Dark Pasts { A Harry Potter Story }

Chapter 76 - Inferi and Ghosts

Hermione was just as skeptical as I about finding out how Malfoy was using the Room of Requirements. She kept reminding Harry that he should be focusing on getting that memory from Slughorn instead, and I greatly agreed with her.

"Look," Harry said quietly. "I haven't forgotten about Slughorn, but I haven't got a clue how to get that memory off him, and until I get a brain wave why shouldn't I find out what Malfoy's doing?"

"I've already told you, you need to persuade Slughorn," said Hermione. "It's not a question of tricking him or bewitching him, or Dumbledore could have done it in a second. Instead of messing around outside the Room of Requirement you should go and find Slughorn and start appealing to his better nature."

She grabbed her copy of the Daily Prophet and disappeared behind it, signalling the end of the conversation.

"Anyone we know?" Ron asked gloomily.

"Yes!" Hermione said, causing us to look at her in alarm. "But it's all right, he's not dead — it's Mundungus, he's been arrested and sent to Azkaban! Something to do with impersonating an Inferius during an attempted burglary . . ."

Relieved, we all went back to finish eating breakfast in silence before heading off to Defence Against the Dark Arts.

"Before we start, I want your dementor essays," Snape said as we all sat down, waving his wand carelessly so that twenty-five scrolls of parchment soaked into the air and landed in a neat pile on his desk. "And I hope for your sakes they are better than the tripe I had to endure on resisting the Imperius Curse. Now, if you will all open your books to page — what is it, Mr. Finnigan?"

"Sir," Seamus said, "I've been wondering, how do you tell the difference between an Inferius and a ghost? Because there was something in the paper about an Inferius —"

"No, there wasn't," Snape said in a bored voice.

"But sir, I heard people talking —"

"If you had actually read the article in question, Mr. Finnigan, you would have known that the so-called Inferius was nothing but a smelly sneak thief by the name of Mundungus Fletcher."

"I thought Snape and Mundungus were on the same side," Harry muttered to the three of us. "Shouldn't he be upset Mundungus has been arrest —"

"But Potter seems to have a lot to say on the subject," Snape said pointing suddenly at the back of the room, his black eyes fixed on Harry "Let us ask Potter how we would tell the difference between an Inferius and a ghost."

The entire class turned around to stare at him and I gulped.

"Er — well — ghosts are transparent —" he said.

"Oh, very good," Snape interrupted, his lip curling. "Yes, it is easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. 'Ghosts are transparent.' "

Several people began to laugh, making me feel bad for him, but he continued calmly. "Yeah, ghosts are transparent, but Inferi are dead bodies, aren't they? So they'd be solid —"

"A five-year-old could have told us as much," Snape said. "The Inferius is a corpse that has been reanimated by a Dark wizard's spells. It is not alive, it is merely used as a puppet to do the wizard's bidding. A ghost, as I trust that you are all aware by now, is the imprint of a departed soul left upon the earth . . . and of course, as Potter so wisely tells us, transparent."

"Well, what Harry said is the most useful if we're trying to tell them apart!" Ron said. "When we come face-to-face with one down a dark alley, we're going to be having a shufti to see if it's solid, aren't we, we're not going to be asking, 'Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?' "

Everyone in the class erupted into laughter, even Hermione was smirking slightly, though she tried to conceal it from Professor Snape, who was now boiling with anger.

"Ten points from Gryffindor," he said, causing everyone to become silent. "I would expect nothing more sophisticated from you, Ronald Weasley, the boy so solid he cannot Apparate half an inch across a room."

"Now open your books to page two hundred and thirteen," Snape said, smirking a little, "and read the first two paragraphs on theCruciatus Curse. . . ."

***

The following Sunday was our first Apparition lesson in Hogsmeade so Ron, Hermione and I left Harry in the common room and walked toward the entrance hall where Filch was inspecting students with his Secrecy Sensor.

The lesson went by quickly and Ron finally managed to Apparate, though he did need to work on his three Ds to get the location better next time. We all went for drinks at the Three Broomsticks afterward where Twycross went on and on about Hermione's Apparating abilities. I was glad then when Harry found us in the Great Hall for lunch.

"Guess who I saw this morning?" Harry said. "Tonks."

"Tonks?" The three of us said in surprise at the same time.

"Yeah, she said she'd come to visit Dumbledore. . . ."

"If you ask me," Ron said once Harry had finished describing his conversation with Tonks, "she's cracking up a bit. Losing her nerve after what happened at the Ministry."

I gulped nervously and looked down at my plate.

"It's a bit odd," Hermione said after a while. "She's supposed to be guarding the school, why's she suddenly abandoning her post to come and see Dumbledore when he's not even here?"

"I had a thought," Harry said tentatively. "You don't think she can have been . . . you know . . . in love with Sirius?"

"What on earth makes you say that?" I asked.

"I dunno," Harry said, shrugging, "but she was nearly crying when I mentioned his name . . . and her Patronus is a big four-legged thing now. . . . I wondered whether it hadn't become . . .you know . . . him."

"It's a thought," Hermione said slowly, but I frowned, not really thinking that was true. "But I still don't know why she'd be bursting into the castle to see Dumbledore if that's really why she was here. . . ."

"Goes back to what I said, doesn't it?" Ron said. "She's gone a bit funny. Lost her nerve. Women," he said to Harry, "they're easily upset."

Hermione and I exchanged a look before glaring at him.

"And yet," she said after a moment, "I doubt you'd find a woman who sulked for half an hour because MadamRosmerta didn't laugh at their joke about the hag, the Healer, and the Mimbulus mimbletonia."

I suppressed a laugh as Ron scowled and lowered his head to stare at his mashed potatoes.