Chapter 122 — What I Had to Tell Them

The first version of my report took three pages. On reading it back, I discovered that the useful observation occupied most of them, while the walk I had been told not to take had somehow become a minor detail. I crossed out two excuses, found a third disguised as an explanation and began again.

Harry sat opposite me, quiet since breakfast. I was writing down the Fat Lady’s instruction when he said something about the dog. I put down my quill and waited for him to continue.

‘The one I told you about,’ he said. ‘We talked about it after our first Divination lesson, when she found the Grim in the cup.’

I remembered the description: large and black, seen only briefly. Harry nodded when I repeated it, then looked at the page between us. ‘What if that was him?’ he asked. ‘He didn’t attack me then.’

‘It might have been Black. Tell McGonagall exactly what you saw; it may help them work out where he’s been.’ I moved the report aside as Harry leaned forward.

‘You still won’t say what you think it means.’ He had kept his voice low, but the frustration in it made me look up properly.

‘I think there’s a chance the story you were told is wrong,’ I said. ‘I want us to find out before anyone else gets hurt.’

He drew a breath and let it out slowly. When I finished the report, he came with me to McGonagall’s office. She read my account, asked Harry about his brief sighting and wrote down his answers for the search. Nobody had yet brought her either of the people we were looking for.

‘And the rat?’ Harry asked. McGonagall set down her quill and looked at both of us.

‘We’re checking reports of animals as well as people. Hagrid has been told what to watch for on the grounds. If you see anything relevant, you will tell a member of staff.’ I kept my eyes on her while she delivered the last instruction.

She gave me an evening’s detention for leaving the entrance after being told to wait. The useful discovery would remain in the search records, along with the written account that made my route to it less flattering. I accepted the detention and asked whether she needed anything else from my notes.

‘For now, no. Get some rest before tonight, Mr Mercer.’ Her gaze paused on my face. ‘You’re making a habit of looking exhausted in this office.’

There was another conversation waiting for me before I could take that advice. Hermione had arranged a pile of books around a small patch of table in the common room. I let her finish the sentence she was writing, then asked whether we could move somewhere quieter.

‘Have they found something?’ she asked as soon as we sat down. I told her about the map, Ron reading the name and what had happened in Lupin’s office. She listened until I reached the animal forms, then looked towards the stairs to our dormitory.

‘Scabbers,’ she said. I explained that nobody had proved the connection and that Harry and Ron already knew; McGonagall had spoken to us during the night. Hermione’s next questions concerned what I had actually seen and which parts came from Lupin.

Once I had answered what I could, I told her the other thing. ‘I spoke to Ron about our trials in first year,’ I said. Her hand stopped on the edge of her book. ‘Before I saw Pettigrew’s name. I told him what we did and what I said when I brought Scabbers back.’

‘What did he say?’ she asked. I repeated his answer: it hadn’t been all right, and helping now didn’t make it disappear. Hermione lowered her eyes to the open book, though she wasn’t reading.

‘He’s right,’ she said after a moment. ‘I should speak to him.’ She closed the book and stayed beside me until Ron came downstairs.

He hesitated when she asked him to sit with us. Hermione moved her books out of his way and began with her own part in the work, describing the limits she had helped set and the trial she had stopped. Then she apologised for taking part without asking him and for not telling him herself.

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‘You both decided you knew enough to do it,’ Ron said. His arms remained folded while I agreed with him. ‘Next time something belongs to me, you ask me.’

‘We will,’ Hermione said. Ron looked between us, making certain neither of us was going to add a condition.

‘And if Scabbers turns out to be a person, that doesn’t mean you were right when you thought he was my pet.’ He looked directly at me for that part. I said it didn’t, and let the answer stand without explaining how much we had learnt.

Ron leaned back at last. He wasn’t cheerful, but he no longer had to pull the account out from between our excuses. When he asked what we were supposed to do if Scabbers returned, we went through McGonagall’s instructions together.

I found Luna before the afternoon was over and told her the new information. She asked whether the teachers had everything I had seen, and I described the notebook and the copies. For most of the morning, I had been conscious of the map missing from my pouch. Talking to her let me think about the person watching it instead.

‘They can help you carry it,’ she said, taking my hand. I stayed with her for a while before going to the Transfiguration classroom that evening. Two hours of sorting materials under McGonagall’s supervision left little room to improve my theories about Pettigrew.

She checked the finished work and sent me back to the tower. I went to bed early, but sleep took its time arriving. By Monday morning, I was ready to dislike crystal balls before anyone asked me to look into one.

The room above the ladder was as warm as ever. Firelight, heavy curtains and the sweet smell near Trelawney’s screen made the climb feel like the last useful effort expected of us that morning. I sat near the window while Harry put a crystal ball between us and Ron hunted for the assigned page.

Hermione joined the table after the lesson had begun. I hadn’t seen her come through the trapdoor; her books arrived beside my elbow, followed by her tired face. I shifted my bag to make room without asking another question about the timetable she had already told us she couldn’t explain.

Trelawney spoke of opening the mind to possibilities beyond ordinary sight. In the crystal, I could see the distorted window and a magnified section of Ron’s sleeve. Moving my head altered the proportions without making either object more informative, and somewhere during the exercise I lost a piece of the lesson.

A soft thud against my shoe brought me awake. The ball had rolled from its stand onto the rug, and Hermione was on her feet, gathering books while Trelawney stood beside the table with a hand at her necklace.

‘Then perhaps there’s very little point in my continuing to sit here,’ Hermione said. Her voice shook as she pulled her bag towards her.

‘My dear, a refusal to see is not—’ Trelawney began, but Hermione stopped long enough to face her again.

‘I’ve been asking you how to tell the difference.’ She took the last book, crossed to the trapdoor and began climbing down without waiting for another answer. I stood with my hand moving towards my pouch before remembering that a crystal ball had hit my shoe, not an enemy.

Harry caught my sleeve and told me to sit down. Trelawney moved away, her voice regaining its familiar softness at the next table, while the rest of us took longer to recover. I retrieved the ball from beneath my chair and set it somewhere it couldn’t roll into another foot.

‘What happened?’ I asked quietly. Ron looked at me as though deciding where to begin would take longer than the account itself.

‘You missed quite a lot,’ he said. I assured him I had noticed that part, and Harry leaned closer.

‘Hermione said she couldn’t see anything. Trelawney told her her inner vision was closed, then said something about a young face hiding a soul that had already dried up.’ Harry glanced towards the professor, who was bending over someone else’s crystal ball.

‘She said that to her?’ I asked. When he confirmed it, I looked at the empty place where Hermione’s books had been.

‘Hermione asked how telling people something was wrong with them proved there was anything in the ball,’ Ron added, turning a page without looking at it. ‘You heard the end.’

I wanted Hermione’s account too, but I had heard enough to understand why she had gathered her books so quickly. For the remainder of the lesson, I stayed awake. The crystal offered no further insight into Ron’s sleeve.

When we were dismissed, Harry said he would look for Hermione on the way down. Ron collected the things we had scattered across the table, and I gave him my book while picking up the ball. I would return it and meet them at lunch.

They went down the ladder, leaving me to find an empty padded stand on the shelf beside Trelawney’s screen. She was out of sight. I settled the ball into place and took my hands away, already thinking about the cooler air below the trapdoor.

Something moved inside the glass. At first I took the pale thread for a reflection of smoke from the fire, but it remained when I shifted aside. It gathered near the centre, thickening into a cloud, and I bent closer despite myself.

Two faces formed in the mist. I recognised Sirius Black as he had appeared in the warnings; beside him was the round face and thinning hair from Hermione’s borrowed newspaper. Pettigrew looked back from the glass, and for a moment I forgot the warmth of the room.

I glanced beyond the ball, searching the curtains and the screen for something that could have put those faces there. The mist continued moving when I looked back. Then a hand closed around my arm.