The Arithmancer's Apprentice

Chapter Six

The room was dark for only a moment. Almost at once the shadowed figure of Lord Mountwarlock was bathed in light as the candles and oil lamps across the room, briefly flickering, burned with their yellow flames once more, caressing the leather-bound books and upholstered chairs with a gentle glow. Standing only a foot away, the earl looked far more alarming than when seen from above in the golden library. Tom swallowed and stepped back a pace as the earl gave him a swift, stern glance through his gilt-edged monocle and then turned his attention to Cleopatra, who remained by the chronoscope, wide-eyed and, for once, speechless.

“Cleopatra, what do you think you’re doing?” he asked. His voice was quiet, but there was an edge to his tone that made Tom shiver.

“I’m very sorry,” Cleopatra said at once. “We had to use the chronoscope. I had to find out—”

“I have been attempting to ‘find out’ a number of things myself this afternoon – and it appears that you have too, in spite of my warnings – and without my knowledge or my consent. Please explain why you disobeyed me.”

Cleopatra removed the ring from her finger, and handed it to her father without hesitation. Tom was torn between a sense of relief, that it was finally – utterly – out of his hands, and a simultaneous feeling of failure, that after all his trouble that day he had ended up with nothing to show for it.

“It’s this ring, Papa,” Cleopatra said quickly. “I don’t know how, but it diverts our magic – and even a complete outsider can use it, and manipulate our enchantments – and not just ours, but any magic. It’s caused all the problems we’ve had today.”

The earl inspected it intently for a few moments. Then he set it down on his desk, as if he feared to keep it in his hands. “I thought I had taught you more respect for enchanted artefacts like this,” he said gravely to his daughter. Cleopatra frowned, worry written across her face.

“But Papa, I had to use it just now,” she replied, a note of protest in her otherwise deferential voice. “I know everything now. You know the magic has been disrupted before, in 1915, and in twenty-four – and on each occasion this ring was to blame! There’s been a very powerful Concealment Charm on it that hid it completely from our enchantments – it’s been hidden in the house for years. That’s what the chronoscope showed just now – Professor Gryme was hiding the ring.”

Lord Mountwarlock stared at her, apparently surprised, and folded his arms in front of him thoughtfully. “It certainly was quite a spectacle – the little of it I was in time to see. I wondered how much you knew about your uncle… but that can wait, for now.” Fixing his gaze on Tom, he asked with a frown, “Who exactly is your companion?”

Cleopatra stole a quick glance at Tom and launched into the story before he even had a chance to open his mouth. “This is Tom Riddle, a Hogwarts student – and also Dr. Gryme’s apprentice,” she said quickly. “His professor sent him to take this ring” – she gestured toward the desk – “from a painting in my study, where he had hidden it – the night before he left the house.”

Tom watched as the earl’s expression shifted from complete suspicion to wary interest. “I sent all the Hogwarts students back to the village several hours ago,” he observed.

“He’s been separated >from the rest of them since the morning,” Cleopatra said. Tom fidgeted nervously, feeling even more uneasy as Cleopatra referred to him in the third person, appearing to distance herself from him under her father’s questioning, but on reflection he was glad that she seemed to be doing all the explanations.

“So I see,” said the earl, focused on Tom. “And your Dr. Gryme must be searching for you now, or attempting to. Well, that does explain one thing.” Tom was curious, but the earl did not elaborate. “So,” he said, “you were asked to take – or steal, rather – the ring from this house. And you did so, at the same time losing your way… even to the point of finding yourself in the village, and the Black Unicorn?”

“Yes, sir,” Tom said, looking down to avoid the gaze behind the gilt-edged monocle. Mundungus at the Unicorn must have told him everything.

“And you used this ring, thereby throwing our protective charms into disarray?”

“Yes, sir. I did. I am sorry.” He lifted his head and forced himself to look the earl in the face.

“It’s not altogether his fault,” Cleopatra said. “It’s hard to believe, but he didn’t even know he was using the ring. You see, our protective enchantments sensed his presence, and sought him out as an intruder...”

“That is because he is an intruder,” Lord Mountwarlock pointed out matter-of-factly.

“But they couldn’t find him. You see, Papa, I think the charm Dr. Gryme put on the ring when he hid it away diverted all the enchantments of ours – the ones that were searching for the ring – and twisted them into actually helping to hide it. Our enchantments couldn’t locate Tom directly, so they stirred up the weather instead, and the animals too. The protective charms weren’t broken, Papa. They simply became… much more vigorous.” She paused for a moment, allowing her words to sink in. She seemed to be only just grasping herself the full implications of what she had said.

“Vigorous? I suppose that’s one way of putting it. And so, when he’d thrown my house into chaos, you then saw fit to invite him in here?” The earl’s voice was deceptively mild, but Tom could sense anger in his words.

“Well, he did have the sense to come back to give me the ring and confess what he’d done,” Cleopatra added, “as soon as he began to guess what was really going on. And it’s because of Tom here that I’ve worked out exactly what has been going on. Unfortunately, it was already too late – a lot of bad things have already happened.”

The Earl of Mountwarlock adjusted his monocle and gazed at Tom thoughtfully. He felt as thought the earl could see straight through him. With a rapid wave of his hand Lord Mountwarlock pointed to a group of chairs by the table. “I think you should sit down – both of you.”

It was an order, although politely phrased, and Tom and Cleopatra did as he asked. Neither was willing to cross the earl. Tom sank into the chair gratefully, though, and was reminded of how exhausted he was. From their lower vantage point Lord Mountwarlock looked even more imposing than he had before as he strode across the room and wrote a few words in a large black book. Then he took a seat himself.

“Now,” he said grimly, with a meaningful glance at Tom, “tell me what happened, from the very beginning.”

Tom swallowed hard, and looked down at the table. It was piled high with books and quills, bundles of parchment and paintbrushes, none of which gave him any inspiration. He wondered just how far Cleopatra would be willing to defend him, for he only had news to offer the earl, and bad news at that, to make amends for the chaos he’d caused. Lord Mountwarlock had been visibly annoyed already, and although that annoyance had been partly replaced by curiosity, even interest, the earl had yet to learn of Hagrid’s fate and Scamander’s plot. Was there a way (as a Parselmouth) that Tom could undo the gorgon’s spell? He fervently hoped it would not come to that. Whatever trouble he might have to escape, that was one secret he still wished to keep.

With sudden determination, he looked up from the book he’d been staring at, Burke’s Magical Landed Gentry of Ireland, and taking a deep breath he began to relate his story once more.

This time he resolved to leave out nothing. He could not afford to be caught in a lie, and the nature of his adventures would speak for themselves. He began with Professor Gryme’s instructions to him as they were walking up to the house – only seven hours ago, he thought with surprise, and described how he’d left the vaulted library, and had found Cleopatra in the study upstairs. The earl looked down at his daughter thoughtfully.

“Cleo, if you were still working up there, then how on earth did Tom take the ring?”

“I offered him tea, and we talked, Papa,” Cleopatra admitted, blushing slightly with embarrassment. “I left him for a moment by the painting, while I went to fetch a book.”

Tom had the grace to look ashamed.

“Why didn’t you ask him to go downstairs?”

Cleopatra looked at her father awkwardly. “To be honest, I almost did at first, but I didn’t think it would be polite, Papa – and I really was curious to know more. But he was uncomfortable to be there for long while the rest of his party were still downstairs. He was afraid they would go before he returned.”

The earl frowned. “Which I presume they did. And you,” he added, turning to Tom, “stayed in the hope you could take the ring.”

Tom avoided his eyes, and Cleopatra’s. “Dr. Gryme told me to come straight back down if I saw anyone. But I didn’t want to let him down, and then… it was interesting to stay and talk.”

It was not as simple as that, of course. For years, Tom had known only helpless poverty. Only from the time he had come to Hogwarts had he guessed the power that lay in his reach, and only in these last few months, as Dr. Gryme’s secret apprentice, had he learned to explore its true extent. But Mountwarlock Park had been his first glimpse of a world he had barely dreamed existed, and Cleopatra had let him inside it. It had been tempting to delay going down to Professor Gryme in the library, where he would become once more a complete outsider, escorted by Knowles with the rest of the party; with Cleopatra, he’d had a glimpse of this rarefied way of life – of the ancient noble wizarding families.

He wondered if he was like that to Cleopatra, too: a window onto a different world.

“Tom was very curious about Professor Gryme,” she spoke up suddenly, bringing him back to the conversation.

The earl gave Tom a wintry smile. “For that information you should have come to me. So, what did you find when you came downstairs?”

With a little more confidence now, Tom proceeded with his narration, all the while conscious of the earl’s stare fixed upon him. He described his journey through the house and the strange red book he’d found in the library (to which the earl gave almost no reaction, to Tom’s surprise). He related the encounter with the griffin on the stair, the mad scramble across the roof, and the dramatic crash into the Great Conservatory. Tom was a good storyteller, and after a while he began to detect a certain unwilling appreciation on the face of the earl, in spite of the litany of damage and disaster, as he described the maiming of Persephone and Kray’s altercation with Newt Scamander.

Cleopatra interrupted frequently with explanations of her own as they retraced his steps that afternoon – only a few hours ago, in fact. Lord Mountwarlock now remained silent, listening in worried fascination, as Tom went on to speak of his escape with Hagrid, and their trudging through the storm as the snow heaped up in drifts about them.

“And then at last we reached a garden – I alone could see it at first – and in this garden all the enchantments were quite unaffected by the storm outside: there was fruit – and blossom – on all the trees. It was peaceful, and very beautiful. My friend gave me fruit to help me recover, and I healed myself, slowly, because it was hard to do magic there…”

“It was our gorgon’s garden, Papa,” Cleopatra said, clearly still troubled by that fact. “I think – well, it must have been the ring that let him in. It let him escape, too, with a great deal of effort, but his friend was turned to stone!”

The earl, who had been relatively calm during the entire story, through the damage to the hothouse and the spoiling of Persephone, suddenly went pale with shock, just as Cleopatra had beforehand. There was a long silence. Cleopatra looked furtively over at Tom, and then said, a bit tentatively, “Is there any way to reverse it?”

Lord Mountwarlock pursed his lips with obvious and extreme displeasure. “There is,” he said at last. “A difficult and risky method, but one which I shall doubtless be compelled to try.”

“I had hoped,” said Tom hesitantly, and then began again. “I had wondered how your ancestor acquired the magical menagerie, when it’s all but impossible to capture a manticore, and quite a number of your creatures. I hoped it might have been because he used the gorgon – because that would mean the spell can be reversed.”

Lord Mountwarlock nodded, but did not elaborate. “You had better tell me the rest,” he said.

So Tom went on with his narration, explaining how the Muggle had rescued him, and brought him to the Black Unicorn – and how he’d begun to work out what happened from what Mundungus and his daughter had said.

“There’s more, though,” put in Cleopatra. “It seems that Mr. Newt Scamander was in the Black Unicorn as well. He didn’t come to warn you, he went there instead – and summoned Ministry officials to help him. They’d have left the inn by the time you arrived, but the Ministry of Magic is using this as the chance they’ve been waiting for, to seize control of our whole immunity. Mr. Scamander wants the house as well as the village brought under permanent supervision, and all our beasts put in Ministry zoos. Now he’s brought them to try and take over, because our magic is out of control. He thinks the Hogwarts children are all in danger.”

The earl’s expression was frozen in anger; his hand clenched about his wand. “Threatened from within and without all at once,” he murmured quietly to himself, “like vultures when they think you’re hurt...” He turned to Tom once more. “Fortunately, for the moment, the weather should keep Scamander at bay for a while – though it ought to be getting better now, now that the ring is back in our hands. I’m more worried about who actually listened to him – and who he’s relying on at the Ministry, to back him up if it all goes wrong.”

“He spoke to Lancelot Harker,” Tom offered. “I wasn’t all that close to him, but because of the ring I could hear all he said, even through his Privacy Ward. In fact it may have twisted the magic to make it easier for me to hear him. It’s not just your magic it circumvents.” Lord Mountwarlock frowned once again.

“Of course he’d seek out the school governors,” he said. “It makes it a far more difficult a situation to remedy, since your companion from school is not only missing, but actually has been frozen in stone, making his allegations come true.” Tom looked away guiltily.

“He’s spread the word that we’re all in danger. He saw me – and Rubeus – attacked by Persephone, and without any teachers in sight, you see. He really thinks that all of us are wandering about on our own – and being attacked by dangerous beasts.”

“Which, in your case, was actually true. I wonder if word of this has got around to the children’s parents.”

“They’ll have been almost the first to hear. He asked Mr. Harker to bring as many of them as he could. Some parents of third years work at the Ministry.”

“Which means that almost nothing will stop them, if they’re worried about their children – but it should be easy to slow them down, while I decide what I ought to do… All the same, I ought to have noticed them by now.” The earl frowned thoughtfully, staring past Tom at the wall through his monocle. Suddenly he shook his head.

 “I wonder for how many years my friend Scamander has toyed with such plans,” he said quietly, as if to himself. Then he turned to Tom once more. “However, I think that for the moment, other matters should first be addressed. They cannot Apparate into the grounds – and they should have a great deal of trouble in walking here.”

“I spoke to Mr. Harvey Lunchington next,” Tom continued. “He seemed to think that Mr. Scamander was stirring up a hornet’s nest, when I told him what I’d heard.”

“You spoke to Lunchington as well? Good. If he’s here – if nothing else, at least the Prophet won’t slander me.”

Tom shrugged his shoulders. I wonder how much of my true story Lord Mountwarlock will repeat to the press. He wondered too what Mountwarlock’s relations were with whoever owned the Daily Prophet. Come to think of it, who did own the Daily Prophet? He had not forgotten that he’d given a seriously misleading version of the truth to the journalist – along, unfortunately, with his name. Could Mountwarlock hush it up? He decided that such a question would wait until later, and finished retelling the rest of his story, right up to the vision in the chronoscope, when Cleopatra interrupted.

“We watched Professor Gryme enchant the ring, and try to use it – and he really did succeed, Papa. He Summoned his wand, without even touching it, using our very own enchantments.” She paused. “And then, suddenly, it all went wrong. The windows shattered and there was snow.”

“And then?”

“It was more than snow – a blizzard, a gale: and it was quite without warning, you see. Professor Gryme got up from his desk. You could see he was scared. Then the image went black, and I had to use the ring, Papa, in order to see the rest of what happened – to see him hide it in the painting.” Cleopatra added after a moment, “I think that somehow, I must have undone that Concealment Charm, when I used the ring to reveal itself… or else, would you have found us here?”

“Not, I think, at that very moment,” the earl conceded, “but that is not of great importance. I would have uncovered it all in the end.” He seemed very confident, and Tom didn’t doubt him.

“This ring is not a possession of Dr. Gryme’s, as you may have thought, but a family heirloom – we have several like it, though not with this one’s astounding potency – and you” – he glanced over at Tom through his monocle – “were attempting to steal it for him.”

Tom frowned and against his better judgement argued back, “Professor Gryme can be sometimes… misleading, but I’ve never known him tell an outright lie – and we watched him enchant it through the chronoscope!”

“Yes, we saw it all through the chronoscope,” Cleopatra agreed.

“Cleopatra, you of all people should know that it’s all but impossible for anyone but a Mountwarlock to use or control the enchantments here. There were several of these rings, you see: they were made for us by Wayland Smith. Dr. Gryme could not have enchanted it – whatever you think you saw him do.”

“But there are almost surely layers of spells on it, for it to be so powerful. And the last layer is definitely his,” Cleopatra went on stubbornly. “It wasn’t only then that he used it – he’d used its power once before, in 1915, when—” She closed her mouth abruptly, looking embarrassed. Lord Mountwarlock, however, had guessed what Cleopatra had wished to say.

“When my brother – your uncle – died,” he said tersely. Cleopatra nodded.

“He drew on our house’s magic for power, so he could go back in time to Atlantis. We don’t know how the enchantments went wrong though,” she admitted quietly. “Uncle Zeuxes was one of us, so the weather should not have reacted against him.”

“I wondered about that myself… Zeuxes did have a magical ring, before he was lost – in fifteen. He’d been developing it for years,” the earl said, as much to himself as to Cleopatra, “and it was indeed a way of diverting the house’s enchantments. But that ring was lost with him when he died. An outsider wouldn’t have it now – and shouldn’t have been able to use it then.”

“Then how does this one exist?” Cleopatra asked softly. “Did my uncle enchant it, too, before the professor did?”

“I suppose the answer to that question lies with Dr. Gryme himself.”

There was a silence, except for the crackling of wood in the fire and the howl of the wind beyond the window. “I studied under Abbacus Gryme at Durmstrang,” Lord Mountwarlock said at length. “It was my influence that persuaded my father to bring him here as our librarian when old Mr. Pergamon wished to retire – and also as my personal tutor. I sometimes think he hated the school as much as I did – and of course in fourteen it was all very difficult.”

And there, Tom thought, was the truth of the matter, for Dr. Gryme had remained at Durmstrang until the Muggle war had started – and Grindelwald at the very same time had begun to rebuild the Dark Order. His mind went back to Mundungus’ words about Dr. Gryme, and those mysterious visitors who had come to stay at the Black Unicorn in the months after he had arrived – the foreign wizards, the ones Mundungus had found so disturbing. Had they been Dark Wizards, perhaps from Durmstrang?

“Why did Dr. Gryme go back to teach there, if he disliked the school so much?”

“He was lucky to have been taught there. It was advantageous, in a worldly sense, to know so many children from powerful families – and academically, even in those days the school was good. He was originally born in Bohemia – not England. His father was steward to Baron von Edelheim of Schloss Tarnhausen. Gryme’s family is in fact very old – especially on his mother’s side – but was not at all wealthy or important… The Baron paid for him to go to Durmstrang. Do you know any of this?” he asked.

Tom wordlessly shook his head.

He eyed Tom curiously. “I agree with you that Dr. Gryme wouldn’t lie – at least, he wouldn’t tell an outright lie. It isn’t his way – or at least it wasn’t his way when I knew him.” He opened a book on the table before him, and this time Tom caught a glimpse of bright colours, and a line of ink that seemed to be writing across the page by itself, as if it came from an invisible hand. At the bottom of the page a figure in a purple cloak seemed to be speaking up at the earl – but Lord Mountwarlock’s effortless Privacy Ward blocked Tom’s hearing all too well. Cleopatra was straining her ears, but Tom was not able to hear a word.

At length Lord Mountwarlock closed the book and turned to Tom and Cleopatra. “Heriot Morton won’t talk to me yet – this sudden business with Grindelwald (an overblown threat, if ever there was one) has got in the way of ‘local’ matters – so it seems we still have a little time – enough to confer with Dr. Gryme. I think he has a lot to explain.”

Tom blinked, surprised, although he privately agreed. “Isn’t he now at the Dancing Warlock, with the rest of the Hogwarts party?”

“Indeed he is – but not for long. And if nothing else, he has done a splendid job of concealing your absence.” Abruptly, the earl looked up. “Of course, I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, Professor.”

Tom twisted around in his chair, following Lord Mountwarlock’s gaze. There, standing in front of the overflowing bookcases, was Dr. Gryme. He looked more surprised and uncomfortable than Tom had ever seen him before, though he quickly tried to mask this expression with his usual composure.

Gryme nodded in Tom’s direction and took a few steps forward. “Tom, I’m relieved to see you are, by all appearances, unharmed.” Tom, previously burning with questions, found himself silent. Gryme’s features looked resigned, and he met the earl’s tight-lipped stare calmly, squaring his shoulders as he continued. “Gerontius. I suppose it was you who allowed me to enter – and saw to it that I came here.”

The earl nodded. “Of course. I knew someone had been attempting to enter the house from the mural at the Dancing Warlock – it was logical to suppose it was you.”

“And it would likewise be logical for me to assume that you brought me here for an explanation.”

“Indeed it would.” Lord Mountwarlock plucked the ring from his desk. “I think, Dr. Gryme, that this may – or, rather, may not – belong to you?”

Gryme gave a small half smile, but was wise enough not to reach his hand out for the golden object. “One could say that it is mine. It was given to me.”

“Then I am deeply curious as to how it came into your hands,” Lord Mountwarlock said, a ripple of disbelief in his tone, “because unless I am very much mistaken, it was made by Wayland Smith himself, and has been an heirloom of my family for a good deal more than a thousand years.”

“Of course it is,” Dr. Gryme replied. “Your brother Zeuxes would never use anything but the best for his experiments – and especially for his ‘great’ experiment.”

The earl bristled. “No,” he admitted, “Zeuxes certainly wouldn’t have used anything less. He gave it to you then? Or did he simply entrust you with it, for some secret purpose?”

“Yes – he did give it to me. He even enchanted it so I could use it.”

“But we saw you enchant it, in the chronoscope,” Tom blurted out, earning a brief, irritated cough from Cleopatra, who glanced meaningfully at the earl. Her father’s face was unreadable, but Gryme was watching Tom with something like respect.

“I should have guessed that you would find out whatever you could,” he mused. “Yes, I admit, I did put my own spells on the ring, but those were merely the last of many layers of enchantments.”

There was a brief silence, which was broken by the earl. “Abbacus,” he said with a hint of impatience, “we don’t have very much time – or at least I don’t. There have been some developments in the last few hours that you can’t have been aware of, cut off as you were in the Dancing Warlock. Please tell me now what you know of this ring, and then I shall make up my mind what to do.” With a wave of his hand four steaming drinks appeared on the table. “You appear to need this,” he said to Tom.

It took you a while to notice, he thought.

All the same, Tom was grateful as he sipped the drink, which seemed to contain some healing fluids far stronger than anything Mundungus had given him. His strength rapidly returned, and even the cuts on his arms and face seemed to disappear at once, while Dr. Gryme looked first at the earl, and then, longingly, at the ring. Last of all he gazed at Tom himself. Cleopatra remained in her chair to the side, silent and (for the moment) ignored.

“I remember I told you once about Wayland Smith,” he said to Tom, as he sat in the chair Lord Mountwarlock indicated. “And Professor Binns may have done so too. With regard to the charming of magical objects, he was probably the most skilful smith there has ever been in Northern Europe – perhaps the greatest smith after Hephaestus. But I don’t know if he actually made this ring, or just wove his enchantments into its substance. He enchanted a number of rings, you know, but this was one of the most remarkable.”

He turned back to the earl. “Zeuxes never spoke much of his experiments, even to his family. As far as I know, none of you were particularly interested – if anything I think you, and your father, were rather resentful. You especially did all the work here, all that you thought he should have done as the heir, while he went on adventures to search for Atlantis – his twenty-year mission to conquer the past.”

Tom could see that Gryme had evidently come too close to the truth: Lord Mountwarlock frowned severely, his brow furrowing, but he did not answer. “In any case,” Gryme continued softly, “Zeuxes wanted to use the rings to help him go back into the past. The whole purpose of these magical objects was to contain and direct other enchantments, far more precisely than any wizard alone could achieve. But Zeuxes knew his limitations: he did not have the skill to surpass Wayland Smith.”

“That wouldn’t have stopped him,” observed the earl.

“No, it didn’t stop him. There was an alternative to Wayland’s skill, a practice once used by Moorish magicians for the enchantment of lamps – and rings – but whose use in Europe had till then been quite limited. The idea was simply to use Arithmantic calculations to control the spells for enchanting an object, and achieve a precision in one’s enchantments which hitherto had not been achieved.” Professor Gryme paused and looked once more at Tom.

“That is why he went to Alqazar – his skill had already surpassed my own even before he left Durmstrang, and he learned far more in the years to come. Now and then there were rumours of strange discoveries of his, much distorted in the telling, but I never paid much attention – his youthful obsession to conquer the past had always been alien to my mind… Then the Muggle war broke out, and when the troubles began at Durmstrang, I was invited here to England,” he gave a small bow to Lord Mountwarlock, “just when Zeuxes came back from his very last journey – with a certain remarkable painting.” He paused. There was silence in the room. Cleopatra’s attention appeared undivided, as she stared at her grandfather’s old librarian.

“This painting was unique. Gerontius of course will know what it’s like, but if you two haven’t seen it, it will be hard for you to imagine. Zeuxes never told me where or how he found it, or even what price he had paid to acquire it. You may know that paintings by a skilful master with enchanted pigments and yolk of Diricawl can retain something of their power to Apparate, and bind two separate places together. This painting, now, had all that and more, for it had been made with the yolk of a phoenix.”

Cleopatra gasped in amazement.

“I don’t know how it was possible,” said Gryme, who turned towards her for the first time. “There was nothing about it in your uncle’s notes – whatever of them I could find, that is. A phoenix will rise straight from its ashes, after all, and I had never seen or heard of its egg – or even which painter would have dared to use one. But he assured me of what it was, and as soon as I saw it, I believed him.

“In some ways it was the most marvellous object I’ve seen in my life – even including that ring over there. Unlike the doorway pictures in this house, this painting could take you anywhere – absolutely anywhere. At first sight the picture seemed to flow gently, perhaps like the view from a bird in the sky, but if a powerful wizard bent his mind to it, the image could show any place he pleased – any place in space, or time…”

“But not so far with an ordinary wizard,” the earl explained.

“No indeed. In truth, it required a powerful witch or wizard to bend it to his will at all, and even then what it would show you was not far away, only a few hours, a few hundreds of miles… To go much further required intricate spells, and Zeuxes would spend weeks preparing them, but he still wanted more – much, much more: to go thousands of miles – and thousands of years.”

“And he asked you to help in his last experiment,” Lord Mountwarlock added quietly.

“I saw no danger in it at first – you must believe me in this, Gerontius – and it was utterly fascinating. For months the two of us argued the logic, the Arithmantic calculations, the endless inventive algorithms. Your brother’s idea was that by harnessing the threads of magic within the house, he could gain enough power to throw back the image to portray Atlantis, and step through the painting into the past. He knew your father would not agree to risk your house’s enchantments in this way, so he could not work the spell in the house itself – but to use the magic it had to be close by: within your enchanted immunity. So he took an upstairs room at the Black Unicorn. He would take one ring with him, it was decided, to cover his passage into the past, while I had the other, to keep the painting open for him to return.”

“So my brother succeeded. It was you that failed.”

“He did succeed, Gerontius. The theory behind the spell was faultless – he was nearly a year in preparing for it. It would have worked in practice too, but Zeuxes and I forgot one fatal flaw.” Dr. Gryme shivered as he recalled the occasion. “He did not fully take into account what would happen if a ‘foreign’ wizard – one who did not belong to your family – were to use such an object to control your threads of magic. I managed to hold the enchantments in place, as long as he himself was in our time to support me, but the moment he was gone the magic broke loose, with a power I’d never known or imagined.”

He paused, obviously reliving that night in 1915. For a moment Tom felt sorry for him.

“It was terrible,” he continued after a moment. “He stood beside me as we stared through at the brilliant temples and palaces, the burning mountain, the dark green sea, the ships with brightly-coloured sails. Then he stepped inside the frame.

“After that, I only remember being unable to control the spell, and a wild surge of unharnessed power; I have blotted most of it since from my mind – except, at times, when it haunts my dreams. I was helpless as I watched him be swept away from behind that wooden frame.”

There was a stunned silence. Tom stared at his professor in amazement. “I suppose,” the Arithmancer said at last, “you could say that I caused his death. If I had taken his place, perhaps, he could surely have kept the door open for me. But he had lived and dreamed of that moment for more than twenty years. For another to take that first step in the past was too much to ask of his small patience. However, though your father cleared me of blame – for I hid nothing from him except my own ring – I did not entirely absolve myself.”

“Why, and how, did you keep your ring hidden, from my father, of all people?” Lord Mountwarlock asked in a tight voice.

“How? He wasn’t nearly as powerful as his sons, even in his own home; he could not use even this great chronoscope, the one your brother had made himself. And I told the truth about everything else, so he could see that I did not lie. But as for why I hid the ring…” Gryme trailed off for a moment, as if collecting his thoughts. “I did become keenly interested in what had gone wrong with the magic that day, and why my ring had failed to help me... In the end it took me nearly a decade of surreptitious spells in my chamber, sleepless nights translating old tomes, to duplicate, as far as I could, Zeuxes’ original work – there’s much even now that I don’t understand. It all but broke my health in the end – but finally I perfected my ring.”

“And why,” inquired the earl curiously, “did you want to create such a thing? To enter our house and go through our enchantments without me or my father being the wiser?”

“That is merely one possible use,” Dr. Gryme explained. “It can divert nearly any magic, you see, not just your own, including other spells cast nearby: possibly even Avada Kedavra – although I wouldn’t like to test that! When I completed the enchantment, I had an idea it might be a protection.

“Ah, now we come to it: a protection from whom?”

“From my old companions at Durmstrang Institute: the Brotherhood of the Golden Branch.”

Lord Mountwarlock gave a grim smile. Then with a wave of his arm he gestured towards Tom and Cleopatra. “Perhaps you would like to explain, Professor?”

Dr. Gryme finished the drink before him, cleared his throat, and began to speak once more.

“Schools of all kind leave their mark on you, and the Durmstrang Institute was no exception. It is much more beautiful than Hogwarts, for one thing: the castle, the gardens, the wild northern landscape. But there’s a miasma too about Durmstrang – or at least the Institute as it was then: it eats into you, and you can never be free of it again. Some people gained a new strength from resisting it.” He looked meaningfully at the earl. “Others were broken, some just grew corrupt.

“But of course, at first I was all but excluded. In a school without rules, without even prefects, whom you know is everything, and to begin with I knew no one at all. It was bad enough for you, Gerontius, when you refused to join a brotherhood, but I had no family any had heard of – I was not even invited to join.”

“Except, of course, by the Golden Branch.”

“That happened halfway through the year. I began to find others in my predicament – not quite all of us in our first year. One had been through hellish torments, and the Professors were powerless to intervene – until Karl von Hledingen brought us together, and eight of us swore to help one another.

“That was the beginning of the Brotherhood of the Golden Branch, in which a number of wizard-boys of old but now forgotten families banded together, and because we had suffered, and were now so vulnerable, we made the bonds stronger – and a great deal Darker.”

“You need not explain the details of that,” Lord Mountwarlock interrupted quickly with a glance toward Cleopatra.

“No? Well, we did protect one another. We later learned that the Golden Branch was not an original creation, as some of us had thought, but had come into being many times before, and was linked at its heart to one of the most mysterious and controversial of all the old Durmstrang brotherhoods – at its highest levels it operated as a secret society – its leaders were wizards who had left the school years before. And we had a blood-oath always to obey whichever master or brother we followed. Gradually we sank in deeper.

“Eventually, we left the school, one by one, still haunted by our old blood-oath, although it appeared to rest – for a while. Some of us were ashamed by then, of a number of things we had done. I travelled, and went to Alqazar – it’s hard to realise now, you see, what a reputation it used to have then in Arithmancy. Later I had… difficulties, with my father in Bohemia – and so I went back to teach at Durmstrang.”

“And then the Muggle War broke out,” said the earl.

“Yes, the Muggle War broke out – and all hell broke loose at Durmstrang. If there had been children of Muggle parentage allowed in, I doubt if the school would have even survived. The fury within the houses, within the brotherhoods, between the Slav and German wizards, had to be seen to be believed – and when the first of the children was killed, the Headmaster Dolgoruky closed the school down for a term. I think that killing was an accident, but another died the next day in revenge. And then I knew that I must leave.”

Tom stared at Gryme in stunned silence, amazed at what his professor must have been through. Cleopatra, too, looked shocked. “Yes, you had already spoken to me then,” the earl agreed.

“Well, you know from our history books what happened. It wasn’t just Durmstrang that was in trouble. Passionate attachment to their own Muggle nations nearly tore our wizarding world apart. For many, including myself, it had been a rude awakening to the dangers of too much involvement in the Muggle world, as it was even clear to the press that wizards of Muggle origin were at the root of the trouble. And there were some that wished to take action against that – among them were three of my old companions.

“They began to rebuild the Dark Order in secret, unhindered now by the wizarding powers, who now had other troubles to deal with. Friends I had once shared blood with in Durmstrang I learned were in Grindelwald’s secret counsels. They began to draw in the rest of our brotherhood. Then they asked me to join them too.”

There was another silence.

“I myself did not wish to join them, but I could not entirely deny my old blood-oath, which binds me to them even now. And Headmaster Dolgoruky purged many of my old companions >from the staff, in his plans to reshape Durmstrang. Had I helped him, they would never have forgiven me – and yet I could not join them either… Then you offered me a place…”

“…and you came to England, as a refuge.”

“Yes, I had hardly been here before, although it had once been my father’s country. But some of my old companions followed me to Steeple Warlock. We were linked by the deepest of magical bonds, you see, and I knew I could never fully escape them. Oh, they knew they could not touch me here – not in the heart of your father’s power – but they came to the Black Unicorn more than once, and reminded me of the oath I had shared. After a while, I refused to see them.

“I busied myself with your brother’s experiment. Zeuxes, I knew, in time would succeed to the earldom, and if I were to help him succeed in his dream to enter the past, then all I could ask of him would be mine – any magical wards I might need to keep myself safe from their threats forever.”

“And then you failed him, and he died.”

Gryme’s face hardened with something like anger, but Tom wasn’t sure whether it was directed at Lord Mountwarlock or at himself. “The greatest disappointment of it all was that Zeuxes failed himself just as much. He was brilliant, and thorough in his experiments… yet he made just one small oversight, and he failed to see the catastrophe that such a small mistake could lead to.” Gryme spoke softly, his voice tainted with guilt. He went on after a pause.

“But that’s why it became important to me to perfect the ring. I needed to know what Zeuxes had done wrong. In a way, I suppose you could look at it as a sort of tribute to his brilliance – trying to perfect his work posthumously – but my intentions were more selfish than that. Your father kept me as librarian after Zeuxes’ death, but he never really forgave me for my involvement in the loss of his son. Basically, my hopes for receiving any further protection from your family – apart from staying here forever – were entirely dashed by then. Except, of course, for the ring, which I realised early on could be refined and used as a defence against almost any spell.

“Of course, when at last I did make my final adjustments… I suspect you already know what happened then. The ring is too much a part of this house; the magic reacted so violently to a simple Summoning Charm, that your father observed it at once. At that point, I hid the ring, deciding that it was best left unknown.”

“Until now,” the earl pointed out. “But why did you conceal it? In reality, I believe everything up to that point might have been excusable – questionable, but excusable. I know as well as anyone what the brotherhoods were like. If you had explained everything to us, instead of keeping quiet… as it was we were only full of suspicions that forced us to send you away at once.”

“But I’d hoped to get the ring back one day,” Dr. Gryme explained. A thin smile twisted his mouth. “I would have thought that much was obvious. Had I confessed everything then, it would have been confiscated, for sure. At that time I thought I might find some way to retrieve it in a timely fashion – though of course that didn’t happen. I managed to go on, quite safely, without it, as it turned out. But I’ve never forgotten it. I put so much of myself into that ring, I suppose I regard it as much my own as it was your brother’s. He had entrusted it to me, after all.” Dr. Gryme shrugged slightly.

“And you think that serves as an excuse?” Lord Mountwarlock asked, his eyebrows raised. “Becoming so deeply involved in it was your own choice, Abbacus. And it is highly doubtful that Zeuxes had the right to give away such an object – considering he was only the heir at that time – but of course you were right we could never have allowed you to keep it – especially with the chaos it caused, then and now.”

The earl explained briefly Scamander’s involvement, and the Ministry’s intervention. Gryme appeared both startled and shocked. “And they believed him? Who on earth did Scamander bring?”

“Lancelot Harker, for one,” the earl said, “and several parents of Hogwarts third years – some thirty Ministry wizards in all. I’m amazed he managed to get anyone here, what with Grindelwald’s attack – although perhaps that was just the distraction he needed to bring off an assault like this.”

“Perhaps,” Dr. Gryme said mildly.

“In any case, I need to take action. I don’t think Scamander can get into this house at the moment, but since the ring is back in my possession, the barriers will be righting themselves. It’s only a matter of time before he and his wizards find their way in, if they’re not stopped by the charms. Then, I wonder what they’ll do. I wish I could tell them to go to the Warlock, but I can’t do that just yet.”

“Can’t you rely on protective enchantments? Surely they can stop the intruders.”

The earl stared at Gryme in disbelief. “Yes, I daresay that could stop them – and possibly kill them all in the process, if they persist – and they certainly will. Then I’d have open war with the Ministry, and about thirty martyrs as well. I must try to restrain my protective enchantments, if I can – which I very much doubt.” He paused. “Even if they try to take over I can’t let a single one get hurt. If any are killed on an errand of rescue, Wizarding Britain will scream for my blood. They’ve all got relations, and children at Hogwarts: not even the Prophet could hush it all up – and somehow I don’t think they would.” He smiled grimly. “And most of these wizards are well-meaning people who only came here because of their children. A dastardly plan, to send them in first.”

Privately Tom thought this was unfair to Scamander, who had chosen these wizards not to put them at risk, but simply because they were the only ones he could get. But he thought it unwise to say so.

Cleopatra, however, looked horrified. “So – either you’re made out to be a monster and end up with a war as well – or else you must actually help them to win?”

“What, after more than a thousand years? No, I won’t betray my inheritance.” He paused. “It’s not as if they could run this magic.”

Lord Mountwarlock picked up his book again, turning the pages briefly. He spoke decisively to another figure that suddenly appeared on a page, “I need you to see to the Anti-Apparition Barriers – ensure that they remain in good order. And see that the protective charms are restored to their former state as soon as possible.” The figure on the page nodded, and answered with a faraway, tinny-sounding voice, “Very good, my lord.” Then the earl returned to the page he’d marked before and cast another Privacy Ward, to speak to a figure in scarlet robes. At one point he stared thoughtfully over at Tom, but of course, the boy could hear nothing at all. Cleopatra leaned across the table, as though straining to catch a word of the conversations, and Tom wondered if she was somehow able to find a way round her father’s spells.

Presently the earl closed the book. “I’d thought about restoring the weather at once, but perhaps that won’t be needed – or useful.” Cleopatra looked pensively over at Tom: he suspected that she guessed what her father intended.

With a swift motion of his hand, the earl rang a bell on the edge of his desk, a small silver bell that resembled the one Cleopatra had used in her study that morning. Within seconds there was a sharp rap on the door, and Phantomsby came into the room. He had appeared so remarkably quickly that Tom wondered if Lord Mountwarlock’s steward could Apparate within the house.

“Phantomsby,” the earl said gravely. “You received my message? Then, as you know, we’ve a deeper crisis on our hands than we thought.”

Phantomsby surveyed the room quickly, obviously taking in the presence of two unusual guests in Lord Mountwarlock’ study, but he gave no other sign of perplexity. “Yes, I did, my lord,” he said. “What did you have in mind I should do?”

“Get in touch with Lunchington, and find out just how much he knows – he’s at the Black Unicorn, at the moment. I wish I’d known he was there from the start; I could have talked to him when I got there, and saved myself a deal of trouble. But I suspect Chesterton at the Ministry has been attempting to contact with me too – speak to him as well, if you can. I must know what they think up in London, and unless I’m very much mistaken, he’ll be the one who sent Lunchington here, before the Prophet had wind of the story.”

Phantomsby nodded thoughtfully. “Some one must have alerted him.”

“And talk to the board at the Daily Prophet. I must have Lunchington’s report before it appears in tomorrow’s edition – and it must meet with my approval – whatever pressure the Ministry brings to bear. If we get the coverage right in the Prophet, in the end they’ll believe it themselves. Buy off De Vere and Malfoy if you must. Not that either one’s short of galleons, but I do have a few rare magical objects I think they’d be more than glad to possess, in exchange for this ‘minor favour.’ McNair and Irene are rather more… doubtful – you may have to offer substantial inducements.”

“If I may venture to say it, my lord, I suspect that McNair is a creature of Malfoy’s. I gather he has some sort of hold on him – and maybe on one or two others as well.”

“Indeed? Give Malfoy a dragonstone then, if you have to. But anyway, you’ve no time to lose. I’ll fill you in on the rest of it later.”

Phantomsby accepted the instructions with a nod. “Very good, my lord,” he said, and with one last curious glance at Tom he gave a slight bow and left the room. His three companions looked at the earl.

“I’m all but certain,” said Lord Mountwarlock, as he turned his attention to Tom and Gryme, “we can sort this out, if we act quickly – and if we’re able to keep it quiet. Now, as I understand it, there are only four of us that know the whole thing. I would prefer to keep it that way.” He looked sternly at Tom and his daughter.

As if I’m about to tell anyone else, Tom thought to himself.

“How many people did you speak to?” the earl asked him.

“I only told the true story to you and Cleopatra,” he said quickly. “The others I talked to were guests, for the most part: Hugo, Drake, Nicholas and Lucius. The only outsiders I really spoke to were Mundungus, the Muggle professor, and Lunchington – and what I told them was quite … abridged. They all assumed I must be from Durmstrang, a guest at the house, and I didn’t enlighten them.” He paused for a moment and then admitted, “but I did tell them my name was Tom.”

“But no one else?” asked the earl. “Well, that’s one good thing. I can see to their keeping silence, at least. It’s a good thing the house is almost empty. We only have sixty guests or so – it should be quite easy to cover your presence. The ones who do know… I can speak to.” He eyed Tom curiously. “You’re sure you spoke to no one else?”

Tom shook his head. “Only for a minute to Jasper and his friends, but since they thought I was one of themselves, using Polyjuice Potion to pretend I’m from Hogwarts, they don’t have any suspicions at all.” He then added, surprise in his voice, “I didn’t think of the house as empty.”

“We had five hundred once at Christmas. The most we ever had was two thousand. That was in my grandfather’s day: the year he was host to the International Federation of Warlocks: they drafted in half our friends’ house-elves from nearly all the midland shires and put up pavilions in the gardens.” The earl’s voice became reflective. “That was the only time I saw Grindelwald – not that he called himself that then.”

“You invited Grindelwald?” Tom could not help but ask.

“My grandfather invited him, but Grindelwald was respectable then, you know, and in the Confederation of Warlocks himself. I remember him – just – as I was a child: the only Dark Wizard I ever knew that actually had a sense of humour. Although I suspect he must be quite grim now. He must have guessed he’s going to lose: unless a disturbance here could save him...” Lord Mountwarlock’s voice trailed off.

“Are you sure of that, Gerontius?” Professor Gryme seemed doubtful.

“Yes, I am. He claims to support the old wizarding families, but except of course in his own country, they don’t feel threatened enough to join him – at least, not to risk themselves going down with him. Our position in England is still quite secure. The Ministry’s nothing like as intrusive as it’s going to be in thirty years’ time, and the cultural changes among the Muggles are decades away from threatening us. If you ask me, he’s made his attempt too soon…”

“Much as Scamander has, you mean.”

Mountwarlock gazed at his former tutor with something like respect. “You may be right. It’s obvious Scamander and the people behind him have wanted to break my immunity for years, but I don’t think their plans were nearly ripe. It was the magic falling to pieces around him that’s prompted Scamander to bring them forward. If this all comes right in the end, then it’s just, just possible, you’ve done me a service.”

It wasn’t just that the magic was falling to pieces. He thought a whole Hogwarts year was in danger.

“I did wonder, at first,” continued the earl, “if it mightn’t be wise to reveal the whole story… but I’m coming to think that that could be disastrous. If the Ministry learn about this ring, let alone about our gorgon, I dread to think how they’ll react. For one thing, I simply daren’t let it go: it’s far too much of a threat to this house, and it will take me many years to explore how to defend against such things – but I’m sure they’ll feel threatened themselves if I keep it, so I think it’s best we conceal what we can. Of course, this all hinges on getting your friend back,” he added smoothly – but Tom thought his placid tone was forced. “Is he very distinctive in looks? Did anyone but Scamander see him?”

“What friend is this?” interrupted Gryme, a puzzled frown twisting his face.

“Rubeus Hagrid,” Tom admitted quietly, with a sickening realisation that through the course of listening to Gryme’s own explanations, they had omitted Hagrid’s unfortunate fate. “No, no one else saw him, but yes – he does stand out, very much. He is extremely large for his age.” Tom glanced guiltily over at Gryme. “He… when I was lost in the gardens, I met with Rubeus – he’d left the group as well. When Scamander ran into me at the Lotus House, I’m afraid he saw Rubeus Hagrid clearly, and when we escaped from there, Professor… well, we stumbled into the gorgon’s garden, and Rubeus was turned to stone. ”

Gryme stared at Tom, astounded. “That can’t be true. You must be mistaken about this, Tom.”

Tom shook his head stubbornly. “Professor, I don’t believe I could mistake an event like that.”

“Well, I’m certain I made no mistake myself when I gave Mr. Hagrid detention an hour ago.”

Lord Mountwarlock looked from Gryme to Tom with a thoughtful expression on his face. “So, Abbacus, you have seen the missing boy while he was a statue in the garden. It’s interesting that you could do that.”

“I’m not lying,” Tom said firmly. “He was turned to stone by the gorgon, I saw it.”

“I believe you,” Lord Mountwarlock replied. “Abbacus must have seen an impostor.”

“Jasper!” Cleopatra said at once. “He and his crowd were playing Polyjuice Poker this afternoon – and I know Tom saw them, too. It could well have been one of them!”

“I don’t think it was Jasper or his friends,” the earl said, and his daughter’s face fell slightly; Tom suspected she’d been relishing the thought of her cousin being punished for some of the disaster. “I’m sure they couldn’t ape him for long, and you see, when I spoke to Morton just now, he told me something quite intriguing. He said there had been news from the Dancing Warlock, that the Hogwarts children were indeed all safe. He had only just spoken to a most helpful student – who, he said, was a Muggle-born, and so had had the bright idea of using the telephone to call the Ministry, since all our usual communications were down.”

“I wonder who that was. Did he tell you?”

“Well, he said that the student was called Tom Riddle.”

Tom’s jaw dropped. “But – but that’s impossible, I haven’t been to the Dancing Warlock at all!”

“I can attest to that,” Gryme put in. “I would have seen him at once at the Warlock – in fact, I was constantly on the watch.”

“Not,” said the earl, “if he was impersonating his friend Hagrid.”

Everyone was silent for a long moment. Tom and Cleopatra just stared; Gryme’s brow was furrowed, deep in thought. The earl, for a fleeting moment, seemed almost amused, but his face sobered quickly as he turned again to Tom.

“I do believe that the solution to this dilemma is to send you back there for a few hours, to the Dancing Warlock – disguised as your friend.”

Tom met the earl’s gaze with disbelief. “You aren’t serious. I can’t do that.”

“On the contrary, I’m sure you can – and already have, in point of fact. And more to the point, you’re hardly in a position to refuse. You’ve got as much to lose as anyone – if what really happened today comes out.”

Tom opened his mouth to reply, but shut it again abruptly. He’s right, I can’t argue with that. With a sigh of resignation, he said, “I suppose I’ll have to drink Polyjuice Potion, but where are you going to get a hair? And how are you sending me back in time?”

“I should think a Time-Turner would do, Gerontius,” Professor Gryme said quickly.

Lord Mountwarlock shook his head. “No. I have a better idea.”

Gryme looked suddenly worried as the earl walked over to a dark, velvet curtain that was hanging unevenly against the wall, and beckoned to Tom to come and look. Tom rose and stood beside the earl. Cleopatra followed, uninvited.

Lord Mountwarlock lifted his hands as though to draw away the curtain, but hesitated briefly; then, as if with sudden resolve, he pulled it back…

…to reveal a painting. Behind him Cleopatra gasped.

It was as though he was flying, high in the air, and could see a whole landscape laid out beneath him: a swirl of cloud and snow capped roofs, the gables and chimneys of Mountwarlock Park shone behind them, in vivid colour. The scene drew nearer with amazing speed, and then swooped up into the air, into the clouds of falling snow.

Is this how a bird might see? But what bird sees with such bright colours?

The image did not stay white with snow for long. Lord Mountwarlock bent his mind on it, and in only a moment the brighter colours came back into view, darkening to form a vague picture that sharpened until Tom recognised the familiar scene in the Dancing Warlock. For a moment he actually heard the voices and could almost smell the smoke-filled room. Then the picture vanished at once, and the colours swirled about once more until another scene came into view, and Tom found himself watching Newt Scamander trudging through the heavy snow.

He realised, with a start, that this painting was the very one through which Zeuxes had met his untimely end nearly sixteen years before.

He turned his mind back to the earl, who was speaking: “…a phoenix, you know, is nearly immortal, and only dies to come back to life. It may be only a fancy of mine, but I wonder about the bird that was used to create this picture – I sometimes think it’s still alive within the frame.”

It really is amazing, he thought, as he watched Scamander reach the door of the Black Unicorn – and suddenly guessed he was looking back in time as well. But at that very instant, he felt a cold, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, as he realised that he would be going through it too. Professor Gryme looked as upset as Tom felt, and even raised a hand in protest, but the earl seemed to sense their misgivings.

“There isn’t any danger, this time. You’ll be going just half a mile away and also only a few hours back – my brother attempted thousands of miles, and also thousands of years as well. That is why he needed so much power.”

“Are you sure—” Gryme began, but Lord Mountwarlock cut him off.

“I will be here, controlling the magic. I don’t need any enchanted rings for something like this – after all, this short span of time and space was what the painting was first designed for, if my research serves me correctly. And, of course, if something does go awry, it will be easy enough for you to return to the present. It’s only a few hours away after all – all you will need to do is to wait.”

Cleopatra looked concerned, but there was a hint of amusement in her eyes. “I’m sure you can carry it off,” she said. Tom looked to Gryme, hoping that his professor might have some chance of ending this, but the Arithmancer’s mouth was set in a grim line, and Tom reflected that Gryme was as much in the wrong as Tom himself – and had as little right to argue.

With that, the earl waved his wand, Summoning a flask of Polyjuice Potion from one of his shelves. Tom wondered for a moment at why he would need such things ready to hand in his room – or had it been confiscated from Jasper? He turned his attention back to the painting, which was changing its view once again; in a few more seconds, it showed him a set of rooms of Mountwarlock House, and a group of black-robed students, one of them unusually large. “Yes, that’s Rubeus,” Tom confirmed.

Lord Mountwarlock studied the scene, and trained his wand on the picture itself. Then with a quick word, he Summoned a single hair, and almost instantaneously, he held it between his fingers, and dropped it into the potion. It fizzed slightly and turned dark green. Tom resisted the reflexive urge to wrinkle his nose with disgust, and wished that he had a plateful of sandwiches like Jasper and his friends had had.

“What about my clothes?” he asked suddenly.

The earl stared at Hagrid’s clothes through the picture and quietly whispered a few words. Then he handed the flask of potion to Tom. “You’ll find a change of clothes next door; you only need one drink of the potion for it to work, but keep the flask to refresh yourself, as you’ll find the spell fades quickly.” He indicated a door near the corner. Tom was silent, stunned by the sudden turn of events; Cleopatra’s eyes seemed to sparkle, as though she were secretly pleased. Dr. Gryme met Tom’s eyes and nodded, silently urging him to go on with the task, a gesture familiar to Tom from that morning. Lifting his head in determination, he headed for the room to which the earl had pointed, went in and closed the door behind him.

He was in a small dressing room – lovely, as were all the rooms Tom had seen, although now he barely noticed the richness and beauty of the gilded couch and tables, and the view of the glittering snow on the terrace, the palest of greys in the light of the stars.

A change of clothes was spread on a table, just as Lord Mountwarlock had said. They seemed to Tom to be identical with the clothes that Hagrid had worn all day, and he wondered how the earl had obtained them so quickly. Was it some arcane spell he had used? Or had he even commanded a djinn? He dressed as quickly as he could.

Tom felt very awkward in the oversized clothing. Well, I suppose they won’t be too large for long, he thought glumly, as he picked up the flask of potion. For a moment he grimaced involuntarily as he held the flask to his lips, and swallowed the potion as quickly as possible; the concoction tasted horrid, of course, but the sensation was even worse: it felt as though his insides were writhing and burning, then as if his whole body was melting, and he shut his eyes, as though that way he could block the feeling. And then suddenly it was finished, and he realised he had doubled over and almost fallen. Tom straightened his back slowly, and looked around from his new height.

This is weird, was his first thought, although that was an understatement. He wished with all his heart that he didn’t have to go back into Mountwarlock’s study, much less to the Dancing Warlock, but he forced himself to open the door – rather clumsily, it turned out; he realised it would take at least a few minutes to get used to being someone else. Still, with so little time to waste, with only a moment’s hesitation he went into the room next door.

The first thing he noticed was Cleopatra, who simply gaped when she saw him, and then let out a peal of laughter, silenced by a stern look from her father. Tom scowled at her and slipped the flask of potion into his pocket.

“Very good,” said the earl from his place by the painting. The scene still showed the Hogwarts students – only Hagrid’s huge form was now clearly missing. The earl handed Tom a piece of chocolate. “I was thinking you might need this. The taste, I remember from school, was horrible.” Relieved, Tom began to eat.

“You only need to place your hands against the painting,” explained the earl, “and you will be taken through at once.”

“I know,” Tom said, and he heard Hagrid’s familiar accent issue from his throat. He cleared it involuntarily, and Cleopatra suppressed a giggle.

“I believe,” said Gryme in a reassuring manner, “that fate should play out on its own – though remember you must make that telephone call, to the Minister of Magic Heriot Morton.”

Tom nodded.

“Very well then,” said Lord Mountwarlock. “We’ll be watching you from time to time through the painting – and bring you back in… about six hours.”

“Good luck,” Cleopatra added suddenly.

He swallowed hard and nodded again. I can’t believe I’ve got myself into this. Lord Mountwarlock moved away from the wooden frame and gestured that Tom should take his place. For a moment Tom watched the picture, waiting for the students to disappear round a corner. Then, taking a deep breath, he touched the painting, and stepped through the frame.

To be continued...

* * *

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 Seven is Tuesday, June 25.