11.

The King Discovered

Harry slammed the book shut, his heart racing. The book was thick and heavy in his hands, the chains bound across it rattling precariously. Its screamed echoed through the library and through the night. He grabbed his invisibility cloak and tightened it around his body, placing the book back in its sot within the forbidden section, and rushing off back to his dorms. Soon enough teachers would fl0ck to the source of the shrill cry emitted from the seemingly harmless book.

Harry rushed back up the stairs, looking around the darkened hallways, and tapping as quietly as he could on the steps. He had gone to the library again like a curious child and snuck through the forbidden section: a twelve year old reading Arabian Nights under his bed sheets with a flashlight perched over his shoulder. He clutched his wand tighter as he moved, nearly tripping on his cloak.

In fact, a dream had told him to go into that section. He was not one for interoperating dreams as realities, as his divination class taught him, but this dream was so vibrant and real that he could not be dissuaded. So, in the dead of night, he grabbed his cloak and wand and rushed down to the library. He chose the book he had seen, with the black and rusty chains and the scorched title, so that only a few of the curving, archaic letters could be deciphered: an "o" and an "e" and an "s". When he opened it, it did not utter a sound. He leafed through the pages and skimmed description after description of powerful wizard, most deceased, others still lingering as half-alive corpses.

There, in the middle of the book, he opened it and found at once a clear picture of none other than Arthur Kirkland.

He saw the thick eyebrows over sharp eyes both clever and sly. He saw the tangled brush of hair and the curves of his face that were neither bony nor chubby. Harry gazed at those eyes for some time, hardly looking at the words on the sister page, and could see something very strange that he kept in mind for the next time he looked on the sage wizard's face.

In those eyes he saw something like a clear stone under a layer of murky water. It existed fully, without any bends or breaks, but was also vainly covered up by a filmy layer of secrecy. That stone Harry could sense but, it was not until he plopped back down on his bed with his cloak off and his heart beginning to calm, that he understood.

That man balanced dangerously on an apex between good and evil, at least the created forms of good and evil, and he could tip easily from one side to the other and cause an avalanche to follow. All it took was a shove from anyone and he would tumble down and down forever until he was stopped and replaced—even if it meant that both his legs would have to be destroyed.

Then Harry, finished examining the picture, turned his eyes to the text. He could not decipher the text very well. At first he thought it was because the low light of his wand was not enough. That proved not to be the case. The wand illuminated the picture just fine. Then he figured that the text was an indecipherable blob of ink. Finally, he realized after straining to catch a word or two in Old English, he realized the words were shifting around slowly and merging together. Harry placed his finger against the first row and the book gave a violent, jerky shudder and began to howl forlornly. At first it was nothing but a mere annoyance, a tiny whining no one would hear, and then it grew and grew into a ferocious roar that sharpened acutely into a shriek that rolled through the halls and greeted Dumbledore and, as well, Arthur.

When the sound pierced his ears Arthur shot straight up. He had been lying on the bed, reading a book complacently, on the verge of sleep, when it sounded. His head spun and his knees turned to water.

"Oh, no."

"Oh my," professor McGonagall said at that same moment, her eyes widening.

"Oh…" another teacher moaned and chose to ignore it.

Dumbledore rested his chin on the tips of his fingers. "Oh, Harry, what have you done?"

And, surprisingly, the following day no one seemed to have ever heard the noise that seemed to tear the night like a dagger. Harry was greatly relieved. He even forgot about its contents, which he wanted to discuss with Ron and Hermione.

Ron, who noticed Harry's elation, felt quite airy himself. He strode down the halls to his next class, and past a doorway slightly ajar. He paused, feeling that luck was facing him, and sighed contently. The tournament was nearing now. Soon the other schools would be arriving, in little less than two weeks, and everything would become busy. Busy as a beehive, eh? Yes, indeed, Ron nodded gravely to no one but himself.

In the crack along the door he could see a beam of light from the unused classroom. Just vaguely he could see Arthur Kirkland, the strange wizard who taught them not long ago, and he had his head buried in his hands. Ron stepped away from his line of vision and watched curiously. He was not very interested in the man, certainly not as much as Hermione or Harry, but he had some compelling aspects about his person that did not fail to drag Ron in as well. Ron thought he was crying, but when he raised his face it was dry.

"I suppose I should leave soon." He said to someone in the room.

He laughed hoarsely and shook his head slowly, placing it back again on his hands. There was no response from the other person.

"You know, there must be a point to this suffering. There must be a way to atone."

Again: no response.

Arthur's lips curled into a pained smile. "We'll talk later. When we're alone." His green eyes flickered to Ron. Ron retreated. He heard Arthur's feet hit the ground and heard his steps slowly vanish from the room and through the door opposite. Ron took another look in.

There was no one there.

Funny, he thought, there was only the sound of one pair of feet leaving.

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