She whispered

by Lucas Chesterton

  Hope glimmered in Harry’s green eyes. He still looked at the book with a frown, but at least he had motivation now to finish thick tome.

  ‘For now let’s get ready for bed.’

  With a pout already forming on Harry’s face, the young boy scooted away from Tom and further onto his bed. ‘Do I really have to sleep in that other room?’

  The guest room wasn’t as large as Tom’s new room, but it was equally as nicely furnished. It was also farther down the hall so it wasn’t like Harry would easily be able to sneak out of his room in order to get to Tom’s.

  With a sad nod Tom held out a hand to help Harry out of his bed. ‘I won’t be far, you know that, and if you have a nightmare you slowly to make sure that Elena could follow in his wake ��� towards an empty seat. On either side of that, Elena recognized familiar faces. One was Hermione’s, who grinned over Harry’s shoulder, knowing that Elena was there under his Invisibility Cloak. Beside her sat a red-haired gangly boy who looked a bit bored, no doubt the boyfriend she had mentioned a few times (Elena had never been quite able to tell whether she was more fond of him than frustrated with him, or vice versa); and Remus Lupin, leaning forward in his seat and following proceedings with a look of concentration on his face. When Elena passed the werewolf, she couldn’t resist ruffling his hair and whispered ‘Hi, stranger’.

  Remus looked up in confusion, then cottoned on and grinned. ‘Why, if it’s not our witchin-the-making’, he murmured, ‘nice rags.’

  Elena giggled and squeezed into the little space that Hermione made between her own chair and that of Lupin by almost sliding on to her boyfriend’s lap. Squeezing into the seat, Elena ��� not for the first time in her life ��� wished that her hips and behind were just a teensy bit slimmer.

  ‘You haven’t missed much’, Hermione said under her breath, ‘it was all about Leshnikov, what he did, what he wanted and all that. Pretty much the same questions they asked you.’

  ‘And how is he doing?’

  ‘Alright. He presented the facts, appeared very sober about it.’ She made a face. ‘I just wish he wouldn’t come over quite so aloof ���’

  Elena frowned at her, then remembered that Hermione could not see it. ‘You think that might be a problem?’

  ‘This trial ��� this hearing, I mean ��� it’s all about character. That’s what really made people come here. To form an impression of Daysen, or re-evaluate him.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know if that’s working so well ��� I’ll say one thing for them, though, that at least they didn’t bind Daysen to that chair as they did with Harry when he had his disciplinary hearing.’

  ‘Bind him?’ Elena couldn’t believe her ears.

  ‘Yeah. They aren’t exactly gentle about these things ���’

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ The red-haired boy suddenly leant in, looking puzzled.

  Hermione shushed him. ‘Elena’s here’, she whispered to him, ‘she’s wearing Harry’s Invisibility Cloak.’

  ‘Ah. Her.’ He didn’t look too enthusiastic.

  ‘Elena, this is Ron’, Hermione whispered quickly, ‘my dimmer half.’

  Ron shot a suspicious look at the place where he guessed Elena was and raised an eyebrow, ‘Hi there. ��� And just for the record, I may be dimmer than my girlfriend, but I don’t let myself get sloshed on Fire Whiskey by Daysen!’

  ‘Quiet down there’, someone in the row behind them hissed, ‘or I’ll get an orderly!’

  They shut up, Ron with a shrug and Hermione with a smug look on her face. Elena scrutinized the witch beside her from under the Invisibility Cloak. Had she just heard right? Hermione and Jack? Fire Whiskey? She felt a distinct sting and heat coming to her cheeks. Thank God for being invisible ���

  She concentrated on the proceedings. There had been a small break during which the members of the bench had quietly conversed with one another and shuffled through piles of papers. All the while, Daysen had remained seated on his throne, unmoving and staring ahead, face inscrutable. Now Ansgard Periwinkle straightened up and walked towards him, fixing him with a calculating stare.

  ‘When did you join forces with Tom Riddle, Professor Daysen?’ The tone of Periwinkle’s voice was severe, all the more so for its tin-can quality.

  Jack Daysen, however, replied in his silkiest tones. ‘In 1977, right after I had finished school.’ No emotion was discernible from his words.

  ‘Wasted no time, eh? ��� And how long did your affiliation with the Death Eaters last?’

  ‘Until September 1981, approximately.’ Even now, having finally made it to the courtroom, Elena had to concentrate hard in order to hear him.

  ‘Is that true?’ Periwinkle feigned incredulity. ‘Because, Professor, I have testimony from a lot of people ��� ex Death Eaters included ��� who would swear to the fact that even after that, there could not have been a more loyal Death Eater than you!’

  ‘That is hardly surprising’, Daysen replied evenly, but with a hint of sarcasm, ‘since that was the role I had to play, acting as a spy and double-agent. In effect, from September 1981 onwards, I was a member of the Order of the Phoenix.’

  ‘Quite a switch, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean to say by that.’

  In spite of the oppressive heat in the courtroom, Elena felt a chill, brought on by the note of impatience in Daysen’s voice. If Periwinkle was able to rattle him already, where was this inquiry going to lead?

  ‘I mean to say that the role of a double-agent is a very uncertain position. ��� Dumbledore and his people thought you were with them. Riddle and his bunch of criminals thought that you were firmly on their side. Who would really have known?’

  ‘The uncertainty you are referring to was exactly the point of what I did.’

  ‘But who was ever certain of you, Professor?’

  ‘I was.’ Daysen spat out the words and impetuously raised his chin.

  Periwinkle issued a derisive snort. ‘Hardy convincing, you vouching for your own loyalty.’

  ‘Dumbledore vouched for it.’ Daysen twitched angrily.

  ‘A pity he is dead ���’

  A witch stood up from the bench of inquirers. Although her face was still quite young, her hair was snow-white which made it hard to guess how old she really was. Her eyes were large, dark and intelligent.

  ‘May I ask my esteemed colleague to bear in mind that Albus Dumbledore has, in various proceedings before the Wizengamot, confirmed the respondent’s affiliation with the Order of the Phoenix. He certainly believed in Professor Daysen’s loyalty.’ Her voice was clear and pleasant. ‘Also I don’t see the relevance of this line of questioning for the present proceedings which were arranged in order to gain clarity on issues concerning Mr Leshnikov and on past matters that haven’t been sufficiently cleared up to this date. That being so, we must accept what Professor Daysen is going to tell us here today. It is not our job to prove him wrong.’

  She looked pointedly first at Periwinkle, then at the witch chairing the proceedings before she sat down. The Chief Warlock gave a languid nod and Periwinkle looked sour, ordered the pile of papers in his hands and cleared his throat.

  ‘Who was that?’ Elena whispered in Lupin’s ear. ‘The white-haired witch?’

  Remus looked up startled, then remembered her invisible presence. ‘Her name is Nell Nolan. I don’t know her personally, she hasn’t been with the Wizengamot very long. However, from what I heard she is very gifted.’

  ‘I don’t understand how all this works’, Elena said in as low a voice as she could manage, ‘it does look awfully like a trial.’

  ‘Much of the proceedings is inspired by the olden days’, Lupin explained, looking doggedly ahead so as not to alert anyone to the fact that he was talking to someone sitting next to him and hiding under an Invisibility Cloak, ‘when we still had Wizard Councils. When anything came up ��� not necessarily a crime, but any kind of bother really ��� th
e elders of the wizarding community would meet and try to sort it out in what was basically quite an informal gathering. This is why a simple hearing can sometimes have the aspects of a trial. It doesn’t depend so much on charges brought forward ��� which, I think, would be the basic prerequisite for a trial in the Muggle world ��� but more on the extent of, well, worry and unease the issue would cause to our world. ��� Ask Harry. He knows all about it.’

  ‘But how does it work?’ Elena asked, still puzzled.

  ‘As you can witness right now. The ‘offending subject’ is invited and asked all sorts of questions that cause concern to his or her peers. One witch or wizard will act as a kind of prosecutor, while another will come to the subject’s defence, if appropriate. ��� As you have seen, that’s Nolan’s job.’

  ‘So the reason they really called in Sev��� I mean, the Professor ��� is not because they want to pin anything on him, but because they want to control him?’

  Remus answered only after a few seconds. ‘I guess you could put it like that. You see, I think a lot of people have started to realize that now Dumbledore and Voldemort are gone, Jack may well be the most powerful wizard in the country. It’s not surprising they want to keep track of him. We all know very well what happens when a wizard becomes too mighty.’

  Elena digested Lupin’s words. She had never really thought of this. Of course, Jack Daysen seemed awfully powerful to her ��� the man was able to fly without a broom! ��� but so did any other witch and wizard she had met in the past few months. Now it suddenly made sense that the wizarding world would be wary about Daysen’s movements and what he was up to, particularly after the experiences of the last decades. However, it didn’t make her any more sympathetic to the event she was now witnessing.

  Ansgard Periwinkle had taken up his thread again. ‘Let’s talk about Albus Dumbledore some more, Professor Daysen.’

  Daysen’s body stirred very slightly and Elena sensed that he was bracing himself. He lifted his chin a bit while his eyes became narrow black slits in a very white face. Elena noticed that he had taken some pains with his appearance. His hair didn’t look quite as greasy as it usually did, and instead of robes ��� which she always called ‘priest frocks’ to wind him up ��� he wore a Victorian-looking suit with a rather well-cut coat and an elaborate necktie over a stiff white collar which effectively hid the scar on his neck, the one of the Horcrux snake.

  ‘Quite the benefactor he was to you, Dumbledore, wasn’t he?’

  Daysen credited Periwinkle’s statement with no more than a curt nod.

  ‘As a courtesy to the Wizengamot, Professor’, Periwinkle snarled menacingly, ‘would you please state your answers clearly and audibly?’

  ‘Yesss.’ It sounded like an indignant snake spitting.

  Periwinkle fixed the younger wizard with stare. ‘Is it true that you killed Albus Dumbledore?’

  There was a silence of two, three, four seconds. Then, another nod and another ‘Yes’.

  Complete silence fell in the courtroom and Ansgard Periwinkle made a huge show of raising his eyebrows.

  ‘So you admit that you are responsible for the death of the man who protected you for decades, one of the most gifted and powerful wizards our world has ever seen at that, and that you put him to death without hesitation?’

  Elena bit her lip. When Periwinkle stated it like that, it made Daysen look like a monster. Of course, she knew why Albus Dumbledore had been killed and most of those present in this gloomy amphitheatre today knew the story, as well, in the version rendered by Harry Potter which had been printed in all the wizarding tabloids. However, she sensed that the story would be told anew today, and much depended on the way Jack would render it. She prayed that he would not reply in one of his monosyllables again. ��� And in the next moment, he did just that.

  ‘Yes.’

  A murmur flared up from the ranks. Not a small number of people scoffed and the atmosphere was so thick one might have cut off a piece. Beside Elena, Remus sighed. Jack Daysen, however, sat unmoving, an angry furrow above his nose.

  Again, Nell Nolan stood up from the bench. ‘If my esteemed colleague allows ���’, she said brightly, earning a sour look from Periwinke, before she addressed Daysen. ‘Tell us, Professor, was it your idea to kill Albus Dumbledore?’

  ‘No’, was the dead-pan answer.

  ‘Whose idea was it then?’

  ‘Dumbledore’s.’

  Another wave of murmurs came from the ranks.

  ‘Could you explain to us how that came to pass?’

  Jack Daysen sat up a little, cleared his throat. Then he proceeded to explain how, at the start of school year of 1996, Albus Dumbledore had appeared in his quarters one night, obviously in pain and with a badly marked hand which Daysen had recognized immediately as the effect of a powerful dark curse. Seemingly without sympathy, he told the inquirers how the erstwhile Hogwarts headmaster had given in to the temptation of putting on the Gaunt ring and thus sealed his fate. ‘Dumbledore admitted that he had been foolish’, Daysen explained, ‘and the only thing that I could do was to concoct a potion that would temporarily keep the curse from spreading.’

  ‘Temporarily?’ Nolan repeated.

  ‘The curse could only be contained’, Daysen confirmed, ‘not lifted. It would have killed him eventually.’

  ‘How long, in your view, would that have taken?’

  ‘A year, at most.’

  ‘So Albus Dumbledore was going to die within the year’, Nell Nolan stated, looking up at the rows where the members of the Wizengamot sat. ‘And what kind of death would that have been, you think?’

  ‘An agonizingly painful one.’ Again, Daysen looked as if he was not going to say any more, but Nell Nolan stared at him as if she was willing him to talk. And in fact, after a few seconds had passed, it appeared to dawn on Daysen that the woman was on his side and he began to elaborate. ‘Dumbledore knew it. I guess that’s what gave him the idea.’

  ‘What idea?’

  ‘That I should kill him. It served his plans, too, for which he cared much more than for his own life.’

  Nolan said nothing for a few moments to let the words sink in. ‘What plans?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘His plans for Harry Potter. Dumbledore revealed to me then that he knew that a Death Eater had been ordered by the Dark Lord to kill him. He was prepared to die, thought it necessary even to create the illusion for Voldemort that he would have Hogwarts under control.’

  ‘Under control with you as a proxy, because in the event of Dumbledore’s death, you’d follow him as headmaster?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who was the Death Eater ordered to kill Albus Dumbledore?’

  Daysen didn’t reply to that, just twitched.

  ‘You must tell the truth in front of the Wizengamot, Professor Daysen’, Nolan reminded him kindly.

  Daysen gave another uncomfortable twitch before he spoke. ‘Draco Malfoy’, he said eventually and with a little sigh. Nolan opened her mouth to ask another question, but Daysen broke in unexpectedly. ‘By that time a student of only sixteen years, commissioned with a task that was way above his head.’

  Ansgard Periwinkle jumped in. ‘Draco Malfoy’, he snarled, ‘the son of Lucius Malfoy, a known Death Eater and a good friend of yours, am I right?’

  Daysen nodded and volunteered some more. ‘Most of all, Draco Malfoy was a student of my House and thus under my protection.’

  ‘Do I understand you correctly’, Nolan took over again, ‘that Professor Dumbledore sympathized with the weight put upon Mr Malfoy’s shoulders?’

  ‘Yes’, Daysen inclined his head. ‘That’s what gave him the idea that in the event that Draco Malfoy failed, I must finish the job.’

  ‘Which you readily did’, snapped Periwinkle.

  ‘Not readily, no.’ Daysen shook his head ever so slightly.

  ‘You didn’t like it?’ asked Nolan. It was a na��ve question �
��� purposely na��ve, perhaps ��� and it made Daysen scoff.

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’

  ‘Did you try to get out of it?’

  Now Periwinkle scoffed ��� suggesting that Daysen had done no such thing ��� and this time, the wizard in the respondent’s chair showed a visible reaction, sat upright and an angry frown appeared on his forehead.

  ‘I tried to dissuade Dumbledore many times’, he said, and suddenly his silky voice carried ��� as it always did when he wanted it ��� to the last corner of Courtroom Ten. ‘I told him he took too much for granted. I questioned him on the effects such a deed would have on my soul. I called him stubborn. Arrogant. Impetuous. ��� He would not listen.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just walk away?’ Nolan asked quietly.

  ‘I couldn’t. I had given Dumbledore my word.’

  Nolan’s eyes became wide. ‘Your word, Professor?’

  Jack Daysen fidgeted on his chair. Elena saw him staring at his lap where his white long fingers rested. ‘I had promised Albus Dumbledore that I would do whatever it took ��� even if it was my own life and wellbeing ��� to ensure Harry Potter’s victory over the Dark Lord. It was only for this promise that Dumbledore had taken me in. Accepted me as a member of the Order. Let me stay on at Hogwarts as a Potions Master. ��� I could not go back on that promise, however much I would have liked to.’

  ‘And that’s why you agreed to kill him.’

  ‘Yes. I had no other choice.’

  Nell Nolan nodded, smiled, but said no more before she sat down again.

  ‘Nolan’s doing a good job’, Remus Lupin whispered to Elena. ‘See how she’s trying to make Jack talk?’

  ‘Periwinkle’s not all that bad, either’, Elena murmured darkly.

  ‘He’s waited for this day for decades. He won’t let the opportunity slip away so easily ���’

  In the row in front of them, a middle-aged red-haired witch turned around. ‘Who are you talking to, Remus?’

  Lupin shushed her and leant forward, whispering a few words, upon which the woman smiled self-consciously. ‘Oh! Hello, dear ���’