Chapter Fourteen: Suspicions!
After a night of fitful sleep, Christmas morning finally came. Felon woke me around six o'clock, by pouncing onto my back and pawing my ears. "Alright, alright, I'm getting up..." I said thickly.
Entering the common room, I stopped to admire the giant pine tree, which was decorated with silver globes and fairy lights. Then I noticed Draco slumped in a chair, yawning. "O, good, the cat woke you up, too," he said. "I was beginning to wonder."
I laughed. "Felon's very concerned with people, especially for a cat. Anyway, look at all the presents we got!" Clustered around the tree was a pile of boxes wrapped in brightly colored paper.
Draco grinned. "I was wondering when you'd notice." Immediately, we both started sorting through the pile to figure out whose was whose. Draco got a bunch of sweets, a new pair of shoes, a dark green cloak, an unbreakable inkwell, and...
"Bloody..." he muttered in disgust. "Look what I got from home. A book about Gringotts. The History of a Goblin Bank. History of banks, pff! Why not something exciting, about Quidditch, or dragons, or...well, anything else would be better."
"Here, you can read this," I said, handing him a book that Libra had sent me. "It's one of my favorite stories."
He took it and read the title. "The Hobbit. The what?"
"Hobbit. A small person with pointy ears and hairy feet, who loves food and lives in a hole in the ground. Then there's this wizard, who tells the hobbit to go on an adventure, where he meets a dragon who's hoarding a bunch of gold, an Animagus who turns into a bear, and a lot of angry goblins."
Draco looked impressed. "I think I'd enjoy that book." I didn't bother telling him that most magical folk would consider the author a Muggle, while most Muggles would consider him a wizard. It seemed too confusing.
Besides The Hobbit, I got a pecan pie, a star chart with wizard-pictures of the constellations, a new quill pen, a smoked salmon (which Felon immediately snatched away...I think that's why she woke me up so early), and...
"This is so cute, Draco! Thank you!" In my hands rested a tiny, wooden music box, which played Castle on a Cloud. Draco started violently.
"Who, me? Eh, no," he said, turning a bit pink. "Sorry, but I didn't get anything for you. I didn't know what you would want, and it's not like I could just stroll out of the school for a little jaunt in Hogsmeade whenever I felt like it."
"It's fine, I didn't get anything for you either. But then, who sent me this? The tag had really fancy lettering, and I thought it said, D.M., as in, your initials. Is there anyone else...?" We both pondered it for a moment, trying to think of anyone with those initials. "Well if you look at it like this," I said, turning the tag to the side a bit, "the D could be an O, and the M could be a W..."
A thought dawned on Draco, and he sneered. "Oliver Wood?"
"Goodness, I hope not!" But I couldn't help but wonder.
* * *
At the feast that evening, I remembered that Potter, Granger, Simmons, and the four Weasleys had indeed stayed at Hogwarts over vacation. (Luckily, we had stayed in the House most of the time, so we had hardly seen them at all.) Everyone sat at one table, and Dumbledore made a short speech about how grateful he was that none of the Christmas trees had caught fire yet. It was the oddest speech I had ever heard, but I think it was directed toward the Weasley twins.
The food tasted delicious, and there were some amazing party favors, including candy from the sweetshop in Hogsmeade, a rear admiral's hat, little white mice, and...
"Hey, cool!" said Simmons. "I got a wizard chess set! I'll beat you someday, Weasley!" Weasley laughed as if to say, "Not in a million years, silly!"
It was then that I noticed Simmons' face; it was red and scarred from blisters. Her normally blonde hair had a disgusting streak of black in it, and something made me think that it wasn't supposed to be a fashion statement. "Draco!" I murmured, elbowing him in the ribs. "Look at Chloe. I think that's what your exploding...uh, the explosion in Potions class did to her." I tried to keep a serious face, but it just wasn't possible. I smirked and almost laughed out loud. It shouldn't have been funny, but this was Simmons, my Gryffindor rival! "Ha!" Draco laughed loudly, strolling down the table to where Simmons sat. "Well, aren't we the pretty one? The hair is a nice touch."
She sneered nastily back at him. "Look who's talking. The last time I saw a face like yours, there was a hook in its mouth."
"Oooh!" I thought angrily. "If I weren't at a feast...Stupefy!"
"I know about the potion, Malfoy," she continued quickly. "Not a very nice thing to do at all."
Draco's grey eyes flashed a hint of shock, but he answered smoothly, "Don't know what you're talking about, Simmons. It was your fault, remember? Not a very good habit, pinning all of your little accidents on everyone else. A very bad habit indeed." There was something about that drawl that sounded so-o-o familiar, but as if I'd heard it elsewhere, and not from Draco. Maybe it was just déjà vu.
Simmons just sneered, and Draco turned on his heel to sit down again. "She suspects," he muttered. "But she doesn't know. There's no proof."
"Then," I said, "there's nothing to worry about."
After dinner was over, Draco and I left the Great Hall and played wizard chess in the common room for a while. That is, Draco creamed me at wizard chess for a while. It may have been that I hadn't played recently...or it might have had something to do with the fact that my set of pieces had a tendency to become confused.
"I said, pawn to A5, not pawn to C3! Are you deaf?"
"Ar...per'aps 'e is, miss," said a knight. "Took a blow to th' 'ead last game, don' think 'e's been th' same since."
"Wot?" said a bishop. "No, old chap, that was the other pawn."
"Well, they look th' same t' me," the knight answered.
"Of course, they're wearing uniforms!"
"Yer wearin' the same type o' robes as tha' bishop o'er there, an' you don' look th' same as 'im."
"That's not a bishop, that's the King!"
"O. No won'er 'e di'n't have a pointy hat."
And so their inane conversations continued for the next three hours. It didn't bother me at all, because it was just too amusing. One match, my set even tried to challenge Draco's to a duel of words; nothing came of it but a few lame insults. In the end, Draco had to forfeit, when his set refused to stand on the same board as my "wretched band of plebes."
"Well, Andromeda," he said, laughing, "that's the most hilarious set of chess pieces I've ever seen. Where'd you find them? Wait, don't tell me...I bet it was Zonko's Joke Shop!"
I chuckled. "Actually...no. It's sort of an unwanted family heirloom. My great-grandfather bewitched the set for a Charms exam, but the Professor didn't appreciate the, ah, humor involved. Thought his student was trying to be a pain in the you-know-what. Anyway, it got passed around the family for years, like a gag-gift, until someone gave it to me and I decided to keep it. They're always good for a laugh, if not for a real game!"
We were about to go to our dormitories, when suddenly I realized...
"Uh, Draco, where are Crabbe and Goyle? I haven't seen them at all for days. They did stay at Hogwarts, didn't they?" Draco paled, if that was even possible, and stared at me.
"I...I don't know. They weren't at the feast, either, were they?" I shook my head dumbly. He growled and said something that made me glare at him reprovingly. "Sorry, sorry...but, if those two pigs wouldn't come to a party with unlimited free food, there must be something very wrong with them."
I agreed nervously. But where could they have been? The only other places in the castle worth going, besides the Dungeon and the Great Hall, were the Hospital Wing, the owlery, and the Library. Something very wrong, indeed, would have had to have happened for them to be at any of those places.
To Be Continued...
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Les Miserables, Castle on a Cloud, JRR Tolkien, Christmas, fairy lights, Gringotts, Quidditch, dragons, goblins, Bilbo, Gandalf, Legolas, pirates, Spain, France, the revolution, wizard chess, bread, or Jean Valjean. Not that all of those were mentioned in this chapter; I'm simply stating that I don't own them, or anything else that might have been, eh, borrowed. Most of the feast scene belongs to WildMage42; go read her story!! I DO own Andromeda Zænidh, her cat, her owl, and her family. Please review!!