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Beati Pacifici


“Bloody hell. For all the trophies in here, you’d think Hogwarts was rolling in champions and good deed doers,” James murmured to himself, nearly an hour into his detention. His elbow was sore from scrubbing and the water in his bucket looked just as tarnished as the trophies he’d been cleaning. The shelves seemed never ending. He groaned and looked up at the clock on the wall and wondered if Professor McGonagall had forgotten she’d set him to polishing. He pictured her having fallen asleep in her study over a cup of tea and some particularly boring students essays. Oh how terrible she’d feel when she awoke and realized James was still at it in the trophy room! He would never have to serve detention again, he imagined.

The only good thing was that he was now on to the trophies and awards for Quidditch. It was interesting seeing all the shields earned by the houses for having won House Cup, reading the names of the Beaters, Seekers, Chasers and Keepers that had been named the best players. He polished these trophies rather better than he’d done the special services awards (how boring) or the various other clubs and academic achievements awards. He was rather enjoying himself, imagining the games that must’ve gone on to result in some of these awards - Super Spectacular Save and Brilliant Bit of Broomwork were just some of the titles he saw awarded - when there was a little sound that made him look up.

The portrait beside the case of Quidditch awards had cleared his throat. Hem-hem.

James looked up at him, having not even noticed a portrait there at all when he’d first started. “Oh, hello,” he said.

“Good evening,” the Portrait greeted him. He pointed down at the brass plate beneath his frame, “I was rather hoping you’d remember my plate. Last boy who was in detention forgot it, you see, and it’s been getting rather nasty.”

“Oh right, sure.” James sloshed the rag he was using into the water and wrung it out and scrambled over to the portrait, kneeling down before it to get the plate. Biting his tongue he started working on polishing. “So who are you, anyways?” He asked.

“I am Brutus Scrimgeour,” answered the portrait.

“The Beater?” James asked, looking up with surprise, pausing with his scrubbing. “The guy who wrote Beater’s Bible?” The book was rather popular - having just come out the past year or so. “But - but you aren’t dead. Are you?”

Brutus Scrimgeour shook his head, “No. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a portrait, silly boy.”

“I thought all the portraits in Hogwarts were of dead people. That’s funny. How do you find the time to sit around in the portrait when you’re not dead?” He went back to scrubbing. “Time better spent writing another book, if you ask me. Your last one was brilliant!”

Brutus Scrimgeour grinned, his little mustache waggling with the motion of his lips, “Well I do thank you, I do. I’m very glad you’ve taken the time to read my works.” He snuggled himself rather cozily into the chair he’d been painted sitting upon. “As for the time to sit for the portrait, it is rather more relaxing here with the trophies than it is at home with my wife. She’s a nag, you know.”

“Ah,” James said, as though he fully understood this sentiment, “Yeah, girls are real downers.”

Brutus Scrimgeour chuckled. “Yes, that they are.”

James had just about finished polishing the brass plate by now and he gave it one last rub with the sleeve of his robes to dry it off. “Brutus Scrimgeour, Award Winning Beater and Author of Beaters Bible,” he read, then he leaned closer, for the next line was much smaller and, it appeared, in Latin. “Beati Pacifici.” He looked up to ask Brutus Scrimgeour what the words meant, but to his very big surprise, the portrait had opened up, like a trap door so that the frame lifted over James’s head and behind it was a dark tunnel.

James’s heart was beating very quickly. He dropped the rag into the bucket of water and stood up. He licked his lips and glanced back at the door of the trophy room, afraid that Professor McGonagall was going to come in the room at any moment. After all, he had been here an awfully long time, as he’d been thinking before. But there were no sounds of her steps in the hall… He turned back to the tunnel and bit his lower lip and took a deep breath, then stepped forward.

It was very dark inside. He pulled his wand from his back pocket and whispered, “Lumos.” The pale blue light glowed off the tunnel walls, stone all around, and he walked down the little hallway - only barely tall enough to allow him to go through without ducking - and found himself presently at a short row of stairs. He looked back over his shoulder but the portrait of Brutus Scrimgeour had slid back into place on the other side, sealing the tunnel from behind. A bit of nervousness went through him - what if he couldn’t get back out? Quickly, he ran the tip of his wand about to light up the floor and inspect for the bones of past surveyors of the tunnel that might’ve died in here, unable to escape, but there were no bones, so he reckoned it must not be very hard to get back out and his panic subsided. He decided to keep moving and see where the tunnel led.

He walked down the little flight of stairs , wand held high once more, and glanced around. He realized that he had found one of the secret passageways that they’d known were hiding throughout Hogwarts, and he thought of how much more spiffing the map that they’d been working on last term would be once they added this brilliant passageway to it. He pictured himself bringing Sirius down here and he grinned. Sirius was going to be so bloody jealous that James had had detention and he had not. He’d never been so pleased to have received a punishment before in all his life. If only Severus Snape knew what a brilliant side effect he’d caused for starting that bloody duel! James chuckled to himself, practically skipping down the next little corridor that presented itself. He came to yet another little flight of stairs and he took them two at a time.

The next corridor was much longer and twistier, but there were no other turns or ways to go, so James wasn’t worried about getting lost. He’d completely forgotten about getting back to the trophy room before McGonagall came to check on him, even. Rather, he was too excited to find out where the tunnel led. There were all sorts of things hanging on the wall, lots of pictures and notes and what not and he thought it would be quite interesting going through them all, just not at the moment. Now it was all about where it was leading him.

Suddenly, ahead of him, blocking the way, was a little jar of everlasting fire, flickering and blue. He slowed down and approached it slowly. He was mighty glad he had, too, because just a couple steps beyond the little jar - and he only noticed it when he had raised his wand to see the jar itself - was a deep pit that stretched the width of the corridor. “Bloody hell,” he whispered, inching closer to look over the edge. He couldn’t see an end. He supposed it went all the way down to the dungeons - which was quite a ways, given the trophy room was on the sixth floor and he couldn’t be any lower than the fifth by now, even with the two little stairwells. He could see the other side of the pit, like a yawn in the carpet. It had been marked with a similar jar of everlasting fire.

“Well, that’s that,” he muttered. He was disappointed, he’d wanted to follow the passage all the way to it’s end. “I’ll have to come back. Maybe bring my broom to get across…” He stared at the gap. It really wasn’t so terrible. Perhaps he could jump it? But that depth… He decided against trying it - especially now, when he was rather tired from all the trophy shining. He’d simply have to come back and try and figure it out another time. Maybe with Sirius for real.

Having decided, he turned back and made his way back through the twists and turns and up the stairs, though he was being much more careful now that he knew there were sinister elements to the passage. He was quite thankful to whomever had set the everlasting flames in their jars there or else he would’ve certainly tumbled his way all the way to the bottom of that pit and never been seen again. He doubted very much there was anyone who regularly checked those pits, after all.

There was a lever in the wall he spotted when he got back to the end of the tunnel and he reached for it and pulled. The portrait of Brutus Scrimgeour opened up once more and James hurried out into the trophy room as it lowered back into place.

Brutus Scrimgeour looked quite amused. “So you found my secret passageway,” he said. “What did you think of it?”

“It was knocker,” James answered, “It’s yours, you say?”

“Well, my friends and I discovered it,” Brutus Scrimgeour said, “Back when we were students here. There was a tapestry that hung here instead of my portrait, but I asked to be hung here instead. We used to skive off classes hiding in there,” Brutus chuckled nostalgically.

“Are you the one who put on the everlasting fire, then?” James asked, “To mark the pits?”

“Oh yes, quite dangerous in the dark when they aren’t marked. One of my mates nearly fell in the first time we ventured through the pits and we decided it was safest to light them up like that. Glad they are still there, despite it’s name everlasting fire isn’t always everlasting.”

James asked, “How do you get past them without falling in?”

Brutus Scrimgeour smiled quite proudly, “Oh… we found ways. I’m guessing you only found the first one, then?”

James nodded.

“There are several before you get to the other side,” Brutus Scrimgeour said, “There are various tactics to get from one side to the other. But I won’t ruin it for you, half the fun of it was figuring it all out…” Brutus’s attention suddenly switched from James to the doorway. “Why good evening Minerva!”

James turned around to find McGonagall having just walked in the doorway. She looked around at the shiny trophies James had already finished polishing and her eyes roved over the half-finished Quidditch shields and Brutus Scrimgeour’s shiny brass plate. “Hello Brutus,” she said. “You made some good progress in here, Potter,” she added.

“Yeah,” James said, “I’ve polished loads of trophies already.”

“It’ll make your job that much easier to finish them up tomorrow, then,” McGonagall said. She was giving Brutus Scrimgeour’s painting a funny look and James wondered how much she’d heard of their talk about the passageway. Did McGonagall know there was a passage behind Scrimgeour’s painting? He hoped not. He rather liked the idea of sharing a secret with only the famous beater. “Run along to bed, Potter, and I will see you here again tomorrow evening at the same time.”

“Yes Professor,” James said. “Goodnight, Mr. Scrimgeour,” he added to the painting, and he hurried out of the Trophy Room.

Minerva McGonagall waited just long enough for James’s footfalls to disappear down the hallway, then she said, in a scolding tone, “Brutus Scrimgeour, you better not have been telling that boy about anything he ought not to be getting into.”

“Minerva, Minerva, whyever on earth would I?” Brutus asked, his mustache waggling at the ends. He smiled, “And besides, you ran those tunnels as well as the rest of us back in the day - would it really be so awful for another generation of students to have the same experiences that we once had?”

McGonagall reached for one of the trophies and polished one of the shields upon it with her wrist, staring down at her own name on the shield. Memories of her days at school flooded her and she smiled at her own reflection in the shield as she took a deep breath. She could see quite a lot of own mischievous past reflected in James and the other young Gryffindors. “I suppose not,” she said, replacing the trophy to the shelf. “But officially, as a teacher, I simply cannot encourage it,” she added, raising an eyebrow at the portrait.

“Well, officially, then, I didn’t really tell you the answer to your question,” Brutus replied. “I s’pose I ought to get back to my study. The wife will be looking for me soon enough.”

“Goodnight, Brutus,” McGonagall said.

“Goodnight, Minerva,” Brutus answered, and he ducked out of the frame of his portrait.




James had never run so fast in his life. He thundered through the castle back to the portrait hole and past the Fat Lady, into the common room. There were several students still up, but a quick glance about told him his mates were up in their dormitory, so he hurried for the stairs up to the boys dorms.

“James! Wait just a minute, I need to speak to you.”

James stopped short on the second stair at the sound of Lily Evans’s voice calling for him. He turned ‘round and there she was, coming over, a determined look in her eyes. She stopped at the foot of the stairs. “What is it, Evans?” James asked, expecting her to thank him for defending her that morning or something. He was ready for a bit of appreciation for what he’d been through with Snape.

“I need to talk to you - about Remus.”

As quickly as his excitement to hear her praise him had come, it deflated. He didn’t want to talk about Remus with Lily. He frowned. “What about Remus?” He demanded. Suddenly it seemed far more important to go talk to Sirius about the passageway than it was to talk to Lily Evans.

“Well…” she took a deep breath, then leaned closer, conspiratorially, “I know about his secret.”

James blinked in surprise and his mouth went rather dry. She seemed rather cheerful for somebody that knew Remus Lupin’s secret. He glanced around at the others in the common room, then back at Lily, “You do, do you?” He asked carefully.

Lily nodded. “And I know you know, too.”

James didn’t want to confirm or deny. He didn’t know where she was going with this. He didn’t want to accidentally rat out Remus when he’d put his confidence in the other three Gryffindors. He stayed quiet and simply shrugged indifferently.

“I know he’s leaving the castle,” Lily whispered, “And I know Dumbledore’s in on it, too.”

James remained silent.

“Where does he go?” Lily asked.

James thought for a moment. “Didn’t he tell you himself?” He asked, trying to figure a way around answering her. “If he didn’t tell you, then… I can’t really tell you myself. You’ll have to ask him.”

“But James, I think he’s - he’s rather shy, talking about it,” Lily wheedled.

“Yeah, but can you blame him?” James asked. “I would be, too.”

Lily nodded, though she looked a bit confused, “Yeah, I s’pose.”

The look on her face told him she knew a lot less than she was acting like and he was pleased that he hadn’t said much of anything. He decided to warn Remus and the others that Lily was suspicious but she certainly didn’t know anywhere near as much as she wanted him to believe. He wondered what exactly she did know and how. He wondered if she’d followed them down the other night, and if she had, had she heard the whole argument they’d had on the stair well about her? Did Lily know Remus fancied her? Did she know that Remus had accused him, James, of fancying her as well? A cool sweat sprouted on the back of his neck.

“Look, Evans, I have to go. Talk to Remus yourself.” He turned and sprinted up the stairs to the dormitories, leaving her behind quickly. He didn’t even turn back when she called his name again. He didn’t dare look at her, afraid he’d blurt out all the secrets he’d ever had if she asked him to.

Besides, he really did have important business to attend to.

He pushed open the dorm room door and there was Sirius and Peter, sprawled across the floor with their textbooks, doing homework. They looked up as James entered and Sirius saw the triumphantly excited looked on James’s face. “What’s up, mate?” He asked, sitting up.

“You won’t ever believe what I found,” James announced.