5. Popinjay.
R
on and Harry had to drag Hermione away from the extraordinary and ancient magic books in the library, but time was of the essence. Together with Hedwig and the hat, they left the school and sat by the lake to fill her in on the day's events, and sort it out.She wasn't kind to Harry in his moment of penance. "Ooooh! You two can get into more trouble when my back is turned! A dumb question, Harry: did you ask the hat where Godrics four and five might be?"
Pause. "Oh....no. I didn't."
"Well, shouldn't we?" Looking up to the hat on Harry's head, she asked, "When you were with Salazar, did you see any other hats that were anything like yourself?"
"Now that you mention it," said the hat, "there were two hats, much younger, on the table, and another about my age, rather worn, nearby."
"And was it then you first sensed another Godric -- number five?"
"Actually, yes."
"Okay, Harry, now you can panic. I agree. Between dinner last night and Noon today, Salazar duplicated Godric's new hat, and our old hat, both!"
Harry was so angry. "It's time to wrap this up and get out of here before Salazar does any more!"
He stood up and started striding to the school, with Hermione and Ron racing to catch up to him. "First, we have to let Godric know about the problem, so they never let the proper Sorting Hat out of the headmaster's control again. And, we have to eliminate the duplicate hats. If Salazar tries to stop us, we have one talent he shan't be expecting, that even our hat can't tell him about."
"What's that?"
"Later. Let's go see Godric."
* * *
Harry stopped himself when he realised, in his blind anger, he was storming toward the non-existant doorway to the modern-day Headmaster's office in a yet-unbuilt tower. Wake up, Harry. Get a grip. Keep your head about you. Use your resources. He took a breath and asked the hat where the Headmaster's office was.
The hat directed them into another tower -- one they were familiar with, even if the huge well of staircases was not yet decorated in paintings.
Something else was missing: the multiplicity of landings. Hermione thought she'd solve an old conundrum, which was not addressed in Hogwarts: A History, and asked the hat about the changing stairs.
"Originally," said the hat, "the stairs were charmed to become slides, to confuse trolls who might wander in. Legends say they developed their other talents as a defense against enemy hoards. Just legends, that. As I recall, the stairs merely became fed up in the very rainy Spring of 1315, because students were tracking-in enormous amounts of mud. They've randomly changed ever since, as a protest. The architects had to build the additional landings to compensate for it. Since then, steps have started to vanish occasionally. No telling what's next if you students don't start wiping your shoes."
In the dusty 11th century, it was too late to wipe their shoes. Harry took off the hat, the only courtesy he could think of at the moment, and carried it.
At a familiar spot on a corridor wall, there was a huge frame with an unravelled scroll of illuminated text. From it, a tonsured monk turned and said, "Password?" Drawing on ancient memories, the hat replied, "Griffon gilded."
The panel groaned open in the usual manner, and they entered the Gryffindor common room -- or rather the office, such as it was in the 11th century. The headmaster looked up, astonished by this intrusion, and challenged them.
"Reader?? How did you come past Brother Baldpate, and what brings you here?"
Hermione had it ready, and poured it out breathlessly. "Headmaster, pardon our impudence, but our time here is short. Please accept what we say, no matter how mad it sounds, and we will tell you everything you need to know. Understand that all three of us are students here ourselves -- but from a much later year, sent back through the centuries by our Headmaster through the Witching Walk to correct an ill in your day.
"This hat we carry is one and the same with the hat you have just enchanted. It has carried out your wishes, sir, for almost one thousand years! But dark magic is afoot with the hats. We beg you to listen, and heed -- please, or the school is doomed!"
Godric just stared. Hermione waited uncomfortably, since she had little or nothing to prove her claim. If he threw them out, their mission had failed.
Finally, Godric spoke. "If this is true, tell me: what is our intended task for the Seeing-Hat?"
Hermione smiled. "We call it the Sorting Hat, sir; its task is to separate the First-Year students into Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin houses. Oh, and perhaps you and the other founders have a love of music, because your hat seems to like beginning each year's task with a new song."
Godric was taken aback. He looked at each of his visitors, then at their hat. "We have not described its task in the presence of others. Not even the teachers have been told about it. Yet you know it...."
He took the hat from Harry's hands and turned it in all directions, pausing to wonder at the closed safety pin -- then examined one spot on the brim closely for the longest time, rubbing it between his fingers. He reverently put their hat in Hermione's hands.
Walking to a paneled wall, he took out his wand, touched it to one panel and said "Wisdom!" A compartment door opened.
From it, he took out his newly-enchanted hat. It was light brown, and showing signs of many years of rugged use as an ordinary hat, but nothing as worn as the hat they knew, of course.
He brought it near, and pointed to a semicircular mark on the edge of its brim. Hermione noticed Godric's eyes were welling up.
"This is the mark of my own daughter, as a little child, gnawing on my hat out of boredom on one day of a long wagon trip -- when we left our beloved home in The Hollow, far beyond Hadrian's Wall, to start a new life here. And.." -- he touched the hat in Hermione's hand, again rubbing that one spot -- "the mark also appears here, on your hat!
"To think that whole empires crumble and vanish, unremembered -- but a humble child, hardly old enough to speak, has made a mark enduring for a thousand years!
"My daughter is now your age, the wife of a simple clay-thrower. She will never have the school to teach her the ways. In time, her sons and daughters will come here... and make their mark on the world." He brushed his tears aside. "For their sake, I believe you, and I will help you in any way."
"Thank you, sir," said Harry. "I'm proud to add, your Seeing-Hat chose all three of us as Gryffindors -- and in our time we have successfully defended the school with your hat, and your sword." Then he began to enlist Godric in their plan.
* * *
Late that afternoon, Godric distracted Salazar and the rest of the staff to a prolonged discussion at the construction site of the new building.
Still, the tanner remained annoyingly attentive to the whereabouts of the strangers. He seemed to be everywhere they went.
"It's uncanny," said Ron. "This guy has to be part Filch. He'll never let us get near Salazar's room!"
"No doubt about it," said Harry, "he's Salazar's watchdog."
"In Salazar's case, that would be a pedigree bloodhound."
Harry smirked. "Then it's time for our secret talent." They quickly returned to their quarters, and shut the door.
From then on, the tanner was alert to see if they left that room, but nothing happened. Oh, the wind blew the door open once, but swung it closed again in moments, and in that time no one exited. He paid it no mind, and continued to stand watch by their room.
* * *
"I'm getting pecked every time we move," complained the hat.
"Hush," said Hermione. "We're almost there."
They entered Salazar's locked dungeon room with a whispered Alohomora from Hermione. After closing the door, they took off Harry's invisibility cloak, which had been the padding in Ron's pack.
"All right, fast work, everyone," said Harry. "First, find the duplicate of the new hat."
It only took a minute to locate it on Salazar's chair. Harry opened a window.
"Hedwig, take it to Gryffindor tower as Godric showed you. Mind that Salazar and the tanner don't see you, and get back here, straightaway."
Hedwig was quickly gone with that hat. It would be up to Godric to question the twin seeing-hats and determine which one had been the least brainwashed. Most likely, the fake was the one Salazar had kept.
"Now let's find the twin of our hat. We rip this place apart if we have to."
After a few minutes, Hedwig returned to Harry's shoulder, her mission complete. The search continued.
Ron shoved aside some scrolls on a high shelf, and there in a recess was another old hat, looking every bit like the Sorting Hat. "Here it is, Harry!" he exclaimed.
"Right," said Harry. "Keep it for a minute." He held up the hat he had been carrying under his arm, recalling the password agreement: Popinjay when not alone.
Then he challenged the hat, "Tell me the password to Dumbledore's room."
"Popinjay," said the hat.
"Hermione, you and Ron stay up front here." Harry dashed away from them to the far corner of the room, and asked the password again.
"Sherbet lemon," came the answer. "Harry, don't delay. Let's destroy the duplicate quickly, and get out of here!"
"Oh, I'll destroy the duplicate, all right," said Harry, "but I must check one last thing." Harry returned to the desk, and put the hat down.
He gestured to Ron, who tossed him the other hat off Slytherin's shelf. Harry said nothing to it until he had carried it away to the far corner.
"Quickly, tell me the password to Dumbledore's room."
"Popinjay," answered the hat.
"That settles it. Hedwig, you're on again. I want you to take that hat from the desk -- and dump it a swampy bog, deep in the Dark Forest. Then find us; we'll be on the road out of here."
Hedwig obediently leapt off Harry's shoulder, swooped to snatch up the hat from the desk, and headed for the window. The hat in her talons was shouting, "But --- sherbet lemon! I gave you the proper answer! Sherbet lemon!"
Hermione and Ron had looks of total bafflement, but Harry still waved them off. He turned again to the hat from Salazar's shelf. "Tell me the password again."
"Well, now it's Sherbet lemon. No dunce cap for you, Harry. Knew you'd figure it out."
"Whew! Welcome back."
"And none too soon. That maniac cured my problem right off, duplicated me, then ranted to the copies about purebloods. After that, nothing for me but questions and ..."
"Later," interrupted Harry. "Everyone back under the cloak and let's get out, now!"
* * *
Hedwig spotted them when they finally took off the cloak, a half-mile beyond Hogsmeade, and she swooped to her perch on Harry's shoulder. She briefly rubbed her head against the repinned hat, as though she was greeting a fond old friend.
Hermione ended the Lingus charm, so any prying ears along the road would not understand what they said.
Harry started explaining the passwords, but Ron was quickly lost. "Try that again. Why did you trash the hat that gave the correct answers right off, then keep the one that only got it on the second try?"
"Was it the second try?" said Harry. "Think it out, Ron. Salazar did swap our hats. I was wearing his fake, and the one you found on his shelf was the real one. But I didn't know that.... so why did I do what I did? You tell me."
"I'm still working on that part, oh great one. Let's see... the agreement was, say Lemon-something only when you were alone... right? The hat you had been wearing said that when you were off in the corner.... but apparently it shouldn't have, becaaause...."
"Yes? You're almost there, Ron."
"It would have to be because you weren't really alone. Give me a hint."
"The fake hat got a lot of Salazar's brainwashing before he gave it to us. So...."
"So everything's relative, purebloods are kings of the world, and everybody else is pond scum..... hmmm... oh! I get it!" Ron smiled broadly. "If most people are scum, then don't even ask about birds. You might as well have had a potted plant on your shoulder."
"Bravo, Ron!" said Harry. "Hedwig and the real hat are friends. The hat even devised a new password that was a type of bird. The brainwashed hat's new rating system didn't consider an insignificant beast worthy to be counted as an equal to man, decided I was alone, and it said Sherbet lemon. Wrong answer!"
Ron finished deducing. "So when the hat from Salazar's shelf said Popinjay, it was saying you two weren't really alone, as long as Hedwig was also there. That's when you knew for sure...and once you sent Hedwig away, then it could finally say Lemon-whatever. Wicked!"
"You devised a clever test!" said Hermione to the hat. "So if it wasn't for Hedwig being here, we would have had no quick way to find out in time. Both hats could have given identical answers, and then where would we be?"
"Now one last little dodgy problem," said Ron. "Salazar might still think we got here through the Witching Walk. What keeps him from flying there, hitting us with an Avada Ka-whammy, and taking our hat?"
"I can't think he would want us anymore," said the hat. "Once he delivered the copy to you, he started questioning me. I amused myself by telling him you are three very minor wizards from Prester John, king of Armenia. He bought it. I described looking for potions among the weeds in Armenia, and our search for magical qualities in the goats of Armenia .... and so on. I had him bored to tears about the low state of magic in Armenia. My duplicate could have told him the truth about us, but that fake couldn't get an edge in wordwise, with Salazar lecturing him non-stop."
"How did the great Sorting Hat become such a creative liar?" teased Hermione.
The hat grinned. "From a thousand years of listening to students, explaining themselves to their headmasters."
"Oh, sure," said Ron. "blame it on us. Speaking of liars -- now that it's going to happen, do you remember Godric questioning you and your twin when you were young? How did he handle it?"
"It's dawning on me. Godric played on my twin's ego, engaging him in a pureblood discussion. It took a while for the fool of a hat to open up, but once he did, he was just brimful about what a great idea it was for improving magichood. Then Godric asked me, and I told him I had never heard such tripe in my life. He put me back in his secret storage, and I never saw the other hat again. By the arrival of the next First Years, I was off and running as the Seeing-Hat. Salazar was in an awful dither for a long while."
Harry was reassuring. "Don't confuse Salazar's powers with Voldemort's. Salazar's in trouble and he knows it. He doesn't have an army of believers yet; his duplicate hats are gone, and the other founders will be on to him now. Oh, we've given him a big setback to his plans.
"We know what he's going to do, and it's bad enough. He'll bide his time, gather a following of students... and under this new classroom wing, he'll construct his Chamber of Secrets. Luckily for him, we couldn't tell Godric about the Chamber, because it would drastically change history."
"Salazar did us one favour," noted Hermione. "His duplication charm made absolutely perfect copies."
"Why was that good?" asked Ron.
"Because the 'thousand-year-old hat' convinced Godric to help us... when, in fact, Salazar had only made it that morning, teeth marks and all."
* * *
It was just their luck, on the way back, to encounter the same cart and the same old man approaching from a side road. He immediately reined his horse, and just sat there while they passed the intersection, his lips trembling. If he had been thinking of going in their direction, he changed his mind.
* * *
As they camped out by a brook at sunset, the hat entertained them with details of his evasive answers to Salazar. Hermione then asked the hat if it had any other songs. As usual, it offered to sing the Sorting song for any year.
"Well," she responded, "I was really thinking about Hedwig's poetry. Have you collaborated on any more?"
"Oh, several are in the works. But another song is done, and you might like that. It's a song about love, set to a tune I had been calling Harry's wondrous world. "
Ron roared. "A song about Harry? Must be a very short song!" Harry, blushing at yet another 'short' joke, tried to muffle Ron into silence with no success; "And a short love song at that! Does it start, 'Harry and a house-elf in a tree, k - i - s - s - i - n - g' ?"
"It's not about Harry, or anyone in particular," responded the hat, relaxed and unperturbed by the wrestling match ensuing behind it. "Like Hedwig's other songs, she likes trying to picture human feelings."
Wizards tumbled, with flailing arms and incessant laughter, but the hat went on calmly. "It's supposed to be the bittersweet song of a young girl whose life truly opens as she first experiences simple love from afar; she sees how it has such extremes of complete joy or crushing sorrow; yet it's in human nature that she will seek love again and again. Hedwig calls her poem Alohomora."
"In that case," said Ron from a headlock, "I vote for the sorting song of....oh, 1234."
"Oh, don't be a prat, Ron," said Hermione. "Let's hear what Hedwig has to say about love. You might learn something."
"Doubt it," said Ron.
Hermione had her way, and the hat softly sang in the last light of dusk:
Ron and Harry listened, and pretended to cringe in pain until it was over; soon, they would have their chance to learn such feelings the hard way. Hermione, however, applauded Hedwig and the hat as she had before.
"Perhaps," said Harry, "we shouldn't give Hedwig all this attention. She's pitifully stuck up as it is. She'll be even harder to live with now! Right, Hedwig?"
"Ook," said Hedwig in disagreement. One can never be stuck up enough, I say! Keep those compliments coming! Well, hat, shame they'll have to give you back to Dumbledore. I'll miss these conversations. It was boring when Harry was wearing that Slytherin snob; he ignored me totally. I made sure I dropped him in the worst slough. A thousand years in muck, rotting away? Served him bloody proper.
The hat agreed. Too right, old girl. I knew you would have picked me out, if all else failed, and rescued me. Honestly, I can't understand how you manage it. You learned English, but your pet Harry has never learned bird-tongue. I'd find that very inconvenient.
Hedwig was amused. Sometimes, the less these three know, the better. Good thing you never told them your old-English anagram of my name, w-e d-i-g-h, as in 'we die'. They might have humaned out on taking this trip!
The hat smirked. Heeheehee. Humaned out. I like that! He was getting to appreciate bird humor. Fawkes tends to be a bit intellectual, but I must try some of your owl jokes on him. Now, how did that one go? 'A witch, a goblin and an owl walk into a bar....'
* * *
Once back in the keystone's shadow at the already-ancient Witching Walk, they chorused "SITTHAN AFYSAN," which is "The future, quickly", and in an instant they were returned. They recovered their brooms and headed home, following Hedwig.
After days of patient shoulder-sitting, Hedwig wasn't in a rush. She enjoyed swooping the long, evasive route that wizards and brooms must travel. If anything, she put them through some quite unnecessary manoeuvres.
* * *
Hogwarts never looked better. Suddenly, the tired old castle with its cold stone floors and torch-lit walls seemed very modern -- by virtue of such simple things as lawns, indoor plumbing, heating, clean beds, a laundry... and hearty meals for the ravenously hungry. They tucked in to it all.
They hadn't missed a thing, since the gate had been told to return them on the day after they had left. Ron went to the gamekeeper's hut to pick up Scabbers, then spent quite a while chatting. Hagrid was surprised to hear his hut was at least a thousand years old, and rocked with laughter to hear Ron's stories that ensued from the leathery find in the bog -- about the hog farmer, the night Harry polished the hat, how they evaded the tanner, the Armenia story, and the complete mess they made of Salazar's room.
In a spare evening, Hermione gathered all the notes she had written on owl-post paper, and recorded all her other memories of the old books -- which fortunately had been in a decipherable Latin and French, not Celtic. Madam Pince was avidly waiting to transcribe the lot onto parchment.
Their curiosity also led Hermione, Pince and Harry to search in the Gryffindor common room, behind a large 15th century tapestry. There, 990 years after she and Harry last saw it, Hermione pointed out a particular panel. No Lingus charm was needed; the Anglo-Saxon word had survived into modern English unchanged. "Wisdom," she said, touching her wand to the panel. A door to the past opened.
In the recess was a long and most enlightening manuscript on the beginnings of the school, including Godric's personal thanks to "three wyse yong Magi allegiant the Crest of Gryfon d'or". An illumination showed the three in their medieval robes: a dark-haired boy bearing a tall hat and a white owl, and holding a broom; another with red hair, raising Godric's sword with both hands; and in the middle, a bushy-haired girl with a book under one arm, her free hand using a wand to turn an hourglass in midair above them. Hermione was so thrilled to see herself and the boys portrayed in 11th century art!
Pince was discoursing on how the titles, locales and nicknames of the day became fixed as family names over the next century or two -- names such as Reader, Tanner, Burrow, Jameson and Gryffindor. That reminded Harry of a puzzling detail from their journey, and he asked Pince about it. Godric had said his teenaged daughter was married to a clay-thrower; what did that refer to?
"Good Lord!" she answered. "You of all people should know what that is. He throws wet clay on a treadle-powered spinning platform, and works it into shape with his hands, for firing in an oven.
"Why, he's a potter, of course!"
That night, Harry would fall asleep speculating on his family tree.
* * *
It was soon after that the young Gryffindors would became involved in the aftermath of the Goblet of Fire; that story has been told.
They would also face the most chilling, terrifying, heart-stoppingly difficult challenge of their young wizard lives: dating. But that peculiar tale is also written.
* * *
For Hedwig, it was wonderful being back with the old gang in the owlery; they were most attentive to the tale of her part in this amazing adventure, and squawked no end with amusement about the bog.
It was great fun when Fawkes stopped by the owlery one day, at the hat's urging, for a get-acquainted chat that was long overdue. The owls found him very down-to-earth, witty and wise. The youngest girl owls were annoyingly attentive to the flamboyant phoenix, and tried to monopolise him the whole time. Hedwig sighed, and blamed herself; she never should have recited Alohomora to impressionable young owlets.
* * *
And what of the flying fedora of first-year fate?
"A tip of the hat to you, Potter," said the now-familiar voice, restored to its warm, dry, roomy shelf in the office.
Harry interrupted his report to Dumbledore to smile up at the hat. "Oh, we're not on a first-name basis anymore, now we're back on the job?"
"Must maintain protocols, y'know," replied the hat. "Nice of you to look in on me. Here I am again, making lifetime decisions for First Years in a split second! And what's happened to my wreck of a bogged-down Slytherin twin?"
"That muddy blob of leather? Professor Flitwick has seen to it. He removed the charm today, then burned the remains. After a thousand years, you're alone in the world again... like me."
"You're still young, Potter. You shan't always be 'alone', as you keep claiming you are. Perhaps, Granger might be the one! Seems the nice girl, and quite resourceful. Why, an anagram of her first name is 'Hero, Mine!' -- suggesting she will have a heroic mate. 'Try trap, hero' ? You've seen worse traps!"
Dumbledore leaned back, very amused, watching Harry turn red.
"Or," continued the hat, "perhaps the Weasley girl you and I rescued -- though she has both Yin and Yang in her name, which could complicate your..."
Harry finally jumped in. "Excuse me; but please, no more anagrams! They're most interesting, but I really don't place any faith in them. And again, I'm not a hero."
"True, you did sidestep any major traps on our little adventure -- you'll not mention the leather polish to anyone, that's a good lad. Nevertheless, you made heroic choices; why, just to go on that journey was heroic!"
"Ron also went. Maybe he's Hermione's hero. To me, anagrams are no more a science than Divination."
"Well, it keeps me amused, Potter, when I'm not busy bailing you out of traps. That, and sorting.... and owl jokes..... and songs, of course!
- Why, who would defeat the evil
- By casting a charm or spell?
- Just boys who exceed at wizardry,
- And girls who do witching well!
- By casting a charm or spell?
- The world indeed would lack a lot
- Of marvelous magic things,
- If there were no magicians, gnomes,
- Or elves or goblin kings!"
- Of marvelous magic things,