Chapter 22
January 22, 1792
"I didn't picture you as the early to rise type," I noted when Frey collapsed into the bench across from me during breakfasts. His hair was more mussed than usual, and his robes slightly rumpled. "Running from admirers again?"
"Can't sleep," he mumbled, laying his head down over his empty plate.
"That seems to be a common problem," Lyra said, sending me an unambiguously spiteful look as she settled in with her book bag between them. "I couldn't fall back asleep after you woke me up."
"You don't look like you have a problem sleeping right now," I pointed out to Frey, rolling my eyes at Lyra's dramatics.
"Falling asleep, no. Staying asleep, yes," he explained blearily. Seemingly accepting that he wasn't going to score further rest for the day, he sat up and sighed. "I've been having the most awful dreams lately."
Join the club, I wanted to say, only to be distracted by the first swarm of owls filling the room. I wasn't expecting anything— who did I have to talk to outside of the castle anyway— and my low expectations were perfectly met.
"It's a bit early for the post isn't it?"
I looked up to see Damon squinting around at the fluttering owls and couldn't help but agree.
"What is wrong with you people?" Lyra groaned. "Why are you awake, too?"
"Been up since three. One of the second years accidentally set off half a dozen dungbombs and smoked out the whole tower," he said, falling heavily into his seat.
I shot him a look of extreme skepticism. "Accidentally?"
He nodded, his grin equal parts amused and annoyed. "That'll be the last time he sleeps with a pile of dungbombs on the edge of his bed."
The news seemed to drag Lyra from her semi-comatose stupor long enough to snort. "Maybe now he'll start cleaning up his belongings instead of just shoving them to the end of his four-poster."
Damon let his lack of optimism for the kid's future show on his face. "I don't know... Even I wasn't that stupid when I was his age."
Now it was my turn to snort. "Damon, my dearest old friend, you're still that stupid right now."
He placed a hand to his chest and staggered back as though wounded.
Cass's smile was tense when he said, "I seem to recall a certain Gryffindor getting an entire wing of the castle evacuated during our Potion's O.W.L. last year."
"That could happen to anyone."
"Everyone ended up having to retake it!" I protested.
Before Damon could defend himself, dropping in from above came thick envelope that collided with the top of his head and bounced into Lycra's lap.
The owl wasn't even out the room before Lyra was ripping at the corner and pulling out a slightly rumpled sheet of parchment.
"I've been expecting a letter from my sister for weeks," she explained, her eyes roving rapidly over the letter and coming to an abrupt halt.
She went very still, though everyone else was far too busy napping (in Frey's case) or clowning on Damon to notice.
"Is something wrong?" I asked, lowering to not carry and leaning closer across the table.
Her eyes went to the envelope first, so I reached across to where she'd casually discarded it, plucking it up between two fingers.
The name on the front was not, in fact, addressed to Lyra.
Other than the fact that Damon almost never received owl post because his father was a muggle still unaware of the true natures of his wife and son, I still didn't see the problem.
"I'm so sorry, Damon," she said sombrely, and all eyes snapped to her. "I didn't mean to look. It landed on my lap. I thought it was mine."
She shoved the letter into his hands, looking away.
He seemed just as puzzled by her reaction as the rest of us, until he got to reading. With painful slowness, his eyes slid shut and his fingers clenched tighter around the paper.
"I'm sorry," Lyra repeated softly. "I know how much your mom meant to you. Was she sick?"
He shook his head in a staggered jerking motion. "No. She wasn't. Not at all." The bench shrieked as he shoved it back and jumped to his feet. "I think— I think I need some time alone."
Lyra looked liable to chase after him as he stormed from the Hall, but Frey, who'd evidently just woke up to catch the last of the interaction, held her back. "Let him grieve in peace, if that's what he wants."
"I wonder what happened," I said, staring at the door where Damon had gone.
Tentatively, Cass threw out what we were all thinking but didn't want to voice. "You don't think his father found out about..."
He gestured vaguely around us. Magic.
I recoiled. "No! Surely not. He wouldn't," my voice dropped several octaves into an appalled hiss as I remembered the others in the hall with us, "murder his own wife."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Lyra muttered dubiously under her breath.
"I don't know who we're talking about but he sounds like a real charmer," Frey said, resting his cheek in his palm, "like he really lights up a room."
Another owl swooped in to drop the Prophet onto Cass's plate, sending bits of fruit flying. Not even glancing at Frey as he unwrapped the bindings on the newspaper, he asked, "Why are you even here?"
"Wait," I frowned, "who sent the letter then, since it's obviously not his father?"
"His uncle. He's secretly kept contact with them, even though Damon's grandparents disowned them after Damon's mother married a magic-hating muggle," Lyra explained, still looking longingly after where Damon left. "It's was mad for her to do it. I can't imagine why someone would marry a person liable to kill them."
"She must have really loved him."
I wasn't surprised Cass defended her choice, but that didn't mean I had to agree.
Frey beat me to it. "She should have loved herself more."
I didn't think I'd have put it that kindly. As it was, I had little patience for doe-eyed people that went on believing love conquered all. In the heat of the moment, emotions were known to live, and not all love was the good sort. That's not to say I didn't love anyone. I loved my brother, and Lyra and Damon and Cass, and even Professor Aragon. I might even be pressed to say, though I'd deny it later, that it wouldn't be an absolute lie to assume I felt varying degrees of confess for Altair, Frey, and Abiel, as well.
I had too much history with Abiel for us not to be considered friends. He and Altair were two of the very few who believed me without question when I said I hadn't put my name in the goblet. That had to count for something. I just wished... Well, I wished that my other friends had believed in me, too. It still stung bitterly that they'd thought I was lying. And what for? They should have known better than to believe I'd outright lie to their faces. That wasn't my style. I only lie by omission, and always about personal matters that didn't concern them.
"This has been a rather depressing morning, hasn't it?" Frey wrinkled his nose. "What if being around all this stress gives me wrinkles? What will my so-called admirers think?"
"You should think about them before you keep perpetuating these rumours about our whirlwind romance," I said, icy enough to freeze. "Yes, I've heard the rumours. It's a real marvel to hear about my own love-life for the first time through random people whispering in the corridors. How come you didn't tell me we were going steady? I might have treated you nicer."
"I doubt that highly."
"I'm on to you, you know," I informed him, snatching a cherry-red apple from the center of the table and rubbing it furiously on my robes before taking a bite.
The corners of his mouth quirked up in a sly grin. "Are you now? Do tell."
"Obviously this poisoning business is your fault."
"Obviously," he repeated without complaint, nodding along.
"You sent some poor girl over the edge when you didn't ask her to the Yule Ball, so she took it out on me in revenge."
"That poor girl. You can't blame her. My beauty is known to drive people to madness."
A muscle in my cheek twitched. I continued, "Naturally, knowing you could never defeat me fairly in the second and third tasks, you've decided to drive your infatuated minions insane by pretending to love someone other than yourself in hopes that one would eventually snap and murder me."
"How devious of me," he agreed with artificial gravity. "What will I ever do now that my evil schemes have come to light?"
"Hey, look at this."
"Hold on a second, Cass, I think I'm really into something here."
"No, seriously." He slid the Prophet my way, jabbing a finger at the title of page one. "They've finally done it. Those revolutionaries executed the king."
"Our king?" Lyra asked incredulously.
"Where have you been the last few years? Of course it's not our king," I muttered absently, distracted by reading the article.
"It looks like it's been a bad day all round, hasn't it, and it's not even," Frey pulled out a chain connected to a simple pocket watch, "eight in the morning. On the bright side, things can really only look up from here."
I squeezed my eyes tight and groaned. "Why would you say that? You're just begging for Lady Luck to come out of the wood work and beat us to death with a stick."
Sounding unapologetic, he said, "My apologies."
I peaked open a single lid, like I was expecting a lightning bolt to hurtle through several floors of Hogwarts Castle just to strike me down where I sat, and when no thunderstorms were forthcoming I relaxed enough to open the other. "You know... I had been wondering where all the Beauxbatons' students were at. I suppose I should have known something was amiss earlier." To Frey, I asked, "Should we... er... send Nikolas our condolences... or something?"
"Don't ask me. I barely know the guy. He hasn't much taken to me ever since I told him we were conspiring against him."
I grimaced at the memory of that awkward encounter, looking instead for guidance from my moral compass, who was already tucking the prophet beneath his arm and rising to his feet.
"If you think King Louis' death would hit him hard for whatever reason, go ahead, but I'm not going to tell you what to do. You'd probably disregard my advice anyway." Cass imparted a tight smile. "I should probably go check on Damon, make sure he's doing alright."
Lyra's jaw dropped in outrage. "When I said I wanted to check up on him you all said no!"
Frey acknowledged her point with a sideways nod. "You have to admit he has a far more comforting presence than you do."
The compliment took Cass off guard, who walked off with his brows scrunched together in confusion.
"Why are you even here?" Lyra repeated Cass's words from earlier, obviously offended, and shrugged his hand off her shoulder.
"I was merely spending quality time with the woman I love before you interrupted us, if you recall," he sighed with the air of great heartbreak.
Privately, I thought that Frey may have just met his match with Lyra, because she didn't waver, didn't even bat an eyelash, as she announced, "Alice, you don't mind if I murder this one, do you? I'm sure you'll find true love elsewhere eventually."
I waved her forward. "Please, by all means, knock yourself out."
Before she could act on her words and make herself public enemy number one to Frey's fan club, Frey decided he, too, was due for a prompt exit.
"Alice, love, you wound me. I know when I'm not wanted—"
"Do you, though?" I wondered aloud.
"—therefor I will take my leave now and return post haste. Nothing, not even your friend's homicidal intent, can stand between our love—"
Caught between laughing and the desire to cover my ears, I shouted, "Would you just leave already! Stop monologuing!"
The second he was gone, the smile melted off my face, replaced with guilt. Damon was somewhere, mourning the death of his mother, while I was going on like nothing was wrong. It was selfish, I could still sympathise with how it must have felt to lose him, maybe even show a little solidarity.
"Maybe we should go, too. At the very least, we can plead some excuse to Professor Drubavi so Damon doesn't get too penalised when he doesn't show for class," I suggested to Lyra, wanted to do something to ease the mounting feeling of uselessness.
Lyra and I may not have shared Cassius's emotional intelligence, but we could still do something, after all.
Lyra readily agreed. The only problem was, neither of us knew exactly where the professor would be at that hour. He wasn't at the staff table. His office? His classroom? The staff room? None of the above? After a short discussion, we decided to inquire as to his whereabouts from one of the professors eating breakfast. Luckily, my favourite professor was in attendance.
I waved a hand to catch his attention as we drew closer. He lifted his goblet in our general direction, so I took that as good an indication as any that he was open to being disturbed, but then his eyes caught on someone else calling his name to his right. As luck would have it, it was Professor Drubavi himself, tall, lean, and in an incredible rush. His long legs crossed the distance from the door to the near centre of the table in a few short strides, where Aragon sat, listening intently.
The pit fell out of my stomach as a sense of great foreboding washed over me. There was no concrete reason for my unease, other than what the stiff seriousness that took over both their postures. My fears were all but confirmed when Professor Aragon leapt to his feet, his eyes seeking out mine immediately.
The decision to close the distance wasn't a conscious one. One second I was across the room, the next a was meeting him halfway as Lyra struggled to keep up.
"What's wrong?" I demanded, all thoughts about propriety gone in the heat of the moment.
"Good, you're already here," Dubravi said in his low, gravely voice, coming up behind Aragon. "You must go to the hospital wing, immediately."
I loosed a breath, both relieved and irritated. Where they really still on about this? That poisoning had been over a week ago. I was fine! Where they going to keep me locked up in there until I graduated?
"Look, I'm sorry I broke out again, but this is getting ridiculous—"
Aragon cut me off. "This isn't about that. It's your brother. He's gravely hurt."