Ch. 20: Brothers
If he was to be honest with himself, he wasn't too surprised that Malfoy was spying on him, and Nezumi by extension, planning his revenge. He wasn't surprised that Malfoy suspected him to be the culprit behind his shameful, pumpkin-infested show either. He had been more surprised when Malfoy didn't demand for Snape to check his wand in the aftermath of that performance. However, that didn't mean that he was happy to hear about it.
Maybe he should start to think about some permanent protection against malevolent spells, he thought as he ate the dinner that day. He had no desire to be made fun of in any way and, while Malfoy would most certainly not harm him in any permanent way, we wouldn't put it past the other Slytherin to vanish all of his clothes. Or restore to good old brute force and attempt to beat him up.
How bothersome, he thought. At least Hermione seemed to believe him when he said that it wasn't him to curse Malfoy. He was sure that Elizabeth would ask him again, once they would be alone, because she had looked at him speculatively when he had fed Hermione his lie.
He snapped out of his thoughts to listen to Hermione's description of the detention and some of his good mood returned. He was glad that Malfoy would pay properly for trying to beat Shion up again. Although, of course, the detention was nothing compared to the fact that Malfoy had learnt their biggest secret now, or rather, Shion's biggest secret. Ciel had no doubts that the Slytherin would use the knowledge most painfully.
'I hope they suffer,' Lizzy said in a manner completely uncharacteristic for her, after Hermione finished the short description of the detention. 'I hope that Hagrid has some absolutely nasty things in store for them,' she added viciously. Ciel smirked.
'Even if that means we will have to deal with them during the lessons afterwards?' he asked lightly, making everybody wince at the thought. 'Not that I don't want them to suffer, but I quite hope that it is nothing overly carnivore that Hagrid came up with,' he added, not even trying to hide his dislike for the teacher. Hermione straightened in her chair and Ciel remembered that he had seen her visit the half-giant.
'One thing you can be sure of,' she said, not sounding overly happy. 'Is that Hagrid hates Malfoy just as much as Harry does.'
'That's good for us,' Nezumi pointed out with a smirk. 'Kruspe has no love for Malfoy either, probably,' he added. Ciel wondered how it was possible that Nezumi was still sitting with them, allowing Safu to be alone with Shion. Then again, he thought, the latter was incredibly oblivious for a Ravenclaw, at least when it concerned girls.
'I find it amazing that there is, in fact, something you guys have in common with Harry and Ron,' Hermione commented with a laugh. Nezumi looked as though she had slapped him in the face and Ciel supposed that he had a similar expression. Hermione laughed harder and even Lizzy looked like she was amused. 'If that's any consolation to you, they would have reacted the same,' Hermione said, standing up and excusing herself from the table, saying that she needed to share the joyful news, about the detention, with her fellow Gryffindors.
Ciel watched her go for a moment, before shaking his head and finishing his dinner in silence. When they were all done, he suggested to Elizabeth that they would walk her back to her common room, just in case Malfoy got some stupid ideas. He didn't like the thought of having to walk around the whole castle with her and their two, friendly Ravenclaws, but if that was what was required, he was going to do it.
Nezumi agreed with him, when Lizzy tried to protest that it shouldn't be necessary, so they went with her, chatting idly on the way, as though it was nothing out of order for two Slytherins to walk a Hufflepuff to her dormitory after dinner. Really, Ciel thought, there shouldn't have to be anything out of order about that.
'You guys are sweet,' Lizzy said when they reached the entrance to her common room. Ciel smiled at her in reply. 'Really, though I suppose you should go and check up on Shion and Safu now,' she added and kissed Ciel's cheek, saying "good night". Ciel could feel himself blush.
'Don't I get a kiss?' Nezumi mocked them, faking a pout when she said he didn't. 'Well then, good night, princess,' he waved at her and they left.
'I wish I knew what Malfoy was planning,' Ciel muttered when Lizzy went through the door to her common room. 'Do you imagine how boring it's going to be to be on guard all the time now?' he asked.
'It's not like you were off guard before around Malfoy,' Nezumi pointed out as they made their way out of the basements. 'I suppose he's going to bask in the newly discovered gossip for a while now, so we can figure out some protective spells,' he added casually, as though he wasn't worried in the slightest.
'Do you want to make a detour by the Room?' Ciel asked, changing the topic. Not for the shortest while did he think that Shion actually went to his dormitory when he parted with Hermione. The Room of Requirement became a sort of sanctuary for the five of them, and especially for Shion, this year. In the previous years, they used it, of course, to spend some time together on the rainy or cold days or to get a rest from the rest of the school. This year, however, and even more so after the shower fiasco, Shion was spending so much time in the Room that Professor Flitwick started questioning him about his whereabouts in the evenings.
'I'm wondering,' Nezumi admitted with a heavy sigh. 'If we go and make a fuss out of that, it will be even worse. If we don't go and Safu would say something stupid,' he trailed off. Neither of them expected Safu to say anything stupid though. 'I suppose we can go back to the dormitory and make our plans concerning Malfoy tonight and if things are out of control tomorrow then we will wonder.'
'Your choice,' Ciel muttered, unconvinced. 'Although I suppose that we better not spend another night outside the dormitory or Snape will start to investigate,' he added, noticing how Nezumi winced at his words.
'That is a very good point, my dear brother,' he said. 'I would hate to test just how friendly Snape can be in the face of an evil curse also,' he added and Ciel nodded his agreement. Their head of House might have been one of the two teachers that haven't given Shion any trouble that year, but he wasn't getting nicer just because of that.
They were about halfway to their common room, when a hand shot out of the adjacent corridor and pulled Ciel into the shadows. Shocked as he was, he had his wand out and was opening his mouth to curse the attacker, before he realised that it was Safu. He sagged in relief and lowered his wand as Nezumi, who had also drawn his wand, pointed out that it was a very stupid thing to do.
'Whatever,' Safu commented and, as his eyes got used to the relative darkness of the corridor, Ciel noticed that she looked worried. In fact, she looked to be on the verge of tears, he realised with worry.
'Did something happen?' he asked, trying to keep the possible explanations of her distress under control. The last thing he needed was to start panicking about something when Malfoy could, in fact, be around the corner with a wand drawn.
'Shion locked me out of the Room,' she said without any preamble, shocking him out of his thoughts. Shion locked Safu out? 'Or I cannot figure out the place he chose it to be and cannot get in,' she amended grudgingly, looking away.
'And you want us to try?' he asked, wondering if there would be a reason for Shion to let him in if he didn't want Safu to come. She nodded, still looking away. She brushed her cheek impatiently.
'You know him best,' she said and sniffed. Was she crying? Ciel hoped she wasn't, because he really wasn't good in comforting people, especially crying girls. 'I thought I did as well, but maybe I don't know anything at all,' she added with another sniff and stiffened when Nezumi pulled her into a wordless hug. After a couple of seconds, she moved to hug him back and, for a minute or two, they stood in silence. Ciel watched them, grateful that his brother was there as well.
'I need to go,' Safu whispered eventually, pulling away from Nezumi, and left, nearly running away, not looking at either of them. They didn't say anything until her footsteps faded away. Only then did Ciel look at Nezumi, meeting the worried, grey gaze.
'I suppose you better go,' he said calmly, watching Nezumi's eyes widen and surprise and then narrow with an emotion that he didn't care to decipher.
'I? You don't want to go?' Nezumi asked, making Ciel roll his eyes.
'You know how good I am with emotional people,' he pointed out. 'I will just be sitting there, gritting my teeth at the injustice of the world, feeling out of place. Besides, if Shion doesn't even want Safu there,' he left the sentence unfinished, knowing that his brother would understand the unspoken message.
'Don't be stupid. Safu is "just" a friend and you're like a brother to him,' Nezumi pointed out. 'Or do I need to remind you of his sulking when he realised that we would be officially brothers?' he asked with a laugh and Ciel was forced to smile, despite the situation. He remembered, of course, how Shion seemed to be disappointed after he had found out that Nezumi and Ciel would become brothers as the aftermath of the fire. It took them a week to get it out of Shion that he wanted to be their brother as well.
'Besides, it's not like I'm going to leave you alone to be beaten up or something,' Nezumi added in a light tone, as they left the dark corridor. 'With all due respect, you cannot take on both Crabbe and Goyle.'
'I know I cannot do that,' Ciel replied testily, all his good mood gone. He didn't like to be reminded about his weaknesses and he didn't like to be reminded about Malfoy. 'Unless of course I curse them into the following week as soon as they make the smallest threatening move,' he reminded his brother in the same tone. 'You do not think that I would actually try to tackle them physically, do you?'
'Sorry, sorry,' Nezumi replied, not sounding extremely sorry at all. They walked in silence for a while. Wondering about Shion seemed pointless, since they would soon see what the situation was, so Ciel let his thoughts wander to Malfoy, inevitably arriving at the topic of the weekend detention with Hagrid and Kruspe. Shion was probably more than lucky that it was Kruspe who interrupted in the library because almost all the other teachers appeared to have something against him. Even Hagrid, whom Hermione seemed to like so much, has given Shion a detention in December. Because there was no real reason for the detention, Shion assumed it was because Hagrid was on Potter's side. Ciel wondered if Hermione knew about that.
'Ha! Easy,' Nezumi said, snapping him out of his thoughts as the door to the Room of Requirement appeared in front of them. Ciel shook his head at the triumphal smile on his brother's face. He was about to tell him to not get ahead of himself too much, but Nezumi opened the door and they entered a room that seemed to be the exact copy of the springtime sitting room in the Middleford mansion. It was completely random. There was no way Safu could have guessed correctly the room, so maybe Shion hadn't locked her out after all.
'Why here?' he asked, not expecting an answer, because Shion hasn't even moved when they entered. He was sitting on the floor against the wall, leaning against one of the huge windows, looking outside at the magnificent garden, where roses were in full bloom. Sun was shining through the windows, casting shadows in the corners.
'Because it has nothing to do with this mess,' Shion whispered tonelessly, not turning to look at them. If the room had been as big as the Muggle library, they wouldn't have heard him.
'How the hell did you figure it out?' Ciel asked Nezumi as they crossed the room.
'I didn't,' Nezumi replied promptly. 'I asked the Room to see Shion,' he explained with a smug smile as he sat down on the floor next to the boy, who still didn't move. Ciel sat opposite to him, leaning against the window with his back and turning to look at the other two. He could see now that Shion has been crying, but he seemed to have calmed down now.
He fully intended to let Nezumi handle the situation, so he waited for his brother to be the first one to speak or move, but Nezumi didn't do anything. He simply sat there, looking at Shion, waiting. Eventually, Shion took a deep, shaky breath and turned to look at them. Ciel gasped at the red imprint of a hand on his right cheek, which was previously invisible for them. Nezumi reached out slowly to touch it as Shion took another deep breath and exhaled shakily.
'I forgot the spell to remove it,' he whispered, his voice quivering, his eyes welling up with fresh tears. Without hesitation, Ciel took his wand out and waved it, casting a spell. The red mark faded from Shion's pale skin. 'Thank you.'
'Don't mention it,' Ciel muttered. A single tear rolled down Shion's face and Nezumi brushed it away delicately. Feeling as out of place as he had predicted he would, Ciel looked away from the two of them when Shion's eyes closed.
'My mind is completely blank,' Shion whispered. 'The only thing I can think of is that it's all over now and that Malfoy will not let such an occasion pass.'
'No, he won't,' Nezumi replied quietly. Ciel gritted his teeth. Really, what was there to say in a situation like that? Of course, it could be for the best because if everybody knew then they would maybe understand. This thought has crossed his mind countless times, but Shion didn't even want to hear about it.
'He figured that it was your mom's curse also,' Shion whispered and Ciel looked at him wide-eyed. Of course Malfoy would have figured that out. His father had probably used the House Curses as well! Ciel winced at the thought of the gossip that would circle the school now.
'I'm sorry,' Shion added and, with some horror, Ciel realised just why he wanted to keep the curse a secret. He didn't want Ciel and Nezumi to be reminded that their mother has been a Deatheater. He sighed.
'Sometimes you're so thick, Shion,' he whispered before he managed to stop himself. 'Do you really think we were worried about that?' he asked when the violet eyes looked at him in surprise. 'Alright, we were a bit, but this is the smallest problem of them all.'
'It has always been about you, Shion,' Nezumi agreed, probably having reached the same conclusions as Ciel. 'Mother made the mistake. Whether or not she really did it to protect us, we will probably never know, but it doesn't matter anymore. She is paying for that mistake and she alone should be the one to pay for it.'
'Somehow I don't see the noble Gryffindors seeing it that way,' Shion protested with a sniff, although he seemed to feel a bit better already. Has he really been worried that Ciel and Nezumi would be angry?
'It's their problem,' Ciel told him firmly. Nezumi nodded. Shion smiled a bit.
'You're really not mad?' he asked. Ciel rolled his eyes and told him that he will get mad if Shion would continue to worry about that. Nezumi added, with a sly smirk, that it took more than Malfoy's stupid gossip to make them mad at their little brother. In reply, Shion, looking thoroughly insulted, punched his arm, pointing out that they were the same age. More – he was older since he was born in September and Ciel and Nezumi were born in December. Needless to say that it only made Nezumi laugh.
Ciel shook his head with resignation.