The shipping poll on my profile has been up for some time now, but not for very much longer — it'll close down sometime before the next chapter comes up. So if you still want to vote on your favourite pairings (though keep in mind that the poll won't necessarily affect the story; the entire thing is just me being curious about what people think), then you'd better do it soon!
WEASLEY GIRL: SECRETS OF THE PAST
Based on the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling
CHAPTER NINE
Honourless Scum?
"All right," said Fred, in a tone not altogether unlike Percy's when he thought he was saying something important. "George and I have been talking, and we've decided to exchange Wormtail information with you."
It was Saturday, a few days after Ronnie's disastrous spy attempt on Lockhart. Fred and George had after some discussion agreed to talk about Wormtail. So now they were in the fourth-year boys' dormitory — Fred and George, Ronnie, the rest of Potter's Gang, and (because nobody had been able to convince either of them to stay away) Ginny and Colin.
Ronnie had never visited any of the boys' dorms before, but now that she was here she found that they didn't seem very different from the girls' dorms; the same type of four-poster beds, the same heavy red curtains both around the beds and in front of the windows. Some of the personal décor was different — for instance, none of the fourth-year boys seemed to have Lavender's obsession with the colour pink or tendency to put up posters of handsome boys — but it was a little funny to discover that on the wall beside Lee Jordan's bed hung the exact same Puddlemere United Quidditch poster that Fay Dunbar had beside her bed in Ronnie's dorm.
"It wasn't an easy decision to make," George went on. "For almost four years now, Fred and I have been the only ones who knew about this. We haven't even told Lee about it. So letting all of you in on the secret —"
"But needs must, and all that," said Fred. "But what we're about to show you, you don't tell anyone about, got that?"
"Even if they're family," George shot in.
"And especially if they're Percy," Fred added. "That goes double for you two." (And here, he looked at both Ronnie and Ginny.) "Breathe a word about this to him, or to Mum, and our vengeance will be gruesome and merciless. Got that?"
Ginny just snorted, but Ronnie felt indignant. "We're no squealers!" she said.
"Then you have nothing to worry about," said Fred lightly. "And if you should be tempted, then keep in mind that our vengeance will be —"
"Gruesome and merciless, yeah, you said," Ronnie grumbled.
"Yes, but don't you want to know what kind of vengeance it'll be? If you, dear Veronica, ever reveal this Map to Mum or Percy, then George and I —" (he paused for effect here) " — will start calling you only by your middle name. In front of everyone."
Ronnie's heart nearly stopped. "You wouldn't!"
"Keep quiet, and you won't have to find out if we would," said Fred.
"I didn't even know you had a middle name," said Harry.
"Let's keep pretending I don't, okay?" Ronnie growled. She had almost managed to forget that damn middle name.
Colin looked curious. "What is your —?" he began, only to shut his mouth when she glared at him.
"Right, now that that's settled," said Fred, "I should probably add: no pictures either!"
Colin, whom this last part had been addressed in, shook his head. "I don't have my camera," he said — and it was true that his robe pocket wasn't bulging the way it usually was. "I lent it to Lavender. She's really interested in photography, you know! She said she wanted to take pictures of —"
"I can imagine what she wanted to take pictures of," Ronnie groaned. "If our dorm walls become flooded with posters of that ponce Lockhart, or naked boys from the shower, I'm blaming you."
"Could we... not talk about this?" said Neville, who had gone rather red.
Fred shook his head. "Okay, George, will you do the honours?"
"Gladly! This, children, is the secret of our success." George pulled something out of his robe, and with what looked like great reverence held it up for everyone to see.
It was a very large, and very blank, piece of parchment.
For a moment, everything was silent. Then, Hermione scoffed. "That's not funny!" she said. "Parchment is your great secret?"
"Hate to break it to you," said Ronnie, "but the entire school uses it!"
"And what does Wormtail have to do with any of this?" Harry demanded.
Fred and George both stared at them as if they had said something unbelievably stupid.
"Bet it's not normal parchment," said Colin, who somehow managed to look even more excited than normal. "Bet it's special parchment with, with all kinds of hidden secrets to it!"
Fred grinned. "Finally someone says something intelligent!" he said, clapping Colin on the back. "I was starting to despair at the ignorance displayed by the younger generation, but it seems there's still hope for Gryffindor! George, show them!"
And George, still holding up the parchment for them all to see, took out his wand and lightly tapped the centre of the parchment with it. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!" he said in an over-dramatic voice.
At once, the parchment reacted. From the point where George's wand had touched it, thin lines of many-coloured ink appeared and began spreading out in complicated patterns, criss-crossing and flourishing, until they formed elaborate letters that spelled out, all across the top:
Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers
are proud to present
THE MARAUDER'S MAP
It was a map of Hogwarts and the grounds surrounding it. But not just any map; this map was busting with life. Small ink dots were moving all around it, each one labelled with minuscule writing. Astounded, Ronnie leaned forward and saw that the labels were names; there was Professor Dumbledore in his office, together with Fawkes and Nicolas Flamel, there was Filch with his cat, Mrs. Norris, chasing Peeves down a fifth-floor corridor, there was Luna Lovegood, by the kitchen... and, there, in the fourth-year boys' dorms, Ronnie saw her own name, grouped together with Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, Colin, Fred and George.
"It shows where everyone in the school is!" Neville said, sounding awed.
"Not only that," said George. "It shows all the secret passages around the school and how to use them. How'd you think we manage to move unseen around the school so much?"
Harry blinked, as if he had suddenly understood something. "Last year!" he exclaimed. "When Voldemort was about and you two insisted on keeping an eye on us! You were always showing up out of nowhere, and always seemed to know exactly how to find us, and I never understood how you did it...!"
"Now you know," said George. "It was with the help of Moony, Padfoot, Prongs — and Wormtail." He pointed to the names on the map as he said them. "How much do we owe those four. We've learned more from this map than from some of the teachers here at Hogwarts, that's for sure."
"That's how you knew Wormtail's name?" Ronnie didn't quite know how to feel about this. She wasn't even sure what she had expected, really, it was just that... But then another realisation dawned on her. "You've been using this thing to spy on us!"
"Keep an eye on you, Ron, keep an eye on you," said George smoothly. "Big difference."
"Besides," said Fred, "we mostly use it to sneak around the school grounds, or for the occasional extra trip to Hogsmeade, and of course to avoid Filch when he's stalking the corridors. If we occasionally take a glance at it to make sure our younger sisters aren't anywhere they shouldn't be —"
"We kinda failed you with that incident with the troll," said George. "When we discovered you weren't in the common room, Percy was hovering over us like Mum at her worst, so we couldn't check the Map to see where you were."
"So we may have overcompensated a little afterwards," Fred allowed. "Don't worry, we can only see where people are, not what they're doing or whether they're wearing any clothes or anything like that. So if you were worried someone was going to use it to peep on you in the shower, no need."
Ronnie hadn't even thought about that before he'd mentioned it. "Thank you for that," she muttered.
"Where did you get this, anyway?" said Hermione, who seemed like she couldn't quite decide between being impressed at what was obviously a very impressive piece of magic, or being appalled at how it was being used. "You obviously didn't make it yourselves, since the name Wormtail is on there."
"Right you are," said Fred. "Filch gave it to us, actually."
Everyone stared at him, trying to picture the hateful, grumbling caretaker ever presenting a student with something to aid in mischief. It was impossible to imagine, especially if the student in question was Fred or George.
"All right," Fred admitted. "He may not actually have known that he gave it to us. But really, if he didn't want us to have it, he shouldn't have kept it in a drawer in one of his filing cabinets, clearly marked Confiscated and Highly Dangerous. That's the same as asking us to take it."
"You stole —!" Hermione began, shocked.
"Liberated," Fred corrected her. "It didn't really belong to Filch, and it wasn't doing anyone any good in his filing cabinet."
"Reckon he got it off some students before our time," George added. "We never did find out who Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot or Prongs were —"
"— and we weren't going to ask Filch about it," said Fred, with a slight grimace, probably at the thought of Filch's reaction to that.
"Right. We did try to ask Flitwick, he's been at school longer than anyone except for Binns and Dumbledore, but he couldn't remember those names," said George. "So we reckoned they must be nicknames. Or code names. Or something."
"And that's all you know about Wormtail," said Harry. He sounded disappointed.
"Apart from the fact that he was one of the geniuses behind this map, and a friend to all pranksters? 'Fraid so," said George apologetically. "At least it was all we knew until Ronnie came and said she'd actually seen Wormtail, and that he was going around with Gilderoy Lockhart, of all people."
Ronnie felt herself turn pink.
"What was he like?" said George curiously.
"Er." Ronnie hadn't been very impressed with the small, dumpy, balding figure of Wormtail, but with the levels of respect Fred and George seemed to have for him, she didn't really want to say so. "He was... Well, he was kinda..." She struggled to find a word. For some reason, her brain kept wanting to think of him as rat-like, even if he hadn't looked like a rat at all. Maybe it was the twitchy movements, or maybe the fact that there had been two rats in a cage next to him. "He looked kinda nervous," she finally said.
"Nervous?" Fred and George exchanged glances. "Are you sure he was Wormtail?"
"He called himself Wormtail!" Ronnie stifled a sigh of exasperation. "I couldn't exactly step up to him and ask for his autograph, now could I?"
"Can't we just look him up on the Map now?" said Ginny suddenly.
Everyone turned to look at her. Then, George shook his head. "Wouldn't work. We're pretty sure Wormtail isn't his real name, and nicknames don't show up here on the map. Besides, d'you know how many names show up here? We'd never be able to pick out the right one!"
"Well, why not?" said Ginny. "If we look at Lockhart's office and see someone in there who isn't Lockhart, then that'll probably be Wormtail, won't it?"
There was another long pause. Then, Fred and George once again looked at one another with dumbfounded expressions.
"She's right," said Fred.
"Obvious if you think about it for more than two seconds," said George.
"Which we clearly haven't."
"Do you feel half as foolish as I do?"
"Only if you feel twice as foolish as me. Which I doubt is possible."
"Stop it! This isn't funny!" Hermione snapped. (Ronnie wondered briefly if this sudden burst of temper was pure annoyance with the twins, or if it was anger at herself for not having thought of that solution either.) "Can we get on with it?"
"Er... right, Hermione, whatever you say." It was a testimony to Hermione's glare that George didn't try to make another joke but instead spread the Map out onto his bedstand for them all to see.
It took a short while to locate Lockhart's office on the cluttered Map, but Ronnie finally located it. It was right next to the Defence classroom, where (and this was not really a big surprise) Lavender was lurking, no doubt with Colin's camera, waiting to take a picture of Lockhart whenever he emerged from his office. Or possibly hoping to catch Lockhart and his gay lover in action. Ronnie was seriously starting to doubt that girl's sanity.
Besides, Lockhart wasn't even in his office at the moment. In fact, there was only one dot visible in the office, and that was labelled —
Ronnie stepped back, startled. Next to her, Harry let out a slight yelp of surprise, and Ginny gasped. Even Hermione, Neville, Fred and George and Neville were staring at the name in surprise, one of the last names they would ever have expected to see on a map of Hogwarts.
Colin, the only one who didn't react at all to the unexpected name, leaned in to get a better look. "Lockhart isn't in his office," he announced, quite unnecessarily. "Only someone named Vernon Dursley is! Now we know Wormtail's real name!" He beamed with his normal enthusiasm — and then stopped as he saw the expressions on the others' faces. "What is it?" he said.
But Harry was already out the door.
Ronnie caught up with him in the corridor, halfway to Lockhart's office.
She'd realised what he was about to do a fraction of a second before he did it, and had been the first to run after him as he rushed out, only taking the time to shout to the others: "I'll get him! Stay here!"
But the two seconds that had took had given Harry a surprisingly big head start — she'd already known he was a fast, but the speed with which he rushed down the stairs and through the Gryffindor common room had surprised her. Bad luck would have it that just outside the common room she ran into a few third-years entering at the same time as she was exiting, and so she was slowed down further.
But Ronnie had always been the fastest runner in her family, and was able to catch up with her best friend before he could reach Lockhart's office. She managed to grab his wrist and pull him back, pulling him to a halt.
Which of course resulted in him losing his balance and falling over, and dragging her down with him.
For a confused moment they were entangled in each other there on the floor, but then Harry managed to break free. His glasses had fallen off him as he fell and he was squinting to focus on Ronnie. (His eyesight was really bad, she thought.)
"Ronnie," he panted, slightly out of breath. "What are you doing?!"
"Stopping you," she answered, trying to get her own breath under control. "Harry, you know you can't — enter Lockhart's office when he's not — even there! You'll never get in!"
"I'll think of something," said Harry with utter conviction.
"What'll you do? Knock politely on the door and hope your uncle opens and welcomes you with open arms?"
"You don't understand!" said Harry. "My uncle's there, we knew he vanished because of wizards, and if Lockhart's the one who kidnapped him —"
"You don't even like your uncle!"
"What's that got to do with anything?!"
"Er —"
Harry looked angry. "I'm supposed to leave him in a kidnapper's hands just because I don't like him? And besides," he added as he thought of another thing, "since when were you worried about rushing in without thinking?"
Ronnie suddenly felt guilty. He was right, of course he was. Besides, she should have known that Harry would never be able to leave someone to their fate if he had any chance at all of saving them. He'd storm off to save anyone in danger without a single thought, no matter if he liked them or not.
"All right, I get it," she said. She picked his glasses up from the floor and handed them to him. "But when I was in Lockhart's office, I didn't see your uncle. I would have recognised —" And then it hit her. "The rats!"
"The rats?"
"Lockhart had two rats in a cage! What if... it's silly, but... what if they're..."
"Shh!" Harry suddenly stiffened, looking around with a startled expression. "Did you hear that?"
Ronnie blinked. "Did I hear what?"
"That!" Harry put his glasses on again and slowly stood up. "That voice!"
Ronnie stood up as well, trying to listen for any unusual voices. She couldn't hear anything other than the normal sounds of Hogwarts; some faint steps of people walking the hallways, the hissing of the plumbing, nothing unusual.
"I can't hear anything," she finally admitted.
Harry looked at her as if he didn't believe her. "But it was so clear!" he said. "A sort of hissing voice, saying..." he paused for a moment and then said in a sort of hissy whisper: "I smell blood!" His voice turned normal again. "You didn't hear it at all?"
"Well —" She didn't know what to say to that. "Are you still hearing it?"
"No, it's gone now. Maybe I just imagined it. Or maybe it was one of the ghosts having a laugh."
"Or maybe," came a cheerful and malicious voice from above, "Maybe Potty wee Potter is going insane!"
Harry and Ronnie both looked up into an evil smirk, surrounded by the wide face of Peeves the Poltergeist, who was floating right above them with a gleeful look.
"Stuff it, Peeves!" said Ronnie angrily. "Go back to playing chase with Filch, why don't you?"
"How rude!" said Peeves with a mock look of wounded innocence. "I was just giving some friendly advice!"
"Peeves," said Harry hurriedly. "Did you hear the voice?"
"Maybe I did and maybe I didn't." Peeves leaned back in the air and crossed his arms behind his head, closing his eyes and looking as obnoxiously careless as only he could. "But if I were you, I'd immediately go to the hospital wing and get my noggin looked at! After all..." he lowered his voice. "It starts with hearing voices that nobody else can hear. Then you start listening to what they tell you. Pretty soon you're dancing on the roof without your drawers —"
"I don't have time for this!" Harry suddenly exploded and broke off into a run again, with Ronnie following close.
"— And after that, the knives and axes come out!" Peeves's cheerful cries grew fainter behind them. "YOU'RE THIS CLOSE TO BECOMING A MURDERER, POTTER!"
Stupid Peeves and his stupid pranks, Ronnie thought as she rushed after Harry. Making someone think they were hearing voices — yeah, that was exactly the sort of thing he might do just for a laugh. She felt a lot less guilty for having impersonated him in order to get away from Wormtail.
She caught up with Harry more quickly this time, and together they sprinted the final bit down to the Defence classroom.
Harry tore the door to the classroom open and rushed in — only to stop so abruptly that Ronnie, unprepared, crashed into him. Once more, they both found themselves on the floor, with Ronnie on top of Harry.
"We've got to stop meeting like this," Ronnie managed to say as she rolled off him. "Would it kill you to say something like 'watch out, I'm gonna stop' or —"
"Ronnie!" Harry hissed, getting to his feet with surprising speed. "Look!"
Ronnie looked towards where he was pointing. And saw —
All thoughts about the embarrassing falls, and even about Lockhart and Harry's uncle, vanished from her mind.
There, on the floor by the staircase that led to Lockhart's office, on her back and clutching Colin's camera, was Lavender. Her eyes were wide and glassy, her mouth half-open as if she had seen something shocking, and she wasn't moving at all.
It wasn't even noon yet, and the sun was shining in trough the window at the back of the classroom, but Ronnie felt as if the world had suddenly grown darker and colder.
In seconds, she and Harry were both over by the motionless Lavender.
"Lavender? Lavender!" Ronnie called desperately, grabbing the girl's shoulder and trying to pull her up, but Lavender was all stiff and weird, and Ronnie could barely budge her. She didn't show any sign that she was aware of Harry or Ronnie's presence — or anything else, for that matter. She was like a statue; lifeless and unmoving.
"She's not breathing!" said Harry. "Ronnie, I think she's — I think she's dead!"
"But she can't be dead!" Ronnie wailed. "We saw her just at breakfast, and she was giggling about stupid things with Parvati like she always does and — Lavender, wake up!"
No response. Lavender kept staring blindly at nothing.
Ronnie's vision grew misty. Lavender was annoying, to be sure, and much too obsessed with boys, but — but she was Lavender. She'd been Ronnie's classmate and dorm-mate for over a year. She'd kept Ronnie awake late at night with her constant chatting with Parvati, and then when Ronnie finally fell asleep, had the nerve to wake her up and tell her to stop snoring. She'd driven all her dorm-mates insane with her silly pride over being the first girl in their year who needed a bra, and again when she insisted on giving them all makeovers, with disastrous results. She hadn't wanted to shut up about Lockhart or about boys in general. She had... she had hugged Ronnie a few times, like back in first year after Snape had been particularly horrible...
For the lively, giggly girl to suddenly not be alive anymore, to just lie there and stare up with unseeing eyes... it was... it went against some law or something. All the other people Ronnie knew who had died had been old, like uncle Bilious or even Quirrell...
Ronnie suddenly felt something furry brush her hand. She looked up and, through a veil of tears, saw that it was Mrs. Norris, Filch's scrawny, shaggy cat.
It shouldn't really have come as a surprise to see her. Cats were good at walking soundlessly, and Mrs. Norris was a true master of the art of suddenly showing up in places where you wouldn't expect her. This made her unpopular among the students, because Mrs. Norris shared Filch's hatred for students in general and was always on the prowl for someone making mischief that she could alert Filch about. She hadn't even taken to Ronnie; in fact Mrs. Norris was one of the few animals that hadn't instantly adored Ronnie on sight. (It didn't help that Crookshanks had made it clear that he did not like Mrs. Norris, and would growl at her whenever they happened to meet.)
But right now... the cat was rubbing her head against Ronnie's hand, almost like she was trying to comfort her.
"Mrs. Norris," Ronnie managed to say. "Go... go get Filch. Get someone. Get anyone. Just get them to come. Please."
The cat looked at Ronnie with lamp-like yellow eyes. Then, she turned and ran out the room.
"Never seen her take orders from a student like that," said Harry in a soft voice.
Ronnie couldn't keep it in any more. She wrapped her arms around him, and cried.
She didn't know how long they sat like that, Harry holding her as she cried. Maybe it was just a few seconds, maybe it was several minutes, but she was suddenly yanked out of her grief by the sound of Colin's voice: "Harry! Harry! We have to tell you - what happened here?!"
Colin and Ginny were both standing in the doorway, staring open-mouthed at the lifeless and unmoving Lavender.
Ronnie tried to get her tears under control for long enough to answer them, but the lump in her throat made it hard to speak. Ginny was over by her at once, brown eyes staring wildly at Lavender and at Harry and Ronnie. "What happened?" she said, echoing Colin.
"We'd better get a teacher," said Colin from the doorway. "Oh, wait, never mind! Here comes four of them now!"
It turned out to be four teachers and one Filch, led by Mrs. Norris. The surly caretaker and his cat entered first, followed in rapid succession by Dumbledore, Flamel and Professor Sprout, who looked slightly out of breath. Dumbledore looked at the Room, at Harry and Ronnie and at Lavender. Her eyes widened in what (if he had been anyone else but Dumbledore) might be called shock.
"Professor Dumbledore," said Harry. "We just came in here, and Lavender was on the floor, and she — she was —"
"I see." Dumbledore had regained his composure now, and knelt beside Lavender. Without disturbing the camera in her hands, reached out a hand to touch the girl's forehead, then ran a finger through her long, blonde hair. "She's not dead," he announced.
Ronnie's heart skipped a beat. She lifted her face to look at him.
"She has been Petrified," said Dumbledore softly. "Easy to confuse for death at first glance, but she can be revived."
Ronnie let out a breath she hadn't even known she was holding. Lavender was alive. Petrified, yes, but alive.
"How many times," came the sour voice of Filch, "do you students have to be told that duelling is forbidden?" He glared at Harry and Ronnie. "I suppose you think it's a laugh, do you? Petrifying people? And you know who's going to get the job of cleaning up afterwards?!"
"Argus," said Dumbledore. "They did not do this."
"What?!" Filch looked like he didn't believe it.
"Petrifying a human like this would take extremely advanced Dark magic," said Dumbledore. "You would be hard-pressed to find an adult wizard who could do it, let alone students under the age of thirteen."
Or, Ronnie thought with horror, someone with You-Know-Who's diary could have done it. Bet that thing has tons of Dark magic in it.
If the same thought struck Dumbledore, he didn't show it. Instead, he just continued: "Now, I would like you to go fetch Madam Pomfrey. Miss Brown should be brought up to the hospital wing. Immediately, if you please."
Filch sagged like a balloon that someone's let the air out of. "Yes, Headmaster," he said in a subdued voice. Then he turned and walked out of the room, Mrs. Norris following him.
"Well, someone must have done this," said Professor Sprout, looking down at Lavender. "People don't just go and spontaneously Petrify for no good reason."
"Lockhart," said Harry. "We're outside his office — she was probably here to take pictures of him — Professor Dumbledore, he's got my uncle in his office!"
Silence, as all three teachers stared at him.
"No, he doesn't," said Colin. "That's what we came to tell you. Your uncle left the office just before you came here. He just walked right through the wall, but Hermione said that Hogwarts has a lot of secret doors and hidden passages, so it could simply be one of them, and then he ran down a second-floor corridor, and Hermione and Neville and Fred and George went to find him, while Ginny and I —"
"Monsieur Creevey," said Flamel. "Would you kindly tell us what on Earth you are talking about? The uncle of Monsieur Potter, here at Hogwarts?"
Ginny glared at Colin, who opened and shut his mouth a few times, looking a lot like he was trying to do an impression of a goldfish. Apparently it had just dawned on him that he was this close to blabbing about the Marauder's Map in front of three teachers.
"We will have to wait until later to ask just how Mister Creevey came by this information," said Dumbledore. "For now, the important question is — are you certain that it was indeed Vernon Dursley?"
"It was someone named Vernon Dursley," said Harry.
"And where is Professor Lockhart? Does anyone know?"
Professor Sprout snorted, her normally-pleasant face contorting in a grimace. "The last time I saw him was when he came down to the greenhouses to give me some 'helpful hints' about the proper potting of Mandrakes. I told him in no uncertain terms that I had potted Mandrakes since before he'd even held a wand. Good thing too, because it seems like we'll need Mandrakes for some Restorative Draught." She looked at Lavender with a worried expression.
"I have not seen Monsieur Lockhart for quite some time," said Professor Flamel. "He seems to be avoiding me, for some reason."
"Some people are lucky," Sprout murmured, and then looked shocked at herself for having said that.
"Well," said Dumbledore, "We do not have the time to go looking for Professor Lockhart at the moment. Let us concentrate on Harry's uncle. If he is indeed at Hogwarts, then he must be found. Perhaps he can shed some light on this mystery."
He looked down at the Petrified Lavender.
She stared blindly back at him.
But the search for Vernon Dursley turned out to be fruitless. Fred, George, Hermione and Neville could inform that they had managed to follow him on the Marauder's Map for a while — he'd managed to get from the second floor and all the way up to the seventh floor before they could reach him, but by then he'd completely and inexplicably vanished off the face of the Map.
The weird thing was that he had passed by several students, but when Hermione had asked if anyone had seen a fat man with a moustache run past, they'd all looked at her like she was weird and informed her that no, they hadn't.
Vernon Dursley was gone. If he had ever been there in the first place. Fred and George swore up and down that the Map didn't lie, but...
And when Lockhart was finally located, it turned out that he hadn't been near his office all morning. He'd, in fact, spent the last few hours with Hagrid, trying to find out what had killed the rooster in the school hen coop.
"Hagrid thought it might be a fox, or possibly a Blood-Sucking Bugbear," said Lockhart when Dumbledore asked him about it. "I wouldn't dream of saying that he was wrong, of course, or call his expertise limited, but I think he fails to see all the possibilities; it could just as easily be a particularly vicious Knarl, or even a Diricawl having developed a taste for blood. But I gave him some tips on how to secure the hen coop more properly. He was very grateful."
"I'm certain he was," said Dumbledore diplomatically.
"As for this Vernon Dursley," Lockhart continued, "well, I'll gladly admit that, contrary to the current popular opinion, I have nothing against Muggles," he said. "But I certainly haven't kept one in my office! That would be a bit of an odd thing to do, wouldn't it?"
"Well, what about your rats?!" said Ronnie stubbornly.
"What about my rats?" said Lockhart, completely failing to ask how she knew that he kept rats in the first place. "I keep a couple of rats because rats are very fascinating and intelligent creatures! I have a theory that they can sense Dark magic, so I'm studying them to find out if it's true! It's a little side-project I've got going! There's more to me than good looks and an award-winning smile, you know!"
"And what about Wormtail?" said Ronnie.
"Wormtail?" Lockhart looked even more nonplussed.
"Your gay lover?!"
"I say!" Lockhart's otherwise perfectly-formed eyes bulged. "Aren't you a little too young for such... fantasies? I realise of course that some girls develop earlier, and far be it from me to deny anyone the obvious pleasure of fantasising about me, but at least have the good taste to keep such fantasies inside your own head where they belong!"
"I wasn't fantasising —" Ronnie began, and then gave up, because the pink colour she had turned probably suggested otherwise. (Stupid blush! Why did it have to showcase so blatantly whenever she found something even slightly embarrassing?)
"Quite preposterous!" said Lockhart. "I have —" suddenly he paused, as if he was trying to think of something, but then he shrugged it off. "No, young lady, I don't know anyone named 'Wormtail' and if I had a gay lover, then you'd think I'd know about it, wouldn't you? Dumbledore, I must protest at this girl's insinuations. "
"You will consent to another thorough search of your office, then?" said Dumbledore calmly.
"Certainly!" Lockhart spread his arms. "I have nothing to hide! Unless, of course, you want to know if my hair is really this colour. There are five people in the world who know the answer to that, and I'm one of them." He smiled roguishly. "A man needs to keep some mystery about him, after all."
And that, apparently, was that. Lockhart's office was searched, with Dumbledore himself leading the search, but there was no sign of Vernon Dursley or of Wormtail — or, for that matter, of You-Know-Who's diary.
As for the rats, they were apparently just that — completely normal rats. Both Dumbledore and Hagrid had examined them (though Ronnie had not been allowed anywhere near, as Lockhart seemed annoyed with her) and concluded that there was nothing out of the ordinary about them. And as Hermione said, if the Headmaster and the gamekeeper couldn't find anything out of the ordinary about a rat even after a thorough examination, then there probably wasn't anything to find out.
So, that, apparently, was it for Ronnie's theory about the rats being Harry's Transfigured aunt and uncle.
Still, she was certain that they were missing something. There was some detail here that she wasn't seeing, that she should be seeing. Something that she'd forgotten or not noticed. Even if the rats were just normal rats, Wormtail had been in Lockhart's office, as had someone named Vernon Dursley. (Maybe Wormtail's real name just happened to be "Vernon Dursley"? If it was, Ronnie couldn't blame him for wanting to go by another name, even if this name was "Wormtail.")
In desperation, she tried asking Crookshanks to locate Wormtail, or failing that, Vernon Dursley. But something was off there too — the cat willingly enough led Potter's Gang to the seventh-floor corridor where Hermione had said Vernon Dursley had last been seen on the map, but once they got there, Crookshanks just kept pacing up and down it, meowing in confusion and frustration.
He seemed particularly interested in and frustrated by the section where a tapestry hung on the wall depicting Barnabas the Barmy's famous (and futile) attempt at teaching ballet to a group of trolls. But there was nothing strange about the tapestry that any of Potter's Gang could see, and it didn't appear to be hiding any doors or secret passages either (at least none that showed up on the Marauder's Map).
In the end, even Ronnie had to face it: Somehow, Wormtail and Vernon had managed to hide even from Crookshanks's sharp half-Kneazle instincts.
"I'm starting to think," Ronnie said as they walked back to Gryffindor Tower with Crookshanks in tow, "that Wormtail's the one who has You-Know-Who's diary."
Hermione looked sceptical. "First you accuse Lockhart, and now you accuse Wormtail?"
"I'm not saying Lockhart is innocent!" Ronnie said. "If he had the diary, then gave it to Wormtail, that would make sense, wouldn't it! Wormtail could use all the secrets and Dark magic in the book to Petrify Lavender and to hide from Crookshanks! He could even have kidnapped your aunt and uncle, Harry!"
The rest of Potter's Gang exchanged glances. Harry looked contemplative, but Hermione looked doubtful and Neville looked confused.
"But," the round-faced boy said. "What I don't get is why he'd do any of these things? What possible use could he have of Harry's relatives? Or, for that matter, why would he Petrify Lavender?"
"I dunno, maybe he just gets off on Petrifying girls?" said Ronnie.
"You are so disgusting sometimes," Hermione muttered.
"Or!" Ronnie continued, ignoring her. "Maybe Lavender saw something she shouldn't have, and he had to get her out of the way, until... until something happens, something he needs more time to prepare for!"
"Like what?" Hermione demanded.
"I don't know! Something! Why am I the only one who theorises here? You think of something for once!"
Hermione huffed.
"Could explain why Colin's camera was destroyed," Harry suddenly said. "If she got a picture of whatever it was..."
"Mmm," Hermione said non-committally. "I suppose. Or it could simply have been a side-effect of whatever it was that Petrified her."
They walked in silence for a bit.
Lavender had been taken up to the hospital wing by Madam Pomfrey and now lay in a bed, staring blindly up at the ceiling, her hands still clutching around the empty space where Colin's camera had been. Dumbledore had taken the camera off her, in the hope that she might have managed to get a picture of whatever had Petrified her, but it turned out that the interior of the camera had melted beyond all repair.
Colin had been a little upset about his camera, but all in all he decided that Lavender was more important. "I can get a new camera," he'd said in a surprisingly philosophical tone, "but Gryffindor could never get a new Lavender."
And it was true that Lavender's absence did lay a bit of a damper on the Gryffindors' spirits. Or perhaps it was just that Ronnie noticed it more, as one of Lavender's dorm-mates... what was certain was that the second-year girl's dorm, even with five girls still left, felt strangely empty without Lavender.
And it didn't help that the normally cheerful and chatty Parvati spent most her time moping. She had been almost inseparable from Lavender ever since they had been sorted into Gryffindor, and the absence was clearly felt especially strongly by her. Fay tried her best to cheer her up, but since Fay's method of cheering people up involved talking at length about Quidditch (something that Parvati was only moderately interested in), it didn't really help.
While Dumbledore had assured them that Lavender could be revived, it turned out to be a little more complicated than hoped: Of the few ways of reviving a Petrified person the only one that didn't carry the risk of killing the unfortunate victim was a careful application of the Mandrake Restorative Draught.
This in and of itself wouldn't have been a problem, as the draught wasn't too hard to make and Flamel, as the resident Potions master, was more than up to the task. No, the problem was that the draught needed fresh Mandrake root, and Mandrakes weren't exactly native to Britain and difficult to get ahold of.
Now, as luck would have it, Professor Sprout had recently acquired a batch of Mandrakes for the Hogwarts greenhouses (and Ronnie knew this positively since the first Herbology lesson of the year had consisted of re-potting the creepy, disgusting, screaming plants) — but as bad luck would have it, these Mandrakes were just seedlings and it would take months before they were mature enough to be used in any kind of potion or draught.
When the students had protested that Lavender couldn't stay like this for months, Dumbledore had promised that he would do all he could to find a quicker solution. They could tell that he wasn't optimistic about it, though.
Potter's gang had almost reached Gryffindor tower, when all of a sudden Luna Lovegood appeared at the end of the corridor.
For some inexplicable reason the girl was carrying a bundle of black cloth, and her expression was so dreamy that for a moment or two Ronnie thought that she was sleepwalking or in some kind of trance — but when she saw Potter's Gang, her expression cleared up and she hurried towards them.
"Hello, Veronica!" she said. "Hello, Veronica's friends! Hello, Veronica's cat!"
"Hi, Luna," said Ronnie, the other members of Potter's Gang adding their greetings as well. "Er... I've told you that you can call me 'Ronnie,' haven't I?"
"Oh, yes," Luna nodded. "But I haven't earned it yet, you know."
"What do you mean, you haven't —?"
"I've been looking for you," said Luna, holding the bundle of cloth out to Ronnie. "Here. Thank you for letting me borrow them."
Ronnie was about to ask what Luna was talking about, but then she recognised the robes she had lent to Luna (or, more accurately, the robes that Hermione had lent to Luna on Ronnie's behalf) back at the Hogwarts Express. She'd forgotten all about them. "Oh," she said. "Oh, right. You're welcome. No problem."
"Er — enjoying Hogwarts so far, Luna?" said Neville, apparently unable to think of anything else to say.
"Oh, yes!" Luna's eyes shone. "The Hufflepuff common room has all sorts of interesting plants in it, and everyone's been so nice and helpful." Her face fell a little. "I haven't found the Nargles yet, though."
"Oh, er, well, never mind?" said Neville. "You, er, have seven years to discover them, I'm sure you'll —"
"There's no such thing as Nargles!" Hermione snapped.
Luna looked at her with an expression of mild fascination. "Now you sounded exactly like Mr. Filch," she said. "When I asked him where the Nargles were, because I thought the caretaker would know these things, he said there weren't any, and when I —"
"Well, nice talking to you, Luna!" said Ronnie, who saw that Hermione's look of annoyance was turning into anger. "But we'd better get going!"
"Wait!" said Luna. "There was something else! This was in your pocket, and I wanted to ask what it was." She held up what looked like a necklace of some sort; a sharp animal tooth with strange golden designs on it, hanging on a thin, dark leather string.
Ronnie stopped, blinking. She'd forgotten about that too. "That's my Warning Fang!" she said.
"Is that what it is?" said Luna, looking in wonder at the Fang. "It grows very hot sometimes, you know, for no reason. Well, probably not for no reason, it probably makes perfect sense to it to grow hot when it does, but I haven't been able to find out why it does."
"It's a warning sign," said Harry. "It supposed to grow hot when danger approaches."
Ronnie nodded. The Warning Fangs had been a gift to Potter's Gang from Mad-Eye Moody, but they were more annoying than helpful, as they weren't capable of distinguishing between different types of danger and would get equally hot when, say, Draco Malfoy came around and tried to trip you, as it did when You-Know-Who appeared in front of you. Still, it was the painful heat of Harry's Warning Fang pressed against her forehead that had snapped her out of it when — No. No, don't think about that. Don't think about the Imperius.
"When does it grow hot?" said Harry. "Have you noticed?"
"Seems like it has been at random," said Luna thoughtfully. "But I suppose it hasn't, if it only grows hot when there's danger. I've been in danger several times without even knowing it, then." She sounded surprisingly calm for someone who had just made that sort of discovery.
"Where was it?!" Harry pressed. "When did you notice it first?"
"When I was passing my Moaning Myrtle's bathroom," Luna answered immediately. "I was out looking for Veronica so I could return the thing to her, so I was holding it in my hand, and all of a sudden, it was so hot that I dropped it on the floor. That was the first time. It was quite a shock, you know."
"What's Moaning Myrtle's bathroom?" said Harry, frowning behind his glasses.
"It's the bathroom where Moaning Myrtle lives, of course," said Luna.
Harry looked at Neville, who looked just as blank. "Is this like the Nargles, or —?"
"No, Harry," said Hermione. "Moaning Myrtle's real enough."
"All too real," Ronnie agreed, having managed to repress the thoughts about the Imperius (don't think about the Imperius!) and instead seeing the bespectacled, transparent face for her inner eye. "She's one of the ghosts. Er, I think she's the youngest of the ghosts, actually."
"Oh," said Harry. "I don't think I've met her."
"You wouldn't have," said Hermione. "She hardly ever leaves the girls' bathroom on the first floor. She haunts one of the toilets there."
"She haunts a toilet?!" Neville looked like he couldn't decide on whether this was funny, tragic or vaguely disgusting.
"And wails and throws temper tantrums and causes floods whenever she thinks someone is making fun of her," said Ronnie. "And she always thinks someone's making fun of her. I once said 'it's cold today' and she threw an absolute fit! Ooooh, how could you be so cruel! You know I can't feel the cold because I'm DEAD!" She was pretty proud of her imitation of the ghost's whiny voice.
"But she's not dangerous," said Hermione. "She's horrible, yes, but she wouldn't hurt anyone. She can't hurt anyone, not beyond showering them with — ugh — toilet water. So whatever the Warning Fang reacted to, it must have been something else."
"Who'd willingly go into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom unless they absolutely had to?" said Ronnie.
Hermione shook her head. "Where else did the Fang grow hot?" she said, her annoyance with Luna temporarily forgotten.
The younger girl shrugged. "Mostly in the corridors," she said. "In various places. Never the same place twice. Oh!" She blinked. "Oh yes! Most of the times it happened I heard a noise too! Sort of a hissing noise, like —Fffffssshhhhhhhhhtt!" She tried hissing like a cat, which caused Crookshanks to look at her in a startled way.
"The pipes in the wall are always hissing," said Neville a little nervously. "It's an old castle, and the plumbing —"
"No, no, no!" Luna shook her head vigorously. "It wasn't a plumbing-hiss, it was a hiss-hiss. Fffffccchhhssshhhtt!"
"Er," said Harry. "Why would the pipes say 'honourless scum'? That doesn't sound like any pipes I ever — what?" he added, when he noticed everyone staring at him.
"...Nobody said anything about honourless scum," said Neville.
"Luna did!" Harry pointed at the girl. "Come on, you must have heard it, she said it a little strangely, but it was clearly those two words! Honourless scum!"
"I didn't say that," said Luna, looking as puzzled as everyone else. "I just said fffschchhsssshht!"
"No, you didn't! Now you just hissed!"
"That was what she did before too!" Hermione looked at Harry with concern. "Harry, are you feeling all right?"
Harry rubbed his forehead. "Are you lot going crazy," he said, "or am I? I know what I heard!"
"We know what we didn't hear," said Ronnie. "And we definitely did not hear the words 'honourless scum,'"
"Maybe I did say it," Luna mused, "and then forgot I said it. Maybe all of us except Harry were attacked by Wrackspurts and got confused."
"What are Wrackspurts?" said Neville.
"Oh, they're these invisible creatures that float around and enter people's ears to make their brains go all fuzzy —"
"Never mind!"
"Maybe you should go see Madam Pomfrey," Hermione suggested.
"No!" Harry pulled away. "I'm fine! Let's just get back to the common room!"
They said goodbye to Luna and followed Harry back to Gryffindor Tower, still wondering just what had happened here. For some reason, Ronnie had a suspicion that Harry hearing words where the others only heard hissing was important somehow — but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out how.
Not then.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Author's Notes: We all know more than Potter's Gang here, so: Yes, Luna just spoke Parseltongue. No, Luna isn't a Parselmouth; it was pure chance and a complete accident. We know from canon that Parseltongue can be imitated by people who aren't Parselmouths (Ron does it, after all), and so Luna in trying to imitate the hissing she heard accidentally managed to pronounce two words in Parseltongue. Which Harry, being a Parselmouth, heard as normal words.
As for Lockhart's theories about what killed the rooster... Well, anyone who's read Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them should know why his suggestions are so off-the-wall... a Knarl is a magical hedgehog that eats daisies, and a Diricawl is a dodo bird. Neither of them could possibly have killed a rooster. Lockhart really isn't very good with magical creatures; or at least he has a habit of exaggerating how dangerous they are in order to make himself look braver and more heroic.
Otherwise, there are lots of clues in this chapter that you'll get immediately if you know canon, but the characters are missing most of them. And the first Petrification has taken place — but no "enemies of the Heir, beware" message? What has changed here, that Tom Riddle has decided against leaving that message?
For several reasons, I'll soon be closing down the shipping poll on my profile; around the time when the next chapter comes up I think. So if you still want to vote on your favourite romantic pairings, better do it soon.
At the time of writing, Harry/Ronnie is by far the most popular pairing, with 87 votes. Harry/Ginny is in second place and Ronnie/Neville in third. Fourth place goes to Harry/Hermione and fifth place to Ronnie/Hermione.
Romance within Potter's Gang seems popular; Neville/Hermione isn't as popular as Harry/Ronnie, Harry/Hermione, Ronnie/Neville or Ronnie/Hermione, but it seems to have its fans. "Potter's Gang foursome," which I had mainly included as a joke, got a surprising amount of votes. Only Harry/Neville doesn't seem to be too popular here, sharing third-to-last place with Harry/Draco.
In the very last place, with only two votes, is Neville/Draco. Yeah, I didn't really buy that pairing either.