Chapter 28
The Egg and the Eye
KIARA
As I had no idea how long a bath I would need to work out the secret of the golden egg, I decided to do it at night, when I was able to take as much time as I wanted. Reluctant as I was to accept more favours from Georgia, I also decided to us the Prefects' bathroom; far fewer people were allowed in there, so I found it much less likely to be disturbed in there than if I used one of the ordinary bathrooms.
I planned my excursion carefully, because I had been caught out of bounds by Match the caretaker in the middle of the night once - and only once - before, and I had no desire to repeat the experience. The Invisibility Cloak was, of course, essential, and as an added precaution, I thought I would take the Scallywag Map, which, next to the Cloak, was the most useful aid to rule-breaking I owned. The Map showed the whole of Dragon Mort, including its many shortcuts and secret passageways and, most importantly of all, it revealed the people inside the castle as miniature, labelled dots, moving around the corridors, so that I could be forewarned if somebody was approaching the bathroom.
On Thursday night, (it was some time before the second task, don't ask me the date), I sneaked up to bed, put on the Cloak, crept back downstairs and, just as I had done on the night Mina had shown me the dragons, waited for the portrait hole to open. It was Chrissie who waited outside with Chris that time to give the Fat Lord the password ("Banana fritters"). "Good luck," Chrissie muttered, as Chris followed her into the common room just as I snuck out past them.
I remember feeling awkward as I moved under the Cloak that night, because I had the heavy egg under one arm and the Map in front of my nose in the other. However, the moonlit corridors were empty and silent, and by checking the Map at strategic intervals, I was able to ensure that I didn't run into anyone I wanted to avoid. When I reached the statue of Boris the Bewildered, a lost-looking wizard with his gloves on the wrong hands, I located the right door, leant close to it, and muttered the password, "Pine-fresh", just as Georgia had told me.
The door creaked open. I slipped inside, bolted the door behind me, and pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, looking around.
My immediate reaction was that it would be worth becoming a Prefect just to be able to use this bathroom. It was softly lit by a splendid candle-filled chandelier, and everything was made of white marble, including what looked like an empty, rectangular swimming pool sunk into the middle of the floor. About a hundred golden taps stood all around the pool's edges, each with a different-coloured jewel set into its handle. There was also a diving board. Long white linen curtains hung at the windows; a large pile of fluffy white towels sat in a corner, and there was a single golden-framed painting on the wall. It featured a blond merman, who was fast asleep on a rock, his long hair fluttering over his face every time he snored.
I put down my Cloak, the egg and the Map, and moved forwards, looking around, my footsteps echoing off the walls. Magnificent though the bathroom was - and quite keen as I was to try out a few of those taps - when I was there I couldn't quite suppress the feeling that Georgia might have been having me on. I wondered how on earth this was supposed to help me solve the mystery of the egg. Nevertheless, I put one of the fluffy towels, the Cloak, the Map and the egg at the side of the swimming-pool-sized bath, then knelt down and turned on a few of the taps.
I could tell at once that they carried different sorts of bubble bath mixed with the water, though it wasn't bubble bath as I had ever experienced it. One tap gushed orange and purple bubbles the size of footballs, another poured out ice-white foam so thick that I thought it would have supported my weight if I'd cared to test it; a third sent heavily perfumed blue clouds hovering over the surface of the water. I amused myself for a while by turning the taps on and off, particularly enjoying the effect of one whose jet bounced off the surface of the water in large arcs. Then, when the deep pool was full of water, foam and bubbles (which took a very short time considering its size), I turned off all the taps, pulled off my dressing-gown, slippers and night-gown, and slid into the water.
It was so deep that my feet barley touched the bottom, and I actually did a couple of lengths before swimming back to the side and treading the water, staring at the egg. Highly enjoyable as it was to swim in hot and foamy water with clouds of different-coloured steam wafting all around me, no stroke of brilliance came to me, no sudden burst of understanding.
I stretched out my arms, lifted the egg in my wet hands and opened it. The wailing, screeching sound filled the bathroom, echoing and reverberating off the marble walls, but it sounded just as incomprehensible as ever, if not more so with all the echoes. I snapped it shut again, worried that the sound would attract Match, wondering whether that hadn't been Georgia's plan - and then, making me jump so badly that I dropped the egg, which clattered away across the bathroom floor, someone spoke.
"I'd try putting it in the water, if I were you."
I had swallowed a considerable amount of bubbles in shock. I stood up, spluttering, and saw the ghost of a very gum-looking boy sitting with his arms crossed across his chest on top of one of the taps. It was Old Moany, who was usually to be heard sobbing in the S-bend of a boys' toilet three floors below.
"Moany!" I said in outrage. "I'm - I'm not wearing anything!"
The foam was so dense that this hardly mattered, but I had a nasty feeling that Moany had been spying on me from out of one of the taps ever since I had arrived.
"I closed my eyes when you got in," he said, blinking at me through his thick spectacles. "You haven't been to see me for ages."
"Yeah ... well ..." I said, bending my knees slightly, just to make absolutely sure Moany couldn't see anything but my head, "I'm not supposed to come into your bathroom, am I? It's a boys' one."
"You didn't used to care," said Moany miserably. "You used to be in there all the time."
That was true, though only because Chris, Sian, Chrissie and I had found Moany's out-of-order toilets a convenient place to brew Polyjuice Potion in secret - a forbidden potion which had turned Sian, Chrissie and I into living replicas of Crate, Gabber and Rea-Bradley for an hour, so that we could sneak into the Snake-Eyes common room.
"I got told off for going in there," I said, which was half-true; Perdy had once caught me coming out of Moany's bathroom. "I thought I'd better not come back after that."
"Oh ... I see ..." said Moany, picking at a spot on his chin in a morose sort of way. "Well ... anyway ... I'd try the egg in the water. That's what Georgia Diggs did."
"Have you been spying on her, too?" I said indignantly. "What d'you do, sneak up here in the evenings to watch the Prefects take baths?"
"Sometimes," said Moany, rather slyly, "but I've never come out to speak to anyone before."
"I'm honoured," I said darkly. "You keep your eyes shut!"
I made sure Moany had his glasses well covered before I hoisted myself out of the bath, wrapped a towel firmly around myself and went to get the egg.
Once I was back in the water, Moany peered through his fingers and said, "Go on, then ... open it under the water!"
I lowered the egg beneath the foamy surface, and opened it ... and, that time, it didn't wail. A gurgling song was coming out of it, the words I couldn't distinguish through the water.
"You need to put your head under, too," said Moany, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying bossing me around. "Go on!"
I took a great breath, and slid under the surface - and when I was on the marble bottom of the bubble-filled bath, I heard a chorus of eerie voices singing to me from the open egg in my hands:
"Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
We guard a creature who lurks inside,
And around him are three things you must find;
And while you're searching in his cave, ponder this:
He's taken what you'll surely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look with help from your Guide,
To recover what he took and hid inside,
But past an hour - the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back."
I let myself float back upwards and broke the bubbly surface, shaking my hair out of my eyes.
"Hear it?" said Moany.
"Yeah ... "Come seek us where our voices sound" ... and if I need persuading ... hang on, I need to listen again ..." I sank beneath the water.
It took three more underwater renditions of the egg's song before I had it memorised; then I trod the water for a while, thinking hard, while Moany sat and watched me.
"I've got to go and look for people who can't use their voices above the ground ..." I said slowly. "Er ... who could that be?"
"Slow, aren't you?"
I had never seen Old Moany so cheerful, apart from the day when Chris' dose of Polyjuice Potion had given him the hairy face and tail of a cat.
I stared around the bathroom, thinking ... if the voices could only be heard underwater, then it made sense for them to belong to underwater creatures. I ran this theory past Moany, who smirked at me.
"Well, that's what Diggs thought," he said. "She lay there talking to herself for ages about it. Ages and ages ... nearly all the bubbles had gone ..."
"Underwater ..." I said slowly. "Moany ... what lives in that river, apart from the giant squid?"
"Oh, all sorts," he said. "I sometimes go down there ... sometimes don't have any choice, if someone flushes my toilet when I'm not expecting it ..."
Trying not to think about Old Moany zooming down a pipe to the river with the contents of a toilet, I said, "Well, does anything in there have human voices? Hang on - "
My eyes had fallen on the picture of the snoozing merman on the wall. "Moany, there aren't merpeople in there, are there?"
"Oooh, very good," he said, his thick glasses twinkling. "It took Diggs much longer than that! And that was with him awake, too," - Moany jerked his head towards the merman with an expression of great dislike on his glum face - "watching her with his smouldering dark eyes and flashing his fins ..."
"What was that thing about "him" all about? And what about the "hid inside" thing?" I asked, pondering this for several minutes, before I jumped to a suspicion, which I voiced aloud to Moany.
"There are caves for each of the Champions, aren't there? And each one is hiding a creature within that the merpeople are guarding; and we have to find things to help us find the thing we'll miss, won't we?" As I asked each question, Moany nodded eagerly.
"Diggs asked all those questions, too," said Moany. "She also suspected that the caves would be portals that led to another dimension that would be dry, and that the cave would be bewitched from the outside and would have to be opened somehow. It was only then that she discovered the chalk - "
"Chalk?" I asked, looking around wildly. "What chalk?"
"Touch the bottom of the egg," was all Moany said.
Confused, and wondering what Moany was on about, I touched the bottom of the egg, and saw a small slot open up, and a piece of chalk fall out, which didn't start to dissolve in my wet hands. All the pieces were finally starting to put themselves together ...
"That's it, isn't it?" I said excitedly. "The second task's to go find the creature surrounded by merpeople in the river and ... and ..."
But I suddenly realised what I was saying, and I felt the excitement drain out of me as though someone had just pulled a plug in my stomach. I wasn't a very good swimmer; I had never had much practice. My grandmothers had never got me lessons because they didn't think I'd need the chance to swim. A couple of lengths of that bath was all very well, and I knew that I would be inside a cave for some of the second task, but the river was very large and very deep ... and I would have to hold my breath for quite a long time ... and merpeople surely lived at the bottom ...
"Moany," I said slowly, "how am I supposed to breathe?"
At this, Moany's eyes filled with sudden tears.
"Tactless!" he muttered, groping in his robes for a handkerchief.
"Oh, Moany," I said quickly, realising what I said and trying to apologise, "I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking - "
"Of course you didn't think about breathing in front of me!" he said shrilly, and his voice echoed loudly around the bathroom. "When I can't ... when I haven't ... not for ages ..." He buried his face in his handkerchief and sniffed loudly.
It was then that I remembered how touchy Moany had always been about being dead, but none of the other ghosts I knew made such a fuss about it. "Sorry," I said again. "I didn't mean - I just forgot ..."
"Oh, yes, very easy to forget Moany's dead," said Moany, gulping, looking at me out of swollen eyes. "Nobody missed me, even when I was alive. Took them hours and hours to find my body - I know, I was sitting there, waiting for them. Oliver Hornby came to the bathroom - "Are you in here again, sulking, Moany?" he said. "Because Professor Dipp asked me to look for you - " And then he saw my body ... ooooh, he didn't forget it until his dying day, I made sure of that ... followed him around and reminded him, I did, I remember at his sister's wedding - "
But I wasn't listening; I was thinking about the merpeople's song again. "He's taken what you'll surely miss." That sounded as thought this creature (whatever it was) was going to steal something of mine, something I had to get back. The question was: what were they going to take?
" - and then, of course, he went to the Ministry of Magic to stop me stalking him, so I had to come back here and live in my toilet."
"Good," I said vaguely. "Well, I'm a lot further on than I was ... shut your eyes, will you, I'm getting out."
I retrieved the egg from the bottom of the bath, put the chalk back in the egg, and once the egg was shut, I climbed out, dried myself and pulled on my nightgown, slippers and dressing-gown again.
"Will you come and visit me in my bathroom again sometime?" Old Moany asked mournfully, as I picked up the Invisibility Cloak and the Map.
"Er ... I'll try," I said, though privately thinking the only way I'd visit Moany's bathroom again was if every other toilet in the castle got blocked. "See you, Moany ... thanks for your help."
"Bye, bye," he said gloomily, and as I put on the Invisibility Cloak, I saw him zoom back up the tap.
Out in the dark corridor, I examined the Scallywag's Map to check the coast was still clear. Yes, the dots belonging to Match and Mrs Robbs were safely in their office ... nothing else seemed to be moving apart from Weeves, who was bouncing around the trophy room on the floor above ... I had taken my first step back towards Lion-Heart Tower, when something else on the Map caught my eye ... something distinctly odd.
Weeves was not the only thing that was moving. A single dot was flitting around a room in the bottom left-hand corner - Triphorm's office. But the dot wasn't labelled "Tiana Triphorm" ... it was Beatrice Clutch.
I stared at the dot. Mrs Clutch was supposed to be too ill to go to work or to come to the Yule Ball - so what was she doing, sneaking into Dragon Mort at one o'clock in the morning? I watched closely as the dot moved round and round the room, pausing here and there ...
I hesitated, thinking ... and then my curiosity got the better of me. I turned, and set off in the opposite direction, towards the nearest staircase. I was going to see what Clutch was up to.
I walked down the stairs as quietly as possible, though the faces in some of the portraits still turned curiously at the squeak of a floorboard, the rustle of my nightgown. I crept along the corridor below, pushed aside a tapestry about halfway along and proceeded down a narrower staircase, a shortcut that took me down two floors. I kept glancing down at the Map, wondering ... it just didn't seem in character, somehow, for correct, law-abiding Mrs Clutch to be sneaking around somebody else's office this late at night ...
And then, halfway down the staircase, not even thinking about what I was doing, not even concentrating on anything but the peculiar behaviour of Mrs Clutch, my leg suddenly sank right through the trick step Nikita always forgot to jump. I gave an ungainly wobble, and the golden egg, still damp from the bath, slipped from under my arm - I reached forwards to try and catch it, but too late; the egg fell down the staircase with a bang as loud as a bass drum on every step - the Invisibility Cloak slipped - I snatched at it, and the Scallywag's Map fluttered out of my hand, and slid down six stairs, where, sunk in the step to above my knee, I couldn't reach it.
The golden egg fell through the tapestry at the bottom of the staircase, burst open and began wailing loudly in the corridor below. I pulled out my wand and struggled to touch the Scallywag's Map, to wipe it blank, but it was too far away to reach (of course it occurs to me now that I could have tried to Summon it, but the egg was shrieking and I was panicking, so do any of you blame me, really?) -
Pulling the Cloak back over myself I straightened up, listening hard, my eyes screwed up with fear ... and, almost immediately -
"WEEVES!"
It was the unmistakeable hunting cry of Match the caretaker. I could hear his rapid, shuffling footsteps coming nearer and nearer, his wheezy voice raised in fury.
"What's this racket? Wake up the whole castle, will you? I'll have you, Weeves, I'll have you, you'll ... and what is this?"
Match's footsteps stopped; there was a chink of metal on metal, and the wailing stopped - Match had picked up the egg and closed it. I stood very still, one leg still jammed tightly in the magical step, listening. At any moment, I thought that Match was going to pull aside the tapestry, expecting to see Weeves ... and there would be no Weeves ... but if he came up the stairs, he would spot the Scallywag's Map ... and, Invisibility Cloak or not, the Map would show "Kiara Pride-Lander" standing exactly where I was.
"Egg?" Match said quietly at the foot of the stairs. "My sweet!" - Mrs Robbs was obviously with him - "This is a Triwizard clue! This belongs to a school Champion!"
I felt sick; my heart was hammering very fast -
"WEEVES!" Match roared gleefully. "You've been stealing!"
He ripped back the tapestry below, and I saw his horrible pouchy face, and bulging pale eyes staring up the dark and (to Match) deserted staircase.
"Hiding, are you?" he said softly. "I'm coming to get you, Weeves ... you've gone and stolen a Triwizard clue, Weeves ... Crighton'll have you out of here for this, you filthy piltering poltergeist ..."
Match started to climb the stairs, his scrawny, dust-coloured cat at his heels. Mrs Robbs' lamp-like eyes, so very like her master's, were fixed directly upon me. I had wondered before this point if the Invisibility Cloak worked on cats, and now was no exception ... sick with apprehension, I watched Match drawing nearer and nearer in his old flannel dressing-gown - I tried desperately to draw my leg free, but it merely sunk a few more inches - at any second, I thought that Match was going to spot the Map or walk right into me -
"Match? What's going on?"
Match stopped a few steps below me, and turned. At the foot of the stairs stood the only person who could've (potentially) made my situation worse - Triphorm. She was wearing a long black nightgown and she looked livid.
"It's Weeves, Professor," Match whispered malevolently. "She threw this egg down the stairs."
Triphorm climbed up the stairs quickly and stopped beside Match. I gritted my teeth, convinced my loudly thumping heart would give me away at any moment ...
"Weeves?" said Triphorm softly, staring at the egg in Match's hands. "But Weeves couldn't get into my office ..."
"The egg was in your office, Professor?"
"Of course not," Triphorm snapped. "I heard banging and wailing - "
"Yes, Professor, that was the egg - "
" - I was coming to investigate - "
" - Weeves threw it, Professor - "
" - and when I passed my office, I saw that the torches were lit and a cupboard door was ajar! Somebody has been searching it!"
"But Weeves couldn't - "
"I know Weeves couldn't, Match!" Triphorm snapped. "I seal my office with a spell none but a wizard could break!"
Triphorm looked up the stairs, straight through me, and then back down into the corridor below. "I want you to come and help me search for the intruder, Match."
"I - yes, Professor - but - "
Match looked yearningly up the stairs, right through me, and I could see that he was very reluctant to forgo the chance of cornering Weeves. Go, I pleaded with him silently, go with Triphorm ... go ... Mrs Robbs was peering around Match's legs ... I had the distinct impression that she could smell me ... oh, I wished I hadn't filled that bath with so much perfumed foam!
"The thing is, Professor," said Match plaintively, "the Headmistress will have to listen to me this time, Weeves has been stealing from a student, it might be my chance to get her thrown out of the castle once and for all - "
"Match, I don't give a damn about that wretched poltergeist, it's my office that's - "
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
Triphorm stopped talking very abruptly. She and Match both looked down at the foot of the stairs. I saw Crazy-Head Grumpy limp into sight through the narrow gap between their heads. Grumpy was wearing her old travelling cloak over her nightgown, and was leaning on her staff as usual.
"Pyjama party, is it?" she growled up the stairs.
"Professor Triphorm and I heard noises, Professor," said Match at once. "Weeves the poltergeist, throwing things around as usual - and then Professor Triphorm discovered someone had broken into her off - "
"Shut up!" Triphorm hissed to Match.
Grumpy took a step closer to the foot of the stairs. I saw one of Grumpy's magical eyes travel over Triphorm, and then, unmistakeably, onto myself.
My heart gave a horrible jolt. Grumpy could see through Invisibility Cloaks ... she alone could see the full strangeness of the scene ... Triphorm in her nightgown, Match clutching the egg, and I, Kiara, trapped in the stairs behind them. Grumpy's gash of a mouth opened in surprise. For a few seconds, she and I stared straight into each other's eyes. Then Grumpy closed her mouth and turned her blue eyes upon Triphorm again.
"Did I hear that correctly, Triphorm?" she asked softly. "Someone broke into your office?"
"It is unimportant," said Triphorm coldly.
"On the contrary," growled Grumpy, "it is very important. Who'd want to break into your office?"
"A student, I daresay," said Triphorm. I could see a vein flickering horribly on Triphorm's greasy temple. It has happened before. Potion ingredients have gone missing from my private store cupboard ... students attempting illicit mixtures, no doubt ..."
"Reckon they were after potion ingredients, eh?" said Grumpy. "Not hiding anything else in your office, are you?"
I saw the edge of Triphorm's sallow face turn a nasty brick colour, the vein in her temple pulsing more rapidly.
"You know I'm hiding nothing, Grumpy," she said, in a soft and dangerous voice, "as you've searched my office thoroughly yourself."
Grumpy's face twisted into a smile. "Auror's privilege, Triphorm. Crighton told me to keep an eye on - "
"Crighton happens to trust me," said Triphorm through clenched teeth. "I refuse to believe that she gave you orders to search my office!"
"'Course Crighton trusts you," growled Grumpy. "She's a trusting woman, isn't she? Believes in second chances. But me - I say there are spots that don't come off, Triphorm. Spots that never come off, d'you know what I mean?"
Triphorm then did something which I found to be very odd at the time. She seized her left forearm convulsively with her right hand, as though something on it had hurt her.
Grumpy laughed. "Get back to bed, Triphorm."
"You don't have the authority to send me anywhere!" Triphorm hissed, letting go of her arm as though angry with herself. "I have as much right to prowl this school after dark as you do!"
"Prowl away," said Grumpy, but her voice was full of menace. "I look forward to meeting you in a dark corridor sometime ... you've dropped something, by the way ..."
With a stab of horror, I saw Grumpy point at the Scallywag's Map, still lying on the staircase six steps below me. As Triphorm and Match both turned to look at it, I threw caution to the winds; I raised my arms under the Cloak and waved furiously at Grumpy to attract her attention, mouthing, "It's mine! Mine!"
Triphorm had reached out for it, a look of dawning comprehension on her face -
Accio parchment!"
The Map flew up into the air, slipped through Triphorm's outstretched fingers and soared down the stairs into Grumpy's hand.
"My mistake," Grumpy said calmly. "It's mine - must've dropped it earlier - "
But Triphorm's icy-blue eyes were darting from the egg in Match's arms to the Map in Grumpy's hands, and I could tell she was putting two and two together, as only Triphorm could ...
"Pride-Lander," she said quietly.
"What's that?" said Grumpy calmly, folding up the Map and pocketing it.
"Pride-Lander!" Triphorm snarled, and she actually turned her head and stared right at the place where I was, as though she could suddenly see me. "That egg is Pride-Lander's egg. That piece of parchment belong to Pride-Lander. I have seen it before, I recognise it! Pride-Lander is here! Pride-Lander, in her Invisibility Cloak!"
Triphorm stretched out her hands like a blind woman, and began to move up the stairs; I could have sworn her overlarge nostrils were dilating, trying to sniff me out - trapped, I bent backwards, trying to avoid Triphorm's fingertips, but any moment now -
"There's nothing there, Triphorm!" barked Grumpy. "But I'll be happy to tell the Headmistress how quickly your mind jumped to Kiara Pride-Lander!"
"Meaning what?" snarled Triphorm, turning again to look at Grumpy, her hands still outstretched, inches from my chest.
"Meaning that Crighton's very interested to know who's got it in for that girl!" said Grumpy, limping nearer still to the foot of the stairs. "And so am I, Triphorm ... very interested ..." The torchlight flickered across her mangled face, so that the scars, and the chunk missing from her nose, looked deeper and darker than ever.
Triphorm was looking down at Grumpy, and I couldn't see the expression on her face. For a moment, nobody moved or said anything. Then Triphorm slowly lowered her hands.
"I merely thought," said Triphorm, in a voice of forced calm, "that Pride-Lander was wandering around after hours again ... it's an unfortunate habit of hers ... she should be stopped. For - for her own safety."
"Ah, I see," said Grumpy softly. "Got Pride-Lander's best interests at heart, have you?"
There was a pause. Triphorm and Grumpy were still staring at each other. Mrs Robbs gave a loud meow, still peering around Match's legs, looking for the source of my bubble-bath smell.
"I think I will go back to bed," said Triphorm curtly.
"Best idea you've had all night," said Grumpy. "Now, Match, if you'll just give me that egg - "
"No!" said Match, clutching the egg as though it was his first-born son. "Professor Grumpy, this is evidence of Weeves' treachery!"
"It's the property of the Champion she stole it from," said Grumpy. "Hand it over, now."
Triphorm swept downstairs and passed Grumpy without another word. Match made a chirruping noise to Mrs Robbs, who stared blankly at me for a few more seconds before turningand following her master. Still breathing very fast, I heard Triphorm walking away down the corridor; Match handed Grumpy the egg, and disappeared from view too, muttering to Mrs Robbs, "Never mind, my sweet ... we'll see Crighton in the morning ... tell her what Weeves was up to ..."
A door slammed. I was left staring down at Grumpy, who placed her staff on the bottom-most stair, and started to climb laboriously towards me, a small clunk on every other step.
"Close shave, Pride-Lander," she muttered.
"Yeah ... I - er ... thanks," I said weakly.
"What is this thing?" said Grumpy, drawing out the Scallywag's Map out of her pocket and unfolding it.
"Map of Dragon Mort," I said, hoping Grumpy was going to pull me out of the staircase soon; my leg was really hurting me.
"Merlin's beard," Grumpy whispered, staring at the Map, her magical eyes going haywire. "This ... this is some Map, Pride-Lander!"
"Yeah, it's ... quite useful," I said. My eyes were starting to water from the pain. "Er - Professor Grumpy, d'you think you could help me?"
"What? Oh! Yes ... yes, of course ..."
Grumpy took hold of my arms and pulled; my leg came out of the trick step, and I climbed onto the one above it.
Grumpy was still gazing at the Map. "Pride-Lander ..." she said slowly, "you didn't happen, by any chance, to see who broke into Triphorm's office, did you? On this Map, I mean?"
"Er ... yeah, I did ..." I admitted. "It was Mrs Clutch."
Grumpy's magical eyes whizzed over the surface of the Map. She looked suddenly alarmed.
"Clutch?" she said. "You're - you're sure, Pride-Lander?"
"Positive," I said.
"Well, she's not here anymore," said Grumpy, her eyes still whizzing over the Map. "Clutch ... that's very - very interesting ..."
She said nothing for almost a minute, still staring at the Map. I could tell that this news meant something to Grumpy, and I very much wanted to know what it was. I wondered whether I dare ask. Grumpy scared me slightly ... yet Grumpy had just helped me avoid an awful lot of trouble ...
"Er ... Professor Grumpy ... why d'you reckon Mrs Clutch wanted to look around Triphorm's office?"
Grumpy's magical eyes left the Map and fixed, quivering, upon me. It was a penetrating glare, and I had the impression that Grumpy wa sizing me up, wondering whether to answer me or not, or how much to tell me.
"Put it this way, Pride-Lander," Grumpy muttered finally, "they say old Crazy-Head's obsessed with catching Dark wizards ... but Crazy-Head's nothing - nothing - compared to Beatrice Clutch."
She continued to stare at the Map. I was burning to know more.
"Professor Grumpy," I said again. "D'you think ... could this have anything to do with ... maybe Mrs Clutch thinks there's something going on ..."
"Like what?" said Grumpy sharply.
I wondered how much I dare say. I didn't want Grumpy to guess I had a source of information outside Dragon Mort; that might lead to tricky questions about my parents, and I really didn't want that on my back.
"I don't know," I muttered, "odd stuff's been happening lately, hasn't it? It's been in the Daily Squabbler ... the Death Trail at the Quidditch Friendly, and the Love Destroyers and everything ..."
All six of Grumpy's mismatched eyes widened.
"You're a sharp girl, Pride-Lander," she said. Her magical eyes roved back to the Scallywag's Map. "Clutch could be thinking along those lines," she said slowly. "Very possible ... there have been some funny rumours flying around lately - helped along by Peter Meter, of course. It's making a lot of people nervous, I reckon." A grim smile twisted her lop-sided mouth. "Oh, if there's one thing I hate," she muttered, more to herself than me, and her magical eyes were fixed on the bottom left-hand corner of the Map, "it's a Love Destroyer who walked free ..."
I stared at her. Could Grumpy mean what I thought she mean?
"And now I want to ask you a question, Pride-Lander," said Grumpy, in a more business-like tone.
My heart sank; I had thought this was coming. Grumpy was going to ask where I had got this Map, which was a very dubious magical object - and the story of how it had fallen into my hands incriminated not only me, but my own mother, Tanya and Geri Fang, and Professor Meers, our last Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Grumpy waved the Map in front of me, and I braced myself -
"Can I borrow this?"
"Oh!" I said. I was very fond of my Map, but on the other hand, I was extremely relieved that Grumpy wasn't asking where I'd got it, and there was no doubt that I owed Grumpy a favour. "Yeah, OK."
"Good girl," growled Grumpy. "I can make good use of this ... this might be exactly what I've been looking for ... right, bed, Pride-Lander, come on, now ..."
We climbed to the top of the stairs together, Grumpy still examining the Map as though it was a treasure the like of which she had never seen before. We walked in silence to the door of Grumpy's office, where she stopped, and looked up at me. "You ever thought of a career as an Auror, Pride-Lander?"
"No," I said, taken aback.
"You want to consider it," said Grumpy, nodding, and looking at me thoughtfully. "Yes, indeed ... and incidentally ... I'm guessing you weren't just taking that egg for a walk tonight?"
"Er - no," I said, grinning. "I've been working out the clue."
Grumpy winked at me, her magical eyes going haywire again. "Nothing like a night-time stroll to give you ideas, Pride-Lander ... see you in the morning ..." She went back into her office, staring down at the Scallywag's Map again, and closed the door behind her.
I walked slowly back to Lion-Heart Tower, lost in thought about Triphorm, and Clutch, and what it all meant ... Why was Clutch pretending to be ill, if she could manage to get to Dragon Mort when she wanted to? What did she think Triphorm was concealing in her office.
And Grumpy thought I, Kiara, ought to be an Auror! Interesting idea ... but as I got quietly into my four-poster ten minutes later, the egg and the Cloak now safely back in my trunk, I somehow thought I'd like to check how scarred the rest of them were, before I chose it as a career. And did I become an Auror? Well, you'll just have to wait and see, won't you?
