James Potter And The Morrigan Web (80 page)

Albus, who had been following close behind the professor, skidded to a halt. Rose bumped into him, interrupting the half-whispered row they’d been having about Rose’s broken wand.

James looked up at Professor McGonagall, but she was not looking back at him. Rather, she peered over his head, at the receding corridor behind him. Apparently satisfied with what she saw, she turned toward a broad, closed door emblazoned with brass letters that spelled out the words TEACHER’S LOUNGE. The professor tapped the L with her wand, causing it to spin upside down, as if loose on its screw. Leaving it that way, she pocketed her wand and stalked onward again.

“Er,” Rose ventured, pushing Albus aside and trotting to catch up to Professor McGonagall. “Isn’t your office just back there, Professor? Across from the teacher’s lounge?”

“Hush and keep up,” McGonagall muttered sternly, offering no further explanation.

Nervously, Rose glanced back at James and Albus.

After yet another bend in the corridor, Professor McGonagall stopped once more. Without looking back this time, she stepped into a shallow alcove, shimmied behind a statue of a very fat wizard wearing a ruff the size of a lorry tire, and disappeared into a low, hidden doorway.

Albus paused for a moment, examining the secret doorway. He glanced back at the others, eyes wide, and then ducked behind the statue and into the doorway. Curious and intrigued, Rose and James followed.

The doorway led to a very narrow, very dark stairway angling up between blank stone walls. The glowing halo of Professor McGonagall’s lit wand bobbed high above, following the sounds of her clacking footsteps.

“I never knew there was a secret passage here,” Albus whispered, impressed.

McGonagall’s voice echoed back, hushed in the darkness. “That is because there wasn’t. Not until two months ago. I trust that I need not explain to any of you why its secrecy must remain intact.”

The stairs went on much further and higher than James thought possible. Finally, the stairs stopped at a shallow landing and a blank wall. With her wand still lit, McGonagall tapped the wall in three places, leaving each brick glowing faintly. After a moment, a dull rumble of scraping stone echoed from the landing and the bricks folded apart, revealing a door. Hurriedly, McGonagall stepped through, leaving the door open behind her. The three students hastened in her wake.

As James emerged from the door, a wave of vertigo seized his stomach, weakening his knees for one brief, but tense moment. The doorway had opened into the throat of a very deep, circular chasm, lined with rickety wooden steps. Carefully, James leaned against the railing in front of him and peered up, observing the spiral of stairs that led higher into lofty darkness.

“Where is this?” Albus whispered, following the Professor as she marched heedlessly up the creaking stairs. “I’ve never seen this part of the castle before.”

James knew where they were, but couldn’t make any sense of it. “We’re climbing up to the Sylvven Tower, I think.”

“Oooh!” Rose enthused. “I’ve always wanted to see that! It’s one of the oldest parts of the whole castle, you know! One of the few remaining bits from before it was even a school! But…” She paused and frowned. “Why are we going up there now?”

James shook his head worriedly. “Last time I was here,” he said, almost to himself, “I was duelling Salazar Slytherin.”

“Hiding while
he
duelled
you
, more like it,” Albus rolled his eyes.

“Hurry, you three,” McGonagall called down, still keeping her voice hushed. “We have very little time before everyone else arrives.”

Rose’s eyes widened. “‘Everyone else’?” she repeated.

“Do as she says,” James urged, pushing his cousin up the leaning, creaking staircase.

The inside of the tower grew darker and hotter as they climbed, until, after what seemed like several minutes, they reached a low room, surrounded by narrow windows. Set into the room’s ceiling was a closed trapdoor. McGonagall approached this, unlocked it with her wand, and heaved it open. Finally, she climbed the last, steep stairway up into pale blue moonlight. One by one, James, Rose and Albus followed.

The Sylvven Tower looked the same as always, and yet, as always, exuded an air of solemnity and ancient purpose. It’s circular, terraced steps led away and up to a low wall, beyond which stretched the seamless depths of the night sky, dusted with stars and studded with grey, drifting clouds. The moon was a high sickle, casting inky shadows beneath the twin stone thrones that faced each other across the Tower’s floor. McGonagall approached one of the thrones, turned, and sat upon it, heaving a great, heavy sigh.

“This, as you can plainly see,” she said briskly, “is not my office. I believe it shall come as no surprise to you that my office, indeed every office in this castle, is subject to eavesdropping. We have not yet learned how this is being accomplished, as no amount of counter-spying charms has alleviated the problem. We only know that when we convene here, atop the Sylvven Tower, our counsels do not seem to find their way into the wrong ears. We have tested and confirmed this to our satisfaction. So…” She paused, frowned, and raised her chin. “Mr. Potter--” she caught herself, remembering that there were two Potters present, “
James
Potter: if you please, explain yourself as briefly as possible. And might I add, if this was simply one of your Gremlins pranks gone awry, I swear I will turn you over to Mr. Filch and instruct him do his very worst.”

James glanced briefly from Albus to Rose, and then turned his attention back to the Professor. “It all started at the beginning of the school term,” he began, “when I started having some suspicions about one of the professors at Durmstrang…” As briefly as he could, he attempted to explain Professor Avior’s connection to the long dead Albus Dumbledore, leading to his plan to attack the upcoming world summit of wizard and Muggle leaders. Albus and Rose interjected occasionally, adding details or backtracking to explain things he’d forgotten.

“It was him that killed Worlick,” Rose supplied. “We saw somebody leaving the body, and James confirmed it was Avior when he saw him down by the White Tomb.”

“And we found a newspaper clipping on Worlick’s body,” James added. “It was a
Daily Prophet
story about the big Quidditch Summit here at Hogwarts, with all the Muggle and wizarding leaders. That’s where the attack is going to take place! Avior pretty much admitted it!”

“Not to mention the fact,” Albus piped up, “that Avior and that Collector bloke are one and the same person. He can turn into him by transfiguration, just like you turn into a cat, Professor. He actually mentioned you as an example!”

“And the Collector is just another name for the man who’s become the new American Vice President!” Rose interrupted. “He’s no Muggle at all! He’s planning to have the American president killed off at the Quidditch Summit so he can assume his place!”

As the three spoke, sometimes overriding each other in their urgency, Professor McGonagall merely watched, her expression tense and unreadable. Her eyes flicked from speaker to speaker until, finally, all three fell silent.

After a nervous pause, Rose asked, “You believe us, don’t you Professor?”

McGonagall closed her eyes wearily. “Belief does not come into it, Ms. Weasley. These are monstrous allegations, not to mention a frankly preposterous tale about a legendary headmaster, and yet I’ve known too many Potters and Weasleys in my tenure to simply dismiss them. We shall investigate these matters in great detail, of that you can be sure.”

A surge of relief welled in James, loosening the cords of worry and tension that had been cinched tightly around his chest ever since his interview with Avior. He suddenly felt very tired.

“Durmstrang Academy is a school which greatly values its secrets,” McGonagall went on, frowning thoughtfully. “Very little is known about its practices and methods and especially its staff. It is, quite frankly, the perfect home for someone with much to hide. Still,” she focussed on James again. “It is a far stretch to believe that Albus Dumbledore could not have found this individual had he a mind to. And more importantly, it was criminally irresponsible of you to approach this Professor Avior on your own.”

“Professor,” James began, but McGonagall overrode him, getting to her feet.

“After everything you’ve witnessed,” she said sternly. “All three of you, to take such a risk was perilously foolhardy. Have you no idea what is at stake?”

“We didn’t think he was
dangerous
exactly,” Rose explained. “We just thought he was dodgy. We didn’t think he would try to hurt anyone.”

“You didn’t think at all,” McGonagall scolded, her voice low and grave. “There may be a time for youthful expeditions of adventure. Believe it or not, I was young once myself, and am not yet old enough to forget my own flirtations with mischief. But this is no longer that time. It is more than your personal safety at stake. Some of the best teachers of this school-- and the strongest allies of its charges-- are already gone. The few who remain are rendered nearly powerless. You were with us all this past holiday, so you have no excuse. Your actions are no longer merely a risk to yourselves, but to all of us.”

“The Order of the Phoenix,” Albus sighed.

“Don’t even say it aloud,” McGonagall warned, lowering her head and covering her eyes with one thin, wrinkled hand. Suddenly, to James’ eyes, the professor did not look like an imposing force of authority. She looked disconcertingly like an old, rather tired woman. “I have no choice but to turn you over to Mr. Filch for punishment.”

“But Professor,” James exclaimed again, and was once again overruled.

“You will accept your punishments without a word of complaint,” she insisted, dropping her hand and glaring back at him. “It is the least of your concerns at the moment, regardless of how it may seem to you. Do I make myself quite clear?”

James deflated. “Yes Ma’am.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Rose concurred. Next to her, Albus merely fumed silently.

McGonagall softened. “I should have retired at the end of my time as Headmistress,” she mused with a shake of her head. “Tend to my garden. Finish my memoirs. Smoke my pipe. Anything but this.”

Rose spoke in a small voice, “We’re sorry, Professor.”

McGonagall sighed briskly. “Don’t apologize, Ms. Weasley. In truth-- and you will likely never hear me admit this again-- it is the mischief-makers who manage to save the world every time. I didn’t always believe that, but experience is a persistent teacher. Ah, and here come the others.”

Footsteps creaked on the stairs below the trapdoor as more figures approached. James turned toward the sound, as did Rose and Albus. Obviously, McGonagall’s turning of the letter on the Teacher’s Lounge door was a signal, calling the other members of the Order to meet. He wondered who would be first to arrive: Professor Flitwick? Debellows? Perhaps even Trelawney?

But it was another face entirely that emerged, grinning thinly, from the trapdoor.

McGonagall saw the ascending figure and all the colour fell from her face. “Mr. Filch. What are you doing here?”

Filch did not answer, but the figure behind him did. “Do not blame the caretaker, Madame Professor,” a cracked, gravelly voice said. “I requested that he keep abreast of your whereabouts, if only so that I might know where to find you if it became necessary.”

“I presume it ‘became necessary’,” McGonagall said, holding her ground as Headmaster Grudje stepped past Filch into the moonlight.

Grudje peered around the Tower’s terraces and low walls. “An odd place, I admit, to interview misbehaving students, Madame Professor,” he commented.

McGonagall’s face remained perfectly stoic. “Perhaps you think so, Headmaster. I find it quite pleasant.”

“I find it quite
suspicious
, Professor,” Grudje admitted plainly, raising his thin, grey eyebrows. “And I add it to a long list of things I find suspicious about you, Madame. With all due respect, I wonder if you are ill-equipped to function under my leadership. Has it occurred to you that you have outlived your effectiveness at this school?”

McGonagall’s face hardened, turning her gaze into a flinty stare. “I don’t believe for a moment that it is my
effectiveness
you are concerned with, sir,” she said, all pretence abandoned. “But my
usefulness
. And I admit I have never been particularly interested in being useful to such as you.”

“Quite the contrary, Madame,” Grudje said, reaching into his robes and producing a thin scroll. “You do not content yourself with being disagreeable, but with being actively subversive. I see that I have procured this not a moment too soon.”

He held the scroll out to her, but she did not accept it. He sighed, and unrolled the scroll himself.

“‘Be it known’,” he read pedantically. “‘That by the general agreement of its body of governors, Madame Minerva McGonagall is heretofore relieved of her post as professor and instructor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, effective immediately. In light of her many years of service, she shall continue to be a valued and respected regent of academic excellence and shall receive a severance compensation equivalent to no less than seventy per cent of her current contract’, etcetera, etcetera…” He rerolled the scroll and sighed regretfully. “You should know, Madame, that it was I who negotiated your severance. I believe you will find it quite fair.”

“And this is what you call ‘leadership’,” McGonagall said, her nostrils flaring. “Not winning over those who disagree with you, but removing them outright.”

“I have done my best, Madame,” Grudje explained patiently. “But these are difficult times. I am sorry you disapprove of my methods. Unfortunately, with so much at stake in the magical world, we simply can no longer afford the luxury of dissent. But truly, your years of service are appreciated.” He gestured toward the open trapdoor. “Please, Madame McGonagall. Mr. Filch will accompany you to your quarters. Your replacement will be here within the hour. My apologies for such a necessarily swift departure, but we do have a school to run.”