Paragraph 9 - 27 : Who Must Be Named

The four friends then received an update by Edward Songer through Eleanor. Mr. Grithe had gotten a second letter, in which the as before anonymous author had expressed his disappointment that Mr. Grithe had not been at The Farthing on the requested day and time. Three of the friends considered it was mostly a victory. However, Sigismond was hoping for more. Sure, he didn't want Mrs. Grithe to get cured through the use of dark magic, but he felt the Intuition Potion still owed them a solution to Mrs. Grithe's illness. The three girls had sympathy for Sigismond's cause. Nevertheless, they had averted a disaster, which they thought was a noteworthy consolation. More than a week went by, and at this period Eleanor came back with further news from Edward Songer : Mr. Grithe had attended what was probably a second meeting at the prairie behind The Farthing. Edward had seen Mr. Grithe, his wand alight, progressing at night with his wife alongside him towards the Rogend, which was standing in a wood nearby. Since everything was dark save the Grithes' surroundings and the glowing Rogend, Edward had not been able to see Mr. Grithe's facial expressions. Mr. Grithe entered the silent wood, cast 'Cambius Extrema' in the direction of the Rogend, and waited for the spell to fulfill its purpose. There was no visible cue that anything was happening, and the seconds were going by. But then, the light at the end of Mr. Grithe's wand started dimming down and the wand itself started shaking. Soon after, Mr. Grithe fell to the floor. Mrs. Grithe was apparently not reacting at first. She said 'Lumos Maxima', and the spell did work. Immediately after, the sound of bushes being beaten could be heard, and in the surprisingly powerful glimmer of Mrs. Grithe's wand-tip, a figure could be briefly seen, before it disappeared, probably because of Disapparition. Mrs. Grithe then cast the 'Levicorpus' spell on her apparently unconscious husband, and when his body reached Mrs. Grithe, both she and her husband also Disapparated. Edward's dream's first part ended there. In a second part, the couple were at home. Mr. Grithe looked very tired. He was trying to use 'Wingardium Leviosa' on a heavy decorative object he seemed to have dropped. The object briefly gained altitude, before dropping again to the floor, with a banging noise. Mrs. Grithe was watching the whole scene, without helping her husband at all. Then she spoke, in a disdainful voice :

You are a good for nothing, you always were. You ended up getting involved in a deal that was far beyond your abilities for this very reason. You can't make anything work. You want to help people, but you shouldn't, because you can't. You are just not smart enough, even to take care of yourself

The dream's second part stopped there. In a final and short part, Mrs. Grithe was at the house of a tall brown-haired wizard. What was striking, according to Edward, was that Mrs. Grithe behaved and moved there as if it was her home, and the wizard didn't seem the least disturbed by this. Actually, the wizard seemed to find it normal. The string of dreams stopped there. The four friends now had to try and make sense of all of this. For one, they had had the impression till now that the focus was on Mr. Grithe. When he was receiving the letters, her wife was seemingly absent. Now, they had pieces of dreams that revolved around the husband, but a majority of them were apparently showing the wife's point of view, or a mix of both. Therefore, the four friends were confused. During the night when the husband performed 'Cambius Extrema', the woman had regained her abilities to use her powers, while her husband had lost his. Since there had been a third person at the scene, maybe the letters' anonymous author, either this unknown person had taken the husband's abilities to use his powers, or the spell had misfired, and the husband's abilities were transferred to his wife. In any case, the wife had become nastier and nastier, as was expected from someone having benefited from 'Cambius Extrema'. The last part tended to show that Mrs. Grithe had let down her husband to bond with another wizard. When Sigismond had drunk the potion, the plan had been to find a way for Mrs. Grithe to get a cure for her illness. However, she was not ill anymore, and it is Mr. Grithe who had inherited her predicament. Would the potion still try to move them on the path of a cure for the disease ? Did the potion show them that there was nothing to be done, since now Mrs. Grithe was from a purely physical perspective fine ? They agreed that the way to go was to visit Mr. Grithe, to see what was his current state. Eleanor was tasked with asking Edward about a clue that would allow them to locate the home of the Grithe family. She didn't need much time to come back with a very satisfactory answer. Edward, who remembered all the details of these dreams, had seen the address on one of the letters. The four friends were relieved not to have to embark on another boring session of research. Ann, Eleanor and Sigismond asked Judith if they could use a bit of her store of Floo powder to try and get to the chimney of the Grithes'. Judith heartily agreed and they only had to find a chimney to depart from. There were chimneys in the Common Rooms, but their use was of course impossible. Even if the four friends had belonged to the same House, and they could have used the Common Room's chimney, it would have been awkward to use it in front of the other students. They went in their mind through the places they knew in the castle. The Friends' Room ? Zero chimney. The Arch Room ? Just the same. The Flitwick Room ? Hey, there actually was a chimney there. They therefore waited a time when they would have the right to be there, and entered the Flitwick Room. By its current look, nobody had used it after they had invented the messages Apparition spell. Sigismond, who was the most involved of the four friends in the quest of the remedy, set foot first in the room, while Ann crossed the threshold last and closed the door behind them. Judith dealt the three others a bit of Floo powder, and one after the other, they stepped into the fireplace, threw a handful of Floo powder, and shouted

The Periwinkles

When the last of them reached the hearth in the Grithe's home's chimney, they found themselves in a long abandoned house. They were not sure they were at the right place, because Edward had not depicted the interior of the house he had seen in his dreams. It was dark, because every blind was closed, and the dim light that allowed them to see around them came from holes in the blinds. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere, and a foul smell pervaded their nostrils. Ann, pinching her nose, went to the nearest window, opened it and the associated blind. The three others did the same, and Judith ended up opening a window and a blind that had a distant view to another house. Since this house held together in spite of the most basic laws of gravity, it was natural to venture the guess that the neighbours were no Muggles. That house looked well kept, although it was not possible to be hundred percent sure, given the long stretch of grass that extended over what looked like a quarter of a mile, between the derelict house and the weird one. Ann, eager to be in the open and away from the stinking smell of the rundown house, pushed the door open with one hand - the other was of course still tasked with keeping Ann's nose shut. They all got out of the smelly house, and headed towards the other. When they were at their destination, Ann knocked on the door. A few minutes elapsed, but finally a witch opened the door, ostensibly puzzled at the sight of four Hogwarts students in their robes, and above all, each of them belonging to a different House. The witch looked at their chests, explaining :

I expected four students of four different houses to be Prefects tasked by Dumbledore to do some chore for the school

Judith tried to set the conversation on a more friendly path :

We know that Mr. Grithe has some condition. We still wanted to see if he was doing okay. We didn't know he had left

The witch burst into laughter. Ann thought she wouldn't get the award of Best Neighbour anytime soon. After having laughed to her content, she elaborated, a snickering tone in her voice :

You are a bunch of liars or fools, but it doesn't cost me anything to tell you the story : Grandpa Grithe had good heart, but no wits. About ten years ago, he became impaired, went to Saint Mungo's, his wife left him. By now, she is probably catching up with lost opportunities somewhere in London. Skeeter recently published a story based on this. I like her work very much. Great witch, won't let idiots get in her path

Judith, still courteous but a bit shaken by the witch's utter lack of empathy, concluded the conversation :

Err… Thank you, we didn't know. Err…Good bye

Judith awkwardly waved her hand, and the four of them turned around, going back to the dusty and rotting house where they would be able to go back thanks to the Floo network access that this house's chimney was providing. Once they were back in the Flitwick Room, they updated their assessment of the situation of their assumptions. The Intuition Potion couldn't have helped them find a cure in time for Mrs. Grithe, since all of this had taken place some ten years ago. When Mr. Grithe's anonymous contact person sent him a second letter expressing his discontent that the meeting at The Farthing had not taken place, they had thought that it was because their own letter had led Mr. Grithe to give up on the operation involving 'Cambius Extrema'. Things were very different, though. Maybe Mr. Grithe hadn't made his mind by the time of the first appointment, then relented in time for the second one to seal his fate. By this point, the Intuition Potion had given them a key element to establish what had happened, but had fallen short of giving them a single clue that would help them find a cure for Mr. Grithe illness, which was formerly his wife's illness. Maybe Rita Skeeter's book would cast some light on the remaining mysterious parts. Sigismond voiced the opinion it might even actually be a step towards the cure, that the potion's goal had been to put them in the way of her book. That is why all four of them promptly got a copy of Skeeter's book delivered to them - a Sigismond move. Nonetheless, this didn't really pan out. Skeeter's novelised version of the story was very consistent with what they had gathered from Edward's dreams, except that the journalist's story made no mention of a second wizard being present when 'Cambius Extrema' was performed. Ann was frustrated and even accused Edward of having just described as dreams things that he had read in Skeeter's book - 'Dark and white'. Eleanor, always positive-minded, rather posited that Edward's dreams had been triggered by the release of Skeeter's book, but that he had not read it, and that he didn't even know the chief contributor of Witch Weekly had published a fiction about this upsetting life excerpt. Eleanor hypothesised that somebody had brought to Edward these visions because they wanted somebody to make truth come out, for example, by bringing up the presence of a second wizard during the use of 'Cambius Extrema'. Judith reminded them that, the previous time, the key had been Bethany. Maybe the key for this second investigation was Edward. When Sigismond heard Judith's remark, he was dumbstruck. Yes, surely there was a way to take advantage of Edward's connection with the dreams. The only question was : 'how ?'. Sigismond's imagination was set in motion, but it's his memory that did the trick. Judith had alluded to the events related to the first Intuition Potion. There actually was one such event that could bring to light the missing element. Sigismond told Eleanor, in a surprisingly excited voice :

Can you bring Edward here ?

Eleanor answered :

I can try. What am I supposed to tell him that would convince him to follow me, though ?

Sigismond paused, and after a few seconds, decided on a selling point that wouldn't disclose what he had in mind :

He might make it possible for us to see clear through all this without any effort on his part

Eleanor nodded, then left the room. Ann and Judith, however, were not about to let Sigismond remain mysterious about the action he had in sight. They insisted on learning more from him about what he had in store for them, but Sigismond remained steadfast, or as Ann would put it, stubborn. Ann grumpily stopped querying Sigismond after some time, and Judith, who had now lost her ally, interrupted the course of her own questions. They thus were all three sitting in silence during about a quarter of an hour. Then, Eleanor went back, with Edward in tow. The latter, a stocky dark-haired boy with a pale face, was discovering the room. He made a few steps towards its center, and let his eyes move from one feature of the room to another. Sigismond stood up, and told the newcomer :

Can you take your wand out ?

Edward answered with another question, a worried look on his face :

What for ?

Now, Sigismond had to explain what he intended to do. He reminded the three girls, while basically teaching Edward, that the wizard needed to communicate with his wand whenever he wanted to create a spell, or find out if magic was around him. Therefore, Sigismond's plan was simple. The four friends would attempt to connect with Edward's wand, and said wand would tell them more about what was happening when Edward was having these real dreams. Edward was supposed to think about these dreams in the meanwhile. He cut Sigismond's speech short with witty irony :

I thought I would have no effort to make

Ann retorted, with a smile on her face and a gently mocking voice :

Well, Sigismond, I think you have for the first time in your life come up with a ruse

Edward was actually willing to cooperate, and they went with Sigismond's plan. The four friends gathered around Edward, and they tried to repeat what they had done when they had been trying to generate the messages Apparition spell. Soon, the Flitwick Room disappeared in darkness, and when brightness came back, the environment was completely different. Sigismond looked around. He was the only one there. On the cobbled ground, directions laid out in a circle indicated in blue letters the names of different people. There were names in which the last name was 'Songer', therefore Sigismond felt awkward at the idea that he might be invading Edward's privacy. Among the other names, most of them belonged to Hogwarts students, or so Sigismond believed. One name stood up in the midst of the others : Rita Skeeter. Then, Sigismond flinched, because someone else had suddenly appeared on his side. He turned around to see the newcomer, his wand at the ready in case it would be an ill-intentioned wizard. And he sighed. Judith had also made it to Edward's wand's universe. She was not at all surprised to see Sigismond, and she was busy taking in the information she could gather from this new environment, just like Sigismond had done a few moments earlier. Sigismond asked :

When are Ann and Eleanor coming ?

Judith answered, grinning :

I think they won't be able to join us. We had both succeeded at connecting with our wands when we were attempting inventing the Apparition spell. But Ann and Eleanor are not great at this stuff. I should tell you that you suddenly disappeared from the Flitwick Room when you went here. As if you had Disapparated, but of course that's impossible, you were at Hogwarts

They then both went in the 'Rita Skeeter' direction, and arrived at a second circle of blue directions. Sigismond and Judith hardly knew any of the new names in spite of the sheer number of them. They spent quite a bit of time listing almost all the names, but before they had reached the end of this accumulation, Judith said :

Here! Mrs. Grithe

And off they went again. After a short walk, they were again in the middle of a circle of blue directions. This circle was much smaller. There was just a problem. They didn't know a single name. There wasn't even a 'Mr. Grithe' direction. Sigismond was quick to find a solution, though : he cast 'Hominum Revelio'. Immediately, figures who had their back on Sigismond and Judith started walking from every blue direction, away from the students. Judith cast 'Lumos Maxima', and they both scanned the figures. They didn't recognize anyone, and didn't dare asking the individuals to turn around so that they could see the faces associated to the figures. Yet, one of these figures was that of a tall, brown-haired man, who matched the description of the man Mrs. Grithe had ended up visiting. Therefore they started cautiously following him, a dozen of steps behind him. The man came to a halt in front of a group of wizards and witches, who could now see Sigismond and Judith coming closer. Both were more and more concerned. Were these wizards and witches friendly or not ? At the sight of the newcomers, some of them had giggled. The man they had followed, who was wearing navy blue robes, turned around to take a look at them. One witch asked, in a merry voice :

Why are you here ?

Judith felt it careful to obscure their actual intentions :

We are interested in the Dark and White plot. We heard it was based on a true story. Is that correct ?

The man they had followed answered mockingly and ironically :

More or less. Shame that Rita had to keep some of the best plot twists out

Sigismond and Judith heard more giggle. Apparently, Mr. Grithe's demise left them indifferent. And there was in the man's answer and the reaction to his irony an innuendo : the real version was worse than that of Skeeter's book. Sigismond was now upset, and it was visible on his face. Suddenly, one of the wizards, blond with green eyes who wore assorted green robes the sleeves of which were adorned with interlaced gold and silver motifs, raised his wand, and cast a spell :

Wendica

Sigismond started hearing high-pitched voices coming from nowhere, saying :

You were given too much. You are nothing more than a spoiled brat. How many kids can afford to just dream all day ?

The giggling from the group of wizards and witches sounded louder and louder by the minute, as if it were amplified. Then, abruptly, it stopped, and it dawned on Sigismond that what he had heard was probably what the wizard clad in elaborate green robes had in mind. In mind. That was the triggering expression. Sigismond had never tried this, but he had to make an attempt at it. He swiftly directed his wand at the wizard who had just cursed him, and said :

Legilimens

He now had in front of his eyes a brightly lit room at the first floor of a building. The room was in a corner, and one could see through the windows what was happening below in one street, or what was taking place below in the street perpendicular to the first. Both the wizard on which he had just performed Legilimens and the tall brown-haired wizard were conversing, sitted in armchairs, looking far younger. The latter talked first :

And then the stupid bloke opened the connection, but it was on a Rogend, so it was a long range connection. He could use the connection to bring magic from the Rogend to his wife, but he didn't know that, since it was a long range connection, I was able, back at a distance, to channel his own abilities to use powers to me. When the flouted guy was done, I just went to his home and started dating his wife. She had become adorably evil, she had sent her husband to the cheapest type of room at Saint Mungo's. So, do you think you have someone for me ?

The blond wizard whose thinking was laid bare for Sigismond to see, answered :

I have the best for you. Skeeter herself. She will guess it's a true story, but she'll be happy to be regarded as a writer. She tried to publish things years ago. She is just a journalist because she is good at this, and she likes the job, but the witch is fairly ambitious. Yet you will have to wait a few years before the book gets out. Skeeter has a lot on her plate, and you know, people shouldn't be able to connect too many dots. That's why it would be great if on the publishing date, your charming romance were finished. Don't worry, be patient, when this book comes out, you will have your pockets linen with gold. Okay, I think we are done, I got it, trust me. Now I have a party to host

The room vanished, and this time, the blond wizard was standing, conversing with a third wizard, who had dark hair, was tall and wearing black robes. They were also in a room overlooking a street, but not just any street. Down there was Diagon Alley. The room had walls of the purest white, that made the strongest possible contrast to the appearance of the dark-haired wizard. The windows were not letting as much light in, for the building was obviously old, and the smaller windows were embedded in a thick wall. The blond wizard, who looked very much like his current self, spoke first :

The prophecies are basically mediocre, and you are ready to give me twenty percent of Magicharms' shares - that you don't have now - if I make the Daily Prophet believe that you are the rightful inventor of junk prophecies, then the Board will end up firing the founder, giving you his shares, so that you will have a cut to give to me. Correct ?

The dark-haired wizard replied :

Yeah, that sums it up perfectly

The blond wizard wanted to make a point :

Do you know why I like this crappy plan ?

The dark-haired wizard shook his head, and twisted his mouth to show he had no idea. The blond wizard expanded on his vision :

This Hift guy has had everything. He is bright, he is more or less powerful. This kind of person doesn't know what it is to be down in the mud. But that's exactly the type of wizard who should find out how this feels

The sequence of memories stopped there. The blond wizard was there, wand at his side. He moved it up briskly. Sigismond reacted instantly. He cast 'Protego' in advance, then seized Judith's hand. One second later, both of them had fallen on their hands on the floor of the Flitwick Room, in front of Edward, Ann and Eleanor. The three of them, especially Ann and Eleanor, were obviously very worried, according to the tone of Ann's voice - 'Are you OK?' - and the precipitous arrival of Eleanor next to Judith. Eleanor immediately kneeled and waited for Judith to straighten up on her own knees. The former then looked at the latter's face, and after seeing that Judith looked unharmed, she just cast a glance from time to time towards Judith in order to check that her reactions were those of a sound and fit person. In the meanwhile, Sigismond had gotten up to his feet. When both Sigismond and Judith were sat, they described what had happened to them. Judith supplemented Sigismond's account : when the blond wizard had performed 'Wendica', the high-pitched voices had not told her the same as they had with Sigismond. Judith remembered hearing sentences like :

Always eating enough and more, oblivious of the fact that more worthy witches and wizard cannot

They concluded this eventful meeting with a summary of what they now knew. Some blond wizard, whose name they didn't know and that they nicknamed You-Don't-Know-Who, had brokered deals with two wizards so that they could profit from others' woes. They had learned that the wizard who had fled the scene where 'Cambius Extrema' had been performed was the brown-haired wizard who had entered a relationship with Mrs. Grithe, and he had indeed misappropriated Mr. Grithe's ability to use his powers. It was fitting that he had done so, since being already evil, taking advantage from 'Cambius Extrema' would not change his life. Sigismond wondered why he had been able to access the two most important memories he could have collected. Eleanor of course had a theory about this : You-Don't-Know-Who had this very memory in mind, about the brown-haired wizard, because Sigismond had talked about the story involving him, so it brought to You-Don't-Know-Who the memories that linked him to the brown-haired wizard. Then, he knew that Sigismond and Judith were Hogwarts students, and that was how the second memory came to him : Mr. Hift's fall from grace had impacted his son who was a Hogwarts student. Sigismond had still another question : why had he been able to use Legilimens ? Edward had his own take on this. He claimed that Sigismond and Judith had penetrated an environment that mirrored the links between the minds. Hence the tree-like series of blue directions. This meant they were already in You-Don't-Know-Who's mind, making it easy for any beginner to use Legilimens. Judith, this time, had one more question : how had they been able to come back to the Flitwick Room ? Sigismond smiled, and explained :

I just talked to Edward's wand to tell it we wanted to go back. We had left thanks to this method, so it was logical we could revert the process with the same one

They wondered if they would have the opportunity to access more information through a connection with Edward's wand. Eleanor noted that Sigismond and Judith had been able to find relevant information because it was related to one of Edward's dreams. Therefore, they couldn't just browse randomly through the directions and expect one to lead to something that was interesting and that was respectful of Edward's private life. Anything they would find this way would be first and foremost linked to Edward. Thus they couldn't hope to lay their hands on the precise bit of data they needed, that would most likely not be in relationship with Edward. Eleanor marveled though at this magical technique allowing to get to a lot of information.

No way Muggles could achieve that

she thought.