Chapter 60: Rumors on the Hogwarts Express
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
There were patrolmen at King’s Cross that year.
They nodded subtly to Narcissa as she swept past with Draco; Hermione had disappeared somewhere to bid her parents goodbye and pick up Crookshanks and Thucydides.
The patrolmen rankled in the same way it might to find a new lock on the door of a childhood bedroom. He touched his wand and thought with tense anticipation of the moment when he would be permitted to use it again. It wasn’t right, depriving people of magic. He wasn’t safe without it. He couldn’t conceive of how muggles ever felt safe at all.
“It was a good summer.”
She daubed her cheek. He averted his face.
“Don’t say that,” she said. “It makes it sound so final. It’s so hot out today. Doesn’t it feel like summer still?”
It was the first of September; it did not. There were students flocking to the train, and the trundle of trunks over flagstones, and the screech of owls less well-bred than Ulysses rattling their cages. That was the sound of autumn, for him. It was the start of something, not an end.
“It’s hot,” he admitted, stiffly.
“No, then. That’s alright. Did you have a good time, at least? Being home?”
“I did.”
“And you’ll remember what you learned this summer? Your form? Try to practice, while you’re there. Hogwarts has a Dueling Club, or at least it used to. Not sure if it’s worth anything, now.”
“I doubt I’ll find many opponents like what I’m used to, but I’ll do my best.”
She kissed his cheeks and scraped her tears off with her handkerchief, with ungentle dignity.
“In truth,” she said, “I hate this dismal train station. I always did.” Then: “I’m very silly today. Forgive me, it’s the smoke inhalation.”
“That’s alright.”
Who is Nymphadora Tonks? Did you know Andromeda had children? Are there others? How many people have you hidden from me? What is the nature of your problem with Hermione Granger?
He held the words heavily on his tongue. The engine screeched, and they melted away, timed out, conceived too late, held back too long. They tasted like smoke in the back of his throat.
“Goodbye, darling.”
“See you at Christmas.”
He kissed her cheek and boarded the train.
Each year it became a greater relief to board the Express, which brought with it the permission to use magic, and he drew his robes over his jumper with the satisfaction of one donning a crown. Here, as nowhere else, he was in control, and the trivialities of patrolmen and aurors and Ministry intrigues faded with the squeal of the train’s wheels, slipping into the corner of the windows, and then, gratefully, out of sight. With the rushing motion of the train he could imagine he was headed towards anything; so long as he was moving, he was safe.
He straightened the cuff of his robe and adjusted his prefect badge. It gleamed subtly on his breast pocket, several inches starboard of a perfect red Windsor, like the swell of a rosebud. His collar folded like a bit of ivory stationery, almost glowing against the layers of his black cashmere jumper and silk robe. In a rare groundswell of partisan spirit, he had indulged in a dark crimson pocket square. One had to set an example for the firsties.
He drew his wand and cast Verdimillious. Red sparks fountained. Magic ran up his arm like the waters of a warm bath.
Much settled, he replaced it at his hip, and went to find the prefect carriage.
Children raced up and down the aisles, screaming. They were much smaller than they had been last year; it was concerning that Britain’s eleven-year-olds were growing so short. One of Fred and George’s trademark fireworks went up in a carriage near the caboose, and screams of delight mingled with the harried bellowing of the trolley woman. Neville hurtled past, holding a bulbous plant that sneezed ink in his face when jostled, and Draco sidestepped him neatly to avoid receiving an ink relief of Neville’s features on the front of his shirt. He beamed.
“Hullo, Malfoy! Congrats on making prefect, I always knew you’d get it!”
“Afternoon, Longbottom. Cheers. Watch that plant.”
“Trying to!” called Neville, backpedaling down the aisle, only to promptly trip over Colin Creevey, stumble, fumble for the pot, and pitch it forthwith into the face of the poor Ravenclaw who’d opened her carriage door, mistaking the commotion for the trolley.
Further down, Seamus Finnigan was blasting music from his compartment at a volume that could only be described as antagonistic to the eardrum-wielding community, smeary guitars that rattled the windows, drums that sounded like someone broadcasting their pulse during a heart attack. Seamus himself had shaved his head and procured an earring, which gave him a daring edge, especially sitting with the bookish Dean Thomas, though he fit right in with the silver-studded and undercut-sporting Katie Bell. All of them seemed to be enjoying their acute hearing loss.
“AY! MALFOY! LOOKING FIT! WHAT’S THE CRAIC? GOOD BREAK?”
Draco opened his mouth, reconsidered, and nodded.
“LEEFS. HAVE YOU HEARD THESE GUYS, RAGE? GREAT, AREN’T THEY?”
He extended a hand, palm-down, and lowered it an inch.
“AW, PISS! SOMEONE COMPLAINED?”
He tapped his badge.
“NAW! REALLY, MATE? HAVE A HEART— ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT,” said Seamus hastily, when Draco raised an eyebrow. “WE’RE TURNING IT DOWN.”
He nodded and continued on his way, though the music resumed once he was far enough that it wasn’t worth the bother to return. Fair enough.
Lavender and Parvati shared a compartment with Romilda Vane and a few Ravenclaw girls near the front, their uniforms offering all sorts of pleasant reasons for citation. Parvati had tied her shirt under her ribs like a bandeau, Romilda sported a pair of knee-high boots instead of flats, and Lavender appeared to be experimenting with the definition of ‘skirt.’
They all stopped talking when he came into the doorway. Lavender seized Parvati’s arm.
“Hello, Draco,” she said. Her voice had dropped over the summer, and was slightly raspy. Perhaps she’d had a head cold.
“Brown. Patil. Vane.” He inclined his head. “I presume you’re going to change before we get to school.”
“You don’t like it? I thought it was fetching.” Lavender beamed and plucked at her skirt, which was a dangerous game and he respected her nerve for it, but he still straightened up and lifted his eyes to the window.
“No comment. Regulation is knee length. You’ve got until we arrive, and then it’s house points.”
“Dra- cooooo. C’mooooooon.”
“Put those vowels back where you found them. Points or a detention, all of you. It’s your call.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind a detention,” said Parvati. Lavender smacked her thigh, and she giggled.
“You’re such a tyrant,” said Romilda, flopping sideways on the seat. Her black hair spilled lazily across the tartan. “So Draco -nian. Be nice!”
“Not my forte,” he told her. “You, too, with the boots. I’ll be checking when we disembark.”
“Promise?” she called after him. He walked away from their compartment, feeling somewhat embarrassed for no particular reason, especially when a rash of giggling broke out in his wake.
The prefect carriage was actually had no compartments at all, but was a long, cheerful, well-lit room like a dining car, paneled in rich mahogany, with frilled lace curtains, white tablecloths, and deep, plush seats, like someone had welded together several deep armchairs. A flotilla of glasses and silverware decorated each table, with tea settings and candles, and in general it was much more suitable for transport than the compartments had been; Draco would’ve liked to travel this way every year.
And at the head of the car, fiddling with a stack of index cards, was the svelte, tall, and ungraciously handsome Cedric Diggory, whose prefect badge was missing: it had been replaced by a shiny brass square that read ‘HEAD BOY.’
“Afternoon, Malfoy,” he called brightly. That he remembered Draco’s name was a small marvel, since they’d interacted perhaps once, and it hadn’t quite been the summit of his conversational career. “Help finding your place? I, er… took the liberty of a seating arrangement. Not mandatory, of course.”
Cedric was very nervous. Anyone less familiar with the immense social weight of a seating arrangement might have failed to sympathize, but Draco, who had seen more than one party dissolve into bedlam for a failure to consider table placement, thought his fears were well-merited. He contributed his share to peace and tranquility by finding his seat at a table with Hannah Abbott — round face, dirt blond, fidgety — and two boys. One had a pouf of dust-brown curls and eyebrows thick as quills. He was opposite a dark, willowy boy with particularly striking hazel eyes, ringed with kohl, veins of glitter on his cheekbones, and a Slytherin tie.
“Blaise?”
“Draco,” he said cheerfully, extending his hand, palm-down, like a queen sanctioning tribute. “I say, you have grown up.”
He sat down, relief commingled with frustration. Theo was the clearer candidate for Slytherin prefect, by marks; but of course, he hadn’t been seen since June, and of course, there was the matter of his participation in the events of last spring.
He didn’t even know if Theo meant to return to Hogwarts. He hadn’t been arraigned for anything, but with his father in Azkaban, what did he stand to gain from being at school? It might serve his purposes to pursue another kind of education.
“Congratulations on surprising nobody, dear chap,” drawled Blaise. “I think my own accomplishment is much more remarkable; I think Snape forgot to pick prefects, and circled the last name on the roster at random. Still! Take the money and run, as is my family motto, and so here I am. Tracey’s thrilled; she’s my counterpart from Venus. We’ve made a bet for who can sleep with Diggory before the year’s out. Buy-in’s fifteen galleons, if you’re interested.”
Hannah squeaked.
Draco, who was rather flustered by all of this, wordlessly began fixing himself a cup of tea.
“Like you’d have a chance,” laughed the other boy. He turned to Draco and stuck out his hand, which Draco shook with some reluctance, considering the volume of ink on it. “Anthony Goldstein. Ravenclaw.”
“Draco Malfoy.”
“Oh, I know that,” he said, grinning. “Ernie’s in conniptions about your Potions final, you know. How’d you even score over one hundred? Did you bribe him?”
The suggestion was issued mildly, in jest, but Draco still prickled at the faint probing underneath it.
“There are two versions of a Calming Draught. I had extra time, so I wrote it in.”
“You had extra time?” Hannah repeated faintly. “On Snape’s final? I didn’t even finish it.”
“Most people didn’t,” said Anthony. “The cutoff for an O was eighty-five percent.”
He disliked the boy’s knowing smile; Ravenclaws were such insufferably smug twits, each to each.
The door rattled. Hermione came in with Ernie Macmillan and Padma Patil, who joined her at what must have been the most concentrated swot-per-table arrangement since the Hogwarts Founding Committee.
“Now we’re all here, we can get started,” said Cedric. The girl to his right, a Ravenclaw seventh year with a chocolate brown bob, clinked her spoon against her glass. “I’ll try to be quick, I know you’ve all got lots of better things to do than listen to me go on. Er — welcome! Hello!” He spread his hands, beaming. “I’m Cedric Diggory—”
There was a hearty commotion of applause from the Hufflepuffs; Hannah Abbott applauded like it was live Puccini. Draco tapped his finger on the tablecloth.
Hermione politely applauded and then returned to her journal, annotating busily. Draco’s mouth quirked.
Cedric flicked through to another card, cleared his throat, and began again.
“Er… curfews! Yes! All of you have a curfew extension to midnight—”
One of the older Gryffindors gave a hearty whoop. Several others joined in, jeering.
“—which is — John, please,” said Cedric, helplessly smiling. “In exchange for that, you’ll be spending several nights a week helping Filch enforce the curfew. This year, Fidelia and I have decided you’ll be patrolling in pairs, both for your safety and the students’. We’ve drawn up a tentative schedule giving everyone two rounds a week; if you don’t like your partner, or don’t feel comfortable patrolling with them, please do come see me, and I’ll make arrangements for you.”
Draco didn’t listen to the following lecture from Fidelia Jones, which was dry and formalistic and interrupted by periodic rowdiness from the older students, who seemed to find the whole ordeal childishly entertaining.
There was a lunch of bresse duck in a red wine sauce, an apple pecan salad, and baked marigold tarts with fresh cherries. Afternoon shadows lengthened on the floor. Blaise and Hannah fell into a wide-ranging discussion of their families’ occupations, Hannah’s being well-respected philanthropists with considerable money in broomstick making, and Blaise’s fortune coming largely from his late father’s Italian dukedom.
Hermione was chatting with Ernie Macmillan, apparently with great vigor, and from the few snippets he overheard it was about O.W.L. study regimens. Ernie’s nods grew increasingly fervent as she kept speaking. Someone really ought to separate them, or they would forget to disembark from the train.
“…Malfoy? Malfoy. I’m a beautiful man, Malfoy, it shouldn’t be this hard for me to get anyone’s attention.”
“What?” he snapped.
“Diggory passed out the patrol schedule,” said Blaise, tossing a scroll of parchment at him. “I was going to say cheers, we’ve got Tuesdays together, but now I’m worried you’re partially deaf.”
If it was an intriguing possibility — being out of doors, after dark, with no one around to stop you from doing anything you pleased — in a castle full of archives and passageways, with a map that told you exactly where all the best and most secret ones were hidden — then he kept it to himself, and firmly cordoned off the parts of his imagination that liked to wander.
“…hope his mother’s alright, dreadful thing to happen, too…”
Draco tilted his head, inclining his ear to the conversation without raising his eyes.
“Did they catch who did it?”
“No. Three aurors in the hospital, too. That’s what you get for letting bilge have clearance.”
It was a sixth year Slytherin prefect, the girl, someone with dark braids and a stained red lip. A Rosier, possibly. She was smoking something that gave off faint puffs of blue smoke and hid it whenever Cedric came by, sending conspiratorial smirks to the sneering Hufflepuff sixth year beside her.
“Three aurors must have taken some doing,” said the Hufflepuff, taking a drag from her smoke.
“Oh, yes. There’s a whole cell of them on the inside, Mum said. It’s a proper organization.” Rosier flicked some ash into her tea, and it spun there, a gray knot dissolving in the milky brown. “The terrorists. They call themselves the Order of the Phoenix. And their leader is an utter beast. Six feet tall, black hair, tattoos—”
“He flies into battle on a hippogriff,” added the Ravenclaw. “That’s what I heard, anyway.”
“And that’s without his pet werewolf,” said the Hufflepuff eagerly, “don’t forget him — my mum says he eats people. ”
“Pet werewolf?” said Draco lightly. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
“I would,” agreed the Slytherin, smirking. “But he’s real, trust me. My mum says she’s seen the dossier.” She leaned in, and her grin widened. “His name’s Sirius Black.”
“Granger. I need a word.”
He took her elbow and dragged her out of conversation with Ernie Macmillan, who watched them go with an expression that was entirely too knowing for Draco’s tastes, but he would deal with that later. Smug gits, each to each.
He pulled her along and tugged her into an empty compartment, checked the hallway, and then locked the doors.
“What is it?” she demanded, as soon as the lock clicked. “Are you alright? What’s so urgent? I was finally getting to a point there.”
“We’ve a security problem,” he said flatly, turning his back on the door. “The Order has a mole.”
Her irritation fell away, slipping seamlessly into clean, businesslike intensity. “How do you know?”
“Because I was just in the prefects’ meeting, and Whatshername Rosier knows that Padfoot and Moony are Order members. She claims she saw Padfoot’s Ministry dossier. And she’s not the only one. There were three or four of them, purebloods or children of Ministry workers, all gossiping about it.”
Her brow creased. “Well, that doesn’t prove anything,” she said doubtfully, folding her arms. “That’s a rumor. They’re children.”
“Children repeating what their parents have told them, and that’s a highly specific rumor, wouldn’t you say? Which just so happens to intersect with the truth?”
“Yes, but— I don’t know how they could possibly know that.” She started to pace. “Padfoot hasn’t left Grim— ‘his house,’” she corrected, “in months. He doesn’t run missions. He doesn’t leave at all. There’s no way the Ministry could know he’s affiliated, except—”
He watched her make the same conclusion he did. It took her about four seconds less time than it had taken him; she screwed up her face and rubbed her forehead, grimacing. It was gratifying, in the distant part of his brain that wasn’t occupied with worry.
“Unless there’s a mole. Or it’s a very, very lucky guess.”
“Quite.”
“But who?”
“I don’t know. With the exceptions of Lupin, Black, and select Weasleys, everyone under that roof are strangers to me. That was the first time I’d even met Nymphadora Tonks.”
Hermione gave him a lingering sidelong look of sympathy and strange, vicarious pain.
“Really?” she said, not quite surprised. “Because her mother was disinherited?”
“I — yes, she was. How do you know that?”
“You told me in second year. Aunt Andy, wasn’t it? Or Andrea, something like that?”
“Andromeda. You remembered?”
“Of course I did, you told me,” she said absently. “Anyway, I don’t know where to start. We can obviously trust Ron’s family, Sirius, Remus… he’d never…”
“‘He’d never’ is not an actual reason, it’s worth saying.”
“I’d be far more willing to believe it’s someone like Shacklebolt, or even Tonks — I like her, but I don’t know her. Ron said she’s one of the only Order members who wasn’t part of the old guard, and apparently, the only reason Dumbledore let her in was because Bill vouched for her.”
“Do we trust Bill’s judgment?”
“I’d like to, but I don’t really know Bill, either,” she pointed out. “Ron would obviously say yes—”
“Which means nothing, considering it’s his brother.”
“It doesn’t mean nothing , it means less. And Bill’s inside-track on planning with Mad-Eye, so I’d say Ron’s well within his rights… anyway, being brothers didn’t stop him and Percy…” She snapped her fingers. “How much do you think Percy knows about what his family’s doing?”
He cocked his head, considering. “Interesting,” he said. “I don’t know. Very little, one assumes.”
“Because if he knows anything — if he’s still in contact with any of them — one conversation, you know, it wouldn’t take much—”
“A stray line in a letter.”
“Yes. Someone mentions Padfoot, and Grimmauld Place, and I’m sure he could put two and two together, Percy’s actually quite clever. Ron said he’d been out of touch since May, but he still could have been writing Molly, or Charlie, or even Bill.”
She hesitated, frowning. The rattling traincar voiced a groan at the severity of the accusation. A wooded hillside flashed past in the window, dull and shrouded in mist.
“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “Do you… think he would?”
He tipped his head one way, then the other, considering.
“Yes.”
“Really? You think he’s capable?”
“I think some people are capable of anything, if it serves them. If it helps them get what they want, it’s hard to care about anything else.”
“He didn’t sound like someone who stopped caring,” she said doubtfully.
“Are we recalling the same occasion? He shouted himself hoarse on the Atrium floor. And then Ronald socked him.”
“And after that, you really think they don’t love each other?” she said absently, disarming him.
“I wouldn’t know,” he said, after a moment. “I haven’t any brothers.”
“Neither do I, but come on. You can see it from a mile off when Ron loves someone, he’s subtle like a mallet is. Look at how he is with the twins, or Ginny, or Harry.”
“Or you.”
“What?”
“You’re in the same cohort,” he clarified, though her eyes had gone wide and it made something sharp twinge in his chest. “You can’t possibly doubt that. After all this time.”
“I don’t… I mean, no, and yes, I understand what you meant. But it’s different, with me.”
He didn’t like this direction at all. With vague foreboding, he asked: “In what respect?”
“Oh. I mean it’s not like it is, with Harry. They’ve always been dependent on each other. Ron adopted Harry as soon as he put eyes on him, and they didn’t even like me when they met me.”
Her voice carried a flash of something real and raw and not-quite-scarred over.
“A misjudgment soon corrected, as I recall.”
She smiled wryly. “You know, I don’t think Ron more than tolerated me until third year,” she said. “I thought he saw me as Harry’s friend that he happened to get along with.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “And you did his Transfiguration homework anyway?”
“Of course I did. That was the whole point. They needed me because I was clever, and to do homework and tell them when a test’s coming up, and et cetera… I know better now, obviously, but it wasn’t always obvious.”
Her eyes were too bright, and her arms were folded in a brittle way she was trying to hide in her robes. He wanted to grasp her shoulders and shake her until she broke out of it and relaxed again, scratch the last five minutes from the record, backtrack downstairs and restart the conversation all over again.
“First years are intolerable as a rule,” he remarked. “It takes at least a year for wizards to become people worth knowing, and anyone who likes someone before knowing them is a fool.”
“You didn’t like me very much when we met, either,” she replied, and it was both rueful and curious.
“Well, I certainly didn’t come around to it because you did my homework. Anyway, you spent our first year yelling yourself hoarse at them every time they lost house points, I didn’t think you cared whether they liked you.”
The corner of her mouth bent at a wry, crooked angle, and she cut her eyes sideways. She leaned against the stone wall and folded her hands behind her back, ironing them flat against the base of her spine. “I did,” she said. “I still wanted to be liked. I was just scared.”
“Of what?”
“Everything! I spent most of first year thinking there’d been a mix-up, and someone was going to send me home,” she said wryly. “Normal girls don’t get to run away and live in a magical castle. We don’t get to cast spells and fly on broomsticks—”
“Right, and you still don’t do one of those things.”
“Shut up. I was eleven. I had to get three letters and an in-person visit from Professor McGonagall just to convince my parents it wasn’t a scam. And so I yelled at them, first, because sometimes they did deserve it, and second, because I was stupid and panicky and homesick and cried every other night. I was sleep-deprived all the time, no wonder I was horrid.”
“Was?”
“If we’re talking about who was horrid in first year,” she said warningly. He snorted and looked away, let the point drift, and she quirked her mouth and didn’t chase it. She knew not to chase it.
Hermione was terribly vexing, this way. Sometimes talking to her was like flying in the rain, dangerous and confusing and fraught with dangers you couldn’t see until they had hurt you; and sometimes it was the easiest thing in the world, running or blinking or breathing, a game he’d been born knowing the rules to. If it could just be like this all the time, he’d — he’d probably never want to talk to anyone else.
“You never told me that. About the crying.”
“Of course I didn’t. I wasn’t going to admit any of this to you, of all people.”
“What’s that supposed mean, ‘of all people’?”
“Yes, you, with your perfect wand movements and your perfect pronunciation and your perfect pureblood family and your house-elf, and your perfect tie knots and your knowing-everything-already, all without touching a single textbook. Our Potions professor was your godfather! You had a broomstick collection! You already knew everyone’s name! Sometimes I wished you’d trip over your own feet,” she admitted, in tones of adorably sincere guilt, “just to see you fail at something.”
Unbidden, he recalled her boggart, in third year. Professor Dumbledore and his terrible kindness and a threat that had never before crossed Draco’s mind. I am afraid there has been a mistake.
“My first year was miserable, personally.” He put his hands in his pockets to keep them still; he still disliked the way it felt to unburden himself thus, even though it was Hermione. “I thought I’d disgraced the family. I asked to go home.”
“Which I always thought was a bit silly, because it’s perfectly clear your mother would give you both kidneys if you asked for them,” said Hermione wryly. “Getting sorted wasn’t going to change any of that. Meanwhile, it took me a whole year to figure out that nobody was going to expel me if I missed a question in Transfiguration—”
“Though you still haven’t.”
“—partly because it’s hard to care about detentions when you’re running from three-headed dogs, I suppose. But for a long time I was scared of everything, and I was always terribly jealous of how those two never seemed to worry about what anyone thought.” She sighed and brushed a ringlet of hair over her mouth, a granddaughter habit to her old tic of chewing on hair.
“They have their hands full knowing their own minds,” he said. “There’s no room for anyone else’s, they’d start smoking out the ears.”
She let out an amused breath through her nose.
“They’re not stupid. Ron still beats you at chess.”
“And he’s welcome to try me in gobstones any time he’d like a real wizard’s game.”
“Harry understands more than he lets on, by the way, and just because he doesn’t show off doesn’t mean he can’t put two and two together. He held his own in the Tournament last year, and you don’t get by as far as he has on luck alone.”
“Stop adulating Potter for a second, I’m talking about you. The point is, both of them would die for you. With not one modicum more hesitation than they would for each other. Doubt me if you like, but that’s the truth.”
She gave a startled smile. “Did they say so?”
“They don’t need to. Ask Theodore Nott, Ronald nearly killed him for you in second year.”
The wind whistled in the windows.
“I seem to remember you were involved in that, somewhere,” she said, after a moment.
“I was.”
“Ron said you tried to duel him.”
“Two things,” he said. “First, I resent ‘try,’ as it implies a deficit in execution. Second, it wasn’t a duel, it was a fight.”
“Difference being?”
“One has rules. The other doesn’t.”
Her head cocked at a quizzical angle. “For instance—?”
“For instance, in a duel, I would have stopped when he started bleeding.”
The expression that flit across her face was an unfamiliar child of alarm and something else. The train car hit a curve, and swayed.
“Does that bother you?” he said, curious. He never quite knew where Hermione stood in terms of comfort with violence. At times she seemed vehemently opposed, and at others she seemed almost comfortable with it, especially when employed against someone she thought deserving. Which was also an increasingly wide field, these days.
“I think it probably would have, at the time,” she said carefully. “I would’ve found it pointless.”
“And now?”
“Now… I understand it better. The reasons you might want to cause someone pain.”
“Because you’ve felt them.”
“Because I’ve felt them,” she said, in a low voice, like she was admitting a sin.
“That’s not a bad thing, Granger.”
“I don’t agree,” she said, low and firm. It sounded rehearsed. “I won’t agree to that. People should only suffer when it’s necessary.”
He shrugged. He couldn’t win the argument with her; he judged it was both a fundamental similarity and a difference between them, that while they both conflated self-interest and selfishness, they took diametrically opposed positions on whether it was acceptable to have either.
Voices and laughter swelled into the carriage. Trunks thundered down from luggage racks; they were approaching the school.
She straightened her skirt, which wasn’t wrinkled, and smoothed her hair, which wasn’t askew.
“We should go find Harry and Ron,” she said abruptly.
He stepped into the hallway and held the door for her. “Certainly. Let’s go find the Boy Who Lived,” he suggested. “His personality notwithstanding, I’d like to keep him living for at least a while longer.”
Thestrals pulled the carriages from the Hogsmeade station to Hogwarts. He paused for a moment when he realized it, noted what it meant, and then carefully boxed the information for later inspection.
They caught one of the last carriages up from the station. Prefects had to escort the first years to the boats, where an aptly named Professor Grubbly-Plank awaited them. Her hair contained volumes of dirt fit for plants to roost in, and it roved freely over her broad, freckled cheeks, which bunched gaily in a smile, and it was altogether a far more reassuring face than Hagrid’s had been — though it would be lying to suggest he hadn’t an instinctive preference for his own absent ferryman, all the same.
Draco found being a prefect was unexpectedly enriching. It meant people paid attention to him. The bushy-tailed seas parted expeditiously at his approach, and several of them even apologized to him.
Of course, it didn’t account entirely for the inconvenience of shepherding first years into the boats, a process which had involved several arguments, a lot of coaxing, and at least one well-placed Locomotor to avoid feeding a potential Minister of Magic to the Great Squid.
He had boarded his carriage with wet shoes and a grim apprehension of a year spent herding cats. Harry and Ron had held a car for them. Draco hopped up and helped Hermione climb up after him, and then Ron swung the door shut, prompting the carriage to set off with a rattle.
Hermione tumbled into her seat, her elbows unerringly finding the least comfortable points in Draco’s side, and he was treated to a faceful of wet hair. His warbles of complaint were ruthlessly ignored by all.
“We met the new Care of Magical Creatures professor,” she said breathlessly. “Professor Grubbly-Plank. She’s wonderful. I almost regret that we dropped it.”
“I’m telling Hagrid you said that,” muttered Harry.
“Oh, but don’t, though. I do miss him, obviously—”
“I’m still telling.”
“Harry!”
“I’m sad to hear Hagrid’s leaving. I heard he was bitten by a pygmy hippogriff,” said a high, dreamy voice, and he noticed the fifth person in their car: a small Ravenclaw with fluffy, ash-blond ringlets and a pair of carrots worn as earrings. “Their venom’s said to put quadrupeds into heat. I don’t know if it has the same effect on bipeds, though,” she added modestly.
Draco made a mental note to get his ears checked.
“Hello, Luna,” said Hermione, with vague forbearance.
“Hello, Hermione,” she said. To Draco, she added: “I’m Luna Lovegood. You’re the Gryffindor chaser that Marietta likes.”
Ron guffawed. Hermione stared at her with a hawkish, incredulous expression.
“Enchenté,” Draco said warily.
“Marietta Edgecombe?” said Hermione. “Marietta who flunked Astronomy? Really.”
“Oh, you know her!”
“Not well, since she’s a sixth year,” she said flatly. “And a bit old to be panting after fifteen-year-olds, isn’t she?”
“She’s young for her year, though. Her birthday’s in June, like Draco’s.”
This startled him.
“How do you know that?”
Luna blinked. “Your name? I’m sorry if I got it wrong, but I’ve seen you play quidditch matches, and last year you were in the papers.”
“No. My birthday.”
“Yeah, Draco, Luna, Luna, Draco,” said Ron. “We met her on the train, she’s a riot. You should ask her about wrackspurts, sometime. She did my horoscope, says I’m some kind of fish.”
“Only if you go by the western zodiac,” Luna said dreamily. “My father is working on an astrological project that will leave the twelve-sign chart behind entirely. He’s discovering new signs all the time, you know… he says there are at least eighteen, maybe up to forty-three…”
“And how is it, exactly,” said Hermione, “that one discovers new signs, Luna?”
“Oh, it’s very interesting! The first step is to open your Inner Eye—”
“You two can talk about that later,” Harry said hastily. “How was the prefects’ meeting?”
“Dull,” said Draco. “Unenlightening, protracted, and well-catered. Needless to say, Granger had the time of her life.”
“It was lovely,” she agreed, wholly unembarrassed by this. “Cedric is a wonderful Head Boy—”
Draco snorted.
“—but also, there’s something we should talk about. Privately. Just the four of us. Er — sorry, Luna.”
“Ooh. I can put my fingers in my ears, if you need,” Luna offered. “Or I can practice my throat singing.”
“Oh, please,” said Ron eagerly.
Hermione hesitated. “Well — if you really don’t mind — I could put a Deafening Charm on you. Temporarily.”
Luna shrugged. “Keep it on as long as you like,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to take up hand language. This could be a marvelous opportunity.”
“Oh. Well. Thank you. Aurisclada.”
The spell constellated around her ears and formed a glowing pair of bulbs, which Luna seemed delighted by; she examined them in the dark mirror of the window, fluffing her hair over them.
“Right,” said Hermione tersely, and laid her wand across her lap. “We’ve a problem.”
She relayed what they heard in the prefects’ carriage. Harry and Ron listened with dimming expressions, any residual gaiety from the train seeping quickly from their posture, and Ron let out a quick, unconvincing cough when she got to Percy’s name.
“You think it’s him?” said Ron gruffly.
“We don’t know,” she said quickly. “It’s a suspicion. And I don’t mean to… it’s someone who knows that Padfoot is in London, so that’s… it’s not a big group. I think it’s more likely that someone might’ve let it slip, on accident, than that someone Dumbledore trusts would betray him. I’m sorry to accuse your family—”
“Nah, he might,” croaked Ron, and cleared his throat again. “Shit brother, he was. Worst of the set.” His expression was bleak but stubborn. He managed: “It’s funny, innit? I always figured I’d fancy it if someone fucked up enough that I wasn’t the family disappointment anymore, but it’s — it’s not all that fun, now he’s actually gone and done it.”
“That’s not true,” said Harry. “You’re not—”
“Aw, never mind, it doesn’t matter. I’m not fishing, I’m just — sore, I guess. I’ll write to my dad, when we get to Hogwarts,” he muttered miserably, leaning on his knees. “I’ll tell him to cut contact with Percy. I know Mum’s been writing letters Dad doesn’t know about, begging him to come back. It’s kind of pathetic.”
“It’s not pathetic,” Harry insisted.
“She doesn’t have to cut him off altogether,” Hermione said quickly. “Just write to Arthur, and tell him what we know. Then we’ll wait to see what he says.”
Ron grunted, leaning against the window. Harry watched him from the corner of his eye, unhappy. Hermione dispelled the charm on Luna, who patted her ears curiously, and then announced, with deep satisfaction: “Just as I thought! The deaf can hear nargles,” and it was the last thing anyone said until they reached the castle.
Dumbledore sat in a high-backed golden chair amidst the staff table, wearing lavender robes with silvery stars and a matching hat. His head was inclined toward the woman sitting next to him, who was squat, with short, curly, mouse-brown hair and a fluffy pink cardigan. She was talking, not so much with him as at him, with occasional interjections for food or water in which Dumbledore could slide in three odd words.
A cursory look at the Slytherin table revealed a number of familiar faces, but missed several notable ones: Daphne, Theo, and Pansy were nowhere to be found.
They weren’t the only group to read the news. Other tables stopped talking when they passed. Chatter died like a candle under a snuffer at his approach. A cluster of Ravenclaws sat up straight and glared at Harry, who stiffened his shoulders and walked swiftly to the Gryffindor table.
The noise resumed when his back was turned, but it was a different sound, a harsher thing, and a much more pointed one.
“Sorry, Harry,” whispered Fred, as Harry found his seat by the twins. “My fault. They heard you’re friends with me, and I’ve got an image problem.”
“It’s true,” said George. “There was an incident with a goat and a bottle of Ogden’s. But it’ll blow over in a week, so don’t get used to the attention, or anything.”
Harry flashed a thin but grateful smile, and sat down. Several of his housemates, Neville Longbottom especially, gave him almost defiantly loud greetings, as if to compensate for the lack of warmth in the hall’s reception.
McGonagall moved through the new crop of first years at a military clip. She breezed from B through D at a pace that saw Cornelius Dreck well nigh punted off the dais into Ravenclaw, ushered Theresa Fawcett over to Hufflepuff with a double-snap of her fingers, and wrenched the hat from Armando Gilbert’s head before the word ‘GRYFFINDOR’ had passed its lips.
Then she raised her list and cried, “Greengrass, Astoria!” and the hall went curiously silent.
He craned his neck behind the rows of Gryffindors to see if Astoria was possibly struggling with her chair — someone would have to levitate her up the steps, inevitably, but with McGonagall there, it oughtn’t have been an issue — until a door slammed somewhere near the back of the room, and Daphne came sprinting in, wheeling her sister at near-sonic speeds down the aisle.
“She’s here!” she cried, while Astoria cackled gleefully and clung on to her armrests for dear life. “She’s here! She’s here! Don’t forget her! We’re sorry we’re late!”
Laughter politely tickled the walls. Daphne deposited Astoria at the bottom of the dais, kissed her on the head, and then turned — paused a moment, with a flicker of panic — before smiling delicately, the picture of loveliness, and dipping a deep curtsy; the hall gave another chorus of laughter, and some applause. Then she trotted with quick short steps over to the Gryffindor table. Ron moved over to make room.
“Hullo, chaps,” she whispered. “Sorry about the scene. Tori had an attack.”
“She did?”
“Is she all right?”
“Better than she has been,” said Daphne cryptically, and waved it off. “She’s fine. Don’t worry. Now: everyone look at my sister! It’s her moment! She’s been dreaming of this for years.” Gazing at the dais, she glanced at Ron, then glanced at him again. “Heavens, you’re tall. Did you get a haircut?”
“…No?”
“Well, don’t,” she said, and turned to stare rapturously at her sister.
McGonagall had levitated Astoria, chair and all, to the top of the dais, where the stool was moved aside for her chair. The hat dropped onto her beaming, golden head and immediately sank into a crumple of contemplation.
The hat worked its mouth in consternation. Astoria folded her hands in her lap and peered over the hall, blinking fretfully; Daphne waved to her. Astoria fluttered her fingers shyly.
“SLYTHERIN!”
Astoria gasped and blazed with joy. Applause followed, mostly from Slytherin — sedate in character, but robust in volume.
McGonagall levitated her down, she wriggled in anticipation before her wheels touched the floor. Once they met, she whisked breathlessly over to her housemates, who with some clattering of plates cleared a place for her at the end of the table.
Daphne, while applauding boisterously, nevertheless gave a faint sigh.
“It’s alright, really,” said Harry. “You’re a Slytherin, and you still ended up here.”
“Circuitously,” she murmured, and adjusted the lay of her collar on her scars.
When the feast was over, Dumbledore rose, and Draco braced himself for a tedious discourse on unity, peace, compassion, or whatever virtue particularly held the headmaster’s favor that night; but Dumbledore said simply, “Be well. A very good night to you all,” and sat down. The woman in pink whipped around and stared at him, the smile falling from her face like a traveling cloak.
Belatedly, and with confusion, the mass of students rose and streamed out of the Great Hall, murmuring their suspicions. Draco cut past a curly-haired Ravenclaw muttering, “Blimey, don’t even know who’s teaching Defense this year, d’you think they’ll cancel it?” and one of her comrades moaning, “Wish they would, I’m rubbish.” To get through the crowd he had to clear his throat prodigiously and elbow a few heads before people gave him a wider berth, and from there he marched to the grand stairwell, where he climbed to the second stair, turned, and whistled. A few of the first years he had harried onto the boats gratefully identified him and flocked to his feet, and he eyed them approvingly, noting them as the most obedient and therefore most preferred members of the crop.
Hermione caught his eye and gave him a slightly exasperated look. All the same, she pointed and cried, “That’s Draco Malfoy, he’s a prefect, go stand with him!” and urged her own flock of midgets to commingle with his. He resented this, distantly.
One of his midgets raised his hand. He looked like someone had put glasses and a bowl cut on a shrimp. Draco pointed at him.
“Where do we sleep, sir?”
He liked sir quite a lot, actually.
“Gryffindor Tower,” he drawled, leaning on the banister. “It’s up fourteen flights of stairs, and no, there’s not a lift, if you’re wondering.”
Another one raised her hand. She was one of the cherub types, blonde pigtails, about six years old at a guess. He pointed again.
“Why isn’t there a lift?” she said plaintively.
“Because Godric Gryffindor didn’t have your convenience in mind when he stuck his House on top of the sodding castle. Anyone else?”
She didn’t raise her hand this time. “Hasn’t anyone tried to put in a lift?”
“It’s been on my list for years, believe me. Yes, you again.”
Shrimp lowered his hand. “Is there a reason we can’t put in a lift?” he asked, politely.
“I’m sure there is, but I’m far too important to know it. You should ask Granger, she’s the castle historian.”
“Which professor is that?”
“Is she the one with the big hat?”
“She looked serious.”
“She’s not a professor,” he said, amused. “She’s—” His brain reached for a word that did not exist, lurched into the gap, and plummeted. “She’s Hermione Granger.”
“Who’s Hermione Granger?”
“Your prefect,” he snapped. “Who’re you, anyway?”
“My name is—”
“Never mind, I don’t care. Listen, that’s her, over there, with the hair and the face and everything. If you have a question about Hogwarts, the castle, or anything else, you should go ask her and leave me out of it.”
The first years susurrated and grappled each other, suitably awed. Hermione, on the far side of the hall, caught a few of their wide-mouthed stares, and she sent him a suspicious look. He waved her off. Fear and awe were good for discipline.
A third interloper with teeth of radically different orientations raised his hand. “Why do you call her Granger?”
He understood why Snape spoke so slowly; the longer you were talking, the less time they had for questions.
“I call her that because it so happens to be her name.”
A tactical mistake. The floodgates broke.
“Why didn’t Cedric do that?”
“Aren’t you friends?”
“Do we have to call her Granger?”
“Or Miss Granger?”
“Is she ‘sir’, too?”
“What do I call you?”
“You can call her whatever she wants to be called,” he said, tautly, “but others call me Malfoy, or Draco, if and only if so invited. Let me be clear in advance: you will not be invited. And I call her that because—” And there went his brain again, plummeting. Merlin’s cock. “Because I do as I please. Mind your own business, you’ll live longer.”
Shrimp was cowed, but Cherub scoffed at him. He put a red flag on her in his mental registry.
Harry and Ron waded over, joined by Daphne and Ginny, who sprang up on the stair beside Draco and waved the kiddies a cheerful hello with both hands. “Wotcher, firsties!” she cried. “Ready to see the best house ever?”
“Ah, I dunno about that.” Cho shouldered through the crowd, wearing a friendly grin. “They’ll have trouble getting to Ravenclaw.”
She looped her arm through Harry’s and went on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Harry turned darker than beetroots and let out a very loud, very awkward laugh, which Draco despised for no better reason than that the first years were watching, all of them deeply unimpressed.
“Hey, Cho,” said Ginny, sticking her hands in her back pockets. She smiled without teeth. “Good summer?”
“Corking.”
“Bet you’re excited to get back on the pitch this year.”
“No, yeah. Can’t wait.”
“Neither can I.”
“Oh, are you on the team?”
“I’m— trying out,” said Ginny, oddly strangled.
Students from years and houses various trailed past. He could see it when it dawned on them who Harry was, because they unanimously corrected their trajectories to give him a wide radius, and dropped their voices to the point that it was actually less subtle than if they had shouted. A blond boy next to Euan Abercrombie remarked that he’d seemed bigger in the papers. Someone murmured the Dark Lord’s name and something about hoaxes, something about free publicity. A Slytherin steered her friend away, and the word under her breath was Krum.
Ron started at them menacingly, making them squeak and hurry off to peddle idiocy in some more discreet corner.
“Maybe we should go up,” said Cho uncomfortably, cradling Harry’s arm, as if she could somehow lift him out of range of her words. Harry’s expression was blank and dull and directed at no one in particular, but when she jostled him, he turned his head.
“Maybe we should teach them a lesson,” snapped Ginny. “Oi! You! Didn’t anyone tell you it was rude to stare?” She rounded on Draco. “Aren’t you going to take points?”
“For what? Stupidity isn’t against the rules.”
“It should be,” she snapped.
“Ginevra, I’ve been saying it for years.”
The crowd thinned as more students winnowed out to their dormitories. Wind creaked on the doors, and a draft sent the chandeliers twisting faintly on their chains.
With a piping blast of chill air, the doors to the Entrance Hall swept open, and out of a rain-slick curtain of night, a pair of students — a boy and a girl — strode inside. First years erupted in a burble of interest at the sight of them, washed by elements, and also, unnervingly, flanked by three patrolmen — two of whom stood the boy’s shoulders. It was hard to tell if they were guarding him or escorting him, as they walked too close for anyone’s comfort, and kept a hand on their wands. One of them shoved him forward, and he turned around to snap at them with a sneer that Draco knew very well.
Theo had grown into his face, which was to say that he no longer resembled a rat with pretensions, and his hair was well-combed. The square, top-heavy frame of a beater had begun to emerge under his robes, and his chest had made a promising transition to convexity. Altogether he was much better than he had been at the beginning of summer, though much of that was accounted for with a lack of injuries. In fact, he was doing a completely passable imitation of a fifteen-year-old boy.
When he turned, his expression was a kneejerk of a glare, as if Draco had done something inconsiderate by appearing in his field of vision, and he pivoted away. At his side, Pansy reached for his elbow, but one of the patrolmen held her at bay with a polite, firm assertion of his arm. She scowled and folded her arms.
The professor in pink hurried over to greet them, waving the patrolmen off. Theo said something to her, and as he watched, she tipped her head back and gave a shrill, tinkling laugh, like someone threw a wind chime into a wood chipper.
“Greengrass.”
Daphne hummed, picking at something on her sleeve.
“Did you know he was coming back?”
“No,” she murmured, from the corner of her mouth. “I haven’t heard from him in months. Have you?”
“Not a word.”
“I suppose they can’t stop him,” said Harry, frowning, “but I didn’t reckon he’d have the nerve.”
“Umbridge might’ve had something to do with it,” said Daphne.
“Who’s that?” said Ginny. “She’s not a professor, is she? Dumbledore didn’t introduce her.”
“Reckon he forgot,” whispered Cho, and Draco tilted his head, privately disagreeing.
“No, no. That’s Dolores Umbridge,” said Daphne, sotto voce. She turned her head away from the woman, so as not to stare, but kept talking. “Apparently she’s quite the character at the Ministry. She’s the Hogwarts Special Inquisitor. And the new Defense Professor.”
“What’s a Special Inquisitor?” demanded Hermione, emerging from the flock of first-years. She grasped Draco’s hand to help her up the stairs, though she quickly let go when she had assumed a point of suitable vantage over the crowd. “Why do we have one? Is she here with the Ministry? Never mind, that’s obvious. Do you know if she has disciplinary powers, or if she’s here in an administrative capacity? Don’t wander off,” she added sharply, and several of the first years stumbled back into place.
Cherub goggled at her worshipfully. She looked like she’d discovered Merlin was five foot four inches tall and freckled. One sympathized.
“It’s an audit, essentially,” murmured Daphne, still examining the far wall. “She’s here to review the curriculum and staff.”
“For what?”
Several first years jumped at Hermione’s tone. One, again, sympathized.
“Competence,” said Daphne simply.
“According to whom?”
Daphne gestured: See for yourself.
Hermione frowned across the hall. As Umbridge chattered on, Pansy yawned, using one hand to cover her mouth. Something bright and pale glittered on her fourth finger.
Cho gasped. So did Ginny. Daphne didn’t.
“She’s engaged?”
“She can’t get married, she’s a baby,” said Ron, outraged. “An evil baby.”
“Of course she can,” said Daphne mildly. “Her parents threw the whole thing together in a summer. His family’s very much on the rise, so it’s no surprise they’d want to snap him up.”
“Who?”
Daphne paused. “Why,” she said, “Cassius Warrington.”
A blade of pity and revulsion sank through his chest, right up to the very hilt.
Pansy saw him across the hallway then, and lifted her hand in a sort of abortive, unhappy way, as if it were levitated by a force not her own. There was a softening in the line of her mouth that could have approximated happiness on something very unused to it. But when Umbridge said something else, she averted her eyes, and turned her back, for good measure.
“I’d like to go say hello to her,” said Daphne, and then paused like she was taking a vote.
“Alright,” said Ron.
“…You don’t mind? I won’t say anything to Theodore,” she added suddenly, though no one had asked. Her hands knotted themselves, a lattice of guilt. “I wouldn’t… I haven’t answered his letters, you know. I’ve been properly… I haven’t said anything. I told him I didn’t want — I couldn’t possibly, after — after everything last year — but Pansy didn’t do anything wrong, and she’s always been good to me — in her way. I’ll just pop over and say a teensy-tiny quick hello, and leave, if — if that’s alright.”
The others looked at her with moderated pity and curiosity.
“Sure, go on, then,” said Ginny.
“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to… if it’s letting the side down.”
Harry gave a short, unhappy laugh. “What side?” he said. “My side? Is that it?”
“Harry,” Hermione said.
“What, like it’s — like we’re enemies? It’s the first day. She’s fourteen. Just go,” he said roughly. “I’m not the boss of you. Don’t, like — ask for permission, I’m not your dad—”
Draco didn’t think this was quite fair to Daphne, who had been doing something far subtler than Harry gave her credit for; he also thought Harry might have benefited from knowledge of etiquette rules in which it was impolite to leave a conversation without a formal excuse; but Daphne flinched.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’ll be quick, I just — sorry,” she said meekly, and bobbed off into the crowd.
“Harry,” repeated Hermione, pointed.
“Hermione! I don’t want to be — you can’t keep looking at me like — never mind,” he muttered. “Sorry. Forget it. I’m sorry.”
He raked a hand through his hair, ruining the last of Mrs. Weasley’s effortful combing. “I’m just — going to bed. Alright? I’ll see you tomorrow. Sorry. Again.”
He climbed the stairs two by two, abruptly cutting them short. Cho watched him with a crestfallen expression.
“S’alright,” Ginny said to her in a low voice. “He’s been like this all summer.”
“I know, but I thought — maybe when we were at school, he might — cheer up a bit.” She sounded disappointed.
“Give him some time,” advised Ron. “He’ll get there. It’s Harry.”
“Yes,” she said, “I know. No, you’re right.” She smiled bravely. “I guess I’ll be off, too,” she said. “Goodnight, you lot. Er — Ginny, hope to see you on the pitch!”
“Yeah, cheers,” said Ginny casually. “Night.”
They started the long and winding climb to Gryffindor Tower, through dim classrooms. Draco caught glimpses of familiar portraits who giggled and waved at the passing firsties, and the cries of delight bounded up the winding staircase like a party of marauding fairies. The upper halls were deserted. Hermione herded wandering would-be explorers with a sharp call or two over her shoulder. He preferred to let them find their own way back to the flock. They’d end up where they needed to be somehow, and a bit of hazing wouldn’t kill them.
In the common room, firelight kindled, and a tray of biscuits had been left out by the house-elves for latecomers. Dobby’s handwriting graced the card next to it — he was one of the few house-elves that could spell, if ‘spell’ was defined generously — and bid all new Furst Yeers a very good night in their new Hoeme.
As the last of the midgets trundled up to their beds, gawking at everything that so much as twinkled, Hermione put her hands on her hips and let out a breath of relief.
“Draco?”
“Hm?”
She lingered in the girls’ stairwell, fidgeting with her right heel.
“Wait.”
She didn’t sound eager to leave. He shared her inclination.
Which didn’t make much sense, really. The boys’ dorm was closer to the girls’ than their rooms had been at the Manor. All the same, it felt different — knowing that if dreams of green light split his night open, there would be several sets of staircases and at least seven other people forestalling any way of knowing that she was there.
“You’re a good prefect,” she said.
He tilted his head at her.
“You’re very — authoritative. They listen to you. Everyone does.”
“Force of habit,” he said guardedly, and prepared for the colossal but waiting around the corner.
She hesitated.
“That’s all,” she said quickly. “Well done. Er — good night.”
Then she scurried up the stairs to the girls’, leaving him flushed and wondering, as always, what the hell they were ever about.
-I wrote about 1,000 words of an author’s note and then my Wifi went out, AO3 force-reloaded, and the box deleted, so please go ahead and imagine a few hundred extra words of top-tier hard-hitting content here, please. Ta.
-Chapter going up early this week because I’ll be offline on Friday, but I wanted to make sure that a chapter went up before next week, especially after all of you guys were so kind about the unexpected hiatus. That means the next one won’t be coming up until the Friday after this one, but hopefully the double-dose will be enough to tide you over!
-The reception to the last chapter had me teary-eyed. Guys. I really don’t deserve my comments section, but as long as you’re here, I’ll be grateful to you. I wish I could respond to every one with detail and reciprocate the kindness you’ve shown me. This work owes so much of its existence to you.
-In a rather sharp tonal pivot from that note: this chapter goes out to the Dune 2 soundtrack, which has powered me through about 10,000 words of draft and counting. Hans Zimmer the artist you are.
-RIP Daphne Greengrass, you would have loved “we can’t be friends” by ariana grande. also “yes, and?” but for different reasons
-I always kind of wondered what happened to the other champions in Book 5, since we don’t see Fleur come back until she’s engaged to Bill, and Krum straight-up goes to the Shadow Realm until his cameo at their wedding in Book 7. What’s he doing? Chilling in Bulgaria and writing letters to Hermione? He’s one of the most talented students at Durmstrang and he’s fresh out of school, plus apparently he believes Harry (one assumes, since Hermione bothers to keeps him on the roster), so like… is he not at all interested in the war effort? Is he acting as a spy abroad? Krum MI6 plant arc??
-Also: the fact that Krum was at Bill and Fleur’s wedding basically confirms that Krum and Fleur kept in touch after the Tournament, and were close enough friends for him to get invited to a reasonably limited “friends and family” ceremony at the Burrow, which is haunting to me because it implies that Fleur and Krum had an incredible epistolary bromance BTS throughout Book 5 and 6. Or they were actually hanging out all the time. And we got none of it. If anyone wants to write this, you know where to find me.
-Next chapter: “Umbridge’s Lament.”
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