Was it worth mentioning how interested people were in Potter's account of these events? To the general public, it was a case of an unidentified copycat, and as it turned out, very few people knew the truth. In fact, I wondered how the Headmaster had managed to silence those in the know, so that the public only found out about the basilisk today?
Well, whatever it was, it was news the likes of which no one had heard in years, and no one thought to stay away from it. Meanwhile, the story continued, and the spells drowned out all other sounds, so that only Potter's voice could be heard in the center, where the main action was taking place. When it came to mentioning the method of healing the injured children, Snape was mentioned, and a number of people looked at me judiciously and said, — What a MASTER you've ruined, you idiot.
A few more minutes of the story, and then we get to the part about the spiders... For a moment it seemed to me that everyone died at the same time — it was so quiet in the hall, and then there was a real explosion. No, an EXPLOSION! Some of them tried to turn pale, some of them tried to faint, some of them turned various shades of red in fits of... well, I don't know, probably rage, many of them wanted to rush to the Aurorat to burn out the foulness with Hellfire, and not a few of them were eager to get the news to the place that would pay more for it before it was printed.
The mention that Hagrid was innocent and had been expelled because of Volodya-not-dead, who was still somehow alive at the time, was heard by a few, and they pretended to be the majority. No, it's not difficult to restore Hagrid's official rights to the wand, but it should be remembered, firstly, that many people already know what the Gamekeeper's Umbrella can do, and secondly, that the half-giant doesn't really need it.
I could go on and on about Hagrid, but the main topic at the moment is not him, but the Acromantulas lair near the Magic School. These are not the spiders that live in the corner under the ceiling and you just sweep the cobwebs away with a broom. The most important thing to know, travelers, is that the bad head that brought these "sweethearts" to their habitats is their semi-intelligence and rationality. And this is not a mistake, because in the nests of acromantulas only the king and the queen are fully rational, although more often it happens that only the queen controls.
The rest of the spiders rarely exceed the level of development of a dog, and less often — a horse. They hunt in groups, hide perfectly, jump far, which, combined with solid weight and strength, leaves the target almost no chance, especially if it is not in an open area. In general, they are extremely dangerous creatures, better seen in pictures in a book or behind strong bars.
Potter's statement left no one indifferent, and in the end the judges announced a recess until the day after tomorrow, after which they quickly departed. We could not escape, so we did not try, and so we answered the most important questions for about half an hour. That day, I was later told, the Ministry was a buzzing beehive of anger, with everyone running from department to department, and Fudge again issuing a "win 'em all" resolution, so that there was a large crowd of all sorts of people at the door of his office.
It is said that Bones and Scrimger alone broke through the blockade, made their way to the target, and then, judging by the results, gave the poor minister a quality lobotomy. The next day the newspapers blossomed with a variety of headlines, and only The Prophet, in the best tradition of the bought press, reported to its readers with "great joy" that last night the Minister of Magical Britain, Cornelius Oswald Fudge, had appointed Amelia Bones as head of the Aurorate and the entire DMLE, and the former I.O. of the same position, Rufus Scrimger, as head of the department from which he once came. In addition, the purchase of protective gear for all "Enforcers" was funded.
As for the Acromantulas, it was said that the government was aware of the threat and would not ignore it, but that there was no need to rush the cleanup, as there were many dark spots in the matter, and lack of information was often the deciding factor.
On the appointed day, most of those present looked tired, and this is understandable, because the movement was almost Brownian, and everyone tried to squeeze as much as possible out of those few hours. It is the same as in the stock market: most of the "cream" can be taken in the next few hours, after the announcement of the news, while the market is "stormy", while experts have not made a clear decision on the changed situation, and then comes stability, and there are no more sharp jumps on which one can get rich.
But it was impossible to skip the next meeting just because something louder and more ambiguous might be revealed, and that's why people were thoroughly fueled with potions to preserve their relative sanity. Well, as far as the wizards were concerned.
The session began with Harry Potter being called back as a witness and being questioned again, with a lot of emphasis on little things. The questions were sometimes so obvious that I was literally amazed at their obviousness, but I hadn't thought of many things myself, or hadn't paid attention to them.
Maybe not the best comparison, but something like when you walk into a dark room and immediately start looking for a switch on the wall, and then it turns out that the owners have a different way of thinking, and they put a cord on the light bulb, or even use a remote control. And while you're searching the walls, the damned cord gets in your face a few times, and the useless remote that was brought into the room without a TV was in the most prominent place. Well, something like that.
For example, knowing the story from the movie and the books, I immediately thought of a way to solve this quest by dealing with the basilisk, and all my thoughts revolved exclusively around this case. I had a few "constants" in mind, such as that the case should be handled by an outsider or a student, but not by the school administration or the trustees.
In general, I thought of the problem in the same light as the characters in the story. When the prosecutor asked Potter a question: "Mr. Potter, why didn't you go to the school administration with the information your group had gathered?", I just snorted: "We did, and we did, but all the teachers just used standard phrases and did nothing, so the kids did it on their own.
But the next question embarrassed me: "If the Hogwarts administration decided to do nothing and just wait for the problem to solve itself, why didn't you write a letter to the British Ministry of Magic, one of the departments directly or indirectly responsible for solving urgent and dangerous problems?
As the last words were spoken and a general silence fell over the room, I realized that it was a little early for me to be called an adult, despite all my ambitions and deeds. But he's right! If there is even the slightest suspicion of such a danger to children, then why did NO ONE, except for three children, even scratch?
I'm not going to list all the possible "ifs," but the chances of Horcrux (part of the soul) getting into his ectoplasm to release a snake into the Great Hall at a time when almost everyone at Hogwarts is gathered there are far from zero. And then what?
How many children would be lost just because the basilisk flicked its tiny tail once, hmm? How long would it have taken Dumbledore and the professor to kill it, and how many children would have been written off as "collateral damage"? Judging by the expressions on the faces of those here today, many, many people were thinking the same thing, and many more were looking very closely at Dumbledore, who pretended to be a proud beacon in the midst of the storm, standing his ground no matter what. Potter's answer about what I already knew didn't cause a storm, but there was a great uproar, and at the same time, in the midst of the growing rumble, there were a few reminders that the family owls couldn't reach their recipients at that time.
In other words, there was an information blockade. Furthermore, the question was sorted out, as they say, by the bones, and only then did they move on to the personalities. That is, they began to question which teachers behaved as they did and what they did.
Dumbledore's lawyer argued that the Headmaster's Office was not obliged to share all available information with the students, as it could often cause unnecessary panic, and for the same reason it was decided to raise the school's shields. So, therefore, not to stir panic in the country, and also to work out the version of remote suggestion, say it could not be a mythical snake that kills with a look, and some dark ritual from the category of "ancestors", which somehow did... well, that was.
This is where the headmaster came in and started a long speech on the subject: "There are situations in which the main thing is determination, but often excessive haste does not lead to good (for some reason this word sounded like that to me). And the fact that some children were injured — so only four victims out of several hundred, and they were saved — is an excellent indicator of the work and professionalism of the school staff".
As for Potter Harry, he expressed himself in the key, he said that children are children — they tend to materialize their fears and nightmares, and then impose them on living people. And everything would be fine and clear, but what about the Horcrux — a small book in a black cover with the initials of a very active boy?
I wondered what the Headmaster had in mind, but I soon realized that the accuser was not as honest as I thought, for the question about the dark artifact book, the source of all the trouble this year, had never been asked. In the end, it turned out that the basilisk itself had written chicken blood on the walls, and it had dragged Ginny into the dungeon as well, though it had only glared at the others. And, most surprisingly, everyone was fine with it.
For the first few minutes, I had a strong desire to set the Headmaster on fire and reveal the information about the Dark Artifact, but then I remembered that there was an evil man involved in this case. If I made this information public, then if I were Dumbledore, everyone would try to pin the blame on someone else, and the most likely option is Malfoy as the one who kept the Dark Artifact instead of handing it over for destruction. Is the Headmaster all-seeing?
No, the school is full of people, and you can't keep track of everyone, so there's always the chance that someone's genius kid will steal some "freakishly cool thing" from home, bring it to the faculty lounge, and it goes off. And who's to blame? That's right, everyone except the principal, because he's one, and they, all the others, are many. Politics in all its stinking glory.
Judging by the look in the eyes of Potter, the youngest and only Potter, he was also quite surprised, in the sense of hiding information about the lurking danger from the public. And if Mr. Klein hadn't had a few conversations with him, the teenager would have been outraged, describing in great detail all the things he had deliberately not been asked about.
However, he was given strict and unconditional instructions not to talk too much, to answer only the questions asked, and to exclude all "I believe", "I think", etc., because any experienced bureaucrat or lawyer — it depends on who you're dealing with — is adept at clinging to such reservations. In short, I was gaining experience for such cases should they arise in the future, and now I was preparing for what I had gotten myself into this whole terrible business for.