Michael Corner and The Education of Wizards

Michael Corner and The Really Helpful Bird's Head

'Ye gods! What a mess,' said Boot as we made our way down to the Great Hall. The corridors were strewn with rubble and most of the portraits were lying smashed against the walls. Their occupants were huddling like refugees in the few intact frames. 'It'll take more than a bunch of elves to put this lot right.'

'If there are any left alive,' said Tony Goldstein, who was limping with difficulty as both his feet had been hurt.

'I'm sure that most of them survived,' I said. 'They knew how to look after themselves.'

I didn't want to admit it, but the sight of the elves, boiling up out of their kitchen, armed to the teeth, was the most terrifying thing I had seen on a completely terrifying night. Poppy Pom-pom had sealed the wound on my arm, and it still ached like hell, but the memory of all those knives and cleavers at knee height still made me twitch

'They were a fearsome sight,' said Boot. 'I'll never look at our Benjy in the same way again.'

'Would he have joined in?' said Tony.

'Sure he would,' said Boot. 'He's a happy chappy; they generally are, but I reckon Granger had a point with her Liberation Front. If they all rose up together we'd be in dead trouble.'

'How do you feel about going home?' I asked him. He had a bandage over his eye, which he had told us, quite casually, that he was likely to lose.

'I sent them a message by Sprout,' he said. Sprout was his Patronus, a spaniel. 'I said I'd been hurt so it won't be a shock.'

'Are you going to have an eyepatch?' asked Tony. 'Like a pirate?'

'I'd thought of going with a RovingEye,' he said. 'Like that nutter Moody. Only I'd get one that actually fitted.'

'Now there was a man who raised paranoia to an art form,' I said, remembering some of his lessons. 'Constant Vigilance! I'll never forget that. What happened to him? I didn't see him tonight.'

'Ginny said he'd been killed last year, just before they took over,' said Tony. 'They never found the body.'

The great Hall was even noisier and chaotic than ever, with rubble piled in corners, and people all over the place. The tables were already arranged, so the elves had been busy, and we gravitated by habit towards Ravenclaw, but it was rammed. In fact the only table with any space was Slytherin, and that was because so many Slytherins had been pushed out before the battle. The only Slytherin I saw was Malfoy, huddling in a corner with his parents. The other reason why the Slytherin table had space was because it was occupied by McGonagall, the Slug and the Proflet who were heads down at one end, listening to Hagrid who was sitting at the end of the table. The Proflet saw us and waved us over.

'Come and join us, boys,' he said. 'Grab a pew. Rubeus was just telling us what happened in The Forest.'

'So he walked into the Spiders' Den?' McGonagall prompted Hagrid as we sat down.

'Nah. 'E didn't walk. 'E jus' appeared,' said Hagrid, screwing his great face up in memory. 'They said, ''e's not coming' and then, then there he was.'

'Invisibility Cloak,' said McGonagall. 'He has a perfect Invisibility Cloak. He had it with him this evening because he did the same with me. Just appeared. Albus had it at one time and he showed it to me. Perfect.'

'He had a Cloak, did he?' said The Proflet. 'Good heavens! Then that explains a great many things. And probably more when I think about it.'

'So he was there,' prompted The Slug. 'Did he fight?'

'Didn't do a thing,' said Hagrid. 'Jus' stood there, starin' at You-know-who, and You-know-who stared back. Then he ... Then he ...' Hagrid couldn't go on.