Chapter 12
Draco was the first one to enter the Hogwarts Express, more comfortable staying at an empty compartment for an hour's wait than to spend another minute in the Three Broomsticks, which was getting tenser every second he wasn't in his room. The train was exactly the way it was seventeen years ago, but there was a heavy feeling to it because he knew Hogsmeade wasn't the only thing he was leaving behind. He forced himself to feel relieved, that he had finally reached a point where he had to accept that there were too many options to go through in order to find his long-lost cousin, but part of him felt horribly defeated, because he figured the moment the orphanage confirmed that Gemini went to Hogwarts, everything would be smooth sailing from that point.
He had miscalculated by one year, and had he gotten it right the first time, he wouldn't have hoped to find her or started this goose chase in the first place, and thinking about it only made him feel worse.
The sun was beginning to rise, and Draco watched it slowly peek out of the forest trees as he yawned in exhaustion. At least I can move on now…try, at least. He had been missing hours of work for this search, and his business-oriented side was already planning out how he could make up for the hours without having to compromise his time with Astoria and Scorpius.
"Draco?" Draco was lost in thought that he didn't hear the compartment door open. He recognized Professor Slughorn, though most of his hair was white—at least, the hair on the sides of his head—and he was slightly hunched. He was carrying a rather large suitcase Draco thought should have been left at the luggage car. He beamed at him. "What a pleasant surprise! Do you mind?" He motioned at the empty seat in front of him.
"Please." Draco nodded. He stood up. "Do you need any help with your luggage?"
"Oh, no." Slughorn waved a hand as he lowered the suitcase on his seat. Draco noticed that it was slowly shaking and tilting on its own. "I hope you don't mind…when you keep a suitcase filled with students like mine…oh, even their pictures can be a handful."
With a tap of his wand, the suitcase opened and picture frames of different shapes and sizes flew out. A few hung on Slughorn's side of the compartment, some landed neatly on the overhead luggage rack above him, while a few arranged themselves neatly on top of his suitcase. The Slug Club, Draco thought.
"Yes, well," Slughorn chuckled. "Cassio Zabini certainly has a sense of humor. If I recall correctly, you and his father were in the same year, weren't you? Well, Mr. Zabini here was also a pretty good Beater for the Slytherin Quidditch team. We won the championship this year. Now he's in training with the Falmouth Falcons as we speak!"
Draco heard the train's whistle, and in a matter of second, he began to feel the train slowly move away from the station. Finally. Wait a minute.
"You're the Head of Slytherin?" Draco asked.
"Why yes! For the last seventeen years." Slughorn said proudly. "Except for that one-year vacation I had in 2005. And there has never been a better time to be in Slytherin than the present. Why, it's been House Cup after House Cup and Quidditch Cup after Quidditch Cup for us in the past few years! It's as if our house is finally redeeming its name after…well, you know…"
Draco nodded. Slughorn took out a flask and took a long drink, offering some to Draco afterwards, which Draco refused. "In fact, a lot of my brightest students have been in Slytherin—and it's not because I'm biased, mind you. Why, there's Zabini right there! You can see the resemblance."
Slughorn took the nearest picture frame, and by far the biggest among the other frames. Draco understood why that photo was the biggest when Slughorn showed it to him: it had so many students, more than the average number of students in the other photos that having a smaller picture would have made it completely hard to see. Most of the students were wearing green, but Draco knew it wasn't because it was a photo of Slughorn's annual Christmas party. When you've spent a big part of your life with Slytherins, it was easy to recognize one: from the self-assured smile to the arrogant expressions to the resemblance many of them have with his classmates and upperclassmen to the way everyone in green seemed to be so close that they made the other Slug Club members look like interlopers in an all-Slytherin photo.
Slughorn was talking about Zabini's son again, but Draco wasn't paying attention anymore, and was instead looking at one of the Slytherins with wavy black hair and unnaturally pale skin. Gemini. Draco gasped.
"What's wrong?" Draco looked up and saw Slughorn peering at him.
"Ugh…just…his resemblance to Zabini is uncanny." Draco lied. He smiled. "There's certainly a lot of Slytherins."
"Yes, well, I'm sure you know most of my students' parents! And all of them are actually quite talented in their own way, they're actually doing quite well, every one of them." Slughorn continued. "Zabini's twin over here, Cassandra, is now somewhere in Romania training dragons. Abigail Flint's in London dressing everyone in Level One for the Muggle Liaison Office. Nate Montague's doing business with his father's company, naturally, and next to him, Catherine Pucey is the British Ministry of Magic's Junior Ambassador to France. And over here…"
Draco felt his heart kick. Slughorn's going to finish my search for me! He wanted to scream, but he forced himself to keep quiet and appear interested until he would tell him where Gemini was.
"And this girl, Gemini Ridley…" Slughorn slowed down. Draco could see Slughorn's face soften. "One of the most remarkable students I've ever met. Very bright that girl, extremely bright. The first student I know who perfected all her N.E.W.T.s."
"Really?" Draco said. But where is she?! There was no time to practice his lines. He needed to play his cards right, try to get Slughorn to continue and tell him everything he needed to know to find her. "She doesn't look like anyone I know…"
"Oh no…she…she came from a muggle orphanage."
"A muggle-born?" Draco narrowed his eyes. "In Slytherin?"
"I thought so too, but it's actually an inside joke for Slytherin students that she's half-blood." Slughorn laughed. "The Sorting Hat has been known to sort muggle-borns into Slytherin, though quite rarely. I've asked the hat about that once, and he sort of hinted that those muggle-borns brought into Slytherin are those whose qualities scream Slytherin that he can't put them anywhere else. At first, I thought that was the case, but…"
"But what?"
She's an intelligent student. She rarely studies—I've never even seen her pick up a book until third year—yet she never ceases to amaze her professors. The students eventually figured that she couldn't possibly be muggle-born if that intelligence was in her instinct. But the question still stands: which witch or wizard would leave their child in a muggle orphanage?"
"Possibly a muggle-born." Draco said disdainfully, but immediately regretted it. He hoped that Slughorn would try to make up for a muggle-born Slytherin in the Slug Club by telling him where Gemini ended up in, but it was apparent that Slughorn took it as a hint that Draco couldn't be bothered to know about a muggle-born and moved on to the next Slytherin. He wanted to ask Slughorn what happened to Gemini, but he didn't want to let it appear that he took an interest in her, so he gave a faint smile as Slughorn continued the rest of the introduction and began talking about his year as the Potions professor.
Draco felt a niggling frustration. The answer to his search was right in front of him—all he had to do was ask. Slughorn most definitely knew about Gemini Ridley's whereabouts, but the answer was still out of his reach because Draco knew the dangers that came with asking around. He knew that Slughorn was the man who first went to Gemini in the orphanage, and, from Slughorn's reaction, that Gemini was his teacher's pet for almost seven years. Draco didn't want to risk giving Slughorn the wrong idea—especially when Slughorn believed in the possibility that she was half-blood and had wizarding parents who abandoned her.
When Slughorn wasn't looking, Draco looked at the photo again. She had a less mischievous smile than the one in the trophy room, though obviously subtlety was never her strength and Draco wondered if she was really a cunning young woman—and if Slughorn knew (or cared)—and how no one ever made the connection between her and Bellatrix Lestrange if she kept smiling that way. Or maybe it's just me, since I've known this secret for so long. She was wearing an elegant emerald green dress with a sweetheart neckline and empress waistline that walked the borderline between girl and woman, accessorized with the necklace her mother left her. Like the rest of the Slug Club members, she had a wineglass in her hand, and the way she lifted it at him made him feel like she knew his dirty little secret.
I'm sorry, Gemini. Draco sighed, thinking guiltily. Too many options for me to go on.
"I wonder what's taking Honeydukes Express so long." Professor Slughorn said after a while. He stood up and headed out the compartment. "Excuse me, Draco. I just need to find the lady and get some Bertie Bott's and some tea."
Alone in a compartment hung with photos, Draco tried focusing at the window, before deciding that he couldn't be more distracted by the photos constantly waving at him. Slughorn was known for choosing students who seemed like they could be useful in the future. Some were brilliant wizards, some had powerful connections, and some had both. Because of his father being sent to Azkaban at the time, Draco did not have an invitation to the club in his sixth year—not that he wanted it. He saw the photo he could have been in, along with Potter, Granger, the Weasley girl, Zabini, and a few others from varying houses.
Draco stopped looking at that photo and noticed one of the older photos hanging on the wall. There was one old-looking photo that consisted of Slughorn with three other boys and one girl. The three students were behind him, but one student…the one with the long, platinum blonde hair, sat beside Slughorn himself. Father…Draco thought. He realized a possibility, and looked at the other photos, which affirmed what he was thinking.
In one of the photos, Draco recognized Barnabas Cuffe, the former editor of the Daily Prophet. Another had Gwenog Jones standing in front of a large crowd of Slug Club members, standing proudly next to Slughorn. Potter and Hermione Granger were the closest to Slughorn in their photo. Draco looked at the other photos, and he realized that most of the people who stood beside Slughorn were now famous and highly successful, the kind of people Slughorn loved to brag about since he helped them get a leg-up in success, and Draco realized something important.
The ones in front were his favorites! Gemini was Slughorn's favorite, of course! It's so obvious! Draco realized. Even the Slug Club had its own hierarchy.
From Gemini's self-assured smile and relaxed pose, you'd think it were obvious, but when most of her photo's members were obviously from Slytherin, the only way to tell she was his favorite was the fact that she was the one standing beside him in the photo. Draco knew it should mean nothing, but he felt like there was something else, a bigger picture he couldn't see. With what he knew, there were a hundred options where Gemini could have ended up in, but when he took everything he knew into consideration, the options began to narrow down
Until finally, he saw it.
Gemini was Slughorn's favorite. She's also Head Girl, Prefect, and one of the brightest students. Draco thought excitedly. I think I know where she is.
There were so many places for her to go.
There was only one place Slughorn would help her go.
And lucky for Draco, the train was taking him there.