Chapter 23
I stared at them, dumbfounded, because of course I didn't hear them correctly. I couldn't have.
"What... did you say?"
Aragon looked to Professor Dubravi and so did I.
"Another student found his body—"
My heart came to a stuttering halt. Body. They'd found a body. He could have just said a student found him, but he didn't. He chose deliberately not to.
"—at the base of Gryffindor Tower. We think," he shared a fleeting glance with the Deputy Headmaster, "he fell from the top flight of stairs."
Words wouldn't come, though I'd never been the speechless type before. Luckily, Lyra didn't share that same issue.
"Thomas is okay, though, right?" she demanded. "Before, you said that he was merely injured. So he's alive?"
Lyra's words were less of a question and more a dictation, like she were ordering them to be true by sheer force of will. I never appreciated her demanding personality more than I did in that moment.
"For now," Dubravi said carefully. "We only just got him to the hospital wing. They only recently informed me as his Head of House. It's unclear, as of yet, what his condition is."
That was all I needed to hear. By the time they got it in their heads to stop me, I was halfway through the Great Hall. They likely imagined I was on my way to the Hospital Wing to see for myself, and planned to head me off in the corridor nearby.
I wasn't.
I knew well enough I was no good to my brother there. If anything, I'd just get in the nurse's way. So what could I actually do?
I didn't know much, but I did know exactly three things:
1.) The wood rails around the stairs were too high for a boy to just "fall" over, not for a seventeen year old and definitely not for an eleven year old. One way or another, he must have been pushed.
2.) Between the two of us, we had suffered approximately three too many near death experiences. It was starting to seem like it wasn't a coincidence.
3.) There was one person at the top of my head within the castle who had motive to hurt both myself and my brother, and I was going to find her.
I burst into the Slytherin Common Room, grateful again for Lyra's friendship, or else I'd never have known the password. My dear cousin Lucretia wasn't there. She wasn't fast asleep in any of the dormitories either, though I didn't bother to check the male ones. I didn't imagine she was that devious.
It did raise the question, was I really mentally prepared to absolutely eviscerate a fourteen year old? Anyone who'd ever actually met a fourteen year old would agree that she'd probably deserve it, and with the added toll of what she'd done to Thomas... let's just say I'd be going to sleep that night with a clear conscience.
My legs itched to continue searching, but I forced myself still. Eventually, I reasoned, Lucretia would need to return. She had to sleep sometime. Theoretically.
Fifteen frustrating minutes later, the door creaked open on rusty hinges as students began streaming back in from breakfast. When it became evident she was not among them, I sunk back into a corner to continue my wait, disappointed.
Another ten minutes went by. Then, I heard her.
"No," I heard her say thoughtfully as she pushed the door open. "No, I really don't imagine a Welsh Green could beat a kraken in combat. It's unrealistic."
Another piped in. "There you go again, talking without thinking. Obviously it would win. The kraken can't get out of the water, for goodness sake! How do expect it to touch a dragon?"
"Simple. It has long tentacles perfect for ripping dragons out of the sky. Without its fire, which obviously won't work on something under water, how do you expect— oh!"
Lucretia stumbled back. It might have had something to do with how my fist collided with her cheek.
I shook out the newfound pain in my knuckles, chanting the foulest, most vile exclamations I'd ever heard uttered by Damon. I thought a physical blow might broker some instant gratification to ease the helpless turmoil threatening to tear me inside out. If I'd known that wouldn't work I'd just have used my wand to save me the extra pain.
"And what was that for?" Lucretia asked, sounding infinitely more annoyed than angered, gingerly rubbing at the side of her face.
"As if you don't know!" I hissed, curling my fingers back into a fist in spite of how they ached. "Why can't you people just leave us alone? We've never done anything to you or your insane family!"
"I beg your pardon? They're your family, too, you know."
"It takes more than blood to make a family. Your father has made that perfectly clear. Thomas is my family, my only family, and you tried to kill him!" I snarled, lunging again.
One of her friends, the one in support of the Welsh Green, leapt to Lucretia's defense and pushed me away before I could land another blow. Another, snapping to attention, followed suit and snatched onto to my arm like an irritating koala.
Lucretia, not fazed in the slightest, cocked her head. "I did what now?"
My temper spiked, and another of her friends, sensing danger, joined the other two in restraining me. "You've sure been busy, haven't you, Lucretia? A murder before nine in the morning. I don't know where you find the time," he grunted from between clenched teeth.
"Are you saying it's a coincidence that both me and my brother have faced threats to our lives this year, the same year it came to light our connection to you people?" My voice continued to rise and I could do nothing to stop it. "My brother did not just fall from the top of Gryffindor Tower. I did not just happen to drink from a poisoned goblet! Your father wants me dead. It's no big secret, and you have every opportunity to comply with his wishes!"
"Ah." Lucretia nodded. "I see."
"Is that all you have to say for yourself?"
"It's a fairly good argument. I'll admit, I almost believe you myself, cousin, but I'm sorry to say I'm pretty certain I have an alibi."
"No." I shook my head, my whole body shaking from pent up frustration, and it showed in the quaking of my voice. "No, that's impossible. It was you, it had to be."
"You're a Ravenclaw, so you may be smart," Lucretia said in a skeptical tone that implied she severely doubted it, "but you aren't very observant. It's a miracle you've made it this far in the Tournament."
"What are you trying to say?"
"She's saying she was with us at breakfast all morning," the one pushing me back interjected.
"That's impossible. It had to be her. It had to!"
Lucretia shrugged. "Sorry to disappoint. I just really don't care enough about you to try to risk my own neck by killing you. It sounds like a lot of risk with very little reward, if you ask me. Besides, I've had people with me all morning, even the caretaker can attest for my innocence."
Another snickered. "Not bloody likely. He'd have us hang if it were up to him."
"And why is that?" I asked, unwilling to come to terms with the horrible fact that I could be wrong, that someone tried to hurt my brother and I had no idea who it was. I was drowning in the terror of my own ignorance with no rescue in sight.
"We may or may not have briefly—"
"Very briefly," the Welsh Green defender included meaningfully.
"Very briefly," Lucretia amended, "locked him in a closet with one or two—"
"Hundred."
"—pixies."
"We let him loose almost immediately," another added hastily. "It was just because we told him about them weeks ago and he refused to take the time to get rid of them. We thought he could use some incentive. If you think about it, we were doing the school a favor."
"You really didn't do it." I closed my eyes, the tension draining out of my limbs, taking everything, even my will to stand, with it.
"Afraid not," Lucretia said, as unaffected as ever. "I told you before, I actually want you to do well. I want you to prove Malfoy blood runs strong, even in a half-blood."
Had I more energy, I would have argued against Malfoy blood having anything to do with it, but I didn't. With the object of my anger dissolved, all I had was fear, and that was so much worse.
————————————
"Why isn't he waking up?" I wondered aloud, staring numbly at my brother's hospital bed. "We're a school for magic. Why can't we do— anything? Why can't magic do anything?"
Cass pat me once on the knee and let his hand rest there, expression tight. "Were only life so easy. Matters of the brain are tricky to heal. It's not like a broken arm or a cut on the finger. He hit his head pretty bad."
Even though I knew that, it didn't make me feel better in the slightest. I'd spent the better part of three weeks constrained to the Hospital wing, and I was beginning to think I was setting some sort of school record. Surely no one had ever spent such a great proportion of their school year in hospital as myself, short of getting bunk beds with the nurse.
"How's Damon doing?" I asked when no other words seemed forthcoming. He'd dropped in a few times, deep purple bruises imprinted under his eyes to match my own. He never stayed long and I didn't blame him. We were both grieving, him for his mother and me for someone who wasn't even dead yet.
Lyra and Cass had adopted opposing schedules of babysitting. They didn't say that's what they were doing, exactly, but I knew. When Cass was with me, Lyra stayed with Damon and vice-versa. I wasn't sure what they thought we'd get up to unsupervised and I didn't ask.
"He's... well... Damon." Cassius frowned. "He's getting on like normal, making trouble, acting like nothing's really changed. You know. Just Damon."
"That's great," I said without much emotion. Realising my mistake, I tried again with more effort, "That's really great. I'm glad he's doing well."
"I'm not sure 'well' is the word I'd use."
"Yeah..." I trailed off, mind blank again.
We were saved from further awkward silence by the doors pushing open. We both looked up with varying degrees of interest, only for it to be another professor, sent to hound me once again for my growling list of inadequacies.
"You can't just skip class day after day." Just watch me.
"I noticed you haven't turned in your homework for the past few weeks." What else is new?
"Shouldn't you really be preparing for the second task?"
That one always gave me pause. Rationally, I knew I should. Really, I did. It wasn't like my unceasing presence was going to make Thomas wake up any sooner. If that were the case, surely he'd have woken up by now.
Again, it was heart stopping fear that kept me there. If someone went after him again while he slept he'd be defenceless. Although I believed Lucretia when she said she had nothing to do with his fall, I still couldn't rule out her father.
When not one professor but three circled Thomas' bedside, I braced myself for an exponentially worse lecture from the usual. If they saw the need to find safety in numbers, they probably had enough foresight to talk strategy beforehand. Professor Dubravi, stiffer than some boards I'd seen in my day, took up position by Thomas's head, while Professor Darlington, an omnipresent look of severity etched in stone across her lined face, stood like a sentinel at the foot of the bed. Professor Aragon stopped between where Cass and I sat, a hand roughened from potion burns on the back of my chair.
"Good evening, Mr. Fletcher," he greeted Cass, nodding to the door. "Would you mind giving us a moment?"
Cass swallowed, looking from the three Heads of Houses surrounding us to me, and then the nurse as we heard the click of the door to her chambers opening. He withdrew has hand from my leg, but didn't make a move to stand.
"If it's all the same to you, professor, I think I'll stay," he ventured, his Adam's Apple bobbing.
"You will do as you are bidden," Professor Dubravi countered in his low, authoritative voice before Professor Darlington could do the verbal equivalent of ripping Cass's spine out through his nose.
"Peace, Kamal, Dinah." Aragon raised his other hand to silence them. "He means no disrespect. He's just being loyal. Doesn't want to abandon her to the wolves, as they say. He may stay," he turned to me expectantly, an indecipherable look in his pale eyes, "if that's what you want.'
I sighed. "If you're all going to yell at me. you might as well just get on with it. It's not like it's anything he's never heard before."
Cass nodded.
"Very well." I shifted to look at Professor Dubravi as he spoke, formal as ever. "We're transferring Mr. Lovett to St. Mungo's, effective immediately. We feel they can provide a standard of care that perhaps we cannot." At the nurse's glower, he hastily added, "Which is no fault of our own extremely talented nurse, of course."
"Of course," she mirrored primly, mollified.
"He can't!" I exclaimed, leaping to my feet. "He can't leave! If I'm not there, no one will look after him!"
"And what, pray tell, do you think you are bringing to the table here?" Professor Darlington asked. "Surely, if something affects his health it is our nurse, not you, who helps him."
"He's not safe!" I insisted. "I know someone pushed him. I just know it. I need to be there to make sure no one goes after him again!"
Darlington's patience snapped."In your hubris, do you believe yourself the only one capable of connecting two and two together? You think it hasn't occurred to a single one of us that it wasn't a coincidence that our champion's nearest relative suffered a near fatal 'accident'? Girl, I've stood witness to over ten Triwizard Tournaments in my day. Do you think I don't know how dirty these things get? You wouldn't be the first Champion to have their family targeted by the other schools seeking to distract you, nor will you be the last."
"No- that's not what I-" I stuttered, but she was only just getting started.
"You think all us professor's are bumbling fools."
"I never said-"
"No one has ever been as smart as you, have they? No, of course not. Why should we even teach you, in all your enlightenment. Surely, you should be the one teaching us!" Her harsh laugh cut through more efficiently than broken glass. "That's always the problem with you Ravenclaws. One ratty hat validates you by saying you're smart and you spend the rest of your days confident of your intellectual superiority over the rest of our lowly, idiotic Houses, isn't that right?"
"That's not what I meant at all! I don't think I'm smarter than anyone!" I defended, working to suffocate my own frustration before it got the better of me. I turned back to Professor Aragon, pleading, "You can't let them do this! You can't let them take him away from me, too"
He took a step back. "Oh, no. There's no use complaining to me. Usually, we'd need to gain consent from the family, but given your..." he cast a fleeting glance at Cass "situation, the decision was made by Professor Dubravi, as his head of house, and the Headmaster."
It took a second for my outrage to catch up with my brain, but when it did, I whirled on them all, jabbing I finger at my chest. "I'm his family!"
"Aye, and you're not of age last we checked," Dubravi grunted.
"Fine!" I set my jaw, clenching so tight it ached. "Fine! I'll be going with him then."
"Like hell you are, child!" Darlington spoke up again, wagging her large pointer-finger at me across my brother's still body. "The second task is in three days!"
"For the last time, I care less about this stupid Tournament than I do about who wins the Quidditch World Cup!"
All of a sudden, the wind was knocked out of me as I was magically hurled back into my chair and it spun, screeching, around to face Professor Aragon.
"Do you think this tournament is a game?" he demanded in a sharp tone I'd never imagined could leave his mouth. "People die, they die all the time, in fact! You need all the preparation you can get to stand a chance of survival, yet you've wasted your time doing nothing for nearly a month! Have you even solved the clue? Have you even tried? You persistently avoid anything resembling preparedness or effort. It was charming when it was just you turning in five inches of parchment that's supposed to be about the advantages of lacewings in potions instead on how you imagined it would affect the flavour of vegetable stew, but this has actual consequences! It's not charming or cute, it's foolish!"
At some point, my jaw must have fallen to the ground, because I abruptly became aware of the fact and hastened to close it, masking my shock. Never, not once in the six years I'd known him, had he raised his voice at anyone, let alone me. The gentle, quirky Potions professor, beloved by just about everyone, didn't lose his cool. Ever. I barely recognised the man before me. He wore the same shabby, stained robes, but it was like staring into the eyes of a stranger. I couldn't meet them.
"Do you want to die?" he pressed.
Feebly, I muttered something along the lines of, "But, Thomas..." at my shoes.
"You can do nothing to save him! Nothing!" At the second 'nothing' the torches lining the room exploded on their wicks, waves of heat blasting us all at once, and went out, casting us into darkness until the nurse hurried to set them again. "All you can hope to do at this point is save yourself," he finished, obviously striving to reclaim his usual unaffected calm, "and sometimes, you can't even even do that."
I wasn't sure if he was utilizing the singular "you" or making some greater claim about humanity as a whole. It didn't matter. The words stung all the same. I stared with unnerving focus at the half-moon indents where my nails dug into the flesh of my palm as I clenched and unclenched my fist in my lap. The pain was just enough to distract me from the heat gathering behind my eyes, and I did not want to cry. Alice Lovett didn't cry. Ever. Not when I got savagely beaten in a random back alley, nor when I accidentally touched the cockatrice, so why now? Why did this feel infinitely worse? That wasn't the first time I'd been on the receiving end of a thorough dressing down. It wasn't even the first time that week!
"I don't want to die," I finally managed, my voice cracking in a million places that betrayed my otherwise neutral expression. I was by no means loud, but the words seemed to echo around the otherwise silent room. "I don't want to die. But... I don't want Thomas to die either."
I didn't dare look anywhere but the hem of Aragon's robes as he moved to stand directly in front of me. He knelt, taking my hand and unfurling my tight fist.
"Valeria," he called to the nurse, gesturing to my bleeding palm where my nails cut too deep. "Would you mind doing the honours?"
He could have done it himself, had he wanted to. He'd healed enough minor wounds when a student accidentally sliced their finger instead of a root, but it would have been rude to do right in front of the nurse.
"I'm fine," I muttered, attempting, unsuccessfully, to jerk my hand away.
"Nonsense," the nurse chastised, tapping her wand to my palm. "It will only take a moment."
The pain vanished, and with a second tap, so did the blood. The professor, however, still didn't let go.
"I am sorry, Alice, if what I have said hurt you, but I don't regret saying it. It's something you need to hear, coming from someone who truly does care."
"I'm fine," I repeated, pulling sharply on my hand again. This time, he let it slip away.
"No. I don't think you are." The peculiar note in his voice ate at me until I broke down enough to raise my gaze to meet his. His eyes, though still kind, were sad, his smile bittersweet. "You are more burdened than you have any right to be, and I wish for nothing more than for that not to be the case."
Another chair screeched softly as Cass rose to follow the nurse, who was ushering the other professor's out of the Hospital Wing with a previously little known authority. Cass looked back once, just before the door closed behind him, and then was gone.
Aragon followed my gaze to where I watched the door and said, "You're lucky to have a friend like him. Not everyone is so fortunate."
I nodded mutely, still feeling too chastised to string together more than a few words at a time into a sentence.
"It's fortunate he found Thomas so soon after the fall. It's fortunate he was there when it happened at all."
Again, I nodded, shifting my focus onto my brother, on the even rise and fall of his chest and the tranquil peace of sleep. Physically, he looked fine. Healthy. Why didn't he wake?
"He'll be safe at St. Mungo's," Aragon said, watching me watch Thomas. "Safer than he could be here, with so many representatives from the different schools about. You might not have noticed, considering you've barely left this room since the accident," as a side note, he added, "even to attend my class, but tensions are at an all time high. The public feeling seems to be that Beauxbaton's has drawn first blood, considering the timing."
My brow furrowed. "Beauxba- Oh." Realization struck with all the gentility of lightning. "But it was too quick after we got news of their king for it to be retaliation, sir."
"Perhaps. The fact still remains, however, that the Hogwarts Champion has suffered two independent attacks, while their schools have received none. Although Professor Darlington leaves much to be desired when it comes to delivery, she was still right about one thing: these competitions have a reputation for getting bloody, inside and out of the tasks. It might have had nothing to do with the particular timing at all."
I shook my head. "I don't think Frey or Nikolas are capable of that sort of thing."
"They don't have to be." At my puzzled expression, he continued with a wan, indulgent smile. "Would you not do whatever it takes if you thought it was best for one of your friends? For your brother?"
"Not attempted murder!" I began, then stopped, remembering.
I thought of that man in the alley, perhaps dead, perhaps alive. If I'd thought he posed a threat to Thomas and I'd had my wand, I knew with a horrible certainty what I would have done. When Cyrus saw me, a girl he barely knew, he did what he thought he had to.
Sensing my newfound hesitance, Aragon nodded with grim satisfaction. "It doesn't help that muggle France declared war, either. Wartime always makes these gatherings a bit... let's say, awkward."
I pulled a face. "For an event that supposedly promotes peaceful cooperation, sir, I've seen an awful lot of not that."
He laughed. "You hit the nail on the head, little Champion."
"Then why?" I insisted, bunching and unbunching my robes just for something to ease my frustration. "Why bother, if it's so dangerous and we aren't even getting peace out o it?"
He tapped two fingers to his temple. "You know the answer. I have faith in you."
I groaned. "Not this again. Why do you always insist on being difficult?"
"I'm the difficult one?" he challenged, raising a brow like he thought the accusation was amusing coming from me.
He may have had a point there.
"Fine. If I had to guess I'd say it was.... political maneuvering." I only said it for something seemingly intelligent to offer, but as soon as it was out of my mouth I surprised myself by realizing I might actually be on to something. "A way of proving to the differing Ministries of Magic how powerful we are without resorting to outright hostility."
I searched Professor Aragon nervously for signs of approval, and found more than that. I found pride.
"That's the champion who will make our school proud."
He stood up to go, brushing off his robes.
Staring up at the ceiling, since I didn't want to see his disappointment when he heard my confession, I shared what had been weighing on me for months. "I wish the Goblet had never picked me."
He halted mid-movement. I could feel the force of his pale-coloured eyes on the side of my face as I stared resolutely upwards, barely breathing from the shame of surely letting him down. His hand came down warm, comforting, on my shoulder, before he turned to leave.
"I thought the same thing when I was in your shoes."