Chapter 38: Slytherin's Favorite Lion's Head
The three younger students exchanged bewildered looks.
They had always assumed the school rule forbidding the use of cauldrons for hot pot dated back many years—something ancient and absurd from long before their time.
After all, with Professor Snape teaching Potions, who in their right mind would dare do such a thing?
That only made one conclusion more disturbing.
Professor Holmes had clearly been far bolder as a student than they had imagined.
And his attempt to change the subject had been so clumsy that it was hard not to suspect the "unfortunate students" he mentioned had included himself.
More than that, Harry was almost certain he hadn't imagined it—Professor Holmes really had been carrying two wands.
Just as the little group settled down to eat again, there came another knock at Hagrid's door.
Fang gave two token barks, then lowered his head and went back to gnawing the piece of meat Douglas had tossed him.
Hagrid was about to rise, but Douglas, without even looking up, said, "Ron, get the door."
Ron hurried over and pulled it open.
A very skinny, grey-haired boy was standing outside, clutching a camera.
The moment Ron saw who it was, he immediately turned his head away in despair.
"Harry—Colin's here."
It was obvious he had no intention of inviting Colin in.
Colin Creevey, standing in the doorway, was nearly vibrating with excitement. He lifted his camera and peered through the open door toward Harry, who was in the middle of slurping vermicelli.
"Hey! Harry! Look over here!"
At the sound of Colin's voice, Harry gave a violent start.
The next moment, as if he had swallowed the noodles wrong, he let out a strangled noise and sneezed. The vermicelli shot straight out through his nose.
Douglas lifted his bowl high on instinct.
Hermione reacted just as quickly, drawing her own bowl protectively close and looking at Harry in disgust.
Hagrid roared with laughter.
Only Ron, standing in the doorway, watched in horror as something that had flown from Harry's nose seemed to land directly in his bowl.
Click.
Colin's camera went off.
He looked delighted.
"That's a rare moment!"
Then, only after lowering the camera, did he notice that there was another professor in the hut.
Professor Holmes.
Colin's face instantly went white.
It was the look of a boy who had suddenly realized he might have taken a photograph he absolutely should not have.
In the Muggle world, taking the wrong person's picture could get your camera smashed.
Panicking, he hurriedly hid it behind his back.
For a moment, it was as if the entire room had been under a Petrificus Totalus and only now released.
Harry was trying desperately to pull the noodles from his nose.
Hermione had retreated with her bowl and was still staring at him as though he were a public health hazard.
Ron looked at his own bowl in misery, where the half-eaten chunk of meat he'd been saving was still sitting.
Douglas did his best to suppress his laughter, turned toward the ghost-pale boy in the doorway, and put on a kindly smile.
"If I remember correctly, you're Mr. Creevey. Don't just stand there. Come in if you have something to say."
He gestured lazily toward the table.
"There's fresh pork and vermicelli stew here, and I don't imagine Mr. Hagrid would object to one more Gryffindor."
But standing in the doorway, with the firelight flickering behind Douglas and throwing shadows across his face, Colin only looked more terrified.
To Colin, Professor Holmes's smile seemed less kind than ominous.
By the time Douglas finished speaking, Colin looked ready to flee for his life.
Finally, he gathered his courage and blurted out in one stumbling rush:
"Professor—Professor McGonagall sent me to find the upper-years—I mean Harry and Ron—she wants them told about their detention!"
He nearly squeaked the next words.
"Professor, I—I have something else to do, so I'll be going now! Goodbye, Professor!"
Then he spun around and ran for the castle without looking back, nearly tripping over the stones outside Hagrid's hut in his haste.
Douglas stared after him, baffled, then turned to Harry with open disdain.
"Look at that. A younger student comes to greet you, and you behave like this."
He clicked his tongue.
"No wonder you frightened him off."
If Colin had heard that, he would have whirled around and shouted that it had not been Harry he was afraid of at all.
But Harry and Ron had clearly lost all appetite.
Hermione calmly lifted her bowl and finished the last of the vermicelli before saying coldly, "When you broke school rules, you should have expected consequences."
Douglas let out a quiet sigh, glanced around, and failed to find any toothpick fit for use. Then he said, "I was going to tell you after dinner, but since the two of you seem unable to eat now, I may as well get it over with."
Hermione blinked.
"Professor, do you know what punishment Professor McGonagall decided on?"
Harry and Ron both turned to Douglas with the desperate expression of condemned men hoping for mercy.
Douglas frowned in solemn thought.
"Originally, Professor McGonagall intended to have the two of you help Mr. Filch polish the silver in the trophy room, with no magic allowed."
Harry and Ron visibly paled.
"And this year," Douglas continued, "you were also going to be responsible for clearing weeds, gnomes, and similar pests out of the orchard. Also with no magic allowed."
Ron inhaled sharply. Compared with helping Filch, he was not especially opposed to weeding the orchard. At home, he did more than enough outdoor work already.
Hermione looked at Douglas suspiciously.
"Then you think the punishment is too severe and want it changed? Personally, I think it sounds perfectly fair. It ought to teach them a lesson. Otherwise, who knows what idiotic thing they'll do next?"
She threw a furious glare at Ron and Harry.
The two of them smiled weakly.
Douglas nodded gravely.
"I've always been opposed to this sort of labour-camp punishment for students."
Hermione rolled her eyes so hard it was a wonder they did not fall out.
If the timing had been different, Harry and Ron would already have been cheering.
Douglas sighed inwardly. He missed Bill all the more. Bill, at least, had always waited until the end before celebrating.
He wiped Hagrid's unicorn-horn chopsticks and said slowly, "I haven't finished."
The two boys froze.
"Although I succeeded in persuading Professor McGonagall to spare you the silver-polishing…"
Harry and Ron nearly sagged in relief.
"…from now on, every Saturday and Sunday night, the two of you will come to my office and recite all of the Defense Against the Dark Arts material you are supposed to learn this year."
The relief vanished at once.
"Once you finish the Defense Against the Dark Arts material, you are to report to Professor McGonagall and continue with Transfiguration."
Their expressions turned grey.
"After you finish that—well, originally you were to go to Professor Snape, but he informed me that he is very busy and would prefer that you recite Potions here under my supervision instead."
Douglas paused.
"Which is to say, he doesn't want to look at you."
Harry and Ron looked as though their souls had left their bodies.
"After the Potions material is done, the final stage is to go to Professor Sprout and recite Herbology."
Hermione stared at Douglas in utter astonishment.
Even she, who never found memorization particularly frightening, thought it sounded monstrous.
Still, curiosity got the better of her.
"Why not Charms as well?"
All four other people in the room turned to stare at her.
Hermione went pink and lifted both hands.
"Fine. Pretend I said nothing."
Even Hagrid shuddered. The look he gave Harry and Ron was one of profound pity.
Douglas packed Hagrid's gift chopsticks carefully back into their unicorn-hair sleeve and added, "Ah, yes. I nearly forgot. There is one more thing. Each of you must copy the school rules two hundred times. There is no deadline beyond the end of term. Hand them to Professor McGonagall before Christmas."
Harry and Ron looked as though they might faint.
"And," Douglas added almost cheerfully, "the orchard work has not been cancelled. A balance between labour and study is good for both mind and body."
The two boys slid right off their chairs.
Hermione and Hagrid both had to help them back up.
Douglas clicked his tongue lightly.
"Oh dear. The stools fell over."
Harry looked ready to cry.
"But why? I mean—how can there be this much to memorize?"
He gestured wildly.
"Professor McGonagall is our Head of House, so all right, I can understand that. Snape hates me, so I can understand that too. But what about you and Professor Sprout?"
Ron, standing beside him, nodded violently.
Douglas looked faintly surprised.
"Well, if I am the one who suggested it, naturally my subject must be included."
He shrugged.
"And as for Professor Sprout—don't you know? The Whomping Willow you damaged was planted by her own hands."
At that, Harry and Ron both looked as though they wanted to raise their fists to the heavens and howl.
Douglas only spread his hands in consolation.
"It isn't really so difficult. If you simply use the time other students waste on sleeping or amusing themselves, you should manage to finish before the end of the school year."
For a while after that, neither Harry nor Ron could manage a proper response.
Hagrid gave each of them another sympathetic look and resumed eating as if nothing unusual had happened.
Hermione, meanwhile, looked unreasonably pleased with the justice of it all.
Outside, the wind whispered faintly through the trees near the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Inside the hut, the fire crackled, the stew simmered, and somewhere beside the table Fang settled down heavily with a grunt, still working happily through the meat Douglas had given him.
And despite the open misery of two second-year Gryffindors, Douglas was in an excellent mood.
After all, everything was proceeding exactly as it should.
The boys had been reckless.
They had endangered themselves, their classmates, and the school.
What better cure for recklessness than structure, study, discipline, and just a little despair?
Still, Harry looked as though the end of the world had arrived.
Ron looked worse.
Douglas took pity on them—just enough to soften his tone, though not his decision.
"You'll survive," he said.
"That is more than can be said for many people who make foolish decisions in the wizarding world and never learn better."
Ron muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "I'd rather face another troll."
Douglas ignored it.
The three younger students, though exhausted by the entire exchange, were all still turning over one particular detail in their minds.
The school rule against using cauldrons for hot pot.
The school rule against using wands as dining sticks.
Neither of those rules, they now realized, was ancient at all.
They were recent.
And they had almost certainly been created because of Douglas Holmes.
Harry, who still distinctly remembered seeing two wands on Douglas's person, was beginning to suspect that a great many odd things around Hogwarts made more sense once Douglas was placed at the centre of them.
Hermione had begun to suspect the same.
Ron, however, had far more immediate concerns.
His wand was gone, his detention had tripled in horror, and somewhere in the castle his older brothers were almost certainly being punished in ways no human being should have to endure.
For several minutes, no one said very much.
Then Hagrid pushed the stew pot a little closer to Douglas and grumbled, "If you're going to terrify the children, at least eat while you do it."
Douglas looked down at the steaming food and smiled faintly.
"That," he said, "is the first sensible thing anyone has said all afternoon."
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