“Miss Sacarhina,” Harry said, producing his wand, but not quite brandishing it, “what do you have to say in response to this man’s accusations?”
“I have nothing to say whatsoever,” she replied easily. “He is clearly deranged. No one would believe the word of such a person.”
“Mr. Recreant?” Harry said, turning to the stunned man. “Do you concur with Miss Sacarhina’s assessment?” Recreant’s eyes moved like flies, flicking back and forth between Sacarhina and Harry. “I’d…,” he began, and then lowered both his eyes and his voice. “I’d like the chance to discuss this outside of Miss Sacarhina’s hearing.”
“Mr. Recreant, as your superior, I forbid--”
“You’ll forbid nothing, Madam,” Neville said sternly, slipping his own wand from his robes.
“In the name of ambassadorial security, I have to insist…,” Sacarhina began, but stopped as Harry pointed his wand at her. “In the name of the Ministry of Magic and the Auror Department,” he said, “I place you, Miss Brenda Sacarhina, under arrest for attempted violation of section two of the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy and for the theft of Ministry of Magic property.”
Sacarhina tried to smile, but it was a relatively poor attempt. “You can’t prove anything, Mr. Potter. This is a foolish and dangerous game you are playing. I will only warn you once to stand down.” “You should think twice before conspiring with people who despise you, Miss Sacarhina,” Merlin said, smiling ruefully. “I had a charming and illuminating conversation with Madame Delacroix when I discovered her in the forest. She has much to say about you, I’m afraid, and very little of it is what I’d be prepared to call flattering.”
Neville was leading Mr. Recreant out of the room, with the Headmistress following. Harry gestured with his wand. “Come, Miss Sacarhina. Titus Hardcastle awaits to escort you back to the Ministry, and patience is not one of his stronger suits.”
Sacarhina’s face went blank as she realized she had no choice but to follow along. No doubt she had a very good defense ready, James thought as she stalked out of the room in front of his dad. People like her always had lots of ways to cover their tracks. Still, it didn’t look good for Brenda Sacarhina. As the door leading to the Great Hall swung open, James saw Titus Hardcastle grinning mirthlessly, his wand pointing carefully at the floor.
James found himself left only with Merlin, Zane, Ralph, and Dennis Dolohov
Dennis looked at his son, and then touched him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ralph. I really am. I was… confused.”
“You should’ve told me, Dad,” Ralph said, dropping his eyes.
Dennis nodded. After a moment, he raised his eyes to Merlin. “Am I going to go to wizarding prison?” he asked, trying to firm his voice. “I’ll… I’ll go along quietly, I guess.” “Somehow, I suspect not, Mr. Dolohov,” Merlin said, turning to lead the group out of the chamber. He opened the door leading to the Great Hall. “But your actions have resulted in quite a conundrum. It appears that this school’s security, strong as it may once have been, is not quite prepared to meet the challenges of modern Muggle technology. Perhaps you’d have some thoughts on how to improve it?”
Dennis frowned. “What are you suggesting? You want my help?” Merlin shrugged. “I am simply acknowledging a rather curious coincidence. You are in need of employment and we are in need of a revised security programme. As a wizard who also happens to be an expert in Muggle technology, you seem rather uniquely qualified to serve in that regard.”
Dennis grinned in relief. “I’ll think about that, sir.”
“I am in no position to make any offers on behalf of this school, of course,” Merlin said, crossing the Great Hall with his long, commanding stride. “But I know the Headmistress. I’ll see what I can do.” “So,” Zane said, following Ralph and James into the Entrance Hall, “turns out you were of solid magical stock after all, Ralph, even if they were a bunch of cruel, heartless purebloods. Not that it matters, really, but it does sort of explain why you were made a Slytherin.”
“Maybe,” Ralph said quietly. “This is all too much for me to take in one day. Either way, none of that magic was mine. It was the staff.”
Merlin stopped near the stairs, and then turned slowly. He gazed at Ralph speculatively. “You were the keeper of my staff?”
“Yeah,” Ralph answered dejectedly. “I kept it from killing anyone, I guess. But barely.” “Don’t listen to him,” Zane said. “He was spectacular with it. Saved James’ life once with it. Grew a peach tree out of a banana, too! So he once burned a bald stripe onto Victoire’s head in D.A.D.A. All of us have thought about doing that to her from time to time just to shut her up.”
Merlin approached Ralph. James was certain the wizard hadn’t been carrying his staff a moment before, but as he lowered himself to one knee in front of Ralph, he now held it in his right hand. The runes along its length were dark, but James remembered how they’d pulsed with green light the night before.
“Mr. Deedle--or shall I call you Mr. Dolohov?” Merlin said.
“I’m kind of attached to the Deedle,” Ralph answered, glancing up at his father. “I don’t know if I’m ready to be a Dolohov yet. Sorry, Dad.” Dennis gave a small understanding smile. “Mr. Deedle, then,” Merlin said. “Not just any wizard could have born the responsibility of the staff. You have heard it said that the wand chooses the wizard, and this is true. Madame Delacroix believed you were merely a vessel to bring the staff to her, but she was mistaken. The staff chose you. A lesser wizard would have been unable even to hold the staff, much less use it. But you, without knowing it, brought the staff under your own power. You had no idea of the strength of it, and yet you managed it. It obeyed you, and that is the mark of a wizard of very, very great potential. Part of this staff now belongs to you, Mr. Deedle. I have felt it. I knew that a portion of it was no longer my own, but I knew not whose it was. Now I know.”
Merlin lowered his staff so that it lay across his knee. He closed his eyes and felt along the length of the staff, his hand barely touching the wood. Faint green light moved within the runes, flickering. Merlin wrapped his hand around the lower, tapered end of his staff, then, with barely a twist, broke off the last foot of its length. He opened his eyes again and held the length of wood out to Ralph.
“You are, I believe, in need of a wand, Mr. Deedle.”
Ralph took the length of wood from Merlin. As he did, the wood became his wand again, still ridiculously fat and chunky, with the lime green painted tip. Ralph grinned, turning it over in his hands. “I wouldn’t expect it to be quite as powerful as it once was, of course,” Merlin said, turning his staff upright and using it to stand again. The staff was noticeably shorter now. “But I suspect you will still be able to do remarkable things with it.”
“Thanks,” Ralph said seriously.
“Don’t thank me,” Merlin said, raising an eyebrow. “It’s yours, Mr. Deedle. You made it so.”
“So the wizard gives the cowardly lion his courage,” Zane said, grinning. “When does James here get some brains?”
Merlin cinched his eyebrow a bit higher, looking from Zane to James.
“Don’t pay him any attention,” James said, laughing and leading the group to the stairs. “It’s a Muggle thing. We wouldn’t understand.”
“Come on!” Ralph called, running up the steps. “I want to show Ted and the rest of the Gremlins I’ve got my wand back! Tabitha Corsica can keep her stupid broom.”
The three boys scrambled up the moving staircases, followed more sedately by Merlin and the newly reborn Dennis Dolohov.
“Will he be okay with that thing?” Dennis asked Merlin, frowning a little.
Merlin merely smiled and clacked his staff on the steps as he climbed. Unnoticed, a jet of lime green sparks shot from the tip, swirling and glowing like fireflies in their wake.
21.the Gift of the Green Box
The last weeks of the school year spun out before James like a blur, remarkably free of deathly peri
l and adventure, but packed nonetheless with the lesser stresses of schoolwork and final essays and wand practicals, all of which were relatively welcome in the wake of the Hall of Elders’ Crossing. To no one’s great surprise, Hufflepuff was awarded the House Cup, being the only house to avoid major point deductions for involvement in the various Merlin conspiracy skullduggeries. The broomstick caper alone had cost Ravenclaw and Gryffindor fifty points each.
On the morning of the last day of school, James was stuffing his books and extra school robes into his trunk when Noah pounded up the stairs calling for him.
“Ron Weasley’s in the fireplace. He wants to talk to you.”
James grinned. “Excellent! Tell him I’ll be right there!”
“James, look at you!” Uncle Ron cried when James tromped down the stairs a minute later, still tying his tie. “All respectable and everything. Have a good year, did you?” James nodded. “I guess I did. Looks like I’ll pass, after all. Spent all of Monday night getting ready for Franklyn’s D.A.D.A. practical, then had the most horrible sensation that I’d forgotten everything five minutes before the test.”
“I wasn’t exactly talking about your schoolwork, you dunce,” said the face in the embers, grinning crookedly. “Your dad told me all about the Merlin conspiracy you uncovered. That’s brilliant stuff, and no mistake.”
“Yeah, well…,” James said sheepishly, “it was all pretty exciting there for a while, but it’s weird. Five weeks of schoolwork and suddenly all of that seems like it happened to someone else.” That’s the way of it,” Ron nodded. “The dull parts of life spread out in your memory and crowd out the exciting parts until they just seem like little flashes. It’s the way your brain copes with it all, I guess. Speaking of which, how’s Professor Jackson doing?”
James rolled his eyes. “Nothing can keep old Stonewall down for long. He wasn’t really injured in his duel with Delacroix, even though his backup wand wasn’t as powerful as the one she broke. Apparently, he chased her through the woods for hours and finally cornered her in a clearing. He says he’d have gotten her, except that she cheated, calling on the enemy naiads and dryads to fight with her. The trees attacked him from behind, knocking him out. That’s how he got the big bruise on his forehead. Still, he was back in class the day after Prescott left, and he’s been raining fire on Zane and me ever since.”
Ron raised an eyebrow. “Can’t really blame him, I guess.” “We gave him back his briefcase and apologized and everything. I mean, I know we ruined his lifelong quest to protect the relic robe and prevent the return of the most dangerous wizard of all time and all, but come on. Merlin turned out to be all right. Delacroix got sent back to the States to stand trial in the American wizarding courts. Everything worked out in the end, didn’t it?”
“All I can say is if I was him, I’d wish you spiders in your drawers for the rest of your life,” Ron mused. “But that’s just me. My mind tends to go that way.”
“Honestly, Uncle Ron. I want to make it right. I liked Professor Jackson at first.” “At the risk of sounding like a responsible adult, James, actions have consequences. Apologizing is great, but ‘sorry’ isn’t a magic word. You not only ruined Jackson’s plans, you took a stab at his pride. You succeeded in foiling him. In his mind, you made a fool out of him. That’s a hard thing for a bloke like him to get over. Frankly, you can’t blame him, can you?”
“I guess not,” James agreed sulkily. “At least he didn’t fail us in Technomancy. It was a close thing, though.”
“Good man. Still, don’t get too wrapped up in classwork, you. You’ve got a reputation to live up to.”
“Or down to,” Noah’s voice quipped from nearby.
“I heard that, Metzker,” Ron said sternly. “It’s a proud Potter tradition, squeaking by in school. Started with James Potter the first. Besides, you’re one to talk, Mr. Gremlin.”
“Got high marks this year, all across the board,” Noah said primly.
Ron grinned again. “Thanks to your friend Petra, no doubt. She’s to you Gremlins what Hermione was for Harry and me. Hold on. She wants to say hello, James.” The face in the coals sank out of sight. A moment later, Hermione’s pleasant smile and perpetually bushy hair formed. “James, you look very handsome,” she said proudly. “Don’t you listen to your uncle. He studied plenty and was just as worried about marks as anyone.”
“That’s not true!” a muffled voice called from the depths of the fireplace. Hermione grimaced. “Well, almost anyone,” she conceded. “Anyway, your mum and dad will be very proud of you, and so are your uncle and me. Oh, I just can’t believe how fast the time goes. It seems like only yesterday that we were all still there,” she sighed, looking around the common room. “It looks almost exactly the same. We’ll have to make a point of visiting next year. It’ll be nice to see the old place again.” Even in the embers, Aunt Hermione’s eyes glistened a little. She blinked, and then returned her gaze to James. “Anyway, James. Ron’s been talking to your father, you know, and the two of them wanted to ask you something. I thought it’d be best if someone besides either of them brought it up, though, because, frankly, they’re both so silly about it that they’d influence your response.”
“What is it?” James asked, squatting down in front of the fireplace.
“Don’t kneel,” Hermione chided automatically. “You’ll scuff up your pants with ash. It’s about the Headmistress. She’s planning to retire, you know.”
James didn’t know. “She is? But… what would she do with herself?” Hermione gave James a look that said she’d just remembered how old he was. “Minerva McGonagall has quite a life outside the walls of Hogwarts, James, as difficult as that may be for you believe. She’s even, I understand, taken Mr. Finney up on his offer of dinner in London.”
“She did?” James hooted.
“She did?” Noah chimed almost simultaneously from the couch, looking up from a book. Hermione rolled her eyes. “It was a purely professional meeting, I can assure you both. She performed a few minor memory modifications upon Mr. Finney, not really causing him to forget his visit here, but altering it. It’s all a part of Mr. Dolohov’s programme to ‘clean’--as he calls it--the school’s security record. Still,” Hermione added, lowering her voice a bit, “she did speak rather highly of Mr. Finney. It would be quite nice to think that she might find a, er, companion for herself. After all…”
“Hermione!” Ron’s voice barked from the depths of the fireplace again. “Anyway,” Hermione said, turning businesslike. “Yes, the Headmistress does plan to retire, possibly as soon as this summer, assuming a suitable replacement could be found. Most likely, she will stay on to teach Transfiguration and help the new headmaster, whoever he or she might be. Some had suggested Neville Longbottom, but the Ministry feels he might be a bit young for the post, which is just silly, but politics being what they are…”
“Merlin!” James exclaimed. “You’re all thinking of asking him to be the new headmaster!”
A whoop of happy triumph emanated from the depths of the fireplace. Hermione scowled.
“You can leave me out of this, thank you very much. This is all your father’s and uncle’s idea. But I can see you are as mad about it as they are.”
“But how can he be the headmaster?” Noah asked, jumping off the couch and crouching in front of the fireplace. “Sorry,” he added quickly. “Couldn’t help overhearing and all that.” “Really?” Hermione replied a bit archly. “Here, I had assumed you were suitably entrenched in that Arithmancy textbook. How silly of me. Please do keep it a secret, though, the both of you. Oh, what am I saying? Ron, you might as well explain this.” She sighed and blew her bangs out of her face in a gesture James remembered from his earliest memories of Aunt Hermione. She gave a bemused smile. “James, have a good trip. We’ll see you in a week. Rose and Hugo say hello and to buy them some Cauldron Cakes on the train. Good day, Noah.”
She disappeared from the embers and Uncle Ron’s face appeared again. “Exc
ellent idea, eh?” he announced, looking from Noah to James enthusiastically. “But how?” Noah asked again. “I mean, the bloke was the most potentially dangerous wizard in the history of the planet a few weeks ago, wasn’t he? And now you think the Ministry will put him in charge of a bunch of kids?”
“Not without lots of oversight,” Ron said quickly. He had obviously thought a lot about it. “That’s where McGonagall and Neville come in. They’ll watch him and help out, sort of like a board of directors. McGonagall has already agreed to it, although we had to push her a bit on it. She’s afraid she’ll still basically be doing all the work, but with Merlin getting the credit. Might happen, too, I guess, but your dad and I don’t think so. Merlin seems the sort of guy born to lead, you know?”
“Yeah,” James agreed. “But still, he comes from a time when leading meant telling people which guillotine had the shortest queue. I can’t imagine that the Ministry will agree to put him in charge of Hogwarts.”
“Your Merlin’s a surprisingly quick study, James,” Ron said seriously. “He’s already been all over the Ministry, meeting people and having big, long discussions about the way things work in this day and age. He’s warming up to it, I have to say!”
“So why wouldn’t they put him somewhere there, then?” Noah asked. “I mean, most famous wizard in the world and all. Seems like he’d be in line for Minister of Magic, if nothing else.” Ron grinned a bit maliciously. “I suppose you are both too young to understand the implications of the phrase ‘overqualified and underexperienced’. Basically, no department wants him. A guy like Merlin doesn’t work well behind a desk, for one thing. And it’s hard to imagine that any department head who hired him would stay the department head for very long afterwards.”
“You mean he’d take over, right?” James confirmed. “Take over, at the very least. He’s a bit of a loose cannon. Sure, he’s probably the most powerful single wizard alive today, but with a thousand-year gap in his work experience. As fast as he picks things up, he’s sure to be a poor fit in the red tape world of the Ministry. Your dad can hardly stand it, James. Think about what it’ll be like for a bloke who’s used to being able to banish his enemies to the netherworld with a glance. The fact of the matter is that the Ministry is looking for an out-of-the-way place to stick the old man. Someplace prominent enough to fit a wizard of his stature, but far enough away not to threaten anyone, metaphorically speaking. Or maybe even not metaphorically speaking. One never knows.”
James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing [1] Page 53