Chapter 17 - Calamus Gladio Fortior
Monday 1st November
Dear Chiron,
I know we gave you a report only two nights ago, but something's come up. Hermes came to find us (Just... I know, right? Bear with me) and told us that Apollo had gone missing, then asked us to find him. Long story short, we did. Problem is, Apollo is now a spotty sixteen year-old with a saviour complex - he wants to 'help' us, namely by sticking around until the prophecy's been fulfilled.
I haven't told the others, because they think that worrying is all I do these days, but I don't think the whole story quite adds up. Apollo, I mean. He's acting very upset and depressed because he's been exiled - the worst part of it apparently being that he no longer looks like a model - but Hermes was getting frantic because he thought Apollo was missing. So either Apollo is lying about Zeus exiling him, or Zeus himself is keeping information from the rest of the gods. I hate to ask, because I know you're always busy, but please could you look into it? The sooner this matter is resolved the better, I think. And Apollo will be able to sing and recite poems to his heart's content without any of us throwing books at him.
Other than that, not much. Halloween here is quite cool. A teacher who looks like he's descended from Gaea's eldest lot, only much hairier and kinder, apparently returned from a research trip late in the night. Harry and Co. seemed to be pleased to see him, but Umbridge looked like someone had swapped her cereal milk for pegasus urine. Worst bit is, some students had similar reactions, though they lightened up a bit at the food afterwards. Did you know that the magical world has actual fairies? They even kind of look like Tinkerbell - makes me think JM Barrie might have been a half-blood or something. Some can glow blue or red as well. Mostly they just glide around, but yesterday's Halloween feast consisted mainly of candy and dessert, and it turns out they have not just a sweet tooth, but many. Sharp, too.
Percy and Jason have started to hide from their housemates (making strategical allies of them might have to wait a little – most of them are barely through puberty and still think that their greatest problem is a zit or a bad grade. Though truth be told it's Nico and Piper who have the most difficult task, since the Slytherins are the wizarding version of ancien régime nobility). There's this whole Quidditch drama whereby Harry got kicked off the team by Umbridge and the Gryffindor captain is scrambling for new players in time for the next match. I know Jason's at least a little interested, but Percy would no longer ride a broom than bring Cerberus his dinner. Harry's pretty beat up about it all, actually. He and the Weasley twins (who also got kicked off) were the best players in the school. Of course, Umbridge is pleased as pie. I think Leo is currently thinking up a new punishment for her - one which I believe includes spoons.
Yeah, spoons. Moving on.
You know, I think we might have to tell Harry about Apollo. It was Frank's idea: we need something to explain his presence at the school. Not that he's a god, obviously, but maybe a backstory of being an anti-Ministry fugitive. He won't be kept secret for much longer, you've no idea how many sentient things there are around here, sneaking and hovering and peering all over. It's only a matter of time before a house-elf stumbles upon him singing in the shower. We have the means of hiding him, but it requires Harry's consent and participation, neither of which he'll give unless we can convince him it's in all of our best interests. That said, at the rate the Umbridge-dominated school admin and reputation is going, soon all we'll have to do is make Umbridge sneeze in our direction and he'll agree. Apollo will have room service.
Hope you're well, and that Camp goings-on are running smoothly. Any news from Camp Jupiter? I know Reyna must be worried. I'm not sure what Frank and Hazel told her to explain their absence, but it better be good.
Take care,
Annabeth
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Jason,
Thank you for your letter. May I compliment you on the way you've shaped your entire text so that you tell plenty, but reveal nothing? How very Greek of you.
Speaking of, you needn't bother. Chiron told me everything. Well, I had to blackmail him for it, but there you go.
How stupid do you think I am? You disappear without a trace, taking my co-praetor and Hazel with you, and don't give a word of explanation. How hard is it to send a note, at least telling me that you would be away?
That said (and this is only after a good deal of reflection and, let's face it, anger) I am prepared to acknowledge that letting home know of your whereabouts was difficult given the extremely... closed nature of your situation. In fact, I think I've already remarked on the way you've managed not to outright lie about it. We could make a Cicero or a Catiline of you yet.
I'm glad to know you're still interested in Camp Jupiter despite the fact that you're hardly ever there. It's doing all right, I'd say. Apart from the Senate losing faith in me - again - and starting to look back on the days of imperialism, all is well. Peachy. Not a cloud in the sky, as I'm sure your father could testify. Reconstruction is going well, the legionnaires who have left our ranks to pursue further education are satisfied at the change of scenery, and the weather is getting colder, but still fairly dry.
I know better than to ask what you and the others are doing, so I will try to be satisfied with the reassurance that you are all, at least, safe and well. Chiron has told me that of all your collective missions so far, this will be the longest and the most stable. I can only hope that means you will get sufficient rest and time to develop your strategies, since I trust you have not forgotten all things Roman in the meantime. Strategy is key, I'm sure you'll recall. Tactics come second.
Despite the fact that I want to strangle you for deserting us and leaving me in the dark, I wish you well in your task. Pass my regards on to the others, and hit Frank for me. Has he forgotten how to write?
Reyna
PS: I hope you know that your mail is being read. Your rather unusual method of postal service arrived more than a little ruffled, with several of its detachable parts sticking at odd angles, and the wax seal (wax, really?) was broken. I'll tell you this, whoever reads your communications doesn't care about being caught.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Tuesday 2nd November
Hi Mom,
I'm sorry I haven't been more in touch. Even without the usual excuse of being pretty busy (as in, crazy busy), there have been complications regarding the mail system. Jason told us this afternoon that his owl had been manhandled (bird-handled?) pretty roughly, and that his letters - both incoming and outcoming - had been read. That said, once he'd finished explaining he looked thoughtful for a bit, then hit Frank and walked away without a word of explanation. So he might have been at it with the coffee again, I guess. I hear Professor Sprout is working on special mushrooms as well, so maybe spores have been floating around. Dunno.
Anyway, I know my previous message weren't very clear on our situation. Just as well if we're being watched, really.
Oi, interfering person - yep, talking to you - STOP reading people's private stuff. Seriously. You might end up in all sorts of awkward situations.
Anyway, we're all safe and reasonably happy, although the amount of homework we get here is obscene. I promise I'm not lying and that I'm actually getting an education. Probably not the Pythagoras theorem or Trigonometry type of curriculum, but trust me when I say I'm learning plenty.
On the bright side, there's also no sign of me getting kicked out any time soon. Needless to point out how that says a lot about this place. 'Cause, see, the monsters here don't intrude or attack, they kind of just... hover. Or camp. Or even fly around. Ask Nico when you see him: he came back from vet class this morning looking real worked up. Something about death horses. I don't think my uncle - you know the one - ever had special horses, did he? Annabeth mentioned something about reusable chthonic creations, but she was reading a textbook on golems when she said it, so I'd better not jump to conclusions.
You mentioned in one of your letters that you absolutely had to IM me. I don't think it's... adequate to do so at the moment for reasons that are too long to explain here. I'll call as soon as things clear up a bit. Still, why? Isn't it something you can tell me on paper? Are you okay? What about Paul? It's not bad news, is it? I'm getting worried here!
Whatever it is, I doubt it could eclipse what we've been through the past two days. I can't really elaborate here, but suffice to say that the fates have handed us a very poetic, sunny addition. His singing is divine. He's a bit depressed because his family kicked him out for a bit, but more on that when we see each other. You can imagine all the issues that comes with him: lodgings, food, activities, noise... Annabeth has run out of books to throw.
Say hi to Paul for me. Love you both.
Your son,
Percy
0o0o0o0o0o0
Tuesday 2nd November, Hogwarts, RoR as Bunker Nine
OPERATION TECH (Day 35)
Observations:
Tests for electrical power on stair handrail. Negative. Sentient force but unknown. Magic (?) or hidden source of energy (?) mechanic (?) (unlikely).
Conclusion: too wide a target.
Tests for electrical power on 2nd year toothbrush (third attempt). Positive, but erratic. 1st attempt (with normal batteries): would not stop hopping around and giggling; 2nd attempt (with own power-cell): tried to lather toothpaste on tester's face (i.e.: me); 3rd attempt (with different cell): washed teeth of tester unaided by hand of said tester until gums bled.
Conclusion: little bastard. Batteries no good, too rustic/primitive. Own power-cell too... something. Pursue next attempt with more advanced cell.
Tests for electrical power on Annabeth's laptop. Positive. No wi-fi or signal, however. No change from when owner first attempted to use it upon premises.
Conclusion: why, gods, why?
Tests for electrical power in RoR as DA room. Negative.
Conclusion: called it.
Tests for electrical power in RoR as Bunker Nine. Negative. Second attempt made after specifically requesting a magic-free zone. Negative, but Annabeth's laptop picked up very faint telephonic signal.
Conclusion: Exciting!
NB: Possible solution: isolation of technological zone? But will presence of magical beings upset it? If so, how to keep them away? Better still, find a way to make magic and electricity work in parallel...
0o0o00o0o0
"Aooooh - once there was young lad, and merry yes he was..."
Nico gritted is teeth. Wednesd-
"He found a girl under an apple tree, and kissed her yes he did..."
His fingers clenched around his pen. He could feel the arteries in his neck expanding and pulsing quicker as the blood rose to his face in increasing frustration. He concentrated on the date he was writing. Wednesday 3rd-
"But then he took her apple, and she slapped him yes she did..."
Nico very deliberately unclenched his fingers from the plastic length of the pen, one by one, concentrating on every movement, hoping the distraction would prevent his nerves from snapping. It had worked for the past twenty times, after all. Just about.
"She chased him all around the woods, and in trouble yes he-"
"You know, we're learning about Silencing Charms in class at the moment," he said, making his tone as conversational as possible.
Apollo raised his head from the upside down position he was currently in, draped over the back of the couch. It only had the effect of directing his gaze towards the ceiling, the sudden realisation of which caused the former god to twist this way and that, trying to meet Nico's steely gaze.
If the son of Hades looked furious in a very controlled calm sort of way, Apollo was the very epitome of bored.
"Are you? That's nice," he said vaguely, then opened his mouth once more to continue his ballad, "... all around the woods, and in trouble yes-"
"I'm looking for someone to practice on, as a matter of fact," Nico continued, concentration forgotten and his pen in danger of snapping.
"Hm? Oh, I'm sure some of the others will be back soon, don't you worry. The village called him Yellow Pete, and gaily laughed they did..."
There was a crunching, breaking sound, and Nico looked down to see his half-written essay covered in blue ink, dripping from his hands and the shattered remains of his pen, the half-written date of Wednesday, 3rd November nearly smudged beyond recognition. Cursing, he pulled out his wand and jabbed it at the parchment.
"Scourgeo," he said, "No, er... Scourgify."
The wand started siphoning off the ink, and another spell later Nico's hands were also clean. Apollo looked on in mild interest.
"Mm, well done. Looks almost natural for you now. Of course, us gods don't need the physical tool of a wand, but it's impressive nonetheless to see young mortals perform even such menial tasks."
"Would you like to have a go?" Nico asked, his voice poisonously smooth, his temper kept in check by ample practice and the satisfaction that he had, at least, managed the spell.
Apollo heaved a huge sigh, one that spoke of nostalgia, sorrow, wisdom - even patience.
To Nico, and to anyone else if they had been present, it just sounded full of self-pity.
"Alas," Apollo said, waving a hand delicately in the air above his face, "would that I could. I have no doubt Zeus stripped me of the merest of my powers. Even in this lonely little room I can feel that no amount of ambient magic will right my woes."
"Well you've spent the entire last three days in here," Nico grumbled, "I'm usually the last to say something like this, but why not try going out a little?"
"Miss Chase argues strongly against it."
"She's scared that you'll meet teachers who won't recognise you. Half of them only teach specialised subjects anyway, and a good deal of the students don't talk to years other than their own. The odds of meeting someone who-"
"I fear that my presence here-"
"Well why come here at all, then?" Nico finally snapped, "If you're not prepared to do anything except mope around, why decide to come here when you knew it was dangerous?"
Apollo averted his eyes, ashamed. He paled a little, his hands fidgeting in his lap.
"No place is safe when you've lived as a god in Olympus all your life and been cast out as a half-grown man." he said quietly. "My choice was between a rock and a hard place."
"You could have gone to Chiron," Nico said matter-of-factly. "He wouldn't have turned you down." He took me in after all, he added silently.
"I would have been no use to him."
Nico snorted. No prizes for guessing what he would say to that, if this weren't an Olympian he was talking to.
Thankfully, before Nico could more closely consider the option of risking eternal hostility from the former god, Percy barged in, slamming the door open in an arc as wide as the grin that split his face.
Nico looked up in surprise.
"Just IM'd my Mom," Percy said by way of explanation, apparently not even needing a question to prompt him; the words were practically bubbling from his mouth anyway. "Guess what?"
"What?" Nico intoned, looking back at his parchment.
"No, seriously man, guess."
The smile on the son of Poseidon's face was so blinding that Nico almost found himself smiling back, despite the matter of a difficult essay and an insufferable deity in the way. Still, Percy looked so insistent that Nico decided to play the game for a bit.
"She's coming to visit?"
Percy pulled a face. "I wish. No, guess again."
"Er... She's published another book?"
"Nope!"
Nico put down his pen, then crossed his arms and shrugged the universal gesture of being at a loss.
"I," Percy said, taking his time as he punctuated each word with a step towards the fireplace and a fist punching the air, "Am. Going. To. Have. A. Sister!" He paused. "Or a brother," he amended.
Nico gaped.
"Percy... That's great," he said, his voice coming out much quieter than he wanted. He cleared his throat. "That's amazing."
Percy nodded, still doing a weird little happy dance around the table as Nico and Apollo watched on. The former god also looked mildly pleased.
"Indeed," he commented, "I shall have to congratulate the excellent Mrs Jackson-"
"Blofis," Percy corrected.
"-Blowfish - with an ode of my own composing. Is she more partial to ballads or haikus? Perhaps a sonnet?"
Percy hastily assured the god that while his mother was fond of the arts in general, it really wasn't necessary to go to all the bother of writing a poem for her, especially since, perhaps, he cautioned with a sudden spark of inspiration, Poseidon would not be best pleased if another Olympian were to write odes to his former flame.
Meanwhile, Nico had sat back in the cushy sofa, staring at the flames of the ever-present fire in the chimney, wondering what he actually felt at the news. He knew he should feel happy, of course, and he was: it would be great for Percy to have a younger sibling. The guy was great with kids; half of the younger ones at camp saw him as the resident goofball, while the other half stayed in awe at all he had achieved. They all liked him.
But there was another feeling squirming inside Nico's chest, as there always was when good things happened around him. He had had a sister once. What would it be like to see another gain what he had lost, would it hurt? Would it help him to heal?
He shuddered inwardly. So even he himself recognised that he wasn't over Bianca's death.
Not wanting to be a buzzkill for a Percy who was currently hopping around excitment, Nico kept his mouth shut as the son of Poseidon chattered on happily. It was that damn death horse incident earlier, Nico thought with a small amount of bitterness, leaning over to the fire and poking a few embers and bits of burning log back into the hearth. It had messed him right up again, just as he thought that things were easing back into a tolerable form of normality.
Nico had taken Care of Magical Creatures with Harry and his friends since the beginning of the year, but hadn't really found the opportunity to talk to them the way the others had in their courses. Not, for once, because of Nico's general wish to avoid people – especially strangers – but because the class was so… class-like. In Charms, you could chat your head off while simultaneously pulling water out of thin air; and Potions was a haven for experimentation and tickling curiosity provided you weren't on Snape's hit-list; but Care for Magical Creatures… Well, rumours had it that it used to be one of Hogwarts' most dangerous activities of all: riding feathered horsey dragons, fighting off indestructible fire-spewing scorpions, being forced to stuff rubber tubes with lettuce…
Okay, so the last one didn't sound particularly fearsome to Nico either, but the student telling him about it while gesticulating frantically assured him that boredom had been the killer then.
But so far Nico's experience of that class had been tame and organised - and safe - all thanks to that Grubbly woman, the name of whom Nico could never fully remember. She was good at her job too, always ensuring that the students were a safe distance away from the more excitable beasts, or ready to enact the safety/care spells should either party get harmed. They learned loads, too. The success of her unicorn module had been such that Lavender Brown had declared at dinner that she was going to adopt one of the baby unicorns since "he was so cute, and really what's the difference between a horse and a unicorn except that one drinks light and the other water? Plus they like me best anyway, since I'm a young girl and all, so Professor Grubbly-Plank promised to send my dad all the papers…" To Nico's amusement, almost the exact same litany had been delivered by Pansy Parkinson at breakfast the next day, clearly copying the Gryffindor girl no matter how original she was trying to make the idea sound to Malfoy, whom she was always near to somehow. That was until Theodore Nott pointed out that Grubbly-Plank was a professional teacher, not a magical creature dealer – the practise of which, he reminded the table at large, made up a fair portion of the black market.
The literally gigantic presence and looks of the person who showed up as their new Care of Magical Creatures teacher that morning came as a surprise to many pupils. Especially since eighty percent of them groaned quietly – or not so quietly – when he waved cheerily at them as they walked down the path towards his hut. The only ones who looked happier at this event than Nico had ever seen them in this class before were Harry and Ron. Hermione had on a large smile as well, but it seemed strained. There was something like anxiety in her eyes. Nico suspected that she, like the rest of the class, knew that the standard curriculum days were over, but that she had to act happy about it because Hagrid was clearly a very nice man.
That was the second surprise for Nico: he'd expected the man to be a kind of gruff, grumpy, antisocial man who came across as – to quote a contemptuous Draco Malfoy - 'savage'. Nico hadn't actually disagreed, seeing that the man was clearly part-giant and very wild-looking – perhaps that was why the school had been forced to lodge him outside in a hut? He looked like he'd been in a primal, month-long fight: multi-coloured bruises covered the parts of his face that did not sport facial hair, his hands looked oddly-shaped as though several fingers had been broken and not perfectly re-set, and he walked around so stiffly and carefully that Nico suspected a couple of his ribs had been fractured by something.
After one long look at him, Malfoy had said flatly to Nico "Just you wait. Whatever made him look like that, I bet we'll have to care for it the rest of the year."
But Professor Hagrid's eyes, small and beady and black, yet warmer than any other dark eyes Nico had ever seen, crinkled with pleasure at the sight of students approaching his hut. He smiled, patted Harry and Co. on the back gently, sending them sprawling to the ground. He turned to the rest of the group; a more unenthusiastic bunch Nico had never seen.
"Righ'! Good to see yeh lookin' all so up an' ready fer today's lesson." Gesturing towards the forest, he beamed at them all, brightening even more as he caught sight of the grins on Harry and Ron's faces. "I got a real treat fer you this mornin'. Yeh'll love 'em."
"Oh, wonderful," came Malfoy's sardonic voice. "I wonder if they have stingers, this year. Or perhaps foot-long claws, like the last time we went into the forest with you."
Murmurs weaved in and out of the group, students exchanging uncertain grimaces and meaningful looks. Nico was far from reassured when he realised that none of them, including himself, felt inclined to disagree. Only Harry turned his back on the group completely and took a step towards their new teacher, speaking loudly over the dubious whisperings.
"Sounds great, Hagrid. Which way do we go?"
Hagrid beamed at him once more, then realised Harry had asked him a question.
"Oh - er, just a mo'…" he leaned over backwards, winced at the pain, then shuffled behind a large barrel, retrieving a massive sack stained in places with a darkish substance that seeped through the fabric. He stripped the bag of its contents, which turned out to be half a dead ox, and hefted it on his shoulder. "Here we go, gotta have enough ta keep 'em satisfied..."
With that rather ominous sentence which even Harry could not help but receive with a raised eyebrow, he started to lead the way into the forest, revealing a pronounced limp and a strength that Nico's practiced eye recognized as almost effortless.
Despite the man's uncouth appearance, Nico felt himself cautiously warming to him. His admiration was already strong, for having known a lot of physical pain himself he could tell that Hagrid suffered a lot from his wounds, but was not letting them get in the way of getting on with life. That took a lot more effort and determination that most people would believe – the kind you could only fathom once you'd gone through it yourself.
The walk into the forest was short, but tense. Unlike most of the other students present, Nico had been thoroughly vaccinated of the woods' sombre atmosphere and constant sense of danger, so the surroundings did not bother him. However, the low mutterings and anxious whispers that floated in the air the entire way were far from reassuring. Nico listened to a few of them, then shook his head in wonder. The things these kids said!...
Then again, as Hagrid reached a small clearing and deposited his load on a mass of tree roots near the ground, wincing as he did so, Nico re-evaluated the situation. For all that Hagrid seemed perfectly good-natured at a second glance – Percy would have cracked a joke about a big friendly giant – he decided that the gamekeeper's reputation for getting attached to things that were too big for even him to handle was probably well deserved, and stayed at that. Should regard there be, regard would follow. And certainly not before any carnivorous or fire-spitting monsters appeared.
"Righ'!" Hagrid called out, turning back to face the group of less-than-certain fifth-years. "I'll just take a mo' to let you all in on what we'll be studyin' today, just enough time fer them to smell the meat and find us here."
The man had a gift, Nico noted with amused bafflement as the kids around him shuffled in alarm and growing anticipation, for saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time.
"The meat? Did he say the meat?"
"Does that mean us or the cow?"
"I think something just moved behind the trees…"
"Now," Hagrid said, slightly louder to drown out the conversations, "we're only in the forest today 'cause it's a natural form of sheltered habitat. They prefer the dark anyway-"
What prefers the dark? Nico found himself thinking. Had he missed something?
"-I reckon I'm the only one who's managed to train a whole herd in Britain. Quite rare, they are."
"You're sure they're trained?" came Malfoy's sharp voice, tinged with panic. "Only it wouldn't be the first time you've brought something wild to class."
"'Course they're trained," the gamekeeper replied, scowling as he dragged the meat from the tree roots into the middle of the clearing.
"Then what happed to his face?" whispered a Slytherin girl whose name Nico didn't know.
He shrugged, and Hagrid turned to face them once more.
"Now, if some of us have finished asking stupid questions," he growled, while Harry and Ron glanced at him with great big grins on their faces – they'd been more than vocal about their hostility towards Malfoy since the whole Quidditch fiasco – "I'll go ahead an' give 'em a call. They'll smell the meat anyway, but it's best if they know it's me."
With that, he tilted his head back and cupped his hands around his mouth, puffing out his massive chest before uttering a shrieking cry unlike anything Nico had heard before. He was vaguely reminded of the Keres's cries in Tartarus, but neither were much like the other except in pitch.
Hagrid called again, and still nothing showed up. The group of students gradually pressed closer together as they peered nervously around the trees, having stopped whispering to each other after a silent but unanimous agreement that, perhaps if they kept very quiet, the creatures would not turn up at all despite Hagrid's call.
Just as Hagrid prepared to shriek a third time, Nico saw Harry nudge Ron and point at a certain spot in the trees. He glanced in the same direction, and nearly jumped in surprise.
Out in the darkness, staring at them like two miniature crystal balls, were a pair of pale eyes. A second later a long, thin face emerged from the gloom, followed by a skeletal winged body on long, graceful legs that seemed mere skin and bone. Nico watched with baited breath as the emaciated horse-like figure padded out into the clearing on silent hooves, the soft ground annulling any possibility for sound. It surveyed the class for a few moments, watching Hagrid as he called a fourth time, then hitched its leathery wings a little higher and turned towards the cow that lay so invitingly on the open ground. The creature silently approached the meat and began to tear shreds of it off with long fangs that looked very out of place on an equine figure.
"Why doesn't Hagrid call again?" Nico heard Ron whisper.
Harry, who had been staring at the horse, equally transfixed, glanced at Ron in confusion.
"Can't you see? It's right there." He pointed.
The very obvious shape of the creature stared placidly back at Harry, its mouth chewing at the raw meat like a Pegasus would munch grass. Its sleek, glossy black coat, the only and peculiar sign of health about the creature, dappled in the faint light of the forest and the shadows of overhead leaves.
Ron looked at Harry as though he were hallucinating.
"There's nothing there, Harry."
"But it's right-" Harry insisted, then stopped, stumped. His eyes followed the graceful movements of the horse as it tore off another mouthful, uncertainty and pained confusion on his face.
Ron goggled at him and shook his head.
Just then, another two creatures emerged from the trees, silent as the first one. They headed straight for the meat, only sparing Hagrid a passing glance and a toss of their skeletal, dragonish heads.
Nico stared on in cautious fascination. Creatures that only some people could see? Somehow even monsters didn't quite cut the mark that way, and Nico was ready to bet that that whatever allowed certain people to see them was not due to ancestry.
"An' here come a couple more!" Hagrid said happily, taking his hands back down to his sides.
"A couple more what?" Malfoy asked irritably, shuffling from foot to foot and casting dark glances all around.
Hagrid ignored him.
"Now, put yer hands up – who can see 'em?"
An expression of acute relief on his face, Harry raised his hand. As did Nico, Neville Longbottom and a Slytherin boy by the name of Cadmus Stebbins.
Hagrid nodded.
"Knew yeh'd be able to, Harry… An' Neville, too? An'…" He tilted his head at Nico, apparently noticing him for the first time. "Who have we here?"
"Nico di Angelo," he said, stiffly. "Sir."
Hagrid smiled and waved a hand.
"Jus' Hagrid'll do," he said. "American, eh? Professor Dumbledore told me all about yeh and yer friends."
Nico nodded politely, though it was hardly forced. Hagrid, it truly seemed, was easy to like.
"Anyway," Hagrid resumed, turning back to the group at large, "the reason only some of yeh can see them-"
There was a soft scream as Lavender Brown caught sight of the much diminished carcass. Her pale hand went up to her open mouth in shock, eyes wide as they took in the sight of bits of mat being torn of and vanishing into thin air.
"-yes, love, they're called Thestrals an' they like meat," Hagrid sighed, the first tinge of weariness in his voice, "But as I was sayin', the reason only some people can see them is that - actually, you tell me. Anyone know?"
Her face shining with the glow of epiphany, Hermione shot her hand up. She was immediately imitated by Malfoy, causing peals of laughter from his cronies, but Hagrid had eyes only for the Gryffindor girl.
"The only people who can see Thestrals," she said clearly, "are the ones who have seen death."
Hearing her words, a ripple of murmurs and looks of mild revulsion washed over the group.
Somewhere deep inside Nico, something sank. Deeply.
"Tha's correct!" Hagrid beamed. "Five points to Gryffindor. Now, the thing with Thestrals is-"
"But they're really, really unlucky," one of the annoying twittery twins interrupted, drawing her arms around herself and edging even closer into the mass of human bodies. "Professor Trelawney says they bring curses and all sorts of bad luck on the people who see them!"
"Nah, tha's just superstition," Hagrid said, shrugging as though such beliefs were beyond his comprehension. "It's 'cause of the death thing, that's all. They unnerve people, sure, but they're pretty gentle really."
"Yes," Malfoy said, "I want to take one home with me it's so fluffy."
"Now these ones," Hagrid talked over Malfoy, "are only a fraction of a whole herd of 'em. They don' get much work around here, mostly they just run free, 'cept when the Hogwarts coaches need pulling. They've got excellent sense of direction, see, go anywhere you ask 'em-"
"Hem, hem."
Nico recognised that hated sound, and closed his eyes in dull horror. First the death horses and now this?
"Oh, hello!" Hagrid greeted the new arrival warmly.
A pink ball of tweed with pursed lips stared back, hands fussily folded in front and carrying an equally pink clipboard.
"You received my note this morning, saying that I was to inspect your lesson later on, I assume?" she asked, loudly and clearly, apparently under the impression that Hagrid was deaf.
"Oh, yeah, no problem!" Hagrid said, waving a hand. "Yer welcome to stay as long as yeh like, just thought we'd best get a move on while we could. You found us all right, then?"
But Umbridge had already turned her attention away from him and was making notes on her clipboard, her bulging eyes darting here and there as though to assess the precise purpose of every part of their surroundings and their benefit to the lesson.
"Righ'" Hagrid said again, slightly crestfallen. "Well, as I was sayin', Thestrals are wonderful creatures, they are. Very clever, almost intuitive like."
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Umbridge said from the back of the group in the same loud, slow voice.
Hagrid looked taken aback.
"Er… Thestrals, as you can see – or, I dunno, can you? Big, winged horses, you know?" He flapped his arms hopefully.
Umbridge raised an eyebrow, then jotted more notes down on her clipboard, muttering about supposedly professional teachers resorting to primitive sign language.
Hagrid's bruised face flushed a deep maroon, rather like a very badly stained window in a Tim Burton movie. Nico felt sympathy for the man twist in his chest. And all that because Hagrid wasn't in Umbridge's carefully categorised view of an ideal world and society.
It struck him that perhaps he and Hagrid shared more common ground than he did with most people. His mood had severely dampened at the revelation of what linked Thestrals and those who could see them – would death not leave him even the slightest chance at fitting in even in a magical world? – but Nico resolved to turn this lesson back into Hagrid's favour if he could. It was no secret in the school that Professor Trelawney's class inspections had gone poorly, for Umbridge appeared determined to undermine and humiliate her as much as possible. Whereas as High Inquisitor she wanted Trelawney out because she was a fraud or because she had little respect for Divination, no-one really knew, but Hermione had grimly told them last DA lesson that she would be surprised if Trelawney were still here by Easter.
Carefully edging out of the group, Nico quietly approached the Thestrals, pausing a couple of times, unsure which attitude to adopt. It was Percy who was usually good with horses. Then again, these were almost literally death's horses, and they were so very skeletal…
Meanwhile, Hagrid was floundering to regain control.
"Yeah, so – what was I sayin'…"
"…appears… to have… problems of short-term… memory loss…" Umbridge muttered through clenched teeth.
"Yeah, so – Tenebrus here is the leader of the herd, an' my favourite. Trained him meself, I did," the gamekeeper said, trying to look collected but unable to stop himself from glancing uneasily at Umbridge. "Firs' one born in here, though we imported a couple o' others once he was grown enough to breed -"
"Are you aware that the Ministry has classified Thestrals as highly dangerous creatures?" Umbridge interrupted again, her unpleasant and sweetly clear voice calling out from across the group. Her fingers made very obvious slashing signs at her throat and then jabbed at herself and the clipboard.
Malfoy and his cronies snickered, watching in glee as the lesson got reduced to tatters.
Just wait… Nico thought as he got close enough to touch the Thestrals, at all times keeping behind a tree so that Umbridge, if not Hagrid, would not see him.
This close to them, Nico could tell the subtle difference between each individual creature. While they were all impossibly thin, Tenebrus' ribs stuck out in particular, his glossy coat marred by several hairless scars across his flank. The one next to him was smaller in stature, clumsier in its movements – a younger one, then. Perhaps a filly.
The one gnawing at the bones of the carcass, opposite Tenebrus and what Nico assumed was his daughter, was another Thestral, taller in stature even than the former. His coat was less glossy, shot through in places with coarse silver hairs, especially around its eyes and the base of its tail. Its eyes, though pale like his friends', gleamed less supernaturally in the gloom, though they were whiter in colour. Cataract, Nico guessed.
That one would be the best for his plan. Foals were too jumpy and full of life for what he had in mind, and stallions like Tenebrus were too strong and spirited. What Nico needed was an older, calmer specimen, more prone to suggestions…
"Aw, come on! They're not dangerous – all right, if yeh really provoke them they might take a bite outta yeh, but yeh'd probably have deserved it then."
Umbridge raised incredulous eyebrows, then scribbled furiously on her clipboard, no longer keeping her voice down.
"…appears pleased at the prospect of violence…"
"No, wait! I didn' mean it like that," Hagrid amended hastily, the panic clear in his voice now. "I just meant-"
"Do you find," came Umbridge's ringing voice as she leaned towards a student, "that Professor Hagrid is intimidating at all?"
The student shrugged. Hermione looked ready to punch him, or maybe Umbridge herself – either way, her fists were clenched up in balls and there were tears of rage in her eyes.
"It's all right dears," Umbridge said as she turned to the group in general, in what she clearly thought was a motherly tone, "you can admit you're afraid. You won't be penalised." She trilled her little laugh.
Nico hated her. With every fibre of his being, he hated her. But he was focusing on what he was doing, and so he had to block out her words, that stupid clipboard, and her annoying voice. He'd never really done this before.
Concentrating, he gently touched the old Thestral's neck with the flat of his hand, careful not to startle the animal. As it was, it barely glanced at him, and merely continued sucking on the marrow that poked out at the end of the largest bone. Trying not to feel nauseated at the sight, Nico turned his attention back to the animal and hesitantly nudged him, with his mind.
At first, he thought he had done it wrong, because the Thestral raised its head but continued chewing as though nothing had happened. Then, just as Nico was mentally preparing himself to try again, the old Thestral turned its head slightly and his white, almost sightless eye met his.
Nico felt a shock go up his spine, almost like electricity, and recognised it. It was the feeling of power. And boy, was he ready to use it! Having respected Will Solace's insistent request that he not do anything for several weeks out of respect for his friend, Nico could feel the thrill of all that raw, fresh power available to him, right at his fingertips.
He forcibly stamped down the feeling, reminding himself that animals could scare easily and could sense a person's feelings by smell. Instead, he stroked the Thestral's neck with as much calm and gentleness as he could muster, shifting slightly so that his body was hidden from sight from the rest of the class by another of the creatures. It felt strange to have an animal tolerate him this way. Usually he only had to look at them and they would tense up or run away.
Apparently content with Nico stroking him, the Thestral returned to his favourite bone. Nico took the opportunity to nudge him again, harder this time.
And then, he felt it. In a split-second, he could feel the animal's mind as though it were part of his own: a wild, open space full of smells and blurry shapes and subtle sounds of the forest.
Nico blinked, and it was gone.
Shocked, but encouraged by the old Thestral's lack of reaction beyond a small snort, Nico tried again.
This time he knew what to look for, and it was easier. Nico matched up his consciousness with the creature's, being very careful not to think anything too urgent, or too human.
After that, it was almost child's play. He directed the Thestral's balmy eyes towards the large blob of pink that was slowly moving in the group of indistinct shapes just beyond his master. Pink, the Thestral felt – and so did Nico as a consequence – was a rather unfamiliar colour, quite rare in the forest. Kind of pointless, too.
Are you sure? Nico's consciousness suggested to the Thestral's oblivious observations. What about those pretty flowers near the lake? Same colour, and they smell nice too. Wonder what they taste like?...
"What about you, Longbottom?" Umbridge was saying loudly, "Who did you see die?"
Her tone could not have been more disinterested, and Neville looked unhappy as he glanced first at Hagrid, then at the Thestrals.
"My… my granddad."
"And what do you think of them?" she asked, waving a stubby hand towards them.
"Thestrals? They're… They're okay, actually." came Neville's cautious answer.
"Students… too… afraid… to admit… they are… frightened…" Umbridge muttered, scribbling on her notes.
"No!" Neville said, upset. He looked back at the small group of indifferent Thestrals. "No, I'm not afraid. My grandmother used to take me riding sometimes, I'm not afraid of horses. And Thestrals are just horses with wings, aren't they? I mean Hagrid says they're gentle, and only react if you provoke them, like all animals d- Professor!"
Neville's eyes went wide. Umbridge's head was still bent over her clipboard.
"Oh, it's quite all right, dear," she said vaguely, "just don't you worry about a th-"
"No! Professor! There's one behind you!"
Umbridge twisted around like a spinning top, coming face to face with a very large, rheumy-eyed Thestral that had been sniffing her fluffy pink beret. She gave a blood-curdling shriek, sending them both reeling back in shock. She landed in her rump, winded, but the old Thestral gave a thin scream, like a whinny but infinitely more primal. Its eyes rolled whiter than ever, and it stumbled back into the trees, nearly falling over roots and low branches.
Alarmed at Umbridge's reaction and the one it had caused among the students, who were now shrieking as well, spreading in confusion as each tried to get away from the scene, the remaining Thestrals around the carcass started rearing in panic, their pales eyes darting all over for an escape route.
Hagrid tried to re-establish order.
"Now, don't panic!" he was shouting, "They won' hurt yeh if yeh keep still an' calm. Just' don' panic!"
But of course they did panic. Before Hagrid could finish calming the creatures by whispering to them in a strange, clucking language, several Slytherins and one Gryffindor fled down the path they had come, leaving the rest to press behind trees or clump together in small frightened groups, peering around each other to watch as Umbridge recovered from her shock. Hagrid tried to help her up, but she lost it completely and started beating him about the head with her fluffy pink clipboard, shrieking at him to let her down. It would have been a fairly comic scene, Nico thought as he leant against a tree of his own, what with a five-foot ball of pink fur hitting a bearded giant with her tiny hands and piercing voice, had she not been swearing at the top of her voice that the Ministry would see to it that Hagrid would be suspended for the rest of the year.
He chose that moment to step in, and also to embrace his full heritage as a Slytherin.
Having succeeded in putting that raving Fury down, Hagrid backed off from her and tended to Tenebrus and the filly, who were still present but tense as arrow strings and snorting in alarm. Their eyes were wider than ever, and rolled back when Hagrid approached them. The gamekeeper whispered to them in the same language that had calmed the old Thestral, and it relaxed them somewhat, but they continued to skitter nervously as Umbridge angrily carried on shouting at Hagrid.
"… a disgrace to this school and property! When Cornelius hears of this-"
"Professor! Are you all right?" Nico called out in false concern, jogging over to the dishevelled woman.
"What?" she snapped, "Yes, I'm fine, no thanks to that enormous buffoon of a-"
"Wasn't it lucky Professor Hagrid knew what to do?" Nico interrupted, gently pulling her up by her arm – she had fallen askew on a mass of roots, "He's amazing. I've never seen anyone calm a panicked animal like that."
"What are you taking about?" she snapped again, pushing his arm away and straightening her dirty beret.
"Oh yes, Professor, didn't you see?" came Hermione's voice, cottoning on as she emerged from behind a tree with Harry and Ron. "He knew exactly how to deal with the situation."
"Well I should hope he knew how to-"
"It was amazing," said Dean Thomas, winking at Harry. "Truly awesome."
"I read in one of my textbooks that Thestrals were notoriously difficult to approach and train," Lavender Brown joined in, her cheeks pale but starting to glow from the net they were drawing around Umbridge. "Didn't Hagrid do well to do it? I mean if we'd come across one by surprise like you did-"
"- we would have been dead meat." Parvati Patil finished eagerly. "So really Hagrid was doing us all a favour by training the Thestrals and letting us study them."
"Quiet, silly girl," Umbridge sniffed, "you have no idea the danger we were in."
"But what danger? You were right, Professor." Nico said smoothly, "We were frightened. But we didn't need to be: the Thestrals stayed right where they were and didn't attack anyone, and Hagrid managed to calm them down in seconds."
"No-one was hurt," Hermione observed, her eyes sparkling. "An emergency situation truly well mastered, I would think."
Umbridge glared at Hagrid. Or rather, at his back, since his face was pressed against Tenebrus' flank. His massive shoulders seemed to be shaking somewhat, either from tears or laughter. When he did turn around, his features had been arranged to look impassive. His eyes were slightly red – tears, then - but the sparkle was back. He shot a single grateful glance at the group of remaining students, then addressed Umbridge.
"Now, Ma'am," he said gruffly, "I think we'd better get all these kids safely back to school. I think I should also accompany yeh to the hospital wing, get yeh checked up fer bruises and whatnot."
"I'm fine," she snapped, but Hagrid shook his head in grave concern, his eyes still sparkling.
"Oh, no no no," he said. "School policy. When a disruption occurs in class, anyone a bit beaten up has to get checked up the mediwitch."
Glaring, but without a word, Umbridge spun on her heel and started limping back to the castle, unaware of the amused glances exchanged between the students or the high fives that Nico collected from Ron, Harry and Dean.
Later, when the lesson was over and the students were making their way up the castle – those who had fled the clearing had been waiting on Hagrid's steps, red and somewhat shamefaced – Hagrid pulled his rescuers aside.
"Listen, I jus' wanted ter say…" he stumbled over his words then cleared his throat. "Thank yeh, all of yeh. My job was maybe on the line an' I dunno how it would have gone withou' yer help."
"We didn't do anything, Professor," Nico said, smiling slightly. "Just pointed out the truth."
"Not even Umbridge can disguise the fact that you're a genius with animals, Hagrid," Hermione said sincerely.
Hagrid blushed again, and patted their shoulders gently. When they had picked themselves off the ground, he awarded them all ten points for bravery and excellent disposition.
As they walked back to the castle, Harry and his friends profusely thanked Nico for his intervention. Nico suspected they had no idea of the method or extent of his actions – though the curious looks Hermione gave him the entire way made him pause – but he shrugged the compliments off, even if a smile lit his face for the rest of the walk. As the group separated just past the Great Entrance, Lavender smiled at Nico and said "see you next DA" (they pronounced it 'day' in public, to avoid too many questions), Parvati winked, and Dean clapped him on back, affectionately calling him 'Snakey'.
Nico had never felt warmer.
But of course, being him, it didn't last for long.
This time though, the reason was called Dracon Malfoy. The blond Slytherin was leaning against the corridor wall when Nico spotted him, having left the group a couple of minutes ago. The boy's eyes narrowed, and his folded arms tightened. He had been waiting for him, then.
"Interesting class that, wasn't it?" he asked, fiddling with something in his pocket.
"Mm," Nico said, quite lightly, "Got even better after you ran away."
Malfoy's gaze narrowed further at the slight, but otherwise ignored it.
"Who did you see die, then?" he asked, looking up at Nico from under hooded eyes.
Nico shrugged.
"Not sure it's any of your business."
"You're right, of course." Malfoy replied, nodding almost respectfully, though his eyes were still too interested for it to be real. "I just thought, maybe it would help to explain why you didn't seem surprised when the mudblood told us what made them invisible to most people." He watched Nico carefully. "Seeing as you were just as clueless as the rest of us."
Had he not been surprised? Nico couldn't remember. Maybe being the embodiment of all things dead did that to one's knowledge of related subjects.
"Taken to watching me in your spare time, Malfoy?" Nico deflected, his tone still light. "I heard obsessions like those were dangerous."
"I like watching people," Malfoy said, the hint of a smile about his thin mouth as he played with whatever he still had in his fingers. "You can learn all sorts of interesting things."
Nico snorted.
"Well aren't you a regular Sherlock Holmes."
Malfoy looked politely bored.
"Another one of your muggle references, I assume. No, di Angelo. I like watching people because whether they like it or not they reveal things. About themselves, about their families, about their friends… And," he said, with a smile that was too pointed to be coincidental, "about their activities."
He tossed Nico the thing he had been fidgeting with. Nico caught a glint of bright metal in the gloomy light of the corridor, but fumbled the catch and the item clattered to the floor.
Laughing, Malfoy unfolded himself from the wall and sauntered down the corridor, while Nico got to his knees and frantically searched for the object, running his hands of the cold, dusty flagstones. At last, when a small beam of light from a flickering torch illuminated it for a split-second, he saw the object, and recognised it.
It was a DA coin.
0o0o0o0o0o0
There was a muggle thing, Harry vaguely remembered, a kind of urban legend, about a law called Murphy.
If anything can go wrong, it will.
Now, as he watched the Room of Requirement with his fists on the table, head slumped between his shoulders, he wondered if there wasn't more than a grain of truth to that.
It was past midnight, nearly one. Fred and George Weasley were having a yawning competition; Lavender Brown had turned up with rolled up socks in her hair; Angelina was glaring at him because less sleep meant less energy for Quidditch practice the next day; Terry Boot, Michael Corner and Marius Fell were still in full uniform, having only just left the library; and the Americans were huddled up in their own group, looking tired and grumpy. There was a boy among them Harry did not recognise, but forgot about almost the moment he spotted him. The boy was far from remarkable, and the DA had new recruits almost every meeting, plus there were a few older students in the school Harry could still not recognise on sight.
The rest of the DA were spread out on the floor of the room, which once again had provided perfectly for their needs, if not strictly their priorities: thicker cushions than usual lay strewn across the floorboards, coupled with blankets and small mattresses, and students were lying down on them, snoozing against a friend's shoulder or snuggling up with a blanket in the corner. There wasn't a single lively eye in sight, for everyone had been summoned on the spur of the moment, some from the showers, but most from bed.
Harry couldn't help but feel irritated. He had a thumping headache, a mountain of uncompleted homework, and was about ten hours of sleep behind so far this week. Even for him, by Wednesday evening this was a record.
At least they had an actual reason for being here, though it really wasn't what Harry would call a cheerer-upper.
He'd been slaving away near the fire in the Gryffindor common room, writing his unending essays in a desperate attempt to stop the flood of 'P's and 'D's that kept coming his way. All right, so when Percy had barged in his head had been lolling off the table, his glasses hanging by one ear, but Percy had entered by slamming the door so hard that the portrait of McGonagall above the fireplace startled awake, immediately copied by Harry himself.
Right behind Percy was Nico di Angelo, looking as pale as ever but also a lot more worried, Harry's sleep-fuzzy mind registered.
"Hey," he slurred, "you can't come in here, you're in Slyth-"
"Call a meeting," Percy interrupted.
Harry hitched his glasses back up his nose and over the correct facial parts, before squinting at the frenzied boy in front of him.
"Huh?" he said, "What are you talking about? It's nearly midnight."
"Call a meeting," Percy said again, holding up a DA coin so that it glinted in the dim firelight. He looked anxious, like Nico, whom he glanced at.
The other boy in question was biting his lip.
"No," he said, "don't contact anyone just yet. Call Hermione, tell her to come down here."
"But-" Percy began.
"No." Nico said firmly. "We need Hermione first. They might know how we communicate, we need her to rule out any risk of trying."
Harry was completely lost, though a niggling part of his mind recognised the tension of emergency.
"What's going on?" he demanded, more sharply.
Nico looked at him, still biting his lip. He seemed so different from this afternoon, when they'd left him after CoMC. He'd had pink in his cheeks then, and a smile on his face. Tonight, it looked like it bore news of a new world war.
"Malfoy cornered me this afternoon," Nico answered through gritted teeth. "He had one of those on him," he pointed at the DA coin in Percy's hand, "and made it clear he knows we're up to something."
"So we need to call a meeting," Percy growled, "to find out who was careless enough to leave theirs lying around."
Harry took the coin between his fingers, examining the edge, hoping against hope that there was some mistake, that he would recognise the usual Gobbledegook markings there. But there were only numbers, representing the date of their last meeting. His heart sank a little.
"Are you sure Malfoy knows what they are?"
Nico shrugged.
"Doesn't matter. He knows they're significant."
"Why did he give it back to you if he managed to get his hands on a piece of incriminating evidence?" Harry wondered aloud.
"Does it matter?" Percy said, his eyes alight with anger. "I want to know who-"
"Percy, it does matter," Nico said in a tired voice, "but we need Hermione right now."
"Why?" Harry asked.
"Because she made them. Maybe Malfoy gave it back to me because he managed to make a copy for himself, to monitor it for changes. We need to know what happens then, or if it's even possible."
Harry gulped at that horrible new possibility.
"Okay. There's just, um…" he hesitated. "There's just one problem. I can't actually go into the girls' dormitory."
"Can't you just text- oh, wait. Not technology here." Percy snorted in annoyance. "I really hope Leo figures that stuff out soon."
Harry looked around the room, rubbing his eyes. Despite the horrible news having woken him up effectively they were still bleary and slightly unfocused. The beginnings of a headache were starting to make themselves known, throbbing at his temples and just behind his scar. Which was why when something darted out of sight under a chair, he thought his eyes were tricking him. However, a second later two yellow eyes peered up at him from under the canvassed seat.
"Wait…" Harry said slowly, getting up from his chair and approaching it as slowly as possible.
In his third year, the cat had proven exceptionally clever. Hermione had always suspected the vendor had been right: there was something about him that was beyond feline, whether he was part Kneazle or had simply absorbed some of the sentience of magic.
"Crookshanks," Harry crooned, aware that Harry and Nico were exchanging bizarre looks, "come here, er… puss. Come here."
Delicately, a pink nose emerged from the shadows of the chair and sniffed out Harry's outstretched fingers. His bottle-shaped ginger tail swishing behind him, the cat decided that Harry was a familiar enough figure, and permitted him to scratch his ears, purring loudly.
"Crookshanks," Harry said, addressing the cat and trying very hard not to feel silly, it was midnight after all, "we need to see Hermione. Can you go and get her? Please?"
The cat, lying down on his back and having his side stroked by Harry, continued purring for a few seconds, then when Harry moved his hand away looked at him reproachfully. He sat up, licked his paw for a moment, and ignored the three boys completely.
Then, just as Harry felt his heart sink deeper than ever and Nico made a sound of impatience, Crookshanks turned on his heel and sprinted to the entrance that led to the girls' dormitory, pausing only to turn and look at Harry as if to say "You owe me for this", then disappeared up the stairs.
Two minutes later, Hermione emerged from the staircase in a pale blue dressing gown, holding a loudly purring Crookshanks in her arms and rubbing her eyes with her free hand. There were shadows under her eyes, Harry felt bad for waking her.
"What is it?" she yawned.
"We have a bit of an emergency," Harry said.
Percy and Nico summed up the day's events for her as succinctly as possible. A difficult feat, as it happened, since Percy was still fuming and Nico was having trouble telling the story and keeping an eye on him at the same time.
"These coins," Nico said, holding out the one in his hand to her, "how did you make them? Could someone, say, duplicate them?"
Hermione took the coin in her fingers, her tired eyes suddenly alert and narrowed.
"Yes," she answered, causing Harry's heart to sink and the others to exchange a grimace. She looked up, and there was a small smile on her face. "But not for long."
"What d'you mean?" Harry said quickly.
"Like you said, I made them," she replied, her satisfied smile still in place. She nudged a cushion off a chair with her foot and settled into it, Crookshanks purring on her lap. "They have my magical signature. Copies created by anyone other than me would only last for an hour or so, possibly two."
"So Malfoy doesn't have one?"
"No," Hermione confirmed, "if he even did make one – which I doubt, considering his last mark in Transfiguration – it would have disappeared by now. For the same reason, we know that he gave us back the original, since I'm holding it in my hand."
Harry heaved a sigh of relief, but Nico was still staring at the coin in Hermione's hand, brow furrowed in thought.
"So… why did Malfoy give it back at all?" Percy's wondered aloud.
"Could someone have given it to him?" Harry suggested, hoping he was wrong, "Maybe we've been sold out?"
Hermione shook her head.
"I told you about this when Umbridge passed that stupid Decree. There's a jinx on that list of names, the culprit would stand out immediately."
"Where is the list?" Percy asked.
"Somewhere I check several times daily out of habit," Hermione said calmly. "Since I gather you guys haven't asked Piper to give Malfoy her coin, I can assure you we have not been betrayed – at least, not intentionally."
"So we're back to duplicates." Percy sighed, sinking into one of the armchairs.
Nico looked at him grimly.
"What if he's made continuous copies of the duplicate?"
He glanced at Hermione, whose smile had slid off her face like a pancake on a greasy kitchen wall.
"If he keeps creating one from each new duplicate before they wear off…" Nico continued, speaking fast.
Hermione blanched.
"We're in trouble," she completed.
Which was why, at nearly one in the morning, Harry was presiding over a room of sleepy teenagers, for whom the word 'emergency' usually defined someone breaking an ankle or nearly being sick on someone, not an event caused by the risks of underground activity. Only Fred and George perhaps knew the feeling of the latter, except they were currently leaning against each other on a huge beanbag, eyes closed and mouths wide open, throats a-rippling.
"Okay," Harry called out, in the loud, clear voice that now came to him quite naturally whenever he pulled on the skin of a teacher again, "I know this was a completely unexpected meeting – believe me, I was dragged out of the arms of Morpheus myself to be here-" rippled laughter, followed by several amused looks exchanged between Percy and his gang, "but the reason that you were awoken or ripped from the comforts of books or a warm shower a few minutes ago by these guys," he pointed at Percy and his friends, who had volunteered to penetrate each common room and wake the necessary people, since the use of the coins was, obviously, out of the question for the moment, "is because one of you managed to lose your hold on this."
He held up the DA coin in his hand, attracting the eye of every single person in the room. Good.
He scanned the faces of as many people as could, almost hoping to see an expression of guilt, shame - anything - that would help solve the issue, but the ones he watched reflected only bafflement, confusion or pure disinterest.
"I won't ask the owner to stand up and claim their coin," Harry said, his voice ringing across the room, "mainly because I know that losing it was not deliberate on their part-"
"-and the coin may have been pickpocketed from them in any case," Hermione interjected.
Harry paused and glanced at her. She gave him a look, which told him not to challenge her on this point.
He cleared his throat. In fact, he was glad she'd thought of that. It took away the accusing tone to his speech.
"Yeah, so, as I said, this isn't about humiliating the owner, it's about warning you of the risks attached to this group, and the dangers that go much further than detention or being expelled." He surveyed them carefully. "These coins are practically counterfeit currency, even if we're only using them to communicate. We're talking about Ministry inquiries here, maybe even Azkaban. It falls to each of you," he pointed at a few different grave faces, "to make sure that doesn't happen."
There was a moment of silence, then Hannah Abbott hesitantly put her hand up. She'd opened up a lot these past few weeks, but Harry knew it cost her a lot to speak out in front of people.
"Yes, Hannah?" he said kindly.
"Well, I just… I don't understand," she mumbled, going red, "why does losing a coin mean waking everyone up in the middle of the night? I mean," she blushed even more, "you've found the coin. And we haven't been found out."
"Why didn't you use it to tell us to come here, either?" asked Zacharias Smith, looking very ruffled without his usual ruler-worthy parting and neatly combed hair.
Harry smiled grimly.
"Ah," he said, "now let Hermione here explain…"
Flushing, and shooting him burning looks the whole time, Hermione told them about Malfoy, their duplicating dilemma, and the possibility that he had a coin.
When she'd finished, Terry Boot stuck up his hand.
"Pardon me for perhaps pointing out the obvious," he said, pushing his glasses up a bit, "but I believe there are a couple of flaws in your theory."
"Firstly," Michael Corner joined in - he was never much out of synch with his friend, "you're assuming that Malfoy has made a duplicate. Moderately improbable, I'd say."
"Well, not really, since Hermione managed to-" Harry started to say.
"Secondly," Terry took up, more loudly, "surely continuous duplication every hour or so is a very demanding task? The esteemed Mr Malfoy would be forced to set alarms throughout the night, damaging his exquisite skin tone and flawless hair."
"And thirdly," Corner completed, "according to NEWT principles we haven't learned yet-"
There was a ripple of gentle laughter across the room. It was general knowledge that half of Ravenclaw House achieved NEWT level in various subjects often two years before they happened.
"-the copy of a copy, while still identical to the original, lasts for less time than its predecessor, and the effect increases exponentially with every copy made."
Harry looked at Hermione in surprise. The reasoning seemed perfectly sound to him - had she not known all this?
Hermione was standing up, her arms crossed. Her mouth was set in a way Harry recognised in that she knew she was pushing it, but was determined to see things through her way.
"That still leaves him about two days to monitor our use of the coins," she said.
"Which we're not even sure he has a copy of," Terry patiently pointed out.
"We're not sure You-Know-Who's going to use giants in his campaign either, doesn't mean nothing's being done about it." Ron snapped.
Harry and Hermione stared at him in shock, and the familiar maroon started creeping up Ron's ears as he realised his mistake, but to Harry's left came the sound of someone clearing their throat.
"An excellent point," Annabeth said, poised as ever. "Personally I think caution is the preferable way. Whilst we cannot be certain of Malfoy's possession of a coin, equally we cannot be sure of the system's invulnerability. For two or three days, we must abstain from organising meetings and otherwise using the coins. That's all."
"Then why wake everyone up to tell us that?" Michael shot back. "You're the ones who organise the bloody things anyway," he pointed at Harry and his friends, "we wouldn't have used them of our own accord."
"Which brings us to the second objective of this meeting," Harry said coolly, "one I would have brought up earlier had you let me finish."
Michael adopted a suitably abashed expression, and Ron looked triumphant. By the look of his ears, now purple, he hadn't liked Michael's tone any more than he had Terry's logical perspective. Satisfied, Harry motioned for Hermione to take the lead once more.
"In order to safeguard the use of our coins, some changes are in order. I propose a temporary alteration in the design of the coins," Hermione held up the Galleon that had caused all the drama. "As I explained to Harry, only I can change them. Since Malfoy's copies will have self-destroyed in a maximum of three days, this alteration will have to wait that long, as his copies will mimic the coin in my hand until they disappear. However, I wanted to warn you that by Saturday evening, if the coins have turned, say, silver, there should be no cause for worry."
"Why change them, though?" Ginny asked.
"Again, a matter of precaution," Hermione said calmly, "should Malfoy decide to sell us after all, golden coins will be the object of inquiries, whereas we will be, in fact, using anything but."
"What makes you think he won't sell us out before then?" Zacharias Smith called out.
"If he'd already done so, I think we would know about it. Besides, it's possible Malfoy doesn't know we're using the coins for communication and is biding his time, letting us show him what we use them for. As far he knows, maybe we're making fake money."
"And if he made a copy of it himself, he committed the same offence and can't risk the exposure by attracting attention to it." Terry Boot completed, nodding in understanding.
There were nods of agreement all around the room, but there were also a few yawns and pointed glances at watches. Perhaps they did not realise, Harry came to think, the risks involved in all this.
And why should they? Said a small voice in his head. They're students. Teenagers. And even you knew no better when you agreed to this.
Then what had changed, Harry wondered. Was it being a teacher that made him suddenly aware of everything at stake? Had he unconsciously grown in the past few weeks while leaving behind most of his classmates?
Looking around the room, he again caught sight of Percy and his ever present group of friends. The guy had calmed down somewhat since their confrontation in the common room. His reaction had startled Harry, at first. For a laid-back guy, Percy could be pretty fierce when he was worried or angry.
Percy was watching the room of students, eyes narrowed and brow creased in thought, as though he were trying to spot a crook in a crowd. It struck Harry how grown he looked then. Not like a student at all, but more like someone experienced in stealth and emergency situations. His friends, he observed, were behaving in a similar way. Their eyes were dark and watchful, their faces expressionless as they scanned the room over and over – watching, always watching. What were they looking for?
At last, when someone asked a question concerning the next lesson plan, Harry was pulled out of his contemplations. For a few more minutes he did his best to reassure his class that they were doing their best to keep them organised and united, but he could not help the little voice in his head that said really? Are you sure you're doing everything you can?
He ignored it, and concentrated on the last few moments of the meeting. Assisted by Ron and Hermione, he consulted his father's map dutifully as a queue formed near the door, letting them leave in pairs or groups of threes. Filch was still doing his rounds at this hour, and a few teachers were out and about, but fortunately there was very little risk of running into any of them thanks to the wonderfully complicated layout of the castle and the locations of the four common rooms. As an extra safeguard, Hermione had taught them all a few weeks ago a muffling charm to put on their shoes, meant to get them past even the lightest of sleepers in the castle's portraits.
Towards the end of the dwindling line, Ernie McMillan came to see him, red-faced, muttering about being late for class that morning and Quidditch robes left in the bathroom. Understanding immediately, Harry slipped him the coin and clapped him on the shoulder in farewell.
Somehow, when he closed the door on Angelina and Katie's backs, Harry wasn't entirely surprised to see the Americans still there, looking at him gravely.
"Let me guess," he said, "you're about to tell me about some other doom I'm not aware of?"
They exchanged glances, the likes of which made Harry's heart sink again – it was practically drowning this evening – because why, oh, why had he gone ahead and jinxed things again?
"Well, not exactly," Percy said slowly, but Annabeth cut across him.
She stepped out from the sanctuary of her huddle of friends, dragging someone behind her.
It was the boy Harry had noticed earlier without recognising him. If he was honest, he could still see why: there was truly nothing note-worthy about him, except perhaps that he had three pimples on one cheek that looked like Orion's belt.
"New recruit, hm?" Harry said tiredly as he rubbed his forehead. Why did they have to waste his time on this? It wasn't as if it was the first time they'd taken in a newbie. "Welcome to the club, mate."
"He's… not technically joining the DA," Annabeth corrected, apparently choosing her words very carefully. She looked up at the boy who, come to think of it, looked as lost as a sheep among dolphins. He was glancing around as if to say, why is it wet and where's the grass? Er… baa?
"This is Phoebus Delian," she informed them. "He's a Squib."
A/N: This chapter's title, Calamus Gadio Fortior, means 'the pen is mightier than the sword'. It only fits with the first part of the chapter, but I still thought it was a good choice.
As usual, thanks to everyone who reviewed. You make my day every time, you know :-)
Also, good news! I've decided to get a grip on myself and my life, and have now adopted a thousand-word-a-day policy, whereby I force myself to write that much before midnight every day. Compared with the usual two months of nothing followed by entire days of hammering at my keyboard, I consider this an improvement already. With any luck, I'll stick to it for a while at least - though hopefully for life - which means more chapters more often for you guys.
To the guest who pointed out that Thalia is just as afraid of heights as Hazel is, can I point out straight back at you that (from my experience) vertigo isn't the same when you're climbing down a small cliff than when you're staring into a void? And I know Leo isn't afraid of heights, but he might not necessarily like climbing. Sorry, I don't have a beta and I didn't mean to create a fallacy :-)
Nobody: Nope. Sorry. No idea what those are.
Throughthelookingglass27: Good. He's meant to.
DanLM: I trust your issues with the characterisation have been resolved? Thanks for the comment ;-)
I also wanted to tell you, following all of your encouragement and praise, that I have now started working on writing of my own, a novel in fact. First time ever! Still in the early drafting process, but perhaps some of you would do me the honour of reading it and providing feedback one day?
As usual, please point out any typos to me.