The Purloined Prophetess

VI: Conversations, Public and Private

My mum always said being an Auror wasn't a suitable profession for a girl. She had a rather muddled idea that my Metamorphagus abilities might be ideal for a career in modelling, never mind that models are supposed to be graceful, swanlike, and somewhat interested in fashion. ("But, Nymphadora, think of the men you'd meet.") I couldn't wait to see her face when I told her my unsuitable choice of profession had landed me on a special task force with three of the most eligible bachelors in London. Well, all right, so one of them was my cousin Reg and another was Larry Lovegood. I didn't have to tell her about that bit.

The third one has got a set of disadvantages all his own. - R. J. L.

[The following text is Arcanum Charmed against Larry Lovegood. - N. T.

Excuse me, would you mind charming it against Jack as well? - R. J. L.

Jack? You haven't told him? - N. T.

Not yet. - R. J. L.

All right. But I think he'll have to know sooner or later. - N. T.

Six weeks later: Charm against Jack Evans lifted at editor's request. - N. T.]

At the moment, our General Editor's chief disadvantage was that he'd drunk far too much wine and kept having fits of the giggles whenever anybody mentioned Hairy Snout, Human Heart. Reg and I looked at each other and silently agreed to do this as frequently as possible. He doesn't get in that sort of mood often these days, but when he does we try to encourage it.

'Come on, Moony, think what it would do for your career. The public doesn't want to read scholarly monographs in obscure Eastern European journals, they want to read Hairy Snout, Human Heart.' Reg grinned.

'S-stop saying it! You're killing me!'

'Have you actually read Hairy Snout, Human Heart?' I asked.

'Yes,' said Remus. (Dumb question, he's read everything.) 'It's about the second silliest piece of tripe ever written on the subject, after that Lockhart man's book. But at least Lovegood's heart is in the right place, which is more than I can say for the other one.'

'What's the matter with Lockhart's book?' asked Reg. 'Kreacher was just telling me about some of his adventures. I thought the part where he did the Immensely Complex Homorphus Charm was very impressive.'

'The problem with the Immensely Complex Homorphus Charm is that it turns a live werewolf into a dead human. I'm sure this didn't bother the good citizens of Wagga Wagga in the slightest, but from my perspective it leaves a little something to be desired.'

He was still smiling, but there was a definite edge of bitterness in his voice. Reg and I exchanged glances again, and fell silent.

Larry Lovegood reentered the kitchen with Sybill Trelawney, who was listening with great interest to the story of his recent expedition to Sweden. They were followed a moment later by an unusually subdued-looking Jack Evans. 'Well, now that the whole task force is here, we should work out how we're going to do this,' I said. 'There are four of us guarding Sybill, so I think it would work best if we split the next month into one-week shifts - '

'Excuse me,' said Jack, 'but I'm not on guard duty. I can't enter Hogwarts at all.'

'I know,' I said. 'I was talking about myself. I can take the time off from work, you know.' I had almost two months of holiday saved up; I'd been thinking of going to Thailand or Australia, but this sounded like more fun.

'I don't know that I like this,' said Larry in a tone I considered very patronising. 'Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but to my mind this is a man's job.'

'Nymphadora's an Auror, she can take care of herself,' said Reg.

Remus nodded. 'We're all in this together.' But he was looking at Reg uneasily, and I suspected he wished my cousin hadn't been quite so eager to volunteer. 'One of us needs to leave in a few hours, and I think it may as well be me, since I'm terminally unemployed and have nothing else to do around here. But somebody will have to feed my cat.'

'I'll look after her,' I said. My parents live in Spirit's End, right around the corner from Remus. 'I have to request time off from work two weeks in advance, so I can't do anything until the third week. Who's free the second?'

'I am,' said Reg.

'Then I'll take the fourth week,' said Larry, looking disappointed. He and Trelawney seemed to be getting on very well. They had scarcely taken their eyes off of each other during the whole meeting.

'We need some way to stay in touch with each other,' said Jack. 'And with Professor Trelawney, too, in case she gets separated from her guard. I don't mean to sound like a total Muggle - but have you ever considered getting mobile phones?'

'They won't work at Hogwarts,' said Remus. 'There's so much magic around the place that most Muggle inventions go haywire. But I have something even better. We can use it for keeping records as well.'

He explained how the Instant Message Books worked and handed each of us one. That's when we tried them out and, after a few minutes of total anarchy, appointed Remus as editor and laid down a few ground rules. The other professors escorted Sybill back to Hogwarts; Jack, still looking dazed, went home.

'Look after Reg, will you?' whispered Remus as he was leaving. 'I don't know what Dumbledore was thinking, letting him volunteer.'

'I'm sure he had his reasons,' I said. 'I'll try, but I don't know if it's humanly possible to look after Reg. Reg is sort of like a force of nature.'

'I know,' he said, sighing a little. 'But do your best. I mean - this business of old school friends turning up, and then getting themselves killed - it's not the sort of thing one can be expected to go through an infinite number of times, you know?'

'I understand.' I watched as he drew his cloak around his thin shoulders and quietly went out.

[The following text has been Arcanum Charmed against all other task force members except Larry Lovegood.

Much later: Charm lifted - N. T.]

As soon as he'd gone, Larry motioned me aside into the hallway. 'I'd like to have a word with you about your werewolf friend,' he said. 'He isn't looking well at all - much worse than any of the others I know.'

'He's not "my werewolf friend," he's Remus,' I said. 'And I bet he's under a lot more stress than any of the "others" you know.'

'Look, I know about werewolves. I wrote the book on werewolves. And let me tell you ...' He whispered something in my ear.

'Out of the question,' I said when I understood what he was getting at. 'Completely absurd. I'd trust him with my life. We all trust him with our lives.'

'All the same,' said Larry, 'keep your eyes wide open. And see me at the Quibbler office if you want to know more.' He handed me another business card and walked away.

I was left alone in the kitchen with Reg, who had suddenly turned pale and slumped against the wall, his face beaded with sweat. He was clutching his left arm.

VII: Gilderoy Kreacher and Stubby Black

I don't have any children that I know about. (When I first returned to my human form, I thought for a while that young Hermione Granger was mine, but Moony informed me in no uncertain terms that she was not.) But if I ever become a father, I will pass along this piece of advice for future generations: It's always a bad idea to get a tattoo when you're drunk. But if you must, you should go to a proper tattoo parlour instead of entrusting the job to an amateur like the Dark Lord - or Tommy-boy, as I prefer to call him. We've been on intimate terms in the past.

'Poor Reg,' said my cousin Nymphadora, handing me a cup of water. (I knew her when she was in nappies, so I can call her Nymphadora if I want. I've only known her as an adult for a month, but I like her a lot. She's got character and spirit, and I suppose she must be impossibly brainy since she's an Auror and all, but she manages to bring it off without intimidating an ordinary bloke like me.) 'Does it hurt very much?'

'Oh, it's nothing,' I said. 'Not as bad as decapitation, and it doesn't burn nearly as much as taking a bath in lye. On the whole I'd say it's fair to middling.'

She looked even more concerned than before. 'What are you going to do about it?'

'What do you mean, what am I going to do? We knew this would be coming after the prison break, and this is one summons even I'm not crazy enough to obey. Unless I can turn up at one of their meetings and take a bunch of them out before they know what's hit them.' I'd been a real Death Eater for only a few days, but that was more than enough for me. My cousin was looking sharply at me, so I added quickly, 'And I'm not about to do that. Not unless we all agree it's the right time.'

'I mean, you'll be in a lot of danger if Voldemort finds out you're alive.'

'You just said his name,' I said, startled. 'Aren't most people afraid to...'

'Yeah,' she said, sounding a little surprised herself now that I'd mentioned it. 'I used to be, but since the battle last spring ... I figure I've faced the man himself - and he is only a man - and yes, he wounded me and killed one of the people I loved most, but he couldn't beat us. After all that, it's a bit silly to be scared of a name, isn't it?'

'You're all grown up, little cousin,' I said, feeling regretful. 'I've been away too long.' The flesh on my arm was still searing as if I'd been branded, and I swallowed heavily. 'How does this Dark Mark thingy work, exactly? Is it a tracking spell?'

'Not as far as we know,' she said. 'You're in luck, because Bellatrix seems to have been acting on her own when she decided to leave you alive. Odds are he thinks you're dead. But he still doesn't exactly take kindly to people leaving his service, and you'll be in a hell of a lot of trouble if he ever finds out. Honestly, I wish you hadn't volunteered for this mission.'

'Come on, Nymphadora, you're getting worse than Moony. What am I supposed to do, not leave the house for the rest of my life? What good would I be to you then?'

She knew I was right, of course. She's a Black on her mother's side, and none of the Blacks take well to being shut up indoors and told to keep out of danger. My brother's last few months must have been nearly unbearable. I wasn't going to let the same thing happen to me.

'Well,' she said, 'at the very least you ought to be in some sort of disguise.'

'Naturally I'll be in disguise,' I said. The pain in my arm seemed to be fading, or else I was getting used to it. I felt like myself again, and I'd just looked at a framed newspaper clipping on the wall and had a brilliant idea. 'Wait just a minute, I'm going upstairs to get some things.' I grabbed some hair gel and writing paper as a gift for the attic's occupant.

The other members of the Order had spent more than a year clearing my family's old junk out of the house, but I was willing to bet the place still had a few secrets. Up in the attic, I tapped on one of the floorboards, which slid aside to reveal that there was a space between floors large enough for a man to crawl inside. I brushed aside the cobwebs and felt my way to the corner where I remembered stashing a small collection of contraband items from my teenaged years. Half a bottle of firewhiskey (now with a more powerful kick than ever), an ancient turntable with a dozen or so records, and a ukulele. My parents would have killed me if they knew I was listening to Muggle music, let alone playing it, but I'd always had dreams of being a professional singer. Now I had a shot at making them come true.

I strummed the ukulele experimentally and sang a few lines of Steppenwolf's 'Magic Carpet Ride.'

'Hold it!' cried a high-pitched voice from the corner. 'Is you the Bandon Banshee?'

'Oh, hello, Kreacher. No, I'm Reg Black, your new master. I brought you a present,' I said, proffering the hair gel.

'Oh, thank you, new master! Gilderoy is almost out of hair gel, and Gilderoy has an interview with Witch Weekly in an hour! I is winning their Most Charming Smile award again!' Kreacher broke into a grotesque grin. 'But why is Gilderoy wearing this filthy tea towel, sir?'

I'd better explain that my first act after claiming the family estate was to place a Memory Charm on our house-elf, a malevolent loose cannon with far too much compromising knowledge about the Order. Unfortunately, my evil cousin Trixie had taken my own wand sixteen years earlier, and I was still getting used to old Uncle Alph's, which is the one I use now. The charm backfired in a pretty spectacular way, leaving Kreacher with somebody else's stray memories. Arthur Weasley and Mad-Eye Moody got into a huge argument about whether this was really possible, until finally Moony stepped in and said that I had never confined my adventures to the realm of the possible before and he certainly didn't expect me to start now. I think that is a good description of me.

Anyway, nobody minded about what happened to Kreacher. At least he seemed much happier now, and there was no longer any danger of his talking about anyone except Gilderoy Lockhart. I felt a little guilty, though, so I try to bring him something every time I come up to the attic.

'Brought you some stationery, too,' I said.

'Master is too kind. Practising joined-up writing is Gilderoy's favourite, favourite thing, sir!'

Kreacher settled into a corner to work on his joined-up writing while I fine-tuned my new secret identity. All I needed now was something to wear. After trying on several dozen outfits from the wardrobe in the attic, I settled on a pair of rhinestone sunglasses, a single clip-on earring from a pair my cousin Andromeda had once owned (a miniature glow-in-the-dark Saturn with a levitating ring), and some sky blue dress robes with sequins.

You should have seen the look on Nymphadora's face as I strolled into the kitchen tuning my ukulele. 'Oh, Reg! Where on earth did you find that get-up?'

I grinned. 'Who's this Reg person? I'm Stubby Boardman, innocent singing sensation.'

VIII: Guarding Sybill (Week One)

Editor's note: The marginal comments signed S. S. were made about five weeks after the main action of this section takes place. I respond to some of his accusations elsewhere. Here I have allowed them to stand without comment. - R. J. L.

I stuffed a set of spare robes into my briefcase, fed the cat, and Apparated into the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. 'Hello, Rosmerta. I'd like two bottles of your best sherry, please.'

'Remus! How nice to see you again! Have you gone back to teaching at Hogwarts?'

I shook my head. 'Sadly, no. I'm here on other business.' I put the sherry into my case, which was now bulging at the seams, and turned to go.

'Aren't you going to stay for a drink?'

'Not tonight, Rosmerta, I'm in a hurry. But I'll be back.'

* * *

I gave Sir Cadogan the password to the North Tower ('Uther Pendragon') and presented the two bottles to Sybill. Plying her with sherry turned out to be one of the best ideas I'd ever had. She was usually fast asleep by eight o'clock in the evening, and within three days she had begun to address me as 'dear boy' (I am thirty-seven). She even stopped foretelling my impending demise and kept me amused with a series of predictions that were much less likely to come true. The ones I can remember included my head of the British Archives of Magic, marrying a much younger woman, and providing Harry with a whole family of godchildren. Actually, many of her prophecies these days were taking a matrimonial turn, as I noticed while listening in on her classes, and she had become more popular with the gigglier female students than ever. I attributed this to the influence of Larry Lovegood.

Speaking of Harry, I'd seen him only briefly on the first night - just long enough for me to explain why I was there, and for him to tell me Mark had been Sorted into Gryffindor. I had very little time away from the North Tower; Minerva or Severus would relieve me now and again, but they were both busy with their teaching duties and clearly eager to spend as little time with Sybill as possible. Harry, in any case, was rarely alone, and if the other students saw me they would ask awkward questions. But I hoped to catch him after Remedial History of Magic on the fourth evening. I had to face my usual ordeal first, though. Promptly at nine, Severus Snape turned up in the North Tower with a goblet of potion.

'Would you like to join me for a drink? I'm sure you won't want any of this, but there's sherry.' I don't know why I bother asking. He has never accepted.

I'll tell you why you bothered. You condescended to me so you could pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you were a better man than I was. Don't ever try to pretend there was any friendship or liking or remorse involved. - S. S.

'No, I don't care to. And don't even think about having any yourself. You know mixing alcohol with the potion makes it useless.'

'Of course I know that,' I said. (Almost anything that would improve the taste makes it useless. I sometimes suspect him of making this up.) 'You don't have to remind me.'

'I'm just making certain. You have been known to be irresponsible in the past.'

'Once.'

'Twice.'

'Once,' I said, 'under extraordinary circumstances. If two of your old friends turned up in your students' company when one of them was supposed to be dead and the other one a convicted murderer, you'd forget about everything else too.'

'If that happened to me, I would alert the Aurors and the Ministry. I wouldn't try to play the hero myself.'

I forced myself not to make the obvious retort: most of his old friends deserved life in Azkaban; only one of mine did. I didn't need an argument with him tonight. 'Could you do me a favour, Severus, and spell me for an hour or so?'

'Going to visit the Potter boy?' I nodded. 'A foolish risk to take. I knew you'd indulge him too much. None of the other children get to see their families until Christmas, and that's how it should be, in my opinion. Toughens them up. He doesn't need special treatment.' (Sometimes I wonder if Severus lives in a parallel universe. I can think of no other explanation for his apparent belief that Harry, of all people, needed additional toughening up.)

'Your opinion has been duly noted, but I'm still going to see him.' I choked down the rest of the potion, grabbed the invisibility cloak I'd been issued, and left the tower before he could say anything more.

Remedial History of Magic ended at half past nine. I waited in an inconspicuous niche in the corridor and watched the other students file out: Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, two earnest-looking Hufflepuff girls whom I barely remembered, and then Professor Binns. Theo Nott followed after a few minutes, his dark hair falling in his face as he walked with his head down. Finally, the last two students appeared. I stepped out of the niche and pulled off my cloak. 'Hi, Harry and Neville. How's everything going?'

'All right,' said Harry quietly. There seemed to be a shadow on his face that I knew all too well.

Neville, on the other hand, seemed genuinely happy, though puzzled as to what I was doing at Hogwarts. I admired some obscure botanical specimens of his and told them all about guarding Sybill. They were both in stitches when I got to the part about Larry and her latest round of predictions. All the same, there was always a look about Harry that I didn't like, and I was relieved when Neville left us alone together.

'Been practising the Occlumency thing I taught you?'

'Yeah. It's going pretty well - although I don't think Snape likes it very much when he gets to see himself from my perspective.'

'I'll bet,' I said, smiling. With an attempt at casualness that fooled neither of us, I asked, 'Scar hurting again?'

'It's not so bad,' he said dully.

'Yes, it is.' The shadow I'd seen was the look of chronic pain and the physical and mental exhaustion that comes with it. I recognised it because I'd often seen it on my own face, from childhood upward, but the sight of it had never hurt me like this before.

Funny how there was always one face you didn't recognise it on. - S. S.

That is the trouble with children - even other people's children. You can't bear for them to face things you can endure perfectly well for yourself. You want to tear the world apart and rebuild it so everything that's gone wrong in the past will go right for them. Most of the time we don't pull off the rebuilding part. Perhaps it's just as well that I won't have children of my own.

I gave him the only comfort I had to offer: the truth. 'Listen, Harry. I know this has to be awful for you, but we're almost certain you're not the one he's interested in this time, and there's always going to be a member of the Order here if you need help or someone to talk to. And -' I struggled to find the right words for something I had always taken for granted but had never talked about before. 'The thing about pain is - it expands to fill as much of your mind as you allow it, and then it takes more. It is very easy to let it become the defining feature of your life. You will have to fight this temptation - every waking moment, maybe even in your sleep. Do not let yourself stop caring about other things. It will be very hard, but it is possible. All right?'

'Yeah. Thanks, Remus.' He'd never called me by my first name before. I remembered too much about being sixteen to comment on it, but it was hard to conceal the elation I felt.

'One more thing. When you're doing lessons with Professor Snape, don't forget what we talked about before you left. Be easy on the man.'

'Yes. All right.'

An admirable sentiment. Where was it twenty-one years ago? - S. S.

* * *

I'd spent more time with Harry than I had meant to, and Severus looked extremely displeased when I returned to the North Tower. He didn't say anything until the following evening, when he dropped a bombshell. 'You've been spotted,' he said. 'One of my students saw you in the corridor and overheard part of your conversation with the Potter and Longbottom boys. Fortunately he doesn't seem to have caught anything of great import - more in the nature of idle gossip, from what he told me. I hope you think a cheap laugh at Professor Trelawney's expense is worth the risk. I am inclined to disagree.' (He loathes Sybill. Not much moral high ground there.)

'Which student?' I asked, trying to keep my voice level. 'It wasn't Draco Malfoy, was it?' Draco had met a few members of the Order at an ill-fated party I'd hosted over the summer. If he saw me here, he might be able to put together more of the pieces than I'd like.

'No. Fortunately for you, it was not.'

What I actually said was 'Nott,' not 'not.' Not that it matters. - S. S.

This spelling buiseness is really knotty! Ha ha! Get it? Knotty! - L. L.

Lovegood, you're an idiot. Shut up. - S. S.