Foreshadowing the Past

Chapter 23

"You can never plan the future by the past." - Edmund Burke

Connor spent the next morning doing his assignments and being walked around the hospital wing by Madam Cosgrove until he proved he could do so without assistance or over-tiring. Just before lunch, she finally made him take one last dose of anti-bruising potion with a mild pain reliever, and allowed him to bathe and get dressed in his Hogwarts uniform.

"I'm leaving it up to you to decide whether or not you feel up to attending the remainder of today's classes," she told him. "I have a note here for you that will excuse for today only from any of your remaining classes should you begin to tire or feel ill."

Connor pocketed the note, but knew that he would not use it unless absolutely necessary, or he'd wind up spending another night in the hospital wing. Madam Cosgrove promised that she would have his books and homework, the cards and sweets that had accumulated on his tables sent up to his room, if he would like to go and join his classmates for lunch, which would be starting in just ten minutes. They only had double Herbology this afternoon with the Ravenclaws, so there was no problem there unless Professor Wexler had found out about all of the stolen flowers Connor had received. He could share a book with one of his friends if necessary, but he wasn't going to hike all the way up to Gryffindor tower and back again unless he had no choice.

He left the hospital wing with a nasty taste in his mouth from the potions he'd just taken, and looked forward to a nice cold glass of pumpkin juice to wash it away. The corridors were still deserted as he walked down to the Great Hall, but he knew that classes would be dismissed any moment now. On the main staircase, Connor spotted Peeves floating high above, tormenting the occupants of one of the hundreds of moving portraits handing about the walls. Connor shrugged to himself, feeling no particular anger toward the poltergeist; it seemed unfair to really blame him since Vanessa had tricked him too, but he wasn't especially happy about seeing him. Further down the stairs, he noticed a slightly-larger-than-life-sized bust of Godric Gryffindor on a pedestal in an alcove in the wall, and stopped to stare at it. If this was the offending missile in his attack, he could well understand how his injuries had occurred; it must weigh some five hundred pounds! Shaking his head, he walked into the empty Great Hall and chose a seat near the middle of the table that looked over all of the other tables. He had barely taken his seat when the bell to dismiss classes could be heard gonging through the school and grounds, and soon the thunder of hundreds of hungry students could be heard echoing through the halls. The platters of food for the afternoon meal appeared almost as soon as the bell to dismiss the classes had sounded.

"Connor!" many of the students greeted him. "How are you feeling?" "Did you really have all of your ribs broken?" "I heard that Vanessa Malfoy did it; is it true?"

Connor answered most of the questions as best he could, and was relieved when Aiden arrived to sit beside him, and Ivy, Quentin and Zack followed shortly after. Rachel was late to arrive, explaining that she had actually gone over to the hospital wing to peak in and say hello, only to find him gone. A few students from other houses came over to say that they were glad he was all right, and Connor was pleased to see that so many people seemed genuinely glad to see him back. Even Andrew came over briefly before going to his own seat to say, "I'm glad you're better."

Lunch was a noisy affair, and Connor kept trying to catch Quentin's eye to let him know silently that he didn't blame him in any way for what happened to him, but Quentin wouldn't meet his gaze. He did spot Vanessa at the Slytherin table, though. She was surrounded by a group of students who were all leaning toward each other and talking excitedly, and did not look up at him. Connor didn't recognize any of the group as students she had associated with before, but he had never really paid all that much attention before, so he could have been wrong. It didn't really matter one way or the other, anyway.

When lunch ended, Connor got up from the table with Zack, Quentin and Ivy and crossed the main entry hall toward the front doors. He looked briefly to the spot where he'd been standing when the bust had hit him, then turned his eyes forward, only to find Vanessa standing in his path. All of his friends stopped as well, stiffening as if preparing for a confrontation. Other students paused in their walking when they saw what was happening, and Connor could feel the heat rising to his cheeks. Just because he had decided to let her stay at the school didn't mean he had forgiven her for what she had done. He was still angry and wasn't ready to deal with her face-to-face yet.

"They're making me apologize to you for what happened," she told him defiantly. "So I apologize."

"Save it," Connor spat. "We both know you're not sorry."

He pushed past her, ignoring everyone else, but knowing that Ivy and Zack were right behind him. It wasn't until he heard Vanessa say, "Some brother you are," that he spun around to see the object of his anger shove Quentin out of her way and stalk off with her nose in the air.

"Come on, Quint," Zack said, walking back to pull him along by his sleeve.

Quentin nodded, but only followed with his eyes on the ground, and misery in his expression. Connor wanted to find a way to make his friend feel better, but couldn't think of anything to say without knowing exactly what was going through Quentin's mind. Before he could work out anything to say to Quentin, the other kids in their year caught up with them and surrounded Connor, hoping to hear his story first hand and making amazed comments about the fact that Vanessa was being allowed to stay at school. He was glad when they reached the greenhouses, and everyone quieted down.

He thought about trying to get a seat near Quentin in the steamy greenhouse so that they could talk, but didn't think that anything they might say to each other would be something they'd want anyone else to hear. His friend was seriously troubled about something, and Connor wanted to find out what it was to set both of their minds at ease. He was beginning to wonder if maybe Quentin was mad at him for any of this, and he resolved to get his friend on his own after class to do so.

The two-hour lesson was mostly a practical one, so Connor didn't have to worry about not having his book with him. Ivy said that he could borrow her notes on everything later, and he was lucky enough to be sharing a Shrivelfig tree with her as they worked to prune the strange, short and spiky leafed tree without damaging or pruning away any of it's precious blossoms. This was made more difficult by the fact that the tree didn't seem to want pruning, and frequently stabbed at the students' hands as they approached it with the pruning shears. Even with the protection of dragon-hide gloves, the air was punctuated with angry exclamations as arms or cheeks were pricked by their leaves. Ivy, having famous herbologists for parents, could practically do this job blindfolded, and so she was able spend most of the class giving Connor one-on-one instruction. They finished long before anyone else, and were permitted to start on their homework assignment to fill the time until the end of the period. Connor enlisted Ivy's help to get Quentin on his own by having her drag Zack away after class, to which she gladly agreed; she was worried about their friend as well.

When the bell rang, they started off toward the castle, and Ivy dutifully dragged Zack away on the pretense of needing his help in the Library with some Charms work, and Connor grabbed Quentin by the sleeve and pulled him into an empty classroom off the main entrance hall.

"What are you doing?" Quentin asked in surprise as Connor shut the door and locked it. He seemed slightly nervous, but made no move toward the door.

"I want to know what's wrong with you," Connor said without preamble.

"Nothing," Quentin sighed, seemingly resigned.

"How can you say that nothing's wrong when you won't even look at me?" Connor asked in exasperation. "Are you mad at me?"

That question brought Quentin's head up sharply. "Me? Mad at you? Why would I be?"

"That's what I'd like to know!" Connor answered. "You've hardly talked to me at all, I asked you to come back and talk to me in the hospital wing and you didn't, and now you won't even look at me. What am I supposed to think?"

Quentin just looked at Connor for a few moments, seemingly having an internal struggle before saying sadly, "I'm ashamed, all right?"

Connor didn't know what to say to this extraordinary announcement; it certainly wasn't what he had been expecting to hear.

"I'm ashamed of what my family used to be like, and that my dad had to go to prison before he realized what a stupid git he was. I'm afraid that Vanessa is going to end up in jail too, because some crazy woman in a portrait was telling her all that insane stuff, telling her that she's better than everyone else. You know what else?" Quentin was breathing heavily now, as if a dam had burst inside of him and he as determined to purge everything that had been backed up behind it. "I'm angry! I'm just so mad that she thinks that it's okay to hurt you like that because she was trying to prove something. That she thinks that I should stop being your friend and see you the way that she does. I don't care if it makes me a blood-traitor to be your friend or a, a ...."

"Whoa!" Connor said sharply, holding up a hand to stem the flow of emotion pouring out of his friend. He was sincerely shocked at this, and was determined to put an end to this line of thinking right away. "A blood-traitor? What is that supposed to mean? Come on, Quint, you don't really believe in all that purist rubbish! Is that what Vanessa told you?"

"No," Quentin said quietly, not making eye contact anymore. "Yes. I mean, she did, but first it was that portrait. Bellatrix."

"Quint," Connor said quietly, an ache building in his chest at seeing his friend to down trodden. "No offense against your family or anything, but Bellatrix Lastrange was a deranged lunatic. You can't really take anything that her mad portrait says seriously. Your family may have had its share of dark wizards in it, but that's not how they are now. I talked to your dad, and I can tell you that he isn't like that anymore, either; but you don't need me to tell you that because you already know it."

"But you could have died!" Quentin said, as if Connor as being particularly thick in the head. "You should be furious!"

"But I didn't die!" Connor said. "And I am furious, but none of that is your fault. You warned me that Vanessa was planning something, and I still walked right into it, knowing that it wasn't going to be pretty."

"So you're not mad at me?" Quentin asked uncertainly, not daring to believe it.

"Nope," Connor said simply.

"I'm still really sorry about what happened."

"Me too," Connor answered. He was a bit tired, and so he led the way out into the mostly empty corridor and walked in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. "Especially since my father pointed out that I could have avoided all of this by just refusing to come inside the castle until a teacher came for me."

"Why didn't you?" Quentin asked, as if it were the most obvious solution in the world.

"I didn't think of it," Connor said, blushing slightly at his own stupidity. "So as you can see, it was partially my own fault for being so thick."

"I probably wouldn't have thought of it either," Quentin admitted. "And if she hadn't gotten you that time, she would have tried again."

"That's what I thought, too," Connor agreed.

"So things are okay between us?" Quentin asked sounding relieved.

"Never better," Connor confirmed, punching him lightly on the arm.

They returned to the common room, both grinning as they talked about the more comfortable subject of tomorrow's Quidditch practice, and Ivy and Zack smiled to see them talking again. They all shared a table and worked on their homework so that they would have time later to look through some of the news articles and try out the map later. Connor wasn't too upset to find out that Professor Lupin had assigned them an essay on the differences between fairies, pixies and doxies, since he had finished all of the work that Zack had brought him the previous night. He set to work, occasionally distracted by one of his housemates who stopped to see how he was feeling or hoping to hear his account of events. It seemed that everyone was aware that something more was happening than what they were being told, but no one could figure it out. Connor didn't enlighten them.

Once everyone's homework was done, they all went to dinner, and then went straight to the Library, choosing the most secluded table they could find. Rachel pulled a folder with the enlarged articles in it, all sorted by date, and they gathered around to see what they contained.

"I took a look at them by headline," Rachel told them. None of them say anything about the Department of Mysteries, but I did find some about the battle at the Ministry, though the details are very sketchy. Look at this one: HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED RETURNS*"

Rachel read them the article, which was apparently published two days after the battle at the Ministry, though no battle was mentioned in the article. It simply stated that Lord Voldemort had returned, that the Dementors had joined him, and that Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter had been telling the truth all along after over a year of accusing them of trying to incite the Wizarding public to hysteria.

"Wow," Zack said. "I can't believe that even the newspaper was afraid to print Voldemort's name!"

"Well," Ivy said. "No offense, but being a Muggle, and not hearing about him until twenty years later, you can't really understand the terror he inspired. My own father told me once that he never spoke his name until he was sixteen years old."

"It's still hard to believe," Zack said.

They divided up the articles, and began to read, but found very little in the way of information about the Department of Mysteries. They were just about to give up for the night, when Quentin suddenly said, "I think I've got something here. It's an article about Samantha Tillman. It's not much, but at least she's mentioned. It's dated about two months after she disappeared." He read the article to them. "Ministry worker, Samantha Tillman, 38, an Unspeakable with the Ministry of Magic is still missing, pursuant to the incident that took place on the same night that He Who Must Not Be Named showed himself to be active once more. Death Eaters were found and arrested in the Ministry of Magic after several Ministry workers witnessed the presence of You Know Who, and it is believed that Mrs. Tillman, who was supposed to be working in the Department of Mysteries at the time, was the Death Eater's contact on the inside, who gave them access to normally forbidden areas of the Ministry. Samantha's husband vehemently denies this accusation, as does her son, who recently completed his final year at Hogwarts. Sources close to the family expressed concern and disbelief when questioned, but could give no further insight as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Tillman."

"That's it?" Connor asked, frustrated.

Quentin nodded. "At least we know we're on the right track. Unspeakables work in the Department of Mysteries."

"Well it's getting late, and Madam Pince is going to kick us out of here soon," Ivy said. "Let's put everything back in order. I know I'd like a chance to read those articles from starting date to the end, sometime."

They all agreed that each of them wanted to do the same, and once they were back in the folder, Rachel put it in her bag, and Connor pulled out the large blank parchment that his Uncle George had assured him was a map. It was folded in the same way as when he had first discovered it, and so he unfolded it and laid it flat in the middle of the table, where they could all see it. They all looked around anxiously to be sure that they were the only ones around, and then Connor pulled out his wand, touched it to the parchment, and stated quietly and clearly, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

All of them gasped slightly as lines began to appear over the surface of the parchment from the points where his wand touched it, thin and fine as spider webs in some areas and thick and bold in others. The lines chased across the surface, intersecting with each other and forming the outlines of the castle and grounds until every bit of the parchment was covered, and at the top, green curly letters appeared, forming the words:

Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs

Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers

are proud to present

The Marauder's Map

"This has got to be the coolest thing I have ever seen," Zack said with a huge grin splitting his face.

"Look at this!" Ivy said excitedly, remembering to keep her voice low. She was pointing to the far left corner of the map.

A tiny dot seemed to be traveling in tiny circles, and it was labeled Minerva McGonagall. After a few moments, the circling stopped, and the dot began moving in a line down a corridor toward a staircase.

"She must have just come from her office," Connor said, remembering the spiral staircase that lead to the Headmistress's office.

They silently watched, with rapt attention, as she traveled through the school toward the dungeons.

"Look," Connor said after a moment, "Here we are!"

He pointed to the Library, and they saw the dots that represented the five of them, all crowded around the table. Connor's heart gave a terrible lurch in his chest when he looked at the rest of the area, and saw that a dot labeled, "Moony" was traveling in their direction.

"Mischief managed!" he said quickly, touching the parchment. The lines seemed to absorb into the surface of the paper and disappear, and Connor quickly folded it up and shoved it under the table, where Rachel's hand reached over to take it from him and slipped it into her bag. A moment later Professor Lupin turned the corner around a line of bookshelves and looked at their guilty faces with wry humor.

"Okay," he said. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing!" they all said in unison, making the professor snort in amused disbelief. He studied them for a moment, and then decided to let it pass, while resolving to keep an eye on them in the near future.

"Well it's time you were all in bed," he stated. "Up to the Common Room with you!"

They all nodded and hurriedly gathered their things together. As they were filing out of the Library, Professor Lupin asked Connor to stay behind for a moment, and everyone was glad that Rachel now had the map in her possession. They started the walk up to Gryffindor Tower, and resolved to wait until everyone was gone to bed before they activated the map again. They hoped that Professor Lupin wouldn't hold up Connor for too long.

"So Connor," Professor Lupin asked quietly. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel all right," Connor answered, feeling slightly distracted and eager to get back to studying the Marauder's Map. "A bit tired, I suppose."

"Yes, you'll probably have to work a bit to get back to full speed."

"Well Quidditch practice tomorrow night should help with that," Connor said. He hoped that he was talking to his uncle instead of his head of house.

"Connor," Lupin began disapprovingly, sounding as if he were about to start a lecture. Something in Connor's gaze gave him pause, however, and he simply said, "Please be careful."

They began to walk slowly in the direction his friends had just gone, and Connor understood that his uncle had simply wanted to assure himself that his 'nephew' was doing okay.

"I will," he promised. "I don't want to go back to the hospital wing for a long, long time. Madam Cosgrove gives the most foul potions imaginable."

"We don't want you back there, either," Lupin replied fervently. "You scared us all to death. I think you must have taken at least a year off of my life."

Connor looked up at his uncle, and noted that his hair seemed to have more white in it than usual. There was very little of the light sandy brown that the pictures hanging back in Potter Headquarter claimed he had once had. By Wizarding standards of aging, Remus Lupin was supposedly only a third of the way through his life, but the monthly transformations had taken their toll on his body, even with the wolfsbane potion, making his look prematurely aged.

"I heard that you got to dish out the first week of Vanessa's detention," Connor said as they climbed a flight of stairs, ignoring the whispering portraits on the walls as they went.

"Good news travels fast," came the amused reply. "Yes. I was assigned her first week's worth of detentions. I think that the Grindylows appreciate her efforts to improve their habitat."

Connor grinned. "Isn't there a really big Gryffindor trophy somewhere that needs to be polished? Without magic?"

"I can think of several," Lupin smiled in return, willing to indulge the boy a bit. "I'll see what I can find."

They made their way through the corridors until they came to the portrait of the Fat Lady, and Connor said goodnight to his uncle, already thinking ahead to the uses they could put the Map to. "Stickleback!" he told the Fat Lady. He climbed through the portrait hole and found his friends waiting for him in the empty common room, so they could plan an adventure.

*-*-*-*-*

Friday passed excruciatingly slowly for Connor. Professor Snape had been in a particularly foul temper that morning, and had docked Gryffindor fifteen points because Connor was had received full marks on his essay about Mandrakes as used in restorative draughts, while all of the other Gryffindors had floundered, none of them managing to get higher than an "A" in the same work.

"That man is twisted," Zack grumbled as they left the dungeons. "I don't know why he teaches here when it's obvious that he hates the students."

Double Charms had followed Potions, and while Charms was normally an interesting class, Flitwick was apparently feeling under the weather, and had asked them to quietly take notes from the blackboard, and then read. By lunchtime, Connor was flagging a bit, but he was pretty sure that his malaise had little to do with his recent stay in the hospital wing, and more to do with the fact that the sky outside was cloudy, and the mood inside was dreary. He consoled himself with the fact that he had Quidditch to look forward to that afternoon, and thought about the little prank he and his friends had made up with the help of the Marauder's Map; they weren't going to dare anything too big, but something clever enough to amuse them. They simply needed to choose a victim to test the map's accuracy on.

That problem was solved easily enough in the short break between Transfiguration and History of Magic that afternoon. Mariah had sought out Connor, Ivy and Quentin in the freezing courtyard to tell them that Quidditch practice had been cancelled, because Professor Snape had given more than half of the team detention that evening for various invented infractions.

"Right then," Connor seethed as he watched Mariah walk away, searching out other team members who had thus far avoided detention with Snape that day. "Snape it is. Tomorrow after breakfast."

Quentin, Zack and Ivy all grinned, and when they passed Rachel in the hall and told her they'd found their victim, she simply said, "Perfect. That greasy git gave me detention tonight for reading a chapter ahead of the rest of the class."

Perhaps the day was looking up after all.