Chimaera Of Judgement

42: The Room of Charred Skeletons

Paranoia settled over Albus Potter following his brush with being buried alive in Greenhouse Two. Now that the alleged ghost-manipulating serial killer had been whisked away to Azkaban, the students were more at ease, Fane the exorcist left for parts unknown, and Professor Binns was reinstated. Albus was almost positive that at any moment another scream would ring through the corridors, and a body would turn up at the foot of a staircase or bobbing in the lake.

Fortunately for everyone, nothing of the kind happened. The rest of May slipped by in relative peace, serenely uneventful and free of all cares. This was not strictly true, of course - the Quidditch practices had become nothing less than physical torture, and homework and studying seemed to suck up every last drop of free time they had between classes, practises, and trivial matters like eating and sleeping. Classmates in their O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. years had begun running down to the Potions classroom to brew up entire cauldrons of the Draught Of Peace, hoping to keep themselves from leaping off the Astronomy Tower. Alas, it did not help all of them, for the poorer students invariably made the potion wrong and ended up closer to their wit's end than before.

Jezabel alone had any time to herself, which she spent pursuing the unhealthy activity of reading up on her biological mother. Both Albus and Rose told her many times that nothing good could come from acquainting herself with such sordid exploits, but she did not listen.

"What if I start trending toward some of the same pitfalls?" she protested. "I'll want to know what to expect so I can avoid them, right? I... I don't want to become a Dark witch!"

"There's about as much chance of that as Al becoming Minister for Magic," Rose laughed.

Al nodded. "Exactly. Hey, now wait a minute!"

As it turned out, Albus's father had been entirely correct about the Hogwarts professors; even Hagrid seemed to think they were suffering from overactive imaginations when they told him they thought Dorika might be innocent.

"I knows I'm more or less talkin' ter the wall here," he warned, pouring tea into each of their bucket-sized mugs, "but don' be goin' off half-cocked, lookin' fer villains an' thieves where there aren' any! Tha' silly Dunsmore girl got herself inter somethin' she ough' not have, and look how she ended!"

"But I saw the ghost leave her body," Albus repeated doggedly. "Why don't you think that could mean-"

"She probably let it possess her ter begin with," he said, swirling his mug around with one hand and scratching at his beard with the other. "Migh've been wha' gave her power over those other ghosts, eh? Made her able ter lift yeh up with one hand? Hones'ly, I've seen tha' wee twig, and she could no more lif' another student than you two could lif' me!"

They had to admit he made a convincing word picture.

In the absence of a Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, Barty's mother was once again dropped unceremoniously into another subject. Albus couldn't help but wonder at their luck procuring her at the beginning of the schoolyear, as there wasn't an especially long list of wizards and witches capable of handling nearly every course in the school. As it so happened, Professor Weasley had actually been quite a bit better at teaching History of Magic than the dull-as-dishwater Binns (Albus's marks had improved slightly since Belvina Hitchens's forehead was inked), but unfortunately her aptitude for Defence was not as sharp. Nevertheless, she did what she could, which was all they really required this late in the year.

It was during lunch one Wednesday that Albus heard something that infuriated him and interrupted an otherwise pleasant half-month. On his way out of the Great Hall, he heard a familiar voice off to his left from amidst a knot of cloaks.