Through the Vanishing Cabinet, and What Montague Found There

Through the Vanishing Cabinet, and What Montague Found There

Wilfred Montague, seventh-year prefect, captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, and member of the Inquisitorial Squad, was having a bad day.

It should, he thought sulkily, have been a brilliant day now that the old Gryffindor-loving fool of a Headmaster was out of the way; but he discovered very quickly that Dumbledore’s departure had left fallout. First, Professor Umbridge made him round up his team to break down the door of the Head’s Office, which had sealed itself against her, and one of the Beaters had reduced his broomstick to splinters while trying to use it as a battering ram. Then he’d had to deal with insubordination on a massive scale, even from the first- and second-year students, who were little and lithe and seemed to be equipped with a massive supply of Dungbombs. Then he’d left his father’s letters, almost a year’s worth of them, in the Potions classroom and had to go back for them, which meant he’d be late for Herbology even if he didn’t run into any booby traps set by stupid little Gryffindors.

He always carried the letters with him, tucked into a small pouch that he wore beneath his school robes. They were written on stiff parchment of the best quality and signed with the family seal, a silver-scaled dragon whose long tail traced out the single word, Fealty. The first one read, He is risen, and though the references in subsequent letters were more oblique, Montague knew that it would not do to leave such documents lying around.

If you read between the lines – and after ten months’ practice Montague was quite adept at reading between the lines – the last letter promised an honor greater than any he could have hoped for. Education is a priceless commodity, my son. When you complete yours, the very stars will be near to your hand. Wasn’t the Dark Mark made of stars? And what could be nearer one’s hand than one’s left arm?

A ghostly presence drifted across the corridor in front of him, and he ducked down a narrow spiral staircase to avoid the Fat Friar. The Friar had known a distant relation of his in Verona back in the Middle Ages, and he had a bad habit of presuming on this remote connection and reminiscing about him at great length. This annoyed Montague, not only because of the Friar’s over-familiarity, but because his relation had been an extremely silly young man, and worse yet, had acquired a certain measure of posthumous fame among Muggles. “Died for love, poor lad,” the Fat Friar sighed, but as far as Montague could tell, he had only died because he had been soft enough to let a Muggle prince banish him, and then compounded his error by failing to recognize the very obvious effects of the Draught of Living Death.

Anybody with any tact would pretend that this relation had never existed at all; but the Hufflepuff ghost, like the rest of his House, had no tact whatsoever.

Now he was on the first floor – if he just cut across the corridor and took the side exit, he’d be near the greenhouses, and – Oh no. Two identical figures, red-haired and solidly built, were blocking his path.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the Amazing Bottomless Fountain O’ Puke,” said one of the Weasley twins. “Not feeling nauseated today, are you, Montague?”

“Not even a trifle?” said the other twin. His brother groaned in appreciation.

After the first, disastrous Quidditch match of the year had got them both banned from the team, the Weasley twins had taken revenge on the team captain by spiking his trifle with their Puking Pastilles. Montague had been in the hospital wing for the better part of a week, until Madame Pomfrey had found an antidote.

His hand went automatically to the tiny silver I that was pinned to his robes. Not this time, boys.

“By the power invested in me as a member of the Inquisitorial Squad,” Montague said grandly, “I hereby dock you five House points for loitering – ten points apiece for being blood traitors and Mudblood-lovers –”

“Oh look,” said one of the twins, “a talking snake.”

“Can’t be. I’m not a Parselmouth. Are you a Parselmouth, Fred?”

“No, George. I reckon this is a very rare sort of snake.”

“Twenty points for talking back to a member of the Inquisitorial Squad –”

“A very well trained snake, I should say, Fred. Probably by somebody who has a particular affinity with reptiles. Now who might that be, I wonder?”

“And thirty points for insulting the Headmist –”

“I don’t think it matters who controls the snake, George. What’s important is that we can’t have slimy animals slithering through the corridors. Impedimenta!”

The force of the hex knocked Montague into the stone wall of the corridor. Bullying gits, he thought as he lay panting on the floor, they’ve no right to lay hands on a member of the Inquisitorial Squad...

“Where should we send him?”

“To the zoo, I reckon. They know how to deal with snakes there.”

George threw open the door of the great mahogany Vanishing Cabinet that stood at the end of the corridor, as Fred levitated Montague’s helpless body. “Oi, you-in-there!” George shouted into the cabinet. “Send this snake to the London Zoo, and Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes will pay the shipping.”

“Have fun under glass, snake!” shouted Fred as they each grabbed one of Montague’s arms and forced him inside the cabinet.

The last thing he heard before they slammed the doors shut was George chortling. “You know who goes to the London Zoo? Muggles. Won’t that be a shock for Mr. Junior Death Eater?”

Montague fumed to himself. How dare he call me a – Well, all right, I am one. But nobody talks about these things, not out loud.

“Just like being a Muggle conjuror, isn’t it?” said one of the twins outside the cabinet. “Hocus Pocus, Presto Vanish-o!”

And suddenly there was only blackness, and a dizzying rush of air as though he were being borne upon a whirlwind.

 

                                                            *          *          *

Wherever he was, it clearly wasn’t the London Zoo. He stood in the middle of a dry, barren plain, pitted with craters and covered in what looked like silver dust. The dim shapes of castles and towers, most of them crumbling to ruins, rose on the horizon, but around him the land was entirely flat and strewn with a great deal of debris and bric-a-brac. He noticed a number of quills on the ground, which made him feel a little better because that meant there had to be birds; but he also saw some old shoes and several pairs of spectacles, which gave him a wrenching feeling in his stomach. What had happened to the owners?

He was clearly no longer inside the cabinet, anyway, although he didn’t remember the doors opening to let him out. Another puzzle.

Somebody was walking toward him. Montague felt relieved that he wasn’t the only living creature in this forsaken landscape, then frightened. His hand flew to his wand. The stranger, however, looked harmless enough; he was a young man in dirty Muggle jeans with a large backpack. He was tanned and weatherbeaten and appeared to be only a year or two older than Montague himself, though a great deal more confident.

“Are you lost?” Montague bit his tongue before he could tack on a “too.” He had no intention of letting this stranger know how utterly at sea he felt.

“Nah, mate. I’m just exploring.”

“Where is this?”

“These are the Vanished Lands,” said the stranger in an accent that Montague couldn’t place. “At least I think they are. I took a wrong turn somewhere in the back country of Abyssinia, and I’ve been a bit disoriented ever since.”

“You are lost.”

“Sort of, but I expect things will work out. They generally do. I’m glad you speak English, by the way. I haven’t met anybody who did in over a week.”

“Who are you, anyway?”

“My name’s Kevin,” said the stranger. (At least, that was what Montague thought he said; he pronounced it “Kivin.”)

“Where did you come from?”

“Australia,” said Kevin, “but not very recently. How about you?”

“My name is Montague, and I’m English.”

“That’s a long name. D’you mind if I call you Monty?”

“Yes,” said Montague in his frostiest voice.

Unfortunately, Kevin seemed to take this as “Yes, go ahead,” rather than “Yes, I do mind.” “Brilliant. How long have you been traveling, Monty?”

Montague hadn’t been aware until that moment that he was traveling, but he supposed he must be, since he plainly wasn’t at Hogwarts any more. “Since today.”

“Lucky you. I’ve got to go home soon, unless I can earn some more money.”

From this, Montague inferred that Kevin was the sort of person who Talked About Money, which meant he wasn’t the sort of person Montague wanted to know as a general rule, but there didn’t seem to be anybody else to talk to here. “Er. Do you know how we go home – or how we got to this place at all?”

“Not really, but I’ve got a guidebook.” Kevin reached into his backpack and took out a mysterious-looking book labeled Solitary Satellite: Wizarding Edition. He tapped the book with his wand and said “Vanished Lands,” and the words Wizarding Edition were immediately replaced with Vanished Lands.

Kevin opened the book and began to read aloud. “Though Unplottable and exceedingly difficult to find, the Vanished Lands rank among the magical world’s great natural wonders. Whatever vanishes in other places, whether its disappearance is the fault of an individual or fate or time, miraculously turns up here. Wealth and dominion lie here when Fortune has ceased to grant her favors; likewise, the Vanished Lands are home to reputations which time has consumed. The tears and sighs of lovers, time frittered away in gambling or idleness, the plunder of thieves who double-cross one another, gifts given in hope of reward, lost causes, and odd socks can all be found here in great number.”

“How fascinating,” said Montague sarcastically. The part about wealth and dominion had caused him to prick up his ears briefly, but the rest of it sounded more like a sermon than a guidebook.

“Let me see if I can find something more practical. Ah, here we are. Accommodations: Not so much, really. The Ghostly Inn of Atlantis is rumored to exist somewhere in this region, but its usefulness to the traveler is limited as nobody can see it. Camping is always possible, and the abandoned vehicles that litter the area offer shelter to travelers who have forgotten to bring a tent.” Kevin motioned toward a rusted-out hulk that bore traces of purple paint and looked like it might once have been a Knight Bus. “Looks like you and me are sleeping in style, mate.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Montague. “I’m not spending the night here. Does your book say how to get out?”

“Let’s see. Hmm, here’s a map ... that ought to be helpful ...”

“I thought you just said this place was Unplottable?”

“So I did. So either the map’s wrong, or the introduction is wrong. Maybe both. You’re a clever one, Monty.”

Montague narrowed his eyes and tried to figure out whether he was being mocked. If Kevin had been a Slytherin the answer would have been obvious; but the Australian gazed back at him through guileless blue eyes.

“Does it say how we get out of here, or not?”

Kevin leafed through the book. “Getting There and Away. The most reliable way to reach the Vanished Lands is through a Vanishing Cabinet –”

“That’s how I got here. These two Gryffindor idiots – Gryffindor’s one of the Houses at my school, they’re sort of rivals of ours – well, anyway, they came along and pushed me into a Vanishing Cabinet for no reason at all.” It occurred to Montague that this might not be, strictly speaking, true; but he pushed the thought aside. The Weasley Twins had started it with the Puking Pastilles, hadn’t they? And even before that, when they’d attacked his Seeker?

“After the traveler enters the Cabinet, somebody on the outside must pronounce the word ‘Vanish-o’ –”

“Vanish-o? What kind of stupid Squib spell is that?”

“Dunno, mate, but that’s what the book says. Do you want to hear more, or are you going to keep interrupting?”

“Go on. What does it say?”

“... Another way to get there is simply to wander until one gets very thoroughly lost, and fetches up there naturally. That must be what happened to me. I knew I hadn’t seen anything familiar since Abyssinia. In either case, travelers are generally unable to leave the Vanished Lands until they find the one particular thing they have lost, the thing they came here to retrieve.”

“But I didn’t come here to retrieve anything. I came because I got shoved into a Vanishing Cabinet.”

“Neither did I.” Kevin closed the book and sat down on a rock, looking perplexed.

Montague looked over the desolate plain. “This place is hell.”

“Oh no, I was in Hell last month,” said Kevin in a matter-of-fact sort of voice. “It’s much smokier than this.” He jumped down from the rock and, with a tap of his wand, reduced his backpack to a much smaller and more comfortable size. “What d’you say we explore a bit?”

“Oh, all right,” said Montague with ill grace. It was obvious that Kevin intended to explore with or without him, and he really didn’t feel like being left alone in the Vanished Lands.

 

                                                            *          *          *

The two travelers set out across the plain. After some hours had passed, Montague’s shoes were full of dust and his feet were sore, but the castles and towers on the horizon looked no closer than before. Kevin was still keeping up a brisk pace, so he gritted his teeth and followed without complaining. He was not going to let some scruffy Australian get the better of him. Why, Kevin might even be a Mudblood for all Montague knew about him. He refrained from asking, as he didn’t want to be compelled to stop traveling with the only other person for miles around.

The one living creature they had seen was a large boa constrictor, which looked every bit as lost as they did. It gave them a friendly sort of hiss and continued to wind its way through the dust.

Despite the eerie loneliness of the place, the ground was littered with obviously man-made objects: umbrellas, single earrings, dog collars, teaspoons, and Quidditch balls of every description. Montague picked up a Snitch and tossed it from hand to hand, but there was no challenge in the game since the enchantments had nearly worn off.

“Throw that over here,” said Kevin, and Montague reluctantly allowed himself to be drawn into a game of catch. The Snitch began to show a few more signs of life, and soon they were having a fast-paced romp across the dusty flatlands.

Montague began to have a curious sense of freedom as he ran and shouted. There was nobody else here – no teachers, no parents, no one to tell him what to do. No one to whom he owed –

Fealty.

His father’s letters. They must be what he was meant to find. He couldn’t think of anything else he’d lost lately, after all.

“You all right?” asked Kevin as he caught up with Montague, who had stopped short.

“Yes. Just a bit winded.”

“Water?”

“Please.” His throat felt painfully dry, and his breath was coming in ragged gasps.

Kevin fished a sleek silver-colored bottle out of his backpack, took a long drink, and passed it to Montague. “It’s an Ever-Replenishing Water Bottle,” he explained. “My brother gave it to me before I left. I was kind of wishing he’d sprung for the beer version, but now that we’re out in the middle of nowhere, I’m thinking water’s best, after all.”

Montague nodded his agreement. The water was cold and clean on his tongue, and he didn’t think he’d ever tasted anything better in his life.

If Kevin had a brother who gave him magical presents, he probably wasn’t a Mudblood. Then again, sometimes Muggle parents managed to produce more than one magical child. Look at those Creevey brats...

Montague took another swallow of water and squashed this train of thought flat. It was better, he decided, not to worry too much about Kevin’s ancestry when he was the one with the Ever-Replenishing Water Bottle.

A tattered book entitled Love’s Labour’s Wonne lay next to him in the dirt. Montague picked it up and read a few pages, hoping it would tell them something useful, but it was only a silly play and the language was so archaic that trying to puzzle it out gave him a headache. He tossed it to one side.

Kevin shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted at the horizon. “It’s getting dark,” he said.

“I noticed.”

“I don’t think we’re going to make it to any of those buildings by nightfall. Do you want to make camp here?”

“All right,” said Montague unenthusiastically.

They found a Hagrid-sized raincoat, a few garden stakes, and a clothesline on the ground. With the aid of a bit of Transfiguration and a lot of luck, they were able to rig them into something vaguely resembling a tent.

By the time they finished, darkness had fallen. They sat in front of the tent sharing what food Kevin could find in his backpack, which consisted of a packet of crisps, a small paper sack of dried figs, and a stick of some sort of spicy sausage. It was a meager supper, especially divided between two people, and Kevin wondered aloud whether they’d be able to find any food in the Vanished Lands.

“I don’t know. People don’t lose food all that often, I don’t think.”

“I didn’t think people lost boa constrictors or Knight Buses all that often either, but apparently they do,” Kevin pointed out. “Can’t hurt to have a look. Lumos!”

The landscape looked even more surreal by night. The light from Kevin’s wand glinted off crumbling marble statues and broken bicycle wheels. Kevin wandered a little way off to check out something that he swore looked like a hunk of meat, and Montague shivered a little, left alone in the darkness.

“Monty, I think it’s somebody’s leg.” Kevin returned, looking slightly green beneath his tan.

Montague got to his feet and examined the object that had caught Kevin’s attention. It was, indeed, a human leg, and he was pretty sure he’d seen it before. “It’s all right, it’s only Professor Kettleburn’s. A Graphorn butted him when I was in fourth year, and he lost his leg.”

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing. He retired at the end of the year.”

“Don’t you think he’d like to get it back? Maybe that’s the thing you were meant to retrieve.”

Montague shook his head. “It isn’t my leg, is it? Didn’t your book say the object had to belong to you to begin with?”

“Oh yeah. I forgot about that.” Kevin looked crestfallen. “Do you have any idea what yours is?”

“I think so,” said Montague guardedly. “I’m not positive.”

“What if it’s something abstract? Like a Lost Cause, or Wasted Time, or something? Would you even know it if you saw it?”

“Trust me. I’ll know.” His father’s handwriting was distinctive, and so was the family crest.

“You’re lucky. I haven’t the foggiest idea about mine. I mean, I’ve lost lots of things, but none of them really stands out, you know?” Kevin yawned broadly and shrugged. “Oh well. It’ll be easier to find things in the morning.”

They slept huddled together under Montague’s school cloak, partly for warmth and partly because they were in the sort of place where severed legs kept popping out of the ground. There was something comforting about curling up next to somebody who was alive and whole and every bit as spooked as you were.

 

                                                            *          *          *

In the morning, they ate the rest of the figs and set out for the nearest tower. After a few hours’ journey the landscape changed from dusty grey plain to dusty grey hills, and one of the largest hills of all was blocking their path. On closer inspection, it proved to be a mountain of odd socks, just as the guidebook had promised. Kevin thought one of them might be the one he’d left behind in a Thai laundry, but he decided not to retrieve it. “If I’ve come all this way,” he explained, “I want to come back with something more important than that.”

Montague kept his eyes on the ground as they walked around the mountain, but there was still no sign of his father’s letters.

What they did find, in a cratered valley, was a number of glass vials filled with a swirling, silvery-whitish substance. Montague stooped to examine one of the smaller ones, and saw that it was labeled “GILDEROY LOCKHART’S MEMORIES.”

“Gilderoy Lockhart?” Kevin snorted derisively.

“You know him? He used to be a professor at our school.”

“Who’d hire that fraud as a professor? Does he still go around bragging about how he vanquished the Wagga Wagga werewolf?”

“Yeah. Last time I saw him, he did.”

“Well, I’m from Wagga Wagga, and it wasn’t a werewolf at all, it was some Muggle kid dressed up for a school play about the Three Little Pigs. And then he modified the poor kid’s memory so he couldn’t set the record straight.” Kevin picked up the vial. “Think I’ll smash this. Let him find out what it’s like to be on the other end, for a change.”

“No. Don’t!” Montague couldn’t have explained what made him grab the vial away from Kevin; he only had an instinctive conviction that it was a weighty and terrible thing to destroy memories that didn’t belong to you, even if there was little chance they’d ever find their way back to their true owner.

But while he and Kevin were struggling over Lockhart’s memories, he accidentally stepped on another of the vials that littered the valley and ground the glass to pieces.

The silvery mist escaped from the vial and rose in thick, opaque swirls. It was almost up to Montague’s chest before he was able to take in what was happening, and in another moment it had covered his eyes and ears.

He could see and hear nothing but glimpses of a stranger’s life: memories that had lain dead and forgotten for who knew how many years.

... A small boy tagging along behind a woman in a bright green dress and a brand-new hat with a stuffed vulture on top ...

Dumbledore, his grey hair streaked with auburn, in McGonagall’s place at the front of the Transfiguration classroom...

Unfamiliar faces: boys and girls, young men and women who came and went. And then, much later, a girl with a round face and a friendly smile on her lips.

... A house with the Dark Mark hovering over it ... feet rushing up the stairs, a frantic search ... A woman lying spreadeagled on a bed like a rag doll, her blood staining white sheets red.

A funeral interrupted by white-hooded figures who attacked the mourners and sent them fleeing for cover. More corpses, more funerals...

... Tiny baby hands closing around a man’s forefinger ...

More white-masked figures, casting binding spells ruthlessly and efficiently. A woman’s voice, a smoky beautiful voice that might have belonged to a singer, pronouncing the word Crucio in a low hiss. The other woman, the round-faced one, screaming ... a man barking an order ... somewhere in the distance, a child’s cry like the mewing of a kitten...

Heart hammering, Montague struggled to reach the child, but his limbs didn’t seem to work and in the back of his mind he knew it was all futile, impossible to prevent something that had happened many years before.

And then he was lying on the ground as the last of the mist dissipated, and Kevin was standing over him, shouting “Monty! MONTY!”

With effort, Montague sat up. He was shaking all over.

“You all right?” Kevin knelt down and held the Ever-Replenishing Water Bottle to his lips. Montague nodded and tried to swallow, but his throat felt swollen.

Kevin was holding a fragment of broken glass in his hand. “Who’s Frank Longbottom?” he asked, looking at the label.

This time Montague managed to speak. “He’s nobody.”

“For somebody who’s nobody, his memories sure seem to have upset you a lot.”

“Can I have more water, please?” He was ashamed of the quaver in his voice, but Kevin pretended not to notice and handed him the water bottle.

Montague did know who Frank Longbottom was; he was one of the handful of Hogwarts students who took the Prophet, and during the last year he’d read every word. He had an idea who the hooded woman was as well.

As the shard of glass fell from Kevin’s hand, something white and feathered and fluttering landed on Montague’s shoulder. He thought at first that it was a bird, but as it settled into the hollow of his neck he felt a pang of sorrow. It was a Lost Hope.

He reached for the Hope, but it fluttered out of his grasp, and he knew at once that it had never been his to begin with. That knowledge didn’t stop a heavy, unfamiliar ache from rising in his throat.

When he looked around him he saw that there were great flocks of Hopes circling in the sky, spiraling ever higher and farther out of reach. He shaded his eyes and looked down. The ground was covered with green branches that looked as if they had been roughly hewn from the trees where they grew, or torn away by storm winds.

Montague wasn’t sure how he came to understand what he was seeing, but the knowledge hit him like a punch in the gut. “I think those branches are lost lives,” he whispered urgently.

“What branches?” asked Kevin.

“Do you see those things like birds in the sky?” Montague asked.

“There aren’t any birds,” said Kevin. “We’re the only living things here, and it’s starting to give me the creeps.” He looked at Montague with frightened eyes, as if he were afraid his companion might be going mad.

Montague didn’t think he was mad. But why could he see things that Kevin couldn’t, then? Perhaps the birds and branches were like Thestrals, and you had to have seen death to ... But that wasn’t right. He, Wilfred Montague, hadn’t seen death. Frank Longbottom had.

Frank Longbottom had seen things Montague never wanted to see.

A white lamb ran across the dry hill country, bleating for its mother. Kevin gave no sign of seeing it, but Montague watched it until it was only a dim blur among the rising clouds of dust.

 

                                                            *          *          *

Montague got to his feet, and they kept walking. Kevin either didn’t notice, or deliberately affected not to notice, that his companion had become very subdued. He kept up a steady stream of conversation, complaining good-naturedly of hunger and saying he hoped they would find their lost things before long. Montague didn’t feel like eating, and he was beginning to hope he would never find his father’s letters at all.

He kept seeing new and strange things by the wayside: calendar pages from twelve lost years belonging to a man who had been sent to prison unjustly; twisted and flattened rings of broken trust; and always the green branches, flung at odd angles across their path. Most mysteriously of all, he noticed a flat, photographic image of Percy Weasley, who had been Head Boy two years ago, wandering around without a photograph in sight.

Kevin didn’t seem to perceive any of it, and Montague began to fear that he was mad, after all. He was considerably relieved when a glint of metal in their path caught Kevin’s eye as well as his own, and his companion stooped down to fish a handsome jewel-studded trophy cup out of the dust.

“D’you recognize this, mate? The crest’s the same as the one on your school uniform.”

“It’s our House Cup.” Montague felt dazed at the sight of such a familiar object in the middle of this surreal landscape. “Slytherin House lost it at the end of my third year. Or rather,” he amended out of long habit, “we had it taken away from us.”

He picked up the Cup. How little it seemed. He remembered, with incredulity, how he and his housemates had taken on as if they had been robbed of the greatest treasure in the world.

“Is that the thing you want to take back with you?” Kevin asked. “It looks valuable.”

Montague ran his finger around the rim of the Cup. Four years’ sojourn in the Vanished Lands had covered it with a thin film of silvery dust. He saw his reflection in it, so dim and distorted that he could have been almost anybody.

“No. This isn’t it.” Montague threw the cup into a crater and walked on.

 

                                                            *          *          *

A little farther along, they came to a fork in the path. “Which way do we go?” asked Kevin.

“Don’t know. We could split up and explore a little way down each road. See which one looks more promising, you know?”

Kevin gave him a slightly worried look. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

“Yeah, but we don’t have to go too far if you don’t like. What do you say to meeting back here in half an hour?”

“All right.”

Montague chose the path that snaked its way toward a dry riverbed, but as it turned out, he didn’t get very far. Almost as soon as Kevin was out of sight, he stopped in his tracks. On the left-hand side of the path lay the bundle of his father’s letters; on the right, a pair of silvery wings. Montague had never seen them before, but somehow they seemed to belong to him as much as the letters did. He also knew, in that instant, that he couldn’t take both items home.

He picked up one object in each hand and tried to weigh them against each other. The letters felt heavier and more solid; the wings were so thin and fragile that they hardly seemed to have substance at all.

Fealty, said the family seal. Fealty, he had learned at his father’s knee, brought a certain and worthwhile reward. The Montagues had never been great lords or princes, but they pledged their faith to those who were, and grew wealthy and comfortable in their service.

And, in his other hand, he held something unknown, uncertain, and unlikely to be worth anything at all. The decision should have been easy. He should have made it already, but he hadn’t.

I’ve got to take the letters, he remembered suddenly. They’re compromising. I can’t leave them lying about where anybody could find them. So there isn’t any choice, really.

And in the next moment, he realized that he very much disliked the feeling that he had no choice.

Almost before he realized what he was doing, he stood on the edge of the riverbank and began to scatter the parchment, sheet by sheet, to the desert winds. He watched his father’s letters swirl away into the lonely distance of the Vanished Lands, lost and found and lost forever.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been standing there when a voice called him back to reality. “I found it!” Kevin was shouting from the top of the next little hill. “Monty, I’ve found it!” He began bounding down the hill three steps at a time, waving a scrap of something white in his hand.

“What is it?” asked Montague, when it became clear that Kevin wasn’t going to shut up until he asked.

“It’s a telephone number. From this Swedish girl I met in Česky Krumlov. I left it in my trouser pocket when I did the laundry, and I thought I was never going to see it again! I FOUND IT!”

“Er,” said Montague, bemused. “All right, then.”

“Maybe you had to know this girl,” said Kevin.

“Probably. Er ... telephone number? She’s a Muggle, then?”

“Yeah. Does that matter?”

“No,” said Montague. After all, he was never going to see Kevin again. “I think I’ve found mine, too. So I expect I’ll be going home soon.”

“Good on you, mate. I reckon this is where we part ways. Good luck, Monty, and if you’re ever looking for a place to stay in Wagga Wagga, look me up, all right? Or you can look up my brother Adam if I’m not home yet. Here’s his address.”

They shook hands, feeling solemn, and Montague strapped the wings on his back.

They seemed to become a part of him almost at once. The sensation as he took off was quite different from flying a broomstick; the wings bore him upward with a force and a strength that came from within. He skimmed, low and swift, over the hills and plains of the Vanished Lands, and then soared higher over the bare mountains with a rush of ecstasy. A flock of winged Hopes kept pace with him as he flew.

Dusk was falling as he turned his course to the sky. The chill air hit him full in the face and made him gasp for breath, but it was a joyful gasp; he felt free and unconquerable. He swept higher and higher, aiming for the empty spaces between the stars.

 

                                                            *          *          *

The next thing Montague knew, he was cramped into an extremely uncomfortable position, chilled, half-starved, and soaking wet. He opened his eyes and saw that this was because he’d been jammed knees-first into a toilet.

The green-and-white pattern of the clean tile floor was familiar. He thought – or at least, he hoped – that he was back at Hogwarts.

And his wings were gone. For half a second he felt a dull ache of loss, and then he had a funny, mad feeling that they might still be with him, only under the skin.

The door of the bathroom swung open, and then Draco Malfoy was standing outside the stall gawking at him. Under more normal circumstances, Montague would rather have died than let his Seeker catch him in such a humiliating position, but now he just started shaking with relief at the sight of a familiar face.

“Montague? The whole castle’s been looking for you since yesterday. How’d you get inside a toilet?”

“Never mind how I got here. I’m not sure myself. Get Professor Snape or somebody.”

To Montague’s discomfiture, Malfoy returned with Professor Umbridge instead, explaining that their Head of House had locked himself inside his office with Harry Potter and refused to be disturbed. Montague had to endure Umbridge’s ineffectual attempts to pull him out of the toilet. Her hands were clammy, and she kept patting him and cooing in that high-pitched, singsong voice of hers; moreover, she habitually addressed him as “Wilfred, dear,” which made him feel murderous.

“Please,” he panted after half an hour of pulling and tugging, “could I have a break? And maybe something to eat?”

She gave a high-pitched girlish giggle. “Oh, no, I’m sure you don’t want to eat inside a toilet, do you, dear? That wouldn’t be at all sanitary.”

“Well, if I’m going to be stuck inside a toilet for the rest of my life, it’s certainly better than starving,” muttered Montague.

“You’re not going to be stuck inside a toilet for the rest of your life,” said Professor Umbridge, although she didn’t sound at all convinced. “Draco, dear, would you fetch Professor Snape – not that I don’t have the situation entirely under control, of course, but as Wilfred’s Head of House he really ought to be informed of this...”

Malfoy returned a few minutes later with Professor Snape, who gave his wand a casual flick and said “Engorgio” in a bored voice. The toilet expanded so that Montague could step out of it easily. Umbridge looked decidedly put out that she hadn’t thought of this first.

Snape was looking with distaste at Montague’s shoes, which were now full of mud rather than dust, and at the way his robes were dripping toilet water all over the floor. “Go and have a hot bath and tell the house-elves to bring you some sandwiches,” he ordered. “After you are in a fit state to appear in public, you are to see me in my office and explain, in detail, where you have been for the last thirty-six hours and how you came to be clogging the castle’s plumbing.”

“Shouldn’t I be present?” said Professor Umbridge in a tone that suggested this was not a question, but an order. “As the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, it is my responsibility to oversee all serious incidents of a disciplinary nature, after all.”

“No, Headmistress, that will not be necessary. I am certain Mr. Montague has merely met with a slight accident.” Snape eyed Montague narrowly. “Possibly he has not yet learned how to use a toilet properly. Given the general caliber of my students in recent years, I should not be surprised.”

Montague was grinning as he walked to the prefects’ bathroom. At eighteen, he was beginning to appreciate Snape’s sense of humor.

Nevertheless, his Head of House was not the sort of teacher one normally confided in, so it was a great surprise to Montague when he found himself spilling the entire story over a cup of Pepper-Up Potion. He omitted only the contents of the lost letters, but when he got to that part of the story, Snape sucked in his breath. Montague suspected he knew more about those letters than he was letting on; the Potions master was rumored to be a friend of the cause that Montague had been so hungry to serve only days earlier.

“And were you able to secure the letters?” Professor Snape asked at last.

“No, sir. I left them there. I chose the wings instead.”

“What wings?”

“I don’t know. But they felt like mine, and they brought me home. I ... I don’t want the letters any more. Not after some of the things I saw and heard.” Montague gave a brief, confused account of Frank Longbottom’s memories. He was very tired and it was all beginning to seem a little unreal.

Snape leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. “Mr. Montague,” he said at last, “you are confused and disoriented. What you are babbling about is nothing more than a child’s fairy tale. There is no such place as the Vanished Lands.”

“Sir, I was there ... I saw ...”

“I am telling you again. You are confused and disoriented. You would do well to stop talking of such matters, because you will soon be leaving school and coming of age as a wizard. It could seriously impair your career prospects if you appeared to be suffering from delusions.”

Montague’s head snapped up. His eyes met Snape’s, but his Head of House’s expression was entirely inscrutable.

“In particular,” Snape added after a moment, “it is highly unlikely that anybody would take you on in any position that required trust or secrecy. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, sir. I understand what you mean perfectly,” said Montague.

“Good,” said Snape. “Then this interview is over. I advise you to bear in mind what I have said.”

“Thank you for your advice, Professor.”

Montague shut the door and walked away from the office. Confused and disoriented, he thought. That shouldn’t be hard to pull off, the way I’m feeling now. First he made his steps veer to the right a little, then he zigzagged away to the left. Sometimes he stopped dead in the corridor for a minute or more, looking as if he were trying to remember what he was doing. And whenever he met anybody he knew, or anybody who looked vaguely familiar, or anybody who was a perfect stranger, he started to tell them the story of his journey to the Vanished Lands.

And when his schoolmates got thoroughly fed up with hearing about the Vanished Lands and started to give him a wide berth and whisper about him behind their hands, he closed his eyes and began to dream about Wagga Wagga.