The Arithmancer's Apprentice

Chapter Three

What happened?

Tom was dimly aware of being wet and cold, and there was a sharp pain in his side. In fact, almost every part of him was beginning to ache. He was lying on a soft flat surface that felt like grass, and it took him a moment to recall where he was.

The griffin. I fell through the roof of the conservatory. Into the water.

He certainly wasn’t in water now – he would have drowned if he’d stayed there long – but he could still hear a musical splashing just in front of him. There were birds singing too, and all about him he could feel an almost tropical warmth. The air was filled with the scent of spicy herbs, whose fragrance went to his head – or was it the headache?

“Tom?”

He recognised Hagrid’s voice at once, and vaguely remembered hearing the boy just before he’d passed out. But if Rubeus is here, then that means…

He began to shiver, and a feeling of dread overcame him. Apparently, he had fallen through the roof at the very moment that the Hogwarts party was being given a guided tour of the rare plantations in the conservatories. He still had the ring, at least – so Gryme could not fault him for failing to obtain it – but he shuddered to think what sort of punishment awaited him, and how it would ruin his flawless school career. Could he be expelled for this?

He forced his eyes open, wincing at the blinding light that stabbed at his senses like splinters of glass. As the brightness and the piercing colours faded, he could see that he was on a grassy slope by a wide pool that wandered off into the trees to form a gentle river. To his right a waterfall splashed down a rocky cliff, and overhead a tapestry of leafy branches hovered, scattering light across the glade as if there were a very bright sun above him. There was not a glimpse to be had of the broken roof, or even the glittering walls that he’d seen from above. The house, and the roof, and Tom’s nightmare adventure seemed as if they had been half a world away, until he noticed the shards of glass reflecting the light scattered about on the grassy bank where he lay – and the reddish tinge to the water.

Did I really lose so much blood?

He tried to sit up to see more clearly, but was overcome by a sudden dizziness, and the agony in his back felt like a hundred piercing knives. He sank back, defeated, aware only of pain.

A shadow fell across him then, as a figure pressed a cloth to his skin. It was Hagrid.

“Rubeus,” he said faintly.

“Thank goodness yeh’re all right. Don’t move,” said Hagrid. “Yeh’d lost a lot of blood, Tom, when I dragged yeh out.”

Tom said nothing, to tired to speak, but he was now recovered enough to observe the absence of curious professors and the gaping third years he’d expected. Hagrid took a piece of glass from Tom’s arm, and wiped the cut with the ragged cloth. The large boy’s hands were streaked with blood.

“Where are the others?” he asked at length. It was obvious that the rest of the Hogwarts party was not in the conservatory, and hadn’t been when Tom fell through. What on earth was Hagrid doing here, alone?

“I saw them go into the Camellia House,” Hagrid answered, “they were on their way back ter the house, yeh know. Where we were this mornin’.” Tom forced himself into a sitting position, clenching his teeth at the throbbing ache at the back of his head. Gingerly, he lifted his fingers to his hair, which was wet and sticky, and flinched as his hand brushed a swollen gash.

“Wait a minute.” The younger boy pressed something into Tom’s hand. “Yer wand, Tom, if yeh can heal yerself.” He looked guilty. “I would’ve tried, yeh know, but I don’t know any spells to heal anythin’.”

“That’s all right,” Tom mumbled weakly, taking the wand. He didn’t think he was really up to performing much magic in his weakened state – especially the few self-taught Healing Spells he was normally capable of – but he knew that he needed to do what he could. He glanced down at himself, for the first time noticing that his robes were scarcely more than rags, completely soaked and stained with blood. There were scratches on the backs of his legs and arms, and judging by the raw ache when he moved, there were splinters across his back as well. Obviously, mending his wet and injured state would require more than a simple Healing Spell. With a flick of his wand, he performed a Drying Charm first; then, when he felt a little more comfortable, he turned to the deeper and more serious cuts. A few minutes later, his robes hastily patched together and the pain diminished, he stood up, shaking as he recovered his balance; but he was himself again, for the most part. Hagrid watched him uneasily.

“Are yeh sure yeh’re okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Tom replied, and he meant it, although he was shivering. Of course, that might have only been the outside air invading the tropical warmth of the hothouse, yet Hagid looked as warm as ever, and the snow was certainly not getting in. “But what are you doing here, Rubeus? Why aren’t you with the others?”

“Yeh’re lucky I wasn’t with ‘em,” he pointed out defensively. “Or yeh’d have drowned. And what are you doin’ not with the group? How’d yeh fall through the roof?”

Tom hesitated. The last thing he wanted to admit to Hagrid was that he’d been chased by a mad griffin: not that he’d be crazy enough to want to look for it. Or would he? Take no chances, he said to himself.

“I wanted to see the other libraries. I… took a wrong stair, and ended up on the roof of the house – and I couldn’t get back down. Then I slipped, and fell through the glass,” he explained. It sounded a lame excuse to his own ears, and he didn’t think that even Hagrid would believe it, but the younger boy merely nodded.

“Yeah… we weren’t very long there in the library – we came down fer a picnic lunch in the conservat’ries. But we didn’ stay long – the professor seemed a bit impatient. I left ‘em when they were goin’ back to the house. I don’t much like all those pictures and stuff. I wanted ter see the other creatures – and go back ter the Lotus House and see Persephone again.” Hagrid frowned. “I thought I could find the way m’self, and maybe get out to the other gardens, an’ everything, but then, I couldn’t find me way out. This place is weird, Tom.”

“It’s just like Hogwarts,” Tom said with a dismissive gesture, though he couldn’t help feeling that Hagrid was right. “It’s enchanted. Doors move and that sort of thing. I don’t suppose it’s any different outside, either. They say the gardens are enchanted too.”

A sudden doubt shook him, remembering the snow he’d seen on the terrace. But perhaps even the enchanted parts get snow if there’s really bad weather.

Hagrid shook his head. “I dunno… have yeh even been outside, Tom? Have yeh seen any of the creatures?”

“Nothing to speak of. I’ve been in the house… until I was trapped on the roof, of course,” Tom said, glancing up to where the broken panes must be.

Hagrid looked scandalised. “But Tom! Yeh have the see the rest of the conservat’ries! They have a Laernian Hydra, yeh know, and all kinds of other creatures – really dangerous ones, even…”

He didn’t exactly feel like blundering after a Gryffindor first year looking for the rest of the menagerie, but his reluctance went entirely unnoticed by Hagrid.

“…Yeh know, when all the Muggles had paintin’s and statues of the labours of Hercules, manticores and chimaeras and Hydras, the second earl brought back the real things! Dunno how they caught a live manticore, though – or a Laernian Hydra, even… but Kray didn’ say what’s s’posed ter be so dangerous about that. It didn’t seem so bad ter me. Just like a big Runespoor – with a lot more heads.”

“Well,” said Tom, deciding to mollify Hagrid for the moment, “maybe we’ll see some of the animals on the way out. But you won’t find the others wandering here, and we’ll get even more lost back in the house. Why don’t we wait for them all in the stables?”

He had said the right thing. Hagrid brightened. “I’ve heard stories about the stables: five hundred winged horses! D’yeh think it might be true? They’ve even got invisible Thestrals, and they’re really, really rare, yeh know.”

“I don’t think even they’ve got that many horses…” Tom decided not to mention Cleopatra and her own interest in the beasts. “But we need to find the rest of the school. We’ll see the horses when we get there.”

Hagrid glanced at him uncertainly. “What about… all this? What will Professor Gryme and Professor Tempera do? I don’t want ter get expelled, Tom.”

“All that damage is my fault, not yours. We’ll just have to explain things.” His tone was deceptively casual. In truth, Tom was not looking forward at all to the explanations that would be required. He trusted Gryme would keep his involvement with the ring a secret, but he certainly would be highly disappointed in Tom’s disregard for the other instructions the professor had given. And Hagrid would mention Tom’s fall through the roof in his story, which would require a much more detailed explanation not only to his teachers, but to the Earl of Mountwarlock as well. Not even Gryme could protect him from that. And Cleopatra knew far too much… Shifting uncomfortably, Tom shoved his hands in his pockets. His fingers encountered surprisingly dry leather, and with a sinking feeling he realised that he still had the book in his possession.

At least it can’t get any worse.

Tom removed his hand from the pocket. He had not put the book down even in the attic – he supposed there hadn’t been time to think. There was no way he could return it now, at least, not unless he went back inside. For a moment he considered leaving it where he stood in the hothouse, but that might well ruin a valuable book – no, an immensely valuable book – one that might easily be unique, and certainly one he could never repay. Tom had a reverence and care for such books that in many ways surpassed his respect for people, and he was reluctant to put it at risk. Besides, even if he put charms on it to keep it safe, suppose they were afterwards traced back to him?

The book wasn’t more than outwardly damp, in spite of being dragged under water. And that was another mystery. The book was enchanted, the way it survived submersion proved it, so why hadn’t it raised an alarm when he’d taken it from the house? Or was the enchantment geared to intention, and not to the fact of taking it away? In that case it might not be safe to leave it.

He decided to leave that problem for later. There must be a better spot to leave the book than by a waterfall just beneath a roof he’d just broken. “Come on, Rubeus. Where do we go?”

Hagrid pointed down a stone-paved path that followed the stream, and Tom stepped forward after him, stumbling now and then as his ankle got caught in a vine or creeper, but relieved they were going away from the house. On several occasions he found he had to avoid creepers that seemed to snake their way in front of him, almost as if they wished to trap him.

As he had guessed from Hagrid’s experience, the paths in the enchanted conservatories of Mountwarlock Park were as convoluted as the ways through the house. But, of course, Tom told himself, it was just a peculiarity of the place – and nothing more. Perhaps he had only crossed the griffin on the stair because of the strange and misleading pathways he’d taken; the stair and landing had been covered with dust, and had appeared to be very much unused. Perhaps that door was not meant to be opened. And quite possibly, he mused, that particular animal had been left free for a reason: griffins, after all, did guard treasure…

Suddenly Hagrid stopped him short. “Do yeh hear somethin’?” Tom froze.

Somewhere above them and further back, behind the singing of the waterfall and the melodies of the tropical birds, Tom could hear a faint crackling of twigs in the undergrowth, a scraping of feet on the rocks above the glade they’d just left. There were people coming down from the house! But his heart sank when the first clear voice approached. It was not the Hogwarts party after all. Crouching, they stepped back into the trees.

“I must say it’s quite peculiar. I went through all the houses myself just now, showing the visitors from Hogwarts. Everything was in order. Then a house-elf came with the news from his lordship, and said I should wait for you at the stairs.”

“It’s Kray, the gamekeeper,” Hagrid whispered. “He was showing us ‘round this mornin’ – which means they’ve all gone back to the house. D’yeh think…”

Tom shook his head urgently. “No, we’d never find them there. You don’t know what it’s like. The stables.”

A dry, nasal voice replied to the gamekeeper, and to his horror Tom recognised it as Newt Scamander’s. I thought he was safely in the Dining Room. I wasn’t that long unconscious, was I?

“Yes, I certainly thought it odd myself. We were only halfway through dinner when Carmody came in from the park, saying that the Hippogriffs were just a bit restive. Then Cynthia saw there was snow in the garden – it was falling right there on the terrace, you know.”

“Must be fifteen years since I last saw that – in 1924, I think – and even then it was only for a minute. They turned the house upside down even so, investigating how it happened: and it only had snowed for a minute or so. I think that business back in fifteen was the last time the weather really went wrong.”

“Like 1915 – as bad as that?” Scamander muttered curiously. “Then maybe it does make sense after all.” He turned to his companion. “I wonder what could have happened this time. Lord Mountwarlock did look a bit troubled, and I think he sent Phantomsby to check on the Hogwarts party. And he asked if I could come down here while Scarpia and Drake went off to the stables, just in case there was trouble with the beasts. The rest of the crew went on with their dinner. Not that I blame them, with Anatole cooking.”

The two wizards had reached the bottom of the stair through the rocks that descended from the house to the glade by the waterfall. Already they were getting closer.

At once renewed urgency took hold of Tom, to get away as quickly as possible, and especially before Hagrid recognised Scamander. The gamekeeper might actually speak the Ministry wizard’s name – and Hagrid would surely know the face from his books. Scamander, if anyone, was the younger boy’s hero – he might even want to stay and talk to him, and then wild Hippogriffs wouldn’t drag him away. They had to get to the stables, and fast.

Putting a finger to his lips, he pointed to the path ahead. Hagrid nodded, and led the way, ducking his head beneath the ferns, running as soon as they were out of earshot.

In just a few minutes they had to slow down. It was getting uncomfortably hot in their winter robes. Tom couldn’t help admiring the strange and beautiful trees and flowers, as the path left the river and skirted around a swamp. He might really have thought himself in a true equatorial jungle, but for the glorious absence of insects. On another occasion it would have been delightful. In a few minutes more they were at the far end of the hothouse, where a rocky arch and some slippery steps led down to yet another conservatory. Hagrid, however, was taken aback. He halted for a moment, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, and eagerly led the way down the steps.

“I’ve been lookin’ for this for ages, Tom. It wasn’ here the last time I looked.”

“Do you know where we are, then?” Tom asked.

“It isn’t far from where we first came in. It’s the Lotus House,” Hagrid added, looking very pleased. This sounded promising, as far as it went.

Tom followed him down the steps into the Lotus House. It was, if possible, even warmer and more humid than the tropical garden they had just left, and was filled with all kinds of rare shrubs and grasses and flowers and trees, some that Tom had only seen or read about in his herbology texts. There was water here, as well, but not a meandering brook or a waterfall: a very large pond stretched out before them. Its placid surface was speckled with the huge leaves of a giant lotus, and otherwise marred only by an occasional ripple, slightly distorting the reflected image of the vibrant trees and herbs around them. Above the hanging trees that drooped over the stagnant pool Tom caught a glimpse of the bright sky of an enchanted roof peeking through the canopy of leaves. Slowly, Hagrid skirted the edge of the pond, as though he was waiting for something to happen. In front of them, the pathway forked.

“Rubeus, which way leads out?” Tom asked after a moment’s pause. “Is it just straight ahead, or not?”

Hagrid turned his attention back to Tom, an uncertain expression passing over his face. “Er… I think it’s straight, but I’m not sure… I told yeh, I got lost on all the paths ‘round here.”

Tom sighed. “I suppose we’ll have to find out. Come on, Ru—” He stopped suddenly. There was a sound, aside from the peals of birdsong – but it was not the crunch of approaching footsteps. It was a low, muffled noise, and oddly disturbing. “Rubeus, do you hear that?” he whispered.

“Hear what?” Hagrid replied.

The sound was clearer now to Tom. In some ways it seemed familiar, but it was also strange, and quite infuriating. In fact, it was driving him insane, and his head began to throb once more.

“You mean you don’t hear it?” he said in disbelief, on the verge of covering his ears to block out the noise, although it wasn’t yet very loud.

Hagrid opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he was going to say was cut off by a tremendous splashing from the pond. The aching sound abruptly became louder still and horribly clearer – only now, he could distinguish different voices: nine of them, to be precise, and all of them were serpentine. Tom watched transfixed as the writhing heads of the Laernian Hydra emerged from the dull green depths of the pond. The maddening voices screamed in his head.

“Persephone! There yeh are!” Hagrid exclaimed happily.

“THAT’S Persephone?” Tom cried, backing away from the pond.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Hagrid said, looking at the monster longingly. “Hey Tom – yeh’re a Parselmouth, can yeh hear what she says?”

Tom could not make out anything distinct from the discordant hissing – it was impossible for even a Parselmouth to understand so many voices at once. The noise only grated on his ears, making his head pound unbearably – though he could hardly expect Hagrid to understand that. He shook his head quickly. “Let’s get out of here!”

Hagrid did not follow. The Hydra was gliding nearer to the bank where Hagrid stood; Tom couldn’t make out any specific words from the jumble of voices, but it was very clear that the creature was angry. Furiously angry. Acting on instinct, he drew his wand and darted forward, shouting a curse at the nearest head.

“Incendio!”

It was far more effective than he had expected; in a flash of light, one of the heads was gone entirely, leaving nothing but a burned and bloody stump, and the Hydra recoiled. Hagrid screamed, as outraged as the beast itself, “Stop it, Tom! What d’yeh think yeh’re doing? Yeh’ve HURT her!”

Hagrid grasped his wand and Tom realised with a shock that Hagrid might even attack him in defence of the creature – never mind the fact that Tom had probably saved him from being swallowed whole by the nearest head. The boy yelled a Stunning Spell – and Tom couldn’t move away quickly enough. He doubled over, the breath knocked out of him. Thankfully, the first-year Hagrid couldn’t manage a very powerful Stupefy, but all the same it was enough to stop Tom from making another attack. He watched helplessly as the monster splashed about in pain, and then stared in amazement and horror as not only one, but two new serpentine heads grew from the spot where Tom had destroyed the original one, equally large, and much angrier.

He cursed himself mentally. Why hadn’t he thought about Hydra mythology first? Hagrid, of course, looked immensely relieved, and even proud that “Persephone” had foiled Tom’s attack. Now completely enraged, and shrieking with ten hissing voices, it twisted round to where both he and Hagrid stood on the shore of the pond, tearing at lotus roots in its rage. The water began to hiss and boil.

“Come on, Persephone. I won’t hurt yeh,” Hagrid coaxed.

“Rubeus,” Tom panted, desperately trying to catch his breath, “We—”

“What is going on here?”

Suddenly, Tom felt himself yanked back and he stumbled unceremoniously into a large reddish-brown plant behind him. He looked up. There were Scamander and Kray, the gamekeeper. The magizoologist looked on the verge of using a spell to tear the other boy away from the Hydra, but Hagrid, apparently realising who Scamander was, backed away in sudden awe.

“What on earth are you doing here? And where are the rest of the Hogwarts students?” Scamander demanded angrily, clearly not expecting either to answer, as he turned his attention back to the monster. Kray was shouting a rapid succession of spells (from a suitable distance) in a vain attempt to calm the creature. “Worms in Tartarus! They cursed Persephone! Ten heads! She was the only perfect Laernian Hydra in the world!”

Hagrid was staring at the scene before him; Tom couldn’t tell whether he was excited or afraid – or some mixture of both, most likely. “Let’s get out of here, Rubeus!” he said frantically.

“I want to watch,” Hagrid replied.

Tom clutched his wand tightly, pointing it at the other boy’s chest. Hagrid had actually tried to Stun him, and he certainly wasn’t at all averse to cursing him back, if he had to – not with the maddening serpentine screams tearing through his head in the background. “We’re going to be in even more trouble if you don’t come on!” he hissed angrily. “We’ve got to find Professor Gryme and Professor Tempera, and everyone else from school as well!”

Reluctantly, Hagrid followed as Tom tore rapidly through the plants. Behind him, Kray and Scamander argued.

“Can’t you get it under control?” Scamander shouted above the enraged voices, his tone dripping with disdain. “Kill the blasted thing, if you have to – the last thing we need is a Hydra eating the guests!”

“You can’t kill a Laernian Hydra! Even Avada Kedavra’s no use. She’d just get more heads – and more power too. The only way to calm her’s to know her moods.”

“Well, boil the water off then, or freeze it! Can’t you see the danger? How do you know those boys were alone?”

Kray sounded affronted, even horrified. “Boil the water? That’s criminal – even if we actually could! Do you know how rare Persephone is? And this conservatory’s very well protected – they couldn’t have got here without a guide!”

“I see. Then you can deal with this creature, Kray, since you’re the one that ‘knows her moods.’ I am going to find the Hogwarts students. All of them – and their chaperones. They’re probably around here somewhere.”

Tom heard Scamander’s quick footsteps behind them. We’ve got to get out!

“The door, Tom!” Hagrid said, pointing to their left. There, all but hidden in the shrubbery, a small door lay wedged about half way up a rocky slope. Tom threw it open, and ran down the steps into the falling snow.

His teeth were already chattering, even as he looked back up through the rugged archway to where Hagrid was shutting the door on the warmth of the hothouse, and on the terror of that nightmare noise, so maddening to a wizard with the gift of Parselmouth. The sudden cold made him painfully aware of the ragged state of his robes, but he was not going back into that dreadful place. I wonder which way the house is? he thought. Behind them the huge bulk of the Great Conservatory blocked out everything in that direction. He wondered how long it would take to go around it.

“Tom?” Hagrid said suddenly.

“Yeah?”

“Why is it snowin’ here? It’s not s’posed to snow in the gardens.”

Tom shrugged, and folded his arms across his chest in a feeble attempt to keep himself warm. “I don’t know, Rubeus,” he answered defeatedly, “unless it’s different in the park.” He did not believe his own explanation. All I know is, something’s very wrong here. A terrible thought crossed his mind. What if they did get as far as the stables? It was filled with potentially dangerous animals – hundreds of them, if Hagrid was right – and even a Hippogriff could be deadly. The way these creatures were acting now, going to the stables could well be stupid. Their best hope of surviving further attacks was to join up with some other people – preferably with the Hogwarts party – but wouldn’t the tour of the stables be cut, with the animals behaving so wildly?

Tom shivered again, wrapping his frayed robes tightly around him. Cold was an even greater danger: they would die if they stayed outside too long. He was no longer thinking of trying to explain away everything all his adventures: he would come up with something when the time came. For a moment he was even tempted to go back and try his luck with Newt Scamander. No. Nothing would persuade him to go back into that terrible hothouse, with the maddening voices of Persephone, and who knew how many other dangers lying in wait within the shrubs? They must go on quickly, before they froze, and before Hagrid had time to change his mind.

“We ought to get back to the house after all.” He peered past the larger boy. There seemed to be an area of brightness and colour not too far away on their right. “Let’s go that way,” he said, pointing. I think that must be one of the gardens: at least the snow isn’t falling there, I don’t think.”

Hagrid merely nodded, too cold to do or say much else, and they set off together towards the distant patch of colour. Tom was thankful for the heavy boots after all, and also, surprisingly, for Hagrid, whose larger size made it easier for him to dig out a track through the thickening snow.

And thicken it did. In only a few minutes, he was completely wet and numb with the cold, as the snow seeped inside his boots. The wind began to get wilder, occluding the supposed garden ahead from view in a flurry of large white flakes, until even the vast domed building to their right was hidden in the dazzling cloud. Worse still, the weakness and exhaustion he had held at bay for so long was starting to come back to him. A strong, piercing wind howled in his ears, and in a few minutes he could no longer glimpse the faintest glimmer of enchanted landscape in front of him. The snow began to pile in a great drift around the boys, and against the hidden bulk of the Great Conservatory. Beside him, Hagrid trudged along silently. Neither had strength to spare for speech.

Almost half an hour had passed, and Tom was nearly spent, before a grey stone wall suddenly loomed before them out of the white miasma. Trees on the far side leaned over it, breaking into a radiance of leaf and blossom. They were quite still, as if in a different world, untouched it seemed by the storm that whirled about the grey stone wall, only a few feet below them.

Tom found it difficult to remember the next few moments, leaning against the wall as they trudged through the snow. Then he saw the door. It was small and studded with iron nails, half-hidden behind a heap of snow.

“Rubeus. It’s there. Look.”

The snowstorm didn’t gradually fade as they entered into the enchanted garden; rather, the very moment they had passed through the apparently rickety oak door, it was as if they had crossed into a whole new world. After a few moments of fumbling with the bolts, Tom and Hagrid stumbled down some steps into a bright and sunny sunken garden.

Hagrid blinked, as if his eyes had had some trouble adjusting to the sight, and Tom just stood there by the door, his weariness almost forgotten.

“Yeh know, Tom, I didn’t think it was really here.” His voice boomed through the silence of the garden like thunder, and he quickly lowered it.

The garden had a formal layout. Intersecting paths down the middle were lined with low dark green hedges, and the trees that arched overhead were at once in blossom and in fruit, as if caught in an endless summer of the Hesperides. In the very middle there was a fountain. There were patches of grass here and there, and all the flowers of early spring, stone benches in the walks and arbours, and scattered among the shrubs were statues – some of them new, some old and crumbling. At the far end was a colonnade. The wall behind them was encrusted with lichen. Arched gates led into further gardens.

Grey clouds had gathered in a ring outside, but they seemed to cast no shadow on this enchanted place. Behind them, the blizzard swirled about the garden as if blocked by an invisible wall, and within the hidden circle of magic even the sound of the wind was gone. In fact, Tom couldn’t hear anything at all: neither the song of a bird nor the buzz of an insect. Except for the faint tinkling of the fountain, like a heartbeat in that quiet place, the garden was silent as a tomb.

For about a minute the two boys stood there, almost dazed by the sudden change, Tom hovering at the foot of the steps, dizzy with loss of blood and fatigue. Then Hagrid led the way to a bench in a mossy arbour by the crumbling statue of a huge lion.

“Tom, are yeh all right?”

Tom nodded, not trusting himself to speak. It felt wrong, in a place like this. Hagrid looked worried for a moment, and then stood up and reached out to the overhanging branch of the tree. In a few moments he was back, with a selection of the most gorgeous fruits Tom had ever seen in his life.

“Yeh didn’t get lunch, did yeh?” he said, taking a piece for himself and biting into it solemnly.

Tom threw him a grateful look, and began to eat. In the next few minutes he felt considerably better; the delectable fruits were wonderfully nourishing. He had healed his wounds in the Great Conservatory, but exhaustion and loss of blood were things he could not solve by magic alone, and his trek through the snow had left him waterlogged, and almost on the edge of delirium. In a few minutes he had the strength to perform another Drying Charm, although it seemed far more difficult than it had before, and he sat on the bench, drinking in the sunlight, while his mind regretfully ran over the appalling mistakes he had made, from not turning back when he found the upstairs room occupied, to the final disaster in the Lotus House. That was the worst mistake of all: while he wasn’t sure Scamander would recognise him again – Tom’s back had been turned, after all, and most of the wizard’s attention was fixed on the Hydra – surely there was no mistaking Hagrid’s huge form.

On the other hand, perhaps it was best to be caught. It was even possible that his own indiscretions would be lost in this wave of magical disasters, or at least could be somehow explained away. And there was safety in numbers, Tom told himself. Even in this garden he felt exposed…

Not that he had any idea why. The nightmare of the storm outside had been left behind at the garden walls, and although Tom did wonder for a moment if the snow could eventually fight its way in, the strange enchantments that protected this quiet oasis seemed impervious at the moment. As for the monsters in the park, he couldn’t hear or see them at all.

Tom paused at that notion, kneeling down and turning over a stone. There were no visible creatures at all – not even the smallest spider or insect.

He wondered why the thought unnerved him so much. At least Persephone had been a danger he could see.

For a moment, Tom thought he could hear some faint noises, so faint he was sure he imagined them. It was impossible to tell which direction they came from, or if they were simply a sign of delirium.

He turned to see Hagrid regarding him thoughtfully.

“How did yeh see it?”

“See what, Rubeus?”

“How did yeh see this place, this garden? I would have missed it, yeh know.”

Tom frowned, puzzled. “Couldn’t you see it? You’re taller than I am.”

“Yeh seemed to know where we were going, Tom, so I just followed.” He paused, then continued in a quieter tone, “I’m sorry I tried to curse yeh, back there. Yeh shouldn’t have hurt Persephone, though.”

Tom was conciliatory as he replied. “I wish I hadn’t too, Rubeus. I had no idea at all what would happen, but I could hear her, or them, and it was driving me mad… but at least I didn’t want to kill her, like Scamander!”

“Scamander!” Tom had never seen a look of such disappointed fury on Hagrid’s face. “I really looked up ter him, yeh know. Thought he was different – cared about the creatures. He’s just like the rest of ‘em… wanted ter kill Persephone – just ‘cause he though that she was dangerous!”

Tom, however, had not been sorry at Scamander’s reaction. If even such an enthusiast for magical creatures had thought the beast too dangerous to be left alive with a party of schoolchildren wandering around, perhaps that excused Tom’s own reaction. He pondered the cost of spoiling the beast’s perfection. Persephone had been unique. There was probably no way they could ever find another. He wondered briefly how the second earl had ever captured the beast in the first place. Had he been a Parselmouth, perhaps? But could even a Parselmouth control so many heads? The mere sound of them for just a few minutes had been enough to drive Tom mad.

“Not that he could kill her,” Hagrid added with a triumphant smile. “Can’t even freeze her or boil her, as he said – she controls the heat of the water herself, Kray told us, when he showed us ‘round, yeh know.”

Hagrid by now seemed almost happy. The memory of the disaster in the conservatory was fading fast, and he looked content to stay in the garden indefinitely. Tom wondered if there might be some enchantment that could make people want to stay in this place, forgetting in time, like the Lotus Eaters, the very existence of the outside world. But seductive as the garden was, Tom was deeply troubled by it. Perhaps it was a sign of approaching fever, but at times, ever since he had eaten the fruit, he thought he could sense faint, unseen voices, behind the bubbling of the little spring, just at the very edge of his hearing.

Hagrid, however, could hear nothing at all. He took another fruit down from the tree, happily munching away as he talked.

Tom paused, considering what he could use to persuade someone like Hagrid to go. He could simply leave on his own, he supposed, and hope that the Hagrid would decide to follow him, rather than risk being left behind. But the last thing he wanted was a row in a place like this, and he dreaded going back into the storm alone. He wouldn’t have made it so far without Hagrid.

“There are no creatures here, Rubeus,” he said at last.

“What?” He glanced around. For the first time since they’d come into the garden, Hagrid began to look uneasy. “I can’t think how I missed that. I always notice them first, yeh know. D’yeh think it’s the magic?”

“It’s not just animals, Rubeus. There aren’t any birds: not even insects – and yet the trees are all in blossom. It’s as if they’re being kept away, or… or as if they know avoid the place, somehow...” Again there was a very faint sound of voices.

“Yer right, Tom. That’s… that’s weird. No creatures at all – except the statues.”

He turned to look at the lion beside them. Tom could hear the taller boy’s gasp. “Tom, it’s not a lion, it’s a manticore!”

Tom got up from his chair and looked at the carved figure, clutching the wand tightly in his hand. The scorpion’s tail was hidden in the flowers, but a man’s face was clearly visible as he rounded the head, a look of terror on its face. It was so lifelike that he instantly recoiled.

“Yeh… don’t s’pose it was alive, do yeh?”

“No, Rubeus, I don’t,” Tom replied, more firmly than he felt. He bit back his instinctive question, you don’t suppose it could come to life? The last thing he wanted was to give Hagrid a reason for wanting to stay. Would he really want to meet a live manticore?

Well, yes. He really might.

Tom took the lead as they wandered through the garden, pausing for a minute to let Hagrid catch up, who would stop now and then to look at the statues. Most of the beasts they portrayed were dangerous, a few of them strange even to Hagrid. Many were not in Scamander’s book, or, Tom fancied, even in Drake’s, but some of the statues were of harmless creatures, and a few were even statues of people. They only had one thing in common: the faces of all were frozen in horror.

The wrought iron gate that led into the next garden opened to a touch of Tom’s hand, and they stepped into a peristyle, paved with a bright mosaic of coloured stones. Four colonnades with pillars of white marble supported warm and red-tiled roofs, and enclosed a garden filled with fragrant plants. In the middle, surrounded by shrubs, was a wide pool with a stone rim. The water’s surface was covered with lilies.

The voices he’d heard were louder now. There was no mistaking them, although still their meaning just eluded him. They were almost too faint to hear, all at variance with one another but somehow twined into a single chorus. He dismissed the thought of another Hydra – Persephone was one of a kind here. But instinctively Tom knew that in this courtyard they approached the hidden danger he had sensed.

It, too, was full of statues.

Tom drew back at the top of the steps that led from the colonnade down into the garden. “Rubeus! Don’t go there! It’s dangerous!”

His words had no effect on Hagrid. His eyes were alight with curiosity. Now the Gryffindor had reached the pool. A stone monster with scores of tentacles glinted in the sunlight, seemingly fossilised as it writhed in the lilies, while in the bushes a Chimaera crouched, frozen as it prepared to leap. “Look, Tom! A Chimaera!”

Tom hesitated, and followed him a few steps, down to the path between the shrubs. The feeling of fear and discomfort grew stronger. Why couldn’t Hagrid feel it too?

With that sense of foreboding, Tom reluctantly followed Hagrid to the pool. By that time, the younger boy was almost on the other side. He turned to face Tom, and opened his mouth to speak. Then a change came over his face.

Tom suddenly noticed a human shape rise from her seat in the shrubbery by the pool, her hair waving and twisting in madness, and the voices in Tom’s ears rose to clarity, and he heard the interwoven words of some archaic and terrible spell. Hagrid’s eyes widened in horror, and for the first time since Tom had known him the boy screamed, a shout that was quickly cut off as Hagrid’s body changed into stone before Tom’s eyes, an expression of frightened shock frozen on his face.

Tom’s eyes fell as the figure turned towards him; he guessed at once that the creature was a gorgon, a terrible nightmare of Muggle mythology he hadn’t even believed to exist, and he was not about to make Hagrid’s mistake. He had a brief glimpse in a gap between the lilies of a reflected face whose writhing hair was made out of hundreds of tiny serpents that twisted to strike as the gorgon turned. Strangely, the face was not without a certain beauty, but somehow it was wrong – horribly wrong – and it held a look of such bitterness and pain that for a moment Tom was paralysed with fear, as still as the statues all about him.

He forced himself to turn and run. He dared not look back. There was a scampering of swift and practiced feet at his heels as he hurtled through an arch and across a green lawn, while the voices rose to a wail in his ears. Through a gap in the hedge a high wall loomed, and with a leap he caught the branch of a tree, swinging himself up. His robe caught on a thorn bush and with a tearing of cloth he scrambled onto the wall…

…and was stopped. He couldn’t jump over to the other side. A cloud of swirling white shapes outside blocked his view and the terror in his mind heightened to panic.

And then, quite suddenly, the resistance was gone, and he found himself falling, hurtling down into a deep drift of snow.

The cold hit him like a blow, after the warm garden. Shivering, he tore down the bank and across a wide sheet of ice, fighting the wind until it threw him into a bank of snow on the far side. For a brief moment he saw a light, winking in the vast whiteness; then it vanished. He clambered up desperately, and looked behind him.

There was no sign of the garden now. Below him the river he had unwittingly crossed was frozen hard, and covered with clouds of snow, swept along in the furious gale. A little to the left on the far side, he could just make out the dark silhouettes of Mountwarlock Park, the tower of the keep briefly visible through a gap in the white blizzard. He was outside the house, and outside the grounds. Behind him somewhere must be the village. He needed to reach it before he froze. A sudden blast threw him to his knees.

Tom scrambled further up the slope. There was the light in the snow again, but now it had stopped. Wading closer he suddenly stumbled on a Muggle car, caught in a drift, its headlights blazing. A man in a dark coat rose from behind the door, and appeared to be trying to shout through the wind, but Tom couldn’t make out what he was saying. The coated figure reached out and helped him forward, and bundled him into a seat in the front.

Tom breathed again, glad to be out of the wind, and felt for his wand for a last covert Drying Charm, hoping the Muggle beside wouldn’t notice.

It wasn’t there.

His heart sank, but he was almost too tired to despair, as his Muggle rescuer climbed in the seat on the other side. Wandless, cut off from his companions, he might as well have been a Muggle himself.

To be continued...

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Authors’ Note: Please feel free to send any questions, thoughts, or comments to [email protected] and [email protected]. Feedback is very much appreciated.

ETA on Chapter Four is Sunday, June 9.