Chapter Three:
In the morning, Lucy rose again with the dawn. In the bathroom, she covered the dark circles under her eyes with concealer, a gift from Cancer that managed to last throughout the day without smudging. She had nightmares again, nightmares of Jackal and Mard Geer's voice, the cries of the pregnant woman Jackal had tried to use as his pawn...they just wouldn't stop.
And worst of all were the words. The last four words she would ever hear.
"I've been hating you this whole time."
They were lies of course, Lucy knew that. But somehow, it was more painful that they were lies. It would have be easier to do what she had done if the words had been true.
Shaking off the thoughts, she finished getting ready for the day before dressing and heading for the Great Hall.
This time, she left before the others could make it down for breakfast, eating a few slices of toast and taking an orange with her. She only had Charms today, before lunch. So it was up to her to patrol the castle for the first two periods.
Her wanderings took her to a sunny corridor on the first floor, overlooking a small courtyard. Ensconcing herself in a niche, she pulled out her orange and started peeling it. From the looks of it, it would be a good day, one that Lucy would willingly spend in the courtyard. Hopefully the other students would do the same.
As she slowly ate the orange slices, leaving a pile of peel on the ground, she remembered how it had been to live at the Konzern. Oddly enough, her best infiltration skills had been developed there. When everyone thinks that you're an airhead, she reflected grimly, it's easy to hide in plain sight.
When she had finished with her orange, Lucy vanished the peels on the floor and pulled out her Runes homework. She had set it aside the night before in favor of her Arithmancy and the Defense essay Snape had set. Besides, there was something about sitting in the sunshine and reading that appealed to her.
The first period passed without much trouble. Only a few students came through the courtyard, and once Lucy had finished with her translation she decided it was time to move on. Repacking her school bag, she left her niche to go wander the halls.
As she expected, they were empty. The younger students were in class, and if the older ones had a free period, they were busy catching up in their common rooms or getting an early start on homework or NEWT revising. She was alone with her thoughts as she paced the hallways, absentmindedly listening to the portraits as they chatted with each other. It was...pleasant. There was no need to focus on anything but picking up any interesting chatter, or spotting any odd movements of students.
When she checked the time and decided that she could head towards the Charms classroom, she nearly bumped into someone as she rounded the corner. Trying to regain her balance, she looked up into a face that was almost as startled as she felt.
"What are you looking at," Darco Malfoy snapped, backing away from her. "After what you did yesterday, they still let you stay?"
"It was an accident," Lucy said coolly, knowing that justifying herself beyond that would only bring more problems. "My apologies. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a class to attend."
"Not so fast," Malfoy said, shifting to block her way. "You're new here, so you don't understand. Some wizards are better than others, and the Malfoy's are the best. What you did can't go unpunished."
"So having a father in jail for being a Death Eater makes you the best?" Lucy said with a shrug, turning to go back the way she came. If she cut through the side passage she had passed a little bit ago, she could reach the Charms classroom without too much delay. "I'll keep that in mind."
She felt, more than saw, the hex he sent towards her, bending out of its way just in time. Fighting down the panic and the anger that told her to curse him first and ask questions later, she flicked a silencing spell, followed by a leg locker jinx at him. It wasn't much, but it would immobilize him long enough for her to step into the passage and put some distance between them.
Lucy reached the Charms classroom without further incident. She was first there, and by the time the others arrived, the contingent from the greenhouses smelling very strongly of fertilizer, she was immersed in a text she had found in the library about magic theory. Having been to Edolas, and now to this Earth, she wanted to try and draw conclusions about magic in all three dimensions that she had visited.
Malfoy was glaring at her as Laxus came to stand next to her, bringing with him the stench of fertilizer. Why he had signed up for Herbology was beyond her, but she cast a scent freshening charm on him before sending another towards Natsu and the others who had been with him. If the smell was bothering her, she couldn't imagine how the dragon slayers were feeling.
"I always forget about that one," Laxus said, leaning against the wall. "You were up early this morning."
She nodded, turning a page. It was interesting information, but nothing to really help her pin down the differences between Edolas and her own world, which seemed to operate much like this one.
"You didn't come down to breakfast," he continued, seeing that she wasn't going to respond.
"I did," Lucy said, turning another page. And another. "I just left before the rest of you came down."
He sighed, but before he could press her, the door opened and they all filed in for Charms.
She managed to avoid his questions for all of lunch by the simple measure of not going to lunch. Instead she hid in the library and went over her assignments until lunch was over, and then snuck off to the kitchen for lunch. The first of the afternoon periods was History of Magic, which meant that Laxus and Levy would be tied up there, Natsu and Erza would be babysitting Potter and the Gryffindor contingent, and hopefully the other half of the Fairy Tail contingent would be too busy keeping an eye out for the students to fuss over finding Lucy.
Her luck ran out during the second period.
Lucy had abandoned the library, knowing that it was going to be the first place Levy looked after classes ended. She thought about returning to the courtyard, but there were a fair number of students there when she passed by, and it would probably draw the attention of one of the other Fairy Tail members eventually.
She was on her way up to the Room of Requirement when Laxus found her. Cornering her in the middle of the hall, he looked as if he was about to start lecturing her right away, but she motioned towards the general direction of the Room of Requirement and continued on.
Once they were safely inside the room, Lucy dropped down on the armchair the Room provided and gestured for Laxus to take the other. "You've been dying to lecture me since Defense yesterday. Let's just get this over with."
"This lecture," Laxus began slowly, "probably should be more like an intervention."
Bristling, Lucy leaned forward. "I'm fine," she hissed, gripping the sides of her chair. "Yeah, my knee's messed up and there's nothing anyone can do about it, but other than that, I'm fine! If all of you would just get off my back-"
"You barely eat," the lightning dragon slayer stated flatly "and from what any of us can tell, you don't sleep much either. You're pulling away from everyone, and yesterday you nearly attacked one of the people we're hired to protect. Tell me, does that sound like you're doing fine?"
"Why do you care?" she spat, throwing herself back in her chair, unable to defend against the accusations. As he put it, it sounded bad.
"Because for some reason I ended up in charge of this particular expedition, even though we're making Mest be the figurehead," Laxus grunted. "And more importantly, you're a member of Fairy Tail. We don't just turn aside."
"You're doing a pretty fine job of it."
The words hung between them for a long moment.
"So that's what this is about," Laxus said, running his hand through his hair. "The disbandment."
"You mean how everyone just walked away?" she retorted, unable to stop herself. "How they were going to walk away even before they knew it was going to happen without saying a word to anyone? How those that didn't have immediate plans had no issues coming up with some?" All the bitterness she had felt ever since she saw the others just accept that it was over was boiling over and spilling out in a torrent of words. "You didn't even try. Everything we've ever fought for, tried to preserve, and you were willing to just let it go without a second thought."
"What else could we do?" Laxus asked calmly. "By the time any of us get back to Magnolia, the others will be long dispersed."
"They looked for us. They waited for us when the world said we were dead. The guild isn't dead until we abandon it. You could bring it back," she said desperately, feeling the tears welling up in her eyes. "You're Master's grandson. We would follow you."
He stared at her like a deer caught in a spotlight.
"For some of us, the guild is all we have," she continued, feeling the tears start to spill down her face, but she was beyond caring right now. "We've lost too much, especially recently. I can't lose the guild too." Taking a gasping breath she waved the bare back of her hand at him. "Every time I see this, I wonder if we were wrong in thinking that we stopped the futures that Rogue and, and she came from. I wonder if this isn't how it started…"
"There was another traveller?" Laxus asked sharply, coming out of his chair to kneel in front of her, eyes fixed on her face. "Another person came through the Eclipse Gate?"
Lucy nodded miserably. "Me," she whispered, cradling the bare hand. "I did."
"What did she say? What happened in her timeline?"
"Dragons," Lucy whispered through the sobs choking her throat. "Ten thousand. She came back to close the door, and that is what created Rogue's future."
"Did she go back, like Rogue did?"
"Her corpse did."
Laxus looked as if the floor had just been vanished out from under him. "She died?"
"She was murdered," Lucy corrected bitterly. "By Future Rogue. He was...he was aiming for me. I...I held her while she died." She just wanted to have more adventures with Fairy Tail.
He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something. Closed it, and opened it again, reaching out for her hands. "I'm so sorry."
"She didn't really exist," Lucy said, looking away from him. "In the end, she disappeared. This wasn't her world."
"But she was you," Laxus said gently. "She was a person you could have become, and you're real. You're worth mourning."
Lucy felt herself shaking with the suppressed feelings she had been trying to hold back. Ripping her hands free of his gentle hold, she left the chair and wished desperately for a target.
Out of nowhere, a blank clay disc came flying through the air, and she took aim. "Bombarda!"
Another. "Reducto!"
A third. "Confrigo!"
Gently, carefully, as if not to startle her, a hand covered her own, lowering her wand. "Lucy," Laxus said softly. "Enough."
"No," she hissed, trying to tug her hand out of his grasp. "No! Let me go Laxus!"
"So you can destroy more things?" he asked. "So you can avoid those of us who give a damn about you and can't stand to watch you destroy yourself like this?"
"You don't know anything about what's going on," she spat, tugging futilely at her wrist in the hopes that he would let her go. "Name the people I've lost since we woke up."
"The Lucy who came through the Eclipse Gate," Laxus began. "And the guild."
"Wrong."
His brow furrowed in concentration. "Wait, wasn't there that girl from that thing with the clock?"
"Still not all of them. Talk to me when you have the full list." Twisting her wrist in his grasp, she thought: Relashio!
It wasn't much, but his grip loosened for a moment, and she darted out of the Room, intent on making it to someplace he wouldn't follow.
The nice thing about girls' lavatories, Lucy thought. is that no boy in their right mind would dream of entering one. And since seven out of the thirteen Fairy Tail members who had come to Hogwarts were male, that meant she only had to worry about the five other girls.
Which made it even better that one of the girls' lavatories was haunted and nobody really considered actually using it.
Besides, Lucy thought as she worked on her Charms homework. Once you get used to Myrtle, you can start attempting to one-up each other in terms of who's more miserable.
The ghost was currently wailing in the u-bend, which she had tuned out in favor of focusing on her Charms. It was past dinner, but Lucy figured she'd stop by the kitchens just before curfew and then hightail it up to Ravenclaw Tower and into the safety of her dorm before either of her friends could interrogate her.
What she hadn't planned on was how much someone else wanted quiet.
The door to the bathroom opened, and Cobra walked in, a scowl on his face.
"They're all contemplating tearing the castle apart looking for you," he growled. "It's obnoxious to listen to."
"Welcome to my world," she said tiredly, gesturing to the bathroom. "Come sit with Myrtle and I and we can commiserate together."
"We're not friends," he growled, shoving his hands in the pockets of his robes. "Seems as if the only place in this castle that the rest of you losers can't get into is Slytherin's secret chamber. Since all of you are too scared to ask me to do it, I figure it's the best place to hide."
"Not if I tell them," Lucy hissed, scrambling to put away her charms homework and stand up. "But I'll keep quiet for one favor."
Cobra snarled. "Not on your life."
"Then I'll make sure to tell Natsu exactly where to look for you every time you go missing. And you know as well as I do that he'd be willing to drag Potter down here and make him open it up if it meant he got to fight you."
The poison dragon slayer groaned. But before he could respond, the door opened again, and a familiar blonde drifted in.
"Are you going to the Chamber of Secrets?" Luna Lovegood asked brightly.
Both Fairy Tail wizards groaned.
***And here's the third chapter! I had planned on an expedition into the Chamber, but not this soon, so we'll have to see how the rest of the story goes.***