(17) The Goblin Fair

Giselle hurried down the walkway to the castle's back entrance. But the big oaken door wouldn't open. There were rules against using magic to open locked doors. You were supposed to inquire of a teacher if you wanted in.

She stood gazing down the garden walk, the bricks dusty with cottony seeds from the bushes along the outer wall. Vaguely she heard Frumlow speaking to someone around a far corner of the walkway.

Was that her Auntie's voice answering him? Auntie had a plot of garden to herself on the east side. I'll have to risk Frumlow seeing me, Giselle thought as she started off along the bricks. There's no reason to think he saw me hiding, no reason for him to think I eavesdropped. He'll think I'm just out for a stroll. But Auntie will know I've something to discuss with her. She'll know.

"Where do you think you're going?"

It was Roger, sitting on a concrete bench in the shade. He had a book on his knee, an arm resting on it, leaning forward and looking at Giselle with a sour smile that was meant to be good-humored.

At first Giselle was angered by his remark. But then she realized that none of this was his fault. He must be under a lot of stress, having to take antidotes for what might not be curable.

Not curable... the Marvolo Curse? Was he cursed as Frumlow had been cursed? She remembered Roger telling her about curses and other weird stories that Krimson had spoken of to him; something about wanting Roger to join him in a private project.

"They'll not be at dinner tonight, Krim and Elenore," he was saying. "They'll be getting crumbs from the kitchen table. Serves them right. Detention every night, but that's too good for them.They should've been expelled. I heard what Krim and Professor Frumlow were yelling at each other about. Did you happen to overhear? I thought I saw you come in through the arch."

Giselle didn't know how she should answer his question, so she changed the subject. "Is the new antidote helping?"

Roger leaned back. His lank smile was gone. "You know about all that, do you? I say, does your Aunt Minerva tell you everything that goes on at the school?"

She was offended. "Of course not!"

Roger hung his head. "Never mind my bad manners," he said, fingering his book. "I'm not myself anymore."

"I know," Giselle whispered, her eyes misting over.

Roger forced up another smile, a little brighter this time. "Come sit with me. I say, this is a public place. Isn't that Ravenclaw Tower behind you? We're out in the open, you know. You're safe here, even with me."

"I'm not afraid of you," she said, blushing.

"Well, perhaps you should be," Roger remarked, eyeing her suspiciously for a moment. Then he sighed. "I've been reading about the legends and superstitions at Hogwarts," he patted the book, "all the spooky stuff that was dreamed up in the different dorm houses. Too bad, really, that one of the legends is true."

Giselle couldn't hold back her thoughts any longer. "Yes, I heard what Krimson and the professor were saying!" she blurted out just above a whisper, her cheeks flaming hot.

"Well then, you know what the problem is," Roger said matter of factly.

"Isabel Channing is my grandmother! My mother was adopted! I've never heard a word of it from anyone in my family!"

Roger stared into the darkness of his  mind. "So, that's why your Aunt told you about me. She oughtn't to let you see me. Better that you keep away from me. You're one of the prettiest girls in the school. I thought so the moment I saw you, on the train. I wanted everyone to wander off so I could be alone with you, and talk... just talk... and hold your hand... just... hold your hand."

He looked at his hands. They were trembling. He was grimacing, a vein in his forehead pulsing. He stood up abruptly, leaving the book on the bench, and walked off toward the archway.

Giselle almost called to him to come back. The words were on the tip of her tongue.

She followed Auntie into the Great Hall for dinner that evening.

Everything was so festive; festoons of spring blossoms draped between the tall windows, the ranks of floating candles overhead giving off colored flames. The six crowded tables were noisy in a lighthearted way. But Giselle felt a ripple of tension, for Madame Hooch sat next to Dumbledore with a sheet of parchment folded in one hand; the Quidditch All-Star team line up. It was to be announced when the desserts came up.

Auntie squeezed Giselle's arm and went up to the faculty board, taking a seat next to Sprout, with Snape on her other side. He wore a preoccupied expression. He looked at Giselle as she went sideways between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables. She was trying to smile at the faces that greeted her, but she couldn't manage much gaiety. She kept thinking of her talk with Auntie. It had left her confused and skeptical.

Giselle sat in her usual place, near the front end of the table. Her friends around her were chatting boisterously. They didn't seem the least aware of her mood. Roger was further down, nodding mechanically to what Lori was saying to him about the scrimmage trial.

Was Lori safe sitting so close to Roger? Was she sending signals to him that he might construe to mean more than what she intended?

Oughtn't I to warn her? thought Giselle. But... warn her about a curse that Auntie said was utter nonsense?

They had their talk in Auntie's office, after she had taken off her gardening gloves and slapped the soil off them against a tree stump that held a pot of geraniums. In the office she laid her linen coat on a sideboard next to the door to her living quarters, so as not to forget to put it in the hamper when she went in her rooms to clean up and dress for dinner.

Giselle had sat there watching this pantomime of the normal things in life while her mind revolved around life's dark mysteries.

"Now, what's this about house legends and permanent curses?" her Auntie said with a practiced frown, sitting next to her niece, dabbing her face with a washcloth.

Giselle had trouble getting started, but after the initial stammer she let it out like a dam bursting.

Aunt Minerva simply ignored all the guff about house tales. But the idea that her sister in law, 'Bella,' had been adopted by a woman made sterile by a wicked assault on her, from a young Upton Frumlow, no less, left her aghast. Her astonishment was a mix of incredulity and outrage.

"But Professor Frumlow ADMITTED it!" cried Giselle.

Aunt Minerva pressed the washcloth to her forehead, her eyes wide with a deep, incomprehensible despair. "Upton was such a friendly, considerate boy," she said in a strained voice. "He.... I suppose it is just possible that he... was too forward with Isabel on that... one occasion. But we never heard any such tale, and Isabel certainly never changed in any profound way. We have always been the closest of friends. I was the one who suggested her daughter Bella ought to go out with Odin, my sweet younger brother."

"You don't believe my mum was adopted? Because Grandmum couldn't have babies of her own."

Aunt Minerva dropped her hand and let out a long aching sigh. "Had your mother been adopted, the family would have known about it," she said with a trace of obstinancy. "You can't keep secrets very well from a family of witches and wizards."

"But maybe Granmum used a spell to keep it a secret from everyone."

"Gee, you are in your fourth year at Hogwarts, and you believe that magic can go undetected by accomplished magicians? Not if they have the smallest suspicion. No, dear, whatever young Upton Frumlow may have done to your grandmother, she did not adopt a baby girl. Your mother is the biological daughter of Warren and Isabel MacDougal. As for the Marvolo Curse, there is no evidence of it whatsoever. Nor any evidence that gremlins haunt Ravenclaw Tower, nor that the ghost of Sir Lancelot goes around in the middle of the night blessing Gryffindor boys with his sword. Nor, might I add, any evidence that the Tooth Fairy is a Hufflepuff alumnus."

"Let the feast begin!" sang Dumbledore.

Giselle had been staring at Frumlow when the invitation came, and now she was startled by the varieties of food popping up on the table. She had never really gotten used to the suddenness of it.

"I know exactly how you feel, Gee," said Deidre, scooping up a huge pile of scalloped potatoes.

"You do??"

"Don't you think I'm just as nervous as you about whether I've made the team? Oliver played very well, but I blocked two more shots than he did. Roger scored four times against Oliver. I only allowed two scores, and that second one was deflected in, after I had knocked it away."

Felix expressed his doubts that he had done better at the Beater position than his two Slytherin rivals. Lori, sliding down the bench to join them, said she was confident that Fred Weasley had made the team, and that if there was any fairness in the world she would be joining Fred.

The wait was agonizing for them, but not too terribly much for Giselle. She hoped to make the team, of course, but Quidditch wasn't the uppermost thing on her mind that night.

At last the entree dishes vanished, and, with a series of squirty little pops and whistles, the desserts appeared.

Madame Hooch scooted back her chair and stood up. No other sign was necessary. The Great Hall fell silent.

"Now for the reading out of those try-out participants who have been selected, after much discussion, to be on the school's All-Star Quidditch team," said Hooch. "This will be followed by the line-ups for the Durmstrang and Beauxbaton teams, respectively."

She paused to clear her throat.

"For the position of Keeper, Oliver Wood. Back-up Keeper, Deidre Fleetwood."

Deidre waved at Oliver, who was being roundly congratulated at the Gryffindor table. He waved back and said something to her that was lost in the noise at the Hufflepuff table as Deidre was applauded for getting on the team.

Again, silence as Hooch gave her parchment a shake.

"For the position of Seeker, Cedric Diggory. Back-up Seeker, Harry Potter."

Giselle was pleased and clapped for both. She gave Felix a smile. He was rubbing his hands together and staring at the ceiling.

"For the position of Beater," Hooch said, "Thomas Bluntquill and Fred Weasley. Back-ups are Felix Franklin and Connie Eggstrom."

While Giselle applauded the winners and made a face of consolation for the disappointed Lori, she was pondering which of the Beaters she had watched in the trials was Olga's brother, or perhaps cousin. Giselle hadn't heard that Olga had a relative at Hogwarts. She raised herself off the bench a little and searched the Ravenclaw table. There was Olga, shaking a boy's shoulder; a brute of a boy with teeth like a nutcracker and blood-red hair.

"And now for the Chaser position," Hooch said, motioning for silence.

Giselle closed her eyes. It seemed bad luck to be watching.

"Roger Roundhouse, Katie Bell, and Calico Jacks. Back-up Chasers are Irma Wormhole, Alexis Allan, and Giselle McGonagall. Congratulations to all the team members, and warm gratitude for all the participants at the try outs. And now Headmaster Karkaroff will announce the line-ups for the Durmstrang team."

Giselle opened her eyes. She would rather not have to, but she just had to see where that delicious smell of hot persimmon pie was coming from.

Snape excused himself from the faculty board, to the chagrin of Karkaroff, and left the Great Hall through the side door.

He took the long narrow passage to a stairwell, descended to the dungeon level, and guided by the stubs of fluttering torches he came to the Potions corridor.

He crossed the dimly lit classroom, passed through the archway to his office, and into his private workroom.

On the long work table lay Jon Minnex, a black sheet covering him from feet to shoulders. His eyes were dulled, gazing at thoughts in his drugged mind that were little more than commas and question marks.

Doris Crockford sat on a bench against the wall, below a high shelf where jars and metal boxes stood quivering slightly. She grinned at Snape, clacking her teeth on her pipe stem.

"Has the potion taken full effect?" he asked her.

"Perfectly," she said. "So perfectly that I despair of ever brewing the Devil's Quarter as perfectly as this."

Snape went up to the table and gazed down at the pale lax face of the half-goblin.

"You understand, Severus," Doris said hesitantly, "that all the rules have been broken. No croaking of bullfrogs tonight. No flight of owls. No warble of the nightingale. Only the red raven, pecking at the moon's reflection on a pool of blood, will be active."

"As expected," said Snape, looking over at the old necromancer impassively.

"It could get us in a deal of trouble, Severus."

The grim smile formed on his lips.

"More trouble for Minnex, than for us," he said.