Harry Potter: Master of Talismans

By the following Saturday, walking everywhere with company was becoming a habit. It did not make each journey feel safe. It made forgetting the reason for the rule more difficult, particularly when the four of us reached the bathroom with something we were keeping from the teachers. Hermione went straight to the cauldron and checked the heat before examining the potion.

The liquid turned slowly beneath the stirrer. Its surface folded into itself, thick and dark, while Ron leant nearer and then withdrew. He asked whether we really intended to drink it. Hermione specified that we would do so when it was finished, if it was right. Ron looked at the cauldron as though it were making very little effort to become right.

I opened the record and compared the last entry with the instructions. We had made progress through the long preparation, but several stages remained and some ingredients had not yet been added. Wanting an answer from Malfoy did nothing to advance the date on the page. We checked the next task before Hermione adjusted the heat.

The cauldron saved us standing there merely to keep its contents moving. It did not decide when a visit was necessary. Timing, temperature and additions still belonged to us, and Hermione had divided the routine work clearly enough that nobody could reasonably claim not to know when they were helping. Ron inspected his next turn with much less enthusiasm than he had brought to buying the stirrer.

Harry had already been called to see Dumbledore about Dobby. He said the headmaster had asked for the exact words, including the promise to stop trying to force him out of school. It was a relief to know the account had reached him. We had passed it to somebody who could investigate beyond our guesses, though having done that did not make waiting for an explanation comfortable.

Ron looked towards the cubicles and remarked that at least Myrtle was out. Harry glanced behind him, and I followed his eyes. She floated close to Ron’s shoulder, her glasses catching light which passed through the rest of her face. The badge on her school robes was clearer from where I stood: Ravenclaw.

‘Am I?’ she asked. Ron jumped and turned, finding himself much nearer the subject of his observation than he had intended. Myrtle said he always sounded pleased when she was absent. He tried explaining that he had meant it was quiet, then looked towards me as he apparently heard how little that improved matters.

I told her we did not intend to make her unwelcome in her own room. Ron could apologise for saying it badly, I added. He did so quickly, and she watched him for a long moment before drifting towards the cauldron. Hermione moved the recipe book away from her path, leaving me able to read it without looking through a former student.

We had asked Myrtle before whether she had noticed anything when Mrs. Norris was attacked. She had been crying in her cubicle and had not seen the corridor. Repeating that question more forcefully seemed unlikely to produce a different account. Her uniform suggested another, and I waited until she had finished inspecting what little of the potion interested her.

‘You were a student here,’ I said. ‘Why did you stay afterwards? After you died, I mean.’ She turned sharply, giving me the immediate impression that I had found a subject she knew rather more about than our brewing. She supplied a name, Olive Hornby, as though it explained everything. It meant nothing to me, so I asked who she was.

‘If it hadn’t been for Olive Hornby, I wouldn’t have died,’ Myrtle said. ‘And then everybody thought I ought to leave her alone.’ Hermione put down her quill. The account had moved from why Myrtle stayed to why she was dead, without giving us the part which connected them.

Hermione asked what Olive had done. Myrtle answered by describing what she had done to Olive afterwards. She had followed her, appearing repeatedly to make sure she could not forget, until Olive went to the Ministry. Then they had made Myrtle return to Hogwarts, treating her, she said, as though she had been responsible for something dreadful.

Her words grew quicker and shriller. I tried to bring her back to the part she had passed over, asking when she died and what happened. Instead she gave a miserable cry and plunged through a cubicle door. Water splashed a moment later, and Ron shut his eyes as though being unable to see the aftermath might keep it farther away.

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We waited. I called Myrtle’s name once, but she did not answer, leaving the cauldron’s steady movement as the only response to our questions. Hermione said quietly that Myrtle had not actually claimed Olive killed her. I agreed: she had blamed her, which could cover several things we did not know.

I wrote the name before the rest of the conversation distracted me from it. A student dying at Hogwarts might have nothing to do with an earlier attack. We had no dates for either event and no account of Myrtle’s death beyond her anger at somebody else. It still seemed worth passing on as a question rather than building an accusation from what she had not said.

I made a short note for McGonagall, separating Myrtle’s words from the missing information. The potion continued turning while I folded it and checked that our next visit was recorded. Back at Gryffindor, I gave the note to Percy. He agreed to deliver it, and I left the question of dates open in my own book rather than pretending that writing the name had solved it.

The next afternoon we went to the new Duelling Club. Lockhart had proposed it in response to the attacks, and Dumbledore had authorised it. I thought the idea sensible enough. The person attached to the announcement gave me reservations about how much useful instruction would survive the opportunity to be watched by most of the school.

We checked the potion and settled the next visit before going down. In the Great Hall, a long platform stood where the tables had been moved aside. Students gathered along both edges, shifting to see between shoulders and heads. I found a place beside Harry with Ron and Hermione close enough to hear anything worth repeating.

Lockhart arrived in clothes which appeared chosen for how they would look from several angles at once. Harry glanced at his right arm, then at the platform. He asked whether the purpose was to teach us to protect ourselves from the professor. I said that would be useful, and Ron laughed under his breath as Lockhart called for attention.

He wanted us to respond to danger with confidence and composure, he explained. Several students exchanged looks. A boy on Harry’s other side seemed interested enough to lean forward, while I waited for the part which would tell us how to obtain either quality before something tried to take us apart. Lockhart removed his cloak with a flourish and passed it out of the way.

A few people reached for it. Most near us continued watching the platform, apparently sharing my hope that there would be more to the club than a change of clothes. Lockhart announced that he would not begin by duelling a student. Professor Snape had agreed to assist him in a demonstration, he said, and turned to welcome our Potions teacher.

Snape came forward. I looked between them, wondering whether there was some part of the arrangement I had missed which made it attractive to Lockhart. The boy beside Harry supplied a possible explanation: he thought the professor must be very confident to choose Snape. I turned towards him and asked whether that was what he thought was happening.

‘Wouldn’t you have to be?’ he replied. He smiled and introduced himself as Justin Finch-Fletchley, a second-year Hufflepuff. I gave my own name, and he assured me he already knew it. After the broomsticks and the match, it was difficult not to have heard about me, he added, without sounding as though he expected an apology for the attention.

I could hardly dispute the point after opening a crate before two Quidditch teams. I told him he might revise his opinion of the demonstration, then returned to the platform. Justin kept smiling, though less certainly. There was still time for Lockhart to surprise us, and I would have preferred to learn something from him rather than merely prove my expectations correct.

The two professors drew their wands, bowed and took their places. Snape made no movement which seemed intended for the audience. I knew the Disarming Charm, and I knew how much work it still took me to remove a wand from a firm grip with a prepared piece. That gave me something specific to watch beyond whether Lockhart’s stance looked impressive.

Lockhart promised to return our Potions professor unharmed. Snape waited while the last words carried through the Hall. The count began, giving everyone time to become very still. At its end, Snape spoke Expelliarmus and cast before Lockhart had done anything useful with his wand.

The spell hit. Lockhart left the boards, travelled backwards and landed hard enough to draw a sharp breath from the nearest students. His wand went another way. For a moment the whole Hall seemed to be deciding whether that was the intended demonstration, and then somebody laughed.

The sound spread while Snape lowered his wand. He had not needed to advertise his preparation or explain how difficult the spell was. He had been ready at the count. Lockhart, so far as I could see, had still been arranging the impression he wanted to leave, and the result had given the audience a different one.

Justin looked at me and said he took it back. I acknowledged the change of opinion while Harry grinned beside him. Ron had both hands over his mouth. Hermione appeared to be examining the edge of the platform with particular care, though her expression suggested she was finding it difficult to concentrate on the wood.

I laughed too, but kept watching Snape’s wand hand. The incantation was familiar. What he could do with it was not something I could reproduce merely by knowing the same word. At last the club had given me a useful reason to be there, and I wanted to see what he did next.