Emilie didn't fancy taking orders from Kurt, but there was nothing else for it. She had done little to ingratiate herself with Rosier and his cronies since the incident in the common room, spending the first part of the week trailing after Geoff, trying to coerce him into speaking to her, but to no avail; the Gryffindor had remained firmly oblivious to any and all of her attempts to communicate. After the fifth full day of total rejection, she had effected a new strategy, turning an equally cold shoulder to him - or would have, had he made any attempt to initiate contact, which he didn't.
Rounding the corner toward Dumbledore's office, Emilie jumped back behind the wall at the sight of Sirius, James, Mariah, and Geoff standing in the corridor, speaking in hushed tones. She had not expected to really gain anything from lurking outside the headmaster's office, and instead had found a potential goldmine. Before she could begin to question what their powwow could be about, Sirius and Geoff took off down one corridor, James and Mariah stalling for a few more moments before heading off another direction. After a quick mental calculation, the Slytherin decided Mariah and James were the safer bet, and set off after her, careful to stay just out of sight.
The Gryffindors' pace was brisk as they traveled through the castle, and Emilie nearly lost them down several hidden passageways, but Mariah and James finally stopped at a dead-end fourth floor corridor in front of an oversized mirror, the frame of which had been carved to resemble what Emilie supposed was meant to be something akin to a burly troll with a severe underbite. Emilie watched for what seemed like an eternity as the pair ahead of her stared at the mirror and then began examining the frame, pulling out their wands and tapping it in a few places, then beginning to tap on the stone wall around the mirror. Mariah replaced the wand within her robes and returned to the mirror and grabbed James's sleeve, examining the frame closely again before reaching out and moving some part of it that Emilie couldn't see from her hiding place. The effect of whatever it was Mariah had done was immediate and evident - the surface of the mirror shimmered and became translucent long enough for James and Mariah to step through, before representing itself as a mirror once more.
Emilie allowed them a thirty second head-start down the hidden passage before making her own way toward the mirror. She examined the spot that Mariah had touched and saw a plaque (which informed her that the mirror was, indeed, fashioned after a troll named Bluebell), above which was a small round lever. She flipped it, the mirror shimmered, and she stepped through. The mirror sealed behind her, and the passage was engulfed in darkness.
Emilie drew her wand but didn't dare light it, inching forward slowly down the passageway in pursuit of the pair of Gryffindors. Fortunately, the floor of the passageway was smooth, and before long, Emilie saw the light of their wands casting vague shadows on the walls of the passageway. The Slytherin girl continued forward, careful to keep her footfalls light on the stone floor. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest; the Gryffindors were clearly up to something - likely on Dumbledore's orders, if their meeting place outside his office was anything to go by - and they had a secret passageway to get them to wherever it was they were going. The passage widened into a large, cavernous room; torches along the walls sprang to life as she entered, and for a moment Emilie stopped dead in her tracks, wand poised at the ready, waiting to see if either of them would backtrack. But the Gryffindors did not reappear, and Emilie continued onward, pulse pounding loudly in her ears as she anticipated an attack, but none came.
The torches somewhere behind her extinguished themselves, and she once again found herself in total darkness; the wand light that had danced ahead of her previously was nowhere to be seen. For an instant, she thought she'd lost the Gryffindors, and she quickened her pace slightly, but when she rounded the next corner in the tunnel, a jet of red light sailed over her head and crashed into the tunnel wall. Within seconds, Emilie had sent a jet of light shooting from the tip of her own wand in retaliation. The Gryffindors each leapt to one side, and the Slytherin girl's curse hit the tunnel wall between them.
James raised his wand to fire another spell at Emilie, but with an earsplitting crack, the tunnel wall split in two, and the ceiling began to collapse.
The two teenagers stood on the street corner, cloaks pulled tightly around them as the chilly January wind tugged at the hems of their robes. Their breath rose in a misty vapor before them, mingling with the thin trails of smoke rising from the ends of their lit cigarettes.
"This is shit," Sirius said, dropping the butt of his most recent cigarette onto the pavement and grinding it out with his heel. "I thought Dumbledore had a mission for us, not just standing around."
"Someone's got to do it," Geoff answered, taking a drag on his own cigarette as he glanced down the street at their target. The Lestranges' house was dark except for a light on the second floor, and since they'd been standing on the street corner, working their way through a pack of Muggle smokes (to really fit the bill for a good stake-out, according to Sirius), no one had come or gone from the house, and barely half a dozen people had passed by down the street.
"So get a bloody third-year to do it." Sirius thrust out his hand for another smoke. Geoff obliged. "We're basically done with school. Let us do some real work. I mean, we're practically Aurors, y'know? And what really hacks me off," he added, lighting his fresh cigarette with the tip of his wand, "is that the fucking Lestranges are out there doing fuck only knows what, while we're stuck with Dumbledore sending us doing shit like this when we could be out there stopping them."
"We can't stop them if we don't know what they're doing," he said. "That's why Dumbledore sent us here."
"I still say it's bullshit," Sirius grumbled, watching a passing witch as she stopped to pick a flower from the bushes near the Lestranges' front gate, but turned his gaze elsewhere as she continued walking.
"I still say Dumbledore knows what he's doing. Besides," Geoff added, pausing to knock the ash from the end of his cigarette before taking another drag on it, "surveillance out here is better than another debacle like the Slytherin common room."
Sirius groaned loudly. "I thought we'd all agreed not to talk about that."
"I think we should be talking about it! I mean we finally have undeniable proof that Em-" Geoff broke off abruptly as another pedestrian appeared at the street corner, consulting a roll of parchment as he passed by the row of houses, apparently looking for an address. The man passed by the Lestranges' without pausing longer than it took to read the number on the letterbox. "I saw her Dark Mark, Sirius," Geoff hissed, smoke streaming out from between his lips. "I'd think you of all people would want to talk about-"
"I practically had a threesome with Mariah and Lovell in the Slytherin dorms," Sirius cut in. "Not exactly something I want to re-live."
"Come on, I know you're dying to say 'I told you so,' so go ahead and say it. You were right all along, Emilie's a Death Eater, and..." Geoff trailed off as Sirius raised a hand to silence him. The dark-haired Gryffindor was suddenly rigid, staring at the latest figure that had appeared on the corner of the street. "What? He's not one of the Lestranges. Probably just a neighbor."
"Shut up, Mansfield. Act casual." Silence passed between them as they watched the tall, dark-haired man slowly make his way down the row of houses. Geoff hesitantly raised his cigarette to his lips and shot a sideways glance at Sirius, who was acting anything but casual, still rigidly staring at the man. The man didn't seem interested in two teenagers smoking on the corner, though, his slow strides becoming more purposeful as he neared his destination, finally stopping at the Lestranges' gate, unlatching it with a wave of his hand, and making his way toward the door.
The door shut behind the man, and the two teenagers continued to stand, staring at the doorway as though waiting for him to re-emerge.
"Bloody hell," Sirius breathed after several moments. "I've sat through enough of Mum's dinner parties to recognize that guy anywhere. It's Lovell."
Geoff snorted. "I've sat through enough classes to know you're full of shit. That wasn't Kurt."
"Aldrik Lovell. Lovell, Senior - Kurt's dad," Sirius said, exasperated. He glanced sideways at Geoff and saw the ginger's eyebrows raised. "I'd say reconnaissance just got a lot more interesting."
Before Geoff could open his mouth to protest, Sirius was half-dragging him down the street toward the Lestrange home.
Mariah coughed as the dust settled and the last few pebbles toppled to the floor. She felt around for her wand, but couldn't find it in the dark. She could hear shuffling about 15 feet back the way they'd come, but she couldn't hear anyone nearer.
"James! James where are you!"
"I'm ok!" she heard a muffled voice answer from the other side of the rock wall that had formed beside her. "Just lost my wand- ah there it is. Lumos!"
"I can't find my wand!" Mariah shouted.
"Fuck..." groaned the assailant from somewhere nearby.
"Emilie?" asked Mariah
"Yeah. No need to shout."
"Why were you following us?"
A brief pause. "I'd never seen this passage before, and wanted to see where it went?" answered Emilie unconvincingly.
"Who are you talking to?" shouted James from behind the wall.
"It's Emilie Delacroix, she followed us!" Mariah shouted back. She heard James cursing but couldn't make out his exact words. One sounded an awful lot like "punt," though.
"Is she armed?" he called finally.
"Wouldn't you like to know," Emilie grumbled somewhere in the darkness.
"Unarmed!" Mariah called through the rock.
"Look, okay, Mariah, are you okay waiting here until I get back? We've only got a few hours..."
"Yeah, go on ahead. I'll see if I can move some of this rock and find my wand," said Mariah.
"Alright. Don't worry, I'll get you both out when I get back," said James.
"Good luck!" shouted Mariah, but James didn't answer. He'd already gone.
"Would you quit with the shouting?" Emilie asked. Her voice had moved to what Mariah could only assume was the other end of the cave-in, presumably in search of her wand. "My head is killing me. Where were you two going anyway?"
"None of your business," said Mariah, sighing.
"Worth a shot," she heard Emilie sigh as well.
They sat in the dark for a minute or so, the silence between them unbroken. As Mariah felt her way along the rocks blocking the way they'd come in search of loose stones, she noticed with some gratitude that the rock walls were fairly dry and in no way slimy.
"I can't find my wand," said Emilie. "We need some light if we're going to get out of here."
Mariah felt the Slytherin girl's hands brush over her feet as she moved closer to try to shove the rocks aside. "This wall is pretty solid, I don't know if we can dig ourselves out," she said doubtfully.
"Check the other side," Emilie said. Mariah turned and took a step but Emilie cried out, "Ahhh my hand!"
"Oh, sorry," said Mariah, stepping off and continuing to feel her way toward the other wall. Her foot connected with a stray pebble, and it skittered away across the floor, clacking loudly against the stone.
"Would you be careful? We don't want to snap one of our wands on accident trying to dig ourselves out."
Mariah stopped walking, shuffling her feet forward instead in big arcs, feeling for her wand. "This wall's solid, too," she said once she'd reached the other side.
"Great," sighed Emilie. Judging from the slither of fabric, the Slytherin girl had let herself slide to the ground, leaning against the rock wall. Mariah did likewise on her end of the chamber, feeling the floor around her absent-mindedly for her wand. The two girls sat in silence for several long minutes, hearing nothing but the distant echoes of echoes from either end of the tunnel.
"How much you want to bet our wands are buried under two tons of rock?" asked Emilie at length.
"Don't worry, people don't break their wands every day. I'm sure we'll find them once James gets back and we get some light in here," said Mariah. She was doubtful, but Emilie sounded glum.
"Your optimism never ceases to amaze me," Emilie said. "Your boyfriend's fighting for the other side? No problem. Your father's been kidnapped? Classes per usual. Wand crushed in a dark tunnel? Cake."
"Do you know where my father is, Emilie?" asked Mariah quietly.
The Slytherin's answer was immediate and short. "No."
"But you have the Mark."
Emilie gave a derisive snort in the darkness. "You think the Dark Lord lets us in on every single tiny detail of his plan? Please. Have you ever heard of pawns? And anyway, it's not like Dumbledore lets you in on all the people he's keeping captive. Take your situation and flip it around, and we're in the same boat, you and me. Pawns."
"Dumbledore hasn't got anyone captive," said Mariah, frowning.
Emilie laughed humorlessly. "My point exactly."
Mariah paused. "Emilie, can I ask you something?"
"Why not? Not like either of us is going anywhere any time soon," said Emilie from the dark.
"Is Kurt really a Death Eater?"
"He has a Mark," said Emilie.
"Is that a yes?"
"That's an answer."
"Emilie, please. You know you could probably get back on Geoff's good side if you'd let us in on what the Slyth-I mean, the Death Eaters are planning. You're not a bad person, you don't have to side with them," said Mariah.
Emilie sighed. "I wouldn't expect a mudbl-" She broke off abruptly. "It's not that simple," she amended. "You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
"Oh please like I'm going to bare my soul to Jiggery Jaeger."
"Come on, Emilie, what else are we going to talk about until James gets back, huh?"
"We don't have to talk at all."
"Hey, you said earlier that neither of us is going anywhere any time soon."
There was a long silence from the other end of the chamber. It was long enough that Mariah began to wonder if Emilie was serious about neither of them speaking until James returned.
"Mariah," the Slytherin said at last, "I know we aren't really friends, but can I tell you something? It's... kind of a secret. I haven't told anyone."
Mariah snorted from her end of the chamber. "What, did Geoff knock you up before you two ended things?"
A very pregnant pause fell between them. Mariah waited for Emilie to respond, but the Slytherin girl remained silent. In the darkness, Mariah's eyes widened.
"Oh my God."