The Observer Effect

      ‘Right,’ Draco said briskly, rustling wrapping paper. ‘This is mine. And this is yours, Potter, here you are. Help yourselves! Ladies first.’ With that, he set a parcel of sweets circulating.       Harry took the chocolate bar from Malfoy, and thanked his friend with a quick smile and a nod. Parkinson, first of the ‘ladies’ to get her hands on the bundle, fished out a packet of tiny ginger biscuits shaped like crescents and stars, gilded with real gold leaf. Greengrass drew a slab of butter fudge, which some mischievous confectioner had turned into jolly little snowmen, no taller than a thumbnail. When Harry bit into his chocolate, he found a layer of marzipan inside. Every Slytherin first-year received a treat tailored to their tastes: liquorice wands for one, toffees for another, biscuits for a third. Watching this largesse being dispensed almost every morning for three months now, Harry no longer had the slightest doubt—this was anything but random.       Firstly, had Draco been eating such fantastic quantities of sugar all by himself, not even the notably robust constitution of a pure-blood wizard would have withstood such abuse, and Malfoy would have been all but guaranteed to develop diabetes by the time he left school. Secondly, his classmates chose among the options with far too much confidence. Thirdly, Harry himself preferred chocolate—and chocolate was precisely what he got. Whoever was gathering intelligence for Lady Narcissa—human, ghost, house-elf, or portrait, Harry could only speculate about the spy’s identity—knew their trade inside out.       This, too, he thought, chewing, is part of what one learns in Slytherin. Buying off political supporters, the nursery edition. The chocolate was excellent, as were all the varieties he had sampled thus far through Draco’s mother’s thoughtfulness. Current favourite: dark chocolate with dates. Still, Harry hoped for further gastronomic discoveries.       The Malfoys’ family owl—not an owl, but a full-blown eagle owl, for even in so small a matter the fair-haired clan could not resist flaunting their wealth—an enormous, splendid bird with ash-grey plumage, and a perfectly fitting name, Mercury, flapped its wings. Harry hastily steadied his cup—for while ordinary post owls might alight on their owners’ shoulders, an eagle owl could, if it chose, carry Draco himself off in its talons. Mercury had to perch on the table’s edge and, when taking flight, invariably caused a minor catastrophe among the place settings. Such was the price of showiness. Having brushed Harry’s head with one last brush of his wing, the owl heaved himself skywards, and only then did Harry notice a note tucked into the wrapper of his chocolate bar.       An elegant, flowing hand, dark-violet ink, heavy, expensive parchment—given its mode of delivery, it was not hard to guess the sender.       ‘Dear Fomalhaut,’ the note ran. ‘Will you allow me to call you that?       Although I am very fond of the name Harry, the one you invented seems to bring us closer, does it not?       And I should dearly like to get to know you better. Do come and stay with us for the holidays.       Our estate is in Wiltshire. There is a rather large park around it, and nearby a proper forest. Winter is not quite so lovely as summer, but the pond freezes, and you can go skating. You will like our library as well. And my son, I am sure, will never let you be bored. Snowball fights, or flying on broomsticks—we have space enough for both.       Well? Have I tempted you? Do come. If not for the whole holiday, then at least for Christmas. It is a family occasion; it would be terribly sad to spend it alone, even at Hogwarts.       With love, and looking forward to seeing you soon,       Narcissa Malfoy-Black,       your aunt.’       She modestly omitted the word ‘second.’       How far this was from Harry’s anxieties, when he had first panicked on learning the awkward situation he’d got himself into by passing as one of the Blacks. What, he wondered, explained such favour? He might have chalked it up to the recent conversation with Lord Malfoy, but the sweets had been arriving since September—and Lady Malfoy could scarcely be unaware that the false hero now shared a House with her son. If she was assembling such bespoke parcels, she knew perfectly well what she was sending, and to whom.       And, thinking back, even on the train the first thing Harry had noticed was Draco’s lack of hostility towards the impostor. No, there was a mystery here somewhere. Sirius, perhaps? Godfather, after all. And Narcissa’s cousin. Perhaps Lady Malfoy missed him…       Harry rubbed his forehead, thoughtful. The invitation did look tempting. It could not be for the whole holiday—too much to do—but two or three days would settle nothing either way, would they? He ought to consult Tom.       How safe was it to appear under another’s roof with the diary on him? Would somebody try to take it by force? Would Trunk have the gumption to defend its precious cargo at all costs, if they did?       For that was the upshot of the agonised deliberations over how to secure the single thread binding Tom to the land of the living.       The Room of Hidden Things defended the artefact against all threats—but Tom himself had been left tethered there, and Harry with him. Oh, now he understood how true it was that everything becomes a cage when there is no way to leave. The school, a lovely castle full of magic and secrets, did not exactly lose its allure in this light, but it felt altogether different. A home is where you return to. To return, you must be able to go away now and again. For many years, Hogwarts had been the only home Tom knew—and each year he had been torn from it by force. Now, as if in mockery, the situation had turned inside out.       The idea of spending Christmas at school appealed to neither of them. Unlike Tom, Harry did have somewhere to go—the Blacks’ ancestral house had opened to him, and received him. You could not ask for a better base for raids on the Daily Prophet office, and the library of a Dark family was not half explored. Tom, for all his love of Hogwarts, found the thought of being stuck indefinitely within the bounds of his ‘kingdom’ distasteful.       But outside the safe walls of the school and of Black House, the diary faced threats they had not even considered in the summer. The security measures Harry had employed before now seemed wholly inadequate. Keeping the notebook by his heart was a charming sentiment, but it would not save it in an armed attack. It needed protection, reliable, unobtrusive protection—and here Harry remembered his unique, self-moving property.       Trunk could bite. It could also run quickly and climb better than a real spider—or whatever mad designer had used as a model. But what about curses? Would, say, a stunning spell affect it? Or a Killing Curse?       Harry meant to find out as soon as possible. Accidentally killing Trunk would be a crying shame, but they would increase the strength of their curses gradually, and besides, accidentally losing Tom was a far, far worse prospect. Houl had borne with things; the second pet would have to put up with them too, for the greater good.       The third pet, Nag, seemed to sense Harry’s thoughts, and popped his head out of the sleeve. Harry flicked the snake’s nose.       ‘Want to be an owl’s breakfast? Sit still!’       If the trials with Trunk went well, they would enlarge the viper by magic as far as they could, and stow him inside. Not a basilisk, to be sure, but he would make an unwelcome surprise for any intruder. Beyond that, they had thought of nothing yet—perhaps some Disillusionment Charms, but those would have to be cast on the wrapping, on a cloak, a shirt, or some other everyday article. The diary’s magic would not accept foreign charms—only to be expected, if annoying.       Draco, who had turned his head at the sound of Parseltongue, lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing. The secret no longer existed—thanks to Weasley and his cohorts, every idiot in Hogwarts knew Harry was a Parselmouth. Perhaps it was ill-advised to talk to Nag in the Great Hall, but Harry decided he did not care. Let them whisper. It would make them fear him more.       As Saturday’s search for the dragon had yielded nothing—and could not have done, though only Harry and half his House knew that—the mobilisation continued on Sunday. Right after breakfast, parties of older students set off once more to comb the Forbidden Forest. Contrary to Harry’s fears, no one grumbled much—the forbidden, as with almost everyone, almost always meant ‘interesting’, and the Slytherins were practically rubbing their hands, speculating aloud on what else they might turn up in the thickets.       Their enthusiasm had, no doubt, been fanned by the previous day’s splendid haul: tentacula and acromantula venom had already replenished the Head of House’s stores—school stocks, but naturally his private ones too, and several others’ besides. Sarah Norton, a fifth-year, and that same Deacon, Richard Bailey, whom they had spooked with a bowtruckle, were swanning about with their noses in the air—they had found the tree a unicorn had been scratching against, and collected hairs from its mane. All told, Slytherin House treated the search as something of a treasure hunt, and the Gryffindor Seeker’s broom, smashed a week before the match, had only added to the general good cheer.       Harry, however, had plans of his own for the day. Granger scuppered them from the outset.       ‘Myrtle’s bathroom?’ she said, sceptically, when they met in the corridor by the suits of armour (apparently, it was properly called the Armoury Gallery). Harry had set the place and time yesterday, but she had evidently not guessed the purpose, or she would have started arguing there and then. ‘I think it is a completely unsuitable place.’       Harry stared at her, a little irritated.       ‘Why? It does not meet your sterile-lab standards? We can clean up, not a problem. And Myrtle will keep guard on the cauldron. Suits me very well,’ he retorted.       Hermione heaved a heavy sigh, and pushed her mane back with both hands. Her hair immediately crept forward again, trying to veil her face.       ‘No, Harry, you do not understand. Our girls come here… to have a cry. Yours as well, by the way. I am bound to bump into someone sooner or later,’ Granger objected.       Harry instantly remembered a conversation he had once overheard between classmates; it was how he had learnt about Myrtle. Fool that he was—he should have guessed at once that they were not haunting the abandoned bathroom for nothing.       ‘Can’t they cry in their own dormitory? What a place to pick…’ he grumbled.       Granger sighed even more dolefully.       ‘You do not understand,’ she repeated. Harry did not expect a sensible answer to his remark anyway. He was thinking.       ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘But it will cost you another Unbreakable Vow. Agreed?’       Hermione beamed. She seemed to have formed a firm, logical link between magical oaths and the various wonders she was so very keen on. Harry had a premonition that, by the time they left school, his minions would be bound up in those vows like a Christmas tree in tinsel, from bottom to top, and all round.       ‘Let’s call Draco too, or it will not be fair. He found the place first, really,’ Harry added, and immediately corrected himself: ‘Of the three of us, I mean.’       For the first to be credited ought to be Tom. Even if, technically, it wasn’t quite so straightforward.       Half an hour, and one Unbreakable Vow, later, the three of them were striding past the tapestry with trolls in tutus. When, at last, a door appeared, Malfoy could not hold back a triumphant cry.       ‘Aha! I knew we could get back in here,’ he declared, seized the handle, and was the first to slip into the Room of Hidden Things.       It had to be admitted: it was vastly more convenient to brew in here than in a bathroom. Very quickly, they found a suitable table, a brazier, and even a cauldron—dented on the side, but sound.       Hermione gave her future workplace a businesslike inspection, and remarked, ‘An apron would not go amiss. Do you think there is one?’       ‘There is everything in here!’ Harry and Draco chorused, caught each other’s eye, and burst out laughing—it was so near the mark. The fact that an apron turned up in the nearest heap of junk only confirmed their words.       ‘Well, then,’ Harry said, sitting on the table’s edge. ‘Got the lists?’       ‘Yes.’ Hermione pulled three slips from her robe pocket. ‘I have the bicorn horn; you, Harry, have the boomslang skin; and you, Mr Malfoy, I’ll ask you to order fluxweed, picked at the full moon.’ She measured Draco with a cold look, and explained, ‘It is the most suspicious ingredient. It cannot be required for any other potion.’       ‘Leave that problem to me, Miss Granger,’ Draco intoned, whipping the parchment from between her fingers.       Harry rolled his eyes—their mock courtesy already made him queasy, and he had a gut feeling he would have to witness such scenes regularly from now on. Only Mordred knew how long this mutual ‘affection’ would last. But Harry held his tongue—if he snapped at them now, they would forget themselves again in a minute, and only a complete idiot trains underlings to believe orders can be disregarded.       ‘Excellent,’ he said instead, taking out his enchanted money-pouch, and counting out heavy, gleaming coins. ‘We place the orders today; do not forget. And there is something else I wanted to warn you about.’ He paused, picking his words. It did not help to think Tom might be in the Room at that very moment, invisible to all, Harry included. True, his brother had never hidden himself from Harry before, but… ‘When you are in here, you may sometimes see things move of their own accord. Pay it no mind—do not even look that way, if you can help it. Clear?’       Having waited for their uncertain nods, he went on: ‘Now, then… Hermione, how about showing us the charm you used to open Professor Snape’s office?’       For, when you thought about it properly, Hermione could, and should, be used for far more than the resident Potioneer. She knew useful charms enough to make some pure-bloods envious, and it would be a sin not to learn that arsenal from her as quickly as possible. Funniest of all, she would not realise she was being exploited—if a Muggle-born resembled Tom in anything, it was not merely a passion for reading, but an irresistible itch to teach. She lit up, and had her wand out at once.       ‘The verbal formula is “Alohomora”,’ she declared, with importance. ‘Repeat after me.’       Unlocking Charms came to Harry more easily than Levitation, but Draco still outstripped him. It was beginning to annoy him seriously—and yet, riding the wave of that annoyance, his non-verbal variant worked again. He did not care to become the founder of a profane branch of magic. You could not even publish a textbook—who would print page after page of obscenity?       At least, in stamina, Harry was ahead. By lunchtime, his henchmen could barely lift their wands, while Harry, remembering how he had learnt Stupefy, could say confidently that, at this rate, he would make it to tea, at least.       They left the Room—separately, as it obligingly opened an exit to wherever you wished—and met there again towards evening, arriving one by one this time. No sooner had Hermione stepped inside than she started rummaging in her pockets.       ‘No need to throw money away,’ she said breezily, laying in a neat row a small bag of dried lacewing flies, a little phial, No. 3, with leeches wriggling languidly within, and a packet of knotgrass. Draco gave a whistle, and smirked, but refrained from repeating his jibe about ‘criminal tendencies’. Harry shook his head.       ‘From the Potions classroom?’       ‘Yes. I saw Professor Snape heading into the staff room, and nipped in,’ Hermione reported, then grew glum. ‘I couldn’t have done it with him there. I think he hates me.’       ‘And in detention?’ Draco frowned.       ‘He would have blamed me anyway! This way, he will not know…’       ‘But taking ingredients from the open shelves is not forbidden,’ Malfoy still could not see the problem. He even forgot to toss off a barb, merely knitting his brows in puzzlement. Hermione shook her curls.       ‘It may not be for you. He would find something to say to me!’       Harry gave her a thoughtful look. No, the Head of House was far from hating the Gryffindor girl. In his fashion—his very peculiar fashion—he was favourably disposed towards her. It showed in the fact that Snape did not exploit Granger’s weak spot at all—and that he saw it no less clearly than Harry did was beyond doubt; it was all but written on her forehead.       More than anything in the world, even more than books, Hermione loved praise.       Which is precisely why, under no circumstances, would she ever hear a kind word from Snape.       This form of nobility, which anyone in Slytherin could appreciate, was beyond a Gryffindor’s ken. It took a particular cast of mind, and not the sort that wore a scarlet and gold tie, to understand that Snape respected Hermione enough not to manipulate her.       Such an explanation would not serve for her, however. So Harry said something that could not be called untrue, either.       ‘Professor Snape wants what is best for you, believe me. He is training you to work under extreme conditions. By fifth year, I will wager, you will be able to brew any syllabus potion from spring water and a handful of fallen leaves, while standing in the thick of a pitched battle. I rather think he sees you as a future field Healer, or something of the sort.’       Hermione stared at him as if he were an eighth wonder of the world. Draco smirked, and chimed in: ‘And he will invite you to intern with him. Don’t you dare refuse, Muggle!’       ‘You are mad,’ Granger concluded, having heard them out. ‘Every last one of you in your House. That explains a lot.’       Harry bestowed a broad smile on her.       ‘Let us test it,’ he suggested. ‘If he gives you less than “Outstanding” in the exam, ice cream’s on me.’       Hermione snorted, and folded her arms.       ‘Oh no, you will not get off so lightly! A dozen books of my choice, or no bet.’       ‘Done. Malfoy, shake on it.’       They shook hands. Hermione wrinkled her nose.       ‘You will lose,’ she assured him in her trademark know-it-all tone. Harry only smiled wider.       ‘We shall see. Right… by the way—how are you fixed for Latin?’       On passwords for the common room, Tom, as always, was absolutely right—after ‘Non scholae sed vitae discimus’ came ‘Gaudet patientia duris’, then ‘Aut non tentaris aut perfice’, followed by ‘Cave quid dicas et cui’. They were now in their second week of ‘Nihil verum est, licet omnia’—a maxim whose wisdom Harry embraced with all his heart.       It had nagged at him from the start: why were all the password phrases in Latin? Hogwarts did not teach that dead language; not in the sense of ‘not in first year’—no, it was not on the programme at all, not even as an elective for upper years. Which, if you thought about it, was decidedly odd—was Latin not the key to the verbal formulae of most spells?       It looked as though, once upon a time, rather long ago, students had been taught Latin after all, and taught it so thoroughly that even the laggards could manage a couple of quotations. Slytherin, a House that took real delight in observing tradition, had preserved the habit of using Latin phrases as passwords to the common room from time immemorial; but gradually the custom had degraded, and now there was little more sense in it than in being afraid of Filch’s cat.       Having reached such conclusions, Harry shared them with Tom—and learnt that even in Tom’s day Latin was only taught as an optional subject. It took no great insight to guess who and when had scrapped the ‘unnecessary’ lessons for good. Hogwarts: A History shed some light on the matter, if you read between the lines.       In 1956, one Dumbledore became Headmaster. The list of electives was reduced in ’58, and by the following school year the list of compulsory subjects had been thoroughly revised. The stated reason: ‘streamlining the curriculum, and the need to keep pace with progress in a rapidly changing world.’       The Latin problem—a problem indeed, for cramming it on their own would be no small task—threw fresh light on all Harry’s long-standing, scattered musings, which seemed to have been waiting only for this to creep from the corners and coil together into a tangle of unlovely truth.       Yes, the Hogwarts curriculum had once contained significantly more subjects. Draco knew it from his parents; Tom knew it from personal experience; Professor Binns corroborated it.       Asking the ghost had been a stroke of luck, for he could provide another century and a half of retrospective, as far back as 1759, when Cuthbert Binns himself had entered Hogwarts as a first-year. He might have serious trouble recognising the students sitting before him in his own lectures, but, like many still-living old men, he remembered his youth to perfection.       Two and a half centuries ago, the number of core subjects reached an even dozen. Study of Runes—now an elective—as well as Latin, now vanished from the school timetable entirely, were then compulsory, alongside penmanship, housekeeping (for witches), combat magic (for wizards), magizoology, and healing (in essence, a course in first aid and basic nursing for wizards, which sounded equally fascinating and alarming). The list of additional classes, beyond those now offered, included ancient languages (Greek and Aramaic), alchemy, artefact-craft, ritual magic, and magical law—none of which survived the educational reforms. Not to mention etiquette, music, and dance. And thus, quite by accident, Harry solved the mystery of the tapestry on the eighth floor—the troll ballet-master was called Barnabas the Barmy, and the entire scene represented his hypothetical posthumous punishment for atrocities committed in life.       Another hunch proved true. Not only had there once been more subjects at Hogwarts—there had been more students. Three hundred and three students in the whole school now, and three hundred and four in Ravenclaw House alone in Binns’s day—the figures spoke for themselves.       Harry was at a loss to explain it. Among Muggles, the population had risen steadily over the past century despite two world wars, while among wizards it was, seemingly, the reverse. He vowed to devote some future time to the demographic puzzle. Was the snag an insufficiently effective medicine? Unlikely. Not enough food to go round? Highly doubtful. Were fewer wizards being born? Or was the damage suffered by the magical community in the recent global conflicts greater, in percentage terms, than among Muggles? Perhaps the study should be handed off to Hermione—the task had her name on it.       It turned out that Granger’s Latin was about where his and Draco’s were. That is to say, non-existent. But she seized on the idea at once of learning a dead language—once she understood why they needed it.       ‘Harry, you are absolutely right,’ she said, tucking a strand behind her ear and frowning. ‘How did I not think of it sooner—this would let one compose new spells! They are not all in Latin, but most are… and that must mean something too. Why do we not get more theory, I should love to know!’ she finished, vexed.       Harry had some thoughts on that score, but kept them to himself for now. Luckily, Hermione had already changed tack.       ‘Is there a Latin grammar in the library? Have either of you seen one?’       And thus the girl who had bristled at the word ‘assignment’ from his lips had cheerfully loaded herself with two at once, neither of them light. The right approach meant a great deal. Harry was itching to boast to Tom, and if not for the fear of a scolding for having divulged a second secret, he would have bundled both of them out, and been scribbling in the diary already.       But Draco had to be tasked as well. When the girl had dashed off, fired by a new idea, towards the library, Harry began: ‘Malfoy, there are things I absolutely cannot trust Granger with. So all hope rests on you—you are the best of us at Potions.’       Draco at once assumed a proud, independent air.       ‘Oh? I was beginning to think you preferred the Mudblood.’       Harry sent him his warmest, friendliest smile.       ‘She must think exactly that, must she not? But you and I know the truth. Granger is not fit to clean your boots. Besides, her moral nagging is utterly ghastly. What would she say if I asked her to brew the Draught of Living Death?’       Draco blinked, poleaxed.       ‘What? I mean—I can do it, my lord, of course. But for whom, may one ask?’       ‘For a Cerberus, naturally.’ No wonder Tom loved to add a touch of drama. To be honest, Harry was beginning to acquire a taste for it himself. Watching Malfoy’s reaction proved highly diverting.       ‘A Cerberus…?’ Draco repeated, helplessly. Harry shrugged, offhand.       ‘Yes, you know, we keep one at school. In the very corridor we are not supposed to enter. And it…’       ‘Is surely guarding something!’ Draco cut in, quick on the uptake. ‘Something valuable! It is a Cerberus, that is what they are for! My father…’       Harry could not help himself—he groaned. Malfoy sniggered, and punched him on the shoulder.       ‘…may know something about it. I shall ask him,’ he went on, grinning. ‘He is Chairman of the Board of Governors. Who should be in the know, if not he? If he is not, that will speak volumes as well.’       Harry nodded, gravely.       ‘Yes. There is reason to suspect our amiable Headmaster is playing some game of his own. And the Dark Lord does not care for such things being pulled off under his nose.’       Draco’s eyes lit up. He fairly bristled with purpose.       ‘When does the potion need to be ready?’