We're back again! Shorter wait this time, but the chapter's shorter too. Still, this story's definitely going to be longer than the first Weasley Girl; I'm not quite certain how much longer yet, but we're definitely not wrapping this one up in thirteen chapters. If I'm to guess, I'd say... Ehhhhh... Somewhere between sixteen and twenty chapters, plus epilogue.
And then of course there'll be the third story in the trilogy, but who knows how long that'll be?
WEASLEY GIRL: SECRETS OF THE PAST
Based on the Harry Potter stories by J. K. Rowling
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
If I Could Talk To The Animals
The ability to communicate with animals — collectively known as Zoolingualism — is a branch of Magizoology that has over the years largely fallen out of use. To quote the famous Magizoologist Gulliver Pokeby (author of the book 'Why I Didn't Die When the Augurey Cried'): "it's mostly because those ruddy beasts never have anything interesting to say."
There is, however, another stigma against Zoolingualism: Several branches of it are closely tied to the Dark arts, and many of the most famous Zoolinguists have also been famous Dark wizards or witches. One needs only mention Morgana and her power to communicate with and control small animals, or of course Salazar Slytherin's infamous ability to speak Parseltongue, the language of serpents — a hereditary ability that he passed down to his descendants, several of which were noted Dark wizards and witches in their own right. Most recently, of course, the ability to speak Parseltongue was displayed by the late Dark Lord, He Who Must Not Be Named.
Thus, among the general populace, Zoolingualism has gained and maintained somewhat of a Dark reputation. Not, perhaps, Dark magic in and of itself, but certainly a sign that the speaker is closely tied to the Dark Arts.
Ronnie looked up from the book, feeling just a little annoyed. "Oh come on! Talking to animals is Dark, now?" she muttered. "Just get to the part about the spell, will you? I know there's a spell here. Or are you too scared of teaching me Dark magic?"
It was the day after the Quidditch match, and Potter's Gang were all gathered in the library, taking advantage of a Sunday with no classes and, for once, no homework, to read up on animal communications.
Neville, when hearing about Dobby, had suggested that they tell Professor Dumbledore — but Ronnie hadn't wanted to, at least not yet. Partly it was a weird kind of reluctance to present such, well, scant information to him; "a house-elf says terrible things are happening" didn't seem like much to go on. Add to it that if Dumbledore found out about Dobby and the Malfoys... Well, he'd want to investigate further, wouldn't he? And that would mean that Lucius Malfoy might find out that Dobby had been trying to warn Harry, and that again would probably mean the poor house-elf would pay dearly for it. And his life seemed to be bad enough as it was without Potter's Gang to add to his misery.
No, much better to find out what they could on their own, and then present the finished case to Dumbledore. Even if it did mean that all the Quidditch equipment was currently being needlessly searched for traces of sabotage. But that only meant a temporary inconvenience anyway, since the teachers wouldn't find anything now that Dobby's curse on that one Bludger was lifted.
(Secretly, though, Ronnie did have another reason for not telling Dumbledore, one she barely even wanted to admit to herself: If she did talk to Dumbledore about this, and he fixed everything, there would be no need for her to learn to talk to Crookshanks. And, given how that stupid book went on about how talking to animals had a Dark reputation, maybe Dumbledore would even forbid her from learning it!)
And so, here they were — Ronnie, Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Neville and Colin (they'd asked Parvati too, but she'd declined), gathered around one of the bigger tables in the library and with all the books on Magizoology and animal-related magic they could find.
Madam Pince had looked at them suspiciously, but Hermione, who happened to be one of the few students that the librarian actually approved of, had assured her that they wouldn't cause any trouble.
Ronnie was certain that the key to talking to animals lay in one of these would be easier, though, if certain books would just get to the point, instead of blathering on about how Zoolingualism was supposed to be Dark or whatever.
She gave the offending book in her hands a glare and made a mental note to remember the author so that she could boycott any other books they wrote.
"Reading something you don't like?" said Harry, peeking over her shoulder. After a few second, he added: "Oh. I didn't know Salazar Slytherin could talk to snakes." (For some reason, he sounded a little worried.) "And Voldemort as well?"
"Yeah, well, must've been one of his redeeming qualities," said Ronnie.
"Talking to snakes is a redeeming quality?" said Ginny dubiously.
"Snakes are animals too," Ronnie huffed. "Not very cuddly animals, but still animals. Bet snakes have loads of interesting things to say, no matter what that idiot Pokesby thought."
"So that's why Slytherin House has a snake as its symbol? Because Slytherin could talk to snakes?!" said Colin, sounding excited. "Does that mean Gryffindor could talk to lions?!"
"Er —" Ronnie had to stop and think about this for a moment. Colin had the weirdest leaps of logic sometimes. "I don't think so," she finally said. "It's more symbolic, about lions being brave and all that, right?"
"Oh." Colin looked disappointed for about a millisecond, and then he was back to his trademark irrepressible excitement: "What about Hufflepuff? Could Hufflepuff talk to badgers?"
"No!" said Ronnie. "And before you ask, Ravenclaw couldn't talk to ravens —"
"Eagles," Hermione corrected her, without even looking up from her own book. "Ravenclaw's symbol is an eagle, not a raven."
Ronnie felt herself go pink with embarrassment. "Well, far as I know, Ravenclaw bloody couldn't talk to eagles or ravens or flamingos or Golden Snidgets or any kind of bird! Or other animal!" She buried herself in her book again to hide her blush.
"I got the wrong book. All I can find is a lot of stuff about Animagi," said Neville, putting down his own book with a small sigh.
"What's an Animagi?" Nobody was surprised that the question came from Colin.
"An Animagus," Neville explained, "is a witch or a wizard who can turn into an animal at will."
"Cool!" Colin grinned widely. "Could we become that? I bet if we all turned into cats, we could talk to Crookshanks, no problem!"
"I'm sorry, Colin, but it's supposed to be really difficult," said Neville. "Says here there's only been like seven registered Animagi this century. Oh — it says that Professor McGonagall is one of them!"
"Really?" Harry, who had been oddly quiet since his comment about Slytherin, looked interested at this. "What does she turn into?"
"Er, a cat, actually," said Neville. "D'you think she'd talk to Crookshanks for... No, probably not," he finished in a glum tone.
Ronnie thought about their Head of House. McGonagall was decent enough in her way, but really strict, and — and besides, she'd be even more likely than Dumbledore to raise hell with the Malfoys and accidentally get poor Dobby into trouble. Besides, getting McGonagall to talk to Crookshanks would mean Ronnie wouldn't get to. Because their strict Head of House might well decide that Potter's Gang had no business learning a (pshaw) potential Dark Art like talking to animals. It was all too easy imagining her: "You want to do what, Miss Weasley?"
"No," said Ronnie firmly. "No point in involving Professor McGonagall. We'll do this ourselves."
"But we could turn into cats, couldn't we? If we learned how," said Colin.
"Problem is that you don't get to pick which animal you turn into," said Neville, motioning to the book to point out his source.
"Oh. Who gets to pick that, then?"
"Says here that it's meant to be a reflection of your inner self, or something. So I suppose I'd be a mouse." Neville looked down, that last part coming out as a murmur.
"You wouldn't be a mouse!" Ronnie protested. "You'd be a lion or something. And Harry would be, er, an owl, or an eagle, because he's good at flying —" (Harry looked rather pleased at the prospect) "— and Hermione would be a raven 'cause she's smart, and Ginny —"
"I'd be a horse," said Ginny.
"A horse?!" said Ronnie, unable to hide her surprise. "Why a horse?"
"Why not a horse?"
"What about me?" said Colin eagerly. "What would I be?"
Ronnie looked at the little boy, who was nearly bouncing up and down in his chair with excitement. "Squirrel," she said. "Definitely a squirrel."
Colin frowned slightly. "But I don't even like nuts!"
"What d'you think you'd be, Ronnie?" said Harry.
"I dunno," Ronnie had to admit, thinking about all the animals she loved. There were so many of them, how could she pick just one that would be her? A cat, like Professor McGonagall? Hmmm... maybe a phoenix... She thought of Fawkes, Dumbledore's beautiful pet.
No. Whatever animal her inner self was, it wasn't a phoenix. Probably something far less impressive, like a weasel or something. Weasel... Weasley. Hmmmm...
Before she could decide upon an answer, Hermione spoke up, with more than a trace of sarcasm in her voice: "Fascinating as this discussion is, it's not very productive."
"What d'you mean?" said Ginny.
"I mean that I've read about Animagi —" (of course she had, Ronnie thought, she was Hermione) "— and it's not at all plausible that any of us could learn how to become Animagi in anything less than three years. Probably longer, as we don't have the basic experience with the necessary kinds of magic yet; we don't even begin to learn about Animagi until third year —"
"So even if we could, it'd take us at least until fifth or sixth year," said Harry. "Judging by what Dobby was saying, I doubt we have that long."
"Besides," said Hermione, "if we wanted to become Animagi, we'd have to register at the Ministry. Unregistered Animagi get sent to Azkaban, I don't remember for how long, but it's a good long while."
"Why? What's so bad about turning into an animal?" said Ginny.
"Because, the law reasons, anyone who can turn into an animal and doesn't want the authorities to know about it is probably a criminal wanting a way to hide. So they want to know exactly what kind of animal you can turn into, and what it looks like." Hermione looked a little smug, Ronnie noted; she always did enjoy it when she knew more about some aspect about wizarding culture than even those who were born into it. "Anyway, we don't even know if one of us would turn into a cat. Even if Ronnie's guesses are completely off, we could potentially turn into anything."
"But," said Colin. "If it's about your inner self, maybe we could make ourselves more cat-like! If we all started drinking lots of milk and eating lots of fish —"
"And playing with balls of yarn in the Gryffindor common room?" said Ronnie. "I swear, Colin, sometimes I wonder just what it looks like inside that head of yours."
"Well, right now I'm thinking about Professor McGonagall playing with a ball of yarn in the Gryffindor common room," said Colin, a little sheepishly. "Sorry, you kind of forced the thought in there."
"That's the most ridiculous —" Ronnie paused as the image filled her head, and she groaned. "Now I'm thinking about it too."
Harry laughed.
And that was the end of the Animagus talk. They all settled down to continue reading, though Ronnie's book wasn't really being much help. Really, the way it was going on about things it should have been titled Here's Why Wanting To Talk To Animals Is A Waste Of Time.
But there was a spell, there had to be. She was certain Charlie had once alluded to it, during one of his holidays home at the Burrow, saying something about a bloke who could talk to animals... But Charlie had always been a great advocate for the concept of "letting you discover things for yourself." At most, he'd make hints and then perhaps lend you one of his books, and then he wouldn't say anything more. To be fair, if you took the bait (as Ronnie sometimes did and sometimes didn't) this often led to you finding out all sorts of things that you wouldn't have otherwise. Like for examples what Thestrals were and why most people couldn't see them. Or the fact that there did exist some types of magic that let you talk to the animals. There was just a matter of finding it...
"I found it!"
Everyone turned to look at Ginny, who was holding up her book in triumph. "Animaloqui! Also known as the Animal Talk Charm! Anyone under this charm will speak the language of any one animal of your choice — oh." Her face fell a little.
"What?" Harry stretched his neck to look at the book.
"Well, the animal has to be there physically for it to work..."
"Not a problem," said Ronnie.
"And," Ginny continued, "once you're under the charm you can only speak the language of that animal. You can't talk any other animals, or humans. And you can't do much magic, since you won't be able to speak the incantations properly."
"...That might be a problem," Ronnie admitted.
"Yeah, it seems it's mostly used as a practical joke," said Ginny. "You know... place your friends under the charm, and listen to them meow or bark instead of talking. Until they convince the dog whose language they now speak to bite you, anyway," she added as an afterthought.
"I don't think the teachers would like it if we all started meowing in class," said Harry. "We'd fail every subject. Unless there's a spell you can cast by saying 'meow meow.'"
"Yeah, like Aloho-meow-ra," said Ronnie. "Or Wingardium Levi-meow-sa."
Neville, Ginny and Colin snorted, but Hermione rolled her eyes.
"If you are quite finished acting like clowns," she said, "the solution is obvious. All we need is for someone else to stand ready with a counter-charm. It just so happens that we'll be learning the General Counter-Spell in Charms just after Christmas; that should take care of the problem."
"And you already know it, don't you?" said Colin, whose faith in Hermione was starting to rival his faith in Harry.
Now, Hermione did smile. "What do you think? Finite Incantatem."
"All right," said Harry. "Looks like we have a new project, then: Learn the Animal Talk Charm, hopefully before Christmas. The first one to learn it can talk to Crookshanks and find out what Dobby told him."
"Sounds like a plan," Ronnie agreed, deciding then and there that she would be the first, even if she had to compete with Hermione's dedication.
"Let's just hope that no more of those awful things he talked about happen in the meantime," said Neville. "It seems like it's going to be a long time before we find anything out. Anything could happen in the meantime."
"Nothing has happened since Halloween," Ginny pointed out. "Unless you count Dobby's Bludger, but we know what that was about."
"That doesn't mean nothing will happen."
Harry raised himself from the table. "Well," he said. "I think we'll just have to risk it, be extra careful. In the meantime..." He began moving towards the exit. "Quidditch practice."
"I thought they weren't done testing the equipment yet," said Hermione.
"They aren't, they've only tested about half of it," said Harry. "But Wood managed to talk McGonagall into letting us practice with the equipment that has been tested and cleared. He insists that we have to flatten Slytherin in the re-match."
"I'm so glad to know you have your priorities straight," Hermione muttered.
"Welcome to Gryffindor versus Slytherin, take two!" Lee Jordan's voice boomed out over the Quidditch pitch, as once again, the two teams came out onto the pitch, to huge applause and dressed in their characteristic respective red and green. "For those of you who weren't here last time, this is the re-match for the first big game of the season, which was called off due to sabotage! I'm not saying it was the Slytherins who enchanted that Bludger to try to kill Harry —"
"Jordan...!" came the amplified and warning tones of Professor McGonagall.
"— but it probably was the Slytherins," Lee continued.
"Jordan! Are you commenting a game or putting Slytherin on trial?!"
There was a roar of laughter, combined with a lot of boos and jeers from the Slytherin stands. Seated in the top row of the Gryffindor stands, in between Neville and Ginny and wrapped up in her warmest winter cloak and Gryffindor scarf, Ronnie felt an unexpected pang of guilt. She was no fan of Slytherin, and probably would have joined in on laughing or booing if she hadn't known what she knew — but it did seem, well, wrong, that they were given the blame for something she knew for a fact they didn't do.
But, she comforted herself, they are Slytherins. They probably get away with worse things all the time.
Over at the commentator's stand, a chastened but not subdued Lee continued: "The score, from last game, is thirty-nil to Slytherin, which of course is totally fair, not like the game last time was rigged against Gryffindor or anything — right, Professor, sorry."
("Don't you wish all we had to worry about was rigged Quidditch matches?" Neville muttered.)
After the Quidditch captains had once again shaken hands (looking no less hostile this time than last time), and after Madam Hooch once again had informed them she wanted a clean game, the whistle sounded, and the teams were off and up into the air again.
"The Quaffle is grabbed by Slytherin Chaser Adrian Pucey, but Gryffindor Chaser Alicia Spinnet is on him — Flint's coming around, nice attempt at a pass — Great show of teamwork by Gryffindor here! George Weasley, I think it was George, anyway, might have been Fred, but he hit the Bludger towards Flint just as he was about to pass! Alicia's snatched the Quaffle! She's speeding towards the Slytherin goal — NO! Goal blocked by Keeper Bletchley! Oh, well, still early in the game, and the Bludgers are behaving normally today, and the Quaffle is back in play..." Lee was getting more worked up and was soon talking away in his traditional rapid-fire (and just slightly Gryffindor-biased) way, accompanied by alternating cheers and boos from the stands as the game continued.
Ronnie had borrowed Hagrid's binoculars and was mostly keeping an eye on Harry. No crazy Bludger was after him this time, though an annoying Malfoy kept flying rather close to him, flying around him with what looked like a taunting sneer.
"What's Malfoy up to?" said Neville from beside Ronnie.
"Taunting," said Ronnie. "He's saying something to Harry — can't make out what — oh, come on!"
This last part was in response to the Slytherin boy moving around on his broom as if trying to dodge an invisible Bludger, clearly trying to parody what Harry had looked like when chased by the rogue Bludger. There was a bit of laughter at this from the Slytherin stands.
Lee's voice sounded: "And the Slytherin Seeker seems to be under the false impression that he's demonstrating bad trick riding instead of being in a Quidditch game. That Draco Malfoy is wasted on Quidditch, he should really look into becoming a clown instead."
"Jordan, if you can't stop with the personal remarks —"
"Right, right, sorry, Katie Bell has the Quaffle, and — YES! SHE SCORES!"
To Lee's credit, he really did stick to commenting about the game from there on, and it developed into quite an intense battle between the two teams. The Gryffindors were determined to catch up to Slytherin's "head start," and the Slytherins did all they could to keep their lead. The Quaffle zoomed back and forth through the air, alternately thrown and carried by six determined Chasers, as the Beaters hit the Bludgers here and there.
There were no further goals scored. Both Oliver Wood and the Slytherin Keeper, Miles Bletchley, were defending their hoops like angry dragons, and it didn't look like any of them were going to let in a goal any time soon.
Above it all flew Harry and Malfoy, peering for the Snitch. That is, Harry was peering for the Snitch. Malfoy spent half his time looking for the Snitch and the other half pestering Harry. Probably he was hoping to get Harry to lose his temper and make a mistake.
For all that Ronnie loathed Malfoy, she had to admit that he was good at flying, especially now that he had the right grip on the broom. He manoeuvred himself with the greatest of ease, flying back and forth and looking like he was born to fly... at least, Ronnie had to admit to herself (though she'd be buggered if she admitted it to anyone else!) he flew better than her. Even if it could partly be credited to his amazing Nimbus Two-Thousand-And-One, he really did know what he was doing up in the air. He'd probably have been the best flier on the pitch, if it hadn't been for Harry.
Because where Malfoy was good, Harry was amazing. With him as a rider, even the lousiest, most stubborn broom turned into a model broomstick on-par with Nimbus's best. Even on a sub-par broom he could more than keep up with the annoying Slytherin seeker.
Which was probably one of Malfoy's motivations in trying to annoy or distract Harry. Jealous, I reckon! Ronnie thought with some satisfaction. Probably always thought he'd be the top flier at Hogwarts, and then Harry comes and absolutely flattens him without even trying!
"Harry's really good, isn't he?" said Ginny next to her. Not surprisingly, she had spent the entire game so far with her eyes on Harry.
"Maybe you could ask him for some private flying lessons," said Ronnie, grinning at her.
Ginny turned red and shoved her, a little harder than necessary. "Shut up!"
"Seriously, Ginny. Why don't you just tell him you like him?" Ronnie stroked back her hair and tried to keep the vague exasperation out of her voice as much as she could. "You've been able to talk around him for months, you hardly ever squeak anymore, and come on, he's not stupid, he already knows."
"And he doesn't like me," said Ginny, looking down. "Not that way."
"You don't know that!" Ronnie put on a dramatic voice. "Maybe he dreams about you every night, visions of your lovely red hair and your enchanting smile intoxicating him, and when he looks at you his heart bursts in his chest, and — ow! Quit that!"
"Serves you right."
Ronnie rubbed the arm Ginny had punched. For a brief moment she considered punching her younger sister back, but then she thought better of it and instead decided to focus on Harry instead —
— just in time to see the flash of gold just behind Malfoy. The Snitch had decided to pause and hover not too far behind the Slytherin Seeker, and Malfoy was too busy taunting Harry to see it!
Harry saw it, though, and for a moment he just hovered, clearly afraid that any sudden moves would alert Malfoy to the presence of the little golden ball. Then he appeared to make his mind up, and like a streak of lightning he shot past Malfoy and towards the Snitch.
Malfoy discovered what he was doing perhaps a millisecond before Harry zoomed past him, and desperately turned his broom around to dart after Harry.
As if in slow motion, Ronnie saw the two Seekers race at the Snitch, both stretching out their hands to grab for it. The Snitch was just about to dart away and vanish again, when Malfoy threw himself after it, but because Harry was in the way missed it and instead of making the spectacular grab he'd clearly hoped for, lost his balance and fell off his broom.
There was a gasp of shock from the stands, and a sharp yelp of terror from a couple of the Slytherin girls, as Malfoy fell to the ground.
But then the gasps turned to cheers, because before he had fallen more than a few feet, he was stopped in his fall by Harry, who had grabbed the back of his robes with one hand. In the other hand, he held the shining Golden Snitch.
Lee went wild from the commentator's stand: "Harry Potter has caught the Snitch, and the Slytherin Seeker! Gryffindor wins! One hundred and sixty points to Slytherin's thirty! GRYFFINDOR WINS!"
Ronnie and the rest of Potter's Gang cheered along with the rest of the crowd as Harry triumphantly sank down to the ground, Snitch in one hand and an absolutely furious Malfoy in the other.
Ginny raised herself from her seat, and Ronnie followed her, together with Neville, Hermione and Colin, to storm down and onto the Quidditch pitch to be the first to greet Harry and congratulate him on winning his first Quidditch match.
They arrived just in time for the two boys to land.
Malfoy hit the ground first, yanking himself out of Harry's grasp and snarling up at him: "Are you trying to humiliate me, Potter?!"
"I don't need to," said Harry as he landed himself, swinging off his broomstick. "You're too good at humiliating yourself. You're welcome, by the way."
"I — I didn't need your help!" Malfoy's pale face was a little less pale than usual.
"Well, next time he'll just let you fall and break your neck, shall he?" Ronnie snapped at him. (She was aware that she was probably exaggerating a little; Hundreds of Quidditch players had fallen down onto that pitch over the years and none of them had ever suffered any worse than a broken wrist or a sprained ankle — but Malfoy's ingratitude was enough to make anyone lose their patience.)
"Sod off, Beanstalk!" Malfoy snarled back. "Should have known Potter would just hide behind his girlfriend instead of —" But this was all he had time to say, because now he was pushed aside by the rest of the Gryffindor team and other Gryffindors, and everything drowned in cheers and congratulations, and Wood looked so happy he was close to tears, and Ronnie and the others ran from the stands to congratulate Harry on winning his first Quidditch match, and even Ginny forgot her shyness for a moment and gave him a victory hug...
From the corner of her eye, Ronnie saw Malfoy being pulled off by a rather livid Marcus Flint, who no doubt had a few choice things to say to Seekers who missed the appearance of the Snitch because they were too busy taunting their opponent.
It was hard not to feel a little gleeful at that.
And with the first Quidditch match of the season out of the way, Potter's Gang could turn their attentions back to the mystery at hand, and of course to the task of mastering the Animal Talk Charm. Which proved to be rather more difficult than it sounded, as this was a surprisingly advanced charm, of the kind they might learn in their third or even fourth year. Even Hermione wasn't getting it straight away.
And so days passed, frustratingly turning into weeks, as they tried to get enough time in between their studies to get in the Animal Talk Charm. Now that they were second-years, the magic they learned was a little more advanced, but the Animal Talk Charm was clearly more complex than they were used to - at the moment, the most advanced magic that they learned in Charms were Fire-Making Charms and Freezing Charms. Pretty basic stuff, even if it was cool when Harry managed to shoot a jet of flames out of his wand and almost singed Professor Flitwick's hair.
It didn't help with the Animal Talk charm, though, and after two weeks of constant trial and error, Ronnie was about to tear her hear out in frustration. Crookshanks, thankfully, was very cooperative; he seemed to be as eager to talk to her as she was to him. But the charm just wasn't coming along. Ronnie might have blamed her second-hand wand, which was old and worn and even had its unicorn hair poke out of the tip (she loved Charlie, but she hated inheriting his things; he was notoriously careless with them), but even Hermione with her superior wand and superior knowledge seemed to be struggling.
Finally, Ronnie was so fed up that Ginny suggested to try another route.
Moaning Myrtle's bathroom had always been on Ronnie's Top Five list for Least Favourite Places at Hogwarts, only narrowly beaten by the Potions classroom during one of Snape's lessons. In this, most other girls at Hogwarts agreed — for decades now, Myrtle had been making this particular bathroom the most dreaded one in the school, a bathroom no sane girl would ever use unless she was in a really desperate need, because trying to go to the loo with that obnoxiously self-pitying howl in your ears was just awful.
And after the Petrification of the other ghosts, the bathroom had got even worse and was now listed as 'permanently out of order.' Pretty much everyone had given up trying to even go near the damn place, because Myrtle would begin howling and flood her toilet the moment someone entered.
Still, needs must. And so, one afternoon while the boys were working on their Transfiguration essays, Ginny had managed to talk Ronnie and Hermione into joining her in a little excursion to The Dreaded Bathroom.
"I doubt this is going to do much good," said Hermione as they approached the bathroom. "You don't know Myrtle like we do, Ginny. If she has decided not to talk, then nobody can make her. If even Professor Dumbledore couldn't get her to talk, what chance do we have?"
"Oh, you're much too fond of saying something can't be done," said Ginny reproachfully.
"I'm just trying to be realistic."
"A quitter, you mean."
"It's worth a try," said Ronnie, stepping up to the bathroom door and reaching for the doorhandle. "C'mon, maybe she's in a good mood... or at least a better mood. Even Myrtle couldn't keep a tantrum going for weeks —"
"OH, COULDN'T SHE?!" The door flew open before Ronnie could so much as touch the handle, and the pale, silvery-white form of Moaning Myrtle was hovering in front of them. She looked even more haggard and upset than normal; her round spectacles skewed on her nose and her cheeks streaky with ghost-tears.
"Er — hi, Myrtle!" Ronnie heard how her voice had turned into an embarrassing squeak. "Good to see you — er — up and about —"
"Come to laugh at me, have you?!" Myrtle screeched, swooping around the three girls. "Come to gloat at poor Myrtle in her misery! Don't lie, I know you have!"
"Of course not!" said Hermione, and glanced at Ginny with a vague hint of 'I-told-you-so' in her eyes. "We just wanted to talk to you!"
"Nobody wants to talk to me!" Myrtle howled.
"We do!" said Ginny, smiling her most charming smile — the same kind of smile that Ronnie never quite managed but Ginny had mastered since she was three years old and wanted to throw off Mum's suspicions over things like the breaking of a favourite dinner plate or the vanishing of a bowl of cream from the kitchen. "We just thought, with almost all the other ghosts Petrified, it must be awfully lonely for you."
Myrtle sniffed, but her voice was notably softer when she answered: "The other ghosts didn't like me either. Nobody ever liked me, not when I was alive and not when I'm dead." She crossed her arms and glowered. "And now, suddenly everyone wants to be so friendly with me. As if I couldn't see right through them! Plee-e-ease, Myrtle!" she mocked, twisting her face into the most unconvincing smile Ronnie had ever seen and turning her voice sugary sweet. "Dear, sweet, kind Myrtle, we just want to ta-a-alk! We're just wo-o-oorried about you! You must be so lonely, and we just want to interrogate you a ti-i-iny little bit! Be a good girl, Myrtle, and tell us about the Petrifica-a-ations!"
"We didn't —" Ginny began.
But Myrtle was working herself back up to a frenzy. "You must know something about it, Myrtle!" she sneered. "Tell us, Myrtle! We're such good friends, aren't we?! That's why we only come to talk to you when we wa-a-ant something from you! It's just like last time! Everyone wanted to talk, everyone wanted to pry! Nobody ever cared about me, and how I felt. No, they were just interested in what I could tell them! Well, I don't know anything about those stupid Petrifications, and I don't care! So why don't you just —"
"We just wanted to ask you how long you've been haunting this bathroom!" said Ginny.
"Oh." Myrtle stopped mid-mocking rant. She actually looked vaguely flattered at the question, peering at Ginny with something that might, in the right light, pass for friendliness. "I don't know. Forty years? Fifty years? Time doesn't really have much meaning for me anymore..." she sighed dramatically. "What year is it, anyway?"
Ronnie, Hermione and Ginny exchanged glances. "It's 1992," said Hermione. "It was Nearly Headless's Nick's five hundredth deathday, you remember, you were at his party..."
"Oh. Right. That means it'll be fifty years exactly, next June..." Myrtle's expression turned sour. "Some ghosts get big parties. Next year, it's going to be my fiftieth deathday, and d'you think anyone's going to remember? Or care? Hah! The only reason I was even at Nick's stupid party was because everyone else was going! Nobody wanted me there! The only one who even talked to me was Peeves, and he only wanted to be nasty!"
"We're very sorry, Myrtle," said Ginny, and managed to look like she genuinely meant it. "What did he say?"
"Oh, he said such awful things," said Myrtle. "I don't even want to repeat them! Pah, he's not even a real ghost, and he's mean to everybody, and he gets to stay in the dungeon with the others!" Her voice turned to a growl. "And now they're all having the time of their deaths down there, all Petrified and solid and all together! Everyone's there, but not Myrtle! No! Why'd anyone want fat old Myrtle to make things worse?!"
"Well, you know Binns isn't in the dungeon—" Ronnie began, but was cut off as Ginny elbowed her in the ribs.
"Binns!" Myrtle scoffed. "It's all right for Binns! As long as he can bore students to death with his stupid lectures, he doesn't care about anyone else! He certainly doesn't care about me! He hasn't stopped by even once to see how I'm doing! He probably doesn't even remember that I exist!"
(Ronnie had to admit that Myrtle had a point. Other than a few moments of grumbling, Binns seemed completely unaffected by the entire ordeal. He kept floating back and forth between his office and the History of Magic classroom as he always had, and the lessons hadn't changed one bit. Given how he never seemed to know who the students were, or notice if anyone was absent, it was perfectly plausible that he plain didn't remember about Myrtle.)
"The nerve of him!" said Ginny, mimicking Myrtle's tone. "The nerve of them all!"
"Excactly!" said Myrtle hotly. Then she narrowed her eyes and looked suspiciously at Ginny. "Are you making fun of me?"
"I would never!" Ginny hurried to say. "I was just saying that people should be more considerate of you!"
"They should," Myrtle agreed, though the suspicious look didn't quite fade.
"Right!" said Ginny. "So I was thinking, wouldn't it just show them how terrible they've been to you, if you were the one who solved the mystery of the Petrifications? I bet they'd all be very sorry then."
"They would, wouldn't they..." Myrtle murmured. But then, all of a sudden, she jerked and rose a little higher up in the air with a look of utter fury on her face. "Why, you... you BITCH!" she screeched, moving forward to yell in Ginny's face. "YOU MANIPULATIVE LITTLE BITCH! Trying to trick me, are you? Pour on the fake sympathy, and fool stupid Myrtle into doing anything you want! IS THAT IT?!"
"Don't you talk to my sister that way!" Ronnie snapped.
Myrtle screamed in rage and then flew straight through Ronnie. And Ronnie couldn't help but let out a loud yelp at the sudden icy sensation of having the ghost pass through her; it was almost exactly like being hit with a bucket of ice water. It wasn't an unfamiliar sensation; though the Hogwarts ghosts were usually considerate enough to at least try to avoid going through the students accidents did happen — and right now Myrtle was much too angry to be considerate. Similar high-pitched squeals from Ginny and Hermione revealed that she'd just flown straight through them as well.
"GO AWAY!" she screamed, swooping around in the air and turning to fly straight through them again. "GO AWAY, GO AWAAAAAAY!"
"We're going, we're going!" Hermione took the lead. She grabbed both Ginny and Ronnie by the hands and began dragging them off down the corridor. They quickly began to run with her; Even Ginny didn't argue after the unpleasant icy situation of Myrtle.
"If you ever talk to me again," Myrtle screamed after them, "I'll drench you so hard with toilet water that you won't dry out for a week!"
"I think," Ginny panted as she ran, "that we're better off with the Animal Talk Charm anyway!"
"I told you," said Hermione. "Unless anyone wants to try talking to Binns?"
"No!" Ronnie and Ginny chorused.
November was coming to an end, and the weather was getting chilly, with the promise of snow to come pretty soon. Already it was getting so that walking through the corridors to class was a cold affair, especially in the mornings. It was a time for winter cloaks, woolen stockings, thick underwear, and desperate wishes that someone would invent some kind of spell or charm to make clothes warmer without risking setting them on fire.
Luckily, some of the rooms weren't so cold. The Gryffindor common room was as nice and toasty as ever, and the fires in the fireplaces were never allowed to die down. A few of the classrooms had fires as well, and generally the temperature was at least all right during lessons, even if the teachers did advise the students to dress warmly.
Surprisingly, even the Potions classroom had a fire going these days - back in the days of Snape it had always been cold, and students had often speculated on why Snape was so opposed to warmth; theories had ranged from "it's to keep the potion ingredients fresh" to "he just likes to torture us during winter." But these days, the temperature was actually tolerable. Nicolas Flamel, who had on occasion been heard complaining loudly about the British weather, had apparently insisted that his classroom at least be warm enough for him to speak without his teeth chattering. This made Potions a lot less cold and more bearable than in the old days, and Flamel's popularity with the students rose considerably for it.
Only Draco Malfoy still scowled at Flamel; he'd been in a foul mood ever since his loss at the Quidditch match, and he hadn't forgotten Flamel's speech about the Muggles being more important than wizards, which he still hadn't managed to disprove to Flamel's satisfaction.
Ronnie was still certain that he had something to do with the Petrifications, and if not him then definitely his family did.
There hadn't been any progress when it came to finding alternate ways of reviving the Petrified Lavender or the ghosts. The Mandrakes were maturing slowly, and it had proved almost impossible to get already-matured Mandrakes from elsewhere.
Though at least Neville's gloomier predictions didn't seem to be coming to fruition any time soon; there were no more Petrifications and Dobby remained absent. (Hopefully he hadn't got into too much trouble with the Malfoys; with any luck they hadn't even noticed that he'd been gone.)
But Ronnie was certain the time of peace wouldn't last. She still had no idea what it was Dobby had been alluding to that was worse than the Petrifications, but the way he had been talking it was probably just a matter of time before they happened.
Which was why — or at least one of the reasons why — she, one day late in November, found herself in an empty (and thankfully not too cold) classroom together with Crookshanks.
"Okay," she said, looking down at her cat and holding up her wand to point at herself. "Let's try again. Wand ready, movements clear, eye contact... swipe and point, and... Animaloqui!"
Her heart leapt as for the first time she could swear there was a brief shimmer in the air, and the tip of her wand briefly lit up in a bright purple colour before it faded. This time — this time, it must have worked. She didn't feel any different, but something must have happened, right?
She took a deep breath, opening and closing her eyes. "All right, Crookshanks," she said. Her voice sounded like normal too, but maybe when you were under the Charm, cat language sounded like English. "Say something."
"Mrrrrow," said Crookshanks conversationally.
Just one of his normal, chatty meows, completely devoid of any meaning that Ronnie could work out.
She sighed and lowered her wand in disappointment. "Didn't work." The fifth time in a row, and she still couldn't get this damn charm right. "This is bloody hard. But we're not giving up, are we, Crookshanks? Maybe if I make the swipe a little more arched..."
Before she could try this, though, the door opened and Harry peeked in.
"There you are," he said. "I was looking for you. Not as easy to locate someone on the Marauder's Map as you'd think." He closed the door behind himself and stepped closer. "What are you doing here, all alone in an empty classroom?"
"I'm not alone," said Ronnie, motioning to Crookshanks, who was peering curiously at Harry. "But since you ask: Hermione's in the library, of course, Neville went to the greenhouses with Professor Sprout to look at some interesting plants, Ginny and Colin are doing homework, and you were off with the others at Quidditch practice. So I thought I'd get some practice time in on talking to the animals."
"And you didn't ask Hermione along so she'd be here to cast the Counter-Spell?" said Harry. "You realise that if you did manage to put yourself under the Animal Talk Charm, you'd be going around meowing until someone could counter the charm, right?"
"Yeah, but..." Ronnie looked down and comforted herself a little by scratching Crookshanks behind the ears. "It's silly, but... I want to do it alone. Or at least I don't want Hermione to be around."
"What?" Harry's green eyes widened behind his glasses. "Why not? You two aren't fighting or anything, are you?"
"No! Nothing like that!" Ronnie felt herself go pink again. "It's just — c'mon, Harry, we know Hermione would learn the Charm long before I do. Surprised she hasn't already, in fact..." She let her voice trail off, not really wanting to say the rest.
But Harry understood. "And you want to be the first to get it."
Ronnie nodded, painfully aware that she was still blushing. "Animals is my thing! Just like flying is yours, and plants is Neville's, and asking weird questions is Colin's, and being the best at everything else is Hermione's..."
"She's not the best at everything, you know," said Harry.
"I know, but she's good at so many things, I just wanted... and Crookshanks is my cat..." Ronnie sighed. "Never mind. Why were you looking for me?"
Harry motioned for her to sit down by one of the desks, before he took a seat next to her (and Crookshanks jumped up onto the desk to be scratched some more).
"Well, two things, really," he said. "I don't really know which to begin with... Oh, here." He rummaged in his pocket and and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper — not parchment — and held it out for her to take.
Ronnie reluctantly stopped petting Crookshanks to grab the paper and folded it out. At once, she saw a handwriting she recognised. "Oh," she said. "You got another letter from that Lupin bloke!"
Harry nodded, and to Crookshanks's obvious satisfaction, took over her cat-petting duties while her hands were occupied. "Read it."
Dear Harry, (she read)
Once again, thank you for your letter, and of course I'm happy to send you the picture you asked for. I've found a picture of the four of us from the Summer of 1975, just before our sixth year at Hogwarts. (You can probably guess which one of us is James. I'm the one with the pale face and the light brown hair.)
We were all staying at James's house for a few days and, as I recall, making all sorts of plans for the upcoming school year. Some of those plans, of course, never became reality, while others did.
One of our more bizarre plans, or at least I think of it as bizarre now, did end up becoming reality. This was our attempt at mapping the entirety of Hogwarts and its grounds. A hopeless task, you might think, with all the secret passages and hidden rooms around the school, but we were quite good at exploring and were certain that we could manage to locate, if not all the hidden rooms and corridors then at least the vast majority of them. The biggest problem we faced was the tendency of many rooms, stairways and corridors to shift and change locations; any map of these areas would quickly become useless because the rooms would have changed places before long.
It was James who found the solution; to create a map that changed along with the school and kept track of everything that moved. This also had the added bonus, or possibly the added complication, of keeping track of all the people of the castle.
With all the effort we put in to the finished map, I like to think that it ended up as one of the most accurate maps ever to depict Hogwarts. Sadly, it was confiscated by the caretaker, Mr. Filch (is he still at school, by the way?), in our seventh year and has probably long since been destroyed.
She looked up from the letter, blinking. "A map that keeps track of everything that moves in the school?! And was confiscated?! Bloody hell, Harry! That's —"
"— The Marauder's Map," Harry nodded, pulling the Map out of his pocket as well. "It has to be. Lupin was wrong. Filch didn't destroy it, he just locked it up. And years later, Fred and George got their hands on it."
Ronnie looked at the currently-blank parchment in Harry's hand with a renewed sense of awe. "So your Dad made that Map."
"And the Marauders," said Harry, "were my Dad and his friends. Hagrid told me that they were a gang, like us, and they had a name for themselves. He couldn't remember what the name was, except that it was a funny word that started with an M. Marauders!"
"And Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs must've been their nicknames," said Ronnie, gulping. "But Harry, that means Wormtail must be —"
"—Sirius Black!" said Harry. "Has to be him. He and Lupin are the only ones left alive, and if it was Lupin, he'd have stopped by to say hello, wouldn't he? We were already writing to each other!"
"But," Ronnie protested. Something wasn't quite right. "Black's in Azkaban, for life. And nobody's ever escaped from Azkaban. Bet you anything that if they had, it'd be all over the news."
"Do we know he's in Azkaban?" said Harry. "Maybe he managed to trick his way out of it somehow and has been hiding for all these years!"
"And started buggering Lockhart?" Ronnie made a grimace. "Think I'd prefer Azkaban to that." She bit her lip and thought about it for a few moments. "I dunno, Harry, there's something we're not seeing here. And I still say Malfoy's involved somehow. There's something missing, some detail that'd make sense of all of this...!" But then a thought struck her. "Look, you have the picture, right? Can I see it?"
Harry fished yet another thing up from his pocket to hand to her — this time it was a photograph. The colours of it had faded slightly, but it was clearly depicting four smiling, laughing teenage boys, all standing next to one another.
It was easy enough to see which one was James Potter. He looked almost exactly like an older Harry; his hair was a little longer and messier, and every so often he'd run his hand over it to rumple it up more, as if he was afraid he'd look too neat and tidy.
The boy with the pale face and the light brown hair, then, had to be Lupin; he looked a little tired for some reason, but his smile was just as wide as the others', and his eyes twinkled with the same mischief.
The two other boys — well, one was tall, dark-haired and good-looking, and seemed like he couldn't stand still for more than a few seconds at the time, and the other one... there was absolutely no doubt of it. He was a good deal younger and much more cheerful than the thin-haired and twitchy man she'd seen in Lockhart's office, but that small and chubby frame was much the same. He was certainly the goofiest-looking of the boys, and kept casting admiring glances at them all.
"Yeah," she said. "That's Wormtail, all right."
"I knew it!"
"Hold on. Something's not right." Ronnie frowned. Okay, both Sirius Black and Wormtail was in this picture. That much was clear. But were Sirius Black and Wormtail the same person? Could Wormtail, in fact, be Remus Lupin, who had lied about his appearance? They hadn't actually seen Lupin before. Ronnie had no idea why he'd lie about what he looked like, or why he'd come and shag Lockhart, but people did weird things some times. Or, maybe it could be that... No. Peter was dead. She knew Peter was dead. But hadn't Neville thought he'd seen someone who might have been named Peter on the Marauder's Map?
It didn't add up. She had to find out.
Clearing her throat in as authoritive a way as she could, she poked the picture with a firm finger. "Oy," she said. "Which one of you is Sirius Black?"
The boys in the picture all looked up at her. Then, with frantic movements and mischievous grins, they all began pointing at themselves, mouthing "Me! Me!" They nudged and bumped against one another, and a cheerful argument about which one of them was Sirius Black seemed to be breaking out.
"And," said Ronnie, feeling her heart sink a little, "which one's Wormtail?"
All the boys began pointing at each other and mouthing "Him! Him!" — and looked like they were about to die laughing when Ronnie groaned.
"And which one," she said, not even bothering to keep the tone of annoyance out of her voice. "is just wasting her bloody time with this?"
As one, the boys all pointed towards Ronnie and mouthed "You! You!"
She thrust the picture back at Harry, who to his credit didn't share in the Marauders' silent laughter.
"Doesn't seem like they took anything very seriously, does it?" he commented.
"All right," she said, clenching her fists and unclenching them again. "There's more than one way to find out! Let's go show the picture to someone who knew them — Hagrid, let's show it to Hagrid! He can say which one's Sirius Black!"
"I still say Wormtail and Black is the same person," said Harry. "But showing the picture to Hagrid isn't a bad idea, let's do that. He's always talking about how much he liked my father and his friends; if anyone can tell us which is which here, it'll be him." He slid the picture back into his pocket and grew solemn. "Ronnie, if it is Sirius Black hiding out at Hogwarts, and he's an escaped murderer, then we have to tell Dumbledore."
"I know," said Ronnie. Then, she remembered something. "What was the other thing, by the way?"
"What?"
"You said there were two things you wanted to talk to me about. What was the other thing?"
"Oh, yeah." Harry grimaced. "You know, never mind about that other thing right now. I'll tell you about it later."
Ronnie frowned. In her experience, whenever someone said they would tell you something later, they ended up never telling you at all. But, she thought, if it was something important, he'd probably have told her already. So in the end, she just sighed and said: "All right, but I'm gonna hold you to that, so don't you go hoping I'll forget!"
She looked over at Crookshanks, who had been sitting on the desk the entire time and watching them with the traditional curious interest of cats everywhere. "And you help me remind him if necessary, okay?"
"Meow, meow."
"Thank you."
Despite himself, Harry laughed. "Almost think you'd mastered that charm already."
"Oh, he understands what we're saying, don't you, Crookshanks?" Ronnie said, stroking her cat fondly and being rewarded with a loud, rumbling purr. "He's ruddy smart. Sometimes I almost understand what he's trying to say too, but we're not at storytelling levels yet. I need the Charm for that."
"You'll get it," said Harry encouragingly. "In the meantime, want to come with me to Hagrid's? He's usually home at this time of day."
TO BE CONTINUED...
Author's Notes: All right, so I wrote another Quidditch scene. Without any rogue Bludgers at that. Don't get too used to them, though.
Animaloqui is my invention. I'm usually very careful about inventing new spells for Harry Potter fics; usually I will only do it if:
1: There is a legitimate reason for the spell to be in the story, and for the characters to learn/use it.
2: It's not a Deus Ex Machina that solves everything.
3: I think the spell would fit relatively painlessly in with the canon spells.
4: There isn't a canon spell that would have approximately the same effect.
5: The existence of the new spell doesn't create some kind of plot hole in canon (like, "if there was a spell for safely locating Horcruxes all along, why didn't Dumbledore use it?").
6: Its effects make for fun writing and hopefully fun reading.
Animaloqui, I think, fulfils all these criteria. There weren't many canon situations where it would even have come in use (with the possible exception of the Crookshanks/Scabbers situation in Prisoner of Azkaban, but there neither Ron nor Hermione had any reason to want to talk to the cat). It'll be useful, but could also potentially be a problem, which should lessen its Deus Ex Machina potential. And I've had commenters wanting to see Crookshanks talk, so hopefully there'll be enough fun.
There were almost two non-canon spells in this chapter; at first I referred a Warming Charm in the segments about the cold corridor... But then I read up and checked the canon... And it seems like the Warming Charm doesn't actually exist in canon. There's a Hot-Air Charm and some fire spells, but no Warming Charm. I could have included the Warming Charm anyway; I doubt people would comment... But then I thought it'd be funnier if there wasn't a Warming Charm and that segment was about students wishing that one existed instead.
Otherwise, did you notice the two inside-jokey HP movie references I slipped into the library scene?
Ronnie's slip-of-the-tongue moment where she wrongly identifies Ravenclaw's mascot as a raven instead of an eagle, is of course a reference to how the movies changed Ravenclaw's symbol into a raven. And Ginny's insistence that she'd be a horse Animagus references the Order of the Phoenix movie, where her Patronus is, yes, a horse.