Year Three, Chapter Eight: Battling with Boggarts

Throughout the first week of November, the Triwizard Tournament remained the number one subject of gossipers at Hogwarts.To be fair to them, there was a lot to gossip about. Harry Potter’s inclusion as the fourth Champion was not only completely unexpected, but also a very divisive subject. Frequent arguments erupted between the envious and the supporters. Harry’s own best friend, Ron Weasley, had turned against him - their ‘breakup’ was well known to all in the house. And then there were those who insisted that Harry didn’t want to compete in the tournament. I, of course, was a part of that last group.

It was hard not to pay attention to the Triwizard Tournament, but I had a lot on my mind. My toast floating had not been a one-time incident. Once every other day or so, I would notice something near me floating, changing colour, or shrinking. It was mostly small objects: quills, bits of food, my toothbrush - that sort of thing. Not only was it annoying, but if anyone noticed, they’d no doubt get suspicious. It had to be connected to my unique nature somehow - was the source of magic attached to me reaching out and touching the world around me? I needed to talk to Wynter about it.

My plans to meet with Wynter were thrown off when Fred and George’s search for a boggart yielded results one Saturday afternoon. I was at a table in the common room with Jake, Celeste, and Ginny, working on my charms homework for Professor Flitwick. We were possibly the only four in our year who put enough effort into learning, and so we often ended up sitting together to get away from our more distracting classmates. I liked Toby, Jamie, and Colin, but it was nigh on impossible to get any work done around them. I was just finishing the final paragraph of the essay when Fred and George arrived at the table, sitting down either side of Ginny.

Fred - or George - winked at me as George - or Fred - began talking to Ginny in a hushed tone. I didn’t want Jake or Celeste overhearing, so I quickly struck up a conversation with Fred.

“Hey, Fred! How’s it going?”

“It’s going good! Just a warning, might want to avoid the corridor on the sixth floor,” Fred said, grinning. “We may or may not have accidentally set off a dung bomb there.”

I shuddered - the stench of a dung bomb was truly horrific. “Got it. I’ll steer clear of there. Anywhere else I need to be careful of?”

“Can’t say, I’m afraid. Wouldn’t want to give up all of the fun, now would I?”

I rolled my eyes. “‘Course not.”

There was a momentary lapse in our conversation, just long enough for me to catch a couple of words about boggarts from George.

“So!” I said, raking my mind for something to talk about. “Uh… What’s your opinion on Harry becoming the fourth champion?”

“Awesome!” Fred said enthusiastically. “Only problem is, it blows any of our pranks out of the water.”

Celeste sighed and set her quill down. “Can you two chat somewhere else? I’m trying to do homework here.”

Fred glanced at George, who gave an imperceptible nod. They got up, perfectly in sync with one another.

“Our most sincerest apologies, Miss Dawlish,” Fred said, bowing.

“We are most awfully sorry,” George added, one-upping his brother by falling to his knees and bowing his head.

“We have brought shame upon ourselves,” Fred said.

Celeste raised her hand to cover her grin. “Bugger off, you two,” she said.

The twins retreated from the scene.

“Them two are so annoying,” Celeste said, watching them go.

Ginny snorted. “Try growing up with them.”

“I’ve never been so glad to be an only child,” Celeste said.

I signed my name on my essay, then rolled it up and put it into my bag. “I’m gonna go turn my brain off,” I said. “Where’s Jamie?”

“He went looking for secret passages or something,” Jake said. “You know what he’s like.”

I got up and pushed my chair in. “In that case, I better find him before he ends up somewhere he shouldn’t be.”

I looked at Ginny, and nodded my head slightly towards the portrait hole. She nodded back, and mouthed ‘one minute’. I headed out, and waited nearby for Ginny to follow. A minute later, she came through the portrait hole.

“Did the twins find a boggart?” I asked.

Ginny nodded. “In an old office on the second floor. It used to belong to the Dark Arts teacher.”

I frowned. “Defence, you mean?”

“No,” Ginny said.

“Hogwarts used to teach the Dark Arts!?”

I didn’t know much about the Dark Arts - mostly just rumours and scare stories I’d heard from the older students - but I knew enough to know that they were pure evil.

“Scary, isn’t it?” Ginny said. “Apparently Durmstrang still teaches it.”

An awful vision flashed through my mind, of Viktor Krum using the Dark Arts to defeat the Hogwarts Champions. I shuddered.

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “Shivering already? The boggart might be a bit much for you,” she said playfully.

“We’ll see about that,” I said, feeling an intense need to prove myself. “Let’s go.”

We made our way through the torchlit halls of the castle, navigating our way through the jumbled mess of corridors with ease thanks to years of practice. Before long, we were standing outside a disused room on the second floor. Dust obscured the view through the small window in the door.

“Right,” I said, looking at the door. I could feel the rapid beating of my heart reverberating through me. “Here goes nothing.”

I drew my wand, and cast an unlocking charm. The keyhole clicked, and I pushed the door open. It creaked as it swung inwards. I gripped my wand tightly as I stepped tentatively into the room.

“Lumos.”

The tip of my wand shone with brilliant white light, illuminating the room and casting shadows against the walls. It was sparsely furnished, with a desk and chair at the far end, a bookshelf against the left-hand wall, and a pair of wardrobes against the right-hand wall. A thin layer of dust lay atop every surface in the room. No sign of the boggart.

“Where is it?”

Ginny stepped into the room, wand in her hand. “It’s in that wardrobe.”

I looked at the wardrobes again. Sure enough, one of them was shaking slightly as the monster inside struggled to break free.

“Remember the spell?” Ginny asked.

I nodded. “Riddikulus.”

I pointed my wand directly at the cupboard. My hands shook. My heart raced. My breaths were ragged and shallow. “Alohomora.”

The wardrobe burst open, and from the darkness inside stepped a wizard. He wore deep blue robes, silver stars swirling across the fabric. A long beard tumbled over his chest, turned grey by age. His blue eyes looked into mine, burning with rage.

Dumbledore.

“You are a danger to the Statue of Secrecy,” the boggart said in Dumbledore’s voice. “I have allowed you to walk freely for too long. Alas, I can delay no longer.”

“Riddikulus!” I slashed my wand wildly through the air. The spell fizzled out at the tip of my wand. “Riddikulus!”

Boggart-Dumbledore raised his wand, uttering an incantation. Golden light crackled at the end of his wand -

And then Ginny shoved her way in front of me, and the boggart shifted -

And Tom Riddle stood there in front of her. He was just as he had been that night in the Chamber: a handsome, pale boy in dark robes, his not-quite-there form shimmering in the light. The cursed diary was in his left hand, a bone-white wand in his right.

“Tom,” Ginny gasped, the colour draining from her face.

“Ginny,” Riddle said, his red eyes examining Ginny. “Were you so naive as to think you were rid of me? That I, Lord Voldemort, could be defeated so easily?”

“You’re not real,” Ginny whispered. “You’re just a boggart.”

Riddle’s eyes flashed. “And before, I was just a diary. And yet you were powerless to resist me then, and you are powerless now.”

Ginny lashed her wand towards Riddle. “Riddikulus!”

Riddle laughed, a sinister, unnatural sound, like knives on a blackboard. He took a step towards Ginny, who edged backwards away from him.

I had to do something, and fast, but the Riddikulus spell wasn’t working. I raised my wand, shouting the first incantation that came into my mind.

“Depulso!”

A wave of force shot from my wand. It slammed into Riddle, who grunted and stumbled backwards.

“Depulso!”

I hit Riddle with the spell again, knocking him off balance. He tumbled backwards, barely staying on his feet.

“Depulso!”

Ginny joined the assault, forcing Riddle back, closer to the wardrobe.

“Depulso!”

“Depulso!”

“Depulso!”

“Depulso!”

Step by step, Riddle was forced backwards. Wave after wave of force crashed into him, not giving him even a moment to cast a spell of his own. As the last spell struck him, he tripped over his robes and fell backwards into the wardrobe. His wand fell to the ground, bouncing once before coming to a stop.

I flicked my wand in tight, precise movements. “Colloportus!”

The wardrobe doors slammed closed, trapping the boggart. The wardrobe lurched violently from side to side as the monster inside tried to break free, before it gave up and came to a stop. For a long moment, there was silence in the room as Ginny and I stood still, staring at the wardrobe. And then -

“Matthew Mason you bloody fucking twat!” Ginny snapped, rounding on me with anger blazing in her eyes.

“What -”

“Don’t interrupt me!” Ginny growled. “I just had to face Tom again, and it’s your bloody fault! Do you have any idea how much he still terrifies me? I still have nightmares, every week, and because of you I just had to live them!”

Part of me wanted to protest, to say that she chose to step in, to say that she couldn’t cast the spell either, to say that it was me that sealed the boggart away again… But she was right. I had dragged her into this, and forced her to relive, for a moment, her torment in the Chamber of Secrets. A massive wave of guilt swept over me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I… I didn’t…” The words died out on my tongue. I didn’t know what to say to put everything right.

“You better be,” Ginny said.

She punched me in the arm, and then flung her arms around me and hugged me tightly. She buried her face into my shoulder, sobbing softly. I froze where I stood. One second she was shouting and screaming at me, the next she was crying into my shoulder? I didn’t understand.

“I’m sorry,” Ginny said after several long moments. “I - I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I just…”

I rubbed her back, in what I hoped was a comforting fashion.

“It’s okay,” I said softly. “I know it’s hard for you. I still have nightmares about it all sometimes, and what I went through was nothing compared to what you went through.”

Ginny clung onto me tighter. “You were a hero. I was weak. Pathetic. Useless.”

“No,” I said. “You were so strong. You held out for so long, against the most powerful dark wizard ever. So never, ever say you were weak.”

Ginny lifted her head, and looked me in the eyes. A tear trailed down her cheek, and I subconsciously raised a hand to wipe it away. She swallowed, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Her breath tickled my cheek. My heart was racing again, but this time it wasn’t fear.

We released each other, and stepped apart.

“Right,” I said, clapping my hands and clasping them together. “Let’s get out of here.”

Ginny nodded, wiping her eyes dry. “Thought you’d never ask.”

We left the room, locking the door behind us, and set off on an aimless path through the castle. We walked in comfortable silence, the only sounds being the crackling of the burning torches, and our footsteps. The familiar corridors of the castle were a welcome change from the boggart’s dark office. Gradually, my panic faded away, replaced by a feeling of calm contentment.

After a few minutes of wandering, we found ourselves on the outer walls of the castle, looking out over the grounds - the smooth expanse of the Black Lake, Hagrid’s humble hut, and the impenetrable wall of trees that marked the border of the Forbidden Forest. Students relaxed by the lake, and quidditch players circled overhead, tossing about a quaffle. The late afternoon sunlight gave the scene a warm glow.

“Dumbledore, huh?” Ginny said.

“Yeah. My greatest fear…” I said. “At any moment, he could just kick me out of this world. I’d never see Hogwarts again, never see my friends again, never see you again…”

Ginny squeezed my arm. “You belong here, you know. I don’t care if you’re technically not a wizard.”

“Thanks.”

Author's Notes: It's been too long since I wrote an action scene! That was fun!

Now, on to the analytics. Firstly, the karma per chapter graph is looking a lot nicer now. Thanks so much for upvoting! As for this chapter's analytics: here's the character appearance percentage per year, and here's the year-to-year change in apperance percentage.

Finally, there's a 'Theory Thursday' thread stickied at the moment. It'd be great to see what theories you all have about the story, and about Matt's true nature, so if you have any thoughts, please comment there.

Thanks for reading!