"I think I'll just go down and have some pudding and wait for it all to turn up - it always does in the end."
Rosie sat with the basilisk in her lap, humming happily to herself as she tied a cloth around its eyes. The snakes had gotten about three feet long now, and they wouldn't kill you with their eyes but they could paralyze you, so Hagrid decided it was best to cover their eyes. The snake Hagrid had hatched for Al was relatively close to the same age, but it wasn't to the point where it'd paralyze him yet. He leaned back against the cabin, stroking it's head. It made a strange purring sound, and he glanced around at the others. Many of them were having problems with their snakes, some snakes were striking and some were hissing and others were trying to escape their blindfold. Al had never felt so glad he could speak parseltongue before.
Al heard footsteps on crunchy gravel come around the corner of the cabin, and one of the Professors Al didn't know sprinted into view. "HAGRID!" she gasped out, "Hagrid!" She put her hands on her knees, her cloak falling around her face as she bent to catch her breath. Hagrid straightened from where he was sitting helping Scorpio with his basilisk, his brows knitted together.
"Yes'm, Trewlany?" he asked, brushing his coat flat with his huge hands.
"Hagrid, put the snakes away- immediately, all of them!" she said, straightening. Her eyes were huge and magnified behind thick lenses, and the scarf around her head was askew.
"What's wron'?" Hagrid asked worriedly, motioning for the students to put their snakes back in the crates.
"A student has been found- petrified- on the Durmstrang ship!" she said. "They suspect basilisks!"
"Nonsense! 'ey've all been 'ere, had meh eyes on 'em the whole 'ime!" Hagrid said, his beard trembling with his words.
"It's true, nonetheless! We need Miss Ri-... you know who in the teachers lounge - or better yet, on the ship... Where is she?" Trewlany said, her eyes scanning through the students.
"She- ah-" Hagrid said, fumbling for an answer. Al glanced up from putting his snake in the crate, and realized that indeed, Belle wasn't there. He hadn't even noticed, she was normally so quiet. "I, ah, don' know." Trewlany's eyes narrowed behind her glasses.
"Students are supposed to go directly to their dormitories. All the staff is to meet at the Durmstrang ship. If you do see Miss Riddle, please take her with you to the ship..." Trewlany trailed off, spun on her heel and hiked back to the castle.
"What do they want with Belle?" Jake whispered in Al's ear. Al jumped; he hadn't heard Jake come up behind him.
"I don't know," Al responded, sealing his snake back into its crate. "Maybe... she has a thing for snakes, you know, how she's so calm around her snake."
"That doesn't make sense, if they were thinking like that then they should have gone for you or Lily. Both of you can TALK to snakes, you don't just 'have a thing for them'." Jake responded.
"True," Al conceded. Rosie joined them, and together they went up to the castle behind Hagrid. Hagrid turned in front of the door, and without a word pointed them up the steps before continuing on down to the Durmstrang ship. They made their way through the entry hall an up the staircase. On the second floor, they ran into the champion for Magia, Esmeralda.
"Did you hear?" she asked in a thick spanish accent. "Encontraron un chico! El iban paralizaba!"
"Sorry?" Al asked, frowning. She stared at him blankly before realizing that he didn't speak Spanish.
"They found a boy, he was paralyzed!" she translated, "Did you hear?"
"Yeah, he's from Durmstrang, isn't he?" Jake added. The girl nodded frantically.
"Hey, let us know what happens, ok?" Al said, and they continued up the stairs. At the third floor, someone ran into them from a corridor to the left. All the books in her arms fell to the floor, and as they bent to sort them out, Al caught a look at the other person. "Belle?"
"Hullo," she said, pushing her hair out of her face and picking her books back up. "Class isn't over yet, what are you doing?"
"Um, someone was found paralyzed," Al said, standing. "They want you down at the Durmstrang ship."
"Why?" she asked, her green eyes wide with bewilderment.
"I dunno, they don't want anyone but the staff down there, and you. That's where they found whoever it was," Al explained.
"Um, alright... could you take my books back up to the commons for me?" she asked.
"Sure," Jake said, and they each took some of the books and walked up the stairs, Belle's footsteps receding behind them.
Belle was breathing hard when she made it to the dock of the Durmstrang ship. She paused for a moment to catch her breath and pushed her hair out of her face. The wind whipped around her face with the promise of winter in the air, the bite of a lake breeze flushing her cheeks. She knelt to tie her shoe, and from up on the ship she could hear someone announce her arrival. She glanced up and pushed her hair away again, finally giving up and pulling it back into her usual ponytail. She glided to her feet and padded up the board walk to the deck, and there she saw many people crowding in a circle. In the middle of the circle, a boy (who was rather small for a Durmstrang student) was lying, with his eyes wide open, an a look of fright on frozen on his face. Madam Pomfrey was kneeling over him, checking his pulse and making sure he was alright except for the apparent paralysis. The staff gave her cold looks, some fearful, some disgusted. Some looked at her with confusion, and some not at all. The headmasters of all the schools were there, and Harry Potter was too. Harry was one of the ones who wasn't looking at her at all, and it made Belle's stomach turn with anxiety.
"Belle," Professor McGonagall said. She was one of the only ones there that didn't look at her with distrust. "Belle, do you know anything about this?"
"Pardon, Professor?" Belle asked, glancing at the boy again. "I heard someone was found, paralyzed, that's all I know."
"And just HOW did you hear this?" A teacher with eyes magnified behind huge lenses, with frizzy hair stepped forward.
"Al told me- Albus- when he told me you wanted me here..." Belle trailed off awkwardly.
"Why did he have to tell you? Why weren't you in class? Where WERE you?" the teacher with the glasses demanded.
"I was in the library," Belle replied.
"During CLASS?" the teacher retorted.
"Yeah, I had wanted to look something up..."
"Without a teacher's permission?"
"Um... yeah... sorry," Belle said, glancing around at the teachers awkwardly. She had known ditching class was a bad idea, but she had a lead on the Triwizard tournament to help James - she had never thought it would give her a worse reprimand than detention. "But, what does this got to do with... why... what's going on?"
"Some of the staff are under the impression that you have something to do with this business," McGonagall said, throwing a disapproving look at the other teachers, "Considering your heritage and your ability to speak with snakes."
"Profesur, forgi'me, bu' I don' see how she could'a done it- the snakes've been wi' me the 'ole while, yeh see, an' I would'a seen sum'un comin' in an' messin' with them, much less takin' one," Hagrid intervened, fiddling with his big hands awkwardly. "'specially considerin tha' there was a bunch 'o other students there when this was 'appenin'..."
"Hagrid, we know and took that into account," the woman with the glasses cut Hagrid off. Belle decided this woman must have been heading the argument against her, and decided that she most certainly did not like her. "Madam Pomfrey had mentioned a while back now that a snake had indeed ESCAPED, and was never found? She said that when the snake escaped, it bit the younger Potter boy."
"Well yes'm bu' it couldn't've survived much on it's own, yeh see..."
"And Albus has the gift of parseltongue so it shouldn't have bitten him, since he could control it," the woman continued. "UNLESS, perhaps, another parselmouth wrested control from him? Tell us, Bellatrix, are you a parselmouth?"
"Trewlany!" McGonagall snapped, giving the professor a reprimanding glare. "You know perfectly well not to call the girl that. Her name is Belle."
"Terribly sorry... BELLE, are you a parselmouth?" the woman - Professor Trewlany- said, turning to look Belle in the eye. Belle tore her eyes away and stared fixedly at her shoes.
"muhbeh," Belle mumbled.
"Pardon, what was that?"
Belle looked up and steeled herself, fixing her face firmly on Trewlany. "Maybe."
"Maybe? What is that supposed to mean?"
"Yes, I am. I can talk to snakes, if that's what you mean," Belle said, setting her shoulders. McGonagall's face crumpled and her defense of Belle died on her lips. "But that doesn't mean I did it," Belle said in the silence, scrambling for some way to defend herself against their judgmental gaze. "Al can do it. So can his sister Lily. Doesn't mean they did it, now, does it?"
"Al and Lily couldn't, they were both in class at the time- I know, because Lily was in my class and when I ran to get Hagrid Al was there, but yet... strangely, conveniently, you weren't," Trewlany said, moving her hand to her chin. Belle felt the blood rush to her face.
"There isn't any proof," McGonagall said, putting her last cards on the table. "And as such, you can not punish her and you will not try to ruin her reputation with the other students. Are we clear?"
Trewlany turned and glared at Professor McGonagall. "Crystal - but the investigation will continue."
"Naturally," McGonagall said, her voice icy.
"I'll, er, walk yeh up to the s'ool if yeh wan', Belle," Hagrid said, awkwardly.
"Actually, I was hoping you would carry the boy for us, Hagrid," Trewlany said.
"I'm sure we can manage to carry him with some magic," McGonagall said icily. "We are witches after all." Her voice softened, "Hagrid, you can go with her if you'd like."
Hagrid looked at Belle in question, and Belle nodded back thankfully. Together, they walked off the ship. The second their feet were on solid ground, the ship behind them erupted in arguments and conversations. Belle fought the urge to look back, and Hagrid put his hand on her shoulder (in what he figured was a comforting gesture, though her entire shoulder disappeared in his hand) and together they walked up to the castle.