Chapter 189: The Surprise in Dumbledore's Letter
Morning slipped into the weekend before he knew it, and the flames in the central copper hearth of the Hufflepuff dormitory were burning bright, making the whole room toasty. Duncan lay on the soft bed, his whole body curled beneath the covers, discussing in his sleep with Merlin what was so special about his beard.
A chubby Niffler was asleep beside him, though its sleeping posture was not very decorous, and as it slept its backside was about to slide onto his face. Last night, he had squeezed out some time to bathe the grimy magical creatures in his case, and only fell asleep in the small hours.
Beside Duncan, the bed that belonged to Neville had its duvet flung aside and pushed into a corner, the person who had been lying there long gone, the bedclothes already cold. Just as the sun was climbing up from below the horizon this morning, Neville seemed as if he had received a goddess's summons, scrambling out and hurrying from the dormitory. He had heard that one of the devices Fred and George had been researching was about to achieve success, so the few of them had been extraordinarily excited and keyed-up lately.
Duncan often saw Neville come back bleary-eyed in the middle of the night, and then, before dawn the next day, run out of the dorm full of energy, shouting about hard work. He practically wanted to spend every minute and every second in the Room of Requirement! He hadn't expected that once Neville found a target, his drive could be rather frightening...
Duncan continued to roam a little in the land of dreams, when he suddenly felt a prickling on his face, as though someone were jabbing his handsome cheeks with a needle. His eyebrows twitched, and he opened his eyes, disdainfully plucked up the Niffler that was about to shuffle onto his mouth and tossed it aside, then looked to the left.
A paper airplane, folded from parchment and flying from who-knew-where, was hovering in mid-air, relentlessly butting at his face with its pointed "head."
"Dumbledore?" a name flashed through Duncan's mind, and he raised a hand to intercept the plane as it lunged at him again, pinching it between a few fingers and taking it down.
Among the people he knew, it seemed only Dumbledore used this method to send him messages; everyone else would simply dash into the dormitory and affectionately wake him up. As the paper airplane struggled in his hand and was unfolded to reveal the text inside, it was as if its life had been taken; the plane stilled and moved no more.
"Come to the Headmaster's office as soon as you wake up; a splendid surprise is waiting for you — Albus Dumbledore."
"So it really is that old man... go to the office, a splendid surprise? He's not pulling my leg again, is he?"
Duncan looked at the writing on the parchment, his eyebrows lifting, and could not help recalling something that had happened before the Christmas holidays. That day at noon, Dumbledore had also written telling him to come to the office for a surprise, and he had believed that hateful old man with delighted anticipation.
But when he had rushed to the office all excited, he discovered that the "surprise" Dumbledore spoke of was a new flavor of Cockroach Clusters. He could swear that, when he was holding that wriggling sweet, the look on his face must have been several times darker than the pitch-black Black Lake. And Dumbledore, as though he had not noticed his expression at all, had still beamed, urging him to eat up quickly and solicitously asking whether it was tasty!
"If it's another bizarre sweet later, I'll tell him I've contracted a terminal illness that forbids me from eating sweets!"
Duncan got up and muttered under his breath, changed his clothes, stuffed the drowsy Pro into his pocket at random, and opened the door out of the dormitory. After walking some distance along the stairs and climbing onto the revolving staircase, Duncan finally came to a huge, hideous stone gargoyle.
He spoke the password, and the gargoyle came to life and hopped aside; the wall behind it split open, revealing a staircase like an escalator, automatically carrying one upwards. Duncan set his foot on the steps, riding the staircase higher and higher, until he stood before an oak door with a brass knocker in the shape of a Griffin. He pushed the door open with practiced ease and entered.
The portraits hanging on the walls broke off their conversations, and curious eyes focused on Duncan.
"Boy, what are you doing here again?" asked a former Headmaster of Hogwarts, Phineas Nigellus Black, pouting the goatee on his lip.
"Professor Derwent, Professor Fortescue... good morning!"
Duncan greeted the Headmasters on the walls one by one. He alone left out Phineas, acting as though he had not heard Phineas's voice, and continued forward.
"Oi, oi, boy, what do you mean by that?! What about me!" Phineas said hotly, the mass of his silver hair bristling and almost exploding.
He considered himself usually quite accomplished at self-cultivation and treating people with equanimity, but whenever he ran into the boy before him, his temper was quickly teased out. Duncan stopped with a blank look, tilted his head up with a puzzled expression toward Professor Derwent, and asked:
"Professor, did you hear that there seems to be a mosquito buzzing around the room? It's awfully annoying to listen to!"
Professor Derwent's smiling gaze flicked toward Phineas, and she nodded with a laugh. "Hmm... there does seem to be a bit of a racket!"
"I'm livid!" Phineas yanked at his beard and roared in a fury, "Duncan Scamander, I challenge you to a duel!"
Duncan cast Phineas a sidelong, disdainful glance. He waved a hand and said, "I accept. Come down here. I'll fight you with both hands tied!"
Phineas sprawled on the frame, thumped his head against it a few times, then retreated to a corner of the painting to sort through the Black family's genealogy. He wanted to see whether there were any Blacks currently studying at Hogwarts, and if there were, to call them up straightaway to give Duncan a thorough thrashing.
"If you came here once a day, Phineas would probably end up so angry he'd tear his own portrait down."
Hearing the racket below, Dumbledore came down the stairs from the inner room, smiling and speaking at an unhurried pace.
"Can't be helped. We were born at odds." Duncan shrugged. "By the way, Professor, where's the surprise you mentioned? What is it?"
His gaze swept rapidly around the room. The desk was tidy, the shelves were clean. Very good — none of those sweets that looked strange at a glance.
"Hold on a moment..."
Dumbledore came down from the stairs and stopped in front of Duncan, then reached into his pocket, rummaged, and took out a small box. Seeing the black, wriggling, insect-like sweets inside, Duncan's face went dark, his lips twitching.
Good grief, you were waiting for me here, were you, afraid I'd see this sort of sweet and bolt ahead of time? Duncan briskly produced the excuse he had already prepared.
"Sorry, Professor, Madam Pomfrey says I can't eat any sweets lately, or it would be life-threatening!"
"Oh? Is there such an illness?" Dumbledore blinked his sky-blue eyes in puzzlement.
In the frame, Phineas immediately grew excited when he heard this. He rushed to the edge of the painting and shouted anxiously at the top of his voice: "Dumbledore, feed him sweets at once! If you succeed, I'll hand over the Black family fortune to you!"
"Oh, my esteemed Professor Black, no need to go to such trouble!" Duncan said with a grin, looking back. "Just hand the fortune over to me. If it pleases you, I can come to the Headmaster's office every day and eat in front of you!"
Phineas gave a cold snort, realizing he had been toyed with by Duncan yet again. He stiffened his face, shuffled back to his corner, and drew circles, cursing that Duncan would trip and fall tomorrow!
"Professor, this sweet isn't the 'surprise' you mentioned, is it?" Duncan asked suspiciously.
"This is the little surprise I prepared," Dumbledore said with a smile. "Of course, there's also a surprise prepared for you by another good friend of yours."
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