Chapter 2
Elsa Erskine was a fun topic for the student body, especially since Wilfred Byam was currently going steady with his fellow Slytherin seventh-year Chanterella Coltsfoot. So, the following days after the release of the leaflets, Coltsfoot was ranting to anyone who would listen about the deranged, sex-crazed lunatic that Erskine was, and how she would like to give that slut a piece of her mind. Bellatrix took great pleasure in publicly explaining to her the difference between felix felicis and a love potion, and how, therefore, Byam had that decision of his own free will and, most likely, enjoyed himself immensely with the very pretty and experienced Erskine. The Slytherins were so sick of Coltsfoot’s whining that they didn’t really mind when she broke down into tears.
As for Lacey Chrysipps, who had been accused of writing love poetry to the Care of Magical Creatures professor, Silvanus Kettleburn, she took a different approach. Chrysipps actually doubled down and was seen hammering on the staffroom door, insisting loudly that she was old enough and didn’t give a hippogriff’s arse what anyone thought. Kettleburn did not emerge from the staffroom. Chrysipps was later seen sulking outside of Dumbledore’s office after being told off, sucking a sherbert lemon and telling everyone to, “just give me five more years!”
Seth Overcliff reaped a handsome benefit from his feature in the leaflets. In the day or so after the publication, lots of students were very interested in his hidden firewhiskey collection in the Hufflepuff dormitory. He reportedly made a fortune in sales, having the foresight to speed-up distribution before the teaching staff caught on. When the news finally reached Hufflepuff’s Head of House, Overcliff had nothing but a few leftover bottlecaps under the floorboards, and certainly nothing to earn a detention.
Martin Betelcox, who was meant to be engaged to Lobelia Cleaver, and Colin Nerolman, who was meant to not make out with his best mate’s fiancée on the last Hogsmeade visit, all had a dramatic screaming match by the Great Lake. Betelcox demanded the ring back from Cleaver, threw it in the lake, and then remembered that it was his family ring that he really shouldn’t have thrown in the lake. After Betelcox’s mother sent both her son and the headmaster Howlers, Dumbledore had to talk to the merfolk to get it out.
Finally, the news that the new caretaker was a squib spread like wildfire. Peeves had been informed within the hour—before lunchtime had even ended—and it was becoming quite a mission to avoid the ink splatters and purposefully spilt food in the hallway. Filch, who complained to Dumbledore equally as fast, was given an enchanted mop and bucket, which he attacked, more than mopped, the messes with. Whenever a student looked at him for even a bit too long, he would instead jab the mop at them and left quite a few students with faces full of suds, and occasionally, bleach. A gaggle of second-year Slytherins, who had that unfortunate second-year overconfidence, took to adding sticking charms to any messes they found in the hallways. Filch complained again to Dumbledore and was gifted an enchanted sponge, which he had resolved to throw at full force at any and all Slytherins. It was quite a battle.
With every overreaction and further development to the news from the leaflets, there would be another surge of demand for them. The initial distribution had faded fast—Filch had personally burned a couple hundred of them—and the papers were becoming in short supply. You could trade homework answers for a copy, or even sweets from Hogsmeade. Overcliff would, at no cost to the audience, dramatically tell the tale of his brilliant business venture and his cunning in covering it up. His fellow Hufflepuffs quickly tired of the tale.
The big question remained: who was the author? There were no obvious clues in the leaflets, and the topics of gossip were widespread; there were stories from all four houses, about the boys and the girls, and with no clear connection between them. Gryffindor did feature heavily, but, as Bellatrix told the Slytherins, that was because Gryffindors had the most problems.
The sixth-year Slytherin girls’ dormitory would speculate each night for a good hour or so. Dottie was determined to get to the bottom of it.
“Perhaps it really was Overcliff,” she said, prodding her hair rollers with her wand as she tried to affix them to her head. “He certainly had something to gain from the firewhiskey thing.”
Bellatrix rolled her eyes. “Overcliff couldn’t string a story together even if he was sober. He’s as thick as a brick. I think your rollers are tugging on your brain.”
“Maybe he just wants you to think that,” insisted Dottie half-heartedly, pouting in her mirror.
Next to Dottie, Connie Fitzgerald was already in bed, squinting in thought at the canopy over her four-poster. “Who would know about Erskine? It had to be someone she was friends with, so they’d still be in contact with her now.”
“Fitzy, come on. You know Erskine made more enemies than friends,” giggled Rita. “If anyone was still in touch with her, it’d be Byam begging for another go.”
“I’d pay to see Coltsfoot meltdown again,” said Bellatrix. “What a whiny brat.”
Heather Bitterling-Jones, who had taken pity on Dottie and was helping her with her rollers, snickered. “I think she’ll be avoiding you for a while, Bellatrix. You did a good job with her.”
Bellatrix feigned innocence, shrugging as she brushed her glossy black hair. “I told her what she needed to know.”
Fitzy laughed. “That’s true enough. If I was dating a slut like Byam I’d want to know.”
“But would you act on it?” asked Rita.
“What d’you mean?”
“Well,” smirked Rita, throwing a casual glance at Bellatrix. “Maybe you knew someone was a bit of a flirt, but you didn’t mind.”
Fitzy propped herself up on her elbow, considering. Across from her, Bellatrix seemed to be really enjoying admiring herself in the mirror. Her gaze just happened to catch Rita’s as she tossed her hair over her shoulder.
“They’d have to be very good at flirting,” Bellatrix told her mirror, twirling a piece of hair around her finger.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dottie said crossly. “I’d never date a bird-dogging guy.”
Heather shrugged, getting into her bed. “Whoever the author is, I hope they publish another leaflet soon.”
There was general assent amongst the girls, as Bellatrix flicked her wand at the lights. The last thing Rita caught a glimpse of was the white expanse of her décolletage against her black silk nightgown.
--
The first class the next day was Potions with the Ravenclaws. Slughorn had them brewing laughing potions, while he took a nap at his desk. Rita and Bellatrix were sitting in their usual spot in the corner, while, in front of them, Basil Eggers assumed his fruitless mission of chatting up Fitzy. He had been trying this since they were second-years, so it had gotten old.
“Hurry up with the alihotsy leaves,” ordered Bellatrix, frowning at Rita’s grip on the knife.
Rita rolled her eyes and tried to chop faster, only for Bellatrix to snatch the knife out of her hands and chop the leaves herself. Admittedly, she was better at it. Rita sat back down in her chair and crossed her arms, surveying the class. Bellatrix, satisfied with the leaves, added them to the water in the cauldron. She turned to look at Rita.
“Is this how you do it?” she hissed. “You just eavesdrop?”
Rita stood up against the table, laughing softly through her nose. “As if. I put in the effort, thank you very much.”
Bellatrix raised her eyebrows, shrugging. “You can stir it,” she said at a normal volume. “But don’t go too fast; you’ll damage the leaves’ mirthful properties.”
“Alright, here I go,” said Rita, slowly moving her wand towards the potion. Of course, just as her wand was about to enter the water, Bellatrix slapped her out of the way, huffing in annoyance and muttering about the wrong direction to stir.
Rita, for the second time, sat back down and wiped her wand on her apron. Fitzy and Eggers had apparently not had much luck with their stirring technique, and were crossly collecting more alihotsy from the supply cupboard. As they walked back to their workstation, Fitzy hopefully glanced over at Bellatrix, trying to glean any information. Bellatrix, noticing immediately, glared back at her.
Turning to Rita, she said, “Now you have to snigger at it.”
“What?”
“What?” Bellatrix mocked, in a high pitch. “This is why I hate group work. It’s a laughing potion. Snigger at it.”
“Well, it’s only been six years. You haven’t had long to get used to groups.”
Bellatrix was not amused. “Snigger at it.”
“You haven’t said anything funny.”
“Useless.”
Against her will, Rita sniggered. Bellatrix tossed one of her plaits over her shoulder, smirking.
Rita smirked back. “You’re good, Black.”
“Yes, and you’re useless.”
They resumed their usual positions: Bellatrix at the table and Rita leaning back in her chair, stickybeaking on the rest of the class. Bellatrix was now voraciously grinding up billywig wings with the mortar and pestle.
“What do you mean, you put in the effort?” she asked Rita after a while.
“Keep your voice down!”
“I am! What’s the effort? How do you find all that out?”
Rita pursed her lips, thinking. “Well, the Lacey Chrysipps story was the easiest. I just had a little poke around the staffroom one morning and of course, Kettleburn’s inbox was overflowing—it always is—so I just had a read of some of the papers. She was so obvious about it; her love notes had lipstick kisses on them. I just used the duplicating charm for a copy, and the dusting charm to make it seem like no one had touched the inbox for weeks. Easy-peasy.”
Bellatrix, in an effort to not show how impressed she was, had nearly crushed the billywig wings out of existence. She finally noticed and added them to the cauldron, stirring it slowly.
“So,” she said, glancing around to make sure no one was listening, “are you still researching now? Are you writing?”
“I’m refining,” Rita replied nonchalantly.
“You’re such a tease.”
“Oh, Black, I’d be so much worse if I was.”
Bellatrix just rolled her eyes in reply. As she adjusted the flame under the cauldron, she added the knarl quills, examining the colour of the potion.
“But actually,” said Rita suddenly, apparently unable to contain herself, “I have got something good. It’s about Cherry Adderkins—you remember her?”
Bellatrix’s head whipped around, and she nodded. “Of course. She was head girl last year—no, the year before.”
“Mm-hm. And you remember that she got into the Magical Law Young Scholars’ Program?”
“Yes, that’s common knowledge. She was so snotty about it.”
Rita pressed her lips together smugly. “Well, I discovered that program started operating on a restricted intake three years ago. And I thought: isn’t that odd? Because Adderkins was decent with a wand, but Sluggy had let slip once or twice that she was a subpar essayist—and to go into Magical Law, you need to be very good with words. So, I did a little digging.”
Rita’s cheeks were flushed with excitement as she edged forward in her chair, hissing excitedly to Bellatrix.
“And, Bellatrix, do you remember the sorting, this year? Anisa Monvoisin is Cherry’s younger cousin; I found them in the Blood Records. She got sorted into Slytherin: tiny little thing, buck teeth, very unremarkable. But I chatted with her a couple of days ago, telling her I was Cherry’s friend, and how I was so sad that she never got into that program. And guess what!”
The last two words were nearly indistinguishable, because Rita was pushing out so much air in an effort to communicate the drama of this information. Bellatrix, who had no chance of guessing what, suppressed a smile and shrugged at Rita to continue.
“Little Miss Monvoisin agreed with me! Says her aunt and uncle and Cherry were terribly disappointed. And obviously, she’s new, doesn’t have anyone to talk to, so she keeps talking to me. And I get it out of her that Cherry tied the knot with some barely-half-blooded Hufflepuff loser, and is doing nothing but sitting at home sulking!”
During this saga, Bellatrix had been shaving their puffskein, scattering the hair over the potion, stirring it and increasing the flame. Her lack of sniping comments about their shared workload was also notable.
“Sir,” called Dottie to Slughorn, from the other corner of the classroom, “our puffskein is pretty much bald. I don’t think we can get enough hair from it, sir.”
Slughorn opened one eye, and just mumbled, “very good, very good.” Dottie audibly sighed.
Bellatrix smirked as she unstoppered the vial of horseradish powder. She threw her plaits over her shoulders again—evidently, they were annoying her—and began to carefully tip the vial over the potion. Rita watched the cool light from the dungeon lanterns shine on her glossy black hair. Bellatrix took pride in her hair, twisting each ringlet around her wand and treating her hair oil potions with the same intense care she applied to her class potions. The plaits were a rarity, since she preferred to have her springy curls on full display. She would pull the hair around her face as tight as she could and secure the rest with a bejewelled clasp, letting a cloud of inky black spirals frame her porcelain face. Sometimes she had to add a featherweight charm if the heirloom gemstone on the clasp was too heavy. They had become something of her specialty. She checked her watch—also an heirloom—and nodded to herself, seemingly pleased with her progress on the potion.
“We’re heating it for the last time, now,” she informed Rita.
“Oh, are we?”
“Well, no. I’m heating it, and you’re being lazy.”
“Fine, let me, then.”
“No! No, don’t touch it.”
Bellatrix edged closer to the cauldron, protecting it from Rita, who had absolutely no intention of doing anything to it.
When their potion was finally finished—ahead of time, obviously—Slughorn spared no praise or compliment to his favourite student. Rita was even applauded by association. Fitzy and Eggers had no such luck. Fitzy had become so fed up with her partner that she’d flicked some potion at him, causing him to spasmodically shriek with high-pitched laughter.
Charms was predictably rigorous, so there was no chance to discuss Rita’s developing stories any further. Then Bellatrix had her specialised Alchemy class, while Rita had a spare period. When the time came to have lunch, Bellatrix was waylaid by her sister at the Slytherin table.
Andromeda Black, according to most of the sixth-years, was a copy of Bellatrix if the quill copying her had run out of ink. Where Bellatrix had jet black hair, Andromeda had a dark brown. Bellatrix’s eyes were so dark that they seemed black, but her sister’s were noticeably softer and warmer. In their manners too, Andromeda lacked Bellatrix’s intensity. She certainly seemed quite intensely annoyed today, however.
“We’ve got to do something about Cissy,” she said, tapping her foot.
“Oh, good day, Andromeda. You mean you want me to do something.”
She tried to push past her younger sister, but Andromeda wouldn’t budge. “Bella, honestly. You won’t believe how she’s embarrassing us.”
“She’s a flirt. I know as much.”
“A flirt!” Andromeda wasn’t one to dramatize, but her low voice still carried indignation. “She’s been batting her eyelashes at seventh-years!”
“And I hear she’s quite successful. So, not really that embarrassing. The Black Family beauty, et cetera, et cetera. May I please enjoy my lunch now? I’ve been in my advanced class for the last hour.”
“Oh, enough about alchemy. Father’s not here to lap up your brilliance. Cissy is fourteen!”
“Alright, I’ll give her a paddling, and tell her you send your love.”
Andromeda’s lips puckered, and Bellatrix seemed to soften. “Andy, let’s just let her get it out of her system. She’s not going to do anything with anyone; she knows perfectly well what Mother and Father would say.”
“You’re just saying that to get rid of me.”
Bellatrix put both hands on Andromeda’s shoulders, knitting her eyebrows together in a performance of intense sincerity and concern. “Absolutely.”
Andromeda, sighing, shrugged off her elder sister and went to join the other fifth-years at the table.
Rita, who was stirring sugar into her tea, barely looked up as Bellatrix sat down.
“Someone’s thinking hard,” the taller girl observed, searching for the corned beef to make herself a sandwich.
“Well, one of us has to.”
“I do; it just doesn’t take me that long to come to a conclusion.”
“Well, Black, sometimes I think about things not just for the purpose of insulting people.”
“Right, right. So, the next leaflet’s on sunshine and rainbows.”
“Sh!” hissed Rita, then narrowed her eyes in realisation. Bellatrix smirked.
Rita was craning her neck, trying to see who was an eavesdropping risk. Deciding that Fitzy and Heather were too deep in conversation to care much, she turned back to Bellatrix, only to catch her checking, too.
“Everyone’s noses where they should be,” Bellatrix reported. “Except for Hale, but that’s just because he’s ugly.”
Lawrence Hale’s nose was a bit large.
“So,” she pressed on, “what are you working on? I can give advice.”
Rita scoffed. “Advice on jewellery, perhaps.”
Bellatrix also scoffed, but louder. “Actually, I couldn’t. My jewellery’s centuries old, and comes from the vault of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. I wouldn’t know the first thing about your type of jewellery.”
Rita, with her trump card still to play, feigned nonchalance. There was a pause, until Bellatrix broke.
“Alright, just tell me what you’re working on. Please.”
“Aw, since you asked so sweetly.”
Bellatrix took a savage bite of her sandwich, scowling.
“Well,” Rita began, “it’s another titbit from the staffroom. Fletcher in the seventh-year has been doing so poorly in academics that some professors—especially Hyssopford and Burdock—think he shouldn’t be allowed to graduate. Dumbledore’s involved and everything.”
“Is that it?”
Rita balked in indignation, bringing her head back so quickly that her pastry-shaped fringe bounced. Bellatrix, unperturbed, shrugged.
“Dung Fletcher is a dropout risk? That’s what you consider newsworthy? You might as well report that Dumbledore’s beard has grown.”
“An expulsion is a good story. Everyone loved the Erskine scandal.”
“Oh, don’t pout. You know I’m right.”
Rita picked up her teacup and drank, tipping it up further than necessary to hide her hurt expression from Bellatrix. When she had finished drinking, her conviction had returned to her face.
“You’re not the authority here. Which one of us is the true author?”
“Skeeter, you wrote a damned good article. We both know perfectly well that you can come up with something better.”
This time, Bellatrix paused, surprised at herself. Rita, rather than hurt, or forcing conviction, looked sheepishly pleased.
“Damned good?” she said, trying not to smile too much.
“Yes, whatever,” sniffed Bellatrix. “I’ll pay you that. You’re a damned good nosy bitch.”
Rita’s mouth quirked, and Bellatrix tried to hold her haughty expression. Then, they both dissolved into laughter.