Dancing with the Green Fairy

Dancing with Green Fairy

Richard Smith ran through the corridor as fast as he could manage. Considering his forty-five years of age and the many extra pounds around his waistline, this was a lot faster than most people would have imagined. The fact that he was a security guard might have had something to do with it. Although he didn't work out as regularly as he used to in his youth, he was still in fairly good shape, despite being slightly overweight.

He also hated to miss phone calls.

"Yes, I'm coming, damn it!" he panted as he rounded the corner and ran towards the reception desk. Who was calling this late anyway? It was not his duty to answer phone calls to the department, but he just knew that he would be wondering who had called all night if he missed it. He was funny that way. His wife sometimes teased him about it. Maybe it was a weakness, but when you worked as a security guard the night could sometimes be very long. It was easy to get obsessed about missed phone calls when there was nothing to do and no one to talk to but the darkness.

Not that he minded working the evening shift at the British Library. Some of his colleagues were assigned places that were decidedly more dangerous, places where you could expect robbers to come in with sawed off shotguns late in the evening and blow your head off. When you were past forty and had two kids and a wife you loved very much at home, a little dull was a lot better. At least when he sat the long hours in the semi-darkness, or walked the empty corridors of the modern--and, in his very private opinion, very ugly building--he knew that he would be seeing his two sons that night, and every other night after that.

"British Library, can I help you?" he shouted as he ripped up the receiver. Shouting was probably not the right thing to do, but he was quite out of breath by now, and fairly agitated. He groaned as he heard the continuous tone in his ear. Blast! He had missed it! In anger and frustration he banged the receiver down in its cradle and leaned against the desk to catch his breath.

Then he realised the phone was still ringing. Was there another phone he didn't know about? The sound was strong and came from somewhere nearby, but where? He turned and saw a door marked "Utility Closet" that stood ajar. A thin slice of light was spilling out of the door onto the floor in front of him. It seemed the ringing came from inside the utility closet. This was odd. Actually, it was more than odd; it was downright crazy. He stared in disbelief.

He didn't hurry now; instead he reached out with caution and pushed the door open so that he could see inside. There was nothing dangerous or alarming about the little room: it was small, barely a few square feet, and contained nothing but cleaning supplies and a broom leaning against the wall beside a bucket, looking like it hadn't been used in a long time. The only thing out of the ordinary was the old fashioned black telephone that stood on a shelf. It was also not apparent where the light came from, but it fell on the phone as if the sole purpose of its existence was to light it.

The ringing continued very patiently as Richard stared inside. What was a phone doing in here? But then, these library people always had funny ideas about things. Putting a phone in a utility closet was perhaps not so strange after all. Hesitating just another second, he reached out and picked up the phone.

"Yes?" he said.

"Hello Richard! I am sorry to disturb you during your shift."

The voice was that of an old man. He sounded very calm and friendly, yet Richard felt his heart starting to beat again in his chest. How did the person on the other end know his name? He was merely a security guard here; he doubted he was even on the personnel phone list. It wasn't like he could answer any questions anyway.

"Listen Richard," the friendly old voice continued, "I need your help with a matter of great urgency."

Richard Smith very much doubted that he would be helping this peculiar stranger with anything, but he said nothing.

"There is a young woman in the library right now and she is in great danger. You must hurry to help her. In fact her life may be in danger if you do not help."

"What?" This was not at all what Richard had expected. The calmness of the old man's voice and the place he was standing, between the shelf and the broom, made the whole thing seem absurd. Still, as a security guard, it was his duty to protect the library's many priceless and rare collections and the many sizes and shapes of patrons that came to peruse them.

"Sir," he continued, collecting himself," it is my duty to help anyone in peril. However, I should warn you that we do not take prank calls lightly. We will not hesitate to press charges against any individual who wastes the institution's time and resources on false alarm calls." Not to mention scares me needlessly, he added to himself.

"I can assure you Richard that this is no prank call. Please hurry, there is still time to stop him!"

"Who is this woman you are referring to and where do I find her, sir?" Richard decided to play along with the old man. It was in his job description after all to take any nut that raised an alarm seriously until there was proof it was not genuine. Should it transpire that no one had really been in any danger, and this old fellow was just someone from a nearby psychiatric ward, the security guard would not be blamed for taking him seriously. The consequences if the opposite was true and he neglected to act would be far more terrible.

"She is a young woman who is conducting research in the department for handwritten manuscripts of great value to the nation's history. She would be sitting in the special reading room for reading very delicate documents. She is of middle height and has brown eyes and brown, rather long and large hair. Her name is Hermione Granger."

Richard's security guard instincts changed his mind when he heard this description. He started to believe the old man was telling the truth, at least the part about the woman. He had himself examined her pass earlier that day before letting her enter the exact same department the caller was referring to, the National Historic Artefact department. He remembered how he had thought that she must be one of those brilliant young scholars from some university working on a thesis. She seemed very young. In fact, so young he would normally have doubted that she had even entered the university, and he would never had thought she would be at PhD level. But when you worked at the British Library, you got used to meeting some of the most brilliant minds in Britain, some astonishingly young.

"Please hurry Richard! I will explain to you later."

"All right then, I'll check up on her to make sure she is all right."

He ran out of the utility closet and rounded the desk, returning through the corridor the same way he had come in. This better not be a prank call! He darted down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. What was this woman doing in here this late anyway? The library had been closed for two hours. This seemed to speak against the authenticity of the caller, but he pushed the thought out of his mind. What was the harm? He could at least skip going to the gym this week without feeling too bad. He was having all the exercise he needed tonight.

When he came to the corridor on the floor below, he started to walk again. It was time to catch his breath and slow down. He needed to be prepared and watchful in the event someone violent and dangerous really was lurking ahead. It was a long corridor with doors leading to the different departments on both sides. The doors were closed and the light was dim. The emptiness and the gloomy light made it seem a little eerie in there. He felt that maybe he should be cautious just in case. If someone was doing something illicit he shouldn't alert the person and give him time to run off. Besides, this part of the building was slightly creepy. He peered in through the glass doors lining the corridor as he walked by. The high shelves with hundreds and thousands of volumes lay in darkness. It was hard to see anything beyond a few feet inside the rooms.

In the corner of his eye, he caught a movement ahead of him in the corridor. Someone was coming towards him.

It was a young man.

He was conservatively dressed with a neat tie and clothes that resembled a mixture between a school uniform and some sort of medieval attire. A long cape was gracing the young man's shoulders. His hair was dark, neat and short. His fringe looked like the kind that would fall into his eyes and be blown away with a casual elegance. Richard knew the type: young arrogant upper class with a flair for ordering older people around just because they happened to be wearing a uniform and worked in a service profession. He supposed some women might find this one attractive, with his pale face, black hair, and sharp features.

Richard thought he must be exceedingly arrogant. The man just stood in front of him fixing him with his pale grey eyes without speaking, while he absently twirled a wooden stick between his fingers.

"Who are you?" Richard demanded.

"I am Tom," the young man replied.

"So what are you doing here, Tom? The library is closed at this time. Do you have any identification or a pass to work this late?"

"No, I don't have a pass," the young man said, quite unconcerned. He looked down at the wooden stick in his hand and stroked the upper side of it back and forth with his finger.

Is everybody nuts tonight? Richard thought to himself. He was used to people becoming nervous when they were being apprehended prowling around where they were not allowed. Normally a person would fall into a long and incoherent rant about what he was up to at this point. Usually the explanation would not make any sense at all, because it had been quickly thought up just a few seconds earlier.

"You need to produce some ID to establish that you are allowed on the premises sir, or I will be forced to call the police."

"Why don't you do that?" the boy said. He looked at the rod and a faint smile played at the corner of his mouth.

Richard didn't like the look in the boy's eyes. He prided himself of being a pretty good judge of people, in his profession you had to be, and this one seemed a lot calmer than he should.

"Is that a threat?" he asked, while slowly reaching for his walkie-talkie.

At that instant, a high-pitched shriek was heard from one of the rooms further down the corridor. It ripped the silence with such sudden impact that Richard felt like he must have jumped several feet in the air. He turned around and ran towards the room the scream had come from. It seemed the old man had been telling the truth after all. How he could know what was going on in a deserted corridor deep in the British Library was a mystery, but that someone was in danger right now was not. The young man seemed totally unmoved by the shriek and the agony and suffering it conveyed. Richard would deal with him in a moment. The young woman was clearly in danger. He hoped he was not too late. The girl had seemed very nice and polite.

He slammed the glass door open and hit the light switch. The strong lights pierced his eyes at first, but he had no time to worry about that. He ran between the high shelves towards the reading room.

Someone was lying on the floor. It was the young girl he had met earlier the same day. She was unconscious, laying face down with her long curly brown hair covering her face and a good part of the floor, her legs were spread at a funny angle but did not appear broken. There was no blood on her white shirt, on her brown skirt or grey cardigan. She looked just like she had in the afternoon.

Richard knelt down on one knee and felt her neck for a pulse. Thank God she was still alive, and she was breathing normally, too. That was a good sign. He felt her head and tried to examine her for any sign of injury. He couldn't find any physical trauma.

He looked around in the room to see if a struggle or any violence had taken place. The room looked quite untouched. On the high reading table laid a small book. It didn't look like any of the really old and delicate manuscripts. They were usually written on parchment with ornamentations and illustrations in gold and various colours. One could tell those books must have taken years to make, generations maybe, it was obvious why they were very valuable and rare. This one looked like an ordinary small black notebook, like the kind you could buy in any bookshop in London. The type people used as diaries.

But what did he know about hand-written manuscripts crucial to the nation's history? He was only the security guard and it was his job to get this young woman to a hospital as quickly as possible. Then he must hurry to catch that boy out in the corridor before he got away. He reached for his walkie-talkie.

"This is Richard Smith. I need assistance! NOW!"

At the same time that Richard Smith reached for his walkie-talkie calling for assistance and an ambulance, Albus Dumbledore was pacing in his office in the heart of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His face was wrinkled in concentration, his hands rammed deeply in the pockets of his purple robes decorated with gold and silver stars. The robes reached to the floor and dragged behind him when he walked, stooped forward just slightly, as if a wind was blowing in the room, but it was his considerable age that weighed on his shoulders.

"It is happening again Minerva, just as we feared," he said, turning to Minerva McGonagall who had been sitting on a chair in silence. "Some days I feel very old, you know... I don't know if I have the energy to go through this yet again."

"You don't really think Hermione has anything to do with this, do you Albus? I refuse to believe she is capable of such a thing."

"Oh, I'm sure she never intended for it to happen, but you know Minerva, she might have thought she could handle the situation. I know she was your favourite student, perhaps almost like a daughter. I'm not accusing you of favouritism so you needn't worry." Dumbledore stopped his pacing for a second to peer over his shoulder at McGonagall, smiling weakly. She pursed her mouth together and frowned.

"Well, maybe just a little bit. I was always very hard on her though, but she took it as a challenge. She was always such a joy to teach."

"Quite," Dumbledore said. "Hermione was a very special student to you, and she was exceptionally talented. She admired you greatly, as well. But I think you may agree with me that she sometimes had a touch of arrogance. She tended to overestimate her own abilities."

"Well, I wouldn't say she was arrogant. It is merely hard sometimes, with such a talent, to know where your limits are."

"Indeed. Didn't she try to wrestle a mountain troll all by herself her very first year?"

"Yes, provided she was entirely truthful about Mr Potter and Mr Weasley's role in the matter, which I somehow doubt."

Dumbledore smiled at the memory. "I think the episode with the time turner was more serious though."

"Yes, but she learned a valuable lesson, although I fear she could repeat the same mistake again, given the right unfortunate circumstances," McGonagall said.

Dumbledore nodded and resumed his pacing. Professor McGonagall remained in her chair, looking out the window, deep in thought.

"I thought Harry Potter destroyed that terrible book many years ago. The Basilisk poison finished its powers, didn't it?"

"Maybe it did, and maybe not. Since the capture of Lucius Malfoy, it has been kept closely guarded just in case, along with several crates of dark magical objects confiscated from Malfoy Manor."

McGonagall took off her glasses and inspected them, looking for non-existent flecks of dirt. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Oh Albus, why can't we just Apparate over there and rescue her? She may be in great danger," she said.

"You know very well we cannot Apparate inside the British Library. There are very effective anti-Apparation spells to protect the manuscripts. They are valuable and dangerous."

"Everybody is setting up Apparation barriers these day. It sometimes feels like there are no places left where one can Apparate to anymore."

"Oh, there might be one or two rugby fields somewhere where you can still Apparate freely," Dumbledore said with a smile. "I miss wizard's rugby. I sometimes wish I was young again." Seeing the disapproving look on McGonagall's face, he paused and cleared his throat. "Then again, maybe not," he continued, "Most anti-Apparation spells I could probably break, but since I put up those particular ones myself, I'm afraid I can't break them. I'm that good." He smiled at McGonagall who didn't look at all amused. His smile faded and he continued, "Besides, remember that we have promised never to interfere at the library. Considering the nature of some of the objects they let us keep there, I think they are taking a considerable risk on our behalf. Imagine how the director would react if I came barging in there at night? She believes that is impossible to do."

"You said it was impossible."

"Well, nearly impossible. There is usually always a small possibility for the impossible to become possible."

"Ghastly, all those anti-Apparation spells. People don't trust each other anymore," McGonagall muttered, looking out the window again.

Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall lost themselves in thoughts.

A minute passed.

"No Minerva, we simply have to wait until they drive her to the hospital, then we can Apparate to fetch her. The fact that the ambulance doesn't seem to hurry very much indicates she is not seriously wounded."

"I don't like to think about those Muggle healers trying to tend to her."

"She is Muggle-born. She will know what to do."

Richard Smith was sweating. He was warm and uncomfortable, and he didn't like the look on the face of the young policeman. The police always treated security guards as if they were really quite daft just because they had never studied at the police academy. The younger they were, the worse they generally got. This one was not yet dry behind his ears and seemed to have a lot of insecurities to hide.

"So, this is the closet where you say the phone was?"

"Yes," Richard loosened his tie a little more. It felt like it was strangling him.

"Really?"

The policeman stepped inside the small closet. The black old-fashioned phone was gone: only the broom and the bucket remained.

"It would have been right here?" He drew with two fingers across the shelf, leaving deep tracks in the very thick layer of dirt and lint. If anything had been standing on the shelf recently, it would be rather obvious. Yet the only tracks were the ones made by the young officer's fingers. Richard stared inside the closet.

"And you met the young man with black hair and grey eyes where?"

"That would be downstairs. If you follow me..."

Richard showed the policeman the corridor and described the young man again. He was asked to describe how the young man had dressed twice. As if he would change his peculiar story the second time. Who did this young officer think he was, some kid who was spicing up the story just to get attention? The last thing he wanted was attention. A nice quiet uneventful shift would have suited him just fine.

He could feel a headache coming on from these questions. Having concluded that the guy was a pompous ass and that nothing would be uncovered by his contributions, Richard managed to shake off the policeman by saying he was going to check if the ambulance people needed any help.

He left him at the scene of the crime, the reading room where he had found the girl, and walked downstairs to the entrance.

He stood in the rain watching the paramedics putting the young woman in the ambulance. They worked with the smart efficiency of professionals: quickly, but without frantic hurry. He walked forward to the car. The cold air and rain felt refreshing.

"What is wrong with her? Will she be all right?" Richards asked the paramedic who was closing the passenger door of the ambulance.

"I think she has suffered some sort of shock, possibly exhaustion, overexertion, or dehydration. You see that sometimes with these academic types. Maybe she took some drug to stay awake."

"But she was screaming, like she was being attacked or something, or tortured. It sounded rather horrible"

"You don't say?" The paramedic gave him a searching look. He hesitated a second as if he was going to say something. Then he rounded the ambulance and opened the back door.

"Right." He nodded and stepped inside the ambulance to tend to his patient.

Richard watched the ambulance drive away in the rain. He didn't think the theory about exhaustion sounded very convincing. She had been screaming like she had been attacked, he was pretty sure of that, but by whom? He very much wanted to question the young man he had met shortly before he had heard the scream. He couldn't have been the attacker though, since he was standing right beside him. He was most certainly an accomplice of whoever attacked the girl. Richard was sure of that. That stupid policeman would probably not do much more than write a report. It would be no more than a short note. He didn't seem to believe Richard's story about the young man with the black hair. All right, the thing about the telephone in the broom closet was strange and freaky, but he certainly hadn't dreamed the whole episode. There had been someone lurking around in the library after hours, and the girl on the floor had not been a mirage. She had just been transported to the hospital in an ambulance, at least that much must be obvious even to that unimaginative and arrogant twit of an officer.

The radio crackled on his belt, breaking off his thoughts. Absently he reached for it and pushed the receive button.

"Yes?"

"Hello Richard, has the ambulance left yet?" It was the old man again. What in the world was he doing on his radio? Things were getting stranger by the minute.

"Who are you, and how did you get on my walkie-talkie?" Richard demanded.

"I'll explain later. Now, has the young lady left for the hospital yet?"

"Yes, the ambulance just left. She is not badly hurt though. I think they will only keep her for observation." Why am I telling that to this stranger? Richard thought. After all this must be considered confidential, something of nobody's concern but the young woman and her family. But perhaps the old man was family. At least he seemed to believe Richard was sane and that he hadn't imagined things. He told the old man all that had happened.

The paramedic, who had just jumped into the ambulance, stared in astonishment.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Tom," said the unknown person. He stood in the middle of the ambulance his long mantle swayed along with him as the ambulance took off. Despite the odd clothes he looked well dressed and elegant, although he had loosened up his green and black striped tie. He did not hold on to anything to keep his balance despite the high speed they were going.

Behind him stood yet another person wearing similar long hanging clothes, all black, and his face was covered in a white mask that was painted in a mad grin, only his watchful eyes were visible through the cut out holes. He didn't speak or move, nor did he hold on to anything to steady himself. The paramedic thought he looked damned spooky in that mask.

"What the hell are you two doing in this ambulance? This is no public transportation."

The young man fixed him with a penetrating look. His black fringe fell in his eyes and he blew it away casually. Without taking his eyes of the paramedic, he reached for a little piece of wood he had hidden in his unusual clothes.

The paramedic took a few quick steps to the little window that allowed him to talk to the driver face to face. He stared in disbelief. The driver seat was empty and no one was holding the steering wheel. The rain pounded on the windows and the car accelerated to breath-taking speed, navigating through the heavy traffic with occasion pops and jumps, it was driving by it self. Frozen in shock he just stood there staring at the guy that called himself Tom pointing the wooden stick at him.

"What have you done to Bill?" he whispered.

"He had to stay behind. You should have done that too. Now I don't really know what to do with you. To be perfectly honest you are in the way," Tom said, while he lifted the little piece of wood in the air. His forehead was turning sweaty and his eyes had a mad feverish fire in them. The paramedic was already afraid and confused, but now he started to feel cheer raving panic and blood taste in his mouth. He didn't understand anything, but somehow, for some reason, he knew he was about to die.

He looked around. If he dove for the door would he survive the fall against the wet asphalt in fifty-five miles an hour? The trouble was that he knew there was a safety lock on the door. It had been installed years ago after an accident where a confused patient had jumped out of a speeding ambulance and died.

"Why don't you try a little crucio Tom?"

It was the injured girl. She had woken up and was sitting on the stretcher. Distracted Tom snapped his head around and pointed the stick at the girl's chest.

"I am the flight of death" he said, his voice hoarse and husky.

"I'm Hermione, the little Green Fairy," the girl said, looking at him intently.

"So you have found the Dark Lord?" He gave her a searching look. "I do not recognise this one or you, but the Dark Lord always rewards those who seek him out instead of hiding cowardly when the times become troubled for the movement."

"We've come to free our followers and rid the world of our enemies." She said, and grinned at him.

Tom grinned back, "Right then, lets start with this one." He turned again to the terrified paramedic. "It has been a long time since I've done this." He lifted the piece of wood and paused for a second. The grin spread and became wider on his handsome aristocratic face.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

A flash of green light could be seen through the windows of the ambulance as it drove off in the rain.