Harry Potter and the Hall of Echoes [COMPLETED]

Chapter 8

'Go through it one more time,' said Hermione with a frown. 'You said that Professor Honeywell turned up? And she helped to heal him?'

Ron nodded as he ate another spoonful of cereal. 'She just appeared out of nowhere,' he said. 'But yeah, it was her who ended up healing him in the end. Then Professor Banjeev conjured this kind of floating stretcher for him to lie on, and then he and Honeywell guided him up the stairs.'

'And did you see what happened to Headmaster Hopkins?' Hermione asked Ron. 'Is he doing okay? Oh gosh, maybe we should ask Blake if he knows...'

Ron gripped his spoon a little tighter. 'Sure, let's ask old Blakey,' he muttered. 'You two are best pals now, aren't you...'

Hermione stared at him. 'What are you talking about?' she said.

'Oh, give it a rest,' Ron said. 'We saw you two hanging around together in the ballroom.'

Before Hermione could fire back a retort, Harry managed to speak first. 'Hopkins looked scared,' he said. 'He kept saying all this weird stuff... He was talking about how there's people everywhere, or something — and how he's "learned too much"...'

Hermione looked very concerned.

'And he was afraid of Honeywell,' Ron said. 'Kept trying to get away from her. He looked like he'd seen a ghost...'

'What's a Nightwelp?' Harry asked suddenly. 'Have you heard of them?'

'A what?' said Hermione.

'I don't know,' said Harry, shrugging. 'I was hoping maybe you would've come across it in a textbook or something... I think it might be some kind of animal.'

Hermione mulled over this new information. 'Well, I'll look it up,' she said. 'But it doesn't sound familiar... maybe you can only find them in Wales...'

'Oi, look,' said Ron, pointing. 'He's here...'

A very weak-looking Professor Hopkins had emerged from the entrance hall, and he limped over to the teachers' table at the end. After shaking the hand of Professor Banjeev, he said something to Honeywell, who was currently in the middle of her breakfast.

'He looks awful,' said Hermione. 'He really does...'

Harry raised his eyebrow at what he was seeing: Honeywell was nodding at Hopkins, and then she laughed in a carefree sort of way; she kept nodding, and laughing, and now Hopkins had joined in, too.

'I thought you said Hopkins was afraid of her,' Hermione pointed out to them. 'That doesn't look like fear to me.'

X

The incident with Professor Hopkins had left such an impression on Harry that he could think of almost nothing else in the days that followed. He kept bringing up the topic with Ron and Hermione, but both of them were now leaning towards the theory that it had just been a random animal attack.

'He was just delirious,' Ron suggested to Harry. 'I mean, that's probably why he didn't know who anyone was... Maybe whatever got him stung him with a little poison.'

'I guess,' said Harry tentatively. 'He did seem a little out of it, I suppose... But what do you think "Echoes" are?'

The word 'Echoes' had stuck in Harry's head for some reason: perhaps because the hallway had been filled with eerie echoes on the night they'd found Professor Hopkins bloodied and injured.

Another thing Harry couldn't understand, as the Summer Program went into its second week, was Blake's oddly indifferent attitude towards what had happened to his father. During their first Quidditch practice (which was held the morning after the hallway incident), Blake had barely even acknowledged what had happened. 'How's who?' he'd said absent-mindedly. 'Oh, right — he's always doing that, my old man... Always getting into trouble with things he isn't supposed to.'

And when Harry had asked him about in the dormitory, just yesterday, Blake had seemed confused at first, and then a little irritated. 'He's just like that,' Blake had said tersely. 'Just not — just — always... interfering... Stop asking me, all right?'

What with the Hopkins incident, the underwhelming nature of their Quidditch practices (Dartford were not good), as well as the ample amounts of homework the teachers had given to them, Harry found himself privately regretting his decision to come here on exchange.

'Isn't this just fascinating?' enthused Hermione, during a double-period class on Internal Energy. 'I mean, I don't think they actually cover this material at Hogwarts — it's essentially a whole new area of magic...'

'Oh, absolutely,' Ron muttered, causing Harry to stare at him in surprise. 'I just love learning about this weird, mystical "energy" that binds us with birds and rats.'

Before Hermione could retort, Harry nudged Ron in the side — he gestured towards Professor Honeywell, who was teaching their class.

'What?' Ron muttered.

'Look,' said Harry, who had noticed something odd. 'Take a look at Honeywell's arm.'

'I don't see anything,' Ron said. 'It looks normal to me.'

'Exactly,' Harry said. 'Remember what it looked like that night we found Professor Hopkins? It doesn't look like that anymore.'

Ron mulled over this for a second. 'Yeah, that's definitely weird,' he agreed. 'But there's gotta be an explanation — maybe it's something to do with all this experimental magic she does...'

Professor Honeywell was currently levitating a small ferret using her wand, and with her other hand, she was holding some sort of prickly pot plant. She threw the pot plant up into the air, causing the students to audibly gasp, but rather than crashing to the ground, the plant remained suspended next to the ferret.

'A plant does not have feelings,' Honeywell explained, 'but a plant, just like us, has its own internal energy. Using magic,' (she pulled the ferret and plant closer together) 'we can manipulate these energies for our own ends — we can learn to move this energy around, make it bend to our will...'

Honeywell turned her wandless hand into a fist shape, and the ferret suddenly went limp: the plant, on the other hand, seemed to twitch into life.

The majority of the class seemed shocked at this performance; they were all staring at the ferret, which was floating in the air, its eyes very cold and dead. But a moment later, Honeywell opened up her hand, and the ferret let out a small, frightened yelp. It began scrambling around, looking confused and frightened, and it looked very grateful indeed when Honeywell returned it to the ground.