Chapter 59
QUILL
The present-day visitors paying their respects to the late headmaster objected to the narrow, single-entry door through which they had to squeeze in order to file past the body. Each staff member referred the complainers to another staff member until nobody quite knew who was responsible for losing the key that could have unlocked the heavy chain securing the majestic double doors or for forgetting the spell that could have broken it. The vast buffet the elves had assembled for Dumbledore's wake in the long gallery off the rotunda appeased most of the grumbles. The future attendants mourning the Headmaster's actual demise slipped into and out of the rotunda at intervals carefully timed by McGonagall to coincide with other distractions.
Harry, Professor Daine and Professor Snape were the center of one such distraction now—an official recitation to the distinguished audience sitting in the gallery of their thrilling escape from the Azkaban fugitives in the Northumberland cottage. Describing the adventure was easy for Harry. Voldemort's rearranged memory was as clear in his head as his real one.
Severus Snape was a different matter. Now that he had a tale that was grand and splashy—something to make people goggle as he'd yearned for as a schoolboy fan of the Longbottoms—he was unenthusiastic about telling it. The more Ariel Daine praised him, the more dispirited he looked.
As he waited for the ordeal to be over, Harry shifted from one foot to the other, his eye on the array of delectable steaming dishes he hadn't yet had a chance to sample.
At last, his uncle folded his arms in his sleeves and murmured, "There's nothing more to say. As the Headmaster lay dying, his last thoughts were for the safety of his colleague, Professor Ariel Daine, and of his student, Harry Potter. I merely carried out his final wishes." Before anyone had a chance to ask a question, the Potions master turned his back, plodded to the back of the podium and down the steps.
For a moment, Harry stood awkwardly, listening to the clapping meant for his uncle. When Headmistress McGonagall stepped forward to begin her eulogy, he quickly exited off the side of the podium nearest the food. As McGonagall extolled Professor Dumbledore's generous heart that had finally succumbed to old age, he saw Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Avery, sitting in the front row, exchange knowing smirks.
Their sons sat apart from them and apart from each other. No surprise there, Harry thought. One had disappointed his father by failing to kill Dumbledore, the other by saving him. Draco looked more low-spirited than Harry would have expected. He wondered how long it would take Snape to break down and whisper to his godson that his duel with Wilhelm's surrogate, Filch, had not been in vain after all.
Skirting the seated mourners to reach the food, Harry felt gratified at the applause, sniffles and sobs that greeted each of McGonagall's tributes. Dumbledore should be proud.
When he reached the sumptuous spread at last, he sighed in contentment. Then he heard a familiar voice call his name and cringed. Rita Skeeter.
Turning, he saw the old scandalmonger herself, robed in bilious puce-and-yellow, surging down the aisle toward him. The blood red on her lips and talon-like nails made her look like a vulture that had fed but wanted more. The second she reached him, a pink parchment unfurled itself at her side and her green Quick-Quotes Quill started scratching. Unfortunately, the blank side was toward him. He wouldn't be able to read her lies until they appeared on the front page of The Daily Prophet.
Skeeter's first question recalled all the embarrassing things she'd written about him when he'd been a Triwizard Tournament champion the year before: "Harry, how scared were you—scared enough to cry?"
The image Voldemort had planted of him sniveling and whining rose in Harry's mind. He grimaced. Surely, playing along didn't mean he had to parrot back all of the Dark Lord's spiteful fabrications.
As he hesitated, Professor Snape glided up beside them. "Potter has said all he needs to say. Let him mourn in peace."
Not to mention eat in peace. Harry wasn't certain whether his uncle was protecting him or the conspiracy from Skeeter's nosiness, but either way, he was grateful.
"Just one picture, then—"
On Skeeter's cue, her paunchy photographer sidekick seemed to appear out of nowhere. His camera's flash shut Harry's eyes. His boss's next words opened them wide.
"And a comment on my interview with your girlfriend, Hermione Granger—"
"Hermione's not my girlfriend."
"—ex-girlfriend who claims you couldn't possibly have been held captive by Death Eaters because, at the time, you two were teamed up long distance in a friendly Hogwarts magic contest."
Snape groaned.
The jeweled combs buttressing Skeeter's shellacked hair waves glittered. "How does it feel knowing your ex has had a complete nervous breakdown? Are her hallucinations her just desserts for throwing you over for Viktor Krumm?"
Skeeter's outrageous conclusions weren't as disconcerting to Harry as the realization We forgot about Hermione! Now she'd have to be let in on the secret, too. He glanced at his uncle. Before they knew it, their number would match Voldemort's.
Snape growled. Then he muttered, "Nine."
"What's that?" Skeeter's sharp eyes became predatory behind her jewel-rimmed glasses.
Snape sighed. "A number that is one larger than eight."
"Eight? Nine? Are those your lucky numbers? Tell me, when you gamble, are you luckier than your father? Do you regret that when the goblins seized him for bad debts, you didn't mount a rescue?"
With each question, Harry saw Snape's bearing become stiffer and his face grimmer. Scratch, scratch, scratch went Skeeter's quill. Harry clenched his fists, remembering the trouble that quill had caused him, Hermione and especially Hagrid the year before. The reporter's animagus form—a scuttling beetle—was apt. Hermione should never have released her from her insect jar.
At last, Snape ground out, "My father is not at issue here."
"How about your mother, then. If she hadn't ditched you all those years ago, do you feel she would have been proud of you today?" On cue, a newspaper archive photo popped out of Skeeter's yellow sharkskin handbag: a big jovial wizard with a simpering beauty of a wife holding up an anxious-looking toddler with long, fussy, beribboned, black ringlets.
The picture seemed to unnerve Snape. Instead of responding, he clamped his jaw tighter. At his silence, Skeeter's quill whipped back and forth across the scroll.
Say something! Harry scolded himself. But his thoughts were blank. The veteran reporter's assault was more mind-numbing than Voldemort's.
Out the corner of his eye, Harry saw Ariel Daine bustling up. On hearing her lilting Alabaman accent—"That's enough, now. Let's not disturb the services"—his head began to clear. When Daine waved the old snapshot back into Skeeter's purse, he heard his uncle take a deep, calming breath.
Sighting a new target, Skeeter didn't miss a beat. "How did you feel when Severus Snape gambled with your life? Were you frightened that he'd decided to face his comrades-in-arms alone?"
"What did you say?" Daine blinked. "They weren't his comrades."
"Speaking of comrades, was it awkward being abducted by his old flame?"
"My what? Bellatrix LeStrange?" Snape's lip curled. "We never— You're insane."
Skeeter glanced at her scroll. "'Old flame abducts new flame.' That's a headline."
The quill scribbled furiously.
His black eyes murderous, Snape thrust his hand into his robes, whipped out his wand and aimed at Skeeter's parchment. Poof! The calumny disintegrated in cinders. The Quick-Misquotes Quill, apparently used to such retaliation, danced in the air unscathed.
Instead of upset, Skeeter looked thrilled. "Did you get a picture?" When her photographer shook his head, she leered at Snape. "I have a back-up scroll. Would you mind doing that again?"
Grinding his teeth, Snape jerked his wand up to Skeeter's face. Then he plunged his hand to his side. "If you libel me," he bit out, "I'll sue."
"What's the libel?" Skeeter shot back. "That Bellatrix LeStrange is your old flame, or that Ariel Daine is your new one?"
Harry saw spots of red form on Snape's pale cheeks. Bending toward Professor Daine, he breathed in a voice almost too low for Harry to hear, "This is mortifying. I'm sorry. You deserve better."
Before Daine could respond, the photographer butted in and snapped another picture. When Snape turned on him, he sprang backwards five feet. With a snarl, Snape pivoted and strode off toward the far end of the gallery. The photographer caught up with him. Then he scurried along at Snape's side, clicking.
"Would your real parents be proud of you today?" Skeeter called after him. "Have you ever taken Identity Potion to find out who they are?"
Harry glared at Skeeter. Is this the thanks his uncle got for being a hero? Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters had treated him with greater respect. At last, his resentment gave him words. "Have you no decency? This is a funeral."
"Yes, this is a funeral." Skeeter's three gold teeth glinted as her smile broadened. "Which makes me curious. Why do you seem more interested in eating than weeping?"
Harry's stomach clenched. Like Hagrid, learning the great good news that Dumbledore was alive had made him incapable of shedding a tear. If Skeeter was wondering why, were the unseen watchers wondering, too?
Harry drew himself up to his full height. "I don't cry to suit you," he answered with all the young man dignity he could muster. "Headmaster Dumbledore would have wanted me to be strong. I'm merely getting myself a drink of water."
"There's a brave boy," Professor Daine added, picking up a pitcher and pouring one for him. She met his eyes as she handed him the glass, then turned resolutely back to Rita Skeeter. "You're very interested in our Potions master, aren't you? Let me give you the lowdown on him—an exclusive."
Harry saw Skeeter's eyes light up. Professor Daine cupped her hand on the older woman's shoulder. She began talking slowly in her soothing, singsong drawl—in exactly the tones she'd used with the Muggle girl. Belying her gentle words, she switched her wand ominously against her thigh.
With a wistful glance at the buffet, Harry turned and walked his glass of water to an empty chair at the end of a row. Facing the podium, he managed an appropriately glum pose as, one by one, the Hogwarts staff honored Dumbledore.
After a few minutes, Ariel Daine walked up. Bending down, she murmured, "Memory rearrangement can be used for good purposes, too." Then she continued on to the podium and joined her fellow professors.
A moment later, an atypically subdued Skeeter passed Harry, lumbering slowly enough to give him a peek at the Quick-Quotes Quill's entry on her back-up scroll: "Hogwarts reeled today between sorrow and gratitude: sorrow for the passing of their universally loved and revered headmaster, Professor Albus Dumbledore, and gratitude for the bravery of their renowned Potions master, Professor Severus Snape . . . ."
As Harry listened dolefully to Argus Filch finishing the last tribute, he lamented that the guests were finishing up the last of the main dishes, too. An hour later, filing out of the rotunda after Dumbledore's interment, he was sad to see the side dishes gone as well. Just as he was on his way to grab some of the remaining rolls, cheese and nuts, Headmistress McGonagall made her shocking discovery about Hogwarts's violated protective spells. She roped him and the other older students into each trailing a professor—Flitwick, in his case—with a box of magical meters and monitors, potions and talismans. Owing to the Charms master's meticulousness, two hours passed before the little expert was satisfied he'd adequately re-fortified his assigned section of the castle. When Harry finally returned to the gallery to see McGonagall sending the last guest off to the last train, even the dirty dishes, silverware, and tablecloths had been whisked away.
Harry stared gloomily at where the splendor had been. Then somebody tugged his sleeve. Looking down, he saw a now familiar twinkly-eyed old elf smiling up at him.
"You haven't been forgotten. Your supper is waiting in the kitchen. I believe Professor Daine is already there."
Without a guide, Harry chose countless wrong corridors, started down several misleading staircases, and mistook numerous turns before finally stumbling upon the entryway. The huge doors to the Great Hall were closed, but golden light and enticing smells emanating from a smaller door off to the side identified the usually hidden kitchen where his late, late supper awaited him. Hurrah! Full of both relief and hunger, he started toward it.
"Potter."
The sharp whisper brought Harry up short. Reluctantly, he looked away from the lit doorway and the promise of food to the shadows across the entrance hall. Faintly sketched by moonlight, Snape stood solitary beside a statue of a crouching leviathan. Harry sighed. Facing the professor was the last thing he wanted to do right now, but his uncle's stare was more compelling than an Imperius Curse. Slowly, he trudged toward him.
One chapter to go...