Confessions of a Spy
Monday mornings, the Fifth Year’s day started at 7:30 am with Charms. On the Monday after the social, Stacy stood with her friends outside Flitwick’s classroom. Her head was still fogged with sleep. Tess eased up beside her and yawned. “This is much too early for class, don’t you think?” asked Tess.
“Yes!” agreed Stacy. “I wish I were still in bed.”
“It’s ridiculous that we start this early and still have a class that goes past 8pm at night. At least for us, it’ll be a short walk from Professor DeVere’s classroom to the Halls.”
“We have Herbology tonight,” said Stacy. “It will be literally freezing out there when we come back.”
“Oh, we have that on Tuesday. Professor Longbottom is handsome, and he does love his magical plants, but that is an ungodly hour to have class.”
Stacy smiled and nodded. Part of her wanted to pull away from Tess and go stand someplace else, and another part of her wanted a hug. That’s the problem with me and Tess, mused Stacy. We were never really a couple, so we never broke up.
Tess bent her head close to Stacy’s and asked, “So, how are things with you and Q? You make such a cute pair.”
Perhaps Stacy should have been more on her guard, but the early hour made her careless. Besides, there was nothing in the world Stacy wanted to talk about more than her new love. “I can’t believe I found her.
She’s everything I thought she would be. She’s smart, she’s funny, she can be really sweet. My god, though, Q is so paranoid. She sees Slytherin spies in every shadow.”
“I really don’t know her very well. I mean, she’s in my House, but we don’t really talk. Interesting what you say about her looking for spies. It’s what spies do, after all – look for other spies.”
“Q’s not a spy!” said Stacy. Her defences were slowly awakening. I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have said, ‘We’re doing fine’ and left it at that.
“Reid paid someone to watch me when I was a Third Year. He knew things only a good spy could tell him. I doubt it was a boy. It wouldn’t have been anyone in my Coven. And, the older girls wouldn’t have been interested. But a younger girl could have done it.”
Just then, Flitwick arrived to open the classroom door. The students filed into the room. Stephanie put herself between Stacy and Tess so the two wouldn’t end up sitting next to each other during class. Still, the damage had been done. Tess’ words wormed into Stacy’s mind and, like an annoying pop song, played over and over again in her head.
Her schedule was stacked with classes, and any free time was dedicated to homework and studying. They couldn’t even eat lunch together. Stacy and Q did have a moment to talk, however, right after lunch.
They met outside the Great Hall and stepped out into the bracingly cold autumn air. “Hey,” said Q, her voice low and soft. “How was your day?”
“Fine.” Stacy stared down at her shoes. “I talked to Tess today. I mean, she talked to me. I shouldn’t have let it happen, but it did.”
“What did she say?” asked Q, warily.
“She thinks you’re a spy. That you might have been the spy that Mageford was paying to trail Tess when we were Third Years.”
Steam shot from Q’s mouth in a long hiss. “Look at me, Stacy,” said Q, firmly. She took Stacy’s cheeks in her hands and kissed her firmly on the mouth. “I love you. Tess is just messing with your head, because you have someone and she doesn’t.”
“I know all this. I … I just can’t stop thinking about it.”
Q kissed Stacy firmly once more. “I know you have class soon. Is there any time to talk?”
Stacy shook her head. “Not today. Not tomorrow.”
“Thursday?”
“Yes. Yes, Thursday night. Except, I was going to write my paper for History then.”
“Would anyone care if you got a T in History?”
“No, but I should do my best in every class.”
“Give me some time on Thursday. We’ll talk. Okay?” Stacy nodded, and the girls shared a firm embrace.
For both girls, the next few days passed agonizingly slow. Stacy ran every word Q said to her over and over again in her head. She said she loved me. She meant it. I know she meant it!
Dark fears gripped her. She didn’t deny it. She never said she wasn’t Mageford’s spy.
Q spent those days grim and focused. She organized her thoughts and figured out what to say and in what order. Be truthful, she told herself. Tell her the truth and let her decide what to do next.
Stacy at least had Lara to confide in. Q said nothing anyone about her struggles.
On Thursday afternoon, the Fifth Years had an open study period. Stacy took that time to complete her History essay. Her mind and heart weren’t in it, but it rarely was for History assignments.
At dinner, Stacy sat with her friends. She was nervous and picked at her meal. She leaned over to Lara, sitting next to her and said quietly, “I’m going to hang out with Q tonight.”
Lara nodded and gave Stacy a hug. “Good luck!” she whispered.
Stacy met up with Q out in the Entrance Hall. The two girls shared a long, firm embrace. Stacy whispered in Q’s ear, “I love you.”
“I love you, too. Come on. Let’s go find a place to talk.”
The girls walked hand in hand up the Grand Staircase to the library. Q led Stacy deep into the stacks. The air grew stale and musty, and the light was dim. They stopped at a stairwell leading up to a landing where there were still more books.
“I’ve never been to this part of the library before,” said Stacy.
“This is the school archives. Hogwarts has been a school for hundreds of years, and they don’t throw anything away. If you know what you’re looking for, and where to look for it, it’s up there somewhere.”
Q turned around and sat on the steps. “This spot is pretty quiet. Hardly anyone goes up there. Most times, it’s just a couple of Seventh Years looking for a private place to be together. If you’re gonna do it in the library, though, you gotta be real quiet.”
Stacy’s eyes were wide in the dark. “You seem to know a lot about stuff like that.”
Q shrugged. “I’ve just heard things, that’s all. I like this spot. I come here sometimes when I want to have a private conversation. I’ve got a Sneak-o-Scope under these steps. It’s watching the upper floors. There’s two other ways to get to this spot. That way,” she pointed back the way they came, “I’ve got Jim Clarke, watching for me. And this way,” she pointed in another direction, “I’ve got Dave Boar. No one can eavesdrop on me from this spot without me knowing about it and retaliating.”
“You’re a spy,” said Stacy, flatly.
“I’m the best spy in this whole damn school,” said Q.
“You spied on me and Tess.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
Q looked away, down the empty corridor. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a Half-Blood in Slytherin.”
“Please don’t use racist terms. So what if you have mixed parentage! Pauline Langlet is Muggleborn. She’s never had any problems!”
Q shrugged. “Pauline is part of a very powerful coven. My coven’s not that united. I’m barely a member, anyway. I’d rather hang out with Jim and Dave.”
“So, what happened? Reid Mageford just walks up to you one day and says, ‘I want you to spy on this girl?’”
Q shook her head. “Mageford doesn’t even know my name. He never met me. He went to Umberto. Umberto said, ‘We’ll take care of it.’ And, we did.”
“What did you do?”
“First of all, I didn’t do everything. When you went out to Hogsmeade, I couldn’t follow you. I was just a Second Year, then. Somebody told us you were together in the dressing room at Andromeda’s trying on clothes, but we don’t know what happened in that dressing room. Maybe nothing did. I don’t know.
“We knew about the Secret Room. We knew the door was in a study room of the library, and that Tess had stumbled upon it as a First Year doing some job for Robert Kaufmann. But we didn’t know the password. I heard Tess talking one night that she was meeting with you, and that she had reserved the room. I found a place where I could eavesdrop on you. I got there ahead of you, so when Tess said the password, I could hear it.
“I let you be, because I didn’t want to intrude on your night, and besides, you would have caught me if I tried to follow you. I waited, and when you left, I opened the door and checked out the room. I saw the sofa, the fireplace, the blanket. I looked at the sofa cushions. It looked like you were had been laying down together on the sofa. I told Umberto and he told Mageford.
“I never spoke to Mageford, ever. We weren’t after you. We were tailing Tess and you were caught up in it. I never thought in a million years that you would ever want to know me.”
Stacy crossed her arms over her chest. She stared at Q, watching every movement of her lips and every blink of her black eyelashes. “How did you get mixed up with Umberto, anyway? He’s a year older than you are.”
“I don’t know. To this day, I don’t know if it was chance, or if he was trying to recruit me from the beginning. I got my letter when I was eleven. My mum was over the moon, but I was afraid. I didn’t know any wizards or witches besides her. We hadn’t had much interaction with her side of the family up to that point. I told Mum I didn’t want to go, but she told me I had to. I had a screaming temper tantrum over it.” Q let out an embarrassed laugh. “What can I say? I was eleven.
“There was this hall near where I live, a place for young people to hang out. I think it was run by a church, but they never tried to preach to us or anything. They would play music and put out soft drinks and cookies, and we’d hang out. It was like a dance, except no one danced. We just talked.
“There were people, boys and girls, who I thought of as ‘kindred spirits.’ These were kids that really didn’t fit in, for one reason or another. Sexual orientation was part of it, but we were not at the age where we’d be acting stuff like that out. But I knew who was what, and they knew about me. It wasn’t anything we ever talked about. We just knew.
“So, I’m at this thing, and there’s a new guy there, and he’s got a Lakewood jumper on. This is the code name for Hogwarts among the Muggleborns. When I got my letter, I was told I had to say Lakewood College and not Hogwarts. So this guy is there, and he’s hanging out with these boys I sort of knew, though they were a little older than I was. I watched him. Even when I was talking to my friends, I watched him. Finally, he came over and talked to me.
“He was all formal. You know how he gets. ‘Hello. Umberto Calais. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.’ I wasn’t having any of it. ‘You go to Lakewood?’ I asked, all aggressive and skeptical. Of course, he was unflappable. ‘Yes. Did you get your letter?’ I nodded. ‘Then, I guess I’ll be seeing you around.’
I didn’t see how that was gonna happen. I was sure at that point that I wasn’t going. I would go to the local school with all my friends. My mum decided it was time for me and her to visit the family. So she dragged me out to the town where she grew up. There was a whole wing of the family that I didn’t even know about. Grandmothers, aunts, uncles and cousins, all magical. They fussed over me for an hour and then stuck me with my cousins, but they were all older than I was. Besides, they were in the magical world and talking about stuff I didn’t know about, and didn’t want to know.
“So, I left. I went outside and went for a walk. I hadn’t gone more than hundred metres when, bam! I ran into Umberto again. ‘See,’ he said, ‘we’ve run into each other again. Sooner even than I expected. Do you come here often?’
“I told him, ‘I don’t even know where here is. I’ve never been here before. And nobody from here has ever visited me where I live.’ He asked, ‘Why are you here, then?’ I said, ‘I’m visiting family. They say they’re family, anyway. I don’t know any of these people.’
“Before I knew it, I was telling him my whole story about Mum and Dad, me and my brother. How I got my letter, and how I didn’t want to go to Hogwarts. How my mum and all my cousins and Aunts were Ravenclaws, and that I really didn’t understand what that meant either.
“Umberto said, ‘They’re going to make you come to Hogwarts, because they’re the parents and you’re the kid. And honestly, I agree with them. You have magical powers. You should learn how to make the most of those powers. But I also agree with you, that you have friends, and those friendships are important to you. They shouldn’t be carelessly discarded.
“‘When we’re kids, we don’t have a lot of choices. We don’t have any power. Slytherin House, which is my House at Hogwarts, is all about power – getting power and using power. You aren’t going to forget what it feels like to be powerless. You are going to want to get power and hold onto it, so something like this doesn’t happen again.’
“All the time, we were walking. He led me to this little hill that gave us a lookout over the town. He pointed one way and said, ‘Faerydale is that way. You can just see it there against the far hill.’ He turned and pointed in a different direction. ‘And Hogwarts is that way, about 100 kilomoters or so.’
“We could see my cousins walking towards us. Umberto and I walked down the hill to meet them. They were mad. We could see that even from a distance. When they were nearly to us, Umberto waved and said, ‘I’ll see you later,’ and he walked away. My cousin Chrys said, ‘Why did you run off? I thought you were in the bathroom! And why are you hanging out with that boy. He’s in Slytherin!’”
“Oh Q,” said Stacy, softly. “That’s what did it for you, isn’t it?”
Q nodded. “Yes. If they were going to make me go to Hogwarts, then I would go. But I would join Slytherin House with Umberto, because that’s what they didn’t want me to do.”
“But this doesn’t explain why you had to be Umberto’s spy.”
“Once I got into Slytherin, I realized how much people looked down on M-”
“People of mixed parentage,” Stacy interjected, “and non-magical siblings.”
“Exactly. I tried really hard to fit in. It helped that Umberto was supportive of me. He took Jim, Dave and me under his wing and showed us the basics of spying. We went to the library one day. A boy was trying to eavesdrop on these two girls using extendable ears. They caught him and yelled at him and threatened to hex him.
“I thought the boy was dumb. He was so obvious that he must have been trying to get caught. I went and sat down at the table next to where the girls were sitting. When they got back to their chairs, I had my history textbook out and I was taking notes. They continued their conversation, and I listened. Pretty soon, I had learned the bit of gossip that the boy with the extendable ears was trying to learn.
“That was my first spying job. Everyone was proud of me. They started giving me little assignments to do. Umberto bought me this diary. He sends me messages, instructions, assignments. I can write back and ask questions. When I find out what he wants to know, I write it in the diary. Everybody in Slytherin keeps a journal, so it’s no big deal that I write in mine every night. I hardly ever talk to Umberto in person now. Nobody knows for sure if I’m working for him or not. No one knows how he knows all the things that he knows.”
“I guess I understand better what you went through,” said Stacy. “But I still feel violated. It’s like you went through my underwear drawer or something. I don’t want you spying on a couple of girls like that again. Two girls, just like you and me, trying to figure out who we are, what works for us and what doesn’t. Our private lives should be private, just like your life.”
“I’m sorry that it was you, that you were caught up in it.” Q gazed into Stacy’s eyes. “I’ve been truthful to you this whole time. I mean it. I won’t spy on another girl like that again.”