The Art of An Ending

Chapter Fourteen: The Cursed Necklace

Where was Dumbledore, and what was he doing? Erica caught sight of the Headmaster only twice over the next few weeks. He rarely appeared at meals anymore, and Erica was sure she was right in thinking that he was leaving the school for days at a time. Had Dumbledore forgotten the meetings that he had been having with her? He had said they were leading up to whatever the items were; Erica had felt bolstered, comforted, and now she felt slightly abandoned.

Halfway through October came their first trip of the term to Hogsmeade. She had wondered whether these trips would still be allowed, given the increasingly tight security measures around the school, but was pleased to know that they were going ahead; it was always good to get out of the castle grounds for a few hours.

Erica woke early on the morning of the trip, which was proving stormy, and whiled away the time until breakfast by working through the Transfiguration notes she had so far for figuring out a reverse to the permanent human transfiguration spell they had discovered in their third-year- and which, according to everyone else, Erica had destroyed. When that proved to be too frustrating for her sleep-addled brain, she instead picked up Severus' old copy of Advanced Potion-Making, which she had kept along with her own, and flicked through it. The little jinxes and hexes scribbled in the margins had proved to be very imaginative, and though Erica had still not asked Severus about them, she found that it was interesting to see what his younger self had come up with.

She had, of course, already attempted a few of these self-invented spells. There had been a hex that caused toenails to grow alarmingly fast (she had tried this on Crabbe in the corridor, with very entertaining results); a jinx that glued the tongue to the roof of the mouth (which she had used twice, to general applause, on an unsuspecting Argus Filch); and, perhaps most useful of all, Muffliato, a spell that filled the ears of anyone nearby with an unidentifiable buzzing, so that lengthy conversations could be held in class without being overheard.

Sitting up in bed, Erica turned the book sideways so as to examine more closely the scribbled instructions for a spell that seemed to have caused Severus some trouble. There were many crossings-out and alterations, but finally, crammed into a corner of the page, the scribble:

Levicorpus (n-vbl)

While the wind and sleet pounded relentlessly on the windows and Millicent snored loudly, Erica stared at the letters in brackets. N-vbl... that had to mean non-verbal. Pointing her wand at nothing in particular, she gave it an upward flick and said Levicorpus! Inside her head.

"Aaaaargh!"

There was a flash of light and the room was full of voices: everyone had woken up as Pansy had let out a yell. Erica sent Advanced Potion-Making flying in panic; Pansy was dangling upside-down in midair as though an invisible hook had hoisted her up by the ankle, revealing her rather frilly underwear as her nightshirt fell over her head.

"Sorry!" Erica yelled as Millicent, Daphne and Tracey roared with laughed and Pansy attempted to cover herself back up with her nightshirt, tugging it up to reveal her flushed face. "Hang on- I'll let you down-"

She groped for the potion book and rifled through it in a panic, trying to find the right page; at last she located it and deciphered one cramped word underneath the spell: praying that this was the counter-jinx, Erica thought Liberacorpus! With all her might.

There was another flash of light and Pansy fell into a heap onto her mattress.

"Sorry," repeated Erica weakly, while Tracey and Millicent continued to snort with laughter.

"Tomorrow," said Pansy in a muffled voice, "I'd rather you set the alarm clock."

By the time they got dressed, padding themselves out with undershirts and jumpers and carrying cloaks, scarves and gloves, Pansy's shock had subsided and she had decided that the spell was rather decent; so decent, in fact, that she lost no time in regaling Draco with the story as they sat down for breakfast.