Chaptur the Tenthe
Anthony J Crowley swaggered into the courtroom with an easy grace that did not suit his borrowed form in any way. Meredith Cloade had never had any sense of style. He couldn't have touched it with a 40 ft bargepole, even if he'd wanted to. The demon found himself being surveyed by over 100 pairs of eyes and so thus attempted to decrease his speed and increase his swaggering, before eventfully arriving at The Chair. He flopped into it and swung himself around so that his long legs hung over one arm. He gazed at the opposite wall for a few seconds before glancing at the sea of faces staring down upon him. He waved a long, insect-like hand at them and said lazily, "Oh carry on, you lot. Don't mind me."
Silence thundered across the hall until a rather ashen-faced barrister coughed wheezily, expelling centuries-old dust onto Crowley's shoes.
"If you could tell us in your own words sir, where you were on the night the accused was alleged to have performed the Patronus Charm?"
Crowley blinked and seemed to ponder. "Well, I was on my way back from a WI meeting -"
"Hem hem. What is a WI meeting?" inquired a girlish voice from the front desk. Crowley goggled at her, and then at Fudge.
"Woah. My mum always said you can tell a person's trustworthiness from their size; so you two must be very honest people."
Fudge started to splutter as though he were an elderly Ford Prefect with a squeaky tire, whilst Umbridge mere glared down upon Crowley as if her were a particularly irksome mayfly.
Harry Potter, seated on a bench at the side of the hall, could detect a small flicker of a smile on Albus Dumbledore's mouth.
"WI is the Women's Insitute. Anyway, I was on my way back from there, and then I slipped on an icy patch." Crowley's borrowed tongue lied smoothly, enjoying the displeasure of the Minister and his Senior Undersecretary.
"An icy patch? In the middle of August?" Madam Bones, noticing the temporary incapacitation of her fellow interrogators, picked up the slack (although in both cases, neither Fudge nor Umbridge possessed all that much slack to pick up).
"I am given to understand that Dementors create an aura of ice around themselves as well as the nature of hopeless disparity1, despite the given temperature of any locality." Mr Slant muttered, before whirling around towards the lounging demon; his powdered wig spraying loose powder about him in a small undignified cloud. "Proceed, your honour."
"Well, I guess that's about it. I slipped on an icy patch, and after seeing these bloody great floating cloak things; the next thing I know I'm in the Downstairs Waiting Room." He suddenly realised he'd let slip and Told The Truth. In front of three Auditors of Reality, no less. He was by no means an entirely cowardly person, but he could feel the judging stares of the empty robes and the imaginary notes they would be sending back to Hell with all due speed.
"Waiting room?" Madam Bones chimed in. Crowley was feeling rattled. Most humans weren't usually this attentive to anything he had to say, unless it was a pick-up line.
"What waiting room?" Fudge hooted, trying his best to look imperious and domineering after his spate of fury, but instead merely achieved the effect of a rather overweight individual who had recently consumed a liquid lunch that had not only disagreed with him going down, but was now having a momentous argument with his bowels.
"That is not a relevant factor in my client's case, your worship. In accordance with Relevio Daetritius Maleficium, the jury is now required to cast a vote upon the innocence or guilt of the defendant." Mr Slant's wheezing monotone delivered from somewhere beyond Crowley's left ear.
"All those in favour of guilt, raise your hand." Madam Bones intoned.
Many witches and wizards of the Wizenagamot raised their hands, including Umbridge and the Minister. Fudge was looking more smug and self-satisfied with each passing second.
"All those in favour of innocence, raise your hand."
Harry Potter's heart suddenly leaped, as a forest of hands rose into the air. Some with confidence like Madam Bones, some with an air of trepidation. He attempted to count them, but he gave up, as he saw that at least just over half of them were raised.
Fudge looked as though he had just been struck in the face by a heavy object2. Umbridge continued to stare at Crowley with an intense cold anger.
(_)
In an anteroom, off the main body of the courtroom, stood a tall mahogany bookcase, which was being studied with great interest by the angel Aziraphale and an enormous adult male orang-utan. Three Auditors hovered patiently in single file, along one wall.
The door creaked open in the manner of a coffin lid, and Mr Slant lurched in, holding his casenotes. He glanced briefly towards the angel and the Auditors before directing his attention to the Librarian of Unseen University with a severe Look.
"Return me to Ankh-Morpork at once, whereupon I shall be forced to inform Commander Vimes of the City Watch, the Patrician, and the Archancellor of the University of my abduction."
The ape bared yellowing teeth and gave a defiant."Ook!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"He says that he shan't return you if you carry on in this manner." the angel chipped in, before withering under the chilling glare from the dead eyes.
"Very well. I shall call upon these Inspectors of the Universe-"
"-Auditors-" muttered Aziraphale.
"-and they shall return me. For a fee, I imagine."
The sum would be AM$5,000 in gold standard. The memories of speech whispered from the cowled translucent robes.
Mr Slant glared at them, straight into the empty space where eyes would be in the middle Auditor's hood. He opened his mouth to speak, but the robes beat him to it.
The laws of nature require that one cannot gain something for nothing. A conversion of mass must be initiated. From your bank account. There was the faintest hint of malicious glee in the voices of the Auditors.
"Very well." although the zombie always felt weak at the knees, he was feeling particular feeble today. He straightened himself as best as he was able, and turned once more to the Librarian, and sternly stated: "I shall inform the Archancellor of the University of your gross misconduct and, after considering your further non-cooperation, will instruct him to transform you back into your human state3, Dr Horace -"
"Eeek! Ook ook! Ooooooook!" The Librarian began jumping up and down frantically, and pounded the floor with his fists.
Slant needed no translation this time. "If you return me now, I shall say no more about it." he paused for a moment. "..Although if you do not fix me a portal to the Old Bailey so I can take a holiday to this...most interesting place whenever the fancy takes hold of me...I shall send a most strongly-worded note to Mustrum literally post-haste. I think I should rather enjoy doing an alternative form of legal battle in this world as an occasional treat."
After a glance at the Auditors and shaking Aziraphale by the hand, the zombie lurched into the L-Space portal in the bookcase created by the Librarian who was leading him rather grumpily, muttering dire "oooook"s under his breath.
(_)
Some days later, after September had arrived, bringing with it the first slight chills of Autumn, a black 1926 Bentley sped past King's Cross Station at a far greater speed than was officially allowed in London. Inside it it, and grinning at finally being rid of that accursed disguise as Meredith Cloade once and for all, Anthony J Crowley hummed to himself as the Bentley whooshed through a large puddle. Whether by coincidence or whether someone Up Above or Down Below has a sense of Fun4 Aziraphale had himself been walking along the pavement through the grey September morning, and had reached the puddle at exactly the same moment the demon had.
He clambered up the steps, dragging his wheeled suitcase behind him, sopping wet and muttering to himself. He fished a now soggy note out of a damp knee-length donkey jacket-esque overcoat and read the instructions. Apparently to get to this platform 9 ¾ he had to step through the barrier between platforms 9 and 10.
After buying himself a polystyrene cup of watery hot chocolate that contained the same amount of chocolate as a pound of Cheddar's finest, matured dairy produce, the angel steeled himself and stepped though the barrier...
(_)
Harry Potter could not help feeling a sense of loss. Although he was happy for his two best friends being given their prefect duties and the privileges forthwith, he had never travelled on the Hogwarts Express without them. After idly mooning about, trying to find an empty compartment, he stumbled into Ginny Weasley, Ron's younger sister in the year below Harry, and Harry's fellow classmate Neville Longbottom. Neville was clutching what appeared to be some form of hideous mutated cactus in one arm and his escapist toad, Trevor. Harry was of the opinion that Trevor really ought to be renamed Houdini, although h never said as much to his friend.
"I've looked, but every where's full." Neville complained as the train picked up speed, rushing past houses, turning them into a multi-coloured a blur.
"Oh look, there's space in this compartment." Ginny said, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
Harry caught her eye and they both grinned. In the compartment were seated two people, both by the window, on opposite seats. One was a girl about Ginny's age with waist-length dirty-blonde hair and seemed to be reading a magazine upside-down.
The other was a man who appeared to be in his late twenties, although it was difficult to tell because he had placed a white handkerchief over his face. He had blonde hair that had been arranged in a neat centre-parting, although had now tried to rebel against the style after the dousing earlier. He was dressed in a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, crisp white shirt and a deep ocean blue silk tie arranged in a double-Windsor knot, light grey trousers and well-worn yet highly-maintained brown leather shoes. On the luggage rack above his head was a rather modern-looking wheeled Muggle travelling case, and a neatly folded, and rather damp, donkey jacket overcoat.
On his lap sat, not a copy of The Daily Prophet, the wizarding world's leading newspaper, but a copy of one of the leading Muggle newspapers The Times. It was open on the page of the crossword5 and the man had evidently been filling it in before deciding that a snooze would be a better option. Harry thought that the man might have been an Oxford professor who had absent-mindedly boarded the wrong train. He snored peacefully, and the handkerchief rose and fell in a slow, rhythmic way.
Harry felt a sense of a deja-vu, and wondered if any Dementors would try to board the train again, two years after their last search.
After heaving his own trunk and his pet owl Hedwig's cage into the luggage rack next to the sleeping gentleman's, Harry aided Neville and Ginny into stowing their belonging beside the girl's, before settling down into a seat.
"Harry, Neville this is Loon- ahem, Luna, Lovegood." Ginny said briskly. The girl lowered her magazine and stared at everyone (except for the sleeping man) through rather wide eyes that matched the colour of the sleeping gentleman's tie.
"Hello Ginny. Did you have a good summer?" she asked in an ethereal and dreamlike Irish-tinted voice that seemed to be curiously detached from the rest of her.
"Yes thanks Luna. How was yours?"
"Oh it was fine. My dad took me down to the West Country and we went searching for Squerchmumblers on Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor. It was quite enjoyable."
Although Harry wasn't sure if he imagined it or not, the snoring man seemed to inhale his handkerchief slightly on the word " Squerchmumblers". Luna seemed to dreamily stare at Harry for a while as though studying him through a sheet of rippling water and said eventually, "You're Harry Potter. Who are you?" She asked suddenly asked Neville.
Neville, after squeaking slightly, mumbled something about not being anyone in particular.
Ginny formally introduced him and, after a quick game of exploding snap (which didn't appear wake up the gentleman at all) the sweet trolley came around.
"Anything from the trolley dears?" the kindly old woman said, her face and eyes twinkling merrily in a manner reminiscent of Mr Pickwick's. Her selection of assorted sweetmeats, chocolates, pumpkin pasties and sandwiches certainly looked inviting.
It was at this point the snoozing gentleman appeared to wake up. He swiped the handerchief off his face and peered out of the world through modern rectangular frameless Specsaver's free-on-the-NHS £75 spectacles. Harry realised his guess of age had been mostly correct, and the man did indeed appear to be in his late twenties, although at a second glance he almost seemed to be rather older, at the same time. His benign face and kindly azure eyes seemed to briefly fill the compartment with a sense of hope and happiness.
"Hmmm. Trolley yes, my good woman, yes. Food sounds like an excellent idea." Aziraphale murmured sleepily and lumbered over to the compartment door to see what was available. "Oh, I think I'll have.. a packet of the jelly beans and some chocolate frogs, and...what's that? Pumpkin pasty? It sounds most revolting but I may as well have a try."
The trolley witch seemed slightly affronted at her pasties being so bluntly labelled as "revolting" by a a rather posh-sounding customer who hadn't even tried one, but she rattled off the price with good grace. It didn't do to show oneself up in public by making a scene. "That will be 1 galleon please, sir."
"£5 madam for that little lot, are you mad? And I thought France was an expensive place... Oh very well, here you are." he fished out a £5 note from his battered leather wallet and handed it over in a manner ill-befitting the rank of angel. "Just take this to that Gringotts place and they'll give you a Galleon, whatever that is."
After once again sitting down, and opening his Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and offering them around and the long-overdue introductions had finally been made; Ron and Hermione entered the compartment some seven minutes after Aziraphale had once more buried himself behind The Times and Luna was once more studying her unusual magazine (upside-down).
"Can you believe who they've chosen as prefects for Slytherin?" Harry heard Hermione's voice say as he was swapping his Chocolate Frog card of Zombo the Effervescent (inventor of the grendlesnatch illuminator who mysteriously disappeared during a Muggle magic show when he was supposed to be making a flock of pigeons vanish) for Neville's Salacia Huxley (first known unofficial female Quidditch player in Great Britain). He looked up and saw her looking rather hot and bothered6.
"Well I'll bet you can guess that Malfoy's been made the boy prefect for Slytherin." Ron said sourly, flopping down onto the seat beside Harry and plunging his hand into Aziraphale's half-empty box of Every-Flavour Beans.
"Yes, and that complete cow Pansy Parkinson was made girl prefect. I bet it would have been Draco's chum Dolohov as second prefect, only he's the wrong gender so Snape had to plump for Pansy." Hermione added bitterly, squashing in next to Ginny and Neville. "Who's that?" she whispered, nodding her head towards The Times.
Ron peered at the picture on the front of the newspaper and read the caption. "It's... The Rt. Hon. Peter Thorn, PhD, the Muggle Prime Minister."
"I know who the Prime Minister is, for heaven's sake." Hermione snapped loudly "I meant," she added in a lower voice "Who the person behind the newspaper is. I'm just curious as to what our new teacher is like."
The newspaper rustled and folded, revealing the angel. He peered at Hermione in a mock-stern glare before softening. "He is rather like this, my dear. Every-Flavour Bean, anyone? I'm becoming quite partial to them."
He held out the box and proffered it to everyone in turn. He himself selected a pearly-coloured bean and chewed on it thoughtfully. Harry imagined he heard the word "Noel" escape the new professor's lips before the angel blushed more crimson than the livery of the train and muttered "Well I never...Fancy putting that kind of flavour in children's sweets. I shall have words with the manufacturers..." and rose The Times as defensive barrier between himself and his new pupils.
(_)
Anthony J Crowley was pleased with the turn of speed his Bentley was producing (a very impressive 279 mph on good motorways), and after stopping briefly to read a road sign, continued on his way along the potholed and narrow country lane somewhere in the Scottish interior. He now regretted throwing away the SatNav and considered corporating another one into existence. He'd had several heated arguments with it (and it had won most of them) until he decided to donate it to the nation.7 He thanked his lucky stars that his BlackBerry contained a far less argumentative GPS system and had linked it to Hell to provide directions for his safe passage to Hogwarts via car.
After turning off the country lane and onto a rutted field track, he discovered that the BlackBerry was guiding him towards the base of a sheer mountain cliff. A fiery portal appeared withing the scarred and leering rock face and, without any large amount of hesitation (none more so than usual when dealing with Downstairs) Crowley's foot stamped down hard on the accelerator and plunged into the gateway.
(_)
1 ZDZ: Many would claim that the inspectors of HM Customs & Inland Revenue are simply Dementors on sabbatical.
2 ZDZ: Even his father would concede that such an action would have made a considerable improvement.
3 ZDZ: It had long been known that being human again would be repugnant to the Librarian, because he had rather gotten used to it. If a castle full of enchanted furniture had felt the same way, Walt Disney would have been forced to make an entirely different movie (and some would be of the opinion that this would not necessarily be a bad thing).
4 ZDZ: Both Heaven and Hell have, at one point in their careers, headed their company notepaper with the slogan "We put the Fun in Fundamental so You don't have to worry about your pitiful existence!" after the retired glove and second-hand potato-cuber salesman who had dreamed up the slogan had been bounced between both Places and everywhere in between had, after a stroke of genius, finally been reincarnated as himself for all eternity (and been driven mad by the sense of déja-vu); both God and Satan denied having been responsible and agreed that God could keep the deluxe lawnmower if Satan could reclaim his antique Bengali nest tables.
5 ZDZ: The entry to 6 Across had been partially filled in. "An action of great emotion and passion which is believed to represent the opposite values held by the virtues of rhetoric." Whoever claimed that Violence never solves anything?
6 ZDZ: Or as Ronald Weasley might be inclined to remark: her usual emotional state, except perhaps when she has her nose deep within a book.
7 ZDZ: Namely, in several pieces on the M1 underpass near Gossington.