Chapter Seven
For the rest of the week, both Carolina and Marcus avoided each other as if they had each contracted spattergroit. She spent the majority of her time reading ahead in her textbooks, finishing homework, and wandering around her neighborhood, wishing for time to move faster than the slow crawl in which it seemed to be stuck. New Years Day was interminable as she wasn't allowed to venture out of the house on her normal walk, because of another grand dinner her mother had planned in which no one really said anything at all to each other.
So it was with great relief and a note of hopefulness that she found herself an empty compartment on the Hogwarts Express back to the castle. She enjoyed the train rides on the holidays. There weren't as many students and she could pass the afternoon however she wanted, reading, looking out the window, thinking, without any interruptions. And even better, she wasn't required to attend any prefects meeting.
Outside her compartment window, the sky was a golden color, the sun nearly set over the Scottish highlands. She sighed, before standing up and raising her arms above her head, stretching her back. She had worn her uniform to the station and subsequently didn't need to change, but decided to head to the bathroom anyways as an excuse to move her legs after hours of sitting.
She walked along the quiet train car until she reached the loo. The stalls were vacant, and after emptying her bladder she walked up to the sinks and stared at her reflection in the old and stained mirror. Her hair was slightly ruffled, probably from the static of the train seat, so she smoothed it down, before running her fingers through it.
As she stared at herself, she remembered her mother's harsh words over Christmas—how she should maintain her figure in the hopes that a nice pureblooded boy would notice. She idly undid the top three buttons of her stiff white shirt so that more of her chest was visible. Maybe her mother was right for once in her life. Carolina hadn't particularly enjoyed the loneliness that was brought on when all of her peers had gone on dates to Hogsmeade. Perhaps, there was something to be said for… opening herself to that particular realm of student life. After all, to be a reliable, thoughtful head girl she would have to be… experienced, to an extent, she thought. Maybe even another button… When she looked up from the button that she had slowly undone, she was surprised at her reflection. She had never shown that much cleavage. She suddenly realized how long she had been lingering in front of the mirror and felt momentarily self-conscious, hoping that she wasn't turning into Abigail or Delia.
She rushed out of the bathroom, swinging the door wide open only to hear a loud thunk followed by a harsh expletive.
"Oh!" She yelped, turning around to see Fred—or at least she assumed it to be Fred because it was certainly one of the twins and he was wearing a maroon sweater with a yellow F embroidered in the center of it—clutching his nose and leaning back. "I'm so sorry!" She gushed.
"That was bloody hard! You can't just go swinging doors out like that!" He yelled out as a stream of blood started trickling down over his mouth, before looking down at the culprit. "Oh, it was you."
"Wait here, I'll go get some toilet tissue," Carolina said, frantically rushing into the bathroom, her cheeks ablaze in embarrassment. She returned with a handful of tissue to find Fred looking slightly less angry.
"Are you… okay?" She questioned softly as she handed him the paper.
He promptly held it up to his nose, stopping the flow of blood. "Just swell," he said.
"I'm so sorry, again," Carolina said quietly, looking down.
"No, no, swell—get it? Like my nose is probably swelling up."
Carolina looked up again. His head was tilted back but he was eyeing her with an amused look in his eyes.
"That was an awful joke," she smiled while shaking her head.
"Oh, so first you beat me up and then you insult me? Hardly good prefect behavior, if you ask me."
"I didn't mean to! I can fix it if you'd like?" Carolina said, blushing again.
"I think you at least owe me that," he responded.
"My wand's in my compartment; it's just a car down. Come on." She strode off quickly down the car, looking from side to side, hoping that her brother was seated somewhere else on the train and wouldn't see the redhead following close behind her.
"Hold still," Carolina said. Fred sat directly across from her as she pointed her wand at his nose. He lowered his hand and the blood started flowing afresh. He stared ahead at her, slightly cross-eyed.
"I'm not sure I like being on this end of your wand…"
"Episkey!" Carolina said and with a flourish of her wand as Fred let out a small noise, whether in shock or pain, Carolina wasn't sure. "Tergeo!" She said, waving her wand again and siphoning the blood off of his face.
Fred held up a hand to his nose and felt it gingerly, before breaking into a grin again. "Thanks for that!"
"Anytime," she responded. "Er, I mean, not anytime. You know, I hope not to break your nose again, but you're welcome," she mumbled, stowing her wand in the pocket of her cardigan.
"I hope not as well!" He said jovially and continued to grin at her, his eyes flickering down to the open buttons on her shirt.
Carolina's eyes widened, realizing what it was he was looking at and she shuffled uncomfortably in her seat, before clearing her throat.
"Right," said Fred, his eyes snapping back up to hers, "I'll be off." He stood up. "See you around, Carolina." He took a few steps over to the compartment door and slid it open. He stepped through and shut it behind him. A moment passed in which Carolina's mind seemed to simultaneously move in hyper speed and as if it was stuck in molasses before she jumped to her feet and flew after him.
She slid open the compartment door and hollered, "Wait!"
Fred, who was now a bit of a way down the train car stopped and turn to look at her, an eyebrow raised.
"Did you, um, send me a Christmas gift?" She asked just loud enough for him to hear.
He took a step forward. "Did you like it?" He questioned, his mouth forming a rather attractive smirk, an expression she wasn't used to seeing on him.
She nodded, not trusting her mouth to say anything rational.
"Good." His smirk widened and he turned away and exited the car. Carolina stepped back into her compartment and slid the door shut. She fell back onto the seat, exhaling a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding in her lungs.
The spring semester took off in full swing and it didn't take more than one or two days back at the castle until Carolina and her classmates were once again bogged down by homework and O.W.L. studies. She had decided on her first night back at Hogwarts to draft a studying schedule for her and Adrian, which she felt was necessary in order to stay on top of school work, her examination studies and prefect rounds. Adrian, however, had not been all too pleased and it showed as they sat together in the library during a free period that morning.
"Right, could you quiz me on Runes? I think I'll be able to do well on the Ancient Egyptian but the Cyrillic is a little difficult still," Carolina said, shuffling through her notes.
"We haven't even started Cyrillic yet!" Adrian exclaimed, lowering the daily prophet he had been reading instead of studying, earning him a stern look from Madam Pince.
"We start in February! And it's going to be on the O.W.L.s," Carolina whispered back.
"I'm not studying anything before I have to," Adrian responded, raising the paper up in front of his face again.
Carolina stared at him, nonplussed. Sometimes she felt like she was the only person in the castle who took their education seriously. Didn't they understand the stakes? Whatever grades you earned on your O.W.L.s dictated which N.E.W.T.s you could take which dictated the jobs you could apply for upon graduation. It was moments like this that she wondered why she had been sorted into Slytherin instead of Ravenclaw.
Suddenly, the moving picture on the front of the Daily Prophet caught her eye. It was once again the photo of mass murderer Sirius Black. The Prophet seemed to be recycling the news story every week or so. "Sirius Black: Still At Large" it read. She began to read the article, squinting to see the fine print from across the table.
"Mass murderer and death eater, Sirius black, known for the gruesome slaughter of thirteen muggles and one wizard, was once again spotted near Hogsmeade village, sources say. Having slipped past dementors upon his escape from Azkaban, it seems the dementors stationed around Hogwarts have been unsuccessful in deterring him from the area. While local residents of the village have begun to hold protestations against the wizarding prison guards roaming above their shops, citing that their presence is bad for business, this reporter finds it opportune to remind the wizarding community at large to readdress its values: Which would you rather have near our schoolchildren? Reliable, ministry administered prison guards or a murderer so maniacal he was sent to Azkaban without a trial?"
Carolina paused. Black never had a trial?
"Adrian, can I borrow that?" She said, without waiting for an answer and snapping the paper out of his hands.
"Sure, I wasn't reading it or anything!" Adrian whispered back, sarcastically, but Carolina wasn't listening. She made short work of the article, but it didn't state anything else revelatory about his case.
She handed Adrian back his paper, who took it, a slightly amused look on his face.
"Strange," Carolina said slowly, staring ahead at the shelves of old books.
"What?" Adrian asked half-heartedly. He had known Carolina long enough to recognize when she was off in her own world and so he wasn't surprised when she didn't deem his question worthy of a response.
For the following few hours, through Transfiguration and lunch, she seemed to be distant, mulling things over in her mind. She didn't even act the know-it-all as she normally enjoyed doing, surprising even McGonagall who was at a loss when no one raised their hand to answer her questions.
"Adrian, go on without me," she said quietly as she slowly packed up her bag after their last class of the day, Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"Shall I save you a seat for dinner?"
"Sure," she said, her eyes trained on Professor Lupin as he magically vanished his notes from the chalkboard. She hitched her bag higher over her shoulder and determinedly walked up to the professor.
"Professor, do you have a minute?"
Lupin turned around, his eyes kindly shining down upon her. "Certainly, Ms. Flint."
"I wasn't sure who to ask about this. You see, I would go to Professor Dumbledore seeing as he is on the Wizengamot, but it's hardly easy to just approach the headmaster, even for a prefect and well, I came across something curious and it vaguely has to do with dark magic so I thought… I might ask you?"
Lupin smiled, amused by her prelude. "Of course, ask away." He clasped his hands in front of him and leaned back against the clean chalkboard.
"I was reading the Daily Prophet this morning, and there was an article about Sirius Black," Carolina started as Lupin's expression darkened significantly. "And, well, the article mentioned that he had gone to Azkaban without being found guilty, without going to trial. That's illegal isn't it?"
Lupin took a breath in. "That's a complicated question. He was found guilty. The director of the department of law enforcement, at the time Bartemius Crouch, found him guilty. It wasn't all that uncommon in those days, just after the fall of He Who Must Not Be Named, for criminals to be sent straight to prison."
"But the ministry wouldn't do that now, would they?"
"It would be rather suspect if they did it now, no? The policy was Crouch's own doing, and when he lost the bid for minister, the department of magical law backed off somewhat from their incarceration streak."
Carolina paused before saying slowly, "It seems rather counterintuitive that a government official, not elected by the wizarding populace, would hold so much power over such important business."
"With or without a trial, Sirius Black was found at the scene of the crime, with multiple eyewitnesses," Professor Lupin said.
"But without a trial, there could be no record of proving him guilty, right?"
"It wasn't a matter of proving him guilty, so much as him already being guilty, in Crouch's eyes that is. Now, Ms. Flint, I suggest we adjourn to dinner," he said, turning his back on her to collect a stack of books from his desk. "You seem to have an affinity for magical law," he continued, turning back to her.
Carolina nodded. "It's… complex, I suppose."
"You might want to indulge in the legal section of our library. There are some very interesting case documents there."
"Thank you, sir," Carolina said, nodding. Her questions weren't quite answered but she had already suspected Professor Lupin would not have been able to answer them anyway. His expertise in Dark Magic seemed to be dark creatures, based on his lesson plans at least.
Carolina, suddenly not hungry, decided to head straight to the library.
