CHAPTER 42: THE MEMORIAL TOMBS
McGonagall confessed that she had never actually sent those letters. She said that James and Sirius had learned their lesson and therefore there was no point to holding them back a year. They weren't sure what the lesson was but they were glad they had learned it.
The last day was a sunny one.
"And now," said McGonagall, looking out at the sea of students in their ceremonial robes and hats, "it is time to announce the winner of the house cup."
She stood by the large hourglasses with the coloured sand.
"The current score is: Gryffindor with 50 points. Hufflepuff with 2031 points. Ravenclaw with 2098 points. And Slytherin with 3050 points."
Whistles and cheer coming from the Slytherin table. James and Sirius kept their heads down, angry glares tickling their backs. If only a hole would appear and swallow them.
"That is the current score," said McGonagall. "It looks like, after a 49 year winning streak, the streak has been broken for Gryffindor. And this year would have been the 50th year. And it is written in the rules that a 50 year streak grants one million points."
An enormous amount of huffing and groaning at the Gryffindor table. Some were clenching their wands, others were clenching their fists.
"Why is everyone staring at us?" Sirius whispered.
"They're not, it is just our imagination," James whispered, cast a quick look back, saw a big strong looking guy stare very aggressively at him. He looked down again.
"It is probably the scoreboard," said Remus.
"What scoreboard?"
There was a big scoreboard up there they had not noticed before. It had two tables: one ranked students after point gain and the other after point loss. James and Sirius topped the latter.
"Did you know that if you make five points a day five days a week you can make around 1000 points in a year give or take?" said Remus, on his abacus.
"A little late!"
McGonagall went on.
"So that is the current score."
The cheers from the Slytherins were deafening.
"But don't get ahead of yourselves because the final points have not been awarded."
There was a silence of breathless anticipation.
"Because of rather complicated reasons that involved time travel, a Slim Shadow managed to escape the void. I was in the telescope tower giving a tour to some local nursery children when it appeared. It would have devoured us all were it not for two very courageous young wizards."
A spotlight hit James and Sirius.
"James Potter and Sirius Black knew about the Slim Shadow early on and were therefore well prepared to defeat them. The kittens went unharmed, thanks to them. Please stand up now so everybody can see you. Go on, don't be shy, it's ok."
James and Sirius arose uncertainly. Their house peers looked at them uncertainly, their fists slightly less tight now (but still closed.) McGonagall looked straight at them.
"You saved those innocent and defenceless kittens from the Slim Shadow. And for that I award you 10 000 points."
The red sand level rose to the top of the hourglass. The light emitted from the green hourglass went out, and the red hourglass began to glow.
James and Sirius did not understand what was happening. One person began to clap, that person became a few people and then all of a sudden the great hall was exploding and hot teenage girls wanted to hug and kiss their cheeks and at that point their bashfulness just went poof.
"And so it appears," said McGonagall, with a rare smile on her face, "that Gryffindor not only takes the house cup, they take it for the 50th time in a row. But it isn't official until I say it is official so let me say it now, that officially…"
Something red and gloopy was sliming on the ceiling above McGonagall.
"… that the winner this year…"
James and Sirius watched a string of gloop come down in horror...
"… of the house cup, for the 50th time in a row…"
The gloop reached the tip of McGonagall's hat, slimed down it and over her face. James and Sirius grabbed each other.
"She can't prove we did that!" said James.
"I'm not even sure we did that!" said Sirius.
"Professor Powers did that, not us, so just be cool ok!"
The gloop slimed off McGonagall's face, and with her face.
The great hall was dead silent. Professor Powers stood up.
"The Gloop!"
"Do something!" Sprout shrieked.
Powers sprang forth with a mojo bag and opened it at the gloop on the floor. The gloop was sucked into the bag. He closed it and tied seven knots. Pomfrey found McGonagall's face and picked it up.
"What the hell is going on!" McGonagall's face shouted. "Will somebody talk to me?"
"We found the Gloop, Minerva!" said Powers. "I will return it to the void as soon as possible and it will never bother us again I promise!"
"Did you find your lava lamp?"
"One of the house elves found it actually. They recognised the lamp and returned it to me. It had been opened."
"Well that's good. Where was it?"
"I believe it was dormitory M."
The ceremony was urgently called to an end because McGonagall had to get her face reattached. She took 15 000 points from Gryffindor and announced that Slytherin was the winner.
X
The bus was leaving in a half hour. The luggage had already been carried away. Everyone were in a good mood. Except for Sirius. He talked too little, seemed slightly blue and the other day he had asked Sprout what sort of poison plant could render a person hospitalised for two months, asking for a friend.
"Cheer up!" said James. "We're not being held back and that is not going to change as long as we get out of here while McGonagall has her face reattached so come on! Although I still think we have time for a quick one!"
"She could at least hold us back over summer and make us attend summer school!"
"She wasn't going to hold us back because we are thick."
"Curse this my sharp wit."
"Whatever you say."
Then James ran to the trophy wing.
The gold trophy with Margie Peregrine's name glistened in the sunlight like the holy grail itself.
"So Dumbledore says your grandad's painting talks now," said Remus.
"Really?" said Sirius.
"Yes. Do you want to see it?"
He thought about it.
"Nah."
"What was wrong with it?" James asked.
"Sometimes a painting doesn't talk if the person was cursed at the time of death," said Remus.
"Oh right."
Then James smeared the glass cabinet with his greasy fingers.
"I was never going to leave without saying good bye!"
He gave the glass a wet sloppy kiss.
"Do you still think Dumbledore killed your granddad?" James asked.
"Do you still think Dumbledore killed Mr Hagrid?"
"I asked first."
"I don't know. You have to be on a special imagination pill to not think so. But, like, who knows, with all the time travel, maybe it really was the Slim Shadow. But I don't think he is a cold blooded psychopath. Even though he will happily stick Rem in a cage to be his own scratch post. But maybe that's cognitive decline, like, he thinks it's a spa? How clearly can somebody think at the age of 200?"
"61," said Remus. "It's not a cage."
"Sorry, 261. It is a cage. This may be hard for you to accept but I think you have Oslo Syndrome."
"What's Oslo Syndrome?" James asked.
"Oslo Syndrome is when somebody is taken hostage and then they develop a bond with their hostage taker. The name comes from a robbery that took place at the Wizard Bank of Oslo. It is a very famous syndrome that is always referenced on TV."
"Oh yeah I think I have heard of it."
"You don't appear to know the meaning of the word hostage," said Remus.
"You don't appear to know the meaning of the word cage."
"So you found the ring in the Headmaster Memorial Tombs," said James. "Where is that?"
Remus stopped at a wooden door that said: Chapel.
They went in and saw the ghost of brother Antabus praying to a Jesus icon. He saw them and exploded with joy over an opportunity to talk about Jesus.
"God bless you my children! Have you heard about Jesus?"
"No who was that?" Sirius asked.
"Jesus was a hip and groovy cat!"
Crickets.
"One time he kicked Farisee ass!"
More crickets.
"He is the one son of the gas bloke upstairs."
"What?"
"The gas bloke upstairs? The… gas bloke? Where you going?"
"We would like to see the memorial tombs," said James.
"Do you? Oh it gladdens me when boomer kids aren't glued to their pinball machines all day or just listen to the radio or light matchsticks on everything! I can take you there right now!"
He blabbed so much about Jesus they wanted to get rid of him.
"Do you know what is truly far out? Confessing your sins! In the eternal discotheque that is heaven we don't get down and boogie, we do the get down and pray! Get down and pray! Get down and pray!"
Lots of crickets in here.
"Brother Antabus," said James. "I am super gay!"
Brother Antabus stormed out of the chapel in a huff.
"Strange place to come out," Sirius thought.
"I meant gay as in happy."
"You're super happy?"
"I am!"
"I wish I could be as gay as you."
"Then smile. Smile and the gay will follow. Corinth."
Behind a little door some stairs led down. The memorial tombs were immediately through an archway.
They walked among the rows of stone tombs. They were purely symbolic. Each of them had the resting headmaster carved out on top, arms crossing their chests. They stopped at the memorial tomb of Sirius's grandad.
"Are these all empty?" said James.
He wanted to attempt to push the lid.
"May I?"
"Do what you want, don't worry about me," said Sirius.
They tried to push at the lid but it was too heavy.
"How did you get it open?" James asked.
"Paul helped me," said Remus.
"What happened to Paul? He just disappeared."
Remus whipped out a vending machine ball.
"In here. I bound this toy automate capsule with a mojo bag because I thought, a ball would be easier to keep. You can stick it in your pocket, and have it as a pocket monster."
He did so. He had a round bulge in the pocket.
So he put it back in the knapsack.
James was about to simply go wingardium leviosa, but decided to instead put his hand over the lid.
"Up!"
And lo, the lid went up.
"Wahey!"
The tomb was empty except for a small bone. Sirius snagged it.
"What's this?"
"Ok this is honestly pretty heavy get your arm out of there!"
Sirius did so quickly. DONK!
"Do they always keep a bone?" James asked.
"I don't think so. Do you know what this means? Occam's razor!"
James knew what he thought it meant. He thought it meant that Dumbledore had not only put the ring in the tomb but a finger bone as well. It was hard to dispute, and even harder to justify.
"When we have all the answers," said James. "We will look back at this and think ha ha can you believe we thought Dumbledore killed him? How very silly of us! Of course we should have realised that… whatever the truth is."
Yet it looked very much like the bone had been hidden away so forensic aurors wouldn't sniff it out. It didn't take a forensic auror to see that the bone had been removed with a scalpel clear cut.
Sirius held a hand over the tomb lid.
"Up." Then he threw the bone back in. DONK. "Ok let's leave."
"Dumbledore didn't kill your grandad," said Remus.
"ALRIGHT! DUMBLEDORE DIDN'T DO IT! BECAUSE DUMBLEDORE IS MOTHER THERESA! DUMBLEDORE IS MOTHER THERESA'S KITTEN! HE IS MOTHER THERESA'S KITTEN WHO WILL SIT ON BABY OWLS AND PURR ON THEM!"
Acoustic was pretty good in here.
"Did Mother Theresa have a kitten?" James asked. "Who would sit on baby owls and-"
"You guys are in a fricking cult. No. I'm sorry. Of course it wasn't Dumbledore. I don't know what came over me. I guess it's just all the evidence pointing to it and the lack of evidence to the contrary."
"But it really wasn't Dumbledore," said Remus. "Because it was me."
"It was you what?"
"I killed your granddad."
"What do you mean?"
"I killed your granddad."
"But what do you mean by that?"
"I mean that I killed your granddad!"
"When you say you killed my granddad, what do you mean by that?"
"I'm not going to withhold anything now so I'm telling you the truth. I killed your granddad."
"But what do you mean?"
"Are you asking how I did it?"
"No I'm asking what you mean when you say 'kill'?"
James pulled Sirius away for a private whisper party before Remus could demonstrate what he meant by "kill".
"Do you know what he means when he says 'kill'?" Sirius asked.
"I think he means that he took his life."
"But that's absurd. He's never even been anywhere, how could he ever have killed anybody? That requires leaving the house. If he means what you think then he is even more bonkers than I thought."
"Well think about it. Of course he didn't kill your grandad, but… I think he might honestly believe he did."
"What?"
"Like you said, he's spent most of his life in isolation. That stuff can drive people crazy. It's driven him so mad he has fantasised about other people and believed himself to be them. He would have perhaps heard about your grandad's death. You know how every time somebody is killed you have a bunch of lunatics confessing they did it. I think he could be that sort of mad."
"That is very convincing. You could be very right."
"'Course I'm right. I'm always right. So… Let's just play along."
Sirius nodded, understanding perfectly. They ended their whisper party.
"Ok was that it?" he asked.
"That was it," said Remus. "But I really want to make sure you understand."
"I understand, hey, all is forgiven!" He and James exchanged winks. "Let's just put it all behind us."
But Remus would not put it all behind them. He went closer to Sirius, so close their noses were millimetres apart and Sirius could smell the raspberry very strongly albeit the raspberry could be smelled in Uruguay.
"I," smack. "Killed," Smack, smack. "Your, "Smack. "Grandad." Blow. Pop.
More gum smacking.
The more he tried to convince Sirius, the more he became convinced that he really was as mad as James said. After all, only mad people confessed murders, the actual culprits didn't, see? The sense was perfect.
Then realisation hit.
"You know," said Sirius. "I think I learned something today. Of course Dumbledore didn't kill my granddad. I now see how absurd that sounds to you. Man I can only imagine how crazy you must have thought I was! If he wanted that ring he didn't have to kill him for it. I've just been watching too much TV! You were right. I was wrong."
James patted him on the back.
"It takes a lot of character to admit that I was right! I'm so glad you could see the err of your ways at last!"
Then all of a sudden, from another room in the mausoleum:
It is time I did… What I should have done a long time ago!
Dumbledore!
Another voice went:
What are you doing with that? Put that down immediately! Noo! NOO! AAAHHH!"
There were multiple gun shots and then the screams were…
No more.