Chapter 61
Chapter 61
“We didn’t make a sound. We put the sack over Flint while Disillusioned.”
“Women’s clothes?” Gabriel shook his head. “How could that have been us?”
“We merely fed Flint a little Draught of Living Death so that he would miss the match. It was our first attempt, and I misjudged the dose, which was why he woke so early.”
“But that doesn’t matter. The match was over and the result was good. He still missed it.”
After Suer and Hermione delivered an unconscious Neville to the hospital wing, they parted on the second floor.
Suer had barely crawled through the barrel passage when he heard Prefect Gabriel holding court in the common room, a cup of pumpkin juice in hand.
“The dress wasn’t the prefects’ work?” Suer wondered.
“In any case, Flint should be too busy to trouble us for a while.” Gabriel smugly blew across the steam rising from his cup.
“I hear Snape gave him two months of detention. He’ll probably spend the rest of term gutting frogs in the Potions classroom.”
Their vengeance complete, the young Hufflepuffs abandoned their avenging forms over the next few days and returned to their pleasantly idle lives.
Professor Sprout’s mood also seemed to improve. Whenever Gabriel served detention, she even gave him a box of coconut ice after the work was done.
Everything appeared to return to the tranquillity and harmony of the beginning of term–at least for Hufflepuff.
For Slytherin captain Marcus Flint, life was rather less pleasant.
Many people, especially Gryffindors, adored shouting his new nickname: Miss Flint.
Miss Flint was furious. Every day as he passed through the Great Hall, his bloodshot eyes swept over everyone nearby. Plainly, he blamed every misfortune that had befallen him upon the person who dressed him as a girl.
He did not even spare his own housemates.
The effort was ultimately futile.
Voldemort Quirinus Quirrell had recently fallen into very poor health. His face grew visibly paler, and his robes began to hang loosely from his frame.
Suer occasionally saw Ron urging people not to mock Professor Quirrell’s stammer. Yet ever since the professor’s bald head had been exposed before the whole school, nobody had laughed at him.
Still, for a lesser villain, Quirrell’s presence was remarkably faint…
Never mind. That was the protagonist’s problem. A badger ought to eat until full, sleep until rested and live happily.
Slap.
A thick stack of parchment landed before Suer. Hermione sat down beside it.
“If I’m not mistaken, you’re making a revision timetable?” Suer’s eyebrow twitched at the familiar multicoloured writing.
Oh, she had brought the whole Muggle-school system to Hogwarts.
“A good plan prevents panic. You ought to make one with me, Suer.” Hermione continued arranging the pages without looking up.
“The exams are ages away.” Suer silently counted. “More than two months.”
“To be precise, a little over ten weeks,” Hermione corrected. “That’s no more than the blink of an eye.”
“For Nicolas Flamel, who is more than six hundred years old, perhaps.” Suer blinked. “But, young lady, you’re only eleven.”
“Look how lovely the weather is. Why don’t we visit Hagrid and enjoy some afternoon tea?”
“I have no desire to eat another biscuit hard enough to kill a cow,” Hermione muttered, glancing outside.
The weather truly was lovely, and temptation showed on her face. Still, she shook her head.
“I should have begun revising a month ago. If we fail our exams, we won’t be allowed to advance normally into second year…”
“Next time, Suer.”
…
“This may be the happiest period of my entire career at Hogwarts. I can scarcely believe that the person who understands me best in this whole school is Quirinus Quirrell.”
“He understands me. He knows my favourite magical creature and my greatest regret.”
“He is willing to help me. He is my dearest friend.”
“He can be rather strange, always asking about the unicorns in the Forbidden Forest. But I know he would never hurt them, so I told him. It was only fair repayment for the many adorable Ashwinder eggs my good friend Quirinus gave me.”
“Today is Easter. I have prepared for this performance for more than half a year.”
“I am Silvanus Kettleburn, and I shall give Hogwarts Castle the grandest spectacle it has ever seen. Look upon it, Armando Dippet–you former Headmaster who always despised me. See how magnificent the humble Ashwinder you scorned can be.”
“From death, new life shall blaze.”
…
The Easter holiday officially began after that night’s feast. Unlike the Christmas holiday, very few students chose to leave school.
The professors appeared to have conspired to assign enormous amounts of work.
Going home merely meant doing homework without friends nearby to consult. Better to remain in the castle, finish the assignments together, then enjoy a few Easter games.
After the final lesson before the holiday, students gathered in the Great Hall. Each long table broke into several groups.
“Quick! Smash him! Hit him!”
“Oh!”
Cheers and groans rose one after another. A closer look revealed two brightly coloured eggs, each of which had “grown” a pair of legs. They circled and collided within a marked ring.
The first to crack naturally lost.
“You won again, Suer!”
“Ha! I knew I would. Mine is nut chocolate.” Suer laughed, cancelled the Transfiguration and raised his chin smugly. “Come on. A loss is a loss. Eat that Every Flavour Bean.”
“You’re just lucky–ugh, earwax…”
It was an Easter game from England. In the Muggle world, each player usually held a decorated egg and struck it against the other. The first egg to crack lost.
The wizarding version was naturally more magical. First- and second-years simply Transfigured legs and made the eggs test and ram one another. Older students who excelled at Transfiguration turned their chocolate eggs into rabbits and controlled them as they raced around the hall.
Some even armed the rabbits with knives and forks and sent them into battle.
“Suer, don’t you think Professor Kettleburn is acting strangely today?” Morn tapped Suer’s arm and gestured towards the staff table.
“Strangely how?”
“He looks foolish. He does nothing but grin.” Morn lowered his voice. “I’m not the only one who noticed. Several older students say his teaching has been peculiar lately.”
“Speaking ill of a professor behind his back can cost a great many points, Morn,” Suer warned.
Then he looked towards the staff table himself.
“Perhaps the old professor is simply ageing. Muggles have an illness called Alzheimer’s disease. The wizarding world may have something similar.”
Even as he spoke, he remembered the old man he had twice seen in the castle’s basement, carrying a metal bucket and laughing strangely.
Then he thought of the term’s resident troublemaker: Voldemort Quirrell Quirinus.
A terrible suspicion formed.
Oh… surely not?