"Blimey, Harry!" exclaimed Ronald Weasley, his face pressed to the window, peering out at the swiftly passing countryside as the glistening red Hogwarts Express belched coal smoke into the sky on its way north to Glasgow for the COP26 climate conference. "If the secret that you have to find is both known and unknown to all Muggles, then it follows that it's known to a lot of us too. And it also follows" Ron turned to face his friend seated across the small train compartment "that we can let the Muggles worry about it themselves."
"Merlin's pants!" Hermione Granger broke in, closing The Complete List of Inscrutable Contradictions in Magical Fiction with a look of unbearable frustration. "If the Muggles are holding another conference to put up a feable pretense of forestalling the destruction of all life on earth, and it's the 26th one, and the 25 previous ones have had the opposite result of what was needed, then it actually follows," Hermione spoke slowly and clearly as if to a three-year-old "that we can't just let the Muggles worry about it, and it just might have some relevance to our future too, no matter what sort of imbecilic prats we decide to act like."
Harry knew he needed to say something, but before he could, Ron was mumbling, with a mouth full of chocolate frogs, something about how he was sure Viktor Krum probably had the answer, considering how many oil wells his family owned.
"Enough!" said Harry, looking Hermione back into her seat, as she seemed ready to find some other compartment to sit in. "Let's go over what we know, even if we've done it a hundred times before. At least we'll be able to tell our children we tried, right?"
Ron grunted and nodded, and Hermione said quietly, "I'm not sure I'd bring children into a world full of people who couldn't find their own posterior with two hands and an illuminated wand." Harry took that as the most encouragement he was likely to get and proceeded.
"We know," said Harry, "that the Muggles make these weak agreements and fail to keep them, right? And we've been through every possible way that they could strengthen them or abide by them, right?"
"Exausting all possibilities," said Hermione, "is never a certain claim, if you consider the five principles of Snufalargin the Snooty, first established in fiteen twenty . . . "
"I know," said Harry. "I mean, I don't know, but just hear me out, OK? What if this secret, the secret that we were specifically instructed to find, both by the message in Hagrid's sandwich and in the Morse Code sounds of the Knight Bus's smashing of lampposts, is known and unknown because it's not a way of strengthening the stupid climate agreements as they are but of adding something to them that's missing, something so obvious that nobody can think of it."
"A purloined letter," said Hermione. "Yes, I thought of that and . . . "
"A pearled what?" asked Ron, and Hermione ignored him.
"I thought of that," said Hermione, "but what is left out of the agreements that would naturally be in them? I mean it has to be something enormous. It can't be somebody's little camp fire or gas station. It can't be some little industry that got a special waiver. It has to be big enough to be worth a major bother, something worth all the fighting we've been through just to get this far, not to mention Ron's . . . "
Hermione hesitated, and Ron finished her sentence for her. "Right, not to mention my hair." Ron slid back his hood and tipped his shiny bald head down at his friends."
"I like it that way," said Hermione.
Ron smiled. "I don't mind," he said. "I mean if it's that important, I'd gladly give up my saggy left . . ."
"Right," broke in Harry. "Let's get back to fighting."
Ron and Hermione looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
