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Chapter Text

Any graduate of a respectable public school will confirm that, should it become absolutely imperative for a certain someone to sneak out of that school unnoticed and in contravention of all school rules, there is nearly always a way. The ways themselves are, of course, as various as the schools.

            In Hannah Abbott’s case, the school was Hogwarts, a school of witchcraft and wizardry, but a school, nevertheless. The imperative need to sneak out of Hogwarts came to Hannah late in the autumn of her second year at that school. Hannah was not one of those naturally inclined towards adventure. She was in Hufflepuff House and was very much at home there. Her favourite subject was Herbology because magical plants were—with a few notable exceptions—slow, quiet, and predictable. Hannah was a shy, pink-faced girl and was generally content to exist in the shadow of her more talkative friends, most notably a young man by the name of Macmillan.

            She had not discussed her current plan with him. She’d not discussed her plan with anyone, in case they tried to talk her out of it. She’d almost talked herself out of it several times already, and certainly didn’t want any help in that area.

            Hannah slept badly the night before putting her plan into action. While staring at the canopy of her four-poster bed and listening the quiet breathing of the four other girls who shared her dormitory, she divided her time between thinking about her plan—and all the various ways in which it could go wrong—and thinking about her other best friend, Justin Finch-Fletchley. She imagined him lying in the hospital wing, as still and as cold as ice.

            With dawn approaching, she got up silently from her bed, dressed in the total darkness, and put on the knapsack she had carefully packed the night before. Then she slipped out of the dormitory, across the common room, and out of the Hufflepuff Basement. On the far side of the broad stone corridor was an enormous painting depicting a bowl of fruit. Hannah crossed to the painting and tickled the large green pear with a practiced touch. The pear giggled audibly, and the painting swung aside to reveal a doorway.

            Beyond was a huge, high-ceilinged room, the mirror of the Great Hall far above. The five long tables stood empty for now, but the great ovens and pot-bellied stoves that lined the walls already blazed with life. Over a hundred house-elves were hard at work, baking loaves of crusty bread and stirring huge cauldrons of porridge. Hannah waved to one or two of them as she passed. The house-elves were used to students, especially Hufflepuffs, visiting the kitchens in search of extra food. Hannah in particular was a familiar visitor. No one moved to stop her and one of the older elves smiled indulgently as the girl helped herself to a slice of warm bread and slathered it with honey.

            Chewing abstractedly, Hannah drifted towards the far end of the long room where a door stood open. Beyond, there was a kind of stone bay where a brightly painted cart was being unloaded. Canary yellow letters splashed on its side proclaimed the cart to belong to “Fabian Bullfinch – Hygienic Heggler”. A skinny wizard in a striped apron was passing down crates of eggs and churns of milk to a team of industrious elves. Effecting an air of only mild interest, Hannah stood and watched them while she continued to eat her bread and honey.

            Once the eggs were all carefully stowed in the kitchen’s enchanted cold room, the elves—with more haste and less care—loaded the cart up again with the empty crates and churns from the carter’s last visit and the carter, looking well-pleased with the morning’s work, went to join the elves in a cup of thick, sweet tea.

            This was the moment for which Hannah had been waiting. She swallowed the last of her bread at a gulp and wiped her hands on her robes. A glance around confirmed that no one was paying her any attention. She slipped out of the open door and climbed up onto the back of the cart, crouching down amongst the empty milk churns. There were some pieces of old sacking on the bed of the cart. She pulled one over her head and then concentrated all her energies on looking as much like an empty churn under some old sacking as she possibly could. She was obliged to persist in this taxing activity for some ten or twelve minutes while the carter finished his tea. Then she heard the wooden creak as he mounted the box, the jingle of the harness as he plied the rein, and resigned whicker of the huge carthorse as the beast began to shuffle forward. The cart lurched and they were off.

            Hannah couldn’t see where they were going, but she felt the weak glow of the early morning sun as they passed out from the shelter of the loading bay and started down the track that led towards Hogsmeade Village. Away from the castle, the track levelled out and the horse and cart began to pick up a little speed. The empty churns and crates shifted, pressing Hannah hard against the painted boards. She waited until the cart slowed again and then chanced a peek out from under her sacking. They were passing through the village centre, presumably bound for the headquarters of the Hygienic Heggler. The houses, built in the rustic wizarding style, were still mostly dark and shuttered, which suited Hannah very well.

            Gathering her courage, she shucked off the sacking and clambered over the half door at the back of the cart. She hung from it for a moment by her fingertips, then let go and rolled as she hit the cobbles, sucking in a small squeak of pain. The distress of the impact passed quickly however, and Hannah stood up and brushed the dust vigorously from her robes. She straightened her pigtails, resettled her rucksack, and began to walk determinedly in the direction of Hogsmeade Station.

            There was a sleepy-looking wizard with long grey side-whiskers on duty behind the ticket counter.

            “One ticket for London, please,” said Hannah firmly, pushing across a silver sickle.

            The man gave her a long, slow look as he accepted the coin.

            “Not running away from school are you, miss?” he inquired.

            “Certainly not! It’s my mother. She wrote to me telling…” Hannah began, launching into her carefully prepared and rehearsed story.

            “Only joking, miss,” said the ticket wizard with dry chuckle. “Here’s your ticket.”

            Hannah took the ticket, feeling somewhat deflated.

            She waited anxiously on the practically empty platform, still clutching the ticket and bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. When at last the huge red locomotive rumbled out of the train sheds and took up its proper place, exhaling steam into the early December air, Hannah let out a long sigh of relief.

            A few minutes later, she was on board and underway, off to King’s Cross Station and the city of London.

Chapter Text

Hercule Poirot was enjoying an eleven o’clock repast in the sunroom of his Whitehaven Mansions flat when the unexpected caller arrived. A pungent tisane steamed gently in an imperial porcelain cup while the great detective nibbled delicately at a chocolate biscuit. The doorbell rang. Poirot set down the biscuit and listened, his expressive eyebrows drawn together in a slight frown.

            He heard the steps of his manservant George crossing the flat and then, distantly, the sound of the front door being opened. Whoever stood without spoke quietly and so, as was his habit, did George. A moment later, Poirot heard the valet’s footsteps returning. They paused at the door of the sunroom and George coughed discreetly.

            “Yes, Georges?”

            “A young lady to see you, Monsieur Poirot. She says she is not acquainted with you personally but was recommended to consult you by a Mrs. Summerhayes whom she hopes you may remember.”

            “But of course. Madame Summerhayes is not of the type that is easily forgotten.” He seemed to muse for a moment. “This young lady, she is of what age?”

            “Quite young, sir. Still a girl really. Thirteen perhaps. Not more.”

            “And she wishes to consult Hercule Poirot.”

            “So she gave me to understand, sir.”

            “Then it is either the triviality or of the most deadly serious. There’s no room for the in-between at that age.”

            “Quite so, sir.”

            “You had better send her to me, Georges. And perhaps a pot of chocolate and a few more biscuits?”

            “Certainly, sir.”

            George departed and a few moments later was replaced by a small girl with a pink face and blonde pigtails, wearing a warm jumper over what was obviously some kind of school uniform. Poirot rose as she hesitantly entered the sunroom and motioned her to a chair.

            “Mademoiselle, welcome. I beg you will make yourself comfortable.”

            “Thank you very much.”

            “I am Hercule Poirot,” the detective said, resuming his own seat with a certain complacency.

            “My name is Hannah Abbott, Mr. Poirot. My mother is great friends with Maureen Summerhayes. We stayed at her boarding house in the country last summer.”

            Poirot smiled, a flicker of mischief stirring in his green, feline eyes.

            “I too have stayed with Madame Summerhayes in my time. She is a most aimable lady.”

            “Oh yes, she’s awfully kind. Especially to animals.”

            “Those dogs of hers…”

            Hannah smiled. “They went everywhere with her! All over the house, climbing over the furniture…”

            Poirot pressed the back of his hand to his forehead in mock horror. “Oh, do not remind me!”

            That made Hannah laugh. “Yes, it was rather like living in a kennel at times. And the house is quite a creaky, leaky old place really. All right for the summer, but I wouldn’t want to live there in the winter.”

            “There I see you have the sturdy English common sense.”

            “The food was all right at least. She makes the most wonderful omelettes.”

            At this, Poirot’s face lit up and he leant forward in his chair. “It was I who taught her to make the omelettes, you know.”

            “What? Really?”

            Poirot nodded emphatically. “I felt it was my Christian obligation to my fellow boarders.”

            Hannah laughed again and a moment later George returned with a steaming cup of drinking chocolate and a plate of ginger biscuits. Hannah accepted these gratefully and relaxed in her chair as she sipped at the thick, almost molten chocolate. Poirot took a single sip of his tisane before setting the cup aside and turning his green gaze upon Hannah.

            “It is most pleasant this,” he said lightly, “but somehow I do not think you have come here today to talk only of dogs and omelettes.”

            Hannah shook her head and lowered her cup.

            “No, I’ve come…” She bit her lip. “I’ve come because Mrs. Summerhayes said that if ever I found myself caught up in a real mystery—I was reading a mystery novel in a hammock in her garden—I should immediately place the whole matter before you. She said you would always find out the truth. And that’s what I want, Mr. Poirot. I want to know the truth about something.”

            Poirot considered her for a long moment.

            “Tell me,” he said simply.

            Still nibbling at her lower lip, Hannah stared hard at the plate of biscuits. “The thing is, in order to understand the mystery, you’ll have to understand a lot of other things first. Things about the world, I mean. The world I live in. And those things might be very hard to believe.”

            Poirot sipped his tisane once more and dabbed delicately at his magnificent moustaches with a linen napkin.

            “I can believe almost anything, Mademoiselle, as long as it is true.”

            So, Hannah told him.

            She told him about wizards and witches and Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic and the International Statute of Secrecy. She told him about obliviation and Muggle-repelling charms, about ghosts and goblins, about Diagon Alley and Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Finally, worrying that Poirot might have already dismissed her as a babbling lunatic, she started pulling books out of her bag and handing them to him. She had most of her schoolbooks with her and several others besides: Curses and Counter-Curses¸ Enchantment in Baking, and, of course, Hogwarts: A History. Poirot studied all these intently, flipping through them and between them until at last he nodded in satisfaction.

            “Bien. These books, they were not written by children, nor by madmen, nor even by one single author alone. They speak with many voices but for the facts… for the facts, they agree. And they agree with your story also, Mademoiselle.”

            “Does that you mean you believe me?” asked Hannah hopefully.

            Poirot cocked his egg-shaped head on one side, considering. “For the time being, let us say instead that I treat your story very seriously. Please, continue.”

            Hannah nodded and drew in a deep breath. “Something’s happening at Hogwarts, Mr. Poirot. Something terrible.”

            Poirot nodded gravely. “Tell me all of it, from the beginning, and omitting no detail.”

             “It started on the night of the Hallowe’en feast,” said Hannah. Then she frowned. “No, I suppose it may have started even before that. You see, it may have something to do with Harry Potter…”

Chapter Text

The full explanation of the disturbing happenings at Hogwarts took some time, in no small part because Hannah had frequently to stop and explain new concepts to her listener, including petrification, the wizarding preoccupation with blood purity, and the celebrity status of a twelve-year old boy called Harry Potter. When the tale of woe was fully unfolded, Poirot sat back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. He mused silently for a spell and when he eventually spoke his voice was thoughtful and somehow distant.

            “So, the other students of your house… they suppose that these things, these crimes, are committed by the boy Potter. But you, eh? You are not so certain.”

            Hannah nodded. “I know the case against him looks pretty black. I mean, two different Muggle-borns and a Squib have run-ins with Harry and then all three of them get attacked. Or, well, I suppose it was Mr. Filch’s cat that was actually attacked. But you see what I mean! And then we find out that Harry’s a Parselmouth.”

            “It all fits together, eh?”

            “Yes. I mean, no. Well, I suppose it does. It’s just that…”

            “Yes?”

            “It’s just that he’s always seemed so nice.”

            Poirot smiled, though his green eyes remained sombre. “I have met a great many murderers, Mademoiselle Abbott. A great many. And many of them could be very charming when it suited them.”

            Hannah shook her head. “No, I don’t mean that he’s charming. He isn’t. He’s a boy. You know how boys my age are, Mr. Poirot. They slouch and mumble and scratch themselves and all they know how to talk about is Quidditch.”

            “Ah, but it is very true that.”

            Hannah nodded and pressed on. “I just mean Harry seems, well, nice. He’s probably the most famous wizard in England but he acts like he doesn’t even know it. He hangs around with people like Neville Longbottom and Hermoine Granger and the groundskeeper, Mr. Hagrid—people no one else seems to think count very much. And last year, when one of the professors turned out to be a dark wizard in disguise, Harry risked his life to protect the school.”

            She looked down at the crumbs of ginger biscuit on her China plate.

            “I know what the evidence says. But I also know what kind of person Harry is, and I just can’t make those two things fit together, Mr. Poirot.”

            Poirot sat up excitedly, his catlike eyes aglow. “Magnifique! This is the argument from psychology. Yes, yes. I will take this case.”

            Hannah looked up, her pink face brightening. Her wide eyes reflected the glow of Poirot’s sudden enthusiasm.

            “You will?”

            “I will,” Poirot affirmed. “You may depend upon me, Mademoiselle.”

            “But can you really solve it? Can you find the Heir of Slytherin?”

            Poirot smiled. “We shall see. I very seldom fail. But I cannot solve anything from my armchair. Once I have all the facts, yes. Then I may sit back and let the little grey cells perform their miracles. But first I must have facts, facts beyond those you have been able to tell me. And those facts, they exist in one place only.”

            “You don’t mean…”

            “I do. I, Hercule Poirot, must go to Hogwarts.”

            Hannah chewed her lip dubiously. “I’m not sure it will work. You see… you’re not a wizard, Mr. Poirot. It’s already breaking the Statute of Secrecy for me even to be telling you about Hogwarts. If I try to bring you there…”

            “Ah, but what does it really take to make a wizard?”

            Hannah stared at him. “Magic, of course.”

            “No, no. You do not comprehend. When you are walking along… how do you call it? Diagon Alley! When you are walking along Diagon Alley and you see the other wizards, they are not all casting spells all the time, n’est-ce pas?

            “No, I suppose not.”

            “So how is it that you know they are wizards? How are they known to belong?”

            “By their clothes and things, I suppose.”

            “Exactement. Therefore, before you and I return to Hogwarts, it is only necessary that I should buy wizardly ‘clothes and things’. You will help me in this, yes?”

And so it was that Hannah Abbott found herself, an hour or so later, standing shoulder to shoulder with Poirot in the dingy little lot behind the tavern known as the Leaky Cauldron, contemplating a blank brick wall.

            “Now the thing is,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Once I open the wall, you’re probably going to start feeling all kinds of Muggle-repelling charms, Mr. Poirot.”

            Poirot took a huge, turnip-faced pocket watch from his coat and consulted it briefly, giving the glass a careful polish with his handkerchief before returning it to its pocket.

            “I feel them already,” he announced calmly.

            “You what?”

            “The charms you spoke of. I hear them. They are like thoughts in the mind. They say to me, ‘Hercule, why are you standing here? Surely, you are forgetting a most important appointment.’ But I am Hercule Poirot. I do not forget appointments. I consult the little list I keep in my mind and find that, bien, there is no appointment. So I dismiss the thought and let him pass.”

            Hannah stared at him, amazed. “The charms don’t work on you at all?”

            Poirot shrugged. “I hear them, certainly. I do not wonder that on most people they should prove most effective. But they are no match for the methodical, the orderly mind.”

            Hannah narrowed her eyes. “You’re absolutely sure you’re not a wizard, Mr. Poirot?”

            He smiled. “I am a detective, Mademoiselle. Nothing less.”

            She shook her head and straightened her shoulders, facing the wall once more. Taking a deep breath, she raised her wand and tapped several bricks in sequence. Her memory did not let her down. There was a moment of rumbling anticipation and then the brick wall folded aside like a curtain, revealing the gaudy, bustling, improbable length of Diagon Alley.

            They went first to Gringotts Wizarding Bank where Hercule Poirot changed British pounds for golden galleons, and then on to Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions where Poirot made a lifelong friend of Madam Malkin by discussing with her at length the various kinds of hems and pleats she favoured when designing dress robes. They continued to chat while Hannah paced anxiously about the tiny shop and Madam Malkin finished adjusting the robes Poirot had selected, her wand and her needle moving together like experienced partners through the steps of a familiar dance. As she packed the robes—one dove grey, the other duck egg blue—carefully in two garment bags, Poirot let his attention wander to a display of school ties. Madam Malkin noted his interest and, sensing a possible sale, directed his attention to a blue and gold tie bearing a device of crossed wands and falling stars.

            “Lovely work, aren’t they?” she suggested. “You’ll be a Beauxbatons man, of course. I always keep a few Beauxbatons and Ilvermorny ties on hand for visitors. There’s something about being far from home, I suppose, that makes people nostalgic for the old school days.”

            “Beauxbatons…” said Poirot thoughtfully, as though tasting the word. “Yes, I think you are wise, Madame.”

            He picked up the tie. “May I add this to my bill?”

            He could, as it happened, and soon he and Hannah were leaving the shop with the soft parcels tucked neatly under Poirot’s arm.

            “What did you want that for?” asked Hannah. “You’ve never even been to Beauxbatons.”

            “No,” agreed Poirot. “But then again, neither have most of the wizards in this country, nest-ce pas? Therefore, it is an excellent place from which I should be supposed to have come.”

            “I see,” said Hannah. “It adds to the disguise.”

            “It adds the verisimilitude,” Poirot agreed. “And now I should take the opportunity to make a few other small purchases to that same end.”

            He did indeed visit several other shops in quick succession. At Scribbulus Writing Implements, he bought quills, parchment, and bottle of colour-changing ink. At Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment, he selected a pack of divination cards, each one beautifully illustrated like an illuminated manuscript. In Sugar Plum’s Sweetshop, and on Hannah’s advice, he purchased a small bag of Pepper Imps and chortled to himself when the first one caused him to exhale fire and steam from both of his ears. He finished up by buying few more magical reference books from Flourish and Blotts. At each new shop Hannah was afraid the proprietor would unmask Poirot, would realize at a glance that this man was not her aimable, wizarding uncle but a Muggle detective. But even in a crisp suit and homburg hat there was something undeniably eccentric, even otherworldly about Poirot: his huge black moustaches, his egg-shaped head, even the precise, prancing step with which he walked. No, Poirot did not look like a Muggle.

            “The only real trouble,” said Hannah, during a pause for tea and buns, “will be the wand.”

Chapter Text

By dint of much negotiating with the witch who ran the teashop, Poirot had obtained a fresh cup of a bergamot and pennyroyal tisane. He sipped at this thoughtfully as he considered Hannah’s words.

            “But of course. A wizard must have a wand, must he not?”

            “Yes, but buying a wand’s not like buying sweets, you know,” said Hannah dubiously. “There’s only one place to get a wand, and that’s Ollivander’s. He… well, it’s almost like a sort of test. ‘The wand chooses the wizard.’ That’s what he says. So he makes you try all these different wands until something happens.”

            “What kind of something?”

            “Something magical. Sparks, or wind, or music. It could be different for everybody, my dad says.”

            “But for me, which wand I hold matters not. I am not a wizard; therefore, no magic will result. It is a problem that.”

            “Exactly. And I don’t see how we’re to get round it.”

            “Your wand, may I see it?”

            Hannah took out her wand and laid it on the table. Poirot picked it up gently and studied it before setting it back down.

            “It is elegant work that,” he admitted. “But what is it that makes it magical?”

            “It has to have a magical core,” Hannah explained. “All wands do. Something taken from a magical creature. It can be a unicorn hair, like my wand, or a dragon’s heartstring, or a phoenix feather.”

            “And if it has not a core of this kind? If it is a length of wood only?”

            Hannah frowned and sucked in her breath. “We could try that, I suppose. I mean, it’s not like you could tell by looking. But they do check wands sometimes. They call it ‘weighing’ them, but it really means checking that the magic’s working. And if your pretend wand doesn’t have a magical core…”

            “I comprehend. But a core alone, it will not suffice in such a case. To say, ‘A wand must have inside it a magical core’, it is like saying ‘a book must have inside it some words’.”

            “What do you mean by that?”

            Poirot flapped a hand dismissively. “It is no matter. It is merely an obstacle to be overcome.”

            He brooded for a moment.

            “The magical core… it must be one of the three you have named? The unicorn, the dragon, or the phoenix?”

            Hannah hesitated. “Well, I know those are the only ones Mr. Ollivander uses. But I have heard that wizards in other countries do things differently. In America, I’ve heard they use all kinds of things… thunderbird feathers and jackalope horns and all sorts of things.”

            Poirot nodded in satisfaction. “Bien. It is as I thought. Come. We will visit now the apothecary.”

            Poirot paid for the tea and buns, and they crossed the road to Mr. Mulpepper’s Apothecary. The shop was clearly very old, the floor having sunk over the centuries so that one had to descend half a flight of stairs simply to reach ground level. The air was thick with a smell of medicinal plants and pickling brine. Mr. Mulpepper—if the man with the grey moustache behind the counter were indeed he—eyed them warily as Poirot paced around the shop. At last, the detective paused in front of a locked glass case.

            In the case was a crystal phial and, in the phial, a single strand or quill of tawny gold. Hannah saw the detective’s green eyes light up as he read the handwritten tag affixed to the phial with a twist of string.

            He looked up and glanced across to the shopkeeper.

            “It is genuine, this?” he asked, tapping the glass of the case with a forefinger.

            The shopkeeper got up and shuffled out from behind the counter, peering over the top of Poirot’s round head.

            “Yessir,” he confirmed. “One genuine sphinx whisker.”

            “Can you tell me its provenance?”

            “Egyptian, sir. Not Greek. From Abu Simbel.”

            Poirot nodded. “Ah, yes. I have been at Abu Simbel.”

            “Yessir?”

            “Yes, indeed. I believe I shall purchase this whisker if I may.”

            “Yessir.”

            The shopkeeper unlocked the case and abstracted the phial. Poirot counted out seventeen gold galleons and pocketed the phial without waiting for the man to wrap it up.

            “What did you want that for?” asked Hannah as they left the apothecary. “Are you going to ask Mr. Ollivander to turn it into a wand for you?”

            Poirot shook his head. “No. I doubt very much if the good Mr. Ollivander would agree to such a thing. No, I have it in mind to visit a craftsperson of rather less repute.”

The workshop smelled of sawdust and varnish, though from outside it had looked exactly like any other semidetached brick townhouse in the Cheap ward of London. Inside, most of the pieces being worked on seemed to be hidden under drop cloths or tucked away in curtained off corners. Hannah peered curiously at these mysterious, shrouded shapes trying to guess what might be underneath. She glimpsed the carven toe of a clawed foot poking out from beneath a fold of canvas.

            The woman who’d admitted them crossed briskly to the desk in the centre of room and shuffled a few papers so that whatever she’d been reading when Poirot rang the bell was now on the bottom of the pile. She turned back to her guests, unabashed, and asked:

            “Well, Mr. Poirot? What can I do for you?”

            “Allow me to introduce my young friend, Mademoiselle Hannah Abbott,” Poirot said, evidently unruffled. “Hannah, this excellent lady is Madame Fossier.”

            Madame Fossier regarded Hannah coolly. She was a middle-aged lady with very straight black hair, cut quite short, and a wide mouth that turned down at the corners. She wore an apron with a collection of mysterious red-brown stains over a dark green house dress, and there was a stub of pencil behind her right ear.

            “How do you do, Ma’am,” Hannah murmured.

            “How do you do,” countered Madame Fossier.

            “Madame Fossier,” Poirot continued, “is a carpenter of a very particular type. She makes from new wood the valuable antique furniture that has been in the family since the reign of George the First.”

            Hannah gave the detective a politely puzzled look.

            “She is a forger,” he elucidated, “but one who uses the lathe and jigsaw rather than the pen and ink. You comprehend?”

            “She’s a criminal?”

            Madame Fossier clucked disapprovingly. “Not so far as he knows.”

            Poirot bowed slightly, conceding the point. “It is as you say.”

            This seemed to satisfy Madame Fossier for she nodded and asked. “And so what can I do for you today, Mr. Poirot? Another secret drawer for your correspondence?”

            “Not quite. I have a very particular commission for you today. Hannah, would you be so good as to show Madame Fossier your wand?”

            A little hesitantly, Hannah did so. Madame Fossier studied it carefully and then cocked an eyebrow at Poirot.

            “What is this, Mr. Poirot?”

            “A baton,” he replied. “A symbol of office, you might say. It is to signify one’s membership in a kind of secret society. I cannot say more.”

            “Ah, it’s that sort of game, is it? And you need one to match it, I expect?”

            “To match the style, yes, but not the particulars. It must be like myself: unique.”

            “Hmm. I see. Anything else?”

            “Yes. There is this.” Poirot produced the crystal phial that held the sphinx’s whisker and set it on the desk where it glinted like gold in the dusty sunlight.

            “This, the contents of this phial, must be at the very core of this baton.”

            Hannah was sure that Madame Fossier would demand to know the reason for this strange request, but instead she merely asked.

            “When will you need it ready by?”

            “As soon as can be arranged.”

            She nodded and stared at the ceiling for a moment. “If I work through the night, you could pick it up in the morning. It’ll cost extra though.”

            “Magnifique. I will call in the morning with my chequebook.”

            “It still won’t work, you know,” said Hannah, as they got back on the Underground and made their way back to Poirot’s flat. “I mean, it won’t do magic. She won’t be able to put the right spells and things into it.”

            “No, that is true,” agreed Poirot.

            “So why go to all that trouble?”

            “I do not need a magical wand, only one that is not too obviously not magical. Afterall, if I am placed in the position where I must cast a spell, then I have already lost the game, n’est-ce pas? But it seems to me that a poor imitation of one of Mr. Ollivander’s wands would be more likely to be recognized for what it truly is than would a false but beautiful wand that uses quite different materials and is made in quite another style.”

            “You mean… you mean they won’t know what to look for. They won’t know what a sphinx whisker wand from a French…”

            “Or perhaps Belgian?”

            “…or perhaps Belgian wandmaker should look like. It’s like you said, about the cores being like the words in a book. Your book will be full of gibberish, but since it’s gibberish in a foreign language, nobody will be able to tell.”

            “Bien. It is very well put.”

            Hannah continued to shake her head, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the audacity of the scheme they were concocting.

Chapter Text

They took the first train from London to Hogsmeade Station the following morning, but it was still midafternoon by the time they arrived. Poirot spent most of the journey reading. He had all the books he’d purchased at Flourish and Blott’s, and at the train station he had also acquired a small stack of Daily Prophets covering the last week or so. When he was not reading, he was rehearsing with Hannah what answers she should give if anyone asked her about Poirot and his origins. Hannah herself was feeling nervous again. She’d been able to sleep quite well at Mr. Poirot’s flat, safe from any suspicion of monsters and dark wizards, but as they drew nearer the station, she felt more and more uncertain about the shape of things to come.

            The carriages that waited for newly returned Hogwarts students at the start of every term—the ones drawn by the invisible horses—were conspicuously absent, so Hannah and Poirot were obliged to walk up to the castle on foot in the fading light. As they walked, Poirot too began to show signs of discomfort. At first Hannah thought it must be that his shoes were pinching him, for they were very shiny and seemed ill-suited for long walks. Gradually however, she became aware that he was staring in mild puzzlement at the growing bulk of the castle.

            “That is your Hogwarts?” he inquired a moment later.

            “That’s it,” Hannah confirmed.

            “But it is a ruin that,” Poirot protested.

            “No, it’s just old. It’s quite comfortable once you get inside.”

            Poirot stared at her and then back at the castle.

            “Can it be perhaps,” he asked at length, “that my eyes are not seeing what your eyes see?”

            Hannah clapped a hand to her forehead. “Of course! The castle’s enchanted, to keep Muggles from stumbling across it accidentally.”

            “Ah, yes. I had noticed more of those ‘Muggle-repelling charms’ as we approached.”

            “And they still don’t affect you?”

            “I would not put it quite like that. It is simply that they do not cause me to take leave of my reason. But this…”

            He waved a gloved hand in the direction of the castle.

            “…this is another kind enchantment, one that practices not upon the little grey cells, but upon the eyes, who are easily deceived.”

            “Yes, it’s supposed to look just like an old ruin with lots of signs saying ‘Danger: Keep Out’ and so on. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

            “And that is what I see.”

            “I wonder if it will stop once we get inside.”

            “Let us find out, eh?”

            With a renewed spring in his step, Poirot followed Hannah towards the castle. They passed through the main gates, flanked by their statues of winged boars, but Poirot gave no sign that he had experienced any change in the scenery. Twisting the ends of her black and yellow scarf anxiously in both hands, Hannah led the way up the front steps and through the great double doors that opened onto the front hall and the grand staircase.

            “Ah-hah!” cried Poirot delightedly. “Now this is much more agreeable.”

            “You can see it?”

            “Most assuredly, I can see it, though the light is perhaps a little dim. This whole place, it is lit only by torches and candles?”

            Hannah nodded. “And sometimes by magic, of course.”

            “Of course. But not by the magic of electricity, eh?”

            “No, it doesn’t work properly here. The magic interferes with it.”

            “I comprehend,” said Poirot. He accepted the statement so readily that Hannah realized he must merely have been confirming something he’d read in one of his books. He continued to peer about himself curiously. The hall was nearly empty at this time of day and the few students who hurried by didn’t give Poirot more than a second glance, which made Hannah feel a little better.

Her stomach lurched again when Poirot announced, “And now, it is time to meet your headmaster.”

Albus Dumbledore regarded Hercule Poirot thoughtfully over the top of his half-moon spectacles. The detective sat on a spindle-legged chair, hands folded comfortably over his stomach and wearing a small but beatific smile. In the chair beside him, sat Hannah. Her round face was even pinker than usual, and her right knee bounced nervously up and down.

            “It seems I should begin,” said Dumbledore, his blue eyes twinkling wryly, “by thanking you, Mr. Poirot, for returning our missing student to us. We have all been quite worried about what might have become of Miss Abbott… especially all her friends in Hufflepuff House.”

            Hannah hung her head. “I’m sorry, Headmaster.”

            Poirot coughed quietly. “I hope, Maître Dumbledore, that you will not countenance that Mademoiselle Abbott should be punished. I can assure you, she acted only from the best of motives and with the best interests of the school in mind.”

            “Indeed?”

            “Indeed, yes. You see, she went to London simply in order to fetch me.”

            “I see. And what is it that you hope to accomplish at Hogwarts, Mr. Poirot?” asked the headmaster.

            Poirot smiled. “I should explain that I was, at one time, an auror working for the Belgian Ministry of Magic. My special calling was not then the casting of curses or counter curses, but the detection and solution of crime. In that area, I have—though it will doubtless sound of boasting—few equals.”

            “Ah,” said Dumbledore, stroking his long white beard as he glanced from Poirot to Hannah and back again. “I think I begin to understand.”

            Poirot bowed slightly from his chair. “Et bien. It also so happens that I am a close friend of Hannah’s family. Therefore, when these… attacks, these petrifications continue to occur at her school, very naturally and properly she thinks of me and comes to obtain my help.”

            “And you believe that you can help?” said Dumbledore. He did not sound sceptical, but neither did he sound convinced. “You believe you can find the person behind these attacks?”

            Poirot nodded. “It may be so. But I cannot produce the criminal from thin air, you understand. To work, I must have facts.”

            “What kind of facts?”

            Poirot leaned forward slightly, steepling his fingers before him with his elbows propped on the slender arms of his chair.

            “Let us begin with what you yourself know. There have been three of these dreadful attacks, n’est-ce pas? Tell me of them, beginning with the first.”

            The wizard paused for a long moment. In the stillness, Hannah could hear the soft chiming and silvery whistles of the strange magical instruments that crowded the tables and shelves of the headmaster’s study. Dumbledore’s piercing blue eyes lingered on Poirot’s face. The detective stared back, his own eyes as green and inscrutable as a cat’s.

            “The first attack,” said Dumbledore slowly, “occurred on the night of the Hallowe’en feast.”

Chapter Text

The Hogwarts headmaster’s account of events was clear and precise. In the main, it bore out all that Hannah had told Poirot on the day she arrived at his flat. A few details were added, mostly about the actions of the Hogwarts staff. Poirot listened to all of it intently. At the conclusion of the recital, he sat back in his chair and allowed his eyes wander over the many portraits of sleeping wizards that lined the walls of the study.

            “It is interesting, this affair,” he said musingly. “The means and the method, they do not agree.”

            Hannah frowned. Dumbledore asked, “Can you explain that observation, Mr. Poirot?”

            “I consider the crime first from the viewpoint of psychology,” the detective explained. “I ask to myself, ‘What kind of a person does the method of the crime suggest?’.”

            “And?” asked Hannah, before she could stop herself. “Who does it suggest, Mr. Poirot?”

            “The schoolboy,” said Poirot simply.

            Hannah blinked and sat up in surprise. Dumbledore merely frowned slightly.

            “Consider,” Poirot continued, “What is it that our criminal has actually done? He has played a cruel prank upon the school’s caretaker. To write rhymes upon the wall, to torment the cat and hang it by the tail… these are not the actions of the mature mind. And what then? He has attacked two small boys, boys who I gather were of a credulous and slightly irritating kind, a kind in fact that is the natural prey of the schoolyard bully.”

            Hannah opened her mouth to object to this description of her friend Justin but stopped herself. Dumbledore spoke instead.

            “No child could have performed the spell that petrified those boys,” he said gravely.

            “No,” Poirot agreed, “so you have told me. It is an interesting problem that. Certain possibilities suggest themselves. We may, for example, be looking for an adult who still thinks like a child. The roguish, boyish type, you comprehend. We must keep that little idea in mind as we proceed. Of course, none of this has yet addressed the question of motive.”

            “Excuse me, Mr. Poirot,” asked Hannah. “But isn’t the motive quite clear? Whoever it is, they want to hurt and scare Muggle-borns, don’t they?”

            “That is what they want,” said Poirot, holding up his index finger with emphasis, “but it does not tell us why they should want it. It may be, of course, the crime ideological. But that is a rare breed of criminal. To kill for a principle is far less common than to kill for gain.”

            “But who could possibly gain from all this?” Hannah exclaimed.

            “That I do not yet know,” Poirot admitted, with a sideways glance at Dumbledore.

            “You need more information,” Dumbledore said calmly. “Now tell me how you mean to secure it.”

            Poirot nodded. “Tell me first one thing. Did any of your teachers arrive late to the Hallowe’en feast?”

            Dumbledore thought for a moment, frowning pensively. “Professor Lockhart, our Defence Against the Dark Arts instructor, and Professor Kettleburn, who teaches Care of Magical Creatures.”

            “Did either of them offer any explanation?”

            Dumbledore shook his head. “No. But that in itself is not very unusual. Professor Lockhart is, if I may say so, rather fond of making grand entrances. And Professor Kettleburn doesn’t get about as well as he used to, poor man.”

            Poirot nodded. “I comprehend. Nevertheless, I must speak with both of them.”

            “Why, may I ask?”

            “I wish to know why they were late. It may be, as you suppose, quite innocent. Or there again it may not. We do not know precisely when the cat, Mrs. Norris, was attacked. But we do know when she was hung up by the tail. That was done in a public place, on the landing of a major staircase. It could only have been accomplished undetected while the whole body of the school was safely occupied with the sumptuous feast. Therefore, we need to know who was not at that feast. To keep track of every student there present, their comings and goings, it is not practical. Therefore, it is fortunate that this petrifying magic is beyond the ability of any student.”

            “But what if,” Hannah blurted out, “I mean, what if someone petrified Mrs. Norris earlier and then someone else hung her up and painted those words on the wall later? That second person could have been a student, couldn’t they, Mr. Poirot? I mean, that wouldn’t have taken any magic at all.”

            She’d expected Poirot to be annoyed by the question, but instead he beamed at her.

            “It is very well thought out. And yes, we must keep that possibility in mind. However, until we have evidence to the contrary, it is still most parsimonious to assume that we are hunting for a single malefactor. Therefore, it is likely—not certain, but likely—that whoever wrote upon wall also cast the spell that petrified the cat. Therefore, I ask to myself, who could have done both things? Who had the means to petrify a cat and the opportunity to deface a wall? So far only two names emerge: Prof Lockhart and Prof Kettleburn.”

           Professor Dumbledore sighed but nodded. “I can arrange for you to speak with both of them, as soon as their teaching duties will permit.”

            “You are most amiable,” said Poirot with another slight bow. “However, I wish, if possible, to proceed in the most orderly fashion. I begin, as you say, at the beginning.”

            “Your meaning?”

            “I wish to speak first to those students who discovered the first crime, the first attack.”

            “To Harry Potter…” Hannah whispered, not quite quietly enough.

            Dumbledore glanced at her and then at Poirot, who nodded. “Yes. I wish to speak to Harry Potter.”

            Again, a strange stillness descended upon the study. Dumbledore regarded Poirot steadily, like a mariner reading wind. Then he nodded.

            “Very well. I will arrange it. Miss Abbott, can you find your way to the Muggle Studies classroom on the first floor?”

            “Oh!” said Hannah, starting slightly. “Yes, Headmaster. I can do that.”

            “In that case, I would appreciate it if you could show Mr. Poirot the way. There is an unused classroom immediately opposite that he may use as an interview room until this sorry business is concluded.”

            Poirot rose from his chair and offered Dumbledore his hand. “I am honoured to enjoy your trust, Maître Dumbledore.”

            Dumbledore shook the detective’s hand gravely. As Poirot turned to follow Hannah out of the room, the headmaster said, “There is something else you should know, Mr. Poirot.”

            Poirot turned back, his green eyes flashing with sudden interest.

            “Comment? What is that? What is it that I should know?”

            “The Chamber of Secrets is real, Mr. Poirot, and it has been opened before.”

            Now the little detective’s eyes were glowing like a cat on the hunt. He stalked back towards Dumbledore’s claw-footed desk.

            “Tell me,” he demanded.

            “It was fifty years ago—I was a teacher here—and it began in much the same way. Threats scrawled on the walls. Muggle-born students attacked and petrified by dark magic. Then it happened. A young girl, a Muggle-born girl, died in one of the attacks. The Board of Governors was prepared to close the school.”

            “And then?”

            “A student here, a boy named Rubeus Hagrid, was accused of being the perpetrator and was arrested.”

            “But did you not tell me that this dark magic was beyond the abilities of any student?”

            Dumbledore nodded. “Oh yes. But young Hagrid was sheltering a dangerous creature that was alleged by some to be Slytherin’s legendary monster.”

            “A monster with dark and magical powers?”

            “So we were asked to believe.”

            “But you, you did not believe it.”

            “I did not. I do not. Nevertheless, the fact remains that after Hagrid was arrested, the attacks ceased. Many powerful wizards, members of the Wizengamot and of our own Board of Governors, found this to be conclusive evidence of his guilt.”

            Poirot made a small noise of exasperated disbelief.

            “Quite,” Dumbledore agreed. “They were perhaps predisposed to think the worst of him because of his parentage. Hagrid is half-giant, you see. Nevertheless, he was also a child of fourteen. Moreover, keeping pets, however dangerous, is not the same as murder. He was expelled from Hogwarts and forbidden from practising magic.”

            “But not sent to prison.”

            “No. My friends on the Wizengamot managed to prevent that. I would not wish the hospitality of Azkaban upon anyone, and far less upon a child. Eventually, I persuaded my headmaster to take on young Hagrid as an apprentice to the castle’s groundskeeper.”

            “He returned here, to the castle?”

            “He did. His father had died in the previous year, and he had nowhere else to go.”

            “And does he work here still?”

            Dumbledore nodded.

            “I must speak to him first,” Poirot decided. “As soon as possible. We must proceed from the past forward into the present. It is the only way. Order and method.”

            He shot a sudden swift look at Dumbledore. “But you are not telling me everything, are you, Headmaster? You know… or you think you know… who it was who opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago. Is it not so?”

            A cold light shone in Dumbledore’s blue eyes. “Oh, yes. I think I do. You see, the prefect who discovered that Hagrid had been sheltering this creature, this monster, went on to become the most powerful and hateful dark wizard that England has ever known.”

            Beside Poirot, Hannah blanched visibly.

            “You Know Who,” she whispered.

            “Comment?” asked Poirot, glancing over at her. “Oh yes, I see. You Know Who. It is most apt, that. But it is not enough to know a thing, is it? One must have proof.”

            Dumbledore inclined his head in acknowledgment of the point. “And I have none to offer you, Mr. Poirot. In any case, Lord Voldemort is no longer at Hogwarts. Someone else is behind these three attacks, someone who must be found and stopped.”

            “Stopped before history repeats itself,” Poirot said quietly. “Before another schoolgirl is found dead.”

            Dumbledore’s lips pressed together into a wire thin line. “I am relying on you now, Mr. Poirot.”

Chapter Text

The evening was still young, but the December sun had already sunk down behind the black bulk of Hogwarts castle. Hannah, who at Poirot’s request had been lent to the detective as a guide until her classes should resume upon the morrow, shivered in its long shadow.

            “Not far n-n-now,” she promised Poirot, her teeth chattering. “Look! You c-can see the smoke.”

            Poirot, whose extravagant moustaches were now concealed beneath an enormous woollen muffler, peered dubiously through the purpling gloom. There indeed was the groundskeeper’s hut. It was a humble affair of only one story—though that one was quite a tall story—and almost circular in its design and shape. Smoke rose from the single chimney and yellow lamplight shone behind the shuttered windows.

            “Ah well,” the detective said. “It looks warm, at least. Let us make haste.”

            They approached by way of the garden. The vegetable beds were tucked up for the season under mulch and brown sacking, and from the compost piles there curled faint wisps of steam, made visible by the chill of the evening air. A chicken run and a wooden coop stood close beside the garden. Peering at the coop in the glow of a candle lantern, was a gigantic man. He was tall enough and broad enough for two Poirots at least. His hair and beard were black and shaggy, and his hairy greatcoat hung down almost to the toes of his enormous, muddy boots. He looked up as they approached.

            “Oh, hullo,” he called affably, lifting the lantern to get a better look at his visitors. “Who’s that then? Don’t tell me, I remember. Yer name’s Abbott, isn’t it? You went first at the Sorting last year.”

            “That’s right, Mr. Hagrid,” said Hannah, smiling. “I’m Hannah Abbott, and this is Mr. Poirot. He wants to ask you some questions.”

            “Pleased to meet yer, sir,” said Hagrid, folding the detective’s proffered hand in his massive grip.

            “Enchante,” replied Poirot, gazing up at the half-giant with more curiosity than apprehension. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I hope our visit does not discommode you.”

            Hagrid shook his shaggy head. “Oh no, sir. I was just checkin’ that the coop here was locked up tight fer the night. Some’at’s been after my roosters, an’ if I don’t look sharp it’ll start takin’ the hens too.”

            “It has been preying upon the roosters only?” inquired Poirot. “But surely, that is most unusual.”

            “Never seen anything like it,” Hagrid confirmed, still shaking his head disconsolately. “Not been eatin’ ‘em neither, just breakin’ their silly necks and leavin’ ‘em there. Well, that’s not so unusual. Cats’ll kill for sport and they always goes for the neck. Only most cats won’t come near the hut on account of Fang.”

            He pointed back towards the hut, where a huge black boarhound sat on the stoop, pawing hopefully at the closed door.

            “Yeh great jessie,” Hagrid grumbled, glaring at the dog. “Still, I s’pose he has a point. Why don’t yer come on in and I’ll put on the kettle?”

            “Oh yes, p-please,” Hannah assented, and Poirot nodded agreement.

            The inside of the groundskeeper’s hut was comfortably warm and candlelit. Nothing in its single room was new, and most of it seemed to have been made or repaired by hand. Dried herbs and cured meats hung from the rafters. In one corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt spread over it. Fang yawned and curled up in a basket at the foot of the bed. Hagrid poked up the fire and hung a copper kettle over it before joining his guests at the unvarnished wooden table, sinking onto a low chair as wide as a bench.

            “Now, what can I do fer yer, Mr. Poirot? I’m the one as looks after the grounds here, so if it’s anything about the forest, or the lake, or some’at…”

            Poirot, freed from his woollen muffler, shook his head sadly. “Alas, no. I come to you from Professor Dumbledore. He permits that I should act in his name and make such enquiries as are necessary to discover the person behind the attacks that occur up at the school.”

            From an inner pocket of his dress robes, Poirot produced an envelope sealed with purple wax and addressed to Hagrid in Dumbledore’s elegant, spidery handwriting. He passed it to the groundskeeper, who broke the seal with a giant thumb and read the contents quickly, his lips moving only slightly as he read.

            “I see,” he said grimly, setting down the letter. “Auror, are yer? From abroad?”

            “A retired auror, yes.”

            “And yeh think yer can put a proper stop to it this time? Catch the bloke that’s really behind it all?”

            “Yes, I think so. But I shall require the assistance of your recollections.”

            Hagrid glanced at Hannah dubiously. “Long time ago, that was. Fifty years ago, and me not much older than Miss Abbott here.”

            “What happened exactly?”

            “Well, I expect Professor Dumbledore will have told yer most of it. He was at the school an’ all. Transfiguration teacher he was then. I was just in me third year.”

            “You had recently lost your father, I believe.”

            Hagrid nodded and sucked in a deep breath. “That’s right. Year before. I didn’t have many friends at the school neither. Too big and too awkward, I guess. So I was, well, lonely. And so, I bought this egg off a bloke who’d been travelling in Borneo and Sumatra and places like that. Thought I could raise it up and keep it, for company, yer know.”

            “An egg?” Poirot prompted. “What kind of an egg?”

            “An acromantula egg,” said Hagrid, folding his arms.

            Hannah let out an unintentional squeak of alarm and protest. “An acromantula?!”

            “Your pardon,” said Poirot apologetically. “I do not know this word in English. An… acromantula… what is it?”

            “It’s a giant spider!” said Hannah. “A huge spider, bigger than a horse, that comes from the jungle and eats people.”

            “Aragog never ate no one,” Hagrid protested. “He never has, never will.”

            “Aragog,” said Poirot slowly, as if testing each syllable. “That is what you named this, this acromantula?”

            Hagrid nodded. “I brought him here, to the castle. When he hatched, I kept him in a big old cupboard down in the basements. He was only small then, not much bigger than a terrier, and the cupboard did for a kind of a hutch. I let him out for exercise, of course, but only when I was there ter keep an eye on ‘im.”

            “And he never escaped?”

            “Never. And he didn’t want to. He was scared o’ things outside.”

            “But nevertheless, he was discovered.”

            “Aye, that he was. By Tom Riddle. Yeh’ll know all about ‘im, of course.”

            “But naturally. He became thereafter most notorious.”

            Hagrid nodded heavily. “Aye. But in those days, he was just a Hogwarts prefect. Golden boy, he was. Top of his class, headmaster’s pet, and all the rest of it. And it was his word against mine.”

            “What did he allege?”

            “He said that Aragog was the monster that had been attacking people. Didn’t make a lick o’ sense that. Acromantula venom don’t petrify people, even if Aragog had got out of ‘is cupboard somehow.”

            “Did no one remark upon this fact?”

            “A few did, yer. Old Professor Kettleburn, for one. He knows quite a lot about interesting creatures. But Riddle… or pr’aps I should say You Know Who… he convinced them that I must have been experimentin’ on Aragog with magic. And then he made out that I’d been giving ‘im the run o’ the castle and said all that stuff about the Chamber of Secrets and Slytherin’s Heir was just a lot smoke an’ dust I’d been encouragin’ to cover my tracks.”

            “And they believed him.”

            “Oh yes. They believed ‘im. I was…” Here he paused and glanced at Hannah, then shrugged and continued. “I’m half-giant, as yer could probably guess. It was easy fer ‘em to believe I’d feel more sympathy fer a fellow monster—as they saw it—than fer the poor students who was gettin’ attacked.”

            “Even when a girl had actually died?”

            A look of pain crossed Hagrid’s ruddy face and he lowered his beetle-black gaze to the rough wood of the table. “Poor little Myrtle. I remember her. She was another one with no proper friends. And then they found ‘er, dead on the floor of a bathroom. Terrible. But it weren’t Aragog that killed her, Mr. Poirot. Yer got my oath on that.”

            “Where is Aragog now?”

            Hagrid looked up, suddenly wary. “He ran away. After Myrtle died and they were sayin’ how the school’d have to be closed, Riddle came an’ found me. He caught me givin’ Aragog his supper. He tried to hex ‘im… to kill ‘im, I reckon. Acromantulas is clever, clever enough to talk, which might’ve spoiled his plans.”

            “And so Aragog fled.”

            Hagrid nodded. “He did. I tackled Riddle to let ‘im get away, an’ he ran straight out of the castle.”

            “Into the Forbidden Forest, perhaps?”

            “Pr’aps,” grunted Hagrid, noncommittally.

            Poirot sighed. “I do not want to find a giant talking spider, Monsieur Hagrid. I want to find the wizard behind these latest attacks. It strains credulity that these attacks should be altogether unrelated to the attacks of fifty years ago.”

            “I dare say yer right,” said Hagrid, getting to his feet as the copper kettle began to sing. “Thing is, I’d lay galleons to garters that it was You Know Who… or Riddle, as he was in them days… who opened the Chamber the first time. If it weren’t him, it was one of ‘is Slytherin friends. They were all Purebloods, see, from old wizarding families. Riddle was half-blood, but more powerful ‘an any of ‘em. They just did what he told ‘em to.”

            He glowered at the recollection, then seemed to pull himself together. He filled an earthenware teapot and let the tea steep while he fetched mismatched cups and saucers from a cupboard. The smell of the brewing tea, strong and faintly lemony, filled the hut.

            “You Know Who was destroyed, of course,” said Poirot, half to himself. “But perhaps not killed, eh? One never knows with dark wizards.”

            “Yer right there,” Hagrid agreed. “I don’t reckon he had enough human left in ‘im to die properly. So I s’pose it’s possible he’s behind these attacks too… though I can’t see how.”

            “He would need help,” Poirot suggested.

            Hagrid frowned. “Can’t see anyone wanting to help You Know Who. Folk were drawn to ‘im ‘cause he was powerful. But now? No, I just don’t see it.”

            “There is no one at Hogwarts you think might be sympathetic to his cause?”

            Hagrid added a sugar bowl and a milk jug to the tea tray and set it down carefully on the table, his bearded face thoughtful.

            “No, I shouldn’t think so. There’s Professor Snape, of course.”

            “Professor Snape?” Hannah gasped in astonishment.

            “Oh,” said Hagrid guiltily, glancing at Hannah in a way that made it only too clear that he’d temporarily forgotten there was a student in the room. “Shouldn’t have said that. I should not have said that.”

            “On the contrary,” Poirot said amiably, “It seems just the sort of thing that might prove important.”

            Hagrid continued to look uneasy. “Well, for Merlin’s sake, don’t go spreading it about. But yes, Professor Snape was in You Know Who’s inner circle for a while. But it’s not what yer think. He was Dumbledore’s spy. He risked ‘is life to help stop You Know Who.”

            “Professor Dumbledore must trust him very much to employ him here at the school,” Poirot observed.

            Hagrid nodded. “He trusts ‘im with ‘is life. And I trust Dumbledore, Mr. Poirot.”

            “I am inclined to agree with you,” said Poirot, “though I have as yet known him only a very little while. Tell me then, is there anyone else connected both to Hogwarts and to You Know Who?”

            Hagrid started to shake his head, then stopped. “Lucius Malfoy.”

            Poirot frowned. “But it is familiar that name. I have read it recently in the papers, have I not?”

            Hagrid took a swig from his mug of tea, made a face, and added another lump of sugar. “Could be. Could very well be. He’s got friends at The Daily Prophet, and friends in the Ministry too. He’s on our Board of Governors here at Hogwarts. Very well-connected man. Very well-connected family.”

            “An old wizarding family?”

            “Got it in one. Very keen on blood purity, the Malfoys. No wonder they fell in with You Know and his lot straight away. But when it all went up in smoke, Lucius claimed they’d been acting under the Imperius Curse. Codswallop, in my opinion. But he had the gold and the family name. He could buy his way back into the same world he’d been trying to burn to the ground not a month before, and hardly anyone batted an eye.”

            “But is he often at the school? He visits no doubt, if he is a governor, but did he—for example—attend the Hallowe’en feast?”

            Hagrid shook his shaggy head. “No, that he isn’t and didn’t. He doesn’t like the way Dumbledore runs things and Dumbledore doesn’t much like him, so he keeps away.”

            “Ah, I see,” said Poirot, stirring milk into his murky tea without ever taking a sip. “I thank you for your help, Monsieur Hagrid. Your insights have been most illuminating. Now I fear that I and my young friend must return to the castle.”

Chapter Text

Upturned chairs were stacked neatly on top of their parent desks in the disused classroom that was to be Hercule Poirot’s interview room. On the walls hung yellowing maps of the world, of Europe, and of the British Isles, all twenty years or more out of date. At the front of the room was a much larger desk of antique walnut and a highbacked chair, both of which Poirot now claimed for himself. With Hannah’s help, he arranged three of the smaller chairs in front of the desk in a rough semicircle.

            “I meant to thank you earlier,” said Hannah, as she straightened the final chair and Poirot polished the desktop briskly with an enormous silk handkerchief. “For speaking up for me when we met with Professor Dumbledore.”

            Poirot waved this away with a gesture. “I doubt very much if it was needed. Your headmaster is a very singular man.”

            “Yes, he is, isn’t he? You know, I’ve never been in his office before today. But somehow it was exactly right. Exactly right for a man like Dumbledore, I mean. All those funny silver instruments and things…”

            “Yes, that is so. When someone has lived or worked in a place for many years, it becomes a kind of reflection of their interior self. They furnish it with their habits and memories and aspirations… and occasional with their fears.”

            “Their fears? What do you mean by that?”

            Poirot shrugged. “I cannot imagine that it is always easy to have so many portraits of former headmasters looking always over one’s shoulder. The weight of tradition is very heavy.”

            “Oh, I see. I hadn’t thought about it like that. Yes, when you put it like that, I see what you mean. And of course, there’s the Sorting Hat too.”

            “Comment? A hat? That battered old hat on the high shelf?”

            “You noticed it, did you? Yes, that’s the Sorting Hat. It was enchanted by the founders of the school—long, long ago—and it still has the job of sorting all the new students every year.”

            “Sorting them?”

            “Into the four houses, the ones named after the four founders. It’s like, they each put a little bit of their personality into the hat so that it always knows which of their houses a new student should belong to.”

            Poirot stroked his moustaches thoughtfully. “And it does this how, this sorting?”

            “It kind of looks at your thoughts, I think, when it’s on your head, and then it just tells you which house you belong in. I mean, it tells everyone. The whole school, because the Sorting always happens at the start of term feast.”

            “Out loud it tells them? In so many words?”

            “Oh yes,” said Hannah, plainly puzzled.

            “My God! It talks!” said Poirot, shaking his head wonderingly. When Hannah gave him only a blank look, he explained, “It is what the Emperor of Brazil exclaimed when, in 1876, he heard a voice speaking on the telephone for the first time.”

            “Oh, but the Sorting Hat isn’t like that. I mean, there’s no one talking into it on the other end. It talks for itself.”

            “Yes, I comprehend. And that is surely what his imperial majesty thought was occurring in the case of the telephone: a machine was speaking to him with its own voice. Naturally, he was mistaken. But with magic, with a touch of the witchcraft and wizardry, it could have been true.”

            He continued to muse for a while, until his meditations were interrupted by a hesitant knocking at the classroom door.

            “Entrez!” the detective called.

            The door was pushed open and three children in Gryffindor robes entered. In the centre was a skinny boy with dark, unruly hair and large glasses. His companions were a tall, redhaired boy and a girl whose brown hair was very bushy indeed. They all looked to be much the same age as Hannah and all three wore expressions of wary curiosity.

            “Excuse me, sir,” the boy in the middle asked, “are you Mr. Poirot?”

            “Indeed, my name is Poirot. Hercule Poirot, to be exact. And you must be Monsieur Harry Potter, Monsieur Ronald Weasley, and Mademoiselle Hermione Granger. Am I correct?”

            “That’s right, sir,” said Harry. “Professor Dumbledore said we should come and talk to you.”

            Poirot nodded. “Please sit down and be at ease. Mademoiselle Abbott, would you very kindly take one more chair and take up a post near to the door? I have no desire that we should be overheard by anyone outside this room.”

            Hannah nodded and retreated to the door as Harry, Ron, and Hermione took their seats. Poirot settled himself behind the walnut desk and steepled his fingers. He let the careful silence linger for a moment before speaking.

            “It is my fervent desire to discover the person responsible for the attacks upon Mrs. Norris, Colin Creevey, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and the late Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. To this end, Professor Dumbledore permits that I should ask you each some questions about what has occurred and in particular about the night of the Hallowe’en feast. You comprehend?”

            “Are you an auror?” asked Ron. “Do you work for the Ministry?”

            “I was an auror,” Poirot replied confidently, “for many years in my home country of Belgium. Now, I am retired. I make my home in England. Yet I do not forget. Once an auror, always an auror, nest-ce pas?”

            “What’s an auror?” asked Harry.

            “A dark wizard hunter,” said Ron, eyeing Poirot with new respect. “My dad says they’re the best of the best.”

            “You are too kind, Monsieur Weasley,” said Poirot without a trace of modesty. “Tell me, is your father perhaps the Arthur Weasley who works for the British Ministry of Magic?”

            “That’s right,” said Ron, plainly startled. “Do you know him?”

            “No, no. But I have lately read his name in the paper somewhat frequently in connection with the new Muggle Protection Act.”

            “Oh, right,” said Ron, his freckled face clearing. “That’s right. He wrote it… well, most of it. It’s all about keeping Muggles safe from cursed objects and stuff. A lot of wizards weren’t happy about it though.”

            “Why was that, do you think?”

            “’Cause it meant the Ministry could start confiscating a lot of their things, I reckon. Old, valuable things sometimes. Things that might have been in the family for ages and ages but could do some really awful stuff if they fell into the wrong hands. Like, there was this one old necklace from France, I think, that had a special sort of catch and if you put it on wrong it would start shrinking and shrinking until it just cut you head off. Stuff like that.”

            “That does indeed sound most dangerous.”

            “Yeah, but because a lot of the stuff was heirlooms it really upset a lot of the old wizarding families.”

            “Ah yes. I seem to recall a certain Monsieur Malfoy who was quoted in The Daily Prophet. His comments were rather… vituperative.”

            “Yeah, that’s Lucius Malfoy. He’s got it in for my dad.”

            “Excuse me, Mr. Poirot,” said Hermione, “but what’s this got to do with the attacks going on at Hogwarts?”

            “Possibly nothing,” Poirot conceded. “I merely indulge my curiosity. But you are right, Mademoiselle. It is time now to turn our thoughts to the night of the first attack. Which one of you was the first to happen upon the scene?”

            The trio exchanged glances.

            “I was,” Harry volunteered.

            “But we were right behind him,” chimed in Hermione, and Ron nodded emphatically.

            “It was on the second floor of the castle, I believe?”

            “Yes, right on the landing,” Hermione confirmed, “Quite near the bathrooms.”

            “And how did you come to be there?”

            “We were on our way to bed,” said Harry quickly. “We were tired.”

            “You were coming from the Hallowe’en feast?”

            “No, not from the feast. We’d been at a Deathday party.”

            “Comment?”

            “A Deathday Party,” Hermione explained. “You know, it’s a celebration for ghosts, a kind of anniversary of the day they died.”

            “Ah, I comprehend. You are all friends of the ghosts here in the castle, eh?”

            “Well, sort of,” Harry admitted. “One of them—Nearly Headless Nick, he’s the Gryffindor Tower ghost—he helped me out of some trouble with Mr. Filch, the caretaker. So, I told him I’d come to his party and try to help him impress some other ghosts, and I brought Ron and Hermione along for company.”

            “I really just wanted to see what a Deathday Party was like,” Hermione put in. “Living people hardly ever get invited to them, you know.”

            Ron snorted. “I’ll be happy if I never get invited to another one ever again.”

            “It was not very agreeable, this party?”

            “Not unless you like draughty old dungeons and mouldy old cake.”

            “Ron!” Hermione hissed. “Don’t be rude.”

            “What? I was just saying…” Ron began, then abruptly shut his mouth as if something had suddenly occurred to him.

            “The Hallowe’en feast was in the Great Hall, which is on the ground floor,” said Poirot, half to himself. “That is so, yes?”

            The trio nodded.

            “And the food at the Deathday Party, it was unsuitable for living guests?”

            Again, they nodded.

            “Then, you will excuse my rudeness, it seems to me slightly implausible that three growing children would not at least stop in the Great Hall on their way up to bed.”

            “We weren’t hungry,” said Harry a little too forcefully. “We were tired, and we wanted to go to bed.”

            “No,” said Poirot, his voice suddenly sharp and cold. “No, that will not do, Monsieur Potter. Not when lives depend upon your evidence. Do not mistake me. I am not a teacher. I am not here to scold and to punish. I am here to find out one who practises dark magic upon children. Three attacks already. The next attack may well be fatal. And you would waste my time with lies? No, it will not do.”

            Harry recoiled from the little man, a look of horror spreading across his face. “I’m not… it’s not like that, Mr. Poirot. It’s… there’s things I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t believe me if I tried.”

            Poirot stared hard at the boy, not at the scar upon his forehead but at his face. Their green eyes met for a moment. Then the detective nodded and sat back with a sigh, his expression softening.

            “La jeunesse,” he said to himself softly. “It is a thing not easy to endure.”

            The trio stared at him, transfixed. Poirot smiled wryly at them. “You do not know me, Monsieur Potter. But you must trust me. Yes, you must trust in me, in Hercule Poirot. I can find this wizard, this so-called Heir of Slytherin, but only if I have the facts. To find a culprit, I practise logic, not magic. You understand?”

            Harry shot a glance at Hermione and nodded cautiously. “I think so.”

            “To practise logic, I must begin from a place of no assumptions. I cannot say what is true or what is false, possible or impossible, believable or unbelievable. The case begins like the blank page.”

            “You’re saying… you’re saying, I can tell you anything? And you’ll believe it?”

            “I can believe almost anything,” Poirot assured him, “so long as it is true.”

            Again, the two stared at each other with bright green eyes, like cat’s-eye emeralds. At last Harry said, still reluctantly, “I heard something that night, Mr. Poirot. A voice. A voice no one else could hear.”

            Poirot nodded as if this were a matter of routine. “Have you heard such a voice before?”

            “I have, yeah.”

            “When?”

            “In the second week of term, when I was doing my detention with Professor Lockhart. It was pretty late at night too, just like on Hallowe’en.”

            “The second week of this school term?”

            “Yes.”

            “But never before then?”

            “No, never.”

            “What was this voice like?”

            Harry paused, thinking hard. “It was a soft voice, kind of murmuring. But threatening.”

            “Angry?” Poirot enquired.

            Harry shook his head. “No, not angry. More… more sort of hungry. It talked about ripping and tearing, but it didn’t seem to be talking to me. I think it was talking to itself.”

            “Could you tell where the voice was coming from?”

            Harry shook his head. “No. It was a little muffled, like it was coming from another room, but it wasn’t. I mean, the direction wasn’t right. And it kept moving, like it could float through walls like a ghost.”

            “Could it have been a ghost?”

            “I don’t know. If it was a ghost, wouldn’t other people be able to hear it? And I should have been able to see it. I mean, I’ve always been able to see Nearly Headless Nick and the rest of the ghosts here at the castle.”

            Poirot turned his attention to Ron and Hermione. “Did either of you see or hear anything?”

            “Nothing,” said Ron, with an apologetic look at Harry.

            “And you, Mademoiselle?”

            Hermione shook her head. “No, I’m afraid I didn’t hear it either.”

            Poirot held up a hand. “One moment. I do not ask now whether you have heard a voice saying, ‘I will rip, I will tear.’ No, no. I ask if in that moment you heard anything… anything at all.”

            Ron shook his head, looking puzzled. Hermione frowned in concentration. Then she too shook her head again.

            “I’m sorry, Mr. Poirot. I heard some pipes hissing, steam pipes probably, but nothing else.”

            “Ah well,” said Poirot, leaning back in his highbacked chair. “It is no matter. Just a little idea of mine. And this voice, the one heard only by Monsieur Potter, it led you to the writing on the wall?”

            “That’s right,” said Harry nodding.

            “Describe that scene for me.”

            “Uh, well…” Harry began, looking at the other two for support. “The torches on the wall were burning and there was Mrs. Norris, hanging from one of the sconces by her tail. You could tell there was something wrong with her right away. She was so stiff, like a piece of dead wood. And there on the wall someone had written words in big red letters: The chamber of secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.”

            “How were these words written?”

            “In red paint, I think. It looked like blood in the torchlight, but it was really just red paint.”

            “And it was done… how? Neatly, with the paintbrush?”

            “No, not neatly,” said Harry, frowning with the effort of recollection. “Not a paintbrush. The letters were rough, and they’d dripped a bit down the wall.”

            “Maybe with a piece of rag?” Hermione suggested. “They definitely used something. I mean, it wasn’t fingerpainting.”

            Poirot smiled. “No, that would make this too easy, would it not? The fingerprints, they make very good evidence. Still, I wonder… but of course. There are spells for the cleaning of clothes, are there not?”

            Hermione nodded. “A good scouring charm would probably do it.”

            Ron frowned dubiously. “I don’t know so much. They’re really for cleaning surfaces, and they’re trickier than they look. Mum’s always going on at us about ground in dirt and stubborn stains and why can’t we take proper care of our robes. If it was as simple as just waving a wand, I think she wouldn’t lecture so much.”

            “Well, all right,” conceded Hermione. “But either way, that writing was done over a month ago. If they did get paint on their clothes, whoever did it will have had more than enough time to change their robes.”

            “It is very true that,” Poirot agreed. “Tell me now if there is any other detail you can remember clearly about the scene of this occurrence.”

            Three brows furrowed in thought.

            “Water,” said Harry at last. “There was a pool of water on the floor. I remember it reflecting the light from the torches.”

            “It was from the girls’ bathroom,” Hermione volunteered. “The one on the second floor. It must have flooded again. It’s always flooding, because of the ghost who haunts it, Moaning Myrtle.”

            Poirot nodded, apparently satisfied. “It is well remembered. Thank you all for your most valuable assistance.”

After the trio had gone, Poirot rose from his chair. Hannah got up as well from her place by the door and joined him at the front of the empty classroom.

            “What now?” she asked. “Should I go find Professor Lockhart and Professor Kettleburn?”

            Poirot shook his curiously egg-shaped head. “No, not tonight. Tonight, I have another interview of more urgency to conduct.”

            He brushed down the lapels of his dress robes and fastidiously straightened the knot of his fraudulent Beauxbatons tie.

            “Tell me,” he asked Hannah seriously, “who is in charge of the laundry service at Hogwarts?”

Chapter Text

The laundry at Hogwarts, it transpired, was done entirely by house-elves. Explaining to Poirot exactly what a house-elf was took some time, but once that was accomplished it didn’t take long for them to obtain access to the duty rosters and to discover which particular house-elves had been in charge of doing the students’ laundry on the night of the Hallowe’en feast. Now two elves stood before Poirot, taking it in turns to bow deeply. The little detective was scarcely taller than they were, but his magnificence of dress and manner clearly impressed them.

            “And what are your names, please?” Poirot inquired.

            “Treakle, sir,” squeaked one elf.

            “Tansy, sir,” murmured the other.

            “Enchanté,” Poirot pronounced. “My name is Hercule Poirot. I make some little inquiries on behalf of the headmaster, you comprehend?”

            The two elves nodded and bowed some more, just to be on the safe side. Poirot accepted the excessive courtesies with equanimity.

            “I wish now to ask you about the night following the Hallowe’en feast. You had the laundry service that night, is it not so?”

            “Yes, sir,” Treakle agreed. “That’s so indeed.” Tansy nodded fervently.

            “Bien. Now, do you recall a set of robes that was soiled with red paint?”

            “Red paint, sir?” asked Treakle, sounding puzzled. “Treakle doesn’t think so, sir.”

            “And you?” inquired Poirot, peering at Tansy. The elf’s ears were large, even by elvish standards, and hung down like a basset hounds. She tugged nervously at them as she thought.

            “Tansy thinks she does recall those robes, sir,” she said, in a voice barely above a whisper. “And if she didn’t clean them properly, Tansy is sure she’s very sorry, sir.”

            “No, no,” said Poirot soothingly. “It is nothing of that kind, I assure you. I wish only that you would describe to me the robes you remember.”

            Tansy continued to tug gently at her long ears. “They were girl’s robes, sir, quite small. Tansy couldn’t tell you exactly what size, she’s afraid, not having had a proper look at the label.”

            “I comprehend,” replied Poirot. “But you would say perhaps that they likely belonged to a younger student?”

            “Oh yes, sir, Tansy thinks that’s quite likely,” said Tansy gratefully. “Though they weren’t very new robes, so probably not a first year.”

            “Ah, I see,” said Poirot. “It is well remembered. You are a most capable witness, Mademoiselle Tansy.”

            The house-elf coloured and glanced back down at her bare feet. “Thank you, sir.”

            “I have just one more question, if I may, about these robes,” said Poirot, smiling faintly. “Were they marked with the crest or colours of a particular house?”

            “Oh yes, sir,” said Tansy hastily. “Didn’t Tansy say? These were Gryffindor robes, sir.”

            “Gryffindor?” exclaimed Hannah, staring at the little elf in startled amazement. “Are you sure?”

            “Yes, miss,” said Tansy, still softly but very definite. “Tansy remembers the red and gold distinctly, miss.”

            “It is most interesting that,” Poirot said, speaking as if to himself, “And perhaps most significant. And yet…”

            He returned his gaze—green, catlike, and calculating—to the house-elves. “You know of the recent attacks, of course.”

            Tansy nodded silently and Treakle said hastily, “Oh yes, sir. All the house-elves know, sir. They’ve been on the lookout, sir, just like Professor Dumbledore asked.”

            “A shrewd man, Maître Dumbledore,” mused Poirot. “And have the house-elves of the castle seen anything of note, anything out of the way ordinary perhaps?”

            Tansy shook her head, her long ears flapping, but Treakle hesitated, fingering the cloth of the old table runner he wore wound about himself as a kind of toga.

            “Well, sir, it’s nothing Treakle has actually seen, sir…”

            “Yes?” said Poirot patiently.

            “And Treakle doesn’t see how it can have anything to do with the attacks, sir…”

            “Yes?” Poirot repeated.

            “Still, you did say anything of note, sir, so Treakle thought perhaps…”

            “I did say so, yes,” agreed Poirot, studiously avoiding any sound or show of annoyance.

            “Well, sir,” said Treakle, shuffling his feet and squaring his skinny shoulders. “It was like this. Treakle was doing the fireplaces in Gryffindor Tower, sir, when he heard a noise in one of the rooms overhead. What room Treakle couldn’t say, but it sounded just like someone disapparating, sir. You know, sir, a sort of whip-cracking sort of a noise?”

            “That’s impossible,” said Hannah at once. “You can’t apparate or disapparate inside the castle, or anywhere in the grounds. There’s, like, enchantments that get in the way.”

            “No miss, begging your pardon,” said Tansy, looking up from the flagstones. “It’s not impossible. Not for house-elves. For wizards, yes. But elvish magic works differently.”

            Treakle nodded. “That’s right. So, Treakle thought it must be another elf. And that was odd, because Treakle knew for a certainty that he was the only one assigned to Gryffindor Tower that day. So Treakle went to look in all the rooms, but he didn’t see anyone, elf or otherwise, so then he thought perhaps he must have heard something else. Still, it was odd. There’s not a lot of sounds you’d confuse for apparition, even muffled by two or three stone floors.”

            Poirot’s brow was furrowed in thought. At length he asked, “Could elvish magic petrify someone?”

            Both elves looked shocked.

            “No, sir,” said Treakle, almost protesting. “Never, sir. That’s wand magic, that is. If Treakle had thought that these... these terrible attacks could be the work of a strange house-elf, he would have told Professor Dumbledore about it right away, sir.”

            “Besides,” said Tansy, “elves can’t use any magic unless their masters give them leave, sir. An elf who used magic without permission would have to punish themselves terribly, sir.”

            “I see, yes,” said Poirot with a nod. “That is an excellent point. I thank you both for your assistance.”

            Mollified, the two elves bowed once more and gratefully took their leave.

            “You don’t really think it could have been a house-elf, do you Mr. Poirot?” asked Hannah. “I mean, I know they usually work for old wizarding families…”

            “The kind of families that call themselves, how do you say… Purebloods?” Poirot inquired mildly.

            “Well, yes, I suppose so,” agreed Hannah. “But Slytherin’s monster couldn’t just be a house-elf, could it?”

            Poirot smiled. “It offends your sense of the dramatic, n’est-ce pas? But I will not rule it out altogether until I learn more of this elvish magic. Still, on the whole, I am rather more interested in the person with red paint upon their robes.”

            “The Gryffindor girl?” asked Hannah. “But that seems just as unlikely. If she really was a second-year like me, or even a third or fourth-year, she couldn’t have used the kind of dark magic Professor Dumbledore was talking about. And why would a Gryffindor be the heir of Slytherin?”

            “Why indeed?” mused Poirot. “But it is always possible for those not of Gryffindor House to nevertheless wear Gryffindor robes.”

            Hannah frowned again. “Yes, I suppose that’s true. But that doesn’t seem to get us very much farther, does it?”

            “Au contraire,” said Poirot almost cheerfully. “I think this little interview has been most useful. But we must not be hasty. We must consider every possibility. For example…”

            He paused for a moment, frowning and fingering his extravagant moustaches.

            “Could a Gryffindor girl have been compelled to aid the heir of Slytherin?”

            “What, like with blackmail?” asked Hannah.

            “Possibly, possibly,” agreed Poirot. “But I was thinking more of some kind hypnotic hex or charm. Such a thing, it could be done, yes?”

            Hannah shuddered. “It’s called the Imperius Curse, Mr. Poirot. It’s… I don’t… it’s one of the three Unforgiveable Curses.”

            “Ah yes,” said Poirot gravely. “I believe I read a little of these curses. They are considered very dark magic, yes?”

            “Very,” agreed Hannah. “And they are very illegal and very difficult. Only a powerful dark wizard could use a spell like that.”

            “Et bien. It is exactly that kind of wizard we are seeking.”

            “But, Mr. Poirot, I don’t understand. If this person… the person really behind these attacks, I mean… if they were willing to use the Imperius Curse on someone, why would they pick a second-year girl? Why not someone more powerful, or at least bigger and stronger?”

            “Now that, Mademoiselle,” said Poirot, his green eyes flashing, “that is a most excellent question.”

Chapter Text

The following morning found Hercule Poirot once again seated in the highbacked chair behind the old walnut desk in the empty classroom. The pale December sun lit up the abandoned cobwebs that hung from the rafters but did little to dispel the deep chill that seemed to radiate from the flagstone floor. Poirot sipped gratefully at a cup of a cinnamon and red clover tisane, prepared specially for him by his new acquaintances amongst the castle’s house-elves. Atop some distant tower, a great bell tolled out the half hour. Poirot waited in patient solitude. His young friend Hannah Abbott had been obliged to return to her classes, but the detective was happy enough for these moments of solitary reflection.

            Moments became minutes, and then still more minutes. Poirot produced his huge, turnip-faced silver pocket watch from the recesses of his dress robes and was arching an eyebrow thoughtfully at the position of the hands when footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. The door of the classroom swept open, and Professor Gilderoy Lockhart entered in a swirl of marigold-coloured silk. Lockhart looked around, spotted Poirot, and flashed him a dazzling smile.

            “Ah, Mr. Poirot!” he said, striding forward and shaking the detective heartily by the hand. “An absolute pleasure. Gilderoy Lockhart, as I’m sure you know. I’m familiar with your work too, of course.”

            “Enchanté,” said Poirot. “You are most amiable, Professor. I had hardly expected to find anyone familiar with any of my little cases on this side of the Mer du Nord.”

            “Ah, but it’s different for wizards like us, isn’t it?” said Lockhart, accepting a seat in front of the desk and straightening his cuffs. “Men of the world, men of action! You can’t afford to be ignorant when you do the work we do.”

            “Forgive me,” said Poirot, inclining his head contritely. “Is it then that you also have been an auror?”

            “Ah, no,” said Lockhart, his pearly smile becoming slightly uncomfortable for a moment. “Not formally, as you might say. I’ve never worked for the Ministry of Magic, that is. Never wanted to be tied down. I go where I’m needed! That’s always been my motto.”

            “A most admirable sentiment,” agreed Poirot, smiling.

            Lockhart seemed to relax slightly and assayed a rich, baritone chuckle.

            “Well, well, well,” he said. “Professor Dumbledore tells me you’re looking into this petrification business for him and thought, very wisely, that I might be able to help.”

            “Yes,” said Poirot, nodding, “that is so.”

            “Well, what can I do for you?”

            “Principally, I want to know where you were and what you saw in the hours leading up to the Hallowe’en feast.”

            Lockhart looked taken aback. “Where I was? Why, I was in my rooms.”

            “Alone?”

            “Yes, of course. I was answering some fan mail, if you really want to know, and I’m afraid I rather lost track of time. Then I saw that it was almost time for the feast and so I dressed in a bit of a hurry…”

            Poirot surveyed Lockhart’s resplendent dress robes, perfectly coifed golden hair, and exquisitely manicured nails with polite interest.

            “How much of a hurry?”

            Lockhart grinned, like a schoolboy caught out in a trifling fib.

            “Well, just a little bit of a hurry. It doesn’t do to rush these things, you know. You’ve got to make a good impression when you’re a teacher, remember that. And, strictly between ourselves Mr. Poirot, I didn’t become an Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League by dressing like a house-elf, eh?”

            “Most assuredly not,” said Poirot.

            “Knew you’d understand,” said Lockhart affably. “A man of the world, just like I said! Anyway, I dressed in just a little bit of a hurry and went straight down to the Great Hall.”

            “Did you see or speak to anyone on your way?” asked Poirot.

            Lockhart frowned. “No, I don’t think so. Except… wait, a moment. Yes! I did run into old Professor Kettleburn on the stairs. Didn’t stop to chat though. The poor old devil moves so confoundedly slowly, and as I say I was already rather late, so I just wished him a happy Hallowe’en or some such remark and breezed right along to the feast.”

            “I see, yes. That is very helpful,” said Poirot. “Tell me, did you see anything else on your way downstairs, anything strange or unusual?”

            Lockhart shook his head, his handsome face vacuously blank. “No, not that I can recall. What sort of thing did you have in mind, Mr. Poirot?”

            “I was thinking perhaps you might have noticed something strange in the vicinity of the second-floor landing.”

            “Oh, I see,” said Lockhart, his blue eyes brightening with sudden comprehension. “That’s the landing where they found the cat, isn’t it? And that ghastly writing on the wall. Very bad taste that. I mean, there are better ways of getting yourself noticed, aren’t there?”

            Poirot smiled. “On that point at least, Professor, we are in agreement.”

            “Yes, quite,” said Lockhart vaguely. “But I’m afraid I still can’t help you, Mr. Poirot. That landing was quite empty and quite in order when I passed through. No hooded figures lurking in corners or anything of that sort.”

            “It need not have been anything so untoward,” Poirot said patiently. “I understand, for example, that the girls’ bathroom on that floor is prone to flooding.”

            “Oh yes,” agreed Lockhart. “That’s quite true. There’s a ghost that haunts it, I believe. I really must get around to banishing the poor creature one of these days, though as I point out in Break with a Banshee, ghostly hauntings aren’t nearly as dangerous as…”

            “Bien,” said Poirot hastily, “I’m sure you are right, but what I really meant to ask was, did you notice if that bathroom was flooded on the night of the Hallowe’en feast?”

            Lockhart hesitated. “Yes… yes, I think it must have been. Why? Is it important?”

            “It might be very important,” said Poirot. “In such cases as this one, small details so very often are… as I’m sure you are aware, Professor.”

            “Oh yes, quite so,” said Lockhart hastily. “Why, if I had a sickle for every time I’d unravelled an inscrutable mystery just by remembering what had seemed, at the time, to be the most innocuous detail…”

            “Precisement,” said Poirot, nodding. “So, you are quite sure of your facts?”

            “What? About the bathroom? Oh yes, quite sure. You see, I had just put rather a special shine on my dress shoes, and I can distinctly remember stepping carefully around the pool of water on the landing because I didn’t want to get them dirty.”

            “Bien. That is very helpful, Professor. I thank you for taking the time to recollect for me.”

            Poirot rose and offered Professor Lockhart his hand. The other man shook it, looking slightly bemused but not altogether displeased.

            “That’s all you wanted to know, is it? Well, well. I don’t know that I’ve gotten you too terribly much farther, Mr. Poirot, but perhaps I can find the time to bustle around a bit and do some investigating of my own, hmm? With two minds like ours on the case, the culprit won’t stand much of a chance, by Merlin!”

            So saying, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher took his slightly theatrical exit. Poirot gazed after him thoughtfully then collected his teacup from the desk and carried it over to the window. He sipped at the cooling tisane and watched the dark treetops of the Forbidden Forest swaying in the cold December wind. The distant belltower tolled the hour, but Poirot remained where he was, apparently lost in thought. It was some little time before someone rapped smartly at the disused classroom’s door.

            Poirot consulted his turnip-faced watch once more and nodded to himself before he turned around. There in the doorway stood a tall, stoop-shouldered man with wild grey hair and an equally wild grey moustache. He wore a leather greatcoat over his wizard’s robes, which may have originally been a russet brown but were so patched and faded that it was now quite hard to tell. The man himself also had a patched together look. His left arm below the elbow appeared to be made of wood, cunningly carved and dextrously jointed. His left leg below the knee looked much the same and his right leg was wooden almost to the height of his hip. A black leather patch covered his left eye.

            He entered the room, moving with an ungainly, lurching gait, and waved a cheerful greeting to Poirot.

            “Hullo, hullo,” he called, in the slightly too loud tones of a man a little hard of hearing. “You must be Mr. Poirot. Dumbledore’s told me all about you. Going to find the rotter who’s behind all these attacks, wot?”

            “That is at least my earnest intention,” agreed Poirot, shaking the man by his remaining hand. “And you must be Professor Kettleburn.”

            “That’s right,” Kettleburn boomed affably. “Mind if I pull up a chair?”

            “But of course. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

            Kettleburn sank gratefully onto the chair in front of the walnut desk and Poirot resumed his seat behind it.

            “Thank you for making time for me, Professor,” he said pleasantly.

            Kettleburn waved this away with a gesture of his wooden hand. “Nothing like it. I want to see this blighter caught, Mr. Poirot. You know this isn’t the first time he’s tried it, I suppose?”

            Poirot nodded. “So Professor Dumbledore informed me.”

            “As I thought. He was the Transfiguration master at that time, you know.”

            “And you?”

            “Care of Magical Creatures, same as today.”

            “Ah, yes. There is, or there was, a question of a magical creature being behind this attack, was there not?”

            Kettleburn tugged thoughtfully as his unruly moustaches. “Slytherin’s legendary monster, yes. You Know Who… well, Tom Riddle, I suppose I should say… tried to make out that the creature young Hagrid had been raising in the cellars was the famous monster, you know. And when that wouldn’t wash, he claimed the boy must have been hexperimenting on it, accidentally gave it petrification powers, and started the Heir of Slytherin rumours to cover his tracks.”

            “You did not find either of these explanations plausible?”

            “No, I did not. It was bloody well obvious from the descriptions both boys gave that the creature was an Acromantula. Now, Acromantula live a long time, Mr. Poirot, as spiders go, but for one to have survived all the way down the years from the days of Salazar Slytherin? Not on your life! And as for Hagrid carrying out some kind of deliberate campaign of deception… well, I’ll be frank, Mr. Poirot. I liked the boy and I still do, but he hasn’t got the brains for that kind of stunt.”

            “No,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “No, I think I agree. He might go to great lengths to keep a secret, but his is not a nature that would lend itself naturally to deception.”

            Kettleburn nodded. “Exactly. I didn’t believe it for a minute, but Riddle had old Armando Dippet practically eating out of his hand, so things fell out just as you’d expect. Riddle gets an award for special services; young Hagrid gets his wand snapped in half. Damn shame.”

            Poirot nodded sympathetically. “Perhaps I am being overly simplistic, but I would have thought it more likely that the monster of Slytherin would have been some kind of snake than a giant spider, in any case.”

            Kettleburn shook his head. “No, I don’t think that’s overly simplistic at all. They set a lot of store by heraldry, those old-time wizards. And there are quite a few serpentine creatures that could have fit the bill.”

            “Such as?”

            The old professor hesitated. “Well, this is all purely speculative, you understand…”

            “Oh, most certainly. I am merely curious.”

            “Well, the prime suspect would be the Runespoor. Three-headed viper, grows up to seven feet long, though my old friend Newt Scamander always claimed he’d once found a giant one that could’ve rivalled some dragons… but I digress. Anyway, parselmouths have always been fascinated by Runespoors and whatever else he was Salazar Slytherin was probably Britain’s premier parselmouth.”

            “This creature, the Runespoor… does it have the power to petrify its victims?”

            “No,” said Kettleburn, shaking his head again. “They’re venomous, but not much more dangerous than a nonmagical snake like a cobra or a boomslang. And they tend to be quite short lived. The heads start fighting amongst themselves, you see.”

            “I see,” said Poirot, his lip curling wryly. “So, even if Slytherin’s monster were a Runespoor…”

            “It couldn’t possibly be the creature behind these attacks,” said Kettleburn, nodding.

            “What are the other possibilities?”

            Kettleburn began ticking off options rapidly on his fingers.

            “Sea serpent or horned serpent, but they’re both aquatic. So is the Selma. An Occamy might live that long, but adults have wings and legs so calling them snakes is a bit of a stretch. Ashwinders are definitely snakes, but even more short-lived than the Runespoor… and they tend to set the immediate vicinity on fire, which sort of makes them stand out.”

            “So I would imagine,” murmured Poirot.

            “Ha!” barked Kettleburn cheerfully. “You’ve no idea, Mr. Poirot. I once lent an Ashwinder… but no, no. Enough about Ashwinders. Whatever else it is, the monster of Slytherin certainly isn’t an Ashwinder.”

            “So where does that leave us?”

            “Well, if it’s not some kind of giant Runespoor… and assuming for purposes of argument that this monster actually exists in the first place…”

            “But of course.”

            “Well then, I think there’s really only one other serious option: the Basilisk.”

            Poirot frowned. “I have heard of basilisks, certainly, but it has been many years since I myself studied the Care of the Magical Creatures, as you say here. Perhaps you could refresh my memory?”

            Kettleburn nodded and fished in the pocket of his tattered greatcoat for a pipe and a pouch of tobacco. “Mind if I smoke, Mr. Poirot?”

            “Not at all.”

            He lit up and leaned back with a contented sigh.

            “Not supposed to smoke around the students,” he confided. “But I didn’t think you’d mind. Now, where was I?”

            “Basilisks, Professor Kettleburn. The habits and nature of basilisks.”

            “That’s right too,” Kettleburn agreed, expelling a plume of blue-grey smoke towards the rafters. “Well, Basilisks are born when a dark wizard incubates a chicken’s egg underneath a toad. They grow quickly and can live for over nine-hundred years. An adult is forty, maybe fifty feet long, and their scales can turn aside spells like dragonhide. They live on meat and won’t scruple to eat humans. Their venom can destroy practically anything, and there’s only one known cure. Even a bezoar won’t help you; you need phoenix tears. Of course, that’s mostly irrelevant since the gaze of the Basilisk is even more deadly than its bite. If you make eye contact, you’re dead, same as if you’d been struck with a Killing Curse.”

            “They sound quite terrifying,” said Poirot with evident candour.

            Kettleburn nodded. “One of the few monsters that truly deserves the title, in my opinion. Even other monsters run from them. Acromantula—all spiders, actually—fear the basilisk especially. Their only weakness is the crowing of the rooster.”

            “Comment?” Poirot asked, leaning forward with a sudden gleam in the depths of his green eyes. “What is it you say? The roosters?”

            “Oh yes,” Kettleburn continued. “All the bestiaries are agreed on that. The crowing of the rooster is lethal to the Basilisk, as lethal as its gaze is to us. Probably has something to do with them hatching from chicken eggs, I expect, though I don’t think the underlying principles are particularly well understood.”

            Poirot seemed to consider this information, gazing fixedly at the faded map of the British Ilses that adorned the far wall of the classroom. Then he nodded.

            “I thank you, Professor. This has been most instructive. But I fear we have wandered quite a ways from my original purpose in asking to speak with you.       “

            Kettleburn sat up straighter and took a deep pull at his pipe. “Yes, of course. My apologies, Mr. Poirot. I do tend to ramble on when someone gets me fairly launched on the subject of magical creatures.”

            “Not at all,” said Poirot magnanimously. “Not at all, mon cher. The fault is entirely mine. But I had intended merely to ask you where you were and what you were doing during the hours leading up to the Hallowe’en feast. You comprehend?”

            Kettleburn exhaled another cloud of smoke. “Yes, I suppose I do. Well, it’s not much of an alibi, but I was upstairs in my office grading papers before the feast. Knew I’d be cutting it close, but I wanted to get them finished. Then I went downstairs to the Great Hall. I don’t take the stairs very fast these days, Mr. Poirot, so I was a few minutes late.”

            “Did you by any chance pass Professor Lockhart on the stairs?”

            Kettleburn looked mildly surprised. “Why yes, I did, as a matter of fact. Or rather, he passed me. He made some damn fool remark about something or other—I’m sorry I can’t be more exact Mr. Poirot, but that young hound makes so many damn fool remarks—and went on his way.”

            “On his way to the Great Hall?”

            Kettleburn nodded. “Exactly. I followed at my own pace and got there maybe three minutes after he did.”

            “Bien. One more question.”

            “Go on then.”

            “As you descended that evening, did you happen to notice anything unusual on the second-floor landing?”

            Kettleburn frowned. “Not unusual. The girls’ bathroom had flooded again, I remember because my carved foot slipped a little in the pool of water, but that’s not unusual.”

            Poirot nodded. “I comprehend. Thank you, Professor Kettleburn, for your time.”

            The two men shook hands, and Poirot checked his watch for a third and final time.

            “Ah,” he said smiling. “It is well.”

            “What’s that?” asked Kettleburn, hesitating on the threshold.

            Poirot waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing, nothing. I merely observe that it is luncheon time.”

Chapter Text

When Hannah Abbott arrived in the Great Hall for lunch, she found Mr. Poirot waiting for her. The detective was drawing a few curious stares from the other students, and Hannah heard a fifth-year girl mutter “… from Beauxbatons,” to her friend as she passed. Hannah felt her stomach twist guiltily, and wondered again if she should have dissuaded Mr. Poirot from buying his fraudulent school tie. What if someone at Hogwarts tried to ask him questions about Beauxbatons and he couldn’t answer? She hurried over to Poirot’s side.

            The detective smiled amiably and handed Hannah a mug of some thick green soup and a ham roll wrapped in a linen napkin.

            “Mademoiselle Abbott,” he said. “Are you at liberty to accompany me?”

            “Accompany you?” asked Hannah, her fingers curling automatically around the warm mug. “Accompany you where?”

            “I wish now to visit the Hospital Wing and view the victims of the attacks,” said Poirot, keeping his voice low without actually descending to a whisper. “As you are acquainted with at least one of them…”

            “Oh, I see. Yes, of course I’ll come, Mr. Poirot,” said Hannah hastily.

            The little man gave her a keen, searching glance. “You are quite sure? It is not necessary that you should go if it will discomfort or upset you.”

            “No, no,” said Hannah, trying to sound more confident than she felt. “That’s alright. I want to help.”

            Poirot’s catlike gaze lingered for a moment. Then he nodded. “Come then. It is well.”

            Hannah followed Poirot out of the Great Hall and then took the lead as they proceeded upstairs to the Hospital Wing. Poirot observed the shifting staircases and murmuring portraits that they passed with obvious interest, but he made no comment, for which Hannah was grateful as she hastily gulped her soup—split pea, she discovered—and bolted her ham roll in a few barely civilized bites. She was just wiping her hands on the napkin Poirot had provided and wondering where on Earth she could safely leave both her napkin and her empty mug, when they arrived at their destination.

            Poirot knocked lightly at the door to the Hospital Wing and was answered a moment later by Madame Pomfrey. The matronly witch in the starched white apron stared at the little man in his duck egg blue dress robes and his extravagant moustaches in some consternation. She glanced aside at Hannah and then back at Poirot.

            “Yes, sir?” she said, her voice at least betraying nothing but brisk confidence. “How can I help you?”

            Poirot bowed. “Bonjour Madame. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Hercule Poirot. I arrive on behalf of Professor Dumbledore.”

            Just as he had at Hagrid’s hut, Poirot produced a letter sealed with purple wax and handed it over to Madame Pomfrey. Madame Pomfrey opened the letter and rapidly scanned its contents.

            “I see,” she said, returning the single sheet of parchment to its envelope and stowing it in the pocket of her apron. “I don’t know what you’ll be able to learn here, Mr. Poirot. It’s quite impossible to interview a petrified person, you know.”

            “Thank you, Madame,” said Poirot, smiling his small but unperturbable smile. “I appreciate your candour. I also do not know what I may learn here. Nevertheless, I must try, must I not? It is not permissible that the person who has done these things should be go free because I, Hercule Poirot, left any avenue unexplored.”

            Madame Pomfrey’s expression hardened for a moment.

            “No,” she said quietly. “That would never do. Please, come in, Mr. Poirot. You too, Miss Abbott. You can leave those things on the tray over there.”

            Poirot entered and Hannah followed, gratefully depositing mug and napkin on the tray indicated with a collection of other dishes waiting to be collected by some diligent house-elf. Madame Pomfrey led the way to the far end of the Hospital Wing, where three beds in a row stood with their curtains drawn.

            “Please,” she said in low voice as she parted the curtains around the first bed. “Keep your voices down and do nothing that might disturb the other patients.”

            Poirot nodded gravely and stepped closer to the bed. On it lay Collin Creevey. He was a small boy with mousy brown hair and a Gryffindor patch on the pocket of his striped pyjamas. His limbs were rigid, frozen into stony immobility, and his face was pale. One of his eyes was screwed tightly shut, the other wide and glassy. The expression in it was hard to read but seemed to mingle horror with fascination. His hands were held before his face, his stiff fingers curled like grasping claws.

            “He was holding something,” Poirot murmured, turning to Madame Pomfrey. “What was it, please?”

            “His camera,” she said quietly, and indicated the bedside table with a nod.

            Following the gesture, Hannah saw an old-fashioned flashbulb camera sitting beside the wash jug. The back of the device was open, and its interior appeared blackened and scorched.

            “I take it he did not manage to take a picture of his attacker,” Poirot said dryly.

            Madame Pomfrey shook her head. “The film was destroyed. Burned. I was here when they opened it.”

            Poirot nodded and moved to stand at the head of the bed. He studied the angle of Collin’s head and upraised hands for a moment and then nodded again.

            “He is looking up,” he observed.

            “Well,” said Madame Pomfrey, “he is quite a small boy, Mr. Poirot. Naturally, his attacker would be taller than he was.”

            “Naturally,” Poirot replied. “May we now see the other boy?”

            Hannah was braced for the sight of Justin Finch-Fletchley’s pale, icy stillness, but she felt her stomach twist painfully within her, nonetheless. Her friend might have been cast from lead, his normally open and cheerful face frozen in an expression of animal terror. Even Poirot drew his breath in sharply.

            “Mon Dieu,” he murmured, and stepped swiftly to the head of the bed. He bent low over Justin, then stood back and held out his right hand with the thumb spread to form a right angle, as if measuring something by eye. Once again, he nodded.

            “Enough,” he said, and turned to Madame Pomfrey again. “There is one more?”

            She nodded and the led the way to the last bed.

            No one lay upon this bed, but Nearly Headless Nick—the ghost of Gryffindor Tower—floated just above it. He was still faintly translucent but no longer a spectral, shimmering silver. His body and his elaborate fifteenth-century clothes were dark and cloudy, like smoked glass, and his insubstantial limbs were stiff and unmoving. His face too was shocked and alarmed, and Poirot made the same close observation of the angle of his head and eyes. He frowned to himself as he stepped back.

            “He was found with the boy?” he asked. “With Monsieur Finch-Fletchley?”

            Both Hannah and Madame Pomfrey nodded.

            “Tell me please, do you know how they were arranged? I mean to say, were they standing side-by-side or was the boy standing in front, or how was it?”

            “I was not there,” said Madame Pomfrey. “But I believe Miss Abbott was one of the students who discovered the scene.”

            Hannah shook her head, trying to remember. “They were on the ground, Mr. Poirot. Well, Justin was on the ground and Nearly Headless Nick was just floating there. They weren’t side-by-side though. Nick was a little further off.”

            “Could you tell in what direction they had each been looking?”

            “No,” said Hannah, shaking her head again and biting her lip in frustration. “No, because they’d fallen over. I can’t say for sure. But they must have been looking in the same direction, mustn’t they? They must have both seen the… their attacker.”

            “Yes,” said Poirot, nodding slowly. “Yes, I think you are right.”

            He turned to Madame Pomfrey and bowed. “Madame, thank you. I shall not trespass further upon your time. Mademoiselle Abbott, allow me to escort you back to the Great Hall.”

Hannah trotted after Poirot as they left the Hospital Wing.

            “Well?” she asked, glancing back over her shoulder to make sure that no one was within earshot. “Did you find out what you wanted, Mr. Poirot?”

            Poirot nodded but made an equivocating gesture with one hand. “Yes and no, ma chère. I have today had two very interesting interviews and observed with my own eyes some very interesting clues… as my dear Hastings would no doubt describe them. Certainly, I know much more now than I did before. Indeed, I believe I now know almost exactly how these crimes were committed. But the question of who, who is behind these crimes… there I seek still for the illumination. I have, it is perhaps true, a little idea. But an idea is not by itself evidence, not even the ideas of Hercule Poirot.”

            They reached the top of a long staircase and Hannah took the lead once more as they descended. She knew Hogwarts well enough by now to see at a glance that the stairs had shifted while they’d been in the Hospital Wing, obliging them to take a different route to return to the Great Hall.

            “Before, when we were talking to Professor Dumbledore,” Hannah prompted, “you said that only Professor Kettleburn or Professor Lockhart could have done it, because they were the only fully trained wizards who weren’t there for the start of the Hallowe’en Feast.”

            Poirot smiled at her and his green eyes twinkled. “I did say something of that kind, yes.”

            “And you interviewed both of them this morning,” said Hannah, without quite making the statement into a question.

            Poirot nodded. “I did, yes. They were, as I say, both quite interesting interviews, each in its own way… but as a suspected criminal, I have to say, I find Prof Lockhart by far the more interesting of the pair.”

            “Lockhart?” said Hannah, catching her breath. “A criminal? Really?”

            “It is more than possible,” Poirot said, nodding. “He is arrogant, dishonest, and by no means unintelligent. He is of a type very capable of crime, even very serious crime.”

            “Dishonest?”

            “He had already lied to me within moments of making my acquaintance,” said Poirot gravely. “There are also certain discrepancies of time and location in his published works. That by itself I do not find very remarkable. It is not common to remember the dates with great exactitude. But now, after having interviewed the man… yes, I find it remarkably suspicious. I think Monsieur Lockhart has a great deal to hide. And men have killed to protect their secrets before now, ma chère.”

            “Do you… do you mean that Justin or Collin might have found out something about Professor Lockhart and then he…”

            Poirot cut her off with a shake of his egg-shaped head.

            “No, I do not say so. I say only that I believe he would be psychologically capable of such a crime. But since I have interviewed him, I have seen and learned much, and it is now clear to me that there is at least one more person whom I must interview.”

             “Who?” asked Hannah eagerly. “Who are you going to interview?”

            Poirot smiled his most catlike smile. “Monsieur Fabian Bullfinch, the Hygienic Heggler.”

Chapter Text

Hannah did not see Poirot again that day, though she looked for him after the end of her classes and again after the end of end of dinner without result. Hogwarts Castle seemed to have swallowed the little man whole. Nevertheless, when Hannah made her way upstairs from the Hufflepuff Basement on the following morning in quest of breakfast, there was Mister Poirot.

            He was dressed for warmth, with his enormous woollen muffler draped loosely about his shoulders and half-melted snow still clinging to the toes of his shiny black shoes, as if he’d been out wandering the grounds. He was drinking a cup of thick hot chocolate and smiling a faint, self-satisfied smile. He drew Hannah aside and they moved off down the corridor until they were far enough from the stairwell and the Great Hall to be certain that they would not be overheard.

            “Fear not, Mademoiselle,” Poirot said soothingly. “I do not intend that you should miss your breakfast. I come merely to make a request of you. I have a little assignment for you, if you are agreeable.”

            Hannah nodded. “Of course, Mr. Poirot. How can I help? And where have you been?”

            “Watching,” Poirot replied. “I have been watching, Mademoiselle, but now it is your turn. I need you to watch over Ginevra Weasley. You know her?”

            “Ginny Weasley? Yes, I know her. She’s in Gryffindor, but her…”

            She hesitated.

            “She’s in Gryffindor,” Hannah repeated. “A Gryffindor girl. But not a second-year.”

            “No,” said Poirot, shaking his head gravely. “Not a second-year. A first-year. A first-year Gryffindor girl in second-hand robes.”

            Hannah stepped closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “It’s her? She’s the one who had the red paint on her clothes? The one who wrote that stuff on the wall and attacked Mrs. Norris?”

            “I need you to watch her,” said Poirot seriously. “Follow her. Absent yourself from your classes if you must, but do not be obtrusive. See to whom she talks, how she spends her time. Does she receive any messages by the owl post? Does she slip away often to be alone? All these things. You understand?”

            Hannah nodded. “I understand, Mr. Poirot.”

            “Bien. I must rest myself now. Find me in the evening, in the empty classroom. I will await your report.”

In the end, Mr. Poirot’s assignment proved easier than Hannah had expected. Finding Ginny—with her long, fiery red hair—was easy, even in a crowd, while Hannah herself seemed to fade effortlessly into the background. Ginny appeared anxious and distracted, and her eyes skipped easily over the plump, quiet Hufflepuff girl who shadowed her from room to room. Hannah could not, of course, follow Ginny into to all her classes nor into the sanctum of Gryffindor Tower, but anytime that she was abroad in the halls or the common areas of the castle and its grounds, Hannah was there also. She even followed Ginny into the girls’ bathrooms, and that evening she lurked in the hallway leading to the Fat Lady’s portrait until she heard the distant tolling of the bell that marked the curfew hour. Then, satisfied that her quarry really had gone to cover for the night, Hannah crept cautiously downstairs and made her way to the disused classroom on the first floor.

            Poirot was waiting for her, as he had promised. He sat at the old walnut desk, reading A History of Magic by the yellow light of a candle lantern, but he looked up at once when she opened the door.

            “Ah, Mademoiselle Abbott,” he said, beckoning her to a seat. “Come, come. Please, sit. I had been growing afraid for you. You are out after hours, is it not so?”

            “A little,” Hannah admitted. “But I’ll be all right.”

            “Most assuredly, you shall. I shall undertake to escort you myself. But first, let us hear your report.”

            Hannah shifted in her chair and made a face. “I’m not sure I have very much to report, Mr. Poirot. I watched Ginny all day, but I didn’t see her doing anything that I would call suspicious. She went to all her classes. She went to all of her meals. She went to the library after supper and checked out a book.”

            “A book?” asked Poirot curiously. “On what subject?”

            Hannah shook her head. “Astronomy. But I know that book, Mr. Poirot. I saw the cover and it’s the same one I checked out last year when I was studying for Professor Sinistra’s exams. There’s nothing exciting in it, just pages and pages of star charts.”

            Poirot nodded. “That seems quite innocuous, I agree. And then?”

            “She worked in the library for a little while, then went back up to Gryffindor Tower. I waited outside until just a few minutes ago, but she didn’t come out.”

            Again, Poirot nodded. “Well done, ma chère. You have the makings of a good investigator. Tell me, did you observe Mademoiselle Weasley speaking with any particular person in the hallways or during mealtimes?”

            Hannah shook her head. “No, she hardly talked to anyone, expect her brothers, and even those weren’t long conversations. Just ‘Hello, how are you, fine,’ and that kind of thing.”

            “I comprehend. So, if not in conversation, how did Mademoiselle Weasley pass the time between her classes?”

            Hannah hesitated, casting her mind back to an image of Ginny sitting alone at the end of one of the long tables in the Great Hall, her head bent over… over what?”

“A book,” Hannah said aloud. “She spent a lot of time writing in a small book. I think it must have been her diary.”

            “A diary?” asked Poirot. “Not a schoolbook, a composition book?”

            “No,” said Hannah, shaking her head. “Hogwarts doesn’t really use them. Everything has to be written on scrolls of parchment. So I think this book must have been something personal.”

            “Like a diary.”

            Hannah nodded. “Yes, exactly.”

            “She wrote often in it?”

            “All the time,” Hannah affirmed. “I couldn’t tell you exactly how often. Maybe ten or twelve times throughout the day.”

            “But yes, that is very often!” exclaimed Poirot, his green eyes widening. Then a thought seemed to occur to him. “Can you describe for me how she wrote? The tempo of it, I mean. She was a fast writer, or slow and methodical, or how was it?”

            Hannah frowned and hesitated again before answering. “She would write a few lines very quickly—I could see her quill moving—and then she would pause and read for a while, as if she were reading over what she had just written. Then she’d write another few lines, also very quickly, and then she’d stop again.”

            Poirot nodded slowly and leant back in his highbacked chair, interlacing his fingers over his stomach.

            “Bien. So that has been the way of it. Thank you, Mademoiselle Abbott. You have observed with admirable thoroughness.”

            “But I don’t understand,” Hannah protested. “Is the diary important?”

            Poirot started to nod, then hesitated.

            “Possibly,” he said. “I have a little idea about that diary. But I must be sure. When I am sure…”

            He turned his head away then and the light of the candle lantern seemed to flare in the depths of his green eyes. Hannah shivered and looked away, suddenly almost frightened of the funny little detective.

            “When I am sure,” said Poirot, speaking softly, “then I will leave this coward nowhere to hide.”

Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger were sitting in a quiet corner of the Hogwarts Castle library when Hercule Poirot found them. Hermione was the first to spot the detective and she hissed a warning to the other two as he approached. If Poirot noticed this, he gave no sign.

            “Messieurs, Mademoiselle,” he said pleasantly, inclining his head to each of them in turn. “I beg your pardons for this intrusion. I have one more little question that I hope you may be able to answer for me.”

            “Er,” said Harry, glancing at the others. “I’m not sure we… I mean, we want to help if we can, of course. Please, sit down, Mr. Poirot.”

            “You are most amiable,” Poirot pronounced, taking the only unoccupied chair. “I will not detain you long. I wish to know only this: has Ginny Weasley…”

            Ron shifted in his seat, plainly startled by the sound of his sister’s name. Poirot nodded to him.

            “…has your sister, Monsieur Weasley, ever had occasion to meet Lucius Malfoy?”

            “Lucius Malfoy?” Ron repeated, looking still more startled.

            “Not Draco Malfoy?” asked Harry, now watching Poirot intently.

            “Comment? Draco Malfoy?” asked the detective, momentarily distracted from his purpose.

            “He’s Lucius Malfoy’s only son,” explained Hermione. “He’s here at the school, in Slytherin.”

            “Ah,” said Poirot, settling back in his chair. “I see. Young Master Malfoy, he perhaps shares his father’s views on Muggle-born students at Hogwarts?”

            “Yes,” said Hermione, her voice chilly. “He does.”

            The other two nodded.

            “They’re a very old wizarding family, the Malfoys,” said Ron. “And they’ve always been in Slytherin, for like almost a thousand years. And Lucius, Malfoy’s dad, he was a student here at Hogwarts fifty years ago, with You Know Who.”

            “When the Chamber of Secrets was first opened,” said Poirot in carefully neutral tones.

            The trio nodded.

            “Mr. Poirot…” Harry began.

            Poirot shook his head. “I thank you for this information, mes amis, but the question I put to you is unchanged. Has Ginny Weasley ever encountered Lucius Malfoy?”

            “She has, actually,” said Ron, sounding almost surprised at the recollection. “At Flourish and Blott’s.”

            “Oh right,” said Harry, looking over at his friend. “Your dad hit Lucius Malfoy in the eye with an Encyclopaedia of Toadstools.”

            “He didn’t!” Ron protested. “They both crashed into that bookshelf and the book fell on Malfoy. It wasn’t like my dad chucked it at him.”

            “Your pardons,” Poirot cut in. “Lucius Malfoy and your father, Arthur Weasley, they had a fistfight? A combat au poing?”

            “Er, yeah. They did, yeah,” agreed Ron sheepishly. “Lucius Malfoy, he was saying all kinds of nasty stuff about our family and my dad lost his temper.”

            “In Flourish and Blott’s, the bookshop in Diagon Alley?”

            Ron nodded. “That’s right.”

            “Your sister, she was present?”

            “She was,” said Ron. “That’s sort of how it started. She had her new cauldron with her and all her schoolbooks in it and Malfoy came and started digging through it and being all snotty because the books were old and second-hand. He said… what did he say, Harry?”

            “He said, ‘What’s the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it?’” Harry quoted grimly.

            “And so, your father was very naturally incensed,” finished Poirot. “Bien. I understand.”

             He stood briskly and brushed the dust from his dress robes.

            “You’re going?” asked Harry.

            Poirot nodded. “Yes, I must now depart. I must speak to the headmaster.”

            “Why? What are you going to tell him?”

            Poirot smiled and his green eyes glittered like a cat on the prowl. “Patience, Monsieur Potter. You must have patience. You, all of you at Hogwarts, have been through a great trial, but it is nearly over now. Yes indeed, it is nearly over now.”

Chapter Text

Hercule Poirot walked down a windowless hallway deep within the secret warren of windowless hallways that was the Ministry of Magic. The black marble tiles rang beneath his shiny black shoes and the bald dome of his egg-shaped head shone dimly in the light of the slow-burning torches. On his right paced Professor Dumbledore, tall and serene in his long robes and purple cloak and his high-heeled, buckled boots. On his left marched Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She was a square-jawed witch with close-cropped grey hair and a monocle in her right eye, and her expression was decidedly grim.

            “His solicitor has filed a motion that prevents us from using Veritaserum or Legillimency without first obtaining an order from a full assembly of the Wizengamot,” she said flatly. “If he doesn’t want to talk, we can’t compel him to. We’re lucky that other idea of yours worked out, Mr. Poirot.”

            Poirot nodded. “Indeed, we are fortunate. The house-elf, has he confirmed the particulars of the case?”

            “He has confirmed that it was the intention of his master, Lucius Malfoy, to reopen the Chamber of Secrets. He also remembers a small and otherwise unremarkable black book that until recently was kept with Malfoy’s collection of dark artifacts.”

            “And recently?”

            “The book is gone. He thinks Malfoy must have removed it, because no one else was allowed to handle the artifacts in the collection.”

            “Well, that is something. Even without the use of the, how do you say? The truth potion?”

            “Veritaserum,” said Dumbledore smoothly.

            Poirot nodded. “Precisement. Even without its use, I think we can now build a convincing case against Monsieur Malfoy.”

            “What I don’t understand,” said Amelia Bones, “is how you came to suspect Malfoy’s involvement in the first place, Mr. Poirot.”

            Poirot smiled but shook his head. “Not yet, Madame Bones. I must not be like the fox in the fable, boasting of my cleverness in catching the cockerel… only to let the bird fly free of my jaws.”

            “Ha!” Madame Bones barked. “Too true. Very well, Mr. Poirot. We’ll see what Malfoy has to say for himself before we start slapping each other on the back.”

            She halted in front of a reinforced iron door with a narrow window in the top covered by a sliding panel. After a brief glance through this window, Madame Bones unlocked the door and led the way inside.

            The small room was bare and brightly lit, with a single table of dark, ancient wood bolted to the flagstone floor. At the table sat a tall man with long silver-blonde hair and a pale, pointed face. His dark velvet dress robes were rumpled, and his narrow wrists were weighted down with heavy manacles. He cast a baleful, grey-eyed gaze upon his visitors, and his upper lip curled almost automatically into a condescending sneer.

            “Really, Dumbledore,” he said, his voice cold and smooth. “I know we have had our little disagreements about the proper policies to pursue at Hogwarts, but I never expected you to stoop to this.”

            “And to what do you think I have stooped, Lucius?” said Dumbledore, apparently unperturbed. He produced his wand and conjured three straight-backed chairs from the air, inviting Poirot and Madame Bones to join him as he sat.

            “Come, Dumbledore,” said Lucius Malfoy. “You and your friends at the Ministry are trying to pin these tragic attacks, these evidences of your own incompetence, on me. Does your love of being headmaster really run so deep?”

            “It’s no good, Malfoy,” said Madame Bones brusquely. “Your house-elf’s already given the game away. We know what you were trying to do, and we know how you were doing it.”

            “My house-elf,” said Lucius Malfoy flatly, “is considered half-witted even by other members of his kind. Nothing he says should be considered evidence, Madame Bones.”

            “And what about the book you gave to Arthur Weasley’s daughter?” Amelia Bones asked sharply. “Do you think that will constitute evidence, Malfoy?”

            Lucius’ smile was a marble mask.

            “What book?” he asked politely.

            “Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Madame Bones sighed. “Very well, Malfoy. We can do this hard way, though I’d very much prefer not to. I am referring to the book you used to communicate your orders to Ginevra Weasley after you placed her under the Imperius Curse.”

            Lucius Malfoy’s smile widened fractionally. “I can assure you, Madame Bones, that I did no such thing.”

            Madame Bones sighed again and stood. “Really, Malfoy, I’m disappointed in you. In your place, a really clever man might have tried to strike some sort of deal. I know you have resources, and friends in the Ministry—though how many you’ll still have tomorrow is very much in question. Favours to call in, information to sell. You might have given us a real fight. As it is, this stout denial stuff only buys you a few hours until I get the Wizengamot assembled and wring a warrant for the use of Veritaserum out of them. Then it’s all going to come out, Malfoy, and it’s all going to be very ugly.”

            “A Malfoy does not beg,” said Lucius with another hard, cold sneer. “Nor does he bargain with those who are beneath him.”

            “Beneath you, Malfoy?” said Madame Bones, the eye behind her monocle flashing dangerously. “My family is as old as yours, and I am not the one who has stooped to making a weapon out of my enemy’s child.”

            Lucius Malfoy leant back in his chair with a rattle of chains and emitted a dry little laugh. “Be careful of that temper, Madame Bones. Hexing a bound prisoner won’t help the credibility of your case.”

            Madame Bones glared at him.

            “You always were an insufferable prick, Malfoy,” she said coldly.

            With that she turned on her heel, and Poirot and Dumbledore followed her out of the cell.

            “Well,” said Madame Bones, once the door was safely sealed behind them, “that might have gone better.”

            Poirot, who had spoken no word and shown very little expression throughout the interview, nodded absently.

            “He is bluffing, of course. But that is not what worries me.”

            “Bluffing? Are you quite sure?”

            “Oh, but yes,” said Poirot, mildly surprised. “He admitted nothing, but his reactions were most telling, did you not think?”

            “I’d have said he barely reacted at all,” said Madame Bones.

            “And that in itself is odd,” replied Poirot. “We have between us accused him of some very serious crimes, committed by very cruel and unusual methods. To an innocent man, such accusations would be shocking… or at least startling. Did Monsieur Malfoy appear startled to you?”

            “No,” Madame Bones admitted, glancing over at Dumbledore. “No, he didn’t. Nothing I said seemed even to surprise him.

            Dumbledore nodded his agreement. “I think Mr. Poirot is right. Lucius knew, in at least a general way, what we were going to say long before we ever entered that room.”

            “Which he couldn’t know, not yet,” said Madame Bones, her stern face hardening. “Not unless he really were complicit.”

            The other two nodded.

            “Right,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Dumbledore, you should come with me. We need to assemble the Wizengamot as quickly as possible, and you were Chief Warlock for years. They’ll listen to you. Mr. Poirot, can you find your way back to my office without help? You can wait for us there.”

            Poirot nodded, still staring before him with an abstracted expression. Dumbledore fixed the little detective with a piercing blue glance.

            “Something is troubling you, Mr. Poirot.”

            “Yes,” said Poirot softly. “There is something. Something I have overlooked.”

            “Something urgent?” asked Madame Bones sharply.

            Poirot shook his head. “I cannot say. Perhaps not. You should not delay your work, Madame. At all events, I am still convinced of Lucius Malfoy’s complicity.”

            “Good enough for me,” said Madame Bones briskly. “Coming Dumbledore?”

            The headmaster continued to watch Poirot, but when the little man waved him away with an impatient gesture, he nodded. Madame Bones extended her wand hand, took a half step to her right, and with a crack like a whip abruptly vanished. Dumbledore, mirroring her motions, vanished a half-heartbeat later.

            Poirot winced.

            “It is terribly convenient, that,” he said to no one in particular, “but not terribly subtle.”

            He shook his head and began to walk back down the windowless corridor in the direction of Madame Bones’ office. His brow was furrowed and his gaze downcast, staring hard at the polished black tiles of the floor without seeming to see them. He toyed absently with the sphinx whisker wand as he walked, tapping the slender length of olivewood against his leg in a restless rhythm.

            “It is the psychology that troubles me,” he said aloud. “Yes, that is so. The evidence speaks clearly, but the psychology… it is like a flea in the ear. Did I not say all along that the method of this crime indicated the immature mind? Bien, I did. And now the little voice in my ear, it says, ‘Is that the mind of Lucius Malfoy? Is he the one to hang the caretaker’s cat by tail? To write rhymes upon the walls in paint?’”

            He shook his head decisively. “No, that would not be his way. Of him, I could believe murder, yes. But vandalism? No. He has too much the pride, the pride in himself, in his name, in his wizard’s blood. He would not stoop to schoolboy pranks. Therefore… therefore, he did not do so. There is someone else.”

            He stopped short in the centre of the corridor.

            “There is someone else. But whom? Whom would Lucius Malfoy trust? Another dark wizard? No. Not with this. Not with knowledge that could destroy him. His teenage son? That might explain… but no. He would not risk the heir of his name and his blood. No. No, he would not choose to risk his family, and he would not dare to involve anyone outside his family. Therefore… therefore, he involved no one. There is no one else.”

            He shook his head, no longer decisive, and made a noise of self-disgust. He glanced down at the wand he held, thrust it impatiently into the pocket of his dress robes, and began to walk. Then, as if the motion had shaken loose an idea trapped in the gears of his powerful brain, Poirot cried out.

            “Mon Dieu!”

            He spun on his heel, turning towards someone who was not there, and then back again to face the empty corridor.

            “My God,” he whispered, “‘My God, it talks!’ Oh, I am the king of the world’s fools. And now they are all in danger. Quickly now, quickly!”

            He hastened along the corridor until he came to another small, cell-like room. The iron door of this cell stood unlocked and open, but an auror in dark, official-looking robes stood on duty outside it. The man had seen Poirot in company with Albus Dumbledore and the head of his own department, quite evidently in both of their confidences, so now he gave him a deferential nod.

            “Yes, sir? What can I do for you?”

            “Find Madame Bones,” said Poirot urgently.

            “Madame Bones, sir? But wasn’t she with you, sir?”

            “She was, and now she is gone. Gone to assemble the Wizengamot. But there no is time. Find her for me, please.”

            “But… but where is she?”

            “Mon Dieu! Have I not asked you to find her? Does it then seem to you that I know where she is? Go search for her. Go quickly. Tell her that the danger is still at Hogwarts. Sans tarder!”

            The man, now looking quite alarmed, nodded hastily and disapparated with a loud crack. Shaking his head, Poirot stepped inside the now unguarded cell.

            In this cell, at this table, sat a much smaller figure: a house-elf, whose bare, skinny feet dangled far above the flagstone floor. He looked up as Poirot entered, regarding the little detective warily with bulbous, vividly green eyes. Poirot returned the elf’s stare levelly, observing and assessing.

            The house-elves at Hogwarts had been dressed in various odds and ends of fabric—table runners, bath towels, and tea cozies—not clothes in the strictest sense, but all clean, warm, and in good repair. This house-elf wore a single tattered pillowcase, grey and grimy with age, that hung loosely on his stick-thin limbs. Poirot saw the shadows of old bruises beneath the elf’s brown skin. There were thick scars on his long fingers too, and on the tips of his pointed, batlike ears.

            Poirot bowed, and the elf quickly scrambled to do likewise.

            “Bonjour, Monsieur,” said Poirot pleasantly. “I take it that you are the house-elf of Malfoy Manor.”

            The elf nodded. “Yes, sir, that’s right. Dobby, sir, Dobby the house-elf.”

            “I am pleased to meet you, Monsieur Dobby,” replied Poirot. “My name is Hercule Poirot, and I am the man responsible for the arrest of your master, Lucius Malfoy.”

            “Yes, sir?” said Dobby uncertainly.

            Poirot nodded. “Yes indeed. They tell me that you gave evidence very readily against Monsieur Malfoy. Is this so?”

            “Yes, sir…” said Dobby, looking wary once more.

            “You knew then of your master’s intention to reopen the Chamber of Secrets. Did you approve of his plan?”

            “Did Dobby… no, sir! Never, sir! Setting a monster loose in Hogwarts, sir? Where Harry Potter and his friends are, sir? Not to mention all the house-elves who work for Professor Dumbledore, sir. No, Dobby could never approve of that. But Master Malfoy swore Dobby to secrecy, sir, and if a house-elf disobeys his master’s orders…

             “He is punished,” said Poirot, nodding.

            “He punishes himself, sir,” said Dobby, looking down at his scarred fingers. “Dobby could only tell the aurors here because they seemed to know most of it already… and even so they had to hold Dobby down so he wouldn’t hurt his head against the table, sir.”

            “Bien. I understand. I am not here to scold you, Monsieur Dobby. I am here because I need your help.”

            “Dobby’s help?” said the house-elf, looking up in surprise.

            Poirot nodded emphatically. “But yes. Only you can help me now, Monsieur Dobby. Harry Potter and his friends are in grave danger. I must reach them as quickly as possible, and only an elf may apparate into Hogwarts Castle.”

            “Harry Potter is in danger?” Dobby cried, springing to his feet. “Why did Mr. Poirot not say so at once? We must go to Hogwarts! We must go at once!”

            “We must go,” Poirot agreed, “but not at once. We make first the preparations. Can you take me to Hogsmeade Village?”

            Dobby nodded rapidly and stuck out a skinny hand to Poirot. “Of course! But quickly, Mr. Poirot. Quickly!”

            Poirot demurred no longer but took hold of the elf’s outstretched hand. There was sharp crack, and then the little cell was suddenly and entirely empty.

Chapter Text

The great hall of Hogwarts Castle was empty when Poirot and Dobby appeared suddenly in the middle of it. Poirot turned around slowly, his curiously egg-shaped head cocked on one side as he listened. In one hand he held a bulky object by a wire handle. The object itself was perhaps the size of a small suitcase but wrapped in sackcloth so that its particular nature was not readily identifiable. Following Poirot’s example, Dobby the house-elf pricked up his large, batlike ears.

            “Dobby doesn’t hear anyone,” he reported, sounding worried. “Not in the hallways and not upstairs.”

            Poirot nodded. “Something has happened. Quickly, to Gryffindor Tower.”

            He held out his hand and Dobby took it. Once again, the world cracked like a whip, and a moment later they both materialized in the centre of the Gryffindor common room, standing—as it happened—atop one of the low wooden tables.

            Two dozen pairs of horrified eyes stared at the elf and the detective from every corner of the crowded, comfortable room. Two dozen mouths hung open in amazed silence. The gentle crackling of the fire in the wide stone fireplace seemed almost deafening.

           Poirot nodded politely to the stunned students and looked around until he spotted a pair of boys with identical freckled faces and bright red hair.

            “Where,” he said clearly and distinctly, “is Ginny Weasley?”

            “Who the bloody hell are you?” said the boy on the left.

            “My name is Hercule Poirot,” said the detective darkly. “Where is your sister?”

            “She's gone, Mr. Poirot,” said an unexpected voice.

            Poirot turned to find Hannah Abbott emerging from behind an armchair, a lone figure dressed in black and yellow in that sea of red and gold.

            “Mademoiselle Abbott,” said Poirot, stepping down from the table and moving towards her. “But what are you doing in Gryffindor Tower?”

            “I came looking for Ginny, Mr. Poirot, because you’d told me to watch her, and when Professor McGonagall found me, she said I had better just stay here. She said it might not be safe.”

            “Might not be safe? But why? What has happened? What has happened to Mademoiselle Weasley?”

            “Gone,” said the red-haired boy on the right. He looked shaken and very pale beneath his freckles. “He’s taken her. Taken her into the chamber.”

            Hannah nodded. “‘Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.’ That’s what they wrote on the wall, Mr. Poirot. And so they sent us off to our common rooms to take a headcount and then and then…”

            “Ginny was missing,” said the red-haired boys in flat, eerie unison.

            “And what of Harry Potter?” Poirot demanded. “What of his friends? Your brother, Ronald?”

            “Ron?” said the lefthand twin, startled. “I haven’t seen him since McGonagall did the headcount. Have you, George?”

            The righthand twin shook his head. “No, I haven’t, come to think of it. I think he went upstairs with Harry and Hermione…”

            He turned to a plump, nervous looking boy of about Hannah’s age. “Did you see them up there, Neville?”

            Neville shook his head, now looking even more nervous. “N-no, I didn’t. Our room was empty.”

            “You don’t think…” said George, turning an ashen face to Poirot. Poirot nodded.

            “I do. I think they have gone looking for the Chamber of Secrets.”

            “We have to go after them,” said George’s brother, jumping to his feet.

            “No!” said Poirot sharply. “This is no time for the childish heroics, Monsieur Weasley. What you must do is find Professor McGonagall. Find her at once, the pair of you. The rest of you, stay in the tower and do not open the door to anyone who knows not the password. You understand?”

            The Gryffindors nodded, half alarmed and half relieved to have this strange adult issuing his sharp orders. Poirot hefted his strange bundle and headed for the common room door, Dobby following close behind. Hannah hesitated and then hurried after them, catching them up in the hall.

            “Mr. Poirot,” she asked, nervous and a little out of breath, “where are you going now?”

            “To the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets.”

            “But… but where is the entrance? Do you mean that you know?”

            Poirot shook his head. “No, ma chère. I do not know. But I must discover. I must discover all in a moment that knowledge which has eluded Hogwarts headmasters for nigh on a thousand years.”

            “But that’s impossible!”

            “No, not impossible. Reflect. Harry Potter and his friends went in search of the Chamber of the Secrets. That much is evident. If they did not know where the Chamber was or could not obtain access to it, they would have returned to Gryffindor Tower. Therefore, one of them has already guessed the answer to the same riddle that now confronts us. At a venture, I should say that it was Miss Granger. It is she who possesses the orderly, the methodical mind. She does not have the full facts of the case, not nearly, yet she has enough. Enough to deduce the location of the Chamber’s entrance.”

            “So then… so then we also have enough information to find the Chamber,” said Hannah, looking at Poirot hopefully.

            The detective nodded. “Yes… yes, I believe that we do.”

Poirot’s shiny black shoes squeaked slightly on the damp flagstones of the second-floor girl’s bathroom. The room appeared deserted, but Hannah still glanced around nervously as she followed the detective and the house-elf inside.

            “Are you sure this is the right place?” she asked in hushed tones. “I mean, there’s lots of bathrooms at Hogwarts…”

            “But this is the only one directly connected to any of the attacks,” said Poirot. He had begun methodically examining every fixture of the bathroom.

            “What are you looking for?”

            “That I will know only once I have found it.”

            “That’s not very helpful, you know,” Hannah whispered, as she too began scrutinizing the pipes and faucets.

            Poirot chuckled, then broke off suddenly with a triumphant cry.

            “Eurêka! Look here, my friends, and tell me what you see.”

            Hannah and Dobby clustered around the sink where Poirot was standing. There, engraved on the ancient copper tap, was the image of a small, sinuous snake.

            “The snake is for Salazar of the House of Slytherin,” said Dobby excitedly. “This must be the entrance to Slytherin’s secret chamber!”

            Poirot nodded. “But yes. I think you are right. The question now is how we may open it.”

            He reached out and cautiously turned the tap. There was no answering rush of water, nor even the distant groaning of old pipes. The detective frowned.

            “That tap’s never worked,” said a bright, slightly quavery voice from behind them.

            As one, they turned towards the noise. There, floating several feet above the damp flagstone floor was the ghostly figure of a schoolgirl. She was a stout child with long pigtails and thick glasses, dressed in faded Ravenclaw robes. Her translucent form gave off a faint, silvery glow, reflected and magnified by the mirrors that lined the bathroom walls.

            “Moaning Myrtle,” Hannah whispered.

            The ghost girl scowled. “Oh yes, that’s right. That’s what they’ve always called me. Miserable, moping, moaning Myrtle. Well, what are you three doing here anyway? Two of you aren’t even girls. If you don’t leave right away, I’ll get the Bloody Baron. He’ll put a stop to you.”

            Hannah started to mumble an apology, but Poirot stepped forward. The little detective bowed deeply before Myrtle, with one hand pressed eloquently over his heart.

            “Mademoiselle, I owe you a profound apology… not only for this present intrusion, but also for the unpardonable oversight I have made in not coming to speak with you sooner.”

            “I… what?” asked Myrtle, drifting lower. “You wanted to come and speak with me?”

            “I should have,” said Poirot. “But yes. Did I not say at the outset that I should begin at the beginning, and so progress with order and method from the past into the present? But this, alas, I have not done. I have seen every victim, interviewed every witness. All save one, Mademoiselle. The first witness… and the last. You, Mademoiselle.”

            Myrtle seemed flustered now, but not nearly so angry. A silver blush was creeping over her translucent face.

            “But… but I don’t understand. Who are you? And what do you want to know?”

            Poirot bowed again. “My name is Hercule Poirot. I am investigating a series of attacks here at the school, attacks that have left two students petrified. Do you perhaps recall something of a similar nature occurring when you were a student?”

            Myrtle shuddered happily. “Of course! We were ever so scared. Half a dozen students were petrified, and everyone was saying it was the Heir of Slytherin. That was the last year I was alive, you know.”

            Beside Poirot, Hannah let out a little gasp. “So you were killed… you were… Myrtle, were you killed by Slytherin’s monster?”

            Myrtle looked thoughtful. “I suppose I might have been. Yes, I think I must have been. I don’t really remember it. I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away. …”

            “These eyes,” said Poirot. “Where precisely did you see them?”

            “Right over there,” said Myrtle, pointing at the sink behind them.

            Poirot nodded. “Thank you, Mademoiselle. That is most helpful. I wonder now if you can tell me something else.”

            “Yes?” asked Myrtle curiously.

            “Has Harry Potter come to this bathroom today?”

            “Oh, he comes here a lot,” said Myrtle, then flushed an even deeper silver. “Not to see me, I don’t mean. He and his friends have been coming here to brew some kind of potion. But today…”

            “Yes?” prompted Poirot when Myrtle broke off. “What happened today?”

            “I’m not sure I should say. They told me not to.”

            “They are in danger, Mademoiselle,” said Poirot gravely.

            “Yes!” chimed in Dobby. “Harry Potter is in terrible danger!”

            Myrtle cast an unhappy look at the sink. “In danger? You’re sure?”

            Poirot nodded.

            The ghost girl sighed, a cold little sound, like the wind gusting through the chinks and crannies of an abandoned house. “I supposed I’d better tell you then. They came in here less than an hour ago, all three of them. They looked around, just like you did, until they found that little snake on the tap that doesn’t work. Then Harry Potter said something to the tap and it opened up.”

            “Opened up?” said Hannah, frowning. “Opened up how?”

            “It was like a big pipe,” said Myrtle. “Or maybe a chute. They went down it, but I… I didn’t want to follow them.”

            “What was it that Monsieur Potter said?” asked Poirot. “Did you hear him?”

            Myrtle shook her head. “He didn’t say a word. It was more like a sound. A sort of hissing sound.”

            “Parseltongue!” exclaimed Hannah. “The password for the Chamber of Secrets must be in Parseltongue.”

            Poirot sighed. “It is as I feared. We do not speak this language of snakes. And yet…”

            His green eyes flashed with the light of a sudden inspiration. He turned to Myrtle.

            “Mademoiselle, you heard this word, this sound that Monsieur Potter made, yes? The sound of it is still in your memory?”

            Myrtle frowned. “I suppose it is. I mean, it wasn’t even an hour ago and I heard it quite clearly.”

            “Bien. Can you now reproduce this sound for me?”

            “I can try,” said Myrtle uncertainly. “It sounded sort of like this…”

            The ghostly girl made an odd hissing sound, sibilant as a snake but modulated like human speech. It made the hairs on the back of Hannah’s neck stand on end. For a moment, nothing else happened. Then with a grinding noise that caused Hannah to jump and nearly bite her tongue, the false sink slid aside.

            In its place was a round hole, like the mouth of a great, corroded copper pipe, opening onto darkness.

            “We have to go down the pipe, don’t we?” asked Hannah with a little shudder. “Like it’s a slide or a laundry chute or…”

            “Or the gullet of a great snake?” suggested Poirot.

            “Or that,” said Hannah faintly.

            “Mon Dieu, but it will not do my dress robes any good, this travelling by drainpipe,” Poirot lamented.

            Nevertheless, he was the first to climb into the mouth of the pipe. He arranged the folds of his dove grey robes about himself and settled his awkward, canvas-wrapped bundle before him on his lap. He glanced back at Myrtle.

            “Thank you, Mademoiselle. Your murderer will not go free, I promise you.”

            Then Hercule Poirot slipped from sight and with a stifled noise of protest and distaste, vanished into the darkness.

Chapter Text

In a ring of broken stones, a small bluebell-coloured fire was burning. Its flickering light revealed a wide stone tunnel, the slimy floor of which was littered with the bones of small animals. One end of the tunnel was blocked by great heap of rubble and broken masonry. Near the foot of this heap, the fire burned. Two small figures in Gryffindor robes huddled close to its light and warmth. They were both dusty and dishevelled, with many scrapes and bruises. One of them, the red-haired boy, was cradling a broken arm. His companion—a girl with bushy brown hair—had broken nails and torn fingertips from where she had scrabbled at the pile of stones. Now she had her arms around the red-haired boy’s chest and her head rested upon his good shoulder.

            Both of them looked up at the sound of hurried footsteps approaching from the far end of the tunnel. A moment later, a strange trio appeared out of the gloom. In the lead strode Hercule Poirot, still carrying his bulky, canvas-wrapped parcel. Dobby the house-elf trotted along in his wake, wringing his long hands together nervously. Hannah Abbott brought up the rear, holding up a lit wand that bobbed up and down as she hurried over the uneven floor, making their shadows leap and sway.

            “Hannah!” Hermione called out, her voice sounding thin and hoarse in the darkness. “Mr. Poirot! What are you doing here?”

            The detective crossed the ground between them in a flurry of rapid steps, his once shiny shoes ringing loudly on the ancient flagstones.

            “Mademoiselle Granger? What has happened? You are injured?”

            Hermione shook her head. “Not me. It’s Ron. His arm… I think it’s broken.”

            “And Harry?”

            Again, she shook her head. “We got separated, when the roof gave way. I don’t… I don’t think he was caught in it. We heard voices on the other side but… but we couldn’t get through. I couldn’t shift the stones and Ron…”

            “Hush, hush,” said Poirot soothingly. He knelt beside Hermione, ignoring the damage to the dove grey silk of his dress robes, and passed her his handkerchief. “Hush, hush. Take courage, Mademoiselle. Help is here now. But you must tell me what happened. How did the roof give way?”

            “There was… we saw someone, at the far end of the tunnel.”

            “Malfoy,” said Ron, his voice faint but definite. He looked up at Poirot, his face grey with pain, his lips pressed together into a thin line. “It was Draco Malfoy.”

            “We don’t know that,” Hermione said quickly. “It was dark and he was still too far away. We couldn’t really see…”

            “I saw,” Ron insisted. “I saw the silver snake on his robes. It flashed in the light. He was wearing Slytherin robes, Mr. Poirot. A boy in Slytherin robes. It must have been Malfoy!”

            “And what did he do,” Poirot demanded, “this boy in the Slytherin robes?”

            “He… he shouted something, something in Parseltongue” Hermione said, her eyes flicking to the pile of rubble and then quickly away. “Then there was a sort of grinding noise and then the roof started shaking and then… and then rocks were falling all around us. I tried to scramble backwards but Harry ran forward, and then Ron…”

            “One of the big rocks hit my arm,” Ron volunteered. “I sort of…yelled and fell over, so Hermione grabbed my other arm and started pulling me away. Then all we could see was dust for a while, and when it cleared…”

            He gestured vaguely towards the blocked end of the tunnel with his good arm. “…there was this bloody great pile of rocks between us and Harry.”

            “So he’s alone over there,” said Hannah, gripping her glowing wand harder and staring at the fallen stones. “Just Harry and the Heir of Slytherin.”

            Poirot nodded. “As if it was arranged.”

            He straightened up and turned to Dobby. “Monsieur Dobby, can you remove these stones?”

            The house-elf nodded. “Yes sir, Dobby thinks so. Enough to let Dobby and Mr. Poirot through, sir.”

            “Good,” said Poirot. “Do so please. But then I must go on alone. You must take these children at once to the Hospital Wing. Yes, even you, Mademoiselle Abbott. You have played your part bravely and well. Now it is time for Hercule Poirot to justify the great trust you have placed in him.”

            Dobby nodded again, ignoring Hannah’s protests, and raised both skinny hands in front of him. Then he slowly moved his hands apart, as though pushing his way through heavy curtains. With a grinding rumble, the broken slabs and fallen rubble began to move. Stones slid and rolled aside until a narrow passage opened in the wall of rocks. Then the house-elf laid one hand on Hermione’s shoulder and one hand on Ron’s and with a loud and familiar ‘crack!’, he was gone.

            “Do I really have to go too?” Hannah asked, looking up at Poirot.

            The detective nodded gravely. “Yes, ma chère. You must. The danger is very great.”

            “But you’re still going,” Hannah pointed out.

            “I am old,” Poirot said simply. “I am old and you are young, and it is not right that the young should die so that the old may live.”

            There was another loud crack, and Dobby appeared beside Hannah. She stared at Poirot, trying to think of something to say, some argument that might sway the strange little detective who had become her friend. He only shook his head at her. Then Dobby laid a hand upon her shoulder. The house-elf snapped his long fingers… and then Hercule Poirot was alone in the tunnel.

            For a moment, he simply stood there, the lines of his face illuminated by the flickering blue light of the fire. Then he sighed, hefted his bundle, and plunged into the gap between the fallen slabs of stone.

Harry heard it coming, the rasp of scales on stone and the low rumble of something impossibly huge moving in the middle distance. He shut his eyes and turned to run, knowing that it was hopeless. There was nowhere to run to, and the rumbling was growing louder every second. Riddle laughed, high and cold and delighted.

            “Where are you going, Harry?” he called, still chuckling. “Do you really think you can outrun fate?”

            Harry ignored him and tried to put on a burst of speed. The rasp and the rumble of the Basilisk’s movement was mingled now with a low and terrible hissing. The toe of Harry’s shoe knocked against an uneven flagstone, and he stumbled, losing his bearings.

            “Is this really how you want to die, Boy Who Lived?” Riddle jeered. “Running blindly, like a frightened child?”

            With his heart pounding and his teeth bared, Harry groped his way to one slimy wall and began to run again. Behind him, the hissing of the Basilisk rose like a howling wind, drowning out Riddle’s laughter. Harry knew that the serpent was about to strike. His time was finally up.

            And then a new noise rang through the Chamber of Secrets, loud and brazen and absurd: the crowing of a cockerel.

            “What the…” Harry was so startled that, just for a moment, he opened his eyes.

            There stood Hercule Poirot. The detective’s eyes were pressed tightly shut and his lips moved as though in silent prayer. In one hand, he held a large wire bird cage. In the cage was a large, rusty red rooster and in Poirot’s other hand was his wand. With the wand, he was carefully and repeatedly prodding the bird in the lower ribs, and it was in response to this that the rooster was angrily crowing.

            Harry was suddenly aware that the hissing noise behind him had died away.

            “NO!!” Riddle screamed, his smooth voice going raw with shock and rage. Almost at the same moment there came the mighty thud of something heavy crashing to the chamber floor.

            “Ah,” Poirot sighed, opening his eyes and lowering his wand. “That is a distinct improvement.”

            He set down the birdcage and smiled at Harry. “We meet again, Monsieur Potter. And who is our spectral friend in the Slytherin robes?”

            “What have you done?!” Riddle shrieked, so loudly that Harry winced.

            “That’s Tom Riddle,” he managed, still trying to catch his breath. “He… he’s Voldemort. Voldemort’s memory. The Heir of Slytherin. Ginny had his diary. He called the Basilisk. The Basilisk! Is it… is it…”

            “Quite dead,” said Poirot, indicating the other end of the chamber with a nod of his bald head.

            Harry turned around with all his muscles tensed, one hand half-raised to shield his eyes, but Poirot had spoken truly. There lay the Basilisk, its sinuous body sprawled at an unnatural angle so that the pale, flat scales of its underbelly leered up at the dripping ceiling. Slowly, Harry lowered his hand. Riddle shot him a glare as poisonous as the dead serpent.

            “You think you’ve won?” he hissed. “I don’t need Slytherin’s monster to put an end to you, Harry Potter.”

            He raised Harry’s own wand in one barely translucent hand and pointed it directly at Harry’s heart.

            “The Basilisk would have killed you quickly,” said Riddle, his handsome face contorted with hate. “I will not be so kind.”

            “Arête!”

            Poirot stepped quickly to one side, so that Harry was no longer between Riddle and himself. His wand was already raised, trained steadily on a point between Riddle’s eyes. The Heir of Slytherin’s baleful gaze transferred itself to the detective, as if he was only now becoming fully aware of the other’s presence.

            “You cannot hurt me,” he sneered.

            “You think not?” said Poirot, raising an eyebrow. “Perhaps it is so. But I can banish you, and I doubt very much that you will find that agreeable.”

            “Try it and I kill the boy now.”

            “Kill him and I banish you from Hogwarts.”

            Riddle hesitated and Poirot’s mouth curved into a thin, knowing smile.

            “Harry,” he said, quite calmly. “Would you please go now and pick up the diary that lies beside Mademoiselle Weasley?”

            Harry had almost forgotten the diary, had almost forgotten even Ginny herself, who still lay motionless on the cold flagstones of the floor. The Basilisk’s huge, horned head lay less than a foot from her left shoulder. Another few inches and she would have been crushed beneath it. Harry shivered and started forward.

            To reach Ginny, he had to walk around Riddle. Riddle made no move to stop him but smoothly transferred the levelled point of his stolen wand from Harry’s heart to a point just between his shoulder blades as he passed. Harry could feel Riddle’s gaze like a cold itch on the back of neck, but he forced himself not to turn round. He knelt beside Ginny. Her face was pale beneath its dusting of freckles, too pale, and her long red hair looked like spilled blood in the pallid green light of the Chamber. Harry had to watch her closely to be sure she was still breathing.

            As he did, his eye caught something else. The end of Ginny’s wand was just visible, sticking out from the pocket of her robes. Riddle must not have seen it, and Harry’s own body was now blocking it from his enemy’s view. Harry’s heart leapt. But Riddle’s wand was still trained upon him. If he took Ginny’s wand, if he even reached for it, Riddle would know and would kill him. Instead, he reached for the diary, as Poirot had instructed.

            “Good,” said Poirot, his voice tense but steady. “Very good. Now open it. Yes, like so. Now, quickly, destroy it. Destroy it now!”

            Harry wrenched at the little book, trying to tear it in half or twist its pages from their bindings, but it resisted him. Damp paper and worn leather refused to part. Riddle laughed.

            “You cannot destroy my diary, Harry,” he said. “You don’t even know what it is. Nor does this old fool who thinks to rescue you. It is a magic deep beyond your reckoning.”

            Harry wrenched at the book again, then looked around desperately for something sharp or hard or heavy, anything he could use against the book. But it was too late now. Even if he found something, Riddle knew now what he intended, what Poirot intended, and if destroying the book would really somehow destroy Riddle, he would not let Harry succeed. Harry’s eyes again drifted to the nearly concealed wand in Ginny’s pocket. If Riddle’s attention were to waver from him, even for a moment…

            Harry froze, an idea forming in his mind, but Riddle didn’t seem to notice.

            “Now,” said the Heir of Slytherin smugly, “Give me the diary, Harry. Give me the diary and perhaps I will let one of the friends you brought down here live to carry word of your death.”

            “Let Ginny go first,” Harry countered, almost growling the words.

            “Let the girl go?” Riddle asked. “I think not. You’re in no position to…”

            “Now!” Harry yelled, cutting Riddle off. “Now, Mr. Poirot! Do it now!”

            Riddle let out an angry hiss and whirled towards Poirot, raising Harry’s wand. Harry lunged for Ginny’s wand and whipped it from her pocket. Poirot threw himself flat to the stone floor and a bolt of green light flashed through the empty air above him. Harry spun on his knees and pointed Ginny’s wand desperately at Riddle’s back.

            “Expelliarmus!” he yelled.

            The spell struck Riddle just above the waist. His stolen wand flew from his hand and bounced along the flagstone floor. With a cry, Riddle started after it, but Poirot slapped a hand down over the wand as it rolled towards him. He rose on his knees, black moustaches bristling, and trained both Harry’s wand and his own upon Riddle.

            “Now Harry!” Poirot cried. “The diary! You must strike it now with the fang of the Basilisk!”

            “With wha…?”

            Harry didn’t wait to finish his own question but snatched up Riddle’s diary and scrambled towards the huge head of the dead serpent. The monster lay on its back with its mouth half open, its killing fangs pointed upwards. Harry didn’t try to break one off or wrench it from its socket. There was no time. Riddle was already leaping towards him with terror and murder in his eyes. Harry simply drove the diary downwards, spiking it on the terrible yellow fang like a receipt.

            “NO!!!” Riddle shrieked, as black ink began to well from the torn pages and punctured cover, like blood from a mortal wound.

            He clutched wildly at Harry’s throat, but his hands were already dissolving, his nearly solid body giving way to mist and shadow. Harry struck out at Riddle and his arm passed cleanly through the memory’s insubstantial chest and shoulders.

            “No…” Riddle repeated, his voice fainter now. “It doesn’t… not like this…”

            And then he was gone.

            For a moment, all was silent in the Chamber of Secrets, save for Poirot’s quiet puffing and the thudding of Harry’s heart. Then Ginny let out a soft moan and began to stir.

            “Oh, thank God,” Harry breathed. He hurried to Ginny’s side and lightly touched her on the shoulder. “Ginny? It’s all right. You’re all right now. We found you. It’s Harry.”

            “Harry?” said Ginny faintly. “Where…”

            She gasped and pushed herself up on her elbows, staring around wildly. “We’re in the Chamber of Secrets, aren’t we? It was Riddle! He… he made me…”

            “Hush now, hush now,” said Poirot, standing up a little shakily and coming over to join them. “It is as Monsieur Potter says. Everything is now quite all right.”

            “But I’ve done…” She rolled over onto her side and buried her face in the crook of her arm. “Oh Harry, I’ve done things… awful things… I let the monster out. I opened the Chamber of Secrets!”

            “No,” said Harry firmly, pulling Ginny into a sitting position and pushing her red hair back from her face. “No, Ginny. You didn’t. It was Riddle, remember? He made you do those things. He was Lord Voldemort, Ginny. Well, a memory of him, anyway. It wasn’t your fault.”

            Ginny looked unconvinced, but Poirot nodded.

            “He has the right of it, Mademoiselle. You must not reproach yourself.”

            Ginny blinked and looked up at the detective, puzzlement momentarily overcoming anguish.

            “I don’t… I mean, I’m sorry, but who exactly are you?”

            “This is Mister Poirot,” said Harry. “He’s an auror. He’s working for Professor Dumbledore.”

            “For Dumbledore?” Ginny repeated, looking still more amazed.

            Poirot nodded.

            “That is so, Mademoiselle. And I think it is high time that I made a report to that estimable gentleman.”

            He handed Harry’s wand back to him and offered both children his hands, helping them to their feet.

            “Come,” he said, summoning up a smile. “Let us leave this place, yes? I do not find it very agreeable.”

Chapter Text

There was quite a crowd assembled in Dumbledore’s office. Dumbledore himself sat behind his desk, surveying his visitors with apparent interest. Behind his chair stood Madame Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, glaring sternly at the others through her monocle. Directly in front of Dumbledore’s desk sat Harry, his dark hair even more dishevelled than usual and his robes and even his glasses streaked with subterranean slime. His knuckles were scraped where he had banged them blindly against the tunnel wall and his shoulders sagged with weariness. Flanking him sat Ron and Hermione, Ron’s rapidly healing arm now bound up in a neat sling. Behind Ron stood Arthur Weasley, one hand resting protectively on his son’s shoulder, while on another spindle-legged chair sat Molly Weasley, with an exhausted Ginny held firmly on her lap. Madame Pomfrey had followed the Weasleys up from the Hospital Wing and now hovered silently in the background, watching all four children with a keen and solicitous eye. With her had come Dobby and Hannah Abbott. Hercule Poirot smiled conspiratorially at Hannah as he took the last of the spindle-legged chairs and drew it up close beside Dumbledore’s desk.

            “Et bien,” he said, smiling contentedly at the assembly. “We are all here now, are we not?”

            There was a general murmur of cautious agreement as eyes flicked from Dumbledore to the detective and back again.

            “We came as soon as we got your message,” said Madame Bones briskly. “‘The danger is still at Hogwarts’. But I confess that it’s still not entirely clear to me what that danger was.”

            “The Heir of Slytherin,” said Poirot. “The very same who opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago.”

            “Lord Voldemort,” said Harry, nodding.

            “But how is that possible?” said Molly, casting an appealing glance at Dumbledore. “He’s not… He Who Must Not Be Named hasn’t returned, has he?”

            Dumbledore shook his head. “I believe not. But no doubt Monsieur Poirot will be able to explain more fully.”

            He gestured for Poirot to continue and detective inclined his head graciously. All eyes were upon him now, which seemed to discompose him not at all.

            “No,” he confirmed. “He Who Must Not Be Named has not returned. What he accomplished, he accomplished by means of that diary.”

            He nodded at the rent and ink-sodden book that lay quietly on the headmaster’s desk. Beside it lay the broken Basilisk fang which had snapped in half when Harry had gingerly tried to free the impaled diary.

            “That diary,” Poirot continued, “was Voldemort’s own. In it, he left a memory of himself as he was when he was a schoolboy: cruel and cunning and ambitious. The diary came into the possession of Mademoiselle Weasley and it in turn possessed her. Through it, that memory of Lord Voldemort was able to control her. It was through her that he reopened the Chamber of Secrets, gave his orders to the monster of Slytherin, and carried out his whole campaign of terror against the Muggle-born students of Hogwarts, picking up, you see, exactly where he had been forced to leave off those fifty years ago.”

            “Ginny?” asked Molly, peering into her daughter’s face. “Is this true?”

            Ginny hung her head, letting her long red hair fall across her downcast eyes. “It’s true, Mum. He… I didn’t know what was happening.”

            “But I don’t understand,” said Hermione, leaning forward in her chair. “How could Ginny have gotten hold of You Know Who’s old diary? Surely it wasn’t just lying around somewhere in a second-hand bookshop?”

            Poirot smiled at Hermione. “No indeed, Mademoiselle Granger. It was not. It was given deliberately and to Ginny in particular.”

            “To Ginny?” asked Arthur, frowning dubiously. “But why?”

            Poirot nodded. “Yes, that is always the great question: the question of motive. To me, the motive in this case is now quite clear, but to explain my reasoning to you, I must return now to the beginning.

            “I did not begin by trying to understand the motive in this case, but the method. These were attacks that did not kill. They petrified. According to Maître Dumbledore, such magic was beyond the ability of any student. Maître Dumbledore is a great wizard and has special knowledge of transfigurative magic. What he told me I took therefore as fact. Two possibilities remained. Either the attacker was an adult practicing very dark and advanced magic, or the attacker was a monster, perhaps even the famous monster of Slytherin.

            “Only two adults at Hogwarts had the opportunity of committing the first attack, which occurred when most of the school was assembled very publicly for the Hallowe’en feast. The first of these was Professor Lockhart, the second Professor Kettleburn. Both men arrived late to the feast, with plausible excuses but no sure alibis. So, I conducted a simple test. I asked them to appear at such and such a time for an interview and I kept my eye upon my watch. Both men arrived late. This was not proof, not as such, but it was suggestive.

            “Consider the psychology. A guilty man summoned to answer a detective’s questions is nervous. In such a state, when waiting in suspense is intolerable, he is more likely to arrive punctually or even early. But an innocent man who is habitually late? Why, he is more likely to arrive late than not.

            “My interviews with these men tended to reinforce my belief that they were innocent, of this crime at least. Professor Lockhart, it is true, impressed me as something of low scoundrel, but I could not imagine him committing the crime ideological nor discern any possible profit for him in these attacks. I turned therefore to the second possibility, that of the monster. In this, my interview with Prof Kettleburn was most illuminating. He confirmed to me that the monster of Slytherin, if it existed, was most likely either a giant Runespoor or a Basilisk.

            “He was not, I must say, very confident that such a creature actually did exist, but I had information that he did not: the eye—or, I should say, ear—witness testimony of two persons who had actually heard the monster as it moved about the castle.”

            “You mean…” said Ron excitedly, staring at Harry and Hermione.

            “Precisely,” agreed Poirot. “Monsieur Potter and Mademoiselle Granger. Monsieur Potter heard the voice of Slytherin’s monster as it travelled through the pipes and drains of Hogwarts Castle. So too, in fact, did Mademoiselle Granger, but where Monsieur Potter heard a voice talking of rending and killing, Mademoiselle Granger heard only hissing. And why? Because Harry Potter is a Parselmouth, just as was Salazar Slytherin. That hissing, that Mademoiselle Granger quite naturally took to be a little steam escaping from a pipe, was in reality the speech of Slytherin’s great monster.”

            Poirot paused for breath. With a flick of his wand, Dumbledore conjured a crystal tumbler that filled itself with clear water and passed it to Poirot. The detective nodded his thanks, took a small sip, and then continued.

            “Bien. The monster of the Slytherin exists. But of what kind is it? How does it petrify its victims? If it cannot petrify them, is it indeed connected to these attacks? These questions I had now to contend with, but help came to me from an unexpected source: the testimony of Rubeus Hagrid.”

            “From Hagrid?” asked Harry, startled.

            “But yes,” agreed Poirot. “From Hagrid. You see, he confided in me that all of his roosters—not his hens, but his roosters only—had been killed by something that did not feed upon them. This was strange enough to be interesting, but I did not understand its true import until Professor Kettleburn told me that the crowing of the rooster is deadly to the Basilisk. That was when I knew, not only what Slytherin’s monster must be, but that it was not acting alone. Someone was helping it, protecting it by disposing of the roosters that might threaten it. There was a human culprit after all. And for that human culprit, I laid my trap.

            “I bought a rooster from the heggler in Hogsmeade Village and gave the bird as a little present to Monsieur Hagrid. It was a cold and bitter time I had of it, standing all night in the dark to watch a hencoop! But I was rewarded. Just before dawn, she came.”

            He turned now to Ginny and spoke more softly. “You, Mademoiselle. You came walking through the grounds like one who walks in her sleep. I remained in hiding and watched you as you discovered and killed the new rooster.”

            “Please, Mr. Poirot,” Molly protested. “That’s enough.”

            “Mum!” said Ginny, though she did look a little sick. “It’s all right. I want to know.”

            “You have a brave daughter,” Poirot told Molly gravely. “But there is not much more to tell. Her purposed fulfilled, Mademoiselle Weasley returned to the castle. I thought at once of the Imperius Curse, for I was loathe to suppose that she did this thing of her own will. Yet I knew that this was not the first time that she had acted in the name of the Heir of Slytherin.”

            “How could you know that?” asked Harry, looking from Poirot to Ginny and back again.

            “From the evidence of two house-elves, two launderers who recalled washing red paint from a set of small, second-hand Gryffindor girl’s robes the night after the Hallowe’en feast.”

            “Paint? Oh, I see,” said Hermione. “You mean Ginny was the one who painted that message on the wall.”

            Poirot nodded. “Yes, and from this I knew that whoever was manipulating her—if such a one existed—had been doing so for some considerable time. To me, this argued that she had been specially chosen. But why? True, no one would suspect a young Gryffindor girl of being the Heir of Slytherin. Yet if all the culprit had desired was a stalking horse, would he have chosen a girl with four elder brothers to watch over her at Hogwarts? Surely not. He must rather have something to gain by using Mademoiselle Weasley in particular, something that was worth a little extra risk. Mademoiselle Weasley herself could have few enemies. But her father…”

            Arthur Weasley stirred uneasily.

            “Her father, according to the papers, had lately been championing a new Muggle Protection Act that had made him deeply unpopular with certain powerful wizarding families. If his daughter was found guilty of attacking and terrorizing Muggle-born school children, it would discredit not only her father, but his Muggle Protection Act as well.”

            “Mr. Poirot are you quite sure of this?” demanded Arthur.

            “It was and is the only plausible motivation I could uncover,” said Poirot. “Moreover, the most vocal critic of the new Muggle Protection Act was also a member of the Hogwarts Board of Governors, one known to be at odds with the headmaster. For him, these attacks would have a double benefit, for they would sow doubts about Maître Dumbledore’s leadership. And I had one more piece of evidence. The launderers I spoke to had reason to suspect that a strange house-elf, not one of those employed by school, had been visiting Gryffindor Tower. To me, that argued for the involvement of an old wizarding family. Either the strange elf had been sent as a spy by his master… or, as subsequently proved to be the case, he was trying to undermine that same master’s designs.”

            From his chair, Poirot bowed in Dobby’s general direction. The house-elf shuffled his feet nervously and then tried to sidle behind Hannah as several interested faces were turned in his direction.

            “And that’s why you came and asked us about Lucius Malfoy, isn’t it Mr. Poirot?” said Hermione, recalling the room’s attention. “You suspected he was the one who had enchanted Ginny.”

            “Quite right, Mademoiselle. I knew, thanks to the assistance of Mademoiselle Abbott, that Ginny spent much time each day writing and reading from a diary. I supposed that the diary was a communication device, a way for whomever had enchanted Mademoiselle Weasley to relay his orders. I wished to know if Lucius Malfoy had ever had the opportunity of placing such an enchantment over Mademoiselle Weasley and equally if he had had the opportunity to slip to her any small object, such as a diary.”

            “I found the diary in my cauldron,” said Ginny, sitting up a little straighter. “It was the same day that Dad and Mr. Malfoy had that fight in Flourish and Blotts.”

            “Yes,” agreed Poirot. “I am sure now that he did plant the diary in your cauldron on that day. I thought so at once, as soon as your brother described to me that occasion in the bookshop. I thought then that I had the full hand: means, motive, and opportunity. I brought what I had learned to the attention of Maître Dumbledore and together we persuaded Madame Bones that Lucius Malfoy should be brought in for questioning.”

            “Not that he was very forthcoming,” said Madame Bones dryly. “If… Dobby, was it? Thank you. If Dobby here hadn’t been able to confirm Mr. Poirot’s theories, we’d have been caught well out over thin ice.”

            “That is true,” agreed Poirot. “In fact, the ice beneath us was much thinner than even I suspected… for guilty though he is, Lucius Malfoy is not the Heir of Slytherin.”

            “How did you come to realize this?” asked Dumbledore, leaning forward slightly in his high-backed wooden chair.

            “The psychology,” said Poirot simply. “I told you once that whoever had committed these crimes had still the psychology of the schoolboy. One had only to speak to him for a little while to realize that this was not the case for Lucius Malfoy. He is man far too conscious of his own dignity to play at pranks. Therefore, his was not the mind that was directing Mademoiselle Weasley.”

            “No,” said Ginny. “No, it wasn’t Malfoy. It was Riddle. But how did you figure that out?”

            Poirot shook his head soberly. “Of Monsieur Riddle, I knew nothing. I only knew that Lucius Malfoy would not have entrusted this business to any other. Therefore, I reasoned, there was no other. The book itself was controlling you. And with this, I knew that you were now in serious danger.

            “With the help of Monsieur Dobby, I hastened back to the school, pausing only to collect another fine rooster from Monsieur Bullfinch, the heggler. At Hogwarts, I found that you had been taken into the Chamber of secrets and that your brother and his friends had gone after you. Good fortune and the ghost of the girl Myrtle helped me to pick up their trail. Had I been delayed for but a moment longer, I should have arrived too late.”

            Harry nodded and launched into a description of their battle with Riddle and the Basilisk. The others listened in awe, while Poirot helped himself to more water.

            “…and then Riddle, well, he just sort of melted away like mist and Ginny woke up!” Harry finished. “We were all pretty shaken, but we started back down the tunnel leading to the chute. Dobby found us before we’d gotten more than halfway, and he brought us back here.”

            “Thank God,” said Molly fervently, hugging Ginny closer.

            There was a general murmur of grateful agreement. Even Poirot bowed his bald head reverently.

Chapter Text

“There is still one thing I don’t quite understand,” said Madame Pomfrey from her corner, breaking the silence.

            “Oh, yes?” asked Poirot. “And what is that?”

            “The petrification. You say that the monster behind these attacks was a Basilisk, but how could a Basilisk attack leave someone petrified?”

            Poirot smiled. “I think, perhaps, that Mademoiselle Granger can explain that part of the mystery quite as well as I.”

            Hermione flushed but spoke up quite clearly. “Reflection and refraction. The gaze of the Basilisk is deadly, but only if you meet its gaze directly. If you catch sight of its eyes in a mirror or a pool of water, or if you look at them through something that bends the incoming light, you don’t die. You just get petrified.”

            “A pool of water,” Hannah Abbott repeated. “Like the one on the landing where you found Mrs. Norris. And Collin Creevey had his camera. And Justin… I suppose he must have seen the Basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick!”

            Hermione nodded. “And Nick saw it directly, but he was already dead. He couldn’t very well die again.”

            There was another, longer moment of silence. This time it was Madame Bones who broke it.

            “Well, Mr. Poirot, you promised me a convincing case, and by Merlin, you’ve delivered one. I’ve made a few notes while you were talking, and now—with Professor Dumbledore’s leave—I’m going to go wave them under the collective noses of the Wizengamot until they cough up a warrant for us to dose Lucius Malfoy with Veritaserum.”

            She glanced at Dumbledore, who nodded his approval, but Poirot rose from his chair and extended a hand to check her as she strode towards the door.

            “One moment, Madame, if you would be so kind.”

            “Yes, Mr. Poirot? What is it?”

            “I am not very familiar with the magical laws of this country, not as concerns the rights of property, but is it at all possible for you to impound important evidence from a suspected criminal’s estate in such a way that the evidence is no longer entailed to him?”

            Madame Bones frowned.

            “I should have to check with my clerks,” she said, “but believe it could be done. Why?”

            Poirot beckoned to Dobby and the house-elf emerged nervously from behind Hannah.

            “Dobby is, as I understand it, currently the property of the Malfoy family. His testimony is also of critical importance to this case.”

            “Ah, I see,” said Madame Bones, glancing from Dobby to Poirot and smiling grimly. “And I don’t suppose that a house-elf who has informed against the master of the house will be made very welcome back at Malfoy Manor.”

            Dobby shook his head almost violently, causing his batlike ears to flap. “Not welcome at all. Dobby doesn’t want to go back there. Dobby doesn’t want to work for the Malfoys anymore!”

            He gasped and clapped his long hands over his mouth, as if alarmed by his own confession. Madame Bones only nodded.

             “Can’t say I blame you,” she said. She laid one hand formally on top of the house-elf’s head. “Dobby, by the authority of the British Ministry of Magic, I hereby impound you as evidence in the investigation of a serious crime. Until such time as the innocence of your former owner shall be proven, you are under the ownership and protection of the Ministry.”

            Dobby looked stunned for a moment, wonder and disbelief warring his huge green eyes. “Dobby is a Ministry elf? Dobby is not the house-elf of Malfoy Manor?”

            “That’s right,” Madame Bones confirmed. “We’ll most likely have to file some fairly arcane paperwork about it when we get back to the Ministry, but yes, Dobby. As of now, you are a Ministry elf.”

            “But… but what will Dobby do for the Ministry?”

            “That depends on what’s needed,” said Madame Bones patiently. “We do have some elves working for the Ministry itself, you know, but more likely the placement office will try to set you up with a new family.”

            “A new family?” said Dobby uncertainly.

            “Or,” said Professor Dumbledore, smiling kindly at Dobby from behind his desk, “perhaps the Ministry might end up placing you here, Dobby, at Hogwarts.”

            “That’s right!” said Hannah, patting Dobby on the shoulder. “There’s lots of house-elves working at the castle. The Hufflepuffs get to know quite a lot of them because we’re so close to the kitchens.”

            Dobby smiled shyly at Hannah and touched her lightly on the arm. “Dobby thinks he might like that.”

            “Well then, we should certainly mention that to your placement officer,” said Madame Bones, giving Hannah a brief nod. “And now we really must be going.”

            She raised her hand in farewell, bowed slightly in Dumbledore’s direction, and strode from the room. Dobby bowed to Dumbledore as well and then to Poirot before hurrying after her. Molly and Arthur Weasley exchanged a look.

            “We should really be going too, I think,” said Molly, nudging Ginny to stand and then getting to her feet. “And we’d like to take Ginny and Ron home with us for a few days. Harry and Hermione too, if they’re able to come.”

            “Mum, are you kidding?” protested Ron. “We can’t go home right now. There’s going to be loads of stuff happening at Hogwarts.”

            “I think Mrs. Weasley is right,” said Madame Pomfrey, addressing Dumbledore over the top of Ron’s head. “Rest and familiar surroundings will do these children a world of good.”

            Dumbledore nodded. “I quite agree with you, Poppy. By all means, Molly, take them home. Hogwarts will still be here when they are ready to return.”

            Ron seemed ready to object again, but Hermione laid a hand on his arm and indicated Harry with a flick of her eyebrows.

            Harry sat with his chin sunk to his chest, his dark, untidy hair falling across his forehead. His eyes were closed, and his glasses had slipped down almost to the end of his nose. His shoulders rose and fell in time with his slow, heavy breathing.

            “Oh,” said Ron quietly. “Uh, maybe we could all do with a rest. Yeah?”

            Hermione nodded and shook Harry gently by the arm.

            “Harry?” she called.

            Harry sat up with a start and tried to straighten his glasses.

            “I’m all right,” he said. “It’s all right. What did you say?”

            “Nothing mate,” said Ron, offering him a hand. “Come on. We’re going back to the Burrow.”

            “Oh,” said Harry. “That’s… good. That sounds good.”

            He looked over at Dumbledore, who nodded reassuringly. “We will talk more later, Harry. Go now and rest.”

            Harry and the other Gryffindor children followed Molly and Arthur from the room, and Madame Pomfrey slipped out after them. Now only Hannah Abbot and Hercule Poirot remained in the headmaster’s office.

            “So,” said Poirot, resuming his seat and motioning for Hannah to sit beside him. “Here we are once again. This has been, I confess, the most interesting case I have worked on in many years. I must thank you both once again for the great trust you have placed in me.”

            Hannah mumbled something indistinct, and Dumbledore waved one hand in graceful deprecation.

            “You have proved fully equal to our trust, Mr. Poirot,” he said seriously. “I will be very much surprised if Madame Bones does not recommend you for the Order of Merlin. And, I notice, you have unravelled this whole matter without ever casting a single spell.”

            Hannah, who had been fidgeting abstractedly with the lapels of her Hufflepuff robes, froze. Poirot’s quiet smile became as silent as the tomb, his expression entirely opaque. For a long moment, nobody spoke or moved or—so it seemed to Hannah—breathed.

            Then Dumbledore got up from his chair and walked slowly over to one of the many bookshelves that lined his office. He stood on a stool and, from the top of the shelf, lifted down a very old and very battered wizard’s hat. He carried it over to the desk and set it down in front of Poirot.

            “Mr. Poirot,” he said. “Whatever else you may have said or done, you have also saved the life of more than one Hogwarts student. You have nothing to fear from me. There is, however, something that I must know.”

            Dumbledore resumed his seat behind the headmaster’s desk, still watching Poirot with those piercingly blue eyes.

            “Mr. Poirot,” he said softly. “Would you do me the very great favour of putting on that hat?”

            Poirot inclined his head in a small but elegant bow. Then he picked up the Sorting Hat and lifted it to the bald dome of his curiously egg-shaped head. As the faded black calico touched his scalp, he let out a small noise of surprise.

            “But what is this? There is something inside it.”

            “Inside the Sorting Hat?” exclaimed Hannah.

            “But yes,” insisted Poirot. He lifted the hat carefully from his head and felt inside it. Something flashed and glittered in the detective’s hand as he drew it forth and set it on Dumbledore’s desk. They all leaned forward for a better look.

            It was a silver circlet, set with a great blue stone. Etched upon the twining bands of metal were the words “Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure”.

            There was a moment of baffled silence and then Dumbledore began to laugh.

            “That, I suppose, is an answer. It seems that I was right, Mr. Poirot. You do belong at Hogwarts.”

            “Your pardon, Headmaster. I do not quite understand you.”

            “That diadem,” said Dumbledore, “belonged to one of the founders of Hogwarts. No one but a true Ravenclaw could have pulled that out of the hat.”

            “And yet I fear that I am not a true Ravenclaw,” said Poirot, smiling sadly.

             “And yet it seems that Hogwarts cannot do without you,” said Dumbledore, his blue eyes twinkling. “I wonder… would you perhaps consider accepting a teaching position here?”

            “Teaching?” gasped Hannah. “Here at Hogwarts? You really want Mr. Poirot to stay and teach, even though he’s not…. he isn’t…”

            Dumbledore nodded, now definitely smiling. “I do, yes. His teaching duties need not be onerous. I think an advanced Muggle Studies elective would be appropriate. It seems to me that our students could benefit from some formal instruction in logic, as well as magic. We might call it ‘Introduction to Ratiocination’ perhaps, or ‘Deductive Reasoning’ or…”

            “Order and Method,” said Poirot quietly.

            “Yes,” said Dumbledore, nodding. “Yes, I think that would do very nicely. Will you consider it?”

            Poirot hesitated. His keen, green-eyed gaze seemed first to turn inwards and then to wander about the room, coming to rest on the silver diadem that still sat upon Dumbledore’s desk. Hannah looked at it too and so did Dumbledore. Then the headmaster frowned. He leaned closer, peering at the diadem through his half-moon spectacles. He held out his hand towards it with his long fingers loosely spread, like a man testing the air above a stovetop to see how hot the metal has become. And then he did the oddest thing of all.

             Moving with a speed that Hannah would not have suspected of the old headmaster, Dumbledore caught up the broken Basilisk fang that still lay upon his desk and drove it straight into heart of the diadem’s blue gem. The stone broke with a flash and a puff of foul smoke that left a dark residue upon the ancient silver. For a moment, a cold wind seemed to blow through the study, and Hannah shivered and pressed herself against the back of her chair.

            Dumbledore sighed and set down the fang.

            “Well,” he said, producing a purple silk handkerchief and carefully wiping his hands. “That is something gained, at least.”

             Poirot began to laugh.

             “Mon Dieu!” he chuckled. “I see that there are depths of this mystery as yet unplumbed. Yes, yes. I accept. I will undertake to teach at Hogwarts, for if I do not, how will I ever unravel this new riddle?”

             He rose and extended a hand to Dumbledore. For a moment, it was the other man’s turn to hesitate. Then Dumbledore too rose and shook Poirot by the hand.

             “Welcome to Hogwarts, Mr. Poirot.”

             Hannah watched them both in baffled wonder, her mind awhirl.

             Well, she thought, as she got up from her chair. That’s really put the cat among the pixies now!