Under cover of darkness, dozens upon dozens of hired owls took flight from a nondescript building in Manchester. Each one carried a charmed bundle of old-fashioned paper. Each one had a destination.
The owls winged their way across Britain. The shortest flights were nearby: pubs, cafés, and shops frequented by Manchester’s wizarding community. The longest flights would not be completed until well after the summer’s early dawn.
Diagon Alley was not one of the longest flights, and so it was that Tom, owner of the inn and tavern the Leaky Cauldron, stepped out of the kitchen ready to serve breakfast only to find an owl angrily chittering at him from the bar. He cut the bundle from its leg, and as soon as he did, the enchantment ended and he was left holding a tall stack of newspapers emblazoned with a title he’d never seen before.
Tom looked to the owl, but of course owls can’t answer questions, and anyway the owl was already gone.
“What in blazes,” Tom said to himself, looking back down at the stack. Then he noticed something he had not at first—a small bit of parchment, tied to the twine wrapping the bundle.
Free for the perusal of the guests and proprietors of the Leaky Cauldron.
Tom was a canny old wizard. There was nothing like novelty to bring in customers and make ‘em linger for a chat. He wasted no time sending short stacks of the new paper to lurk in various convenient places around the pub’s main room and then he got back to helping in the kitchen.
“Ey, Tom, what’s this then?” said Timmett Barnedon, one of the Leaky’s regulars and invariably one of the first few people there of a morning. Tom looked up from busily directing polishing cloths to buff his glassware.
“Eh? Oh, some new rag. Came by owl this mornin’.”
“Huh.” Timmett looked over the front of it. “The Soothsayer. Never heard of it.”
***
Pansy
“And you’re sure these will work?”
Hermione laughed. “Yes, I’m sure. Most wizards look for magical disguises, right? They’d never think to fuss about a Muggle one.”
Pansy prodded at her face. It felt strange under the caked-on Muggle cosmetics but she had to admit the effect was startling. She looked older, with larger eyes and softer, rounder cheeks. Her hair was dyed auburn with some product Hermione swore would wash out in a few days and a bit of reddish powder gave her a very English flush across the nose. In short, Pansy looked like herself only if you knew who you were looking at or knew her very well.
“Where did you learn this?” Daphne said, studying her own softened, older-looking face and curly dark brown hair with some fascination.
“My Muggle cousin does theatre. I went and asked for tips. Hold still,” Hermione said, and Daphne rolled her eyes but froze, letting Hermione put the finishing touches on her hair transfigured curls. “There. Was sitting still so hard?”
“I am not a patient woman.”
Pansy snorted. “Trust me, Daph, no one would make that mistake.”
Daphne flicked her wand and a pillow launched itself at Pansy’s face. Pansy shrieked and slapped it away. “My makeup! This took two hours, Daphne, if you mess it up, so help me Merlin—”
“On that note, I think it’s time to go,” said Hermione, stepping in between them. “No bickering, you’re both nice-looking, unassuming English roses.”
“Don’t forget yourself.” Hermione had tamed her wild dark hair into a sleek waterfall down her back with some charms work that had taken an hour of patient, careful casting, and used makeup to do something like she had for Daphne and Pansy; softening her face; making her eyes look deeper-set, her brows thicker, and her cheeks ruddier than they really were. “You look a bit like Molly Weasley, actually—”
“That’s rude,” said Hermione, but then she lost the battle and laughed a little. “I do, really. Especially with the skirts.”
They’d all gone with the sorts of dowdy, practical robes, knobbly jumpers, and floral skirts that suggested a certain breed of respectable, educated, unthreatening hedgewitch. It was nothing Pansy would ever be caught dead wearing as herself, but combined with lifts in her shoes and some extra layers that gave her the soft curves of a witch old enough to be seriously thinking about children, it completed the illusion begun with their faces.
They were not Hogwarts-aged girls. They were adults. A bit young, untraveled perhaps, but the sort of no-nonsense witch you just knew could hold off a werewolf on a full moon night as easily as corral a bunch of screaming toddlers.
In that regard they all resembled Molly Weasley. Rumor had it she’d personally defeated or killed half a dozen Death Eaters in the war.
Pansy let herself slip into the role as they lined up by the fireplace. Kind. Not naive, but definitely the sort to treat people as “decent until proven otherwise”. Cheerful, curious, and most importantly, single.
“Leaky Cauldron!” Daphne called, and the Floo swallowed her up.
Hermione followed and then Pansy, all of them busily spelling ash off their robes and skirts before heading up to the bar. “Table for three?” Pansy said, pitching her voice with a bit more inflection than normal, a cheery lilt on the end instead of an imperious expectation of service.
“Right in the back, there, someone’ll be ‘round in a mo’,” said Tom. Hermione thanked him with a giggle.
“Didn’t know you had it in you,” Pansy murmured, fixing a slightly shy smile on her lips and not even trying to hide how she looked around at the clientele. She was a rural hedgewitch. She was here in Diagon on a bit of a lark with the girls, looking for gossip, ready to buy a few frivolities but nothing too expensive. She was wondering if there were any wizards about who might take a pretty witch out for drinks after a local quidditch game.
Already there was some interest. The Leaky was prime real estate for dubiously employed wizards with a bit of family money and pressure to pop out an heir, especially around lunchtime, when the ones who had jobs with regular hours came here for a pint and a chat. There was the usual jumble of older regulars drinking at the bar, loners, a few families out for the day, and in the corner a group of older witches arguing over tarot cards and a crystal ball glowing an ominous dark purple. But interspersed with them, alone or in small groups, were the exact sort of young wizards they were here to attract.
Daphne made a show of swirling her hair over her shoulder and Hermione took the opportunity to surreptitiously make their table a bit larger. Pansy cast a smooth and silent geminio so that it suddenly had five chairs rather than four, and a bit of space at the end that invited the addition of a sixth chair, should a trio decide to try their luck.
All three girls sat with their backs to the wall and immediately turned to each other in a picture of happy feminine chatter. “You okay?” said Pansy to Daphne, who’d have the hardest time with the acting of any of them.
“I’ll play it a bit shy,” Daphne said. “I don’t have it in me to do all… that.” She batted a hand at Pansy’s fixedly sweet demeanor, and Pansy laughed in a way that she knew would tinkle appealingly over the general din.
“That’s alright, darling, that’s what I’m here for.” She batted her eyelashes.
Hermione made an urgh sound. “Does that actually work?”
Not on Harry, but Pansy wouldn’t say that. Not now. Possibly never. “You’d be surprised. But only when applied with subtlety, Granger.”
“I can do subtle.”
“You’re about as subtle as a brick to the face,” said Daphne with a smirk, “even when you’re being proper and charming.”
Hermione frowned.
“No, not a frown, a pout, there you go, now laugh,” said Pansy.
Hermione laughed.
“Passable. Bit higher pitch next time, but not too much, you’re not a piccolo. Light, cheerful laughter, never grating, never braying.”
“Are you sure you’ve never done theatre?” Hermione said suspiciously.
“A children’s pageant,” said Daphne, “when we were six.”
“We won’t be speaking of that.” Pansy made a shut it motion and they all laughed, genuine this time, although Pansy was careful to make it sound the same as her artificial laughter from a moment ago and saw that Hermione did too.
Tom approached and took their order—toad in the hole for Hermione, a summer salad with cod for Daphne, and a chicken pesto sandwich for Pansy. They’d talked about it in advance. They were the sorts of witches who used magic all the time and knew their way around a house without elves and knew how to pack away a hearty, filling meal.
“What are you most excited about in the paper?” Hermione said, eyes darting up rather coyly as she speared a bit of sausage on her fork.
Daphne cast a charm that Pansy knew would make their conversation just on that edge of unintelligible no matter how much someone tried to eavesdrop.
“The one about how inhumane Azkaban is even without Dementors,” Pansy said. “So emotional. Bet it’s going to make some little old witches cry.”
“You would pick the one you wrote,” Daphne said with a teasing giggle.
Pansy gave her a good, keep it up sort of eyebrow wiggle and ignored Daphne’s rolling eyes. “Well, it’s the best, so.”
“The most emotional, certainly, all those testimonials from the first rounds of drafted guards.” Hermione shuddered. “Absolutely horrible. Muggle prisoners get three meals a day, religious services, recreation, time outdoors—well, here in Europe, anyway, the Americans are still rather barbaric in my opinion, but even their penal system is worlds superior to ours. Was my article too dry, do you think?” she said anxiously.
“Compared to Pansy’s, a romance novel would be dry,” said Daphne.
Pansy kicked her under the table though neither of their pleasant expressions slipped an inch. “Definitely drier than anything I’d write, but that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? A variety of voices, obviously the work of different contributors—loved your moniker, by the way, Hypatia.”
“As do I yours, Arachne,” Hermione said. “Pride will definitely be your downfall.”
“Probably.”
“Don’t look now, I think we hooked one,” said Daphne, twisting her wand below the table and out of sight of the rest of the Leaky’s guests. Pansy felt a slight tingle as the ward fell.
All their carefully inviting glances and body language had paid off in the form of three youngish wizards, maybe in their late twenties, approaching the table with the confidence that came from never having been told no in a meaningful way. Two of them were very clearly from old English stock, square jawed and fair haired and freckled, while the third had dark curls and an olive complexion and deep-set eyes.
“Mind if we join you?” said the leader. “Three pretty witches shouldn’t be sitting alone on such a fine day.”
Pansy giggled. “Of course not!”
“Name’s Cosgrove, Trevor Cosgrove,” he said, sitting down and grinning at them all. Pansy recognized a reasonably well-off wizarding line that had been around a few centuries. “And you are?”
“Margaret Perks, but you can call me Maggie,” Pansy said, dimpling, or at least smiling in such a way that a bit of strategically applied makeup would make her look like she had a dimple. It had taken Hermione twenty minutes just to get that bit right and for Pansy to learn the smile that went with it according to Hermione’s weird Muggle instructions. “This is Olga Jorkins and Lydia Glossop,” gesturing respectively at Daphne and Hermione.
“Derek Winickus,” said the second one, flipping brown hair out of his eyes in a way that Pansy supposed would be charming to a normal witch. “Jorkins? Any relation to Scythian Jorkins?”
“Yes, a bit distant,” Daphne said, letting her own hair fall a bit in front of her face and smiling. She pulled off shy extremely well, actually. “Do you know him?”
“Works with my father in the Beasts and Beings Office.” Derek Winickus puffed himself up a bit. “Dangerous, you know. I’m hoping to join them but I’ve got to get my beast handler’s certification first.”
“Oooh,” said Hermione. “Have you met many dangerous creatures, then?”
“We ran into a few gorgons last year. Tell her, Peter,” said Derek.
The third smiled. “Well, my family’s got a villa on an island off Greece, one of the ones the Muggles don’t know about, and we went on holiday there—”
“What, alone? I wish my parents would let me do that,” Pansy sighed wistfully.
“Maybe you can come with us sometime,” said Peter with a wink. “If they’re worried about you traveling abroad alone.”
“That would be exciting.” Pansy let her eyes trail from Peter back to Trevor, who so far had barely taken his eyes off her.
“There was a bit of a buzz in here earlier,” said Hermione, leaning forward and looking earnest, which she was very good at, “do you happen to know what that was all about?”
“Oh, it was the wickedest thing!” said Peter immediately. “This new paper—”
“I thought it was a bit on the nose,” said Trevor. “Revolutionary and the like. A grand idea, I suppose, but—”
“Get that broom out of your arse.” Derek thwacked him on the shoulder, to laughter from the rest of the group. “It was wicked. My dad would hate it.”
“What was it about? There hasn’t been a new newspaper or magazine in, oh, absolutely ages.” Pansy twirled her hair around her finger and smiled inside.
“No gossip,” Derek said with a smile that was probably supposed to be teasing, “but there were some real confunders in there, yeah, Pete?”
“That one about Azkaban was mad,” Peter said. “All those people, and the Ministry’s just ignoring them.”
“Someone’s got to do it. Thought it was a bit Muggle, really. All that rot about prisoners’ rights—what rights have they got? Rapists and murderers and the like.” Derek shrugged and took a long drink of his pint.
“Well, minor criminals are locked in Azkaban too,” Hermione said with a mildness Pansy hoped the boys couldn’t tell was forced.
Derek huffed. “Yeah, well, maybe it’ll scare ‘em straight. Better for everyone if that sort are locked up and someone’s got to guard them. Stop whinging, I say, and suck it up, the guard rotations’re only what, a fortnight per?”
“I think the author had a point. So did most everyone else this morning,” Peter argued, gesturing widely around the pub. “I got here before you lot, remember? There were three toasts raised to this ‘Arachne’.”
“Well, and those names! You’ve got to admit that’s a bit much,” Trevor said to him.
“What were they?” Pansy butted in, doing curious doe eyes.
Peter smiled at her. “Arachne, and a few other figures from ancient history— ‘Hypatia’ wrote a bit breaking down the attacks from the last war. Never seen anyone do arithmancy like that, showing, y’know, ratios and whatnot, but she was going on about how terror against Muggleborns was mostly aimed at outspoken political opponents of the traditionalists, not this widespread attempted genocide people talk about—”
“And that’s just too much,” Derek insisted. “I mean, c’mon, back me up ladies. I’m no Muggle-lover, but really, defending the Death Eaters? Poor form, that.”
“It sounds as though this new paper was a bit contradictory,” Daphne said, and Pansy heard Astoria there, in her deceptively soft voice, the way she tilted her head and looked up at them, sweet, unthreatening.
Trevor nodded. “It was, at that. Some pro-Muggle bits, then that one—and the third major feature, from, what was it—”
“Cassandra,” said Peter.
“Right, yeah—that one just didn’t make any sense. I mean, maybe a Runes apprentice would think it was interesting, but the others were so political, and then the last one was just going on about runic translation!”
Pansy swallowed a laugh. That had been Luna’s first contribution and one that left all the Vipers on the project baffled until Hermione’s increasingly frustrated questions finally revealed enough pieces for them to realize she was setting the stage for a longer argument about minimizing censorship by making people realize how much magic they were missing.
Really, Cassandra was a fitting moniker.
<>
They stepped out of the Floo back into Daphne’s echoing house almost two hours later, eyes glittering excitedly. All three of them started stripping spells from their faces, hair, and bodies as they walked to Daphne’s suite, where Muggle cosmetic wipes waited to erase the nonmagical bits of their disguise, and where their normal robes hung patiently empty.
Pansy for one could not wait to slide back into her sleeveless silk dress and bell-sleeved summer robe. This practical clothes thing was fine, but not for her.
As soon as Daphne’s door closed, Hermione actually bounced a bit and let out a squeal. “That went so well!”
“Men,” Daphne said, but she was smiling too, chucking her sturdy borrowed outer robe onto the bed.
Pansy followed suit, toeing off her shoes as well and immediately charming the buttons up the back of her dress to come undone. “We have so much to share with the others. An overall positive reception—those three aside, it seemed like most people were thrilled to have something sympathetic to them about the Azkaban situation.”
“Good call on putting that first,” Hermione said. “Establishing emotional rapport right away and—but they read my piece! They were talking about it! “Never seen arithmancy used like that” my arse, that was basic statistics, but still! They read it and they understood it, more or less.”
“Of course they did. You’re brilliant at explaining things after five years of leading study groups,” Daphne said, smirking.
Hermione flicked her wand, sending a twirl of air through Daphne’s newly restored hair. “Hey!” Daphne said, trying to pat it back down. “I just fixed that!”
Pansy smiled privately at their bickering as she sat down, pulled out quill and ink, and opened her journal to the page with Harry’s name on it. We have news.
It was only a moment before his distinct, slightly handwriting spread across the page. Good or bad? How did the disguises work? Then, Theo and I made a bet on how long it took you three to land a fly in your web. Appreciate if you could settle that.
I hope you were optimistic, for the sake of your vault balance.
Don’t worry about my vaults. The Blacks have put this fortune through more stress than a wager on your charms.
Pansy looked up: Daphne and Hermione were now arguing about the best ways to transfigure hair for disguise purposes.
It took about, oh, five to ten minutes?
There was a pause. Well, I win. Theo thought Daphne would scare off some interested parties.
For Theo’s sake, I won’t pass that on.
Yeah, best not.
You ready?
Tell me everything.
Pansy set her quill down and took a deep breath.
“What’s wrong?” Daphne said.
Pansy looked up quickly. “Hm? Nothing. I thought I’d best write Harry while it’s all fresh.”
“Ah. Smart,” said Hermione.
Daphne continued to look at her for a few seconds before she nodded. “Yeah, I’ll go jot down my thoughts as well. ‘Mione?”
“My journal’s in my room, let me just…”
Hermione’s voice faded as she vanished into the halfway.
“Taking a moment?” Daphne said. Her eyes were far too knowing.
“Organizing my thoughts.” Pansy was steady again now, turning a sly little smile on Daphne, inviting her to share in the joke of what they’d done. “Evidently he and Theo had some sort of bet. Harry won.”
Daphne laughed briefly. “He usually does.”
“Yeah,” Pansy said, turning back to the page. Her quill had started to dry; she spelled off the residue, re-inked it. Began to write.
A featherlight touch on her shoulder made her freeze. Daphne took a breath like she was about to say something, and Pansy tensed further, but then Daphne let it out in a whoosh and retreated to her bedroom, where Pansy could see her pulling out her journal and settling into a poufy armchair to write in it. Never once did she look back up.
Pansy? You alright? had appeared in her journal while she was distracted.
Just reminding H and D to write while it’s recent. It was a huge success—even L’s bit. People were confused by the range of topics, mine with some openly Muggle beliefs about humane incarceration, then Hermione’s analysis of Death Eater violence in the seventies, then Luna’s academic bit on translation. It doesn’t fit into any expected niche or any one side.
She paused, flicking her quill against her lips as she thought. This was… not something Harry had explicitly conveyed, but her instinct told her—
It stands on its own, she finished, and I think people rather liked that. Clearly no Ministry mouthpiece, but no vehicle of propaganda for the other side, either.
An independent paper, exactly what I was thinking. Brilliant work. Still can’t believe we had the same idea at the same meeting.
You know what they say about great minds.
They think alike, but fools rarely differ? Pansy could practically hear his dry tone. Guess time will tell which one we are.
In a tarot deck, the Fool is the first card—the figure at the start of a journey. Maybe he’s naive but he’s a dreamer, Pansy wrote, and what is a Slytherin if not that?
So great minds or fools, we’ll come out alright? I admire your optimism.
Any means and all that. I’ll write up a more detailed response in a moment—just wanted to share the initial impressions, and let you know I’d like to expand it for the second issue. Five articles if we can swing it. And I expect people will want to contact “The Soothsayer,” so maybe an owl address.
If we’re going to be getting mail, it certainly can’t come to one of us. Perhaps an office and a secretarial service. We’d need a secrecy contract. I’ll ask Vanessa if—no, T says he knows a firm that offers discreet post management. He’ll write you details.
Pansy’s journal lit up and warmed with a new note alert; she turned to the page labeled with Theo’s name, saw well-trained cursive on the top, and locked it in to copy out later. Thanks, she scrawled, and flipped back to Harry’s page. I’ll reach out. I assume gold is covered?
More than. If we can solicit donations, so much the better, but I’d prefer to wait on that until it has an established following, and it’s really not necessary.
It’ll help people feel invested. A sense of ownership and pride in having contributed, even if they don’t actually own any portion of the paper. I expect we’ll start getting requests for a subscription or home delivery service if we put an owl address in the next issue. Probably quite a bit of hate mail, too, and there’s a high risk of cursed post.
Good point about the sense of ownership. Hadn’t considered that. T says the firm he knows can handle cursed mail too, so that’s covered.
Pansy sat back, already thinking about the topics she could pull together, who’d be best to write them and what order to put things in. Emotional draw first, policy and analytical work in the middle, ending on a more academic note; that format had worked well, and she could keep that sort of broad structure.
Just saw D and H’s first impressions. Really, it’s gone even better than I hoped. You’ve done brilliantly.
Cheeks warming, Pansy felt a sharp little smile cross her face. I know, but a lady always appreciates a compliment.
He didn’t respond, but she swore she could feel amusement radiating through the page.
Pansy leaned back to stretch out her neck, still half-smiling, and noticed Daphne staring at her with a shrewd expression. “What?” she called.
“Nothing.”
It very clearly was not nothing, but Daphne didn’t seem inclined to elaborate.
Pansy pursed her lips. Not her problem. Right now she had an issue of a national paper to plan.
***
Harry
Stepping onto the Hogwarts Express yielded the same strange mix of excitement and melancholy as years past: homecoming and home-leaving at once.
Harry looked back once, in the doorway, to wave at Sirius one last time, ignoring the people who stared and whispered, before he set off up the corridor. People called out and greeted him. A few shut the compartment door on his face. He ignored those, greeted the rest, wielded winks and warm smiles to leave as many students smiling in his wake as he could, and sighed with relief when he got to the compartment Hermione had commandeered for everyone.
“Oh good, you’re here, I have to go off to the prefects’ meeting,” she said as soon as she saw him. “Where is everyone? Daphne went off to help Astoria find her friends, but the rest—
“They’ll be here,” Harry said. “Go on, go prefect, lest the train devolve into chaos.”
She made a face at him. “You’re so funny.”
“Why thank you.”
“Oh, bugger off, Black,” she said, and Harry grinned at her back before levitating his trunk up into the overhead racks.
It was a bit strange, actually, that no one else had shown up yet. He and Sirius had gotten… held up… by a last-minute ‘home inspection’ the night before that had completely distracted Harry from the fact that he hadn’t even packed yet. Then there was the challenge of smuggling all his illicit books and potions ingredients into the school for the year, which he had happily delegated to Kreacher and Sirius, who would leave a bundle spelled only for a Black to touch in the passage under the Shrieking Shack. All of which meant he’d not stepped into the Floo until ten minutes before the train was set to depart.
There was one thing he could do.
Harry jotted a note into his journal.
Less than two minutes later, Graham slid open the compartment door. “Found them!”
“I literally Flooed over with you,” Veronica said.
Graham poked her.
“Okay,” said Harry before the poking match devolved. As it had before. “So. We’ve discussed what I need you two to do today. Feel ready?”
They both nodded, determined expressions taking over their faces. “Find our year mates from other Houses,” Graham said. “Say we should go round all the compartments and talk to the firsties so they don’t feel nervous. Drop as many pro-Slytherin hints as we can so the muggleborns don’t get scared off.”
“I’m delegating this to you,” Harry said seriously, hiding his smile as they both stood up straight and nodded. “Alright? I started doing this a few years ago and I’d like it to become a Slytherin House tradition. In a few years, when I’ve graduated, it’ll be your job to find new, younger Slytherins and show them the ropes. You’re a part of our House’s history now. You’re helping make sure we get the people we’re supposed to get—ambitious, bright, driven. People who’re gonna change the world.”
“We’ll do it,” Graham said. “We won’t let you down.”
“I already know who we should ask,” said Veronica. “Hortense Wrengle, she’s a Gryffindor from our year, I study for charms with her sometimes. And Rio wants to come. And Garrett Leonard from Ravenclaw. Dylan’s coming too.”
“That’s an excellent group. Some other people might want to tag along—it’s your call if you let them, alright? More people can be better but not if you think you’ll start arguing with them in front of one of the firsties.”
Graham fiddled with the cuff of his robe sleeve and Veronica nodded, her mouth firming.
“Alright. Go on. Stick your hands into history,” Harry said with a wink.
They grinned at each other as they left. “Bet we get the most new students this year,” he heard Veronica say, Graham’s reply lost to the train’s background noise.
Harry settled down with his potions grimoire, thinking of years stretching out in front of him, years in which he wouldn’t be at Hogwarts. Graham and Veronica and Rio and the faceless students that came after them, walking the train, changing minds even if just by a hair.
It would be a nice thing to leave behind when he graduated.
“Why did we just pass a gaggle of little Vipers looking schemey?” said Blaise, throwing open the compartment door with Theo, Daphne, and Justin on his heels.
“I delegated the task of going ‘round to all the firsties and making sure they’re not terrified of Slytherins.”
Theo laughed. “No wonder they looked so serious. They had a task assigned by our noble leader himself.”
“I object. Noble? Really?” Daphne said, elbowing Theo as they both found seats.
Blaise had already sprawled across enough space for three people on the bench across from Harry. “Slytherins can be noble.”
“Only when someone’s watching. Move, you great lump,” Justin said, shoving Blaise’s foot off the bench. It hit the ground with a thump and Justin sat down in the cleared space with a beatific smile.
Blaise glared at him and pointedly dropped his foot onto Justin’s lap.
Justin shoved it off again.
Harry decided to ignore that byplay, and turned to Theo and Daphne, both of them sitting to his left. “Did they look like they were handling it well?”
“Veronica had lists,” Daphne said with a smirk. “The boys looked a bit overwhelmed. I think they’ll be fine.”
“I gave them a speech about how they’re shaping the future of Slytherin House.”
Theo raised his eyebrows. “Been taking drama lessons from Draco?”
“That is offensive.”
“The others?” Daphne said.
“Our prefects will be busy for a while. Not sure where Neville is,” Harry said.
“He’ll be here,” said Blaise.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
No other explanation was given, so Harry just nodded his acceptance and turned back to the grimoire in his lap, open to a half-translated recipe in Classical Sanskrit copied from one of the books in the Chamber. So far he didn’t even have enough of it worked out to know what the potion did, but it hadn’t referenced any extinct ingredients, which could not be said for everything they’d found down there and meant it was worth pressing on. Not to mention it was good practice for his still-weak Sanskrit.
The train started moving bare minutes after the others arrived. Harry looked up from his translation to watch London, his view warped by speed and magic. They’d be out of downtown in ten minutes or less, and in the countryside proper within an hour.
Theo shifted his weight. Harry focused on the reflection in the glass rather than the view beyond it. There was a book open in his lap, but Theo seemed to be staring beyond it, holding perfectly still.
Blaise and Justin had settled into a game involving a crystal ball and little stone figures on a board that showed a charmed map. Daphne was flipping idly through a magazine. Harry turned his attention back to Theo, satisfied they were suitably entertained not to notice him studying Theo closely.
They hadn’t talked much about Theo’s summer. He had not invited Harry to his family manor, and Harry had not asked. Barty’s infrequent missives in the journal carried no mention of anyone by the name of Nott; Theo had likewise spoken in carefully general terms of his life and father when he visited. New tension had been settling itself into the lines of Theo’s face, though, more every time Harry saw him. And then there was the recently developed tic where he braced his shoulders before he Flooed home. Daphne, Pansy, and Justin had picked up on it too.
Harry wasn’t a fool. Lord Nott was a Death Eater. Voldemort was back, running around in the relative open now rather than trying to hide. There had been attacks. Disappearances. Whispers of recruitment drives in Knockturn’s underbelly among pureblood second sons and third cousins disillusioned by a sense that halfbloods were taking all the good Ministry jobs.
All those people had to go somewhere. What better way for Voldemort to earn quick, cheap loyalty from that sort of wizard than by putting them up in his followers’ opulent age-old manors? Give them a taste of the luxury to which they thought themselves entitled, keep them in an echo chamber of like minds, isolate them so their strongest bonds became with one another. It was straight from the How To Train A Guerrilla Army playbook.
Theo was a known associate of Harry’s. Voldemort was interested in Harry—Parselmouth, heir to two of Britain’s darkest legacies, star student and rising de facto ruler of Slytherin House. It didn’t take a genius to put those pieces together and Harry didn’t like the picture they formed.
But there was absolutely nothing he could do.
Mostly he was just glad they were finally on the train, back to Hogwarts, where he could watch most of his Vipers. Protect them. Keep them out of reach of anyone else’s wand.
He held in his sigh and returned to the translation.
Pansy turned up about two hours into the trip. “Hermione and Draco are patrolling,” she said without preamble, slamming the door behind her. “My shift’s the last one before we get there.”
“Patrolling together, hm?” said Daphne with a smirk.
“His suggestion.”
Justin shifted in his seat. “Bet that gave Weasley a heart attack.”
“He turned funny colors,” Pansy said gleefully. She kicked at Blaise until he scowled and moved over so she could sit next to him in the window seat, right across from Harry. “Macmillan is such a bore but Patil’s showing more spine than last year. Told him to stuff it when he tried to set her on train with Weasley.”
“Does anyone want to work with Weasley?” Blaise said, wrinkling his nose.
“Absolutely no one.” Pansy nudged Harry’s foot with her own. “Spotted the snakelets out doing snakey things. Passing on the torch, there?”
“Figured the firsties would be less put off by someone their own age,” Harry said.
Daphne shook her head. “I swear, they get smaller every year.”
“Did you see the new professor?” Pansy asked.
The other occupants of the compartment perked up in unison. “What?”
“Why is he even on the train?” Harry added.
“Tradition for new professors to ride the train with us,” Theo said. “They don’t always interact with students, though, and some have skipped it—pretty sure Lockhart did.”
“Ah.” Harry tucked away his irritation. Not with any of them, but the way things like this still managed to surprise him, after years of purposely immersing himself in the magical world.
Daphne was still looking at Pansy, eyes narrowed. “What’s special about this one? You look like the kneazle that caught a niffler.”
“Well,” Pansy said, clearly relishing their attention, “he’s absolutely taken over a compartment. I only got a glimpse but it seemed like he’s expanded it and tricked the place out with all kinds of wall hangings, a crystal chandelier, a mahogany table—”
“What,” said Theo flatly. “This is supposed to be our new Defense professor, going into a year when we all need a Defense education, and he’s setting up some… some opulent lair on the train that he’ll just have to take down in a few hours?”
Daphne’s sneer expressed her opinion of that more clearly than any words.
Pansy shrugged. “Shows he’s handy with a wand, anyway, if he did it all himself. But even if he’s got magic to burn on a temporary spatial expansion charm, he’s huge. There’s no way he’s a good dueler!” she insisted over Daphne and Blaise’s laughter and a protest from Justin. “Look, it’s just reality! It would be hard to miss him with a stunner, and there’s no way he moves as fast as, say, Snape, not with that bulk.”
“Don’t be mean,” Justin said.
“I’m not, I’m not judging him, I’m just saying how can he be good at Defense?”
“She’s got a point, Justin, c’mon,” Blaise said.
Justin didn’t look happy about it, but he subsided.
“He may be fitter than he looks,” Harry said neutrally. “Or maybe he was a gifted duelist or something when he was younger, and retired to live a life of luxury.”
“Our track record suggests he’s actually just an overweight layabout with tons of family gold,” said Theo. “DADA professors have historically not been competent.”
“Lupin.”
“Was competent but desperate because he couldn’t get a job anywhere else. People with real Defense credentials don’t take this job.”
Harry conceded with a tilt of his head. “I suppose we’ll find out.”
Conversation turned away from the new professor to the coming school year. Daphne had an extracurricular lined up with Professor Flitwick on defensive and offensive use of charms; Justin was doing some work with Professor Vector’s supervision on arithmancy and statistics at Hermione’s prodding; Theo and Harry had their ongoing ancient languages study with Babbling. Only Blaise hadn’t pushed to line anything up outside of classwork for the year, because as he put it, smirking, “My mother’s made sure I have plenty of extracurricular education, thank you.”
His arrogant boredom wasn’t perfect. Harry knew little of Blaise’s relationship with his mother, even after all these years, but the almost-imperceptible twitch in Blaise’s left eye when he made his flippant comment, the way his fingers tapped restlessly at his leg—those were not good signs. He knew Pansy and likely Theo had noticed as well.
This year was already proving to be headache-inducing.
Harry managed to drag the topic of conversation back to less potentially sensitive topics, namely gossip, which Pansy happily provided, moving through everything she’d picked up at the prefects’ meeting about what their classmates had been up to in the summers. Blaise chimed in, and Justin, though half his interjections were just him resisting Pansy’s more catty moments. Harry, meanwhile, found himself smiling against his will as her descriptions got more creative and her insults more hilariously specific the longer she went on.
Hermione caught the tail end of one particularly entertaining sentence when she slid open the compartment door. “Did you just compare someone’s voice to the sound of a dog licking its testicles?”
“His breathing, specifically. Be glad you don’t share a class with Tyller Wengrow,” Pansy said, shuddering for emphasis. “Having him in our common room is bad enough.”
“I think I am going to avoid that apparently formative experience,” Hermione said drily, folding into the seat at Daphne’s left. “Merlin, why does everyone have to be so excitable? I had to tell three couples off for indecent public behavior. Three! Where any first-year could walk by!”
“And how was Draco dearest?” Pansy said with a shit-eating grin.
“Utterly unhelpful,” Hermione snarled. “And I can’t even tell him off properly because he’s gone off for some stupid talk with Crabbe and Goyle. Crabbe and Goyle. He isn’t even friends with them.”
“Must be handing out marching orders,” Justin said, rolling his eyes.
Harry looked at Pansy with an eyebrow raised. “Forgetting something?”
“What? Oh, bollocks.” Pansy jumped up. “It’s my shift, isn’t it? Blaise, move, I need my trunk.”
“Yes, just step on my leg, I’m happy to play doormat,” Blaise muttered.
Pansy ground her heel down a little as she lowered her trunk to the floor of the now-slightly-crowded compartment. “I warned you.” She pulled a folded uniform robe from the top, closed the trunk, and levitated it up again. “Ta.”
“Did she just say ta?” Harry heard Daphne whisper, and Hermione’s answering, “I think so?”
Theo leaned over and pointed at something on the page of Harry’s grimoire. “You translated that wrong.”
“What?”
“It’s citrine, not citrus.”
Harry frowned as he scratched out the offending mistake and rewrote it. Citrus didn’t even make sense within the context of the potion he was gradually bringing into clarity.
“Careful,” Theo added with a hint of a smirk.
Harry gave in to a juvenile urge and planted his elbow in Theo’s ribs.
“Bastard. See if I let you at my Sanskrit copy of Moon Magicke.”
“Theodore, if you keep that from me, I swear to Merlin—”
There was a tentative knock on the compartment door. Harry sat up straighter, glancing around: no one appeared to have been expecting a visitor, and the evaluative parade of other Slytherins had ended after the first hour or two as people settled in. Finally, Hermione flicked her wand and the door opened.
A hotly blushing younger Ravenclaw stood on the other side. “Er, sorry, I’m… looking for Harry Black and Blaise Zabini?”
“Here you have us,” Blaise drawled, lips turning up in a half-smile.
Her blush deepend. “O-okay. I was asked to, er, give these. To you. By the new professor.”
Harry accepted the scroll Daphne passed him; heavy, quality parchment, bound with a lustrous emerald ribbon. Blaise took an identical scroll directly from the Ravenclaw—had he touched her wrist on purpose? Because unless Harry’s hours spent trying to figure out how flirting worked had gone to waste, this girl had a brand-new torch for his friend.
“Thank you for having delivered them,” Daphne said, politely but leaving no doubt that this was a dismissal.
“Yeah, no… no problem. I’ll just—right.” The Ravenclaw cleared her throat, stepped back, and turned away quickly.
Hermione sighed as she pulled the door shut. “Really, Blaise?”
“I can’t help my dashing good looks.”
“You didn’t have to flirt with her.”
He turned away dismissively. “That was hardly flirting.”
Again, though, that flash of something else—tension, unease.
Harry set the puzzle of Blaise aside for a second time and finished opening his mystery scroll.
Heir Black,
I would be honored by your attendance in Compartment C for a bite of late lunch.
Cordially,
Professor H. E. Slughorn
“New professor?” Blaise said, looking up.
“Invitation to lunch in C. Yours too?”
“Yeah. How odd.” Blaise frowned. “Slughorn… I know that name.”
“It’s an old one,” Theo said. “Sacred twenty-eight, not especially political but very wealthy.”
Blaise shook his head. “No, I know that, it’s more specific…”
“Figure it out later,” Harry said, checking his wristwatch. “We should be going, it’s well past lunchtime, and if we assume we’re to go as soon as we get these…”
“Right.”
“Have fun kissing arse,” Justin called after them, laughing. Harry flipped him the bird over his shoulder and then led the way towards the front of the train and Compartment C.
This Slughorn had taken over one of the larger private compartments, and as Harry stepped inside, he blinked. Instead of showing any visible signs of “train car”, it had been transformed into an opulent sitting room with velvet drapes on the walls and armchairs so squashy they looked like to swallow their occupants where the compartment’s benches should be.
“Oho, Mr. Zabini, Heir Black! I’m delighted, simply overjoyed,” said an enormously large man with a bald pate and a broad, meticulously groomed mustache.
Harry evaluated the compartment’s other occupants briskly and with a grimace: Neville, who waved; Eddie Carmichael, who shied away from Harry’s attention; Jarred Seaton, as smarmy as ever; as well as Cormac McLaggen, Marcus Belby, Katie Bell, Mason Goshawk, Susan Bones, and, sitting on a pouf like an afterthought, Ginny. There was one armchair empty and Harry had a bad feeling about who was intended to sit in it.
Blaise had greeted the professor while Harry took in the group, so he stepped forward on his friend’s heels with the warmest smile he could muster on short notice. “It’s an honor to be here, sir. I’ve heard wonderful things about you.”
“Oh, all exaggerated, I’m sure, a professor is only as good as his students!” Slughorn let out a booming belly laugh. It might have been infectious if not for Harry’s deeply ingrained distrust of fat men with mustaches. “Come on in, do have a seat, have you met everyone?”
“Perhaps not been formally introduced, but I should hope we know each other by sight, at least,” Harry said with a wink.
Slughorn chuckled. “Very true, yes, very true. Let me, then. Mr. McLaggen, do you know—?”
McLaggen answered in the negative. Harry took the opportunity to look a bit more closely at Eddie Carmichael, who was an unpleasantly pale color and studiously not looking in Harry’s direction.
“A pleasure,” Blaise said to McLaggen in a politely disdainful tone. A muscle jumped in McLaggen’s jaw.
“Likewise,” Harry said smoothly. Jarred Seaton was trying to intimidate him with a glare but Harry had met much more frightening things than a seventh-year Slytherin with delusions of grandeur so he refused to even acknowledge the challenge.
“And Miss Bell, I hear you’ve flown against Mr. Black here, have—”
The compartment door slid open with a bit of a bang. “Hello, sir, sorry,” said Jules, and then he checked himself on the threshold as he took in everyone else in the compartment. “Ah. My apologies, I hadn’t known to expect company.”
“Not to worry, Heir Potter, not to worry! Come in, you’re the last, I think, have a seat. I was just about to do a round of introductions!” Slughorn watched Jules sit down with the air of a butterfly collector who’d just captured a rare specimen. Harry, for his part, was ignoring Jules’ presence with every ounce of focus in his body.
“I’m sure you know Miss Bell, here—?”
“Yes, sir, we play together,” said Jules with a camera-ready smile. He hadn’t looked at Harry once.
“Excellent, excellent! And Marcus Belby—? No? Surely you’ve met Mr. McLaggen, then.”
“Up Gryffindor,” McLaggen said, lifting a glass of pumpkin juice to Jules, who nodded back with that exact same meaningless press smile that Harry wanted to hex off his face.
Under the table, Blaise kicked him in the ankle. Harry kicked him back but made an effort to school his features anyway.
“And Blaise Zabini and Harry Black, well, you must know,” Slughorn said with a sly little smile.
“Naturally.” Harry mustered all the Black arrogance he had to tilt his chin and smirk at Jules. “Our fathers were such good friends in their youth.”
Jules’ eye twitched.
“Oho! That they were, that they were!” Slughorn’s eyes darted quickly away from Harry. “And Jarred Seaton, likewise from my own alma mater, Slytherin.”
“We snakes stick together,” Seaton said with an entirely false and mostly convincing gesture of welcome for Harry and Blaise.
Slughorn went around to Carmichael, Neville, and Ginny, offering no explanation for why Ginny was even there when everyone else was a sixth or seventh year. Harry concentrated on their faces (Carmichael’s complexion passed pasty and verged on grey) to the exclusion of all else.
“Well! This is most pleasant,” Slughorn said when he’d gone around to everyone, settling back in his seat. “A chance to get to know you all better… Here, have a napkin—” he passed a basket to Ginny, on his right, and gestured for her to pass it on— “I’ve packed my own lunch, you see, I recall the trolley being a bit heavy on licorice wands, and an old man’s stomach isn’t always up to such things. Pheasant?”
“Oh—sure,” said a startled Belby, accepting a plate with what appeared to be half a chilled pheasant.
“I was just telling young Marcus here that I had the pleasure of meeting his uncle Damocles,” said Slughorn, now handing out little dishes of rice pudding with delicate crystal spoons. “Outstanding wizard, truly brilliant, his Order of Merlin was most well deserved. Do you see much of your uncle, Marcus?”
Unfortunately, Belby had just taken a rather large bite of the pheasant, and choked on it in his haste to answer.
“Anapneo,” said Slughorn lazily.
Belby’s airway cleared at once. “Not… not much of him, no,” Belby gasped, eyes streaming.
Harry cocked his head. Had Slughorn been holding a wand?
“Well, of course, I daresay he’s busy,” said Slughorn, looking closely at the Ravenclaw. “One can hardly invent the Wolfsbane Potion without hard work!”
“I suppose… I don’t see very much of him, you see, he and my dad don’t get on too well…”
Blaise made an almost inaudible scoffing noise.
Slughorn smiled a bit coldly and turned away from him. “A pity. Now, you, Cormac, I happen to know you see a lot of your Uncle Tiberius, he’s a rather splendid photograph of the two of you hunting nogtails in, I believe, Norfolk?”
“Oh, yeah, that was fun, that was,” said McLaggen with a broad grin. “We went with Bertie Higgs and Rufus Scrimgeour, spent a fortnight, well, not exactly roughing it, not with Bertie’s tent. Thing of beauty, that is.”
“I heard he commissioned it from an enchanter in Peru,” said Slughorn. The basket of rolls he sent around somehow managed to miss Marcus Belby. Harry nibbled on his with an internal sigh. He could already see where this was going. Now, whether to play along…
He turned to Seaton next, establishing that Seaton’s aunt was, in fact, a renowned arithmancer, and that he was on excellent terms with her; then it was Bell’s turn, during which Harry learned to his surprise that she’d been scouted by the Tutshill Tornadoes and Appleby Arrows last year and expected tryout invitations after she graduated. Eddie Carmichael had half a dozen family members in various Ministry and academic positions, and despite his hesitant answers, Slughorn seemed satisfied of his closeness with them, rewarding Carmichael with a dish of candied dates.
Blaise was next in the professor’s line of sight: Harry braced himself. That was going to be uncomfortable.
“And you, Mr. Zabini, how is your mother these days? It’s been some time since the lovely Signora Zabini graced our cold isles!”
“She’s doing very well, off on honeymoon,” Blaise said with an even drawl and posture that screamed I’m better than you. Only Harry could see the steady tapping of his left hand on his thigh under the table. “I believe she suggested Kyoto this time.”
“A lovely destination! I visited once, when I was quite a bit younger—saw an exhibition of koryū casting while I was there, simply astounding. May I ask the lucky gentlewizard’s name?”
“Edgar Pfeiffer—the German composer, perhaps you’ve—?”
“Oh, yes, naturally! He’s a favorite of mine. Was his latest symphony inspired, perchance, by—”
Blaise’s smile lit up the compartment and could have cut bone. “Yes, in fact. It’s a beautiful piece of work”
Slughorn produced a tray of little pies, offering it first to Blaise and then, when it had been passed off to Harry, stared even more closely at Harry’s friend. “She does rather love playing the muse, now! There was the novelist, oh—”
“Sebastien Broussard,” Blaise supplied.
“Some fascinating avante-garde work. Such a pity about that incident in, what was it, Marseilles?”
“Indeed.” Blaise’s hand had stopped tapping; now his fingers were digging into his own leg, knuckles pale.
Harry pressed his foot to Blaise’s under the table.
“And it’s not many witches who can claim to have portraits painted by three of their husbands! And in such disparate styles, too—unless I’m much mistaken, the pleuraît portrait of her hangs in the magical Louvre!”
“One of their most popular works,” Blaise said.
“Well-deserved, too. A witch of both the best and worst fortune in love! Widowed six times… how anyone can bear such loss and carry on with such vigor, well, it would certainly be beyond me. A woman of truly uncommon character.”
That’s one way of putting it.
“That she is, sir. I like to think I inherited her strength,” Blaise said, eyes glittering, mouth curling.
Jules, in Harry’s peripheral vision, looked extremely uncomfortable.
“Yes, quite,” Slughorn said, and with one last assessing glance, he turned to Harry. “And Heir Black! Or may I call you Hadrian?”
“Hadrian’s just fine, sir.” Blaise’s hand finally relaxed a bit and Harry pressed a bit harder with his foot against Blaise’s before moving it fully away.
Slughorn smiled broadly. “A fine name, for a young wizard who is, by all accounts, a fine young student! Rumor has it you’re interested in a potions apprenticeship?”
“I am, sir. I’ve been fascinated in the subject since first year.”
“Well, as it happens, I know a great many people in that field,” Slughorn said, pausing for a laugh as though this was a hilarious joke. Blaise inhaled sharply as McLaggen, Carmichael, and a few others laughed as well. “Just come and see me, if you need an introduction.”
“I’ll be sure to do that. Did you know Damocles Belby, by any chance? You mentioned—it’s just quite an interesting question, how after centuries of no progress, he invented such a powerful treatment for lycanthropy,” Harry said.
Slughorn paused and looked at him head-on for perhaps the first time since Harry had come in. “We’ve met, yes, quite a few times, though not since he moved out to Wales in eighty-three—he doesn’t entertain and I’m afraid we’ve rather lost touch… you’re specifically interested in medicinal potions, then?”
“I haven’t narrowed it down to any one branch,” Harry said with a shrug and an embarrassed-student smile. “That’s the beauty of potions, isn’t it? The same components, in a different cauldron or under a different phase of the moon, can both heal and harm. It’s as much art as science.”
“That it is. You,” he shook his finger in Harry’s direction, “just might have the makings of a true master in the field! Potions is a complicated art indeed, and a passion for it, rare.”
He stared at Harry. Unsure what to say, Harry just looked back, making sure his expression was completely, blandly polite, and he was just getting uncomfortable enough to hope for Blaise to intervene when Slughorn coughed and turned away. “Yes, well, most intriguing! Such talented students Hogwarts has these days. And this young man was telling me he knows you already?”
“We’ve been friends since first year,” said Neville, grinning, and Harry felt his face stretch into an answering sincere smile quite against his will.
“You boys are lucky to have such friends! And how are your parents, Mr. Longbottom? Such miraculous news, and so unexpected! Quite a moment of light in such, ah, difficult times.”
Neville’s smile dimmed, but he rallied credibly. “It was a shock, yeah. The best kind. After so many years, to have them back…”
“I’m sure it was quite an emotional moment, yes. Here, have a pastry.”
Neville, and then everyone else, selected a delicate yellow-brown pastry from the tray, which Katie Bell surreptitiously ensured made its way to Belby’s hands this time around.
“I’m afraid I was unable to attend your Solstice party, but I heard word of it from a few old friends of mine—said you had a bit of a revival of some old holiday celebrations! Very impressed, they were. Did your parents influence the plans?”
“Not really, sir. Gran and I had already talked about a lot of it—Mum and Dad loved it, they thought announcing their recovery would be fitting on the summer solstice. I was just glad to see them jump the bonfire.”
Slughorn winked. “If some of those old rumors are true, the solstice fires are healing, so let’s hope some of that magic worked on your parents, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” Neville said.
“I suppose you’ll be wanting to be an Auror, then, like they were?”
“Er, no, I don’t think so.” Neville shrugged, somewhat uncomfortably. “I like working with plants, actually. I’ve been thinking of specializing in rare or dangerous magical plants.”
Slughorn appeared unsure what to make of this, nodding along and watching Neville closely. “Well, a risky trade, certainly, but a fine one. I seem to recall Enid Longbottom had rather a gift for green magic, must be a family gift.”
It had been inevitable that Slughorn would get to Jules in this little evaluation. Harry knew it, had braced for it, and still found himself flinching inside when everyone’s attention turned to Jules and it would be rude for Harry to keep ignoring him. As ever, he looked like Harry but twisted, eyes hazel instead of green, frame sturdier, face more open.
Except it wasn’t anymore. Harry took in the new hardness in his expression, the way Jules’ mouth and brows were set. Braced for impact.
It was Blaise’s turn to press a foot against Harry’s under the table.
“And now,” Slughorn said, “Jules Potter! Where to begin? I feel I barely scratched the surface when we met over the summer! ‘The Chosen One,’ they’re calling you now, have you heard?”
“I had, yeah,” Jules said, with a smile caught perfectly between self-deprecating and charming. Harry’s eyes narrowed. Where had he learned to mask so well?
“Of course,” said Slughorn, watching him carefully, “there have been rumors for years… I remember when—well—after that terrible night—Lily—James—and you survived—and the word was that you must have powers beyond the ordinary—”
Blaise gave a tiny little cough that was clearly supposed to indicate amused skepticism.
“Yeah, Zabini, because you’re so talented. At posing, maybe,” said Seaton. His eyes glittered. Jules twitched, clearly not expecting help from such a corner.
“I am, yes,” Blaise said, smiling at Seaton with too many teeth. “Thanks ever so.”
“Oh dear!” chuckled Slughorn. “Wonderful to see our House’s tradition of friendly rivalry alive and well!”
Blaise and Seaton both shot him looks of contempt that Slughorn completely missed, already having turned back to Jules. “As I was saying—such rumors this summer. Of course, one doesn’t know what to believe, the Prophet has been known to print, shall we say, inaccuracies, to perhaps be too concerned with what certain interests would like to see—but naturally, there is no doubt of a disturbance at the Ministry, and that you were there in the thick of it all!”
“A number of us were,” Jules said, shrugging. “Myself, Ron Weasley, Parvati Patil—Susan, too.”
“Oh?” Slughorn turned back to Bones, who grimaced. “You might have mentioned such, now!”
“Like Jules said, a bunch of us went. Including you, Heir Black,” she said.
Really? Harry adopted a modest bearing as Slughorn turned back to him. “I’m not sure I was properly ‘in the thick of it,’ sir. I accompanied Jules, on a… point of mutual concern… and several of our friends became concerned for our safety.”
“And just who might these friends be? Anyone I’d know?”
“Some of them, I expect, Professor,” Blaise said smoothly. “Daphne Greengrass and Theo Nott, and Neville, here, all tagged along. Hermione Granger and Justin Finch-Fletchley are the first of their families with magic, so you’ve likely not heard of them—”
“Now that you mention, I think I had heard a whisper of a Gryffindor witch who blew the hats off a few of her OWL examiners,” said Slughorn with a chuckle. “Might this be the same?”
“Probably. She’s brilliant,” Blaise said with the easy confidence of someone secure enough in their own worth that compliments cost nothing.
“Well, I’ll certainly have to keep an eye out for her, then? And Nott, you say? How—interesting.”
“Theo is one of my best friends,” Neville said cheerfully. “It’s been five years now, hasn’t it? Since that first autumn.”
Harry grinned at him. “An entertaining five years.”
“Oh, quite.”
“D’you really expect us to believe you all just, what, trotted off to the Ministry in the middle of the night?” McLaggen said, rolling his eyes. “Really.”
“Now, now, I’m sure they rode brooms, or some such,” Seaton drawled.
Harry locked eyes with him (in the background, Eddie Carmichael shrank back). “Thestrals, actually.”
He caught Seaton’s minute flinch.
“Thestrals! How original, and certainly effective! We seem to have gone rather off topic, though,” Slughorn said jovially, “I’d been meaning to ask, Mr. Potter—some of the stories are so sensational, one doesn’t know quite what to believe—this fabled prophecy, for instance—”
“We never heard a prophecy,” said Bones, blushing faintly pink.
“I don’t know exactly where the rumors of a prophecy came from, sir,” said Jules. “I didn’t say any such thing, I can tell you that.”
“No? Well… it is true that the Prophet often exaggerates… I remember dear Gwenog telling me—that’s Jones, of course, captain of the Harpies—”
He meandered off into a rather long-winded reminiscence. Harry made all the right encouraging noises, laughed at his jokes, and catalogued the subtle way Slughorn watched them all as he spoke. It took a few minutes of conversation dominated by the professor for Harry to realize he was being long-winded on purpose as a way to evaluate them all—their humor, the ways they interacted, whose attention wandered, who glared or smiled at whom in response to certain seemingly innocuous statements. Really, it was ingenious, if not how Harry would’ve done this.
Of equal interest to Harry was who even noticed what Slughorn was up to. Not Jules. Ginny had caught on, from the looks of it, and Seaton too; Blaise, naturally, and Mason. Cormac McLaggen was as thick-headed as they came, Belby slowly dissolving into an anxious puddle, and Carmichael in his eagerness to gain this professor’s favor had apparently stopped thinking anything original fifteen minutes ago.
The conversation wore on with more anecdotes about illustrious wizards and witches Slughorn had taught, all of whom had been delighted to join what he called the “Slug Club” at Hogwarts. It couldn’t have been a formal club, like Gobstones or Charms, with supervision and the Headmaster’s permission; student clubs had to have a purpose or reason, and as far as Harry could tell the Slug Club’s only raison d’être was letting Slughorn himself expand his own influence, mentoring students with promise so that they felt indebted to him for their later success and repaid the favor in gifts, connections, secrets.
In short, it sounded like his playground, and a few sideways glances at Blaise confirmed that Blaise was thinking the same thing.
The two of them talked up the other Vipers when they could. Neville seemed to catch on after the third “casual” drop of Hermione’s name and joined in. Seaton and McLaggen were leaning heavily on their own family connections and in Seaton’s case an excellent academic record. Carmichael had an impressive family, too, but Harry could see Slughorn’s interest in him waning with each sycophantic answer.
Finally the train emerged from a long stretch in the mist to a red sunset, and Slughorn looked around, blinking. “Good gracious, it’s so late already! I didn’t notice that they’d lit the lamps! You’d best go and change into your uniforms, all of you. Cormac, you must drop by and borrow that book on nogtails. Harry, Blaise, Jules—any time you’re passing. Same goes for you, miss,” he twinkled at Ginny. “Well, off you go, off you go!”
There was a bit of a scrum as they all made for the door and the narrow corridor outside. Blaise shoved past Jules with a filthy look. “What was that about?” Harry said softly as they pulled ahead, Neville and Ginny catching up.
“He’s an arrogant prat,” Blaise said tightly, “who doesn’t know the value of what he has.”
Well, that was cryptic and unhelpful, but Harry opted not to press.
“What were you doing there, Gin?” Neville said.
“Oh—he saw me hex Libby Borage. She kept going on and on about how some types just aren’t to be trusted and asking what happened at the Ministry and in the end she annoyed me so much I hexed her—when Slughorn came in I thought I was going to get detention, but he just thought it was a good hex and invited me to lunch! Mad, eh?”
“Some Slytherin you are, displays of temper like that,” Harry teased, prodding her shoulder.
She swatted his hand away. “You be quiet, you’d have hexed her too.”
“He just wouldn’t have gotten caught,” Blaise said with a smirk. They were arriving at their compartment. “Oh—Harry, I need to drop something off in Malfoy’s compartment, mind if I—?”
“Yeah, go on, just catch up later,” Harry said, waving him off. He raised an eyebrow at Ginny. “Care to join?”
“Nah, Luna’s saved me a seat, but thanks. See you,” she said.
Harry opened the compartment door for Neville with a theatrical flourish. “Here you are, Mr. Longbottom, would you like a candied pineapple?”
“Oho, yes I would thank you,” Neville said in a decent imitation of Slughorn’s plummy voice. He was laughing and Harry smiling as they stepped back into the compartment.
“Did you meet the new professor? What was he like? What did he want to say? Who else was there?” Hermione said immediately.
“Hold your hippogriffs,” Neville teased her. “We’ll tell you.”
“He’s starting something called the Slug Club,” Harry began.
***
Jules
“I’ll see you later,” Jules said under his breath, pulling out his invisibility cloak. “Go on…”
Katie and Susan looked worried, but they let him go without a fuss. The door between this train car and the one behind, where Slughorn had hosted his stupid little party, was closed, and the other suck-ups lagging—he had just enough time to swirl the cloak over his shoulders, disappear, and hurry after the snakes.
Jules moved as quietly as possible but the rattling of the train made such caution almost pointless. It helped that the corridors were almost empty now. Keeping track of the small group was easy; Jules paused, listening with his breath held, when they stopped at what must have been Harry’s compartment, and Zabini and Ginny went on ahead.
With a long look at the door that separated him from Harry, Hermione, Neville, and probably Nott and Greengrass too, Jules set off again. He’d thought of maybe eavesdropping on one of the snakes but getting into Malfoy’s compartment would be ideal.
Though as close as he could get to Zabini without touching him, Jules wasn’t quick enough to slip into the compartment when Zabini got there. The tall Slytherin was already sliding it shut when Jules hastily stuck out his foot to prevent it from latching.
“What’s wrong with this thing?” Zabini snapped, smashing the door against Jules’ foot again.
Jules waited until he opened it again and gave it a shove; Zabini, clinging to the handle, toppled sideways into Gregory Goyle’s lap, and in the ensuing ruckus, Jules darted into the compartment, leapt onto an empty seat, and hoisted himself into the luggage rack. Goyle and Zabini were busy snarling at each other, drawing all eyes onto them, which was lucky for Jules, who was quite sure his feet and ankles had been revealed in his scramble. Indeed, for one horrible moment he thought he saw Malfoy’s eyes follow his trainer as it whipped upward out of sight. But then Goyle slammed the door shut and flung Zabini off him, Zabini collapsed into an empty seat looking ruffled, Crabbe returned to his comic and Bulstrode to her nail polish, and Malfoy, sniggering, lay back down across two seats with his head on some sort of enchanted pillow.
Jules curled uncomfortably under the cloak to ensure that every inch of him remained hidden. The lanterns swinging from the ceiling lit everything brightly: he could read every word of Crabbe’s comic directly below him.
“So, Zabini, what brings you by?” Malfoy said.
Zabini, still glaring at Goyle, said, “Returning this,” and pulled a bundle wrapped in brown paper from his pocket. “Interesting read. Particularly chapter three. Wasn’t quite what I was looking for, but I appreciate the loan anyway.”
“Oh? Hm.” Malfoy frowned at the package but, to Jules’ disappointment, tucked it unopened into his satchel.
“Who else was there?” said Bulstrode.
“Harry, obviously. McLaggen, from Gryffindor.”
“Oh, yeah, his uncle’s big in the Ministry,” said Malfoy.
“Belby, that Ravenclaw, but he was a twit, Slughorn didn’t care about him. Carmichael.”
Malfoy nodded. “He’s going places.”
“Seaton,” here Zabini paused and made a face of vague contempt, which Malfoy mirrored, and which seemed to be enough said on the subject for them, “Bell, the Gryffindor chaser, Mason Goshawk, Bones, Potter, Neville, and Ginevra.”
Jules frowned. Zabini was close to Harry, and it made sense for him to be on a first-name basis with Harry’s other friends like Neville and Ginny, but to use first names when talking to Malfoy implied that Malfoy was familiar with them too.
“So no Muggleborns,” Malfoy observed.
Zabini’s lips twitched. “Nary a one.”
“Figures. None of ‘em have anything to recommend them in advance,” Malfoy said flippantly, attention wandering from Zabini back to the compartment’s ceiling.
Jules scowled. Crabbe let out a rumbling sort of laugh.
“Suppose he wanted a look at the ‘Chosen One,’” Malfoy sneered, eyes on Crabbe. “But Weasley? I know she’s a Slytherin, but really, she’s not special.”
“A lot of boys like her,” said Bulstrode without looking up. “Even you think she’s good-looking, Blaise.”
This seemed to catch Crabbe and Goyle’s attention.
“I wouldn’t touch someone from that family whatever she looked like,” said Zabini coldly, and both of the lumpish boys subsided, probably disappointed that there was going to be no crass talk about girls. Jules scowled harder.
“You weren’t invited?” Goyle said to Malfoy, who shrugged.
“Pity Slughorn’s taste. Maybe he’s gone a bit ‘round the bend. Shame, my father always said he was a good wizard in his day. My father used to be a favorite of his. Slughorn probably hasn’t heard I’m on the train, or—”
“I wouldn’t bank on an invitation,” said Zabini. “He asked me about Theo’s father when I got there. They used to be old friends, apparently, but when he heard Nott senior had been caught at the ministry he didn’t look too happy, and Theo didn’t get an invitation, did he? I don’t think Slughorn’s interested in… certain associations.”
Malfoy let out a humorless laugh. “Well, who cares what he’s interested in? What is he, when you come down to it? Just some stupid professor who’ll be gone in a year. I might not even be at Hogwarts next year, what’s it matter to me if some fat old has-been likes me or not?”
“What d’you mean, you might not be here next here?” Crabbe said.
“Well, you never know,” said Malfoy with a tiny, crooked smile. “I might have—er—moved on to bigger and better things.”
Curled in the luggage rack, Jules’ heart began to race. Crabbe and Goyle were gawking at Malfoy, clearly having heard nothing about this; Bulstrode was still singularly disinterested but Zabini had allowed a look of curiosity to mar his haughty features.
“Do you mean…” said Goyle.
Malfoy shrugged. “Mother wants me to continue my education, but personally, I don’t see it as that important. I mean, think about it… when the dust settles, who’s going to care about OWLs or NEWTs? It’ll be about results. Loyalty.”
“And you think you’ll be able to get results?” said Zabini scathingly. “You’re sixteen and, I say this only as a statement of fact, not the most skilled witch or wizard in our year.”
“Best of the good lot,” said Crabbe rather threateningly. Jules twisted his foot, which was falling asleep, and wondered what that was supposed to mean.
“I can see Hogwarts,” Malfoy said rather abruptly. “We’d better get our uniforms on.”
Jules was so busy staring at Malfoy, he didn’t notice Goyle reaching up for his trunk; as he swung it down, it hit Jules hard on the side of the head. He let out an involuntary hiss of pain.
Malfoy looked up at the luggage rack, frowning.
Jules wasn’t afraid of him, but he still didn’t like the thought of being discovered under his Cloak like this, having overheard that conversation. He drew his wand, and waited, breathing as softly as possible. To his relief, Malfoy seemed to dismiss it, pulling on his robes and calling a goodbye to Zabini as the taller Slytherin slipped back out the door.
The train slowed to a jerky crawl. Malfoy fastened a thick traveling cloak around his neck. Crabbe and Goyle did likewise, though theirs were rather more timeworn, and Bulstrode didn’t bother. She was the first to leave and with the door open in her wake Jules could see students filling up the corridors. Hopefully Susan and Ron would get his things for him.
“You go on,” Malfoy said to Crabbe and Goyle. “I just want to check something.”
They left. Now it was just Jules and Malfoy in the compartment. Malfoy shut the door and drew the blinds down. Jules, reflexes honed by a summer of grueling practice, narrowed his eyes as Malfoy bent over his trunk.
“Petrificus totalus!”
The jinx came without warning. Jules only just deflected it, but in so doing he overbalanced and toppled out of the luggage rack and hit the floor with an agonizing crash, cloak tangled uselessly around his legs. “Glacius!” he shouted, flailing. Even from the floor he could aim. It clipped Malfoy’s calf and made him stumble, throwing off another, silent hex and buying Jules enough time to get to his feet.
They stood, wands out, facing each other.
“I thought so,” Malfoy said softly. “I heard Goyle’s trunk hit you, and I thought I saw something white flash through the air when Zabini dropped by… and that issue with the door.” He tsked. “Sloppy and obvious, but then, you’re a Gryffindor. One shouldn’t set expectations too high.”
“Sod off,” Jules said hotly.
Malfoy smirked. “Have fun playing the charmed monkey for Slughorn? ‘The Chosen One,’ really?”
“I didn’t come up with it.” Even if there was some truth to the moniker. Jules still didn’t know how that rumor got started, considering only Death Eaters and a few of the Order even knew about the prophecy. “And hey, he saw me as interesting. You? You’re yesterday’s news, Malfoy, even to ‘some old has-been’.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re going to lose,” Jules said. “He’s going to lose. And then where’ll you be? The bottom of the barrel, that’s where, and left to rot. And I’ll say I told you so.”
For the first time, he got a reaction—rage, and something else too, there and gone too fast for Jules to name it. “You don’t,” Malfoy spat, “know what you’re talking about.”
Jules just shrugged, like he didn’t give a damn.
“Go on then,” Malfoy taunted. “Curse me, if you’re so sure you’ll win.”
At this, Jules smiled. “Nah. You’d just be a waste of magic. See you, Malfoy.”
He swept his cloak from the floor and left, instincts screaming at him not to turn his back on an enemy, but Moody had taught him to listen for the shift of robes and indrawn breath that signaled a hex incoming, how to cast a shield behind his back, and he heard no sign of an offense, felt nothing in the air.
Malfoy didn’t cast a spell or say a word.
Jules let the compartment door thunk closed on his heels.
Previous Next
Comments