Chapter 21
Susan Pevensie was the last person Draco Malfoy expected to find in the detention classroom.
He had ended up there due to a damn explosion in the Potions classroom that he hadn't caused. It didn't matter how much he tried to explain to Snape that it wasn't his fault; he and Professor McGonagall, who had been passing by at the time, had decided that a Slytherin prefect needed reprimanding.
"What are you doing here?" the boy said disdainfully.
"Passing the time," she replied nonchalantly, sitting at her desk. "And you?"
"I didn't do anything," he said, "but we have the most idiotic faculty in history."
"I find it hard to believe you did nothing to deserve this," she said.
"I find it hard to believe you did," he retorted.
He received no response; Susan continued writing on her parchment, unbothered. No one else arrived in the following minutes until the clock chimed, and Professor Hooch entered the room.
"Well, I have as little desire to be here as you do," she said. "So, I spoke with the headmaster, and he suggested you help me tune up the first-year students' brooms."
"Can't we use this time to study?" Susan asked. "I have a Charms O.W.L. mock exam next Monday."
"I don't think you're in a position to make demands, Miss Pevensie," said the professor. "Especially after trying to sneak into the headmaster's office."
Draco slowly lifted his head and looked at the girl incredulously. Perhaps Susan Pevensie wasn't as innocent as she seemed. She rolled her eyes and maintained a serious expression, as if the comment was of no consequence.
With resignation, they both packed their materials into their bags and followed the professor to her office near the western courtyard.
Astoria had been avoiding Edmund since the match. She was truly furious with him, even more so because he hadn't immediately come to apologize. So, when he approached her that Tuesday after arguing on Saturday, she felt even more offended.
"How's everything, As?" he asked.
"Oh, the hero of the common room," she said with a fake smile.
"Look, I'm sorry about the argument the other day, really," he said.
"So you're truly sorry," she said.
"Yes," he replied.
"Are you going to take back anything you did or said?" she asked. "Or is it just an empty apology?"
"Well, what I said about blood was stupid... I'll admit that," he said. "Actually, completely absurd. I apologize for that."
"And what have you been up to these days?" she asked. "With your new friends?"
"That's the part of your anger I don't understand," he said. "I know they seem..."
"They do believe glory runs in their veins, Ed," she said. "And you said it yourself. To them, your blood is 'clean,' like mine. And if they're willing to forget what their families have done, it's because they want to make you one of 'theirs.'"
"'Theirs,'" he muttered. "We're just teenagers."
"In a war."
"That privilege you say I have now, you've always had," he said. "Is it so wrong for me to want to feel included for once? You've always had it."
"And it's only brought me problems," she said. "It's why I'm always on edge."
Edmund looked at the girl. She was terribly angry, and that wasn't what he wanted to achieve with this conversation. He needed Astoria. She was his loyal and faithful friend, the reason why he often didn't lose hope in his house, in his generation. The proof that good-hearted people existed no matter where they were born. He couldn't see himself going on without her.
"Can we forget about it? Please," he said. "I don't like fighting with you."
"Me neither," she confessed. "But I'm disappointed."
"It was just a match, Astoria," he said. "My ideas are the same. I just got carried away by feeling included. You know it's not easy. Can you be less hard on me? Please."
"Alright," she said. "Will you come with me to the greenhouses? I left my book there."
"Sure," he said, smiling, more relaxed.
Astoria stood up from the study table, slung her bag over one shoulder, and began walking with Edmund towards the classroom.
"I just don't want them to change you, Edmund," she confessed.
"They won't," he said. "I promise."
"Really?" she asked.
"Really," he said. "I am and will always be the same."
"Alright."
They continued walking, almost in silence, but feeling lighter. After a while, they started talking again, more normally. They caught up on the kinds of details that only close friends share. They were almost back to how they always were.
Astoria Greengrass preferred to think of herself as not a resentful person, but doubt had nested in her mind, right next to her fear, and neither her head nor her heart could now fully rest.
She couldn't let them corrupt her friend. She simply wouldn't allow it.
"Is it true about the headmaster's office?"
Draco Malfoy took the bait much sooner than Susan had expected. They had barely spent ten minutes at the tables in the courtyard fixing the brooms when the professor left to run an errand. The sun, almost touching the hilltops, shone directly into Susan's blue eyes, who was trying to appear focused on her task.
"I had you pegged for many things, Draco Malfoy," she said, cold and mocking, "but being a gossip wasn't one of them. I thought that was more Pansy's job."
"I just ask about what piques my curiosity," he said without looking up. "And at this school, that reduces the topics of conversation to very few."
"Oh, I'm flattered then," she said, glancing up briefly. "Am I one of those few interesting topics?"
"Not quite, Pevensie," Malfoy said, a proud smile forming on his face. "But I wonder why a student close to the Order would sneak into Albus Dumbledore's office."
"Maybe I'm not that close to the Order."
Malfoy's laugh echoed against the nearby wall, brief and cold. Putting aside one broom and picking up the next, he looked at Susan again, moving to the other side of her table to look at her with a certain disdain.
"Do I amuse you?" she asked, a hint of threat in her tone.
"I'd Obliviate him right here," she thought furtively before quickly returning to her character. Malfoy smiled, eager to continue his questioning.
"Everyone knows you're close to the Order of the Phoenix," he said. "Everyone knows which side your parents are on. If it weren't for the old man, they might be running the Order themselves."
"Everyone knows where your parents stand, yet you act like you're the most mysterious person in the world," she said, unable to contain her anger.
"Uh," he said, placing his hand on his chest. "So I'm right then."
"Maybe," she said. "I won't say anything about my parents. I'm loyal to them, but I don't have to be to the headmaster... 'the old man.'"
It was hard for her to say that derogatory phrase about Dumbledore. She didn't have a close relationship with the old man, but the Order respected him. And so far, the few times he had appeared at a secret meeting in her house, he had been perfectly kind to her. She had heard his secret a couple of nights ago and was trying to help them.
But she didn't need to feel bad. She needed to act, and for Draco to believe the story.
"I thought you all followed Greybeard to the end," he said.
"We follow him... we have followed him," Susan said. "But you know what they say... he's getting old. Don't you toast to that every night? Maybe he's not the best to rid us of your kind."
"Were you going to solve the problem yourself?" he said, laughing again.
"No," she said. "What I was looking for in that office is my business."
They both fell silent, brushing the brooms on either side of the table, while the sun set on the horizon. Susan didn't look back at the Slytherin, knowing he would speak again.
"I never took you for a rebel," he said, in a less cruel tone than before.
Susan frowned, not understanding the boy.
"I thought you were one to obey without question," he said.
"Maybe you have that capacity, but I have a habit of thinking," she said, putting the brush aside and looking at him directly.
"I'm impressed," he said.
"I'm not by you," she said. "You are exactly what I expect of you. You're not a rebel. You just follow orders without thinking, am I wrong?"
"You're wrong," he said defensively.
"Oh really?" she said, returning to her task. "I don't think so. You've always been cruel, privileged, and narcissistic. But I don't think you're bad enough to want a war."
"You know nothing about me," he said, annoyed.
"I do," she said. "I don't know much, but I know things about you. I don't know about you, but I would have preferred a world where we both got the positions we wanted in the Ministry, and where we glared at each other in the hallway every time we crossed paths, to a world where we're forced to take sides in a war, and where maybe, sooner than you think, we'll be trying to kill each other."
Malfoy didn't look at the girl, but she didn't take her eyes off the boy's, which were fixed on the table.
"Dumbledore seems to prefer the second of those worlds," she said. "Just like your master."
"My master," he muttered, laughing.
Draco raised his gaze as if to say something else, and he stared at Susan, who was quicker to make the next comment.
"It's true, he's your lord," she said. "Because you're nothing but a slave."
"Peter, boy," Slughorn's voice called out at the end of class.
"Yes, professor?" the boy asked, approaching, while Hermione waited a few steps away.
"You too, Miss Granger... great work on the potion today, by the way."
"Thank you, professor," she said with a smile.
Peter smiled. It didn't matter how many times the teachers praised Hermione Granger, she always smiled as if it were the first and only time they did, as if surprised, when in truth, no one was surprised that she did almost everything well. But she achieved everything with hard work, in addition to her great intelligence.
"Professor Dumbledore has decided to move the visit to the Kirke Mansion to tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" he asked. "We have classes tomorrow."
"He will give you a note," Slughorn said thoughtfully. "He almost seemed in a hurry, and I thought he didn't like our excursion..."
"Well..." Peter said, somewhat tense. "I'm sure he realized it was a brilliant idea, professor."
"Certainly, a great cultural enrichment..."
"Certainly," Peter repeated, relieved.
After babbling for a few more minutes about the importance of the next day's visit, the professor finally let his two students go to the dining hall. Hermione watched Peter the whole time.
"What made you so tense?" she asked softly.
"Nothing..." he said. "Nonsense."
"You didn't have anything to do with it, did you?" she asked. "With the change of date for the excursion."
"Me?"
"Alright, Peter Pevensie," she said with a half-smile. "Keep your secrets, but I miss nothing..."
"That's well known, Hermione Granger," he said. "How could I deny you the luxury of solving the mystery with your brilliant mind?"
"You had something to do with it, no doubt," she said, raising an eyebrow.
"I thought you only worked with facts," he said, laughing.
"Oh, believe me, I'll find the evidence," she said.
They were alone in the hallway, and if they hadn't been, they wouldn't have noticed. Peter couldn't stop talking and laughing with his potions partner. The walk to the dining hall was too short. He would have walked the hallways with Hermione Granger all afternoon.
However, the hallways ended, and Peter and Hermione found themselves enveloped in the bustle of the dining hall, which, despite being usual, caught them by surprise. Edmund called his brother to discuss something that undoubtedly sounded like a private family matter to the girl, and at the same time, Harry distracted her with a question that had arisen while doing his homework. All these factors led to isolating them in two different areas of the table.
Peter supposed that was how it should be, that he couldn't be continuously next to Hermione, which reminded him, that he shouldn't.
No matter how much he wanted, he shouldn't.
He couldn't put her in danger, not because of his teenage infatuation.
The door to Borgin & Burkes swung open, catching its owners by surprise. Robert Pevensie, surrounded by several Aurors from his closest team, pounced, wands in hand, on the criminals.
The door closed amid the commotion, isolating the street from the secret mission being carried out inside. Helen Pevensie turned her back on the brief duel taking place on either side of the counter, and her short spell cut off any connection with the outside.
Mr. Borgin muttered something about the Aurors, and one of them quickly read him his rights while placing a Silencing Charm on his mouth. Something about suspicious conduct and dealings with Death Eaters. They were informed that they would be taken into preventive custody in an isolated dungeon until the facts were clarified.
Helen walked through the shop as if nothing were happening, while the owners fell prey to the relaxing potion that would put them to sleep on their way to the cell. She walked without looking at what was happening around her, focusing only on the Vanishing Cabinet.
Just then, a faint sound was heard from the other side of its door, like a whistle. Helen Pevensie slowly opened the cabinet, only to find, to her surprise, a green apple, gleaming in the dark wood.
"The enemy must think everything is still on track," echoed the voice of Albus Dumbledore in her head.
With a soft but firm gesture, she grabbed the apple, bit it, and placed it back inside before closing it with a slight thud. Another whistle was heard, and she opened the door again, smiling when she saw that the apple was no longer there.
A dog passed between her legs, snapping her out of her little trance. She smiled, watching the animal, which was exploring every corner of the shop, as if checking that no one else was there.
"It's your turn, Padfoot," Robert instructed.
With a swift movement, the dog jumped into the air, but when it landed back on the old wood, it did so on its two legs. Helen watched the dark-haired individual, the same color as the dog's fur, before he turned with a smile.
"I'm ready."
Sirius Black smiled at his old friends before slowly approaching the counter, where the shop owners lay asleep. He looked at both of them with doubt.
"Truth be told, neither of them is very attractive," he said with a grimace.
"Certainly," Helen said, approaching while laughing softly.
"You're not at your best either," Robert said. "But keep some hair from both of them, and alternate. You'll have enough Polyjuice Potion for a few months. If this drags on, a member of the Order will bring you more."
"I'll be hiding," Sirius said with a half-smile, "right under their noses."
"Exactly," Helen said. "And be alert for any movement from your second cousin and his family."
"Perfect," he said, pulling a hair from Borgin's head.
Helen and Robert watched as Sirius dropped the greasy hair into the unpleasant potion, turning it a very unappetizing black-orange color.
"Thank you for doing this, Sirius," Robert said.
"No need to thank me, I owe you for saving my life last year at the Ministry," he said with a smile, raising the glass and winking. "To your health, Robert Pevensie."