Harry Potter: Master of Talismans

By Christmas, the empty spaces around Harry had become familiar. They were not everywhere: Neville still sat with us, the twins had moderated their jokes, and Luna greeted him when she came to find me. She showed no interest in abandoning ordinary manners because he could talk to a snake. Harry noticed those exceptions, though he also noticed every person who moved away.

We put our names down to remain for the holiday. Emma’s reply reminded me that worrying about a friend did not excuse silence at home. I sent a longer letter describing what the school had announced and the arrangements for moving about together. I could not promise that everything was safe, but I could keep her informed instead of leaving her to wonder.

Luna was going home. We said goodbye before she joined the group leaving for the station, the carrot bag at her side with its chain bright against her robes. She asked me to write about something besides my notes if I could manage it. I promised to look for an interesting breakfast, and she left smiling before I could ask what would qualify.

The quieter castle helped Harry in some ways. In others it gave him longer to sit with questions we had already discussed too often. There had been no further attack and no return of the voice. The teachers continued searching, and the restrictions remained, but none of that supplied the explanation he wanted for the looks people still gave him.

Our own records were more orderly without becoming an answer. We knew when Myrtle died and that Hagrid remembered the period. Dumbledore had the dead cockerels to investigate, along with our accounts of the attacks. Books offered dangerous creatures, and the map offered no chamber. Hermione could copy the list beautifully, but each item still needed to fit something beyond the next line.

The potion, at least, was changing. Its early stages had taken longer than the book’s minimum. Hermione waited for the described changes before moving on, rather than adding ingredients because the calendar suggested we ought to be ready. We used materials, replaced what we needed and kept records, gradually approaching the final stage in the last week of December.

Snow covered the window ledges on Christmas Eve. After lunch we went outside together, following the paths through the softened shapes of the grounds. Harry kept his hands deep in his pockets. For a while we discussed nothing more alarming than the cold, and I began hoping the walk might leave us with one afternoon to remember without the chamber in it.

Then he asked whether somebody could do something bad and fail to remember afterwards. I stopped beside a low wall, clearing snow from a patch with my sleeve. I asked whether he was missing any time. He did not think so, he said, looking past us towards two students who had watched him before walking away.

‘They sound so certain,’ he told us. I sat on the stone and pointed out that people repeating one another could sound much like certainty. He began another objection, and I asked him to tell us and Dumbledore if something actually happened which he could not account for. We did not need to invent it because somebody had moved a bag at lunch.

Ron nudged a heap of snow with his shoe. We shared a room, he said, so we would notice quite a lot. I agreed without turning that into a perfect watch; all of us slept. What mattered was that Harry being exhausted by gossip did not prove he had secretly attacked anyone. He stayed quiet for a moment while Hermione tucked her hands beneath her arms for warmth.

She had something more useful than gossip, she announced. Malfoy was staying for the holiday, and the final preparation should be ready in two days. Harry straightened, then smiled when she confirmed she meant the potion. I was pleased to see the change, but reminded him that Malfoy might know nothing or choose to tell us something untrue.

‘Then we’ll find out more about what he does know,’ Harry said. That was enough to bring us indoors and spread the plan over a table. I preferred a question we could ask to another afternoon spent answering accusations from people who were not there. It still left several parts of the plan which sounded worse when written plainly.

We needed four people Malfoy would accept without examining every answer. Crabbe and Goyle were obvious. Hermione had chosen Harper, the reserve Seeker I had seen with the Slytherin team, and Millicent Bulstrode from our year. She would take Bulstrode’s place, she said, and I could become Harper.

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Harry chose Goyle and Ron took Crabbe. I recorded the names beside ours so we would not reach the stairs with different ideas about who we were pretending to be. Then we discussed their usual company, where Malfoy might be and how to leave if the effect changed sooner than expected. The potion’s promise of an appearance did not include a convenient supply of everything its owner knew.

We lacked the Slytherin password. I suggested meeting Malfoy outside and entering with him, rather than standing before the entrance guessing if that failed. Hermione agreed and wrote down when we would abandon the attempt. With the potion as she had made it, the change should last about an hour. We planned to leave well before the end, and I checked that I could read my watch without attracting attention to it.

The people whose faces we wanted presented the next problem. They could not arrive beside us while we questioned Malfoy. We had discussed that often enough that a cleverer description did not change what we meant to do. I had obtained a small bottle of Sleeping Draught with the other supplies; Harry and Ron would use it to keep Crabbe and Goyle out of the way. I would use a Body-Bind on Harper.

‘We check them before leaving and when we return,’ I said. ‘Nobody goes somewhere they can fall, or be shut in without help.’ Those precautions could make the plan less reckless. They could not make it something the three boys had agreed to. I looked at their names on the page and left them visible beside ours while we settled the rest.

Hermione produced a wrapped, labelled strand she believed belonged to Bulstrode. It had caught on the shoulder of her robe. I asked whether she was sure, and she said she had compared its colour with Bulstrode’s hair. We had both read the warning about animal samples. At the time, knowing the warning and seeing her careful label felt like enough preparation, although neither established what else had touched the robe.

Christmas morning brought Molly’s knitted jumpers. Ron showed me the large initial on his, followed by a smaller mark inside: a W stitched above his name. It was meant to distinguish family belongings in the laundry, apparently, and with that many children I could see the need. I returned it before he could decide my interest justified another complaint about the colour.

On Boxing Day, Hermione completed the last checks and declared the potion ready. We ate early so the attempt would not run close to curfew, when prefects had especially good reasons to stop people. I had taken four sets of appropriately sized Slytherin robes from the laundry and left them folded in the bathroom. Clothes were one part of the disguise we could arrange without drinking anything.

Harper passed the side passage when I expected. I dropped a book to draw his attention, waited until he turned towards the sound and stepped from the corner. The prepared Body-Bind left my fingers as I spoke the charm. He stiffened, and I caught his shoulder before lowering him onto the folded blanket beside the wall.

He could breathe, and his eyes moved. I was very aware of them while taking the hair. I moved him clear of the main passage, lying flat where I could return quickly. My hood and the angle of approach did not assure me that he had failed to recognise me. That possibility would remain after the potion wore off, along with the fact that I had hexed him to make this easier for us.

Harry and Ron reached the bathroom later. They had brought Crabbe and Goyle to a nearby storage room, checking that both slept clear of the door and anything liable to fall. Harry told me the exact location so we could return there first. Ron began describing how readily the two boys had taken the food, but I asked him to leave the account until afterwards. We needed to keep the time.

Hermione set out four cups. The potion looked less inviting in separate portions, each surface shifting reluctantly when she moved it. Its smell reminded me of swallowing something unpleasant in the hospital wing. I had taken bad potions before; this one appeared determined to make the others seem like useful preparation for disappointment.

We checked the labels before adding the samples. Goyle’s went to Harry, Crabbe’s to Ron, and Harper’s to me. Hermione held her strand briefly before dropping it into the fourth cup. The colours changed, giving the same preparation four different appearances. I looked at my watch and asked whether we were ready to drink together.

Nobody looked enthusiastic. We drank anyway, and for several seconds keeping the potion down occupied all the attention I could spare. Ron put his cup aside and hurried into a cubicle. Hermione went towards another with a hand over her mouth, while Harry bent over a basin and I gripped the stone beside him.

The nausea began to ease. Then the fingers against the basin changed, their joints shifting and the skin tightening into a hand I did not recognise. It did not hurt as I had expected, which made the sensation stranger. I could feel myself moving while the part of me doing the moving ceased to look familiar.

I raised my head towards the mirror. Harper looked back, following every small movement I made. I said Harry’s name and heard a different voice leave my mouth. Beside me, Goyle stared at the reflection with an expression I knew perfectly well on another face. Names, clothes, timing and questions had all been worth rehearsing, but none had prepared me for being the person who made that face move.