Alfie, Who?

Bogarts and Angels

The rest of the term went without incident. Lily, Morgana and others continued to sneak out of the castle on Friday nights to practice playing Quidditch on school brooms. Aristide Valmont, the Care of Magical Creatures professor had begun attending the practices in case they were caught. He would just  claim to chaperone them. Although, he was sure that this practice was no longer a secret. Aristide had been a Beater in his time as a student at Hogwarts and enjoyed mentoring future players.

Alphie started coming along to practice announcing, working on his comedy. When the weather got warmer Pennyfeather would join him. She enjoyed running through the stands looking for rodents on the ground. Alfie wasn't sure how she managed to get back up to the top of the stands where he and his friends were sitting, but she always did. Sometimes she clenched in her teeth the remains of a field mouse that she'd found. "Ew, Pennyfeather!" He exclaimed as Pennyfeather dropped her latest catch on Alfie's lap. "I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I do NOT need you to catch my dinner for me!" He picked the headless mouse up off his lap by the tail and placed it to the side.

"You bring her treats." Hugo stated. "So she figures she'll return the favor. You're family to her."

Alfie laughed and scratched Pennyfeather on her head. She chirped a bit and then took off.

One Tuesday afternoon The Doctor decided to share with his first year students the Bogart closet that he had found. Several students were confronted with fears such as spiders and clowns, the usual. They learned the appropriate spell riddikulus! used to fight bogarts. When it became Alfie's turn to face his bogart, it was more than The Doctor had anticipated.

The Doctor opened the cabinet door and a swirling cloud appeared and before Alfie's eyes it turned into the form of the Statue of Liberty scaled down to near human size. She had evil eyes and menacing fangs.  Alfie pulled out his wand ready to recite the spell, expecting her skirt to fly up into the air giving her a ridiculous appearance as was the case with the other students. But instead, The Doctor yelled and shoved him back. "Everybody! Get out of the room, fast!"

"But Doctor," began Lily. "It's just a bogart isn't it?" She pointed her wand at it. "Riddikulus!" The spell blasted from the end of her wand but had the affect of throwing a dust bunny at a stone wall. It fell apart in a puff of pathetic little grey smoke. "Oh, my, Doctor! Was is that?"

"It's a weeping angel!" The Doctor gasped. "She's quantum locked. She can only move when... she's not... being... observed."

"What does that mean, Doctor?" Orion Black asked, his wand hand quivering, pointing at the the angel.

"It means as long as someone is looking at her she can't move. But if you blink, she can move at super human speed."

"What...what does she do to you?"

"She kills you...nicely."

"How is this? How can this be?" At this point, everyone, including The Doctor are backing toward the door, wands and sonic screwdriver pointed at the malevolent creature. "It's just a bogart, isn't it?"

"Whatever takes the form of a weeping angel, becomes a weeping angel. The only way to fight it is to fight it like a weeping angel."

"How do we fight a weeping angel, Doctor?" Alfie was one of the last few students still in the classroom. Others had gone to search for Headmistress McGonagal.

"We don't." The Doctor was afraid of few things in the universe and weeping angels was one of them. "The only thing that can stop a weeping angel is a time paradox. It poisons them. But how will we create a time paradox?"

"Time turner!" Lily yelled.

"Where are we going to get a time turner?" asked Hugo. "I thought that the last of them have been confiscated by the Ministry of Magic."

"Morgana has one. Her parents get their hands on all sorts of magical objects. Morgana pinched it during the Christmas holidays."

Before the Doctor could say anything, Lily was running out of the classroom headed toward the History of Magic classroom where the Slytherins were studying at that hour. She returned with a disheveled Morgana running behind her. At their feet was Pennyfeather running at top speed, zigzagging between them. In Morgana's right hand her wand, in her left her parent's time turner.

Pennyfeather jumps to Alfie's shoulder and stares the angel directly into her eyes. "She's holding the angel's gaze. Stronger than any of us could, ever!" The Doctor exclaims. "Get out, the rest of you!" All of the other students left. There was only Alfie, The Doctor and Pennyfeather still in the room. The Doctor had clutched in his hand the time turner.

"What do we do, Doctor?" Alfie asked.

"We..." Just then, Pennyfeather jumped from Alfie to the Doctor and grabbed the time turner. She ran head on toward the weeping angel. In the same moment that Alfie and The Doctor looked at the speeding mongoose, their eyes leaving the angel. But Pennyfeather was still watching her. "Alfie, we have to go."

"But Doctor...!" The Doctor had grabbed his hand and pulled him from the room. Pennyfeather just then jumped up on the angel slinging the time turner into her body. This caused poor Pennyfeather to disappear into time which would cause Alfie much distraught. The time turner however had fallen, taking the angel back a minute where it would fall again, and take her back a minute, where it would fall again. She became "stuck" in this time loop, flickering like an old black and white TV set. The paradox weakened her. Alfie and The Doctor stood just outside the door. The Doctor peeked in first. He motioned to Alfie to look, too. "REDUCTO!" Alfie yelled. Tears in his eyes, he was able to miniaturize the weakened angel. "Herbivicus." He wrapped her in vines; several of which covered her eyes.

Several of the students returned with Headmistress McGonagall. "What do we do with it?" She asked The Doctor. "You are more familiar with this...creature than any of us are."

"She can't be killed. We can subdue her. We can weaken her. But she can't be killed." He thought for a moment. "Make a box. Make it completely mirrored inside." He became animated when he realized that this was the first time that he had ever been given an opportunity to really capture a weeping angel. "The only thing that can stop a weeping angel is either the gaze of another weeping angel, or its own reflection." He shook his head at this. "And I don't think that we want to make another weeping angel!"

"Certainly not, Doctor!" Headmistress McGonagall exclaimed. She conjured a small box to the Doctor's specifications and levitated the angel into the box and sealed it with a powerful Colloportus charm. She entrusted the box to the hands of Aristide Valmont. He then passed it on to the untouchable centaurs to hide.

"So, you found out that the Statue of Liberty is a weeping angel?" The Doctor asked Alfie later that evening during dinner.

"I did not even know what a weeping angel was. I just remember that there was definitely something wrong when I went to see her with my mum and dad." Alfie scratched his head. "I didn't even know that I was a wizard yet. But it answers so many questions that I didn't even know I had." He had been holding his soup spoon for some time now, but had not managed to eat one sip. "Pennyfeather."

"We'll see her again one day, Alfie." The Doctor tried to reassure him. "But it may be too late. I'm sorry."

Hugo put a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder. "Try to eat something Alfie." Alfie slowly finished his soup and some of his bread.

"I'm not hungry anymore." He excused himself and made his way to the Gryffindor Dormitory.