The Alchemist's Cell
by SJR0301
Chapter Twenty-Seven
June had arrived, and with it the hot sunny days of summer, before Madam Pomfrey declared Harry fit enough to leave the infirmary. She was still lecturing him about taking it easy and added as he left, "DON'T DO ANYTHING DANGEROUS, MR. POTTER. IF YOU WERE A CAT, YOU'D HAVE USED UP ALL NINE OF YOUR LIVES BY NOW AND THEN SOME!"
Harry turned and smiled at her and said, "Thank you," before making his way to his dormitory for fresh robes and his books. The first class of the day was well under way by the time he arrived. Unfortunately, it was Potions, and he stood at the doorway for a moment getting up the nerve to go in late. He was still a bit wobbly and in no mood to be yelled at by Professor Snape.
Snape was in the middle of a rant. "You call this an essay, Mr. Finnegan? After six years, you still are unable to write a passable essay in this class." The Potions Master stopped abruptly. No one was looking at him or listening. Even Seamus had stopped looking and they were all staring at Harry as if he were a Crumple-Horned Snorckack, or some other of Luna Lovegood's mythical creatures.
Snape swung around and said, "You're late." Harry could have sworn that he was actually about to say "Ten points from Gryffindor," but Snape stopped right there and said, "Sit down, Potter, now that you've made a sufficiently dramatic entrance." He didn't take any points off though, which Harry thought, must be a first.
Harry took out his parchment and quill and wrote down the work. He was now hopelessly behind and knew he'd never make up a month's missed work in the short time before end of year exams. Nevertheless, he kept his eyes down and listened and wrote. All the while, he could feel the others stealing glances at him, or in some cases, staring at him outright. At the end of the class, the Slytherins rushed out, pushing at each other and the Gryffindor's crowded around Harry, slapping him on the back - which hurt, as his injury still wasn't completely healed--and saying, "Good to see you," or "Knew you'd be okay."
He tried to be patient until Lavender Brown asked him for his autograph, at which point he gawped at her and said, "You must be joking! You've known me since we were eleven and you're better then me in half our classes."
She blushed and looked hurt. Harry looked appealingly at Hermione for help, but it was Snape who came to his rescue. The cold voice cut through the noise and said, "Professor McGonagall will be waiting. If you would all be so kind as to ask Mr. Potter for his autograph some other time; so I can give him the work he'll need to make up."
Ron said in horror, "You're making him make up all that work? When he..."
Harry cut Ron off firmly and said, "Of course I have to make up the work. How else am I supposed to pass this year?" They all stared again and filed out.
Harry could have sworn he heard Seamus laugh and say, "Why does he need to take exams? or NEWTs even for that matter? Who can come up with an exam that beats defeating You Know Who forever?" Harry swallowed and shivered.
Ron and Hermione were still waiting so he said, "Go on. I'll be there in a minute. Just tell McGonagall, okay?"
Harry took out a clean sheet of parchment so he could take down the work, but Snape said nothing. Harry looked up at him expectantly.
"Well, Potter," Snape said in his usual sour fashion, "you have now become a celebrity beyond even your wildest dreams.”
Harry had no idea what to say so he ignored that. He cleared his throat and said, "Erm, Professor, there's something I need to tell you, if you have a minute." Snape looked at him, and for once, there was nothing but curiosity there. "First," Harry said in a rush, "I have to thank you."
Snape raised his eyebrows and said, "You are thanking me? For what?"
"You saved my life," Harry answered, "with that potion. So I owe you."
Snape looked as though he didn't quite know what to say, which was also a first. He managed to scrape up a bit of annoyance and said, "Well, don't expect any future help." Harry stared at him and ignored that as well.
"The other thing I wanted to tell you...well, did Professor Dumbledore say anything to you? About anything?"
Snape answered, "Did the Professor tell me anything about anything? Of course, he did. He has something to say to me about something just about every day. Perhaps you could be a bit more specific, Potter."
Harry felt quite cold and he said, "I mean, Professor, did he say anything to you about Voldemort? About what I told him about Voldemort?"
Snape said, "The Dark Lord is dead. Exactly what would Professor Dumbledore have to tell me about him?" Harry stared at Snape and felt a small flare of panic. Dumbledore hadn't told Snape?
"Well?" Snape prompted.
"He's not dead," Harry said as calmly as he could. It was Snape's turn to stare.
"What are you saying?" he asked. "Is this some kind of game? Or some prank to gain you even more attention?"
"Professor Snape," Harry replied, "Voldemort is not dead. It's not a prank, and I don't want attention. I promise you, I've had enough attention to last me two lifetimes or maybe three." He added through gritted teeth, "Voldemort is alive and that means you are in danger."
Snape looked at Harry in alarm and said, "Perhaps you should return to the infirmary. I believe you've been hallucinating. You don't have any fever, do you?"
Harry shook his head. He felt as though the ground were sinking beneath him. If this was how Snape reacted, when he had been in Voldemort's inner circle and seen the reborn Voldemort, how would anyone else react?
"I am not hallucinating," Harry said levelly. "Feel my pulse, if you want. Voldemort is not dead. He left his body when I stabbed him and possessed another he had prepared and already waiting." Harry frowned and said, "I'm surprised you didn't know about it. The body he kept in the crypt, that he made from his father's other remains, and from the blood of unicorns and snakes and from the spirit and magic he stole from other witches and wizards. He kept it alive, like someone who's had his soul sucked out by dementors, but it had no mind or soul until he possessed it."
Snape turned quite pale, so that his sallow complexion appeared almost a greenish-grey. "How," he asked, "can you possibly know this, when you have been unconscious and at death's door for the last several weeks?"
"I dreamed it," Harry replied. "I saw it, when he woke in the new body. And my scar hurt when it happened. It still hurts off and on. If he were dead, I wouldn't feel it, would I? If he were dead, the Curse that Failed would be broken, and I wouldn't feel him anymore. I can still feel him, and he is alive."
Snape still stared at him, as if he were in two minds whether to believe Harry or not. "A hundred people saw him die," Snape said.
"A hundred people saw me kill the body he was in," Harry replied. "You have to listen to me," he said more urgently. "He'll go after you, if you're not careful. Because you didn't show up at the fight and support him, did you? You weren't there, so he'll know, won't he?"
Snape swore, and began to pace up and down. "Is it possible?" he muttered to himself. "Could he truly have that much power?" He turned back to Harry and said, "What you described, is almost unheard of in the history of magic."
Harry stared back and said, "Almost unheard of ... that means it has been heard of...once? Twice? Professor Binns would know, wouldn't he?"
"And why have you come to tell me this?" Snape asked. "To trap me somehow? To test my loyalty to Dumbledore? To pay me back?" Harry could feel annoyance rising.
"Can't you listen to me for once without letting your dislike get in the way? I'm trying to pay you back, okay? For saving my life. And I'm trying to thank you, because if you hadn't done such a good job teaching me Occlumency, Voldemort wouldn't have had to bother with his clay man, he would have possessed me instead. He tried to, in the fight, and I fought him off. He got into my mind, and I fought him off. So I owe you." Harry felt utterly exhausted again, and he stood up wearily. "I'd better go," he said. "If you don't mind, I'll get the make-up work another day."
"Potter!" Harry turned back and Snape said, "You're sure? He's alive?" He nodded and went out.
He knew he ought to go on to Transfiguration, but the thought of another round of people screaming and celebrating was too much. He trudged back to his dormitory and lay down on his bed to rest, trying to figure out what he had done wrong. He knew that Voldemort would come after him again. He simply had to find a way to defeat him. There had to be a way, he thought. There had to be.
Harry drifted through the remainder of his classes feeling as though he were the onlooker in the Penseive again. Things happened, people talked, people even talked to him; but he felt distant and apart, unreal even. Fortunately, Professor Dumbledore had decided Harry was not to take exams, because the extra work might impair his already fragile health.
"I'm not fragile," Harry said crossly to Hermione afterward.
"Don't be silly, Harry," she replied. "You aren't fragile ordinarily. But you're still not well now."
On a muggy Sunday, when everyone else was madly studying for their first exam, Harry wandered over to Hagrid's Hut in search of company. It seemed as though the year had flashed past without his consent, and now he was looking at the prospect of another summer at the Dursleys, another summer without his friends, another summer without Hogwarts or magic.
"Harry!" Hagrid greeted him, "I've bin wantin' to see yeh." He looked at anxiously at Harry and shook his head. "Yeh look down and downright gloomy."
Harry ducked his head and said, "Yeah, Hagrid. I am."
He sat down in one of the enormous chairs at the table and said without further preamble, "Did Dumbledore tell you?"
Hagrid sighed and nodded his shaggy head. "It don' surprise me none to tell the truth. You Know Who's always had more dark magic to throw away then most wizards have of good magic just to get by on."
Harry looked at Hagrid as a thought struck him, "Hagrid, you knew him, even when he was young. He was the one responsible for getting you kicked out, for putting the blame on you for Moaning Myrtle's death." Hagird's beetle black eyes seemed to look off into the distance, or perhaps he was merely remembering the pain of his expulsion.
"It's funny," he replied, "but I never thought on it, how You Know Who and Riddle are the same. It's funny. He's the same sly snake he always was. The monster, he doesn't change his spots, or lose his venom."
Harry thought again and asked, "Hagrid. There must be something you know about him. Some weakness of his. Something that could help defeat him. How can he be defeated, if he can move from one body to another? How?" Hagrid frowned and thought and frowned some more. A stranger would have found the sight quite scary, as the half-giant looked quite fierce and dangerous just then. Harry couldn't help remembering how Hagrid had thrown off the attacks of several Ministry aurors who had come to arrest them. He wished he had that kind of immunity to magical attack.
Hagrid answered at last, "I dunno Harry. I'll think on it. There mus' be somethin' to try, somethin' like some other creature tha's equally hard ta kill." He looked keenly at Harry and swept him into a warm hug. He grinned down at Harry and said, as if answering his thought, "Yeh're never too big nor too old fer a good hug from a friend."
Harry smiled and said, "I know. Thanks, Hagrid." He felt a surge of affection and gratitude for the great man.
"You're a great person Hagrid. You're the best."
He felt quite calm again for the first time since he had woken knowing that Voldemort lived. And for once, since then, his scar had stopped buzzing, and he felt as if he could eat and laugh and be happy. The moment of joy came as an astonishment, a piercing pleasure that he was, simply, alive, and loved. He felt as if he had emerged from deep, shadowy abyss and landed back in a world of color once more.
~~***~~
Edgar paced his office trying to gather up his courage and take the plunge. Fay watched him, like a cat watches a string dangling in front of it, just waiting for the moment to pounce.
"I want to know if it's true," he said at last.
"What's true?" she said affecting a mild disinterest, though she knew perfectly well what he meant.
He practically growled at her and said, "You know. I want to know if it's true they really got Riddle."
They had been ready to go back to the Riddle House, to try to track him further. Just as they had been about to leave, Masters had called them in and announced, "Well! The PM was right. He's just told me the...er...secret Ministry has caught our man. Killed him, in fact. He attacked some big fortress and got himself killed. And good riddance, too." The Super had laughed jubilantly and said, "That's a good one, isn't it? Good riddance to Riddle. Hah."
He gave Edgar and Fay a stern look and said, "Well. Thank god, I can put my best detectives back on some serious cases again. We've got a triple homicide down in Bethnal Green that wants looking into. Happened yesterday and we were short on detectives."
Edgar growled at the thought again. He hadn't quite believed it at the time, and he didn't quite believe it now. And he could only think of one way of finding out for sure.
Fay considered him thoughtfully and asked, "And how do you propose to find out? Just go up to its secret Ministry and knock on the door? That works."
"That's one way," Edgar said. But somehow, the thought of going to the Ministry of Magic and announcing himself as Detective Inspector Bones of Scotland Yard just gave him the willies. What if they threw him back out before he could even find out, simply for having "turned Muggle" as it were?
"Come on," he said. "There's a better way."
He stalked out of the office and only stopped to wait for Fay because the elevator was slow in coming. She gave him a vexed stare, and he shrugged apologetically. When they arrived in the car park, he swung into the Miata and gunned the engine. After seventeen years, he quite suddenly couldn't stand to wait any more. He drove down to the neighborhood he wanted and cruised up and down every street and alleyway until he saw it.
On a tiny, old deserted street, between a record store on one side and a bookstore on the other. The Muggles walking on the street walked past and simply didn't see it. But he did. He got out of the car and locked it carefully, and taking Fay by the arm in case she really couldn't see it, he walked in the door of The Leaky Cauldron.
The Leaky Cauldron looked much as it always had, witches and wizards scattered about at tables, a few seated on barstools right at the bar, and Tom, the bald bartender sliding a bottle of butterbeer down to a very elderly witch at the far end. He had the strangest sensation that everything was both entirely known and yet unknown all at once. Next to him, Fay was staring about and he couldn't quite blame her. From the Muggle viewpoint, it must feel as though one had been transported inside a fairy tale.
She had spotted the goblin sitting at the bar and she tugged at Edgar's jacket and whispered very quietly, "What is that?"
"Goblin," he said briefly and even more quietly. He scanned the room checking to see if there was anyone obviously hostile, but there wasn't. So he strolled nonchalantly up to the bar and took a seat a few stools down from the goblin, and gestured for Fay to take the one on the other side of him.
Tom broke off his conversation with the goblin and said, "Orders?"
"Two butterbeers," Edgar replied. He pulled out a couple of sickles he had found among Margaret Miller's things and tossed them on the bar. Tom slid two bottles down and Edgar took a swig of his, swallowing the foaming drink with rare pleasure. It had been all of seventeen years since his last. Fay took a cautious sip of hers and made a sound rather like a purr, then drank half of the rest on two gulps.
He couldn't help grinning at her, but she leaned over and whispered to him, "I'll get you for this, Edgar. You might at least have warned me."
Tom gave them a curious look, but said nothing. That was hardly a surprise seeing that some of the customers were a good deal odder than the two of them in their Muggle work clothes.
The bald bartender turned back to the goblin and said, "Go on, Ragnok. You said you had the story from a good source."
"Aye," said the goblin called Ragnok. "I had it from Bill Weasley. He's one of our best curse breakers. Too bad he wanted to be near his family. He was one of our best men in the Egyptian operation." The goblin had the longest fingers Edgar had ever seen on one of his kind, and that was saying something. They ended in long, pointy, sharp nails and every finger had a gold ring on it, some with jewels, some plain. Fay was staring at him surreptitiously, and Edgar was amused to see that she was trying to pretend this was all normal. She jumped just a little, though, when Ragnok turned and looked over at them and gave a smile that showed his very pointy teeth.
The smile broadened and Edgar figured Ragnok was the kind of goblin that enjoyed giving your average witch or wizard a reminder of their glorious and dangerous past. Rather like an intelligent but tame tiger that let you know he wasn't as tame as you'd imagine.
"Aye," Ragnok said again, "Bill Weasley got the story off his brother Ron as is still in Hogwarts, and Ron Weasley was right there when it happened and he's best friends with..." The goblin stopped and took a drink of his firewhiskey, and having kept everyone in sufficient suspense, he went on, "the Boy Who Lived." There was a general ooooh from the listeners, whose number had grown, as several others stopped their conversations to listen to this. A few others lifted their heads at the mention of the "Boy Who Lived" and also turned to listen.
"Aye," Tom agreed, "Ron Weasley and Harry Potter are the best of friends. Many's the time I've had them in here, the two of 'em and their friend Miss Hermione Granger. Couldn't ask for a nicer bunch either. Always polite and says please and thank you."
Fay poked Edgar in the ribs and said in his ear, "That's our kid, Potter." He nodded and said; "Go on," to prompt the goblin.
The goblin looked at him suspiciously and said, "Do I know you?" he had a very deep, bass voice and his greeny-brown eyes were sharp and dangerous. "I don't think so, "Edgar said politely. "But you've got us all on the edge of our chairs to hear the rest of the story."
Ragnok gave him another sharp look and then continued, "Bill told me, his brother Ron told him, that You Know Who got into Hogwarts, right in, with twenty or so Death Eaters and a bunch of others." He turned and spat to the side and said, "Stupid goblins, thinking He Who Must Be Named ever kept any promises, whether it is for gold or for power, or for rights."
An elderly wizard off to the side, who had a toad sitting on his shoulder, said, "That's impossible. No one can get into Hogwarts like that. That place is so well protected, no one could ever get in."
"Said so in the Daily Prophet, too!" piped up a green haired witch at a window table.
Ragnok took another sip of his firewhiskey and said, "You Know Who got in through the Chamber of Secrets. That’s how he got in."
The elderly man said again, "Impossible. Doesn't even exist!"
"Aye, but it does," Ragnok replied. "Bill Weasley reckons his brother Ron got right in the Chamber of Secrets a few years ago, him and the Boy Who Lived."
"You're kidding," Edgar said incredulously. "There's some monster in the Chamber of Secrets, if it actually exists. Everyone knows that."
"Well, you know your Hogwarts, all right," the elderly wizard said, "even if you are dressed like a Muggle on parade." The others laughed at that, and Edgar had to poke Fay to keep her from saying anything.
"Well, I've been..erm..abroad," he answered. "Undercover, you know. Had to dress so I could mingle unnoticed." He could feel his face burn a bit with embarrassment. He was going to have to take a real lecture from Fay after that, but he had an idea he might be able to stop it quite easily.
"Well, according to Bill," Ragnok went on, "there was a monster in the Chamber of Secrets. It took the little sister, Ginny Weasley, right in and Ron and Harry Potter went in after to get her out. But that's another story."
"But what about the monster?" the witch with the green hair piped in again.
"Basilisk," Ragnok replied. He had lit a long stemmed pipe with a huge barrel and was puffing great clouds of smoke that smelled like wet socks.
"No way," Edgar said. He felt like a kid all over again, listening to his Dad tell stories of Dumbledore and the other great wizards.
"Really," said the stiff one with the toad. "Anybody'd be dead if they ran into a basilisk. I mean to say, the stare'd kill you, and if you closed your eyes, it'd eat you."
"Aye," Ragnok agreed. "Anybody but the Boy Who Lived. Seems Professor Dumbledore's phoenix blinded the dirty great serpent, and Potter killed it, stuck a bloody great sword right through the monster's head. Same sword," he said to the entralled audience, "as he used to kill He Who Must Not Be Named. The Sword of Gryffindor." The audience was silent and seemed awed.
Edgar felt that way himself. Only Fay was so much an outsider that she questioned the tale. "So Harry Potter killed this Voldemort guy with a sword?" she asked doubtfully. "Why not his wand, then?" Everyone there gasped when she said You Know Who's name. Edgar still found he was unable to say it himself. He also found it almost funny, that the woman who had denied the existence of magic so strenuously was now calmly discussing why someone hadn't used his wand.
"It's a good question," Edgar said. He added, "So You Know Who really is dead."
"Aye," Ragnok added. "Where've you been? It was in the Prophet weeks ago."
"Abroad," Edgar lied again. Although in some weird way it seemed the truth. As if all his life at university and in the Met was somehow other: strange and foreign, compared to this, his home. "I heard it," he said, "but I didn't believe it. So you're saying that this Bill Weasley--" a memory of a tall, red haired, older second or third cousin of his Dad's flashed by and he said, "That wouldn't be Arthur Weasley's son would it?"
Ragnok puffed on his pipe again and said, "Aye, it would."
"So Bill Weasley told you how it happened and his brother Ron was there?" Edgar asked. Ragnok nodded and Edgar prompted him again, "Okay. So tell us the rest."
He would have found the whole of it nearly impossible to believe, if he hadn't seen the kid disarm two adult Death Eaters and destroy and sawed off machine gun with the ease of any muggle child playing an afternoon game of football in the park. Even so, he still couldn't understand how the boy had been able to kill He Who Must Not Be Named, the Murderer, and the Monster.
"What it boils down to," Ragnok said, "is You Know Who went there looking for Potter. He announced it in the Great Hall. There was some hundred other children there, and he tells McGonagall that he'll leave if they just give him Potter, so's he can kill the Boy, of course, like he's been after trying to do since the Boy was a year old." Ragnok puffed on his pipe and his greeny-brown eyes gleamed with the enjoyment of a storyteller with an audience.
"So McGonagall, that's the Transfiguration teacher, she tells him the Boy's missing and he can just leave. Imagine that," Ragnok said, shaking his head in admiration, "telling You Know Who to just leave, as if he were a naughty schoolboy she was tossing out of her class."
Edgar shook his head and felt a tiny grin twitch at his mouth. He could easily imagine McGonagall doing just that. She had to be the strictest, scariest professor in all of Hogwarts.
"Well, You Know Who doesn't buy that," Ragnok continued. "He thinks they're just hiding the boy. Then the Weasley boy, Ron, that is, opens his mouth and tells You Know Who it's true the Boy's missing, and the Boy would never hide from HIM. So You Know doesn't like that and hits the Weasley boy with the Cruciatus Curse." Edgar flinched, as did everyone else there.
"So, where was the Boy Who Lived then?" asked the toad man. "And what did Minerva McGonagall do then?"
"Ah," Ragnok said, "she sets off some spell, and the suits of armor from the Trophy Hall appear to fight the Death Eaters. There's pandemonium. Students fleeing, some fighting, and Dumbledore shows up and he fight with You Know Who. Only see, one of the students came running out in the middle, nobody knows quite why, and You Know Who kills him, with the Killing Curse, and Dumbledore is so shocked one his students is dead, everyone thinks You Know Who'll get him, too. And that's when the Boy Who Lived showed up."
The silence was total. Ragnok finished quite calmly, and the calm was more impressive than his previous drama. "The Boy jumps right in front of Dumbledore and he and Voldemort fight. I forgot to say, Dumbledore disarmed You Know Who, and that's when You Know Who pulls out this great big magic sword. A real dark object if I've ever heard of one. He and the Boy have this sword fight, and he tips the Boy, just a little, and then the Boy sticks his own sword, the Sword of Gryffindor, right through the evil ba stard, only he gets stabbed, too, cause he hasn't avoided You Know Who's. He stepped right into it, and nearly kills himself as well. That's how he did it. Caught You Know Who by surprise. An everyone else as well, too."
"You said nearly killed," Fay cut in. "So the Potter boy, he's alive? He survived?"
"Aye," Ragnok answered. "But it was touch and go for a few weeks there. When they pulled that evil sword out him, it was smoking and left some kind of poison or dark magic. Took a couple of weeks for them to figure out how to deal with it so's the wound would close up." He sat silent a minute and added, "Aye, unusually brave, he is, the Boy Who Lived. Not like your usual puling, whining little humans. Unusually brave." Ragnok got up to go, and the crowd drifted apart again to separate conversations.
"So Riddle is dead," Fay said. "Masters was right." Edgar nodded and looked at her. Her blue eyes were half-closed in thought and she was now looking around again, noting all the details like an anthropology professor out in the wilds of New Guinea or Samoa, studying a primitive culture.
"What now?" she asked. Edgar swallowed the rest of his butterbeer and made his decision. He made for the back of the bar instead of the front. She looked at him questioningly and he answered the thought.
"I've got a little shopping to do."
"Shopping?" she said.
He went on through to the brick wall at the back and pulled out Margaret Miller's wand, which he had yet to return to the evidence box from the case. He tapped the bricks in sequence, and the archway opened, as it always had, into Diagon Alley.
Edgar stepped through and pulled Fay with him the bricks closed behind them and Fay said, "My god! What else have you been keeping from me? Goblins! Did you see him? Did you hear him? Puling, whining little humans? He doesn't think much of us does he?"
Edgar grinned. "Goblins are a tough lot. Very nasty to cross. They keep the bank here. It's a perfect job, seeing as how they're quite obsessed with gold and treasure."
Fay stared at him and said, "You'd better not keep anything else from me Edgar Allen Bones. Not...One...Thing!"
Edgar stared at her and said, "Does that mean you love me?"
Fay stared back at him and stamped her foot, literally stamped her foot and said, "You are impossible!"
"I know," he said quite seriously. "I love you, too, you know. I think you're the bravest woman alive."
"Really?" she said. He nodded, and a warm feeling stole through him as he saw the blue eyes shine and the fair face glow with sudden happiness.
Edgar drew in a deep breath. How could he have forgotten this, the magic, the color, the simple aliveness of it? In this, Diagon Alley departed altogether from similar such strips of shops in the Muggle world. Those seemed like false, commercial glitter, or dull and drained of all true life. Fay was gawking at everything. From the owls in the window of the Magical Menagerie, to the broomsticks in Quality Quidditch Supplies, to the stack of cauldrons sitting in a tottery looking pyramid and the velvets and silks in the window of Madam Malkins.
He pulled her away from contemplation of a blue velvet shot through with strands of silver and gold, and said, "We can look at that later."
In the street, various witches and wizards could be heard conversing, "must make sure we get to Kings Cross on time...don't want to keep the children waiting...don't forget to change into your muggle things for the station...p'raps we'll stay the night at the Leaky Cauldron and go back up to Willow Creek tomorrow..."
With a start, Edgar realized that today was the first of July, and the train from Hogwarts would arrive this afternoon at Kings Cross station bringing all the wizards and witches back for the start of their summer holidays. He resolved to be there when it arrived. But first, he had other business to take care of. He led Fay over to a shop that had in its window one faded purple cushion on which rested one perfect wand. The faded gold lettering read Ollivanders, Wandmakers since 332 B.C.
The shop was as silent and empty as the first time he had come, and it gave him the same shivery feeling as the fine hairs rose on his arms and at the back of his neck. As if from nowhere, an old man with large, lamp-like eyes was there. "Needing a new wand, then, are you?"
"Aye, Mr. Ollivander," Edgar answered. "I do."
"Let me see," the old man said, just as he had the first time Edgar had come in. He pulled out a box and handed a wand to Edgar. Edgar took it, but the old man took it away almost at once. He brought out another and another. Then being dissatisfied, he went grumbling into the back for some more.
"Why doesn't he let you see if you like it?" Fay whispered. She gazed with curiosity at everything and he could have sworn her hands twitched, as though she were just dying to pick one up and give it a good wave.
Mr. Ollivander came back and said, "Try that one." Edgar picked it up and felt the warmth run right through to his toes. A small sparkle of golden sparks shimmered out.
"Very good, very good," Ollivander said. "A nice powerful wand, that is, Mr. Bones. A very nice one indeed."
Edgar stared at him and Ollivander said, "Of course, I knew you. Edgar Allen Bones. You've been gone and missing seventeen years. Everyone thought you were dead, but I knew you the instant I set eyes on you. You've a real resemblance to your father, you know. Only it was your mother that had that blond hair as I recall."
Edgar said simply, "Yes. She did." He looked at the wand and felt for the first time in years as if he were truly a wizard.
"Mahogany, thirteen inches, with a unicorn core," Ollivander said. "Good for both charms and transfiguration." Edgar smiled and sat down in a chair in a dim corner to wait for the old man to wrap up his new wand. He wrapped his arm around Fay and thought; maybe things will be all right now.
The shop door jingled as two men came in. The first was small and weedy looking, with a pointy nose and watery blue eyes, and he wore dragonskin gloves, though the day was hot and fine. The second was tall and handsome. He had very dark, almost black hair and finely cut features. He had very long, slender white fingers, like a pianist or a surgeon, and he carried himself very straight and proud, and with an air of command or arrogance. He turned to look out the window, and Edgar saw with a faint shock, that the man had red eyes with pupils that were slitted, like a cat's or a snake's.
Ollivander reappeared almost instantly, as if he had some magical form of a security camera to warn him there were customers. His strange moon-bright eyes took in the new customers at a glance and he said, just as he had to Edgar, "You'll be needing a new wand then?"
The tall man nodded curtly, and Ollivander said, just as had with Edgar, "Let me see, now. Let me see..."
He brought out several boxes and the tall man tried several wands just as Edgar had. But none of them seemed to please him, and one by one he discarded them, sometimes without even picking it up.
"A difficult customer," Ollivander muttered. He went into the back and brought out several more. Again, the tall man with the red eyes picked them up and discarded them, one by one.
"My Lord," the small weedy man stuttered. He stopped quickly, his watery blue eyes looking quite terrified of having offended. Then seeing that his master was listening, he said,
"You don't think...is it possible that Mr. Ollivander might...repair your old one?" Ollivander's moon-bright eyes dimmed for a moment, and something very like fear flitted across his face. The tall man swung around to stare at Ollivander and said, "I think it might be possible. I think that the respected Mr. Ollivander might make my broken wand as good as new. Re-make it so that it's better even than it was."
Edgar felt a queer chill run down his spine at the implied threat behind the words. The old man, however, no longer appeared fearful.
"Repairing a wand is very tricky gentlemen. Very tricky. And making one as if it were new, as if it had never been broken is almost impossible."
"For an Ollivander," the tall man replied smoothly, "nothing to do with wands should be impossible." Ollivander held out his hand for the wand, and the small ratty looking man pulled out a wand and handed it over.
"Thirteen and half inches, yew, with a wand core...of phoenix feather," Ollivander said.
He stared at the wand, and then back at the tall man and then he bowed very low.
"I shall endeavor my best," he said and went back in the back without giving Edgar his new wand. Fay stirred slightly, and Edgar tapped her foot with hers. He wasn't leaving the shop without his new wand. More importantly, he wasn't leaving the shop and losing sight of the man who almost certainly must be Riddle, although how he could be there, in a young body, without the monstrous deformity that had bent him just weeks ago, and when he was supposed to have been killed in front of a hundred witnesses, Edgar couldn't say.
They sat in silence and the tall man took no more notice of Edgar and Fay then he would have of a piece of furniture or a wall. Edgar thought then that the man before him must not only be evil, he must be, in a clinical sense, a psychopath. One for whom others' existence wasn't real and who was so devoid of any moral perception whatsoever, that he could kill with the utmost ease; because every one else existed only to the extent that they were instruments for his will, or obstructions to it, to be destroyed.
Time ticked away as they waited for Ollivander to bring out the wand. Lunchtime came and went, but Edgar didn't feel hungry. He had, instead, a sick feeling of anxiety that something awful was going to happen. Something that he couldn't stop, not even with his new wand. He thought, and felt almost guilty for the thought; it was a pity that Fay's inital experiences with the magical world had been so negative. And he hoped that whatever else happened, it wouldn't give her so great a fear of it that she would want nothing more to do with him. Finally, the old man returned.
He brought out the wand and said, "It's quite a masterpiece, if I do say so myself. No one would ever know it had been broken." He held out the wand for the tall man and then tall man took it in his right hand, his red eyes glowing with triumph. He pointed the wand at Ollivander and the old man blanched utterly white.
The tall man laughed, a high, cold laugh and walked out of the shop saying, "Come Wormtail, we've a train to meet."
Edgar stood up and Ollivander stared at him. As if nothing had occurred, he said, "You wand is ready. I'll only be a moment." He returned with the box wrapped in plain brown paper and said softly, "You ought to have left Mr. Bones. It's quite fortunate for you that He Who Must Not Be Named was too preoccupied to recognize. It's quite fortunate for you that he hadn't a wand until he left."
"Why," Edgar burst out, "did you make that wand new again? Why did you give him what he wanted?"
"Ah," Ollivander replied, "when you are as old as I am, young Edgar, you'll learn that very often what people think they want the most, what they think they need the most, isn't at all what is best for them." With that, he gave Edgar a wintry smile and said, "I believe you and Miss Fay Kray have a train to meet as well."
"How do you know my name?" Fay demanded. Ollivander smiled again, and his moon-bright eyes were kind.
"I knew your Great Aunt Matilda once upon a time. She was a very beautiful woman. Almost as beautiful as you. And quite a good witch," he added at the end.
Fay stared at him, but he had disappeared in the back again, and Edgar knew they hadn't time to discuss this.
