"I think Neville's in danger, Professor," you rasp.
Professor McGonagall stops, and gives you a searching look.
"Longbottom?" she asks, and you nod, "Come with me to class, Mister Nyx. You may share your concerns on the way."
You walk alongside Professor McGonagall. You're hesitant at first – you hadn't shared as much about your past with her in the same way you did with Dumbledore and Flitwick.
Then again, they'd probably talked about you.
"I remind you, Mister Nyx, that I am acting Headmistress in Professor Dumbledore's absence. If you have concerns about the safety of one of your fellow students, it is your responsibility to inform me."
"I saw him attacked in a vision, Professor," you say, explaining what you saw. McGonagall listens but doesn't seem to consider it convincing – until you mention catching a glimpse of the three headed beast beyond the door.
"How did you know…" she sputters, "Have you gone beyond the entrance? Heard about another student who did?"
"I swear I have only seen it in my vision, Professor," you say.
She looks at you for a few moments, her expression still stern.
I cannot help, after reading this, but to remember what McGonagall said about divination as a discipline, and about Trelawney as a colleague.
"Really, what has got into you all today?" said Professor McGonagall, turning back into herself with a faint pop, and staring around at them all. "Not that it matters, but that's the first time my transformation's not got applause from a class."
Everybody's heads turned toward Harry again, but nobody spoke. Then Hermione raised her hand.
"Please, Professor, we've just had our first Divination class, and we were reading the tea leaves, and —"
"Ah, of course," said Professor McGonagall, suddenly frowning. "There is no need to say any more, Miss Granger. Tell me, which of you will be dying this year?"
Everyone stared at her.
"Me," said Harry, finally.
"I see," said Professor McGonagall, fixing Harry with her beady eyes. "Then you should know, Potter, that Sybill Trelawney has predicted the death of one student a year since she arrived at this school. None of them has died yet. Seeing death omens is her favorite way of greeting a new class. If it were not for the fact that I never speak ill of my colleagues —" Professor McGonagall broke off, and they saw that her nostrils had gone white. She went on, more calmly, "Divination is one of the most imprecise branches of magic. I shall not conceal from you that I have very little patience with it. True Seers are very rare, and Professor Trelawney…"
With Zagreus vision, although it's unlikely that she will change her worldview anytime soon, she will almost certainly have to rethink some of her preconceptions about foretelling, since Zagreus has talked about things he wasn't supposed to know, and McGonagall can spot a liar when she sees one. Her not dismissing completely Zagreus warnings says a lot about how much she has taken into consideration what he said.
"You know, we don't have passwords for Ravenclaw," you tell Neville.
"Really?" says Neville, surprised.
You nod.
"The door asks us a riddle. It might have been better for you. Nothing to memorise."
"I don't know," says Neville, eyes downcast, "I don't think I'm smart enough."
You frown. Neville doesn't strike you as too stupid to be a Ravenclaw.
"Let me tell you the riddle from last night," you say.
Compared to Gryffindor's secrecy about the passcode, things in Ravenclaw were more relaxed. You were encouraged to talk about and debate the riddles by the Prefects. Even if a student from another house overheard or was told, it would not help them. The door had a habit of changing riddles and rejecting answers if the person who knocked had copied their answer from somebody else.
"On me you can find a spine, but no bones," you say.
Neville thinks for a minute with no answer. You open your mouth to assure him that an older Ravenclaw was also having trouble with it when you'd reached the door.
"No!" says Neville, "Please, give me more time."
You nod and wait silently. Another minute passes before Neville's eyes widen in excitement.
"A cactus!" he shouts excitedly.
You blink, not expecting that answer, and think about it for a few moments.
"Well reasoned," you say.
Your answer was "a book," but you see the logic behind Neville's. Neville smiles, pleased with himself. After a few more minutes you walk him back to his common room, a spring in his step
It's good that Zagreus is such a positive influence to Neville, encouraging him to gain self-confidence little by little, even if neither of them realize it
"Professor McGonagall, I need to talk to Professor Dumbledore," you say.
She frowns, fixing you with a stern expression.
"Professor Dumbledore is not available at the moment, I'm afraid," she says.
"It's important, Professor," you say.
Professor McGonagall takes a deep breath.
"Professor Dumbledore received an urgent owl from the ICW and left last night."
"He's gone?" you say. It should not have surprised you – you knew Dumbledore had duties outside of Hogwarts.
IIRC it's the excuse for why Dumbledore isn't at Hogwarts when Harry and co 'have to' go into the forbidden corridor to stop the stone being yoinked.
Nonononono, with Dumbledore out there for some business, either due to a ruse sent by Quirrel, or as a calling of fudge to help the ministry catch magister grey, who is right now a fugitive chased by aurors (although they are nowhere near close to her), the fact is that, with Dumbledore out of the equation, Voldemort has free reign to try to get the stone, and neither Harry nor Zagreus are aware of the danger.
At least harry was (mistakenly so, but let's it slide because to a eleven years old, it looked reasonable to think that) convinced that Snape was after the stone, after figuring out with Hermione 's help what the philosopher's stone was, who it belongs to, and what guards it, thanks to its recklessness and tendency to get into other people's business, stemmed from his distrust of adult authority figures, due to the emotional abuse he suffered during his upbringing with the dursleys, whereas Zagreus, on the other hand, has been surrounded , most of his life, by very responsible people, who has taken the possibility of danger very seriously. Damn him and his goody-two-shoes attitude and blind trust of figures of authority (but then again, otherwise he wouldn't be the Zagreus we know and love)!!!! And damn the hat for sorting harry and ron into Ravenclaw, depriving them from the source of knowledge that is Hermione!!!!
I really don't know, with both harry and zagreus being in the dark about what is happening, how events are going to unfold, which I guess is good from a narrative viewpoint, to leave the readers on edge, and for the story to deviating from the original timeline and not making it repetitive, but damn it's stressful.
The wiki says that it was a letter from the Ministry, but I could see Quirrell doing that instead. In canon the attempt was made after Christmas, but here Quirrelemort has some other concerns, like Nyx's pomander. Combined with the grindylow incident, and Voldemort probably wants to get out ASAP.
We did see a vision of green light, which could be the killing curse.
And with virtually nobody left to stop quirrel, is likely that Voldemort is already on the way to get his body back much earlier than expected, which is horrifying if you ask me, unless Dumbledore has something guarded on his sleeve, apart from the mirror 's special properties, because let's be honest here, Voldemort isn't the most powerful wizard of the century for nothing, it's likely that he has his methods to bypass the defences, unless of course, Zagreus experience with the mirror has opened a window to Morr's realm, and the moment Voldemort tries to retrieve the stone, Morr suddenly appears and gives him a heart attack from the scare, or drags him to the afterlife.
Perfect representation of the Hogwarts teachers hapoy to say reassuring statements not happy to actually do anything.
Let's be fair to Hogwarts staff. Being realistic here, how many of us would have expected to consider the possibility of the most evil dark lord of the century, disguised as a harmless professor, trying to sneak out into the castle's vaults to retrieve a relic of unimaginable power, as something viable? Normally, they only have to deal on a daily basis with misbehaviour and detentions, the surrealistic frequency with which school-threarening events took place during harry 's formative years was an out of context problem that stemmed from harry 's nature as Voldemort's nemesis. Normally, Hogwarts is much calmer.
Besides, I think that the contrast between the level of responsibility between the Hogwarts' staff, and the magisters of the colleges, derives from the fact that the wizarding world has had many years of peace, which tends to make people more lenient and careless, whereas in Mallus, with its state of constant war, everyone is on edge, with their danger-warning instincts sharpened, and under constant vigilance.
