Chapter 34 — A Name on the Stairs

McGonagall put down her quill when I said Voldemort. Until then, she had listened while Harry described the figure in the forest and I explained what I had seen beside the unicorn. Hermione helped us put the sequence in order, and Ron stood nearest the door, worrying the cuff of his sleeve.

‘Hagrid has already reported the attack,’ McGonagall said. ‘You should never have been in that position. I shall be speaking to him about the arrangements for your detention.’

That was better than I had expected. I relaxed enough to say that she therefore knew why somebody might need the Philosopher’s Stone, which brought her attention sharply back to me. She wanted to know who had told us about it. Explaining Flamel took considerably less time than finding him had done.

I left out Norbert when I described the wager. Hagrid had said he had already spoken to Dumbledore; I repeated what mattered about the stranger’s question and the answer he had obtained. Somebody outside the school knew how to make Fluffy sleep. We could not tell McGonagall who that person was, only why we thought the information had been sought deliberately.

‘And you believe this person is Lord Voldemort?’ she asked. Harry began explaining what Firenze had suggested, and she let him finish before replying. ‘A warning about what unicorn blood can sustain is not an identification of the person you saw.’

She was right. I disliked how much that sounded like the end of the conversation, and brought up Quirrell before she could send us away. He had raised the alarm about the troll, and Harry had heard Snape threatening him. I asked whether somebody could check where he had been during our detention.

McGonagall turned to Harry, who repeated the words about loyalties. Away from the corridor and Snape’s voice, the account sounded smaller. It still seemed worth investigating, but I could hear how much depended on our interpretation of it.

‘I will pass this on,’ she said. ‘You will not question Professor Quirrell, enter the forbidden corridor or investigate the forest. The Stone has protections of which you know nothing. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this when he returns.’

‘When is he coming back?’ I asked. She said he was expected that evening. ‘And if somebody tries before then?’

‘Mr Mercer, you are eleven. I appreciate your concern. I do not appreciate your assumption that the staff have left this matter to four first-years.’

I closed my mouth before I found an answer that made us easier to dismiss. Outside, Harry caught my sleeve and asked whether I actually suspected Quirrell. He had listened when I passed on Flitwick’s explanation of counter-curses, but I had not told them where the rest of my thoughts were leading.

‘Snape might have been trying to stop him,’ I said. ‘That would explain the argument without making Snape the thief. It fits the troll alarm too, though I don’t know where Quirrell went afterwards.’

‘You might have mentioned that part,’ Hermione said. She waited while I explained that I had wanted something better than a guess. ‘We might have helped you find it.’

I had no useful answer. Keeping my doubts private had not improved the evidence, and now Harry was looking at me as though he wondered how many other conversations I had held without him. We went to lessons together, with rather more space in our conversation than usual.

Hogwarts carried on around us. People complained about homework, a second-year dropped a stack of books outside Charms, and somebody in Transfiguration whispered that we were lucky to have any points left. By the afternoon, I wanted a problem I could actually touch. I took my materials to our spare classroom and opened the textbook beside a padded stool.

Hermione found me there with three spoiled inscriptions at my elbow. None had taken a charge, which was beginning to make the familiar Leg-Locker look undeservedly easy. Extending the binding beyond the legs required a different arrangement, close enough to tempt me into rushing and different enough to punish it.

‘You’re practising now?’ she asked. She put down her bag and came to look at the page.

‘Would you prefer I waited until something tried to bite me?’ I moved the failed work aside. ‘Full Body-Bind. I’d like a way of stopping somebody that doesn’t involve setting his robes alight.’

She checked the diagram while I tried another preparation. I threw the strip towards the articulated wooden figure on the stool and spoke the charm; the paper burned without altering it. The following attempt stiffened one joint and left the rest loose. Hermione compared my marks with the book and showed me where I had closed the line too early.

The next attempt locked the figure straight. She repeated ‘Petrificus Totalus’ while I copied the corrected arrangement, insisting that I stop swallowing the middle of the incantation. I said the target had not complained. She pointed out that a wooden target was poorly equipped to do so, and waited for me to pronounce it properly.

We tested another piece on a classroom mouse over the padded enclosure. Its body became rigid while its eyes still moved, and Hermione released it before we waited to see it running normally again. I prepared a few more strips slowly, now able to recognise the complete design as the paper accepted it. They went into separate sleeves, clear of the spoiled work.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The other discovery came while I was clearing the stool. A prepared water talisman lay on the floor nearby. I threw a Force Pulse preparation towards the stool leg and said, ‘Impello.’ It missed the leg and struck the strip instead. Water splashed across my sock, leaving me looking down at a result I had been unable to produce deliberately for weeks.

Hermione put down the book. ‘Do it again,’ she said, moving her bag away from the wet patch.

The next prepared strip tore without releasing its spell. Another sent water sideways, missing the place I had intended. We retrieved the notebook full of unsuccessful ideas for traps and began changing the angle rather than the ink. By late afternoon, I could send my pulse into a strip and sometimes make its stored spell release where I wanted. Moving the target a handspan was enough to spoil it.

‘It isn’t waiting for a person,’ Hermione said. She marked the successful positions on the diagram. ‘Someone could walk past without anything happening.’

‘It needs my magic to reach it.’ I put another piece in place and stepped back. ‘At least, that’s what we’ve got working.’

A thrown stone crumpled the next preparation. Hermione’s spell knocked another away without opening it, whereas my own pulse worked again once we restored the arrangement. I laid out a longer chain, hoping one release could reach the next. The first attempt failed at the second strip, and the following arrangement wasted the row. Then a succession of pulses reached the last piece and sent a small flame into the fireplace we were using as a target.

I grinned at Hermione through the drifting ash. She looked from the hearth to the spoiled and spent paper, then reminded me that we had managed it once. That was still a better number than yesterday’s, though I agreed to stop before enthusiasm consumed the material I needed for replacements. My wrist ached, and the room smelled of damp soot.

I copied the successful layout with its distances and angles. It needed a clear path, careful placement and a spell I had released to start the sequence. I could not imagine many opponents letting me arrange a room for their convenience, but I prepared the necessary pieces anyway. They would accomplish nothing while stacked safely in my pouch.

Among the ordinary strips, I made one with the herb that had frightened our test mouse into fleeing an empty corner. I marked its edge with a grey dot and kept its sleeve separate. Hermione saw it before I put it away and reminded me that we had never tested the effect on a person.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how a person would react.’ Saying it before she did made the problem no smaller. I packed the piece separately from the fire charms, while the Amortentia preparation remained sealed with the restricted materials. I had no wish to learn what that mistake looked like in a crowded room.

That evening, we sat round our common-room table waiting for news. None reached us. Harry proposed going to London, and Hermione asked where we would look for Dumbledore, how we would get there and how long the journey would take. He sat back after the second question, still unhappy but unable to improve the plan.

Beneath the table edge, I unfolded the old parchment. I touched it with my brush-wand and whispered the password the twins had taught me: ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.’ Ink began spreading across the page. Ron saw me watching it and leaned round to ask what I kept finding so interesting about a blank sheet.

I hesitated, then turned it towards them. Fine lines showed rooms, stairs and moving names, with most of the castle folded underneath. The third-floor corridor lay open in front of me. I had been checking its approaches instead of admitting how much I wanted to know what was happening there.

‘Fred and George got it from Filch,’ I explained. ‘I persuaded them to part with it on Sunday.’

Ron bent so close that his nose almost touched the page. ‘They gave you this? What did you give them?’

‘Ten prepared pieces to examine, and help trying their ideas. They know they can’t activate them.’ I had explained that again before we shook hands. George considered finding out why something refused to work half the fun; Fred wanted the other half to happen near Filch. I had insisted that anything involving me happened somewhere else.

‘You could have shown us,’ Harry said. He was looking at the names rather than at me, which did little to soften it.

‘Yes.’ I flattened the fold nearest him. ‘I should have.’ There was no point defending another withheld piece of information, especially while asking them to trust what I thought it meant.

I pointed to Quirinus Quirrell’s name. The mark had come up the stairs and paused outside the forbidden room; as we watched, it crossed the threshold. It moved towards the place where I remembered the trapdoor, remained there briefly and disappeared beyond the detail shown on the map. Hermione asked whether it displayed what was underneath, and I opened the adjoining fold. There were lower passages and foundations, but no readable continuation of his route.

‘He helps guard it,’ Ron said. ‘He might be checking something.’

‘While Dumbledore’s away.’ Harry looked up from the page. ‘Or while we’re waiting to find out whether he’s back.’

I folded the map with more care than I felt. Quirrell entering the room proved neither theft nor guilt, but it gave us something more immediate than last night’s argument. I stood, already reaching for my pouch.

‘We tell somebody he’s gone in,’ I said. ‘Then we look at the door. If it’s closed and everything seems normal, we come back.’

Hermione wrote down the name, corridor and movement we had seen. Percy read the note twice, asked whether we were certain about the location and went to find McGonagall. Before leaving, he made us promise to stay in the tower. I agreed, watching the portrait close behind him.

A few moments later, I moved towards it. Ron observed that our promise had lasted well, but got up with Harry anyway. Hermione gathered her things more slowly. We were almost at the entrance when Neville stood from the armchair beside the fire and stepped into our way.

‘No,’ he said. His hands were clenched, and he kept his place when I tried to speak. ‘You’ve already lost us two hundred points. You keep deciding you have to do things, and everyone else has to put up with it.’

‘There might be somebody in danger,’ Harry told him. Neville glanced at the portrait, then back at us.

‘Then let the teachers go. Percy told you to stay here.’ His voice shook, but he did not move aside. I could have waited with him for Percy to return. I could have admitted that the person ignoring an agreement was me.

Instead, I took out one of the strips I had prepared that afternoon. ‘You’re right to stand up to us,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. Petrificus Totalus.’

The paper flashed as it left my hand. Neville’s arms snapped to his sides, and I caught him before he fell, lowering him onto the sofa. Harry stared at me. Hermione pushed past him to check Neville’s breathing, then looked back with an expression I could not mistake for approval.

Neville’s eyes followed me. I told him I would answer for this when we came back, knowing he could not demand anything more useful. Hermione placed a cushion beside his head and left a second note where Percy would see it. Then Harry brought out his cloak, and we left our friend staring at the ceiling.