Chapter 169 — Room to Move

By Friday morning, people had begun leaving gaps for me. A conversation paused when I approached; a boy heading for an empty chair changed his mind when he saw whose bag was beside it. A few people asked what had happened. More seemed to prefer the version in which they already knew.

Being angry about it did not stop it hurting. At breakfast, I hesitated beside the table until Neville moved his plate to make room for mine.

‘You're blocking the marmalade,’ Ron said. I passed it to him and sat down, grateful to be accused of something I had actually done.

McGonagall found me after the meal. She had sent my letter on after her own and would let me know when there was an answer. The inquiry into the Goblet continued, but she had no new explanation for my name.

I asked for a training appointment before she could leave. Her attention went to my pouch as she asked what, precisely, I intended to practise.

‘Moving while I'm a lion,’ I said. ‘Using the pulse and fire we worked on last term. I need to know what happens when the target doesn't stay where I put it.’

‘Moving and casting at the same time?’ she asked. I had spent part of the night imagining myself doing exactly that; her tone made me consider the steps between the picture in my head and a successful attempt.

‘Eventually,’ I said. ‘First, getting into a position where I can release the paper. Under supervision, with targets which aren't people.’

‘Bring me a written arrangement,’ she said. ‘Then we can decide how to proceed.’

I went to get my notebook. Over the next few days, the arrangement acquired distances, an unflattering number of arrows and a space at the bottom where McGonagall wrote the conditions for stopping. My first version required me to pass through a moving target to reach the place where I meant to release the second spell.

On paper, the arrows had crossed very neatly. I moved the second position and began again.

Emma's answer arrived while I was working on that revision. She had received both letters and written to Dumbledore herself, asking what the organisers meant by a binding selection made without my agreement. She wanted an answer someone would still be prepared to stand behind a week later.

Then she wrote about Fleur. You were frightened and angry. I believe you. You still frightened another person deliberately.

I read those lines twice before turning the page. There was no instruction to be brave for her, only a request that I tell her the things I would rather leave out. At the end, she had drawn a kitchen table, badly, with my usual place marked by an arrow.

When Luna met me that afternoon, I showed her the drawing. She studied the uneven legs of the table before saying, ‘She's saved you a seat.’

‘I think she's saved me an argument too,’ I said. I folded the letter carefully and put it away before giving her the training plan.

Luna sat beside me on the window ledge and read the part about the pendant, then followed the arrows between the targets. When she asked when I would try it, I told her Friday afternoon, if McGonagall approved this version.

‘I finish earlier than you,’ she said. ‘I'd like to come.’

‘You don't have to spend all your free time watching me work,’ I said. There had already been enough afternoons devoted to my name coming out of a cup.

‘I wasn't planning to.’ She turned the page. ‘I have things to finish on Thursday. But I'd like to come on Friday.’

I laughed and told her I would like that too. She gave the notebook back and took my hand instead.

For a while, we stayed where we were. Luna told me about an argument in her Charms lesson over whether a result that happened only once ought to count as a success. I had opinions about that, and she listened to the first three before pointing at the crossed-out arrows.

‘You're going to be insufferable when they all work,’ she said. I admitted I was practising that part already, which made her lean against my shoulder and laugh.

I kissed her hair and closed the notebook. The plan could wait until she had finished telling me about her afternoon.

By the following Friday's appointment, I had made three Impello pieces and two small Incendio pieces for the exercise. Preparing them took time I had wanted to spend practising, and each had to dry separately before I slid it into a sleeve. None came out of the store I kept for an emergency.

The restricted book remained closed in my trunk. McGonagall had read my questions about it and made clear that this appointment concerned the two effects we had already demonstrated. I could think of enough ways for those to go wrong without adding an unfamiliar one.

The Room of Requirement supplied a long practice space, a low stone tray and three squat stone figures with broad bases. They had no faces, and their arms ended in rounded knobs. I had drawn obstacles in my notebook; the room appeared to have supplied exceptionally determined mantelpiece ornaments.

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McGonagall inspected them before letting anybody take a position. ‘These will move when I direct them,’ she said. ‘The room does not decide what attacks you.’

She tested each figure with her wand. The first slid forward, turned and stopped; the other two followed in their turn. Ron watched the last one's progress with interest.

‘I've seen people dance like that,’ he said. McGonagall looked towards him without lowering her wand.

‘If you'd prefer to demonstrate, Mr Weasley—’ she began. Ron declined before she could finish, and Harry suddenly found the floor interesting.

The others took their places behind a heavy screen at the side of the room. Hermione had my notebook, and Luna set the water bottle where I could reach it after changing back. I removed my pouch and placed it on the table with my familiar spare talismans still inside.

I took the pendant off its original chain and threaded the long practice cord through the loop. McGonagall checked the release before watching me put the five new pieces inside, their order kept distinct. We were increasing the number carried through one change; I had no reason to assume the pendant would accommodate any quantity I fancied.

‘Five,’ she said. ‘If anything feels wrong with the cord, the pendant or the change itself, you stop.’

I agreed and let the familiar rearrangement of weight settle through me. The mat came much nearer. Loose beneath my mane, the cord moved with my neck as I turned to check the space around me.

McGonagall let me walk the room first. I had pictured quick turns and well-timed bursts of magic, but on four paws I noticed a problem my drawing had not captured: where to put the paw that would receive the paper while the other three were carrying me.

The first figure began to move. I went left, and it turned after me while a second crossed the opening I had meant to use. I stopped short, fetched the first Impello piece beside my forepaw and held its edge against myself with the working face clear.

The connection caught. My own prepared magic released through the paper, striking the first figure low on its base. Stone scraped across the mat far enough to open a gap, and I went through before it could turn back across my path.

Harry said something behind the screen. I caught the pleased sound more clearly than the words, and tried the next release without stopping.

I fetched the second Impello piece and caught its edge against my forepaw while I was still turning. The pulse hit the floor. Dust jumped beneath my nose, and the stone figure continued serenely along the route I had failed to clear.

I had turned too far to use the opening on its other side. Backing away with my ears flat, I watched McGonagall halt it before it reached me.

‘Again from the centre,’ she said. I went back, with no useful objection that would survive coming out as a growl.

This time I waited until all four paws were placed before retrieving the next piece, one of the Incendio charges. I faced the tray, brought the paper's edge into contact and tried to direct the flare across its centre. Fire struck the near end instead.

It lasted only as long as the paper. A thin black mark remained on the stone, much nearer to me than I had intended. The tray had occupied exactly the same place in my drawing, where I had managed to hit it with a pencil without difficulty.

‘Your shoulder is turning before you've set the angle,’ McGonagall said, moving the figures back. I lowered my head and looked again at the route, trying to separate the turn I needed from the one my body wanted to make.

I could run quickly and turn more sharply than I could as a human. Neither helped if I let the movement choose where the spell went. With one pulse and one fire piece left, another careless attempt would finish the exercise without giving me anything better to practise.

I let the nearest figure begin its turn, crossed its front and stopped outside the reach of its rounded arm. Only then did I retrieve the remaining Impello piece. I set the direction before touching its edge to my forepaw and making the short connection with my own magic.

The pulse struck where I intended. The figure turned away from the opening instead of across it, and I passed through before the second could close the gap. This time I heard Harry's encouragement clearly.

At the far mark, I stopped and faced the fire tray. The last Incendio piece brushed my forepaw, and a compact flare ran across the centre of the stone. Warm air moved through my whiskers as I drew back, letting the charge expire over the mark I had chosen.

McGonagall lowered her wand, and all three figures stopped. Five pieces had gone: two bad releases and a route I had finally managed properly. I wanted another attempt badly enough to reach towards the pendant before remembering it was empty.

I changed back and sat down more abruptly than intended. Luna put the water into my hand, and I drank before trying to explain any of it. From this height, the stone figures looked irritatingly small.

‘You kept looking at the first one after you'd passed it,’ Harry said. ‘The other was coming in from your right.’

I asked him to show me. He walked the route while Hermione moved a mark in the drawing, and I took the pen to add the stopping point I had actually used. The new arrow was less elegant than the old one, but it showed the pause that had made the release work.

McGonagall checked the empty pendant and my hands before letting me replace the chain. ‘Progress,’ she said. ‘Which is not a reason to double the exercise tomorrow.’

‘I was thinking about making the turn cleaner,’ I told her. She instructed me to write down how, and waited while I put the sequence beside the new arrow.

Ron examined the fire tray while I finished. ‘From behind the screen, it looked quite good,’ he said.

‘The second pulse didn't,’ I replied. I could still remember the dust jumping beneath my nose.

‘That bit looked as though you hated the floor.’ Luna laughed, and now that I was sitting down, I found I could laugh too.

While we packed, Harry took the reading list he had borrowed last term out of his bag. There were new notes along one margin, and he ran a finger beneath them before speaking.

‘I'm still reading it,’ he said. ‘But I'm going to wait before asking to start the practical preparation. There's this, and lessons, and training.’

‘You don't owe me every afternoon,’ I told him. He looked up from the list at once.

‘I know. I want to help you, but I don't want to begin something I can't keep up with.’

That was a better reason than several I had used myself. I told him to speak to McGonagall when he was ready, and he put the list away.

Hermione closed my notebook. ‘Rome wasn't built in a day,’ she said.

‘Did it have to fight three moving ornaments?’ Ron asked. Hermione said she expected it had faced difficulties of its own, and carried the notebook over while I put my pouch back on.

Luna stayed beside me on the way out while the others went ahead. My legs felt heavy, and the corridor looked unusually long. She waited until I had found a comfortable pace before asking whether I was pleased.

I thought of the opening appearing exactly when I had needed it. ‘Yes,’ I said, taking her hand.

‘Then you can be pleased on the way to dinner.’ She matched her stride to mine, and for once I had no improvement to suggest.