Harry Potter and the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus

Chapter 6: Shrillness and Shadows

THE PAGES IN HERMIONE’S HAND RUFFLED in the breeze as a soft wind picked up on the lake. The afternoon sun crouched low behind the trees, giving way to a sinewy chiaroscuro, flanking the wood and limestone greenhouses behind the castle on the southern slope.

Where is Ron? She pushed somewhat impatiently at an errant lock of chestnut hair. How long can it possibly take for Madam Pomfrey to fix a couple of minor cuts and bruises? Squinting, she glanced up from time to time, her eyes raking the path from the Herbology classrooms to the castle.

The freshly cut lawn played picnic blanket to a few Hufflepuff and Gryffindor fifth years, sprawled across the fragrant grass, turning their faces to the sun like clusters of black-robed sunflowers. The more energetic milled round, chattering at the entrance of Professor Sprout’s office, a low screen door cut into a diminutive limestone arch in the first of the stone outbuildings.

Finally, Hermione drew her eyes from the Manticore timetable and syllabus to the sight of Ron’s spiky red head bobbing through the crowd. Beside her, Harry had abandoned his syllabus with a yawn, turning his attention to Ernie MacMillan. The Hufflepuffwas talking—no, gushing was the word—about the new Muggle Studies professor.

“—Ravenclaw sixth years had their class last night.”

“And?” prompted Harry, with a cautious sideways glance at Hermione. His voice was low and barely distinguishable against the static of students’ twattle. Hermione pretended not to notice the subtle, evasive turn of his shoulders.

Ernie cupped a hand over his mouth, but was forced to raise his voice over the din. “Couldn’t stop raving about it. Meeks and his friends have all volunteered to be her teaching assistants—don’t look at me like that, I’m serious. Eamon Mulroney even started learning Dutch this morning.”

“Dutch?”

Ernie laughed, nodding. “He came over to our table today, trying out a few phrases on an enchanted Gouda.”

Harry regarded him dubiously, crooking an eyebrow over the rim of his glasses. “The class is really that good?”

“Um. ‘Not too sure.” Ernie’s ruddy face broke into a grin. “It wasn’t exactly the class they were raving about.”

Harry let out an appreciative chuckle. A chuckle that ended abruptly in a hacking cough as Hermione fixed him with a stern glare.

Hmmph.

She half-congratulated herself for not tutting at Harry (at least, not out loud) and went back to scanning the herd for Ron. His freckled grin finally emerged as he squeezed between a giggling Lavender and a blushing Seamus. Hermione glimpsed the darkening bruise just above his left cheekbone and frowned. But Ron swiveled abruptly at the sound of Ernie’s stage whisper.

“—Yeah, no kidding, Mulroney said her robes were really low-cut—“

“What? Whose robes?” Ron raised his eyebrows, and suddenly winced, fingering the blue-black spot on this cheek. “Ouch!”

“Ron!” exclaimed Hermione. “You said you were going to Madam Pomfrey!” she scolded. “Why are you still bruised?” Holy Agrippa, I sound like Mrs. Weasley. Still, she felt an odd twinge of relief to launch another topic of conversation.

Ron faced her defensively. “I was in the infirmary!” he grumbled. “But her wand broke.”

“Broke?” Hermione’s eyebrows gathered. “How? When?”

“Right after she’d fixed up Malfoy. She set it down on the bed next to us and, well… while she was checking me, I don’t know, Neville sat on it. And it snapped. So she said I’d either have to wait for her to get a new one from Ollivander’s, or make due with Bubotuber Pus Paste.” He gave them a wry smile. “Apparently, it’s not just for acne anymore.”

“Euugh,” commiserated Harry, waving at Ernie as he drifted off in search of his housemates. He turned back to Ron. “So, she gave you the paste?”

“Like I’d actually use it. That slime smells like petrol, remember? And I’d have to slather it on twice a day for a week.” Ron grimaced and shook his head. “Yuck. Forget it.”

His face twitched in distaste, causing him to wince again.

“But, are you all right?” Hermione was startled to find her fingers reaching toward the purpling bruise under his eye.

Ron coloured. “It’s okay.” As his hand found her wrist, gently wresting it away, Hermione’s own cheeks started to burn. “Um—I’m—they’re just bruises,” he stammered, suddenly becoming quite engrossed by the flecks of lint on his robes.

Harry’s green eyes twinkled and he cleared his throat. “Oh, uh… nothing you don’t get used to, sharing a roof with Fred and George, I s’pose?” he offered.

“Yeah.” Ron sounded almost grateful. “Exactly.”

Hermione had just opened her mouth to ask why Harry was smiling at her like that, when Ron hastily cut her off.

“So, what did I miss in Hagrid’s class?”

**********

The long, clinical corridor outside the infirmary was deserted. Only the subtly-darkening shadows of the statues of Hippocrates, Paracelsus and the Comte de Saint-Germain broke ranks from the harsh lines drawn by the setting sun. Draco Malfoy allowed himself a snicker.

He closed the door behind him, but could still hear that pathetic Longbottom’s blithering apology to Madam Pomfrey and Weasley’s frustrated swearing. Who’d have thought I’d ever have your clumsiness to thank for anything, Longbottom? He smirked. The anguished look on Weasley’s still-bruised face had been priceless. He’d have given anything for that runt Creevey’s camera then. I’ll bet Father would have loved a shot of that. Draco let his imagination run to how his father might enjoy displaying it to embarrass Weasley’s father and his colleagues at the Ministry. Or, how he might leak news of today’s fight to the press (“MINISTER’S DELINQUENT SON ASSAULTS HEIR OF WELL-KNOWN PHILANTHROPIST”). The slow grin spreading across his face was quickly tempered. By “press,” he would normally have meant Rita Skeeter. Draco wrinkled his nose at the memory of her abhorrent dress sense and that noxious perfume. No, she was no beauty, by any stretch. But in her hands last year, Potter’s reputation was as fragile as a spider under his shoe. He sighed fondly at the memory of gloom settling on Potter’s face each morning as the Daily Prophet hit the Gryffindor table. Breakfast never tasted so good. He agreed with his father. Such a pity Skeeter was still undergoing psychiatric therapy at St. Mungo’s. But perhaps, by next month—

The ghostly echo of soft laughter wrenched him from his train of thought. Then a voice, faint and entrancing.

Soon, precious. And precious, you are, my young pretender. So precious…And soon… you will be mine! The last words escalated into a shrill cackle.

Draco froze, feeling every hair on his neck stand straight. He whipped round, one hand instinctively groping for his wand as the blood raced through his veins. Peering suspiciously, first, between the statues, then into the empty hall behind him, he found… no one. Nothing. Only shadows and silence.

Frowning, Draco turned back to the stairs. He had just managed to get his breathing to slow when he stiffened at the gentle brush of ice-cold fingers across the back of his neck. Draco spun round again, this time with his wand outstretched.

“Wh—who’s there?”

Trembling, his eyes darted frantically to every corner of the empty hall. The blood knocked against his ears, like frightened bats against the walls of a narrow passage. Its jarring, tympanic tremors rose, crashing together in a crescendo so strong it brought his hands to his ears. Draco held them there until the sound lessened, subsided, into a diminuendo of strings and a melodic voice…

“Mr. Malfoy? Mr. Malfoy… what, exactly, are you doing?”

Disoriented, Draco opened his eyes. Madam Pomfrey stood at the infirmary door, a bemused query etched in her laugh lines. Beside her in the corridor, Longbottom stared warily back. Draco looked down at his wand. What am-- How did that get there? He must have looked ready to pounce on Paracelsus.

He hurriedly tucked it back into his robes. “Nothing, Ma’am. Just… I …it was just a little dueling practice.”

The matron issued a disbelieving snort. But she shook her officious salt-and-pepper upsweep and stepped back into the room to see to Weasley. The door closed.

In the shadows, several paces away, the little Gryffindor still hadn’t moved.

“What are you looking at, Longbottom?” spat Draco. He smirked. There was a certain reassuring comfort in terrorising Longbottom.

But he’s not even blinking. “Well, all right. This could be good practice for me, after all.” Drawing his wand once again, Draco raised it level with Longbottom’s head. “Petrificus—“

But the hex died on his lips at the boy’s unexpected reaction.

He smiled. Knowingly.

“Longbottom.” Draco blinked, exasperated and unnerved. “What is your—hey! Hey, you Squibb! Where do you think you’re going?”

Puzzled, he raked a hand through his hair and watched Neville turn on his heel. The boy walked slowly, deliberately, irreverently, as he rounded the corner and out of sight.

**********

“Hagrid wants us to feed what?!” Ron stared at them, aghast, as Harry and Hermione finished their recap of Care of Magical Creatures.

“That will be enough chit-chatting, Mr. Weasley,” Professor Sprout scolded sharply. The screen door squeaked back into place, as she bustled past. “Now, all of you,”—she wagged a stout, commanding arm at the rest of the class—“follow me to the greenhouses.”

The stumpy, grey-haired Herbology professor led the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff fifth-years round the south slope to the furthest of the greenhouses. Easily the largest, its great oak doors, flanked by carved wooden columns, were tall enough to accommodate twice Hagrid’s height. It was unfortunate that the most impressive of the Herbology classrooms was also in a lamentable state of disrepair. Paneled with curiously blacked-out glass panes and creaky wooden supports, it looked more like the Shrieking Shack than a botanical conservatory.

No sooner had they covered the last of the path’s lichen-covered flagstones than Justin Finch-Fletchley leaped back, gagging.

“Ugh! Great Merlin, what is that smell?”

Ron, Harry and Hermione masked themselves with their sleeves. “It’s the bloody dragon droppings!” hissed Ron.

“And what’s all that racket?!” Harry stared curiously at the front door. It rattled.

From inside the building came muffled wailing, followed by a cacophony of loud bangs and thumps. It was as if a bar-room brawl between Boggarts and Banshees had broken out in the greenhouse. Then, at once, the noises stopped. Hermione heard a yelp and a deep splash from within.

At the door, Professor Sprout whipped about to face them, her stubby hands resting on her hips. “Now, dears, the Merobabs are very sensitive plants. This is a difficult developmental phase for them and they can get a little… moody, so I would suggest”—she peered round at them from over her tiny spectacles—“for your own safety, that you, firstly, take care not to come into direct physical contact with the Merobabs, as their skin contains a powerful hallucinogen. So, dragonhide gloves on, everyone! And, secondly, and above all, be careful what you say to them. Like I said, they are at quite an emotionally sensitive stage.” Flinging open the doors, she beckoned to the fifth years, leading them through the threshold.

“Emotionally sensitive?” Ron’s ginger brows furrowed. “What the hell does that mean? Aren’t they plants?”

No one replied. They were too preoccupied with gaping, as their feet squished across the damp, slippery floor. There wasn’t much that could surprise Hermione after four years at Hogwarts, but she never expected a sight like this in a greenhouse. A raised, water-filled tank, about the size of what Muggles called an Olympic swimming pool, stood in the centre of the large conservatory area. Inside, the water glowed a brilliant aquamarine. The only light source appeared to be the plants themselves. Thick tassels of blue-green phosphorescent seaweed trailed sleepily from top to bottom in various parts of the tank. These swayed gently back and forth, almost ghost-like, in the pool.

“Professor,” breathed Lavender, pressing her fingers against the tank. “They’re beautiful!”

As she spoke, the glowing reeds parted to reveal four delicate, bony heads. Lavender wasn’t the only one to gasp.

Hermione swallowed hard, backing into Ron as skeletal arms and rapier-sharp, tapered fingers parted the reeds. She stared wide-eyed at the fingers. They looked long enough to go around your neck twice. Each taut, bluish face held a pair of round, reddish black eyes, so shiny Hermione could see her reflection in the ones closest to the group. She couldn’t decide which was more alarming: the fact that the eyes had no whites; that their skin was drawn with a tinge of dirty green; that they appeared to be all arms but no legs; or, that they displayed an acute sense of hearing.

The Merobabs slithered toward Lavender, their glowing tendrils—hair?—undulating behind them. The coven threw a collective scowl at the cowering girl. Their haughty appraising stares made Hermione think of older girls in her old Muggle junior school who closeted themselves in the toilets to exchange venomous gossip. She half-expected them to pull out lip gloss and start applying. Parvati, trembling beside Lavender, whimpered softly.

“We have the honour of housing four Merobabs here at Hogwarts,” Professor Sprout continued, “two of which were donated by De Vredewizardzakademie before it was closed last year. There are twelve in all, in captivity. The others are at Durmstrang and Beauxbatons.” She paused, glaring pointedly at the students until, one by one,the class shook themselves alert and scrambled for parchment and quills.

“Merobabs are indigenous to the bottom layers of the continental shelf located along the marine boundaries of Northwestern Europe. Do not mistake them for cousins of Merpeople, which as you know, are not considered forms of plant life. You may distinguish them physically by two principal features: Merobabs only exist in salt water, and in lieu of legs, the Merobabuses its free-floating cerebral roots for underwater propulsion and sonar recognition, as well as thought.”

Hermione, casting a wary glance at the Merobabs, raised a tentative hand.

“Yes, Miss Granger,” said Professor Sprout.

Clearing her throat, Hermione phrased her question in a near-whisper. “Professor Sprout… er… what use—um, what useful properties are ascribed to the Merobabs?”

“There are a number of ways the Merobab is useful to us, Miss Granger. For example, the cerebral fluid—“

Professor Sprout paused as a chorus of hissing and furiously rippling water shuddered the tank. Hermione felt the weight of eight red-black eyes swiveling nastily in their direction.

Hermione frowned, both puzzled and alarmed, as the cerebral tendrils swung more forcefully behind them, some threatening to escape the walls of the tank. Professor Sprout, suddenly timid, shrank back a few paces under the Merobabs’ intimidating glare.

The Herbology professor, with her arms, began to corral the class towards the door. She let out a nervous laugh. “Well, it’s all in chapter 3 of Miranda Mottlepole’s textbook which I suggest you all read before the next lesson.” And with that, she hurriedly ushered them out the door as a loud thwunking sound reverberated through the greenhouse.

To Be Continued…