Dealing with Danger
Chapter 7: Look to the Future (Year 3)
By Anne B. Walsh
Chapter 7: Look to the Future
"Hermione?"
"Yes?" Hermione looked up from her book. Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown were both standing beside her chair, looking very solemn.
"We wanted to tell you something," said Parvati. "Something important. Without anyone else around."
"It’s about something Professor Trelawney told us in Divination today," added Lavender, sitting down in a chair near Hermione’s.
Hermione restrained a snort and only nodded.
"She said that a teacher and a student who had the same name would suffer great tragedy this year," said Parvati, sitting in the chair next to Lavender’s. "And you’re the only student with the same name as a professor right now."
"We thought we should tell you." Lavender’s face was anxious. "Maybe knowing it could help you avoid it."
"Er, thank you," said Hermione, fighting not to let herself laugh. "That’s very kind."
"Are they your parents?" asked Lavender. "Professor Lupin and Professor Granger-Lupin, I mean. You look a lot like them. Professor Granger-Lupin, especially."
Why is it any of your business? "Well, they’re not my parents, exactly. I don’t remember my real parents."
"You don’t?" Parvati was leaning forward, entranced. "Why not?"
"They... died. When I was only a baby." Both girls’ eyes were boring into Hermione now, making her feel horribly like a freak on display.
"Then what’s Professor Granger-Lupin to you?" asked Lavender, looking baffled.
"She’s my older sister. She married Professor Lupin not too long after our parents died." And the worst of it is, they don’t mean to do it. They’re just curious, they can’t know how it feels to me...
"However did you end up living in the same house as Harry Potter and Draco Black, then?" asked Parvati. "An older sister taking care of a younger one, I can understand, but how did they get mixed up in it?"
"It’s... complicated." Hermione stood up abruptly. "Excuse me, I have to... brush Crookshanks. He always gets burrs in his tail, and they drive him mad, and then he bites them out and leaves them on my pillow, I really have to get to him before he does that..."
Babbling, she made her escape up the girls’ stairs and into the quiet of the dormitory, where she collapsed on her bed. Crookshanks, without a trace of a burr anywhere on him, leapt up on the bed, nuzzled her face, and began to purr.
"Why do they think they’re entitled to know everything about my life and my Pack?" she asked Crookshanks. "Why can’t they just leave me alone?"
In a funny way, I almost wish they were worse. Then I could cry and get it over with. As it is, I don’t even know what I feel, so I have no way to release it, and it just keeps piling up and getting worse...
"Hermione?" Meghan appeared at the door of the dormitory. "Parvati and Lavender said you were up here. Are you coming?"
"Coming where?"
"Den-night, silly. Remember?"
"Oh." Hermione looked out the window at the gathering dusk. "Right."
"So pull your curtains and come on. Neville’s whispered us all invisible already, no one’s going to see us."
Hermione pulled her bedcurtains shut, got her pajamas from her wardrobe, and followed Meghan down the stairs, Crookshanks at her heels. To Hermione’s surprise, the cat leapt into the tube with her, ensconcing himself in her lap.
Harry used to bring Siss. There’s no reason I can’t bring Crookshanks.
"Thank you, Godric," she said, shutting the tube behind her, and pushed off. Halfway down, it occurred to her that Crookshanks might not care for the end of the ride. A sudden drop onto a bed was fine if you knew it was coming, but not if you didn’t...
"We’re going to fall in a minute," she told the cat. "But it’s all right, we won’t get hurt — please don’t claw me, there’s no reason to. Don’t cats always land on their feet, anyway?"
The floor of the tube vanished beneath them. Hermione crossed her hands over her stomach just in time, as she landed on the bed and sixteen pounds of yowling ginger cat landed on her. Before she could do more than try to get back the breath that had been knocked out of her by the double impact, Crookshanks rocketed off her to the top of the chest of drawers, where he began to furiously wash a paw.
"Well, I did try to tell you," said Hermione, standing up. Crookshanks ignored her with injured dignity.
"’Lo, Neenie," Harry greeted her as she came through the door of the red bedroom. Hermione made a face at him, but no more — it was her den name, after all, and to tell the truth, it didn’t bother her as it once had. She might not even mind if the Pride sometimes called her by it in public.
A quick look around confirmed that she was the last one in. She set her pajamas in a corner and dropped down beside Ginny, who was lying on her stomach on the padded floor, scowling at a book. "Homework?" she asked.
Ginny nodded. "I used to think the first day of the year would be the easiest," she said. "If this is the easiest, I don’t want to know what the rest of the year is going to be like."
Hermione peered over her friend’s shoulder. "Oh, I remember that lesson. It’s not too hard, once you get the trick. Do you have your wand with you?"
Ginny produced it.
"Show me how you’re doing the movement."
Ginny obliged. Hermione watched critically. "That’s almost right, but you’re twisting your wrist too much. It should only be about a quarter-turn. Here." She pulled out her own wand. "Watch me."
Her bad mood had vanished without her even noticing.
xXxXx
Around eight o’clock, a loud crack signaled the arrival of several house-elves with mugs of hot chocolate and plates and bowls of treats for the denners. Ron reached eagerly for an éclair. Kady smacked his wrist sharply. "Bad," she scolded. "Sir knows he must be in his pajamas before he eats his bedtime snack."
Ron groaned. "Do I have a big sign on me that says ‘Boss Me Around’?" he demanded of the rest of the Pride. "Don’t answer that," he added, seeing the grins on the other boys’ faces. "Let’s just get changed." He picked up his pajamas from their own corner and vanished into the red bedroom. The rest of the Pride split up and found places to change their clothing, and reemerged dressed for bed, to claim their snacks and drinks.
"Little master is not needing to thank the house-elves," said an elf called Mitsy, wiggling her ears at Neville in embarrassment after he’d accepted a plate of biscuits with thanks. "Hogwarts house-elves is always serving people well, and the people who use this place very well."
"That’s no surprise, if the Founders made this place for themselves," said Ginny.
"But we like thanking you," Hermione told the house-elves. "Do you want to make us happy?"
All the house-elves nodded hard.
"You can make us the most happy by just letting us say thank you, then. All right?"
The house-elves looked around at each other. "All right, miss," said Kady, who seemed to be the spokes-elf for the group. She took a deep breath. "You is welcome, little sirs and misses. We hopes you is having a good night."
"You too," said Harry as the house-elves disappeared all at once with a series of loud bangs.
"Funny little things," said Ron, seizing the éclair he’d been after earlier.
"Hold on a second," said Harry, forestalling Ron’s first bite. "We should start first."
Ron looked disgusted. "I’ll never get to eat at this rate."
"And we all know what a disaster that would be," said Draco dryly. "Ron Weasley stops eating, and Britain suddenly suffers an enormous food surplus."
Neville rescued Ron’s mug of hot chocolate as Ron threw a hard biscuit at Draco.
"Stop it, you two," said Hermione. "Draco?"
Draco cleared his throat ostentatiously. "Be welcome, all, to this den-night." He pointedly did not look at Ron. "We are Pride now. Pride together."
"Pride forever," answered everyone else.
"Can I eat now?" asked Ron with forced patience.
xXxXx
Some time later, when the contents of the plates and bowls were nearly gone, Hermione sat up. "Who will tell a story?" she asked. "Who will remind us of what it is to be Pride?" It was the ritual that had formed the heart of den-nights as long as they had existed. Knowing the past was essential to shaping the present and preparing for the future.
"I have a question," said Luna. "It’s not really a story, but if everyone answers it, it could be."
"Go on, then," said Harry.
"What did everyone hear when the dementor came into our compartment?"
There was a long moment of silence. "Luna, that’s not a good idea," muttered Draco. "No one’s going to want to talk about that..."
"No, she’s right," said Meghan. "That’s why we have den-night stories, to talk about scary things in a safe place. I’ll go first. If that’s okay," she added, looking at Harry. He nodded.
Meghan looked at her hands, then lifted her head and set her shoulders. "I heard the day the Pack got arrested, the day before Dadfoot’s trial. When I had to go away from the Den without looking back, and I didn’t know if I would ever see anybody again."
"Is that why you were crying?" asked Neville.
Meghan nodded. "What did you hear?" she asked him.
"I don’t really know." Neville closed his eyes, thinking. "It was a lot of shouting and screaming. People shouting, ‘Tell us where he is, tell us where he is!’ and other people screaming, without words. I didn’t understand it."
Hermione did, but as long as Neville didn’t, or said he didn’t, she wasn’t about to burst out with it, even in-den as they were. It was something that should only be told in private.
"Luna?" Neville said, looking at her. "Your idea. You should go next."
"The day my mum died," said Luna, looking grave. "I heard her voice say something, and then a sound like something exploding. It was her bowl, that gave me my scar." She ran her fingers along it. "But after that I heard something else, something I didn’t remember from before. Someone talking to me, telling me things."
"Things like what?" asked Ron.
"I don’t remember," said Luna. "I think I’m only supposed to remember when the time comes. But I had to listen very hard then, so I wouldn’t forget them between now and that time, even though I can’t remember them now."
This made no sense to Hermione, but then, Luna hardly ever made sense. Especially not now.
Why is she looking at me?
"Hermione?"
Oh. I’m next. "The basilisk," she said. "I heard Padfoot shout out ‘Conjunctivus Occuli!’ and then make a funny sound, like he was gasping only it got cut off in the middle — that was when he got Petrified..."
"He got Petrified before you?" asked Draco. "Why didn’t you run away?"
"Because I couldn’t. He was holding me when he got Petrified, so I was caught. And even if I’d gotten loose, the basilisk would have followed me and eaten me. But it wouldn’t eat me if I was Petrified, I thought, so I looked at it."
"Her," said Harry.
"Sorry. At her." There, that’s out. Who should go next? Hermione looked around her friends. "Ginny?"
"Being in the Chamber of Secrets," said Ginny flatly. "Ron?"
"Waiting in that bathroom for you to come out of the Chamber of Secrets," said Ron. "With Moaning Myrtle floating around saying things like how she hoped you’d stick around if you died, Harry, and if you didn’t how she was going to go around the castle toilets looking for you. I think she likes you."
Harry’s eyes widened. "I’ll never go to the loo again," he said, making everyone laugh.
"So what was yours, then?" asked Ron.
"Mine? Oh, right." Harry shrugged. "I’m like Neville. I don’t know. It was someone shouting. A woman, I think. But I don’t remember what she said." He looked over at Draco. "You’re last, fox. What’d you hear?"
"I don’t know either," said Draco casually. "Someone talking was all."
"It scared you pretty bad for just someone talking," said Ron. "If you’d been any farther back in the corner, you’d’ve been outside the train."
"That’s rich from you, Mr. Scared-of-waiting-in-a-bathroom."
"Oi, let’s just see how happy you are when it’s your sister’s life we’re talking about!"
"It was my brother’s life that night, too, in case you’ve forgotten!"
Harry let loose a piercing, two-fingered whistle. "Stop it," he said when everyone had recovered their hearing somewhat. "Den’s not for fighting. And everyone’s had a go now, so let’s do something else. Who’s for Exploding Snap?"
Ron, Neville, Ginny, Meghan, and Luna put their hands up. Harry stood up. "Round table and six chairs, please," he said to the air. "Draco, Neenie?"
"Not now," said Draco. "Maybe next game." He went over to the Quidditch pitch and opened the door. Hermione shook her head at Harry, got up, and followed Draco.
He was leaning against one of the goal posts, staring across the pitch. Hermione looked down as fur brushed her ankles. Crookshanks trotted past her and over to Draco, where he stropped around the boy’s legs, purring. Draco absently bent to stroke him. Hermione shut the door.
"Just someone talking?" she said quietly.
"Not just someone," said Draco, seemingly to the cat. "My father. I don’t know if you know this, but I dreamed of him in first year, and Danger says it was true. It was really him, we shared the dream. So I know he meant what he said."
"What did he say?"
"He talked about reclaiming me. Taking me back, and making me his again." He turned to look at her. "He doesn’t want me dead, Neenie. He wants me alive."
His eyes were fearful in a way she hadn’t seen for years. She was so used to both her brothers being totally fearless and confident about everything that it took her a moment to find the comparison she wanted. Draco looked now as he had looked when he was very small, at the London Den, and he had just had a nightmare.
And I know those nightmares were all about his father...
"But he won’t get you," she said, trying to project certainty into her voice. "How could he? Hogwarts is the safest place in the magical world, isn’t it? He can’t Apparate here, and there’s no way he could Floo, not with people all over the country looking for him. Besides, how would he hide inside the school, with all the teachers and ghosts around? Someone would be sure to see him."
The fear was fading from Draco’s eyes. Hermione pressed onward. "He can’t make a Portkey without a wand, and where would he get one? And not even Wormtail could get onto the grounds with all the wards up, and the dementors. The only people allowed onto Hogwarts grounds are students, teachers, and invited guests, and he isn’t any of those, so he isn’t going to get in. It’s just that simple."
The fear had been replaced by a much more normal expression for Draco — exasperation. "If there was an award for Most Annoying Logic of the Year, you’d win it," he said.
"Thank you."
"That wasn’t a compliment."
"I know." Hermione walked over to him and bent down to pick up Crookshanks. She met Draco’s eyes again as she straightened. "If he does come after you," she told him, "he’ll have to come through me first."
"What are you going to do? Throw books at him?" Draco began to laugh. "Or Crookshanks! You could call him to fight for you! Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll eat Wormtail for us!"
Hermione laughed with him, picturing her cat cornering the small, fat, balding man she recalled. "But I do mean it," she said when she’d caught her breath.
"I know." Draco gave her a quick scent-touch and a smile, telling her all the things his stupid thirteen-year-old male pride wouldn’t let him say in so many words. Things like "thank you," and "I love you."
I should be grateful we have ways he can say them. And that he knows he needs to. If he was like Ron, he wouldn’t even realize that. She watched Draco open the door and head out to the main room. Ron is such an idiot when it comes to emotional things. Ron is such an idiot, generally.
But he’s a nice idiot. And funny. The littlest things make him happy, like one good score on homework or the Quidditch team practicing well. It’s actually cute, the way he’s always hungry, and always a little clueless. And when you know a lot of answers, it’s nice to have someone around who asks a lot of questions...
She shook her head. What is wrong with me? I sound like someone out of Padfoot’s books!
No, it’s worse. I sound like Parvati and Lavender. Eurgh.
She set Crookshanks down. "Ron is my friend," she told the cat. "My Pride-mate and my friend. Nothing less, but nothing more."
Crookshanks twisted himself around and began to wash beneath his tail.
xXxXx
In an office elsewhere in the castle, two wolves lay contentedly twisted together.
If there was some way to do it without blowing my cover, this would be a great assignment for some of my students, said Remus. Identify the werewolf and the true wolf, and tell me how you know.
Would you be covering werewolves this early in the year? That’s fairly advanced, isn’t it?
True. We probably wouldn’t get there until sometime in the winter.
After Christmas, you think?
Offhand, yes. Why?
Because we’ll be home for Christmas, and you can get Sirius or Letha to take a picture of us on full moon. Then reproduce it and give the kids that. A good-quality picture ought to give them enough of the pertinent anatomical detail.
I thought you didn’t want anyone else knowing about my pertinent anatomical detail.
Danger’s response to this was non-verbal, consisting first of puzzlement, then the rising heat that meant embarrassment, coupled with the under-the-breath mutter that meant Remus had better watch his back.
He let his tongue hang out of his mouth in a grin, utterly content. My wife is plotting against me. Life is good.
Excuse me. Danger untwined herself. I’m going to go raid my stash. You want anything?
No, I’m fine. Thank you, though.
You’re welcome. Danger trotted into the bedroom. Remus listened to the sounds of her opening their trunk, digging through clothes and books until she came to her own personal store of junk food, separate from his large collection of chocolate, which he had amassed partly for his own consumption and partly when he had heard there was a possibility of dementors around the castle.
Dementors. Nasty things. Good thing it’s not Sirius here this year, he probably would have had a much worse reaction to that dementor on the train than I did... but Letha would have been able to deal with it, they would have been fine...
A sudden bang broke him out of his reverie. Danger!
I’m fine, she answered quickly, and truthfully. There was nothing worse in her mind than shock, no pain or fear. Fine, except... what in the world?
What?
You tell me. Danger, human once more, reappeared in the hallway which led to their bedroom.
Remus stared. His wife’s hair was piled on top of her head in an intricate arrangement, and if he wasn’t mistaken, it was darker than it had been. Canine eyes were better for night-sight, but had limitations in the color vision area. Has it changed color? he asked.
Danger hurried to the mirror and squealed in outrage. Hell yes! It’s blue!
Blue?
Blue. You’ve heard of it, I’m sure. More usual color for eyes than for hair. And now I have a blue beehive. How nice.
Your food was pranked?
I have to assume, since this happened as soon as I opened the bag. You didn’t do this?
No, this one isn’t mine. And a prank used to be Sirius’ idea of a fine send-off, but strange as it seems, I think he’s grown out of that. Besides, if he was going to prank anyone, he’d prank me. So that leaves the cubs.
Danger retransformed and shook her wolf-head in distaste at the feeling of the topknot of fur she now wore. Let’s have a sniff.
Remus joined her in the bedroom. Their own scents were clear on the trunk, but there were baffling hints of others, hard to pick out and follow clearly. Finally, though, they both had a verdict.
He must have worn gloves. But he brushed the trunk at some point with his knee or elbow. That’s why we can only get a faint trace.
Is there a magical way to confirm that?
We don’t need one. We just need to handle him the right way, and he’ll confess all by himself.
If you think I’m going to breakfast like this, you’re crazy.
I never said you should go to breakfast like this. I’ll fix it as soon as I can use my wand.
Are you sure you can?
Danger, he’s thirteen. I’m thirty-five. If I can’t undo what he did, I’m obviously not fit to be a teacher here. Remus decided to tease her. You wouldn’t consider coming down for just a little bit like this, to make him happy?
Remus!
I’m joking, love. Back to normal, first thing in the morning.
xXxXx
Neville had just poured milk onto his porridge the next morning when Meghan suddenly pulled the bowl away from him. "What—" he had just time to say before a letter fell precisely where the bowl had been. "Thank you," he said instead.
"You’re welcome." Meghan handed back the porridge and returned to her own cereal.
Just as Neville was about to unseal the letter, it caught fire. He yelled and dropped it into his porridge anyway, where it went out with a loud, milky sizzle.
"Danger says wait here," said Harry, who was looking at the High Table. "I mean, Professor Granger-Lupin says, wait here."
"And she also says don’t open that yet," added Hermione.
Neville fished the letter out of his porridge. "I wish she had some other way to tell people things," he said, wiping it with his napkin.
"That looks really official," remarked Ron from the other side of the table. "Big seal on it and everything. Does it say where it’s from?"
Neville turned the envelope over in his hands, looking for some indicator.
"Seals sometimes have imprints on them," said Luna.
Neville looked at the red wax seal. It wasn’t just a blob — it had a form to it. A crossed wand and bone.
Crossed wand and bone...
His heart began to pound. There was only one reason St. Mungo’s Hospital would be sending him a letter. Well, two reasons, but they amounted to the same thing.
Oh no, oh no, please don’t let them be dead...
"Mr. Longbottom." He jumped and looked up. Professor McGonagall was standing beside him. "Have you had enough to eat?"
"No, ma’am. I haven’t had anything yet."
"I see. Well, eat quickly, then come to my office." Neville’s worry must have shown on his face, because Professor McGonagall softened and added, "You’re in no trouble, Longbottom. In fact, this may be good news. But you need to eat first. And I’ll take that." She plucked the letter out of his hand.
"But it’s mine!"
"In my office, Longbottom." Professor McGonagall swept away.
"At least it’s good news, not bad," said Ginny. "Neville, really, you have to eat something, or you’re never going to make it until lunch."
But Neville’s throat seemed to have closed up. He could barely swallow. After a few spoonfuls of porridge from a new bowlful and a few bites of toast, he jumped up from the table and hurried out of the Great Hall.
He wasn’t surprised to hear quick footsteps behind him, or to find a small hand in his halfway up the marble staircase. As always, she comforted him just by being there — he never asked her to come with him, because he never had to ask. She simply assumed she was welcome to go wherever he did.
And I didn’t have to tell her about my parents. She already knew.
He raised his free hand and knocked on Professor McGonagall’s door.
"Come in!" she called.
Meghan squealed happily when the door was open. "Mama Letha! Dadfoot!" She sprinted across the room to hug her parents.
"Hello," said Neville, giving the Blacks a small bow and a smile. He liked them — they had been very kind and encouraging to him, first as teachers, then as hosts for the month of July. He was eager to see how Professor Lupin’s classes were different than ones taught by Professors Black and Freeman-Black.
Professor McGonagall sighed. "I should have specified that you were to come alone," she said, but without rancor. "I suppose she is part of this as well, though."
"I’m afraid so," said Mrs. Letha (as Neville had settled on calling her after two weeks of feeling rather silly and out-of-place, addressing an adult by her first name). "We’re just waiting for one other person, Neville, and then we’ll explain this."
The fire flared green, and the spinning form within it solidified into —
"Gran?" Neville hurried across the room to help his grandmother out of the fireplace.
"I’m all right, stop fussing at me, boy," she said irritably, brushing soot off her cloak. "Well, Minerva, what in the world is so important that you dragged me away from my breakfast to see?"
"Have you had an owl this morning, Augusta?"
"Yes, actually, but I haven’t opened the letter. I have it here." His gran produced it from her handbag. "I was wondering where it came from, and what it was all about..."
"That’s what we’re here to explain," said Mr. Padfoot (which had taken Neville even longer to get used to saying than ‘Mrs. Letha’). "Why don’t we all sit down?"
They all sat, and the discussion began. Within a few moments, Neville started to get excited. There had been a Healer working on a way to help his parents?
Then his hopes were dashed, as Mr. Padfoot revealed that she was dead. He did recall hearing about a Healer dying, being killed, near the end of the summer, but he’d had no idea that it had such a direct meaning for him.
And then Mrs. Letha gave him hope again, all within the space of a minute.
"Apparently, since I’m an older student and I already have some field experience, plus expertise in potion-making, they’ve decided to forgo some of the traditional training in favor of a special project for me," she said. "I’m going to be working with Andromeda’s notes, seeing what I can decipher of them. As far as I can tell right now, she had the beginnings of something which she thought would work very well, but she never got a chance to finish it or test it. That’s my job right now."
"And I’m running security for her," said Mr. Padfoot. "I pointed out to the Auror Office that another Auror would need time off, time to go home and relax. When I’m with Letha, I am home. And I have motivation to protect her that no one else has. Of course, I’m not doing it alone — my partner, Kingsley Shacklebolt, will be helping me out — but still, that’s my main duty for right now."
Neville felt excitement rising higher and higher in him. Mrs. Letha would be safe, safe as the other Healer — he recalled her faintly from a Christmas party at the Den — had not been safe. That was sad for her and her family, but it meant his family still had a chance...
"But why the fool hospital thought they had to notify a thirteen-year-old of something that’s as far from sure as possible..." grumbled his gran. "Get the boy’s hopes up — what if it doesn’t work?"
"Oh, but I think it will," said Mrs. Letha, her eyes sliding to Neville and one of them closing ever so briefly. "Andromeda Tonks was a fine Healer. All I need to do is follow where she led, and I have no doubt I’ll be able to succeed."
"So that’s what’s in this letter, Longbottom," said Professor McGonagall, handing it to him. "Official notification that your parents’ care is being changed, and that there is a possibility — just a possibility, mind — that they might be healed, or substantially improved."
Neville accepted the letter back. His mind raced. What if it didn’t work? What if it killed them, or made them worse? What if it made them dangerous, so that he could never go to see them again? What if it did work, but they didn’t understand that it had been a long time, and they refused to believe he was their son? What if —
"You’re being silly," whispered Meghan in his ear. "I can see it on your face."
"Sorry," Neville whispered back. Of course, he was being silly. Mrs. Letha was gentle and smart and good with a wand and a cauldron, and she was Meghan’s mum. She would never do anything that would hurt his parents.
Deep in his heart, a tiny hope that had sat there for many years unchanged, except for one brief flare in the winter of his first year at Hogwarts, was suddenly beginning to grow.
xXxXx
Back in the Great Hall, Danger had come down to the Gryffindor table. "You are not to pester Neville," she said sternly to the Pride, passing one hand over Draco’s pumpkin juice while he wasn’t looking at it. "Or Meghan," she added, noticing who else was missing. "They’ll tell you what’s going on when they’re ready to, and not before." Well, I think that’s pretty definite, she added silently.
Even Sirius can’t miss it for much longer. Have you set it?
Yes. I’m coming back now. I just hope he doesn’t drink it quite yet...
Danger’s hope was granted. She had been back at the High Table for nearly a minute before Draco lifted his goblet of pumpkin juice and drained it. His setting the goblet back on the table triggered the spell. There was a sound like a toilet flushing, and as everyone turned to look, his hair twisted into the shape commonly known as a swirly.
Draco sat very still for a moment with his eyes shut. Finally, he opened them. Danger watched him turn to Luna and ask a question, watched her answer, watched him reply to her, then turn to Ron and Harry and say something irritable-sounding which the teachers couldn’t quite hear, but which set most of the Hall laughing uproariously.
"That’ll teach him to prank his elders and betters," said Remus, grinning at Danger.
They clinked goblets, then drank to success.
xXxXx
"How bad is it?" Draco asked Luna.
She studied his head. "It looks as if someone dipped your head in a toilet and flushed it," she observed. "Except it’s not wet."
"That is the point." Draco whipped around at the sound of strangled laughter and saw Ron and Harry attempting to suffocate themselves with their napkins. "Oh, go on and laugh," he said crossly. "Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of you will snort bacon through your nose or something."
It was only when most of the Gryffindor table, and most of the other three Houses, took him at his word that Draco realized just how loudly he’d spoken, and just how quiet the Hall had become when the toilet flush sound effect had occurred. The house-elves could probably fry eggs on his face, he thought.
"What did you do to her?" Harry choked out.
"Blue beehive," said Draco resignedly. "I put the charm on her snack food bag, geared to the next person who opened it. I guess she found it last night."
"Haven’t you learned yet not to prank the Pack-parents?" asked Hermione, wiping her eyes. "They always get you back so much better."
"I didn’t think they’d know it was me! I wore gloves and everything!"
"Obviously, you were wrong," said Ginny, still snickering. "A magical swirly. I love it."
"Yeah, well, your crazy brother better watch out, or I’ll give him a non-magical one," threatened Draco.
"Go ahead and try, runt," said Ron, getting himself under nominal control, though his lips were still twitching every time he looked at Draco’s hair. "You couldn’t even pick me up, much less turn me upside down."
"Sure I could." Draco drew his wand.
"Not in front of the teachers," said Harry, Hermione, and Ginny in a three-way chorus.
"Besides, if you use your wand, it isn’t non-magical anymore," said Ginny.
"What if I use my wand for levitating Ron but a real toilet for the hair bit?"
"Do we hear the word ‘toilet’ in conjunction with our lovely younger brother?" asked a voice behind Draco.
"We’d be delighted to help you out," said an identical voice.
"There," said Draco, spreading his hands to indicate the twins. "Now it won’t be magical at all."
Ron glowered at them.
xXxXx
Draco found Danger after the meal. "I’m sorry I put a charm on your snack food to turn your hair into a blue beehive when you opened it next," he said all in one breath. "Now will you please take this off me?"
Danger waved her wand in a circle over his head, and his hair collapsed from its cone shape to lie flat again. "Now, are you going to prank my things anymore?" she asked, hands on hips.
"No. Or if I do, I’ll be more careful to make it look like Harry."
Danger bit her lip. "That will do," she said. "Go on, get to class. And stick with pranking your Pride from now on."
xXxXx
After classes were over, the Pride went down to see Hagrid. They found him in the paddock where they’d had class on Monday, tending to the gray hippogriff who had injured Harry. When he saw them coming, though, he quickly tethered the hippogriff and climbed out of the paddock to greet them all, especially Harry.
"Yer sure yer all right?" he asked at least a dozen times.
"Positive," said Harry each time. "Meghan and Madam Pomfrey fixed it right away."
Finally, Draco decided to step in. "Hagrid?" he said, distracting the gamekeeper just as he looked to be about to ask Harry the question again. "Could I try over with him? I think I know what I did wrong the first time, and I won’t do it this time."
"Ah, yeh didn’ do anythin’," said Hagrid grimly. "Yeh were sabotaged, Draco. I was comin’ up ter the castle after I were done here ter tell yeh."
"Sabotaged?" Draco frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Look here." Hagrid leaned over the paddock wall and tugged on the hippogriff’s chain, bringing it closer to him. "Here, on his left flank. Look close, it’s hard ter see..."
The Pride peered through the fur. "Can I touch him?" asked Meghan, and when Hagrid nodded, extended a hand and laid it on the hippogriff’s flank, then gasped. "He’s hurt! There’s a bruise there! Look, right here, it’s like someone hit him!"
Draco looked closer. Sure enough, there was a dark, discolored spot under the gray fur.
"Looks more like a stone bruise ter me," said Hagrid. "Would’ve bin easy fer anyone in that class, I wasn’ watchin’ yer side — anyone could’ve tossed a rock at him, and they’re smart fer beasts, but not smart enough ter realize yeh couldn’t’ve hurt him from the side if yer standin’ in front’a him — so he assumed yeh’d done it ter him, an’ he reacted like any beast would."
"Then I want to make it up to him," said Draco. "Try to show him I’m not really like that. Can I?"
Hagrid frowned. "I dunno... he might have a grudge against yeh... but if yeh really want ter try. Jus’ be ready ter run if he bristles up, like..."
"I will." Draco climbed into the paddock. Hagrid uncollared the hippogriff — Buckbeak, Draco recalled now, Buckbeak was the creature’s name. Draco made eye contact, then bowed low. Buckbeak screeched and clawed the ground.
"Now, yeh great lump, that’s no way ter treat a friend o’mine," said Hagrid sternly. "Behave yerself, or it’s back in the collar fer yeh."
Draco stayed bowed, keeping an eye on Buckbeak’s talons. If they got closer to him, or left his range of vision, he was going to get out of the way fast. He had no desire to repeat Harry’s experience, or to go his brother one better, or in this case one worse.
The talons stayed where they were, flexing. Open, closed, open... and then there was more leg visible than there had been a moment before.
Draco risked a peek and felt his heart lift — Buckbeak had bowed to him.
After he was finished petting the hippogriff, Neville unexpectedly volunteered to try again, and it only took him three tries this time before Buckbeak made a sound like a chortle in his throat and returned Neville’s trembling bow. Of course, Ginny and Luna and Meghan then wanted to try it as well, and Hagrid let them, keeping a close eye on Buckbeak. But the hippogriff behaved himself perfectly well, even preening Meghan’s hair after she used her wand to speed the healing of the bruise on his flank.
"But who would throw a rock at the hippogriff I was working with?" asked Draco while the Pride walked back to Hagrid’s house with him.
Hagrid shook his head. "Dunno. Got any enemies in the class?"
Harry snickered. "You’re kidding, right? We have Care of Magical Creatures with the Slytherins, Hagrid. Draco once put every one of them in the hospital wing."
"As if we didn’t have anything to do with it?" interjected Hermione.
Harry acknowledged this. "It’s more like, who’s not our enemy."
"Could’ve bin anyone, then," said Hagrid with a sigh as he opened the door of his house and Fang charged out, mad with joy to see the Pride. "Any o’the Slytherins."
"Yeah." Draco shrugged. "I’ll just be careful from now on."
xXxXx
Remus surveyed his class. Third year Gryffindors, perhaps the most difficult class he’d teach, not because the subject matter was too taxing for him, but because of the three students sitting in a row in the back of the classroom. He’d have to be careful not to favor them, but not to be seen exhibiting disfavor to them either — he’d have to treat them like any other student...
How hard can that be?
Hard enough.
"You can put your books away," he told the class. "And take your wands out. We’re going to have a practical lesson today." A murmur of excitement greeted this. Apparently almost everyone had enjoyed Sirius and Aletha’s practical lessons. Neville looked a little worried, and shy Colleen Lamb swallowed hard, but everyone else was happily stowing away books, even Hermione.
Damn it, I wish I didn’t have to do this, but I do...
"Mr. Black, may I see you a moment, please?"
Draco hurried to the front of the classroom. "Did I do something?"
"No, but I need to ask you a question, and I need you to answer, even if you don’t want to."
Draco looked briefly reluctant, then nodded. "All right."
"What did you hear when the dementor came into our compartment on the train?"
Draco flinched.
"Is it the obvious?"
"Mm-hmm."
"All right." Remus made sure his back was to the class. "Fox, I’m sorry, but I can’t let you face the boggart. I know you can beat one — you could beat one in your first year — so that’s not the issue. I’d rather not have Lucius Malfoy materialize in the Hogwarts staffroom, is all. Understand?"
"Yes, sir," muttered Draco.
"Don’t feel too bad. Harry can’t do it either."
Draco smiled. "Because it would be a lot worse to have Voldemort show up?"
"Precisely. Go cheer each other up." Remus watched Draco jog back to his place.
And wait until you see what I have in mind...
xXxXx
He sat alone in an empty classroom, alone with his books. Books were more reliable friends than people. Books wouldn’t stab you in the back. Books wouldn’t change when you weren’t looking. And books didn’t die.
Suddenly he heard gales of laughter in the hall. Curious, he went to the door and peered out.
The third year Gryffindors were stumbling along the hallway, all of them laughing as if they’d eaten Alihotsy leaves. His eyes were drawn to a tall, brown-haired girl near the back of the group. She was smiling widely, blushing as red as the Gryffindor shield, and blinking her eyes very hard, all at the same time.
Why have I never seen her before?
"I can’t decide which one was better," said Harry Potter, stopping to wipe tears of laughter from his eyes, "Neville’s or Colleen’s."
"I liked them both," said Draco Black, leaning weakly against the wall. "Snape in that dress..."
He had to cover his mouth to avoid betraying himself. He’d never particularly cared for his Head of House, and thinking of him in a dress was quite amusing.
Of course. They’ve come from Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"But Colleen..." Hermione Granger-Lupin waved to the tall girl. "I’d never imagined seeing all of Slytherin House in their underwear before."
"I’m not sure I ever wanted to imagine it," quipped one of the other girls, making them all laugh again.
She fears Slytherins? He took another look at her. She was still smiling, but resisting efforts to draw her forward. She was obviously shy.
My housemates have probably bullied her. Picked on her as the easy mark in Gryffindor. She wouldn’t have been Sorted there if she weren’t brave, though. Maybe her courage is just buried.
He decided right then that he was going to do something about the girl — Colleen — and about her fear of Slytherins. It wasn’t right. No one should fear an entire House because of the actions of a few people.
It didn’t hurt, of course, that she was a pretty girl. But no more than pretty, which was perfectly fine with him.
I do not trust beautiful women. As who would, with a mother like mine?
He returned to his seat, to begin thinking. He would lay his plots carefully, but without malice. He did not want to hurt this girl, this Colleen. He would simply show her that craft and guile did not always have to be used to bad ends.
I wonder what sort of flowers she likes best?