The Hog's Head
Lorcan watched with apprehension as Granger stood up to introduce the idea that they - her, himself and Potter - had been debating, pruning and perfecting for the past two weeks.
He didn’t know what he’d been expecting when Granger had approached him in the library - they each had their own tables there, purposefully on opposite sides of the room - but a proposition to start a defence organisation with her and Potter definitely hadn’t been on the list.
His first reaction had been to refuse on principle, but before he could get the words out she launched into an explanation about how she didn’t like it any more than he did, but it was their best option, and then proceeded to list her reasons why, which boiled down to three key points:
- He was the best in their year at Defence Against the Dark Arts - a fact which brought him no small amount of satisfaction to hear Granger admit.
- He actually knew the Dark Arts, and so he knew what they were up against, which would help them determine what to cover during their meetings.
- He was a Slytherin, and so the group would be under less suspicion if he was involved.
As much as he hated to agree with Granger, her reasoning was sound, and he had eventually agreed to be involved with the organisation. He may have been up to his eyes in the Dark Arts, and friends with the children of Death Eaters to boot, but he fundamentally disagreed with the Dark Lord’s ideology; this, unfortunately, came with the consequence of putting him on the same side as Potter and Granger.
After he agreed, Granger, to his horror, had actually presumed to sit down at his desk, the unspoken barrier that had been erected between the two most frequent visitors to the library apparently torn down due to the simple fact that he had agreed to be a part of their defence organisation.
She immediately dove into a rant about the preparations she had made for the organisation, and Lorcan was shocked to find himself intrigued by what she was saying, and actually volunteering suggestions from time to time.
He still hated Potter, of course, but he found himself thinking that Granger might not be as bad as he had assumed as he listened to her talk with such passion. In fact, as she spoke, he found an unfamiliar sensation brewing in his chest - was that, perhaps, endearment?
Perish the thought, he had thought, shuddering slightly as he dismissed the notion. However, he had trouble determining what else it could be as she continued her impassioned tirade about how Umbridge’s inaction was affecting their learning.
He still hadn’t quite figured out what that feeling was, but whatever it had been was enough to convince him to go along with this foolhardy plan, and over the next two weeks he had sat down with Potter and Granger to set out a plan for what their goals with the group were.
This had all culminated to bring him where he was now, sitting in the Hog’s Head as Granger laid down the ethos of the group. He had elected not to sit at the front with her, Potter and Weasley, mostly because he couldn’t stand to be seen with the two boys, but also because he felt it would raise questions as to why a Slytherin was leading their group.
However, he seemed to have underestimated how much people judged those who wore green robes in Hogwarts, and as soon as Granger was done speaking and invited some questions, an annoying sounding boy called Zacharias Smith had gotten to questioning his presence there.
“What’s he doing here? He’s a Slytherin,” he sneered, looking disdainfully down his nose at Lorcan. He had to fight hard not to roll his eyes at the idiocy.
“Well, he’s also the best at Defence Against the Dark Arts in our year, and he helped me and Harry plan out this meeting,” Granger had countered, her usual matter-of-fact tone injected with something that Lorcan would have thought was venom had she been a Slytherin. “Does anyone else have any issues with Lorcan being here?”
Weasley certainly looked like he had some issues with Lorcan being there, and so did a few other faces in the larger crowd, but no-one was fool enough to rebuke Granger, and so she answered some other questions.
There was some stroking of Potter’s ego as people reminded him of all the great accomplishments he had managed with the help of others, and Lorcan almost began to tune out the meeting, but then something happened which he hadn’t been expecting.
“Is it true that Lorcan beat you in a duel?” a little blonde Ravenclaw near the front of the group asked. Lorcan thought he knew who she was, but before he could crane his neck and get a look to confirm his suspicions, a Ravenclaw in the year above his own turned to face her with a scowl.
“Of course it isn’t, Loony. How could you believe that?” she spat, disdain evident in her voice. Lorcan’s eyes narrowed. He knew her, she was the seeker for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and he didn’t like her tone. Lorcan was many things, but a bully was not one of them, and he did his best to give those who bullied a hard time.
“Why don’t you let Potter speak for himself, Chang?” he drawled carelessly, knowing that the answer would make Chang look like a fool. She turned to argue with him, but Potter held up a hand for silence.
“It’s true,” he confirmed, looking bitter about it but speaking the truth nonetheless. Chang looked gobsmacked, and some muttering broke out at his words, but the girl, who Chang had confirmed to be Luna Lovegood, turned to face him, shooting an appreciative smile in his direction before turning to face the front again.
“That leads on from what I was saying. I’m not special. When I got away from Voldemort in the graveyard last summer, that wasn’t me being some Defence Against the Dark Arts prodigy. I got away because of circumstance, and because of luck. That isn’t how we’re going to win this war. We need to stick together and learn from each other if we’re going to have any chance. That’s why we started this group, so if the fight comes to us, we won’t need luck to get away.”
Lorcan found himself quite impressed with that speech. Sure, he hadn’t elaborated on just how badly he had lost that duel, but Lorcan knew, and he didn’t need Potter to stroke his ego about it. The humility he had shown with that speech, however, was novel, and Lorcan hadn’t thought Potter capable of showing it.
The thought briefly crossed his mind that he had perhaps misjudged Potter, but he quickly pushed it aside. He had spent two weeks planning this association with him, and he had remained just as insufferable as always. No, it was just an out of character showcase of humility, that was all.
The meeting went on for a little while longer, and Lorcan would have tuned it out, if not for Luna Lovegood. It wasn’t anything she was doing in particular, as she was looking straight ahead, quite rapt by whatever was being said, but rather the actions of those around her that prevented him from zoning out.
Chang kept shooting her dirty looks long after she had been shown up by Potter, and everyone near her was seated slightly further away than they were to the other people next to them. He caught the occasional contemptuous glance thrown her way for seemingly no reason, and began feeling slightly angry on her behalf.
Of course, Lorcan didn’t know a lot about the people outside of Slytherin house, much less people not in his year, but he felt that he could say with reasonable confidence that Luna did not deserve the treatment she was currently receiving from her peers.
Just as he made a mental note to keep an eye out for anyone bullying the little Ravenclaw, whoever had been talking at the front of the room fell silent, and it seemed the group had been addressed.
From the responses, it sounded like they were asking for group names. To his great annoyance, ‘Dumbledore’s Army’ seemed to be garnering quite a bit of support, and he groaned when it came to a vote and the name passed, causing several people to look strangely at him.
“Have a better suggestion, O’Leary?” Weasley - no, Ron, there were four Weasleys present in the Hog’s Head at that moment - snarled at him, distaste visible in his face. Lorcan rolled his eyes pointedly in his direction before turning to Granger, who he suspected would be most amenable to a more agreeable name.
“Why not something normal, like the Defence Association or something? Like Potter said, this is about working together. We’re not working for Dumbledore, we’re working for ourselves. Naming the group after one person is counterproductive to the goals of the group.”
Of course, no-one was ever going to listen to the word of a Slytherin, especially when that word was against Dumbledore, however indirectly. In the end, Granger put it to a vote, and he was one of three people who raised their hands in favour - the others being Granger herself, and Luna.
That earned the Ravenclaw several more pointed glares, and he reiterated his mental note to keep an eye out for her. He didn’t want her in any hot water with her fellow students on his account.
In the end, as two of the three ‘founding’ members, so-to- speak, had voted for a different name, they compromised and wrote ‘DA’ at the top of the member list, so that people could interpret it as they wished.
Lorcan waited for Potter and Granger to write their names down, but Potter had stopped with his quill above the parchment, and turned to look at Lorcan instead of signing. Confused, he looked at Granger, but she was frowning at Potter.
“Come on Harry, put your name down,” she chided, her tone impatient. Potter, however, shook his head.
“Lorcan, you first.”
Lorcan blinked. Surely he had misheard, or he was imagining things. In no world had Potter just invited him to sign the parchment first. However, his blinking did nothing to dispel Potter’s expectant expression.
Cautiously, he got to his feet, rummaging in his bag to retrieve his self-inking quill. The people around him scoffed, and there was some whispering that he thought he was too good to use Potter’s quill, but that wasn’t the case at all. He was really stalling for time, so that Potter could tell him it was a prank before he actually came over the parchment, but the confession never came.
He approached the parchment and, when Potter made no moves to rebuff him, signed his name. Potter and Granger followed suit, and then all the Weasleys, and then the rest of the group surged forward to sign their names.
Lorcan left the pub before everyone was done signing, feeling light-headed. Potter had let him sign the paper first. Not Granger, but Potter. It felt like a perversion of everything he knew, or everything he thought he had known.
It had completely blindsided him, and he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond. Was he expected to respond? His head was swimming with questions, and he had none of the answers. Ever since first year, he had thought of Potter as nothing more than arrogant toerag. Was he something more now? Had he always been something more, and Lorcan had somehow failed to notice?
He wasn’t sure which option was harder to confront, that Potter had changed or that he had never been how Lorcan had perceived him. It made him feel slightly sick, and he wanted to just run away and mull it all over. Unfortunately, he was now a de-facto figurehead of this stupid group that he had been looped into by the stupid Gryffindors, and thus had responisibilites, and could no longer retreat to the library everytime something was bothering him.
He took a deep breath, trying to collect his thoughts. He was being stupid, and he knew it. Overreacting. Of course Potter wasn’t wholly who he had perceived him to be, no-one ever was. It had been foolish to assume that his impression of Potter was accurate in the first place; he had hardly spoken to the Gryffindor before.
Just as he managed to school his features into an expression befitting someone of his status, people began to emerge from the pub. A gaggle of people he didn’t recognise were first to leave, and he ignored them as they dispersed throughout Hogsmeade.
Granger, Potter and Weasley were somewhere in the middle, and he ignored them as well. He was still coming to terms with his revelation about Potter, and he’d rather not talk to them while his mind processed the information. Alas, fate was never so kind.
“Lorcan!”
Granger was shouting for him, and beckoning for him to follow them. With a theatrical sigh, he turned on his heel and set off after them, following them and those amongst the group who had not fanned out to go attend to other matters in Hogsmeade up the hill.
“Do you have any ideas for where we could have our meetings?”
Granger addressed the whole group with that, but it was obvious that she had waited for Lorcan to join them before posing the question. Still, everyone else immediately sprung to put forward their ‘valuable’ contributions, some of which were laughably bad.
The closest thing to something useful actually came from the Weasley twins, who suggested that Potter take them into the Chamber of Secrets for their lessons. Lorcan actually thought that was a surprisingly good idea, which naturally meant it wasn’t going to work.
The two younger Weasleys instantly shot it down, with the girl - Ginny, was it? He really should get to know these people better, given he was starting a defence organisation with them - being particularly vehement about it. He wondered why for a moment, before remembering that she was the one who the Heir of Slytherin took into the chamber when he was in Second Year.
Yep, that would explain it.
“What about the Room of Requirement?” Luna asked, following the silence which had taken hold of the group after the Weasley twins’ idea had been shot down. Lorcan blinked, taken aback. Two very good ideas back to back, what were the odds of that?
However, the rest of the group was looking doubtfully at Luna, as though she had just said something ridiculous. Lorcan couldn’t believe his eyes. Were they really that prejudiced against her? Before anyone could dismiss her, Lorcan spoke up to show his support.
“That’s a great idea! The room will give us everything we need for practice, and we can just require the room not to open for Umbridge and she’ll never find us!”
Luna beamed at him, which he half-heartedly returned, but he couldn’t really manage it when the rest of the group was looking at him like he’d grown a third head. He frowned at them, trying to think what issue they could possibly be taking with the idea.
“So it’s real, then, the Room of Requirement?”
Lorcan’s frown intensified at Granger’s question. She spent as much time in the library as he did, how had she not come across the term?
“Yeah? Room of Requirement, also known as the Come and Go Room, on the seventh floor by the tapestry of the trolls? Surely you’ve heard of it?”
Granger nodded, but the rest of the group shook their heads, which only confused Lorcan more. Had she not told them about it? Before he could ask, Granger launched into an explanation, her gaze wandering over to Luna during it a few too many times for Lorcan’s liking.
“Well, I’ve heard of it, of course, but it just seemed so… preposterous. I mean, really, how could there be a room that transforms into whatever you need it to be? It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? I never bothered to investigate it because of that, and because the sources for its existence were… less than credible,” she concluded, still looking at Luna.
It seemed that Lorcan wasn’t the only one to notice the gesture, as Ginny followed her gaze and narrowed her eyes at Granger, but didn’t say anything. Lorcan, however, was not one to hold his tongue.
“Well, that was narrow-minded of you, wasn’t it, seeing as it's real? Anyway, unless anyone else has any better ideas, I think our meeting place is decided,” Lorcan announced, challenging anyone to counter him with a raised eyebrow. No-one did, and he nodded in confirmation.
“The first meeting is on Tuesday, 7PM. Let everyone who’s wandered off know in time for it, and tell them to meet by the tapestry of the trolls on the seventh floor, or just to find Lorcan or Luna, I guess,” Potter said weakly, trying to defuse the tension that had descended since Lorcan had quite blatantly insulted Granger’s intelligence.
Lorcan ignored him, slowing his pace so as to fall behind from the rest of the group. Their obvious mistrust in Luna for no reason which was immediately apparent to him was quite astounding, and it very much rubbed him the wrong way. He wondered if they thought about him like that, but were too scared to show it, given his reputation as a prodigious duelist.
In the end, he decided to go over to the Three Broomsticks, taking his place in his usual booth at the back of the pub. He ordered a butterbeer, and then another, and after some buttering up he convinced Madam Rosmerta to sell him a firewhiskey.
He mulled everything over as he slowly made his way through the bottle, considering whether or not he really wanted to go through with this. Potter had surprised him, that was for certain. He had shown himself to be far more humble than he had previously thought, and Lorcan was more certain that aligning himself with Potter was the right choice than he had ever been.
However, he was beginning to have misgivings about his involvement in the DA. Was it really in his best interests to be a part of a group which clearly had no qualms with bullying one of its own members?
Well, he supposed he couldn’t say that was wholly true. Ginny had looked pretty peeved off with Granger for her insinuation that Luna was somehow not to be taken at her word, and not everyone in the Hog’s Head had been shooting her dirty looks, but no-one had stood up for her except himself.
Then again, there had certainly been times when Lorcan hadn’t stood up for people when he should’ve. He had stood by countless times and let Draco bully Millicent Bulstrode, when she was supposedly his friend. His stomach writhed guiltily as he remembered that, and he decided that it would most definitely be hypocritical to leave the group for doing something that his friends had done many times before.
Regardless, he wasn’t the pushover he had once been. He wasn’t going to stand by and let what had happened to Millicent happen to anyone else, and that was a promise.
His resolve was firm as he drained the last of his firewhiskey, and he got to his feet, slightly unsteadily but stable nonetheless. Mind made up, he began the journey back to the castle, turning his attention to other things, such as planning what they were going to do for their first meeting.
He was in for a long ride, but it might yet prove worthwhile if he could do this right.
-
“What are you playing at, O’Leary?!”
Lorcan had been hoping for a warmer welcome when he returned to the Slytherin common room, but he supposed it was inevitable that Draco had heard about his meeting with Potter at the Hog’s Head earlier that day. He sighed, sitting down on the couch which the other Slytherins reserved for him at the back of the room, facing Malfoy.
“Exercising some Slytherin subtlety. Has it occurred to you that we don’t know nearly enough about Potter? This is our in, and we can’t afford to lose it.”
Malfoy’s eyes narrowed, but he inclined his head slowly, brows furrowed as though he was trying to poke a hole in Lorcan’s argument.
“What are you going to do when Umbridge passes her decree to disband student organisations then?”
Lorcan grimaced. Of course, Umbridge would have heard about their meeting, but he hadn’t expected a decree to be approaching so soon.
“Vouch for me. Write a letter to your father about the decree, get him to make Fudge reconsider. I’m in a leadership role in the group, it won’t be long before he lets something slip that we can use. Trust me, this is going to be worth it.”
It took Malfoy far too long to answer, and Lorcan’s confidence in this approach wavered. What was he going to do if Malfoy said no? His whole plan would come crashing down and he wouldn’t be able to straddle the fence as he had been hoping. If the decree was passed, he would have to come down on one side, and it would be Potter’s side. That would lose him his position as a source of intelligence on the Slytherins, which was one of the reasons he was in the DA in the first place.
“Okay, on one condition.”
That didn’t sound promising. Malfoy’s conditions were usually unreasonable, but he didn’t have much of a choice, and so he inclined his head to indicate that he should continue.
“I’m joining the group with you.”
“What?” Lorcan managed to get out in his confusion. He had come up with a few different conditions Malfoy might have imposed, but that certainly wasn’t one of them.
“I’m joining. I don’t care how you do it, but get me in. You’re the best at Defence in our year by a mile, I’d be an idiot to miss out on it, even if it means having to put up with Potter.”
Lorcan blinked, stunned a second time over. If he’d been confused at Draco’s condition, he was bewildered at his reasoning. Surely, if he wanted to learn, he could have just asked, considering they had shared a dorm for the last four years and change? Regardless, Lorcan knew a good bargain when he saw one, and agreed heartily.
Now there was just the matter of letting Potter’s mortal enemy be admitted to his little Defence club.
-
“Potter, you have a minute?” Lorcan asked, slightly out of breath. He had been unable to find Potter after his deal with Malfoy last night, and so he decided his next best chance would be to corner him after breakfast, which he had just about managed by running from his seat at the very end of Slytherin table to beat Potter to the door.
“Um, sure,” Potter replied, looking rather confused but agreeing regardless. Lorcan led them to somewhere more private; an alcove behind a statue to the side of the Great Hall, and put up a quick privacy ward before getting to the point of the conversation.
“We need to let Malfoy join the DA.”
Potter’s expression instantly darkened, and he opened his mouth to protest, but Lorcan held up a hand for silence, trying his best to look remorseful.
“I know you don’t like him, but we don’t have a choice. Umbridge knows about the DA, and she’s going to pass a decree that makes unapproved organisations an offence. If we let Malfoy in, he can write a letter and get his father to vouch for us, so we’ll still be above board and no-one gets expelled if we get exposed,” Lorcan explained, not doing a very convincing job at sounding like he was reluctant about the idea. Potter didn’t look convinced, and narrowed his eyes at Lorcan.
“Why does Malfoy want to join? What makes you think he won’t just rat us out and get us all expelled?”
Bugger. He had been hoping Potter wouldn’t question Malfoy’s motives to join, but, for all the faults Lorcan had thought Potter to have, he had always known that he wasn’t stupid. There wasn’t really any convincing lie he could tell to persuade Potter, and so he simply decided to tell the truth.
“He said that I’m the best at Defence in the year by a mile, and he’d be an idiot to miss out on it. His words, not mine,” Lorcan clarified, not wanting to seem egotistical. To be fair, he probably could have paraphrased and used less hyperbolic language, but where’s the fun in that?
Potter closed his eyes and sighed, slumping back into the wall.
“I don’t have much say in this, do I?”
Lorcan raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t been expecting Potter to be so easy to persuade. From what he had seen before, he could be stubborn as a mule when he wanted to be, and especially so when Draco Malfoy was concerned. Still, he didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so he agreed with Potter.
“No, you don’t. For what it’s worth, I’ll tell him to stay out of your way, and out of Weasley and Granger’s way too, I suppose,” Lorcan mused, wondering how exactly he was going to manage this. He was subject to enough mistrust in the group as it was, he couldn’t imagine what it would be like with Draco there, who they actually had reason to dislike.
“How are you friends with him?” Potter asked, startling Lorcan out of his contemplations. “I mean, he’s such a prat and you’re… well, not. I’ve been trying to convince yourself that you are for the last two weeks, because you’re friends with him, but I just can’t. I don’t understand how somehow like you can be friends with someone like him.”
Lorcan would have laughed, but he could tell that Potter wouldn’t appreciate that, so he restrained himself, only allowing the ghost of a smile to play on his face.
“Malfoy’s a prat to you . To people he likes, he’s perfectly agreeable. That rejected handshake in First Year meant a lot more than you thought it did,” Lorcan answered cryptically. Before Potter could respond, he dispelled the privacy wards and left the alcove, heading off to lesson.
He would leave Potter to mull that one over, and see what he thought about it next time they crossed paths.
-
“Little Loony, all alone. Just what am I going to do with you?”
The taunting voice was faint, but Lorcan could just about make it out, coming from down the corridor on the floor above. He blanched, cursing silently as the staircases inconveniently chose that moment to move, blocking his access to the corridor.
Ever since the meeting at the Hog’s Head he had been making an effort to familiarise himself with the rest of the members of the DA, and quickly found himself picking favourites from their number - chief among them being Luna Lovegood.
He found himself bumping into her in the halls with surprising frequency, and wondered how he hadn’t managed to notice her prior to the meeting at the Hog’s Head, considering she seemed to spend most of her time wandering about the castle, talking to portraits and those strange creatures which she alone could see.
Of course, Lorcan wasn’t fool enough to think she was mad, or seeing things. No, he had pieced together fairly quickly what was going on with Luna and her creatures when he found her by the Black Lake without any shoes, despite the biting cold of the twilight hours in October.
She had explained rather cheerily to Lorcan that her shoes had been taken by ‘Nargles,’ which he suspected was a code word for ‘my reprehensible housemates who are incapable of keeping their pilfering, bullying mitts to themselves,’ before skipping off for breakfast, seemingly oblivious to Lorcan’s quiet rage, although he knew better than to assume that she was actually ignorant to his feelings.
Now, one of the ‘Nargles’ had her cornered in that corridor, and Lorcan couldn’t reach them. Desperate to do something, he knocked loudly on the nearest portrait to him, ignoring the ireful protests of its occupants as he cleared his throat.
“There is a student in danger in the sixth floor corridor. Spread the word to the other portraits, tell them to contact Flitwick immediately. The student in danger is a Ravenclaw.”
With some grumbling, the occupants of the portrait agreed to his request and dispersed to spread the word, leaving Lorcan alone, unable to do anything more than wait.
Curse this school and its infernal stairs! Move, damn you, move! He commanded, staring intently at the staircase in front of him. Incredibly, as though listening to his thoughts, the staircase suddenly swung to the side, reconnecting with the sixth floor. It was a boon, and Lorcan quickly rushed up before the stairs could change their mind, withdrawing his wand.
Whoever was accosting Luna wasn’t speaking anymore, but he wasn’t going to wait for them to make their presence known.
“Homenum Revelio ,” he whispered. There was no visible indication that the spell had worked, but that was exactly how it was supposed to be. Instead, Lorcan became acutely aware of the presence of two people, about twenty feet down the corridor from the bend directly in front of him.
With that, Lorcan jumped out from around the corner, wand trained on where he knew the people to be, but not firing off a spell for fear that he might hit Luna rather than his intended target.
What he saw made his blood run cold. Marietta Edgecombe, little rat that she was, was backing away from Luna, hands raised in surrender, but Lorcan was unconcerned about that. Instead, his focus was wholly on Luna’s body, spread-eagled on the floor, looking for all the world as though she had died.
“Expulso! ” he bellowed. The spell flew out of his wand with force, and ploughed directly towards Edgecombe at blinding speed. There was no small explosion when it made contact, and she was flung backwards violently into the wall, slumping to the ground and not stirring once she came to rest.
That taken care of, he rushed to Luna’s side, breathing a huge sigh of relief when he saw her chest rising and falling. She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive, he assured himself, not sure why he had ever doubted that she would be. Marietta was clearly a bully, but she was surely not fool enough to kill her fellow student. Lorcan doubted whether she even had the power to do so.
Still, he was very glad that she was not dead, even if she had certainly been roughed up a bit. Her nose was broken, and a trickle of blood was dribbling from it, as it was too from the corner of her mouth.
It wasn’t that bad, really, as far as assaults went. Lorcan had done far, far worse to those who had incurred his displeasure, but that wasn’t any of his concern as he surveyed her carefully for any more injuries. Those who Lorcan exercised his spellwork on had deserved it ten times over. He knew for a fact that Luna had made no transgressions against her housemates other than being different, which seemed to be an unforgivable crime in the eyes of the wider student body.
“Episkey! ” he directed at her broken nose, waiting to hear the distinctive click of the nose being set back in place before casting a charm to clean away the blood. The trickle from her nose did not return, but her mouth continued to bleed, and, he noticed, a cut at her hairline which he had failed to spot before.
He couldn’t determine how to fix either of these injuries, and frowned slightly at his inadequate knowledge of healing spells. That would have to be remedied if he were to continue being involved in DA, but that wasn’t a pressing thought on his mind as he wondered what to do with Luna.
It would be prudent to wait for Flitwick, seeing as he had called for him, but he didn’t like that cut on Luna’s forehead. What if she had a concussion and he wasn’t doing anything about it?
He laughed quietly to himself, wondering when he had gotten so soft. It really hadn’t been so long since he was a first year, hexing Pansy Parkinson with spells he shouldn’t have known for another four years for making a disparaging comment about his scar, or since he was a third year, casting stinging hexes at the firsties who had bumped into his library desk one too many times, or since he was fresh into his fifth year, walking away from Potter who was knocked out cold on the floor.
He hadn’t worried then whether Potter was concussed, but that was different. Potter had deserved it, they had all deserved it. Luna didn’t deserve it, and he wasn’t going to sit by and pretend that she did. He was going to put this right, and that started with taking her to the hospital wing, even if it meant getting detention for being out past curfew.
“Mobilicorpus, ” Lorcan whispered, wand aimed at Luna. She rose up from the ground, but a good chunk of her hair didn’t. Lorcan gasped slightly, as he realised why Luna wasn’t very badly hurt; Edgecombe wasn’t aiming for physical damage, she was going for emotional damage.
Lorcan didn’t care a lot about his hair, owing to the fact that it was an untamable mess and not awfully long, but he knew that there were people who did, if Draco and most of the girls in his year were anything to go by. This seemed to go doubly for those with long hair, and Luna’s hair had certainly been long, reaching down to her waist in a big, blonde curtain.
Not anymore though.
Now, it ended abruptly at her shoulders, blunt, cut ends sticking out every which way from where the hair had been unceremoniously lopped off. Lorcan’s ears were slowly filled with ringing as he looked from Luna to the pile of blonde hair on the floor.
For all his faults, Lorcan had never done something quite as malicious as this to another person. He had sent bone-breaking hexes without a second thought at people who crossed him, watched callously as his housemates tormented Potter and his motley crew of friends, even stood by and let Malfoy bully Millicent, who was supposed to be his friend, rather than stand up for her.
But there had always been a reason. There was no reason for this, none at all other than that Marietta Edgecombe was a good-for-nothing, bullying tosser. He was angry, angrier than he had been in a long, long time, but not for himself. He was angry for Luna, and as that anger washed over him, he thought about something nice he could do for her after Madam Pomfrey fixed her up; help her find a way to regrow her hair, perhaps?
Lorcan recollected the crack of a belt, and his eight year old self fell to the floor, grunting as he hit it, clutching a new mark across his face. He had been angry then, too, and had thought about blasting his uncle Sylas into a wall. Which was exactly what happened next.
Luna’s hair suddenly glowed a pearlescent white, blinding in intensity, and a powerful wave of magic emanated from her, so powerful that it knocked Lorcan flat on his backside. When he looked back up, her hair had been miraculously fixed, as long and thick as it always had been.
“What the- Mr. O’Leary, what on Earth is the meaning of this?” Flitwick stammered, the quarter-goblin’s clicking footsteps fast approaching. Lorcan groaned, still drained from having poured so much magic into fixing Luna’s hair, but cautiously got to his feet, preparing his explanation.
“I happened upon Miss Edgecombe, attacking Miss Lovegood. I used appropriate measures to incapacitate Miss Edgecombe, and did as much as I could for Miss Lovegood. It escaped my mind that I had already sent for you through the portraits, and I was going to take Miss Lovegood to the Hospital Wing before you arrived. I would be willing to offer my wand to verify my retelling of events,” he lied effortlessly, rubbing dust off of his robes. His wand certainly wouldn’t disprove his version of events, but it definitely didn’t play out as he described.
Flitwick seemed to know this, and sighed slightly as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Certainly, Mr. O’Leary. Your wand, if you will,” he requested, accepting the blackthorn stick which Lorcan offered before muttering several ‘ Prior Incantano’ s under his breath.
“Expulso? Yes, appropriate measures indeed. Would a simple stunner not have sufficed? I’m surprised Miss Edgecombe is not seriously injured, given the power of the spell you used against her,” Flitwick chided, although not sounding particularly annoyed with Lorcan.
“I was scared for my safety, professor, after seeing Edgecombe attack a student two years her junior without any qualms. I was panicked, and not thinking clearly. Please forgive my overzealous spellwork,” Lorcan drawled, extending a hand for his wand, which Flitwick promptly returned with another little sigh.
“I have often wondered why you were not sorted into my house, but I suppose I need only see your Slytherin cunning on display so many times before I get the message. Mr. O’Leary, I have had the pleasure of seeing you duel, if you remember. I do not believe for a second that you believed Miss Edgecombe posed any danger to you.”
Lorcan gave a slight incline of his head, knowing that he couldn’t deny this. He had defeated a fourth year with three spells during their ill-fated duelling club in their second year, and Flitwick had witnessed it personally. There was no point denying that he was a better duelist than Edgecombe. He waited patiently for his punishment, however, Flitwick did not issue one.
“Twenty points to Slytherin for an impassioned defence of a friend, Mr. O’Leary,” Flitwick announced. Lorcan just stared at him, gobsmacked. Their Charms professor was always fair, far more so than the obviously biased McGonagall and Snape, but to award him points after attacking one of his own students? Well, he supposed he had also come to the defence of another of his students, but-
“Miss Lovegood speaks highly of you, Mr. O’Leary. I was worried, at first, that you may be playing some sort of prank on her, as her housemates have done in the past. I can see now however, that my fears were misguided. You have done her a great service tonight, Mr. O’Leary. Should you encounter any more of Miss Lovegood’s ‘Nargles,’ you are to inform me immediately, as she steadfastly refuses to tell me their identities. Now, if anyone asks, you were never here. Back to the dungeons, I should think, Mr. O’Leary,” Flitwick announced, a playful twinkling in his eye, which Lorcan liked much more than the twinkling the Headmaster occasionally got in his eyes.
“Of course, sir,” Lorcan replied coolly, turning on his heel and leaving. If he had ever had any doubts that the Head of Ravenclaw house was a good man, they were certainly gone now.
Knowing that Luna was now in safe hands, he could turn his attention to other matters - namely, exacting revenge on Edgecombe, as he knew Luna was far too kind to do it herself, but certainly would not object if someone were to take the mantle onto themselves.
He thought about it, and thought about it some more, and by the time he got to the dungeons he had a clear cut plan in his mind. Marietta was in the DA, so he would be seeing her tomorrow. That gave him a day to brush up on his nastiest curses, and convince Potter to allow him to have an exhibition duel with Edgecombe.
With a grin that was wider than was probably appropriate, Lorcan made his way through the deserted common room and into his dorm, sliding into bed and reflecting on some of the more dubious curses he could remember, which toed the fine line between legal and Azkaban-worthy.
He was going to enjoy tomorrow.