Flash Forward.
Before resuming the search for the Lost And Found they stopped by the Trophy Room, and left it only seemingly as they had found it.
{ What is this going to do? } asked Harry, with his hand on the bulge in his shirt that was being made by Tom Riddle's Medal for Magical Merit.
Possibly nothing, replied the (one, the only, the amazing) Rupert, especially considering the Lost-And-Found hasn't turned up despite all the gloves in your pockets, but it's worth a shot. It's not one of a pair, but by some standards it is part of a set.
{ Well, okay, } said Harry. { Hope you know what you're doing.
{ Brother, brother, find your brother... }
#
If all the interesting bits of the chess games the Rupert played against Draco Malfoy over the next six or seven Wednesdays were jigsawed out and slotted together —
#
"Terry, I tried to get Laystall's Guide to Pyriformic Transfiguration for you but it's checked out," Adrian Pucey was saying upon the Rupert's arrival.
"Did you get me waitlisted?" said Beaconsfield, who was sitting upside-down on his couch, reading the latest issue of The Spectacle.
"Well...yeah, but it's 238 years overdue and Pince thinks it's probably not coming back."
"Oh, that Adams again! Preserve us from dishonest student library aides," said Beaconfield. He looked up (or down, depending on one's point of view) and saw the Rupert beaming down (or up) upon him. "Art we all here? Then let the combat begin!"
#
"Here, Potter," said Draco Malfoy, "I got you this from the library." "Oooh," said the Rupert. "Minimally Adequate Chess by Enagonius Blott! Thank you, I shall make maximal use of it."
#
"No, you can't call me D.M."
#
"You can do it...say Salazar Slytherin! Come on...who wants this lovely herring..."
A strange little voice said, "Thalathar Thlytherin."
"Leave my kitty alone, Higgs!" said Millicent Bulstrode.
"I'm just playing!"
#
"Look, if you keep calling me D.M. I'm going to call you Penfold, and do you want that?"
"Why not?"
(The reason Draco Malfoy had recognised the name "Castle Duckula" back on 1st September? Exactly what the Rupert had surmised: Mother in London with sick child at home is desperate to find something, anything, to distract him — and the nature of funny animal comics is that they fly straight under the radar of prejudice. Talking animals are so obviously magic that being published by Muggles means nothing. And so his room at home was stacked with Count Duckula and Danger Mouse comics in place of Martin Miggs.)
#
"Got any squids?"
"Go fish."
Not everybody played chess.
#
"You know me, D.M.," said the Rupert, "I was raised by Muggles in Madagascar and spent all my time swinging between larches on vines, but what's society like in the real world, among the proper kind of families? What do they do in House Malfoy all day?"
"Well," said Malfoy, studying the board, "in the morning Mother writes letters, and then has a salon with certain carefully selected artists, and in the evening she either attends a party, hosts a party or plans the next one.
"Father has business outside the house in the mornings — he's on all kinds of boards and directorships — and then in the afternoon we play chess or Hunt The Footman or things of that nature. We used to play Hunt The Butler but Mother tends to find him first and take him off to help with her shopping. In the evenings he goes to parties or hosts them, and then he does his correspondence."
"So wizards do a lot of pen-wielding. What kind of letters do they write?"
"I don't check their spelling, Potter. How should I know?"
"Strongly worded ones," contributed Q.C. Flint. "My dad says. He says, Malfoy's got a strongly worded letter in the Prism today."
"About what?" said the Rupert.
"Dunno," said Flint. "He never says."
"You mean, he's reading something, and says oho, that's interesting, and then he just stops?" said Millicent Bulstrode. "My dad does that, drives Mum up the wall!"
"Okay, leaving the letters blank," said the Rupert, "how are the parties? Any good?"
"The best," said Malfoy, with the second-hand pride of one who is sent to bed at eight.
"And the guest list? Rife with cognoscenti, I expect, only the most puissant wizards?"
"Of course."
"You get all the best up-and-comers, I expect."
"...no," said Malfoy. "Generally always the same ones..."
#
"Kings aren't allowed to abdicate!"
"Hello? Edward VIII?" said the Rupert. ("I'm sure I don't mind," said the king as the Rupert set him down again.)
"Not in bloody wizard chess!"
"Language, Malfoy..." said T. Beaconsfield, from behind his Potions book.
"If you can't change the rules in Slytherin, where can you?" said the Rupert.
"Gryffindor," said T. Beaconsfield, still from behind his Potions book.
"No, in Gryffindor we break them and plead mitigating circumstances," said the Rupert, momentarily flipping over his double-sided tie and waving the red-and-gold lion in T. Beaconsfield's direction. "Slytherin, that's different," he continued, returning it to the green and silver snake position. "You don't need forgiveness or permission when you set the rules. Hogwarts founded 900, Charter of Liberties 1100, Magna Carta 1215 – coincidence?" He snapped his fingers and pointed across the board at Malfoy's own tie. "No, Slytherins! That's why Dark Lords call themselves Dark Lords and not Dark Kings." (Monarchs are too flighty. Just ask Chuang Tzu.)
"Oh, Father's going to love that one," murmured Malfoy.
I'm someone to write home about! thought the Rupert. Haha! That's how you do it.
(Fallen behind a shelf in the library he'd found Proceedings of the Wizengamot, Special Investigation LV: Index. Malfoy, Lucius, testimony of, lots of page numbers. There's a man who knows something about Trevor Doom. The actual volumes weren't there, presumably Restricted.)
"Look at Cromwell!" he said, reaching out over the board. "A Dark Lord Protector would have just imperiused Charles I and made him step down, saved a lot of needless bother."
Not a twitch from the Malfoyish ear, but maybe an eyebrow flicker.
"Ah!" said T. Beaconsfield, raising an admonishing finger but still not looking up. "That would be very illegal. Never go up against the penal code, Mr Potter."
"It wasn't illegal then," said the Rupert, choosing a piece and making a more legal move. Beaconsfield murmured noncommittally.
"You know," said Malfoy, brushing a stray hair back into place, "if you'd just pay more attention you wouldn't have to mess about like you do."
"I can't help it, I'm easily distracted, I need an organiser."
Draco Malfoy was very organised, it went with the hair.
#
"It's your move again," said Malfoy. "Again again."
"Haven't you wondered about that table?" said the Rupert.
"No. What table?" said Malfoy, not looking up from the board.
"That little one that no one uses, over there in the corner, the one with the perpetual wet spot."
"That's Adams's Tiny Pond," said Beaconsfield. "Very historical, that puddle."
The Rupert tried to prick up his ears, but they weren't big enough. (Mem: raise priority of pony animagus action-item.) "Adams who?"
"Iain Adams. Class of 1753? Pilferer of half the library? Second Grand Sachem of the American Wizengamot...? Iain Mycetes Noel Adams, he's on a chocolate frog card, you must know him."
"Okay, yeah, but puddle of what? If I dare ask."
"Drool, what else? That was his favourite failing-to-study desk. He was forever telling people how famous he would be one day and then he'd fall asleep whee-splat with his mouth open on that desk. blibbleblibble, and disgust the whole common room. One day they decided to commemorate him good and hard with a permanent memorial. Everybody knows Iain Adams fled to America and started a revolution, but only we Slytherins know his true motive was the embarrassing memory of that puddle."
"Blimey," said the Rupert. "Prefect lore?"
"Prefect lore," confirmed T. Beaconsfield.
"Love a bit of prefect lore," murmured the Rupert.
#
"D.M..."
"What."
"Your letter from Hogwarts, you opened it yourself, yeah?"
"Of course. Why?"
"And it listed acceptable pets and supplies and that, but did it say word one about notebooks?"
"No."
"And yet you have that jolly nice Dragonskine with Perpetual Planner," said the Rupert. The one with all the little dragon doodles in it. He lowered his head and tilted it slightly. Glasses slid down his nose. "How'd that happen?"
"Huh?" said the nonplussed Malfoy. "Well, Mother and Father took care of...that...that sort of..." He trailed off, as he was now looking the Rupert straight in the Scar. "Thing," he concluded.
Appreciate them? thought the Rupert, looking Draco in the eye.
Malfoy was silent for exactly as long as it takes to say, "...sometimes." Then he said "Well, why don't you order an organiser?"
"I keep intending to," said the Rupert, propping his cheek on his palm and grinning idiotically, "but I'm so terribly disorganised!"
#
"Well of course I know what I'm going to be doing after graduation," said Malfoy. "Same as Father and Grandfather. Grand Tour, then off to Hong Kong or India for the Wizengamot, then eventually...Lord of the Manor."
"But you're really good at Potions," said the Rupert.
"Gentlemen know trades, they don't make use of them. Checkmate in one move."
"Reminds me - why is it the rich wizarding families didn't have all their wealth taxed away after the war like the Muggle Lords did? Do you know? -Perhaps the Ministry for Magic just hasn't got round to it yet?"
"If you're trying to throw off my concentration it's not working. There! —Now! where are those chocolate frogs? I only need Osric the Pure-hearted to complete my current set."
"Has anyone got change for a Fizzing Whizbee?" said the Rupert.
"Oh, you can afford Whizbees now?" said Malfoy. "Something to bear in mind for the future."
#
"So," said the Rupert, "that's three Fizzing Whizbees, I owe, yes? Hang on, won't be a tick." He began unloading pockets onto the chess table. A yo-yo, a ball of string, a copy of the Quibbler (Do House Elves Secretly Rule The World? Surprisingly, No!).
"The Quibbler?" hooted Malfoy. "You read the Quibbler?"
"So what's wrong with the Quibbler?" said the Rupert, unloading a compass and a pea-shooter. Mem: get peas. Dry ones this time!
"It's rubbish! The editor's a loony!"
"Okay," he said, "what's not rubbish?"
"The Stereoscope," said Malfoy. "Or Cubit."
The Rupert transferred a Black-Spectacled Toad from one pocket to another; Malfoy's gaze followed it.
"Would you like a toad? I seem to have a spare."
"Um," said Malfoy, watching the frog disappear, "no."
Did you notice he didn't bring a pet to school, Harry?
{ He has an eagle owl, doesn't he? }
That's not a pet, that's household staff. As opposed to the well-worn comfortably squashy cats and toads around here.
"Here we go! no, wait, hang about, you don't want that packet, it's suspiciously damp, probably not fizzy any more, and I don't think I got lemonade flavour. Probably shouldn't have kept it with the toad. Here, Whizbees warm and dry! Now, where were we...?"
#
"Oh, good grief – checkmate! Why do you keep coming back when you keep losing?"
"Well I'm improving, aren't I? And I know you were a little worried back there around move 23."
Careful pause. "...it seemed uncharacteristic."
The Rupert looked at the ceiling. There was another quill stuck in the ceiling. How do you stick a quill into a solid stone soffitto, but more to the point, why?"Yeah, okay, got that one from Weasley."
Malfoy began to construct a complex sort of urbane sneer on his face, the kind that involves every muscle and takes ten years of practice to pull off. He hadn't had ten years of practice. "A Weasley capable of forward planning? How interesting."
"How's that?"
"Father says mid-level civil servants should design their families to fit their budgets."
The Rupert shrugged. "If Johann Ambrosius Bach had stopped at seven kids, there'd be no Toccata and Fugue in D minor." He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the green-lit dungeon. "And where would we Slytherins be without that, eh?"
The sneer collapsed in the manner of one of Alexander Calder's more elaborate mobiles with its support wire cut by a passing pterodactyl.
Oooo, I'm going to get a letter home all about me, aren't I?
#
"Beaconsfield."
"Potter."
"You take in The Spectacle. What do you know about Stereoscope and Cubit?"
"Unsound, Potter, unsound. When I cleaned House back in 1989 I slung a whole batch of them into a box in the closet over there — always intended to throw them out but out of sight, out of mind. Although you might want to look at them to see what sort of thing I don't approve of...
"...you know, I wonder what's going to happen next year without me keeping an eye on things. Someone's got to watch over this house."
#
And in those magazines you find advertisements for other magazines of their like, or perhaps ilk, some few of which the Hogwarts library does take, others of which certain faculty members and seventh-years take and are careless enough to leave lying about, and you build up a collection of data points: letters to editors, the odd opinion piece, an interview, all perfectly innocent, unactionable, not really suspicious in any precise way.
They certainly don't add up to the declaration "I was so close to Lord Voldemort that he left certain items in my care against future need."
They just sort of circumnavigate it.
#
"Father says he was most intrigued by your comparison of He Who Must Not Be Named to pharyngeal mucus, incidentally," said Malfoy.
"What? No no no. Dark Lords are afflicted with – that is, the analogy I used – I mean metaphor – I mean I never said it!"
Malfoy's eyes developed a crinkle.
Letter home all about me, mark that one done. Second letter home all about me: well underway...!
#
All the way in the back of the storage room containing the magazines Beaconsfield had mentioned – a room full of Slytherin's detritus, old quidditch equipment, puzzle magazines 99% completed, and such things — behind a box pushed up against the far wall, he found a black glove. It was mate to the one from behind the Gryffindor bookcase, except this one's red stitching was of the letter I.
#
Naturally he reported back on the outcomes of his games when he returned to his other Common Room...
"How? How does this happen?" he said, after one particularly humiliating defeat.
Ron sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. "Should I tell him, Hermione?"
"Yes," said Hermione, not looking up from correcting Neville's homework.
"All right," said Ron. "You make a lot of brilliant moves, Harry, but whenever you don't see the right one immediately you just move a piece at random so the game can go on."
In the back of his mind the Sorting Hat said Butterfly-chaser, with a touch of echo and reverb.
"I could never be a doctor," he said. "I'd have to have patience."
Hermione gave him a withering look. "Then learn," she said. "Or stop playing."
Ron sat up straight. "What? No way! I like playing with Harry! He's loads more fun than any of my brothers. Every time they win they dance around the room saying 'Who's the man?'"
"I don't," said Percy.
"You never win!" said Fred.
"Yes I do!"
"Yeah, I don't do that, at least," said the Rupert.
There was a pause.
"What do you want to be, anyway?" asked Ron.
"Me?" said the Rupert. "Dunno. Don't want to be a lawyer. Indian chief sounds good. What do you want to be?" What are you good at, Ronald Weasley? Pretty good strategic mind. Analytic. Never had much money, probably take it seriously. Bank manager? Loan officer? Maybe not exciting but due diligence is the foundation of the world...
"I dunno," said Ron. "What do you wanna be, Hermy? Not a dentist."
"I'm going to be Minister for Magic, and don't call me Hermy," said Hermione, and gave Neville his homework back. "Very good, Neville. Keep this up and I'll have competition." She gave the Rupert another Look.
Neville took his homework scroll and wound it a little tighter. "I wanted to be a fireman when I was little," he said.
"Really? Special Wizard fire squad?" said the Rupert.
Neville nodded. "Gran didn't like that idea. Too dangerous, all that running into burning buildings and — rescuing people."
"I thought you wanted to be a botanist," said Hermione.
"I don't think I've actually made up my mind," said Neville, in a way that suggested he had just realized he had the option. "I don't even really know what I'm good at, yet. Nobody's ever given me the chance to try anything on my own. I still could be a fireman."
"Brave heart, Neville," said the Rupert.
#
The only winning move is to start to play.
— Jon Kitman
