Chapter Five: In Which Nothing Important Happens
The first week of school was hectic. It was difficult to get used to waking up early enough to get a shower, or to share a room with two other girls. To make up for it, that Saturday Beth slept in until she couldn't live with the guilt, then sat by the fire and read a paperback novel for a bit. The novel was about a boy who, on his eleventh birthday, discovered that he had been born with incredible magical powers. He was the youngest of his kind, and special because he was the Seeker. It was called The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, and it was an enthralling read. After a while she wandered down to the Great Hall for a late breakfast.
Melissa was there already, having a conversation with Pansy Parkinson. Richard would be proud that she was getting on her assignment already, Beth thought. She sat down beside them.
"Where's Bruce?"
Melissa narrowed her eyes. "Out with the old boy's club, where else? Can't expect to see him on Saturdays until Quidditch season is over."
"Draco's simply thrilled that he was chosen to be Seeker," Pansy said, leaning over to them. She had a small, puggish face that made her look mean. "You should just hear him going on. 'I'm going to smash Potter, I can't wait to go up against Potter.' It's really quite cute."
"Think he has a chance against Potter?" asked Beth. "I mean, he's not bad."
"Absolutely," said Pansy snobbily. "I've seen them both fly, and Potter's fast, but he hasn't got Draco's grace -- or experience." She leaned in closer. "It does make a difference, doesn't it -- being pure blood, and raised like one of us, or growing up like a simple Muggle."
Raised like a simple Muggle? The blood rushed to Beth's head as she thought of her father, who'd always done the best he could even if he wasn't a wizard. An angry retort sprung to her lips, but she bit it back. It wouldn't do her any good to tell about her own parentage, if this was the kind of attitude she faced.
Melissa had caught the murderous look in Beth's eye and hastily redirected the conversation. "It's worked for Draco, he's quite the flying ace," she said. "I watched the trials, and he's up with the best of them. Aggressive, too."
Pansy giggled. "Like in the trials, when he kicked that other boy who was getting too close to the Snitch. He says he only wishes he'd get a chance to do the same to Potter."
Further conversation was disrupted by the entrance of Marcus Flint and the rest of the Quidditch team, leaning on each other's shoulders and laughing their heads off. They mobbed the empty seats at the end of the table at sat there wiping away tears of mirth on the green silk napkins.
Draco sauntered up to Pansy, who started batting her eyes at him so hard that Beth thought her eyelids were going to fly off. "You should've been there, Pansy," he drawled, standing there with a big smirk on his face. "Funniest thing you ever saw."
"What happened?" asked Pansy.
Draco stood back a bit. He was obviously gearing up for one of his famous impromptu performances. "We went onto the field -- the Gryffindors were already swooping around on those antique brooms of theirs -- so who comes to stop us but Oliver Wood." People were starting to gather around him. He put on a whiny, befuddled voice. "'We booked the field! We booked it!'" There was general laughter. "So Marcus goes up to him --" He put on the deep, aggressive voice of Marcus Flint -- "and says, 'We've got special permission to train our new Seeker.' Potter sees it's me, almost pees his pants he's so surprised, his little friends come scampering onto the field. The mudblood's like, 'At least Harry didn't buy his way onto the team!' --" Now it was the high-pitched, know-it-all voice of Granger -- "And Weasley blubbers, 'You'll pay for that, Malfoy!' and actually tries to hex me -- only his wand blows backwards and the next thing you know, Weasley's sitting on the ground burping up slugs!"
The Slytherins howled with laughter. Beth had to bury her head in her arms at the thought of big, glistening slugs gushing from the mouth of a surprised-looking Weasley.
"S-slugs," stammered Melissa, holding her sides. "That's -- beautiful --"
"Priceless," Bruce agreed, patting her on the back. "Even better, you should've seen the look on their faces when we all pulled out our new brooms! I thought Wood was going to have a seizure!"
"Wait a minute," said Melissa, "new brooms?"
A look of near ecstasy washed over Bruce's face. "You're never going to believe this, but Draco's father was so happy he made the team, that he sent over broomsticks for the whole team -- Nimbus Two Thousand and One!"
"All of you?" gasped Melissa.
"Every one," said Bruce.
"What about your Comet?" said Beth. "It just got overhauled last Christmas."
Bruce grinned. "I'll keep it, sure. The Nimbus brooms aren't ours, really, they're team property. We'll be flying those babies for years. Can't take them home over the summer, though."
Melissa crossed her arms stubbornly, and Beth guessed what was going to come out of her mouth just before it actually did. "Better keep them locked up, Bruce, that way no girls will be able to ruin them."
The grin faded from Bruce's face. "Hey now," he frowned, "why're you going on about this all? I told you any girl who makes the team can use 'em -- there just aren't any girls that ever do. We're not out to -- to keep all the girls out, or something."
"I doubt that," said Melissa scathingly. And that was all they got out of her until the subject was safely changed.
Apart from Melissa's bizarre new preoccupation with suffrage, the school year startled to settle out the way it had in past years. Bruce spent a lot of time with the Quidditch team and started carrying around a Quaffle to "get more comfortable with it". Melissa spent a lot of time with her boyfriend Galen Melhorn, who was a sixth-year Gryffindor. Beth spent a lot of time with her Alchemy book. She didn't want to think that she was over her head by taking the class, but it was sapping a lot of her energy -- and time.
"How long did you get your essay?" Melissa whispered in Transfiguration, as Professor McGonagall came around collecting their homework.
"Fourteen inches," Beth replied miserably. She'd waited until the last minute to put it together, and barely scraped past the minimum of one foot. On top of it, she'd had to stay up late to do it and was grumpy.
Melissa pursed her lips. "You're going to really be in trouble if you keep this up," she observed primly, and Beth suddenly felt like twisting Melissa's nose off. "It's like this in all your classes. Why don't you get a tutor, if Alchemy's such a problem?"
"I don't need a tutor," Beth snapped. "I need more hours in the day."
Professor McGonagall had begun to lecture, so Beth dipped a quill in her inkwell and started copying notes. The lecture went rather fast today; soon, her scroll was thick with notes. There wasn't even time to doodle along the margins. She was writing so fast, in fact, that her right hand started to cramp up. Her middle finger especially was starting to really hurt, almost like it was being gripped in a vise, or a tightening clamp --
Beth stopped writing and looked down at her hand. Her middle finger was being clamped -- the ring from the S.S.A was gradually contracting. It also seemed to be getting colder; Beth realized it suddenly, and a chill went up and down her arm. It's going to cut off my finger, she thought irrationally, and tugged at the tightening metal circle until it squeezed past her knuckle and clattered to the desk, where it immediately vanished. Beth was alarmed until she remembered that the rings could only be seen by someone who was wearing them. She clutched the ring in one hand so that she wouldn't lose it, but the cold still bit into her palm.
She looked around. Mervin was scratching at his hand, Bruce seemed to be chewing on his knuckle. Melissa had her hands crossed one on top of the other, and she looked scared.
"Well, Miss Parson?"
Beth looked up -- she had entirely forgotten about class. "I'm sorry, what was the question?"
McGonagall fixed her with that special glare that only the Slytherins ever got to see. "I said, What are the four basic degrees of transfiguration, in terms of time?"
"Momentary, temporary, prolonged, and permanent," Beth recited, only half paying attention. She had her eyes on Melissa. Gradually, the frightened look went out of Melissa's face, and her hands relaxed. Beth realized that the ring in her hand was starting to warm up again. She cast a glance at Bruce -- he looked relieved but puzzled. Mervin looked just plain confused.
Warily, she put the ring back on, ready to wrench it off again, if it began to tighten, but it acted like a perfectly normal piece of jewelry for the rest of the day. By the end of class, McGonagall had assigned another essay, this one with a sixteen-inch minimum, and all thoughts of the ring were washed from Beth's mind by a wave of pure despair.
Beth and Melissa crept down the hall together at eleven-thirty at night. They had made it a habit of sneaking to the S.S.A. as a pair; it was hard to be quiet with more than two people, but it was terribly lonely to go alone. They didn't speak until they were safely inside the Vase Room. Although neither of them had ever been caught sneaking down the hall to the meeting place, it was still a risk; Argus Filch, the caretaker, and his gray cat Mrs. Norris patrolled the hallways endlessly in search of students to punish.
Richard and most of the S.S.A was already assembled. Riggs, who as prefect should have been back in the dormitories, had obviously shirked his duties to be here. He perched in his old seat behind the enormous Ledger, and was peering through his spectacles at one vast page. Vivian stretched catlike along a low couch, with Daedalus cross-legged on the floor in front of her. Uther had commandeered the one and only armchair and slouched in it now, a look of perfect contentment on his ruddy face. Herne sat on the floor near Uther. He still didn't seem totally used to being in the company of so many older students, and beside the sixth-year Chaser, his youth was especially accented.
Mervin and Bruce filtered in, looking guilty. Evan followed a few minutes afterward. He showed no expression on his dark face, and made no move to apologize for being late. When they had all assembled, Richard cleared his throat importantly and bestowed upon them all a meaningful look.
"Did you all feel it? Wednesday afternoon?"
A pause. With a start, Beth remembered how her ring had acted strangely, growing cold and colder, tight and tighter. A ripple of recognition was spreading through the rest of the S.S.A as well. "Yes! Who was it, Rich?" Vivian asked, propping herself up on one elbow and regarding him with keen interest.
"What do you mean, who?" asked Herne curiously.
"When the rings grow cold," Richard said, "it means that a member of the S.S.A has died."
Uther sat up in surprise. "Hang on, chap, we're all here, right?"
"Of course," Riggs said impatiently, pushing up his spectacles with one slender finger. "We're not the only members."
At the front of the room, Richard was nodding. "It was an alumnus. We're members for life, you know." Something about the way he said it struck Beth as ominous. "Baltus Gatherum, class of 1948. He was actually in the student chapter at the same time as Tom Riddle, there aren't many of those left."
"How do you know?" demanded Mervin, as if it were suspicious that Richard had that kind of information.
Richard held up a cream-colored paper. "I got an owl from the President. We're all going to the funeral."
"Don't be ridiculous, Rich," Vivian laughed, before anyone else could comment. "They'll never be able to get us all out and back without tipping someone off."
"They can and they will," Richard said staunchly. "Plans are already in the works. Jules Rothbard -- he's the president of the whole thing -- will be contacting us again by this Saturday. The funeral's Sunday night. Our version, anyway," he added, with a glint in his eye.
"What do we have to do for it?" Riggs worried.
"Just show up," Richard reassured him. "Chat with the alumni for a while. They'll be interested to hear what we've been up to, and they can tell us all kinds of things about what's happened in the past at Hogwarts. It'll be fascinating." He paused. "Jerome Marx is bound to show up too."
"That's right!" said Vivian delightedly. "And the Arendts. Dell, we'll get to see Stewart again!" she exclaimed, nudging Daedalus on the shoulder. "He was president our first year," she explained. "He's great."
"May you all remember me thus," Richard said solemnly.
"Remember who?" teased Melissa, and with that the meeting was adjourned.
Friday went quickly, to Beth's great relief, and she and Melissa celebrated the weekend by sleeping in extremely late and coming to breakfast wearing their slippers under their robes. Bruce and the rest of the Quidditch team had been up for hours, and were just enjoying breakfast after what appeared to have been a muddy practice.
"It was going to be just going over formations," Bruce explained, holding ice to a bruised cheek, "but Marcus was late so the Chasers challenged the rest of us to shuntbumps. So we just spent an hour trying to knock each other off our broomsticks."
Melissa looked horrified. "On those expensive brooms?"
"Nah, we used the school ones. They're pretty groady already."
Uther joined in with a grin. "Yeah, they whack better too." He had a split lip.
"Who won?" asked Beth.
Bruce rolled his eyes. "Warrington, who else? He's a beast."
"A bloody mountain," agreed Uther.
Delivery owls filled the Great Hall with hooting and feathers; a big cardboard box landed on Richard's lap while he was halfway through a bowl of shredded wheat. The cereal went flying; the box toppled to the ground. Ignoring his spilled food, Richard bent down excitedly and retrieved it.
"It's from Rothbard!" he exclaimed, enthusiastically tearing into the package. He pulled out an enormous carved beer stein. Its ivory sides were browned and engraved with pictures of strange deer and thick forests.
"Smashing!" cried Uther, reaching out to take a closer look. Richard narrowed his eyes and withheld the beer stein.
"Don't touch it," he hissed.
Uther drew back and held up his hands, giving Richard an odd look. "Whatever you say, Rich. Cripes."
Rich carefully laid the stein back in the cardboard box. "Got to get this away," he said, half muttering, and he bolted away, leaving his shredded wheat in a big puddle on the table.
"Random," whistled Uther, watching him go.
"Do you expect any less?" said Beth, with a grin.