Entry One

The wind kept biting his cheeks and the skies had been threatening snowfall all morning. There did not appear to be an easy way back inside, however. It wasn’t just Rita Skeeter and her henchman Bozo, there were paparazzi from France, Korea and some unidentifiable Nordic and/or Eastern European countries blocking his view of the door.

Pushing his chest forward like a proud erumpent, Ernie began making his way through, a sharp elbow here, a pointed “pardon you” there.

“Hey there! Student!”

“Hmph,” Ernie muttered, stepping precisely on the toes of the last foot blocking his way and sighing as he realized Rita Skeeter’s hand was blocking the doorknob. “It’s Macmillan. Of Hufflepuff.”

“Well, Helga almighty,” Skeeter said, attempting to get more of her body in front of the door, an attempt Ernie was pleased to say he foiled with a well-aimed kick. “Can you tell us what’s going on in there? I’ve heard everyone is scared for their lives. Is it connected to Harry Potter’s unlawful entry into the competition?”

The noise rose around them, four, five, six separate languages, none of them particularly pleasant to the ear.

“How on earth would it be connected?” Ernie said disdainfully and jabbed Skeeter on the wrist. “You’re blocking my way.”

“Is it true that the French champion is in tears and threatening to withdraw altogether?”

Ernie paused, his fingers awkwardly curled over some of Skeeter’s sinewy, liver-spotted skin. The noise from the reporters and photographers around them had died down like Skeeter’s words had been a powerful silencing-charm.

“Miss Delacour is a brave and intelligent young woman who is ready to compete.”

With those words, the volume switch was flicked back on. He saw the disappointment in Skeeter’s face, next sensed a minute relaxation in her hand. Using just a tiny bit of force he managed to wrench his hand underneath hers, those long, yellow-lacquered nails doing their utmost at scraping him a parting gift for when he finally managed to slam the door shut on her and on the cacophony of foreign languages.

“Whatever you do, Purdy, do not open this door,” Ernie said, wiping sweat off his brow after dumping the disillusioned pile he’d been carrying into Purdy’s arms.

“Just as you say, Ernest! Just as you say.” Purdy nodded furiously while speaking, his bright blue eyes telling anyone who’d look that before Ernie spoke, he’d been adamant on opening that door, maybe even taking it off its hinges and vanishing the evidence so that it could never be closed again. At least now he knew better.

“It’s a jungle out there,” Ernie continued, gesturing magnificently to the closed door, “and what with the mare we’re having in the teacher’s lounge… Well…”

There was no end in sight for Purdy’s nodding, but he was now glancing at the pile of books in his arms, the charm lifting book by book.

“She’s holding up so well,” Purdy said, shifting his grip on the bottommost book and almost making the whole tower tumble, “I think she’s magnificent.”

“Er, yes, I think I know what you mean. I’d be careful with how I express myself, though, Purdy.”

“He’s wonderful, too.”

“Cedric, you mean? It is a proud moment for Hufflepuff. We need to get to the bottom of this, Purdy, can’t have a scandal like this spoiling our big moment. Having four champions rather than three was bad enough, but this…”

“No, not Cedric. I meant Viktor.”

Something dreamy clouded over Purdy’s eyes and Ernie felt his eyebrows rise almost all the way up to his hairline.

“Exotic, you know,” Purdy said, licking his lips and his fingers slipping on the corner of the book.

“Like I said, Purdy, I think you need to be careful with how you express yourself. You’ll give people ideas.”

“I’m glad you told me,” Purdy said. Ernie could tell he meant it, too.

“Yes, well. Has any new information come to light while I was away?”

“I wouldn’t know, Ernest. They won’t let me into the room.”

“Oh Purdy,” Ernie sighed. He clapped his hands together and motioned for Purdy to walk forwards. When they got to the closed door Ernie, after a politely stifled sigh, had to open the door himself, anyway, because Purdy was still holding all those books.

“I have returned,” Ernie announced, looking round importantly at all of the faces. Eyebrows rose and brows knitted, but Ernie did not take it personally. They were all under a lot of pressure.

Fleur Delacour, her wonderful starlit eyes red-rimmed, turned to Madame Maxime to ask something in a low, fast voice that sounded like summer rain. They were by the fire, already hung with bulging stockings and plenty of mistletoe garlands.

Krum and Karkaroff were huddled together in a corner by an enchanted ice sculpture of a reindeer, frowning in different directions, neither speaking.

Cedric, looking terse, half-raised a hand in greeting. Ernie nodded magnanimously to him.

“I have procured everything I thought could help from the library,” Ernie continued, his mind briefly playing out two recent scenes from memory. One in which Hermione Granger, who he’d barely spotted behind her own pile of books, had taken time out from her schedule to guide him to the correct shelves. He’d been mightily impressed when he realized she’d personally read all of the books she’d recommended to him, including some she’d advised him to stay clear of. She’d hurried off, and at this point Ernie had run into a haphazardly dressed girl with long hair and pale, dreamy eyes. She’d apparently heard some of Ernie’s private conversation with Hermione, which he did not appreciate, but she nonetheless presented good points on why he should include some of the books Hermione had told him not to get. “We need to get to the bottom of who has been persecuting you, Miss Delacour. I’m convinced we can do it with the help of this literature, combined with the eye-witness testimony of Mr Salmon.”

“’oo is this Mr Salmon? And why is it you leading zis investigation?” Fleur exclaimed, looking around the room. “What is it with ‘ogwarts and all of zese young boys in charge?”

“Professor Sprout fronts the WHODUNNIT committee, and I’m her trusted second,” Ernie explained patiently, but being met with so many blank faces he realized that they had hit one of those pesky little language barriers. “Yes, the WHODUNNIT committee of course being an abbreviation of the Welfare of Hogwarts… Ah you know what, let’s simply call it the anti-harassment committee. You have those at home, don’t you?”

He was met by silence, which he waved away by pointing at Purdy. “Mr Salmon is in the committee, and he’s also a prefect. Like I previously explained, we’re taking this extremely seriously. I have located the two suspects and we will question them shortly. Once I discover who the culprit is, he will have to confess. But first, I thought we should learn all we can about the jinx in question.”

“We’ve already figured out what jinx it is,” Cedric said. “Professor Karkaroff knew what it was, didn’t you, sir?”

Ernie, feeling slightly crestfallen, turned to Karkaroff.

“I believe you call it ‘the stalker’ in English,” Karkaroff said quietly, his hand stroking his well-oiled beard and his colourless eyes flickering round the room, never truly meeting Ernie’s gaze.

“How horrid,” Ernie said, turning specifically to Fleur. “You have my sincerest sympathies, and those of the school. Usually, then enchantments around Hogwarts is good at shielding its students from these things, but with all the new international students it maybe hasn’t quite figured out how to protect everyone… Sounds like it might be a foreign jinx, too…” The words did nothing to taw her frosty look. With some difficulty, Ernie grabbed the topmost book from the pile in Purdy’s arms and began flicking through it. “Ah, yes. The stalker. Here it is. Incantation… yes, I see… Eyes of the caster floats around the victim… Sometimes for hours at a time.” Ernie looked up from the book. Fleur’s beautiful face looked like it was about to crumble, and Ernie heard Purdie make a soft little noise behind the books covering his face.

“It’s not an easy curse to break,” Karkaroff said, hiding part of his mouth with his hand, “the only way is to find the culprit and use his wand to reverse it.”

“Oh dear,” Ernie murmured, verifying what Karkaroff had just said in the text in front of him.

“Zese eyes ‘ave followed ‘er everywhere!” Madame Maxime said loudly, looking around the room imperiously with dark, handsome eyes. “In ze morning when she wakes up, in ‘er private chamber where she is practicing ‘er spells for the tournament… Zey are even zere when she goes to ze toilette!”

“I say!” Ernie said, unable to think of what exactly to say to comfort Fleur, but also aware that Purdy had let slip a most undignified noise from behind the books.

“But it says here,” Ernie said, letting his finger follow the next line in the book, “that the eyes will look like the eyes of the caster.”

“You did not say that before, Karkaroff,” Madame Maxime said, swivelling towards him like a hawk might a mouse.

“Eyes can be disguised,” Karkaroff said evasively, but Ernie wasn’t listening and had turned eagerly to Fleur Delacour.

“What did the eyes look like, miss Delacour?”

Madame Maxime placed a gentle, enormous hand on her shoulder. Fleur was swallowing hard, her hands nervously playing with the fine fabric of her robes as she steeled herself, but before she’d opened her mouth to speak someone else did.

“Blue, I tink. Or grey.”

Ernie spun round to the corner of the room. Krum’s face looked so impassive he might never have spoken at all.

Karkaroff began asking sharp questions of him in another language.

Shrugging, Krum spoke again in English: “It started yesterday for me too. Eyes shov up for minutes, den go away.”

“This is beginning to feel like another conspiracy,” Karkaroff said, looking around the room with his pale eyes narrowed. “I will speak to Dumbledore. It seems Hogwarts has found yet another way to sabotage the international champions.”

“We need to get to the bottom of this,” Ernie said. With Hogwart’s honour suddenly at stake he was more determined than ever to get on with the investigation. “We know the spell and we know what it will take to reverse it. We likely know what the eyes of the culprit looks like.”

“Blue, yes,” Fleur said.

“You’ve not seen these eyes around, have you, Cedric?”

Cedric shook his head.

“And we don’t think Harry has, either?”

“Where is Harry?”

“I checked and he’s… er, he’s in detention. Something about a cauldron exploding? I can still retrieve him if we believe he has something to add to this. But seeing as the suspects we have are, um…”

“’e is not needed,” Fleur said decisively.

“We can always get him later, I suppose,” Ernie said. “Right, this way everybody!”

They trooped down some stairs and a short corridor with two doors, the second of which led to an old disused teacher’s office that used to belong to the alchemy professor.

Alone in the room, pacing furiously, was Draco Malfoy.

“Please, take a seat,” Ernie began.

Muttering something about his father, Malfoy flung himself into the chair behind the teacher’s desk. The others all remained standing, although Cedric did attempt to pull out a foldable chair from a corner for Fleur, and when she declined, offered it to Madame Maxime.

A cruel smile lit up Malfoy’s face as Madame Maxime, who had to stoop over to not hit her head in the dusty ceiling lamp, for obvious reasons ignored the proffered chair.

“I’ve asked you here, Draco, because you were one of the two people present in the guillotine chamber two nights ago.”

“One of three,” Malfoy corrected him in a tone that suggested he had not done his homework. “Weasel was there, as was the weirdo book hugger.”

“Ah yes. Purdy – I mean, Mr Salmon, was the Prefect supervising your detention.”

Purdy cleared his throat awkwardly and placed the books he’d been carrying on a table near the door.

“In your own words, can you tell us what happened?”

“Well, I wasn’t supposed to be there at all. Weasel attacked me for absolutely no reason outside Charms last week. Of course he isn’t a good enough wizard to do any actual damage, but Flitwick rightly gave him detention. He has the same bias most professors here have, and thought I’d somehow provoked the attack. If my father was still a school governor here things would be very different…”

“So both you and Ron got detention,” Ernie said. “And Flitwick picked the old guillotine chamber?”

“Yes, there’s some old, unusable pulpits up there. He wanted the graffiti removed from them. I get why he’d give Weasel a menial task like that, but no clue why I was given the same task. No one has ever mistaken my magical ability for that of a house elf…”

“Let’s stick to the matter at hand.”

“Is Weasel a mate of yours? Really, Macmillan, I thought you’d be more careful with who you interact with…”

“Matter at hand, Draco!” Ernie repeated, his cheeks flushed.

Malfoy laughed quietly for a few seconds, seemingly unbothered by the annoyed rustles and clearing of throats coming from his audience. He continued: “Salmon, over there, was supervising us. Weasel was just as annoying as always, stumbling over the cleaning bucket and so ill-adept at removing the graffiti he probably created extra work. Then I found rather an interesting jinx that was carved into one of the pulpits.”

“Ah, so it was you who found it.”

“Yes,” Malfoy said, “It’s not like anybody else in the room would’ve recognized it for a spell.” His pale grey eyes lingered on Purdy. “Need some brains to even call a knarl a knarl, if you know what I mean.”

“And you decided to alert the Prefect in the room to the possible Dark magic you’d discovered?” Ernie said.

“Eventually, yeah.”

Ernie glanced at Purdy, who was shaking his head.

“Did you cast the spell, Draco?”

“No, of course not. I could see it wasn’t exactly a school-friendly spell.”

“But there was something you said to Ron?”

“What, other than him being a clumsy, inadequate blood traitor?”

“That’s not a word we use in this school,” Ernie said loudly, looking around at their international guests.

“I told Weasel I’d heard about his desperate wooing of Miss Delacour,” Malfoy continued carelessly. “I showed him the jinx and told him he should cast in on her.”

There was a collective groan from the room. Fleur was glaring icy daggers at Malfoy, whose cocksure grin faltered under it.

“It wasn’t a serious suggestion. Weasel will never in his sorry life get to enjoy the prolonged company of any witch, let alone someone like Miss Delacour! Am I to understand he was stupid enough to cast the spell?”

“It’s not about being stupid,” Ernie said, feeling how close to the breaking point he was. “Nor is it about doing all the magic you think you can get away with. It’s about basic human respect!”

Professor Sprout’s face swam in front of his eyes and he found himself wishing she was there to take control of the situation. This was getting ugly fast.

“We don’t yet know who cast the spell. But if you’d like to clear your name, we can have a look at the spell history on your wand.”

Malfoy’s grin was wiped away before Ernie had finished speaking.

“You’re not allowed to do that! Nobody at this school has that authority.”

“It ‘as to be ‘im!” Madame Maxime said. “Why else would you wish to ’ide your spell ‘istory?”

Ernie, who had studied with Malfoy for four years, could think of several other reasons.

“Does ‘is eyes look like ze ones that stalked you?”

Fleur, who still looked angry about how Malfoy had expressed himself, stared intently at him. As did Krum, Ernie noticed.

“I can’t be sure,” she said eventually, exchanging a look with Krum. Krum shook his head once and leaned back against the wall.

Malfoy was looking calculatingly between Fleur and Krum.

“You can go back to your dormitory,” Ernie said, his voice almost overpowered by some rapidly spat out French from Madame Maxime. “We might need to talk to you again. You’re not to breathe a word about this spell or what you believe may have happened to anyone.”

Malfoy looked amused, but Ernie did not back down. This was a WHODUNNIT investigation and he had just as much power as a prefect or professor to tell Malfoy what to do.

Malfoy left and Ernie wasted no time collecting Ron from the next room. Ron was paler than Ernie had ever seen him, his hair a mess where he’d presumably run his hands through countless of times. He stumbled over the threshold and Ernie let go of him, letting him find his space near the old teacher’s desk. He was visibly trembling, and for a moment Ernie felt his own thoughts on the matter cloud his investigator role. Poor Ron.

“What is it you lot think I’ve done?” Ron asked, his watery blue eyes darting from face to face, although never, Ernie saw, to Fleurs.

“Can you tell us, in your own words, about the detention you had with Mr Malfoy?”

“Why?” Ron asked, but when he received no answer, he settled on looking at his scuffed shoes poking out underneath his school robes. “I shouldn’t have been given detention at all. Malfoy insulted my mother and then I… he started it, but we still got the same punishment. I don’t think I’d ever been inside the room we were sent to before. It was full of old unusable furniture that they wanted us to remove graffiti from. There was a prefect with us too, wasn’t it you?”

Purdy nodded. He had retreated to a corner of the room with one of the library books.

“Malfoy cast this jinx on me to trip me up, he just wanted to laugh and cause more chaos in there. He doesn’t respect any prefect authority either, and it’s not as though you seemed to see what he was doing…”

Ernie glanced indulgently at Purdy. Purdy was an excellent assistant for the work Ernie did on the committee, but he wasn’t the sharpest quill. Why he’d been made prefect in the first place was a bit of a mystery.

“When we were almost done, Malfoy found a spell carved into one of the pulpits. He tried to get me to read it out, but I didn’t do it. It felt sinister just sounding it out in my head.”

“But you did sound it out in your head?” Ernie said. “Were you holding your wand while you did it?”

“No!” Ron said quickly, a bit too quickly, Ernie thought. “Like I said, I could tell it wasn’t a nice spell and I told Malfoy to shove it.”

“Would there have been any reason for you to be thinking of Miss Delacour that day?” Ernie asked delicately. The incident had gone round the school like wildfire, of course, and Ron had been the laughingstock of more people than just Malfoy.

Ron’s ears had gone so red they could’ve been part of his hair. He kept opening his mouth, then swallowing, but no words came out.

“I take it this was the evening of the day you asked Miss Delacour to the yule ball?”

Ron nodded to his shoes.

“But you didn’t know Miss Delacour from before? It was more a spur of the moment thing for you, asking her out?”

“We ‘ad never spoken before,” Fleur said. She looked troubled when she gazed at Ron, but not particularly scared. “To be ‘onest, ‘e isn’t the first boy to ask me. Not even in this room… I can ‘ave zat effect on people.”

“On men,” an oily voice said. Karkaroff had returned, slinking through the door and rejoining Krum at the back of the room.

“Are Mr Weasley’s eyes familiar to you, Miss Delacour?” Ernie asked.

“I can’t be sure,” she said.

“Would you let us look at the last spells you’ve performed with your wand?” Ernie asked of Ron. Like anyone presented with such a question, Ron looked like he would refuse. But then he dug out his wand and thrust it into Ernie’s hand.

“Give it to me.” Madame Maxime said, reaching out an imperious arm through half the room. Ernie placed the wand in her hand.

They watched with abated breath.

“Priori incantatem,” Madame Maxime said, holding her own, branchlike wand to Ron’s. The ghostly spells that surged forth were simple, sometimes unsuccessful. It would appear Ron had spent a lot of time trying to get the hang of a colour-changing spell for fabrics he appeared to have used on something that looked like age-old women’s lace-trimmed robes. No sinister eyes appeared, and the worst jinx was one to cause ingrown toenails.

“You can go,” Ernie said, a weight lifting from him, but another one settling in as he watched Madame Maxime toss back the wand to Ron, who fumbled and caught it. The school’s good name remained at stake.

“Dumbledore is outside dealing with the press,” Karkaroff said when Ron had closed the door behind him. “It appears someone has given an interview to Rita Skeeter and now journalists from other countries are tearing the walls down to get more of the story.”

“Malfoy,” Ernie muttered under his breath.

“As usual, you British are pretending to be all for fair play, but behind the scenes you do everything to keep the advantages for yourself,” Karkaroff continued, his pale eyes glinting maliciously. “I decided you can’t keep all the juicy scoops just for yourself. I held my own little press conference, explaining that dark magic has been done to my candidate by someone here at Hogwarts. The international press was very grateful to get some information on this, as I understood it Mr Macmillan only spoke to Rita Skeeter before.”

“I didn’t speak to - hang on, why would you do such a thing? Throw your own candidate to the wolves and dredge the integrity of the competition and the school hosting you and your students through the mud?”

Madame Maxime and Fleur Delacour began talking quickly together in French while Ernie struggled to make sense of it all. Krum didn’t look remotely happy with what Karkaroff had done, but Karkaroff, of course, looked unrepentant.

“I’m not convinced it’s anyone from Hogwarts who has performed the spell,” Cedric said slowly. “I mean, it looked like it had to be one of the boys we’ve just heard from, but are we forgetting that there is one other person who seemingly knows this awful jinx?”

“You’re right!” Ernie gasped, pointing at Karkaroff. “It’s only Miss Delacour who has been thrown badly off balance by this horrible spell. Mr Krum seems unbothered by the whole thing, and apparently one person here has no qualms bringing such personal stories to the international press to devour. Miss Delacour, did the eyes that stalked you look like those of Professor Karkaroff?”

Fleur stared intently at Karkaroff, whose hands balled into fists by his side. The euphoria Ernie felt, however, was short-lived.

“Non,” she said eventually, shaking her head. “Zey were darker.”

“Darker,” Ernie repeated. He was feeling almost faint now. He had boldly accused a renowned headmaster of cursing students, and been proven wrong. How could he possibly recover from this? Maybe Karkaroff would demand he be removed from this entire investigation? Not to mention potential diplomatic consequences between magical nations.

“I’fe already told you I don’t vant to,” Krum’s voice suddenly said. Ernie looked over and saw that Purdy was trying to converse with Krum.

“Is ‘e asking you too?” Fleur said, smiling drily and looking over her shoulder. “You Eenglish ‘ave no charm when you ask us to the yule ball. All nerves, no charisma. And no understanding for the word ‘no’ it would seem.”

“What’s this, Purdy?” Ernie said, advancing on his assistant, who was suddenly backing away and shielding his face from the eyes on him.

“’ang on!” Fleur said loudly, turning around fully. “Show me your eyes!”

“Oh no, Purdy,” Ernie whispered, watching Purdy hit the wall with his back, still attempting to hide his eyes from view. But they were blue, Ernie knew. “Why did you do it?”

“They’re just so exciting, Ernie,” Purdy moaned, head in his hands. “International students. So exotic. I tried to ask them to the yule ball, but they didn’t say yes, so I wondered if I could be with them in other ways instead. And then Draco found the spell. I thought it was perfect.”

“Merlin’s beard!” Ernie said, grabbing hold of Purdy’s arm. “I’m taking you to the headmaster immediately. My sincerest apologies to the two of you on behalf of the WHODUNNIT committee,” he continued, facing Fleur and Krum. “Rest assured that Mr Salmon here will not bother either of you ever again."

 

Spoiler: pikaboo

I enjoyed the humour that Ernie's pompousness added to this, but it's mostly focused on the beginning of the story, and grows less prominent as the story goes on and focuses on its core, which is quite a shame in my opinion. I guess it was just the establishment of the character.

The story flows well, doesn't really linger anywhere it's not too welcome, and is wrapped rather nicely if a tad predictable. I know stalkers stalk and that's it, but somehow I find it all too... bland? I think this could have been written a tad more bravely, and even though it might've killed off the humoristic nature of the story, it might've added more weight to it, some stronger stakes, which would in turn make the resolution more satisfying.

I'm not sure if this needs more words, to flesh out the stalking arc and make it properly creepy outside of having the word stalker around, or if tightening it would do the trick, maybe by turning humour more bleak than flippy. The characters are all rather canonish so that's a plus for sure.

All in all, nothing wrong with this one, it's well written, but I simply think there's more you could milk out of it.