Did I write imminent in that previous note? Apparently I meant immanent.Still, the next half of this tempo lento installment will be...imminenter. Tip of the cap to the R.A. Lafferty tumblr. Thanks to the reviewers, who cheer me up no end. Also, the writers of Animaniacs had more courage than I... — Ed.


[A]cknowledge that the thing may be named, and described, so long as the general character of the thing which you are describing is retained.
— Socrates.

ECCLES. Hello my good man, what's going on 'ere?
MANAGER. Are you a policeman?
ECCLES. Yep, wanna know the time?

— Spike Milligan.

Time wears moustaches, like everyone, even women and shaven Americans.
— Tristan Tzara.

A serving-man not quite a clown,
A boy to help to tread the mow,
And drive, while t'other holds the plough;
A chief, of temper form'd to please,
Fit to converse and keep the keys...

- Matthew Green.

The future is composed merely of images of the past, connected in new arrangements by analogy, and modified by the circumstances and feelings of the moment...
— Sir Humphry Davy.

He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past.
— Thoreau.

[M]agic is only the extraordinary effect with the series of effectors skipped over.
— R.A. Lafferty.

#

Autolegilimency (IIa: Morning, Noon and Night).

1. Morning.

Six A.M. in Gryffindor castle-top was not the warmly-wakened-by-glory-streaming-through-stained-glass experience it had been in September.

Now it was more of a sleep-through-Dean's-wind-up-alarm-clock, pitch-dark, can't-find-my-wand, can't-find-a-candle, I'm-not-complaining-but-where-did-Neville-even-get-a-Screaming-Fuchsia, open-the-curtains-and-get-watery-moonlight, Merlin's-fuzzy-socks-it's-cold-in-here go-back-to-bed go-back-to-bed go-back-to-bed sort of exercise.

In short, November was when you learned that breakfast was two hours long because you needed a target that wide. Having managed to hit it, The Boy Who Would At This Hour Have Given His Name As Hrr Prr was sitting at Gryffindor table, preparing for the Big Un-blink. On post-Astronomy mornings he tended to long-blink his way downstairs, flicking his eyelids open only long enough to be sure he wasn't going badly off course, deferring actual waking-up as long as possible. He was just about ready to commit. Vision any minute now. Just wait.

Off to his left he could hear Percy riffling papers.

"Right," said Percy. "Now we art finally all here—" something went thwap on Harry's head — "morning announcements!"

Lift! Up! Eyes open! —Nope, no good, right lid unstable, left lid collapsing, both lids down, total dismal failure, try again later.

"First," said Percy, "in advance of exams the secondary Potions laboratory has been opened for those of you who need more practice with your sfumatura techniques. Very important, those techniques, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you that in later life..."

There was a complicated fumbling thump off to Harry's right, and he heard several things roll past him. Another bounced off his arm; it was too small to be a bowling ball. Someone said "Oops. Sorry. Have an orange?"

"No problem," he mumbled, and sent his hand crawling after it because breakfast and you had to something.

"Third, today's weather will be clear and cold with rain towards noon; those of you still without boots, see me after..."

Harry started working his peel off, with some difficulty because it was a standard Hogwarts model orange, which meant a thick peel and almost as much white bit underneath, which in turn meant you'd yank your thumbnail loose at some point if you weren't careful and get juice in the wound...which was what his end of the table relied on in the absence of coffee.

"Sixth, will whomever nicked my tea-strainer kindly return it..."

Aunt Petunia always got easy-peel tangerines or satsumas because Duddums didn't react well to ouchies, but Hogwarts didn't seem to do tangerines or satsumas, only oranges. Maybe the kitchen elves were allergic.

Remind me to show you how to peel an orange fourth-dimensionally, said Rupert. Whole peel off in one unbroken sphere, terrific party trick. No, wait, never mind, you don't have the right tool.

Harry contemplated that for a while. { Tool? ...What, you can use a time-turner to open an orange? }

No, no, different kind of fourth dimension. Every time you add a dimension you add a degree of freedom, you see, and — not important right now, heads up, incoming Hermione at your nine o'clock.

Harry hauled his eyelids into the full upright and locked position and found himself being presented with a clipboard from his left. "What's this?" he said, sucking at his stinging thumbnail.

"It's a petition to bring back Latin," said Hermione, pointing at the words at the top of the page with the tip of her Weasley pen. "It was dropped as a subject in 1944. It wasn't magic enough. I mean, honestly, most spells are derived from Latin, we ought to learn it."

Harry bit his lower lip, took the pen and signed, in reluctant letters, in the middle of the empty second column.

Hermione made a sad tch at his lack of enthusiasm, and picked a clump of white bit off the page. "I think you're doing too much quidditch practice," she said, depositing the clump in his saucer.

"It's not the quidditch," he said, "it's the rising at midnight. —What is this stuff, anyway, do you know?" he added, picking another white clump off his orange.

"I'm not falling for that," she said, frowning.

"Huh?"

Neville said, "She thinks you're trying to get her to say pith. But it's mesocarp really."

"I thought it was called albumen," said Ron.

"...Wait," interrupted Harry, staring at his white orange, "you can make hats out of this?"

"Er," said Neville, looking back and forth between Harry and Ron. "No."

Harry started ripping segments apart while Neville set about explaining the finer points of fruit anatomy.

A normal Hogwarts morning was well underway.

It was a good orange — it always was; Percy said 1521 had been an excellent year for Florida oranges, and so the elves had stuck with them — and he'd just finished spitting the last of the pips into his teacup when Hedwig flew in to drop off his morning mail. There was a Flourish & Blotts owl-post catalogue and a flyer from Samakkhi Chumnum Thai Takeaway & Delivery.

Sneeze on a Wednesday, sneeze for a letter, said Rupert; Harry, I have a horrible feeling I've gotten you on some mailing lists.

{ That's okay, } said Harry, { magic junk mail's better than no magic mail at all. } He kept the bookstore catalogue, but passed the take-ways ad down the table towards the upper years who could get some use out of it.

Outside, the leading edge of the black sky started to look a bit more blue.

#

"Sunlight!" said Ron, once they were outside en route to Herbology. "Finally! It's like magic, sunlight."

"Yes," said Hermione, contentedly turning a page in her Blue Book. "You can read by it."

"How can you see where you're going when you've got your face in a book?"

"I can't, I just know the terrain," said Hermione, leading the way to the greenhouses on autopilot. "I wish I could look up with just one eye, so I could read and see where I was going.

"—Did you know that horseback riding is forbidden in the school?"

"Really." said Ron. "Like to meet who did that. Where's it say you can't ride horses?"

"Section six," she said. "Laws and Regulations. Appearing in masks, horseback riding, mingoing and..."

She halted, resulting in a minor collision.

"What?" said Ron.

She pointed at the page. Everyone leaned over her shoulder to read it.

"Blimey!" hooted Ron. "What's that?"

"I'm sure I don't know that word," said Hermione primly, and started walking again.

Harry listened to Rupert's internal whispering and said "It means prancing. Like a horse. According to Beaconsfield's Scrabble dictionary."

"Oh," said Ron.

"So," he added a few yards later, "you can't ride horses in the hall, but you can go barefoot all you like?"

"Apparently," said Hermione.

"Makes sense if you think about it," said Ron.

They thought about it.

"Ew," said Hermione.

Ron held the door to the greenhouse ("Be sort of like ice-skating, really, this time of year." "Stop it, Ron!") and they went inside. On the way to their table they passed an academically abstracted Professor Sprout, sufficiently occupied with her cataloguing that she barely noticed them. ("Zingiber argenteum...roseum, rubens...close the door tighter, Weasley, there's a draught...why's zerumbet in with silvestre? ...")

"Say," said Ron, as they settled in at their table, "why are you reading the rules? Didn't you read them already?"

"I didn't think to," said Hermione. "I mean, I never broke any rules at my old school because I never did anything. But then I found Professor Vinovii eating his lunch up a tree in the Quad."

"Did you," said Neville.

"Yes. I said, Professor, you're up a tree. And he said, Do you know, I rather thought I was. And I said, But it's against the rules! And he said, It certainly is for you, that's why I graduated and became a teacher, so I could climb trees in the Quad.

"And he's right, there's nothing in here about rules for teachers."

"They must have a different book," said Neville.

"Well, I certainly hope so," said Hermione.

"Does it say anything about leaping out of windows to save time on the stairs?" asked Harry.

"No," she said. "Not that it matters, most of the windows are magically locked anyway."

"You've been checking?" said Neville.

She gave an unashamed shrug. "I did come up with the idea," she said, and went back to reading, not that she'd really stopped.

So! said Rupert, and Harry could hear him rubbing his hands together, you haven't read your Blue Book, Harry?

{ Not really, } said Harry. { Should I? }

I'll put it like this: Christmas is coming. Wouldn't you like to participate? Santa Claus is a verb, you know. And you just got your first holiday catalogue.

Harry looked down at the Flourish & Blotts catalog. The cover ad looked back.

HOGWARTS: A HISTORICAL SUPPLEMENT
by Amicitia E. Mannis
The Gorgeous
Appointments Of Our Finest School
Documented In Hundreds Of Colour Photographs
Coffee-Proofing Charm Included
50% Off Holiday Pre-Orders!

{ Not getting you, } replied Harry. He didn't believe in Santa Claus as a noun — not so much because he never got any presents, but because if St Nick lived up to his press, the Dursleys would have been heating the house on Dudley's coal ration.

Rhetorical question: even though you've got a vault's worth of gold, you don't have a budget for gifts. Why?

{ Hagrid's got my vault key, } replied Harry, { I can't get to Gringotts...and...I'm eleven. }

Nearly eleven and a half, but key point nonetheless. As a minor you couldn't touch your Gringotts account. But Hagrid could. Second verse, same as the first: Why?

Harry frowned slightly. Actually...yes, why? It did seem odd now that he thought about it: possession was nine-tenths of the law, but where'd the last tenth come from that let Hagrid use someone else's vault key? He was Keeper of the Keys, but was that even one of them?

{ So you're telling me there's something in the Blue Book about why Hagrid could take money out of my vault when I can't? }

There certainly is. When you became a student you entered into a magical contract with Hogwarts, and she's been in loco parentis ever since. From September through June the school is your legal parent-quum-guardian. Hagrid could unlock your Gringotts vault because he was in turn acting as the school's representative. Proxy-locksy. Same reason Mr Filch is allowed to discipline students: as caretaker he's acting on behalf of the school.

Harry's mind went suddenly blank, but it was a blank full of possibilities. He reached up to his inside pocket and the spare set of caretaker keys it still held.

Lumos! said Rupert.

{ I can act as my own guardian?! }

Just keep the school tidy and you're golden, I'm pretty sure.

"What are you smiling about?" asked Ron curiously.

"Am I?" said Harry.

Tomorrow is Anaxagoras's Deathday, prompted Rupert.

"Oh. We've got a day off tomorrow," said Harry.

"Oh, yeah," said Ron. "I'm thinking of sleeping in until, like, Friday..."

"I'm thinking of sleeping in right now," said Harry, and buried his face in his hands.

"Tell me about it," said Ron.

{ So what are you saying, exactly? I could ask Hagrid for my vault key, but I can't exactly sneak out to Diagon Alley, can I? And they'd want ID or something, wouldn't they? }

You don't have to go to Gringotts. You can order by owl. Vault number and signature should do it — intrabank transfer from your account to the merchant's. That's the beauty of a goblin bank: withdrawal gives them pangs, but so long as the gold doesn't leave the premises, they don't care. Sign off in front of Hedwig and Bob's your favourite relation.

It seemed too good to be true. { Are you sure it will work? }

Easy enough to find out — tell Hedwig you want to write an Owl Postal Order drawn on your account. If it works, thank Hagrid for not getting you a toad. Oh, and open yourself an Owl Post Bank Account the moment they have them. If it doesn't work — probably no harm done, since no humans involved. If it does — no buying solid gold cauldrons and things, right?

Harry rose up internally on a wave of happiness. He could buy presents for people!

...What are those gold cauldrons for, anyway — are they like magical chafing dishes?

"Right, class," said Professor Sprout, clapping her hands. "You've all been very well-behaved of late. And thanks to certain naughty bunnies outside this class, all the dung that needs to be flung has been flung!"

Harry rose up in his seat, too. This was turning out to be a good day.

"And so to-day," said Sprout, "we will explore, in depth and detail, The Great Hogwarts Compost Heap!"

#

At Hogwarts you had to climb an average of twenty-one flights of stairs per day, no wingardium leviosa allowed; this was by way of a P.E. program. And after the usual post-Herbology scrubbadubbio (plus an extra one that still left him with bits of red grass and damp fragments of wippul-squip in his socks) Harry set to work on his first seven flights, ascending to the Owlery while Ron and the others headed into the Great Hall to see what was in store for lunch.

Erm, said Rupert.

{ What? }

Ha. Well. Yes. Sneeze on a Thursday, something better. I've...got a bit of a request re tomorrow. Been trying to phrase it all morning.

{ You are being pretty quiet, } said Harry, coming to eye-level with the step that was not a step. Someone had managed to put the label THIS IS NOT A STEP on it, and someone else had translated it into French.* { You didn't even drag me over to Slytherin for a bagel. What do you want? }

Um, said Rupert. There was a short pause.

...Can I borrow the knees, Dad?

{ You what? } said Harry, getting momentarily stuck on the non-step.

Well, not just the knees, obviously. The whole shebang. Legs. Feet. At least one hand...arm...

{ I'm going to say "what" again, } said Harry, powering on upwards.

We're busting out of here, Harry! We go over the wall after lights out! By which I mean in the morning. And through the front gates, but that's not nearly as interesting, is it...anyway I'd like to run the body when we're out in public. You don't want to be recognised. Some people know Harry Potter well enough to bow to him, but between the red hair and an entirely different body-language — wait, *ceci n'est pas un pas? That's incorrect French, you know...not the same kind of step.

{ And you spring this on me at the last minute?! }

See! there's a reason I called you Dad. I'm providing you valuable experience in child-rearing that you'll get great use of in later life.

{ Where are we going? I mean, where do you think you're going? }

Into the west, Harry, into the west. Or is that a Kitaro album? No. Yes. No. Starts with an auspicious omen either way. Several stops in the Bloomsbury Triangle.

Harry was vaguely aware that King's Cross was one of the bounding points of the Bloomsbury Triangle, and that the Leaky Cauldron was another; he wasn't sure of the third.

So many wonders, continued Rupert, and you never get a chance to see them! It's time we did something about that.

Harry continued his climbing silently.

...actually it's mostly into the south, now that I come to think about it, but there is a definite western component to the vector...

{ You know, } said Harry, { I'm starting to wonder about just going along with things. }

Good! I don't want you to trust, I want you to doubt. Wait, no, I don't want you to doubt, I want you to trust and doubt. Cognitive dissonance, even more valuable experience for later life. But I can promise you this much: if not perfectly satisfied your wasted time will be refunded.

Suddenly the prospect of a trip seemed rather more alluring. { That was from The Phantom Tollbooth, } said Harry, thinking of the Lands Beyond.

Sensible man, that Norton Juster.

It was a bit exciting. Quite a lot, really. Sneaking off to parts unknown was well beyond nipping down to the kitchens after hours, straight through asking for trouble and into pounding on the table demanding it.

{ How are we going to get there? } asked Harry.

Public transportation! declared Rupert.

{ ...oh, } said Harry.

#

The way Hedwig watched him sign his name made him wish he had better penmanship.

"Look okay to you?" he said, showing his caretaker keys.

She gave a vaguely affirmative hoot.

She says it's up to Gringotts, said Rupert, who spoke owl.

Harry backed away from the little arch-shaped hole that served as Hedwig's office in the Owlery, and she launched herself into a twisting, elegant curve, down and around him and then up and out through the main bay window. Free as, well, a bird.

{ Okay, } decided Harry, { you can borrow the knees. I'll just cram in a nap after lunch or something. }

Thanks, Dad!

{ Totally not your dad, though, } said Harry. crossing over the clean granite tiles to the window to look outside.

Why not? said Rupert. People can have more than one dad if they want...

"If you say so," said Harry quietly, and watched Hedwig fly into a sky whitish-grey and grainy-rough with rain, deeper and deeper, until she disappeared.

Then he stepped up onto the balcony, drew his wand and went downstairs by the express route.

#

2. Noon.

"I am told there is some problem in this hall, Peeves," said a voice that sounded like its owner had been gargling crushed tombstones. "I should not like to find it so."

"Sir! No, no problem here, sir!"

"Then begone, shade, and find thyself some more worthy occupation."

Harry arrived at the entrance hall door just as Peeves fled through the wall of the school store, knocking over a wire rack of papers on the way with a great clattering crash.

Mr Filch was also there, hauling himself up with the aid of a fallen ladder that, judging by the scattered semicircle of nails on the floor, he had been on top of. Also on the floor were a hammer and a wooden sign reading BUTTERY.

Myrtle Smith was there as well; the Bloody Baron inclined his head to her as gravely as anyone could ask for, and then turned away, descending through the stone floor just as Harry stepped out onto it.

{ I wonder how he does that, } wondered Harry. { The ordering Peeves about bit, I mean. }

An eye like lurid Mars, said Rupert, to threaten and command. And the Valentine Dyall voice, that's good too.

"Something," growled the caretaker, picking up his sign, "has got to be done about that — that — thing!"

"Would you like me to try?" said Myrtle, bobbing up and down with her hands clasped behind her.

"And why would you side wi' me against yer own kind?" growled Filch.

"Kind? — he's not even a ghost, he's a krankengeist, and he was here before you and he'll be here after you, and so will I. I have enough problems without him dragging everyone else down." Myrtle stroked her Ravenclaw tie, caught Harry's eye and gave him a secret smile.

Harry grinned back. It might have been, really was, a grin issued under false pretences, but it felt good anyway.

"Also," said Myrtle to Mr Filch, "I went to see what you did with my old room. The quill-and-rose tiling over the sink is very nice. Sparkly."

"Don't flatter," growled Filch, sweeping up his nails. "They're easy-clean. An' what could you do, wizdomite? Exorcism don't work, banishing don't work..."

Myrtle took off her round black glasses and polished them. "I know," she said. "But that's thinking of him as a ghost. You said he was a thing." Filch watched her mistrustfully while Harry quietly scooped up the spilled papers from the rack. "Which he is, when he manifests. He's stuff. A plasm, translucent or transparent, so probably a pure substance. Find its natural vibrational frequency and we might set his teeth on edge with the right sound, or maybe colour of light."

"Huh," said Filch, sufficiently distracted by a helpful student and the prospect of driving off Peeves that he didn't yell at Harry for putting the upturned rack back in place. "And how 'ould 'we' do all that?"

"Experimentation," said Myrtle. "I'll go see Professor Flitwick. The important part," she added in Harry's direction, "is that Peeves not know what we're doing..."

He made a lips-zipped gesture, took a paper from the rack, and ducked into the Great Hall.

#

He ducked out of it again shortly thereafter with a banana in his pocket and a moon-carrot tart in his mouth, because although it had a large selection of prefects —

("Now listen up, you lot," said the Ravenclaw, "when I passed through the common room it looked like the aftermath of a Burmese water-festival. Well, Thingyan's not till April, and anyone deciding to celebrate it then had better be a Buddhist, am I understood?")

— it didn't have the one he was looking for.

He pattered down into the dungeons, munching tart (careful not to leave a trail of crumbs) and flipping through his paper along the way.

The Hogwarts Howler.
Vol. CXXXIV, Nr. 1
· "Eadem Mutata Resurgo" ·

said the top of the front page, over a short article on how glad everyone was to be working on the revived school newspaper, and how they hoped everyone would find it both Useful and Entertaining. Below the fold was the first real story:

Black And White And Underread All Over!
In the Reference Collection of our great Library are contained many valuable and interesting works which deserve to be more often consulted than they are at present; we therefore venture to call special attention to some of the more important, and to briefly mention others, which are also in a minor degree worthy of notice...

"File that under Hermione," he said aloud, and turned to the back matter.

EDITORIAL
Interhouse Floo: A Timely Idea
by Dale C. Kahn, editor-in-chief

We make progress, we make progress, said Rupert.

#

"Hogwarts Howler!" said a lunch-bound Beaconsfield, backing up into the common room. "I wasn't expecting to see that again." He continued adjusting his obviously new salmon-pink cufflinks in a sort of ostentatiously embarrassed manner. One went spung off into a corner. "Who's responsible?"

Harry editorial-paged him by way of answer. "Nice cufflinks, sir," he said.

"Aren't they?" said Beaconsfield, heading off to the corner. "Arizona feldspar. Shiny!"

"They're from Diaaane," said Tim the Enchanter, who was sitting on the floor, working with a tiny model broomstick on the coffee-table. He had a loupe in his eye.

"Polished them herself," said Beaconsfield, fixing them in place before examining the editorial page. "Kahn, eh? Well, no surprise there. Ambitious little digger. I once asked Sprout if I could swap Tim for him but she said no, Hufflepuff needed him as Seeker."

"He's worth twelve of me," said Tim complacently.

"As the doors of the school are unlocked by day," quoted Beaconsfield, "so should the doors of our common rooms be, for as we learn about others we learn about ourselves. Writes just like he talks."

Harry said, "He says it's good to have guests in, it inspires you to keep the common room tidy."

"You know," said Tim, getting up from the table, "you know..."

"I hope not," said Beaconsfield.

"Um," said Harry. "Speaking of guests..."

"You know," continued Tim, "if they restarted the Howler...we should totally restart the Rites."

"We?" said Beaconsfield.

"What's Rites?" said Harry.

"Sort of a rebuttal," grimaced the prefect. "A great tradition, in its way, but...Tim, he's a firstie!"

But Tim had already drawn his wand and gone charging off into the common room closet. There was a cry of "Accio Rites of Ktlbgpq!" followed by a series of crashing noises and an ow.

A small steam locomotive, a replica of the Hogwarts Express, chugged out of the closet and across the floor to disappear under a chair.

"Ah," said the prefect, "another transmittendum heard from." He launched himself after it while Harry went for the Scrabble dictionary.

You could ask me what it means, said Rupert, a bit sulkily.

{ I like to do things myself, } said Harry, and quickly discovered that transmittenda were objects left by graduating students for the next occupants of their rooms. Also, a wizdomite was a wiseacre.

"Call me bringer of wonders," said Tim, emerging from the closet under a stack of green and silver binders.

#

Yes, it's
The Sacred Rites Of Ktlbgpq!
Vol. ECCH, Nr. 0
The Rgt. Hon. Geo. Icklibogg, Esq.,
Toe-Rag In Chief

Behind the lettering was a woodcut-style illustration of the Lake Squid, languidly reclining with its headbulb propped on one tentacle and a rose in its beak.

"Icklibogg?" said Harry.

"House name," said Beaconsfield. "Everyone's pseudonymous, except the squid of course."

Most of the cover was occupied by a cartoon, a bit better drawn than the ones Harry collaborated on, showed a handsome snake wearing a tie and casting a spell from a quill in its mouth at a clipboard carried by an officious badger, while a black-maned lion in glasses hung upside-down on a broomstick; in the lower right was a pop-eyed blackened eagle that had apparently just exploded, with animated curls of smoke drifting upward from its shattered wand. There was a banner across the bottom that read, "Slytherins write the laws, Hufflepuffs administer the laws, Gryffindors break the laws, and don't talk to me about Ravenclaws." It was signed PLASMA 10/74.

The lion was hiding a Golden Snitch in his robes, but that didn't make sense. Except that come to notice it he had his wand in his other hand, and there was a snitch-in-outline floating around overhead, so he was actually pulling a fake Snitch out of his robes.

At the bottom of the cover it said

PAGE 3: SLUGHORN AS YOU'VE NEVER SEEN HIM!

"They're a bit rude," said Beaconsfield, toying with the Hogwarts Express in a distracted way. It went whooooo. "And they stopped being funny in 1973..."

"1975," said Tim.

On the back page were several advertisements, the largest of which read

Tour Exotic Hogsmeade!
The Place To Go Because There's No
place Else To Go.

It had a picture of a completely empty street with an animated tumbleweed blowing around in it.

On the inside, page 3 was completely blank.

"Get it?" said Tim.

"Fred and George will love these," said Harry honestly. "Um...Terry? you remember you said I could have them over?"

"...oh, dear," said Beaconsfield. He turned the train off and back on again. "On chess night?"

"Not everyone plays chess," said Harry, silently counting himself in that number.

"Well, if it were done...what's done is...done and done! —Tim, do you remember Rufus Fudge?"

"Spotty Fudge?" said Tim, showing Harry a cartoon strip titled Baruffio & Feartinarse, which was apparently about a very careless wizard and his pet auk. "No, I've completely forgotten him. Why?"

"Oh, nothing, I was just remembering him assembling this thing. Multiple-jet blastpipes...

"Incidentally, Potter—?"

Harry knew that tone of inquiry by now.

"Sure, why not?" he said.

"Would you happen to be passing by the library any time soon? ...Oh, you would. Well, perhaps you could run an errand for me while you're there."

The difference between Beaconsfield and basically everyone else in the Dogsbody Potter department was that Beaconsfield paid in chocolate.

#

After returning to the tower (another seven flights down, seven more to go) he went up to the dormitory. Finding it completely empty for a change, he set aside his plan for a nap and flipped open his trunk instead, and unpacked his autolegilimency supplies:

1. Duplicated bottle of occulting argentum (ex Snape);
2. Left-handed dragonskin glove (ex Lost and Found);
3. Candleholder, candle and Thumb-Safe Match (ex dormitory);
6. Compact make-up mirror (ex common room rubbish bin).

Ingredients, tick tick tick tick tick tick. Although the candle and glove seemed a bit...what, elaborate?

{ Couldn't we just use a hot cup of tea? } he said, holding up the glove.

Oh, possibly, possibly — but isn't it more magic this way?

Sometimes Rupert seemed to be about nine, with an option on six.

Oh, six, definitely, said Rupert. Halfway down the stairs, that's me. Or up. Middle step, you know.

{ Sorry, } said Harry, who hadn't realised he was thinking aloud.

No, no, I take it as a compliment. But as at the very least I've confused Now We Are Six with When We Were Very Young — sorry about that, A.A. — let us say no more. So we're making mirrors now?

{ No time like the present, } said Harry, propping the door open (he'd learnt from Uncle Vernon being Uncle Vernon that it never paid to be thought of as hiding). { Besides, it's still light out, it makes more sense to take a nap after sunset. }

And so: candle-holder to floor, away from burnables; candle to holder; light match; light candle; glove on; melt argentum to clarity over candle-flame; load argentum to wand with common ink-spell; cap bottle; douse flame; remove existing silver from back of mirror with Household Charm, and — he touched the wand to the back of the glass — re-silver by way of faulty Transfiguration.

He paused.

{ How do you let your mind wander deliberately? } he wondered.

How about a distraction? said Rupert. I know some great jokes. How about this one. Two quantum graviticists walk into a bar—

...

Five minutes later Harry left a perfectly re-silvered mirror in his trunk and went about the rest of his day.

#

3. Night.

"Is this your card?" said Fred.

"That's not possible," said one of the seventh-year Slytherins.

"Taken as a yes!" said George. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, reinforce those magic detection charms and regard this simple high-capacity pen..."

Harry unwrapped another Chocolate Frog and surveyed the common room.

Over in one corner Crabbe and Goyle were tea-dueling.

On his couch, Beaconsfield was dividing his attention between a letter he'd gotten by evening owl and a volume of collected Daily Prophets from the library. Harry had brought back all of 1990 in expandable microform.

The chess club, for the most part, was being distracted by Weasley feats of prestidigitation. It was true: Weasleys made everything better, although he had a horrible feeling they were building up to Find-The-Lady.

The other-than-the-most part of the chess club was Malfoy, who was ten minutes late and counting, which is why Harry was now leaning against the fireplace mantelpiece and idly eating candy instead of watching Rupert lose at wizard chess.

"I pierce the joker!" said George. "Now, watch carefully! More carefully. Thank you."

Harry examined the trading card from his Chocolate Frog packet; apparently the Chocolate Frog people had finally run out of Famous Wizards, because it was a Famous Quidditch Players card featuring Julia "Crusher" Wales, beater for the Toynbee Tinkerers.

"There's a name to conjure with," said Beaconsfield, mostly to himself.

"What now?" said Tim, who was flying his miniature Nimbus 2000 by wand-control. "Who how?"

"Diane says she's got a Native American friend called Friscalating Dusklight."

Millicent Bulstrode's cat started winding itself around Harry's ankles, as it did. After the talking-cat incident it had gotten a bit wary of some people, but it liked him for some unknown reason. (All you had to do to get cats to like you, according to Rupert, was agree with them that your purpose in life is to provide service to cats.) After carefully wiping his fingers on his shirt (school robes, they were brilliant, they covered over everything visible, as well as many smells) he picked it up to give it the usual behind-the-ears treatment.

Something went beloit from Crabbe-ward. Harry looked at the results and found himself trying to picture Tom Riddle tea-dueling.

The cat abruptly abandoned him, as it did, and he faced the fire to brush cat hairs into it.

There was a draught, and the common room door opened as Malfoy came in. He ducked Tim's broom with admirable reflexes ("Sorry!" said Tim) and headed straight for the fireplace, pausing only to double-take at the extra red heads in the room.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, and almost sounded like he meant it.

"Where were you?" inquired Beaconsfield politely.

"The Quad, if you must know." said the lightly-chilled Malfoy, opening his robes to the fire. "I lost my favourite quill and thought it might be there. Why are there no lanterns in the Quad?"

"Especially when sunset's at half-past three," agreed Harry.

"Something ought to be done," said Malfoy. "I think I'll write Father about it."

"Tell him they should pack up the whole castle and move it to Tasmania for the winter," said Harry, thinking of the Astronomy exchange program. "There's got to be a clock or something around here that'll let us do that."

Malfoy smirked. Or smiled; hard to tell, maybe he just didn't get much practice. "This isn't actually Castle Duckula, Potter. And without proper coordinates we'd slap down in the middle of somebody's wallaby patch." He rotisseried in Beaconsfield's direction. "Is there any cocoa...? Or is it all tea?"

"Already poured it for you."

"Oh. Well, good," said Malfoy, and went to fetch it.

He left a leaf on the rug, fallen from his shoe, and Harry bent down for it. Aunt Petunia's Bane, otherwise known as the common dandelion. Into the fire it went, generating one bonus caretaker point to Harry P.

#

It was actually Marcus Flint who ended up demonstrating Three-Card Monte.

"Wait a minute," said Fred. "This's a slick-top table. How d'you do the slip without the cards going everywhere?"

"You tell me," said Flint, with a toothy grin.

"Where'd you learn that one, anyway?" said George.

"I've got a an uncle," said Flint.

The Weasleys exchanged glances. "Can we meet him?"

"Maybe," said Flint, and shuffled the deck like a dealer.

Beaconsfield made a noise that sounded like "Morgana's revenge."

#

And in the end Fred and George did ask to borrow the set of Rites of Ktlbgpq.

Beaconsfield blanched, and stared at the wall for a moment before sighing "In for a knut, in for a sunken galleon — take 'em, take 'em all."

Once back upstairs, the twins parked themselves in opposing chairs armed with a volume of Rites each and started quoting bits to each other. Harry was impressed at how they managed to weave past all the Gryffindor-baiting in favour of items like "Why You Should Transfer To Durmstrang" (discipline, discipline, prescheduled beatings, iron discipline, iced coffee, and a firm grounding in magical theory, "by which we mean discipline"), a restaurant review of The Leaky Cauldron ("the bar does an excellent weak tea, using an heirloom teabag"), and "Dragon-Tickling At Hogwarts, A Beginner's Guide". By the time they pestered Ron into helping them sing "Your Greasy Touch", which was apparently a parody of a still-popular song by a band called the Warlocks, the rest of Gryffindor had pretty much given up on what it had been doing.

"If I might interrupt the hilarity," said Percy, popping his head out of his dormitory stairwell, "to which I am not objecting as there are no classes tomorrow, I cannot help but notice that my tea-strainer is still missing. Would anyone care to return it? Or at least hazard a guess as to why it's always my tea-strainer being nicked?"

"You always leave it where we can find it," said someone from behind a Daily Prophet.

"You're welcome, I'm sure," sniffed Percy.

"Maybe you should geminio it," said Harry.

"I tried geminio," said Percy, drawing his wand. "The copies make everything taste like imitation Earl Grey. No confessions? Fine. Accio tea-strainer!"

A small metal object flew out from under a stack of magazines, causing a paperlanche, and into Percy's hand, knocking the Chap With A Daily Prophet's Daily Prophet down with a plap along the way.

"Thanks, Perce," said the Daily Prophet, flapping it back into position.

"...and that," said Percy, winding up the chain on the tea-strainer with embarrassment, "is what happens when we ignore our line-of-sight rules. —One house point from myself!" he added, and stomped back upstairs.

"Can he do that?" said Dean.

"Prefects can take points from their own house and award them to other houses," recited Ron and Fred and George.

Dean goggled at them.

("Ron's rather good at harmony, isn't he?" said Hermione.

"I hadn't noticed," said Harry.)

"Percy memorised the prefect rulebook over the summer," explained Ron. "And when Percy memorises something, so does everyone nearby."

"Testify," said the Daily Prophet, raising a hand from behind his paper.

#

During an almost disturbingly poker-faced reading of coverage of the 1969 All-Faculty Gobstone Playoffs Harry slipped out of the room and into his dormitory stairwell. The spiral curve cut off the general hilarity from below maybe a little too quickly; he hated having to miss out on the fun, even though you had to take your opportunities when they came.

That seems a familiar feeling, said Rupert. But with any luck you won't have to miss out on much more. Altus!

{ Altus? }

Onwards and upwards, all that sort of thing. I'd say Excelsior! but there's no need to go that far. And it's gone all bubble-wrap and packing peanuts, connotation-wise. Poor old Longfellow.

Harry opened his trunk, fetched out the magic mirror and climbed into bed. After drawing the blackout curtains he cast lumos and stuck his lit wand in the headboard wand-holder. (All the beds had blackout curtains and headboard wand-clips. Hermione thought it was to encourage reading in bed. Hermione kept so many books piled up next to her that she couldn't roll over at night.) Finally he laid a pillow on his pretzeled legs and put the mirror on top of it.

According to what he'd read, reading your own mind was a raw ability and about as teachable as how to lift your own arm, so he was fundamentally on his own. In general, though, any magic mirror could reflect your thoughts, if you could compose them precisely enough, and after that you could enter a memory on substantially the same basis as in a pensieve, though without the conveniences a pensieve provided. ("Having captured your moment in the mind's eye, and reflected it into that of the looking-glass, tracing its penetrale is simply a matter of changing your point of view.")

{ You know, } he said, { Professor Sinistra seemed to think we could see the future in a magic mirror... }

I wouldn't say you can't, said Rupert, given light's attitude to time. But how do you rate yourself in the summoning the future department?

{ Well, generally it hits me blindside, } said Harry. { I guess boldly going where I've been before will do for now. }

Then as Mr Juster said, have your destination in mind.

Harry looked into the mirror.

There was one standout moment that came immediately to mind. After a moment of blinking he focused past the green and into the black, and tried to see what was behind him in the darkness in front of him.

...nothing, for several heartbeats, and then...

...no, still basically nothing...

...except maybe a flicker of blue, passing from side to side?

He blinked and refocused.

...Nope, nothing.

{ No wonder they invented pensieves... }

Still nothing, and then another, slower flicker from a different direction.

It slid past and around the edge and was basically like the first time he'd tried to sight the moon in his telescope's eyepiece in the way it kept squirting out of view.

There was a thought. Maybe it was exactly like that.

Okay, try sighting like in the telescope.

Image . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . drifting by;
adjust. . . . . . like
rolling a. . . .bead
of. . . . mercury
on...a mirror:
and — yes!
there
it
is
!

He was falling out of the sky, totally out of control.