Are You Lot Crazy?
For the next month they followed Remus’ advice. They were safer in a group. Even if monster whatever it was did attack groups, Beth felt much safer in a group, so she never left the Common Room without Susan and Ernie.
One morning near the end of term there was an interested group meeting around the Hufflepuff Common Room.
“What’s going on Ced?” asked Artie to Cedric Diggory.
Cedric was friends with Artie from the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and had been standing towards the front of the crowd.
“They’re starting a duelling club, eight o’clock tonight Great Hall,” said Cedric.
“Seriously?” asked Zach.
“Yeah seriously,” chuckled Cedric, “see you there then kids.”
“Duelling club,” said Susan, “this could be a good idea, make up for all the rubbish defence teachers.”
“Unless,” muttered Ernie biting his lip, thinking about who the worst possible duelling teacher could be.
Unfortunately, he was right. The young Hufflepuffs arrived with their wands at the ready, getting ready to learn how to defend themselves.
But who was to show up but Professor Lockhart in fuchsia robes, accompanied by his ‘assistant’ Professor Snape.
“Good evening young students!” beamed Lockhart, “Professor Dumbledore has given me permission to form this little duelling club so I can pass on my duelling skills to the next generation of students.”
“Strike three?” muttered Ernie.
“Strike three,” nodded Zach.
The class went ok, Snape had tried teaching them all the expeliarmus charm, which Susan and Beth were trying to practise together, fairly unsuccessfully as they didn’t know the theory behind the spell yet.
Then came the exhibition duel.
“Miss Potter?” suggested Lockhart.
“With Mr Malfoy?” suggested Snape.
“Good luck Beth,” said Susan giving her a quick hug.
Ernie gave her a quick pat on the back and ushered her towards the platform.
“Scared Potter?” smirked Malfoy.
Beth took a deep breath and looked him in the eye.
“Why would I be scared of you?”
Snape started whispering a spell in Malfoys ear, and Beth looked over at them nervously.
“What you want to try and do Miss Potter, is to block the spell,” said Lockhart.
He showed her a complicated wand movement and then proceeded to drop his wand.
Beth shook her head, clearly Lockhart was useless.
Malfoy smirked at her as he pointed his wand at her.
“Serpensortia!” called Malfoy.
A bright green snake came flying out of his wand and started to slither towards her.
Beth tried to slow down her breathing as the snake approached her.
“Stop!” she called.
The snake looked at her curiously and stopped moving.
Beth nodded back towards Malfoy.
“Go back!”
The snake nodded and turned around and started to slither back towards Malfoy.
“Evanesco!” said Snape who looked more than slightly confused.
Beth looked around and saw that the whole of the Great Hall was staring at her, some looked more than slightly shocked.
Beth didn’t know what she’d done wrong, but she had a feeling that she had to get out of this room fast before the Slytherin’s started a lynch mob for setting a snake on Draco.
She sprinted from the hall and up to her dorm before anybody could stop her.
“Beth!” yelled Susan, “wait!”
The other three girls ran after her, Artie was the fastest.
By the time Artie got to the dorm Beth was hiding under her bed.
“Hello?” called Artie.
“Beth, we know you’re in here!” Artie said checking behind the window curtain.
“Is she ok?” asked Susan breathlessly as she and Hannah came running into the dorm.
“I can’t find her,” sighed Artie.
Susan shook her head and knelt down by Beth’s bed and looked under it.
“I know you want to, but you can’t hide under there forever,” said Susan giggling slightly.
“How can she fit under there?” asked Hannah as she flopped down onto her own bed.
“Why was everyone staring at me?” she muttered as she crawled out from under her bed and sat down next to Susan.
“Your question should be,” said Artie raising her eyebrows, “why didn’t you tell us that you could speak Parsletongue?”
“I’m sorry what?”
“Parseltongue,” explained Susan, “you set that snake on Draco.”
“Because it was going to attack me, I just told it to go back.”
“How are we supposed to know that!” said Hannah, “you weren’t talking in English.”
“You were talking to the snake in Parseltongue,” said Susan.
“Um ok,” shrugged Beth, “so I can talk to snakes.”
“Beth,” sighed Beth, “Parseltongue is a very rare ability, only a few known wizards could do it, including Salazar Slytherin and You Know Who.”
“Oh Merlin,” she muttered, “the whole school thinks I’m the Heir of Slytherin don’t they?”
Hannah bit her lip and nodded.
“You guys believe me, don’t you?” she stammered, “I wouldn’t hurt anyone!”
“We know that,” sighed Artie, “but the rest of the school might take some convincing.”
The next day Herbology was cancelled because of snow and the Hufflepuff’s were sat in the library planning.
The rest of the school including the Hufflepuffs were avoiding Beth as if she had the plague.
If she came into a room there was a deadly silence, people edged away from her if she sat down near them.
“Ok,” said Zach, “Lockhart’s got his three strikes.”
“So, we can start our own defence group now?” asked Artie excitedly.
“What’s the point in starting the group a week before we go home for Christmas?” asked Neville slightly confused.
“Why don’t we all just think about what we want to do within the group over the holiday and start then?”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” shrugged Justin, before going to go and fetch a book on transfiguration from his dorm.
Beth got out her colouring pencils and started to add some drawings to her History of Magic notes.
“You looking forward to Christmas Beth” asked Susan.
“I can’t wait to see my parents and Aunty Amelia again. Daddy keeps on trying to hint about what I’m getting for Christmas.”
“Rip tear kill!” said the bone chilling voice again.
“I hope it snows this year.”
“Shhh!” said Beth.
“Yeah Susan,” said Ernie, “we are in the library, we don’t want Pince to throw us out.”
“Soo hungry for so long!”
Beth started to run away from the library leaving her books behind.
A very confused Susan and Ernie followed her.
“Rip tear kill!”
She followed the voice which seemed to be heading towards the Hufflepuff Common Room.
“Justin!” screamed Beth running over to her friends’ body which was lying on the floor frozen stiff.
Ernie’s mouth dropped open as he looked at his best friends petrified body and then to strange sight of a petrified ghost which was Nearly Headless Nick. Susan ran off to find a teacher and came back a moment later with Professor Sprout and Dumbledore.
“Not Justin please not Justin!” sobbed Beth as Ernie checked his pulse.
“Another attack,” sighed Dumbledore once they had taken Justin and Nick to the Hospital Wing.
Susan had her arm around Beth who looked like she was about to burst into tears.
“One question,” said Dumbledore as he looked from Beth, to Susan to Ernie, “how did you know where to find Mr Finch Fletchley?”
“I forgot something and went back to the dorm to find it,” said Beth slowly, “Susan and Ernie came with me.”
“Are you alright Miss Potter?” asked Sprout as Dumbledore left.
“I think so,” muttered Beth as they headed for Charms.
That evening as the second years went back to the Common Room and there was a deadly silence.
Ginny was sat on her own with the first-year boys who were doing their homework and was looking at her nervously.
Ginny got up and started to walk towards Beth and Susan.
“Stay away from them Ginny,” said Julie Smith of the fourth-year girls gently, “you might end up petrified like Justin.”
Susan put her arm around Beth protectively.
“Justin’s our friend,” Ernie stammered, “do you guys seriously still think that Beth did this?”
“Quite honestly we don’t know what to think anymore,” said a fifth-year boy.
“All we do know,” said Michael Richards, the Keeper on the Quidditch team, “is that she can speak Parseltongue,” he said pointing towards Beth, “and just because she’s your friend doesn’t mean she won’t petrify you!”
“Don’t be stupid Richards,” said Artie, “what has Beth ever done to any of you?”
“To be fair Artie,” said Malcom Selwyn the captain, “she has been found at the scene of the crime every time and she can talk to snakes.”
“Are you lot crazy!” shouted Zach.
“You lot are the ones that are crazy for still being friends with her!” said Mary who was also on the team.
“Beth wouldn’t hurt anyone,” stammered Neville.
“But she is pure blood!” pointed out Michael.
“A half blood,” corrected Ernie.
“What difference does it make!” said Michael who was getting frustrated, “just stay away from her!”
The whole Common Room was staring at them by this point. The second years were now having a full-on argument with the Quidditch team in the middle of the Common Room.
Everyone was edging away from them and the first years were cowering nervously.
“Enough!” shouted Cedric standing between the Second years and the rest of the team.
“Beth,” he said slowly, “I don’t know you that well but I can tell that you’re not the heir of Slytherin, because you wouldn’t hurt people like that.”
“Also,” he added glaring around at the rest of the room particularly at Michael.
“If you people hadn’t been paying attention, both of Beth’s best friends Susan and Ernie are blood traitors as the Slytherin’s would call them and so is she, all their families fought against Voldemort, and the first person to get petrified was not a muggleborn but Percy Weasley, also a blood traitor.”
“So if you lot seriously think that Beth would hurt anyone, let alone her friends then you must all be mad!”
Cedric took a deep breath and glared around at everyone waiting for them to say something.
Michael looked at Beth for a moment and nodded before going to sit down and get started on his Charms essay.
The crowd dispersed and got back on with what they had been doing, leaving the Second years and Cedric in the middle of the room.
“Thanks, Ced,” said Artie sighing in relief.
“You’re welcome,” said Cedric laughing slightly, “but I won’t be able to talk around the rest of the school quite so easily.”
“You ok Beth?” asked Susan as they headed up to the dorm.
“Yeah,” sighed Beth flopping onto the bed, “just a long day.”
“I know what you mean,” giggled Susan.
But Beth had already fallen asleep with Susan’s arm still around her.