Alexandra Sutton and the Nighthawk's Trinket

Alexandra Sutton and the Nighthawk's Trinket

Chapter 4

Over the next week, the familiar school routine re-established itself so quickly that it was hard to remember I'd been away. Yet there was a subtly different feeling. The transition from fifth to sixth year felt like a bigger jump than, say, the transition from second to third because collecting a string of OWL's had, in some peculiar way, made us become almost probationary adults - excepting of course the Weasley twins who had apparently done neither.

But there were practical benefits to starting NEWT's: I would never again play nursemaid to some vegetable with a malevolent streak or a Hippogriff with what I would describe delicately as a digestive disorder. And dropping Potions would hopefully reduce my face-to-face contact with Professor Snape to about five minutes a term, which to me seemed about right. I hung on to Charms and Defence - which were too useful to drop, Runes and Transfiguration - which I was good at, and History of Magic - which I liked. When I picked them I had no particular career in mind - most of the usual wizard jobs struck me as either boring or terrifying and I didn't know which would be worse. In my four-minute career discussion with Professor Snape, I got off to a bad start when I meekly mentioned an interest in going on to a Muggle university: I thought a degree might give me more, and hopefully better, options. When Snape had quite finished his disdainful sneer, he reluctantly admitted that such a thing was possible for those who wanted to take this eccentric (his emphasis) route. The rest of the short interview was spent in him rummaging around for the appropriate leaflet and generally washing his hands of me.

***

Thanks to the Sorting Hat's bizarre choice, it was several days before I could catch up with Rachel. It's hard enough keeping in touch with people in different houses, but it's nearly impossible when they're in a different year and so don't share classes - you might wait days before you randomly encounter the person you want to see in the corridor or the library. I had seen Rachel at dinner of course. Once, I even went over to the Gryffindor table to say hello and see how she was settling in, but it wasn't a success. It's unnerving when an audience of hostile Gryffindors stop eating or talking to stare at you - I babbled some comment about hoping she was okay then fled. So I was grateful when, a week after the start of term, I heard a familiar voice. I was up on the seventh floor at lunchtime, where I'd just shoved a Charms essay under Flitwick's office door. I was walking to the staircase when I heard a shout and footsteps behind me.

"Alexandra! Hang on!"

"Hey, Rach! What's up?"

"I got a letter from Mum! An owl dropped it on my head this morning! She was ever so pleased I got into Gryffindor. There's note for you but it's in my room. Shall I get it?"

"Sure."

No doubt another reminder of my sisterly duty and the consequences of failing in it.

As we ambled down the corridor to the Fat Lady, Rachel was talking excitedly about her first flying lesson that was to be that afternoon.

"Fred Weasley said you play Quidditch, Alexandra."

"Yeah, I've been the reserve team Beater for the last three years. Though I don't know if I'll keep it up this year."

Mostly, the reserve teams were where you served your Quidditch apprenticeship before graduating to the first team if you showed talent. If you were still a reserve in your sixth year, I think people would begin to wonder why you weren't getting the hint. But I didn't care. I enjoyed playing and I could console myself with the delusion that I really was good enough for the first team and it was only being in Slytherin - where politics generally counted more than ability - that kept me back.

We arrived at the Gryffindor portrait hole. Now generally, the accepted protocol for this situation was that she would whisper her password so I didn't hear it and go and fetch the letter while I kicked my heels outside and made small-talk with a painting.

"Balderdash!" she said loudly. "Don't stand in the corridor like a big dummy, Alexandra! Come inside."

Well, theoretically, you can go into another house's common room if you're invited. But the host is expected to get permission from one of their prefects; the prefects invariably say no because they're afraid the guest might hear a password and changing it after the guest has gone, just in case, is a hassle. I knew I wasn't going to get a chance like this again. Six years worth of niggling curiosity about what it was really like inside the Lion Kingdom was shoving me through the portrait hole like a bulldozer pressing on my back. I paused only to stuff my tie and glasses in a pocket and re-arrange my robes so the Slytherin badge was concealed in a fold.

Dear God, they like red and gold! The large circular common room looked like some person had set up lawn-sprinklers in the middle of the floor and pumped through red paint at high pressure. Then, feeling pleased with themselves, they detonated a thousand pound gold-leaf bomb. The high roof beams were carved with camp looking gilt lions holding shields with, you guessed it, lions on them. The walls were decorated with tapestries Uncle Charles would have given limbs for and portraits of distinguished former-Gryffindors he would have put on a bonfire. Most of the subjects were stern looking dinks who looked like they had broomsticks shoved up their back passages while they sucked raw lemons. Though there was still enough life in one dirty old roué for him to give me a suggestive wink.

Rachel ran up the stairs that I assumed led to her dormitory while I flung myself into the middle of a big fat sofa and marvelled at the surroundings - Gryffindor, where dwells the brave of heart and poor of taste.

"Afternoon!" I called to a couple of fourth-year boys who'd followed us through the portrait hole. They looked curiously at me and mumbled some response before disappearing up the stairs to their room. I could imagine their conversation.

Who's she?

I dunno, but she looks a bit like some Slytherin cow I've seen about.

That's ridiculous! How could she get in here if she's not a Gryffindor?

I'm not stupid, of course she's a Gryffindor; we've simply never seen her before, ever.

I reached for a copy of the Prophet that was lying on a chair. If you're relaxed, look occupied with something and appear to have every right in the world to be there, it rarely occurs to anybody that you don't.

A small trickle of people were now coming through the portrait hole, to mooch about in the common room or their dorms for half an hour before picking up their books for afternoon classes. Luckily, none seemed to be sixth years I shared classes with and all were ignoring me.

Where was Rachel? I'd slipped in here expecting to wait only a minute or two at most and my initial trepidation was fast turning into boredom. I had just noticed a parchment pinned to a notice board that was headed "Passwords for September/October" - I wondered if a quick note of its contents would make a nice souvenir of my little adventure.

"Hey, over there! Mind throwing me the Quidditch page? I want to see how the Kestrels did yesterday."

Oh crap, that's blown it! Well, I may as well go down in style.

"Why bother asking, Jordan? They got trampled on, as usual." I said, as I passed it.

One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi, four-

"SUTTON! Bugger me!"

"I'd rather not, Jordan."

"Fred, George, get over here now!" he half whispered, half shouted. "It's Snaky Sutton!"

Before I had a chance to be properly indignant at 'Snaky', two identical carrot-top thugs had crashed onto the sofa on either side, squeezing me between them.

"Merlin! You've got balls, Sutton," said one with a whispered mix of outrage and admiration.

"Not the last time I looked," I said dryly. God! I loathe that - bastard blokes using a phrase and their filthy organs to claim a monopoly on courage. Not that I've got much of that either, but that's not the point.

"I don't what you think you're doing here," said the other. "Get your arse out now and we'll say nothing more." Outrage had quickly given way to amusement. The twins were always grateful when somebody else saved them the horror of a dull afternoon. That is, any afternoon in which nothing exploded, nobody from the Ravenclaw Quidditch team was found tied to the flagpole on the roof of the North Tower and none of Hagrid's animals had run amok after having their drinking troughs spiked with neat Firewhisky.

"I'm waiting for my sister; she's fetching something."

"And we're supposed to care? George, help me." Together, they gripped my arms, lifted me to my feet and frog-marched me to the portrait hole. It opened just as we reached it, and we were confronted by a sour-faced prig with a prefect's badge - one of the sort which Gryffindor tends to inflict on an unhappy world in large numbers. He probably had his career in the Ministry already mapped out, right down to picking the spot on the common room wall where his portrait would go in a hundred years time.

"Fred, George, what're you doing? Who's this?"

"I'm Alex Sutton," I said, vigorously shaking my arms free of the Weasleys' grip. "You're Jonathan Ives... we were in the same Potions class last year but we've never been properly introduced, have we?"

He didn't shake my proffered hand so I replaced my glasses and smiled sweetly - I was never much good at flirting my way out of trouble but I thought it was worth a shot. Not this time though, his face didn't stray from the obdurate expression that would surely adorn his future portrait. But his eyes flicked down to the crest on my robes and bulged impressively.

"We're just getting rid of her, Ives," said Fred in a carefully neutral tone.

"What's she doing here? Who let her in? Was it you two?" he said, shifting his glare between the Weasleys and myself, clearly trying to decide whom he disliked the more.

"Emm ... I did, "said a little voice. Rachel was back at last, but at completely the wrong moment. Though her voice had an edge of a tremor, she had got the measure of Ives and had an air of sullen defiance that I don't think I could have pulled off as an eleven-year-old in my first week.

"You little idiot! Can you even comprehend the problem you've created? We've got to have a new password right now. Which means one the prefects must stand in the corridor for the rest of the day to let people in because everybody's scattered all over the school and we've got no way of telling everybody what it is."

"Leave her alone, Ives. She's been here a week and she didn't know; I did. Your beef is with me."

"This is a Gryffindor matter, Sutton. You keep out of it," roared Ives.

"She's only my sister, I thought it'd be okay," Rachel wailed.

"I don't care. You let some Slytherin waltz straight into the Gryffindor common room. You don't trust them - you don't even speak to them unless you must. You're now a Gryffindor so she stops being your sister on the first day of term. Until Christmas, she's just one more bloody Slytherin! Do you underst-"

That was when I punched him - it seemed like a good idea.

***

Miss Sutton, can you account for your presence in the Gryffindor common room earlier today?

Actually, Minnie, I was curious. I'd never been in there before and I also thought it might annoy certain people in an amusing manner. Call it one of those spur-of -the-moment sort of things.

No. Honesty is rarely the best policy. It would be best to leave that sort of response until the last week of seventh year. Perhaps I'd be better off with:

Please, Professor McGonagall, I honestly didn't think there would be a problem. My sister invited me in and there's no actual rule against it. Is there?

No good either. She would agree it wasn't against the rules to be in another house's common room. But then she'd certainly point out there are rules against hitting prefects - even the ones who are generally disliked.

I was leaning dejectedly against a wall, outside the Runes classroom, waiting for Professor Futhark to finish his sherry in the staff room and remember he had an afternoon class to teach. The tight group of Ravenclaws who also did Advanced Runes weren't including me in their animated gossiping so I was mentally rehearsing what I would say when Ives made good his threat and brought inexorable doom, in the form of a Scottish Transfiguration professor, crashing down on my head. The appearance of Ben Stebbins interrupted my thoughts.

"Afternoon, Alex. Did somebody Obliviate you during the night or are you just too dim to have worked out in the last six years that you're a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor."

"The Hogwarts rumour mill strikes again! Dunno why we bother having owls."

"Lee Jordan told me what happened. After you ran off, Ives was frothing at the mouth because he wanted to go straight to McGonagall. But apparently neither Jordan nor the twins saw a thing. Even they thought he deserved it after what he said."

"The bastard's got a hard chin. Look what he did to my knuckles!" I said with mock petulance, not quite believing my luck.

"You complain too much. I've got to run or I'll be late for Care of Magical Creatures - Hagrid said he would show us some Jarveys this afternoon."

"Oh, overgrown ferrets with Tourette's. Enjoy yourself."

Hold on! If he was going from Hufflepuff's basement common room to Hagrid's hut, then why did he happen to stroll past a fourth floor classroom on the opposite side of the building?

I grinned to myself - the day was certainly looking up.

But I now owed the Weasley twins big time.

I expressed my feelings with words that a Jarvey might have used.

***

The incident gained me mild notoriety that was almost instantly forgotten in the general hustle and bustle of Hogwarts settling down to a new year. Though, I did start idly wondering how I might sneak into Ravenclaw Tower. I had been in the Hufflepuff common room the previous year and it might have been fun to complete the set.

The next few weeks went by without major incidents. Rachel seemed to be settling down quite happily and making friends. The only unpleasant surprise was that the frenzied workload I remembered from fifth year had not slackened. In fact, the teachers were all gleefully promising it would be redoubled in seventh year. No matter how awful sixth year seemed, should view it as the calm before the storm.

Another thing that resumed soon after was Quidditch. Of course, Dumbledore had announced the cancellation of the inter-house cup and the first teams were surprisingly amiable about hanging up their brooms. Since the reserve teams didn't actually have an official competition, we took the bolshie attitude that none of this applied to us and kept on going. The Captains arranged informal inter-house matches and the first, Slytherin against Hufflepuff, was scheduled for the first Saturday in November. The match was unpublicised - with fourteen players who all wanted promotion to the first teams and no referee, it was felt we shouldn't have any witnesses. As always, the build-up was half the fun; we had a week of the usual hexes and death threats in the corridors. Even I was looking forward to the chance of Bludgering one of their Chasers - an annoying fourth-year squit called Smith who thought my glasses were funny and loudly said so - so you can imagine our feelings when we were summarily ordered to cancel the whole thing because some bunch of foreigners picked that weekend to arrive.

***

"A thousand Galleons is a lot," said Nick Summers, philosophically. Nobody found a reason to contradict him.

On the Saturday morning after the feast that welcomed the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang delegations, there were four sixth year friends from assorted Houses on the landing at the top of great staircase. We stood in a row, hunched over the banister rail, watching the Goblet of Fire far below. The Durmstrang students, surrounded by a handful of curious Hogwarts spectators, had formed an orderly queue to place their names in the Goblet.

"Last night, Snape called a meeting of all the Slytherin seniors," I said. "He told us that there have been sixty-four Tournaments since they started and Hogwarts has won thirty-three of them. Fifteen of the winning Hogwarts champions were Slytherins. He made it clear that all those numbers - especially the last one - are to be increased by one by the end of the year or he would make his displeasure felt. He hinted that if one of us was selected as champion, the only acceptable excuse for failing to win would be dying in the attempt."

"I wish I had been sorted into Slytherin," said Ben. "It's such a relaxed and friendly house."

I noticed his shoulder was pressing against mine. A few months ago, I would have elbowed him in the ribs, called him a hulking great lump and asked him to move up and make some space. Somehow, I forgot this time.

Sarah Fawcett tore a strip from a piece of parchment and rolled it into a tight ball.

"That'll never work," said Nick Summers.

"Of course it'll never work," said Sarah, testily. "Will you just permit me to indulge my curiosity?"

She gave the ball a gentle toss and it flew perfectly towards the Goblet. Ten feet above the floor, it exploded in a little flash of purple flame. A tiny cloud of ash settled unnoticed on the fur cloak of one of the Durmstrang students, making it look like he had bad dandruff.

"That was good, I was expecting an Imperturbable Charm," she said.

"Dumbledore's spellwork is always a bit showy," said Ben.

The Durmstrang students had finished. They and their onlookers were now making their way to the Great Hall and breakfast. While nobody was looking, Carl Warrington casually strolled up to the Goblet, furtively looked around and dropped in a piece of parchment.

"Look, Alex," said Ben. "There might be a vacancy soon on the Slytherin first team."

"No good - I'm a Beater, he's a Chaser. But it is a good idea; I might be able to talk Bole into entering."

That wouldn't be difficult - wear a tight jersey and you could talk Bole into slamming a door on his fingers.

"A thousand Galleons really is a lot," mused Nick again, clearly put out because nobody had responded the first time he'd said it.

"Sod the thousand Galleons," I said. "Think of the endorsements. Imagine a full page spread in the Prophet. Something like: Alexandra Sutton, Triwizard Champion, says 'Only morons fly a Cleansweep, Nimbus are the best. Test-fly one today!'" That alone ought to be good for a free Nimbus 2001. And you'd have five years to milk it before the next Tournament produces a new champion."

"So you're entering?" said Nick.

"Might as well; I'm just old enough. And if I get it, having to support a Slytherin champion is sure to infuriate the Gryffindors beyond measure."

"Happy to risk death just to annoy somebody," said Ben. "But don't worry, I'm sure Myrtle will let you share her bathroom."

"Thanks for that; I'm glad to know you have complete confidence in me."

"Alex..." said Sarah.

"No, Tap! I don't know what'll happen if I try to put in somebody else's name. But I bet it'll hurt."

We went quiet again, wondering how to beat the Age Line. Dumbledore couldn't have thought of everything, could he?

"Ben..." said Sarah after minute.

"Mmmm?"

"Have you still got any of that Ageing Potion you made when we went to Lairg last year?"

Unfortunately... he had.

***

"There's only a tiny bit left, but we only need to age a few months," said Sarah. "A couple of drops each?"

"I suppose," said Ben. "Alex doesn't need any so there might be enough for us three...." He shrugged.

With her tongue slightly sticking out to show her intense concentration, she measured the clear gloopy liquid into a teaspoon. Meanwhile, I carefully wrote on a piece of parchment:

Alexandra C G Sutton
Hogwarts

That's Charlotte Geraldine, by the way. Middle names always seem to be embarrassing secrets. I know mine are - I have a nasty suspicion the original intention was to call me Alexander Charles Gerald before my actual arrival made obvious the need for a hasty, but minimal, change of plans.

The Ageing Potion had no obvious effect on Sarah and Nick so they had to take it on trust that it had actually done something. We slipped out of the empty classroom; I went first to check the coast was clear, as I wasn't the one planning to do something wrong. Only two wide-eyed second years were in the Entrance Hall and judging by the noise from the Great Hall, most of the early risers were now having breakfast. I walked over the thin golden age line, feeling only a slight tingle, and dropped in my entry - there was a brief red glow from the Goblet and the parchment vanished. There were no prefects or teachers in sight so I gave a thumbs-up. Ben relayed the signal and Sarah and Nick hurried down the main staircase, two steps at a time.

Any second, a teacher could come into the Entrance Hall so, with a last look round, they strode over the line. From their looks of triumph, they must have thought the potion had worked. They had nearly reached the Goblet when there was a loud twangy cracking noise and they were snatched away by some huge invisible hand. They slid wildly along the smooth polished floor. Sarah crashed straight into a suit of armour and was buried under a clattering avalanche of gauntlets, grieves, vembraces and breastplates, Nick careered into a carved cabinet and sent a pair of large vases on top of it crashing to the floor. The silence that followed was only broken by a plaintive "Owww!" from underneath the ironwork.

"Are you all right under there?" asked Ben, who had stopped himself before reaching the Age Line. The response took some seconds, but was worth the wait - Sarah expressed her opinion of Ben and his level of intelligence in terms that would have shocked and scandalised even the NCO's in Father's regiment. She sat up and rubbed her temple and glared at Ben and me.

"Help us up, you idiots! We need to get out of here before Filch comes or it'll be a week of detentions all round. Hurry up.... Stop staring at me like a pair of catatonic morons...."

She caught a sight of her reflection in the breastplate. With a horrified whimper, she snatched her hands to her cheeks and felt the hairs of her blonde beard. Nick emerged from under the cabinet with a moan to reveal a white beard that was just as impressive.

"Oddly enough, if she were a bloke I think that would suit her," I said, in a carefully lowered voice. Although as I spoke, the neat hipster goatee I admired had already expanded into a full-blown Victorian Patriarch and was quickly growing into an Old Testament Prophet.

"Tell her later... if you're feeling suicidal," said Ben. "Come on!"

We ran over to Sarah and Nick. The beards were certainly a complication, but I took the view that shaving could be done at leisure. The priority was to flee the scene. As Ben started pulling aside bits of armour I turned to the second years. "Oi, you two! You didn't seen us... right." My tone of voice implied that having bad eyesight at that moment would be very much in their interests.

"They may not have seen you, Sutton, but I did! All of you, stay where you are!"

It was a commanding voice, used to obedience. If King Canute had such a voice, I'm sure the sea would have meekly done exactly what it was told. Its owner, Minerva McGonagall, descended the stairs from the landing where she had seen the whole thing. She spent several seconds surveying the scene, stony faced apart from a slight, but alarming, flaring of her nostrils.

"Leave," she said to the second years, who almost tripped over their own feet in their efforts to get away. As the noise of their running footsteps diminished, she turned her attention back to us.

"Well, what have you got to say for yourselves?" She pretended to wait for the explanation she knew would never come. After a pause, she supplied one herself.

"You attempted to cheat your way into the Triwizard Tournament. I can scarcely believe that Hogwarts students would show such disregard for the good name of the school by attempting such a disgraceful thing. I am only glad none of our guests were here to witness the scene or I should never live down the humiliation."

I thought this unlikely, but decided the best thing was to continue examining the cracks in one of the flagstones. Ben guiltily fingered the slip of parchment he was holding.

"Furthermore, you have ignored a direct instruction from the Headmaster - I shall be informing both him and your heads of house of this incident. Why you attempted this is beyond me. Anybody so lacking in wit that they believed such a simple trick as Ageing Potion would fool the Age Line would surely stand little chance of successfully completing the Tournament's tasks."

Sarah's new beard didn't conceal her burning cheeks.

"Fawcett, Stebbins, twenty points shall be taken from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Sutton, Summers, another ten will taken from Slytherin and Hufflepuff for your participation. As Filch will have the task of repairing the damage you have caused, I shall leave the choice of detention in his hands. Now take yourselves to the Hospital Wing."

***

Filch didn't take long to think of something for us to do. That evening, I was just about to leave the common room to go to the Halloween feast when I received a note telling me to be by the broomshed, at six the next morning. Worryingly, it suggested I should wear old clothes.

Filch was already standing there when we showed up at the appointed time. He was holding his revolting cat in his arms and stroking it, rather like a unshaved Blofeld in a long dirty coat. Beside him, there was an old wooden wheelbarrow, a stack of wooden buckets, heavy rubber gloves and four of the creaky old school brooms they gave to first years.

"Yer on time," he said, slightly disappointed because he couldn't use lateness as an excuse to add to the punishment. "Pick all that up n' come wi' me..."

"What are we to do?" demanded Sarah.

"Ye'll find out."

He led us on a brief walk round the side of the school. He stopped, put down the cat and looked up the sheer well of ancient stone.

"It's been years since the gutters in the south wing were cleared out. 'S a filthy job so I've been saving it 'till some of yous got caught at something-"

He pulled a dirty rag out of his sleeve and nosily blew his nose.

"- only wish it was them blasted twins."

"You and me both," muttered Sarah.

"Shut yer trap, Missy! Now you're to fly up to the eaves and scoop the muck out of the gutters and into those buckets. Then dump it in the compost heap behind greenhouse three."

"You're kidding," spluttered Nick. He was craning his neck to look at the vast, intricate network of lead and iron guttering that carried rainwater from the roof. "That'll take all of today."

Filch grinned malevolently. "Only if you get a move-on. At nine o'clock, yer to get half an hour for breakfast. You get half an hour for lunch at one. And Professor McGonagall says if the job ain't done to my satisfaction by this evening, I can give you another detention so yew'd best get started."

***

"You look rough," I said.

Ben managed a weak smile. "Unlike some, I've got an excuse - I didn't get to bed until four."

We were hovering unsteadily on our brooms. We had buckets hooked onto the front and were scooping in handful after handful of stinking, black, rotting slop. Mostly, it was just old leaves, but already my morning had been enlivened by the unexpected discovery of a decomposing pigeon. With one hand keeping control of the decrepit broom and the other clearing out the gutters, it was impossible to keep the smelly muck off my clothes or stop it from dribbling down my sleeve. But surprisingly, I was almost enjoying myself. It was a cool crisp autumn morning with a slight mist. It was the sort of weather I like and it was nice to watch the sunrise from eighty feet up in the air. In the distance, I could see a flicker of flame outside Hagrid's hut that showed he also had got up early and had lit a bonfire. If he wasn't burning rubbish, our very own seven-foot-eight Dr Moreau was probably destroying the evidence of another failed experiment in illegal animal breeding.

"So I assume the Hufflepuff common room saw modest but dignified celebrations of Cedric Diggory's success?" I said with a lopsided smirk.

"What do you think? He's the first Hufflepuff Hogwarts champion since 1837. The party in the common room went on until one. When the juniors went to bed, some of the sixth and seventh years adjured to Ced's dorm room. Mildred Hubble got some Firewhisky from somewhere and Andy Pugh had six bottles of Muggle booze in his trunk that he smuggled in at the beginning of term; we kept going until it was all finished. Oh, before I forget ... vodka and butter-beer - just don't, ever."

I winced.

"The only fly in the ointment is Harry bloody Potter, " he continued, irately. "We were racking our brains last night, trying to work out how the little sod got his name picked."

"What I want to know," I said levelly, "is why he isn't sitting beside us right now, on his broom and covered in crap."

"Exactly! It's not that he got over Dumbledore's Age Line - that's what we tried after all - but he must have nobbled the Goblet to make sure his name was drawn as well as whoever got picked as champion. But he's not getting punished and Professor Sprout told us they're letting his entry stand." He hurled another handful of muck into his bucket as emphases. From his tone of voice, he would have liked to pour the contents over Potter's head. I knew that's what I felt like doing. The Hufflepuffs got few moments in the sun and if the champion wasn't to be a Slytherin, then they deserved it more than anybody else did.

The sun climbed towards breakfast time and Ben, Nick and I continued working our way along the roof. Below us, Sarah, whose flying abilities got her unanimously voted Captain of the Wheelbarrow, trudged backwards and forwards to the compost heap. I was feeling whimsically pleased with myself for reaching a minor milestone in the form of the gargoyle at the corner of the roof when Nick flew down to empty his bucket into the wheelbarrow and take a five-minute gossip break.

"Oh damn it.... Alex..."

"What?"

"My rubber gloves are tight and they're beginning to hurt. Your hands are smaller so do you want to swap?"

"Sure." I skimmed round the corner to where Ben was working. As he took both hands off his broom to peel off the gloves, it gave a sudden lurch. Without stopping to consult me, my hand shot out and grabbed him tightly by the wrist.

Bloody hell, Alex. What do you do now? Better think of something ... you've been gripping him like a vice for at least five seconds. Do you let go and look silly or ... move your grip five inches so you're clutching his hand? Crap! Did I just do that? Must've done, he's pulling me towards him. Now he's got a hand on my shoulder...and I appear to be grinning like an idiot.

The carping part of my mind noted that it was the hand that, thirty seconds ago, had been scooping up rotting gunk - I could feel it seeping through my old sweatshirt. This was not, it pointed out, the way things happened in the Violet De Merville romance novel I once borrowed out of boredom and a morbid interest in literary masochism. I was about to tell shrewish Alex to shut the hell up until she learnt the difference between the significant and the irrelevant but I was distracted by the sudden realization that I should tilt my head - or I would probably have Ben's nose poking in my eye.

And...well... no fireworks, no ethereal choir and I didn't go weak at the knees - either Violet's accuracy was no better than her prose or that kind of thing only happens to raven-haired pureblood girls with a mysterious past. For this unmysterious mousy-haired half-blood there was just warm squelchy dampness, an occasional collision of teeth and the feeling that it would be wonderful if the moment could continue for the next six months or so.

Author's Notes

For no particular reason, I'm assuming Zacharias was in the Hufflepuff reserves before being promoted to the first team in his fifth year.

Full details on Jarveys may be found in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them or the Harry Potter Lexicon website. If you can't be bothered looking up either, then Alex's description is quite sufficient.