3. The Rosetti Stone and Being the Butt of a Joke
Dennis smiled ruefully even as his heart made a slight twinge. As far as he remembered, whenever he and Colin had their skirmishes, it was always him who was angry with Colin, never vise-versa. Colin didn’t seem to know how to hold grudges, even for a second. The speed with which he wrote after he left testified to his strangely affectionate nature. Even though Dennis had practically disowned him until the day he went to London.
So this was where they were hiding. Dennis had nearly turned his room inside out looking for these letters.
Dennis jumped when a knock sounded on the door.
“Dennis, sweetie, your uncles are looking for you,” said a still-shrill-from-crying voice. Aunt Eloise.
For a moment, Dennis wanted to snarl, “What for?” But then he took a deep breath and said instead that he’ll come down in a while.
“What are you doing, honey? Aren’t you hungry?”
Dennis didn’t answer. He was hungry. Just not for food.
“Dennis?”
“Auntie, please, I’ll be down, just””
“Of course, dear.”
Dennis sighed and eagerly unfolded the thickest of his brother’s letters. He knew which one this was. He almost wished he didn’t open it. But he could have gouged out his eyes sooner than he could have stopped reading.
“Hey, Den, I’m here on the train and we’re nearly at the school. I wish you could have seen me off as well. I’ll write you a lot, I promise. Anyway, I’m sitting with a nice girl Luna Lovegood and she told me there are loads of owls at school so I thought I’d write this one so I can send it right away when we arrive.
Guess what? Platform Nine and Three-Quarters is real. But Mum and Dad weren’t able to get through it with me. I got to it by going through the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten. Wicked, ha? It was like that magic archway in Diagon Alley!
There are also loads more wicked sweets like the Chocolate Frog. I’m enclosing a Jelly Slug and a Bertie Bott’s box. Be careful with these beans! I want to send a Sugar Quill, too, but it might be pulverised before it reaches you.
There’s also this famous boy wizard and they’re saying he and his best friend are missing and there’s a rumour going around that they’re in a flying car!
I can’t wait to meet them. The famous boy wizard’s name is Harry Potter and they say he beat an evil wizard when he was a baby! Luna says he must have been aided by a gilimaran. I wanted to ask what that was, but the other girl here in our compartment, Ginny, she rolled her eyes at Luna and grinned at me. She says her brother is Harry Potter’s best friend and that Harry stayed with them that summer!
The train’s stopping! I’ll write you more later, Den. Say hi to Mum and Dad and Popsy, Nana and Auntie and Merna for me.
Okay, so this paper’s called foolscap and it’s still got plenty of space so I’ll just continue here.
We went on a boat across a lake, Den! They say there’s a giant squid there! And we were escorted by a really huge man, his name’s Hagrid. You wouldn’t believe his beard. I thought at first he had burnt bird’s nests around his neck.
Hogwarts Castle is wonderful! I’ll send you photos. There are ghosts! But they’re friendly mostly. And then we were Sorted. You see, there are four school Houses. I’m in Gryffindor! And it’s the house for brave students! How do I know this? Well, the Sorting Hat told us! Yeah, Den, a hat. It sang and then we put it on and then it decided which house to put us in. The other three houses were Huffelpof”I think this one’s for diligent students. And Ravenclaw is for intelligent students. And then Slitherin is for cunning students.
I’m in the same house as Harry Potter! And this girl with hair like Hagrid’s beard only brown and somewhat tamer was all in a dither over dinner ” the food nearly made me die, Den! It was great! Like Christmas. But without Auntie’s pies and tarts. Oh yeah, the girl was worried because apparently Muggles have seen the flying car and that means Harry Potter and Ginny’s brother are in trouble. They might be expelled cos Muggles aren’t supposed to see flying cars, of course.
Well, now we are in our dormitories. And it’s in one of the towers. You won’t believe the stairs, they move! And the paintings, too! Our tower is behind a hole hidden behind this portrait of a fat lady in a pink gown. And she asks for passwords and is quite like Auntie Eloise, only flirtier.
Now I understand that my book wasn’t lying. When I take pictures, they’ll move, too. And now I’m here, I can have help with that potion. I’ll send them to you soon as I develop them!
Well, I’m sleepy now. I’ll write again. Give my love to our folks. I’ll write Mum and Dad, too. But mostly, I’ll just tell them I’m fine and happy. You can just tell them what I told you. I’m not yet used to this quill we write with here. I brought a Biro, but for some reason, it won’t write.
Colin.
Dennis sat still and listened. When he was sure no one was in the hall outside, he got up from the bed and tiptoed out to Colin’s room opposite his own door. He did his best not to look at the walls, where various Hogwarts things were tacked or shelved. He went straight to his brother’s bureau. From the top drawer, he took an album and then he made his way out back to his room.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he lowered himself on his bed again. He looked around at his own bare walls. Much better. He opened the album and stifled a laugh.
The first photo in pride of place was labelled “Harry and Professor Lockhart”. Professor Lockhart was dragging a Harry Potter into the frame.
On the next pages were snapshots of the castle, its towers (with an owl or two winging into view), courtyards and halls, and even “the Fat Lady’s corridor” (the Lady preening and waving a lace handkerchief). “The Forbidden Forest”. “The Black Lake” (with a giant tentacle breaking the water’s surface). “Hagrid’s hut” (with Fang dancing in the front door barking at what seemed to be a blur of electric blue).
And then, Dennis’s own favourite, “Ron Weasley” burping up a dribble of slugs.
He remembered looking at these pictures with disbelief and bewilderment. And then envy. His next diary entries proved that. He still called Colin’s stories (learning how to make things float; taking care of plants that whimpered when pruned too much and plants that pretended to be dead; flying lessons, “It was wicked, Den! But the school brooms aren’t real good; Harry Potter has a Nimbus 2000 though, and then the Slytherins got Nimbus 2001’s from Malfoy’s father. Malfoy, that’s the Slytherin team’s Seeker, he’s like Farrow, only blond.”) ‘hogwash’, but he remembered being grumpy all the time, even to the point of snarling at Miss Gibbons in Geography. He had been reminiscing about Ron’s broken wand in Colin’s last letter. And his teacher had rudely interrupted his musings. He got detention.
That Miss Gibbon’s hair had curled was something he only took note of much, much later.
But that day, he had been thinking what he would give for even a broken wand.
He had seen the look on his brother’s face at that old man’s shop. Mr Ollivander had greeted them warmly and then a measuring tape had flown around and about Colin like a mad fly. And then he had been given various wands to try. Dennis had wanted to try as well. Oh how he had wanted to. But Mr Ollivander only smiled at him and told him his time would come.
He didn’t know then that indeed his time would come, so he had been morose all through the rest of the day, hardly tasting the wonderful cardamom, pistachio and pineapple ice cream they’d bought at Florean Fortescue’s.
He could still taste that ice cream, though.
Just as he could still hear Colin.
“I was Petrified by a basilisk! Only, Professor Dumbledore thought not to write and worry Mum and Dad, because, look, we’re well again. Madam Pomfrey and Professor Sprout gave us a mandrake draught. And you know mandrakes, Den, their cries can kill you. Don’t ever uproot them when you see them. Harry and Ron got us four hundred points for the House Cup cos they defeated that monster.”
“It was Ron’s rat, but it wasn’t really a rat, but a wizard, and he’d been hiding out all along and he was really the one who was responsible for blowing up that Muggle street years ago when Harry was a year old ” this was when his family was attacked by You-Know-Who. And then he transformed into a rat”you see, there are wizards who can transform into animals, Den, Professor McGonagall can transform into a cat, you know, didn’t I tell you? And then Sirius Black escaped again. You see, he escaped from Azkaban. He’s that madman we saw on the news. Now he’s escaped again. We thought he was trying to kill Harry, but he wasn’t. It was just Ron’s rat he was after. I tried asking Harry, but he won’t tell me anything, I don’t even know if this is all true. I only heard these from the other Gryffindors, who heard from””
Dennis had snorted at these.
And then he had choked, because not long afterwards, he had his own letter delivered by owl, telling him he was accepted at Hogwarts.
He could hear Colin again. “I knew it, I knew it! Remember that time when you hurt your foot on a nail and I told Mum about it and you were so mad and kept saying it was nothing, and when the doctor came to look at it, it was no longer there? You can do magic, too, Den!”
He could hear himself, too. He had been louder and for once, as squeal-y as his brother. He could hear them both sniggering non-stop as they went back to Diagon Alley, the magic of the place seemingly magnified then that it was welcoming him, too.
He could feel the tingling warmth that crept up from his fingertips to his toes when he held his wand, the stinging cold of the lake when he fell there on his very first evening at Hogwarts... his brother thumping him on the back when he made it to Gryffindor...
He could still see the House tables, the red and the gold, the green and the silver, the blue and the bronze, the black and the topaz, the glitter that sometimes rose from the torches, the thousand candles in the Great Hall, the suits of armour and the statues of griffins and the giant winged boars...
He could still hear the owls, the faint whisper of the wind and the splash of the squid on the lake... The taste of pumpkin juice still lingered in his tongue even...
It had all been wonderful, but the memories were now like mere stories embedded in his head, things he didn’t really experience, only planted in his mind by a talented storyteller, like his brother.
He hadn’t even touched his wand in what felt like ages. Not since he’d heard his brother had died.
He had dismantled his room of all things magic. If neither of them had been accepted to Hogwarts, they would still have been together, wouldn’t they? Still sneaking off to swim in the spring well, still nicking candy from Aunt Eloise’s jar, still bickering over the Brownie.
So he had stripped his room of everything that he had previously treasured, but now thought tainted. Only his underbed had been exempt from the demolition. If he had included it, he wouldn’t have found his diary and his brother’s old letters. He swallowed.
He gently took the album off his lap and onto the bed before he dropped back with his arms behind his head, blinking furiously. His eyes had been perpetually itchy since”since that day.
“It’s only a joke from the twins, I’ll bet.”
“That’s hogwash! They wouldn’t joke about this. And besides, wasn’t it Hermione Granger who put the charms on these coins?”
“Oh, come on, I wouldn’t put it past them to have tinkered with these things. Maybe they were bored.”
“You’re barking, and you know it.”
“Right. So I’ll check. You wouldn’t want to be the butt of the joke, would you? You stay here with Mum and Dad. Keep your wand out. I’ll be back.”
Dennis pulled his hair and let out a small growl. Angrily, he stuffed his diary back in its box and got up to throw it back under his bed.
But he saw a much larger shadow than those belonging to dust kitties there.
Bemused, he pulled out Auntie Eloise’s garish, sequined pink slipper.
Underneath it was a folded piece of foolscap.
He was trembling now.
And then there was another knock on the door.
“What?” he snarled.
“Dennis, it’s Mum. What are you doing in there? Why haven’t you come down yet? Are you alright?”
“Fine. Just”just give me a minute.”
He unfolded the letter and gasped.
Dennis,
If something happens to me, I'm glad it happened to me and not you or Mum and Dad and Nana and Pop and Auntie. Give my love to them. And I give all my Harry Potter kootchies to you. Ask him to sign some, okay?
This is sappy, I know, and I kinda hope you don’t find this, but you know, we’re in danger. We’re Mudbloods. I don’t mind being called that. But I mind not saying goodbye. Which is why I’m so pissed that we didn’t go back to school this year. There’s this bowtruckle I’m friendly with. I named him ‘Jim’. I don’t know if you’ll find him. They all look alike. Jim just has this triangular nick in his right twig. And I left my developing potions under my bed in the dormitory. They wouldn’t fit into my trunk cos I’m keeping all the O.W.L’s contraband we collected this year. Don’t touch the Rosetti Stone! I think it’s genuine. Laugh all you want. I had an easy time with Ancient Runes because of it. Promise to take care of it. You can use it.
You know, since as far back as the DA, I already knew Harry was serious. I even wondered if it would have been better if neither of us got our letters. But really, can you imagine not doing magic? It’s wonderful, isn't it, Den? That nutter Voldemort just used it for bad, but magic is wonderful. Hey, I’ve been thinking, we can try to brew Popsy some memory-replenishing potion, you know! Well, for the purpose of this letter, you can try.
Colin
“Dennis, if you don’t open this door, I’ll break it down. It’s time for the service.”
Dennis palmed his wet cheeks and swallowed the rest of the tears and snot at the back of his throat. Frantically, he upended all of his drawers until there was a faint thunk on his floor. His boxers had cushioned his wand’s clatter. He grabbed it and cast a Cheering Charm on himself without a second thought.
Underage magic. But surely, if the Ministry was any better now, they’d understand.
Understand how it was the only way one could have gotten through an only brother’s funeral without raging about mad psychopathic wizards.
Feeling light, and with a grin that threatened to rumble into sniggering, he opened the door. His father jumped at the look on his face.
But then the man looked past his son and saw the disorder and apparent grief in the room behind the lad. He clapped a hand on Dennis’s shoulder and led him downstairs.
Is this where you fell, huh? Is it? Or maybe over there?
“Hey!”
Dennis looked up from scuffing his shoes onto the soft grass. Hagrid was waving at him from across the grounds. Fang bounded to him and knocked him over.
“Is that you, Creevey?” Hagrid boomed affably.
“Dennis,” he muttered as he scrambled back to his feet.
“Righ’. I knew that. That’s why I called you. Remember your very first trip to this school?”
“Er, yes.”
“Well, looka yonder. Your friend seems to be in want of comp’ny.”
Hagrid was pointing at the lake. The giant squid was splashing in the shallows, basking in the mild autumn sun. Dennis grinned. He did remember, alright.
“You alrigh’, Dennis?” Hagrid asked quietly.
“Fine.” Dennis retreated. He knew that tone of voice. It might have been a year, but he still hated that tone of voice. “I’ll just go get my camera.”
He took off his shoes and ran, relishing the feel of the grass springing underneath his every step. Never mind that a patch of these springy blades might be where his brother had breathed his last.
His foot caught on one of the stone steps to the castle doors and he flew.
It was welcome, that bang that seemed to resonate from his forehead to his skull to his whole body.
“Mr Creevey!”
“Professor McGonagall, I’m fine. I tripped.”
“So you did. Look at that cut. Don’t move. Ferula.”
Tight bandages snaked around his head.
“Thank you, Professor.”
Professor McGonagall dabbed at the blood on his face and dragged him up, supporting his head. “Why aren’t you in Hogsmeade?”
“I ” I have homework.”
His Head of House blinked. No doubt it was the first time in all her years of teaching that a student preferred homework to Hogsmeade. Nevertheless, there was warm understanding in the woman’s eyes. She didn’t change her tone of voice, though, for which Dennis was grateful.
“Go to Madam Pomfrey and have her check your head.”
Someone chuckled from the Great Hall. The belly predictably emerged not a second later. It was Professor Slughorn. “Minerva, repeat that directive in your head.”
Professor McGonagall just sniffed and left. Dennis grinned.
“Mr Creevey, just the boy I was hoping to see. Before you have your head checked, I wonder if you would like to have a special Potions class with me?”
“Sir?”
“There’s such a small number of N.E.W.T qualifiers this year that I have more time in my hands than I’m willing to spend on my crystallised pineapple. You got Acceptable on your Potions O.W.L. You are capable. Photography Potions, for instance.”
“Sir!”
Professor Slughorn chuckled again. “My boy, I think you should indeed have your head checked now. I have my Specialised Post-O.W.L Potions class every Wednesday for an hour after dinner. Join us.”
With a lighter heart and with a genuine smile on his face, Dennis trotted to the infirmary. There were potions for sepia, for greyscale, for any tint and effect. And even correcting potions. Hah. And of course there was that Memory-Replenishing Potion. He could ask Professor Slughorn to teach him that again.
Not that his own memories were dimming. They were sharp as ever. It was for Popsy. And new beginnings. He’d embrace magic again. He’d held it in blame for enough time.
What’s not to like about it, right, Jim? People also die in car crashes and plane crashes, but those left behind by the people who died still rode cars and planes.
Author’s Note: I just had to let this one out. Thanks to Julie (and Jan) for being patient and tolerant mods. Thanks to Jan for the lovely, lovely prompt. I hope I did it justice, even just a little. Thanks to Nicholas Sparks for inspiring me to write drama. Hehe.