Disclaimer: No Rights Reserved

Not a Malfoy, Not a Weasley

Kate was so absurdly pleased with herself that she couldn't stop grinning, even though it was only nine o'clock and she still had three more hours of Prefect patrol duty with Will MacMillan (a prospect which, on any other day, would have plunged her into a laconic sort of sullenness interspersed with deep sighs). Tonight she was positively cheerful.

"What's so funny, Kathryn?" Will would ask every fifteen minutes or so, when Kate's grins would morph into irrepressible giggling. She'd shake her head, mumble "nothing!" and continue swinging her arms happily as the two Hufflepuffs marched up and down the corridors looking– Will conscientiously, Kate carelessly– for truants.

"Really, Kathryn," Will chastised her, fed up after the fifth time this had happened. "You're a Prefect– and it's not even that, you're a fifth-year! This is hardly appropriate behavior."

Kate snapped her mouth shut and mumbled "You're right Will, of course," but somehow the apology didn't have the usual sycophantic fervor she paid her brother. It must be, Will determined, a matter of her newly formed "friendship" with James Potter. He decided to set her straight.

"You know," Will began, his tone indicating very clearly that this was about to be a long and tedious sermon on the proper conduct and deportment of a Hogwarts prefect. It was nothing she hadn't heard before– the exact words and phrases, in fact, were lifted directly from the verbal handbook of Ignatius Weasley– but Will MacMillan, as a decent student of average ability and an exceptional work ethic, learned best by constant repletion. He assumed that Kate did too. "It seems to me that when a particular individual is entrusted with a position of authority, and hence with a certain prestige or status in the eyes of his or her peers, it's important– nay, absolutely vital– that said individual comport him or her self in a manner which not only equals but exceeds the level of propriety expected of–"

"I'm sorry," Kate interrupted abruptly. "Would you mind starting over? Your sentence structure became a little to complicated for me to follow at the end. Something about the 'nay,' I think."

Will squinted at Kathryn suspiciously. Kate wasn't a brilliant girl, by any means– not like her cousin Rose anyway– but if she was good at anything, it was semantics. Didn't she and Ignatius needle each other with the finer points of grammar and syntax? Hadn't that been part of their "fight" the other day?

In any case– all that meant was that Kate's comment was intended to be taken sarcastically, and that was something quite out of character. He found himself– shockingly– at a loss for words.

"Sshhh!" Kate whispered, stepping closer to him and speaking so low she was just barely audible. "The clocks are about to chime eleven– get ready to play along."

Will could not have been more confused. "Play along with what?" he hissed.

"I'm going to stage an argument and storm off," she continued quietly. "If Ignatius asks later, tell him I went to the Prefects' bathroom to take a shower. Of course, that's not where I'm going."

"You're sneaking off with James and Ravi, aren't you?"

Kate grinned, but it didn't strike Will as quite right, for a reason he couldn't place. Will MacMillan was vigilant, but that didn't mean he was perceptive.

"But then…" he spluttered. "What do you mean if Ignatius asks? Ignatius is the one orchestrating all this, isn't he? You're planning it with him– you're supposed to find out how Potter gets around the castle without ever getting caught!"

"Quiet," Kate breathed. "They can't know you know I'm going with them– they can't know I'm still with you at all."

Around the castle, clocks began to chime and Kate began to shout angrily.

"For the last time, Will– I will not go to Hogsmeade with you next month! Not next month, and not the month after that, and not the month after that! Do you think what I said to Ignatius doesn't hold for his puppet too? Merlin, I wish I wasn't a Hufflepuff!"

Kate turned sharply on her heel and darted off down the corridor, leaving Will no more enlightened and rather more upset than even before. The fight was staged, she said, but Kate had sounded like she meant every word.

He was pondering whether or not he really could ask her to go to Hogsmeade with him on the next vacation and not receive a tongue lashing like that (fake?) one when, out of the corner of his eye, Will saw a tapestry move some yards away to the left. A door opened up behind and Kate went through, followed not by a tall boy with untidy black hair, but a slight one with blonde hair and a pale, pointed face.

***

Scorpius stared.

"Forgive me," he said dryly. "But am I supposed to understand any of what you just said?"

Kate-the-Hufflepuff seemed impervious to snide remarks and continued, infuriatingly, to smile pleasantly.

"My mum," Kate repeated. "She's a Muggle, and she's supposed to have worked with my father on the Muggle Protection Act in our textbook, but it doesn't mention her anywhere. I'd like to find out what exactly's going on, but this revelation came at precisely the wrong time. I can't ask Iggy for help because I can't be seen talking to him, and I can't ask Will because he's so ridiculously self-important. I can't ask James because I'm on a secret mission to get information out of him, and I can't ask Ravi because even if he wanted to keep a secret from James, he couldn't. He's a really bad liar." She paused, thoughtful. "Rose would probably help me– she liked the Library… but I get the feeling she thinks she's better than me. So I'm asking you."

Scorpius wasn't sure he could believe what he was hearing.

"To help you find out why some low-level Ministry clerk forgot to put your mother's name on some paperwork twenty years ago?"

"Well…" Kate said. "It was more like eighteen, but that's all right. And besides, I don't think that's it."

"What do you mean 'it'?"

"I mean that's not what happened."

"So what do you think did happen?"

Kate shrugged. "How should I know? It's not like I have a Pensieve or anything."

"But you think I do?" Scorpius asked scathingly.

"Of course not!" Kate replied. "I don't know anyone who has powerful magical objects like that– Iggy thinks James has something strongly enchanted like that (it's what I'm supposed to be finding out, see), but we don't know what. And I'm asking you because besides Rose and Iggy, you're probably the smartest person I know."

Scorpius felt a sudden stab of embarrassment– he hadn't even known her name an hour before.

"Er… thank you," he said lamely.

Kate beamed. "Iggy and I were real surprised when you weren't made a Prefect this year–you're always the best in our year. It wasn't fair."

Against his better judgment, Scorpius found himself nodding and saying:

"I'm glad somebody says so. I think it's because–" He cut himself off, vaguely angry with himself for betraying his characteristic taciturn silence on personal feelings.

"Because you're a… you know, a Malfoy?"

Scorpius paused, frowned. It was nice– though painful to admit to himself– to have a lunch hour with some human company (however strange and incoherent that company was). And she wasn't really Potter's friend after all, as it turned out– she was a spy for her brother, with seemingly genuine animosity for James and his crowd. She knew what it was like to be stained by a name– Weasley was a good name, true, but she and her brother were Hufflepuffs and so, in the eyes of many, couldn't live up to it. She was an outsider too.

All of this was enough to decide Scorpius in favor of saying what he's wanted desperately to tell someone (anyone!) since the start of term– if only for the sake of human sympathy.

"No," he said. "It's not because I'm a Malfoy. It's because I'm not a Malfoy, not enough of one anyway, or not the right kind."

Kate nodded immediately, excitedly– she knew exactly what he meant.

"A Prefect needs to be someone his peers respect, at least those within his own House. But as you can see–" He gestured wryly to his dusty corner table. "I don't have an extraordinarily large group of friends. Merlin's beard, I'm taking OWL Muggle Studies."

Kate sighed.

"I know what you mean. I'm not the right kind of Weasley either. I should be in Arithmancy– that was the basis for the fake fight, you know, between me and Iggy, but I think he really does agree with Rose and everyone… that it's a soft option. And even so, just pretending to be friends with James and Ravi has almost been a welcome–" She suddenly brightened. "Say, you don't like James Potter, do you?"

Scorpius scowled.

"I despise James Potter."

"Then I bet you and Iggy will get along!" Kate declared. "It won't help you with the Slytherins for sure, but we Hufflepuffs wouldn't care that you're a Malfoy, or not a Malfoy, or not the right kind. And I'd rather not have to spend all my time with Will MacMillan."

Scorpius grinned.

"I'm not quite sure I want to join Ignatius Weasley's Junior Ministry just yet, and besides, you said that you're supposed to be in a fight with your brother– you can't just bring in new recruits," he said, "But you're correct in saying that I am the most talented student you know, so–"

"Well, you or Rose anyway," Kate interjected.

Scorpius smiled more broadly. "No. Me. And because you were so astute in recognizing that fact– which you do recognize, of course– I will help you figure out what exactly went wrong with the Muggle Protection Act all those years ago, with neither Potter nor your brother knowing what we're doing."

"Really?" Kate asked.

"You have my word as a Malfoy."

Kate laughed.

"Meet me behind the tapestry of Barnabas the Brigand tonight at eleven, when you're on prefect duty. We'll make up some story for MacMillan– that you're acting in your double agent capacity with Potter," Scorpius said. He added: "But you have to promise me something too– when you do figure out how Potter's sneaking around with impunity, you'll let me be in the room when Ignatius lets him know he's caught."

"You have my word too," Kate said, mock-solemnly, as the lunch period ended and they shook hands. "My word as a Weasley."