Chapter 34
“I want my mum.” Taylor said, crossing her arms.
“Ms. Hebert, I don’t think you understand how serious the situation is,” McGonagall tried to press her for details, but Taylor didn’t budge.
“I want my mum.”
McGonagall scowled, then marched towards the door. Flitwick was hot on her heels, leaving Taylor alone in the office. Or alone in the office with all the portraits awake and watching her every move.
Taylor followed both professors with her own eyes, noticing the perch near the door that she’d missed when entering the room.
It was a golden perch that had been partially hidden by the door. On top of it was a pitiful looking bird which resembled a half-plucked turkey. It looked balefully at Taylor, snagging any bugs that dared to creep closer, making gagging noises. She didn’t know what was wrong with the bird, but it looked like it was on its last feathers.
Outside, there was a hushed discussion between the two professors which her bugs didn’t miss.
“What are you going to do, Minerva?” Flitwick’s high pitched voice sounded strange when he tried to whisper.
“I’m going to fetch the girl’s mother.”
“A muggle, in Hogwarts?”
“What would you have me do, Filius? We are a decade too late to fetch her father from under the grave.”
“The Ministry…”
“Dumbledore isn’t here, and a child just injured a professor badly enough that Albus had to dismantle part of the castle’s protections to rush him to St. Mungo’s.”
McGonagall marched away after that, and Flitwick returned to the partially trashed office, breaking Taylor’s staring contest with the dying bird.
He swished his wand, said a well spoken “reparo”, and the gizmos, tables and chair reassembled themselves. After his spell was over, the office looked like nothing had happened at all.
“Do you know what accidental wandless magic is, Ms. Hebert?”
Taylor had heard a similar expression from Xeno, and had an inkling of what it was, but she didn’t know for sure. She shook her head.
“Do strange things happen around you often? When you’re scared, afraid or upset?”
Taylor opened her mouth, then closed it shut. She looked away from the small professor, and didn’t say anything.
It took about one hour until her mum arrived, escorted by McGonagall. Taylor had spent that hour in her staring match with Dumbledore’s bird, and re-organizing her nest on top of Ravenclaw’s tower.
Annette arrived looking disheveled, with her clothing crumpled and in shoes that didn't match.
“Taylor!” her mum cried out and hugged her. “Are you alright? Are you hurt? What happened?”
“Mum, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? What happened?”
“The headmaster wanted to talk with your daughter-” Flitwick tried to say.
“About what?” her mum interrupted, still hugging Taylor.
McGonagall cleared her throat. “There’s been an accident in Professor Snape’s office-.”
“The potions professor?” her mum interrupted again.
McGonagall nodded. “Yes, he-”
“The same professor who has been bullying my daughter since the start of school year and none of you did anything about it? That potions professor?”
McGonagall looked away.
Flitwick jumped on one of the chairs. “There was an argument, and Professor Snape got hurt and had to be taken to St. Mungo’s.”
“He was trying to do something to my head,” Taylor said, her voice muffled by her mum’s clothing.
“What is it, sweetie?” Annette asked, studying Taylor’s eyes.
“He was doing something to my head,” Taylor said again. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Are you sure?” McGonagall asked. Her voice and face sounded disbelieving.
“A professor attacked my daughter,” her mum hissed. Taylor had never seen her this angry before. “And you are accusing her of what?”
“No one is accusing your daughter of anything, Mrs. Hebert.” Flitwick said hastily.
“What is this, then?” her mum demanded, looking at the office, at the school robes Taylor hadn’t had the time to get out of. “Why did you bring her here? Why haven’t you contacted me instead?” Her mum’s glare would have made Taylor run and hide under the bed if it was directed at her. “Four adults to interrogate a child.”
“Why don’t we postpone this meeting until the headmaster returns?” McGonagall said, finding her voice. “You’re welcome to stay in the guest quarters for the evening, Mrs. Hebert.”
“Lead the way,” her mum said, still hugging Taylor.
Taylor was sure her mum wouldn’t have left even if the wizards had demanded it.
They left the headmaster’s office, and Taylor followed the others through the castle until they reached one of the many empty classrooms. It was one of the unused ones, with the same office setup near the professor’s desk.
Behind the office’s door, there were small quarters: some sort of private room, which had access to a bedroom with a double bed and a bathroom. Everything looked cleaned and new, but Taylor knew this room hadn’t seen any use the whole year.
“I’ll have someone bring Taylor’s trunk if she prefers to stay here with you for the night,” Flitwick said.
Taylor was already nodding.
Both professors left, and Taylor caught her mum looking at everything with shining eyes.
“You were right,” her mum whispered. “The castle is amazing!”
Taylor smiled, then hugged her mum again.
“Do you think they’ll let me show you Hogwarts tomorrow?”
“I don’t know.”
It didn’t take long until Taylor’s trunk magically appeared near the bed, along with a set of adult robes in Ravenclaw’s colours, presumably for her mother.
Taylor was still hugging her mum, but now she had more than enough reason to spy on everything and everyone. She had her bugs trail the professors, listening to their conversation.
“What do you make of all this, Filius?” McGonagall asked once they were far away from the guest quarters.
“I’m not sure,” Flitwick hedged, “but I don’t like the implications.”
“What implications?”
“A child wouldn’t react that violently to a simple stare contest,” Flitwick said. “Accidental wandless magic, Minerva.”
“You think Severus was doing something to the girl?”
“I sincerely hope not,” Flitwick said.
They went their separate ways soon after.
Now alone with her mum, they talked about The Quibbler’s new edition. Her mum hadn’t read the magazine yet, and she was more shocked than Taylor had been.
“I want to believe Luna’s dad wasn’t the one who took the letters,” Taylor said, since her mum had gone quiet. “Luna said he’ll tell us who gave him the letters if we ask. We were planning to talk with him during the Easter Holidays.”
“I really hope you’re right, Little Owl.”
Now that she was back at Hogwarts, Taylor wanted to show her mum all the new magic she had learned. For the next hour she did just that. Once she’d gone over all the charms, Taylor got the Book of Spells, and started reading and practicing the magic she didn’t know.
Her mum ooh’d and aah’d with each new sparkle out of Taylor’s wand, which only pushed Taylor further.
Dumbledore returned hours later, past midnight. Taylor hadn’t slept yet, neither had her mum.
“The headmaster is back,” she whispered.
Annette glanced at Taylor, and nodded.
“He’s calling all the professors to his office,” Taylor said, having seen Dumbledore use a silvery magical bird as some sort of message spell.
Once the staff had arrived, Taylor narrated the meeting to her mum.
“What happened, Dumbledore?” Professor Sprout asked once all the faculty was gathered.
“I invited Ms. Hebert to talk about the explosion at Severus’s lab at the end of term.”
“Didn’t we confirm the girl was nowhere near the area when it happened? She was in the carriage with three other students, neither did she go anywhere near the classroom since the class the day before,” said another professor. Professor Vector, Taylor recalled the name.
“Yes, but Severus was certain the girl was the culprit. I thought it best to clear the confusion instead of allowing it to fester.”
Professor Sprout nodded. Flitwick was still as a statue.
“My mistake was not realising young Ms. Hebert was more affected by Severus than I believed.” He looked each of the professors in the eyes. “They got into an argument, and Severus was injured in a bout of accidental magic.”
Gasps filled the room.
“Severus’ life isn’t at risk,” Dumbledore said, and there were sighs of relief around the office. “But the healers at St. Mungo’s also don’t know when he’ll wake up.”
“What about Mr. Hebert?” Professor Sprout asked again. “Was she hurt?”
“She wanted her mother,” McGonagall said. “I invited Mrs. Hebert to the castle. Both are in the guest room.”
“Thank you, Minerva,” Dumbledore said.
“What should we tell our students?” McGonagall asked.
“I’ll address all houses tomorrow at breakfast,” the headmaster said.
“What do we do about potions classes?” Flitwick asked.
Dumbledore looked tired and old. “I’ll convince an old friend to take the position of potions master again.”
The meeting went on for a few more minutes, until everyone had left, except McGonagall.
She stared at Dumbledore for a moment, then asked, “What really happened, Albus?”
Dumbledore had his back to her, glancing at the many portraits in the room.
“Severus tried to read her mind,” he said.
“Why would he do that and how was he hurt?”
Dumbledore was silent for a beat longer. “I don’t know, Minerva, and I dare not look.”
McGonagall’s face morphed into several different expressions too fast for Taylor’s bugs to parse.
“What should we do about her?” she asked, finally.
“Young Taylor?” the headmaster turned. “Nothing.”
“But, what about what happened? Isn’t she a danger to others?”
Dumbledore shook his head. “I hardly believe she’s dangerous to anyone who doesn’t try to enter her mind.”
Mother and daughter stood in silence. Taylor didn’t know what her mother was feeling, but the pit of dread in Taylor’s tummy told it all. They could read minds, and her mum’s wasn’t protected. In a fit of panic, Taylor had almost all of the pixies sneaking into the library. She grabbed any book she could find that looked related to mind magic, even if just in passing. She’d been so focused that she didn’t notice her mum until she was tucking Taylor under covers.
“Sleep. We can do something about it tomorrow.”
“But mum-”
“No buts. Sleep.”
Taylor tried to stay awake. She did for a while, but her mum started to sing a gentle lullaby, fingers tracing through Taylor’s blonde curls. The last thing Taylor remembered was ordering the pixies to return the books and hide.
In the morning, Taylor had to appease an irate Nap. The owl had arrived at the crack of dawn, carrying an envelope and hooting angrily. She tried to pet the bird, but got her fingers nipped instead.
“What’s with you, girl?”
The letter was a small note written in her mum’s handwriting.
Hi sweetie, hope school is fun this time!
“Oh, Nap,” Annette said, once she left the bathroom and saw the owl. “I’m so sorry, in the confusion, I forgot about you.”
Her mum tried to pet the owl as well, but also got nipped.
“School is not fun, mum,” Taylor said, waving the note.
Her mum shook her head. “I was going to send it in the morning so you’d get it at breakfast.” She looked at Nap, considering. “Nap is smarter than I gave her credit for.”
The owl ruffled her feathers, tufts up like horns. She hooted.
“But what if,” her mum muttered, squinting at Nap.
“What what, mum?”
“What if we send what you heard to someone else in a sealed letter, with instructions they only open it if we don’t get back to them?”
“Like a dead-man switch?”
“Without the dead man, hopefully.”
Taylor scrunched her nose. “But who do we send the letter to?”
Annette opened her mouth, closed it. “…Xenophilius?”
“But mum, we don’t know if he was the one who stole the letters and messed with your memory.”
“I know, Little Owl, but who else can we send it to?”
Taylor mulled over that and realised she didn’t know anyone else aside from Luna’s family. Certainly she was friends with Ginny and Nneka, but they never talked about their families and Taylor didn’t know anything about them.
“Are you sure you want to trust him?” she asked finally.
“What choice do we have?”
Her mum wrote the letter. It didn’t have any extra words or embellishments. It told what had happened, and the headmaster words almost word for word. In the envelope cover, her mum wrote:
“Only open this letter if we do not contact you within five days.”
It took some work to convince Nap to deliver the correspondence. But with only a few more nips and a lot more treats, the owl was on her way to Xeno.
While her mum did all that, Taylor had her pixies continue the research in the library. Once her mum was done with that bit of skullduggery, she led her towards breakfast. It was surreal seeing her mum in Ravenclaw’s colors, but it lit a fire in Taylor’s chest. She wished Colin hadn’t been petrified so she could ask him to snap a picture.
They walked hand in hand, and drew more than a few stares, but Taylor didn’t care.
She pointed out the paintings, the moving suits of armor. Taylor advised her mum which stairs to skip, and even had to detour to avoid meeting Peeves. They crossed paths with the Grey Lady who nodded at Taylor, and Taylor respectfully nodded back.
“That’s a ghost,” her mum whispered after the Grey Lady had gone through a wall.
“I know. Wicked, right?” Taylor grinned.
“A ghost!”
Taylor didn’t say anything about the Great Hall either, leaving her mum to gaze and gape at the enchanted ceiling and all its glory.
The duo passed near Gryffindor’s table and Taylor saw her two friends. Nneka yawned, like she hadn’t slept a lot. She waved at Taylor who waved back.
Ginny looked worse than ever. All the progress in the weeks before holiday had disappeared and the young redhead looked about to fall face first on the table.
Taylor waved to Ginny as well, but the Weasley girl didn’t seem to notice the gesture.
Mother and daughter sat near Luna, who got up from her seat and hugged Taylor first, then Annette.
“Hi, Taylor. Hi, Annette.”
Much in Luna’s fashion, her friend didn’t ask what had happened.
There were whispers and questions about Annette’s presence, but once food appeared on the table, everyone else was too busy eating to remember the guest in their midst.
Dumbledore made his announcement once everyone had finished eating. He clinked his cup, and the gentle sound quieted the whole room.
“Welcome back to Hogwarts, and I hope you all had an excellent holiday. The castle is still standing and the food is still marvelous!”
Students cheered.
“As many of you have noticed, we have a guest with us this morning,” he said, looking at Annette. “I hope you’ll receive Mrs. Hebert like one of you.”
There was some clapping. It started at the Ravenclaw table, before it spread to the other houses, except Slytherin. A lot of students were craning their necks trying to find this visitor.
“Unfortunately, not everything is good news,” he said and a rush fell over the hall. “Professor Snape was injured yesterday night in an accident. He’s at St. Mungo’s and his life isn’t at risk, but we don’t know when he’ll be fit to teach classes again. Potion classes are cancelled…”
That got a lot of reactions. Slytherins cried out in dismay, while some students cheered. Taylor watched the whole thing, disbelieving.
“…until a new professor arrives,” the headmaster finished.
The cheering from Gryffindor turned into grumbling.
There were a few more start of term announcements, like the date for the next Quidditch match, but nothing really important aside from that.
Students dispersed, preparing for their classes.
Except Taylor.
Like she’d suspected, the Headmaster wanted to speak with her mum and her in his office.
Taylor marched towards the office like she was going to her own execution. She hadn’t found anything regarding the mind magic yet and had no idea what was about to happen. Then one of her pixies read something that caught her attention. It was a small note about foul, obscure magics to invade someone’s mind by making eye contact. The book didn’t say what the magic was, or if it was even used to read thoughts. Maybe it even wasn’t the same magic Snape had used and that Dumbledore clearly knew how to use too, but she got nothing else.
“Don’t look into anyone’s eyes,” she whispered to her mum. “That’s how they read your mind.”