Chapter 6 “ An Adventure
Fred’s fake ticket idea had worked wonders. Fred, George and Lee had been granted the permission to go to the concert. Hearing them boasting about it, Cybele was left wondering why fooling their parents into allowing them to attend a simple concert was such an accomplishment. However, all was well and an invitation had been extended to the Ravenclaw girl to attend it too.
The boys would spend the weekend with their families. Fred and George’s parents had kindly offered Cybele to stay over the weekend as well but she had had her meeting with Snape on Friday evening, so she would join them on Saturday.
She was up early to catch the Express in Hogsmeade in the morning and started on her list for Professor Snape on the train, until Lee would pick her up with his parents from King’s Cross.
She would not have liked to have been in Lee’s place if they ever found out about half of the mischief they were planning for that day. They were kind but extremely strict, wearing smart-looking Muggle clothes and driving an expensive-looking metallic grey car. They addressed Cybele in a very courteous, yet distant manner.
They headed through the town to a remote suburb and through a chalk field in sight of an abandoned rusting storage in front of which a crowd was assembled. Mrs Jordan stopped the car at a distance and turned back apologetically to the children.
‘We will let you here if you don’t mind; I don’t think a Muggle car could make it through this field. You have your tickets with you?’
‘The Weasleys have them,’ Lee answered promptly.
They found Fred and George near by the entrance. The concert was about to start and the last teenagers were making their way inside, toward the numerous and barely older organizers. Fred, George, Lee and Cybele, however, walked to the side. Following Fred and George who had studied the Muggle transport network, they walked back to the main road and down a mile to a bus stop. The bus drove them back to the suburb where they took the tube to Muggle London and to the entrance of the Leaky Cauldron. They tried to go through as inconspicuously as they could.
Lee peered through the arch doorway into the shopping street.
‘Anybody we know?’ asked the twins.
‘Doesn’t look like it. Not too crowded either. Let’s go.’
Walking down the street, they realized how foolish their plan was. They were four Hogwarts students in their Muggle best, including two very recognizable red-haired Weasleys, hurrying down England’s principal shopping street on a Saturday afternoon. The Muggle transport had taken ages and they barely had any time left at all to investigate.
Stressed but lucky, they slipped down the corner of Knockturn Alley a few minutes later. Lee was out of himself.
‘I am so not walking back up there! Help me find a place to rent in Knockturn Alley!’
‘Wicked!’ Fred and George exclaimed looking up at the tall dark old buildings on either side of the Alley.
‘Let’s go.’ Cybele was already on the move.
‘You know, you really have a bad influence on us, Cybele,’ Fred pronounced with a mock stern look. ‘We wouldn’t have even dreamt to come down here.’
They all followed her lead.
Knockturn Alley offered a lot of shops but a quantity of indeterminate service offices and blind doors. One or two witches were selling from small stalls directly on the pavement, items which none of them were willing to give a second glance.
They went quietly down the Alley before they spotted a shop where they might ask about Phil. Cybele was peering through a dusty shop window displaying a number of magical creatures, none of them alive, though, when George waved from the other side of what looked like the biggest shop on the street, Borgin & Burkes. They joined him standing in front of the weirdest magical creature shop they had ever seen. They could not recognize any of the brightly coloured magical creatures encaged in the window.
It was agreed that Fred and George would try to remain inconspicuous, while Lee would accompany Cybele, who, as the only one likely to pass for remotely innocent, was to do the talking.
The inside of the shop was dark and messy, the ground covered in escaped hair and feathers. Grunts and cries and even flames were coming from all corners of the room. The door banged back unclenching an airy bell sound coming from nowhere in particular and a tall lanky man with jet black hair came from behind a row of cages on their right. Fred and George walked to the left, apparently, or really, fascinated by a small glossy red badger in a cage.
‘Good morning! How may I help you?’ asked the young man with a broad smile.
Cybele answered to the greeting together with Lee and felt puzzled. The boys had been filling up her mind with stories of dark wizards and black magic and her impression of Knockturn Alley far now had validated their stories. But there was only one word to describe the owner of this shop: engaging.
While Cybele and Lee were too taken aback to introduce their query, the young man had spotted Fred and George and had joined them in two steps of his lengthy legs.
‘Ah I see you have spotted my biting badger!’ he claimed with a satisfied smile.
George took out his finger from the cage and jumped back.
‘Sorry, couldn’t resist! My latest invention!’ he chuckled as he opened the cage and let a much tamed badger hanging from his large palm. ‘The baby care badger!’ he exclaimed as he brandished the red fury ball.
Simultaneously Fred and Lee as well as Cybele and George looked at each other and quickly looked away, suppressing giggles. The shop owner had paused, clearly waiting for them to throw a barrage of questions about the fascinating functions of the badger. A silence followed. Unabashed, the man resumed his pleasant babbling, as he lowered back the badger in its cage.
‘Phineas Philiocornus, magical creature creations since, er, last year, actually. How may I help you? We do all sort of customization on your magical creatures or new creatures to match exactly your needs! Enlargements, reductions, special functions, accessorizing… Or you may like to see what we have in store; everything is colour coded! Red is for house care related creatures.’ He looked expectantly at them.
The four students avoided carefully looking at each other this time round and Cybele was breathing slowly to avoid a burst of laughter. A change of tactic was in order.
‘Hem, actually, we were, er, we are doing a project for school on magical creatures and we thought this was the best place to ask some questions, um, to a specialist?’
Cybele looked up, sure that she had made a very bad job of it, but Phineas looked flattered.
‘Of course, Hogwarts students, correct? It will be my pleasure to help you. I studied at Hogwarts, too, a Ravenclaw, I was.’ Cybele heard Fred swallow a laugh as he gave her the slightest elbow push. ‘Tell me about your project.’
Cybele went on as if rehearsed.
‘Well, we have to make a presentation on a really rare magical creature and their natural habitat, that is, and our group,’ she waved to the boys, ‘has chosen the Acromantula spider. We are trying to get more information on it and particularly on where it lives.’
Phineas’ face fell at that.
‘Oh,’ he started, looking sincerely disappointed, ‘I am afraid I will not be able to help you so much with this one. You see, I am specialized in native or endemic creatures only, and Acromantula is not. It comes from Borneo, you see, its natural habitat is the jungle.’
Now it was the kids’ turn to look crestfallen.
‘Well, I’ll tell you everything I know anyway!’ Phineas added quickly, misinterpreting their expression. He kept them a long time, as Lee pretended to take notes on the Acromantula’s habits; about which Phineas knew a great deal more than his modesty had allowed him to admit.
‘So have Acromantula ever been exported to other countries?’ Cybele managed to ask.
‘Not that I know. They may be able to survive in other rainforests or jungles, though, maybe in Central Africa or South America, but I do not think they have ever been exported. I have never seen a real one myself.’
‘They wouldn’t survive in Britain?’
‘I cannot imagine they would, no, unless they were born here, maybe, but even…’
Eventually he insisted on lending them a thick book, Magical Creatures and Traditional Witchcraft of Borneo and the Chersonèse d’Or, they were to return by owl after they presented their “project”.
Back in the street, Fred and George turned back to face Lee and Cybele and they all said together.
‘Tropical rainforest…’
‘Phil’s going to die,’ said Lee, looking sincerely pained.
‘Wait!’ Fred actually stopped. Lee crashed into him. ‘What about the other ones?’
‘What?’
‘The other spiders!’ Cybele jumped in. ‘You said your parents had tens of them, didn’t you? They must have been working on acclimating them in Britain, no? We got to ask them!’
‘No way, it will sound way too suspicious.’
‘Look, we got to try; I’ll do it back after the concert. You want Phil alive or not?’
‘Well, if we want Lee alive,’ George cut in, ‘we’d better think of a good excuse, we’re running late; we spent more than an hour in here.’
They were half-running up the Alley when the boys saw a large figure emerging down a curve, already very close. They recognized it faster than Cybele and dived sideway under a shady porch. By the time Cybele realized what they had done and took in their hissing frantically her name, she was nose to nose with the gigantic Hogwarts’ gamekeeper.
‘Hello there,’ he started not unkindly, ‘what are you doin’ down here? This is no place for a Hogwarts student! Got lost?’ Cybele could tell it was not the unlikely excuse he wanted to hear.
‘No, I was… I was… looking for information.’
‘In Knockturn Alley? What kind of information would a second-year look for here?’ He had recognized the new second-year Ravenclaw intake.
‘Well,’ Cybele pursued, already at ease with her lie, ‘they would not tell me anything about Acromantula in this magical creature shop in Diagon Alley! So I through I would go on looking here.’
The half-truth worked wonders on Hagrid.
‘Acromantula! Beautiful creatures! I bet you went to ol’ Philiocornus, didn’t you? He was a student at Hogwarts too, yeh know? A Ravenclaw, like you! Only decent shop in this street, if you ask me! Learn what you wanted?’
‘Ah, yes, Mr Philiocornus has never seen an Acromantula himself, though, but he knew a lot. I am going, now,’ she added quickly.
‘Ah, I should invite him to see the nest back in the Forbidden Forest one of these days, he would like that, Phineas would,’ Hagrid was musing, more to himself.
‘What? You, you have Acromantula in Hogwarts, adult ones?’ Cybele had turned back.
‘Well, yes, a full nest by now. Sorry, but I can’t invite you to see ‘em for your research, young lady, they live deep down in the Forbidden Forest, and not very approachable.’
‘Oh, well, I just did not imagine they would cope with British climate…’
‘Amazing creatures, aren’t they?’
‘Ah, yes, well, thank you, I shall go back, now.’
‘You shouldn’t venture here all by yourself, I’ll walk you back to Diagon Alley.’
***
‘Did you hear that? He can live!’ Lee said enthusiastically as soon as Hagrid was out of sight.
‘Never mind that now,’ Fred cut, ‘We’re in trouble, we should be there in less then fifteen minutes, we’re never going to make it! Those Muggle trains and buses took forty minutes to get here!’
The twins looked quite panicked.
‘We’ll have to break into a shop and use the Floo, I can’t see any other solution,’ George offered eventually.
‘Sure, remind me the Floo code for the concert? It’s written on… the real tickets!’ Fred answered, dripping with sarcasm.
Cybele was wondering whether she should offer a more practical way to get back to the concert hall. She was not keen to break anymore rules in the same day, especially when it came to McGonagall’s express rules of Magic making, but the situation came under desperate.
‘Well, let’s just appear there, then,’ she risked, unsure at which level of “extraordinarily” the proposal would be rated. She at least knew that wizards could appear in other places but it sounded extremely regulated and complex to perform for them.
The three boys were looking at her, apparently wondering if that was her idea of a joke. But seeing her earnest look, George just asked, ‘What, you can Apparate?’
Cybele smiled. Typical wizarding; use the most complicated names to describe the most basic things. She opted for straightforwardness in her answer.
‘Well, yes. Shall we?’ And she reached her hands to Fred and George, who each grabbed one of Lee’s, all looking unconvinced. They immediately found themselves at the side of the concert hall, the concert not over, parents not there yet. They walked to the front and sat down on the sand, backs lying on the metallic structure of the shed.
‘Wow, Cybele, how can you do that?’ asked Lee.
‘Yeah, when ever did you learn to Apparate? Do they teach you as kids, in your country?’ added George.
‘And how can you do that without being caught by the Underage Magic Control Board?’ Fred concluded.
Ignoring the two first questions, Cybele looked at Fred.
‘Well, I’m not British…’
The twins started to smile.
‘You mean…’
Cybele did not answer but carefully took out her wand before she made big ice creams floating in front of each of them.
‘Until they remember to register me,’ she commented.
The boys looked thrilled but they could hardly feel as she did. She had found a way out. She would be able to act herself in front of those three now, without betraying the headmaster or Professors McGonagall and Snape.
A familiar tune was coming out of the hall as they finished their ice creams; the last song.
‘… Magic remains in your hands
When you’re wandless…’
In a final of heavy guitar, applauses and cries burst out as the first parent’s cars and brooms were appearing.
Cybele looked at her palms and smiled. Magic was there to stay.
Wandless by Wandering Wand
Chapter Notes: All is JKR's!
Yet another thousand more thanks to Lizzy and Julia :)
Chapter Endnotes: Please review; I'd love to hear more comments or suggestions!