Chapter 21

The group of five seventh year Ravenclaws rushed up the stairs towards their dormitory, despite the fact that their classes were due to start within a few minutes and that they all carried heavy school bags over their arms.

As Rosamunde pushed past a first-year, who had dropped his bag and goggled at her blatantly, the edge of her own bag knocked the boy over, causing Wendelin to exclaim, "Rosa! Careful."

Dom held out his hand to the boy, who now seemed to be even more in awe of Dom than he was of Rosamunde, and said, "You're alright. Better hurry on to class." The boy looked nervously at the crowd of seventh-years and ran away clutching his bag to his chest.

Norbert, running his hand uneasily through his spiky blond hair as he looked at his watch, asked grimly, "Are we sure that it was a Lecteur? It could have just been a blue envelope. Lecteurs are pretty rare things."

Rosamunde turned on Norbert and snapped, "Yes, well how often is someone at the school summoned to court, approached by debt collectors, or notified of a death? Usually that is what it means to get a Lecteur, so of course they are rare."

Dom narrowed his green eyes at Rosamunde and said roughly, "We understand that, Dawlish, which is why we are all here."

Turning on his heel, Dom shoved open the door and they all hurried into the common room in time to hear Dreda shout into the fireplace, "…and I thought that I really could! But apparently all it takes is some Firewhisky and suddenly I mean nothing to you."

His mouth gaping, Jonathan looked at Dom, who stepped back and gestured to Norbert.

They could hear a very hoarse voice plead, "Please, Dreda. I meant that I would do anything that you asked."

Dreda lifted her wand and pointed it at the head in the flames saying nastily, "Anything?"

Marcus Flint's raw voice was audible throughout the Ravenclaw common room that was empty with the exception of the five friends and Dreda. "Absolutely anything."

Dreda spoke bitterly, tears rushing down her bright red cheeks. "Then go to my father voluntarily. Only if you can convince him that you love me will I ever speak to you again." A line of green sparks flew from her wand and bounced off the fire plate as Dreda waved her wand wildly. "Don't speak to me, don't write to me, don't try to do anything to see me. I am not your fiancée, I am nothing to you."

The three wizards in the room were all huddled near the door to the room, looking as if they knew that they should retreat, but were afraid that to do so would attract attention. Rosamunde and Wendelin had both moved on either side of Dreda, who had not yet seemed to notice their presence as she commanded once more, "Go to my father, Marcus. I want you to tell him what you did and then dare to say that you love me."

There was almost total silence in the room, except for the crackling of the flames and Dreda breathing heavily as she waited for Marcus' answer. After several moments everyone could hear as Marcus responded – the fear in his voice palpable, "Alright, Dreda. I will go to your father. I will tell him everything."

Dreda did not respond, but stood with her head held high so her long black hair streamed down her back and her brown eyes were blazing as she watched the fireplace.

Speaking almost unintelligibly, Marcus said thickly, "I do love you, Dreda, and I am sorry."

Dreda only yelled, "Go," and pointed her wand at the fireplace to end the Floo connexion, before collapsing onto her knees with a moaning scream. As Rosamunde and Wendelin huddled Dreda between them with their arms hugging her closely, Dreda sobbed in deep, guttural moans on the floor in front of the raging fire. The three wizards by common assent slipped from the room and into the hall outside the Ravenclaw dormitory entrance where they immediately began to stand on guard.

After almost ten minutes of continued wailing, Dreda said suddenly, "You don't know, you don't know what he did. I believed him. I really believed that he loved me. I was such a fool. Aunt Lysandra always told me that you could never trust a wizard. She always said that wizards don't fall in love, that it is all just lust and that I was better off without a wizard."

Rosamunde patted Dreda's back and said, "Shhh. I know, honey. I know."

"Well I was stupid. I was so stupid and I fell in love with him. How could I have been such an idiot?"

Wendelin said soothingly, "You weren't stupid, Dreda. It will be alright."

"No it won't. He cheated on me! He slept with some horrid slag when he was drunk. It is sordid and cheap and disgusting."

Speechless, Rosamunde looked to Wendelin, who replied, "He wrote the Lecteur, Dreda?"

Dreda impatiently gestured and said, "Yes, of course. He wanted me to have to listen to all his explanations. His promises that he would do anything to prove his love. His apologies, over and over the apologies. And his stupid, useless, lying declarations of love. I hate him. I hate him."

Rosamunde put her arm about Dreda again and did not speak as they all three huddled together once more.

Finally Wendelin asked, "You sent him to your father, Dreda?"

Dreda nodded and tried to choke another sob as she mopped her face with Rosamunde's handkerchief.

"Is his death what you really want?"

Rosamunde's eyes snapped to Wendelin's in shock, but Wendelin continued seriously, "Do you really, truly want Marcus dead, Dreda? Because you have just ordered his murder by sending him to your father."

Dreda stood up and stared into the fire as she said unstably, "I hate him. Don't you see what he has done to me? He made a fool of me. He lied to me. He has embarrassed me forever in front of my family. I hate him."

Wendelin also stood and asked again, this time more forcefully, "Do you want him to die by extended torture at the end of your father's wand?"

Dreda turned to Wendelin and her eyes suddenly focussed as she said, "What?"

"You have just sent Marcus to your father, Dreda."

"Oh, oh Wendelin. Daddy will kill him. He will kill him! Oh Marcus, what have I done? What was I thinking?"

Wendelin reached into a tall flowered vase on one of the bookcases near the fireplace and took out a large handful of Floo powder. "You are going to Floo your father and you are going to explain to him that if he kills Marcus then you will never forgive him. You must be firm, Dreda. You have to be very clear with your father about exactly what you want him to do when Marcus comes and even more precise about what you will never forgive your father for doing or else he will destroy Marcus. Do this right now, Dreda. Because Marcus is probably so distraught that he has gone straight there."

Dreda let out a panicked scream. "Hurry up, Wen. Hurry!"

Wendelin tossed the powder into the flames and shouted, "Ethelwulfburga Estate, Yaxley, Cambridgeshire!"

As soon he saw Wendelin enter the Great Hall, Dom excused himself from the conversation with Jonathan and stood up. Walking down the table so that he was standing in front of Wendelin and beside Rosamunde as they began to sit, Dom held out that morning's Daily Prophet to Wendelin and said, "Fourth page, bottom."

Wendelin nodded curtly as Rosamunde said, "Hello Bradley."

Dom asked Rosamunde seriously, "She is still not coming down?"

Rosamunde shook her head. "Madame Pomfrey has given her another calming draught and she is going to attend classes today, but she just can't bear coming down to the Hall. She is afraid that everyone knows."

Dom frowned. "We didn't say anything. Norbert didn't even tell Harold what we heard."

Wendelin handed the newspaper to Rosamunde and looked at Dom. "Thank you. That article won't make her any more comfortable, but we had to see what the public will know."

Dom nodded again and turned to go back to his seat.

"Wen, this isn't good. There will be an investigation."

Wendelin shook her head. "The article only says that Marcus was found unconscious in a side alley of Hogsmeade. Hogsmeade could mean anyone attacked him. Marcus is refusing to give any details about who his attacker was, so they don't know where to look. They even interrogated that player that he fouled nine times in his last Quidditch match. They have no idea who did it, Rosa. The only thing that they have been able to discover is what curses were used, which is a good thing because that makes healing him easier."

Rosamunde whispered, "But it says that an Unforgivable is suspected."

Wendelin shrugged. "Well, the Cruciatus Curse is very effective, if rather unoriginal. I would guess that they also found evidence of a Bleeding Curse, a Suffocation Curse, and some psychologically based curses, as well."

Rosamunde shivered. "I don't like Flint, you know that I don't. But to undergo all that…"

Wendelin replied, "It took courage going there, Rosa. He knew what was going to happen. He probably expected to die, actually."

Rosamunde stared disbelievingly at Wendelin. "No one would do that, Wen, not if you knew they were going to kill you."

"There is no way that he did not know. He is an idiot and a bastard, but he must truly love her if he went to Uncle Hunwald to beg forgiveness."

Rosamunde whispered, "But she will never forgive him either, Wendelin."

Wendelin smiled sadly, "Yes she will. You heard her, Rosamunde. She loves him – even more than I had suspected. When she can be convinced that he really does love her then she will forgive him."

Rosamunde shook her head. "No. You know what she is like. Once she has turned on you then she is lost to you forever."

Wendelin peered down the table towards Philomena Hood, who had been Dreda's closest friend for most of their first year, and said, "You are right, of course, but Rosa, she hasn't turned on him. Didn't you hear the desperation in her voice as she pleaded with Uncle Hunwald? She loves Marcus."

Rosamunde groaned. "He doesn't deserve her."

Wendelin frowned. "No, but that doesn't change anything. I just hope that her brothers don't decide to do anything stupid."

Rosamunde's cheeks reddened. "I don't think that they will."

Wendelin looked intently at Rosamunde. "Has Wilfred told you so specifically?"

Rosamunde answered, "Well I told him that if they even so much as raised a wand in the same general direction as Marcus that Dreda would never forgive them and that I certainly would never speak to him again. It was the first owl that I have ever sent him, too, which ought to mean something to him since he's written me at least 20. He has promised me that he won't and if he wants he can control Eldred." After a moment, Rosamunde suddenly exclaimed, "Wait, how did you know?"

Wendelin rolled her eyes. "I have been certain that Wilfred has been writing you since October. I don't know if Dreda knows though. Anyway, we know very few people other than the Yaxleys who could afford that Christmas gift you got either."

Rosamunde's face was flushed deep red. "Well just because I sent him one owl doesn't mean anything really."

"If you secured a promise from Wilfred not to finish off Marcus, Rosamunde, than you have done more than just write him an owl."

Rosamunde clenched her jaws and replied, "Well I only said that I thought that he was a rotten, selfish, egotistical prat and that he was exactly the opposite of what I was interested in dating."

"Rosa, tell me what you did."

"Well I haven't done it, but if I send another owl then I have."

Wendelin leant across the table. "What are you planning to do?"

"I will give Frenchy the heave and agree to meet Wilfred on the next Hogsmeade visit."

"That is in March. There is no chance that is all Wilfred wants from you."

"Well I'll write to him, too."

"Rosamunde is he blackmailing you into being his girlfriend if he agrees not to harm Marcus?"

Rosamunde looked away from Wendelin. "No. He has been asking me in every single owl he's sent since September to write him and to meet him in Hogsmeade alone. Wilfred hasn't made me promise anything. I was going to offer it to him."

Wendelin exclaimed with horror, "Rosamunde! No."

Rosamunde ran a hand across her very pretty face and answered, "He wrote back to my owl and has promised to allow his father to manage Marcus. I didn't promise anything and he didn't even include his usual request to meet him or ask that I would write him again. But if I tell Wilfred that I've stopped seeing Frenchy and imply that I might meet him in Hogsmeade in March then he might be more inclined not to act rashly."

Wendelin repeated, "No. No, Rosa."

"Why?"

"Because you don't like him. You are just using him like you did Harold and de Villepin."

Rosamunde looked with surprise at Wendelin. "I would have thought that if you knew Wilfred was writing then you would have understood that he is the reason that I broke up with Harold and why I started seeing Frenchy in the first place, because nothing else would upset Wilfred more than a Beauxbatons student."

Wendelin stared at Rosamunde and gasped, "But you don't actually want him, do you?"

Rosamunde shook her head. "No, I am still not sure that I do. I hadn't intended to give Wilfred a chance until at least late March, but if it could help Dreda then I would kiss him right here in the middle of the Hall and sort out just how much I like him or not. I'm not going to use him, Wen. I'm just going to finally give him a chance to get what he wants. That doesn't mean I'll make it easy for him."