Chapter 20
- Obliviating someone without experience can have serious consequences, Miss Pevensie," the Headmaster continued slowly, "it was reckless."
"I know, Professor," she said, "I felt attacked."
"Regardless, it's done," Polly said, "but Susan only erased his interactions with her and the discovery of the mural."
"And he seems just the same as always," interrupted Edmund, "although I'm not sure he had many brain cells left to damage."
"What does the boy know?" Polly continued as if nothing had happened, "What do the Malfoys know? What does Voldemort know?"
"We don't know," said Albus, "but I believe Miss Pevensie is the right person to investigate. We've known for some time that Tom is interested in the topic of inter-world travel. What we didn't know is that he might be so close to the key."
"But we don't have the answer he's looking for," said Lucy, "Narnia simply... called us."
"But it wasn't entirely the same with us," murmured Polly, "I don't remember exactly, but as I explained, Digory's family had been investigating the matter for years. Like other magical families. What the Dark Lord didn't know until now is that we exist, that some of us have indeed traveled. We are not an ancient legend; we are examples that these journeys really exist, not just in books."
"You must let us go to Kirke Mansion, Professor," said Peter, "I know you weren't very keen, but you have to give us the chance to explore. We know where to look. And Voldemort could do it at any moment."
"I'm afraid that's true," said the professor, "I'm going to need your cooperation. Edmund and Susan, you must keep Draco under control, and if possible, Miss, try to extract information from him. The rest will all go to the Mansion. I think we've clarified this chess game better. Both sides have the tools to achieve an answer."
"Very well," the siblings said in unison.
"Members of the Order will accompany you..."
"Robert and I among them," interrupted Helen.
"That seems fair, Mrs. Pevensie," said the Headmaster, "as for the Vanishing Cabinet, we need to find out where it leads. We'll convene a meeting of the Order's council at the Burrow."
"And about the other matter, Albus?" Polly asked.
"I think we can let the youngsters rest for today, and we can discuss it ourselves."
The Pevensies nodded, though reluctantly. Their curiosity was immense. They were eager to know about that great secret. But Helen and Polly had decided in their previous meeting to keep them out of that other matter, and they had had to trust that it was the best decision. But at least, Dumbledore would have to share it now with several members of the Order.
Peter walked through the dark hallways of the school, disoriented. He felt as if he were naked, stripped of something important. It hadn't been pleasant for him to reveal one of his biggest secrets, twice, in one night. His secrets were part of his being, part of what made him Peter Pevensie. But perhaps, to protect these secrets, sometimes you have to bring them briefly to light.
A giggle echoed down the hallway, and the boy turned, slightly startled, to see Lavender Brown trying to cheer up a dejected Ronald Weasley. She talked to him about how well he had played, interspersing her words with small kisses that slightly lifted the redhead's spirits.
Peter quickly turned and headed for the stairs to avoid them. He felt as if he had seen something he shouldn't have. The scene had caused him extra discomfort that he didn't need that night.
He began to hurry down the stairs but stopped abruptly when he saw a figure sitting alone on the steps. Hermione Granger was tracing her wand on the floor, drawing in the thin layer of dust in the rarely used hallway. She also looked sad. She wasn't crying; she was simply staring into the void, her eyes glassy.
"Hey," the boy said softly, not wanting to startle her, "everything okay?"
Hermione turned her head, still resting on her left arm, and smiled at the boy.
"Not all bad," she said, "I suppose..."
Even sad, she was really beautiful. Hesitating for a second, Peter sat down next to her on the step, somewhat awkwardly. They both remained silent for a few seconds, feeling comfortable in each other's presence. The castle was silent, only the whistle of the wind breaking the stillness, while snowflakes fell in a harmonious dance.
"Peter," Hermione said.
"Yes?"
"Are you okay?" she asked with a sad laugh.
"No..." he replied, unable to help but smile a little, "no, today's not my day either."
"Have you seen Ron?" she asked, unable to contain herself.
"Uh, Ron? Yes, he's..." he began, nervously.
"Upstairs with Lavender, I know," she said in an even sadder tone.
"Yes," he said awkwardly, "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too," she said, "I was here, sitting, furious, and almost about to cry. But you made me feel calmer."
"I didn't do anything..." he began to say.
"You always do more than you think, Peter," she said, smiling at him.
"You also make me feel better... always," he said, "you're... amazing."
"You're amazing." Peter felt embarrassed by his own words. After reading practically all the poetry books in the school for his Muggle Studies project and writing royal decrees for decades, the first thing that came to his mind to describe a girl like Hermione was "amazing." He could have used so many adjectives to compliment her, but no: Amazing. He looked at the girl, nervous, but she was smiling.
"Thank you," she said sincerely.
"I just told the truth," he said.
"Then thank you for that too," Hermione said, "I'm glad I could help with your mysterious problem."
"I'd tell you, but you'd think I'm crazy," he said, "but it could be summed up by saying I had to tell a secret, and I didn't want to."
"That sounds horrible," she said, "though I'm intrigued to know what big and mysterious secrets Peter Pevensie could have."
"Oh, you'd be surprised," he said, raising his eyebrows comically, "I'm a box of surprises."
The girl laughed, and Peter felt another part of his burden lift from his chest. Hermione kept smiling at him, clearly feeling better. Peter noticed then that when the girl smiled, she didn't just smile with her mouth, but with her whole face, especially with her eyes.
"I'm sure Ron Weasley is charming," Peter said, looking at her, "but as far as you're concerned, he's an idiot, Hermione Granger."
Hermione seemed to blush in the darkness, but she didn't stop smiling. She looked away a few seconds later and looked at the floor again.
"I think I'm scared just to have to walk through the upstairs hallway to get back to the common room."
"Well, then there are two options," Peter said, "we can stay here as long as you want, talking or in silence, or we can walk through the hallway together. I promise to distract you in either option."
"What do you think if we wait a few minutes?" she said, "and then we take the option expected of a Gryffindor."
"As long as you want," he said, unconsciously moving his arm towards her in a gallant gesture.
Hermione intertwined her arm with Peter's before he could realize it. He felt the blush on his cheeks and his heart speeding up in his chest. Seconds later, he felt Hermione's head gently fall onto his shoulder, and to his surprise, his pulse relaxed, and the blush seemed to spread all over his body, making him feel a warm comfort in the cold hallway.
And for once, Peter Pevensie let his guard down for a while and enjoyed that small moment.
Susan was obsessed. She only wanted answers. She wanted to eliminate the problem Draco Malfoy posed to her safety. So, the next morning, she took very seriously the promise she had made to Dumbledore and took every opportunity she had to watch him on the Marauder's Map. He didn't seem to be doing anything unusual. He spent almost the whole day in the common room, surrounded by his usual friends.
But there was someone who equaled Susan in the desire for answers. Harry Potter appeared to find her after lunch.
"Finally, I find you," the boy said, "you've discovered something, haven't you?"
"What gave me away?"
"You have the same expression Hermione gets in class when she knows the answer to something," the boy said.
"Great minds think alike, I suppose," she said, "yes, I've discovered something, follow me..."
Without preambles, Susan Pevensie began to guide the Chosen One through the Great Hall, ready to leave through the door when someone gently stopped her. Henry Davies gently grabbed her arm, sitting at the Gryffindor table.
"Everything okay, Susan?" the boy asked, looking at her and Harry, "you seem worried."
"Yes, yes, everything's fine..." she said, "I'm just in a bit of a hurry, but everything's fine."
"I missed you at the game yesterday," he said, "I could have used your cheers, but I couldn't find you anywhere."
"I'm sorry... really," she said, "I promise to make it up to you, really, but I have to go now, we're in a bit of a hurry."
"Alright," he said, smiling but unable to hide a certain disappointment, "I'll
wait patiently..."
"Soon, I promise," Susan said as she continued moving forward.
Harry and she left the Great Hall towards the Room of Requirement. The boy quickly understood where they were going and began to put the pieces together.
"That's why he sometimes didn't appear on the map," he murmured as the doors to the room appeared before him.
"Exactly," she said, "this is where he was going."
"And what was he looking for?" he asked as they moved through the pile of objects.
"I think it was over here," the girl said.
The room was full of objects everywhere, and it was easy to get lost. But luckily, Susan had spent another life navigating paths through forests and hills to find her way among piles of memories.
"It's this," she said, touching the cabinet, "it's a..."
"It's the one we saw at Borgin and Burkes!" the boy exclaimed.
"What do you mean...?"
"We followed Malfoy, in the alley, at the end of summer," Harry said, touching the cabinet as if he couldn't believe it.
The girl added that information to what Polly had explained the day before. But a voice behind her spoke first.
"One less mystery, solved," said the Headmaster, "I see you waste no time, Miss Pevensie."
"Professor?" Harry asked.
"I'll send several members of the Order tonight," decreed the old man, "we can't have this here, knowing that at any moment a Death Eater could cross into this room, don't you agree, Miss Pevensie?"
"Absolutely, Headmaster," she said with a smile.
"Checkmate, Malfoy," she thought to herself, recalling the analogy she had made with Dumbledore the night before. She was winning the game, but that wasn't enough. She had to destroy any chance Malfoy had to harm her future. Cut any connection to Voldemort in the castle. Perhaps they could prevent the war if they played their cards right.
"Be benevolent, Miss Pevensie," said the Headmaster, winking, "but never naive. Don't take your eyes off Mr. Malfoy, alright? I believe Mr. Potter will gladly share that mission."
"Of course, sir," said Harry, "So, this cabinet...?"
"It's not the one you saw, boy," said Albus, "it's its twin... one connects to the other, like a passage."
"Draco is smarter than he looks," said the boy.
"And even more elusive than we think," said Susan.
"He mustn't realize we've discovered him," said Albus, "if he suspects he's been found out, he'll try something else. And if this was an assignment from Voldemort, we could be putting the boy in danger."
"He put himself there voluntarily," said Harry.
"I don't think so, Harry," said the Headmaster, "not everyone in this school has full will today."
"Is he being forced?" Susan asked.
"Perhaps he doesn't even believe it himself..." said Albus, "but deep down he knows what would happen to his parents if he fails Voldemort. You were right, Harry, Draco Malfoy is now a Death Eater, but not by his own choice. The Dark Lord has given him a mission."
"What mission?"
Susan then remembered the Katie Bell incident. The necklace that was meant as a gift for the Headmaster. She had heard a seventh-year girl's friend talking about it with Cho Chang in the Ravenclaw tower girls' hallway.
"It's you, isn't it?" the girl said, "you're his mission."
Dumbledore looked at the girl, unable to avoid smiling with admiration.
"I'm afraid so, Miss Pevensie. I don't know if Voldemort has given him anything else," he said, "but Draco Malfoy's mission today is to kill me. If Draco fails, I'm afraid the Dark Lord will kill him."
A chill ran through Susan Pevensie's body as she realized the gravity of the matter. All this time, she had seen Draco as a danger, and she had been right. But she had become so engrossed in their rivalry that she had unconsciously forgotten what was going on behind the scenes. Voldemort wouldn't stop until he had eliminated all his enemies, spilling all the necessary blood in the process, regardless of whom they were loyal to and whether they had magical ancestry or not.
And she and her siblings, she and her family, whether Voldemort knew it yet or not, were in the middle of his plan. They had something he wanted. Perhaps someday, the price of the life of one of those young Death Eaters would be her own blood.
"Nothing will stop this war," the girl murmured.
"I'm afraid not, young lady," said the Headmaster.
"Then we must fight," she said.
"Yes, Miss Pevensie, we must fight," he said, "your mission now is to make sure Mr. Malfoy doesn't harm anyone else, if possible..."
"I understand," she said.
"...and if possible, find a way for him to accept our help, so we can save him..."
Susan looked at the Headmaster, unsure of what to think. Was she getting too involved? Was she putting herself at risk? Or was the risk already there? Maybe all that was left was to be part of this war to end it.
"Do you think you can do it?" the professor asked, intrigued.
"Yes," she said with a small smile, "and I have a plan. But I'll need your help, Professor."
Dumbledore smiled.
"Come here, boy!"
Filch's shout was heard from the end of the hallway before he was visible to the few students walking down it that Sunday afternoon. Lucy turned, surprised by the noise, and saw the figure of Dennis Creevey running towards her. He looked scared as he carried a huge case in his arm.
"Crap, crap, crap..." the boy muttered as he ran.
Lucy looked into his eyes and without thinking too much, signaled him to follow her into an alcove off the hallway. It was instinctive. The boy grabbed her hand, and she pulled him down the perpendicular path. But Filch must have seen him turn because after a few meters, they heard his howls again.
It was in that strange moment that Lucy felt observed again. Not by Dennis, not by Filch. No, it was that strange feeling of being watched.
They turned down the hallway to find, to their fear, that it was a dead end.
"Oh no," said Dennis.
Lucy turned again, feeling someone was following her every move. And for once, she tried something different. They were both leaning against the wall when Lucy, looking around, uttered a word, almost inaudibly.
"Help me."
It happened in an instant. She felt her body fall as the stones of the wall twisted on themselves. She fell face-first against Dennis's body, and his case fell on her, making strange sounds as it hit her. With her vision still blurred from adrenaline, she saw the wall close behind them.
Dennis looked at her, surprised.
"How did you do that?"
"I didn't do anything," she said, moving away from him a bit, "the castle moves sometimes, doesn't it?"
"Yes, but it's never been this precise, except..." he looked around, "this isn't the Room of Requirement."
"No, it's not," the girl said, "it looks like an older wing of the castle."
"It looks familiar to me. I think I once took this path in my first year to go to Potions," said the Gryffindor, "but in the second year I couldn't find it again."
"As we said, the castle isn't still," she said.
"But that was weird," he said.
"Well, whatever it was, it saved us from..." she began to say, "Why were you running from Filch?"
"He confiscated a package from me when I arrived at the castle. I never got to see it; it was among my things," he said.
"Something dangerous?" she asked.
"Do you really think that of me?"
"You don't fit the profile, no," she said laughing, "what was it then?"
"My electric guitar," he said.
"Really?" she said, laughing, "the one you said belonged to your father, right?"
"That's right," he said, "good memory, Pevensie."
"And won't Filch come after you?" she asked, "Filch."
"He didn't see my face," he said, "and it's in an attic full of unclassified things. I doubt he knows who it belonged to."
"Risky," she said.
"I won't deny it," he said, "but I need a little music."
They both got up from the floor, and Dennis opened the package, which definitely had the shape of a guitar, to take it out. It was a dark red, and to Lucy, it looked like one of the most beautiful artifacts she had ever seen. She didn't take long to ask the boy to play her a song, and the sound, amplified by the boy's magic, was even more interesting than she could have expected.
Only once in the middle of the song did she stop to think about the strange scene and how the wall had seemed to obey her words. Only for an instant did she consider that maybe the feeling of being watched that sometimes assailed her was not just a feeling.
But she dismissed the idea, amidst Dennis's chords, and simply lost herself in the music.
"Pevensie," said Pansy as a greeting, snapping Peter out of his reverie.
"I thought you were going to stand me up again," he said.
"I'm not going to risk a grade if that's what you
think," she said, "you were right, I have a reason to pass this subject, and it outweighs the disdain I have for you."
"I'm glad to know there are impulses stronger in your life than disdain, Pansy Parkinson," he said.
The girl took a seat on the other side of the table and took her books out of her bag. Peter was surprised to see she had markers on the pages. The Slytherin had indeed been doing her homework.
"What do you think of the books?" he asked, "have you found anything interesting?"
"Maybe not all Muggles are that stupid," said Pansy, "they also find a problem in power and who should hold it."
"In what way?"
"They realize that all power falls," she said, "or can fall... which is a... 'disturbing' idea."
"What poem are you referring to?"
The girl opened the book in the middle and looked for one of her markers until she found it, pointing to the page for Peter. The boy recited:
Something has been written on the pedestal:
"I am Ozymandias, the great king. Look
On my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
"It sounds sad, doesn't it?" he said.
"Tell me of an empire that hasn't fallen, Peter Pevensie," she said, "it doesn't matter if you carve your name in stone, your deeds in books. In the end, everything changes."
"Yes, but... it's a sad vision," he said, "isn't there something more to fight for than power? Other ideals."
"They are the lone sands," she said, looking at the poem again, "in the end, everything dies."
"And?" he asked.
"What do you mean 'and'?" she said, looking at him as if he were stupid.
"If your stance is true, everything doesn't matter," he said.
"These are Muggles, they can't access power in the same way," she said, "it's the problem. With their worldview, wizards don't reach their full potential. Maybe we can conquer death."
"I don't know if it's something that can be conquered," he said.
Peter opened his notebook under the watchful eye of Pansy Parkinson, who still seemed determined to look at the boy as if he only had one working brain cell and she were the smartest person on the planet for having to explain such obvious things to him.
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
- John Donne
"I don't understand what you mean by that," she said, "have Muggles managed to defeat death?"
Peter smiled.
"Yes, but not in the way you think," he said.
"If you die, you don't defeat death," she said, "again, everything decays."
"Yes, but it's not the same to die fighting as to die surrendering," he said.
"That's too much of a Gryffindor concept for me, I'm afraid," she said.
"I believe it's not the same to be defeated fighting for those you love, or for what you believe," he said.
"This is all too abstract," she said, "nothing is worth risking for..."
Peter looked at Pansy, and for once, saw the sadness in her eyes, behind her bitterness. He had seen so much. Noble ideals in his family, armies fighting for their freedom, Aslan returning every time everything seemed lost... But what had Pansy seen?
He found no answer.
"You know what?" he said, "I think we can work with your poem."
"Are you serious?" she said, sighing, "how 'chivalrous'."
"The problem of power is certainly current, and we can write a series of arguments and counterarguments. It'll suffice for this first submission."
"Alright," she said.
They worked for another couple of hours. They spoke the minimum necessary to each other, barely looking at each other while Peter wrote down the ideas on a parchment. It wasn't until they decided to call the task finished that, out of nowhere, while packing their things, Pansy Parkinson asked:
"Do you really have something worth fighting for that much?" she asked, "and it's not power?"
"Yes, I do."
Peter said it, surprised by the question. He smiled genuinely for the first time in that encounter, remembering the mane of a lion in the wind in his memory.
"I think it's the only thing I could ever envy you for, Pevensie."
It almost sounded like a compliment, but he wasn't sure. The tone still sounded somewhat contemptuous, and the girl didn't look him in the eyes when she said it. The Slytherin disappeared among the library shelves as if she had never been there and as if she had never spoken that last sentence.