The Wooden Plank Came to Life

The next morning at breakfast, Justin began telling everyone what he had seen the night before.

"I saw a wooden plank come to life last night," he whispered to Ernie.

Ernie set down his spoon and gave him a cautious look. "What exactly do you mean?"

"When I got up in the night, I saw something standing in the corridor." Justin lowered his voice, but his eyes were serious. "Its left side blended into the wall, and its right side kept flickering like a Muggle television with a loose cable. Worst of all, it had Gu's face."

Ernie looked at Justin, then at Gavin, who was eating beside them. "Were you sleepwalking?"

"I wasn't sleepwalking," Justin said at once. "I was wide awake."

"How can you prove it?"

Justin had no answer.

Mostly because he knew how unconvincing the story sounded.

"Maybe you're under a bit of stress," Ernie said tactfully. "We have had a lot of schoolwork lately."

"I knew you wouldn't believe me," Justin said, looking wounded. "But I really saw it."

Then Justin told Wayne Hopkins and Susan Bones, who had just arrived for breakfast.

Gavin finally put down his spoon and looked up at him. "You didn't get enough sleep last night," he said with certainty.

Justin bristled. "That sounds an awful lot like a culprit trying to discredit a witness."

"I'm just stating the facts." Gavin went back to his Beef Rice Noodles.

"Gu." Justin stared at him. "Last night, were you—"

"I was asleep last night," Gavin said immediately.

"I don't believe you!"

"Do you have proof?"

"...No."

"Then you should eat more breakfast," Gavin said. "An empty stomach tends to make hallucinations worse."

The students listening nearby thought that made sense. Justin's story hardly sounded real. More importantly, none of them would have imagined a first-year adjusting the parameters of a Disillusionment Charm in the middle of the night.

Justin alone remained unconvinced.

"I'll prove it sooner or later," he muttered.

Ernie patted his shoulder, calm and kindly. "First you need to hand in today's Transfiguration homework."

That struck fear into the heart of any first-year.

Justin promptly fell silent.

Meanwhile, the twins had been growing dissatisfied.

The problem was that Gu had become less and less cooperative lately.

More precisely, once Headscarf Operation entered its later stages, Gavin still appreciated how effectively they made trouble for Professor Quirrell, but he no longer joined them to watch with enthusiasm or offered ideas as he once had.

That stung.

Especially for the Weasley Twins, who took professional pride in their school pranks.

"He's looking down on us," George said.

"And it's getting more obvious," Fred said.

"Gu acts like he's suddenly moved on to a higher-level battlefield and now thinks his old comrades are only good for throwing water balloons."

"That's a hurtful way to put it."

"But it's true."

So when Gavin once again turned down their invitation to "come see the Professor Quirrell special surprise package we just upgraded," the twins finally made a decision.

The next afternoon, they summoned Gavin to an Empty Classroom with great secrecy.

"What is it?" Gavin asked.

Fred didn't answer right away. He pulled a neatly folded piece of old parchment from his robes and slapped it onto the desk.

The paper was old, its corners yellowed. It looked utterly ordinary—too ordinary for the twins to make such a ceremony of it.

George tipped up his chin.

"Unlock it."

Gavin glanced at them, then at the paper. Fighting back a smile, he played dumb.

"What's this?"

"A test," Fred said.

"We only worked it out recently ourselves," George added.

"If you can uncover its secret—"

"We'll acknowledge you."

Gavin picked up the parchment. It felt old and almost exactly like ordinary parchment, though it had a slightly different texture.

He said nothing.

First, he tried the most basic Revealing Charm.

Nothing happened.

Then he tried several minor Transfiguration and detection spells.

Still nothing.

The twins stood nearby with their arms folded, wearing expressions that said, Take your time. We're in no hurry. They were plainly ready to start gloating.

Gavin turned the paper over, studied it for a moment, and suddenly asked:

"It doesn't insult people, does it?"

Both twins burst out laughing.

"Why would you ask that?" George said.

"Because you two seem awfully fond of it," Gavin said. "If it didn't have a nasty mouth, you wouldn't like it this much."

The twins exchanged a glance, their smiles twitching.

Gavin set the paper down again.

"Can I take it with me? Looks like I'll need some time," he said, feigning composure.

"Hey—" Fred protested at once. "We're not giving it to you."

"I know," Gavin said. "I'm borrowing it."

"And if you can't solve it?"

"Then I'll give it back," Gavin said. "And admit I've judged you two unfairly lately."

"Fine." George and Fred exchanged a look. They had taken nearly half a year to solve it themselves. "You have three days."

"No, I have classes," Gavin said. "Three months, or forget it."

"One month."

"Deal."

George pursed his lips. For some reason, he felt he'd come out the loser.

Gavin tucked the old parchment away, delighted, and left.

The twins stayed where they were, feeling as though something wasn't quite right.

That evening, Gavin took out the parchment, pointed his wand at it, and said:

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Meanwhile, Pipi had been having a miserable time lately.

Because it had discovered that it suddenly couldn't find Mr. Gu.

Mr. Gu had always wandered all over the place, but Pipi could at least track him down. Along corridors, up staircases, through the Great Hall or the library, or near the Room of Requirement, where he might pause suspiciously—it could always catch him in the end.

Lately, though, things were different.

Sometimes Mr. Gu would vanish for an hour. Sometimes longer. He could disappear for three whole hours without a trace.

The first time Pipi lost him, it thought it simply hadn't searched carefully enough.

The second time, it began to suspect something was wrong.

By the third time, it was nearly in tears.

That evening, just as Pipi's ears were drooping with worry, Gavin appeared in front of it.

"Mr. Gu disappeared again!" Its voice trembled with tears. "Pipi couldn't find you. Pipi almost thought Mr. Gu had hurt himself again—"

Gavin suddenly felt a little guilty. Pipi was there to keep an eye on him, but it genuinely cared about him too.

"I'm fine," he said. "I just went to practice a spell."

Pipi looked at him with tearful eyes.

"But Pipi couldn't find you..."

"That means my practice is going well," Gavin said.

Pipi was clearly not comforted.

So Gavin added:

"If you don't tell and I don't tell, Dumbledore won't know."

Pipi went rigid from head to toe.

"Mr. Gu!" it whispered in horror. "That's not right!"

"Look, didn't Dumbledore agree that I could learn spells?"

"Yes."

"And isn't the Disillusionment Charm a spell?"

"Yes, but..." Pipi tried to say something more.

"No buts. This is part of the plan too."

Gavin kept working on Pipi.

Pipi's ears twitched. It plainly wanted to object, but in the end it said nothing about reporting him to the headmaster. Perhaps it knew that, unreliable as Mr. Gu still was, at least he hadn't blown up another tower lately.

Besides, it kept making mistakes and failing at its job. Mr. Gu had said that if it told Professor Dumbledore, the professor wouldn't let it look after Mr. Gu anymore.

Pipi liked Mr. Gu. It didn't want to leave him.

"Then... then Mr. Gu must at least leave a note next time," Pipi said unhappily.

"Of course. No problem." Gavin nodded at once.

For the moment, they had an agreement.

Though it was a fragile one.

And once some House-elves gave in, they kept giving in.

Gavin really had been busy lately, preparing to ambush Quirrell.

Not a direct ambush, of course.

It wasn't time yet.

For now, he was waging guerrilla warfare: retreat when the enemy advanced, harass him when he stopped, strike when he tired, and pursue when he withdrew.

For one thing, the twins' harassment had to continue. Tinned Herring, pickled puffins, shrieking scraps of paper, gift boxes that ran around on their own, staircase traps that were hard to avoid... The Weasley brothers were happy to maintain a steady supply of anything that wore down Professor Quirrell's mood and stamina.

For another, Gavin hadn't been idle himself.

Once he could reliably cast the Disillusionment Charm, he began appearing "by chance" near corridors Quirrell passed through at key moments. Sometimes he moved a door handle. Sometimes he made a suit of armor clatter at the wrong moment. And sometimes, when the professor's nerves were already stretched tight, he caused a small accident.

It wasn't for fun, of course. He was testing whether Quirrell could detect his Disillusionment Charm.

He was also wearing him down.

Gavin knew Quirrell was already in poor condition. Voldemort's presence inside him was draining his Life Force. Every extra fright, irritation, worry, and moment of constant vigilance ought to make that drain worse.

At the very least, Professor Quirrell had looked noticeably worse in Defense Against the Dark Arts lately.

He was paler, and a gloominess he couldn't quite control kept showing through. Even the timidity in his usual stammer had partly given way to the irritability of a man whose nerves were fraying.

Good.

That was exactly what Gavin wanted.

He needed to push Quirrell harder, to make him act sooner.

When Gavin visited St. Mungo's on Saturday, he examined Cordelia again and found that the black hole was expanding at a steady rate. He breathed a sigh of relief.

At that rate, it should reach the critical point in early July. That was good—not far from his previous estimate—but it also meant he really did need to pick up the pace.

Cordelia, beside him, soon noticed that something was off with him lately.

As they talked, Gavin would sometimes fall silent for a second or two, his mind suddenly elsewhere.

"What have you been thinking about lately?" Cordelia finally asked.

"What?" Gavin said.

"You keep drifting off." Cordelia looked a little worried about him.

"Sorry. I've got a few things on my mind."

Gavin didn't want to tell Cordelia outright that he was trying to drive a professor completely mad. That would be hard to explain.

Cordelia caught the evasiveness in his answer and gave a soft huff. "When you stare into space lately, you don't look like you're thinking about anything good."

So Gavin offered her a little information to put her at ease.

"I'm working on a problem."

"What problem?"

"How to make something that isn't supposed to happen until June happen a little sooner."

Cordelia didn't understand.

But that didn't stop her from instinctively feeling—

It still didn't sound like anything good.

She studied him for two seconds, then said only, "You'd better not be planning to scare me again."

Gavin thought about how things were supposed to go. "Not this time. This time, it's safe."

Cordelia asked, a little suspiciously, "Really?"

"Um..." Gavin suddenly remembered the Halloween Troll's club and grew less certain. "It should be fine."

Cordelia couldn't help giving him a slight eye roll.

"You remember what I told you, right?"

As she spoke, Cordelia repeated the threatening gesture.

"Yeah, I remember."

"Good."

Seeing Gavin's unease, Cordelia softened. "I just don't want you to get hurt."

"Yeah, I know."

The boy's and girl's shadows slowly lengthened in the setting sun.