Chapters 81-90

It’s You!

One afternoon at the end of May, Alina Petrel skipped down the narrow stairs from the Owlery, feeling particularly pleased with herself. Not only had she completed important Order business to her satisfaction, but she’d managed to sneak in a personal question and had received a very good tip in return.

Ebe, Cato and her other friends would be proud of her.

But now she had to find a particular portrait. He turned out to be exactly where she’d been told to look for him: in a remote, dusty corridor on the seventh floor of the South Tower. At first sight, Alina wasn’t impressed. A fat grey pony stood in a meadow full of flowers. A huge sword stuck in the ground. From behind a particularly large tuft of grass, the sound of snoring could be heard.

Alina cleared her throat. ‘Sir Cadogan? Sir? I’ve come to you because I am a—damsel in distress and I—’ Good God, that sounded bizarre! ‘I require rescuing.’

That produced an instant reaction. A small man shot up out of the grass and proceeded to drag at the grip of the sword. But the weapon was so firmly embedded in the ground that it wouldn’t budge. He was getting quite red-faced with exertion. At last the blade broke free, sending a shower of earth and clumps of grass spattering against the canvas. Instinctively, Alina ducked.

The knight, his sword now proudly brandished, bowed to her and almost skewered himself. ‘Sir Cadogan at your service,’ he wheezed. ‘Dearest lady, what may such a humble knight as I am do to aid you in your distress?’

Alina pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t start laughing.

‘I need an escort to the forbidden gallery of petrified portraits,’ she said—as she hoped, quite lady-like and demurely.

Sir Cadogan swung his sword in a wild arc. ‘A young noble lady? In need of an escort? It is my duty, my honour and my…pleasure.’

He offered her a distinctly sleazy smile.

oooOooo

But Sir Cadogan knew the way to the gallery, and he never stopped to think why a First Year Slytherin wanted to visit the Forbidden Gallery of Petrified Portraits.

He led her up and down and left and right, right and left and down and up, until she had no idea where she was. And then he left her.

‘Are you sure you will be all right, dear lady? As you see, for obvious reasons, I cannot enter here.’ He eyed the hallway with patent misgivings.

In the dark tower that dominated the landscape of the painting he had just entered, a light flared up. ‘Errr… fair lady, I am afraid I must bid you goodbye. The lord of these lands is not very cordial towards occasional visitors.’

With that he kicked his heels into the flanks of his poor pony and galloped away.

oooOooo

It was the gallery, all right. Alina was looking at it from inside out, now, but she did recognise it all the same. She stood in the distant staircase, and in front of her opened the long, dark hallway with the strange, still pictures, so unlike any other pictures Alina had ever seen in the wizarding world.

Alina inhaled deeply, lifted her wand (alder, with the core of a Gryffin feather) and called light with a whispered ‘Lumos’.

She stepped into the corridor. It was longer than she would have expected. Apparently quite a number of Dark Teachers had accumulated at Hogwarts over the years. Including her father. She took a deep breath.

Now that she was here, she knew exactly where she had to go.

The left wall, about thirty feet inside, maybe forty, so she’d still be able to see the staircase in the distance if she’d been looking at it from the other side.

oooOooo

And there he was. The picture of a wizard as a young man, weak chin, nervous disposition, non-descript brown hair and light, muddy eyes, posture prim and stiff, eyes averted to the left.

She stared at him.

It was disconcerting how he didn’t move. How he fixed the left part of his frame with this strange, cross-eyed stare. He looked dead.

Only then her eyes dropped to the name inscribed at the bottom of the golden frame.

He didn’t just look dead. He was dead.

‘You! It’s you!’ she hissed, raising balled fists as if she wanted to beat against the canvas. ‘You! You…’ She fell silent.

Filthy coward. Fucking traitor. Sick bastard.

Daddy dearest.

Professor Quirinus Quirrell.

‘It didn’t say that you’re a Necromancer in “Hogwarts: A History (Revised Edition)”,’ she whispered. ‘Arsehole.’

She took a deep breath. And another. And another. The world came back to her in bits and pieces. The wand was first. Still firmly clutched in her right hand. The flagstones under her feet were next. Solid, cold. Then her heart, racing inside her chest.

Her father had helped Voldemort return.

Her father was dead.

And why the hell was he staring to the left of his frame like that? She followed his gaze and noticed an indentation in the frame, something that looked almost like a button. She reached up and pressed down without stopping to think.

The portrait swung open noiselessly, revealing a small niche in the wall behind it. In the small, stony hollow a bell sat in the shadows. It was bigger than Ranna, but fashioned alike. The bell’s body was silver, the handle mahogany. Alina reached up with both hands and carefully lifted the bell down, fingers fumbling for the clapper so it wouldn’t ring. With a shaking hand she swung the portrait back into place.

She clutched the bell against her chest and stared up at her father. ‘You thought someone would come and ring this bell for you, right?’

Her nostrils flared with contempt. ‘Tough luck, daddy. Because I won’t do it.’

With that, Alina turned and walked away, head held high, the second bell hidden under her robes.

oooOooo

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