"One of Those Quirky, Paradoxical Time-Travel Things"

Chapter Seven

The sun shone brightly upon the green hill above the town of Thwil, on Roke Island, in Earthsea. A warm breeze, salt-spumed and redolent of the sea that sparkled just beyond the bay, lifted the hair and stirred the clothes of the five men and the woman and the little boy who lay or sat or, in the child's case, toddled about in the grass, which had been nibbled down to a short, smooth carpet by the goats that grazed on the side of the hill.

Radagast and Gandalf sat smoking, blowing smoke-runes that chased each other across the clear air before drifting away out oversea. Their long beards and hair were plaited, or rather tangled, with tiny colourful flowers, as were the equally long hair and beard of the wizard who sat with them, not smoking, but sipping from a tall frosted glass filled with a liquid the colour of dandelions and of ripe pumpkins.

"More potent than the best brandy," Albus Dumbledore said, with a satisfied sigh, as he set the glass down and drew the tip of his wand across his mouth, wiping his moustache and beard but not disturbing a single one of the tiny flowers nestled among the silvery strands of hair.

"And having a quite different effect," replied the black-haired wizard who sat beside the woman. His hair was not so long as that of the greybeards, and he was cleanshaven, only his upper lip and chin showing the hint of a shadow at this early hour. "You may drink as much of it as you like, and it will not make you more than comfortably drowsy, nor will it inconvenience you in other ways."

As he spoke, he waved his wand at the glass, and the liquid rose to the brim.

"Ah, Severus, you've outdone yourself this time."

Snape's sallow cheeks flushed at Dumbledore's words, and a light flared in his dark eyes before he lowered his lids and looked away.

Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled behind their half-moon spectacles, but he turned his own gaze towards the fifth man in the group, whose cloak bore the silver clasp of the School for Wizards here on Roke Island.

"You see, Sparrowhawk, why Severus will not take up the offer of a post at your School here? I have far too great a need of him at Hogwarts to let him go."

"Hogwarts will open again, then, next term, Albus?" Sparrowhawk replied.

"I see no reason why it shouldn't. Do either of you chaps?" Dumbledore asked, turning to the two smokers.

Both men shook their heads, and smiled, and Gandalf said, "We have no palantír here to scry."

"Ask Thursday," said Radagast. "She can jump about more freely than we."

"Ardum ipsum wing sit amet!" cried the little boy, bounding across the grass towards Dumbledore, clutching a fistful of flowers in each hand. "Nostrud exercitation commodo consequat!"

"I see you, Friday," Dumbledore chuckled, and waved his wand, steadying the child as Friday tottered. "You jump very well. I once knew a little boy who grew up and learned to turn himself into a kangaroo. What do you think of that?"

"Omnis kangaroo assumenda estel!" Friday shouted. "Mummy! Excepteur sint cupidatat Kanga et Roo!"

"All right; but you must stop plaiting Professor Dumbledore's hair and beard, and pay attention," Thursday replied.

"Oh, let him plait," Snape told her. "You have a much more interesting tale to tell."

"Ah, yes--but is it a tale fit for little ears?"--and Radagast, grinning, covered his own rather large ears with his hands.

Gandalf took his pipe from his mouth to cough and clear his throat quite meaningfully; although he, too, was smiling.

"Tell us the other tale, Thursday," he said. "Tell us again what happened when Albus and Harry got back to Hogsmeade from their quest."

"Right." Thursday cleared her throat, and settled herself more comfortably in the grass.

"'Harry looked around desperately for help, but there was nobody to be seen and all he could think was that he must somehow get Dumbledore quickly to the hospital wing.

"'"We need to get you up to the school, sir ... Madam Pomfrey ... "

"'"No," said Dumbledore. "It is ... Professor Snape whom I need. ... But I do not think ... I can walk very far just yet. ..."

"'"Right--sir, listen--I'm going to knock on a door, find a place you can stay--then I can run and get Madam--"

"'"Severus," said Dumbledore clearly. "I need Severus. ... "

"'"All right then, Snape--but I'm going to have to leave you for a moment so I can--"

"'Before Harry could make a move, however, he heard music: eerie, spine-tingling, heart-lifting music ... the song of a phoenix ...

"'Of Fawkes.

"'Harry strained his eyes to peer up into the sky, looking, searching ...

"'And there was Fawkes, flying as swiftly across the sky as, four years earlier, he had flown down through the darkness of the Chamber of Secrets to rescue Harry and Ginny.

"'But it was not Ginny who lay so pale at Harry's feet tonight. And Fawkes needed no bidding to act. He flew down to Dumbledore's side, and almost as if moved by a will other than his own, Dumbledore's hand reached out and grasped the phoenix's long golden tail feathers.

"'"Harry ... " he murmured, "Harry ... take my hand ... "

"'And they were borne up, Fawkes beating his powerful wings against the air, carrying Dumbledore and Harry back to the castle. ... '"

... And Thursday continued telling the story that had begun to appear on the pages of Half-Blood Prince, replacing the words that had previously been printed there, even as she and Snape had climbed the stairs of that house that misty night in Spinner's End. As she told about how Snape had stepped out of Dumbledore's fireplace in a blast of emerald flames, carrying every potion known to the wizarding world (and some known only to Snape himself), the Snape on the sunny green Roke hillside suddenly decided Friday needed many more flowers, and muttering words to that effect got up and set off towards the far side of the hill.

* * * *

Thursday continued the narrative, telling how Dumbledore recovers from the ill effects of the potion he had drunk in the cave, tells Harry about the necklace and locket they had found, and what that finding might mean for the Order of the Phoenix and the whole wizarding world.

Snape had returned by this time, carrying a handful of flowers, which he had thrust at Thursday with a look that quite plainly said, For Merlin's sake don't let the kid plait them into my hair!

Thursday now reached the passage where Draco confronts his Head of House and demands to know just what his mother, Narcissa, had seen in Spinner's End that night during the previous summer. Thursday glanced up at Snape--and gave a sigh of relief as Dumbledore spoke.

"Well, that will do, that will do." Dumbledore got to his feet, as effortlessly as a much younger man. "Come, Friday," he continued. "Let's go and see if we can find some nice warm milk, shall we?"

"Non fridge?" Friday asked, frowning confusedly up at Dumbledore, but tucking his hand into the wizard's and trotting contentedly off with him towards the goats.

"Is their milk safe?" Thursday asked Sparrowhawk.

"Oh, yes," smiled the wizard of Earthsea. "The students aren't allowed to say anything to them."

"Are you saying that the students at your School don't break rules?" Snape growled, fixing Sparrowhawk with his black gaze. "Are they never given detentions? Punishments?"

"Oh! Well!" Sparrowhawk grinned. "They are students, Severus. Young folk.

"But let us not talk of punishments ... " he went on. ...

Thursday, sighing, stood up, brushing grass from her trousers.

At her feet, Snape and Sparrowhawk sat talking now of Quidditch, Snape explaining the rules in much more detail than Oliver Wood had gone into them with Harry in Chapter Ten of Philosopher's Stone.

Over near the side of the hill, Dumbledore had charmed two mugs out of thin air and was showing Friday how to milk one of the goats.

Watching them, Thursday was suddenly reminded of Heidi and the Alm-Uncle; but the child she pictured was a little boy, with lank black hair and a nose that would take some growing into. She found herself wishing suddenly and quite fiercely that Severus' Muggle father had been more like her own dad; but she was not sure how she felt when Dumbledore waved and called to her: "I wish this boy of yours might have a place at Hogwarts!"

She returned his wave, and Friday's; then looked across at Gandalf and Radagast, who without wands or any other apparent magic were removing the flowers from each other's beards.

"Ah, Thursday." Radagast smiled up at her as she joined them. "I do wish you would carry on being the Bellman. Jurisfiction--all fiction--needs operatives like you."

"Like me?" She returned the smile as she sat down beside them. "A rogue? Who breaks wizarding law as well as literary?"

"Now, Thursday," said Radagast. "What did I tell you? There is no law that forbids wizards to help people in need."

"But I'm not a wizard. A witch, I mean."

"Precisely," said Gandalf. "How then can you break wizarding law?"

"But the laws of literature--" Thursday began--

"--do not apply in magical books," Gandalf finished mildly. "If you were to stay on as Bellman you would come to understand these things as well as 'know' them." Gandalf punctuated the word "know" with his fingers.

"You would know them in your heart," added Radagast, patting his own broad chest. "In the very core of your being."

Thursday thought of nubs--and of wands--again; and could not help smiling.

Yet there was sorrow in the thought, too. "You can push the boundaries only so far," she said. "Sn--Severus said so; and a character called Jack Spratt once voiced the same concern to me. And Voldemort pushed the boundaries of magic further than any other wizard ... and look what happened to him."

"Thus far," Gandalf amended. "But who knows how it all will end?"

Radagast nodded. "Tell me, Thursday: how do you and Severus think Severus got into Minerva McGonagall's office? For you both seemed to believe Gandalf and me when we said it was not our doing."

"We talked about it," Thursday replied, feeling her cheeks reddening as she recalled the setting in which that conversation had taken place. "He thought it might have been Professor McGonagall herself. Or more probably Hermione Granger. She being one of Harry Potter's closest friends, as Severus pointed out.

"I thought it might have been Harry. He is, as Dumbledore has said, full of love. And he has broken so many rules--often to help Dumbledore."

"Or ... ?" Gandalf prompted.

"Or perhaps it was Dumbledore himself who did it. I mean ... being alive now ... well ... maybe he was able to do as Harry did in Prisoner of Azkaban, when he was able to produce the Patronus and save Sirius and himself, because he had seen himself do it before. Maybe Dumbledore ...

"Or maybe it was Fawkes--" and she glanced over to where Dumbledore's phoenix and her own two dodos were conversing in soft chirrups and plocks with Sparrowhawk's otak.

Thursday shook her head. "It's too much magic for me.

"Which is why I really can't see staying on as Bellman. I would love to do what you said, Radagast--to understand--here"--she tapped her chest--"the BookWorlds: the magical one, and what Severus calls the Muggle one.

"But Jurisfiction is Jurisfiction, and there are even more regulations and red tape in the BookWorld than there are in the Outland. And I thought ... well, I thought I might fight the next election, out there--if I can get selected as a candidate. After all, in the Outland the prime minister cares as much about literature as about wars."

"And in Severus' world the prime minister works with the Minister of Magic," said Gandalf; and his eyes twinkled under his grey eyebrows.

"And if you should have another son--or a daughter--someday," Radagast told her, the colour in his cheeks deepening beyond their usual ruddiness--"don't be surprised if, oh, some twelve years hence--say, eleven years and three-quarters--you look out your window and see an owl bringing a letter addressed to that child."

Thursday felt her neck and ears burning now as well as her cheeks; but she smiled, and picking up the flowers that had been thrust upon her some time before, she got up and started across the hill towards Snape.

The End