Zombie idea: Indiana Potter
Dark mould-like moss clung to the cave walls and a sickly smell somewhere between rotting meat and roasting pork hung on the air. The smell wasn't strong by any measure, the olfactory equivalent of a sound half-heard, but it jabbered for attention all the same. Harry Potter ignored it as he pushed deeper.
The cave ran for long miles into the Hyperborean Mountains, those eon old mounds of black granite which lurked like sleeping giants in a forgotten corner of that near forgotten country known as the Triple Monarchy of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania. Indeed, even the local farmers could barely indicate the way, though that might have been a language issue. They spoke a strange local tongue named Vlox, heavily corrupted by modern Russian and the King-Emperor's Gothic spoken in the Triple Monarchy's capital city of Bella. By the time Harry reached the mountains, he needed a translator for his translator's translator.
Still, he had found the mountains and if they contained what he hoped...
He forged on, following the sole path. In places he needed to squeeze between compressed rock walls. In others, half cliffs or rocky falls blocked his way. He climbed both with care and a little magic. It wouldn't do to fail at minor a juncture, not so close.
His trek brought him to a wide sink hole, twenty feet across and oddly smooth. His heart beat fast. The papers had spoken of this. He knelt at the edge and drew his wand. It hummed in his hand, eleven inches of silver lime with a phoenix feather core. He spoke a word and a cleaning charm sunk into the stone. Dust burst up, then vanished. It left behind clean, almost glowing rock, as if scrubbed by an army of strong armed washerwomen. He rotated his wand in a great circle and the magic followed. The charm ran along the circumference of the hole, leaving a disc of stone untouched by time. Looking closer he could just make out the runes, unreadable cruciform scratches.
He unslung his satchel and pulled out a loosely bound sheaf of papers. They were handwritten and quill marked. Harry had discovered them while clearing out the Hogwarts office of that once infamous History of Magic teacher Cuthbert Binns. Weeks of following their cryptic clues had brought him here.
He flipped to the correct page and read.
"I have found a pit," it said. "Runes mark its circumference. I don’t recognise the language. It appears some derivative of the western form of Neo-Ptetholite, possibly with Senzarain influences in the script.
"Using that as a base, I have attempted a translation. 'Here lies bad magic chief who is underworld. She is sleep. She is dream'. It repeats three times, each repetition separated by what I can only guess is a name glyph.
"I have attempted to descend but the pit is protected by a potent charm. Despite my best efforts I have been unable to breach it. What wonders might lie underground? I cannot even guess. "
The story stopped there. The following pages had not been among Binns' papers but there had been no other sign in Binns' office that he had solved this mystery. If he hadn't, any treasure would remain.
With baited breath, Harry flicked the wand, searching for the defensive charm. He found it at once, an immense aeonian thing like the focused will of a sleeping god. No wonder Binns had failed to breach it. Unprepared, it would have stopped even Harry. Luckily he wasn't unprepared and magic had advanced much since Binns day.
Harry returned the papers to their waterproof oilskin and withdrew the spell-breaker stone from its small oak chest. It was a polished black orb, about the size of two fists. Two bands of silvery metal ran around it, one at the equator, the other crossing at right angles. They glimmered in the white glow of the light spell which bobbed above Harry's head.
With practiced fingers he tapped the key points and the stone surged to life. Just being close to the thing made Harry's stomach fall out. It wasn't dark magic by any measure but it felt wrong in an eerily similar way. He had to endure. With a huff of breath, he threw it over the pit's lip and let it fall.
The strange smell of rotting meat and roast pork welled up. The charm screamed as it shattered. A strange wail issued from the pit. The walls shook like a dog divesting itself of water. The world fell quiet. Long seconds passed.
Harry looked over the edge and pointed his wand. "Lumos." Light stabbed down in a beam, highlighting too smooth walls and near bottomless depths. He switched to detection magic, searching for any trace of the guard charm or secondary defensives. He found neither.
A wide smile split his face but he kept his elation at that. This hunt was far from over. He unslung his resizing rope, affixed it to the pit's rim with a sticking charm, slipped the other end through his climbing harness and headed down.
He descended like a muggle abseiler - jumping back, letting his rope extend, then meeting the wall again, feet first. It made for a fast decent and left his hands free in case fast wand work was needed. As luck would have it that last wasn't needed, this time.
The ground came suddenly, appearing out of the gloom. His spell-breaker lay on the ground, still quietly grumbling to itself as it tore apart magic. Harry unclipped his rope, scooped up the spell-breaker and deactivated it with a sequence of deft taps. Then he looked about.
The pit exited into a long rectangular chamber. Statues lined the walls, man shaped creations of red clay carrying simple copper weapons. The metal still gleamed, even after uncounted millennia. Preservation magic clearly protected their lustre. The statues were no doubt priceless but not the sort of prize Harry could get out the country, let alone sell.
Two giant metal doors guarded the far end of the room, great things, marked with more of the strange cruciform writing. Binns might have been able to decode their meaning but the task was well beyond Harry, even with his E in Ancient Runes. Even at NEWT level classes barely mentioned Ptetholite and Senzarain not at all. On either side of the doors stood giant spider statues, made of stone but far more lifelike than the red-clay men.
"Alohomora," muttered Harry and flicked his wand. The doors groaned and swung open. The room they revealed glittered with gold.
Coins lay in chests beside a rough hued stone coffin. Gems sat in piles. Ancient weapons stood propped ready to be use. Such treasures were undoubtedly valuable but they weren't his true target. He cast about, wand flicking as he muttered detection charms.
There, there and there. Three pieces. A golden neckless, a sword and a large ruby stone. They radiated magic, primal aeonian enchantment. To the right collector they were worth a hundred times as much as everything else in the room put together.
Harry took a step forward and the spider statues moved. The stone flaked from their flesh, revealing hairy black skin and glittering multifaceted eyes. They weren't giant spider statues. They were acromantula, petrified to stone to wait for invaders.
"Spiders," said Harry, raising his wand. "It had to be spiders."
The first acromantula rushed at him, a carthorse sized abomination of stabbing legs and venom dripping fangs. Harry lashed out and a whip of fire unrolled from his wand. He caught the beast at the base of its foremost leg and seared the limb free. Unbalanced, the creature crashed past and Harry flicked his whip at the second. It tried to block but the fire cut through, cauterising as it did.
The first acromantula screamed as it turned about and attacked Harry from the rear. It balanced on seven legs well enough but Harry was far from out of magic. He flicked the whip out, grabbed one of the clay statues and heaved. It toppled forward and crashed into the spider's back.
The second roared as it charged. Harry twisted and transferred the momentum into an upward cutting diagonal slash. The whip's tip cut deep, burning a blistering scar into the beast's face. It staggered back, legs twitching as conflicting nerve impulses overrode its brain.
Stone screamed from behind. Harry whirled. The first spider dragged itself forward on its sole remaining functional leg, the rest ruined flesh leaking black blood.
"Confringo!" Harry cast a Blasting Curse right at the beast's ruined head. It died in a gory explosion; black blood and leathery hide splattered the room. He turned and repeated the spell on the similarly weakened second spider. It suffered the same fate, which was too good for it in Harry's opinion.
Harry didn’t like acromantula and his dislike extended to those ancient wizards who so obsessively used them to guard treasure. Such was his dislike that through great effort he had traced their ancient origin to eggs stolen from that whispered creature Atlach-Nacha. Using that knowledge, he had commissioned a potion antithetical to their very nature, but it was an expensive and time consuming brew and he'd used the last of his stash months before in the dark jungles of Minuni. Luckily, he had other ways.
Alert for other dangers, Harry stole forward and entered the tomb proper. His three target items lay ready for theft but he took his time, looked for hazardous magic, un wove a number of primitive but deadly traps and at last won his prizes. He wrapped the sword, neckless and gem in special cloths, to keep whatever magic they possessed contained, and slipped them into his satchel.
With one last look about, he exited the room, relocked the doors and returned to the pit. There, he re-clipped his rope and tugged it sharply. It shuddered like a living thing and began to contract, drawing him up and back towards the surface.
The journey out of the mountain lacked the excitement of the entry. The mystery and hunt were over. Now all he need do was make sure the Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania Ministry officials stayed bribed and skip the country with his loot.
When the light of day flickered down from ahead he sped up and when he at last exited the cave he took a deep gulp of mountain air. Grey clouds, like disagreeable neighbours, brooded overhead. Even they couldn't spoil his mood. The same could not be said for the knife which appeared at his throat.
Harry froze in place, eyes flicking down. It was a raven's claw – a sort of dark magic weapon preferred by many of the nastier breeds of magical beings who lacked access to true-magic.
"Harry," purred a voice at his ear, the accent more old Prussian than modern German. "Be a dear and drop your wand."
"Marceline," he hissed. Vampiress, German free-agent with the land going equivalent of a letter of marque and an all-round bitch.
"Quite. Now the wand."
He had no choice, not with the raven's claw so close. He'd seen how deadly she could be with the weapon in encounters past. Reluctantly, he opened his fingers and the length of silver lime clattered to the ground at his feet.
"How?" he said, voice low due to the knife at this throat.
"The wonderful thing about bribed officials, Harry," she said, "is that they tend to take money from whoever offers it. You don't even need to be the highest bidder. When I heard you arrived in Bella, spending galleons like water, well, I just had to pay a visit. Now, what did you find?"
"Nothing," he said, probably too quickly. "It was a bust."
"You're lying," she said, almost sing-song. "I can hear your heart and taste your deception on your sweat. She leaned forward, her long black hair against his cheek as she breathed deeply.
"There's gold," he said, forcing his mind to calm and stillness with oculomancy. "Too much to carry. I came up for extra hands."
He could see his camp to one side: His interpreter, his interpreter's interpreter, his interpreter's interpreter's interpreter, the equerry sent by the local Ministry as a guide and the cheap ex-soviet jeep they used as transport. They all stood, quite terrified, Marceline's mere presence enough to hold them hostage.
"Better," she said, "but you and I both know it's never about the gold, Harry dear. Let the curse breakers and goblins fight over the pocket change. We play for real prizes."
Even while the knife stayed steady at his throat, Marceline sliced the straps of his satchel. Its weight left his back as she took it. "Someday I'm really going to have to kill you, Harry, but you bring me so many nice things."
Then she was gone in a burst of speed. Harry dove for his wand and came up with a spell on his lips. Marceline was half way over the nearest ridge, a lithe figure in muggle outdoors wear. She stood out stark against the mountainous background but her vampiric powers made her anything but an easy target.
"Accio pack!" shouted Harry.
The pack jerked in her grip but she twisted and threw some kind of dust into the air. His spell fizzled and then she was gone, over the ridge, out of sight and probably the next best thing to untraceable. Bitch.
"Let's go," he said as he stalked towards his still terrified traveling companions. "She's got the only thing of real worth."
Harry spent the journey back to Bella in sullen silence. He kept going over the fight in his head, but there was only so much you could do. Marceline had gotten the drop on him. He'd have to be better next time.
They reached Bella at three minutes past midnight, just in time to catch the 3am International Flu to London. The fact that Harry really wasn't smuggling anything didn't seem to lower the expected bribes any but he could afford it. The employees of the Ministry for Magic of the Triple Monarchy of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania were relatively cheap by most European standards.
He stepped out of the giant fireplace at the British Ministry's International Travel Office beside a number of other travellers. Customs officials armed with Probity Probes and Secrecy Sensors moved among them searching for contraband. A hulking customs troll stood at the back, ready if anybody needed backup. It's face managed to appear stern, official and only slightly gormless, no doubt the result of much training.
"Ah, Professor Potter," said Percy Weasley as he moved through the thong. He waved away an official heading Harry's way and pointed to a small room. "Let's deal with this in a private room. Random sweep."
Harry sighed but nodded. Percy shut the door and cast a quick secrecy spell. He opened his robe and pulled out a hidden pouch. "What do you have this time? And quickly, we can't be seen taking too long."
"Nothing," said Harry. "Marceline beat me too it."
"Oh," said Percy. He stood silent and still for a few moments. "I still get paid, right?"
Harry just nodded and reached for his coin pouch. A ministry official willing to help a few small items pass easily through customs was not to be thrown away. It wouldn't be too long before he'd need Percy's help again.
As Harry counted out the bribe, Percy said, "I have a nephew starting Hogwarts this September. My brother Bill's son. A bit wild like his father but an okay sort."
"I'll see him in History of Magic," said Harry. "I'm sure he'll do great."
With that out of the way, Percy took his money and ushered Harry out the room. Harry was all too eager to comply. It had been a long day and he wanted his bed. And come the morning, well, Cuthbert Binns had other papers hinting at other mysteries. Who knew where they might lead.
Dark mould-like moss clung to the cave walls and a sickly smell somewhere between rotting meat and roasting pork hung on the air. The smell wasn't strong by any measure, the olfactory equivalent of a sound half-heard, but it jabbered for attention all the same. Harry Potter ignored it as he pushed deeper.
The cave ran for long miles into the Hyperborean Mountains, those eon old mounds of black granite which lurked like sleeping giants in a forgotten corner of that near forgotten country known as the Triple Monarchy of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania. Indeed, even the local farmers could barely indicate the way, though that might have been a language issue. They spoke a strange local tongue named Vlox, heavily corrupted by modern Russian and the King-Emperor's Gothic spoken in the Triple Monarchy's capital city of Bella. By the time Harry reached the mountains, he needed a translator for his translator's translator.
Still, he had found the mountains and if they contained what he hoped...
He forged on, following the sole path. In places he needed to squeeze between compressed rock walls. In others, half cliffs or rocky falls blocked his way. He climbed both with care and a little magic. It wouldn't do to fail at minor a juncture, not so close.
His trek brought him to a wide sink hole, twenty feet across and oddly smooth. His heart beat fast. The papers had spoken of this. He knelt at the edge and drew his wand. It hummed in his hand, eleven inches of silver lime with a phoenix feather core. He spoke a word and a cleaning charm sunk into the stone. Dust burst up, then vanished. It left behind clean, almost glowing rock, as if scrubbed by an army of strong armed washerwomen. He rotated his wand in a great circle and the magic followed. The charm ran along the circumference of the hole, leaving a disc of stone untouched by time. Looking closer he could just make out the runes, unreadable cruciform scratches.
He unslung his satchel and pulled out a loosely bound sheaf of papers. They were handwritten and quill marked. Harry had discovered them while clearing out the Hogwarts office of that once infamous History of Magic teacher Cuthbert Binns. Weeks of following their cryptic clues had brought him here.
He flipped to the correct page and read.
"I have found a pit," it said. "Runes mark its circumference. I don’t recognise the language. It appears some derivative of the western form of Neo-Ptetholite, possibly with Senzarain influences in the script.
"Using that as a base, I have attempted a translation. 'Here lies bad magic chief who is underworld. She is sleep. She is dream'. It repeats three times, each repetition separated by what I can only guess is a name glyph.
"I have attempted to descend but the pit is protected by a potent charm. Despite my best efforts I have been unable to breach it. What wonders might lie underground? I cannot even guess. "
The story stopped there. The following pages had not been among Binns' papers but there had been no other sign in Binns' office that he had solved this mystery. If he hadn't, any treasure would remain.
With baited breath, Harry flicked the wand, searching for the defensive charm. He found it at once, an immense aeonian thing like the focused will of a sleeping god. No wonder Binns had failed to breach it. Unprepared, it would have stopped even Harry. Luckily he wasn't unprepared and magic had advanced much since Binns day.
Harry returned the papers to their waterproof oilskin and withdrew the spell-breaker stone from its small oak chest. It was a polished black orb, about the size of two fists. Two bands of silvery metal ran around it, one at the equator, the other crossing at right angles. They glimmered in the white glow of the light spell which bobbed above Harry's head.
With practiced fingers he tapped the key points and the stone surged to life. Just being close to the thing made Harry's stomach fall out. It wasn't dark magic by any measure but it felt wrong in an eerily similar way. He had to endure. With a huff of breath, he threw it over the pit's lip and let it fall.
The strange smell of rotting meat and roast pork welled up. The charm screamed as it shattered. A strange wail issued from the pit. The walls shook like a dog divesting itself of water. The world fell quiet. Long seconds passed.
Harry looked over the edge and pointed his wand. "Lumos." Light stabbed down in a beam, highlighting too smooth walls and near bottomless depths. He switched to detection magic, searching for any trace of the guard charm or secondary defensives. He found neither.
A wide smile split his face but he kept his elation at that. This hunt was far from over. He unslung his resizing rope, affixed it to the pit's rim with a sticking charm, slipped the other end through his climbing harness and headed down.
He descended like a muggle abseiler - jumping back, letting his rope extend, then meeting the wall again, feet first. It made for a fast decent and left his hands free in case fast wand work was needed. As luck would have it that last wasn't needed, this time.
The ground came suddenly, appearing out of the gloom. His spell-breaker lay on the ground, still quietly grumbling to itself as it tore apart magic. Harry unclipped his rope, scooped up the spell-breaker and deactivated it with a sequence of deft taps. Then he looked about.
The pit exited into a long rectangular chamber. Statues lined the walls, man shaped creations of red clay carrying simple copper weapons. The metal still gleamed, even after uncounted millennia. Preservation magic clearly protected their lustre. The statues were no doubt priceless but not the sort of prize Harry could get out the country, let alone sell.
Two giant metal doors guarded the far end of the room, great things, marked with more of the strange cruciform writing. Binns might have been able to decode their meaning but the task was well beyond Harry, even with his E in Ancient Runes. Even at NEWT level classes barely mentioned Ptetholite and Senzarain not at all. On either side of the doors stood giant spider statues, made of stone but far more lifelike than the red-clay men.
"Alohomora," muttered Harry and flicked his wand. The doors groaned and swung open. The room they revealed glittered with gold.
Coins lay in chests beside a rough hued stone coffin. Gems sat in piles. Ancient weapons stood propped ready to be use. Such treasures were undoubtedly valuable but they weren't his true target. He cast about, wand flicking as he muttered detection charms.
There, there and there. Three pieces. A golden neckless, a sword and a large ruby stone. They radiated magic, primal aeonian enchantment. To the right collector they were worth a hundred times as much as everything else in the room put together.
Harry took a step forward and the spider statues moved. The stone flaked from their flesh, revealing hairy black skin and glittering multifaceted eyes. They weren't giant spider statues. They were acromantula, petrified to stone to wait for invaders.
"Spiders," said Harry, raising his wand. "It had to be spiders."
The first acromantula rushed at him, a carthorse sized abomination of stabbing legs and venom dripping fangs. Harry lashed out and a whip of fire unrolled from his wand. He caught the beast at the base of its foremost leg and seared the limb free. Unbalanced, the creature crashed past and Harry flicked his whip at the second. It tried to block but the fire cut through, cauterising as it did.
The first acromantula screamed as it turned about and attacked Harry from the rear. It balanced on seven legs well enough but Harry was far from out of magic. He flicked the whip out, grabbed one of the clay statues and heaved. It toppled forward and crashed into the spider's back.
The second roared as it charged. Harry twisted and transferred the momentum into an upward cutting diagonal slash. The whip's tip cut deep, burning a blistering scar into the beast's face. It staggered back, legs twitching as conflicting nerve impulses overrode its brain.
Stone screamed from behind. Harry whirled. The first spider dragged itself forward on its sole remaining functional leg, the rest ruined flesh leaking black blood.
"Confringo!" Harry cast a Blasting Curse right at the beast's ruined head. It died in a gory explosion; black blood and leathery hide splattered the room. He turned and repeated the spell on the similarly weakened second spider. It suffered the same fate, which was too good for it in Harry's opinion.
Harry didn’t like acromantula and his dislike extended to those ancient wizards who so obsessively used them to guard treasure. Such was his dislike that through great effort he had traced their ancient origin to eggs stolen from that whispered creature Atlach-Nacha. Using that knowledge, he had commissioned a potion antithetical to their very nature, but it was an expensive and time consuming brew and he'd used the last of his stash months before in the dark jungles of Minuni. Luckily, he had other ways.
Alert for other dangers, Harry stole forward and entered the tomb proper. His three target items lay ready for theft but he took his time, looked for hazardous magic, un wove a number of primitive but deadly traps and at last won his prizes. He wrapped the sword, neckless and gem in special cloths, to keep whatever magic they possessed contained, and slipped them into his satchel.
With one last look about, he exited the room, relocked the doors and returned to the pit. There, he re-clipped his rope and tugged it sharply. It shuddered like a living thing and began to contract, drawing him up and back towards the surface.
The journey out of the mountain lacked the excitement of the entry. The mystery and hunt were over. Now all he need do was make sure the Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania Ministry officials stayed bribed and skip the country with his loot.
When the light of day flickered down from ahead he sped up and when he at last exited the cave he took a deep gulp of mountain air. Grey clouds, like disagreeable neighbours, brooded overhead. Even they couldn't spoil his mood. The same could not be said for the knife which appeared at his throat.
Harry froze in place, eyes flicking down. It was a raven's claw – a sort of dark magic weapon preferred by many of the nastier breeds of magical beings who lacked access to true-magic.
"Harry," purred a voice at his ear, the accent more old Prussian than modern German. "Be a dear and drop your wand."
"Marceline," he hissed. Vampiress, German free-agent with the land going equivalent of a letter of marque and an all-round bitch.
"Quite. Now the wand."
He had no choice, not with the raven's claw so close. He'd seen how deadly she could be with the weapon in encounters past. Reluctantly, he opened his fingers and the length of silver lime clattered to the ground at his feet.
"How?" he said, voice low due to the knife at this throat.
"The wonderful thing about bribed officials, Harry," she said, "is that they tend to take money from whoever offers it. You don't even need to be the highest bidder. When I heard you arrived in Bella, spending galleons like water, well, I just had to pay a visit. Now, what did you find?"
"Nothing," he said, probably too quickly. "It was a bust."
"You're lying," she said, almost sing-song. "I can hear your heart and taste your deception on your sweat. She leaned forward, her long black hair against his cheek as she breathed deeply.
"There's gold," he said, forcing his mind to calm and stillness with oculomancy. "Too much to carry. I came up for extra hands."
He could see his camp to one side: His interpreter, his interpreter's interpreter, his interpreter's interpreter's interpreter, the equerry sent by the local Ministry as a guide and the cheap ex-soviet jeep they used as transport. They all stood, quite terrified, Marceline's mere presence enough to hold them hostage.
"Better," she said, "but you and I both know it's never about the gold, Harry dear. Let the curse breakers and goblins fight over the pocket change. We play for real prizes."
Even while the knife stayed steady at his throat, Marceline sliced the straps of his satchel. Its weight left his back as she took it. "Someday I'm really going to have to kill you, Harry, but you bring me so many nice things."
Then she was gone in a burst of speed. Harry dove for his wand and came up with a spell on his lips. Marceline was half way over the nearest ridge, a lithe figure in muggle outdoors wear. She stood out stark against the mountainous background but her vampiric powers made her anything but an easy target.
"Accio pack!" shouted Harry.
The pack jerked in her grip but she twisted and threw some kind of dust into the air. His spell fizzled and then she was gone, over the ridge, out of sight and probably the next best thing to untraceable. Bitch.
"Let's go," he said as he stalked towards his still terrified traveling companions. "She's got the only thing of real worth."
Harry spent the journey back to Bella in sullen silence. He kept going over the fight in his head, but there was only so much you could do. Marceline had gotten the drop on him. He'd have to be better next time.
They reached Bella at three minutes past midnight, just in time to catch the 3am International Flu to London. The fact that Harry really wasn't smuggling anything didn't seem to lower the expected bribes any but he could afford it. The employees of the Ministry for Magic of the Triple Monarchy of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania were relatively cheap by most European standards.
He stepped out of the giant fireplace at the British Ministry's International Travel Office beside a number of other travellers. Customs officials armed with Probity Probes and Secrecy Sensors moved among them searching for contraband. A hulking customs troll stood at the back, ready if anybody needed backup. It's face managed to appear stern, official and only slightly gormless, no doubt the result of much training.
"Ah, Professor Potter," said Percy Weasley as he moved through the thong. He waved away an official heading Harry's way and pointed to a small room. "Let's deal with this in a private room. Random sweep."
Harry sighed but nodded. Percy shut the door and cast a quick secrecy spell. He opened his robe and pulled out a hidden pouch. "What do you have this time? And quickly, we can't be seen taking too long."
"Nothing," said Harry. "Marceline beat me too it."
"Oh," said Percy. He stood silent and still for a few moments. "I still get paid, right?"
Harry just nodded and reached for his coin pouch. A ministry official willing to help a few small items pass easily through customs was not to be thrown away. It wouldn't be too long before he'd need Percy's help again.
As Harry counted out the bribe, Percy said, "I have a nephew starting Hogwarts this September. My brother Bill's son. A bit wild like his father but an okay sort."
"I'll see him in History of Magic," said Harry. "I'm sure he'll do great."
With that out of the way, Percy took his money and ushered Harry out the room. Harry was all too eager to comply. It had been a long day and he wanted his bed. And come the morning, well, Cuthbert Binns had other papers hinting at other mysteries. Who knew where they might lead.