Late Night Visitors
While Reginald Dennison was fighting off the yellow birds that swirled around him, clawing and pecking, Benedict and Philip had nearly reached the entrance of the Hospital Wing. Lara, still many steps behind, called out in her summoning voice, “Madam Pomphrey!”
Pomphrey rushed to the entrance. “Lara? Boys? What’s happened?”
“Madam Pomphrey,” said Benedict, “Pauline’s been hit with one of Dennison’s Dark Magic spells. It’s like the one he cursed Jill Roycester with, but this one’s ten times worse.”
“Bring her in and set her down on that bed there. Where’s Lara? I heard her calling me.”
“She’s coming. She worked on Pauline and then sent her up here with us. I think she did an exorcism!”
The boys eased Pauline down onto the nearest hospital bed while Pomphrey reviewed a record of Pauline’s vitals readings. Lara strode into the room, her face flushed and shiny with sweat.
“It’s an enduring malignancy,” she said. “It’s affecting her ovaries.”
“Good heavens! Ben said you performed an exorcism? Were you able to expel it?”
“Yes. We came as soon as we could, but it was attacking her for at least five minutes before that.”
“Has she been conscious?”
“Not since the curse hit her,” said Philip.
“There’s a potion I can make,” said Pomphrey, “that should help cure Dark Magic ills. In the meantime, get her into a hospital gown. I’ll need to do a female exam.” She walked away, towards her office.
Philip pointed to a chair by the door. “I’ll be right here.”
Benedict looked nervously at Lara. “Stay by my side,” she said. “Keep giving her anti-shock and reporting on her vitals.”
Lara pulled the curtain closed around the Ben. For the first time, Ben was behind the curtain, not cut off like Philip was. He gazed down at Pauline and felt a pang of longing. Come on, Langlet, he mused. You’ve got to pull through!
He checked her vitals and gave her another warming shot of anti-shock. Lara levitated Pauline so that she hovered slightly off the mattress. Methodically, Lara began stripping off Pauline’s clothes. A simple flannel gown open at the back lay beside the unconscious girl.
Ben knew he should look away. To look down, to leer, at a girl who had been so victimized already that night, was wrong. He felt the sin like a sharp sting. Yet, he could not pull his eyes from the lovely girl lying inches from him. He watched her body emerge in pieces as Lara removed first the blouse and then the skirt. He thought she might stop there, but no, the delicate lace bra fell away and then the French cut briefs. There was Pauline Langlet’s achingly beautiful body. Lara swiftly applied the gown, but the image would stay in Benedict’s mind for many years to come.
A sudden realization hit him – Lara had looked into his future once when he was a First Year, and she had come upon a scene in which Benedict gazed at a naked girl. “Lara!” he said. “The naked girl. That was her!”
“Yes, it was,” said Lara. “Tonight, my prophecies are coming true.”
Downstairs, Jones had yet to appear. Morwena checked with Umberto while Liam stood outside the Slytherin common room. A long hallway stretched out to his left, lit with the occasional torch. Faintly, in the distance, he heard a sound, like the chirp of a bird.
Morwena returned. “Umberto hasn’t seen Jones.”
“I keep hearing a sound,” said Liam. “Like a smoke alarm when the battery’s low.”
“I’ll take your word on that,” said Morwena.
“It’s down this way. Come on.”
They walked down a winding corridor lit intermittently with torches. The chirping sound grew louder. Soon, they could see one last yellow bird standing in the hallway next to a door.
“It’s okay, little one,” said Liam. “We’re here now.” The bird faded into mist.
Morwena went up to the door and called out, “Jones, are you in there? It’s Morwena.”
Jones answered. “Are the birds gone?”
“Yes, they’re gone. The spell has dissipated.”
She pulled open the door. Jones was standing in a broom closet. His foot was in a mop bucket. He was still wearing his mask, though it was ripped in places, and there were scratches on his cheeks.
When he saw the two prefects, he said, “I didn’t do it! It was Dennison.”
“Take off that silly mask,” said Morwena. “That’s why we had a hard time finding you.” Jones pulled off the mask and shoved it in his pocket. “Tell me! What did Dennison do?” asked Morwena.
“He did some creepy thing. Always going overboard, he is. We were just gonna scare her, you know, for a laugh. But Dennison had to go and do it. I wouldn’t have gone through with it if I knew. I would have balked like Thompson and Reese did.” Looking to Liam he added, “Reggie said it was you on the stairs, but I knew it wasn’t. You’re lefthanded. This bloke was right-handed.”
“It was Philip Harkenborough,” said Morwena.
“That’s it! The bloke from the library who works with Langlet. Told us off, he did, and when we didn’t behave, he knocked Carter flat on his ass. After Reggie did . . . you know . . . Harkenborough, that’s who it was. Sent his birds on us.”
Morwena, sternly: “When Professor Gregor gets here, you need to tell him everything you know.”
They walked back down the corridor to where the others were standing. To DeVere, Morwena said, “We found the last of our missing Fourth Years, Professor.”
“Good. Keep him on this side, please away from Carter and the others,” said DeVere. “Oh, can you two go up to the Entrance Hall? I’ve sent a message to Professor Gregor, and I’m expecting him soon.”
Gregor took a slow sip of wine and checked his watch. The speeches were over, the dinner and dessert were all consumed, and yet, this thing was not yet over. The glad-handing was still in full swing. Around McGonagall, a crowd of well-wishers waited for a moment to speak with her.
A House Elf sprinted up to Gregor’s table and handed him a slip of paper. The message, in DeVere’s script, stated, “Franz, I need you back. It’s Dennison. Ed.”
Gregor pushed the note away from him and strode from the room.
At another table, three old friends were catching up, Neville Longbottom, Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter. Neville watched Gregor leave and then got up and went over to the empty table. He picked up the note and scowled.
His friends were quickly at his side. “What’s up?” asked Harry.
“One of the kids, a royal pain in the ass, is stirring up trouble back at the school. Whatever it was, DeVere can’t handle it on his own, and he’s asking for the Deputy Headmaster. I better go, too, and see what’s going on.”
“Do you think you’ll need the services of an Auror?” asked Harry.
“I wouldn’t put it past this kid. Minerva was an inch from expelling him last spring.”
Harry read the note. “Dennison? As in Roger, maybe?”
“That’s the dad,” said Neville.
“Just barely within the law on a bunch of financial matters, as I understand,” said Harry. “And quite a registered list of Dark Magic books and artifacts in his collection. How about I come along, just in case?”
“That would be splendid.”
“You’re not leaving me here at this boring party,” said Ron. “If you’re going back to Hogwarts, I’m coming, too.”
At the Entrance Hall, Liam checked the front door. No one had come in or out yet. He opened the door and a cold blast of wind shot into the hall.
“Here,” said Morwena. “Let me put up a charm that will tell us when someone is coming.” She cast her spell and Liam shut the door.
He had hardly done so when the charm announced, “Someone’s coming!” Liam opened the door. Gregor was striding up the walkway. “Good evening, Professor,” said Liam.
“Wren, Felwich, what has happened?”
Liam answered. “Pauline Langlet is in the Hospital Wing. Apparently, Dennison had a go at her and hit her with something bad. Lara and Hark are up there with her, now. Everyone else is at the foot of the straight stairs, by the Slytherin Common room.”
“Thank you.” Gregor took the door to the straight stairs.
“Is that it? Should we go?” asked Morwena. “Are we supposed to wait for McGonagall?”
Before Liam could respond, the charm announced, “Someone’s coming!”
Liam opened the door. It was a woman this time, walking up the path. She had blond hair, and her white robe shown like snow in the moonlight.
“Good evening, prefects,” said the woman. “I know the way.” Without any further word, she swept past them and began climbing the Grand Staircase towards the Hospital Wing.
“That was a Healer from St. Mungo’s!” said Morwena. She started to quiver. Tears were forming in her eyes. “God! What did he do to her?”
Liam put his arm around Morwena and let her sink her head into his chest. “You’ve got to keep it together, Wen,” he said. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
“Someone’s coming!”
“Goodness!” said Morwena. “Who is it this time?”
Liam opened the door. “It’s Longbottom!” he told her. “And he’s brought friends.”
The three men climbed the steps to the door of the Entrance Hall. “Wren, Felwich,” said Longbottom in greeting. “Forgive me for not making introductions. Can you give me a status report?”
Liam gave him the same update he had given Gregor only a few minutes earlier. “We’ll go downstairs and check in with DeVere,” said Longbottom.
As they disappeared down the Straight Stairs, Morwena said, “Do you know who that was?”
“Oh yeah,” said Liam. “The ginger-haired guy, he’s one of the Weasleys. Runs the shop in Diagon Ally.”
It was a dumb joke, but it still made her laugh. “I meant the other man.”
“Oh, that one. The famous Auror, Harry Potter. I guess he was done with his speech. Or, maybe we got him out of it.”
She laughed again, but there was a crack in her voice, and tears in the corners of her eye.
Gregor made a quick assessment of the downstairs scene. DeVere was presiding over a tense group of Hufflepuffs and Slytherins. Dennison was still in his enchanted sleep, guarded by Brent, Ellsworth and Mageford. The Hufflepuffs, looking particularly grim that evening, kept watch over Aiden and Terrill while the Slytherins kept Freddy and Jason separate.
Gregor asked DeVere, “Have you heard from Poppy?”
“No, sir, I have not.”
“I’ll go there next.”
On the stairs, he meant Longbottom, Potter and Weasley coming down. “Good. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming,” said Gregor. “Start conducting interviews. Use Edward’s classroom. It’s closest. Interview the students separately. Get as much information as you can as to what happened. I will check on Poppy and come right back down again. Save Dennison for me.”
Upstairs in the Hospital Wing, Gregor found a very worried Philip Harkenborough sitting in a chair by the door along with a cheerfully helpful Benedict Took. “Good evening, Professor,” said Benedict, his hands behind his back and looking as if he were giving an oral report to the class. “Our patient, Pauline Langlet, was hit with an enduring malignant curse. It appears to have targeted her ovaries. It was an attempt at sterilizing her, I guess. Anyway, Lara did an exorcism and got it out of her. Madam Pomphrey made a potion. It’s supposed to cure Dark Magic ills.”
“Mageford’s potion!” interjected Gregor. “Poppy and I helped him develop it. We’ve never had a chance to test it.”
“Yes, that’s the one. Pauline is still unconscious. They had to enchant her to get her to drink it, but it seemed to help. Her vitals are steady now. Oh, and a Healer from St. Mungo’s is here. I didn’t catch her name, but she’s apparently Lara’s cousin.”
“Thank you for your thorough briefing, Took.”
“You’re welcome, sir. Though to be honest, they didn’t tell me anything. I just listened to what they told the Healer five minutes ago.”
“Keep listening,” said Gregor. “I will be back later.”
As he strode back down the stairs, Gregor’s brow wrinkled in anger. The Barren Curse! Of all the Wicked Vengeance curses, the most cruel. How could a fourteen-year-old boy have mastered such a curse? I must find that book!
When he returned down the straight stairs, the interviews were in full swing. DeVere was escorting students back and forth from his classroom, while Potter and Longbottom conducted the interviews. Ron Weasley served as door warden for DeVere’s classroom to shoo away eavesdroppers.
Potter and Longbottom had already interviewed Terrill Reese. They and were about to commence with Aiden Thompson when Gregor entered. Aiden described the lead-up to the event, how Dennison had challenged the Gryffindors to a duel as a distraction from his true purpose. “When I tried to talk him out of it, sir, he stunned me.”
Carter and Jones told very similar stories. Dennison had told each of them privately that he intended to harass Pauline when she returned from the library that evening. Both denied he had told them anything about cursing her. Carter said, “Some guy came to her rescue and knocked me on my ass.”
Jones identified this boy as Philip Harkenborough. “Soon as Reggie cursed Pauline, Harkenborough sent his crazy birds on us, trying to claw our eyes out. I ran and hid in a broom cupboard until Felwich found me.”
They next interviewed Stacy, who described how Lara’s unease affected the whole House. “Liam had the group of us ready to go at a moment’s notice. When Hark’s birds showed up, we followed them as fast as we could run.” She described the tense standoff between the Hufflepuffs and the Slytherins, which Liam and Morwena worked hard to diffuse. She failed to mention anything about Rhiannon using the Cruciatus Curse on Dennison.
Tess and Rhiannon described the scene in the Slytherin common room – the nervous wait after Dennison’s group vanished, a nervousness that grew after Pauline did not return; Dennison’s dramatic entry into the common room, and his misidentifying Pauline’s defender. Rhiannon did not admit to cursing Dennison, and Tess said nothing about it either.
After her interview, Gregor said, “I think we have enough of a baseline to go on, here. Time for the main event. Bring me Dennison!”