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Chapter 55: Two Conversations


Friday, January 25, 1991. 4:30 PM.


A major advantage of being considered a little "off", if not outright useless or fraudulent, was that no one ever asked Sybill to do anything. So while the other professors, during their free time, were expected to escort students around by day and patrol the halls by night, she was free to run off to London with Aurora, who was similarly off the hook, either for being new, or simply overlooked, or both. This was a Hogsmeade weekend, so their absence was especially likely to go unnoticed, and Sybill planned to take advantage of that to the fullest, even if it meant stumbling home in the wee hours of Monday morning and looking distinctly hung-over during her first few classes.

They were supposed to meet in the entrance hall at 5:15, which meant she had 45 minutes to find Professor Sprout somewhere in the greenhouses, talk to her about whether more mandrakes could be started, find her way out again, and then get back to the castle.

She had been wondering about the mandrakes ever since the petrifications had happened, but had been too nervous to ask. It was only this past Monday that Dumbledore had gotten around to talking to her about it, and she had been so terrified of getting in trouble over Mr. Malfoy that she had never spoken up on behalf of herself. Well, Pomona was much less intimidating than Dumbledore anyway.

Sprout was almost certainly still here — dinner wasn't for a while, her classes were over, and the students were allowed to walk back to the castle on their own (the basilisk was presumed to be an indoor-only monster). After passing through three empty greenhouse buildings (well, empty of humans, at any rate), seeing no movement, and hearing no humming, it was apparent that the herbology professor was nowhere to be found. Yelling achieved nothing besides embarrassment.

"Damn it," she muttered to herself. "Pointing spells don't work where space is folded, the weaver and the Parisian can't find living targets . . . neither can Ariadne's wire, and it's only for finding entrances anyway . . . fuck, there are doors in the way too, so I can't use dandelion seeds or an ibis or any of the strings . . ." She tapped her fingers, ticking off alternatives that would still let her get to London in a reasonable amount of time and still be in shape to enjoy it once she got there.

"Well, one out of two, at least."

Her grandmother had taught her to begin the Maze-Walker of Ur with an imprecation against the Sumerians and their gods. It had no magical effect, but it made you feel a little better about what followed. Or at least, Sybill enjoyed reciting it, even if the effect on her mood didn't last.

After about a minute of getting her fingers in the starting position, going over the next few motions, and then returning to the beginning again, she started the first three lines of the incantation. This produced a glowing, blue-violet ball in the center of the cage formed by her interlocked fingers, and a corresponding stabbing pain between her eyes. The light effects were invisible to all but the caster; they were just there to let you know the spell was working. The stabbing pain was also there to let you know the spell was working. Fuck the Sumerians.

Two more lines, and she released the ball, which shot away from her while splitting into three — one for each entrance to the building she stood in. The stabbing pain between her eyes likewise spread out across her forehead, resolving into three distinct stabbing pains. This happened several more times in quick succession as she repeated the seeking verses, leaving her at one point with sixteen distinct locations around her head where she could tell the spell was working. The greenhouses were extremely big, especially when measured in miles of corridors. As the fingers of the spell met themselves they would merge, and their representative locations would move together to merge into one, which usually remained twice as painful as its components.

This part of the spell was fortunately reasonably fast, as these spells went, and she had a fix on Professor Sprout in a little over a minute. By the time the fingers had retraced their steps, Sybill was experiencing serious vertigo, tunnel vision, and mild nausea. Once the ball had returned to her hands, several times larger than when it had left, she had to push it into her forehead, where supposedly it was using her own brain to find the shortest route. She had to lean against a table to avoid collapsing.

In another twenty seconds, when the agony inside her head had stopped, well, 'rotating' was the word her grandmother used, she pulled the ball back out of her forehead. It moved to hover a foot from her nose. She would need to keep it there with her gaze fixed on it for the entire trip, which effectively required moving at a near-constant pace even while opening doors. At least keeping her eyes on it neutralized some of the vertigo.

About six minutes later she rounded a corner and saw Pomona in the next building. Sybill cancelled the spell, then repeated the imprecation against Sumerians while catching her breath and trying not to throw up.

"Oh, hello, Sybill! Do close the door behind you, there's pollen in the air that I'm trying to keep in the room. Thanks. It doesn't have to be perfect, you know, but we should have more seeds if we're careful . . . Now, just a minute and I'll be with you. I just need to do this . . . and this . . . and move this one over here . . . there, that should do it!" She looked up, taking off her gloves and shaking dirt off of them.

"Alright then," said Sprout, "I suppose you came to see me about the mandrakes?" Sybill nodded. "I am so sorry about that. We're all very grateful to have started them when we did, of course. How long did it take Albus to tell you? Oh, don't tell me, I imagine you worked it out on your own by then anyway." Sybill nodded again, not having gotten a word in edgewise.

Pomona finally realized that Sybill seemed to be in pain. "Oh dear — are you alright?"

Sybill smiled weakly. "More or less. The spell I used to find you always gives me a headache."

Pomona looked a little skeptical. Sybill recognized that expression — it was the one everyone gave her when they thought she was either lying or delusional, but they weren't willing to say so out loud. Fine.

"I'll be okay," Sybill continued, glancing around the room to make herself look even more disoriented. "I just have to wait for it to go away on its own." This had the potential to be a misstatement, since Sybill hadn't cast the spell in years, but it had taken a few hours to go away when she was learning it. On the one hand, that involved casting it over and over again under the watchful eye of her grandmother, and today's experience was just for a few minutes. On the other hand, the branching nature of the greenhouses left her magically exhausted, and she was over a decade older now, too. In all likelihood she would be stuck with a magic-resistant headache for the rest of the night, and be forced to drink a great deal to distract herself from it. On the plus side, at least this wasn't wholly inconsistent with her plans.

She shook her head, trying to clear it, and rubbed her eyes. "Will we be able to get more mandrakes?" she asked.

Pomona sighed. "Maybe. When you first came to see me, you know, we had about fifty seeds in storage left over from the last time I taught mandrakes in class. We planted forty of those, then, to keep some seeds in reserve, and a little over thirty germinated. That was just right for a class working in pairs, but we'll need most of them to reach maturity for the restorative draught. Any left over will have to be saved to breed for the future."

"Can't you just go buy more?"

Sprout shook her head. "Believe me, I have been up and down the British Isles looking, and the three nurseries that normally have mandrakes, well, they just have a handful for making seeds, you see, since nobody else has a basilisk around or is trying to, ah, do whatever lesson you have planned. But those three nurseries are either conveniently sold out, or just don't have any. Private individuals don't know to keep seeds — I wrote to some former students, but none of them could help! Oh, and the seed bank at Kew won't talk to me. Personally, I think they don't consider me important enough! Tsk, tsk." She shook her head.

"So," she continued, "that leaves us with the continent, where I was able to scrounge up another dozen seeds from nurseries and another five from my counterpart at Durmstrang — they approved of your lesson plan, by the way! That leaves us with a lot of slow, slow government agencies who will want paperwork and explanations, and we don't have that kind of time."

"You sound like you still have a plan, though . . . actually, can't you collect mandrakes from the wild?"

Pomona laughed. "If it were summer, certainly. We're tricking them in the greenhouse, you see — they don't realize it's winter! I spend a lot of time tricking plants."

After Sybill had acknowledged the joke by at least smiling, Pomona continued. "So we are left with growers in the United States, I think. Maybe other countries, but I know less about them. As it is, I am faced with a dilemma — I have two seed catalogs listing mandrakes, here, one company in, oh, I think Maryland, and the other maybe in Florida? There must others, but I suppose they aren't trying to market to us all the way over here. Now, see, we can authorize payment for up to a certain amount, and just send in the forms, but if that doesn't work out, then we have spent two weeks or more waiting on the albatross relays, all with nothing to show for ourselves! The shipping can get awfully pricey, too."

"Could you go in person? Take a portkey?"

"Yes, yes, that's exactly the other possibility. But whoever goes, and perhaps it ought to be me, I think, will have to take a day or more to do it, and all the portkeys, or lodging if I need to stay a night — those will look like extravagances if anyone scrutinizes my expenses. I can't do anything under the table right now, with the Board of Governors watching us." Pomona stood, lost in thought for a moment. "Well, don't worry," she said, eventually, "I am sure we will work something out. Of course, I'm very busy, and I really shouldn't be away for more than a day, so it will have to wait until I can get all my ducks in a row here, so to speak."

"When do you think that might happen?"

Sprout fidgeted. "I can't say, not for certain. Of course, if someone else were to clear out their schedule . . ."

"I might like that, actually, if Dumbledore lets me go. Um, I can't do it this weekend — I promised Aurora — actually I am supposed to meet her for dinner very soon! Um—"

Pomona cut her off, waving her away. "Oh dear, you should have said something! I'm keeping you waiting with all my babbling on — go! You girls go have fun. Merlin knows, we all need some. Get going! Shoo! Shoo!"



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





Saturday, January 26, 1991. (The Next Day)



Sirius was waiting in a booth in the Hog's Head, reading the morning Prophet and taking small sips from a too-hot hot cocoa which Dora would just insist on ordering for him if he didn't do so himself. She was supposed to show up sometime around now, give or take half an hour. He had already cast several privacy charms, too, although she would no doubt find them inadequate.

Sirius found the Prophet irritating on a good day, but what passed for weekend news in the British wizarding world was, in a nutshell, inane. Speculation about quidditch matches (complete with several pages of photos), a half page business section covering some market trends and exchange rates between wizard and muggle currencies, concert dates and reviews for the two whole wizard rock bands in the country, a travel section consisting of a single article about the Icelandic counterpart to Diagon Alley and an unrelated stock photo of a land-wight next to a volcano, far, far too many advice columns, and a profusion of ads. International or muggle news in the Prophet was somewhere between rare and entirely nonexistent.

The paper operated under the assumption that almost everyone in Britain counted among its readership, and sold ads based on that claim. The most recently Sirius had heard any numbers had admittedly been over a decade ago, near the end of the war with Voldemort — before the deaths of Lily and James. Back then, though, the wizarding population of Britain had been reduced to a little over 30,000, and the paper's print run was around 8,000 copies, give or take some calculated variation for day of week and special events. There was no way it could have increased by very much since then. The Prophet, then, operated in a very small world, and it was a testament to its enthusiastic self-centeredness that it reliably managed to fill as many pages as it did.

"Wotcher!"

Sirius jumped. "You sneaked up on me! Hello there yourself."

"Is the Prophet that exciting?" she asked, as she hung her cloak up and, as Sirius predicted, started re-casting all the privacy charms.

"Not at all. In fact, I was preoccupied with marveling at how extraordinarily dull it is. I don't know why I bother reading it. What on earth do you plan to talk about that you need so many charms, anyway?"

"That depends," Tonks replied, smiling sweetly and waving at Aberforth, who started over from behind the bar to take their orders.

"Let me guess," said Sirius, "it depends on how my occlumency lessons are coming?"

"That would be one factor, yes . . ." she said, looking thoughtful, as if she wasn't really sure.

After a brief distraction talking to Aberforth, Sirius sighed and drummed his fingers on the table. "Well," he said, "when I asked my teacher that question last week, he said I am doing as well as the average student would be at this point. He didn't say what that meant in absolute terms. I can tell when he starts trying to get into my mind, even when he's really subtle about it, and I can push back some, but I can't put up any sort of respectable fight."

"Hm. I suppose that's good enough for what I wanted to ask. When I was visiting over Christmas, I managed to talk to Kreacher for a few minutes while you were out of the room."

"I'm sure that was entertaining. What happened?"

"Well, he cursed at me a lot, but he actually answered my question, which was who had been in your house between when you were arrested and when you got out of . . ."

"Azkaban?" Sirius finished. He appreciated Dora being sensitive, but there was no use overdoing it. "Interesting," he continued, deciding to let the issue drop, "but I wouldn't trust him, since he probably doesn't know when I was arrested. Remember I hadn't been back there for years at that point."

"So he mentioned. But I eventually worked out that there was a very long stretch between when your mother died and you returned, and during that time he only saw one person. Now, who do you suppose it was?"

"Great, make me guess while worrying me at the same time. Brilliant. Let's see . . . Hardly anyone knows where the house is . . . it has some excellent wards, too, and the floo would have been turned off once mother died. When I checked the wards, the only people on them were family members, and they've all been in Azkaban since before she died. Unless I'm wrong about that?"

"So far as I know they are genuinely still there. So," she said, grinning at presenting him with a puzzle, "who would both know where it was and be able to bypass the wards without breaking them?"

"Damn. They'd have to be very powerful, right? A house elf! Was it a house elf?"

Tonks look surprised. "Actually I didn't think of that, which was stupid of me. You should look for a way to ward against them. I don't trust people like Lucius Malfoy not to send their house elves after you. But that wasn't it."

"I suppose I didn't have enough things to be paranoid about, did I. Wonderful. I'm stumped. May I have a hint?"

"Who has a means of transportation that can bypass wards?"

"That implies it's someone we know . . . Fawkes! It was Dumbledore with Fawkes. What on earth was he doing at the Black place?"

"Kreacher said he was retrieving a dark artifact in order to destroy it."

"Why did the little bugger never mention it?"

"Maybe because you hate each other?"

"Oh, yes, probably that. So what was it?"

"He said it was a locket which your brother stole from Voldemort and wasn't able to destroy himself."

"Reggie? Wait, whose side was he on?"

"Apparently ours, after all."

"Wow. So Reggie was a spy. I thought he was dark, through and through . . . never thought he would be brave enough to do that, either. I hope . . ."

"I think he would have understood that you couldn't have known, and you shouldn't feel bad about whatever . . . colorful things you said about him. I think you'll have to keep it up, though, in case his secrets still need protecting from the other Death Eaters."

"Right. Darn. Merlin, I'm sorry Reggie."

"Think of it this way," offered Tonks, "just because he thought Voldemort was a bad guy and worth defeating doesn't mean you would have gotten along with him if the war hadn't happened."

"I suppose. Ten years ago I would have been much more enthusiastic about calling him a right bastard regardless, you know."

Tonks realized she needed to move the conversation onwards to less somber topics.

"So," she said, "the reason I bring this up now is that it might be good to ask Dumbledore whether he managed to destroy it yet, and how he did it. If your brother couldn't figure out how, given the entire Black library . . ."

". . . then it might pose a bit of a challenge for Dumbledore, right? I'm sure he'll enjoy it."

"If he doesn't get overconfident and let it injure him somehow. I don't think he can afford to just hire Gringott's curse breakers — they might be able to do something. They probably weren't an option for your brother at the time, I suppose?"

Sirius nodded. "Being a wanted Death Eater probably kept him out of Diagon Alley."

"Anyway," said Tonks, "Dumbledore has a lot of friends, but I get the feeling he hates to give up a good secret when he can do everything himself."

"Right. So, I'll send him an owl."

"If he did destroy it, I'd be really curious to find out how! My bet's on fiendfyre, but that's dangerous and inelegant, so he'd probably use it as a last resort. I wonder what he thinks the locket was supposed to do, too."

At this point their food showed up, along with a second mug of cocoa for Sirius. "Wow," said Tonks, "food smells really good right now. Hogwarts has great food, of course, but there's nothing like heavy, greasy, pub food. Your cocoa smells amazing, too . . . wait a second."

She leaned over and sniffed the mug. Sirius smiled and raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to figure out what was odd.

"You had Aberforth spike it!" she exclaimed. "Smells really strong, too. What's in it?"

"No idea. I think he got creative and added a little of everything, honestly — want to taste it?"

Dora pretended to be shocked. "But Sirius! Aren't you afraid of corrupting me?"

He considered this. "No," he said, "I consider it my duty to corrupt you! Now, see, if Aberforth had spiked it with cheap firewhiskey or flat butterbeer, I would never let you have any. I'd be teaching you to put up with lousy alcohol!"

"Good answer," she said, taking a sip of his drink. "I knew you were my favorite cousin for a reason. Mm, this is really good! But I can't tell what flavor it is either. Huh. So, what have you been up to?"

"Filling Hogwarts with chickens wasn't good enough for you?"

Tonks grinned. "That was last week. Impressive, though!"

Sirius made a mock bow, as best as sitting in a pub booth would allow. "Thank you. I have spent some of the past week fighting with Kreacher to make him finish making the last parts of the house presentable."

Tonks looked puzzled. "Shouldn't you two have come to an understanding by now? I mean, he's a house elf, shouldn't his urge to clean something overwhelm his urge to stand there and whine at you?"

"Apparently not . . . I can't say I'm certain what counts as 'sane' for a houese elf, but whatever it is, I'm sure Kreacher doesn't qualify. Never did, really. He's older than me, you know."

"Huh. That's easy to forget."

"What? I'm not that old and decrepit!"

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Tonks looked horrified. "I didn't mean it that way — wait. You!"

"Yes, me! Got you! I used to be able to look properly indignant for more than a few seconds, though. I will have to work on that." Sirius looked thoughtful for a moment. "So, did you see that interview with Malfoy that the Prophet ran?"

"Evading the question?" she said, laughing. "You should have heard what your Slytherin . . ." Here Tonks paused, gave a hint of a leering grin which Sirius had never seen on her, and with emphasis said "friends . . . made out of that one!"

"Hey, don't use that tone of voice with me, young lady! I have done nothing inappropriate with those specific girls of the specific variety of inappropriateness which you are, specifically, imputing to me!"

"Okay, I'm not touching that one. Seriously, though," she said, pausing to stick her tongue out at him, "I wasn't very happy with Malfoy using Harry like that. He could have gone much further — I know I would have, if I were a scheming psychopath in his shoes." Sirius nodded; Lucius had held back.

"Anyway," Tonks continued, "it's not that the Dursleys aren't awful, it's just . . . I worry about him getting picked on, and it just seems unfair that Harry might have to go off to Hogwarts with his name being a rallying cry against muggles."

"I suppose . . ." Sirius said.

Tonks sighed. "You look unconvinced, which worries me. Speak."

"Woof?"

"No."

"Fine, be that way." He stuck out his tongue. "At the end of the day, though, I'm still mad at the Dursleys myself. Your mother says she has photos, just in case, and that I really don't want to see them—"

"—You don't." Tonks shook her head for emphasis. "Trust me."

"Right. So, I can't honestly say it would be a bad thing to prevent magical children from being placed with muggle relatives ever again like that. And Harry's going to get all sorts of attention, wanted and unwanted, no matter what he does."

"So you aren't worried about him?"

Sirius shrugged. "Not about that, no. A little politics over guardianship rules hardly seems like standard Death Eater operations. It's just politics. I expect Harry and everyone else will have plenty of other things to be concerned with. And the next Dark Lord is simply not going to go around killing muggles while shouting 'Remember Harry Potter!'"

"What an awful idea!" said Tonks, looking horrified. "Don't suggest it to anyone."

"Like I said, don't worry so much. Of course, if I can think of it, so can Malfoy. Harry will have to be prepared for it. I will talk to him about it. You should too. Speaking of Harry, do you have any mail to pass on?"

Tonks shook her head. "I haven't been up there yet this term. I actually haven't been able to get away from teachers and prefects during the day at all, actually."

"No?" He looked disappointed.

"Well, I'm sure I could if I really wanted to. But I kind of want to pick the ways I risk getting into trouble carefully."

Sirius eyed her skeptically. "I'll let that slide. For now."

"It's not that I'm as worried about the basilisk any more—"

"—Oh right, I forgot about it. I was going to ask about that. With just petrification, it's like they were taunting everyone. Making it obvious they could have taken off the sunglasses."

"Sunglasses? Anyway, I'm inclined to think they were taunting us, or at least, taunting somebody. Although, I can only speculate wildly as to why anyone would do that. But Dumbledore and the other professors have actually taken it seriously. They've gone all over the school quietly adding wards, alarms, enchantments, locks on disused doors — you know, I heard they sealed off Moaning Myrtle's bathroom?"

"That was the ghost who was always crying or yelling at people, right?"

"I guess you wouldn't have gone into a girl's bathroom without a good prank in mind, but you were there for seven years! She's the ghost of the girl who was killed by the basilisk the last time the Chamber was opened. She'll tell that to anyone who talks to her for long enough."

"Let me guess. No one talks to her?"

"She's nearly unbearable to talk to, and she's not one of the castle's more coherent ghosts to start with."

"Sooo . . . is that how you get your information? Talking to ghosts no one else can tolerate? And I suppose they can go places without being noticed, and no one would pay them much mind . . ."

Tonks was merely raising her eyebrows.

Sirius went on. "Oh, that must be it. And you could pretend to be a teacher to fool them, too! It's perfect! And you're not denying it."

Tonks grinned. "Well," she said, "it's a good theory, and you should never go around denying things if you don't have to . . ."

"Of course. And Dumbledore can't use legilimency on them, or veritaserum. Dora, that's brilliant! Although it doesn't explain how you knew about me, or Harry . . ." Sirius stared off into space thinking.

"House elves," she deadpanned.

"Really?"

Tonks shrugged, then turned her attention to the pile of chips that had come with her sandwich.




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Author's note:


I'm aware that in canon the fact the monster was a basilisk was a big mystery. I find that thoroughly implausible, so I'm assuming everybody knows. If the divergence bugs you, just say Tonks tipped off Dumbledore early on in an anonymous note. I figure Hagrid hasn't been cleared because of the same kind of miserably inefficient judicial system that failed Sirius for a decade.

Next few chapters might be a while, since I can't just post them as they are written. I will try to keep the current story status updated in my profile every so often.