Chapter 30: A Shock
Quirrell had vanished...
It was immediately obvious, since his replacement, I was told, was Snape, a considerably more demanding teacher than the previous one. The reason for his disappearance was no mystery to me, however, as Mother Bella had written that same evening. Cornered, Quirrell had revealed what he was. He turned out to be an extremely capable fighter, able to push every person in that room back onto their heels for twenty seconds or more, Dumbledore included. It was only Flitwick, who had managed to get behind him, who was able to take him down.
And that was not the end of it. From the back of Quirrell's head, straight through his turban, a black wisp had torn free and flown out through the window of Dumbledore's office. Quirrell himself died on the spot.
This caused considerable uproar at the Ministry. Quirrell's body was transferred to the Department of Mysteries, but even the preliminary examination conducted on-site was enough for an announcement to be made: he had been possessed. No further details were yet available, but the mere fact that a possessed teacher had spent several months in proximity to children...
Bones had seized the reins immediately: she formally interviewed Bella as a witness, then Dumbledore and Flitwick, and wished to interview me as well, under official conditions. At least one of my mothers had to be present, as was required when speaking to a minor. So I needed to be ready for a summons to the D.M.L.E.
It seemed I had broken someone's plans...
Or had I? Perhaps Dumbledore genuinely had not known Quirrell was possessed. We would never find out for certain: no one would dare question him under Veritaserum. Too much could surface, and too many people would be caught in the mess.
I went to the Ravenclaw table and sat down; the morning had just begun and breakfast was about to be served. My usual company settled beside me and we fell into easy conversation. At that moment, the owls arrived with the mail, and the Hall went briefly and oddly quiet.
"What's happened?"
I leaned past Padma, who was sitting to my left, and saw a large headline on the front page.
POSSESSED PROFESSOR AT HOGWARTS! CHILDREN IN DANGER!
The byline was Rita Skeeter's.
"She really isn't afraid of anyone..."
I shook my head.
"Well, given how much she's managed to dig up on so many different people, I wouldn't be surprised if she either has a very powerful protector or she's sitting on an even larger pile of material she simply doesn't publish as long as no one bothers her."
Padma twirled a curl around her finger, thinking it over.
"Possibly... may I have it afterwards?"
"Here..."
She held it out and I took it with a grateful nod.
"What about you?"
"I only subscribe to the Prophet for a few writers who cover fashion and social events. I glanced through it earlier, and there was nothing of interest to me."
"Fair enough..."
I shrugged and began to read.
Greetings, dear readers. Your devoted correspondent Rita Skeeter here. Today I shall not be exposing Ministry officials. I shall not be recounting the misadventures of noble lords and ladies who have made fools of themselves. I shall not be telling you about the quiet agreement reached at the last gala that will soon send the prices of potion ingredients rather sharply upward. Oh no. Someone else can tell you all of that. What I have for you today is something I came across entirely by chance.
"She does know how to build suspense."
I shook my head and read on.
This article is about our beloved Hogwarts. And a great deal has been happening lately at our cherished school, the one from which every one of us graduated, where our children study. You have read the headline and have some idea of where this is headed, but I must first clarify: this is not a story about Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the boy to whom we owe our freedom from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, who is currently in his first year at Hogwarts, and in Ravenclaw of all places, though I suspect many of us assumed our hero would end up in Gryffindor. Not at all. And besides, on closer inspection, he is a perfectly ordinary boy who has simply come to learn magic.
I gave a quiet snort. Skeeter was touching on the most sensitive topics as if by accident. The papers had already covered Potter, but in this context...
No. She was not actually trying to play the Potter angle. She was using him to establish that the school contains our hero, so that when she turns to the threats that follow, her readers feel the danger is close to home. Rather clever of her.
This is not a story about Harry's time at Hogwarts, nor about him becoming the youngest Seeker in a century. No. All of that, along with match reports, other correspondents will give you in due time. I am here to tell you about a new hero.
I liked those words considerably less. I had no desire to be cast as a hero, and I was now almost certain she had been present in the room during my interview.
Yes, you heard me correctly: I am here to tell you about an entirely new hero of Magical Britain. He has not yet defeated any Dark Lords, he has not slain dark creatures by the dozen, he has not written books about himself, but he did save five of his classmates and a prefect. I imagine many of you are now wondering what on earth could have been at Hogwarts that students needed to be saved from, and how a child could have managed it. I shall tell you. I shall tell you how a first-year student saved his classmates, and how, rather than taking all the credit for himself, he graciously shared it with the prefect who helped him.
So far she was writing nothing but the truth, though I would have liked to see her try to write anything else. If she had decided to drag my name through the mud, Mother Bella and Mother Cissy would have bought the Prophet, dismissed every last staff member, and shuttered the paper entirely. They would have done so in a way that ensured none of them would ever find work in journalism again.
Rita Skeeter's talent would not have saved her there. If publishing an article under her name meant permanently losing one's job, no one would ever have dared to do it.
So, where does this story begin? Rather ordinarily, as it happens. One red-haired boy insulted a classmate from his own House, simply because she had offered to help him with his studies. I was unable to ascertain the precise terms of the insult. I know only that the girl was so upset she resolved to spend the entire evening weeping in a bathroom on the third floor. That very same bathroom: Moaning Myrtle's. Now, this girl was from the noble House of Gryffindor, and she had real friends. Or rather, one friend, who was worried about her and went after her at once, meaning to keep her company and offer whatever comfort she could. Anyone who has ever been a girl will understand that this was most likely headed in one of two directions: shared tears, or a thorough review of every boy in the school, concluding that they are all entirely hopeless.
I smiled despite myself. Notably, no names had been given yet, but I looked around and could already see eyes sliding towards Weasley the Sixth. That particular organic food-processing device, however, was blissfully unaware. I suspected he would not understand what had happened or why everyone was staring at him until after the first lesson. And when he did work it out, his first reaction would most likely be pride...
So: two girls in an abandoned bathroom, and what could possibly go wrong? What could possibly go wrong in the safest place in Magical Britain? Allow me to offer a small hint. Imagine that at the height of the feast, one of the professors ran into the Great Hall to warn that a dreadful monster was loose in the school. Oh! I think this moment deserves particular attention. The professor who came running in was none other than Quirinus Quirrell, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, who shouted that a monster was roaming the dungeons and then promptly fainted. I suspect many of you will find it rather remarkable that a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor could faint at the mention of a monster, but there it is. One might reasonably think: the girls are on the third floor, the monster is in the dungeons, so what is there to worry about? The staircases at Hogwarts are so labyrinthine that the chance of any monster finding its way to the third floor must be vanishingly small!
I smiled again. The woman had a terrifying gift. It might be worth giving my mothers a few threads they could pull on: getting something of a metaphorical leash around this woman and putting her talent to work for us.
And yet things are not so simple. For reasons as yet unexplained, the monster was not in the dungeons at all. It was on the third floor, very close to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. And as you can well imagine, the girls would have had very little chance if they had happened to step out of that bathroom at the wrong moment. But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Let us go back a little, to the very beginning of the feast, when one of our hero's friends noticed that her sister was not at the Gryffindor table. Naturally, she was worried, and decided to go and look for her, which meant leaving the Great Hall. And our hero chose not to leave his friend alone on that festive evening, and went with her. Two more first-year girls and a prefect followed, reasoning, quite sensibly, that a larger group would find the missing sister more quickly and get everyone back to the feast in good time. In the course of their search, they also established that not one but two girls were unaccounted for, and resolved to find both.
She really could spin things out. Personally, if asked to write this up, I would have had it done in two paragraphs. Here it was an epic in progress. Perhaps I should look into commissioning her to write an account of my exploits?
Let us take stock of the situation. An unknown monster is somewhere in the school, but as yet, no one outside the Hall knows this, with the possible exception of Professor Quirrell. On the third floor, two first-year Gryffindor girls are sheltering in an abandoned bathroom. Three first-year Ravenclaw girls and one first-year Ravenclaw boy have gone in search of them, and the Ravenclaw prefect has gone with them. They informed the professors of their reason for leaving the Great Hall, naturally. Our Ravenclaws, working with admirable speed, simply by speaking to the portraits, determined that the missing girls were somewhere on the third floor, and began their search. Now, has everyone had a chance to read my earlier article about the attempted assault at our beloved Hogwarts? Yes. I refer to the very incident after which, for the first time in many years, students were expelled from the school.
She was leaping between subjects now. I could see the shock and confusion on faces all around me.
At that very moment, as our heroes were passing one of the classrooms, they heard sounds suggesting something terrible was happening inside. A nightmare! An outrage! Without hesitation, they cast Bombarda at the door and burst in. And what did they find? Peeves, sitting on a desk with his legs swinging, performing both parts of the scene in his own voice with obvious relish. It didn't delay our heroes for long, but Peeves's stunt had planted a seed of doubt. As a result, Moaning Myrtle's bathroom was the last place they checked on that floor, after every classroom. And at last they found their missing girls. It was at precisely this moment, when the sole gentleman of the party remained outside and all the girls disappeared inside, that Quirinus Quirrell came running into the Great Hall, told everyone there was a troll in the dungeons, and collapsed on the floor. Yes, dear readers, a troll. A mountain troll. And at the very moment Quirinus Quirrell fainted, Professor Flitwick conjured a Patronus and sent it to warn our young hero and his companions. But the Patronus came too late. The mountain troll was already on the third floor, in the very corridor outside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
I paused to take a few sips of juice and eat a sausage. There was still plenty of time before breakfast ended, but if I kept reading without stopping, I was going to miss it entirely.
So: what was our Hero to do? If it had been any ordinary first-year boy in that situation, the answer would have been obvious: run, and scream as he ran. This was a mountain troll, standing nearly four meters tall. What other possible response could there be? But our Hero is no coward. He ordered the girls to lock themselves in the bathroom and run only when he called. In all likelihood, his plan was to draw the troll toward himself, lead it far enough away, and give the girls a clear path to safety. But at this point, the prefect stepped forward, for she was not willing to leave her charge to face a terrible creature alone. So: a first-year student and a prefect who had only taken up the position that year. What could they possibly do? As it turned out, rather a great deal.
One need only shrink the troll's club, which the courageous Penelope Clearwater did, and transfigure one's robe into an axe, raise it, and charge at the troll. Yes, you read that correctly: the young first-year student, heir to an ancient and noble line, Draco Black, axe in hand, went straight at the troll and brought it to the ground.
At that point, the prefect joined the battle, keeping the troll occupied with a stream of hexes, and then our young heir severed the troll's foot and ordered the girls hiding in the bathroom to run. Shortly thereafter, he severed its head entirely! Can you imagine? Two students killed a mountain troll! Extraordinary! True heroes who saved their friends! And yet there is still more! Our hero turned out to be clever as well! When he was summoned to the Headmaster's office, he pointed out to D.M.L.E. representative Amelia Bones that Professor Quirinus Quirrell's behavior had been highly irregular throughout, and he was right! In effect, a first-year student did the Department's work, identifying the culprit, who was not merely the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, but one possessed by a dark spirit, who had been teaching at Hogwarts since the start of the year! Around our children! I shudder to think what he might have done to them if he had not been unmasked in time... But I shall stop there for now. I will note only that our hero wisely left the task of subduing a grown and experienced wizard, far more dangerous than any mountain troll, to Albus Dumbledore, Amelia Bones, Bellatrix Black, and Filius Flitwick. He had the excellent sense not to throw himself into that particular fight. And on that note I shall conclude... though I very much hope this is not the end. I intend to seek an interview with Mr. Black and Miss Clearwater, and to learn more about the nature of the spirit that possessed Quirinus Quirrell. Yours, as always, Rita Skeeter.
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