Editor's note: This story was originally written for a fan fiction challenge with specific parameters. These parameters are listed at the bottom of the page.
When Mr. and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley arrived in London on the cold, wet Sunday our story starts, there was nothing about the bustling city around them to suggest that disturbing and frightening things would soon be happening in their family. It was the twentieth of December 1992, and all George Heneage and Alexandra Jane (Worthington) Finch-Fletchley were planning to do was retrieve their son Justin from King's Cross Station and return to Finchwood Manor in Kent.
Leaving the car with John, the chauffeur, the Finch-Fletchleys made their way across the crowded train station, trying to ignore the rather unusual number of oddly dressed and strangely behaving families who had chosen the precise same day to come to King's Cross. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley was particularly put out by having to mingle with so many, well, foreign-looking people.
"Do you thing they are all going the same direction we are?" she asked her husband in a tastefully lowered voice. "I thought this was an exclusive school. They don't look exactly our set, do they?"
Mr. Finch-Fletchley didn't even bother to reply. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley was the youngest daughter of the Rev. James Robert Worthington, vicar of the parish of Upson Downs, near Finchwood. The Rev. Worthington had some rather outdated ideas about Britishness, occasionally still referred to the French as 'frog-eaters,' and was constantly in a bad mood about the 'state of the nation.'
There was a long delay at the wall where they could pass onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters. It was not done for too many persons to walk through the wall at one time as that would be too noticeable to the surrounding non-magic travelers, and so they had to queue up and wait their turns. The line was moving very slowly.
"At this rate," Mr. Finch-Fletchley grumbled, staring for the twentieth time at his watch, "it will be summer before we get to see Justin again."
"Oh!" cried a pleasant voice. "You're muggles. How jolly! Is that a watch?"
The Finch-Fletchleys turned to find a tallish man and a short plump woman, both with flaming red hair, standing behind them. Before Mr. Finch-Fletchley could reply, the man took his hand and shook it vigorously. "I'm Arthur Weasley," he said, "and this is my wife Molly. I'm with the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, so I hope you pardon my curiosity. Are you picking up a student?"
"Yes, our son Justin," Mr. Finch-Fletchley answered, and then it was his turn to walk through the wall, sparing him further conversation with Mr. Weasley.
The Hogwarts Express had just pulled into the station and was disgorging children onto the platform, renewing Mrs. Finch-Fletchleys nervousness about the suitability of young Justin's school mates. "You don't think he sleeps in the same dormitory with them, do you?" she asked as a freckle-faced boy with purple hair and a kilt hurried past them. "Father always said..."
"I'm sure they're all quite nice, dear," said Mr. Finch-Fletchley, noting that the sixteen-year-old son of the Weasleys had equally red hair. Then, as the crowd began to thin and the train stood nearly empty, he started to worry. "Where's Justin?"
There was no sign of the tall, curly-haired son they'd come to meet.
"He must be still on the train," Mr. Finch-Fletchley assured his wife. "Maybe having problems with his luggage." They went along the side of the train, looking into the windows at the apparently vacant compartments. At the last car, Mr. Finch-Fletchley boarded the train and started going from compartment to compartment searching.
By now Mrs. Finch-Fletchley was becoming - not hysterical, for hysteria is a reaction of the less well bred - but most decidedly perturbed. "What do you think has happened to him? Has he been kidnapped? Do you think one of these strange little ruffians pushed him off the train? One never knows with such people!"
"There's no reason to get excited. He must be here somewhere. If you would just get control of yourself, as I am doing..."
Mrs. Finch-Fletchley was not appeased. She glared at her husband's back and, infuriated at his insistence that she actually begin calming down, exclaimed finally, "George, honestly, if Justin..."
"Keep looking!"
Motherhood now openly protested, quite rigorously seconding the unhappy Vicar Worthington's xenophobia.
"You! Zacharias Smith!" Mr. Finch-Fletchley called out the train window to a boy on the platform that he recognized as a mate of Justin's. "Could you tell us where my son is? You know him. Justin Finch-Fletchley." Even as he spoke, Mr. Finch-Fletchley was helping his wife out of the train and back onto the platform.
"Oh, Hi, Mr. F. Justin isn't here. He got petrified solid as a rock last week and they've put him in hospital with the other petrified kid and the cat. Sorry, gotta go." And Zacharias rushed off to join his own parents, who were waving to him.
Mrs. Finch-Fletchley fainted dead away right there on the platform.
Arthur Weasley was as kind as could be. After he and Molly Weasley managed to revive Mrs. Finch-Fletchley and help her to a bench, he got his son, whose name was Percy, to tell the distraught parents what had happened to Justin. After Molly Weasley returned home with Percy, Arthur then took them (they took him actually, Weasley sitting in the front with John and guiding him) to the Ministry of Magic.
Things went very smoothly, albeit strangely, at first, for Weasley was able to get the Finch-Fletchleys in touch with Headmaster Dumbledore at Hogwarts School by means of something called floo powder.
"Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley," said the headmaster through the green flames of a fireplace. "I take it you got my owl."
"Owl? What owl? There hasn't been any..." Mr. Finch-Fletchley turned because his wife was gently tapping his shoulder. She mouthed the words 'hunting season,' and he paled slightly before turning back to Dumbledore. "There may have been a mishap with the owl," he said. "Can you tell us what's happened to Justin?"
"Perhaps it would be best if you came here. Give me a moment, Arthur, and then you can come through."
Coming through entailed standing in the fireplace and being whisked to Scotland along with Weasley and another Ministry official named Stamford Jorkins. It was not a pleasant experience, and the Finch-Fletchleys were out of breath upon arrival. Dumbledore invited them to sit, and poured a glass of sherry, meanwhile explaining about the attacks on a cat, a photographer, and a ghost in addition to the one on Justin. It wasn't comforting.
"May we see our son now, Professor?" asked Mrs. Finch-Fletchley. "This is all quite distressing."
It was even more distressing when they got to the hospital wing, for Justin and another small, blond boy were propped in a corner, leaning stiffly against the wall while the nurse changed the sheets on the beds.
"It's a shame you had to see him on a Cleaning Day," said Dumbledore, perching himself on the edge of a bed. "He's really very comfortable most of the time." The nurse put Justin back into bed and covered him with a blanket. The boy had a look of shock frozen on his face, but Dumbledore explained that this had nothing to do with being stood in a corner. "He's been like that ever since he was petrified. We think perhaps he saw what it was."
"It's very good of you to have cared for him," said Mr. Finch-Fletchley. "We'll make arrangements to get him into a regular hospital now. I'll contact his doctor right away."
"I do not think so," said Dumbledore.
"I beg your pardon."
"Justin will stay here. We cannot have him going into a muggle hospital. It would not be good for him, and it would not be good for us. They have nothing that can help him, and we do."
"What have you been doing to help him?"
"Nothing so far. The only thing that will remove the petrification is a potion made with mature mandrakes. We have the mandrakes, and as soon as they mature, we shall brew the potion."
"And when will that be?"
"In about six months."
"What! You don't have any tinned or frozen mandrakes? You can't ship some in from South America or New Zealand? You have to use the ones that are growing here? I'm taking my son out of here and putting him into professional care, and I'm doing it now!"
Jorkins coughed slightly. "You can't do that, sir. It's against the law."
"What do you mean, 'against the law?' I'm his father and you have no right to detain my twelve-year-old son against my wishes. We have child protection laws in Britain, and..."
Jorkins was shaking his head. "This isn't a matter of muggle law. It's a matter of wizard law."
Professor Dumbledore led the group back to his office where they could sit more comfortably while Jorkins explained.
"It is," said Jorkins calmly, "simply a matter of Lex Familiarum Magicarum - the Law of Magical Families."
"We are not," said Mrs. Finch-Fletchley with great dignity, "a magical family."
"No, you are not," Jorkins smiled at her, "but the boy is. He is ab incunabilis a wizard. Therefore wizard law applies, regardless of the status of the parents."
"Lutulentus sanguis," murmured Dumbledore, nodding sagely.
"Now while it is quite true," continued Jorkins, "that under Section 3, Subsection 7, Paragraph 2, a wizard child born to non-magical parents is considered to be prima facie under the guardianship of those parents, any number of things can occur that would nullify that guardianship and make the child the ward of the Ministry pro bono suo."
"What kinds of things?" Mr. Finch-Fletchley asked warily.
"Oh, the usual. I'm certain muggle law has its equivalents. Extreme cruelty, slavery, auctioning off body parts as potions ingredients, using the child to influence the outcome of sporting events or games of chance... In this case it would be denial of adequate medical care."
"But he's not getting any medical care now! I want to give him medical care!"
"Ah! But would it be adequate?"
"It would be more than what he's getting now! Look, I'm serious. I can understand that it's winter in Britain, so you don't have mature mandrakes, but it's summer in Australia. Aren't there any wizards in the southern hemisphere that you could order mandrakes from and make your potion right now? Doesn't some wizard somewhere raise mandrakes in greenhouses? I'd pay for it! I'd go down to that bank in Diagon Alley and change all my money to galleons to pay for it. I just want my son cured!"
"It doesn't work that way," said Jorkins.
"Beneficium scriptoris," added Dumbledore.
"All right," said Mr. Finch-Fletchley, "I want to bring legal action to reclaim the guardianship of my son under this Magical Family Law. What do I have to do?"
"First, you would have to file a complaint against Professor Dumbledore for unlawful detention. To do that, you would have to show that the cause and nature of your son's condition are not such that Hogwarts could treat it in a reasonable amount of time."
"What is the cause of my son's condition?"
"We do not know," said Dumbledore with a beatific smile.
"When will you know?"
The smile grew even more beatific. "Probably around June. That's when most things happen here. Like the maturing of mandrakes. That always happens in late May or early June."
"Didn't Quirrell figure out how to get past that three-headed dog in June?" Weasley asked.
"Quod erat demonstrandum," said Dumbledore.
"So I can't file my claim and get my son back until about the same time that you think you can cure him?"
"Effectively, though I wouldn't file any papers if I were you. Once you file, the situation is frozen until the case is resolved, and that usually takes," Jorkins did a quick finger calculation, "about five years."
"That's it!" roared Mr. Finch-Fletchley, enraged beyond anything that his blue-blooded training could have foreseen and therefore on the very verge of losing his temper. "We are leaving, but we are not giving up! You will hear from my solicitor!"
"Does your solicitor keep owls?" asked Weasley innocently.
The Finch-Fletchleys' solicitor did not keep owls. He was also not sure about the merits of the case.
"Let me get this straight, George. The boy's in a private school where you enrolled him and is under the care of a nurse. Now, what's wrong with him?"
"He's been petrified."
"You mean he's suffering from catatonia? Connected with a mental disorder or drugs?"
"No, he's petrified."
"Scared? Terrified?"
"No, you idiot! Petrified! Like he's been turned to stone!"
"Who told you this?"
"The headmaster of the school and an official from the Ministry of Magic."
"George, can I get you a drink? I think we should talk about the stresses of your job. You're with the Foreign Office, aren't you?"
The police were not at all sympathetic.
"Now, tell me again, sir. How did you enter this alleged Ministry of Magic?"
"We went into a telephone box, dialed a number, and the lift in the box took us underground."
"I 'eard about that," another policeman said. "They were showing repeats of old American programs last week and that was one of 'em. Right underground it took you, didn't it, sir?"
Mr. Finch-Fletchley fumed.
"Now about that school, sir. 'Ogwarts you said it was? 'Ave you been there yourself?"
"Yes, I have. On more than one occasion."
"We 'aven't been able to find it in the computer. What did you say your son was studying there?"
"Magic," said Mr. Finch-Fletchley, knowing the battle had already been lost.
"Right you are, sir," said the policeman. "We'll process this report and get back to you."
The next stop was a private detective named Samuel Diamond who was more than willing to believe Mr. Finch-Fletchley's story in exchange for a rather large check.
"Do you have any idea of the actual location of this school, sir? There's no record of it anywhere."
"Of course not, it magical. But it's near a small village called Hogsmeade."
"I can't seem to locate that either."
"It's a little village in Scotland. How hard can that be to find?"
"A little like finding a snitch in a bushel of yellow tennis balls. You know it when you find it, but finding it could take a while."
"How long a while?"
"At a hundred pounds a day plus expenses, it rather depends on you. Combing every square inch of Scotland could take some time. The snitch doesn't always show up in the first hour, you know."
"Well start in the north. I got the feeling it was in the Highlands." Mr. Finch-Fletchley left the detective's office feeling just a little bit depressed. The next day was Christmas, but it was hard to be in the spirit of the holiday with his son in a hospital bed gazing at the ceiling with sightless eyes. Maybe this detective could accomplish something. It was Mr. Finch-Fletchley's last, most desperate hope.
Sam Diamond found the village of Hogsmeade on New Year's Day. Mr. Finch-Fletchley flew up to Aberdeen on January second, and he and the detective prepared themselves for a reconnaissance. It was distasteful having to play the role of a spy, but Mr. Finch-Fletchley was ready to do anything for Justin.
Supplied with plenty of galleons, sickles, and knuts, they staked out Hogsmeade on the third and got absolutely no information whatsoever. Unless you count staring at the statues of winged boars atop pillars flanking an entrance gate information.
"I suggest you come up next weekend and every weekend," said Diamond. "Who knows? We may catch a teacher come down to the village to relax a bit and get some information that way. You can't score if the quaffle never gets near the hoops."
That turned out to be an excellent idea. The following Sunday, the tenth, they caught the caretaker Filch talking to Pince the librarian over firewhiskey at the Hog's Head.
"Fair knocked it down two flights of stairs, he did," Filch was saying. "And it being the suit of armor that Gropemore the Gangrenous wore at the Second Battle of Whooping Moors, we had to send it to Sheffield for repairs. Comes back Wednesday, and I got to receive it personally and be sure it's in tiptop shape."
That was all they needed to hear. On Wednesday, Diamond and Finch-Fletchley were back, just in time to intercept the shipment of the repaired suit of armor. Having suborned the delivery wizard with firewhiskey, they checked out the armor.
"Are you sure you'll fit into that?" Mr. Finch-Fletchley asked. "It seems a bit small."
"Not a problem," replied Diamond, and sure enough, he managed to squeeze himself into the armor. It looked as if something might finally happen.
Something did happen. Filch noticed immediately that the armor was too heavy and threw Diamond out the gates somewhat unceremoniously. "It was like taking a bludger to the head," was all Diamond could say.
Then there was the little dispute over wages.
"We meet on the weekends to spy on the teachers," Mr. Finch-Fletchley told Diamond at the end of January. "Why are you charging me for Monday through Friday as well? What have you done for me then?"
"Mr. Finch-Fletchley, I owe you an explanation," said Diamond. "An explanation of a detective's mistakes. For I see now that what I have done, and not done, with regard to you, bears all the hallmarks of the failings of accounting. The client cannot know how the accountant thinks and feels. But accountants are guilty if they forget what it is to be honest... and this one seems to have forgotten lately..."
"Spare me the prose," Mr. Finch-Fletchley said. "Just fix the bill."
The Sunday before Valentine's Day brought students to Hogsmeade. In Madame Puddifoot's establishment, Mr. Finch-Fletchley and detective Diamond overheard a student conversation about stealing brooms and flying out over Hogwarts's walls and magical defenses for a tryst.
"Can you fly over the magic barriers?" Diamond asked.
"How would I know? I'm not a wizard," was Mr. Finch-Fletchley's response, but the exchange had given Diamond an idea.
The next weekend, Valentine's Day weekend, Diamond took Mr. Finch-Fletchley out beyond the limits of Hogsmeade almost to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. There he had managed to transport a hot air balloon.
"What are we going to do with this?" Mr. Finch-Fletchley demanded.
"We're going to fly into Hogwarts," was the reply.
"You must be out of your freaking mind."
It was an ancient hot-air balloon with a gas operated heater for expanding the air that allowed the balloon to rise. Since they only had to go a short distance, it was theoretically sufficient. Diamond had, for some reason, supplemented the hot air conveyer with a supply of water that, when heated, would supply steam.
"Why?" asked Mr. Finch-Fletchley.
"Because steam rises."
"So does hot air."
"Trust me. This will help us." Diamond showed Mr. Finch-Fletchley the diagrams, books, charts, equations, and graphs that proved that the balloon would get them into Hogwarts. It really wasn't that far a distance, and Mr. Finch-Fletchley reasoned that it would not, in any case get him killed. It might even work.
They got into the basket under the balloon, Diamond lit the heater, the balloon filled with hot air and steam, and rose slowly into the air. The sense of achievement was exhilarating. Then the balloon began to drift away from Hogwarts.
"What's happening?" demanded Mr. Finch-Fletchley.
"The... uh... wind seems to be coming from the south. It's blowing us away from Hogwarts."
"You set this up and you didn't check wind direction? You idiot! Get us down at once."
Diamond took out his charts and equations, and an abacus, and began to write figures on a piece of paper.
"What the h*ll are you doing?"
"You see this? It means the pressure times the volume is equal to the number of molecules times the gas constant times the temperature. It helps me calculate the volume of gas. Given a constant number of molecules of gas, if I heat it and increase the volume and pressure, we go up. If I cool it and decrease the volume and pressure, we go down."
"Well bring us down, and do it quickly."
Alas, the ideal gas law is most accurate for monatomic gases at high temperatures and low pressures. It does not factor in the size of each gas molecule, the effects of intermolecular attraction, nor the possibility of condensation. At two hundred eleven degrees Fahrenheit, the steam condensed into water and the balloon dropped. *
Mr. Finch-Fletchley was in traction for two weeks, and in casts for six. By the time he could move around, the Easter break had started.
The next time that Mr. Finch-Fletchley and Mr. Diamond were able to get into Hogsmeade for information was the middle of May. They heard very disturbing news. Apparently two more students had been attacked and were in the hospital, and Headmaster Dumbledore had been removed from his post.
At first Mr. Finch-Fletchley consider this excellent information. Not about the students, of course, but about getting rid of Dumbledore. He immediately applied to the acting headmistress for permission to take Justin to a muggle hospital only to find that Professor McGonagall was just as stubborn as Dumbledore without Dumbledore's politeness.
It was back to Detective Diamond.
"What in the world are you wearing?" Mr. Finch-Fletchley asked Diamond the following weekend.
It's for karate," Diamond replied. "I'm a yellow belt."
Mr. Finch-Fletchley was sufficiently impressed. "What are you planning?"
"We're going to ask for admission to Hogwarts at lunchtime, I'm going to overpower the caretaker Filch, we're going to run up to the hospital while everyone is eating in the Great Hall, and we're going to take your son out of there."
"That's great," said Mr. Finch-Fletchley. "Why didn't we do this in January?"
"I didn't think of it in January."
The first part of the plan went well; they got to the gate and rang. After that it went downhill. To begin with, it wasn't Filch who came to the gate. It was Professor Snape. [I wanted it to be Hagrid, but Hagrid was in Azkaban.]
"What," said Professor Snape without opening the gate, "do you want?"
"We want to talk to Professor McGonagall," said Diamond.
"Dressed like that? I don't think so."
"Please, Professor," pleaded Mr. Finch-Fletchley, who had not the slightest idea who Snape was, "please let us in. We do really have to speak to Professor McGonagall."
Out of the pure philanthropic goodness of his heart, Snape unlocked the gate.
Diamond was through it in an instant, arms upraised, the edges of his hands pointed with murderous intent at Snape's head. "KI-AI!" he screamed in best classic karate fashion, a 'ki-ai' so intimidating that its sonic power had instantaneously transformed his belt from white to yellow three years previously on the virtue of that shout alone.
Snape was not impressed. "Key-eye? You have got to be kidding." He retreated, pulling out his wand as he did so, calculating the distance between them and planning defensive moves.
Diamond thrust himself forward, hands slashing at air, feet kicking with lethal force into vacant space. His mad, violent force pushed Snape back, his wild attack left his opponent helpless, he was a storm, a whirlwind, a tornado, a force of nature that could not be withstood.
"Stupefy," Snape said lazily, and his wand was back in his robes before Diamond hit the ground. "Do you mind?" Snape was now addressing Mr. Finch-Fletchley. "We do try to keep the grounds tidy, and it would be appreciated if you would clear this mess up."
Mr. Finch-Fletchley gritted his teeth, seized Diamond under the arms, and dragged him from the grounds of Hogwarts, leaving the field to the supercilious Potions master.
On the last Sunday in May, Mr. Finch-Fletchley and Detective Diamond were once again in Hogsmeade at the Three Broomsticks discussing plans for invading the grounds of Hogwarts. Diamond had brought up the possibilities of hovercraft on the lake, explosives at the gate, and an invasion of the entire Andorran army, which Diamond believed could be hired for a day at the very reasonable price of five hundred pounds.
So far Mr. Finch-Fletchley was not enthusiastic about any of the ideas.
Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a shadow across their table. It was a long, tall shadow with a white beard and bright blue eyes. It was Albus Dumbledore.
"I thought I might find you here, Mr. Finch-Fletchley," Dumbledore said pleasantly. "I understand you have been a rather constant visitor these past months. I have come to inform you that the mandrakes matured last Friday, and that we have just administered the restorative potion to your son. Would you like to come up to the castle and see Justin? He is quite hungry, but they have already brought him something to eat, so by the time you get there he should be more than ready to talk with you."
Justin was awake and alert, wolfing down spareribs and sauerkraut like a drowning man. "Hi, dad," he said as his father walked into the hospital wing. "Guess what happened to me."
"Your father knows," Dumbledore said gently. "He's been concerned about you."
"Me?" Justin said. "I'm fine. Pass the dumplings, please."
"There," Dumbledore said to Mr. Finch-Fletchley, "he's fine. You see, you need not have worried."
"I still think it would have been better to get him to a real doctor," Mr. Finch-Fletchley insisted. "And I think we would have succeeded, too. In time."
"Oh, no," replied Dumbledore with truly excessive good humor. "Success was not fated to be. You see - now what precisely is the metaphor - you see, I stacked the deck."
"Stacked the deck? I don't understand."
"Your Detective Diamond? He was working for me."
Mr. Finch-Fletchley was dumbfounded. "No, that's not possible. I found his name in the telephone directory."
"And where did you get the telephone directory?"
"It was... in the Ministry of Magic." Mr. Finch-Fletchley began to sag in defeat.
"Naturally. Never trust anyone you find in a telephone directory you do not control. Stamford? Would you join us please?"
Detective Diamond came into the hospital wing. "Did you tell him, Professor?" he asked Dumbledore.
Dumbledore nodded. "How long must we wait, Stamford?"
"About ten minutes. I took the last one just before we met in the Three Broomsticks."
"Polyjuice potion," Dumbledore said by way of explanation to Mr. Finch-Fletchley. "It makes you look like someone you're not."
Sure enough, in ten minutes Samuel Diamond transformed into Stamford Jorkins, the official from the Ministry of Magic. "After all," said Dumbledore, "we could not have you running around bringing lawyers and the police into this, could we?"
Behind them, Justin had the last word. "Ice cream," he said. "Do you think I could get some ice cream on this apple strudel?"
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Original Parameters
...for which this story was written.1 Include a character who is not what he/she/it seems to be.
2 Use at least two paraphrases from canon.
3 Use exactly one of the following. To promote variety, do not use more than one item from this category:
- A complicated legal issue (include some legalese) which could not possibly exist in the Muggle world.
- A canon belief of the Lovegood's which is true within your story....
- A character who serves as a governess/nanny/au pair....
- A wizarding school other than Hogwarts, Durmstrang, or Beauxbatons.
- The absence of Professor Binns, resulting in a substitute teacher...
4 Use at least one of the following. You may use as many you like:
- A prophetic line which is somehow later fulfilled.
- A phrase in any non-English language.
- A speech laced with Quidditch metaphors.
- A conversation/discussion/dialogue which is heard via eavesdropping.
- An acrobatic/athletic/martial arts action sequence.
- The ideal gas law.
- A suit of armour being worn.
5 Use each letter of the alphabet:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z... within an English word at least once. You many use the same letter several times if you wish.
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