The Purloined Prophetess

I: Six Characters in Search of an Editor

You don't know about me, without you have read a fanfic by the name of 'An Interesting Little Legal Problem,' but that ain't no matter. That fic was made by Ms. After the Rain, and she told the truth, mainly. There was things which she stretched, but mainly she told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied, one time or another, without it was Professor Dumbledore, or Minnie McGonagall, or maybe Mr. Jack Evans, but he ain't one of us and he gets some things wrong. Why, even ol' Moony over there has been known to tell some -

Reg, what on earth is the matter with you? Why are you writing in that ridiculous dialect? We are NOT poling a raft down the mighty Mississippi! - R. J. L.

Take it easy, Moony! I'm just trying to liven up the story a little. - R. B.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a good-looking single wizard who has just come into possession of the family estate must be in want of a secret society to share it with -

That's even sillier! I swear, I'm going to stop lending out my books - first the Weasley twins start in with the Shakespearean joke shop products, and now you're plagiarising everyone in sight... - R. J. L.

Hey, I'm just looking for a good way to start our records. - R. B.

Who put you in charge of keeping the records anyway? Give me that book! - R. J. L.

You have your own book! [Text Arcanum charmed against Remus Lupin.] Ha ha! Now I'm invisible! - R. B.

I heard you do that! And they're all my books! Give it back! - R. J. L.

Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room! - N. T.

Huh? - R. J. L. and R. B.

Good one, Tonks! Nice to see that somebody in your world knows her classic movies. - J. M. E.

What's a movie? - S. P. T.

Good to see this works for you, Jack. I'll explain about movies later, Sybill. I think we ought to decide who's in charge here before this turns into total chaos. We should appoint somebody to act as a general editor to settle disputes and make the decisions about who should be writing which bits, and so on. - N. T.

Excellent idea, Tonks! Why don't you do it? - R. J. L.

Too much going on at work - and besides, as my old Head of House used to say, I lack certain necessary qualities ... such as the ability to behave myself. I don't mind serving as assistant editor if we decide we want one, but I think we need somebody who - - N. T.

I'll do it! I'm a proffesional editor! - L. L.

Well, that's very kind of you, Larry, but the rest of us wouldn't dream of taking you away from your important work at The Quibbler. - R. J. L.

In other words, you can't spell and you tend to embroider the truth. We're looking for somebody trustworthy and reliable, with time on their hands... - N. T.

Oh no, my dear, it's so sweet of you to think of me, but although I'm only teaching part-time this year, I find the routine of work in the Physical World so fatiguing. It clouds the Inner Eye. Of course, if all of you were quite sure you wanted me, I do have the slight advantage of being able to see the past, present, and future, while those who have not the Gift can perceive the world in only three dimensions - - S. P. T.

NO! - N. T., R. B., R. J. L., and J. M. E.

Excuse me, Sybill, all I mean is I think you might be a little too close to this whole situation emotionally. What we need is someone objective, with an outsider's point of view. Like Jack, for instance. I think he'd be perfect - he takes notes on everything, and he's got an organised, legal mind. - R. J. L.

But I'm a Muggle and there are all sorts of things I don't understand about your world. I think you should do it. - J. M. E.

Me? - R. J. L.

Seconded. Remus was the one I had in mind all along. - N. T.

I agree! It would be a great simbolic gesture if we elected him - just the sort of thing that would lend support to the cause. - L. L.

What cause? - J. M. E.

(Larry, could you please not talk so much about the cause.) I'm very flattered, but I've never edited anything before, and - - R. J. L.

Oh, come on, Moony, don't be so modest! You'd be brilliant! - R. B.

What do you think, Sybill? - L. L.

I think Mr. Lupin would make a fine editor, but alas, I fear he is not long for this world. The Inner Eye - - S. P. T.

Just as a matter of interest, Sybill, do you see anybody in this room who you think is long for this world? - N. T.

No, my dear, I regret to say that I sense we are all drawing close to the brink of a precipice from which we shall never return. - S. P. T.

Right, well, if we're all about to buy it, it shouldn't matter who's editor. But I think those of us who don't plan on dying in the near future are all agreed. - N. T.

Well - all right ... I guess I'd better start by explaining about the Instant Message Books and how they work, and then Sybill can tell us about her conversation with Dumbledore, and somebody else can pick up the story with the meeting today. - R. J. L.

And there have to be some ground rules about Arcanum Charms and things. How about we all agree not to use the charm unless there's a good reason for it, and to put a note in the margins if you do use it, and add another note if you decide to lift the charm later? - N. T.

Is privacy considered an acceptable reason? - R. J. L.

You're the boss. You decide. - N. T.

Then yes, I think it should be. However, we should probably have a rule against Arcanum charming anything against everyone else on the task force. Don't commit it to paper if you're not going to let anybody read it. But what about Jack? He isn't going to be able to ... - R. J. L.

Good point. Jack, if you've got anything you don't want one of us to read, you can ask any member of the Order you trust to put the Arcanum Charm on for you. - N. T.

And we need to be able to tell who wrote what, so make sure you initial your marginal notes, and if you add or change anything at a later date than the original text, make a note of that so things don't get too confusing. - R. J. L.

II: A Newspaper, a Letter, and a Package

I walked slowly away from Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station after seeing Harry Potter and his young cousin, Mark Evans, off on the Hogwarts Express. I had rumpled Harry's hair and told him to stay out of danger and said all the foolish things middle-aged people generally say when dealing with the young, and narrowly managed to rescue Mark from falling off the platform, and filled both of their pockets with chocolate which I hoped they would not need for medicinal purposes. Now Mark was in the responsible hands of Hermione Granger and Harry, I had to admit, was fully capable of taking care of himself, although I couldn't help worrying about him. An eventful summer had come to an end. Harry, who had been staying with me for the last two months, had brought a remarkable assortment of guests into my flat, including a real live Crumple-Horned Snorkack and Reg Black, the long-lost brother of an old friend. The place would seem empty now that it was just me and the cat.

Mark's parents, Jack and Harriet, were waiting for me just outside the barrier. They are not wizards, so they had been unable to see their son off on the train. Jack is a cheerful, blond solicitor of about thirty who had spent most of the summer doing some work for the Order. Harriet is dark-haired, vivacious, and intensely curious about our world; she reminded me of a younger version of my favourite grandmother, who had also been a Muggle. I liked them very much, but I wasn't in the mood for company, and I would probably have declined their invitation for coffee if there hadn't been a news item in The Daily Prophet I was trying not to think about.

Jack insisted on paying for my coffee, which was just as well, because I possessed all of about twenty pence in Muggle money. By way of repayment, I tried to amuse the Evanses with the few anecdotes about my school days that didn't involve my breaking hundreds of rules

[Author's note: The end of this sentence, and a couple of short passages later on, are Arcanum Charmed against Jack Evans. I'll explain about the Arcanum Charm in a minute.

Six weeks later: Charm lifted. R. J. L.]

... or almost eating innocent villagers.

'You seem distracted,' said Harriet. 'What's up?'

I didn't want to tell her, but I could see no way around it. They had every right to know. 'There's just been another prison break at Azkaban,' I said. 'You know what that is?'

'Yes,' she said. 'That's pretty bad news, isn't it?'

I nodded. 'It could be worse,' I said quickly, trying to think of how. Nearly all of the Death Eaters who had been captured last June were at large again.

I undid the tangle of twine that held my briefcase together and reached for the morning's paper so they could read the details for themselves. Underneath the Daily Prophet was a small envelope embossed with the Hogwarts crest and a large, clumsily wrapped package. It took me a moment to remember that I'd shoved the morning's post into the case and forgotten all about it. The package bore a return address in Diagon Alley that I recognised as Fred and George Weasley's joke shop, which meant it probably wasn't something I wanted to open in the middle of a Muggle coffee bar in a crowded railway station. I handed the paper to Harriet and opened the envelope instead.

Remus,

Meeting at the usual place 2:00 this afternoon. Bring Jack Evans with you. If you have time, please tell him everything about what happened last June, especially about the thing they were trying to get their hands on.

A. D.

'Jack. I've had a note from Professor Dumbledore. He wants you to come to one of our meetings today.' I tried to sound casual, but this was distinctly odd.

'And me?' asked Harriet eagerly.

'I'm afraid he didn't mention you, and it's likely to be classified business. Probably legal matters.' From what I had seen of the Evanses, they seemed very much in love, and they were both intrigued with our world. Whatever this was about, it was going to be hard on Harriet. 'Listen, Jack, there are some things I have to tell you about before this meeting, but I can't talk about them here. Have you got an hour or two?'

'Sure. I took the day off to say goodbye to Mark.' He'd probably also taken it off to spend some time with his wife, I realised, feeling a twinge of guilt and wondering what I was about to get him involved in.

'Let's go somewhere quiet for lunch,' I said. 'It's a good idea to eat before our meetings - there tends to be a lot of wine consumed. And I know just the sort of place where we can speak freely, if you don't mind going out to my neighbourhood.'

My little corner of London, Spirit's End, is not exactly a bustling business district. Besides the tiny Indian restaurant where I took Jack, my street has a betting shop and an off license, both with heavy bars on the windows, and an establishment called Madame Monica's Mystical Tarot Reading, which is shrouded in red velvet curtains so nobody can see inside. Ron Weasley, who has become friendly with some of the other teenaged boys in the neighbourhood, tells me the place is reputed to be a cover for ... a less respectable sort of business.

Moony, you can't go repeating scurrilous rumours without proof! I think one of us should check this place out so we can include a detailed report about its nature. - R. B.

Reg, I don't care what you do in your off hours, but let's keep our official records family-friendly. - R. J. L.

Speaking as a journalist, I agree with Reg. We have a proffesional responsibility to get to the bottom of these acusations. I volunteer to do some instigative reporting! - L. L.

Speaking as an editor, I think we also have a responsibility to posterity. Your daughter did a fine bit of fighting at the Department of Mysteries this spring, and I'm sure she'd be inspired by reading about her father's work for the Order. I was thinking she might enjoy receiving one of these books as a Christmas present. - R. J. L.

I wouldn't want to be your enemy, Moony. - R. B.

No, indeed you wouldn't. - R. J. L.

As I was about to say before this round of interruptions, the restaurant was a quiet, dimly lit place where we could talk in private. A few weeks earlier, after noticing that the proprietor's daughter bore a striking resemblance to the Patil twins, I had asked some discreet questions and made two interesting discoveries: the tandoor oven was connected to the Floo network, and they accepted Galleons. I anticipated a tussle with Jack over the bill - I had been to his very large and pleasant house in Surrey, and he had been to my cramped little flat full of secondhand furniture - but it was a battle I had a chance at winning. He knew I'd come into some money recently.

As we ate, I told him about the founding and purpose of the original Order of the Phoenix, explained how it had come to regroup more than a year earlier, and finally gave him a short account of the events that had led to the death of my closest remaining friend at the Department of Mysteries. Jack had heard part of the story, having spent much of the summer trying to keep Sirius' legacy out of the wrong hands, but much of it was new to him. He knew nothing about the destroyed prophesy, which had to be what Dumbledore meant by 'the thing they were trying to get their hands on.'

When I'd finished, Jack turned to me with a puzzled expression. 'What does all this have to do with me?'

'I haven't the slightest idea,' I confessed. I couldn't think of any relationship between the lost prophesy and comparative wizard and Muggle inheritance law, Jack's field of expertise. Nor did it seem to have any connection with his son Mark; at least, I hoped it didn't. It was bad enough that Lord Voldemort seemed to have it in for Harry.

Jack thought for a moment. 'Tell me something. Does Professor Dumbledore always pay a personal visit to Muggle parents whose children are eligible for Hogwarts?'

'No, he does not. He would usually send an owl to parents who are already aware that our world exists - many of them are, it tends to run in families - or send one of the other professors. He visits in person if there are special circumstances.' I didn't mention that I had been one of those children with special circumstances.

'You know he visited Harriet and me at the beginning of the summer.'

'Yes. You mentioned it the first time we met. I assumed it was because of your sister.' Jack was Lily Evans' adopted brother. His parents had died around the same time as James and Lily, under circumstances I did not understand. 'He might have thought it would be difficult to persuade you that Mark would be safe at Hogwarts.'

'Do you think he was checking me out? That he had some sort of plan for me even then?'

'It wouldn't surprise me at all, but I don't know. I wish I could tell you more.'

'It's more than enough, Remus. You've told me why and for what my sister died. Thank you.'

But I hadn't told him everything. For the most part I left myself out of it. The trouble with the story of my life is that when people who don't know me very well hear it, they usually respond in one of two ways: either they snatch up their children and hastily make their excuses on the off chance that I might decide to sprout fangs in broad daylight; or they start speaking in excessively soothing tones and hide the kitchen knives and anything else I might use to off myself. (I have no intention of doing either of these things.) As I have said, I liked Jack Evans. We were becoming friendly. I didn't want to spoil it yet.

It was at this point that I remembered the package from the twins and made a reckless decision to open it. We could both use a good joke or two.

'Stand back,' I told him. 'Behind the table, and get ready to crouch down if anything blows up. Whatever's inside, I think I'd better open it from a distance.' I placed the package on a chair at the opposite end of the room, waited until the proprietor of the restaurant was safely inside the kitchen, and performed a simple gift-unwrapping spell. 'Evolvere fasciculum!'

The wrappings fell away, revealing a large, heavy Victorian illustrated edition of Shakespeare and six small spiral-bound notebooks. It would have been difficult to imagine a more innocuous-looking set of objects.

'Weren't you just telling us you were in Gryffindor?' Jack asked.

'Yes, why?'

'And Gryffindor is supposed to be the house of the brave?' he said, smirking a little.

A few snappy comebacks sprang to mind, but I wasn't sure I knew him well enough to try them out. 'Well, I didn't actually say I was a very successful Gryffindor. I think I ended up there more by default than anything ... bit short on other virtues, really.'

I recognised the copy of Shakespeare as my own. There was a note attached:

Professor Lupin,

Sorry about borrowing your book without asking. We're sending you a free copy of our new invention to make up for it. Don't worry, it's not going to turn you into a canary or anything. It's a sort of communication device. Jack Evans was telling us about e-mail and things, but this is better. They're called Instant Message Books.

Here's how it works: You keep one of the books for yourself and give the rest to your friends. Anything you write in one of the books will appear in the others as well. They're permanent and unerasable, so choose your words carefully. If you write anything you don't want a particular person to read, just say 'Arcanum ad' and that person's name, and whatever you've written will be invisible to that person only. If you change your mind, say 'Patefacio,' and the charm will be removed. The Arcanum Charm makes things vanish seamlessly - there won't be any visible blank spaces, and if you miss a whole page, all the pages after it will renumber themselves. The person you've charmed the book against won't be able to tell.

Hope you can use them. We found loads of great ideas in Shakespeare.

Cheers,

Gred and Forge

P. S. If anybody offers you a piece of our Titus Andronicus Pie, don't eat it.

Not too many jokes, then. I smiled at their absence. Despite the fact that my first act during my brief period of gainful employment was shooting chewing gum up a poltergeist's nose, most of my former students persist in regarding me as a proper, respectable, scholarly sort of person. I wondered what Fred and George would say if they ever connected me with a certain piece of parchment that I happened to know had been in their possession for years.

You shot gum up Peeves' nose?! How'd you do that? - N. T.

Little spell I invented. I'll show you some time. - R. J. L.

It was nice of the twins to send a gift, I thought, but it came about twenty years too late to be much fun. I thought I might send one of them to Harry tomorrow, but I hadn't the slightest idea what to do with the other four.

'What's the matter?' asked Jack. 'You're looking a bit ... pensive.'

'Nothing,' I said, leaving a couple of Galleons on the table before Jack could reach for the bill. 'We'd better be on our way if we're going to make this meeting.'

III: Some Distressing Revelations

It is not often that I descend from my tower into the turmoil of Public Life, and still less often do I leave the sanctity of Hogwarts, the only home I have known for many years. Nothing short of Professor Dumbledore's personal request could have persuaded me to undertake a journey as far as London. I had, of course, foreseen grave disturbances in the coming months, but in my concern for others, I had paid little attention to myself and my immediate future. Thus it was that although I am a prophetess and the granddaughter of a prophetess, Professor Dumbledore's explanation of my own involvement in these Ominous Events came as a shock.

He summoned me into his office this morning. Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape were already there. They are my two least favourite colleagues, but I try to be tolerant because I have sensed that both are nearing the end of their life-threads, which are soon to be shorn by the Fates.

'Sybill,' he said gently, 'I'm afraid I have some distressing news for you. You are aware that one of your prophesies was lost in a battle that took place at the Department of Mysteries last June?'

'Yes, naturally, my dear,' I replied. 'I was aware of it years before it happened, but I did not care to say anything at the time for fear of upsetting people.' (I distinctly heard Minerva snort, which I thought very rude of her.)

'Well, there has been a prison break and many of the Death Eaters involved in that battle have escaped from Azkaban. You know, of course, that Lord Voldemort - ' I shuddered at the mention of the Dread Name - 'was anxious to lay his hands on the prophesy. Now that he has been thwarted in this desire, we have reason to think that he will be equally anxious to lay his hands on the prophetess. We have received intelligence that he may induce some of his followers to come after you.'

'Me?' I said. 'But, really, I'm not a very good prophetess at all. Madame Umbridge said so herself.' (I must confess that I had not foreseen the day when I would be grateful to Dolores Umbridge. The Inner Eye works in mysterious ways.)

'We are aware of that,' said Professor Snape coldly. 'Quite frankly, I think the task of guarding you is a waste of our time and resources, but nevertheless it has to be done.'

'Are you going to be guarding me?' You must understand, my dears, that the presence of Severus Snape has a peculiarly chilling effect on the Inner Eye, and I feared I would be unable to carry out my duties as Divination professor under his auspices.

'Several people are going to be guarding you,' said Professor Dumbledore reassuringly. 'Your fellow professors have their own duties to attend to, so I thought it advisable to bring in some volunteers who are not members of the Hogwarts staff. The three of us are about to make a short trip to London in these last few hours before term begins, and we would like you to join us so you can meet your guardians.'

'All the way to London?' I said. 'But I never got an Apparation license - and I don't like the Floo network, it makes me dizzy.'

'I am afraid, Sybill, that you will have to be a little dizzy,' said Minerva, and I'm quite sure she added, 'More so than usual, that is,' under her breath as I stepped into the fireplace. My hearing is very acute.

We landed in the basement kitchen of a house - oh my dears, I sensed the vibrations - that had seen Tragedy. It was a cursed house, a doomed house. I felt the urge to cry out, yet restrained myself because of the great number of people present. Most of them were strangers, that is, people whom I had not yet beheld in the Physical Plain, but I recognised two former colleagues who had each held the Defence Against the Dark Arts post for one year. That is an ill-fated position; indeed, I was surprised to see that Professors Lupin and Moody still existed in this mortal realm, for I have long felt Grave Misgivings about both of them. I saw one of my old students as well. She had bright scarlet hair this morning, and she seemed determined to challenge my powers by her very presence, for I had predicted her death many years ago. I do not like this sort of behaviour in a young lady; it savours of defiance.

A tall, dark, handsome man whom I did not know offered me a goblet of wine. I was sorry to hear that he was the owner of the house, which meant he was almost certainly doomed.

Then, my dears, I was struck dumb by the sight of a man whose singular appearance impressed itself on both the Outer and the Inner Eye. He was large and tall, with a ruby-red face and jet-black hair, and he wore bright green checked robes. Everyone else in the room seemed pale and colourless beside him. He was a Presence, my dears. He bowed deeply, and with old-world courtesy he kissed my hand and pressed a business card into my palm. It began to recite a rhyme of exquisite beauty and sincerity.