Albus’s family wasn’t nearly as interested in Hagrid’s information about the goings-on in the Forest as he was.
“So what?” said James, thumbing through a book on Quidditch. “It’s just the stupid yetis scaring the centaurs away. Nothing to worry about.”
“But what about the eaten animals?” said Albus again. “That wasn’t the yetis.”
Fred groaned. “Come on, Al. You were scared out of your wits. You don’t even remember the entire conversation.”
Albus gave up. Even Rose seemed doubtful that there was any connection between the mysterious men and the disturbances in the Forest.
The most Albus could do was look up the name “Loki” in some old lists that he found in the library. The last wizard with that name was a Dark warlock in the 1300s, which was rather unhelpful.
The whole school was buzzing about the yetis, for Hagrid was using this rare opportunity to teach all seven years about the creatures.
“I heard Peter Macmillan nearly lost an eye,” said Dominique. “Why would they let him teach with such dangerous creatures?”
“It’s Tweak,” said James. “I’ve heard he’s soft. Why else would Dawlish still be teaching?”
Every week they trudged out into the Forest to observe Yoop and Yowl, who never did anything new. Hagrid was still thrilled and was giving them unusually long essays on the behavior of the creatures.
November slipped closer and closer to December. It was now snowing at least once every three or four days and standing in the Forest for Care of Magical Creatures was a very chilly proposition.
With homework, classes and the occasional snowball fight, the New DA was put on hold. Rose and Molly were still working on lesson plans but there was simply no time to act on them.
The castle had begun its yearly tradition of decorating itself for Christmas. False snow was ankle-high in some hallways and the female professors began wearing wreaths around their hats; Professor McGonagall’s tight face dared anyone to comment on hers.
It was in the first week of December that the issue of the DA was again broached. The Potters and Weasleys were in the middle of a game of Exploding Snap one evening when Rose said:
“I really think we ought to have another DA meeting. It’s been ages and I think that we should work on the Full-Body Bind and the Tickling Charm. How about tonight?”
The common room was already emptying, for it was nearly ten-thirty.
“I dunno,” said Fred. “I’m pretty tired, Rose. How about tomorrow?”
“Let’s do it tonight,” said Albus. A plan had hatched in his mind. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, we can sleep in.”
The rest of them reluctantly agreed (except for Molly, who was already in bed) and they continued the game of Exploding Snap until no one else was left in the common room but a dozing sixth year.
Since only four could hide under the Invisibility Cloak (and this was stretching it), James took Dominique and Fred first, leaving Rose and Albus alone in the common room.
Rose was rifling through a spellbook, muttering to herself. Albus contented himself by levitating the deck of Exploding Snap cards. He was getting better at this.
James returned in ten minutes or so and the three of them set off for the Room of Requirement. The false snow revealed their footprints, but they didn’t encounter any teachers.
Dominique and Fred were waiting in the room. Fred’s eyes were half-closed and he was slumped against the wall.
“Let’s try the Tickling Charm first,” said Rose. She pointed her wand at Fred and said “Rictusempra!”
Fred started laughing uproariously. He fell on a pile of cushions, writhing and scrabbling at his stomach. His laughs were frenzied and rather humorless.
Rose removed the Charm and he lay there, panting and sweating.
“You awake now?” she asked.
Fred gasped “Yeah. Wow, that’s a pretty intense spell.”
“It’s quite difficult, too,” said Rose. “So we have to learn a little of the theory behind it before””
A general groan went up, but Rose continued with her explanation of the Charm, which was, mercifully, brief.
By the end of an hour, all had performed the Tickling Charm to Rose’s satisfaction, though Fred’s charm caused scratching rather than true tickling, something that his cousins found out the hard way.
“Let’s call it a night,” said James. He was barely able to keep his eyes open.
“Good idea,” said Fred, who, if anything, looked even more tired.
James, Fred and Rose set out under the Invisibilty Cloak. Once they were gone, Albus said to Dominique:
“I want to try something. Come out in the corridor.”
Dominique moaned. “Come on, Al. I don’t want to get caught””
He pulled her through the door, which disappeared as soon as they left it.
“How are we getting back in?” hissed Dominique.
Albus didn’t respond. He walked past the blank wall three times, thinking I want to find out who they are as insistently as he could.
“Al?”
A door appeared where only a blank wall had been before, a plain wooden door.
“Come on!” said Albus.
He opened the door, walked into the room and nearly ran right into the far wall.
The room was about the size of a broom closet. Albus and Dominique couldn’t even fit in it together. The walls were dark and the only ornament was a small mirror hanging on the far wall.
“That’s a Foe-Glass!” whispered Dominique from the hallway.
It was. Albus could just see shadowy figures standing in the dark depths of the mirror; he caught a glimpse of blonde hair”
“Albus! Someone’s coming!”
He ran from the tiny room, closing the door behind him. It disappeared the instant the lock clicked.
Footsteps could be heard. It was too soon to expect James. Who was it?
Albus wondered fleetingly if they should run, but before he could communicate this to Dominique, a man with a lantern came around the corner.
“Out of bed!” snarled Vladimir, his thin face furious. “First-years!”
He grabbed Albus’s arm. “You’re Potter, correct?”
“Yes,” said Albus, jerking away from Vladimir’s grasp.
“And you’re Weasley!” said Vladimir, holding his lantern up to Dominique’s face. “What are you two doing out of bed?”
“I”well, we left our schoolbags in the Transfiguration classroom,” squeaked Dominique. “We were just getting them back.”
It wasn’t the best lie Albus had ever heard and Vladimir seemed of the same opinion. “Come on,” he growled. “I’ll be informing Professor McGonagall of this and I’m sure that you’ll both get detention.”
Vladimir marched them up to Gryffindor Tower, a pock-marked hand on each of their shoulders. He spent most of the short journey muttering about the severity of their eventual detentions.
Albus was glad when they finally reached the Fat Lady’s portrait. Vladimir watched them enter the common-room with his arms folded and it gave Albus a little satisfaction to slam the portrait shut on him.
Fred and Rose were waiting in their dressing-gowns. The common-room was empty.
“What’s going on? Where’s James?” asked Rose sharply.
They related the story of their being caught in as few words as possible. Though Fred seemed mildly impressed, Rose gave both the miscreants a cold stare.
“Why didn’t you just stay in the Room?” she asked, rather unkindly, in Albus’s opinion.
“I wanted to find out who the men in the Forest were,” said Albus. It seemed like a pretty stupid idea now.
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” said Rose, exasperated. “Would you just drop that?”
James had already left to collect them and it was a good half-hour longer before he burst through the portrait hole, his expression a mixture of fear, annoyance and fatigue.
“Where the hell have you been? I was all over the school!” he shouted when he saw Albus and Dominique sitting in the common room.
So the story had to be told again and, since James himself had had several adventures (including a close call with Vladimir) that needed to be related, it was past 12:30 before anyone went to bed.
They all slept in the next morning, but Albus awoke feeling almost as tired as he had been the night before.
Professor McGonagall came down to the Gryffindor Table during breakfast and upbraided Albus and Dominique rather loudly. By the time she had finished her tirade, most of the school was listening.
She took fifty points from each, told them that she would write to their parents and that they were to report for detention that night and every other for a week.
This struck Albus as rather extreme and Dominique was out-and-out furious.
When the mail came, Albus was surprised to find a note for him, carried by one of the school owls. It succinctly read:
Albus,
Why don’t you and your cousins come down for tea this afternoon around three-thirty?
Hagrid
This cheered Albus a little and he gave Hagrid (who was watching him from the staff table) a thumbs-up.
Most of the day was spent wading through the enormous amount of homework they had been assigned, much of it from Professor McGonagall, who was not popular in the Gryffindor common room that day.
At three, Albus extricated himself from a tedious History of Magic essay and stretched. Most of his cousins were sitting around the common room working, as was Scorpius. James had Quidditch practice.
“Anybody going to Hagrid’s with me?” he asked.
“I’ll come,” said Dominique, throwing down her Potions book and grabbing her coat. “I feel like I haven’t been outside in ages.”
“Rose? Fred?” Albus said, getting out of his armchair.
“Can’t,” said Rose. Her quill was scratching madly on her parchment. “Too much to do. I’ve got to get Wednesday’s Defense paper done, not to mention Grimpen’s chart.”
“Count me in,” said Fred. He carefully placed his work on a footstool. “I’ll go stir-crazy if I sit here any longer.”
“Can I come with you?”
Everyone’s head turned. The speaker was Scorpius, whose pale face was turned towards Albus.
“Er, sure,” said Albus awkwardly. Scorpius had been polite to him lately, but had never asked to be included in any activities before.
The foursome headed out of the portrait-hole and most of the common room watched in surprise as Scorpius left with Albus and his cousins.
There was a very uncomfortable silence as they made their way through the castle. After a few moments, Dominique began a conversation about Quidditch, which Albus and Fred quickly joined. Scorpius made a few guarded comments, but was mostly silent.
It was chilly outside and the snow was ankle-deep. Albus was glad that he had a fur-lined cloak for the winter.
Hagrid’s hut looked like a fat, frosted cupcake with its light layer of snow. Smoke blew out of the chimney in lazy puffs.
Albus knocked heavily on the door with a frigid hand. It was opened almost immediately; Hagrid had seen them coming.
“Hey there, Al, Dom, Fred, oh an’ Scorpius!” said Hagrid. “Come in, come in!”
The hut’s interior was deliciously warm after the weather outside. A large cauldron full of soup was bubbling over the fire and some suspiciously lumpy cakes were baking on a rack.
Hagrid’s Kneazle, Claws, ran to meet the visitors and purred incessantly while winding herself around their legs.
Albus, Scorpius, Dominique and Fred sat around Hagrid’s huge table while he prepared the tea. The edge of the table was just level with their chins.
“Is that you?” Scorpius asked Albus, pointing to a shelf of framed photographs.
Albus nodded. Hagrid had photos of all the Potters and all the Weasleys, which made the shelf rather crowded. The people in the pictures were all jockeying for the most visible spot in the frame.
Hagrid very delicately poured four cups of tea and passed them around, careful not to break the human-sized china. His cup held easily a gallon.
“How are the yetis, Hagrid?” asked Dominique.
“Oh, they’re doin’ great!” said Hagrid enthusiastically”Fred made a mock face of disappointment behind his back”. “Eatin’ like somethin’ else, but thar aren’t very many of ‘em in captivity. Real difficult fer the Headmaster to get just these two.”
“I don’t know why more people don’t have them as pets,” said Fred.
The conversation turned to the latest Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Quidditch match. Gryffindor had won by a very narrow margin and the Ravenclaws had been extremely put out for a couple of weeks.
Hagrid eventually served the cakes, which were the shape and consistency of large stones. Albus nibbled at his as best he could and dunked it in his tea to soften it.
Snow swirled around the windows, but it was toasty inside the cabin. The rather pleasing smell of the stew and the warmth from the fire made Albus feel drowsy.
Hagrid was in the middle of a yeti-related story when Albus noticed a large, leather-bound book sitting on Hagrid’s enormous bed. As far as he knew, Hagrid didn’t read for pleasure and the book was human-sized.
“What book is that, Hagrid?” asked Albus when the story was completed. He pointed at the thick volume on the bed.
“Oh, that,” said Hagrid. “Found it in th’ Forest this mornin’. Just sittin’ on a stump. I guess some student musta left it thar when they were studyin’ th’ yetis.”
Albus got up and walked over to the book. The cover had a picture of a merry-looking and very old wizard on it. The title was The Life and Legacy of Nicolas Flamel.
Something clicked in Albus’s head. What if this was a clue? What if the book hadn’t been left by some student? What if one of the men had had it and misplaced it?
He let the book fall open in his hands. Its spine was cracked in a certain place, as though this particular chapter had been perused several times.
Chapter Sixteen, Albus read.
As Flamel’s notoriety grew, so did the fanciful legends and stories surrounding him. Despite the fact that Flamel was merely a brilliant wizard, many fringe organizations contested that he had powers and knowledge far beyond average. These rumors continued until his death in 1992.
Flamel was known to enjoy some of the more ridiculous ideas that were proffered about his work”and indeed, about the rest of the Wizarding World. In his later years, he was an avid reader of “The Quibbler,” a magazine that is generally agreed to be full of hoaxes and faulty information.
He was even a subscriber to the Peverell Quest, a legend created by a conspiratorial group of wizards who believed that “The Tale of the Three Brothers,” a Beedle the Bard fairytale, was grounded in truth and possessed some special significance.
His close friend Albus Dumbledore may also have been a “Quester,” as Penrice Pillsworth, Flamel’s former maid, suggested to me during our interview.
“Mr. Flamel and Mr. Dumbledore were in the study talking one evening,” says Pillsworth, “and my ear happened to meet the keyhole. They were discussing “Elder Wands” and “Hallows” and “Quests.” Seemed like a bunch of bunkum to me, so I went and chopped up a Horklump for supper.”
Clearly, the two brilliant wizards had conversations on the subject and may well have believed in the Peverell Quest, although recent studies from the Department of Mysteries state that the existence of “Deathly Hallows” is patently impossible.
The so-called “Questers” insist to this day that a document known as the”
Albus turned the page eagerly, but the next two had been ripped entirely out of the book and the remaining pages were merely about Flamel’s wife’s sister.
“What is it, Al?” asked Fred.
“It’s a biography of Nicolas Flamel,” said Albus, turning it over in his hands.
“The bloke that Belby made me look up?” said Fred. “The one that made the Sorcerer’s Stone?”
“Yeah,” said Albus.
He couldn’t see what connection there was between this book and the conversation he had overheard, but something felt wrong. Would a student buy an expensive biography and then rip two pages out of it?
“Well, I’ll ask around, see who’s book it is,” said Hagrid, who was stirring the stew.
Albus sat back down again and perused the rest of the book. There wasn’t anything particularly enlightening, no more pages ripped out. It had been published last year and was written by a woman named Agatha Arkansan.
They left the cabin around five o’clock, telling Hagrid that they were looking forward to studying the yetis on Monday (which was a blatant lie).
It was snowing out and Albus amused himself on the walk up to the castle by trying to make snowballs with magic. He was entirely unsuccessful.
Rose looked both smug and warm as they entered the common room shivering and stamping their feet. She was reclining on a couch with a thick book on Transfiguration.
“I hope you’ll all take my advice on your homework,” she said, pointing to a pile of parchment covered with her cramped, spiky handwriting. “I finished mine early and then made some helpful suggestions for you three.”
Albus half-laughed and half-groaned. He settled himself into an armchair and picked up Rose’s study guide.
Fred and Dominique did likewise and Scorpius went off by himself as usual, though Albus thought he looked rather more cheerful than he typically did.
After Albus made a few of Rose’s suggested changes, he said, in what he hoped was a would-be-casual voice: “Hey Rose, do you know much about Nicolas Flamel?”
“Not much. Why?” she asked suspiciously. She had clearly detected something in his tone.
“Hagrid found a Flamel biography in the Forest and I was looking at it,” said Albus, pretending to make a note.
“Are you on this again?” Fred asked. “You don’t think that those blokes””
“It was nothing, Al,” said Rose, exasperated. “There’s no connection. The last time you were making these little investigations, you got detention and so did Dominique.”
Something dawned on Albus. “You’re right!” he said. “But remember what the Room showed me? A Foe-Glass! These people are our enemies!”
“You don’t know that!” said Dominique. “Maybe the Room reacted the way you wanted it to!”
Albus sighed. He was outnumbered, but undeterred.
The Christmas vacations were coming and he would discuss this with his father.