An Ill Wind
"Mr Potter," McGonagall's lips had become so thin they had all but disappeared, "forgive me if I'm mistaken but I seem to remember telling you this morning that I wasn't going to give you permission to come to Hogsmeade today. Did I not make myself clear enough?"
Alice would have preferred if she had just shouted at them. Instead her voice was silky smooth and dangerous. The four of them were standing, heads bowed, in a line before their head of house as she vented her anger on them. After the debacle in the pub Professor McGonagall had spoken to the landlady before leading them upstairs to the small room where they now were. When everyone else hadn't been looking Alice had managed to scoop up Harry's cloak and shove them under her own robes - she prayed no one would notice that she had suddenly put on a bit of weight. She could only thank her lucky stars that it was made of lighter and thinner fabric than normal garments or she wouldn't have had a hope of hiding it.
"I'm waiting Mr Potter. Did I, or did I not, make myself clear this morning?"
"Yes Professor," Harry mumbled.
"And surely you three realised that he didn't have permission?"
"It wasn't their fault Professor," Harry cut across their attempts at excuses. "They didn't know I - I didn't tell them."
Professor McGonagall looked sceptical at this but didn't pursue her line of inquiry further. "What I would like to know then, is how you got out of the school grounds without a permission slip?"
A heavy silence met her words as the four of them glanced at each other nervously. How were they going to explain their way out of this one? Alice risked a peek up at McGonagall through her eyelashes. The Transfiguration professor was eyeing them all suspiciously, the toe of her sharp black shoes tapping out an impatient beat against the floorboards. What on earth were they going to say to her?
"I'm waiting," irritation was beginning to bite in her voice.
"Well, I - erm… what happened was…" She could see Harry trying frantically to come up with a story as he nervously fiddled with the Map in his pocket. With a sudden stab of horror Alice realised McGonagall had spotted this too. In mounting dismay she realised what was about to happen seconds before it actually did.
"Mr Potter could you empty your pockets please?" Harry's head shot up so fast that Alice thought it was in danger of flying clean off his neck as McGonagall interrupted his stuttering explanation.
"What?!"
"Your pockets, Mr Potter; empty them please."
With resignation Harry drew his hands from the pockets of his robes and in his bunched fists he held, along with a battered quill, butterbeer cap and several squashed playing cards, the Marauders Map. Thankfully it was blank and all Alice could do was cross her own fingers and hope against hope that McGonagall wouldn't realise what it was. As Harry laid the items on a rickety wooden table next to their professor he threw an apologetic glance at Alice, but she was too busy scrutinising McGonagall's face for a reaction to notice.
As she watched McGonagall cast an expert eye over Harry's belongings. Whether it was plain curiosity or simply the fact that she had been in teaching long enough to know that a large piece of seemingly blank, aged parchment was suspicious she picked it up.
"Mr Potter, what is this?"
All eyes in the room turned towards Harry. "Erm… It's - it's just some spare parchment Professor."
"Really?" She didn't sound convinced. "Aparecium." Alice felt her heart stop in her mouth as she looked to see if McGonagall's spell had any effect. It hadn't. She crossed her fingers behind her back. After trying a few more spells to exactly the same effect McGonagall was frowning thoughtfully and Alice was beginning to allow herself to hope that they might get away with it. Too soon.
"Well I think I had better take this for now." Alice felt the bottom drop out of her stomach as she watched her favourite professor fold up her most prized possession and stow it in her pocket. She couldn't even speak up and say it was hers because that would be to admit that it was something in the first place.
"Now Mr Potter, I have no idea how you managed to get here, but you are still not meant to be in Hogsmeade so you can accompany me back to the castle. I will also look forward to you explaining it to me in detention over the next few weeks. The rest of you," she cast her disapproving gaze over Alice, Ron and Hermione, "can carry on with your visit, but if I catch any of you doing anything to help Mr Potter sneak out of the castle again I will revoke your visiting privileges too. Do I make myself clear?"
Hermione and Ron mumbled an assent, but Alice kept silent, she was too devastated to speak. The best gift she had ever received had just been confiscated! Why on earth had she thought loaning it to Harry was a good idea?
She watched with glazed eyes as McGonagall led Harry from the room leaving the three Gryffindors standing there unsure of what to do now. Eventually Ron broke the silence. "Does anybody fancy going to Honeyduke's now or would you rather…?" He tailed off lamely having never really injected any enthusiasm into his suggestion in the first place.
"I don't really feel like it," Alice heard herself reply in a monotone. She could almost taste her own bitter disappointment.
"Me neither," Hermione looked as though she was away to cry. "Oh why is Harry so reckless all of the time?! Anyone could have seen he was going to get caught, and now he'll end up in detention until he's in seventh year!" She began fiddling agitatedly with a thin gold chain around her neck before seeming to realise what she was doing and dropping it abruptly. "Shall we just go back to Hogwarts?"
"Yeah," Ron gave a resigned sigh. "We might as well."
The three of them began walking back to the school, the entire way Hermione kept ranting about how daft an idea it had been and how Malfoy was such an irritating little toad, but Alice was only half listening. She was too busy stewing in her own resentment over her prize possession being taken away. A small part of her knew it was her own fault for suggesting it in the first place, but she couldn't help thinking, if only Harry had kept it better hidden and not drawn attention to the fact that it was in his pocket. If he hadn't tripped over Crabbe and fallen, if he'd gotten his permission slip signed when he got it, if a mass murderer wasn't out to get him - she knew this last was uncharitable and unfair, but it made her feel slightly better to add more things to her list of grievances. Passing the Dementor guarded gates didn't improve her mood any. As quickly as they could the three of them sprinted past them. The fact that the Dementor's weren't directing whatever terrifying power they held towards the three friends as they had on the train meant that Alice wasn't in danger of passing out again - although she did feel a little dizzy. What it did mean was that by the time she reached the castle she was in an unusually foul temper and took herself off to her room to read without a further word to her friends.
By supper time her empty, and noisy stomach, called her from her room and she was forced to abandon her solitude for the merriment of the Halloween Feast.
"Alice!" Ron hailed her over. Moving across she saw that he was sitting next to Hermione, in a much improved mood, and a rather peeved looking Harry. As she sat down Hermione addressed her.
"Where have you been? We were looking for you to tell you what happened. Harry only got a fortnight's detention; if you ask me he got off lightly." She tried to frown disapprovingly in his direction, but somehow couldn't quite pull it off.
"Oh," Alice sat down in the empty space without meeting Harry's eye.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Asked Ron quizzically, "you don't seem it."
"I'm fine," she tucked into her food with barely a glance at the thousands of pumpkins suspended over the tables or the choir chanting eerily in the far corner. If anything her dim awareness of these things only made her more bad tempered.
"Is this about the Map?" Harry asked quietly.
Finally she looked up at him, her eyes flashing dangerously. "No of course not," she bit the words out sarcastically. "Why on earth would it be about the Map? It's not like I would get annoyed over the fact that I loaned my friend one of the few precious possessions I have - trying to do a good deed - and then he goes and gets it confiscated! Why would that annoy me?" She was aware her voice was rising as she spoke and she fought to keep it under control, she was beginning to attract a few concerned looks from those sitting nearby.
"Look, Alice, I'm really sorry I -"
"No," she stopped him before he could complete his apology. "Don't apologise, don't -" She slammed her fork down on the table. "Just forget about it alright." Standing up she pushed her plate away from her. "I'm not hungry any more. Enjoy the feast." Still seething inside she stalked out of the Great Hall and up to her dormitory. By the time she had reached it and thrown herself onto it however her anger was beginning to wane. Her explosion at the table seemed to have drained most of it out of her leaving her feeling tired and ashamed. Harry hadn't deserved that. All she had done was hurt her friend and make a fool of herself. It wasn't as though getting angry was going to get her the Map back.
More annoyed at herself now than anything else she punched her pillow; the only thing this achieved however was that feathers spurted out of the side and made her sneeze.
"Ugh," she groaned in frustration, flipping over and trying to forget about everything; by the time Hermione came up from the feast a few hours later she was sound asleep.
When Alice woke the following morning, her friends had already left for breakfast, so she quickly scurried about hoping to get down to the Great Hall in time to catch them before class started. Her mood from the night before had completely evaporated, replaced by remorse and a determination to make things right.
"Are you looking for Harry, Hermione and Ron?" Neville asked her as she peered the length of the Gryffindor table ten minutes later.
"Yes; have you seen them today?"
"They just left, you only just missed them."
"Oh," she felt deflated.
"Is everything okay Alice?" Neville was looking at her in concern. "You seem a bit agitated."
"What? Oh, yes, I'm fine," she smiled to cover her disappointment. "I'll talk to them at lunchtime."
It was going to have to be lunchtime, because as it transpired she ended up being paired with Sally-Anne during Care of Magical Creatures - feeding lettuce to a flobberworm for over an hour - and whilst she sat next to Hermione in Arithmancy and though the two girls spoke, there was an air of strained politeness and things unsaid. Besides it was not Hermione that she needed to apologise to.
Finally they went for lunch and she could go in search of Harry. Hermione was no help in this regard as, much to Alice's chagrin, she had vanished again the minute class was over. After twenty minutes of searching she found the three of them in one of the courtyards. "Harry," she approached him nervously as he laughed at something Ron had said. "Do you have a minute?" The end of her hair was going to twist off entirely in a minute if she didn't stop fiddling with the end of her plait.
He looked up in surprise at her approach. "Yeah," he responded after staring at her for a moment. "Sure."
"We might just -"
"I've got to go and -"
After glancing significantly at each other for a second Ron and Hermione stumbled over their half finished sentences and they got up from the wall they had been sitting on, beating a hasty retreat.
"Look Harry," she waved off his attempt to interrupt, "I shouldn't have gone off at you like I did the other day. It was totally unfair and irrational. I'm sorry. It was my own fault McGonagall took the Map." She stared hard at her shoes until he responded.
For one horrible, heart-wrenching second she thought he was going to remain silent. Eventually though he spoke.
"It's alright, I understand why you were annoyed. I would have been too. And I am really sorry about the Map."
The breath she had inadvertently been holding exploded out of her in a rush of air. "That's really nice of you," she smiled, "but I know I was an idiot. You can say it."
"Alright," he grinned back, "you are an idiot."
"Hey," she protested, laughing as she did so, "I said was past tense, there's no need to be insulting!" It was amazing how within seconds they had dropped back into their normal, easy camaraderie.
"Is it safe to come back now?" A voice called across the courtyard. They both turned to see Ron and Hermione watching them. "Or do we have to wait until you hug or something?"
"I wouldn't tease her Ron," Harry smirked as their friends returned. "Apparently Alice has a temper, she might explode at you too if you don't behave." Alice blushed as the others laughed good naturedly. She supposed she had deserved that.
As ever with Hogwarts though, just as one thing was straightened out, another fell out of place and they found a nasty surprise was waiting for them in the Great Hall at lunchtime a few days later. They had just sat down to several liberally piled plates of sandwiches - Ron's stacked higher than was probably possible to eat - when McGonagall entered the Hall and got everyone's attention by setting off several loud bangs from her wand. Alice twisted in her seat curiously to see what all the commotion was about. Standing next to the professor was a man so tall and thin that he didn't seem able to support his own weight and his spine was hunched over like a question mark as a result. Fanning out from around his balding head was a shock of hair that couldn't seem to make up its mind if it wanted to be white or brown and had opted for the middle ground of muddy yellow. A harassed and irritable look haunted his eyes which sat uneasily in a gaunt and sallow face; even from this distance Alice took a dislike to him which she tried to squash.
Once she had everyone's attention McGonagall spoke. "Can I have some attention please? Could all third years who take Care of Magical Creatures please report to my office this afternoon instead of going to their last class of the day. Thank you." And that was it; no explanation, no elaboration as to who exactly the man next to her was. Although she didn't really need to, Alice and her friends knew exactly what this was about. It could only be about one thing: Hagrid. She looked at them feeling slightly nauseous.
"Well… that's that then."
"Do you reckon he just wants to talk to us all, or do you think they might question us?"
"Question us probably," Hermione answered Ron's own question looking worried, "if there's going to be an enquiry then we'll need to give evidence. Oh dear!" As she continued to look worried Harry surprised them all by reaching out and putting his arm around her shoulders. Concerned as she was Alice couldn't help but register the fact that it was the first time in months that her two friends had touched each other without blushing or flinching away.
"Don't worry Hermione, as long as we tell them what happened: that it was all Malfoy's fault, Hagrid will be fine." From the expression on his face Alice could tell that he wasn't convincing himself.
In Transfiguration Professor McGonagall refused to give them any details about what was happening other than to say that the man was from the Ministry - which they had been able to guess on their own anyway. Alice and her friend's would have tried to press the issue further if they hadn't been trying desperately to get back into the professor's good books after events at Halloween. However to Alice's dismay at the end of the class McGonagall revealed that she wouldn't be going to her office with them.
"I thought she would be sitting in with us!" Alice could feel the knots forming in the pit of her stomach as the trekked reluctantly towards McGonagall's office. "I won't be able to say a word if I have to sit down with a stranger."
Hermione patted her sympathetically on the back, there was no point in saying anything really; they all knew Alice's shyness was practically incurable.
When they reached the office they saw a straggly line of third years waiting impatiently outside.
"He wants to speak to us all individually," Dean Thomas confirmed Alice's fear.
"What if I say the wrong thing?" Neville looked fearful. "What if I get someone into trouble because I can't say what I mean properly?" His question was more directed to Alice, but it was Hermione who, as always, had the answer.
"Don't worry about it Neville. You'll be fine, just tell the truth… And if you can't get your thoughts in order properly just don't say anything at all," she added after considering him for a moment."
As they all settled down to wait and the queue slowly dwindled, Alice could only hope that she would be able to do the same thing. Her brain, which was usually so quick when it came to books and facts, had a horrible habit of freezing whenever people started asking her questions. Very little was said as they all waited to go into McGonagall's office and she was glad of it as it gave her the opportunity to organise her thoughts slightly. Eventually though, she was next in line.
"Are you sure you don't want one of us to go in first Alice?" Asked Harry, who noticed that she had gone slightly green.
"No," she forced a quavering smile, "it's fine." Taking a deep breath she placed her hand flat on the wood of the door and, after a second's hesitation, pushed it open. Inside the man from the Ministry was sitting at McGonagall's desk, his spine curling up on itself as he hunched over a pile of papers in front of him. As she entered he finished scratching his quill across the page and glanced up.
"Take a seat, take a seat," he waved a wizened and liver spotted hand towards the far side of the desk. "Now," the man wheezed through creaky lungs, "Miss…?"
"Evans," the word came out as a breathy whisper so she repeated herself a little louder. As he scribbled her name on the parchment Alice took the opportunity to slip into the large tartan armchair he had indicated.
"Miss Evans. My name is Atticus Carne; I work for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures." The way he said it told Alice he felt she should be impressed, or at least intimidated by this piece of information. The fact that the words seemed to puff from his mouth like the air from a badly working pair of bellows ruined the effect somewhat.
"Anyway," he scratched the end of his nose and seemed to visibly lose interest in the conversation. It must be so boring, Alice thought, to have to sit and ask third years the same questions all morning. She fidgeted nervously in her seat. "On the afternoon of the 2nd of September, you were in Professor Hagrid's class?" She nodded mutely. "And you saw what happened to the Malfoy boy?" Again Alice moved her head in confirmation.
He then asked the one question that Alice had been dreading. "And do you think it was irresponsible of Professor Hagrid to have you all interacting with Hippogriffs in your first class?"
"No," Alice was aware that she had probably paused a fraction of a second too long before squeezing out her high pitched reply.
"No?" She felt her heart sink as he clearly picked up on her hesitation. "Are you sure about that Miss Evans?"
Alice nodded again. She was beginning to feel as though her neck was on a hinge. As he scrawled a few more notes on the parchment Alice tried to lever herself up in her seat to read them. She failed; being short was such a handicap sometimes!
"How would you describe Professor Hagrid's approach to teaching?"
Alice stared at him blankly for an excruciating moment, willing her brain to work, it seemed it had other ideas however and stuck fast on an empty setting. "I…" She was half aware of her hand moving slowly upwards to fiddle with the end of her hair, she knew it was a nervous tick, but she couldn't seem to stop it. "Erm…" Carne was still staring at her disconcertingly through pale, rheumy eyes. How should she answer? The only adjectives that sprang to mind were entirely unhelpful: Haphazard? Inexperienced? "Enthusiastic?" she suggested eventually.
"Hmm," he studied her again for a while before adding more to his notes. He really was writing an awful lot more down than any of her monosyllabic responses had warranted. The fact that he was clearly finding a lot to write about was unnerving her somewhat, which didn't help matters when he suddenly pounced with his next question.
"And do you think there was any way that Professor Hagrid could have prevented Mr Malfoy from getting injured?"
Alice blinked. "No." Even to her own ears she didn't sound convincing.
"Miss Evans," his shoulders seemed to hunch even further forwards, if it was in disapproval or irritation she couldn't tell. "I hope you realise how serious this all is. I don't have the time or the inclination to waste with people who aren't telling me the full truth. Now I want you to answer me again - was there anything about the class that could have been changed that would have prevented Mr Malfoy from being attacked by the Hippogriff?"
Loyal to the last Alice shook her head vigorously. She may have had thoughts to the contrary, and Carne might intimidate the life out of her, but she wasn't going to deliberately jeopardise Hagrid's job.
With a sigh Carne scribbled a final note on the piece of parchment before looking back up at her. "Right then Miss Evans, that will be all." Alice didn't need telling twice.
"How did it go?" Hermione asked the minute she was back on the other side of the door.
"All right," Alice gulped with a fleeting reassuring smile at Ron who was on his way in. "I didn't say much."
"But you told him it wasn't Hagrid's fault didn't you?" Harry immediately asked.
"Of course."
"And you said it was all Malfoy's fault because he hadn't been paying attention and was mucking about - you did tell him that didn't you Alice?"
"I thought he was supposed to be doing the questioning not you two!" Already on edge after her encounter with Carne, their persistence was beginning to irritate her.
Seeing the answer in her friend's evasion Hermione tutted. "Oh Alice, you should have told him!"
"Well you can tell him! You know what I'm like, I just clam up; I can't help it!"
"It's alright, don't worry about it," Harry looked pensively at the solid wooden door as though willing himself to be able to see through it and pick up every word that Ron was saying on the other side. Despite all the magic in Hogwarts however, that was one thing that wasn't possible.
After that life seemed to settle back into its usual rhythm, if you ignored the minor ripples cause by Snape teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts that Friday afternoon as Professor Lupin was off sick. Harry was curtailed from ranting about the fact too vehemently however as he had the first Quidditch match of the season the following day to think about.
"Why does it always rain?" Ron moaned as they stood shivering in the stands waiting for the game to start.
"Oh be quiet Ron," Hermione chastised him, "it does not always rain. In fact usually when there's a match the weather stays nice. You're just grumpy because you didn't get to finish your third helping of breakfast."
"Well I would have if someone hadn't rushed me away from the table," he griped, though more quietly so that only Alice and Neville who were standing next to him heard.
Alice grinned, Hermione had been more keen than any of them to make sure they got down to the pitch in plenty of time to get a good seat. And she didn't even like Quidditch.
Thirty minutes later Alice had to admit that Ron may have had a point about the rain though. She was wetter than she could ever remember being in her life, her robes were soaked through to such an extent that fish could probably live quite happily in them. The noise of the howling wind coupled with the occasional roar of thunder made it impossible to hear Lee Jordan's commentary, which was unfortunate as she couldn't see what on earth was going on. Even when the lightening did brighten up the skies for a brief moment the lashing rain was still too thick and fast for her to see through. Of course, that was assuming that there was anything to see and the players hadn't simply been blown away.
"THIS IS POINTLESS!" She screamed in Hermione's ear over another crash of thunder. "SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET HURT UP THERE!" Hermione nodded vigorously and she tried to reply. All Alice could see however were her lips moving, the words were snatched away in the wind as it whistled between them. "WHAT?!" She bellowed back.
Just as Hermione was about to repeat herself however she paused and frowned towards the sky before her eyes widened in shock. At exactly the same moment Alice felt a familiar chill sweep over her that had nothing to do with the pelting rain. For a moment it was as though time slowed to a standstill and she saw the cloaked and hooded figures of hundreds of Dementors, silhouetted by another flash of lightening, loom out of the sky to descend on the pitch, on Harry. The screaming from the train had started up again and was threatening to drown out the rushing of the rain. Then, suddenly it was as though time was in a rush to catch up with itself and everything happened very quickly. Hermione and several people around her screamed, Harry began to plummet from his broom, the Hufflepuff Seeker snatched the Snitch from the air, and to top it all off Alice could feel her own mind starting to slip towards an unconscious fog as the Dementors closed in. Then, across the stands, Dumbledore unexpectedly stood up; with a wave of his wand he simultaneously banished the Dementors and slowed Harry's fall.
"Harry!" Hermione's piercing screech was agonised as she swung out over the railing in an attempt to see that he had landed safely on the grass. Worried that she would throw herself over them entirely in her bid to reach him Alice, who was trying hard not to feel faint, grabbed a handful of her robes and pulled her back. As they all rushed quickly down the stairs to the pitch it fleetingly occurred to her how often they had had to do this, really they must be friends with the most frequently injured player in Hogwarts history. But she quickly pushed the thought from her mind; Harry could have been badly hurt even with Dumbledore's spell to slow his fall.
By the time the four of them - Neville had followed too - had reached the sodden grass the teachers and Gryffindor team members were all swarming around Harry who was hovering several feet off the ground on a stretcher that someone had conjured.
"Is he alright?" Hermione rushed over but couldn't get to Harry through the press of bodies around him.
"I think so," it was Angelina Johnson that answered her, "I heard Dumbledore say he's just unconscious, but they're going to take him to the Hospital Wing to be sure." As Alice saw Hermione visibly relax she felt her own fears for their friend ease. If Dumbledore said he would be alright then surely everything was fine? Still she would only feel completely better once she had seen him, and she could tell by her friends' faces that they felt the same. As the group parted to let the stretcher through she managed to catch a glimpse of Harry, pale, muddy, soaked to the skin, but essentially unharmed, and let out a huge sigh of relief.
"You weren't worried were you Evans?" Fred Weasley was suddenly at her side.
"Of course not," she tried a grin out for size and found that it had the inclination to stick.
"Thought not. It's not as though he fell far after all, just a little drop, George and I have done worse tripping over our feet."
"Well your feet are really large so I'm not surprised," his twin chipped in as they all began following the procession carrying Harry back to the castle.
Fred shoved him gently. "And identical to yours."
There was a brief break in the rain as they passed through the changing rooms, but it instantly resumed the moment they came back outside. Glancing up at the sky Alice saw the thick, dark clouds still stretched from one side of the horizon to the other; it didn't look like there was going to be a break at all. Still at least the thunder and lightening had stopped and the wind seemed to be easing slightly.
"Hang on!" Hermione suddenly stopped in front of her and turned, "what about Harry's broom? Did anyone collect it?" She looked from one to the other as they all shook their heads. "Wait a minute then." Holding her robes up away from the spattering mud she dashed back into the stadium, only to reappear a split second later pelting in the direction of the forest. "It went this way!" After glancing at each other in bewilderment for a moment Alice, Ron, Neville, Fred and George followed suit.
"Hermione!" Alice yelled when it seemed her friend was going to run straight for the trees without even stopping to scan the skies for Harry's Nimbus. How on earth was she going to find it if she didn't even stop to check? It was almost as though… "Hermione will you stop a second!"
"We have to find it!" Her friend called back without slowing an inch. As the trees came into view Alice suddenly saw Harry's broom, it was spiralling slowly out of the sky straight into - "Accio Nimbus 2000," Hermione roared. At the last minute the broom was plucked from the reaches of the Whomping Willow as though by an invisible hand and whisked through the air towards the waiting friends.
"Wow," Ron panted leaning forward with his hands on his knees to try and catch his breath. "I don't - I don't say this often Hermione, but… nice one!"
Hermione blushed slightly and avoided their gaze. "Thanks."
"Yeah, well done Hermione," Alice added, although there was something about the situation that wasn't quite sitting correctly. She just couldn't work out what it was yet. "Harry would have been devastated if his broom had an encounter with the psychopathic tree."
"Yeah," Hermione looked more embarrassed than pleased with herself, "well, come on; we had better get it back to him."
As they were trouping back across the sodden grounds towards the castle it suddenly dawned on Alice what had been amiss earlier when Hermione had been searching for the broom. There had been no searching involved. It seemed as though she had known exactly where the broom would be and reached it at exactly the right moment to save it from complete obliteration. But that wasn't possible, was it?
A/N: The plot thickens… slightly; it's more like runny porridge really - I'll aim for at least a custard-like consistency next time. Anyway, hope you enjoyed, please R&R.
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