Montague's Journey

Chapter 5 - Slightly Peevish

Montague lay on the tower floor cautiously peeking over the edge. Far below was a courtyard of stone, but there was no sign of the girl who had just been violently cast down into its midst. Montague blankly stared through the spot he last saw Luna until the stillness of the scene registered in his brain. Montague lifted himself up and turned back to the inside of the high tower. The strong winds had completely died. The massive tree and all the other beautiful embellishments that Luna brought to his mental prison had faded away. The tower was nothing but a dingy mess of crumbled stone and sand. He was alone once again.

I wonder what happened to her.

Montague glanced back to the point over which Luna had been thrown. He recalled his own dreams where he was falling, and it always seemed he woke up before hitting the ground. He hoped that was the case with Luna. He didn't know why, but the thought brought him some relief.

I hope she's all right.

With little else to do, Montague paced about the room and held onto that thought.

The sky above him grew dark as he walked. The stones were cold under his bare feet, but the chilly feeling gave him a sense of being alive- - of existing. Wherever he walked, a soft glow of light seemed to follow him. As the sky darkened further, he could make out the extents of the room only by walking near its perimeter.

She'll be all right. She'll help me. I'll be all right.

On one of his laps around the tower, Montague stumbled over an odd pile of willow branches. He bent over to pick one up, but the branches magically melted into the stone floor revealing another oddity. Underneath the pile, Montague found a tulip with rainbow colored petals. He tentatively picked it up. He rolled the stem in between his fingers and watched the vibrant petals spin like a pinwheel. He smiled to himself and resumed his mantra and his patrol of the empty tower. Every once and a while, he'd pause to admire the tulip that he held gently in his hand.

She'll be all right. She'll help me. I'll be all right.

The monotony was broken by the sudden appearance of a swirling vortex in front of Montague. His gut told him to avoid it, but it sucked him in like a portkey with a purpose. Montague was unwillingly dragged to its center and felt his whole body twist under the gravitational pull. In a blink, the force disappeared and Montague, slightly nauseous and faint, found himself facing a bright blue pentagonal window on a wall of solid black. The window was about two meters high and had a fascinating silhouette of frog painted on it. Montague stepped up to the window and cautiously reached out to touch its surface when a voice rang out.

"Halt demon! I command you!" barked a voice.

Montague whipped around to confront the man and almost burst out laughing upon seeing him. The man was easily a foot shorter than Montague and had a mop of brown hair with a prominent bald spot on his crown. He was dressed in wizard's robes that had been patched together from every fabric imaginable - from burlap, to silk, to velvet, to linen, each square was a different size and color. To complement his eccentric robes, he had a belt of thick rope from which hung an odd assortment of items - a cup, drying weeds, a dead snake, crosses of wood and silver, a long pipe and leather pouches of various sizes. He waved his arms and picked at the air with his finger tips like an old sideshow charlatan trying to hypnotize a weak-minded audience. He approached Montague slowly stepping heel to toe and cast him an "evil" look from his brown bulging eyes.

"Who are you?" asked Montague nonchalantly.

"I am Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim. Agrippa for short. But you," the man paused for dramatic effect, "shall call me master." Montague detected a bit of a German accent in Agrippa's voice.

"How about I call you a git, Agrippa," Montague replied.

Agrippa briefly stopped flourishing his arms and appeared to consider Montague's proposal. Then he resumed his motions and tried again.

"I have summoned you here, and I command you, demon, to obey me!"

"I'm not a demon, and you're a git," said Montague.

Agrippa froze, then dropped his arms and stood up straight.

"A git. What is a git?" he asked.

Montague decided to play the old man for the fool he appeared.

"A git? Why a git is an extremely intelligent person who can tell me the meaning of this," Montague turned around and held his arms open wide toward the five-sided window with the shadow of the frog in its center. Agrippa's change in attitude was immediate.

"Ya. Ya. So, I am a git," the little man said happily. He rushed forward and slipped himself in between Montague and the window. "This, young sir, is the Pentagon of Universal Vision," he announced with all the flair of someone who is clearly aiming to please (and failing miserably.) When Montague, clearly unimpressed, just stared back at him blankly, Agrippa leaned closer and whispered conspiratorially, "It's magic." He smiled, nodded his head and winked at Montague.

Montague smiled, nodded and whispered back, "How does it work?"

"Surely, you must understand something of its origins," he continued in an educational tone. "The pentagon is one of the strongest symbols in the Dark Arts - especially necromancy, the summoning the dead. I've been studying the art for decades. Most rituals that use the pentagon also require a reactive agent..."

Montague folded his arms and pretended to be captivated by Agrippa's lecture as the peculiar man prattled on. In reality, he had slipped into his own thoughts. The prospect of Agrippa having "summoned the dead" had him worried.

Can I be dreaming this place too? Or, did this strange wizard really summon me? If I've been summoned, was it from...?

Agrippa's voice fell silent and Montague snapped out of his internal deliberations. He thought Agrippa had asked a question.

"Excuse me?" Montague asked.

"I asked you if you are familiar with the effects of astronomical bodies on reptilian life forms," he stated with slight annoyance.

"Yes. Yes, of course," lied Montague.

"Well, when a typical lunar triangulation occurs," Agrippa charged on, "a great popping sound occurs and the life force of the frog is consumed. Thereafter, the blue mist will fade away and the dead will appear."

Agrippa's last words caught Montague's attention.

"You can see dead people?" he pressed.

"Yes. Mostly younglings for some odd reason; I do not understand why. It could be the age of the frog," speculated Agrippa.

"Just exactly, how many have 'dead younglings' you seen? No wait, forget that question. Explain how this works again," said Montague gesturing to the window.

Agrippa quickly turned from helpful tutor to a suspicious intellect.

"Oh, you're a sly devil, aren't you. You tricked me into revealing the secret of the pentagon. You're memorizing all this aren't you." Agrippa worked himself into a hysterical frenzy. "I know who you really are. You're an apprentice of Paracelsus! You've come to steal my work, haven't you?! HAVEN'T YOU!" Agrippa unhooked a mace that was hanging from his belt and charged Montague.

Montague was caught off guard, but managed to dodge the attack with only a minor scrape to his shoulder. The old man over-extended on his next wild swing and Montague easily tackled and overpowered the old wizard. Montague pinned Agrippa to the ground by straddling him. He wrested the mace from Agrippa's hands and cast it aside.

"Don't hurt me. Don't hurt me," whimpered Agrippa.

"Tell me where we really are. Tell me how to get out of this place. Tell me I'm not...dead," demand Montague.

Without warning, two popping noises reverberated across the room. Montague looked to the pentagonal widow and saw the frog shape begin to stir.

"Ha! There are some secrets I will never reveal, young devil," declared Agrippa and he vanished in a heartbeat leaving Montague to collapse on the spot. He sprang to his feet and sprinted to the window. The frog shadow hopped about a few times, then it disappeared. Now the bright blue color of the widow was dissolving, and Montague recalled Agrippa's words... the dead will appear.

Montague heard the wailing of children. One of them was in shouting in agony. As the last remnants of blue faded away, Montague distinctly saw a red-haired student dressed in Hogwarts robes with Gryffindor accents. He clearly heard the student yell, "I got it! I got it! I can't believe I finally got it!"

Montague ducked out of sight of the window and sank back against the wall.

It can't be.

Montague hid from view and listened intently to the ensuing conversation.

"What? What'd you get, Ron?" said another boy.

"I got Cornelius Agrippa. The one card I've needed to complete my collection!" responded Ron. There were sounds of several people stampeding closer and Montague heard murmurs of amazement coming from a small herd of students.

"Whhoooaa, totally wicked! That's the rarest card in the whole series," said a younger voice, probably a first or second year. "Let's see him."

Montague sucked in his gut and tightly pressed himself into the wall. There were three seconds of silence before the young boy's voice commented, "Where is he?"

"It's a rare card. Maybe he's not used to making appearances," said the first voice.

"Cram it, Dean. He's an old dodger, but with so few cards to visit he should pop up any second now," said Ron.

There was yet another long, uncomfortable silence. Montague continued to hold his breath.

"Well congratulations, Ron. Call us when he shows up," said the first voice and several other boys concurred. "Yeah, great luck, Ron." "I gotta go to the library." "Hope he comes 'round soon."

Montague heard some shuffling as the party started to break up. The boy, Ron, let out a dejected sigh.

"Well, I'm gonna wait. I've been waiting for fifteen years. I can wait a bit longer," said Ron. Then, all was quiet but for an occasional sniffle.

Montague exhaled slowly and measured his next move. Revenge.

He wanted to confront the red-head directly so he crept closer to the edge of the window and carefully peeked around. The boy's face nearly filled the span of the window. He was resting his head on his hands and staring down at Montague's portal. The student caught Montague's movement and Montague quickly retreated. It looked like the boy was all alone. Montague boldly stepped into view and, hands on hips, squared off against the boy he knew to be the Gryffindor keeper - a Weasley.

"Hello, Weasel King," sneered Montague. Montague took ultimate pleasure in seeing the horrified look on Weasley's face. Ron opened his mouth to say something, but choked on his words. When he recovered from his coughing fit, he furtively glanced left and right several times.

"No, it's not a joke, Weasel boy. So, it's true you can save something. Too bad it's only a bunch of Chocolate Frog Cards and not a Quidditch goal, eh?" said Montague.

Ron leaned in close and peered at Montague.

"Ma... Mont... Montague?" whispered Ron through a trembling lower lip.

"Very good, Wealsey. How did you ever come up with a few brain cells when your family can't afford anything else?" harassed Montague. Ron's ears turned red and he looked away. Montague laughed in silent triumph. Ron faced him again.

"What are you doing in my trading card? What happened to Agrippa?" demanded Ron.

"I'll tell you what I've done to Agrippa after you tell me what your rat-faced brothers did to me," demanded Montague right back.

"Whatever they did, you deserved it you bloody bastard," said Ron.

"It's nothing compared to what I'm going to do to them. They'll be thrown into a suite in Azkaban when I get out of this place. How's that sound Weasel King?"

"Sounds really tough coming from a trading card," replied Ron coolly.

"Yeah well, your brothers are responsible, Weasley. They're gonna pay for it one way or another," Montague asserted and continued to goad Ron. "Just how did you manage to buy all those Chocolate Frog Cards anyway? Have you been renting out your tramp of a sister?"

Ron bolted to his feet and slapped both hands on the table outside Montague's view.

"Don't you dare have a go at my sister," challenged Ron.

Montague knew he had hit a nerve. Ron's red hair appeared to ignite and his brow was furiously set. Montague snickered at Ron's over-protective reaction and couldn't resist further taunting the fuming Weasley.

"Oooo. A little defensive, aren't we," teased Montague. "Tell me, what do you charge for five minutes of snogging in the dungeons nowadays?"

"Rot in hell, Montague," said Ron. He whipped out his wand and placed its tip in the center of Montague's window.

"Incendio!" roared Ron and flames shot at Montague like a sneeze from a Hungarian Horntail. Montague had a few seconds to chastise himself for such an unwise move before his little room was swallowed in smoke.

Next time, try and get help instead of revenge.

***

Ron Weasley sat in the Gryffindor common room in a trance. In front of him were the smoldering remains of the one Chocolate Frog Card he'd yearned for almost as much as he'd wished for a British Quidditch league championship by the Chudley Cannons.

"Please tell me I didn't do it," Ron intoned.

"Okay, you didn't incinerate the rarest, most valuable Chocolate Frog Card known to Wizard-kind," said his best mate. Ron ignored the cheerful comment.

"Blimey. It might be another fifteen years before I get that card again."

"Right bummer of a day, mate. Come on, let's go practice."

On any other day of the week, Quidditch practice would have been a rough enough blow to Ron's self-esteem, given his abysmal goal tending. But, after torching Cornelius Agrippe's Chocolate Frog Card, Ron thought things could only turn for the better. He swept the ashes of the Card off the common room table, grabbed his broom and glumly followed his friend out the portrait hole.

***

The smoke overwhelmed Montague and he collapsed onto his knees. His eyes stung, but remarkably, he felt no burning heat consume him. He covered his head with his robes and tried to filter out some fresh air. A strange whirring noise swept past him and Montague snuck a quick look out from under his robes.

The swirling grey smoke was being sucked down into billowing clouds that lingered on the ground like a thick fog. He stood up and found the air to be relatively clean and easily breathable. He looked above him as something very big seemed to be taking shape.

The last of the swirling smoke evaporated to reveal thick red and purple velvet curtains draped about a huge room. At least it seemed huge from his perspective. It was similar to looking through the warping-effect of a Bubble-Head Charm. Some things, like the beaded doorway straight ahead of him, seemed far off in the distance. Other things, like the bottle of sherry on his left, were enormous. A tiny movement behind the bottle suddenly became a very huge hand flying at him like a charging Seeker. Montague instinctively ducked, but the hand came nowhere near him. It merely grasped the bottle and receded just as quickly into the background.

Montague tracked the movement and spotted an eccentric person seated in a high-backed, poofed-up chair. The person poured himself (or herself, he wasn't sure) a drink and returned the bottle - rather clumsily - to its prior location next to him. The toppling bottle looked forty feet high and Montague jumped back to avoid being hit. The bottle was deflected by whatever force field separated the strange person and him, and it clunked down on the table top that was below his field of vision. The person launched themselves at the spilled sherry, bringing his - no her - face into sharp view.

Montague now knew the person was a witch since her face was magnified ten times before him. He was sure the crooked glasses and disheveled hair of the old hag was not due to his peculiar point of view. Her flush cheeks and bloodshot eyes told Montague she was quite inebriated. But all color drained from her face when she made direct eye contact with Montague standing in his small field of milky white fog.

On being noticed, Montague jumped up and down and shouted, "Hey! Hello! I'm trapped, can you help me out of here!"

The aged, pale face turned away from him and stared pointedly at the sherry bottle in her hand, then returned slowly to look directly at Montague. She straightened her lopsided glasses and stared wide-eyed at him. He could read every pore and dimple on her exaggerated nose as she leaned in and studied him. Two hands zoomed in from his sides and the shifting scene told him he was being raised higher.

"Can you hear me!" Montague shouted at the witch. "I need help! I'm trapped! You've got to help me!"

She blinked and ticked her head to the side.

She can obviously see me.

Montague searched his robe pockets for anything that he could write with. He found nothing but the little rainbow tulip. He turned back to the bulging eyes of the dumb-struck witch and pointed to himself and mouthed his name slowly.

"Montague. Mon-ta-gue," he repeated, but the witch didn't seem interested in starting a conversation or was too drunk to register anything cohesive.

Probably the latter since the old hag fumbled his "container" when returning him to his former location. Montague caught a glimpse of her hands scrambling above him. The once stable scene of the room became a spinning blur all around him. Montague sought to grasp something to steady himself. Remarkably, it was not necessary since he seemed to remain upright and stationary in his little foggy world; however, the view about and above him rolled non-stop. Fortunately, Montague's snitch training allowed him to make some sense of his journey.

He was rolling within a magical sphere. Tables, chairs, curtains, books and other objects zipped past him. Montague found it easy to align himself with the direction he was traveling by facing the most constant image. He soundlessly bounced off a red surface, then a wood surface, then several grey blocks. After striking a massive chest and changing directions, Montague re-oriented himself in time to see he'd passed through the beaded doorway into a passageway. Dead ahead, in the floor of the hall, loomed an ominous dark hole.

No matter what his predicament, Montague thought falling through a black hole would not be a welcome adventure at this point. Unfortunately, he had not figured out a way to alter his current course. On the bright side, he seemed to be slowing down: he might stop short of the hole. A ladder appeared to be sticking out of the gaping hole. Montague was familiar with the design; a lip about an inch high usually surrounded any ladder well in Hogwarts. If he could slow down a bit more, the lip might be enough to stop him from plunging into the hole. Montague spied the lip approaching and estimated another half revolution would determine his fate. He held his breath and put his hands out in front of him in a feeble attempt to brace himself for the worst.

Montague's magic bubble quietly rolled up to the edge of the well. For a full second, Montague was suspended, looking down, over the seemingly bottomless hole. Another slow second later, he drifted slightly backwards, away from the hole as his inexplicable transport gently tapped against the lip and reversed course. Montague let out a huge sigh of relief.

Whew! Thank Salazar for that bit of luck.

He turned around to get a better look at where he was, only to come nose to inflated nose with the old witch. She had pursued him on hands and knees, dragging several scarves and shawls behind her. She had the sherry bottle in her hand and reached towards him.

"No! Stop! Stop! Don't move!" Montague shouted and waved his arms at her furiously.

The witch went three-for-three for clumsy moves in the hour. Perched precariously near the edge of the ladder well, Montague's ball was struck with the sherry bottle and was vaulted over the lip into the dark hole.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHH," Montague yelled to absent ears. He shut his eyes, unwilling to comprehend the dizzying scenes that flashed about him.

Whatever container he was trapped inside was more resilient than Montague could have imagined. He felt nothing as it ricocheted off two rungs of the ladder and smacked the solid stone floor. It continued to bound down a castle corridor past several tapestries and monuments. Finally, it rolled to a stop at the base of the pedestal holding the newly restored bust of Paracelsus.

Montague was intimately familiar with this particular statue since Hogwarts' infamous poltergeist, Peeves, had nearly dropped it on his head months ago while he was on his way up to the Owlery. It appeared that Peeves was keen on repeating this stunt since the rascal was hiding behind the bust, patiently waiting for another victim. When a crystal ball happened to bounce into his midst (without his doing), Peeves was naturally interested in investigating the matter. He picked up the globe, stuck his nose to the side and peered inside.

Montague didn't know whether to jump for joy or scream as he watched Peeves approach him and pick him up. The close-up, warped view of the poltergeist was enough to make him want to throw-up, but Montague kept his wits about him. He could tell Peeves was speaking, but he could not hear anything.

"Peeves!" Montague shouted, "Peeves, you've got to help me. Get me out of here! Take me to Professor Snape!" Montague waved his arms and jumped up and down.

Peeves blinked, cocked his head a few times, and continued to soundlessly babble back at Montague. Montague took that to mean that Peeves was trying to figure out what he had just found and was merely talking to himself.

"Peeves, it's Montague. Get me out of here! Get me out! Get - me - out," Montague repeated, and this time Peeves seemed to latch onto his words. Montague distinctly saw Peeves mouth the words "Get me out."

"Yes, yes, yes," Montague said enthusiastically and nodded.

Darn it, Peeves. You've got to understand me. I'm no good at charades.

"Help - me. Get - me - out - of - here," Montague mouthed, stressed and ridiculously tried to mime.

Astonishingly, Peeves nodded back as if he understood, and Montague's world began to spin rapidly again as Peeves, carrying Montague with him, floated down the corridor. Montague recognized the familiar passages to the Owlery as Peeves swept through Hogwarts.

"Alright!" Montague cheered to himself, "That's it Peeves. Take me to Snape or another teacher."

But, there was no way for Peeves to hear his request.

When Peeves reached the top of the Owlery, Montague questioned Peeves' intentions. When Peeves made for one of the windows, Montague realized he should have been more discerning in his choice of instructions and gestures when dealing with the poltergeist.

"Merlin's beard, Peeves. What are you doing?" he mumbled.

When Peeves chucked his little sphere out the window, Montague was positive that Peeves' interpretation of "get me out" was no where near the same as his. On reflection, Montague should have known that any solution the rogue would come up with would involve shattering something into a thousand pieces. Montague didn't think his container could tolerate an eight story, gravity accelerating plunge. He cursed Peeves, shut his eyes, clutched the flower in his pocket and waited for "the end."

Please, if I'm still dreaming, let me wake up before I hit the ground.