ACCOUNT OF PHINEAS NIGELLUS

DEAD, PORTRAIT ON THE WALL

There was a knock on the door, and the portraits woke up.

“Come in, Severus.”

He entered very slowly, as though he knew already what was to be asked of him. He’s a clever boy that way, is Severus Snape.

“Headmaster,” he said, taking his usual seat.

“I would not ask this of you under any other circumstances, my boy, I want you to know,” began the Headmaster, and Snape instantly darkened.

“Headmaster,” he repeated, almost as a reminder. The room was deathly silent.

“You will have to be stealthy, clever, Severus. And – “ the Headmaster hesitated, “ – You will have to adopt the mindset of a nine year-old boy.”

“Where?” asked Snape wearily. He knew it was pointless to argue. It is always pointless to argue with Albus Dumbledore.

“London.” The Headmaster smiled thinly; placing a stack of Muggle clothes and a tatty school photo atop his desk as Snape turned to leave. “He is in London.”

“And when I’ve got him?”

Dumbledore frowned. “Be patient with him, Severus. Do try and be patient.”

9, MAIN CHARACTER

I sleep for a very, very long time. The lights are always on in this toilet, so I hide my head under my t-shirt and my new jumper and sleep with the breath on my chest and nothing but hair sticking it out. After a long while my eyes are open and my head is awake. I can hear noises like toilets flushing and people talking and a baby crying outside. It’s very small, very cramped, and the baby table is droppy underneath me.

I still don’t want to wake up. It’s nice to decide when you have to get out of bed, even if bed is plastic and tiny and puts a crick in your neck from sleeping curled in a roly-poly ball all night. Doors creak, locks click; my face is to the wall so I can’t see hardly anything but dirty white paint and the bogie someone stuck very high up above my head. Clicks and squeaks and trainers on the wet floor. A hand on my back, a voice that says, “What’s this? You’re rather big for the baby table, don’t you think?”

Someone very big takes my arms and lifts me from the table. I think maybe it’s the police. Maybe the Dursleys noticed when I wasn’t there to make the breakfast and called the police, who have found me here and are going to take me to jail for running away and not cooking or going to school. Maybe they even know about sneaking on the train.

“Well, look at me, son. Go on, what’s your name?”

The man is very tall, with yellow hair and bluer eyes than even Mrs Patterson down the street. He won’t let go of my arm even when I pull away, but he doesn’t look like a policeman either. Not even close. He wears a shirt with a collar and jeans and his hair is messy.

“Go on, then, where’s your mum?”

I dunno what to tell him. I’m all out of ideas now. If I say Harry Potter he might call the police, and they’ll know who I am and what I’ve done and send me to prison, and if I say my mum is dead he’ll call the orphanage and then I’ll be in even worse trouble.

It’s my snake that saves me. Your mother is outside, he says. Your mother is shopping outside. You were angry and ran away. She is probably looking for you.

I say the same thing to the man, so he takes me out of the toilet and over to the counter with the register, where another man is sat taking money from a lady holding a little girl’s hand.

“Hello,” says the girl. She’s got big hair and big teeth and nice eyes.

“Hullo,” I tell her back. Her mother doesn’t pay any attention to us at all.

“Does your father work here?” She’s awfully nosy for a girl.

“No, my father’s drunk,” I say. That’s what Uncle Vernon says all the time. He doesn’t think I know what drunk means either, but I do. I know how Uncle Vernon is when he’s drunk, even if doesn’t drink a terrible lot because of Dudley and Aunt Petunia. I still know, because I’ve seen him and Aunt Marge with her sherry and whisky, and he’s worse than usual at those times.

“Oh. Are you lost, then?” She’s not holding her mum’s hand anymore. Now she stands by me, and the man that took me out of the toilet is waiting, but he doesn’t say anything. Just looks at us and frowns a bit, which is nice of him, really. Any of the Dursleys would have never let me stick round talking to someone for this long.

“No, I’m not lost. I’m going on holiday.”

Now the girl smiles. “Oh, me too! We’re going to France!”

“Me too.” It’s the first thing I can think of is France. Besides, I can go anywhere I like now that I’m a superhero and everything, even to France with this big-hair girl and her mum in the blue skirt.

The mum takes her change and closes her handbag. “Hermione, dear, we’ll be late.” The Tesco man from the toilet takes me behind the counter as they walk away, Hermione the Big Hair Girl waving goodbye and me waving back.

“Look, kid, is your dad or your mum round here, really?” He’s got a telephone in his hand, which means he’s going to call the orphanage or the police. It will all be over, then. They don’t let you be a superhero in jail or at the orphanage. Ever.

“I dunno.”

The man looks hexasprated. Aunt Petunia says that word when she’s in a bad mood. He’s got the lemon lips and he breathes really big, like he’s going to shout any minute if he opens his mouth.

“Right,” he says. “Do you know your phone number? I can give your parents a ring, or anyone you know that can come and collect you, or I can call the police and they can look after you until your parents come.”

My parents will never come. I know it, Aunt Petunia knows it, maybe even my snake knows it. But this man doesn’t. He doesn’t know that I’ve really run away, or that I’ve got superpowers, or that if the police come they’ll take me away forever and ever. He’s holding my arm again, not tightly, but I can’t pull away even if I try. Outside the big windows Hermione is walking away with her mum. I wish I could go away with them to France. I wish I had her mum and her dad, the man the round specs and the funny red shirt.

He sighs. “Look, you’re scared. If it’s your dad, there’s – “

“I – it’s not – he’s – “ I’m trying to squirm away but it’s not working. Hermione, wait for me! I want to go to France. I want to get away from the man with the telephone. I never want to be in this Tesco again. Never, ever, ever.

It happens just like that. I fly back and he flies back, only he hits the wall. I don’t even get to land on the floor before someone else has got my arm and is pulling me up again. It was my superhero powers. It must’ve been.

“It’s time you went home…Harry,” says a voice above my head, the hands tight on my shoulders like Uncle Vernon’s. No, no! They can’t have found me already. They just can’t.

The Tesco man is finding his feet, looking confused as he scratches his head. Almost everyone is staring at us, too, we’ve been so loud. “You’re his dad, are you?”

The voice above my head is slow and very serious. Not Uncle Vernon or anyone I’ve ever met before. He’s not! I want to say, but I don’t, because if he takes me out from here I can run away again and the police will never find me.

“Indeed. He hasn’t caused too much trouble?”

“No,” says the Tesco man. He looks at the voice long and hard before leaning down to me and whispering very softly, “Is he’s not your dad, you can tell me now and I’ll call the police for you.”

I don’t want him to call the police. Anything is better than that, even the voice. “He is. He is my dad.” I think I sound really convincing. I nod a bit too, to make sure the Tesco man understands. To the voice I say without looking up, “I’m sorry I ran away. Is mum really angry with me?”

The hands of the voice begin to pull me away towards the door. Soon, I think. As soon as we’re outside I can run away for real. “Indubitably.” One step away. Half a step. We’re out, the hands leaving my shoulder to grab my arm. Now I can look up at the voice. He’s tall and skinny and sort of yellowish, like a dead plant. His nose is the biggest I’ve ever seen, bigger than Mrs Figg’s, even. Aunt Petunia would never have let him in the house, with dirty hair like that and his black eyes so gleaming and evil. I know right away that he is the bad guy.

“Let go of me now,” I tell him, standing very still. He just drags me along without looking at me, like a bad guy would. “You can’t kidnap me.”

“I see no reason why not,” he says, still looking right ahead, pulling me away from the Tesco and everything even a little bit safe. “Who’s going to miss one horrid little boy who ran away from home?”

“I’ll kill you if you take me! You’ll be so sorry!” My voice is high so that everyone stares at us when we walk by. No one stops him, even though I’m trying to pull away with all of my strength.

“Will I?” he makes it sound funny, like a joke. I dunno why, but that makes me more angry than before. It’s not funny when bad guys try to steal superheroes. Everyone knows that.

“I’m going to blast you with my laser vision! I’m going to turn you into dust if you don’t let go of me!”

But he just smiles an awful, evil, bad guy smile and pulls my arm a little tighter. We’re walking very fast now. I don’t know where we’re going or why, but it’s somewhere bad. It’s got to be. So, I squeeze my eyes together, never feeling my snake slipping out from his pocket to sink his teeth into the man’s skinny hand on my arm, never noticing when he doesn’t burn into a crisp like he’s supposed to, never doing anything until the crack echoes in my ears and the wind around me changes. My eyes don’t open yet, but that doesn’t stop me feeling the cushiony seat underneath my bum, or the hands on my neck that push me down to somewhere else. By the time they are open I already know that I’m in a car, we’re moving very slowly, and curly hair is hiding my face while a girl’s hands unzip a massive suitcase on the other side of the seat. She pulls out clothes, loads of clothes. T-shirts, skirts, jeans – she stuffs them into another bag, a school one, and pulls me up by my jumper.

“Get into my suitcase, quickly, while my parents aren’t looking!” whispers Hermione. It must be my superpowers making me move so quickly, because she’s already got me zipped up inside by the time her mum turns round from the front seat and asks, “Did you say something, Hermione, dear?”

“When will we get to the ferry?” says Hermione.

“Soon,” her dad answers. The parents go back to talking, ignoring my new friend and me.

“Hello again,” she whispers into the little opening she’s left for me to breathe. “How did you get into our car?”

“It’s a secret,” I whisper back, because it is. You can’t tell anyone about your superpowers. You never know who could be listening.

“I’m Hermione,” she tells me, because it wasn’t obvious at all. She looks like she’s waiting for something for a minute, but when I don’t say anything she asks, “Who are you?”

I think I need a made-up name so people don’t know who I am. My snake, who is still wrapped round my sleeve, hisses back to me, Don’t say anything yet. So, I tell her, “I’ll have to think about that.” I close my eyes. Her suitcase is big and dark enough to hold me if I curl up into a ball –a very tiny ball – but it’s cramped and makes me sweat. She asks me more questions – where am I from? Why did I come to her car? Where are my parents? When she finally gets tired of asking without me answering she slumps back into her seat and opens a book. Finally, I think, some peace and quiet.

It’s very dark and very hot for a long, long time. Hermione doesn’t say anything. Only her parents in the front talk to each other in low voices like Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon when they’re saying secret things about Christmas presents and me doing better than Dudley at school. I can’t really see anything but a small part of Hermione’s face, which isn’t ugly, but isn’t as pretty as Jo’s. She’s got speckly brown freckles on her nose and her hair curlier than anyone’s I’ve ever seen before. She smiles nicely, though, and starts to read her book in a quiet, little voice so that I can hear, too.

The book is called Walrus Boy. It’s about a boy who turns into a walrus, which is stupid, because everyone knows that walruses are fat and useless, and if I was going to turn into an animal I’d be a dog or a lion or a cat, because they’re cool. Hermione doesn’t think it’s a very good book either, but we read it because she’s read all of the others, and reading is more important than good stories, anyways. At least, that’s what she says. When the car stops she puts the book away and opens a door. Another voice outside says, “We’ll have the car for you when you come back, Dan.”

“Thanks. You’re really great to do this. Hermione’s still petrified of planes, and it would’ve been madness to have brought the car on the ferry.”

“We’ll help you get your bags, then.”

A ferry. There’re noises like car doors opening, and the suitcase begins to slide down. “You haven’t brought all those books, have you, Hermione? This suitcase feels like it’s filled with bricks.”

Hermione’s voice says, “I really needed to bring them, Dad. They’re important, for school.”

“It’s summer,” says Hermione’s dad.

“Oh, I know,” I hear Hermione tell him, and the suitcase is set down so that I’m sideways, being very quiet and not breathing at all. “I’m revising for next year.”

The grown-up voices all laugh, and no one shouts at Hermione for bringing too many heavy things or makes her pull her own suitcase. They pull it for her and talk normally, like it’s no big deal that she didn’t listen to her dad. We walk for a bit, but Hermione needs to stop for a minute because she’s dropped her favourite sock. We walk some more, me and my snake making no noises so they don’t discover us, Hermione keeping her parents busy by telling them about a story she’s reading where a boy can pop from place to place by magic. I think she’ll surely be in trouble for saying the m word. Uncle Vernon says no one is allowed to say that word, or else. But her parents just say that it sounds very interesting and Hermione is a clever girl to be reading so much. That’s it, I’ve decided, they’re all mad.

It’s lucky the Dursleys doesn’t feed me. The nurse at school says I’m very much underweight, especially for a boy my age, at only just three stone. Barely. If I weighed anymore Mr Hermione’s Dad would be more suspicious of me than he already was, and that would not be good at all.

It’s bumpy in here, but I think, at least I’m going somewhere. From the darkness inside it’s difficult to breath and very sweaty. I can only hear things, so I don’t know if we’re going in one direction or the other, and I can’t tell exactly where we are, except that we’re “close”. By the time my suitcase stops moving Hermione’s dad is huffing and puffing like the wolf in the Three Little Pigs. I feel sort of sorry for making him carry me this whole way, but not sorry enough to get out. I’ve got to get away from London, after all, especially with the evil greasy-haired man still out and about.

More walking for a bit, some stopping that seems like we’re standing a queue, and then there’s a great bump and another and another and Hermione’s dad is grunting like Dudley does when we play football in PE. After more walking and bumping were finally still.

Hermione’s dad says, “Finally, eh? And look – we’ve got wonderful seats here.”

“Dad,” says Hermione’s voice, very carefully, “Can we all go and look over the railing?”

“Let’s put the bags away first, dear,” says her mum’s voice, but Hermione won’t have that. I’m breathing heavier now. They can’t find me when I’m so close!

“We can do the bags after, mum, but the ferry’ll pull away soon. Please?”

It’s the same way Dudley says please, only much nicer. Hermione is lucky. Her parents do whatever she wants, even going to the railings without putting the bags away first. If I was with the Dursleys I’d have had to have put their bags away for them while they took Dudley to look over the railings, but never me. They don’t let you look over railings when you’re just the boy and no use to anyone at all.

As soon as they’re gone I stick my hand through the tiny opening and push.It’s very slow at first, but as soon as I can get the whole hand up to the wrist out it goes faster. Mr fingers pull the zipper quickly. I can see things now, bright things, like a white wall and rows of seats and people walking up to sit in them. I check once, twice to make sure that no one is looking before I slip out and zip of the suitcase again. I didn’t get to have a very good look at it before, but now that I’m out I can see that it’s blue with clouds and a rainbow in the corner. Dudders would have never let me live that one down, hiding in a girly suitcase like that.

I’m alone now, no Dursleys or Mrs Figg or anybody to tell me what to do. I like that. I like walking to the railings all by myself, because I haven’t got to hold anybody’s hand or anything babyish. I like looking over and not having anyone to pull me back and tell me “That’s too dangerous, Harry!”

“Hello,” comes a familiar voice up behind me. Hermione smiles with all of her big horse teeth, which isn’t as bad as some people might think, as she’s got a really friendly smile. “You still haven’t told me your name.”

“Oh.” I forgot all about that. Should I tell her Harry? I don’t think so. I’m going to have to make a new one, so I can’t be recognised. It’s bad enough I’ve got this scar on my forehead. Anyone could tell who I was by that, even Aunt Petunia would agree. I don’t need my name going round telling people who I really am either, so I say to her, “Er…” And that’s it. I don’t know any names. Dudley? That’s a fat boy’s name. If I say someone from school they might catch me. How many Liam Muggrer’s and Piers Polkiss’s are there in the world? I start to say, “Ma – “ But I don’t know anything after that. Mark? Marcus? Malcolm? I know a Malcolm and he’s a git and ugly, so I use the next one. “-arcus. Marcus, I’m Marcus.”

Hermione gives me a funny look, like I’ve just told one of Uncle Vernon’s business jokes, but she doesn’t say anything, of which I am very thankful.

“I told my parents they could go and put the bags away. We’ll be here for a bit, anyways. More than an hour, and then we’re going to rent a car and go to a hotel in Paris. I’m ten, by the way. Well, sort of. In September I’ll be ten. My parents said I could stay right here as long as I don’t go anywhere else, so I reckoned we could talk here, since I saw you come down. I’m sorry about the suitcase, by the way, but it was fast thinking, you know? I never thought it would actually work. It seemed like someone they just put into films for laughs, but there we have it!”

She talks to fast, Hermione does. I’m still muddling it all out when she pulls me down to sit on the deck, breathing heavy and everything, because talking is hard work, even for girls.

“Where are you from?” Hermione sits very straight and very proper, like a princess.

“Surrey,” I answer before I can stop myself.

That makes her excited. She’s always exciting and talking fast, I notice. “My aunt lives in Surrey, you know. It was her husband, my Uncle Pete that took the car for us. He’s going to hold onto it and then drive down to pick us up when we come back from our holiday.” Then Hermione stops to think. She likes to think as much as she likes to talk. She thinks for a long time with me sat on my bum, playing with my fingers, until, “You said you were going on a holiday.”

“Yeah,” I shrug. She’s got a good memory, too.

“But your parents aren’t here. You appeared in my car like magic. My dad didn’t even notice you were in the suitcase. That’s not very normal.”

I shrug again. Questions, questions, too many questions. I don’t like people asking me questions all the time. It’s too nosy, too much like Aunt Petunia, who is the nosiest woman ever. “I s’pose I’m not very normal.” Superheroes only pretend to be normal, after all.

“No,” says Hermione, like she’s still thinking, “but you are very nice. You’re loads nicer than anyone at school.”

She says it like she knows what it’s like not to have many friends at school, which can’t be right because she seems normal enough to me. Normal people have always got friends. I’m sure of it, but I ask her anyways, “Have you got loads of friends at school?”

Hermione laughs really loudly, with her horse teeth hanging out and her hand on her stomach, but when she talks, she’s very serious. “No one likes a know-it-all,” she says, a little bit sad. “But I bet you’ve got friends.”

“Nobody likes a freak with glasses, either.”

“Well,” says Hermione, very quickly and all business, “it only makes sense, then, if we’re best friends – erm, if you want to, I mean.”

For the first time since I’ve run away I don’t think about the snake in my pocket, or Privet Drive, or the Dursleys, or my parents being dead, or superheroes or anything. All that I know is that I’m Harry Potter, pretending to be Marcus, nine years-old and sitting on a ferry with my first ever best friend ever, Hermione. I reckon she’d make a perfect Lois Lane, the way she’s clever with things like hiding people in suitcases and making up good cover stories.

I lean in close, so that my nose is by her nose and whisper, “I can tell you how I got into your car, but you’re going to have to keep it a secret. It’s a really big, really important secret.”

She nods, serious again. “I’m great at keeping secrets, with no one else to talk to and everything.”

“Good,” I tell her, “because the fate of the world could depend on it.”