Chapter Eleven

Security Measures

Drew sat at his desk, judging colour and thickness on small sample bottles of the potion his fifth-year class had been brewing. The sludgy, gray mess in the bottle in his hand was going to receive fairly poor marks. This particular potion should be reddish-purple, not gray, not to mention more like thick broth than freshly mixed cement. He wondered for a moment if the student had somehow managed to create cement out of potions ingredients, then remember that it was only necessary to add the faery blood too early to acheive this unappetizing result. A mistake easily made, but since this potion was meant to slow bleeding and the mistake would probably end with the victim bleeding out all the faster, the hapless student would receive a very poor mark indeed.

There was a scratching at his window, and he looked up with his heart in his throat. An owl raised its leg and clawed at the window again. He tried to calm down, berating himself for getting so unnerved. Just because he hadn't received a message by owl for so long . . . He went and opened the window, allowing the muddy brown bird inside. The creature looked bedraggled and exhausted. He took the note and fed the owl the remains of a mouse from a pile he'd been taking the ears and tails from. It gave him a feeble hoot of thanks, and made no move to leave, digging into the tiny carcass right there on the window ledge. Taking pity on the thing, he shrugged and closed the window. He'd take it up to the Owlery later.

He unrolled the paper, and was surprised enough by the signature on the bottom that it took him a moment to start reading. It was a message from Tuck. He took the note back to his desk and sat down while he read. Tuck was dubious about the idea of using an owl to send a letter, but Pauley said it would work. Tuck was a bit skeptical about Pauley's relative experience and skill in this whole wizarding business to begin with, but he did hope Drew would get the damn thing. The point was this: someone had been digging into Drew's falsified background again. Somebody there in America. He'd set up something on the computer (Drew was completely useless with such things, and didn't bother trying to read the explanation of what he'd done, only the result) to track if anybody else tried to get into Peter Putnam's medical records. Someone had done so, and tracing the IP address (Drew was smart enough to imagine that it was some kind of computer address for finding where a computer lived) led him just over the border, in Canada. Tuck warned him to be careful, wished him well, and added a postscript from Bonnie asking when she'd see him again. That made him smile. Tuck and Lisa's daughter was nine and found him interesting and exciting in that mysterious, dangerous way that it seemed girls of all ages were infected with. Scars often did what his looks and charm used to, back when he had them. Not that he took advantage of it all that often, but he thought Bonnie was an adorable child and held a certain amount of affection for her.

Drew set the letter aside and thought. It didn't take him too long to reach the conclusion. Harry Potter had set one of his friends to work. Likely Drew's cousin Nymphadora, he'd heard she was in Canada, married to that werewolf. Drew was uneasy about it, but only slightly. His cousin would have had a Muggle check it for her, and all the information she'd be able to turn up would fit with his story. Even better, living there and having firsthand experience, she would confirm that there were indeed special operations teams sent by American wizarding government to help out their northern neighbors a few years ago. That part of the story, while not strictly his, was true enough. He'd heard about it from a young wizard in the same long-term physical therapy clinic Drew visited during his first months in New York. He thought he'd be safe enough, unless Nymphadora went so far as to visit that school and look for pictures of the real Peter Putnam to compare with a picture of Drew—which didn't exist, he wouldn't allow any photographs of him as he was now, and which his cousin wasn't likely to do, anyway. No, he'd be all right.

He got up and gave the owl another mouse to munch on, stroking its head a bit and murmuring sympathetically about having to travel so far, then went back to inspecting the potion samples. Only four more to do, then to check on his Gryffindors before bed. He wanted everybody well-rested. Their first Quidditch match was tomorrow, and his team had been walking around very keyed-up for at least three days. It was starting to make everyone tense. Quidditch was fun, but it was a lot of work, too. Roman Vestrit was probably scouring the school for his teammates and herding them off to bed right now.

Gregory Kilburne stuck his head into the room after a perfunctory knock. "Drew."

"Greg."

"Have you seen Smith tonight?"

"Ah, yes, I did. He was in a meeting with McGonagall."

Greg rolled his eyes, leaning against the doorway with a certain lazy confidence. It was in moments like this that Drew thought it was a bad idea to have twenty-year-old professors. Of course, most of the time, Greg had a reserved sense of maturity that made him seem much older, but he usually dropped it around Drew, who was really not so much older than he. Not that he shared this ease with Zacharias, whom he quietly and privately disliked without letting any of the students see it. It all went back to some kind of conflict in the classroom when Smith had taken over the Defense position, while Greg was still in school.

"You'd think," Greg said with a hint of impatience, "that if he was going to have a meeting about security tomorrow, he'd want to have the other professors in on it."

Drew smiled absentmindedly, squinting at a new bottle of potion. He couldn't tell if this was had enough purple in it, and therefore enough flytrap juice. "Working things out and then informing everyone what they're to do is more his style," he said, not caring much. Smith was Smith, and he was going to be referee tomorrow instead of perimeter guard, anyway. "He's Deputy Headmaster, after all."

Greg nodded unhappily. "And don't you forget it," he said dryly.

Drew was not about to just listen to Greg feel sorry for himself. Greg was usually an interesting and pleasant enough person. Besides, as much as he'd managed to live with having only one eye, it was getting dark in here and he could use the second opinion.

"Here, take a look at this. Do you think it's purple enough?"

---Break---

Matt and Basil regarded each other for a moment when they met at breakfast, before exchanging greetings with their usual ease. Still, they sat at their own house tables this morning. Normally one of the two of them would drift over to sit with the other's house, but not today. Today, the houses were inviolate. Today, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw were kicking off the Quidditch season. It was a nice, warm day, too, though clouds gathering on the horizon promised rain by the time the match began. Neither of them could feel quite comfortable with the other's team today.

Matt found himself grumpily missing his best friend's company as he ate and tried to keep Bear calm. Basil's good humour always made Bear cheerful, but today she was as surly and growly as . . . well, as a bear. Kerry didn't suffer from that problem. In fact, the problem he was suffering from made Matt want to punch him. He was swaggering around and mouthing off about how well he'd do. Everyone knew that Oliver Wood played on a very minor Quidditch team, but Kerry seemed to think he'd inherited the kind of talent from his father that would have him on the national team before he was out of school.

Matt looked over at the Ravenclaw table and found Basil and Milton looking over the morning paper with serious expressions. Matt guessed it had to do with that Dark wizard his Dad couldn't seem to find. He'd killed two people, and another young man from a Dark family had gone missing, Dad thought probably to join Thomas Tyrell. Things were looking serious. Even Hogwarts was experiencing some of the repercussions. Headmistress McGonagall had decreed that students were not to leave their House common rooms after seven o'clock and they could not venture beyond the greenhouses without being accompanied by a teacher. Basil looked over his shoulder at him and caught his eye. Milton nudged him and nodded to the slightly hostile Ravenclaw students who were discussing loudly the possible outcomes of today's match—all of which scenarios seemed to end with Seeker Adam Han overcoming the rather superior skills of Roman Vestrit and grabbing the Snitch right from under his nose to end the game dashingly and by a large margin. Basil rolled his eyes. He and Matt turned back to their breakfasts, decided with perfect innocence that they were through at the same moment, and left their respective tables simultaneously—by mere coincidence, of course.

They met up just outside the Great Hall. Basil was carrying his newspaper.

"They're mad, all of them," he said cheerfully, then held up his paper with a slightly more sober expression. "Have you seen—"

"Yeah, I did," Matt answered before he'd finished asking.

Milton caught them up just then, not much wanting to stay at the table without Basil's company. Most of his fellow students regarded him with pity and a grudging amount of respect for his efforts, without the added benefit of actual friendship. Being so magically untalented had many downsides, no matter how hard Milt worked to get past them. He raised his eyebrows quizzically at Matt.

"My dad's worried," Matt went on. "This Tyrell guy is very good at staying hidden, I guess. He wrote to me about it yesterday. Because he's asked my Uncle Remus and Aunt Tonks to come back here to help. He mostly wants them to keep an eye on us, he said, but he said not to be too worried about it for now. There's tons of adults here to keep us safe, and not much at Hogwarts that Tyrell could want anyway."

"Why would he want anything at Hogwarts?" Milt asked. "I mean, it's just a school."

Matt shrugged. "Dad didn't say."

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Basil said, tossing out the paper as they passed by a bin on their way outside. "According the Prophet, Tyrell is interested in Voldemort."

"So?"

"So he went to school here. And there's people at Hogwarts that were involved in the war, who might know something about him, the Headmistress and Professor Smith, and Hagrid, maybe Professor Flitwick. If Tyrell came here, he'd want information. Sounds like your dad would just as soon he not get any."

Matt nodded. "That makes sense."

"Still," Milt added, "if he was going to go anywhere for information, it would probably be your dad, Matt. I mean, he probably knows a lot more than anyone else."

Matt frowned, suddenly feeling a little sick. "Oh. I didn't think of that. What if he . . ."

Milt looked upset for saying anything. "I don't wish anything bad on your family, really. Your mother was great to me when she was getting me out of trouble for Mr. Keaton's dog. But it makes sense."

"Yeah, but he wouldn't do that," Basil objected, nudging Matt with an elbow. "Come on. Who would try to go after Harry Potter, the man who killed Lord Voldemort? They'd have to be completely off their rocker."

Matt smiled weakly. "Yeah. A real nutter."

None of them mentioned the fact that Thomas Tyrell was mad as a hatter and homicidal to boot. Harry Potter might be a good wizard and more than commonly experienced in fighting Dark magic, but a boy couldn't help worrying about his dad.

--Break---

No insane Dark wizards showed up during the Quidditch match, and the rainclouds were even polite enough to hold off. Ravenclaw's Chasers were better than Gryffindor's, but Kerry and Bear held their own admirably against Jarvis and Mann, who were best friends and fourth years with two years of experience as Beaters for Ravenclaw. Roman's quicker reflexes proved the deciding factor, however, and Han definitely did not take the Snitch out from under Roman's nose. Still, Ravenclaw only lost by seventy points, so it was a good game.

Matt, Basil, and Milt took a long and unnecessary route back to the school so they could talk about the match without being harassed by any sore losers among the Ravenclaws or poor winners among the Gryffindors. Basil and Milt conceded it as a deserved win in exchange for Matt admitting that Faith Forsythe was a better Chaser than the Gryffindor trio, even if Madeleine was more fun and even if Pierce and Lana were really evenly matched against Worthey and Lambert.

All in all, they were in good spirits as they stepped around a corner, feeling guilty for being so far from help should Tyrell by some remote chance actually show up here. Then they all three stopped dead and went silent, right after Milt blurted out, "Oh, Jesus Christ!"

They beat a hasty retreat back around the corner with the image of Morgan Mann shoving Douglas Jarvis up against a wall and trying to catch the taste of his larynx burned into their brains. The Ravenclaw Beaters did not notice them and carried on with what they were doing.

"What's Jesus Christ?" Basil asked in a rather breathless voice.

Milt stared at him for a minute, then smiled. "You mean I actually know something you don't for a change?"

"Yes," Basil said grumpily.

"My mum would kill me if she heard me say that," Milt admitted. "It's religious. Mum's always dragged me to church."

"Oh, church," Basil said, sounding more comfortable.

"What do you know about church?"

"My dad says some churches are a place of power, depending on the parishioners. Reminds me of what they always say about Dumbledore, actually. Belief in the power of love."

"Speaking of love," Matt said, grimacing.

They all three broke up into sort of giggling laughter.

"They'd probably be in trouble if anyone knew they were alone like that, so far from help," Matt said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, but can you imagine Professor Smith going to find them?" Basil laughed.

"I'll tell Professor Stevens," Matt shrugged. "He probably won't mind so much."