章 15: Chapter 15
"You know, it really could have been worse," Hermione said.
"Can't see how," said one of the Patil twins (the Gryffindor one, whatever her name was).
"Well," said Lavender Brown, "at least the bloodshed was kept to a minimum."
"And St. Mungo's says Neville's supposed to make a full recovery," added Hannah Abbot.
"And we weren't expelled," Hermione pointed out.
"Also," continued Lavender, "Snape managed to Finite that toad—who summoned that, anyway? I don't think I've ever seen quite that shade of orange before—before Pansy Parkinson suffered permanent injury."
"Really, it's a wonder he knew which one to cast it on. Couldn't tell the two apart myself," muttered Ron.
"I think only taking ten points off showed remarkable restraint, all things considered," Hermione mused. "Shame it was from every first year in Gryffindor, though."
"Because, you know, seeing as how she looks like a toad," Ron said, disappointed at the initial lack of response.
"Assuming we don't assault the Slytherins anymore, and we all put in a few extra hours and some hard work in practice and revisions," Hermione said cheerfully, "I think we might be able to manage to beat the Hufflepuffs at least—not that there's anything wrong with them, perfectly respectable house—in the House Cup standings."
Seamus and several other largely interchangeable first years groaned.
"Nothing a Golden Snitch or two won't fix," Ron said hopefully. "Wood reckons—assuming we can find a Seeker half as good as Charlie was—we stand a decent chance at taking the Quidditch Cup from Slytherin this year."
"Cease," said the Bloody Baron. He didn't exactly shout, and it wasn't exactly loud—in fact, it seemed little more than a whisper. But even over the ten complaining eleven-year-olds (and Hermione, who was in fact twelve) the ghost's voice was clearly audible. "Be glad it's only house points and detention… when I still attended this school, we didn't use the Cat O'Nine Tails."
The Gryffindors fell silent. A few scratched their heads, pondering the Baron's last statement. Harry knew he shouldn't—he really, really knew it—but he just couldn't help himself. He had to ask.
"D-don't you mean, you still used the Cat O'Nine Tails?"
"No. It was introduced by a weak, soft headmaster after Emeric the Evil retired—by a Hufflepuff, as I recall," the Baron mused. Harry swallowed. If a nine-tipped whip was seen as soft enough for a Hufflepuff—not that there's anything wrong with them—to use instead of whatever they did before…
The entire first year of Gryffindor was in detention, overseen by the silvery coloured ghost of Slytherin. Their task was simple enough on the surface: they had to keep the suits of armour that lined the halls of Hogwarts free of rust. The catch wasn't that they couldn't use magic (which they couldn't, of course) or even that they were supervised by the Bloody Baron (Milo couldn't help but wonder where the Bloody Baron's eponymous blood came from. It isn't because the Baron died violently, or Nearly Headless Nick would be at least as bad...) but it was that the paintings were ordered to ignore them during detention.
Now, you may be thinking, "is that all?" And if so, it is because you've never been eleven years old in a shopping mall after closing time, completely alone, with only a teddy bear. Only in this case, the shopping mall has (at last count, and rounding up) a completely unknown number of floors. And the staircases move. As do some floors. One notable corridor appears to twist somewhere in the middle, and by the end of it you're walking on stone and there's a carpet along the ceiling. But only on every other Tuesday, except on leap years. And the shopping mall is a castle. And that castle is Hogwarts.
And your teddy bear is missing.
It only took half an hour for Hannah (Neville was still in St. Mungo's) to vanish.
"Okay, the thing we need to do is not panic," Hermione said calmly, "and search for her in a group. As long as we all stay together, we should be—"
"Nah, that's rubbish," Ron interrupted. "We're at a four-way intersection, and there's still nine of us. We can find her faster if we divvy up, send two in every direction except one, which gets three. Faster we find her, the faster we clean these ruddy statues."
"No, there's only three directions to go in unless we go backwards and in any case that's beside the point because if we split then we'll have to stop and go looking for you—"
"What, just because you're so much smarter than all of us?" Ron asked rudely. "For all you know, we could have to go find you!"
"That's exactly my point!" Hermione shouted.
"So we're in agreement. We split up."
"No!" Milo shouted. "You never split the party! Never!"
"You're one to talk, you got us into this mess," Lavender accused.
"Says the girl who lit Pansy Parkinson on fire," that Patil girl muttered.
"That cow had it coming," Lavender said defensively. "She called me a cow."
"We're getting sidetracked," Hermione insisted. "We need to find Hannah, and the best way to do that is to systematically search every room and hallway, as a group, that she could have got to in ten minutes."
"That could take the rest of our lives!" Ron said. "Let's just split up and find her already!"
"No, I'm telling you—"
"Fine, how about a compromise? I'll split up with Harry, Dean and Seamus, you and the others stay together. Coming, Harry?"
Harry gave an apologetic look and followed Ron and the others down the corridor on the right-hand side.
Hermione sighed. "Okay, well the rest of us can start on the left and work our way through—"
"Who put you in charge, anyway?" Lavender asked. "Parvati, Fay, and I can take the centre. We'll have found Hannah and be back to cleaning statues while you're still organising." Lavender strode off, followed by a pair of witches.
"Parvati!" Milo said. "So that's her name."
Hermione groaned.
"You know, I sometimes wish I'd been sorted into Ravenclaw," she muttered. "This sort of behaviour would never stand there. I don't suppose you have any tricks up your sleeve?"
"Loads," said Milo. "But Locate Creature is a fourth-level spell, and I can only do up to second. And unless Hannah's met an unfortunate end, Locate Object won't be able to find her."
"Huh," said Hermione. "So you can find objects with magic, but not living things?"
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