The first school day of the new year did not begin particularly well for Richard. The moment he appeared in the Transfiguration classroom, Professor McGonagall pursed her lips in displeasure and gave him a stern look.
"Mr Grosvenor, what is the meaning of this?" she demanded. "Take those glasses off!"
Richard's answer was immediate:
"Ma'am, perhaps you ought to take yours off as well, then?"
"What?!" The Transfiguration professor nearly choked with indignation. "Five points from Hufflepuff for insolence towards a teacher. I will not tolerate students appearing in my lessons in violation of school regulations!"
"Ma'am, I'm dressed in accordance with the regulations," Richard objected.
"The glasses!" McGonagall pointed at them.
"Good for the eyesight, or so doctors say," Richard replied calmly.
"But you, Mr Grosvenor, have never had any problems with your eyesight before." McGonagall's lips compressed into thin lines. "And besides, they're yellow!"
"So what?" Richard arched his right eyebrow. "Nowhere in the regulations does it say that spectacles have to look exactly like yours or Headmaster Dumbledore's."
In reality, the lenses only appeared yellow from the outside. From the inside, they were completely transparent. Hermione's glasses likewise only appeared to have pink lenses. The coloured glass was necessary to conceal the information that would be displayed on the inner surface of the lenses. They had tested it in the magical laboratory—it really did work, though not perfectly. Harry Potter's glasses had to be made transparent because he had worn clear spectacles to begin with. Camouflage.
"Sit down, Mr Grosvenor," McGonagall said in an extremely displeased tone. "Do not delay the start of the lesson."
Apart from the Deputy Headmistress, who was still annoyed with Richard, nobody else at school gave him any trouble over the glasses. From this, he concluded that McGonagall had merely wanted an excuse to express her displeasure.
Fortunately, Hufflepuffs couldn't have cared less about House points: if they had them, good; if they didn't, well, never mind. In another House, Grosvenor might already have been boycotted for all the points he had lost in penalties. With certain qualifications, of course. Probably not in Ravenclaw, for instance, because people there understood that boycotting one of the largest employers in magical Britain today could make finding a job in the future rather difficult. Most Slytherins couldn't care less about Grosvenor's standing. Gryffindors, on the other hand, were excessively impulsive, so they might well do something first and deal with the consequences afterwards.
The following evening, Richard's wizardphone rang.
"Grosvenor speaking."
"Richard, I'm delighted to hear you," Bagnold's pleasant, purring voice seemed almost to tickle his ear.
Richard had to move to the far end of the common room so that he could speak in peace, away from unwanted ears.
"Millicent, I'm unspeakably delighted to hear you too. Is it my imagination, or does your voice grow more enchanting every time we speak?"
"Richard, let's do this as usual—without all the unnecessary bowing and scraping or talk about the weather," Bagnold said in her rich, throaty voice. "I'm due to meet the French Minister for Magic shortly."
"Very well, dearest Millicent, I won't weary you. I presume you're calling about something important?"
Madam Minister came straight to the point.
"Black's been found!"
"What wonderful news!" Richard replied ironically.
A peal of laughter came from the wizardphone's speaker.
"I thought you'd be pleased to hear that. Richard, do you know where they found him?"
"St Mungo's?"
"Oh, Richard, we could replace Professor Trelawney with you as Divination teacher tomorrow. Spot on! How did you know?"
"Let's just say I was the one who advised Sirius Black to pay a visit to the hospital."
"Personally?" the Minister asked in surprise.
"Not exactly. Just a little note..."
Loud, delighted laughter burst from the wizardphone.
"By 'little', you wouldn't happen to mean the one that could be seen all the way from Hogsmeade?"
"I wouldn't know, I wouldn't know... I never went out to Hogsmeade to check whether it was visible from there."
"Richard, sometimes I find myself becoming rather afraid of you," the Minister said jokingly. "Your solutions are often unconventional and unpredictable, yet effective. What do you think—should we do anything about Black?"
"Fine him for damaging a portrait in the castle, and leave it at that."
"A portrait?" Bagnold asked in surprise.
"There was an incident here in the autumn. The idiot broke into Hogwarts and slashed the portrait covering the entrance to Gryffindor Tower with a knife."
"Well, that's something!" Madam Minister sounded amused. "Did he really know nothing? We even ran a little article in the Daily Prophet. Admittedly, it was a very little one, on page four next to an advertisement, but we did give a truthful account of Pettigrew's sentence."
"Millicent, I rather doubt Black was reading the papers."
"Are you telling me we couldn't catch Black because he didn't read the newspapers?" Bagnold sounded genuinely astonished. "Well, I'll be!"
"Quite. That was a good one. The rascal certainly made me rack my brains."
"Richard, thank you for the pleasant conversation. I've heard what I needed to hear. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Millicent. Criminals, business, politics—none of that really matters. The important thing is to take care of yourself and those close to you!"
"Words to live by, Richard. I wish the same to you."
***
Almost four months had passed since Harry, Richie and Hermione had prepared themselves for Dobby's attack. Their AIs constantly scanned the castle grounds, building up a three-dimensional model-map of Hogwarts. But the house-elf had vanished as though for good and had not appeared at Hogwarts again.
Sirius Black spent several months at St Mungo's Hospital, where the damage Azkaban had done to his health was treated. It was there that representatives of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement fined him one hundred Galleons for damaging Hogwarts property.
In March, several Mandrakes threw a loud and disgraceful party in Greenhouse Three, much to Professor Sprout's delight. That was how the students learned that maturing Mandrakes were rather like human teenagers. Except that, for some reason, whenever human teenagers threw a party, none of the adults were ever pleased about it.
That same month, Black was discharged from hospital, after which owls delivered a present for Harry Potter to the Great Hall—the newest and most expensive racing broom on the market, a Firebolt. It had only recently gone on sale in a limited production run. The broom was intended for professional Quidditch, and even there not everyone could afford such equipment. Artefacts like that were available only to teams with sufficient funding, such as national sides.
(End of Chapter)
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