Experiment had showed that the Stone made one Transfiguration permanent every three minutes and fifty-four seconds, irrespective of the size of object Transfigured. Just once, holding the Philosopher’s Stone up to the light of Harry’s most powerful flashlight in an otherwise darkened closet, Harry had thought he’d seen an array of tiny points inside the chunk of crimson glass; but Harry hadn’t been able to see it again, and now suspected himself of having imagined it. The Stone had no other powers that Harry could detect, nor did it respond to any attempted mental commands.
Harry had given himself until noon tomorrow to figure out how to begin using the Stone without it being grabbed by someone else, trying not to think about what was still happening, what had always been happening, in the meanwhile.
Ten minutes late, Minerva McGonagall approached, moving in a swift stride. Her arms were full of papers, she was once again wearing the Sorting Hat.
The gargoyles, with a brief sound of grinding stone, bowed low before her.
“The new password is ‘Impermanence’,” Minerva said to the gargoyles, and they stepped aside. “I’m sorry, Mr. Potter, I was delayed—”
“Understood.”
Minerva mounted the long spiral stairs, climbing instead of waiting to be carried, Harry following behind her.
“We are meeting with Amelia Bones, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; with Alastor Moody, whom you have met; and with Bartemius Crouch, Director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation,” Minerva said as she climbed. “They are Dumbledore’s heirs as much as you or I.”
“How—how’s Hermione doing?” Harry hadn’t had a chance to ask until now.
“Filius said she seemed rather in shock, which I suppose is not surprising. She asked where you were, was told you were at a Quidditch game, asked where you really were, and refused to speak with anyone about what happened until she was allowed to talk with you. She was taken to St. Mungo’s, where,” the Headmistress now sounded slightly perturbed, “a standard diagnostic Charm showed Miss Granger as a healthy unicorn in excellent physical condition except that her mane needs combing. Charms to detect active magic have each time detected her as being in the process of transforming into another shape. There was an Unspeakable who showed up before Filius, ah, removed him. He performed certain spells he probably ought not to have known, and declared that Hermione’s soul was in healthy condition but at least a mile away from her body. At that point the senior healers gave up. She’s currently alone in a cell with the rats and flies—”
“She’s what?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Potter, that’s Transfiguration jargon. Miss Granger is in an isolation chamber with a cage of tame rats, and a box of flies that will bear offspring in a single day. Logic suggests that whatever mystery underlies her resurrection, it left behind an emanation that is causing the healers’ Charms to produce gibberish. But if nothing happens to the rats or to the flies’ offspring, Miss Granger will be declared safe to return to
Hogwarts after she wakes up again tomorrow morning.”
Harry still wasn’t sure… wasn’t sure at all, what Hermione would think of having been resurrected, at least under these particular circumstances. He didn’t actually think Hermione would yell at him for doing it wrong. That was just Harry’s brain trying to imagine her as a stereotype. Harry had been legitimately exhausted and not thinking very straight when he’d come up with that cover story, and Hermione would probably understand that part. But he couldn’t imagine what Hermione would think…
“I wonder how Miss Granger will feel about having also vanquished You-Know-Who,” Minerva said reflectively, climbing the moving stairs fast enough that Harry felt out of breath trying to keep up. “And people believing the most interesting things about her.”
“You mean, because she’s always self-identified as a normal academic genius, and now a bunch of people think of her as the Girl-Who-Revived and everyone wants to shake her hand?” Harry said. Even though she doesn’t remember doing anything to earn it. Even though it was all someone else’s work and other people’s sacrifices, and she’s getting the credit. Even though she doesn’t feel like she’s actually done anything worthy of the way other people treat her, and she’s not sure if she can ever live up to the person they imagine. “Gosh, I don’t know, I can’t imagine what that feels like.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have subjected her to it. But people had to be given something to believe or heaven knows what they’d have made up. Feeling guilty about this would be stupid. I think.
The two of them reached the top of the stairs, and came into the office filled with dozens of strange objects, all facing a great desk and a mighty throne behind it.
Minerva’s hand passed over one of those objects, the one with golden wibblers, her eyes closing briefly. Then Minerva took off the Sorting Hat and put it on a hatrack that held three slippers for left feet. She transformed the mighty throne into a simple cushioned chair and the great desk into a round table, around which four other chairs rose up.
Harry watched it all with a strange pang in his throat. He knew, without either of them saying anything, that there should have been more ceremony for the changing of the chairs, the changing of the table. Much more ceremony, for the first time the Headmistress sat down in her new office. But for whatever reason, there wasn’t time, and Minerva McGonagall was discarding all that for speed.
A wave of Minerva’s wand lit the Floo-fire in the fireplace, even as Minerva sat down into the chair that had been Dumbledore’s.
Harry quietly took one of the chairs around the table, sitting at Minerva’s left.
Almost at once, the Floo-fire burned emeraldine and whirled out Alastor Moody, who spun around with his wand raised, taking in the whole room at a seeming glance, and then pointed his wand directly at Harry and said “Avada Kedavra.”
It happened so fast, and took him so completely by surprise, that Harry’s wand wasn’t even half-raised by the time Alastor Moody finished the incantation.
“Just checking,” Alastor said to the Headmistress, whose own wand was now pointed at Alastor, her mouth open as if to say words she couldn’t find. “Voldie would’ve tried to dodge, if he’d taken over the boy’s body last night. I’ll still need to check the Granger girl, though.” Alastor Moody went to Minerva’s right and sat down.
Harry had thought, in that split second, to try producing a wordless silver Patronus glow from his wand; but his wand hadn’t been in place to intercept in time, not even close.
Well, if I was feeling invincible before, that does for that. What a valuable life lesson, Mr. Moody.
Then the Floo-fire burned green again, and spat out the oldest, grimmest, toughest-looking witch Harry had ever seen, like beef jerky given human shape. The old witch did not have her wand in her hand, but she projected an air of authority that was stronger and stricter than Dumbledore’s.
“This is Director Amelia Bones, Mr. Potter,” said Headmistress McGonagall, who’d regained her poise. “We are still waiting on Director Crouch—”
“The corpse of Bartemius Crouch Jr. was identified among the dead Death Eaters,” the old witch said without preamble, even as she continued toward the chairs. “It took us entirely by surprise, and I’m afraid Bartemius is in considerable grief about it, on both counts. He will not be with us today.”
Harry kept the flinch inward.
Amelia Bones sat down in a chair, sitting to Moody’s own right.
“Headmistress McGonagall,” said the elder witch, still without hesitation or delay, “The Line of Merlin Unbroken, which Dumbledore left to me in regency, is not responding to my hand. The Wizengamot must have a Chief Warlock who is trustworthy, at once; matters are in great flux in Britain. I must know what Dumbledore has done, immediately!”