“So the Hall of Elder’s Crossing…” James concentrated, and then widened his eyes in revelation. “The alignment of the planets! The Hall of Elders’ Crossing is when all the planets cross each other in their paths. When they… make a hall!”
“The alignment of the planets,” Ralph agreed in an awed voice. “It’s not a place, but a time.”
Snape stared hard at all three boys. “It’s both,” he said resignedly. “It’s the moment the planets align, and it’s the place that all three of the relics of Merlinus Ambrosius are brought together. That’s when and where the return of Merlin can only be accomplished. That is his requirement. And unless I am greatly mistaken, if you mean to go through with this foolhardy plan of yours, you have less than one week.”
Zane snapped his fingers. “That’s why the voodoo queen’s been drilling us to work out the exact moment of the alignment! She said it would be a night we’d never forget, and she meant it! That’s when they mean to bring the relics together.”
“The Grotto Keep,” James whispered. “They’ll do it there. The throne is already there.” The other two boys nodded. James felt flushed with fear and excitement. He looked at the portrait of Severus Snape. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. Take my advice. If you plan to go through with this, I will not be able to help you. No one will. Don’t be a fool.”
James backed away, extinguishing his wand and pocketing it. “Come on, you two. Let’s get back.” Snape watched as James consulted the Marauder’s Map. It wasn’t Snape’s first encounter with the map. On one occasion, the map had insulted him fairly cheekily. Having assured themselves that Filch was still in his office, the three crowded back under the Invisibility Cloak and shuffled back through the door of the Headmistress’ office and into the hall. Snape considered waking Filch, who he knew was sleeping in his office with a half empty bottle of fire whiskey on his desk. One of Snape’s self portraits resided in a hunting painting in Filch’s office, and Snape could easily use that painting to alert Filch to the three boys’ sneaking. Reluctantly, he decided not to. Like it or not, such petty tricks gave him little pleasure anymore. The ghost of Cedric Diggory, who Snape had come to recognize before anyone else, closed the door behind the boys and shot the bolt.
“Thank you, Mr. Diggory,” Snape said quietly, amidst the snores of the other paintings. “Feel free to accompany them back to their dormitories. Or not. I don’t much care.”
Cedric nodded to Snape. Snape knew the ghost didn’t like to talk to him. Something about a ghost talking to a painting seemed to disturb the boy. Nothing technically human on either end, Snape figured. Cedric dismissed himself and walked through the locked wooden door.
One of the paintings near Snape stopped snoring.
“He isn’t precisely like his father, is he?” a thoughtful, older voice said.
Snape settled back into his portrait. “He’s only like him in the worst of ways. He’s a Potter.”
“Now who’s passing easy judgments?” the other voice said with a hint of teasing.
“It’s not an easy judgment. I’ve watched him. He’s as arrogant and foolish as the others that bore his last name. Don’t pretend you don’t see it.”
“I see that he came to ask for your help.”
Snape nodded grudgingly. “One can only hope that that instinct has a chance to mature. He asked for help only when he ran out of other options. And he didn’t, you’ll notice, actually take any of my advice.”
The older voice was silent for a moment, and then asked, “Will you tell Minerva?”
“Perhaps,” Snape said, considering. “Perhaps not. For now, I will do as I’ve done all along. I will watch.”
“You believe there is a chance he and his friends might succeed, then?”
Snape didn’t answer. A minute later, the older voice spoke again. “He is being manipulated. He doesn’t know it.”
Snape nodded. “I assumed there was no point in telling him.”
“You’re probably right, Severus. You have an instinct for such things.” Snape replied pointedly, “I learned when not to talk from the master, Albus.” “Indeed you did, Severus. Indeed you did.”
15. The Muggle Spy
Martin J. Prescott was a Reporter. He always thought of the word as if it was capitalized. For Martin, being a Reporter was more than a job. It was his identity. He wasn’t just another face reading from a teleprompter or another name next to a dateline. He was what the producers in the age of the twenty-four hour news cycle called ‘a personality’. He accented the news. He framed it. He colored it. Not in any negative way, or so he firmly believed. He simply added that subtle dash of flair that made news into News, in other words, something people might want to watch or read. For one thing, Martin J. Prescott had the look. He wore white button-down shirts with jeans, and he usually had his shirt sleeves rolled up a bit. If he wore a tie, it was invariably of an impeccable style, but loosened just a tad: enough to say yes, I’ve been working extremely hard, but I respect my viewers enough to maintain a degree of professionalism. Martin was thin, youngish, with sharp, handsome features and very dark hair that always looked windblown and fabulous. But, as Martin was proud of saying to the attendees at the occasional Press Club breakfast, his appearance wasn’t what made him a Reporter. It was his sense of people, and of news. He knew how to plug the one into the other in a way that produced the biggest emotional jolt.
But the last thing that made Martin J. Prescott a Reporter was that he loved the story. Where the other high-paid and high-profile news faces had long since assembled a team of lackeys to tramp far and wide, collecting footage and filming interviews while they themselves huddled in their dressing rooms reading about their ratings, Martin prided himself in doing all his own travel and research. The truth of it was that Martin enjoyed the reporting, but what he absolutely loved was the chase. Being a member of the press was like being a hunter, except that the former aimed with a camera rather than a gun. Martin liked to stalk his prey himself. He delighted in the pursuit, in the blurry jostle of handheld camera footage, the shouted, perfectly timed question, the long stakeout of a courtroom back door or a suspicious hotel room. Martin did it all himself, often alone, often filming himself in the act, providing his viewers breathless moments of high tension and confrontation. No one else did it like him, and this had made him famous.
Martin had, as they say of the very best Reporters, a nose for news. His nose told him that the story he was chasing right now, if it panned out, if he could simply provide the real, unadulterated footage, was quite possibly the story of a lifetime. Even now, crouched among the brush and weeds, dirty and salty with two days’ worth of sweat, his fabulous hair matted and soiled with twigs and leaves, even after all the setbacks and failures, he still felt this was the story that would cement his career. In fact, the harder he’d had to work for it, the more doggedly he’d pursued it. Even after the ghost. Even after being kicked out of a third story window by a homicidal kid. Even after his harrowing brush with the gigantic spider. Martin viewed setbacks as proof of value. The harder it was, the more it was worth pursuing. He took a grim satisfaction in knowing that, had he merely hired a team of investigators to check this out, they’d have turned back months ago, when they’d first met the strange, magical resistance of the place, without a solitary blip of a story. This was the kind of story that could only be told by him. This, he told himself with satisfaction, was anchorman material. No more field reports. No more special interest segments. If this panned out, Martin J. Prescott would be able to pave his own way in any major newsroom in the country. But why stop there? With this under his belt, he could anchor anywhere in the world, couldn’t he?
But no, he told himself. One mustn’t think of such things now. He had a job to do. A difficult and outrageously demanding job, but Martin took pleasure in the sense that the hardest part was behind him. After months of plotting and arranging, planning and observing, the time had finally come for the big payoff,
for all the bets to be called in. Granted, if this last phase of the hunt didn’t work out exactly as planned, he’d walk away with nothing. He’d been unable to get any usable, convincing footage on his own, except for the handheld camera video of that incredible flying contest a few months back. That might have been enough, but even that had been lost, sacrificed--reluctantly!--to the gigantic spider during his escape through the woods. It didn’t do to dwell on failures, though. No, this would work. It would go exactly as planned. It had to. He was Martin J. Prescott.
Still crouched at the perimeter of the forest, Martin checked the connections of his cell phone. Most of his field gear had gone completely buggy ever since he made it through the forest. His Palmtop barely worked at all, and when it did, it exhibited some very strange behavior. The night before last, he’d been trying to use it to access his office computer when the screen suddenly went entirely pink and began to display the lyrics to a rather rude song about hedgehogs. Fortunately, his camera and cell phone had worked relatively well until the incident with the spider. His phone was nearly all he had left now, and despite the fact that the display screen showed a strange mixture of numbers, exclamation marks and hieroglyphics, it did seem to be maintaining a connection. Satisfied, Martin spoke.
“I’m huddled outside the castle at this moment, hidden in the arms of the forest that has been my occasional home during these last grueling months. Up until now, I have simply watched, careful not to disturb what might only be a simple country school or a boarding facility, despite the reports of my sources. Still, I am confident that the time has finally come for me to approach. If my sources are wrong, I will merely be met with puzzlement and that rare brand of careful good humor that is the purview of the Scottish countryside. If, however, my sources prove correct, as I suspect, based on my inexplicable experiences so far, then I may well be walking into the clutches of my own doom. I am now standing. It is midmorning, about nine o’clock, but I see no sign of anyone. I am leaving the safety of my hiding place. I am entering the grounds.”
Martin crept carefully around the edge of the ramshackle cabin near the forest. The enormous, shaggy man he’d often spied in and around the cabin was not anywhere in sight. Martin straightened, determining to be bold about his initial approach. He began to cross the neatly cropped field between the cabin and the castle. In truth, he did not believe he was in grave peril. He had an innate sense that the greatest dangers were behind him, in that creepy and mysterious forest. He had indeed camped on the fringes of that forest, far on the side opposite the castle, where the trees seemed rather more normal and there were fewer unsettling noises in the night. Still, his travels back and forth through the densest parts of that forest had been strange, to say the least. Apart from the spider, which he had only escaped by sheer good luck, he hadn’t actually seen anything. In a sense, he thought it might have been better if he had. A known monstrosity, like the spider, is far easier to deal with than the unknown phantoms conjured by Martin’s imagination in response to the strange noises he’d heard on those long woodland walks. He’d been shadowed, he knew. Large things, heavy things, had followed him, always off to the left or right, hidden just behind the density of the trees. He knew they were watching him, and he also sensed that, unlike the spider, they were intelligent. They might have been hostile, but they were certainly curious. Martin had almost dared to call out to them, to demand they reveal themselves. Finally, remembering the spider, he’d decided that, after all, maybe an unseen monster that is merely curious is better than a seen monster that feels provoked.
“The castle, as I have mentioned, is positively huge,” Martin said into the small microphone clipped to his lapel. The microphone was connected to the phone on his belt. “I’ve travelled much of this continent and seen quite a variety of castles, but I’ve never seen anything so simultaneously ancient and yet immaculately maintained. The windows, apart from the one I was forced through those months ago, are beautifully sturdy and colorful. The stonework here doesn’t show so much as a crack…” This wasn’t entirely true, but it was true enough. “It is a beautiful spring day, fortunately. Clear and relatively warm. I am not hiding myself at all as I cross to the enormous gates, which are open. There… there seems to be a gathering over to my right, on a sort of field. I… I can’t quite tell, but it looks as if they are playing football. I can’t say that I expected that. They don’t seem to be paying me any attention. I am continuing to the gates.”
As Martin entered the gates, he finally began to be noticed. He slowed, still maintaining a steady course onward. His goal was simply to get as far into the castle as possible. He had purposely left his still camera behind. Cameras, in nearly every circumstance, incite resistance. People with cameras get thrown out of places. Someone simply walking into a place, walking confidently and purposely, may be met with curiosity, but they are not usually stopped. At least, not until it is too late. The courtyard was dotted with young people moving here and there in knots. They wore black robes over white shirts and ties. Many carried backpacks or books. The ones nearest Martin turned to watch him past, mostly out of curiosity.
“There are… there are what appear for all the world to be… school pupils,” Martin said quietly into his microphone, sidling past students as he worked across the courtyard. “Young people in robes, all school age. They seem surprised at my presence, but not hostile. In fact, as I am now approaching the entryway into the castle proper, it appears that I have elicited the attention of virtually everyone. Excuse me.”
This last was said to Ted Lupin, who had just appeared in the doorway with Noah Metzker and Sabrina Hildegard. All three of them stopped talking instantly as the strange man in the white shirt and loosened tie slipped between them. The quill in Sabrina’s hair wobbled as she turned to watch him.
“Who’s he talking to?” Ted said.
“And who the ruddy hell is he?” Sabrina added. The trio turned in the open doorway, watching the man work his way carefully into the entry hall. Students parted for him, recognizing immediately that this man was rather out of place. Still, no one seemed particularly alarmed. There were even a few puzzled grins.
Martin went on speaking into his microphone. “More and more of what I must, for the time being, call students. There are dozens of them around me at the moment. I am moving through a sort of main hall. There are… chandeliers, great doorways. Statues. Paintings. The paintings… the paintings… the paintings…” For the first time, Martin seemed at a loss for words. He forgot the students gathering around him, watching him, as he took two steps toward one of the larger paintings lining the entry hall. In the painting, a group of ancient wizards were clustered around a large crystal ball, their white beards illuminated in its glow. One of the wizards noticed the staring man in the white shirt and tie. He straightened and scowled. “You’re out of uniform, young man,” the wizard exclaimed sternly. “You look a fright. I daresay you have a leaf in your hair.”
“The paintings… the paintings are…,” Martin said, his voice an octave higher than normal. He coughed and gathered himself. “The paintings are moving. They are… for lack of a better term, like painted movies, but alive. They are… addressing me.”
“I address equals, young man,” the wizard said. “I command the likes of you. Begone, ruffian.”
There was a smattering of laughter from the crowding students, but there was also a growing sense of nervousness. Nobody was ever amazed at the moving paintings. This man was either a nutter of a wizard, or he was… well, it was unthinkable. A Muggle could not get into Hogwarts. The students formed a large circle around him, as if he was a mildly dangerous animal.
“The students have hemmed me in,” Martin said, turning around, his eyes rather wild. “I’m going to attempt to break through, however. I must move further in.”
As Martin proceeded, the perimeter of students broke apart easily, following him. There was a murmuring now. Nervous chatter followed the man, and he began to raise his voice.
/>
“I’m entering a large chamber. Quite high. I’ve been here before, but late at night, in the dark. Yes, this is the hall of moving staircases. Very treacherous. Remarkable mechanics at work here, and yet no sound of machinery at all.”
“What’s he saying about machinery?” someone in the crowding students called. “Who is this bloke anyway? What’s he doing here?” There was a chorus of confused responses.
Martin pushed on, turning past the staircases, almost shouting now. “My presence is beginning to cause some resistance. I may be stopped at any moment. I… I am bypassing the stairs.”
Martin turned a corner and found himself in the midst of a group of students playing Winkles and Augers in a bright alcove. He stopped suddenly and recoiled as the auger, an old Quaffle, stopped three inches from his face, floating and turning slowly.
“Oi, what’re you thinking just walking right into the middle of the sodding match, you?” one of the players called, yanking his wand up and retrieving the Quaffle. “Dangerous, that is. You need to watch yourself.”
“Flying… things!” Martin squeaked, straightening himself and smoothing his shirt frantically. “I… wands. Actual magical wands and levitating objects! This is perfectly remarkable! I’ve never seen…!”
“Hey now,” another of the Winkles and Augers players said sharply. “Who is this? What’s he going on about?”
Someone else yelled, “Who let him in? He’s a Muggle! Got to be!”
“It’s the man from the Quidditch pitch! The intruder!”
The crowd began to yell and jostle. Martin ducked past the Winkles and Augers players, losing some of the pursuing crowd. “I’m pressing in further still. Corridors leading everywhere. Here is… er, as far as I can tell, it is a hall of classrooms. I’m entering the first one…”