A Curse?

Roy and Patricia stood up and were just turning right to join their Slytherins and lead them out, when McGonagall called after them:

"MacAllister!"

"Yes please, Professor?"

"You behaved insolently and disrespectfully towards the Minister, which is all the more serious because you are a Prefect of your house. Fifty points off Slytherin!" Roy nodded and headed for his Slytherins again.

"That was necessary, wasn't it?" hissed Patricia to him as they walked along the rows of chairs to the Slytherins.

"It has been worth it," Roy replied indifferently. He saw Albus hurrying forward towards them both. "Hey, where are you going? It's time to leave."

"I know," said Albus, "but I'd like to say goodbye to my aunt, I am not going to see her again very soon. Do you think I can?"

"If it doesn't take too long, that's all right for me, but ..." He turned around. The Gryffindors were about to leave their rows of seats. "If you want to get to her, you'll have to go right through the Gryffindors, and given their mood ... hmm."

Patricia turned to Albus: "If you want, I'll go with you, so I can say goodbye to my grandpa, too. I'm sure they'll let me pass."

While Roy was deliberately slowly rallying his Slytherins, who grinned at him, raised their thumbs and nudged him in the ribs, Albus made his way forward with Patricia. The Gryffindors looked sullenly at them both, but let them pass without a fuss.

As Albus came closer to his aunt, who was talking to Dagobert Higrave, he heard her say: "I want to know everything on the record about that guy! About anything else I will make enquiries myself today, but I expect a complete dossier from you not later than tomorrow morning! And I want to know what other Death Eaters there are in Slytherin! This plague has to be destroyed root and branch!" Albus froze.

No doubt it was Hermione, but at the same time, in a scary way, it seemed to be someone else. It was not what she said that made him scare stiff, but how she did, how she looked and what indefinable, terrifying aura was surrounding her. This was not just an energetic boss: There was hatred in her features and coldness emanating from her, a coldness he had never sensed on her. With trembling knees he stood and stared at her. Patricia, who had stopped dead too, whispered to him:

"I think we'd better go – we're ... we're bothering them, I think."

Albus nodded, turned and hurried back. He would have liked to run away screaming in fear, but he pulled himself together. Fortunately, Patricia was also in a hurry to escape the Minister's creepy orbit. Quite against her habit, she ungently squeezed her way through the Gryffindor crowds, with Albus close on her heels.

"Oh, that was a short goodbye to your friend," welcomed him Roy, who had obviously not observed the scene. Albus just managed to choke down a sob.

My friend. My best friend.

Roy looked a little puzzled when Albus, silent, the head bent, just lined up with the Slytherins who were still chuckling and giggling triumphantly.

"All right, we are complete. Off to the common room!"

When they arrived in the common room, the Slytherins' hard-kept discipline gave way to untamed friskiness, as if they had won the Quidditch Cup. Considered in the cold light of day, you could not really call it a victory, at best a draw, but the mere fact that at last one of them had really given the Minister an unvarnished opinion, and even had cornered her, was a kind of victory to the Slytherins. They toasted Roy, knocked rather than tapping him on the shoulder as if they wanted to give him bruises, some jumped around childishly, and all were loudly talking at once. Patricia and her friends kept a bit of a distance, but even they couldn't suppress a certain grin of satisfaction.

The only one who didn't feel like laughing, let alone celebrating, was Albus. He just wanted to be alone, see no one, hear no one. He crept to the dormitory like a whipped dog, drew all the curtains of his four-poster bed, threw himself on it, buried his head in his arms and let his tears flow freely.

It took him quite a while to calm down. He sat up, folded his arms around his knees, rested his chin on them and stared into the semi-darkness of his bed. He understood why the others were celebrating, but he, for whom a world had just broken down, felt excluded from it and terribly lonely.

He heard someone open the door to the dormitory. The noise from outside grew louder for a moment, then the door was closed again.

"Albus?" It was Roy.

"Yes?" said Albus quietly.

"Is it possible to talk to you?"

"Yes, of course." He opened the curtain.

Roy looked into two teary eyes and didn't know what to say. He sat down on the edge of the bed. For a while they sat in silence. Then Roy said softly:

"I couldn't handle her with kid gloves."

"I know. And I didn't expect it."

"But it distressed you, didn't it?"

"No, it didn't. Hermione herself always says that as a politician you've to stand criticism. And you were really cool."

"Well, but ..." Roy faltered. "Why are you so down?"

Albus sighed deeply. How should he explain to him what he had just seen?

"When I went to say goodbye to her, I saw her and heard her and ... It was so horrible. Like she's not herself at all."

Roy pricked up his ears. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know ... As if there was suddenly another person who just looked like her. Quite different from this morning. I saw something I've never seen on her before, and I felt it, so strange, so ..." He could not speak any further.

"A wave of cold, devilish hatred, right?"

Albus nodded. Then he looked up: "How do you know, you weren't there?"

Roy smiled sadly. "I also experienced it during the debate, not from the beginning, all of a sudden there was this cruel coldness."

"Yes, but she's not like that, she isn't! That's not her!" cried Albus desperately. "I don't know what's got into her!"

Roy thoughtfully fixed an imaginary point on the wall. "Got into her ..."

"If maybe she's sick? Or she is under a spell, maybe a curse?" asked Albus. "Is something like that possible?"

Roy was deeply touched. Not for anything in the world would he think badly of her, the great little guy!

"Yes, it is. But if you want to know more, you'd better ask your dad. It's his job to know about this kind of thing." Roy got up to his feet. "What about coming back down?"

"Leave me alone for a little while, please."

"Sure." At the door, Roy paused for a second, frowning.

A disease? A curse?

He left the dormitory.