Chapter Four: Serendipity
Nick was thrilled. He hadn't had much time to continue his experiments with the old wand, but every time he had the chance to commit himself to it, he'd gotten good results. He had probed the wand with every spell he could think of, and there was definitely no dark magic. He had scoured the library for books and parchments on wand lore, which were surprisingly rare, and he even asked some old partners who had access to that kind of knowledge to send him anything they knew about. But the wand was still a mystery.
All he could tell, so far, was that it was made of olive wood, unusual for wands, and of a type that had disappeared nearly two thousand years ago. And he had no clue about what kind of core it might contain. Even Ollivander couldn't tell him. At first, the old man thought that it was a bad joke and that the wand had come from Weasley & Weasley. He almost chased him out of his workshop. But then, Nick used the wand to levitate a tool from his workbench. That certainly caught his attention.
He had told Nick that not only was the wood was unusual, but the gold lines that were incrusted in the wood, spiralling from the handle to the tip, were something he had never seen before, and that he thought impossible. He had tried with all his knowledge and will to identify the wand, but finally, he told Nick that it was the greatest mystery he had ever faced. He had tried to buy the wand, but Nick had refused.
And here he was, doing magic the like he had never heard of before. He knew he was on to something big, but was he the right person for it? After all, he knew nothing about wand lore, should he give it to Ollivander? He'd have to talk to Hermione soon, but she hadn't been at Hogwarts much lately, "Ministry work doesn't know rest", as she liked to say!
He needed a distraction, and Neville had told him the day before to come by the greenhouses and see how thriving his Kaloptas Refractarius plants were. He wasn't as thrilled as his herbologist friend, but he had been caught by his enthusiasm. After all, it was quite an achievement to discover an unknown magical species.
He put the wands in his robes and set off for the greenhouses. As he descended the stairs of the Divination tower, he met Professor Slughorn, who was coming up, humming an old Celestina Warbeck's song.
"Good evening, Horace!" Nick said, startling the old man.
"Nicholas! I haven't seen you, how are you?"
"I'm fine, thank you! I was going to have a look at Neville's plantations, he told me his Kaloptas Refractarius are doing very well, even better than he expected them to!"
"Oh, that's wonderful! Do you mind if I join you?" asked Slughorn.
"Please, be my guest! The more, the merrier!" replied Nick, somewhat relieved to have company.
They walked together to the greenhouses, the Potions Master entertaining his young colleague with his usual gossip about the celebrities of the wizarding world. It seemed that Ginger had been having "words" with Rita Skeeter, again, and that Hermione was facing some fierce opposition at the Ministry.
They found Neville in one of the tropical greenhouses. The warm, damp air inside was almost suffocating, and the pungent, sharp smell caught them off guard.
"Good evening, Nick! I see you've brought company, hello Horace!" Neville greeted them. "You've noticed the smell I see, don't pay too much attention, you'll get used to it."
"I don't think I could get used to it, even if my life depended on it!" Nick said, covering his nose with the sleeve of his robes.
The other two laughed, and Neville led them to his plantations. He stopped in front of a row of large containers full of small thorny bushes with tiny yellow leaves and long, curved crimson buds.
"Here they are! Kaloptas Refractarius. It grows in flooded soils, hence the basins. Do you feel the urge to get away? They are so small, and they already try to repel us! I have to figure out how to look after them when they get much bigger, because even if I could overcome one isolated plant in Myanmar, I'm not sure I'll be able to approach all of them when they're fully grown! I may have to ask for help from a squib."
They did feel some sort of urge not to approach the plants, but Nick didn't know if it was because of a real repellent effect or if it was just the smell, so he asked Neville if he had thought of that.
"In fact, I had. But even if you cast a Bubble-Head Charm on yourself, you'll still feel the urge!" he told them. "Try it!"
They did so, and they still felt it. It was even clearer now.
"I must admit it is quite disturbing!" Slughorn said, bursting the bubble. "Now I can't wait to help you experiment with your repellent potion! If you want me to, of course."
"I'll take the help!"
Nick felt the old wand buzz in his robes. He reached for it and found it warm to his touch. This was new, and strange. He'd think about it later.
"How about a butterbeer?" asked Nick, eager to get out of the greenhouses, and away from that foul smelling and repulsive plant..
"As long as you pay for it!" replied Slughorn, questioningly.
"Of course, dear Horace!" he said with a laugh. "Neville?"
"I could do with a butterbeer,"
The next day, Nick was at the Quidditch pitch with the rest of the school, attending the Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff match. Hufflepuff were sixty points behind, Gryffindor leading with two hundred and forty points. But Hufflepuff's Seeker was almost as good as Gryffindor's this year, so everyone was focused on the game.
"...and here comes Jackson, the new Hufflepuff Chaser sending a bludger towards… Oh! That must have hurt! Garrett is stunned. Vidgins dives and sends to Reinh… Oh! Gryffindor has stolen the quaffle, well done Killiks! Killicks sends to Boots, good Chaser that one, Boots flies to the goalposts and… SCORE! That's two hundred and fifty for Gryffindor!..."
The stands were ablaze with red and gold, thanks to Weasley & Weasley's Firestorm Sticks, which were, of course, banned. The uproar almost made Nick deaf, but he joined in the cheers!
"...Killiks again with the Quaffle, and going down for a…But wait, Slodgers is diving quickly to the ground, this new Seeker is doing great with Hufflepuff, Pippin is right behind him! Now that's a move! Pippin has just dived under Slodgers to take the lead, the two of them are going fast! Pippin is inches away from catching the Snitch… And he has it! Gryffindor wins!"
This time the whole pitch was red and gold, the Gryffindors were ecstatic, cheering and whistling, the stands were shaking. After five years being the last, the new team was now doing great. They lost their first match against Slytherin by ten points, but only because the green team's Seeker caught the Golden Snitch just before they scored another ten points, one hundred and sixty to one hundred and seventy. The second match was Hufflepuff vs. Ravenclaw, two hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty. This match had been long, with bad weather and injured players. Then it was Ravenclaw vs. Slytherin, now that one was interesting, Ravenclaw wanted to make up for the last match, they were leading by thirty points when they caught the Snitch. The final score was three hundred to one hundred and twenty.
Gryffindor were now three hundred and ninety points ahead of Hufflepuff, three hundred and eighty ahead of Slytherin and one hundred and twenty ahead of Ravenclaw. The next match will be Hufflepuff vs. Slytherin, and last match Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor.
Now everyone was leaving the stands, pushing and shoving, eager to be the firsts to get to the common room for the celebrations. Nick was halfway down the stairs, moving the old wand in his robes because it was hurting his hip, when the pressure of the students suddenly broke the handrail. He saw the scene like it was slowing down, the handrail giving way, four teenagers starting to fall, the others trying to catch them, wood falling down like feathers in the wind. Nick raised his hands in warning, and suddenly, everything stopped!
He was stunned. What the hell was happening? He could move, but everything around him was frozen, still, as a Muggle photograph. He tried to think of a way to get the falling students back on the landing, to stop them from hitting the ground, some thirty feet below. Then things got really weird. He saw the handrail sections slowly start to fall again, and the movement of the students coming down the stairs resumed, but the four falling students started to "fall up", as if in reverse, defying gravity. It seemed to take a full minute, and as suddenly as time had stopped, it had started again. There were cries of surprise and everyone turned to see what had happened. The four rescued students and those immediately around them began to look for an explanation, their eyes all falling on him and the old wand he still held in his hand.
"Oh, thanks, Professor McCallum, you've got fast reflexes, you should have been a seeker!" said one of the Gryffindor who had almost fallen with a tense laugh.
Nick was stunned. He didn't know what had happened, but he knew that it was the old wand's doing. He saw that every student in the stairwell was now staring at him, his silence drawing questioning looks. He had to say something. He put the wand away and cleared his throat.
"You're welcome." He tried to smile casually. "But stand back a little, please."
He then repaired the handrail and motioned for everyone to carry on. Finally, he left the stands tower and headed straight for the owlery. He still didn't know what really happened there, or how it had happened, but he had to send an owl to Hermione right away.
Nick was in his classroom, giving Thaddeus one last private lesson. The student had caught up with the schedule, they only had a few more things to sort out. Less than ten minutes later, Thaddeus was gone and Nick was cleaning his desk.
He heard the knock on the door and called "Come in!" Sunya walked in, closing the door behind her.
"Good evening, Nick!"
"Good evening! You're early, good," he said to her. "Please, take a seat."
She sat down in one of the two armchairs in front of the little fireplace. "I really like this cosy little space in your classroom."
"I thought it would help with the tutoring," he took the other seat. "So, how is your thesis going?"
"It's going very well. I wanted to see you about some interrogations I have."
They talked about advanced means of magical detection and identification, artifacts datation and official registrations of discoveries. At one point, Sunya seemed to shiver a little, so while Nick explained to her how you had to declare everything you found to the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office in order to deliver a certificate of bewitchment for highly collectible items, he took his wand to light a fire in the fireplace. He didn't even have time to think about saying "Incendio" before a hot blue fire roared into the fireplace, rising high above the lintel and blasting them with a wave of heat hot enough to make them lean back in their seats.
"Nick!" exclaimed Sunya. "What are you doing?"
Nick realised his mistake too late. He had grabbed the old wand instead of his own. He had to think quickly what to tell her. But before he could take the wand away, she saw it.
"That's not your wand? It looks strange," she said. "And I didn't know you were so good at non-verbal spells? It was really impressive of you to cast such a powerful Incendio silently! I didn't know it was even possible to cast a spell so casually while talking to someone."
He thought about making something up, anything. Tell her he was some kind of genius non-verbal wizard, that the wand was a broken one or that he didn't know what happened, but she was his friend, and she would find out eventually.
"Ok, I might have something to tell you," he started, lowering his voice. "But we can't talk here."
She looked at him incredulously, wondering if he was serious or not, and she started to laugh.
"Ok, good joke! You're good!"
"Follow me." He got up from his chair and headed for the door.
"Follow you where?" she asked, still laughing "To the dungeons or some creepy place?"
He looked at her, seriously, and stood still until she stopped laughing.
"Just follow me, please?"
She stood, not able to tell if he was actually playing a joke on her or if he was serious. She decided to play along, no questions asked. After all, if he was playing a joke on her, it was bound to be a good one.
Nick led her to the fifth floor, in the corridor of the divination tower, to an empty wall between two sets of armour. He glanced left and right, looking for anyone around, and when he was sure they were alone, he took out his wand, the good one. He cast a Muffliato and a Disillusionment Charm and turned to her.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
"Do I…? What are you talking about? Of course I trust you! Look, I don't know what the trick is, but it's taking too long," she told him with a smirk.
"Just, do as I do, ok?"
"Ok." She was now really intrigued.
He turned to the wall and, taking out the other wand, touched a stone. Immediately, the shape of a door appeared. He turned to her and, telling her to follow him, walked through the door.
She hesitated. She had never heard of this room, or this door, or whatever it was. Was it just another entrance to the Room of Requirement? She didn't think so, all she had heard about this place was that a door appeared when you needed the room, not that you had to go through a wall in the shape of a door. Well, whatever, she'll see.
She found herself in some kind of corridor, Nick waiting for her with his wand alit. She turned to see that the door wasn't there anymore, nor was the wall, just the corridor going endlessly. At that precise moment, she felt trapped. Had she made a mistake in trusting him? Why would he bring her here? Surely he wasn't some crazy dark wizard with a sick compulsion to kill? She took a few steps back, reaching for her wand just in case, hoping she could grab it before he jinxed her.
"Go on, take it. You must be asking yourself a million questions. Take your wand and light it, I'll take mine away for you to be reassured," he said to her softly, with a smile.
She said nothing but did as he had said. He put his wand back in his robes and held out his hands for her to see he was unarmed.
She came to her senses and lowered her wand.
"I trust you!" She smiled shyly.
"Good!" Nick said. "Because I trust you too, and I need to for what I'm about to tell you is insane."
He told her from the beginning, where he found the wand, what he thought of it at the time, and what he had discovered since, trying to identify it. He told her about his visit to the Cypriot wandmaker and to Ollivander, neither of whom could tell him much. He explained that he had been experimenting with it for months, and that the results had become more spectacular as the time went on. He told her of his meeting with Hermione in this corridor in December, and how the effects of the wand were becoming more and more powerful. Finally, he told her about what had happened in the Quidditch stands, and he told her his suspicions about Ancient Magic.
"Ancient Magic? Wait, that's a legend, isn't it?" she asked, another million questions waiting to be answered. "And what is this corridor? A secret passage? Are you the only one who can use this wand? How do you know it's not just a powerful wand? Or a broken one? They can do bizarre things!"
He raised his hand and asked her to let him speak.
"I have been wondering about this as much as you do now, for months. Well, over a year actually! All I can tell you is that it's over two thousand years old, nobody can tell what its core is, or even if it has one, and like I said, it doesn't behave like any other wand, at all! And the most important things it has ever done happened by accident, when I wasn't thinking about it, or trying to do anything."
"What about Hermione? What does she think? She's very clever, she must have a good explanation?"
"She's sceptical about my theory too, but she agrees that something is off. I haven't had time to tell her about what happened at the Quidditch match, and obviously not about the fireplace. I sent her an owl to say we needed to talk, but I couldn't tell her anything more. We'll have to wait."
"Oh! But that's what Hermione was talking to you about when I came to find you when someone broke into your office? She was worried someone had stolen the wand, wasn't she?" she asked.
"Yes, it was a concern. But I never leave it anywhere. We'll have time to talk about that later, in the meantime, you can't talk to anyone about this!"
"Of course I won't!" she told him, pretending to be offended in a way that was hilarious.
They laughed together, talked a little more before leaving, for it was now past midnight.
A week exactly after the Quidditch match, Nick received a reply from Hermione. A letter delivered by an official Ministry owl, which read:
Dear Nicholas,
I received your letter last week but I had to take care of some things before I could reply. I would be delighted to see you, but sadly, I can't travel to Hogwarts at the moment, I have too much to do here and too little time to do it. I'm sure this exciting development of your study project you spoke of will be a wonderful topic for our next meeting. Perhaps we could meet in London during the Easter holidays?
Kind regards,
Hermione Granger
Department of Magical Law Enforcement
P.S. : Your friend Ginger asks you to be in your office at 9PM tonight to receive a package she sent you by owls. You'll have to sign for it.
Well, that was a strange reply, so formal. And on Ministry letterhead, by official owl? And what about Ginger sending him a parcel? It wasn't like her. And why use that nickname? He was the only one who called her that, Hermione had never used it. So many questions raised in such a short letter. And what was she playing, Easter holidays? That was in a month! He'd have to wait and see.
In the meantime, he had to attend a meeting with Minerva. He had just arrived at the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the Headmistress tower where Neville was trying to remember the password that had been changed just two days before.
"Basil Fronsac?" tried the Herbology teacher.
"Hengist Rawkes!" said Nick. Neville turned around, visibly relieved.
"Oh, Nick, good to see you! I thought I'll have to ask someone for it. I still have trouble with all these passwords sometimes! I knew it was a portrait, but there must be over a thousand in here!"
As they spoke, the gargoyle had stepped aside, leaving access to the tower. They entered the spiral moving staircase and rose to the door of McGonagall's office.
"Do you know why we're here?" asked Neville, stepping off of the stairs.
"No idea. I think Horace will be here, and Hooch too."
He knocked on the door that opened onto the large circular office. They entered to see that Slughorn and Hooch were indeed presents, as were Madam Pomfrey and Filch.
"Good!" said the Headmistress. "Everyone's here!"
She stood behind her desk, arranged a few parchments on it, gave everyone a meaningful look and said in a grave tone.
"We have a serious problem! As some of you know, there has been an attack!"
Everyone except Filch, Poppy and Hooch looked surprised.
"A student was found last night by Madam Hooch and Filch, petrified, in the corridor leading to the greenhouses, and a storage room was visited. We don't know yet if anything was stolen, but we found traces of Polyjuice Potion on the door."
Everyone looked at each other, astonished. An attack, and Polyjuice potion? It brought back some bad memories for some people in this room.
"Who was petrified?" asked Horace.
"A Slytherin girl, Aresia Orpington. We don't know what she was doing there. She's still petrified, but she'll be all right. That's partly why I summoned you and Professor Longbottom. We need you to brew a potion to wake her," she told them. "Neville will provide mandrakes if it's necessary."
"I already got one ready, I think it's still usable," said the Potion Master.
"Good, that's settled!" said the Hospital Wing Matron. "I'll go back to my patients. Professors." And she was gone.
"That Slytherin girl is pureblood, isn't she?" asked Hooch. "This isn't half-blood hatred all over again, is it?"
"Yes, the Orpington family are purebloods," said Slughorn.
"We don't know what this is about. Professor Slughorn, Professor Longbottom, have you noticed the disappearance of any ingredients needed to brew a Polyjuice Potion? Knotgrass, Fluxweed? Boomslang skin?"
Horace and Neville shook their heads, neither of them having noticed anything.
"Well, someone used that potion, why? We don't know yet, perhaps Miss Orpington will have answers," said McGonagall. "Now about that storage room, Mr. Filch, have you been able to find out if anything is missing?"
"Nothing, Headmistress! I checked the inventory thrice, everything's there," he replied,his voice cracking as he gave Nick a quick glance for some unknown reason.
"Thank you, I let you get back to your duties," she said. "Now, Madam Hooch, can you please tell us how you found Miss Orpington?"
"I was patrolling the corridors, I'd been in this one ten minutes earlier and was returning to my office when I heard the sound of someone running. I ran towards the sound and found the girl lying on the floor, I saw nothing else. I called Poppy and sent Filch for you," said the Quidditch teacher.
"Thank you, Rolanda, straight to the point, as usual. I won't keep you any longer. Horace, Neville, you can go too, thank you all for coming!"
Everyone was out now, and Nick, who had been silent the whole time, was now alone with the Headmistress in her office. She gave him her famous piercing stare, over her square spectacles.
"Does any of this make sense to you, Professor McCallum?" she asked, her tone sharp and highly suspicious.
He knew he was in some kind of trouble, for since the meeting had begun, she had been using a lot of titles to address everyone, and coming from her, it was a sign of annoyance. And now he was alone to face her, which meant he was the source of her irritation.
"Well, I can't say that it's clear to me. I don't know Miss Orpington well, I don't teach her," he said carefully.
"Let me add some information. The storage room that was ransacked, that's where Mr. Filch had moved your belongings from the Storage room near your classroom when it was flooded, for the time of the repairs." She looked at him intently.
His heart suddenly pounded in his chest. So that's why he was here! He had to say something quickly.
"That's unfortunate," he said miserably.
"Oh, but it is, really! And what a coincidence that just a month and a half ago your office was broken into, and now someone has broken into a room full of your teaching artifacts! Is there something you want to tell me?"
"I'm sorry, Minerva, but I can't help you, really." He was ashamed to have to lie to her after all she had done.
"Should I ask Mrs Granger about it?"
"You could, if only she had time to answer you," he told her with some bitterness in his voice.
"Oh, but I will ask her. It's my duty to protect everyone in this school, Professor McCallum, and believe me when I say that I'll see to it! Too many things have happened here for me to take lightly the fact that one of my students has been petrified by a lunatic we know nothing about! And you seem to be a part of this mystery, so I hope you're not playing some game here?"
"I assure you that I am not. I'll talk to Hermione, I promise you!" he replied.
"Good!" Her voice softened. "Please, be careful! I do care about you too. I don't know what's going on yet, but you must know that you'll always find help if you need it?"
"I know, Minerva," he said, relieved.
He spent the rest of the day pondering what had happened. He had no doubt now that it was connected. The break-ins, and the traces of Polyjuice Potion. Either this person had been sloppy about that detail, or he had left those traces on purpose. But why? And he may indeed be after the wand, but how would he know about it? Even the wizard who sold it to him seemed rather ignorant of the particulars of this wand. He told him that it had been in his family for centuries but no one had ever been able to use it. They had kept it because it was an unusual and beautiful wand, but they thought it was broken.
The Cypriot wandmaker then? What was his name again? Costas Anastasiades! He had found him in a small wizarding community a few miles away from Paliomylos, in the mountains. Could he be the origin of all this? It certainly wasn't Ollivander. And no one else knew anything about it. Hermione would have to look after this wizard in Cyprus. But he had told Nick that he thought the wand was "dead". He hadn't even tried to keep it or buy it from himself.
But when would he be able to tell her? He might have to go to London before the Easter holidays. He was worried now that he had involved Sunya in something that was beginning to look dangerous. And he would have to tell Hermione. In any case, it couldn't wait any longer.
Around 20:55, he heard a shriek at his window and remembered Ginny's parcel. He opened it to find two large owls carrying a wrapped wooden box. He removed it from their legs, gave them some treats he kept at hand near the window and signed the receipt attached to one of the birds' legs.
He carried the box to his desk, cut open the brown wrapping and opened it. It was empty! What game was Ginny playing? But then, he saw a piece of parchment stuck to the bottom. He took it and read it:
Had to keep up appearances, close your door!
It was indeed Ginny's handwriting, he could make it out with his eyes closed. Close his door? Why? He turned the paper over, there was something else written:
Go and do it, you blockhead!
Ginger
Well, that was clear. She really wanted him to close his door, so he picked up his wand and cast the locking spell. At that exact moment, the flames in his fireplace turned green and hissed. He jumped and immediately pointed his wand in the direction of the fire, for someone was coming through the Floo Network!
There was a small burst in the flames, and Hermione came out of the fireplace, coughing.
"Hermione?! But, what…How…?" he began.
"Good evening, Nick! Sorry about the entrance," she said.
"It's ok, but I didn't know my fireplace was connected to the Floo network."
"It isn't. Well, it is for tonight, I managed to hook it up without anyone knowing, but it's only for a couple of hours. We have some problems Nick, we need to talk, but not here. Follow me, I have arranged something."
She turned to face the fireplace and picked up some Floo powder, handing him the bag.
"We're going to Castle Tioram. Don't mess with the name!" she said, smiling at him.
He remembered being told about the time Harry had found himself in Knockturn Alley instead of Diagon Alley because he had pronounced "Diagonally". She spoke her destination, threw the powder into the flames and walked into the green fire. He took a handful of Floo powder, said "Castle Tioram" clearly and stepped into the green flames.
He appeared between four walls of old stones, covered in moss and bird droppings. He looked up to see that there was no roof. He could see the stars and the almost full moon. They were in a ruin! He looked at Hermione who was waiting for him in front of what had once been a door.
"Sorry about this, it's the best I could come up with on such a short notice without involving anyone," she told him with a closed face.
"It's a charming place, really," he said, trying to lighten the mood.
She gestured for him to follow her outside and walked to a stone bench, a few meters away. He joined her and sat down beside her. The moon provided more than enough light.
"Is it that serious?" he asked her. "All these precautions, your formal letter and Ginny's note, and now this."
"It's bad Nick, really bad!" she sighed, and he saw now that she was clearly tired. "I don't know how it's connected to you, or to your wand, but I'm sure it is now."
She reached into her robes and pulled out something. She handed it to him, it was a torn corner of parchment with a trace of blood on it, and something written.
Nicholas McCallum
"Where did you find this?" he asked. "Whose blood is it?"
"Do you remember someone called Sitarius Rensthmill?"
Nick remembered him, he was a burglar and an informer. He used to trade with him, not for stolen goods but for the information he could get. He always had good sources for who was looking for what.
"Yes, I know him, I dealt with him in the past," he said.
"He is dead. We think he was tortured for information, and we're sure it's connected to the other crimes. Another wizard has been killed, Nick, we think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it proves that whoever is behind this isn't afraid to kill. Luckily, I got to Sitarius' first and I saw this parchment in his hand right away. No one has linked your name to this yet, but I fear it's only a matter of time. I'm not sure I can protect you."
It was even worse than he thought, and now he had to tell her what had happened at Hogwarts.
He told her about the incident at the Quidditch match, the outburst of fire in his office, the way the wand had reacted to Neville's plants, the attack and the break-in at the storage room where his artifacts were kept, the traces of Polyjuice Potion and the questions from McGonagall. And finally, he told her how he had dragged Sunya into the whole mess.
"Oh! That's unfortunate. But she's quite brilliant. After that incident, it wouldn't have taken her long to figure out that something was wrong," she told him. "We'll try to keep her out of it. For now, we need to assess what we know, and what we need to find out."
"The most important things I've discovered about this wand happened by accident, when I wasn't trying. And that's not much. Firstly, it doesn't work well with normal magic. Second, wandmakers talk about it as if it were "dead". And about that, you'll have to check with the one I saw in Cyprus, Costas Anastasiades. I don't think he's behind it, but he definitely saw the wand, and even touched it. Thirdly, I think it does magic intuitively. At least, that's the way it works with me. When the handrail gave way in the Quidditch stands, I just thought about getting the students back on the landing while holding the wand, and it was as if the time had reversed, but only for them. The broken handrail was still falling to the ground, and everyone around me was moving normally, just very slowly; but I never cast a spell. I don't know, maybe I'm just delusional."
Hermione shook her head and put her hand on his shoulder.
"I don't think you are. I think this wand is really something else. I'm still not sure about the Ancient Magic part, but there's something about it, and it seems that someone is looking after it. I've started pulling some strings at the Ministry, I'll soon be able to get someone into Hogwarts, an Auror. I'll deal with Minerva, give her some information."
"Ok, let me know what you had to tell her or she'll try to double-cross me," he said.
"I'll tell you, don't worry. Just so you know, Ginny knows something's wrong, and I needed to keep up appearances for the Ministry, so she helped me, but you know her. She'll come after you. I'm not sure you can keep her out of it."
"Yeah, it's a losing battle… But I'll try. And what was that all about? Does the Ministry control your owls?"
"Not the Ministry itself, but I think some people are trying to bring me down. I'm bothering them. I didn't want to give them anything to jump on," she replied.
They talked a little longer, about Hermione's family, how the kids were doing, about how Ginny had almost stabbed Rita Skeeter with a quill after she had made a comment about Harry's position as Head of the Auror Office, given to him because of his celebrity. No wonder she snapped!
The night was getting a bit cold, so they decided to head back. Once in Nick's office, Hermione told him that she would make arrangements to communicate and that his fireplace would be disconnected from the network once she was gone. They bade each other goodnight and she stepped into the fireplace where she had just thrown some Floo powder and said "Weasley's cottage".