Chapter 3
Draco and the Wardrobe
Once the children were settled in front of a warm, roaring fire, with mugs of creamy hot chocolate in their hands, Harry began his tale.
"You lot might not have noticed, but I've been away for hours!" Harry exclaimed, licking a drop of chocolate off his upper lip.
"You're mental," said Draco tapping his forehead. "Completely mental. You didn't go anywhere!" he insisted.
"What do you mean Harry?" asked Ron.
"Just what I said. Remember that wardrobe in the empty room?"
"Well, of course we do," Pansy said disdainfully. "We were just there not five minutes ago!"
"Right. I went into the wardrobe and came out the other side into a different world!" Harry's eyes were bright with excitement and he went on to describe his visit with Mr. Pettigrew, and the troubles Narnia was having with the Dark Lady.
The other three didn't know what to think, but agreed to at least go back and check for themselves if the wardrobe was anything other than a regular wardrobe. They rushed back to the room, hot chocolate abandoned on tables and the carpet.
Harry flung opened the door to the wardrobe and said, "Go on, see for yourselves than."
Ron stepped in, needing to slouch several inches so the top of head wouldn't bump on the ceiling of the wardrobe, while Pansy and Draco looked on interestedly. Ron pushed aside the row of fur-lined robes and encountered…the back of the wardrobe. There was no wood and now snow, only the back of the wardrobe with hooks on it, and four fur lined robes hanging on them. Ron rapped his knuckles on the wood to make sure it was solid. It was.
Pansy pushed Ron aside and stuck her own head into the wardrobe. "It's just a moldy old wardrobe, Harry. There's nothing here."
Ron jumped out and they all stuck their heads beside Pansy's and saw what appeared to be an ordinary wardrobe.
"There must be some sort of charm that only opens the doorway to Narnia at a certain time," Harry tried explaining.
"Don't be ridiculous, Harry." Pansy sniffed. "Everyone knows that you don't go to alternate dimensions through wardrobes."
"She's damn right," Draco snapped. "Everyone knows that there's complex spells and incantations involved, not to mention Potions one must take before venturing into the so called other dimension."
"They're right, Harry," Ron said reluctantly, who had wanted to believe in Narnia, as it seemed a great adventure lay there. "It's more likely you encountered some sort of Fantasy Charm placed on the wardrobe to entertain children."
"It wasn't a charm! It was real," Harry insisted.
But the others weren't listening and turned their attention to other pursuits. Harry, disappointed with their reactions, started looking for anything he could find on vanquishing Dark Wizards and Witches. He'd promised Mr. Pettigrew he would find a way to defeat the Dark Lady, and Harry had been raised to always keep his promises.
For the next few days Harry was very miserable. He spent most of his time in the large library, searching for anything of use. He could have made it up quite easily with the others if he could only have brought himself to say the whole thing was only a story made up for fun. But Harry was a very truthful boy and he knew he was in the right, and so could not bring himself to say this. The others, who thought he was telling a lie, and a rather silly lie at that made him very unhappy.
Ron did this without meaning to do it, and Pansy was too occupied with her studies to notice Harry's exclusion from the group, but Draco could be spiteful and on this occasion he was spiteful. He sneered and jeered at Harry and kept asking if he'd found any other countries in other cupboards around the house. What made it worse was that these days ought to have been delightful. The weather was fine and they spent much time out of doors, exploring the forest, climbing trees, scouting for Hippogriffs and thestrals, and swimming in the lake.
But Harry could not properly enjoy any of this. He kept thinking about poor Mr. Pettigrew and the evil Dark Lady and so spent much time studying banishment charms and defensive magic. He had to do so late at night when the others were asleep, but this was perfectly safe as Ron slept like the dead, and Draco and Pansy were far enough down the hall that they did not hear Harry creeping out of bed at night.
Things kept on in this manner until the next rainy day.
That day, when it came to the afternoon and there was still no break in the weather, they decided to play hide and seek, a rather juvenile game, Pansy said, but at least it was something to keep them occupied. Pansy, as this was her idea, she insisted on being it and as soon as the others scattered to hide, Harry headed for the wardrobe room.
He did not mean to hide in the wardrobe as it would certainly set the others to talking again, but he did want to have one more look inside it. By this time he had become rather worried that years had gone by in Narnia, and needed to see if he could possibly get back sometime soon. The house was so large and complicated and so full of hiding places that he was certain he could have one more look into the wardrobe and be back before the others noticed he was gone. But as soon as Harry reached it, he heard footsteps outside in the corridor and there was nothing for it, but to jump into the wardrobe and hold the door shut behind him. He did not shut it properly because he was very aware how foolish it was to shut oneself into a wardrobe, even if it was a magic one.
Now the steps he heard belonged to Draco, who came into the room just in time to see Harry shut himself into the wardrobe. Draco at once decided to get in there with Harry, not because he thought it a particularly good place to hide, but because he wanted to go on teasing the younger boy about his imaginary country. He opened the door, there were the coats hanging up as usual, and the smell of moth balls and darkness and silence, and no sign of Lucy.
He thinks I'm Pansy come to catch her, Draco thought to himself. And so he's keeping very quiet in at the back to try to trick me. He jumped in and shut the door, forgetting what a very foolish thing this is to do. He began feeling about for Harry at the dark. He had expected to find Harry within a few seconds, and so was very surprised when he did not. He decided to open the door again to let in some light, but he could not find the door either. He didn't like this at all and began groping wildly in every direction, and even forgot his Malfoy breeding and began shouting out: "Harry! Harry! Are you here? It's me, Draco! I know you're here."
There was no answer and Draco noticed that his voice had a curious sound. Not the sound you expect to hear in a cupboard, but a kind of open air sound. He also noticed that he was unexpectedly cold and then he saw a light. "Thank Merlin!" said Draco. "The door must have swung open of its own accord." He forgot all about Harry and went toward the light, which he thought was the opened wardrobe. But instead of finding himself stepping out into the spare room, he found himself stepping out from some thick dark fir trees into a wide, opened space, in the middle of a wood.
There was crisp, dry snow under his feet, and more snow lying on branches of the trees. Over head there was a pale, blue sky, the sort of sky one expects to see on a fine winter morning. Straight ahead of him he saw between the tree trunks, the sun, just rising and very red and clear. Everything was perfectly still, as if he were the only living creature in the country. There was not even a robin or a squirrel in the trees and the forest stretched in every direction, as far as the eyes could see. He shivered.
He now remembered he had been looking for Harry, and how unpleasant he had been to him about his imaginary country, which now turned out not to have been imaginary at all. If there was anything Draco hated more then the poor, it was being wrong, especially when he happened to be wrong against speccy gits like Harry Potter. However, Draco also hated being alone in strange, cold quite places like this and thought that Harry must be someplace quite close, and so again forgot his Malfoy breeding and shouted, "Harry! Harry! I'm here too! Are you there?" There was no answer.
"He's angry about all the things I've been saying lately," Draco muttered. "Stupid git doesn't know how to take a jest."
Draco looked round him again and decided he did not much like this place and had just about decided to go home when he heard, far off in the distance, the very faint sound of bells. He listened, and the sound came nearer and nearer, and at last there swept into sight a large sled, drawn by two Hippogriffs, which have the body and legs of a horse and the head and wings of an eagle. Draco's eyes widened as he noticed that the Hippogriffs were so white that the snow itself seemed gray in comparison. Draco, who had never seen a proper Hippogriff before, was certain that snow white Hippogriffs did not occur naturally in the real world, and must be under some sort of spell. Their harness was of scarlet leather and covered in bells.
Upon the sled, driving the Hippogriffs, sat a fat Dwarf, who would have been about three feet high if he'd been standing. He was dressed in Acromantula fur, although Draco did not know this at this time. On his head he wore a large red, hat, with a long golden tassel hanging down from its point. His huge beard covered his knees and served him instead of a rug.
Behind the dwarf, on a much higher seat, sat a much different person; a great Lady, taller than any woman that Draco had ever seen. She also was covered in white fur up to her throat, and held a long, straight golden wand in her right hand. She wore a golden crown on her head. Her face was white, not merely pale, but white, like snow or paper or icing sugar, except for her very red mouth. It was a very beautiful face in many respects, but very proud and cold and stern. Draco felt a frisson of awareness, though he couldn't have explained the feeling to anyone had they asked. It was almost as if this Lady was familiar to him, but this couldn't be so, because Draco had never been to Narnia before, and had never met this Lady.
The sled was a fine sight as it came sweeping toward Draco, with the bells jingling and the dwarf cracking his whip, and the snow flying up on each side of it.
"Stop," the Lady commanded of the dwarf.
And the dwarf pulled the Hippogriffs so sharp that they almost sat down, but they recovered themselves and stood proudly, champing their bits and blowing air from their beaks, and it was so chilly that the breaths coming out seemed like smoke.
"And what pray are you doing here?" asked the Lady of Draco, looking hard at him.
"I'm…I'm…my name is Draco," said Draco rather awkwardly. He did not like the way the lady looked at him.
The lady frowned. "Is that how you address a Queen?" she demanded.
Draco frowned. Malfoys did not bow down to anyone, and yet this Lady was so fierce and terrible that he knew there would be dire consequences if he did not. "I beg your pardon, Your Majesty. I did not recognize you."
"Not know the Queen of Narnia?" shrieked she. "Well, you shall know us from here after."
Chapter Four
Wizard's Delight
The Lady and Draco studied each other for a long time, until Draco began to shiver violently from the cold.
Finally the Lady broke the silence and asked, "How did a human such as you find his way into Narnia?"
Draco hesitated for a moment. For some reason he was reluctant to mention the wardrobe, but soon realized there was no way around it. "There's a wardrobe in the house I'm staying at that led us here."
"Us? Who is Us?"
"I came through the wardrobe in the spare room," Draco admitted, pushing aside his feelings of unease.
"A wardrobe? Really? How did that come about?"
"I just, well, opened a door and found myself here, Your Majesty."
"Hah," said the Lady more to herself than to Draco. "A door? A door from the World of Men? I've heard of such things. This may wreck all. But he is only one and he is easily dealt with." As she said these words she rose from her seat and looked Draco full in the eyes and at the same moment raised her wand.
Draco was sure she was going to do something dreadful, but was unable to move. Then, just as he gave himself up for lost, she appeared to change her mind.
"My poor child," she said in a quite different voice. "How cold you look. Come and sit by me, here on the sled, and I will put my robe around you and we will talk."
Draco did not like this arrangement at all, but he dared not disobey. He stepped onto the sled and sat at her feet and she put an edge of her fur robe around him and Draco began to feel warm again.
"Perhaps something hot to drink?" asked the Lady in the same sweet tone she had used a moment ago.
Draco, a naturally distrustful child, nodded. If she had wanted to kill him, he surmised, she would have done so already, so there was little harm in accepting some cocoa. "Thank you, Your Majesty."
The Lady took from within her robes, a very small bottle that seemed to be made of copper, and holding out her arm, let one drop fall from it onto the snow. Draco was very impressed at her effortless transfiguration potion, and watched with interest as the drop, shining like a diamond hit the snow and turned itself into a shiny, jeweled cup, filled with something that steamed.
The dwarf immediately took this and handed it to Draco with a bow and a smile, not a very nice smile. Draco, who was used to servants, accepted the cup with a nod of his head and sipped it tentatively. It was something he had never tasted before, very sweet and foamy and creamy and it warmed him right down to his toes.
"It is dull," said the Lady, "to drink without eating. What do you like best to eat?"
"Wizard's Delight, please, Your Majesty." Draco answered without pause.
The Lady let another drop fall from her bottle to the snow, and instantly there was a large box, tied with a green, silk ribbon which when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Wizard's Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very center and Draco knew he had never tasted anything more delicious.
He was quite warm now, and very comfortable. While he was eating, the Lady kept asking him questions. At first, Draco was reluctant to answer, but the more he ate and the more he drank, his mouth began working faster than his brain, as is wont to happen when a body has eaten too many sweets in a short period of time. He never once asked himself why the Lady should be so inquisitive.
She got him to tell her all about Harry and Ron and Pansy, and that they were wizards and there was a war going on back home and that Harry had already been in Narnia and was, in fact, here right now, and most probably visiting his friend Mr. Pettigrew who was a faun and that no one, aside from the Harry and Ron and Pansy knew anything about the land of Narnia.
The Lady seemed especially interested that there were four of them, and that they knew magic, and kept coming back to it.
"You are sure there are just four of you? There are only three Sons of Adam and one Daughter of Eve? There are neither more nor less?"
Draco, who never liked to be second guessed, and was starting to feel rather ill from all the candy, almost snapped as he replied, "Yes, of course. I told you that before." He kept forgetting to call her Majesty, but she didn't seem to mind now.
At last the Wizard's Delight was finish, and Draco was looking very hard at the empty box, wishing the Lady would ask him if he wanted any more. His stomach felt very full, but he wanted more of the delicious candy. The Lady knew quite well what Draco was thinking, for she also knew, while Draco did not, that this was enchanted Wizard's Delight and that anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it until they killed themselves.
But she did not offer him anymore. Instead, she said to him, "Son of Adam, I should so much like to see your friends. Will you bring them to see me?"
"I'll try," said Draco, still looking at the empty box.
"If you did happen to bring them with you next time, I'd be able to give you more Wizard's Delight. I can't do it now, the magic will only work once, but in my own house it would be another matter."
"Why can't we go now?" asked Draco petulantly, as he was used to getting what he wanted when he wanted it. When he had first got on the sled, he had been afraid she might drive away with him and then he'd never be able to find his way back, but now he wanted nothing more than to travel to the Lady's house and get more Wizard's Delight.
The Lady smiled rather darkly. "It is a lovely place, my house. I'm sure you would enjoy yourselves immensely there. There are whole rooms full of Wizard's Delight, and even more rooms filled with gold. And I have no children of my own, I want a nice boy I could bring up as my own as a Prince of Narnia and who would be King when I was gone. While he was prince he would wear a gold crown, and eat Wizard's Delight all day long, and have servants to do his bidding and all the gold and silver he wanted to spend on himself. And you are quite the handsomest and cleverest boy I've ever met. I think I would like to make you the Prince, someday when you bring the others to visit me."
She motioned for Draco to remove himself from the sled, and as Draco slid off he missed the Lady's dark scowl. He was too busy imagining bossing around Ron, and Harry and especially Pansy, and knew he was meant to be a Prince of Narnia. "Why not now?" His face had become very red, and his mouth and face were sticky, and he did not look at all handsome or clever, whatever the Lady might say.
"If I took you there now," said she, "I shouldn't see your friends. I really want to know your charming familiars. You are to be the Prince, and later you will be King. That is understood. But you must have courtiers and nobles. I will make them Dukes and Duchess of Narnia."
"But there's nothing special about them," Draco insisted. "And anyways, I can always bring them some other time."
"Ah, but once you are in my house," said the Lady, "you might forget all about them. You will be enjoying yourself so much that you might not want to bother to go to fetch them. That won't do at all. You must go back to your own country now and come back to me another day. Do you understand? It is no good coming without them."
"But I don't know the way back to my own country!" pleaded Draco.
"That's easy," said the Lady. "Do you see that lamp?"
She pointed with her wand, and Draco turned to see the same lamppost where Harry had met the faun.
"Straight on, beyond that, is the way back to the world of men. Now look the other way." Here she pointed in the opposite direction. "Tell me if you can see two little hills rising above the trees."
"I think I can," said Draco.
"Well, my house is between those two hills. So next time you come, you've only to find the lamppost and look for those two hills, and walk through the woods until you reach my house. Remember you must bring the others with you. I might have to be very angry with you if you came alone."
"I'll do my best," said Draco.
"And by the way," whispered the Lady, "you needn't tell them about me. It will be fun to keep it a secret between us two, wouldn't it? It will be a little surprise to them. Just bring them along with you to the little hills. A clever man such as you could certainly think of an excuse for that. And when you come to my house, you can just say, let's see who lives here or something like that. I'm sure that would be best. If your friend has met one of the fauns he may have heard nasty stories about me that may make him afraid to come and visit. Fauns will say anything. And now, off you go."
"Please, Your Majesty, couldn't I have just one more piece of Wizard's Delight to eat on the way back?"
"No, no," said the Lady with a laugh. "You must wait until next time." While she spoke, she signaled to the dwarf to drive on. The sled swept away out of sight and the Lady waved to Draco calling out, "Next time. Next time. Don't forget. Come soon!"
Draco was still staring after the sled when he heard someone calling his own name. When he looked around he saw Harry, cheeks rosy and smiling cheerfully, coming toward him from another part of the wood.
"Oh, Draco!" he cried. "So you've got in too! Isn't it wonderful?"
Draco's mouth turned down in a scowl and he muttered, "It's alright. I see now you were right and it is a portal of some sort. I'll say I'm sorry if you like." Draco continued to scowl. "Where have you been all this time? I've been looking everywhere for you."
"If I had known you'd got it, I would have waited," Harry said, too excited and happy to notice how snappishly Draco spoke, and how flushed and strange his face was. "I had the most wonderful visit with Mr. Pettigrew and think we've come up with some real solutions to the Dark Lady problem. Luckily, she did not find out about his helping me, so that gives us more time to formulate someway to get rid of her."
"The Dark Lady?" asked Draco. "Who's she again?"
"A perfectly terrible person," said Harry. "She's claimed herself Queen of Narnia, though she has no right to be queen at all, and all the dwarves, and dryads and nyads and all the other magical creatures, at least the good ones, simply hate her. She Petrifies people for no reason, and does all sorts of horrible things with her Magic. She's done some sort of charm that makes it always Winter in Narnia and never, ever Christmas. She's no better than those Wizards and Witches our parents try so hard to capture, using her power for her own gain, and harming people in the process." Harry took a breath and continued. "And she drives around on a sled drawn by white Hippogriffs and driven by a nasty little dwarf, with her wand always in her hand and a crown on her head."
Draco was already feeling uncomfortable from eating too many sweets, and when he heard that the Lady he had made friends with was a Dark Witch, he felt even more uncomfortable. But he wanted to taste that Wizard's Delight again, and see all that gold, and be a King, that he pushed aside his bad feelings and demanded, "Who told you all that stuff about the Dark Lady?"
"Mr. Pettigrew, the faun," Harry answered.
"You can't always believe what fauns say. They are notoriously dishonest. It says so in Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them."
"I've never read that," Harry said. "And I've read that book many times."
"You'd best read it once more than, you'll see I'm right."
"Come on, then, it's cold out here in the snow. Let's go home."
"Yes, let's. I'm so glad you've got in Draco, now we can convince Pansy and Ron about the truth of the wardrobe and we can all work together to help Mr. Pettigrew and the other creatures here."
But Draco secretly thought this would not be as wonderful for him, as it would be for her. He would have to admit that Harry had been right in front of all the others, and he was quite sure that even Pansy would be on the side of the fauns and the other animals but he was already more than half on the side of the Dark Lady. There was just something about her, even beyond the Wizard's Delight and the gold and the promise of becoming King. Draco felt a sort of kinship with her, as if he had known her long ago but had forgotten something very important. He did not know what he would say and how he would keep his secret when they were all talking about Narnia.
By now they had walked a good way and presently they felt coats around them, instead of branches and next moment they were tumbling outside the wardrobe into the empty room.
"I say, you do look awful, Draco. Don't you feel well?" asked Harry
"I'm all right." But this was not true, he was feeling very sick.
"All right then, let's go find the others. We shall have to tell them, and what wonderful adventures we will have, now that we're all in it together!"
Chapter 5
Back on This Side of the Door
Because the game of hide and seek was still going on, and Godric's Hollow was so large and twisty, it took Harry and Draco some time to find the others. By tacit agreement, Draco went in search of Pansy and Harry went in search of Ron and they agreed to meet in the long set of rooms with the suit of armor, but only if Draco promised not to upset Sir Cadogan's portrait.
But when at last they were all together, Harry burst out, "Ron, Pansy! It's all true! Draco has seen it too. There is a country you can get to through the wardrobe. And we both got through and met one another there, in the wood. Go on, Draco! Tell them all about it!"
"What's all this about then?" demanded Pansy.
And now comes one of the nastiest things in this story. Up to that moment, Draco had been feeling sick and sulky and annoyed with Harry for being right, but hadn't made up his mind what to do. When Pansy suddenly asked him that question, he decided to do the meanest and most spiteful thing he could think of. He decided to let Harry down.
"Come on now, Draco. Tell us what's this all about," said Ron.
And Draco gave a far superior look, as if he were ages older than Harry, rather than just six months, and then a little snigger and said, "Oh yes, Harry and I have been playing, pretending that all her story about a country in the wood is true, just for fun of course. There's nothing there, really."
Poor Harry gave Draco one look, drew back his fist and hit Draco so hard in the nose, that there was sure to be a bruise. The others were so shocked at gentle Harry's actions that they didn't move an inch as he brushed past them all and marched out of the room and out of sight.
Draco, who was becoming a nastier person every minute, thought he had scored a great success and went on at once to say, "There he goes again. What's the matter with him? This is why people need to act their ages, so they don't—"
"You shut up!" Ron shouted, turning savagely on Draco. "You've been a perfect ass to Harry ever since he started talking about this wardrobe, and then you encourage him only to humiliate him in front of us. Just because you're a self-righteous, selfish prig most of the time doesn't give you the right to humiliate people like that. Especially not kind, gentle people like Harry! I believe you did it simply out of spite."
"But…it's all….nonsense!" insisted Draco, taken aback.
"Of course it's all nonsense," said Pansy. "But it was a very poor show for you to encourage him, Draco. Father brought us up better than that."
"Harry seemed to be all right when we left London," Ron said. "But now he seems to either be going queer in the head or else turning into a frightful liar. But whatever it is, what good do you think you'll do jeering one day and playing along the next?"
"I thought….I thought…." But he couldn't think of anything to say.
"You didn't think anything at all. It's just spite," said Pansy. "You've always liked being beastly to anyone smaller or weaker than yourself, I've seen you at it."
"All right, I've had enough of this," Ron said. "I'm going to find Harry and make sure he's alright." He then addressed Draco, "If you've any redeeming value at all, you'll come along and apologize to him."
It was not surprising that when they found Harry, a good deal later, everyone could see that'd he'd been crying. They all pretended not to notice, but nothing they said to him made a bit of difference. He stuck to his story.
"I don't care what you think, or what you say. You can tell the Professor, or write my parents, but I am going to find a way to help Mr. Pettigrew with or without your lot's help. I know they need help, and I know I'm the one to provide it to them, and now I wish I'd just stayed there, but I thought we could all do something."
"Harry," Ron began gently, "this is getting rather scary now. If you'd only tell the truth, we could put this all behind us and start over again."
Harry glared fiercely at Ron and only said, "I think we should have separate rooms. I don't want to share with someone who thinks I'm a crazy liar." And he stormed away to talk to Dobby about moving his things to a spare room.
It was an unpleasant few days after this. Harry avoided them all in favor or burying his head in Defense books and Charm books and Transfiguration books. He read books on Ancient Runes and Arithmancy and Divination and finally thought he'd learned enough to go back to Narnia and try his hand at defeating the Dark Lady.
Draco and Pansy stuck together and disappeared for hours doing different things. Ron was starting to really worry about Harry, and finally decided to seek out the Professor for help.
The next morning Ron headed down to the Professor's office, determined to tell him the whole business. He knocked on the door and waited for a reply.
The Professor said, "Come in." He looked up from his desk and smiled at Ron. "Make yourself comfortable," he said.
The Professor's office was very odd. It was much larger than it ought to have been, and rather circular instead of square. There were bookcases lining the walls, and a fireplace along one side, with two wingback chairs facing each other in front of the fire. The Professor sat behind a very large, very old oak desk, and was almost hidden from view by precariously stacked papers and books. What was most peculiar about the office however, was the bird stand directly behind the desk chair. It was not the stand itself that was odd, but the bird perched upon it.
He had spectacular feathers of red, orange and gold, and looked almost as if he were fire himself. His eyes were an intelligent black and he trilled a little and preened his feathers when he noticed Ron's intense study. This, Ron realized, was a Phoenix.
"Ah, yes, I see you've noticed Fawkes," said the professor. "I'm afraid he gets a bit vain when he's in full brilliance." He motioned for Ron to follow him to the wingback chairs and continued, "But he is my most trusted and loyal friend. Now, young Mr. Weasley, what may I do for you?"
The Professor sat listening to Ron, with the tips of his fingers pressed together, his eyes never losing their knowing twinkle, and he never interrupted as Ron finished the whole story. After that he said nothing for a long time. Then he cleared his throat and said the last thing Ron had been expecting. "How do you know, he asked, that Harry's story is not true?"
"Well," Ron began, and then stopped. Anyone could see from the Professor's face that he was perfectly serious. Ron pulled himself together and said, "But Draco said they had only been pretending. And it's a well known fact that it take quite a lot of power to travel to a different dimension, not to mention any number of charms and potions and incantations and things."
"There is a point, which certainly deserves consideration, very careful consideration. For instance, if you'll excuse my asking, does your experience lead you to regard Draco or Harry as the more reliable one, I mean, which is the more truthful?"
"That's just funny thing about it, Professor. If you had asked me at the beginning of the summer I would have answered Harry without any hesitation. Granted, I hadn't met him before coming here, but I do know Draco, and he's never been the most honest of blokes." Ron paused for a moment and said, "But all this can't be true. I mean, about the wood and the faun and the Dark Lady. Can it?"
"That is more then I know," said the Professor. "But a charge of lying against someone your instincts tell you to trust is a very serious thing, a serious thing indeed."
"But it might not be lying! What if he's gone wrong in the head? He's been quite sheltered for most of his life, hasn't he? Maybe there's something wrong with him."
"Madness, you mean?" asked the Professor quite coolly. "You can make your mind easy about that. Young Harry is no madder than I am. You only have to look and talk to him to see that he is not mad."
"But then," said Ron and then stopped. He had never dreamed that a grown-up would ever talk like the Professor. His parents had always been very practical people, and it seemed the Professor was not. He didn't know quite what to think.
"Magic," said the Professor "is a very strange entity indeed. One would think that a human could not be a dog, and yet there are several registered Animagus whose forms are that of dogs, or lions or birds. And one could argue that much of what we Wizards do as part of our daily routine, such as cook spells and Apparition defy every law of physics Muggles have come up with."
"What does that mean?"
The Professor twinkled, but didn't reply and Ron took that to mean that he had to figure it out for himself. He thought for several moments and then said, uncertainly, "I suppose, then, that there is a lot about Magic that we do not know isn't there?"
"That is a most certain observation, Mr. Weasley."
"And there can only be three possible outcomes, right? Either Harry is telling lies, mad or telling the truth. And since we've deduced that Harry doesn't tell lies, and that he isn't mad, he must then, be telling the truth. And since Magic works in ways we sometimes don't understand, there could possibly be a world beyond the Wardrobe that opened itself to her."
"That was very good reasoning, Mr. Weasley. Quite the logical deduction you've come up with."
"Well, you did give me the answer."
"On, the contrary, Mr. Weasley, I gave you only information and theories. You came up with your own answers." The Professor stood from the chair and brushed off his robes. "Now, I'm afraid I have some pressing business matters to attend to."
"Right," said Ron, following the Professor's example. "Thank you for talking with me, Professor." Ron stood awkwardly at the door. "Professor, may I ask one more question?"
"Alright, go on then."
"Do you think we've got to battle the Dark Lady, like Harry's been saying all along?"
The Professor didn't answer right away. "I think, Mr. Weasley, that man is defined not by the choices made for him, but by the choices he makes for himself."
Realizing that this was the most he would be getting out the Professor tonight, Ron said his good-byes.
After this, things went more smoothly for everyone. Ron saw to it that Draco stopped jeering at Harry, and Pansy, who was tired of the whole thing, was more than happy to let the matter drop. Ron and Harry made friends again, and Harry moved back into the room they shared together. Ron even started helping Harry research, even if none of them ever truly discussed the wardrobe any longer. The whole subject was becoming rather alarming, and for a time it seemed that all the adventures were coming to a standstill. But, that was not to be.
This house of the Professor's, which even he knew little about, was so old and famous that people from all over England came to ask permission to look over it. It was the sort of house mentioned in both Wizarding and Muggle guidebooks, and even in histories, and well it should be for all manner of stories were told about it, some were even stranger then the world beyond the wardrobe. When parties of sight-seers arrived to tour the house, the Professor always twinkled at them and gave them permission, and Mrs. McGonagall would show them around, telling them about the pictures and the armor and the volumes in the library. The Muggles, of course, were kept well away from the Magical artifacts, but the Wizard's delighted in viewing some of the Muggle items around the house.
Mrs. McGonagall, while strict and stern with the children, did care for them, and made them promise to keep well away from the visitors. After all, she said, she herself was a full-grown Witch, and could handle one or two rogue Wizards, but it wouldn't do to have the children, who had been sent to Godric's Hollow for safe-keeping, to be discovered by the visitors. She had said to the children on the first day, along with a great many other instructions, "Please remember to keep safely away when I am showing parties around the house."
And Draco had replied, quite snootily, "As if any of us want to waste half a day trailing around a boring old tour group." And while the other three were too polite to agree vocally, they all thought the same.
This was how the adventures began for the second time.
A few mornings after Ron's chat with the Professor, he and Harry had their heads close together over a stack of books, when Pansy and Draco raced into the library.
"Look out, here comes McGonagall with a tour group. We've got to get out of here quickly!" Pansy exclaimed.
Harry, who had taken to carrying around a large knapsack, quickly dumped the most important of the books into it, and joined the others at the doorway. All four made off through the door at the end of the room. But when they had got out into the Portrait room, and beyond it into the music room, they suddenly heard voices ahead of them and realized that Mrs. McGonagall must be bringing her party up the back stairs and not up the front stairs as they had expected.
And after that it was as if Fate was conspiring against them, for no matter where they hid, it seemed that Mrs. McGonagall and her tourists were following them everywhere.
Until at last Pansy said, "Oh bugger this. Let's go to the empty room, no one ever goes in there." And the others agreed that there was nothing for it but to do as she suggested.
But the moment they were inside, they heard voices in the passage, and then someone, Mrs. McGonagall probably, fumbling at the door and they saw the handle turning.
"Quick!" cried Ron. "There's no where else." He quickly opened the wardrobe door and herded the rest inside, before getting in himself. He almost, but not quite shutting the door, for he remembered, as every sensible person did, that it was foolish to shut oneself into a wardrobe. They sat there, panting in the dark.