A Dangerous Game
The frosty wind breezed by as Scarlett shoved her hands into her winter coat pockets, Crainer nestling closer to her hand in her pocket, seeking warmth. The daylight is redder and softer during the period of the golden hour as snow continues to fall. The snowflakes sprinkled on her shiny straight locks as she made her way through Hogsmeade the next day.
As Gladrags Wizardwear came into view, she entered the clothing shop and looked around for a dress for Slughorn’s party. The dresses surrounded her in a kaleidoscope of colours. There were many dresses to choose from and she was overwhelmed with a slight panic, she wasn’t sure which one would suit her. She would have laughed at her dilemma if she wasn’t on the verge of breaking down over dresses.
Scarlett took a deep breath as a metallic shimmering silver dress neared her emitted a faint blue glow, highlighting Crainer’s suggestion for her. She looked relieved as she ran her hand over the dress, pondering the magical creature’s choice. The dress would be a perfect balance for her blonde hair. Crainer chose well. “Thank you, I don’t know what I would do without you,” she muttered to the magical paper crane sitting in her coat pocket to not draw attention to the other patrons in the shop. With that, she went to pay for the dress, handing over the appropriate galleons as the shopkeeper carefully placed the dress in the bag before handing it over to her and she gave her thanks before exiting the clothing shop.
With the task of finding a dress now out of the way, she was free to explore the rest of Hogsmeade. She was on her way to check out Honeydukes, a sweet shop when a redheaded man bumped into her on his way out of the shop. “Sorry,” the man muttered, before looking up and catching sight of her, his eyes going wide with shock.
Scarlett narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. The man seemed familiar, she tried recalling where she had seen him, but couldn’t remember them ever meeting. “Have we met?” she said bluntly, deciding to not beat around the bush.
At the question, the redheaded man looked like a deer caught in headlights before his eyes cleared up. “We have actually. You could say I’m your… godfather” he said, suddenly looking awkward after dropping a huge bomb on her.
She blinked, surprised. That’s why he looked so familiar. She gave the man another once over before she was hit with a flashback.
“Where are we going?” her younger self had asked, sounding curious and excited at once.
The figure, where it once had been blurry before, was now the redhead who had bumped into her moments before. “Some place quiet where no one would be able to spoil my surprise for you,” her godfather quipped.
“Blimey! Are you okay? I called your name like three times,” a voice said, and she blinked out of her daze to see her looking concerned and nervous at her unresponsive state.
“Fine,” Scarlett replied, shaking her head to clear the remnants of the memory she had left, bringing her back to the present.
Observing her godfather, she thought he looked oddly nervous. His shoulders were tensed and the hands on his sides wouldn’t stop fidgeting, fisting his trousers as he regarded her. “I’m Scarlett-” she cut herself off before she could say Malfoy as her father’s voice rang in her head. Your godfather is not who you think he is. If her parents didn’t trust her godfather, perhaps it wouldn’t be wise to alert him that she had found her family. “Rosewood.” she finished, looking at her godfather with an expectant look, waiting for him to disclose his name so she had a name to go off of in her investigation.
Her godfather looked relieved, ceasing his fidgeting as his tensed shoulders relaxed at her introduction. What was he hiding?
“Bilius Wesley,” Her godfather replied, smiling at her. Scarlett narrowed her eyes as she observed there were no crinkles around his eyes. The smile was fake.
Ignoring her obvious suspicion, Bilius checked his watch, muttering incoherently under his breath before looking back up at his goddaughter. “Want to come over for tea? We could have a good catch-up moment.”
Slughorn’s dinner is not until a few hours later, leaving Scarlett plenty of time to gather information. If her godfather would answer her questions, that is. With a nod, though still suspicious she responded to his invitation, “Of course,”
The duo made their way to the Three Broomsticks Inn, Bilius glancing over his shoulder occasionally to make sure she was still following behind. Entering the pub, he made a beeline toward the stairs and climbed the steps as she followed with a sense of wariness. Arriving at his residence, the suite was fairly small, with enough space for a bed, a dresser, a sink, a table and a chair. The chandelier hung from the ceiling, the candles producing warm, flickering flames giving the room a cozy atmosphere.
Her godfather turned to her, gesturing for her to take a seat on the chair. “I’ll go grab drinks. Butterbeer?”
At her nod of affirmation, Bilius left to go grab the drinks from downstairs, closing the door behind him as he did. As soon as Scarlett heard his footsteps fade away, she went to search around the room. Despite Bilius being her godfather, she didn’t trust him. He was hiding something, and her parents seemed to have a history with him. She wondered why her parents would make Bilius her godfather if they didn’t trust him.
Crainer poked its head out of her pocket, taking in the room. The magical entity zipped around the room, helping in the search as well. Scarlett’s eye caught on the dresser and she went to search through the drawer's contents. Her search turned out disappointing, the drawers containing only clothes. She moved to search elsewhere when the top drawer emitted a light blue glow, signalling that Crainer had found something noteworthy.
Frowning, Scarlett turned to the paper crane that was flying nearby, waiting for her. “Are you sure? I already searched it,” she muttered, but pulled the drawer out nonetheless, knowing her magical companion had never once been wrong. She rummaged through the already messy shirts, the blue light becoming more clear the deeper she searched. Her movements slowed down when her hand hit the wooden bottom of the drawer. Knocking on the wooden bottom of the drawer, she heard a deep hollow sound and concluded that there was a secret compartment underneath.
Shoving the drawer’s contents to one side, Scarlett pulled on the hatch, revealing a shallow compartment underneath, where a singular glowing blue envelope sat undisturbed. Whatever’s in the envelope must be important for her godfather to have placed it in a secret compartment. The glowing blue envelope returned to its normal state at her touch and she flipped it to the other side to see who it was addressed to. To her dismay, it was blank.
Her hand went to open the envelope to view its contents when Crainer rushed back to its place in her pocket. Scarlett’s eyes flew to the door, hearing faint footsteps climbing up the stairs. Her godfather was coming back with the drinks. The footsteps became louder as she shoved the envelope into the bag with her dress and hurried to close the compartment door, spreading the shirts evenly over the hatch.
By the time the door opened, Scarlett was back in her seat flipping through a book she had swiped off the top of her godfather’s dresser using her sleight of hand. That was how her godfather had found her, looking taken aback as he watched his goddaughter flipping through the pages of Hogwarts: A History.
Bilius placed a butterbeer on the table in front of her with a light thump, making her look up from the book. “Have a drink,” her godfather said, watching with a satisfied look as she took a big sip. “How have you been all these years?” he asked in a soft tone, observing her expression.
Alarm bells were going off inside her head as she noticed a determined glint in her godfather’s eyes. Something was off. She was proven right when her mouth moved against her will. What she meant to say was ‘I’ve been doing well,’ but what came out was “It has been difficult living on my own and looking out for myself, I had to steal galleons from people to pay off living expenses and necessities.”
Scarlett forced herself to not react. Instead of panicking like she very much wanted to, she kept her expression painted to one of nostalgia, as if thinking back to all the times she had to use her sleight of hand to pickpocket people she walked passed. Her godfather had spiked the butterbeer with Veritaserum. Thinking quickly, she remembered from her reading on Occlumency that it can to some extent, be used to resist the effects of Veritaserum.
She cleared her mind, locking all important information she didn’t want her godfather to know away in her mental defences.
Her godfather nodded as if her answer was what he had been looking for. “Where have you been living in the past years?” Bilius asked, getting more specific.
Scarlett thinks her godfather was testing to see if the truth serum was working. But how would he know the correct answer to the test questions? Unless her godfather had been watching her for years. But why? Her mouth moved to answer the question, but she took the opportunity to try and evade the truth serum. “In Diagon Alley,”
Her godfather had asked where she had been living in the past years, but he hadn’t asked for the exact location. The secret to evading Veritaserum does not lie in clearing your mind completely, but rather in thinking logically about your words and speaking half-truths. She was playing a dangerous game.
Her godfather’s brows furrowed, as if that wasn’t the answer he had been looking for but let it go as it wasn’t a lie. She did live in Diagon Alley for years, she had just omitted to mention the Leaky Cauldron. Although she had a feeling her godfather knew the answer to the question anyway. “When I left to get the drinks, did you search my room?” Bilius asked, no longer beating around the bush as he paid close attention to her expression.
Scarlett’s expression didn’t betray her, looking the perfect picture of innocence as her mind raced to reason with the truth serum using logic. Bilius only asked if she searched his room and nothing else. “I did. I was bored and had a look around.”
“Did you find anything?” he pressed. Though it was very quick, Scarlett didn’t miss how his eyes flickered to the dresser.
She held up the book she was holding in her hand as she responded. “Yes, Hogwarts: A History,”
Bilius had relaxed, relief painted on his face as he nodded in approval. Scarlett thought that would be the end of the interrogation, but her godfather seemed to have other plans. Her godfather went to take a seat on his bed, looking nonchalant. “What’s your Hogwarts house?”
Seeing no way around the question and not finding the need to conceal her Hogwarts house, Scarlett let her mouth answer for her. “Slytherin.”
Her godfather’s expression had gone cold as he eyed her distrustfully. His expression softened at her confusion. “There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin,” he explained, scanning over her. “I see a lot of your mother in you. It is possible the Sorting Hat could have made a mistake,” he mused.
Scarlett held her tongue. She didn’t think the Sorting Hat had made a mistake by placing her in Slytherin, but it would be hard to get answers out of her godfather if he didn’t trust her so she stayed quiet, unsure how to respond.
Changing the subject, Bilius continued with the interrogation. “Have you made any friends?”
He didn’t ask for names. Her mouth moved to respond. “Yes,”
Her godfather didn’t look thrilled at the thought of her having friends in Slytherin but he pressed on in a straightforward matter. “Who are they?”
Scarlett struggled against the truth serum, unable to find a way around the question. “Tom Riddle,” She blurted out, trying to stay calm as she argued in her mind that Abraxas Malfoy wasn’t technically a friend, he was family. The truth serum thankfully stayed silent, not forcing her to say Abraxas’ name as well.
Her godfather’s lips thinned at the name but didn’t otherwise react as he seemed to have been expecting that answer. Had her godfather and Tom crossed paths in the past? “Do you have friends other than… Tom Riddle?” Bilius asked, hesitating when saying Tom’s name.
“No,” she responded, which was true. For the longest time, Tom was her only friend. She argued that Crainer was a magical creature and Abraxas was family. She didn’t want her godfather to know she had a magical companion at her disposal and that she had found her family. Her godfather cannot be trusted. Her father had told as much and her gut feeling was saying the same.
Bilius didn’t look happy at that but moved on. Before her godfather could ask her another personal question, she decided she had enough. Scarlett didn’t want to answer any more of his questions and she had a dinner party she had to get to. Pasting on a charming smile, she spoke up. “I apologize for cutting our catch-up session short but I have to get going now if I want to make it to a dinner party in time. We can continue this another time?”
Scarlett didn’t find herself wanting to come back but kept a carefree expression on her face as she waited for her godfather to respond.
Her godfather pursed his lips, not looking pleased at having to cut the interrogation short, but relented. “Of course,”
Scarlett moved to put the book back where it belonged but her godfather’s next words stopped her. “Keep it. It was your mother’s favourite book, I’m sure you’ll love it as well,” he said in a soft tone, looking at the book with a fond look.
Looking surprised at her godfather’s offering, Scarlett smiled as she hugged the book closer to her chest. Despite having used it as a prop for her cover, the book looked interesting when she first flipped through it. “Thank you,” she said, slipping the book into the bag with her dress as she took her leave.
Making her way down the stairs to the busy pub and back onto the streets of Hogsmeade, the sky had darkened by now, the sun having long set. The street lights cast an orange glow around the street as the snow continued to fall. The view was breathtaking as Scarlett made her way back to Hogwarts, the snowflakes dancing to the symphony of her footsteps.