Chapter 15
I spotted Nikolas, as taciturn and thinlipped as ever, storming out the castle back down to the Beauxbatons carriages. Before, I had assumed that his increasingly artic demeanour was a result of nerves from the first task, but now I knew better. For one, if I thought him cold before the task, he was positively frozen now. I would have thought he'd lighten up a bit after completely demolishing Frey and I.
After months of passive pondering, Professor Aragon's cryptic hints finally made sense. I clenched the Daily Prophet tightly between my fingers, crinkling their once crisp pages, and observed Nickolas move from the stone castle steps in favour of the lush grass around the lake. He was headed my way, and, better yet, too lost in thought to notice that fact.
I took a deep breath, and stepped in front of him. "I... er... read the Prophet."
Immediately, he snapped out of whatever reverie that held him so captive. There was a moment of blank surprise before he recognized me and repositioned his scowl where, loathe as I was to admit it, he might have been... handsome.
"Congratulations," he drawled. "You can read."
I steeled myself, ignoring his comment, and continued. "I know why you don't like me. I've figured it out."
"You have, have you." His voice positively dripped with condescension and sheer unfriendliness, shaking my confidence in what had earlier seemed like a brilliant plan to confront him on being insufferable.
I nodded uncertainly. This was seemingly more and more like a bad idea. Oh, well. Too late now.
"I'm sorry." I shifted from foot to foot in increasing discomfort under Nikolas's punishing glare. "About your king – his execution — I mean. I take it you supported him?"
"Not particularly," he stated with calculated dismissiveness. "I couldn't care less about the monarchy."
"You mean to tell me that you don't mind if he is put to death? You don't care at all that he might die?" I didn't mean to sound so accusatory, but when his shoulders stiffened imperceptibly, I realised how it came out.
I flinched, subconsciously expecting... what? A blow? I wasn't unaccustomed to physical violence, but he just shoved past towards the carriages.
"For the record, since you don't seem willing to mind your own business, he deserves what's coming to him," he muttered viciously, more to himself than to me. "I hope King Louis dies! I hope they all get executed!"
I could have let him return unpestered back to his quarters, I should have, even, but that would have accomplished nothing. I gave chase.
"Then I don't get it!" I called after him, jogging to keep up with his furious rage-fuelled pace. "Why do you dislike me? What have I ever done to you?"
"You irritate me." He sped up.
"Did merely looking at me the first time we met irritate you?" I demanded, pulling on his arm to halt his stride, only for him to, jerk away. "I can't be that hideous. And you don't hate Frey and he's at least ten times more annoying than I am, and nosy, so it's not my personality. Tell me the truth already!"
"Isn't it enough to just know that I don't like you?"
"No!" I exclaimed, nearly pulling out my hair in frustration. "I know this has to do with that revolution of yours in France, I just don't know what that has to do with me!"
"My revolution, is it?" snarled Nikolas, at his breaking point. He swung around and I noticed his hand twitch towards the wand resting in his pocket. "I have nothing to do with them! They have made that abundantly clear!"
"They?" I prompted, retreating back a step from the newfound wrath in his eyes.
He paused, his face momentarily completely blank. I got the impression that he divulged more than he ever intended.
"Make no mistake," he leaned in, lowering his voice, "I have nothing to do with that petty revolution in France. Nothing! I hope both sides burn and destroy the other."
"How can you say that? They're your own people!" I stared at him incredulously. "They - they all have lives still worth living! Lives that can't be replaced."
"Why should I care about them if they don't care about me?" he spat. "They have done NOTHING for me! Nothing!"
The puzzle pieces finally clicked into place.
Tentatively, I asked, "You're muggle born, aren't you?"
He looked away, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscles in his cheek flexing.
"That's it, isn't it? Your family abandoned you after finding out you were a wizard." It was common enough these days, with the massive witch paranoia and subsequent burnings. "But even though they disowned you, you still worry for them."
Propriety stopped me from reaching out to comfort him. I doubted he would welcome such attempts, anyway.
Still not deigning to look me in the eye, Nikolas said through barely moving lips, "You got one thing wrong. My family is already dead. And it's all this blasted country's fault."
His fingers dug through my robes and into my arms, but I hardly noticed. Dead. For a moment, words couldn't find their way to my treacherous mouth, but only for a mere second. Righteous anger was as good an antidote for speechlessness as any.
"I don't care if my own owl singlehandedly slaughtered every single one of your bloody relatives!" I snapped, despite the fact that I knew I should be more sympathetic. "I'm sorry your family is dead, I really am. I can relate to losing loved ones, but you can't expect me to just sit back and take your abuse when I," I almost said haven't killed anyone. Try as I might, the lie didn't form, and I switched quickly to, "have done absolutely nothing wrong!"
Also a lie, just not in that instance.
We stared at each other in stony silence, and I knew for a fact that I wouldn't be the first one to break it. Vaguely, I acknowledged a swell of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff second years parting around us like a stream breaking around rocks on their way to the Herbology greenhouses, but they hardly paid us any mind. When they all passed, Nikolas loosed a frustrated sigh and released my arms.
"I know it's not your fault. I just... despise everything about you."
I probably would have felt more affronted, were it not for the matter of fact tone in which he said it. It was almost as if he were saying, "Nothing personal." However, few things, in my opinion, were more personally than being hated.
"Just tell me why?" I pleaded, my anger fading. " You're making no sense. I do not want to be your enemy. I don't want to be anyone's enemy, even if we are in this competition pitted against each other."
I just wanted a simple life, without fear or conflict. Was that really so much to ask?
At long last, Nickolas relented, staring fixedly at his shoes. "You're not what I expected when you first stumbled gracelessly into the champion's room after your name burst out of the Goblet. If I'm to be honest with myself, I believe I was resigned to hate whoever walked through that door." His gaze shifted to where the Prophet lay collecting dirt on the ground. "I take it you've read about the civil war back home?"
I nodded. "Everyone has by now."
Nikolas didn't seem surprised by my admission. "Then I'm sure you can appreciate how I might blame the English for this... inconvenience? It was by aiding your colonies to gain their freedom that my foolish king dug my country into this hole. That is why I hated you. Not just you, though. All of you. Every person in your castle who knows peace while my people know war. The fact that you are a peasant merely repels me even more. It was a mob of peasants who murdered my father and mother, my brother and sister." He clenched his fists until his knuckles showed white. "She was only a child, but they didn't care. They butchered her like animals!"
"Why?" I gasped, my voice sounding strange, even to myself.
Nikolas punched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, eyes squeezed shut. "The common people are crazed in their hatred of nobles and royals. My family happens — happened," he corrected himself, "to belong to the former, as much as I try to hide it. "The moment my wizard powers emerged, my father made me renounce my title as his heir to my younger brother and banished me from my home. He said that if I was found out the scandal would be too great." The corners of his mouth twisted into a pained, humourless smile. "I hated him so much that when I received an owl from him begging me to return last year, I burned it. Not even a week later, I got word they had died. I could have saved them."
Listening to him, my mouth went dry as I realised that maybe my lot in life wasn't so bad, at least in comparison. No words I could think of measured up to what I had just heard, but I was obligated to try.
"You're only human, Nikolas. It was only natural to hate the family that abandoned you." Tentatively, I placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. He looked up with dull eyes. "I'm not saying they should have died, but they only wanted you back not because they wanted you, but because they wanted your magic to solve their problems. They were selfish, and they wouldn't have died if they had never sent you away in the first place. Their deaths are not your fault, nor are they mine, so do us BOTH a favour and stop blaming us!"
I juggled a look that I hoped was both firm and compassionate. While he shouldn't have taken his anger out on me, since when was I the spokeswoman for healthy coping mechanisms? Even if I understood where his misguided hate came from and didn't blame him for it, it had to stop.
"I know," he sighed, looking un-put-together and altogether a different person from the strong, triumphant champion of the first task I knew him to be. He brushed a hand quickly across his eyes. Without the shield of anger to guard him, grief welled too swiftly. "I'm sorry... I don't..."
"I know," I said softly, releasing him. "I'm sorry, too."