of the eyes of the Ravenclaws on them. At Deirdre's desk, Melissa leaned over to shake the Chair's hand. "Thank you for contacting us."

"Thank you for responding," said Deirdre, with just as much formal care.

Kiesha leaned up and dropped a kiss on Bruce's cheek. "Catch you later, handsome."

Bruce murmured something in her ear; then he stepped onto the floorboards and sank into them like quicksand.

Melissa and Mervin went through the floor in quick succession; Beth shuddered a little at the thought of a drop through the arched ceiling of the Entrance Hall. She had a foot poised above the enchanted spot when Deirdre spoke up once more.

"Parson - before you go."

"Yes?" Beth turned back.

"How did Richard Shaw die?"

There was very little sympathy in her voice; it was more curiosity.

"An accident," said Beth firmly. Before another word could be said, she stepped onto the floorboards and felt them fall out below her, with a strong gust of air to buffer her fall as she landed back in the Entrance Hall.

Friend or foe, that was all that anyone needed to know about Richard.