Penny Clearwater caught me before we had even got to the Feast. There had been a delay when the carriages refused to go past the shadowy things that were surrounding the school walls. The result was chaos, pretty much, in the Entrance Hall as we jostled into our House queues.
'Hi, Mike,' she said. 'Good Hols? Can you do me a little favour?' she went on before I could take a breath to answer 'No'. A few months earlier these words would have reduced me to a quivering emotional slave, but stuff had happened since then.
'Sure,' I said, sounding enthusiastic but feeling wary.
'I need you to keep an eye on Luna,' she said. 'You don't need to be as hands-on as I had to be last year, but I need someone to keep an eye open and she likes you.'
'That's nice,' I said.
She frowned. 'Don't be like that,' she said. 'She's perfectly okay and independent, and Professor Flitwick says he's sorted out the bullying when you all went to see the Head, but she's likely to be affected by these horrible Dementors more than almost anyone.'
'I don't understand about these Dementor things,' I said. 'What do they do, apart from guard things?'
'They don't guard,' she said. 'They're emotivores. They eat emotions. If you go near one it eats all your positive emotions first but if you get too close it'll eat the negative ones as well and leave you an empty husk. At least that's how I understand it. They're only used as guards because they keep prisoners depressed and docile. It's pretty inhumane, if you ask me.'
'So what's with Luna,' I said. 'I thought she was just a bit weird.'
'She's not weird. Well, she is, but that's not the problem. She's had a pretty horrific experience. Her mother died in front of her in appalling circumstances and her father's gone completely off the rails. She copes by being weird. The worry is that the Dementors might get to her and send her off the rails as well.'
'How will I stop them?' I asked. 'I mean, nothing seems to stop them.'
'There are ways, apparently, and I dare say you'll be taught them. You don't need to escort her everywhere like I was last year. You only need keep an eye out for her.'
'Just me?' I said, wondering what I'd got into.
'See if you can get one or two Huffs in her year to watch out for her in classes,' she said. 'Don't try to recruit any of our lot. That was where the issues came from last year. Maybe a Griff, if you know any in her year.'
The bell sounded.
'I've got to go,' she said. 'Thanks a lot!'
Actually, it had been a lousy hols. The 'backwash' from the basilisk's stare took ages to wear off and I felt lousy right up to a couple of weeks before we got back, but by then we were home from Provence and the weather had turned.
The Dementors were the only topic of conversation. Everyone seemed to have a theory about them, but Potter was the only person who had been attacked. It just always seems to happen to Potter.
Luna was sitting with some other second-years and I found a place with Tony Goldstein and Patti Patil where I could keep an eye on her. She looked up, caught my eye and gave me a small smile, so she knew what I was doing. I occurred to me that people would get the wrong idea if I spent too much time with her. We got along fine but I didn't want anyone to think that I had a crush on her.
The new Dark Arts Defence teacher was a real oddball. He looked like a zombie, but Boot assured me that he was more or less alive.
'He's a repressing werewolf,' he said. 'I've seen one before and they always look stressed.'
'How do you know he's a werewolf?' asked Patti. 'He hasn't got long fangs or anything.'
'Oh, come on.' said Boot. 'His name is Lupin. Bit of a give-away. Remus Lupin? You don't get much wolfier than that.'
'So he was born a werewolf,' I said.
'Not necessarily,' said Boot, 'But under the Treaty of Droylsden he has to have a name that identifies him as a werewolf if he wants to mix in society. That's why they all have wolfy names, like Fenris Greyback. Same reason vampires have to wear full evening dress.'
'Who's going to make them?' I said. 'I mean, vampires can do pretty much what they like.'
'It's when the transform into bats,' said Boot. 'Only evening dress will transform with them. If they wearing a tee-shirt of something like that they'll have to crawl out of the sleeve, and when they transform back they'll be stark naked.'
'I can see that would be an incentive,' said Patti seriously.
'I've heard that vampires wearing morning suits at weddings have transformed spontaneously into penguins.' said Tony.
Whatever his species, Professor Lupin's first lesson was a bit of a disaster for me. We had to drive out a boggart. The Griffs had expelled it from the Staff Room and it had taken up residence in a locker in the boy's changing room. I knew the theory because Mum had dealt with a boggart under a neighbour's bed. My problem was that I couldn't think of anything that I was particularly scared of, except the basilisk, and I couldn't think of any way that I could make a basilisk ridiculous. It was too scary, and the wound was too raw, especially as I hadn't told anyone what had happened.
We formed an orderly queue and, sure enough, the boggart turned into a succession of scary things, you know, scissors, rats, clowns etc. (tricky, making a clown ridiculous – Boot made all his make-up melt off) and when my turn came I tried to focus on spiders, but it didn't work. The boggart turned into a vast, hissing, stinking snake with glowing eyes and I couldn't do anything about it. It reared up, eyes glowing and prepared to turn its stare on me when I blacked out for a moment.
I came to sitting on the ground and the snake had vanished to be replaced by a glowing silvery moon that became a balloon and bounced around the room, deflating with a loud raspberry, before escaping through the door.
'Okay, that will do for this morning, said Professor Lupin. 'Well done everyone. That was excellent. Michael can you stay for a moment?'
He waited until everyone had left. 'Sorry about that,' he said.
'What happened?' I said. 'I think I fainted.'
'I had to Stun you. You seemed to have focused on a basilisk,' he said. 'Has this got anything to do with what happened last year?'
I nodded, feeling too ashamed to speak. Ashamed of focusing on the basilisk. Ashamed of having to be Stunned. Ashamed of trying to confront the basilisk in the first place. Ashamed of failing to deal with it.
I could feel his gaze on me. 'Did you actually meet the basilisk?' he said at last.
I nodded again.
'Have you told anyone what happened?'
I shook my head.
'Can you tell me?'
I looked up in surprise.
'Don't worry. It'll stay within these four walls.' He looked around. 'Six walls, then, unless you agree otherwise. But it might help you.'
So I told him. I told him how Luna had worked it out and we had discussed how to deal with snakes. I told him about how I had met Penny and Hermione Granger though I forgot to tell him that I had a crush on Penny. I said how I had thrown Herpetomortis at it, and he stopped me.
'You cast a spell at it?' he said.
'Yes. But it bounced off.'
'But you actually, actually cast a spell at a basilisk?'
'Yes. But I didn't kill it,' I said.
He took a deep breath. 'No-one has ever killed a basilisk by magic,' he said. 'Most people believe that it isn't even possible to cast a spell at it. Any spell, let alone an effective one.'
'Potter killed it,' I said, and even to my ears I sounded sullen.
'Harry killed it, but not by magic,' he said. 'He used a sword. Gryffindor's sword, though the sword came to him by magic. But he stabbed it. Good old-fashioned stabbing. And he had help. Professor Dumbledore's phoenix helped him.'
'Yes, I remember reading about phoenixes,' I said. 'They're the only thing that basilisks are afraid of, or something.'
'They are as magical as the basilisk,' he said. 'You can't bespell them either. But you actually hit it, and survived its stare. That's pretty amazing. That's pretty damned amazing.'
We sat in silence for a moment and he watched me, but sympathetically now. 'You know I said this was between these four, six walls?' he said. 'Well, with your permission, I'd like to tell Professor Dumbledore about this.'
'Why?' I said. 'What will he do?'
'I doubt he'll actually do anything,' he said. 'But he'll be very interested to know that you managed to get off Herpetomortis, wasn't it? That suggests to me that you have a lot of power, a huge amount, if you know how to use it, and you have the potential to be a heavyweight spellslinger.'
'I've never felt particularly powerful,' I said, thinking of Uncle Siegfried. 'I mean, I don't think I've cast any really powerful spells.'
He smiled. 'I should hope you haven't,' he said. 'You're a third year. When have you had the chance?'
'Point,' I said.
'Now, how about talking to the Head?'
I shook my head. I was beginning to regret tell him anything, but I was keen to find out whether I really was that powerful. 'I don't think I want to talk about it,' I said.
It was odd, but from that day my marks started to improve. Not in history, which was still deadly dull, or Potions, where marks never improved unless you were in Slytherin, but in subjects where actual spells were involved I started to move up the class and up the Year.
Was it power? Or was it confidence? The Proflet got quite enthusiastic about it and detained me after Charms one day to congratulate me. I wondered whether Professor Lupin had said anything and summoned up the nerve to challenge him at the end of the next DDA, but he just smiled and shook his head.
'I haven't breathed a word,' he said. 'And I won't deny that the subject has come up in the Staff Room. The general conclusion is that some people develop their full power quite late and you are growing into yours. Harry's known to have a lot of power, of course, and one or two others. Sue Bones, but that's not surprising, and Vincent Crabbe.'
'Crabbe?' I said. 'But he's a thug.'
Lupin shrugged. 'He may not be a genius,' he said, 'but you don't need to be clever to be powerful. And he's a bit scattergun. What you need to do is concentrate on focusing it. You don't want to be that sort of magical thug, which is what happens with people who don't focus their power.'
I nodded, as though I agreed, but being a magical thug sounded kind of cool, as long as I wasn't like Crabbe.
The Dementors continued to be a problem because it became obvious that they were not completely under control. Individual Dementors were found wandering around the school and hiding in dark places to ambush students. The Proflet taught us Cheering Charms to help ward them off, but Potter was taught an advanced NEWT level Charm after bunch of Dementors invaded the Quidditch pitch and nearly killed him. I wanted to try it, but The Proflet wouldn't let me. He said my Cheering Charm was strong enough to distract them and to stick to what I knew.
Towards the end of the Spring term, Penny caught me again and asked whether I would be on something called the Capita Council, which I had never heard of.
'You wouldn't have,' she said. 'It's all a bit secret and the first and second years aren't involved. It's the way the Head Boy and Head Girl are elected.'
I thought that sounded quite important and I had been asked to do it because I was close to being top of the year in Ravenclaw. Mandy Brocklehurst was the rep for the girls and I knew she was just ahead of me. It wasn't until a couple of days later that I overheard Penny talking to another prefect.
'Oh, that boring job? I got Mike Corner to do it,' came her voice. 'I can get him to do anything for me.'
That was a shock, and I froze on the spot, feeling cold and numb. But, then again, it wasn't really a shock. More a surprise, because I hadn't thought she was like that. I hadn't had a crush on her since the summer term, certainly not after I found she had been going out with that pompous Weasley git. It was more of a blow to my ego.
Not any more, you don't. I thought as the shock morphed into anger. I tried to think of other occasions where she had persuaded me to do things but I could only think of when I was looking out for Luna. And in the end I had done that more to help Luna than to impress Penny.
The council met in the Conclave, which I had never been into before. It nestled beside the lake, but was separate from the Castle and was used for closed meeting where they didn't want anyone listening in. When I looked closely at it I could see the air around it shimmering slightly with all the secrecy spells that guarded it.
It was circular, and the seats were arranged in blocks of five because we were divided into years rather than houses.
Professor McGonagall was presiding and was sitting in a very ornate, gilded chair, carved with the emblems of the four houses, which looked extremely uncomfortable. Presumably this was to keep meetings as short as possible.
'We group you in years because you will be making decisions on behalf of the school, not for your Houses,' she said. 'In fact, House decisions are the only ones you cannot make, because you can only vote for prefects in any other House than your own.'
Longbottom put his hand up. 'Are candidates restricted to prefects?' he said.
'In theory, no,' said Professor McGonagall. 'But in practice, any candidate who is not a prefect has to be proposed and seconded by members of any house other than his or her own. It has happened, and the candidate won, but it was proved to be fraudulent and the result was annulled. So in practice, in answer to Mr Longbottom's question, the answer is: Yes. It is restricted to prefects.'
I wondered who that was, and how they had done it.
'These are the candidates' presentations,' she said. 'Ponder well and make good decisions. You have two hours, and no more. Ohphasio.' She turned over a big wooden hourglass, and a square in the centre of the floor started to glow. Then she stalked out and closed the big double doors behind her.
The order was alphabetical so Gryffindor prefects went first, but I didn't know any of them. In any event, the Head Boy would probably not be a Griff because Weasley was a Griff and the title tended to move about. I tried to concentrate but they were sooo boring, but just as the Huffs were about to start there was a change in the room. From being hot and stuffy it became cold and stuffy. People started to look around. The Huff prefect's presentation went on oblivious but no-one was paying any attention. We knew what was happening: there was a Dementor nearby.
Mandy was breathing jerkily and looked as though she was about to burst into tears.
'Cast me a Cheering Charm,' she whispered.
I cast one on her, not too strong, and she looked a little better, and I felt better as well.
But we was the only ones. All around the Conclave people were fainting and being sick or staring into the distance at nothing outside their own minds. I was the only person who looked remotely together.
'Cast Cheering Charms,' I shouted. A few people stared blearily at me. ''Come on! Cast Cheering Charms at each other.'
They were all too ill to do anything so I cast another one at Mandy and then at Posh Justin and Sue Bones. 'Spread it around,' I told them and went to the big double doors to try to drive the Dementor away.
'What are you doing?' said a weak voice behind me, but I ignored it. I slammed the doors open and yelled 'Laetatio'.
There was a fizzing rainbow of light and the Dementor outside the door staggered backwards with the spell, which completely disappeared into it. The problem was that it staggered into another Dementor, just behind it. I stood aghast as all the cheer drained out of me and just remembered to slam the doors on the creepy hands that were trying to get through.
'There are dozens of them out there,' I said, supporting myself on the door handles. I could handle one or two, perhaps, but there were far too many
Enough people had recovered enough to help me back to my place, where Mandy cast a Charm on me, which was a slight improvement.
'What do we do now?' asked Justin. I could see what he meant. He looked white and clammy and people were starting to relapse from the Charms.
A Huff sixth former was leaning on a desk by the door, looking as though she was coughing, though I realised she was saying 'Expect … Expect …' as part of a spell, but she couldn't complete it. I knew what she was trying to do. I had seen Potter cast a Patronus when they played us at Quidditch, but I couldn't do it myself.
I gathered in everything I could and cast my best Laetatio at her. The look of relief on her face was almost comical, but she took a deep breath and shouted 'Expecto Patronum'. A silver dolphin burst out of her wand and through the double doors.
Immediately, the effect of the Dementors lifted and we could breathe, but we couldn't speak as we stared around at each other. Then the doors slammed open again, and we all tensed, but Professor Dumbledore was standing there, with a silver nimbus all around him. Professor Snape was just behind him.
'All present and correct?' he said, and nodded. 'Excellent. And the Dementors will not be returning. Congratulations, Mathilda, for a very expertly cast Patronus.'
'Congratulate Corner, sir,' she said. 'He cast the Cheering Charms that kept us going, and I couldn't have cast the Patronus without his help.'
'Did he indeed?' said Professor Dumbledore, nodding at me. 'Well done, Michael. Very well done. I think House points are in order but we'll consider that that later. In the mean time I see that the decision glass has run its course.'
We all looked at the hour glass. We had completely forgotten about it and the last few grains were trickling through.
'I'm sad to say that it means we will have no Head Boy or Head Girl next year, as Ophasio only runs once a year. Not to worry. You will have other things on your minds, I am sure.'
'It won't be the first time,' said Snape snidely.
So I did end up talking to the Head in his study, and it was a lot more comfortable that the last time I had been there. That had been the previous year, with almost all the Ravenclaw Years One and Two, over the bullying of Luna. I was sitting down this time, for a start, in a comfortable chair, whereas that time we had been standing in a silent clump.
And Dumbledore was smiling this time, having awarded me fifty points.
'I suspect this isn't the first serious casting you have performed,' he said, twinkling at me over his gold rimmed glasses.
'Has Professor Lupin said anything?' I said suspiciously.
'No,' he said, 'but your contretemps with the boggart did flag up a question in my mind,' he said. 'The boggart picks up clues from your mind and forms itself accordingly. Now, basilisks don't stink of sewage. Not unless they have just crawled out of a sewage pipe. Also, Miss Granger and Miss Clearwater think there was someone else with them, but neither can remember who it was. I am also quite sure that they would not have survived a basilisk stare if it had been aimed at them.'
'They were looking at a mirror,' I said, and realised that I had given myself away.
'I don't think that would have saved them if the basilisk had been going for them,' he said. 'I thought it must have been aiming for someone else, but who could have provoked it?'
'Me,' I said.
He nodded. 'So either you hit it physically, or you got a spell off at it, either of which would have been impressive.
'I threw Herpetomortis at it,' I said.
'A good spell,' he said. 'Did you know it is also effective against crocodiles?'
'Not against basilisks, though,' I said.
'Nothing is,' he said. 'Only swords.'
'Professor,' I said, nerving myself to ask an irrelevant question. 'What happened the last time when there was no Head Boy?'
'Why, nothing,' he said. 'And indeed I am minded to discontinue the post. There is no reason to appoint people to carry out duties that prefects can't carry out perfectly well themselves.'
'Who was it?' I said.
He paused, and I thought I had asked a question too far, then he smiled again. 'It was our own Mr Potter's father.'
'Harry's dad?'
'Indeed. And the people who had proposed and seconded him were his great friends, suitably disguised with Polyjuice: Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew, the man Black is accused of murdering.'
'And people voted for him?'
'It's what happens when people don't take democracy seriously,' he said. 'You can get very strange results.'