As if the seasons were based around the Quidditch schedule, winter came in earnest after the Gryffindor match. That Monday morning found Hogwarts blanketed with snow, sorely tempting Beth to spend Charms staring out the window, and making the usual trek out to the paddock for Care of Magical Creatures a cold, wet, and unpleasant ordeal.
Everybody by then knew Hagrid was back, but it was still a jolt to see him standing there, a shaggy black island in the sea of snow. His face and hands were covered with dreadful cuts and bruises, although his bandages looked fresh, and there was a large, suspiciously drippy bundle under one arm.
The Weasley twins ran to meet him. "What've you got there, Hag"
The one who had spoken broke off and reeled back a pace as Hagrid happily held up a dead goat.
"Jus' a bit of teachin' materials," he said cheerily. Angelina Johnson managed a weak smile.
"Oh, do I not like the looks of that," said Bruce.
"I thought he got rid of the Skrewts!" said Mervin, his voice high-pitched with nerves. "I thought they killed each other off" He put his hands to his face suddenly in horror. "He's been away growing more!"
Even the Gryffindors who had overheard him looked stunned at the thought.
"Come on, you lot," called Hagrid, happily gesturing with his goat carcass. "Got a fair walk into the forest, so stay close, no stragglers 'less you're hoping for a messy death."
He chortled like Father Christmas, waved a hand at the astonished class, and began the trek into the Forbidden Forest.
Under the rustling sheet of snow, the Forbidden Forest looked very different than it had during the Mooncalf dance but it was not much brighter, and no less foreboding. The branches hung heavy with mounds of snow; strange and unfamiliar tracks wound around the forest floor. The class plowed along in Hagrid's path in two little clusters, unwilling to stray too far apart in the cluttered woods. It didn't take long for Beth to become completely lost; if not for the wide path of upturned snow, she would have never known where the castle lay.
Hagrid stopped them in a wide circular clearing, tossing down the dead goat. "Here we are, then," he said proudly. "Jus' be quiet now for a momen', the blood'll attract 'em."
"Did he say the blood will attract them?" said Aaron, his eyes growing round.
"I hate this class," Melissa whispered ferociously. The Slytherins had gathered against a wide tree trunk and were mostly pressed against it, as if ready to bolt into the branches at the sight of danger. "Why am I still in it? This isn't worth a stupid N.E.W.T. I don't want to die for a N.E.W.T."
"Hush," said Bruce, his eyes fixed on the trees opposite. "They're here."
Beth turned to follow his gaze but saw nothing; only the swaying of branches and the rustling of underbrush. Then those same branches began to sway oddly, tossed by a jet of wind, and soft prints appeared in the snow where no beast stood.
Invisible, Beth thought, and her chest constricted in real fear. A Blast-Ended Skrewt was one thing, which could be faced head-on (or could have been, had they heads); an invisible creature, whose form, manner, and even location could not be known, was something entirely different.
Like a fish on a hook, the dead goat began to jerk back and forth by an unseen force. Then two forces ... a leg came off and Alicia Spinnet had to turn away to muffle a gag.
Hagrid came forward to the embattled goat, beaming fondly at a space a few feet above the bloody snow. "Here they are," he said proudly. "Thestrals. I reckon I've got the only tame herd in Britain. Now who can see 'em?"
That sounded like an odd question to Beth, but both Bruce and Mervin raised their hands, along with a handful of Gryffindors. Before she could wonder what sort of invisibility was conditional, Angelina Johnson spoke up: "How come they're invisible to most of us, Hagrid?"
"Ah," said Hagrid, nodding at her. "Anyone?"
"You can only see them if you've watched someone die," came a dejected voice.
Mervin had spoken. He was watching the pieces of the goat twist in the snow, leaving trails of blood, disappearing bit by bit.
Hagrid nodded. "Righ', your family's in the winged horses, eh, Fletcher? Thestrals'll only appear to people who've seen death." He reached out and patted the empty air.
Alicia Spinnet turned to her classmates helplessly, as if looking for guidance. "What do they look like?"
"Dead dragons," said Mervin gloomily.
Angelina Johnson dug in her backpack and extracted her Care of Magical Creatures textbook; balancing it on one arm, she flipped through the index.
"It's under Winged Horses," Lee Jordan offered helpfully.
"Hey, thanks, Lee." Johnson flipped back a few pages.
"No problem. So, there's this Hogsmeade trip in February, d'you want to"
"No, Lee." She found the page and held it open; Slytherins and Gryffindors alike crowded around to have a look at the textbook drawing.
Mervin's description had not been far off: the picture showed a skeletal black horse with tattered fetlocks and mane, wild white sunken eyes, and the vast leathery wings of a bat. (The picture showed them with their wings outstretched, but Beth eyed up the small space of the clearing and decided they must be holding them close to their bodies.) She imagined those wasted flanks and shabby hides all around her, and drew in closer to the others.
Bit by bit the meat was disappearing from the long-scattered bones of the goat, rising to chest height before flapping in the air and finally vanishing.
"Horses don't eat meat," said Melissa, her eyes twitching this way and that as she tried to glimpse that which she could not see. "It's unnatural."
"These do. They're bad luck," Mervin said gloomily, watching a shred of meat dangle in the air.
Lee Jordan, who had always been good at Care of Magical Creatures, said, "That's just an old story."
"Did you ever try to clean up after an animal that leaves invisible poop?" Mervin retorted. "Trust me, they're bad luck."
One of the Weasley twins had begun to advance forward, hands outstretched like a blind man. His brother hovered close behind. "Where are they, Hagrid?" He drew back his fingers suddenly, as if they had brushed a hot iron. "I think I just touched one!"
"That yeh did," Hagrid chortled. He was clearly delighted with the way things were going, as usual oblivious to the majority of his students. "Tha's Tenebrus, my pers'nal favorite firs' one born in the forest."
Both of the Weasleys put out their hands this time, cautiously, and soon they were running their hands over a patch of air that seemed to take form under their hands: clearly something was being defined by their motions, but its curves remained unseen.
Beth felt something brush her side and nearly jumped out of her shoes; but it was only Melissa, nudging for her attention. "Look at Bruce."
Beth had been so entranced in watching the Weasley twins that she had failed to notice that Bruce had moved apart from the group. He bent down and took a scrap of meat from the ground. Standing slowly, he held it out before him and began to advance into the forest, step by careful step, toward the middle of the blood-spattered clearing.
He drew up suddenly, broad shoulders tensing. He stood still as a statue, feet shoulder-width apart, with one arm at his side and the other extended straight out from his body. For long seconds he didn't move a muscle. Then the meat between his fingers twitched and was tugged free. Bruce let it go and turned his hand to the bleeding air. Long red streaks appeared on his palm as he cupped the thestral's muzzle. Then he stepped forward, both hands lifted, and began to cautiously traverse a long face and thick neck, brow furrowed in deep concentration.
Beth had always known that Bruce's father had died not long after his first year at Hogwarts, but he had always been so reserved that she had rarely wondered how much it must have affected him. She had never known her family as a child, and so had only mourned them in a vague and general way. Watching Bruce stroke the thestral's neck a right he had won in his father's death she was not sure which of them had been the luckier.
Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class predictably, the one with Potter in it was observed by Professor Umbridge the following day. Judging by the way Draco and his classmates were congratulating each other, it hadn't gone well for Hagrid.
"And how can you blame her?" wailed Melissa. "Thestrels, I ask you..."
Mervin reckoned that Professor Grubbly-Plank would be back in a week.
The Guild, they found that evening, was equally interested in the results of Hagrid's review.
"Hagrid," explained Anthony Goldstein with an air of patient superiority, "while unqualified for the position, is still outside of the influence of Professor Umbridge. If she is able to exercise her powers as Inquisitor and remove him, she will undoubtedly be permitted to fill the position with someone intended to further her own agenda which, though as yet unknown, I believe we can agree, cannot be in the best interest of the school."
"Well put, Goldstein," Deirdre told him, "though wordy." Anthony looked slightly injured. "She has been taking statements from the students regarding Hagrid's performance," she addressed the assembly. "It is in our interests to avoid giving her a reason to sack him. Is that clear?"
The silence was understood to mean "Yes."
"Comments?"
Kiesha, draped as usual across an armchair, bent back her head to look upside-down at Bruce. "Sorry about your humiliating loss to Gryffindor."
"Yours is coming," said Bruce. The loss hadn't been so bad, just the aftermath. Beth thought he was taking it very well.
"Is that in the least relevant?" inquired Deirdre, glaring at Kiesha.
"No, Mad-Eye," said Kiesha humbly.
"I just want to know where he's been," Cho said, leaning forward with her chin resting on her fist. "It's so odd, not to make any mention, and in such a state I do hope he hasn't been trying to catch us an Erumpet or something," she added, a sudden alarm in her dark eyes.
Mervin spoke up with a mischievous grin. "You could see if anyone knows in the Devil's Advocate whoops, Dumbledore's Army..."
"Cut that out," said Michael irritably. "I told you, my girlfriend came up with"
"Oh, is she going to beat us up?"
"Enough," said Deirdre sharply, just as Melissa snickered. "Cho, do see if anyone in the D.A. may have heard anything. Hagrid is very close to Potter. I would begin there."
"Great excuse to chat," Kiesha noted, nudging her friend, who blushed and ducked her head.
"There are now a mere five weeks remaining in the term," Deirdre went on, imperial as always, "and we have yet to learn anything of significance. Headmaster Dumbledore has charged us with being an investigative, self-sufficient, but most of all well-informed segment of the student body. I need not remind you that Rowena Ravenclaw herself has charged us with much the same thing." She nodded toward Melissa. "Likewise your own founder, in his way."
She turned back to face the gathering as a whole. "There is still a great deal to be learned," she said gravely. "We must make more of an effort to find it. Knowledge is, after all, the greatest power. We can never know when our power may be needed."
Beth agreed; but she found herself hoping that the situation would never be so dire that the Ravenclaws were needed.
A chilly November turned into a frigid December. With both Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures outdoors, nearly every day involved slogging through thick, wet snow. Beth took to wearing two pairs of socks and keeping an extra pair in her knapsack.
Slytherin house remained buoyed by Gryffindor's misfortune after the Quidditch game. Montague was the hero of the moment and his Keeper's disapproval wasn't denting his glory a bit. He reveled in the attention, winking at every Slytherin girl who dropped him a smile and ruffling first-years' hair in passing. It didn't seem to matter that they'd lost the game. With Gryffindor short their three best players and lacking a reserve team, they had been virtually knocked out of the running.
Beth found most of her time eaten away by N.E.W.T. practices on Wednesday, Guild meetings on Tuesday, and potions-grading for Professor Snape every other afternoon. Her time in the library became rare, just an in-and-out to pick up reference materials, and she almost came to relish a quiet hour among the stacks with a Potions text.
She was just headed off to one of those blissful hours, at the brink of sunset one snowy afternoon, when she happened to spot Evan Wilkes alone at a table near the back. He had no books on the table, but nearly a ream of loose parchments scattered around him. He had his head down and was writing fast, dead focused, his slender black quill flying across the page.
It was unusual to see Evan working so hard. Beth realized (with a slight apprehension) that she did not yet know what he was doing for his final Alchemy project, although she had asked numerous times and knew, through Snape, practically everyone else's. Sucking up her courage, she hiked up her knapsack on her shoulder and started across the library to see what she could learn.
She approached with a friendly smile, even though she knew it would probably just annoy him. "Hey, Evan. How's that Alchemy project coming?"
Evan cast her an irritated glance. "What do you care?"
"Just curious." Beth moved around the desk, angling to get a look at his papers, but Evan began collecting them together. "What did you say you were working on?"
"You know, it's funny," said Evan, stuffing the papers into his knapsack, "I didn't say. I wonder why that is."
Beth took a gamble. "Maybe because I'd tell you to stop."
Evan stood up. His face was fixed on the desk as he gathered his things into his knapsack and swung it onto one shoulder. Then he cocked his head thoughtfully and looked up at Beth through his dark fringe.
"No," he said. "I don't think you would."
He strolled out of the library without another word.
Beth watched him go. She knew that Evan naturally tended to keep things to himself, but that knowledge made her no less nervous when he did.
On the whole, though, the last few weeks of term were quiet ones. The regular slew of end-of-term tests, papers, and projects came due, but by that time it was old hat to the seventh-years; you could never fully be prepared for it, but at least you could anticipate the avalanche of work and decide how much worry to spend on it. Beth had told herself firmly that this would be the year to really buckle down, leave Hogwarts with a bang ... but when the time came, she found it hard to rustle up the energy or the anxiety that made good studying possible.
"It's no use," she told Melissa at breakfast, just a few days before Christmas holidays. "I can't do it. I know I have to study, but I just don't care."
"I should think," Melissa began hotly, "that between our final grades, and all that you-know-what, and the N.E.W.T.s, you would be motivated to..." She trailed off and gazed down at her porridge despondently. "Oh, who am I kidding? I don't care either."
Bruce came to plunk down across from them. "Senior slump," he diagnosed, getting himself some porridge. "When the end it in sight, all you want to do is get out of the tunnel." He took a huge spoonful and swallowed thoughtfully. "Except I got it about three years ago."
"Bruce!"
Sally Bletchley hurried toward the table, eyes alight. Bruce whipped his head toward her, alarmed, but relaxed as she approached. She sat down among them and addressed her brother with barely a pause for breath. "Harry's gone."
Bruce lowered the spoon that was already halfway to his mouth, looking stunned. "Potter's gone?"
"Gone," Sally repeated firmly. Beth and Melissa exchanged glances. "I simply had to tell you, Bruce. He left last night. It's something of a secret. I heard it from Euan. And Euan has a sister in third year who has a friend in fifth year, who heard it from Dean Thomas and that Irish boy. Professor McGonagall said they shouldn't tell," she said solemnly, leaning forward, "but they did. So it can't hurt to tell you, can it?"
Bruce actually looked slightly hurt that she would even weigh the question, so Melissa said quickly, "Of course not."
"Right," Sally repeated, nodding.
"So what happened?" Beth pressed.
"Well." Sally glanced about, as if to be sure that Professor McGonagall wasn't right there listening, then leaned forward conspiratorially. "The fifth-year boys were all asleep, and then in the middle of the night Harry woke up screaming about a snake!" She shuddered a little. "Then he threw up right on the floor."
"Ha!" Bruce looked entirely too delighted by the news. "What then?" said Melissa hurriedly, to distract Sally who was looking at her brother with irritation.
"Then they got Professor McGonagall," she said simply, "and she took him and Ron away. And they never came back. And then in the morning the twins and Ginny were gone too."
"Maybe they're gone for good," said Bruce, looking like this was too much to hope for.
Sally ignored her brother. "I don't know why everybody had to leave because Harry had a bad dream," she said. "It doesn't make sense, does it? But I suppose as it's Harry Potter..."
Bruce made a noise of impatience.
"He's quite handsome," Sally said thoughtfully, with her head on her fist. "And he's very kind. But he seems so sad..."
"'A boy like no other, perhaps, yet a boy suffering all the usual pangs of adolescence," Bruce quoted in a bored tone, and Beth recognized the words from an article about Potter the previous year. "'Little did he know that he would shortly be suffering yet another emotional blow in a life already littered with personal loss...'"
"Don't make fun!" said Sally, annoyed.
"Why not, it's not as if the little toerag can hear us," said Bruce irritably.
"Because it's not nice!"
"Who cares?"
"I do!" Sally's face was red. "I know you don't like him but he's decent and there's no reason for you to go after him all the time you don't even know him and you hate him so much and he's an orphan and I bet he misses his dad just like us!"
Their father!
Bruce looked as if he had been slapped. "Except we knew ours," he said, after a pause.
"Then we're lucky," said Sally.
"Excuse me."
The voice was as pale as the speaker. Audra Verona had come up behind them and stood there quietly, wraithlike. When they had all turned to look at her, she turned faintly towards Melissa, then Beth.
"I need to speak with you."
Both of them stared at the white-haired girl, who gazed back motionlessly. Beth had never, ever heard her speak without being spoken to, let alone initiate a conversation. If Audra wanted to speak about something, then it needed to be heard.
"All right," said Melissa, a bit nonplussed. "Let's find an empty classroom, shall we? Do you mind if the three of us come along?"
Audra shook her head silently.
"I'll stay," Bruce said hastily. "Come on, Sal, let's go for a walk."
He and his sister made their way out to the grounds while Beth and Melissa led Audra out of the Great Hall.
Melissa found an unused classroom down the first corridor. She ushered them into it and closed the door behind them. "Well," she said, after making sure it was tightly closed, "what's up?"
"He was here last night," said Audra quietly.
Beth's heart gave a cold lurch. "He who?" she asked quickly, though she thought she knew.
"The Dark Lord."
Melissa went pale as a sheet and put both hands over her mouth. Her eyes were round and fearful. "Where?" she said unsteadily.
"Inside." Audra gazed from one of them to the other. "I felt him here. But not in person."
Melissa sat down in one of the chairs as if she was suddenly too weak to stand. "I thought he couldn't see us through the crypt."
"He can't," said Beth, "I tried it myself."
"But he was here somehow ... is he still?" Melissa said anxiously.
Audra shook her head.
Melissa put a hand to her head in what in another person might have been an affectation. "Unbelievable..." She took a deep breath. "Audra is it safe for us to warn the Guild? We won't tell them about you, of course," she added hastily.
Audra shrugged.
"Then we'll see what they think," Melissa figured, "maybe they'll go to Dumbledore for us, or be able to figure out how he got in"
The class bell rang overhead. Melissa scowled upward at the interruption. "Later, then," she told Beth, as the three of them left the classroom. "We'll catch her in the library. If there's one place you can count on finding a Ravenclaw, it's the library."
"Mad," said Deirdre firmly.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You're both mad." Deirdre looked from one to the other with cool confidence. "There's no chance. Not a chance."
Melissa kept her own cool, though it looked like a difficult job. "We're one hundred percent certain."
"Oh? You saw him, then?"
Her disbelief was plain from the idle unconcern in her tone.
"One of us saw him, yes."
"Which one?"
The polite, incredulous tone was suddenly strikingly familiar to Beth: she sounded just like Professor Umbridge, interviewing the professors.
"I can't tell you which one," said Melissa. Her aggravation was starting to show. "Deirdre, we're telling you this because there is a danger to the school, to us, and to you. You need to trust us."
"There is no lack of trust," said Deirdre flatly. "You have simply failed to provide any proof that any of your claims are valid. What makes you so certain that he was inside the castle, when a thousand spells and the presence of Dumbledore are keeping him out? How, for that matter, did you come to be so certain that Umbridge is not working for the Dark Lord?"
Beth was starting to hate the girl's clinical tone.
"We didn't say she wasn't working for him," Melissa said, her voice turning edgy, "we said she wasn't a Death Eater."
"But where is your proof?"
"We have proof we just can't tell you!"
"If you want our help, you must earn it!"
"If you ever actually trusted us, we wouldn't have to!"
The Presidents glared at each other. Then, at virtually the same moment, they spoke again.
"This isn't working."
"We are not helping each other."
"There's no point in continuing."
"We should have kept to ourselves."
"We should have kept our secrets."
It was impossible to tell who said what, but both Melissa and Deirdre meant the same thing.
That was that. Melissa left the library, Beth with her; Deirdre stayed and bent her head over her book. There was no acrimony on either side, only a frigid chill. The split had been complete and it had been final.
Beth didn't speak to another Ravenclaw for the rest of term; several days later, they boarded the Hogwarts Express for Christmas holidays. Nobody mentioned the Guild of the Eagle on the trip to London. Bruce and Kiesha, for the first time in memory, got a compartment by themselves.
Beth took the Floo Network back home from the station.
The banshee appeared on Christmas Eve, wailing and crashing around outside of their living room window. Beth and her father waited, perfectly still, watching each others' faces, until she screeched out her final cry and vanished. Then they both went back to their reading.
On New Year's Eve they stayed up until midnight, playing cards with Mr. and Mrs. Scamander until the Wizarding Wireless Network counted down to the new year and fireworks exploded from the radio.
"Happy New Year, Bethy," said Mr. Parson, as the Scamanders vanished into the Floo network.
"I hope it's better than the last one," said Beth.
