Cameras, in nearly every circumstance, incite resistance. People with cameras get thrown out of places. Someone simply walking into a place, walking confidently and purposely, may be met with curiosity, but they are not usually stopped. At least, not until it is too late. The courtyard was dotted with young people moving here and there in knots. They wore black robes over white shirts and ties. Many carried backpacks or books. The ones nearest Martin turned to watch him past, mostly out of curiosity.
'There are… there are what appear for all the world to be… school pupils,' Martin said quietly into his microphone, sidling past students as he worked across the courtyard. 'Young people in robes, all school age. They seem surprised at my presence, but not hostile. In fact, as I am now approaching the entryway into the castle proper, it appears that I have elicited the attention of virtually everyone. Excuse me.'
This last was said to Ted Lupin, who had just appeared in the doorway with Noah Metzker and Sabrina Hildegard. All three of them stopped talking instantly as the strange man in the white shirt and loosened tie slipped between them. The quill in Sabrina's hair wobbled as she turned to watch him.
'Who's he talking to?' Ted said.
'And who the ruddy hell is he?' Sabrina added. The trio turned in the open doorway, watching the man work his way carefully into the entry hall. Students parted for him, recognizing immediately that this man was rather out of place. Still, no one seemed particularly alarmed. There were even a few puzzled grins.
Martin went on speaking into his microphone. 'More and more of what I must, for the time being, call students. There are dozens of them around me at the moment. I am moving through a sort of main hall. There are… chandeliers, great doorways. Statues. Paintings. The paintings… the paintings… the paintings…' For the first time, Martin seemed at a loss for words. He forgot the students gathering around him, watching him, as he took two steps toward one of the larger paintings lining the entry hall. In the painting, a group of ancient wizards were clustered around a large crystal ball, their white beards illuminated in its glow. One of the wizards noticed the staring man in the white shirt and tie. He straightened and scowled. 'You're out of uniform, young man,' the wizard exclaimed sternly. 'You look a fright. I daresay you have a leaf in your hair.'
'The paintings… the paintings are…,' Martin said, his voice an octave higher than normal. He coughed and gathered himself. 'The paintings are moving. They are… for lack of a better term, like painted movies, but alive. They are… addressing me.'
'I address equals, young man,' the wizard said. 'I command the likes of you. Begone, ruffian.'
There was a smattering of laughter from the crowding students, but there was also a growing sense of nervousness. Nobody was ever amazed at the moving paintings. This man was either a nutter of a wizard, or he was… well, it was unthinkable. A Muggle could not get into Hogwarts. The students formed a large circle around him, as if he was a mildly dangerous animal.
'The students have hemmed me in,' Martin said, turning around, his eyes rather wild. 'I'm going to attempt to break through, however. I must move further in.'
As Martin proceeded, the perimeter of students broke apart easily, following him. There was a murmuring now. Nervous chatter followed the man, and he began to raise his voice.
'I'm entering a large chamber. Quite high. I've been here before, but late at night, in the dark. Yes, this is the hall of moving staircases. Very treacherous. Remarkable mechanics at work here, and yet no sound of machinery at all.'
'What's he saying about machinery?' someone in the crowding students called. 'Who is this bloke anyway? What's he doing here?' There was a chorus of confused responses.
Martin pushed on, turning past the staircases, almost shouting now. 'My presence is beginning to cause some resistance. I may be stopped at any moment. I… I am bypassing the stairs.'
Martin turned a corner and found himself in the midst of a group of students playing Winkles and Augers in a bright alcove. He stopped suddenly and recoiled as the auger, an old Quaffle, stopped three inches from his face, floating and turning slowly.
'Oi, what're you thinking just walking right into the middle of the sodding match, you?' one of the players called, yanking his wand up and retrieving the Quaffle. 'Dangerous, that is. You need to watch yourself.'
'Flying… things!' Martin squeaked, straightening himself and smoothing his shirt frantically. 'I… wands. Actual magical wands and levitating objects! This is perfectly remarkable! I've never seen…!'
'Hey now,' another of the Winkles and Augers players said sharply. 'Who is this? What's he going on about?'
Someone else yelled, 'Who let him in? He's a Muggle! Got to be!'
'It's the man from the Quidditch pitch! The intruder!'
The crowd began to yell and jostle. Martin ducked past the Winkles and Augers players, losing some of the pursuing crowd. 'I'm pressing in further still. Corridors leading everywhere. Here is… er, as far as I can tell, it is a hall of classrooms. I'm entering the first one…'
He burst into the first classroom on his right, followed by a stream of confused, yelling students. The room was long and recessed. The students attending the class turned in their seats, seeking the source of the interruption.
'Relatively normal, it seems, on the surface, at least,' Martin yelled over the growing din, scanning the room. 'Students, textbooks, a teacher of some kind, who… who, who, whooo…'
Again, Martin's voice rose and he seemed to be losing control of it. His eyes boggled and he ran out of breath. His mouth continued to work, making hoarse raspy sounds. At the front of the class, the ghostly Professor Binns, whose grasp on the temporal realm was tentative at best, had not yet noticed the interruption. He droned on, his voice high and chiming, like wind in a bottle. The professor finally noticed the gasping form of Martin J. Prescott and stopped, frowning. 'Who is this individual, might I ask?' Binns said, peering over his ghostly spectacles.
Martin finally dragged a great gulp of air. 'A ghooooossst!' he declared tremulously, pointing at Binns. He began to totter. Just as the students near the doorway were shoved roughly aside by the advancing figures of Professor Longbottom and Headmistress McGonagall, flanked by Ted and Sabrina, Martin fell over in a dead faint. He landed hard across two desks at the rear of the room. The students occupying the desks threw their hands up, lunging to get out of the way. A bottle of ink fell to the floor and shattered.
Headmistress McGonagall approached the man swiftly and stopped a few feet away. 'Can anyone please inform me who this man is,' she said in a strident voice, 'and what he is doing fainting dead away in my school?'
James Potter shouldered his way to the front of the crowd. He looked at the man collapsed across the desks. He sighed deeply and said, 'I think I can, ma'am.'
Fifteen minutes later, James, McGonagall, Neville Longbottom, and Benjamin Franklyn bustled into the Headmistress' office, with Martin Prescott stumbling between them. Martin had regained consciousness halfway to the office, and had instantly shrieked in horror at the realization that he was being levitated along the corridor by Neville. Neville, in turn, had been so startled by Martin's shriek that he'd nearly dropped him, but had recovered in time to lower the man fairly gently to the floor. Apart from James' explanation that the intruder was the very same man he'd accidentally knocked through the stained-glass window and later seen on the Quidditch pitch, the trip to the Headmistress' office had progressed with very little conversation. Once the door to her office had closed behind them, McGonagall spoke up.
