Chapter 18

Sphinxes

"No, no, no! Miss Bulstrode it's not that hard!" exclaimed Professor Scota.

They were in Defence Against the Dark Arts in late May. Professor Dumbledore had insisted the students were taught how to use the Unforgivable Curses. As you can imagine, most of the teachers and parents were against this. But Professor Scota thought it was an excellent idea. But when she realised it would be the Slytherins learning it as well she couldn't help but feel a bit dubious. They were first doing the Imperius curse. Most of the Slytherins had mastered that straight away, Malfoy the fastest. He tried not to look too proud about it.

"Typical," Roxanne muttered under her breath.

At the next DA meeting, Cho and Roxanne turned up. Roxanne was helping Harry teach it while Cho stayed right at the back.

"Right," said Harry, clapping his hands together. "We're going to do the…" he rubbed his neck uncomfortably, "the Perhexplex curse…I chose that one 'coz…it was used on me not too long ago."

Roxanne decided to take over from there.

"The Perhexplex used to be one of the three Unforgivable curses, but it got removed as over a certain number of years it can be cured. What it does is damages the victims mind –" she waited to see if anybody would make a joke of that. "And if a skilled witch or wizard used this curse the consequences can be serious but aided. Luckily it was only Pansy who used it on Harry and as we all know Pansy couldn't duel if her life depended on it." They all laughed.

"So…obviously we can't use it on each other. But Hermione, being the brainiac, has made these." Roxanne opened the door and five people walked in wearing Slytherin uniforms. None of them had faces. They all looked the same (white clothes, round faces, average height) apart from two were girls and three were boys and they all had radical hair colours like pink and green. "These are used for testing new spells. They don't think or feel, but they can show us if the spell has worked or not!"

"So Harry is going to demonstrate first and then you can each take turns." Roxanne had disagreed with the uniform, but it obviously did make people try harder.

Harry chose the girl with the orange hair.

"PERHEXPLEX!" he roared. The clone jerked as an orange beam of light hit her full on in the chest.

"Ok…" Roxanne walked up to the clone. "T46, can you hear me?"

She garbled a couple of words.

"What's your code number?" Roxanne asked it.

"Seventy bazillion," she mumbled, stumbling about the place stupidly.

"That was pretty powerful, Harry!" exclaimed Hermione. She then did something quite gross but it had to be done. She opened up the clone's head and took out its brain. It was smoking slightly as she put it in a bin. She then put a fresh brain in the clone's empty head and closed it up again.

"What's your code name?" Roxanne asked the girl clone.

"T47, at your command miss," she said in a dull tone.

Ron went next; he used the boy with the yellow hair.

"Reminds me a bit of Malfoy," he explained. "PERHEXPLEX!"

The clone didn't jerk as much as Harry's. Roxanne asked it to walk across the room. It sat on the floor, cross-legged and recited the alphabet backwards.

Next day they went down to Hagrid's for Care of Magical Creatures. Sadly, they had finished with dragons and were on Sphinxes. There were two, both from Cairo. One was called Namir, the other Karyan. Their large amber eyes stared at the students, causing them to step back warily. Hagrid said how they loved having riddle competitions and asked if anyone would like to participate in one. The Sphinxes looked positively ecstatic about this.

"Just a shortun'," said Hagrid. "'Ow about Roxanne 'n' 'Arry?"

Roxanne looked as happy as the Sphinxes. Harry had encountered a Sphinx before and was feeling quite confident. Roxanne stood in front of Karyan while Harry stood face to face with Namir.

"Hello," said Roxanne, finding herself blush under the cat woman's penetrating stare.

"Greetings." Karyan stretched her paws and uttered the riddle.

"I am found in darkness but not in light,

I am here in daytime but absent in night,

I am in death but not in life,

I am with husband but not with wife, what am I?"

"Dark…light…death – what?"

"Think about it," said the Sphinx. She was quite young as she was only two feet higher than Roxanne while Namir was towering over Harry.

"Death, dark, day – d…husband. The letter d!"

Karyan smiled. "That is the correct answer. Your turn."

Roxanne thought for a while but soon enough a riddle came to mind, one her uncle had told her.

"Long legs, bandy thighs,

A little head, and no eyes."

The Sphinx chortled. "Easy! A pair of tongs!"

Meanwhile, Harry was having trouble. "Can you repeat it again?"

"Only one colour, but not one size,

Stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies,

Present in sun, but not in rain,

Doing no harm, and feeling no pain."

Harry refused to give up. After a few minutes it came to him.

"Its not a shadow, is it?"

"Excellent, Master Potter," said Namir, "and now your turn."

Harry cleared his throat.

"Round like an apple, deep like a cup,

Yet all the king's horses can't pull it up."

"Hmm…would it be a well?" suggested Namir, a smirk playing on her brown lips.

"How can you win a riddle competition against a Sphinx?" moaned Harry as he walked back to the group of students with Roxanne.

"With thousands of years of practise."

"Or just have a brain," said Malfoy. "You never know, it might help you one day, Potter. Instead of relying on luck and chance."

"Ignore him," hissed Roxanne, dragging a growling Harry away from the laughing Slytherins.

A few nights later, Roxanne had snuck into the Gryffindor tower with Harry's Invisibility cloak. Her friends were by the window, helping Mark and Ginny with Astronomy homework.

"Hey look, aren't they the Sphinxes?" said Ron, pointing to two huge figures walking into the Forbidden Forest.

"Yeah, so?"

"Hagrid said they were staying in the stables."

"So they wanted a walk," muttered Harry, fiddling with his telescope. "Why can't I see out of this damn thing?"

"'Er…Harry, dear, its still got the cap on," said Roxanne, taking off the black lid.

"That is kind of odd," said Hermione thoughtfully. "Grawp's not still in there, is he?"

"Yep, Hagrid said he's not 'polite' enough to come out," said Ron sarcastically.

"I think we should tell Hag – are they dragons?" exclaimed Hermione, pointing at the lake.

"Its Orinda, Kaida and Varden!" stated Roxanne as she stared at the three young dragons making their way to the Forbidden Forest. "But they guard the gates!"

"I think we should warn Hagrid," said Ginny.

"We're not allowed out!"

"Your Invisibility cloak and my broom," said Roxanne. "But…I don't know how to work it."

"I do!" said Neville.

They stared at him inquisitively.

"My uncle works in New Zealand, he sent me the fact book," he said, grinning.

The broom fitted four people on while the cloak hid three. When they reached Hagrid's cabin, the lights were on and Fang was barking like mad. They knocked and Fang's booming barks turned to pleading yelps.

"No one's in," hissed Ginny.

"But the door is open," Mark pointed out.