Potter47
Part Two
The Shadow of the Present
"Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend."
Agatha Christie
Chapter Twelve
Murder 101
"BUT THEY CAN'T HAVE!" screamed a hoarse Hermione, who was in hysterics and repeating herself at the top of her lungs. "THERE'S NO APPARATING OR DISAPPARATING ON HOGWARTS GROUNDS!"
She was standing up and pacing and running and jumping up and down and was, in a word, barmy.
"Hermione!" said Ron, charging up to her and taking her by the forearms. "Pull yourself together, come on! I think there's more important stuff to worry about than how they got away—"
"BUT THERE'S NO—"
Hermione was not the only one who was screaming, of course, as Parvati and Lavender seemed to be having a contest to see who could last the longest, non-stop, without taking a breath. Neville was looking round nervously, though he hadn't left his seat, nor even fallen out of it, which wouldn't have been unexpected for him. Dean Thomas was peering out the window as though, perhaps, they had jumped out while they had all blinked. And Seamus was...well, Seamus hadn't even gotten into NEWT-level Defence Against the Dark Arts, so he was rather uninformed of the crisis.
Soon the pandemonium had escalated into a full-scale panic, and Hermione was trying to wrestle her way out of Ron's arms, shouting about having to go tell Dumbledore.
"Dumbledore's not even here, Hermione!" said Ron, and he didn't know what to do. Harry wasn't doing anything to help—he was just sitting at his desk and staring at the spot where Morgen had fallen. Ron felt hat he could have used the assistance right about now.
Hermione finally managed to scratch Ron's arm in such a way that he let go of her by reflex, but before she could get to the door he had caught hold of her again. "STOP — GOING — BATTY — !" he said, struggling, and finally he had no other choice.
"I'VE — GOT — TO — TELL — DUMBLE —"
He slapped Hermione in the face. She stopped struggling immediately, her eyes wide, and she looked up at him with what at first was a look of disbelief, but slowly and surely her face contorted into rage.
"I'VE GOT TO TELL DUMBLEDORE — JUST AS SOON AS I HEX YOU INTO OBLIVION!" said Hermione then, and she drew her wand.
Lucky for Ron, the classroom door opened behind him just before she could say anything that she might... regret. (Or worse—something that she wouldn't.)
"Professor!" said Hermione incredulously as the door opened, and she let her wand fall to her side. "You're alive!"
"Quite, Miss..." Morgen stood in the doorway, narrowing his eyes in concentration. "Miss Granger."
The room settled down in moments, though no one seemed inclined to return to their seats.
"But how are you...?" said Ron, as Morgen walked over to his desk, sat down, and propped his legs up, seeming to enjoy himself immensely, despite his ever-serious expression.
"I'm fine, thank you," said the professor. "Now, if everyone would... take your seats."
Everyone did.
"Sir," said Hermione, who was absolutely back-to-normal, except for the rage against Ron that she was sure to follow through on later, "how on earth did you survive the Killing Curse?"
"Well," said Morgen, "it's not impossible... is it?" He looked at Harry as he said it, and Harry looked down. "But you're making a few... assumptions, aren't you?"
"Well, I think it's pretty safe to assume that when two Death Eaters come charging into a room and curse you with the Killing Curse, you're pretty much a goner. Sir," added Hermione hastily.
"Exactly what I mean," said Morgen. "You're assuming not only that those were... Death Eaters... but also that they hit me with the Killing Curse."
"Are you saying that they didn't hit you with the Killing Curse?"
"Yes."
"Oh," said Hermione, and everything seemed to make sense in her mind, except for one thing: "But they did."
The professor grinned a very self-amused grin, and crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair.
"Let's start that scene again from the... beginning, shall we?" he said, and in a moment the lights were extinguished and a projector was in the middle of the classroom, facing the blackboard. Morgen was next to it, then, and tapped it with his wand. The scene played out on the board, as though it had been filmed by Muggle camera.
It began, in slow-motion.
"First—" said Morgen, and he had conjured a large pointer to sprout from the end of his wand. He pointed at the two wizards who were now visible in the back of the room. "As you can see...those masks may be silver, but they are also sparkly. Do Death Eaters wear...sparkly masks?"
The answer was, of course, 'no.'
"Their robes..." he said, pointing at the robes, "are Hogwarts-issue, not Death Eater robes. And their shoes..." He pointed at them. "Are Muggle clown-shoes. Do Death Eaters wear Muggle clown-shoes?"
The answer was, of course, still 'no.'
"And now," said Morgen, as the recording progressed to the point of the 'killing,' "look closely at the wands. Just as the light issues forth...there!"
The image paused, and the class could see quite clearly that the wand turned into a rubber haddock.
Ron was, surprisingly, the first to catch on. "Those were the twins' wands," he said. "The ones they made for the—"
"Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes," said Fred's voice, leaning into the classroom from the open doorway, "is located at ninety-three, Diagon Alley, and the fake wands demonstrated here today are available for the very low price of only five Galleons each—"
"I've asked...these two fine young men to assist me with today's...class," said Morgen. "I believe they performed very convincingly, don't you?"
"We belong in theatre," called George from outside the doorway, trying to get past his twin. "We've always said we missed our calling—"
"Oh my goodness, it's Ronniekins!" said Fred, pointing and waving. "Hi Ronniekins!"
"So you weren't in any danger at all?" said Hermione, narrowing her eyes.
"Nope," said Morgen. "These two had a Portkey ready,
"And we've been only just outside the whole time."
"Ronniekins," said George, "you've really got to control your temper. And a lady, too! Mum will disapprove so very much..."
Ron was beet red now, and very much wished that his brothers would go away. Luckily, his wish was granted.
"Well, we've got to run, Ronnie. We have a meeting with the High Inquisitor," said Fred, smirking. "Pleasure doing business with you, professor. See you later, Harry. Hope that doesn't bruise, Hermy."
And then they were gone. The rest of the class—apart from Harry, Ron, and Hermione, that is—were wondering just what in hell was going on.
"So...was there any point in terrifying us all like that?" asked Parvati.
"Oh, yes ma'am, there most definitely was... a point."
The class was silent, as though waiting for him to tell them. He didn't seem very keen on that, though.
"As I said before," said Morgen, "this class is meant to help you... understand the mind of Dark wizards. To understand the Dark, you can't very well be... afraid of it, can you?" He looked round the room. "Of course not. And I think we all proved today... just how well we handle ourselves in... extreme situations."
Hermione's hand shot into the air. "That's not fair, sir," she said, indignant. "I've been in extreme situations before, and I've never gone off my rocker like that...it was just this time, these circumstances, you can't generalise like that."
"Can't I?" said Morgen, raising an eyebrow. "Yes, I know that you've been in... anomalous situations before. Unexpected, strange, out-of-the-ordinary. But were you ever taken by surprise?"
At the word 'taken,' his wand was somehow in his hand and he was pointing it at Hermione, who said "Protego!" before the professor said another word.
He nodded. "Very good, Miss Expelliarmus!" And this time he caught her off-guard, and her wand came up into his hand. He smirked. "I guess I can."
Hermione looked furious as he handed her her wand back, and she sat with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed.
Morgen returned to his speech, and he began to walk round the room as he did so. "I'm here to teach you to reason not only how to...react when you encounter the Dark, but why the Dark itself... is Dark, and not Light, nor Grey. Yes, there is Grey, Mr Weasley, don't look so... surprised.
"So, class," he continued, "I think that it is rather convenient that we have... our own private madman to observe, don't you?"
"How do you mean?" said Neville suddenly, as though the word 'madman' had stirred something in him that none of the proceedings had managed, and had jolted him back into the land of the living.
"I mean the killer. Whoever it was that... killed our very own student, Mr Malfoy."
"It was..." began Hermione, looking at Neville, but she couldn't finish her sentence.
"It was me," said Neville, "it had to have been me. I don't really remember it, but...I had the knife, didn't I? And I'm the one with the hearing next month..."
"Maybe," said Morgen. "Maybe not."
"No," said Neville, and his eyes were watering and he wouldn't look at the professor, "I definitely am."
"But... did you kill him?" Morgen was now just in front of Neville's desk, leaning down with his arms on the surface.
"I had to have," Neville said, and he was sobbing now. "Who else could have done it?"
Morgen backed away. He was over at his desk, and pulling out a book from a drawer.
"This is your textbook... this year," he said, holding the book aloft. "I didn't have you pick it up yourselves... as it is rather hard to find. Considering it hasn't been published."
The book bore the legend "THE PERFECT MURDER" in large letters on its front...and it was rather shabbily put together, really. It was a small volume, much smaller than the rest of their books, and Harry felt it looked more like one of the novels that Hermione would carry around then an actual textbook. Morgen placed the one in his hand on Neville's desk, and returned to the drawer to bring out more. When Harry got his, he noted the name on the cover, below the title: "Ripley Geostran Morgen."
"You wrote this, Professor?" he asked.
"And he speaks...at last," said Morgen, handing the last of the books to Dean Thomas. "Yes, I wrote it. As you can tell by my name being on the cover. I do wonder how you knew it wasn't my... brother, though." He said this in a tone that indicated that he didn't really wonder it at all.
"You have a brother?" said Harry.
"I might," said Morgen. "What's it to you?"
The professor returned to the front of the class, and the students began to flip through the pages—Harry noted a not-so-very-well-drawn illustration of a Dementor and the rather peculiar chapter heading, "The World According To Poisonous Toadstools."
He blinked. No...the words were still there.
"Please turn to page... forty-two—" began Morgen, but the bell rang before anyone could do so.
"Homework," said Morgen, and a chorus of groans flitted through the students— "Pointedly ignore chapters one, two... and three, and begin on chapter four tonight. Remember not to start on one of... the others, by mistake, or you will be dreadfully confused."
Harry left the room then, though, and he felt that he had never had such a peculiar lesson in all of his life, and that was including the time when—
"There's something strange about that man," said Hermione, as they walked along towards the common room—Defence had been their last lesson today.
"I dunno," said Ron. "He just seemed a bit peculiar to me. But he was fine, wasn't he—ow!"
Hermione had punched him hard in the arm then, and smirked as she caught the books that almost fell out of her grasp.
"That hurt! What was that for?" Ron said, before realising that that was quite clearly the worst thing he could have possibly thought to say...
"What was that for?" Hermione nearly shrieked. "You slapped me, Ron. In case you've forgotten?"
"Oh, right," said Ron, wincing. "Just...don't do it again. Please." He rubbed his arm, but Hermione wasn't looking at that. She punched him again just to be difficult, and this time she caught him right in the knuckles.
"OOOOOOOOOWW!" screamed Ron at the top of his voice, as his fingers...er...bent the wrong way. Harry looked away before he even looked towards it, and winced himself.
"Oh, sorry!" said Hermione urgently. "I didn't hit that hard, did I? Goodness, I didn't mean to—"
"You did too hit THAT HARD," said Ron, glaring at her, but the voice kind of fell out of him after that, and he just sort of let his hand hang limp for a moment.
"You should go to Madam Pomfrey," said Hermione, looking worriedly at the hand and biting her lip.
"I'd rather not take suggestions from you right now, Hermione," said Ron, but then he stopped walking and bit his tongue in pain. "But I guess I have no choice, this once."
He whimpered and nearly fell over, before making a dash in the direction of the Hospital Wing, leaving Harry and Hermione alone.
"I really didn't mean to hit him that hard..." said Hermione, sounding sincere. But then, when she had been clear of the sight of his could-almost-be-called-mangled hand, her anger returned, and she felt the sting on her face. "But he so deserved it."
"Let's go to the common room," said Harry. "I doubt Ron'll want to see you right now."
"I suppose you're right," said Hermione, and they set off for the seventh floor...
"Wait a minute," said Hermione, pausing. "You got lost?" she said suddenly, as though the thought had just jumped up on her once again. "How on earth could you get lost on your way to Defence?"
Harry shrugged. "I dunno. It was weird though. I was down by the Slytherin Common Room all of a sudden, and I didn't know how I'd gotten there."
The words seemed to ring a bell in Hermione's mind, so that he could almost see the tinkling sound come out her ears. "Wait a minute," she said. "That's like when..." But she shook her head to clear it. "No, it couldn't be."
Once they got to the common room, they plopped down on two of the couches and Harry put his bag on a third, in case Ron would join them when he got back. Harry turned, about to say something to Hermione, but then he forgot what it was when he saw his friend already curled up in the seat with "The Perfect Murder" in her hands. Harry saw that she didn't seem to have skipped to chapter four.
Harry opened his own copy and sat down in the chair next to her. He began to read.
"Yes, all is coming along," said the Dark Lord, smirking at his Death Eaters. "He doesn't even know that he's done it. And he most definitely doesn't know about our... our friend."
"Really?" said Lucius Malfoy, a bit apprehensive. "He doesn't suspect a thing?"
"No," said the Dark Lord. "Not at all." He let out a raucous laugh, then, and the Death Eaters joined in. Everything was going according to plan... he'd finally gotten them separated, yes, but that was almost old-news compared to the recent happenings in the plot. He smirked to himself, now, letting the Death Eaters gloat to each other about who had done the most, who had been the most pivotal, when of course none of them were any more important than each other. They liked to think they were, though.
The Dark Lord stood, then, and made his way out of the room... down the corridor... down the stairwell. In the dungeons, now, and he walked down the lonely corridor... his footsteps echoing hollowly on the vaguely damp floor.
He passed cell after cell after cell until he came to the one at the very end of the corridor, on the left. In there he stood, already alert to the Dark Lord's presence.
"Hello, Severus," said Voldemort then, smirking for what seemed the millionth time that night. He was altogether too happy lately...
Snape was silent as he stood there, arms at his sides in a very prim fashion, and glared back at Voldemort.
"I don't deserve a hello?" said the Dark Lord. "After all I've done for you?"
Snape kept his mouth shut, as though concentrating, and it was almost as though he hadn't even noticed the Dark Lord standing there before him. Voldemort looked behind him to see if there was anything particularly interesting in the cell opposite, but no, there wasn't.
Snape was just being rude.
"Speak, Severus," said Voldemort now, the humour out of his voice. "Beg me to spare your life."
Snape said nothing, only gazed blankly ahead, as though Petrified.
Voldemort was growing impatient. He had come down here to taunt the prisoner, and the prisoner was not responding to his taunts. What to do...
"Fine, then, Severus, I know what you want." And now Voldemort smirked once again. "You want some company, don't you? All right, then. I'll find you some company."
Snape's gaze faltered for a moment, but Voldemort didn't notice. He was already walking away, walking up through the Manor towards the gathering of Death Eaters, ready to give them the order to fetch Severus a playmate. Snape only moved once he heard the shouts of drunken Death Eaters, ecstatic that they were seeing their Master again so soon—when he left them, it was usually for the night.
Then, and only then, did Snape let his muscles relax, and did he sit down on the small 'bed' that had been provided for him. He looked back at the place he had been standing, and carefully removed the flagstone once again, placing it down silently beside the revealed hole. And, from this hiding-place he removed the small, rectangular Muggle item and pressed the button on the side.
"Miss Granger, do you hear me? Miss Granger, can you hear me?"
He released the button of the talkie-walkie with a bit of disgust.
Nothing.
Again.
A bit of a better response than usual... and the group's got 38 new members! Wow! (Though I have to say that's probably to do with advertising and things on other groups, not contests.)
In regards to the contests, there were three correct guesses, for contest 1, two by SilentOne872:
—We will find out what's happening with Snape.
—Harry will still miss Ginny, but they won't be reunited - yet.
And one by Tayler:
—Morgen will come back from the dead, and pretend like nothing ever happened.
Now, this last one isn't actually what happened, but I think it's close enough, don't you?
So the score: 2-to-1 Si-lent-1.
Of course, I'm not responding to any of the Contest Two things until the fic is complete...but there were some interesting guesses...I'd love to hear more, no matter how crazy and out-there you may think your own would be...after all, this is a pretty crazy and out-there story itself, isn't it?
For a complete table of all correct entries, look in the database section of the Yesterday Sequence Yahoo! Group, which can be found here:
groups . yahoo . com / group / HPYesterday
Next chapter should be up on the fourteenth, but I haven't finished it yet, so you never know—but I want to keep the streak going! I think this is five in a row I've posted on time, and I want to make it six!
Please review! It doesn't have to be the most eloquent thing in the world, nor the most complimentary—point out what you liked, disliked, or whatever from the chapter... ask me a question that isn't going to spoil everything, and I will answer it. Authors love reviews, (just as much as Arthurs love plugs—though authors like those too) and it really deflates them to not receive very many, especially after they are used to receiving a lot more...it hurts. So please review. Please.
"The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe."
Emily Brontë
Coming Soon
Intrigued by Yesterday? Join the Yesterday Sequence Yahoo! Group at: groups . yahoo . com / group / HPYesterday