Allow Me to Exaggerate A Memory or Two :: Chapter Three (3/8)
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CHAPTER THREE
uidditch had quickly become part of the routine for Brendon. He had practise every Tuesday and Saturday, with the promise-or threat, depending on how you looked at it and how seriously you took Flint's fierce glare as he said it-of extra sessions in the weeks leading up to a match. They were to kick off the Quidditch season with a match against Gryffindor in the beginning of November, and Flint was taking it extremely seriously. As far as they knew, the Gryffindor team was exactly the same as the last two years, and Flint had charted moves and techniques from all their matches with an almost worrying thoroughness.
This depended, of course, on Draco getting well in time for the match. As it was now, he turned up to their training sessions and sat huddled in the stands clutching his bandaged arm, occasionally shouting advice for Brendon or Vaisey. It was strange not being able to fly with him, especially since Brendon didn't really know any of the others very well. They were all in Year Four or over, and the only one he'd really spoken to before was Flint. It was kind of scary, entering a team which had already flown with each other for a year, but he found an ally in Vaisey.
They worked well together, too. They were both small and nimble compared to the rest of the Chasers, and together with Montague they formed a dynamic and fast trio.
“Good for Hufflepuff games,” Flint had said, nodding in approval.
After a session that ended with Derrick taking a sprained wrist to the hospital wing, the team had quietly agreed that Derrick and Jennifer Bole should never be made to be Beaters on the same team. It was also the session they agreed never to use the word “She-Bole” in reference to Jennifer, although she solemnly swore Derrick's choice of nickname had nothing to do with her badly aimed Bludger.
It had taken a few sessions to work out kinks like that, but by mid-October Brendon felt like he was getting to know both the team and its members. It was fun going to Quidditch practice, and even if he was often wet and bedraggled after a training session-the weather was quite possibly the worst he'd ever seen for early autumn-the cheerful mood in the changing rooms afterwards was always enough to make him feel satisfied with his choice to join. And after the Saturday practice he usually met up with Ryan to do a couple of circuits of the castle, sometimes tossing a ball back and forth casually but mostly just talking and laughing together.
“Not meeting your Gryffindor friend today?” Vaisey asked him on the way back to the castle after one Tuesday practice. Brendon shook his head, grinning.
“We usually just fly on Saturdays-too much school work in the middle of the week. Besides...” He gestured at his sopping wet hair and soaked robes with a wry grin, and Vaisey laughed.
They separated in the Entrance Hall, Vaisey heading for the library and Brendon back to the Common Room. As he waved goodbye to Vaisey he was aware of a presence behind him and turned to find Flint scowling at him.
Of course, that was how Flint looked most of the time, but something told Brendon that he was not, at the moment, in Flint's good books.
“He's a Gryffindor?” Flint asked. “That kid who comes to the pitch during our practise?”
“Ryan?” Brendon said, taken aback by the tone of voice. “Yeah, he comes to meet me and fly together. You said it was OK,” he added, carefully.
Flint made an impatient gesture. “I thought he was Ravenclaw,” he said. “He wears Ravenclaw colours all the time. If he's Gryffindor, that's another thing-how do you know he's not spying for their team?”
Brendon stared at him. “Ryan?” he said. “But Ryan doesn't know anyone in the team. He doesn't even like Quidditch. I'm sure he wouldn't-”
“I'm sure he'd say that,” Flint interrupted, but then he shrugged. “Fine. But he can't come to the pitch any more. You'll have to meet up somewhere else. And you can't show him anything we do in practice.”
“He wouldn't want to know-”
“You can't show him.”
Brendon opened his mouth to argue again, then thought better of it.
“Sure,” he said.
It was a command that would be easy to obey, after all. For a while he had thought Ryan was warming up to the idea of Quidditch, if only for the sake of the flying, but since Ryan discovered that there was such a thing as orienteering at Hogwarts, he really couldn't be less interested in whatever went on in the Quidditch world.
yan was late to the usual Friday night study group meeting. He'd only intended to check the words for a Switching Spell because Gamp had mentioned it at the last orienteering meeting, and then he'd got stuck in the book. He was taking a short cut he'd learned a couple of weeks back-a stair from the sixth floor that took you to a corridor on the second floor instead of the fifth if you took the steps in the right sequence. This corridor was usually empty, and the sudden sight of the hunched-up figure in one of the windows would therefore have been enough, Ryan felt, to scare anyone.
“Why are you screaming?” Parvati asked shortly, straightening up a little.
“I wasn't screaming,” Ryan replied quickly. “I was just surprised.” He was about to continue with a waspish comment about how normal people usually didn't spend time sitting in windows and looking like gargoyles, when something about Parvati's expression stopped him. “Is everything OK?”
“Fine,” Parvati snapped.
A year ago, Ryan would probably have left it there. But a year spent with Ginny, whose replies to questions got shorter and shorter the more she fell under the spell of Tom Riddle's diary and the worse she felt, had taught him a little about nuances.
“Is it OK if I sit with you?” he asked, gesturing to the half of the window sill she was not currently occupying. She hesitated, then nodded brusquely.
Ryan scrambled up into the window, looking out at the rather bleak grounds, shrouded in rain. He sat in silence, looking steadfastly out of the window and avoiding Parvati's eyes, wondering if he should risk asking a question or if it was best to just wait it out.
“It seems I was wrong,” she said, just as he was deciding that he'd either have to try and talk or leave for study group.
“About what?” he asked.
“Apparently you can see things that are going to happen. Divination, I mean. You can see real stuff.” Parvati's voice was calm, but tightly so, as though she was just about holding herself together.
“What did you see?”
“Lavender's rabbit is going to die,” Parvati said. “Binky. There's a fox. It's going to get Binky when Mr Brown lets him out in the garden. The spell on the hedge has grown weak.”
“When?” Ryan asked.
Parvati shrugged. “Soon. A week. Something like that.”
“Are you-” Ryan hesitated. “It wasn't just a dream or something?” Parvati glared at him. “OK, fine, just asking.”
“I can't tell her anything about it, because then she'll try to stop it,” Parvati said, and her voice was starting to crack a little. “And you're not supposed to. That's when things go wrong. I was supposed to listen to a Doxies concert with her tonight on the WWN. But I couldn't. I said I was ill, but if she goes to our dorm she's not going to find me there and then she's going to be angry because it just seems like a bad excuse and I'm going to know about Binky all week and just wait until she finds out.”
Ryan didn't say anything, because he wasn't sure of what to say. But he touched her toes gently with his and stretched out his hand, holding it in front of her until she took it.
He held her hand for an hour more as she sniffled her way through worries and unease and problems, after a while only marginally connected to Lavender or her rabbit. He'd be badgered by Ginny about not turning up in the library, he knew-but somehow, that was OK, anyway.
he bad weather they'd had so far had clearly only been a teaser for what was to come. Jon looked sadly out of the library window, realising that he could forget about ever being completely dry again. Maybe Quidditch hadn't been such a good idea, after all.
“You can't make it stop raining by wishing,” Spencer said, and Jon came back to the here and now, grinning at him.
“Maybe if you helped me with this Weather Charm assignment,” he suggested. Spencer rolled his eyes at him, and he looked pleadingly across the table at Brendon instead. “Brendon? Do you know anything about Cumulus Charms?”
Brendon shook his head, grinning. “You want Ryan for that,” he said. “I know he's been looking into Weather Charms since he started orienteering.”
“But Ryan has forsaken us today,” Jon complained. “Do you know why, Ginny?”
Ginny shrugged. “A book?” she suggested, making the rest of them smile.
“Probably for a book,” Jon agreed. “Fine, I'll find the answer myself.”
They all worked on in silence for a while, the only noise coming from two tables away where a bunch of third-years were giggling about something.
“What is Hogsmeade?” Jon asked, catching part of their conversation and welcoming a distraction from the tedious passage in his Charms book. Spencer made an annoyed noise, but Brendon looked up from his own studies gladly. He'd been practising wand movements for Charms, levitating, flipping and spinning his quill. He seemed to be distracted today-nothing was going as smoothly as it usually did.
“It's a village close to here,” he said, putting his wand down. “It's the only completely wizarding village in all of Britain. There are no Muggles at all; it's protected, like Hogwarts.”
“Fun to visit, then?” Jon asked.
“Fred and George rave about Zonko's Joke Shop all the time,” Ginny offered. “And Charlie says the Three Broomsticks is amazing. That's Hogsmeade's inn. He worked there one summer.”
“So there's a lot of shops and things?” Jon asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Ginny said. “There's a robe shop and a broom shop, and there's a sweet shop which is amazing-they do that chocolate, the one Spencer likes-”
“We can't go until next year, anyway, so it's pretty useless to talk about it now, right?” Spencer interrupted, with the prickliness that indicated he was stressed about something. Jon glanced at his paper and saw that it was still barely ten inches, and Professor Snape was never generous when measuring their Potions essays. He shared a resigned look with Brendon and turned back to his book.
He glanced up a little while later to see Brendon frown his way through a swish-and-flick. The movement was well performed and the quill rose in the air obedient to the levitation charm, but Brendon still looked displeased and waved his wand again-only to have the quill fall back onto the table. As though realising he was being watched, he looked up quickly, and Jon flashed him a smile, then looked back down into his book.
As he stared without registering it at yet another terrible woodcut of ancient witches attempting a Cumulus Charm, he found himself wondering if he'd ever seen Brendon actually swish and flick his wand to levitate something before.
he Halloween Feast was probably even better than last year. The Hall was lit with the orange glow of over a hundred pumpkin lanterns, and the tables were decorated with huge arrangements of bright red maple leaves and orange Gerberas, still growing in their bowls. The fifth-year Gryffindor class acted out a scene from Gilderoy Lockhart's Travels With Trolls that had even the staff table laughing loudly (Professor Dumbledore in particular laughed so hard at the scene with the Swedish trolls and the glow worm that he appeared to choke on his pumpkin juice). But the crowning moment of the evening was without a doubt the Hogwarts ghosts' formation gliding across the hall, several of them re-enacting their deaths. Brendon was exhausted with laughter by the time he and the other Slytherin students headed back to the Common Room.
They had only just arrived back at the dungeons, however, when the door to the Common Room opened to reveal Professor Snape, looking just that shade grimmer than usual that meant he was bringing bad news. Brendon was reminded suddenly and violently of the day of the aborted Gryffindor/Hufflepuff Quidditch match last year, when two students had been Petrified and he and Spencer had crept through the school looking for Ginny. Spencer seemed to realise what was on his mind, too, because he patted Brendon's shoulder awkwardly as they all waited to find out what had happened this time.
“I'm afraid,” Professor Snape said, “that there has been a breach of security at the school. We have information that Sirius Black has entered the castle-”
There was a rush of noise as the entire Slytherin House drew their breath as though to start talking all at once.
“Silence!” Professor Snape snapped, glaring at them. The room went quiet again. “I will have silence while I explain. Sirius Black has been spotted close to the Gryffindor tower. The professors will be doing a search of the castle to make sure he's not hiding somewhere within the school and, if possible, restrain him and bring him to the proper authorities. You will all be sleeping in the Great Hall for tonight, and the Prefects will stand on guard for the duration of the night. Go and change into your sleeping apparel and be back here and ready in five minutes. If you have any other questions you are welcome to bring them to me here.”
Most students hurried to go and change into pyjamas, although Brendon saw several older students gather around Professor Snape. He settled instead for following his class mates to their dorm and then listening to Aslam and Snicket argue about anti-Apparition spells as they all changed for bed.
“Hogwarts is protected against Apparition. It's not possible!” Aslam exclaimed, buttoning up his pyjama shirt. Snicket's reply was muffled by the robes he was pulling over his head, but he emerged again and repeated it.
“He is Sirius Black! What do you know? He probably knows all kinds of Dark Magic...”
Brendon tried to ignore the look Spencer shot him, concentrating on folding his clothes. He knew Spencer didn't mean to look suspicious or weird, but-
Someone hammered on the door, and he jumped. Nott stuck his head in.
“What are you all doing? We have to go.”
It seemed as if the entire Gryffindor house was already in the Great Hall by the time they arrived, and the hall filled up gradually with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs as well. Most came in as part of a large group, but there were some who trickled in afterwards, looking too obviously innocent and not yet changed into their nightwear.
Brendon hardly listened as Professor Dumbledore repeated what Snape had said about the Prefects staying on guard in the hall and the professors searching the castle. He was scanning the group of Gryffindors, trying to locate Ryan and Ginny, and when he finally saw them, he drew a deep breath of relief.
“Oh, yes, you'll be needing...” Professor Dumbledore said, almost as an afterthought, and purple sleeping bags appeared out of thin air all over the Great Hall.
“That man has an obsession with purple,” Spencer said flatly.
“Hey.” Jonathan arrived by their side with Luna, both dragging a sleeping bag behind them. “Everyone's been talking really strangely. Did a serial killer really break into the castle?”
“Not serial,” Spencer said vaguely. “He only killed people once. Killed a lot of them, though.”
“Thank you. That made me feel so much better,” Jonathan said.
“The professors will find him, won't they?” Brendon asked. “He can't get out of here. There's no way out except past the-the gates. And they're guarded.”
“He managed to get in,” Spencer said, stretching up on his toes and gesturing for Ryan and Ginny to make their way over. “I guess he has a way out as well.”
“But the professors know every part of the castle,” Brendon insisted.
“It dates back several hundred years,” Spencer said. “I don't think anyone knows every way in and out of this place.”
“This is unbelievable,” Ryan said, arriving in time to catch the last part. “Sirius Black is running around in this castle and no one even knows how he got in?”
“I'm sorry,” Jonathan said, “but I don't even really know who this guy is. He murdered people?”
“Twenty Muggles and one wizard,” Ryan said. “It was right after You-Know-Who fell. Black was one of You-Know-Who's closest, and the Daily Prophet says he went mad after the whole Harry Potter thing. There was this wizard who went after him, and Black blew up an entire street to get rid of him.”
“But he got caught?” Jonathan asked, frowning.
“Yeah, he didn't even try to run. He stood there and laughed until the Aurors came and took him away.” Ryan rolled his eyes. “Mad. Anyway, he escaped this summer.”
“I know that,” Jonathan said, as if realising something. “It was on our news. They said he was armed.”
“Well, they broke his wand,” Spencer said, “but it wouldn't be hard for him to steal another.”
“The lights are going out now!” the Head Boy, Ginny's brother Percy, shouted. “I want everyone in their sleeping bags and no more talking!”
They all clambered into their sleeping bags, Ryan and Ginny still in their school robes.
“Didn't they give you time to change?” Brendon asked, noticing this. Ginny shook her head.
“The Fat Lady-the portrait who guards our common room-she was all slashed to pieces,” she whispered. “I mean, her canvas. She'd run away. I don't know-do you know if portraits can die?”
“I don't think so,” Spencer whispered back. “As long as all the pieces of the original painting are still there, she can probably be restored.”
“Hello? Can we get back to how there's a mass murderer loose in this school and no one knows how he's getting in or out?” Jonathan asked, looking annoyed when both Brendon and Ginny shushed him. “Shouldn't we evacuate or something?” he continued in a lower voice.
The rest of them looked at him strangely.
“What good would that do?” Spencer asked finally.
Jonathan gaped at him. “I don't know, it would remove us from the crazy murdering guy?” he said.
“You know what Professor Dumbledore said at the Welcoming Feast,” Luna said mildly. “This is the best protected place in all of Britain right now. I don't like the Dementors, but they should scare Black, too.”
“They don't seem to be working now, though, right?” Jonathan snapped. “Also, hasn't anyone wondered about why an escaped murderer has decided to stalk a school?”
“We just have to trust Professor Dumbledore,” Brendon said, and was rewarded with a snort of disbelief from Jonathan. He seemed about to say something more, but just then a shape bent over them. Brendon looked up, startled, and realised that he was looking at Pucey, one of the fifth-year prefects.
“Urie, Smith, take your sleeping bags and come with me,” he said softly.
Brendon frowned, confused. “Why?” he asked.
“We want to have all the Slytherins close by,” Pucey said.
“But why-”
“So that we know where we have you.”
“But we want to talk to our friends,” Brendon insisted.
Pucey hesitated, but someone close by said “Shut up” and he seemed to make a decision. “Fine, they can come, too,” he said. “Just follow me.”
They all looked at each other, then Spencer shrugged. “Let's just go.”
They crawled out of their sleeping bags and followed Pucey in a kind of crouching tiptoe. Now that he was looking, Brendon saw that similar relocations were taking place all over the Great Hall, with small lines of students moving here and there apparently at random. When they had followed Pucey to their destination, however, he realised that it was not so random after all-his and Spencer's entire class was gathered in one corner, along with Alderton and Timms from Year Seven.
“Hey,” Aslam said, raising himself up on one elbow and giving them a cheerful wave. “So what do you think-is Black going to murder all of us?”
“Funny,” Spencer muttered, rolling his eyes.
“I'm just saying, if he blew up a whole street...”
“Of unprotected Muggles, yes, I can see why you would think this is a similar situation.”
“You know what Snicket said. Black knows all kinds of Dark Magic. He could probably-”
“Aslam, please just shut up.”
Brendon was still watching Pucey, who had bent close to Timms and was handing her something.
“Professor Snape said it should work if everyone holds on to someone else,” he muttered.
“I know how a Portkey works, Pucey. Just get back to guarding the entrances.”
“Brendon, come on,” Ryan whispered, and Brendon got into his sleeping bag quickly and lay down beside the others, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping.
As he lay back, watching the stars glimmer on the enchanted ceiling and listening to Ginny's, Luna's and Jonathan's low murmuring on one side of him as well as Spencer's and Aslam's continued bickering on the other, he realised that despite the threat of Sirius Black and whatever else was out there, he felt completely safe.
harms was getting intense. Professor Flitwick was one of their nicest professors as a person, but as a teacher, he was not going easy on them, and essays, quizzes and practical mini-exams were starting to pile up in alarming amounts.
Spencer leant back in his chair, sighing deeply. He and Brendon had been working for an hour, and they were still nowhere close to seeing the end of the Charms questions they were supposed to answer for homework.
“How are you doing?” Spencer asked.
“I'm stuck on this question about sleep enchantments,” Brendon said. “But I know Ryan talked about them once, so I'm trying to remember.”
His quill scratched against the parchment for a while, and Spencer tried to summon up the energy to continue with his own homework.
“Bet you're not looking forward to playing Quidditch on Saturday,” he said eventually, focusing on anything and everything that was not Charms. He supposed that despite the last weeks' constant rain, there was a chance it might turn out nice for Saturday's Quidditch game, but he thought the chances were still higher for Professor Snape to do a sing-and-dance number during Potions.
Brendon shook his head absent-mindedly. “We're not playing,” he said. “Draco's arm isn't well enough yet.”
Spencer glanced over towards the other end of the Common Room, where Parkinson was doing Malfoy's History of Magic homework for him since, as Malfoy had put it, he was “unfortunately unable to write with a mauled arm”. If Spencer had been in that same situation, he felt sure that his arm wouldn't have been well yet, either.
“Come on,” he said, glancing at his watch and seeing with a certain amount of relief that it was close to dinnertime. “Let's put this away and get to the Great Hall. I'm starving. We can always continue later.”
Brendon agreed, closing his book with a snort. “I probably need to ask Ryan anyway,” he said.
There was a package waiting for Brendon on his bed when they arrived at their dorm. Brendon's face lit up.
“It's from Kayla,” he said, throwing his backpack aside and pouncing on the package. The yellow wrapping paper was ripped apart to reveal a note and a framed photo of two people Spencer didn't recognise. Brendon scanned the note quickly and beamed.
“Who are they?” Spencer asked, putting his own backpack away carefully.
“It's my cousin Else and her boyfriend-well, husband, now-Hideki at their wedding. Kayla took some photos and promised me one when she had developed them,” Brendon said, holding the photo up for Spencer to see. “Isn't she pretty?”
“It's a really nice photo,” Spencer agreed. Else laughed and waved at him from the picture, then linked arms with her husband and smiled at him. Brendon grinned at them and then turned to his night stand. He hesitated for a moment, picked up a photo from the middle of the throng and put it in one of the drawers, then placed Else's wedding photo in its place.
“Couldn't you just make the night stand bigger?” Spencer asked, surprised.
Brendon shrugged. “I already have another picture of Tyler,” he said, but he wasn't really looking at Spencer's face. He smiled at Else again and then turned away. “Do you want to go to dinner?”
Spencer looked carefully from Brendon's turned back to the night stand. There was something there that wasn't entirely right, but he didn't know what yet and in any case had no idea of how to fix it.
“Sure, dinner,” he said, hoping that by the time he figured it out it wouldn't be too late.
aturday did not turn out nice.
The weather was so bad Brendon thought they'd actually have to cancel the match. He hardly recognised Kayla among the other bedraggled Hufflepuff team members; the rain had removed all individuality and turned the entire student body into a uniform mass of sodden, miserable lumps. The only thing separating the Hufflepuff team from the Gryffindor was the colours.
For a moment, he was intensely grateful that Malfoy's arm hadn't healed properly yet and that Slytherin hadn't had to play today and then immediately felt bad for thinking so.
“They won't be able to see a thing in this weather,” Spencer muttered next to him. Brendon nodded in agreement, trying to make out the faces of the Hufflepuff team members. The Gryffindor line-up hadn't changed from last year, but Ryan had talked about the new Hufflepuff captain and Seeker, and there was a new Beater who was supposed to be good, too.
“The Seekers are really going to have a tough time,” he said, finally locating the captain, Diggory, in the Hufflepuff huddle. He was gesticulating to his team members, and even from this distance, Brendon could see him laughing.
“Are they even going to be able to play?” Spencer asked. “They're already soaked!”
Brendon shrugged. The Slytherin team had been practising in October weather and had become inured to every single subtle nuance of rain, ranging from drizzle to storm. Rain was not actually a hindrance to Quidditch.
Wind, on the other hand, could completely ruin any match, and today there was a tempest brewing. Brendon had started weighting his body against the wind almost unconsciously as soon as they'd left Hogwarts for the Quidditch pitch, and he knew that if he'd flown today, he would hardly have been able to fly in a straight line, not to mention pass the Quaffle satisfactorily. It wouldn't have been him on that pitch, anyway-when the weather had turned really nasty, the team had taken the more or less mutual decision to focus on the heavier line-up with Montague, Flint and Warrington as Chasers in case Malfoy made it back in time for the match, and neither Brendon nor Vaisey would have played in conditions like these.
Despite the weather, though, the mood in the stands was of almost giddy anticipation. The first Quidditch match of the season was always exciting. People were chatting and joking, passing around bags of self-heating almonds and raisins. Brendon heard Malfoy laugh from somewhere a row or two behind them.
“He sounds happy,” Spencer said. Brendon nodded.
“Yeah, I'm glad. I thought he might be upset at not being able to play yet.”
Spencer opened his mouth, but then seemed to change his mind and closed it again. “Sure,” he said eventually, but Brendon wasn't really listening any more; Madam Hooch had just picked up the Quaffle.
The sound of Madam Hooch's whistle was almost blown away by the wind, but the fourteen players rose as one and sped off in their different directions. One of the Hufflepuff Chasers was first on the ball and sped towards the Gryffindor goal, Quaffle clamped tightly under one arm. She or he-it was impossible to tell-flew straight for the Keeper, only to swerve at the last moment and pass the Quaffle to a team mate coming from almost the opposite direction, who scored past the bewildered Gryffindor Keeper. It was a move Brendon and Vaisey had practised to perfection only last week, and it was wonderful to see it now, demonstrated in a real match. The Hufflepuff Chaser teamwork was flawless, and as the game wore on it became apparent that they were using the bad visibility to further confuse their opponents.
Even so, the Hufflepuff team had nothing on Gryffindor in terms of speed, and after a slow start the scarlet team started to build up a solid lead.
“Hufflepuff will have to catch the Snitch to have any chance to win now, right?” Spencer said during a time-out in the game.
“I think so,” Brendon agreed. He hadn't managed to keep up completely with the score-the Gryffindor whose job it usually was to keep the spectators up-to-date with the score and give the play-by-play had given up the fight against the thunder ten minutes into the game and was now talking to Professor McGonagall, a Butterbeer in his hand-but he thought that Gryffindor were at least fifty or sixty points in the lead. “But I don't know if their Seeker can beat Potter-he's really good. Diggory's bigger though, so that's a help.”
“Isn't it mostly luck anyway, being a Seeker?” Spencer asked, and then seemed to catch the pained expression on Brendon's face. “Fine, OK, I guess not.”
The players were kicking off again. Brendon glanced up at the commentator's box and saw the commenting Gryffindor pick up his megaphone experimentally, look at it for a while and then put it down again with a resigned shrug. The sky was dangerously black now, only illuminated now and then by flashes of lightning. If this went on, they would have to call off the match, or the fast-flying players would make nice targets for the lightning strikes.
And then he saw Diggory take off, pelting up the pitch. Potter, flying in the other direction, was somehow alerted to the fact and spun around quicker than Brendon would have thought possible, flattening himself against the handle of his broom and racing to catch Diggory up.
“What's that?” Spencer asked, sounding strangely far-off. Brendon didn't even glance his way, too focused on the Seekers' battle.
He was freezing cold. As he stared upwards, trying to follow Diggory and Potter as they raced towards the tiny golden speck glimmering in the distance, the chill crept inwards until he was shivering uncontrollably. He reached out for Spencer, desperate for some reminder that he was not actually dying of cold.
Spencer jerked away from his touch.
As Brendon tore away his gaze from the two Seekers and stared at him, he realised that Spencer was looking at something else altogether. He angled his head to see what it was, and when he caught sight of the mass of dark, hooded figures thronging the edge of the pitch, the memories burst in his head like images from a bad dream.
A plate shattered in his mum's hands. A trench erupted in the lawn just in front of Matt's feet. Mason stared at him, shocked, with blue lips and frost in his hair on a brilliant summer afternoon. And Brendon stood in the hall to his house, watching doors slam open and then shut again, over and over, until Matt grabbed him with strong arms and carried him out, while his mum and dad ran past them with their wands raised.
Somewhere, Kara was screaming.
For the first time, Brendon remembered the sight as Matt ran away from the house, panting heavy breaths into Brendon's ear as he clutched him tightly. The house was-there was no other word for it-writhing, as if it was trying to change shape but couldn't. A window appeared and then disappeared again. Part of the roof fell in. The walls seemed to flicker, unsure of whether they were there or not.
The Urie house was a marvellous construction, first experimented with by Brendon's grandfather and then expanded by Grace and Boyd as their family grew. From the outside, the house looked like a three-bedroom cottage. On the inside, every door opened to at the least three different rooms (the bedroom door had a new room added to it every time there was a new child on the way). It was a complex bit of magic-the best work Boyd's father ever did. Brendon almost destroyed all of it in a tantrum when he was seven years old.
He had always vaguely known that the reason he spent that first summer with Aunt Gwen was that he'd done something to their house, and he'd been suitably ashamed when he'd returned home in August and found that five construction wizards and witches had still been trying to piece together their home. But he'd never remembered that Kara had still been in the house before.
“Brendon!” Spencer whispered, shaking his shoulder. “Brendon, the Dementors are leaving. Come on.”
Brendon breathed in slowly. It wasn't as bad as it had been on the train. There, it had felt like he was back in those moments, living them all over again but now with an understanding of what he was actually doing. This time, it had just been like he was watching from far away. Unfortunately, that didn't make the memories any less true.
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the images from his head, looking around himself.
“What happened?” he exclaimed, staring down at the Quidditch pitch. Someone was lying in a crumbled heap on the pitch, and professors were rushing towards him or her. Members from both teams were landing all around the pitch with wet thumps. The mud covering all the players by now made it hard to even differentiate between the Houses. “Spencer, who is that? Who is it?”
“One of the Gryffindors,” Spencer said, and Brendon sucked in a deep breath of relief. Not Kayla, then. “Harry Potter.”
“Is he all right?” Brendon asked, straining to see. “He's not hurt, is he?”
“Professor Dumbledore slowed his fall somehow,” Spencer said. “I don't know, but I think he can't be badly hurt. Professor Dumbledore wouldn't let that-”
“What were they doing here?” Brendon stared at the Dementors, who were being herded away from the pitch by something fuzzy and silvery. It was impossible to see what it was through the rain, but it was acting like sheepdog, circling the group of Dementors and gradually forcing them away. Professor Dumbledore had his wand up and was waving his other arm at the Dementors. He looked absolutely furious.
“Don't know,” Spencer said quietly. “And by the look of it, I don't think Professor Dumbledore does, either.”
pencer looked over at Brendon, who was huddled in the sofa in front of the fire. Elsewhere in the Common Room a party was getting started, a Gryffindor loss meriting almost as much giddy glee as a Slytherin win. Spencer, like Brendon, had opted for a quiet time in front of the fire instead, sharing the space only with the eldest Coote brother, who'd never been into Quidditch. Spencer was currently trying to massage some life back into his feet-silently cursing the freezing Quidditch stands-while at the same time keeping an eye on Brendon.
Something happened with Brendon around Dementors, and he wasn't sure what it was. Spencer had only ever felt uncomfortable and frightened around them in a general sort of way himself, but both on the Hogwarts Express and today at the Quidditch pitch Brendon had reacted much stronger. With that blank look that came over his face, it was as if he went away somewhere when the Dementors came close-somewhere not very pleasant.
Spencer had heard about Dementors bringing up bad memories and feeding on them, with suppressed memories being an especial treat for the creatures. And he thought of the way Kayla had run into their compartment on the Hogwarts Express, seeking out Brendon's face immediately.
“What a bummer,” Malfoy said loudly, startling Spencer out of his thoughts. He and Zabini were walking towards them, with Crabbe and Goyle the customary step behind. “Hey. Your younger brothers are having a Butterbeer-chugging competition,” Malfoy told Coote. “We thought it would be best to get out of the way after last time.”
“They have an impressive record to beat,” Coote said, with the calm assurance of one who had managed a four point six seconds result in his third year. He turned away just slightly, cradling his Charms book a little closer, and Malfoy took the hint and didn't push further.
“What's a bummer?” Spencer asked, once Malfoy and the rest had got settled in their respective seats.
“Just heard that Potter survived his fall,” Malfoy said, leaning back in the sofa and rolling his eyes. “For a while I thought he might have done the decent thing and croaked on us.”
Spencer sighed, then looked quickly at Brendon. He hadn't forgotten the last time Malfoy had really upset Brendon-he doubted that anyone in Slytherin had forgotten that-but Brendon seemed to be remembering the same thing and only scowled, hunching together further.
“There are more uses for Dementors than I thought,” Malfoy went on. “I wonder if I could hire one to follow Potter around-”
The fire flared suddenly and brightly, spitting burning embers onto the rug in front of the fireplace. Spencer and Zabini both shouted in alarm, Malfoy pulled his feet up into the sofa with impressive speed and Crabbe and Goyle leapt to their feet as if they could intimidate the fire away. Only Coote kept his cool, dousing the embers with a quick wave of his wand.
“Wet logs,” he said, turning back to his Charms book. And Spencer would probably have believed that explanation, if he hadn't happened to glance up at Brendon and found him staring back with wide, startled eyes.
Brendon jumped up as soon as Spencer caught his eye and disappeared towards the dorms. Malfoy looked after him curiously.
“Scared of fire?” he suggested to dutiful sniggers from Crabbe and Goyle.
Not of fire, Spencer thought.
He stayed in his seat while Malfoy elaborated on his frankly disturbing ideas of how to scare Potter of his broom again and then, when he thought it wouldn't be as obvious he was running after Brendon, excused himself and escaped to the dorms.
Brendon was sitting curled up on his bed, his hands gripping his hair tightly.
“How are you?” Spencer asked, then jumped as Brendon uncurled in one violent, frightened motion. “Hey, it's just me,” he said.
“Sorry,” Brendon said, settling back. “I'm sorry.”
“It's OK.” Spencer shrugged and smiled. “You just startled me.”
“No, I meant-” Brendon stopped, gesturing awkwardly towards the door.
“What?” Spencer frowned, then realised. “The fire, it-it was you, then.”
“That's not supposed to happen any more!” Brendon said desperately, waving his hand at the door again. “We've-I never do that now!”
“So what happened?” Spencer asked, trying to keep his voice calm even though he was just as spooked as Brendon. He had seen Brendon mend broken glass and light candles with just a wave of his fingers. If that kind of power was coming unbound, the results wouldn't be pretty.
Once again, he reflected that it was called wild and dark magic for a reason.
“I don't know!” Brendon moaned. “I was just-I mean, I was really angry with Draco, I hate it when he talks like that, and I-I knew I couldn't really just tell him about it.”
Well, at least he learned from past mistakes, Spencer thought.
“And I was just trying to stay calm about it, and then the fire just-” He looked at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. “I'm not supposed to do that,” he said.
Spencer sat down beside him, patting a shoulder awkwardly. “It happens, sometimes, though, right?” he said. “For all kids. I heard Selwyn broke a window without meaning to last month when she and Pucey broke up, and she's fourteen.”
“You don't understand,” Brendon said. “I-it's dangerous, OK? That's why I've stayed with Aunt Gwen, to stop things like this-” He stopped and breathed in slowly.
“It's not just things like fire and windows,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“When I lose control it goes-bad,” Brendon said. He gave Spencer a reproachful look. “I've told you about this before.”
Spencer winced, remembering.
“Do you think maybe you should talk to your aunt?” he suggested. Brendon shrugged unhappily, mumbling something mainly incomprehensible but with the words don't know what to say somewhere in there.
“I think you should,” Spencer insisted. “And-I think maybe you should stay away from the Dementors.”
The exasperated glare this earned him said that not only was this advice unwanted, but also entirely unnecessary.
ementors were intensely unpleasant creatures, Ryan thought. He'd never liked the thought of them.
Worse than their general creepy appearance, however, was the fight he'd heard in his head when the Dementor had come to the compartment on the Hogwarts Express. It was unnerving, knowing his mind held secrets even from himself. He tried to recall more of that fight, but however hard he tried, he was stuck with only the fractured memory of a man and his mother screaming at each other, trying to work out what it meant.
There weren't many men on a permanent basis in their lives. The closest male relative was one of Jennifer's second or third cousins, who they saw about twice a year. Thomas had been a fixture for a few years, but he and Jennifer had broken up when Ryan was about eight. It had been a calm if not exactly joyous parting, and Ryan's Dementor-induced memory pre-dated Thomas's appearance in their home in any case.
Apart from that, the only ones who came to the house regularly were a few of Jennifer's friends-fellow Healers and a friend from her Hogwarts days. Ryan liked them all and couldn't imagine any of them screaming at his mother like that. He briefly evaluated the possibility of the shouting man being some kind of official person-a Master Healer or Ministry representative-but discarded it as unlikely. The man in Ryan's memory had to be someone who had been close to her mother but disappeared when Ryan was about three, who Ryan had no further memory of and of whom his mother had never spoken.
Well. That all seemed to point in one very definite direction. Ryan sighed and turned his attention back to his Transfigurations essay.
on was late, and Spencer was annoyed. Quite apart from the fact that it was Wednesday, and Wednesday was important, Spencer had really wanted to talk to Jon today. Jon was the one amongst them who knew most about Dementors.
It probably had to do with being Muggleborn, Spencer thought. Dementors frightened everyone, but Spencer had at least grown up with the knowledge of them. He'd read the Daily Prophet and seen pictures of criminal trials, and he knew about the Dementors' role in Wizarding society. Jon, on the other hand, had never known about Dementors until one stepped into their carriage on the Hogwarts Express and dealt with them by treating them as a puzzle to be solved.
Spencer wanted to use that knowledge and to talk to Jon about Brendon, but by five thirty Jon still hadn't shown. Tired of waiting, Spencer finally walked over to a couple of Ravenclaws he vaguely recognised as being in year three or four.
“Sorry,” he said, “have you seen Jon-Walker around today at all?”
One of the Ravenclaws frowned. “Who?”
“Oh, you know,” the other told him. “The smart kid in year two.”
“Smart kid?” Spencer asked, then realised he'd said it out loud. But he was confused. He wouldn't have called Jon dumb, of course, but so far Spencer hadn't thought he seemed scintillating enough to make himself a name for it among Ravenclaws.
“Oh, yeah,” the first Ravenclaw said. “That guy who always looks like he's not paying all that much attention, but every once in a while he just comes out with something completely brilliant.”
Something rang a bell in Spencer's mind-too faint to be suspicion, but still a creeping feeling of unease.
“Right, like all his ideas about Cumulus Charms; I thought those were amazing,” the second Ravenclaw began, then seemed to remember Spencer. “Anyway, sorry, I haven't seen him at all today.”
Spencer had gone cold all over. He managed to mutter something vaguely thankful before he stalked back to his table, shoved his books into his bags and slammed out of the library.
Next chapter
CHAPTER THREE
uidditch had quickly become part of the routine for Brendon. He had practise every Tuesday and Saturday, with the promise-or threat, depending on how you looked at it and how seriously you took Flint's fierce glare as he said it-of extra sessions in the weeks leading up to a match. They were to kick off the Quidditch season with a match against Gryffindor in the beginning of November, and Flint was taking it extremely seriously. As far as they knew, the Gryffindor team was exactly the same as the last two years, and Flint had charted moves and techniques from all their matches with an almost worrying thoroughness.
This depended, of course, on Draco getting well in time for the match. As it was now, he turned up to their training sessions and sat huddled in the stands clutching his bandaged arm, occasionally shouting advice for Brendon or Vaisey. It was strange not being able to fly with him, especially since Brendon didn't really know any of the others very well. They were all in Year Four or over, and the only one he'd really spoken to before was Flint. It was kind of scary, entering a team which had already flown with each other for a year, but he found an ally in Vaisey.
They worked well together, too. They were both small and nimble compared to the rest of the Chasers, and together with Montague they formed a dynamic and fast trio.
“Good for Hufflepuff games,” Flint had said, nodding in approval.
After a session that ended with Derrick taking a sprained wrist to the hospital wing, the team had quietly agreed that Derrick and Jennifer Bole should never be made to be Beaters on the same team. It was also the session they agreed never to use the word “She-Bole” in reference to Jennifer, although she solemnly swore Derrick's choice of nickname had nothing to do with her badly aimed Bludger.
It had taken a few sessions to work out kinks like that, but by mid-October Brendon felt like he was getting to know both the team and its members. It was fun going to Quidditch practice, and even if he was often wet and bedraggled after a training session-the weather was quite possibly the worst he'd ever seen for early autumn-the cheerful mood in the changing rooms afterwards was always enough to make him feel satisfied with his choice to join. And after the Saturday practice he usually met up with Ryan to do a couple of circuits of the castle, sometimes tossing a ball back and forth casually but mostly just talking and laughing together.
“Not meeting your Gryffindor friend today?” Vaisey asked him on the way back to the castle after one Tuesday practice. Brendon shook his head, grinning.
“We usually just fly on Saturdays-too much school work in the middle of the week. Besides...” He gestured at his sopping wet hair and soaked robes with a wry grin, and Vaisey laughed.
They separated in the Entrance Hall, Vaisey heading for the library and Brendon back to the Common Room. As he waved goodbye to Vaisey he was aware of a presence behind him and turned to find Flint scowling at him.
Of course, that was how Flint looked most of the time, but something told Brendon that he was not, at the moment, in Flint's good books.
“He's a Gryffindor?” Flint asked. “That kid who comes to the pitch during our practise?”
“Ryan?” Brendon said, taken aback by the tone of voice. “Yeah, he comes to meet me and fly together. You said it was OK,” he added, carefully.
Flint made an impatient gesture. “I thought he was Ravenclaw,” he said. “He wears Ravenclaw colours all the time. If he's Gryffindor, that's another thing-how do you know he's not spying for their team?”
Brendon stared at him. “Ryan?” he said. “But Ryan doesn't know anyone in the team. He doesn't even like Quidditch. I'm sure he wouldn't-”
“I'm sure he'd say that,” Flint interrupted, but then he shrugged. “Fine. But he can't come to the pitch any more. You'll have to meet up somewhere else. And you can't show him anything we do in practice.”
“He wouldn't want to know-”
“You can't show him.”
Brendon opened his mouth to argue again, then thought better of it.
“Sure,” he said.
It was a command that would be easy to obey, after all. For a while he had thought Ryan was warming up to the idea of Quidditch, if only for the sake of the flying, but since Ryan discovered that there was such a thing as orienteering at Hogwarts, he really couldn't be less interested in whatever went on in the Quidditch world.
yan was late to the usual Friday night study group meeting. He'd only intended to check the words for a Switching Spell because Gamp had mentioned it at the last orienteering meeting, and then he'd got stuck in the book. He was taking a short cut he'd learned a couple of weeks back-a stair from the sixth floor that took you to a corridor on the second floor instead of the fifth if you took the steps in the right sequence. This corridor was usually empty, and the sudden sight of the hunched-up figure in one of the windows would therefore have been enough, Ryan felt, to scare anyone.
“Why are you screaming?” Parvati asked shortly, straightening up a little.
“I wasn't screaming,” Ryan replied quickly. “I was just surprised.” He was about to continue with a waspish comment about how normal people usually didn't spend time sitting in windows and looking like gargoyles, when something about Parvati's expression stopped him. “Is everything OK?”
“Fine,” Parvati snapped.
A year ago, Ryan would probably have left it there. But a year spent with Ginny, whose replies to questions got shorter and shorter the more she fell under the spell of Tom Riddle's diary and the worse she felt, had taught him a little about nuances.
“Is it OK if I sit with you?” he asked, gesturing to the half of the window sill she was not currently occupying. She hesitated, then nodded brusquely.
Ryan scrambled up into the window, looking out at the rather bleak grounds, shrouded in rain. He sat in silence, looking steadfastly out of the window and avoiding Parvati's eyes, wondering if he should risk asking a question or if it was best to just wait it out.
“It seems I was wrong,” she said, just as he was deciding that he'd either have to try and talk or leave for study group.
“About what?” he asked.
“Apparently you can see things that are going to happen. Divination, I mean. You can see real stuff.” Parvati's voice was calm, but tightly so, as though she was just about holding herself together.
“What did you see?”
“Lavender's rabbit is going to die,” Parvati said. “Binky. There's a fox. It's going to get Binky when Mr Brown lets him out in the garden. The spell on the hedge has grown weak.”
“When?” Ryan asked.
Parvati shrugged. “Soon. A week. Something like that.”
“Are you-” Ryan hesitated. “It wasn't just a dream or something?” Parvati glared at him. “OK, fine, just asking.”
“I can't tell her anything about it, because then she'll try to stop it,” Parvati said, and her voice was starting to crack a little. “And you're not supposed to. That's when things go wrong. I was supposed to listen to a Doxies concert with her tonight on the WWN. But I couldn't. I said I was ill, but if she goes to our dorm she's not going to find me there and then she's going to be angry because it just seems like a bad excuse and I'm going to know about Binky all week and just wait until she finds out.”
Ryan didn't say anything, because he wasn't sure of what to say. But he touched her toes gently with his and stretched out his hand, holding it in front of her until she took it.
He held her hand for an hour more as she sniffled her way through worries and unease and problems, after a while only marginally connected to Lavender or her rabbit. He'd be badgered by Ginny about not turning up in the library, he knew-but somehow, that was OK, anyway.
he bad weather they'd had so far had clearly only been a teaser for what was to come. Jon looked sadly out of the library window, realising that he could forget about ever being completely dry again. Maybe Quidditch hadn't been such a good idea, after all.
“You can't make it stop raining by wishing,” Spencer said, and Jon came back to the here and now, grinning at him.
“Maybe if you helped me with this Weather Charm assignment,” he suggested. Spencer rolled his eyes at him, and he looked pleadingly across the table at Brendon instead. “Brendon? Do you know anything about Cumulus Charms?”
Brendon shook his head, grinning. “You want Ryan for that,” he said. “I know he's been looking into Weather Charms since he started orienteering.”
“But Ryan has forsaken us today,” Jon complained. “Do you know why, Ginny?”
Ginny shrugged. “A book?” she suggested, making the rest of them smile.
“Probably for a book,” Jon agreed. “Fine, I'll find the answer myself.”
They all worked on in silence for a while, the only noise coming from two tables away where a bunch of third-years were giggling about something.
“What is Hogsmeade?” Jon asked, catching part of their conversation and welcoming a distraction from the tedious passage in his Charms book. Spencer made an annoyed noise, but Brendon looked up from his own studies gladly. He'd been practising wand movements for Charms, levitating, flipping and spinning his quill. He seemed to be distracted today-nothing was going as smoothly as it usually did.
“It's a village close to here,” he said, putting his wand down. “It's the only completely wizarding village in all of Britain. There are no Muggles at all; it's protected, like Hogwarts.”
“Fun to visit, then?” Jon asked.
“Fred and George rave about Zonko's Joke Shop all the time,” Ginny offered. “And Charlie says the Three Broomsticks is amazing. That's Hogsmeade's inn. He worked there one summer.”
“So there's a lot of shops and things?” Jon asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Ginny said. “There's a robe shop and a broom shop, and there's a sweet shop which is amazing-they do that chocolate, the one Spencer likes-”
“We can't go until next year, anyway, so it's pretty useless to talk about it now, right?” Spencer interrupted, with the prickliness that indicated he was stressed about something. Jon glanced at his paper and saw that it was still barely ten inches, and Professor Snape was never generous when measuring their Potions essays. He shared a resigned look with Brendon and turned back to his book.
He glanced up a little while later to see Brendon frown his way through a swish-and-flick. The movement was well performed and the quill rose in the air obedient to the levitation charm, but Brendon still looked displeased and waved his wand again-only to have the quill fall back onto the table. As though realising he was being watched, he looked up quickly, and Jon flashed him a smile, then looked back down into his book.
As he stared without registering it at yet another terrible woodcut of ancient witches attempting a Cumulus Charm, he found himself wondering if he'd ever seen Brendon actually swish and flick his wand to levitate something before.
he Halloween Feast was probably even better than last year. The Hall was lit with the orange glow of over a hundred pumpkin lanterns, and the tables were decorated with huge arrangements of bright red maple leaves and orange Gerberas, still growing in their bowls. The fifth-year Gryffindor class acted out a scene from Gilderoy Lockhart's Travels With Trolls that had even the staff table laughing loudly (Professor Dumbledore in particular laughed so hard at the scene with the Swedish trolls and the glow worm that he appeared to choke on his pumpkin juice). But the crowning moment of the evening was without a doubt the Hogwarts ghosts' formation gliding across the hall, several of them re-enacting their deaths. Brendon was exhausted with laughter by the time he and the other Slytherin students headed back to the Common Room.
They had only just arrived back at the dungeons, however, when the door to the Common Room opened to reveal Professor Snape, looking just that shade grimmer than usual that meant he was bringing bad news. Brendon was reminded suddenly and violently of the day of the aborted Gryffindor/Hufflepuff Quidditch match last year, when two students had been Petrified and he and Spencer had crept through the school looking for Ginny. Spencer seemed to realise what was on his mind, too, because he patted Brendon's shoulder awkwardly as they all waited to find out what had happened this time.
“I'm afraid,” Professor Snape said, “that there has been a breach of security at the school. We have information that Sirius Black has entered the castle-”
There was a rush of noise as the entire Slytherin House drew their breath as though to start talking all at once.
“Silence!” Professor Snape snapped, glaring at them. The room went quiet again. “I will have silence while I explain. Sirius Black has been spotted close to the Gryffindor tower. The professors will be doing a search of the castle to make sure he's not hiding somewhere within the school and, if possible, restrain him and bring him to the proper authorities. You will all be sleeping in the Great Hall for tonight, and the Prefects will stand on guard for the duration of the night. Go and change into your sleeping apparel and be back here and ready in five minutes. If you have any other questions you are welcome to bring them to me here.”
Most students hurried to go and change into pyjamas, although Brendon saw several older students gather around Professor Snape. He settled instead for following his class mates to their dorm and then listening to Aslam and Snicket argue about anti-Apparition spells as they all changed for bed.
“Hogwarts is protected against Apparition. It's not possible!” Aslam exclaimed, buttoning up his pyjama shirt. Snicket's reply was muffled by the robes he was pulling over his head, but he emerged again and repeated it.
“He is Sirius Black! What do you know? He probably knows all kinds of Dark Magic...”
Brendon tried to ignore the look Spencer shot him, concentrating on folding his clothes. He knew Spencer didn't mean to look suspicious or weird, but-
Someone hammered on the door, and he jumped. Nott stuck his head in.
“What are you all doing? We have to go.”
It seemed as if the entire Gryffindor house was already in the Great Hall by the time they arrived, and the hall filled up gradually with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs as well. Most came in as part of a large group, but there were some who trickled in afterwards, looking too obviously innocent and not yet changed into their nightwear.
Brendon hardly listened as Professor Dumbledore repeated what Snape had said about the Prefects staying on guard in the hall and the professors searching the castle. He was scanning the group of Gryffindors, trying to locate Ryan and Ginny, and when he finally saw them, he drew a deep breath of relief.
“Oh, yes, you'll be needing...” Professor Dumbledore said, almost as an afterthought, and purple sleeping bags appeared out of thin air all over the Great Hall.
“That man has an obsession with purple,” Spencer said flatly.
“Hey.” Jonathan arrived by their side with Luna, both dragging a sleeping bag behind them. “Everyone's been talking really strangely. Did a serial killer really break into the castle?”
“Not serial,” Spencer said vaguely. “He only killed people once. Killed a lot of them, though.”
“Thank you. That made me feel so much better,” Jonathan said.
“The professors will find him, won't they?” Brendon asked. “He can't get out of here. There's no way out except past the-the gates. And they're guarded.”
“He managed to get in,” Spencer said, stretching up on his toes and gesturing for Ryan and Ginny to make their way over. “I guess he has a way out as well.”
“But the professors know every part of the castle,” Brendon insisted.
“It dates back several hundred years,” Spencer said. “I don't think anyone knows every way in and out of this place.”
“This is unbelievable,” Ryan said, arriving in time to catch the last part. “Sirius Black is running around in this castle and no one even knows how he got in?”
“I'm sorry,” Jonathan said, “but I don't even really know who this guy is. He murdered people?”
“Twenty Muggles and one wizard,” Ryan said. “It was right after You-Know-Who fell. Black was one of You-Know-Who's closest, and the Daily Prophet says he went mad after the whole Harry Potter thing. There was this wizard who went after him, and Black blew up an entire street to get rid of him.”
“But he got caught?” Jonathan asked, frowning.
“Yeah, he didn't even try to run. He stood there and laughed until the Aurors came and took him away.” Ryan rolled his eyes. “Mad. Anyway, he escaped this summer.”
“I know that,” Jonathan said, as if realising something. “It was on our news. They said he was armed.”
“Well, they broke his wand,” Spencer said, “but it wouldn't be hard for him to steal another.”
“The lights are going out now!” the Head Boy, Ginny's brother Percy, shouted. “I want everyone in their sleeping bags and no more talking!”
They all clambered into their sleeping bags, Ryan and Ginny still in their school robes.
“Didn't they give you time to change?” Brendon asked, noticing this. Ginny shook her head.
“The Fat Lady-the portrait who guards our common room-she was all slashed to pieces,” she whispered. “I mean, her canvas. She'd run away. I don't know-do you know if portraits can die?”
“I don't think so,” Spencer whispered back. “As long as all the pieces of the original painting are still there, she can probably be restored.”
“Hello? Can we get back to how there's a mass murderer loose in this school and no one knows how he's getting in or out?” Jonathan asked, looking annoyed when both Brendon and Ginny shushed him. “Shouldn't we evacuate or something?” he continued in a lower voice.
The rest of them looked at him strangely.
“What good would that do?” Spencer asked finally.
Jonathan gaped at him. “I don't know, it would remove us from the crazy murdering guy?” he said.
“You know what Professor Dumbledore said at the Welcoming Feast,” Luna said mildly. “This is the best protected place in all of Britain right now. I don't like the Dementors, but they should scare Black, too.”
“They don't seem to be working now, though, right?” Jonathan snapped. “Also, hasn't anyone wondered about why an escaped murderer has decided to stalk a school?”
“We just have to trust Professor Dumbledore,” Brendon said, and was rewarded with a snort of disbelief from Jonathan. He seemed about to say something more, but just then a shape bent over them. Brendon looked up, startled, and realised that he was looking at Pucey, one of the fifth-year prefects.
“Urie, Smith, take your sleeping bags and come with me,” he said softly.
Brendon frowned, confused. “Why?” he asked.
“We want to have all the Slytherins close by,” Pucey said.
“But why-”
“So that we know where we have you.”
“But we want to talk to our friends,” Brendon insisted.
Pucey hesitated, but someone close by said “Shut up” and he seemed to make a decision. “Fine, they can come, too,” he said. “Just follow me.”
They all looked at each other, then Spencer shrugged. “Let's just go.”
They crawled out of their sleeping bags and followed Pucey in a kind of crouching tiptoe. Now that he was looking, Brendon saw that similar relocations were taking place all over the Great Hall, with small lines of students moving here and there apparently at random. When they had followed Pucey to their destination, however, he realised that it was not so random after all-his and Spencer's entire class was gathered in one corner, along with Alderton and Timms from Year Seven.
“Hey,” Aslam said, raising himself up on one elbow and giving them a cheerful wave. “So what do you think-is Black going to murder all of us?”
“Funny,” Spencer muttered, rolling his eyes.
“I'm just saying, if he blew up a whole street...”
“Of unprotected Muggles, yes, I can see why you would think this is a similar situation.”
“You know what Snicket said. Black knows all kinds of Dark Magic. He could probably-”
“Aslam, please just shut up.”
Brendon was still watching Pucey, who had bent close to Timms and was handing her something.
“Professor Snape said it should work if everyone holds on to someone else,” he muttered.
“I know how a Portkey works, Pucey. Just get back to guarding the entrances.”
“Brendon, come on,” Ryan whispered, and Brendon got into his sleeping bag quickly and lay down beside the others, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping.
As he lay back, watching the stars glimmer on the enchanted ceiling and listening to Ginny's, Luna's and Jonathan's low murmuring on one side of him as well as Spencer's and Aslam's continued bickering on the other, he realised that despite the threat of Sirius Black and whatever else was out there, he felt completely safe.
harms was getting intense. Professor Flitwick was one of their nicest professors as a person, but as a teacher, he was not going easy on them, and essays, quizzes and practical mini-exams were starting to pile up in alarming amounts.
Spencer leant back in his chair, sighing deeply. He and Brendon had been working for an hour, and they were still nowhere close to seeing the end of the Charms questions they were supposed to answer for homework.
“How are you doing?” Spencer asked.
“I'm stuck on this question about sleep enchantments,” Brendon said. “But I know Ryan talked about them once, so I'm trying to remember.”
His quill scratched against the parchment for a while, and Spencer tried to summon up the energy to continue with his own homework.
“Bet you're not looking forward to playing Quidditch on Saturday,” he said eventually, focusing on anything and everything that was not Charms. He supposed that despite the last weeks' constant rain, there was a chance it might turn out nice for Saturday's Quidditch game, but he thought the chances were still higher for Professor Snape to do a sing-and-dance number during Potions.
Brendon shook his head absent-mindedly. “We're not playing,” he said. “Draco's arm isn't well enough yet.”
Spencer glanced over towards the other end of the Common Room, where Parkinson was doing Malfoy's History of Magic homework for him since, as Malfoy had put it, he was “unfortunately unable to write with a mauled arm”. If Spencer had been in that same situation, he felt sure that his arm wouldn't have been well yet, either.
“Come on,” he said, glancing at his watch and seeing with a certain amount of relief that it was close to dinnertime. “Let's put this away and get to the Great Hall. I'm starving. We can always continue later.”
Brendon agreed, closing his book with a snort. “I probably need to ask Ryan anyway,” he said.
There was a package waiting for Brendon on his bed when they arrived at their dorm. Brendon's face lit up.
“It's from Kayla,” he said, throwing his backpack aside and pouncing on the package. The yellow wrapping paper was ripped apart to reveal a note and a framed photo of two people Spencer didn't recognise. Brendon scanned the note quickly and beamed.
“Who are they?” Spencer asked, putting his own backpack away carefully.
“It's my cousin Else and her boyfriend-well, husband, now-Hideki at their wedding. Kayla took some photos and promised me one when she had developed them,” Brendon said, holding the photo up for Spencer to see. “Isn't she pretty?”
“It's a really nice photo,” Spencer agreed. Else laughed and waved at him from the picture, then linked arms with her husband and smiled at him. Brendon grinned at them and then turned to his night stand. He hesitated for a moment, picked up a photo from the middle of the throng and put it in one of the drawers, then placed Else's wedding photo in its place.
“Couldn't you just make the night stand bigger?” Spencer asked, surprised.
Brendon shrugged. “I already have another picture of Tyler,” he said, but he wasn't really looking at Spencer's face. He smiled at Else again and then turned away. “Do you want to go to dinner?”
Spencer looked carefully from Brendon's turned back to the night stand. There was something there that wasn't entirely right, but he didn't know what yet and in any case had no idea of how to fix it.
“Sure, dinner,” he said, hoping that by the time he figured it out it wouldn't be too late.
aturday did not turn out nice.
The weather was so bad Brendon thought they'd actually have to cancel the match. He hardly recognised Kayla among the other bedraggled Hufflepuff team members; the rain had removed all individuality and turned the entire student body into a uniform mass of sodden, miserable lumps. The only thing separating the Hufflepuff team from the Gryffindor was the colours.
For a moment, he was intensely grateful that Malfoy's arm hadn't healed properly yet and that Slytherin hadn't had to play today and then immediately felt bad for thinking so.
“They won't be able to see a thing in this weather,” Spencer muttered next to him. Brendon nodded in agreement, trying to make out the faces of the Hufflepuff team members. The Gryffindor line-up hadn't changed from last year, but Ryan had talked about the new Hufflepuff captain and Seeker, and there was a new Beater who was supposed to be good, too.
“The Seekers are really going to have a tough time,” he said, finally locating the captain, Diggory, in the Hufflepuff huddle. He was gesticulating to his team members, and even from this distance, Brendon could see him laughing.
“Are they even going to be able to play?” Spencer asked. “They're already soaked!”
Brendon shrugged. The Slytherin team had been practising in October weather and had become inured to every single subtle nuance of rain, ranging from drizzle to storm. Rain was not actually a hindrance to Quidditch.
Wind, on the other hand, could completely ruin any match, and today there was a tempest brewing. Brendon had started weighting his body against the wind almost unconsciously as soon as they'd left Hogwarts for the Quidditch pitch, and he knew that if he'd flown today, he would hardly have been able to fly in a straight line, not to mention pass the Quaffle satisfactorily. It wouldn't have been him on that pitch, anyway-when the weather had turned really nasty, the team had taken the more or less mutual decision to focus on the heavier line-up with Montague, Flint and Warrington as Chasers in case Malfoy made it back in time for the match, and neither Brendon nor Vaisey would have played in conditions like these.
Despite the weather, though, the mood in the stands was of almost giddy anticipation. The first Quidditch match of the season was always exciting. People were chatting and joking, passing around bags of self-heating almonds and raisins. Brendon heard Malfoy laugh from somewhere a row or two behind them.
“He sounds happy,” Spencer said. Brendon nodded.
“Yeah, I'm glad. I thought he might be upset at not being able to play yet.”
Spencer opened his mouth, but then seemed to change his mind and closed it again. “Sure,” he said eventually, but Brendon wasn't really listening any more; Madam Hooch had just picked up the Quaffle.
The sound of Madam Hooch's whistle was almost blown away by the wind, but the fourteen players rose as one and sped off in their different directions. One of the Hufflepuff Chasers was first on the ball and sped towards the Gryffindor goal, Quaffle clamped tightly under one arm. She or he-it was impossible to tell-flew straight for the Keeper, only to swerve at the last moment and pass the Quaffle to a team mate coming from almost the opposite direction, who scored past the bewildered Gryffindor Keeper. It was a move Brendon and Vaisey had practised to perfection only last week, and it was wonderful to see it now, demonstrated in a real match. The Hufflepuff Chaser teamwork was flawless, and as the game wore on it became apparent that they were using the bad visibility to further confuse their opponents.
Even so, the Hufflepuff team had nothing on Gryffindor in terms of speed, and after a slow start the scarlet team started to build up a solid lead.
“Hufflepuff will have to catch the Snitch to have any chance to win now, right?” Spencer said during a time-out in the game.
“I think so,” Brendon agreed. He hadn't managed to keep up completely with the score-the Gryffindor whose job it usually was to keep the spectators up-to-date with the score and give the play-by-play had given up the fight against the thunder ten minutes into the game and was now talking to Professor McGonagall, a Butterbeer in his hand-but he thought that Gryffindor were at least fifty or sixty points in the lead. “But I don't know if their Seeker can beat Potter-he's really good. Diggory's bigger though, so that's a help.”
“Isn't it mostly luck anyway, being a Seeker?” Spencer asked, and then seemed to catch the pained expression on Brendon's face. “Fine, OK, I guess not.”
The players were kicking off again. Brendon glanced up at the commentator's box and saw the commenting Gryffindor pick up his megaphone experimentally, look at it for a while and then put it down again with a resigned shrug. The sky was dangerously black now, only illuminated now and then by flashes of lightning. If this went on, they would have to call off the match, or the fast-flying players would make nice targets for the lightning strikes.
And then he saw Diggory take off, pelting up the pitch. Potter, flying in the other direction, was somehow alerted to the fact and spun around quicker than Brendon would have thought possible, flattening himself against the handle of his broom and racing to catch Diggory up.
“What's that?” Spencer asked, sounding strangely far-off. Brendon didn't even glance his way, too focused on the Seekers' battle.
He was freezing cold. As he stared upwards, trying to follow Diggory and Potter as they raced towards the tiny golden speck glimmering in the distance, the chill crept inwards until he was shivering uncontrollably. He reached out for Spencer, desperate for some reminder that he was not actually dying of cold.
Spencer jerked away from his touch.
As Brendon tore away his gaze from the two Seekers and stared at him, he realised that Spencer was looking at something else altogether. He angled his head to see what it was, and when he caught sight of the mass of dark, hooded figures thronging the edge of the pitch, the memories burst in his head like images from a bad dream.
A plate shattered in his mum's hands. A trench erupted in the lawn just in front of Matt's feet. Mason stared at him, shocked, with blue lips and frost in his hair on a brilliant summer afternoon. And Brendon stood in the hall to his house, watching doors slam open and then shut again, over and over, until Matt grabbed him with strong arms and carried him out, while his mum and dad ran past them with their wands raised.
Somewhere, Kara was screaming.
For the first time, Brendon remembered the sight as Matt ran away from the house, panting heavy breaths into Brendon's ear as he clutched him tightly. The house was-there was no other word for it-writhing, as if it was trying to change shape but couldn't. A window appeared and then disappeared again. Part of the roof fell in. The walls seemed to flicker, unsure of whether they were there or not.
The Urie house was a marvellous construction, first experimented with by Brendon's grandfather and then expanded by Grace and Boyd as their family grew. From the outside, the house looked like a three-bedroom cottage. On the inside, every door opened to at the least three different rooms (the bedroom door had a new room added to it every time there was a new child on the way). It was a complex bit of magic-the best work Boyd's father ever did. Brendon almost destroyed all of it in a tantrum when he was seven years old.
He had always vaguely known that the reason he spent that first summer with Aunt Gwen was that he'd done something to their house, and he'd been suitably ashamed when he'd returned home in August and found that five construction wizards and witches had still been trying to piece together their home. But he'd never remembered that Kara had still been in the house before.
“Brendon!” Spencer whispered, shaking his shoulder. “Brendon, the Dementors are leaving. Come on.”
Brendon breathed in slowly. It wasn't as bad as it had been on the train. There, it had felt like he was back in those moments, living them all over again but now with an understanding of what he was actually doing. This time, it had just been like he was watching from far away. Unfortunately, that didn't make the memories any less true.
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the images from his head, looking around himself.
“What happened?” he exclaimed, staring down at the Quidditch pitch. Someone was lying in a crumbled heap on the pitch, and professors were rushing towards him or her. Members from both teams were landing all around the pitch with wet thumps. The mud covering all the players by now made it hard to even differentiate between the Houses. “Spencer, who is that? Who is it?”
“One of the Gryffindors,” Spencer said, and Brendon sucked in a deep breath of relief. Not Kayla, then. “Harry Potter.”
“Is he all right?” Brendon asked, straining to see. “He's not hurt, is he?”
“Professor Dumbledore slowed his fall somehow,” Spencer said. “I don't know, but I think he can't be badly hurt. Professor Dumbledore wouldn't let that-”
“What were they doing here?” Brendon stared at the Dementors, who were being herded away from the pitch by something fuzzy and silvery. It was impossible to see what it was through the rain, but it was acting like sheepdog, circling the group of Dementors and gradually forcing them away. Professor Dumbledore had his wand up and was waving his other arm at the Dementors. He looked absolutely furious.
“Don't know,” Spencer said quietly. “And by the look of it, I don't think Professor Dumbledore does, either.”
pencer looked over at Brendon, who was huddled in the sofa in front of the fire. Elsewhere in the Common Room a party was getting started, a Gryffindor loss meriting almost as much giddy glee as a Slytherin win. Spencer, like Brendon, had opted for a quiet time in front of the fire instead, sharing the space only with the eldest Coote brother, who'd never been into Quidditch. Spencer was currently trying to massage some life back into his feet-silently cursing the freezing Quidditch stands-while at the same time keeping an eye on Brendon.
Something happened with Brendon around Dementors, and he wasn't sure what it was. Spencer had only ever felt uncomfortable and frightened around them in a general sort of way himself, but both on the Hogwarts Express and today at the Quidditch pitch Brendon had reacted much stronger. With that blank look that came over his face, it was as if he went away somewhere when the Dementors came close-somewhere not very pleasant.
Spencer had heard about Dementors bringing up bad memories and feeding on them, with suppressed memories being an especial treat for the creatures. And he thought of the way Kayla had run into their compartment on the Hogwarts Express, seeking out Brendon's face immediately.
“What a bummer,” Malfoy said loudly, startling Spencer out of his thoughts. He and Zabini were walking towards them, with Crabbe and Goyle the customary step behind. “Hey. Your younger brothers are having a Butterbeer-chugging competition,” Malfoy told Coote. “We thought it would be best to get out of the way after last time.”
“They have an impressive record to beat,” Coote said, with the calm assurance of one who had managed a four point six seconds result in his third year. He turned away just slightly, cradling his Charms book a little closer, and Malfoy took the hint and didn't push further.
“What's a bummer?” Spencer asked, once Malfoy and the rest had got settled in their respective seats.
“Just heard that Potter survived his fall,” Malfoy said, leaning back in the sofa and rolling his eyes. “For a while I thought he might have done the decent thing and croaked on us.”
Spencer sighed, then looked quickly at Brendon. He hadn't forgotten the last time Malfoy had really upset Brendon-he doubted that anyone in Slytherin had forgotten that-but Brendon seemed to be remembering the same thing and only scowled, hunching together further.
“There are more uses for Dementors than I thought,” Malfoy went on. “I wonder if I could hire one to follow Potter around-”
The fire flared suddenly and brightly, spitting burning embers onto the rug in front of the fireplace. Spencer and Zabini both shouted in alarm, Malfoy pulled his feet up into the sofa with impressive speed and Crabbe and Goyle leapt to their feet as if they could intimidate the fire away. Only Coote kept his cool, dousing the embers with a quick wave of his wand.
“Wet logs,” he said, turning back to his Charms book. And Spencer would probably have believed that explanation, if he hadn't happened to glance up at Brendon and found him staring back with wide, startled eyes.
Brendon jumped up as soon as Spencer caught his eye and disappeared towards the dorms. Malfoy looked after him curiously.
“Scared of fire?” he suggested to dutiful sniggers from Crabbe and Goyle.
Not of fire, Spencer thought.
He stayed in his seat while Malfoy elaborated on his frankly disturbing ideas of how to scare Potter of his broom again and then, when he thought it wouldn't be as obvious he was running after Brendon, excused himself and escaped to the dorms.
Brendon was sitting curled up on his bed, his hands gripping his hair tightly.
“How are you?” Spencer asked, then jumped as Brendon uncurled in one violent, frightened motion. “Hey, it's just me,” he said.
“Sorry,” Brendon said, settling back. “I'm sorry.”
“It's OK.” Spencer shrugged and smiled. “You just startled me.”
“No, I meant-” Brendon stopped, gesturing awkwardly towards the door.
“What?” Spencer frowned, then realised. “The fire, it-it was you, then.”
“That's not supposed to happen any more!” Brendon said desperately, waving his hand at the door again. “We've-I never do that now!”
“So what happened?” Spencer asked, trying to keep his voice calm even though he was just as spooked as Brendon. He had seen Brendon mend broken glass and light candles with just a wave of his fingers. If that kind of power was coming unbound, the results wouldn't be pretty.
Once again, he reflected that it was called wild and dark magic for a reason.
“I don't know!” Brendon moaned. “I was just-I mean, I was really angry with Draco, I hate it when he talks like that, and I-I knew I couldn't really just tell him about it.”
Well, at least he learned from past mistakes, Spencer thought.
“And I was just trying to stay calm about it, and then the fire just-” He looked at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. “I'm not supposed to do that,” he said.
Spencer sat down beside him, patting a shoulder awkwardly. “It happens, sometimes, though, right?” he said. “For all kids. I heard Selwyn broke a window without meaning to last month when she and Pucey broke up, and she's fourteen.”
“You don't understand,” Brendon said. “I-it's dangerous, OK? That's why I've stayed with Aunt Gwen, to stop things like this-” He stopped and breathed in slowly.
“It's not just things like fire and windows,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“When I lose control it goes-bad,” Brendon said. He gave Spencer a reproachful look. “I've told you about this before.”
Spencer winced, remembering.
“Do you think maybe you should talk to your aunt?” he suggested. Brendon shrugged unhappily, mumbling something mainly incomprehensible but with the words don't know what to say somewhere in there.
“I think you should,” Spencer insisted. “And-I think maybe you should stay away from the Dementors.”
The exasperated glare this earned him said that not only was this advice unwanted, but also entirely unnecessary.
ementors were intensely unpleasant creatures, Ryan thought. He'd never liked the thought of them.
Worse than their general creepy appearance, however, was the fight he'd heard in his head when the Dementor had come to the compartment on the Hogwarts Express. It was unnerving, knowing his mind held secrets even from himself. He tried to recall more of that fight, but however hard he tried, he was stuck with only the fractured memory of a man and his mother screaming at each other, trying to work out what it meant.
There weren't many men on a permanent basis in their lives. The closest male relative was one of Jennifer's second or third cousins, who they saw about twice a year. Thomas had been a fixture for a few years, but he and Jennifer had broken up when Ryan was about eight. It had been a calm if not exactly joyous parting, and Ryan's Dementor-induced memory pre-dated Thomas's appearance in their home in any case.
Apart from that, the only ones who came to the house regularly were a few of Jennifer's friends-fellow Healers and a friend from her Hogwarts days. Ryan liked them all and couldn't imagine any of them screaming at his mother like that. He briefly evaluated the possibility of the shouting man being some kind of official person-a Master Healer or Ministry representative-but discarded it as unlikely. The man in Ryan's memory had to be someone who had been close to her mother but disappeared when Ryan was about three, who Ryan had no further memory of and of whom his mother had never spoken.
Well. That all seemed to point in one very definite direction. Ryan sighed and turned his attention back to his Transfigurations essay.
on was late, and Spencer was annoyed. Quite apart from the fact that it was Wednesday, and Wednesday was important, Spencer had really wanted to talk to Jon today. Jon was the one amongst them who knew most about Dementors.
It probably had to do with being Muggleborn, Spencer thought. Dementors frightened everyone, but Spencer had at least grown up with the knowledge of them. He'd read the Daily Prophet and seen pictures of criminal trials, and he knew about the Dementors' role in Wizarding society. Jon, on the other hand, had never known about Dementors until one stepped into their carriage on the Hogwarts Express and dealt with them by treating them as a puzzle to be solved.
Spencer wanted to use that knowledge and to talk to Jon about Brendon, but by five thirty Jon still hadn't shown. Tired of waiting, Spencer finally walked over to a couple of Ravenclaws he vaguely recognised as being in year three or four.
“Sorry,” he said, “have you seen Jon-Walker around today at all?”
One of the Ravenclaws frowned. “Who?”
“Oh, you know,” the other told him. “The smart kid in year two.”
“Smart kid?” Spencer asked, then realised he'd said it out loud. But he was confused. He wouldn't have called Jon dumb, of course, but so far Spencer hadn't thought he seemed scintillating enough to make himself a name for it among Ravenclaws.
“Oh, yeah,” the first Ravenclaw said. “That guy who always looks like he's not paying all that much attention, but every once in a while he just comes out with something completely brilliant.”
Something rang a bell in Spencer's mind-too faint to be suspicion, but still a creeping feeling of unease.
“Right, like all his ideas about Cumulus Charms; I thought those were amazing,” the second Ravenclaw began, then seemed to remember Spencer. “Anyway, sorry, I haven't seen him at all today.”
Spencer had gone cold all over. He managed to mutter something vaguely thankful before he stalked back to his table, shoved his books into his bags and slammed out of the library.
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